Hydrogen Bums

Among the great scientific blessings of living under the Cummings administration is of course the fact that progress can march ahead unimpeded by the mere present-day state of mere earthly science and technology in the merely real and present universe. Since the Conservatives have put Britain some seven hundred years behind the times in dealing with the climate crisis, the Supreme Leader and his acolytes are rumoured to be getting all enthused about hydrogen, which has the vast advantage of being largely untried and therefore largely unfettered by factuality's treacherous bonds. Among the more famous commercial uses of hydrogen is the German civilian zeppelin Hindenburg, whose disastrous crash in 1937 did for the age of the airship more or less what the Conservatives have done for the concept of governance in Whitehall. The Hindenburg was filled with hydrogen, which had been used instead of the far less flammable helium because the USA refused to sell helium to a violently nationalistic régime with a history of tearing up international agreements at will. If we really are on the brink of a new age of hydrogen, it is certainly fortunate that the Cummings administration includes no volatile gas-bags.