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Congratulations to the 13 new Royal Society Wolfson research merit award winners, announced yesterday. Launching the scheme to boost the pay of top researchers, Bob May, then chief scientific adviser to the government, dubbed them the "David Beckhams of science".

This season, David Beckham's Manchester United has had a bad start, losing five games already and eight points behind Liverpool. The Diary recommends that the researchers distance themselves from any such analogy unless they want to become noted as fashion-conscious underachievers.