Interesting if true

Our fortnightly digest of facts and rumours from the UK and beyond.

Sound and fury

So, crisis has been averted at the Royal Institution thanks to an anonymous donation of £4.4 million. But did it ever need to get this far? We hear that the whole debacle started when a junior employee at a well-known bank sent nothing more than a standard reminder notice about funds owing at Albermarle Street. The letter prompted a flurry of panic over fears that the bailiffs were already eyeing up Faraday relics and culminated in the building being promptly put on the market. All it took to get the bank to back off was a quick phone call from two senior figures in the science world.