Funnily enough this is the word which I have always associated with Tony Blair, ever since he first appeared on my radar screen as Shadow Spokesman on Employment. But in the last month the epithet has been applied by journalists to Brown, Cameron, Miliband & Obama & probably others
I wonder what it is we want to fill the vacuum?
The chair on which I sit seems a hard fact, but I know that I sit on a nearly perfect vacuum. The wood of the chair consists of fibres, which consist of molecules, which consist of atoms which are miniature solar systems with central nucleus & electrons for planets. It all sounds very pretty, but it is the dimensions that matter. The space which an electron occupies is only 1/50,000th in diameter of its distance from the nucleus; the rest of the atomic interior is empty. If the nucleus were enlarged to the size of a dried pea, the nearest electron would circle around it at a distance of about 175 yards. A room with a few specks of dust floating in the air is overcrowded compared with the emptiness which I call a chair
Arthur Koestler
