The CMS team claimed they had seen a bump in their data corresponding to a particle weighing in at 125.3 gigaelectronvolts (GeV) - about 133 times heavier than the protons that lie at the heart of every atom. They claimed that by combining two data sets, they had attained a confidence level just at the five-sigma point - about a one-in-3.5 million chance that the signal they see would appear if there were no Higgs particle.

Amid the many mirrors called into requisition by Lady Townshend's fête, not one gave back a lovelier likeness than that which reflected the face and form of Lady Marchmont.

Passenger traffic consists largely of through expresses from London, Bristol and Birmingham to South Wales via Severn Tunnel Junction, and cross-country trains from the north and Midlands via Pontypool Road. (In Britain cross-country trains connect regional centres, and avoid London.)

2008, 31 Dec, by Sam Jones, in The Guardian, on the New Years Honours List