Godless trip

The weekend before Christmas we always try to get down to London to see the Godless shows, as they are affectionately called. More on that later.

Sunday - early train to London, first class, booked in advance so dead cheap. Walk to hotel, stopping for a sandwich lunch on way. Check in, get lovely warm chocolate cookie from reception (a feature of all Doubletree hotels) and set off for a walk. Towards Covent Garden we saw a group of Pearly kings and Queens - first I've ever seen "in the wild".

Covent Garden looked lovely - all decorated for Christmas, and was obviously very busy.

Managed to do a bit of Christmas shopping and buy some presents, and saw the Jack Daniel's Barrel Tree

There was also a giant lego advent calendar, and loads of street theatre and buskers. My favourite  was not actually a busker, but a homeless person I think who was playing Christmas carols through a traffic cone - and doing it very well and collecting loads of money!

From there we walked to Leicester Square and Picadilly Circus through to Trafalgar Square. Saw the Christmas tree and Menorah in the square, and had a quick look in the National Gallery. We both love the National Gallery - so many beautiful paintings in there.  Then a walk back to the hotel to get ready for the show. We ate at a little Italian place  and then walked to the Bloomsbury Theatre, which is owned by UCL.

Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People is put on by Robin Ince, and originated from an arguement he (as an atheist) had with someone from Christian Voice, who said that atheists couldn't have fun at Christmas. So, determined to prove him wrong, Robin puts on this celebration of science and comedy every year, which always sells out.

We love it. Always slightly anarchic, different people appearing every night depending on when they are free, or whether they just happen to turn up. This year we had Robin, obviously, and a variety of other scienctists and comedians.
 It started with the band, and a laser harp! Very impressive. Laser beams played with white gloved hands.

 Alexei Sayle, turned up unexpectedly, he said he was just passing, and read some of his autobiography:

Richard Herring, in a very ironic Christmas jumper,  talked about his book, Talking Cock. Don't need to explain what it was about, needless to say it was hilarious. So funny that I bought a copy from him at the interval for Stuart for Christmas.

Ben Goldacre, (of Bad Science fame) had a good 20 minute rant about pharmaceutical companies refusing to release all of their clinical trails data. Very interesting, especially when you look at how much money the government spent on Tamiflu during the last flu scare, and yet there is no real published evidence that it works.

There was music from Helen Arney, Grace Petrie and others (can't remember them all), and the mathematician Matt Parker showed us his binary scarf:

as well as solving a rubric cube puzzle in under 3 minutes whilst delivering a stand up routine.

Perhaps the most bizarre act was Baconface, who turned out to be Stuart Lee in a wrestling mask with bacon draped over it.

My favourite bit was from Andrea Sella, Professor of Chemistry at UCL who produced ever increasing sizes of explosions on stage:

You can't beat an explosion for pleasing a roomful of nerds and scientists!

The Botany of Gin

Last night the wonderful people at Science Brainwaves organised a scientific evening called The Botany of Gin. Run by professional mixologist (what a great title) Noel Jackson, it was a session on the history of gin and what goes into its many different varieties. Of course, in the interests of science, we had to sample the different kinds.

Gin began life invented by a Flemish doctor as a stomach cure-all and was basically an infusion of juniper berries in alcohol. English soldiers discovered it out there, especially its calming effects before battle - hence the term Dutch Courage. When it came over here it was called "Hollands". When the government imposed a tax on imported spirits, London Gin was born - Gordons was established in 1793, and Beefeater in 1820. These are the two classic London gins. As well as juniper, Gordons has coriander, bitter orange peel, angelica and two other ingredients known only to 2 members of the Board. Apparently one of them is grapefruit!  It is brewed out of the same stills as Tanqueray and Tanqueray10. As well as the 4 standard ingredients (angelica, coriander, bitter orange peel and juniper), Beefeater contains orris root, liquorish, ground almonds and lemon peel. Who knew gin had so many ingredients? Of course, we had to taste London gin. So we did.

We also tried Old Tom Gin, which is a sweetend form of London gin and often contained turpentine. Not as nice! Noel took us through the GinAct of 1736, the Gin Riots, and then we had a taste of Plymouth Gin, which has a lot less juniper, and sweet orange peel, rather than bitter. Very good for cocktails as it's softer and smoother than London gin.

We also learned about tonic water which was developed in India as quinine sulphate dissolved in water as an anti-malerial drink. The gin was added to it to make it more palatable!

Bombay Sapphire got a mention (and of course we had a glass of it to taste.....). Not blue, it is colourless, was invented in 1987 in New York by Bacardi, and is distilled in a carterhead still, with the vapour passed through a basket containing the other ingredients (or botanicals) to extract the flavour. Not particualry special according to Noel. I must say, I agreed with him having tasted the others.
Finally we moved on to Hendricks, which is one of the new gins and flavoured with cucumber and rose - and produced by Grants the whisky makers in Scotland.

I make that 5 gins we tasted - London, Plymouth, Old Tom, Bombay Sapphire and Hendricks. I thought it was more, but my notes are a bit sketchy towards the end. Can't think why. 

In terms of the best? Well, definitely the London gins, which should be kept in your freezer to make the ideal g and t when you get home from work.

A great event, following on nicely from the Science of Cocktails last year, and I'll be watching out for the next one.

Uncaged Monkeys

Last night we went to see Uncaged Monkeys in Manchester at the Apollo. It was packed - great to see so many geeks and nerds going out together on a Friday. The basic show consists of Robin Ince, Simon Singh, Ben Goldacre and Brian Cox, with different gusts every night. We were lucky to see Helen Arney, Matt Parker and Helen Keen as well.

The night started with Robin Ince, with a great stand up intro to the night, and then Ben Goldacre who gave a whistle stop run through BadScience and how journalists are crap at reporting science, including some wonderful examples from the Daily Mail of what causes cancer and what cures it, (often the same thing....),  and of course the scandal surrounding the MMR vaccine, and the lies peddled by Andrew Wakefield and how they were reported. Ben can talk so fast I wonder about how his brain and mouth are connected. I also think he must be who Wybie was based on in Coraline!

Separated at birth?







Matt Parker  gave a great introduction to number theory, including explaining how bar codes are validated, and how text messages are like big Sudukos, and Helen Keen presented a very swift history of the space race, linking Nazis and Satanists. Then Brian Cox came on, for some great science - the cosmos, particle physics and the LHC, (Large Hadron Collier) . He is so charismatic, and makes science so relevant. And if anyone thinks we waste money on science (how could they??), he showed a wonderful graphic of how much government departments spend  - and science is hardly visible  - and we've spent more on the bank bailout that we've spent on science since Jesus!

Also during the evening we had Helen Arney singing her wonderful songs, including Lets Make Love like Animals - always make me laugh. The last main act was Simon Singh, who managed to explain and demonstrate Einstein's law of relativity, amongst many other things, including electrocuting a gherkin!

Afer a great night, we finished with Brian Cox, and a amazing excerpt from Carl Sagan reading from his book Cosmos, about our Earth - the Pale Blue Dot:



A fantastic evening - great to see Science getting the support it deserves - cheering and clapping for just a mention of Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman. Nerds rule!