Today the world, tomorrow New York

When is a World Science Festival not a world science festival? When it is, in reality, the New York Science Festival. So, treat with caution the announcement: World Science Festival: A Universe of Science in New York City, May 28 - June 1, 2008.

It turns out to be the science festival equivalent of the World Series, which is, of course, nothing of the sort, just an obscure ball game run in a country that has had its day.

The World Science Festival "will take place from May 28th through June 1st, 2008 at 15 venues throughout New York City, many in the Washington Square Area of Greenwich Village". Nothing wrong with that. But you will struggle hard to find anything in the proposed programme that yells out "world".

If I lived in San Francisco, or even Boston, north American cities with genuine scientific stature, I would be a bit miffed. Don't even talk about London, Oxford or Cambridge, to pick a few nearer to home.