What's with the increasing number of claims by every flee-bitten academic to be a 'leading world authority' on some godforsaken topic? Sometimes it's 'the leading authority' or 'Antarctica's leading thinker' or 'a recognised authority' ... but you get the picture. These phrases are turning up more and more on academic webpages. And what does 'authority' or 'leading' mean anyway? Usually it has something to do with measuring cement, or maybe the prevalence of genital jewellery, or the obscure ...