Patronising BBC star and a Nobel prize winning gaffe
Gladstone’s girl sticks pins in her baby — ‘to treat cough’
BEFORE Donna Strickland became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize for physics in 55 years, she was deemed not important enough for her own page in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
After her win, she was subjected to a further indignity by the BBC, I can disclose, when its colourful star Evan Davis treated her to a bit of ‘mansplaining’.
In one of his last interviews as chief presenter of Newsnight, Davis spoke via video link to Strickland, who was in a studio in her native Canada.
At one stage in the interview, there was a pause on the link. Davis told her: ‘I’m sorry, Donna, there’s a delay on the line, it’s just the technology I’m afraid.’
The Nobel laureate came back with the zinger: ‘Yes, thank you, I do understand fibre optics . . .’
I am told that Davis’s face was a picture and he insisted to Newsnight producers that the embarrassing section of the interview was not broadcast, lest he be accused of ‘mansplaining’.
Davis, who has since left Newsnight to present Radio 4’s PM, claims he did not ‘insist’ it was removed from the programme, which was broadcast in October.
‘That interview was months ago and I can barely remember the circumstances, so don’t take my line as authoritative,’ says shaven-headed Davis, who is known for his exotic personal jewellery.
Somewhat hesitantly, he tells me: ‘All I can recollect is a semi-jokey discussion about whether I had mansplained something to a Nobel prize winner (and I didn’t think I had done that at all).
‘I very much doubt I insisted on anything, as it’s not my style.’
Strickland’s win reignited the discussion over the lack of women laureates in the sciences.
Over the 117 years of the award, 50 women have won from a possible 923 prizes.
A DESCENDANT of former prime minister William Gladstone, model Olivia Inge is using an unusual technique to treat her nine-month-old daughter Jemima’s cough. The 38-year-old, who has modelled for Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood, is pictured below pricking her daughter with needles as part of an acupuncture treatment. ‘It doesn’t hurt babies — Jemima didn’t even blink,’ she insists. ‘It’s a really fast and effective way to treat them. The needle I used was 0.2 by 15mm, which is far less brutal than vaccine needles.’ Olivia, who is married to financier Peter Davies, has trained as an acupuncturist. ‘I treated a patient who was two, who was born with asthma — his symptoms all cleared up a week later.’ Sceptics claim acupuncture is a theatrical placebo and that waving a magic stick would have a similar effect.