Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

(Yes, I know it's a tasteless headline, but it's nothing to do with me! Blame the for that one.)

So it seems that Crippled Monkey's favourite disabled theoretical physicist, Professor Stephen Hawking, is going to take the flight of his life this Thursday, as he "abandons his wheelchair" (it says here) to experience weightlessness in a specially adapted passenger jet. Cool.

What happens is that the plane is put into a steep 8,000ft dive for a few tantalising seconds to enable participants to feel like they're doing a spacewalk in zero gravity - though the downside is that when the plane pulls out of each dive the occupants feel a G-force that is almost double that of noemal gravity.

Professor Hawking is obviously quite excited about the flight, and is quoted as saying that he's grateful that this experience has been made "available to the general public, especially for disabled individuals".

So this has got Crippled Monkey all excited too, because apparently the egghead Prof is getting his flight entirelyfor free, when it normally costs Β£1,875 for a few brief minutes of floating about a bit. Is this because, of course, he is a top scientist who has studied gravity and black hole all his life? Or, to ask the famous question, is he getting it for nothing because he is disabled? I think we should be told.

And I might write to the Zero Gravity Corporation, c/o of the Kennedy Space Center, to ask for a free flight too. Just in case. After all, there haven't been enough disabled monkeys in space, have there?