Fossil Fools

Even though she traded no slaves and started no wars, the pioneering palaeontologist and geologist Mary Anning is to be commemorated with a statue. A crowdfunding campaign by a young resident of Anning's native Dorset has raised the funds to commission the piece, although it remains as yet unclear what the squealing cultural crusaders of anti-woke will feel about it. The idea of honouring a scientist is bad enough; but Anning was also a lower-class female woman of the opposing gender, whose discoveries have until now basked and frolicked in their proper place within the cosy reputations of wealthy males. More monumentally still, the district's present MP once removed a Remembrance Day wreath from the Cenotaph on the grounds that the donors, Extinction Rebellion, were undermining the spirit of the rah-rah by trying to prevent more wars; so it is to be hoped that his delicate sensibilities are not unduly offended.