The post-war power over life and death was supposed to lie in Anglo hands and be man-made, expensive and exclusive

Instead, thanks largely to Dr Martin Henry Dawson, penicillin remained in the public domain, nature-made and inclusive.

Wartime penicillin was supposed to be one of the signal triumphs of Alchemic Modernity.

Instead it ended up sounding its death knell and helped usher in our current age of Diverse Modernity.

None of this signal failure slash unexpected triumph is indicated in the Nobel Prize for the development of penicillin, because if there is one thing consistent about the Nobel organization, it is that every time they throw their bread in the air, it always landed butter side down...