Like an Aristophanes satire, like Hamlet, it opens with two slaves, spear-carriers, little people. Footsoldiers of history, two researchers in a corrupt and impoverished mid-90s Russia schlep through the tundra to take core samples from trees at the behest of the bigger fish in far-off East Anglia. Stepan and Rashit don't even have their own e-mail address and like characters in some absurdist comedy must pass jointly under the name of Tatiana M. Dedkova. Conscientious and obliging, they strike a human note all through this drama. Their talk is of mundane material concerns, the smallness of funds, the expense of helicopters, the scramble for grants. They are the ones who get their hands dirty, and their vicissitudes periodically revived my interest during the slower stretches of the tale, those otherwise devoted to abstruse details of committee work and other longueurs. 'We also collected many wood samples from living and dead larches of various ages. But we were bited by many thousands of mosquitos especially small ones.' They are perhaps the only likeable characters on the establishment side, apart from the exasperated and appalled IT man Harry in the separate 'Harry_read_me' document, and I cheered up whenever they appeared. 'Slaves' is horseshit, and 'footsoldiers' insulting, but if scientists are allowed to put a creative spin on facts, I can certainly do so. They are respected scientists: in fact, it emerges, eminent or destined to be eminent. But they talk funny and are at the beck and call of CRU, are financially dependent on them; when the film is made they will be comedy relief, played by Alexei Sayle and the dopey one out of The Fast Show.