There’s nothing like writing a semi-regular blog to remind you why your teenage diaries will never be serialised. Everyday life is frequently not that noteworthy. Today was quite an exception though!
In my capacity as a committee member of the British Science Association North East England Branch I got to spend a lovely day in a room at the very top of Aberdeen Library (7 whole floors = awesome view) with other lovely BSA committee types, to talk about the exciting events that we have been running over the last year. Highlights included Aberdeen’s very successful programmes for National Science and Engineering Week events and Science London’s very intriguing new ‘dating game’, which sets out to combine science and, erm, speed dating, to great effect.
Nipping out in the lunch-break to ‘Behind the Scenes with Michael Mosley’, we were treated to a glorious hour of clips and commentary from shows Michael has been involved in producing, presenting and suffering physical torment in aid of. Burning pigs in blankets (literal ones, not the sort you get at a buffet. Unless you go to some very odd buffets) to test the ‘wick effect’ theory of spontaneous human combustion, and creating convincing pyroclastic surge images using domestos and a water tank were but two of the gems to marvel over. The Newcastle Uni delegation couldn’t help but try our luck for a post-talk interview and Michael was more than obliging, enthusiastically answering our questions despite a camera malfunction and mass invasion of personal space by 5 eager students. Hero.
Newcastle Uni Press Evening went with a resounding bang! I can claim to have given the keynote speech as this is hard to contest when you are, in fact, the only speaker. People seemed fully enthused – let’s hope we can keep that energy up for the next 12 months!
To top it all off Bright Club was as brilliant as always. Researchers chuckled through their projects in the stunning surroundings of the spiegeltent, taking us on a comic journey through forest management (fact: you can say ‘wood’ a LOT of times before it stops being funny), via joke-writing software and on to criminology research: gansta style.
Spiegeltent Aberdeen