Wearing a red rose on his collar, grabbing a control to manoeuvre his wheelchair and speaking with a computer-generated voice, Hawking tried to sum up his career in a speech entitled "60 Years in a Nutshell". It turns out he almost didn't make it to the festivities surrounding his 60th birthday, which was last Tuesday. On December 28th, Hawking was speeding down a Cambridge lane to meet his wife, Elaine, at an optician's office when he crashed his wheelchair into a wall and fell to the ground, breaking his right leg. "Hawking was taken to a local hospital where his leg was pinned and plated to stabilize the area and reduce the pain," his wife said. He was bruised and broken, but apparently his humor was still intact.