Ripley's, TGI Fridays And The X-Files

Last weekend was our end-of-summer bank holiday, and it coincided with the 10th anniversary of my first "date" with Paul. I put it in inverted commas because we weren't going out as a date, but as two friends. On the 24th August 1998, at about 4:15pm, I stepped off a National Express coach at Glasgow Buchanan Street bus station, and met the man who would become my husband.

He didn't get off to a great start. He'd just been to the sorting office to pick up a parcel for his mum. And rather than letting me carry the very light cardboard box of teaching materials so he could take my suitcase, he got me to lug my case the half-mile to the train station, and then all the way from Paisley town centre to his house. Then for the whole stay he never once offered me a cup of tea, to the point where I actually thought no one in his family drank it.

That night, we'd agreed to go to the cinema to see "The X-Files". We were both big fans. When he was younger he bore "a passing resemblance to David Duchovny on a bad day in poor light". I looked much more like Gillian Anderson. In fact, Scully was my nickname in high school. 48 hours later I got fed up of making subtle "I'm interested" hints, and launched myself at Paul. And the rest, as they say, is history.

So what could we do to celebrate a decade together other than go to see "I Want To Believe"? Since about the only cinema still showing the film so long after its release was the CineWorld at the Trocadero, we decided to team it with a visit to the new Ripley's Believe It Or Not!.

Looks like Megalodon to me:


Quite bad Tyrannosaurus rex reconstruction:


Really nice wooden versions of famous Charles Knight paintings:




With a very shiny-headed Ethical Palaeontologist for scale:


The ethical husband was quite amused by the preserved whale foreskin:


And then it was on to TGI Friday's for margaritas and dinner. If any of you ever want a favour of me, take me to TGI Friday's and buy me a margarita. I will be your best friend forever:


Obviously we didn't take any photos during the film, but we both thoroughly enjoyed it. It was nice to see how the fictional Mulder and Scully's relationship had played out compared to the real-life Mulder and Scully (us, of course). And I did wonder if I should become a redhead again.

Here's to 10 years, Paulie, and to many more. You realise you could have had a lighter sentence if you'd committed armed robbery, right?

Tech Tags: Paul Anthony Anderson Ripley's Believe It Or Not Trocadero TGI Friday margarita X-Files movie

Murphy's Law

Well I was going to put a Twitter box in this post so I could effectively live-blog the conference, but there's a technical problem with Twitter.

08:28 Humph. Maybe I'll edit this post during the day, via my mobile phone. Anyway, I should get going. Breakfast has already started and I want some!

08:55 I must be losing my touch. On my walk to the station I was only leered at by one old bloke on a bicycle. It is incredibly humid today, by Northern European standards. I'm quite glad I opted for a lighter option than my "Don't Be A Dick" baseball shirt.

09:51 Conference is about to start. I hardly recognise anyone and feel like the sole representative of the geoblogosphere! My networking skills are crap.

10:42 Ben Goldacre's talk was excellent. I could sit and listen to his anecdotes about awful science journalism all day. Still think I'm the only geologist in the village...

11:16 Very useful panel discussion that's got me wondering who exactly I write this blog for. Who do I consider my readers to be? Scientists or non-scientists? Or do I just let rip with the textual diarrhoea?!

11:53 WTF?? No coffee at morning break? What kind of conference is this? You couldn't do that at SVP. There'd be riots! So uncaffeinated, I'm back in for the creativity breakout session. Perhaps an unwise choice given that audience participation might be needed...

12:15 The artist, the sage and the jester. Three styles of communication. But I'm not feeling very creative. I couldn't think of anything that couldn't be done with a coat hanger.

12:41 Is happiness essential for creativity? Poets all seem to be incredibly miserable. Perhaps it's a serotonin thing, which is why people who have watched comedy perform better in psychological tests. Clinical depression can sap creativity certainly. Maybe something for Paul to discuss with his fellow writers?

13:52 After a field trip to Pret for some good coffee, it's back into the session. I'm about to learn all about Second Life, one aspect of Web 2.0 that has baffled and bewildered me and scares me even more than internet chatrooms. Networking came more easily over lunch. May stay for beer...

14:11 Okay, I know geology is not a well-subscribed science compared to biology and chemistry, but there is more to science than cells and molecules. Aha - an erupting volcano!

16:20 No mobile reception during the unconference session all about keeping motivated while blogging but a good discussion was had and hopefully Paul's ears have been burning when the conversation turned to podcasts!

16:53 Final session discussing, among other things, whether blogs are good for one's career. Let's just say I don't make a secret of this blog (you all know my name) but I sure as hell don't put this on my CV!

17:47 BEER.

Tech Tags: sciblog Science Blogging 2008 science blogging

SciBlog 2008

I'm off to the Science Blogging 2008 conference tomorrow. If I'd got my arse in gear earlier I could have gone to some of the pre-conference social events, but when I registered I thought I'd be working full-time still. Ah well, I'm shit company at the moment in a pub because I can't drink anything (well, I can drink, but if I have more than half a pint of shandy I fall asleep).

The programme is up online, and it looks excellent. I'm really looking forward to it. Some bloggers are planning to live-blog the proceedings, but I shan't be. As much as anything I feel barely coherent at the best of times, and I'd rather use my limited concentration skills to listen to the talks and join in where I can. Maybe I'll post afterwards.

So if any of my loyal readers are attending, I'll see you tomorrow. I might even dress nicely (I've been wearing my gardening jeans and t-shirts for the past month).

Tech Tags: sciblog Science Blogging 2008 science blogging

The Wrong Door

Decent BBC comedy sketch shows are a mixed bag. For every absolutely brilliant "Man Stroke Woman", there's a dire "Titty Bang Bang". So I regard new shows with suspicion.

But I am very much looking forward to their latest offering, "The Wrong Door". It is "a new sketch show set in a parallel universe where the special effects you see in the movies and on TV are part of everyday life". Of course, I'm most impressed with their character Philip. Philip is a Tyrannosaurus rex from Nottingham.


This is the only clip I can find online. The trailer they've been using to advertise the series is about 300% funnier, involving Philip and a girlfriend (a different girlfriend - maybe he eats the other one?) walking through a park having the "it's not you, it's me" talk.

The series starts on 28 August on BBC3, and I personally cannot wait for the second episode. Because "Philip the dinosaur goes bowling".

The Countdown Has Started

You know I'm not averse to blatant nepotism, right? Well, my wonderful husband Paul is a really talented writer. I love reading his stories, even if they make me a little afraid to be in the same bed as him when he's dreaming.

One of his current projects is The Long Watch. If you figured you might like Dan Brown's stuff if it was less predictable, less turgid prose and actually used religious bad guys that weren't the Knights Templar (who have been blamed for far more than the poor sods were ever responsible for), then you may like Paul Anthony Anderson. If you like books written in the Lovecraftian universe, you will want to check him out. If you think Scott Sigler kicks ass, you need to get reading Paul's sick and twisted writing. And if you're a sucker for brooding heroes and doomed love, you're definitely going to like this one.

After being hosted on his website in and around his other short pieces, The Long Watch now has its own website. You can subscribe now, and get the regular teasers and prequel chapters he's posting prior to its official serialisation from 1 November 2008:

Don't worry if you forget. I will remind you closer to the time...

And They're Breeding, Folks!

Thank you to my friend Kerin for telling me about the first video. I had to find it for myself and view it in all its hideousness.



And just in case you're not already weeping, check out this video too:



I really wish they were parodies or piss-takes, but I fear they are oh so genuine.

Why We Need More Scientific Literacy #10

Shock, horror. The powers that be have finally worked out what the majority of scientists could have told them yonks ago.

CBI wants more pupils in science

We're not producing enough good young scientists. Evidently science subjects are suffering from lack of interest at A-level and university standard. More and more international students are being brought in for PhD study. Research has to continue, or the Goverment will cut the funding to the research councils even more. So the Confederation of British Industries wants all schoolchildren who achieve a certain standard to be automatically be put forward for separate science GCSEs. I wish I'd had the opportunity to do all three sciences as GCSE. Instead I had to do the nebulous arm-wavy Science Double Award. Two GCSEs for the price of one. Both the same grade. Boring, ridiculously easy stuff. So boring and ridiculously easy that one of my science teachers started giving me A-level problems to do, just to relieve the monotony.

The problem, as many people on the normally wretched Have Your Say site have hinted at, is that science is not perceived to be "cool". The tabloid newspapers laugh at scientists, calling them "crazy" when they come up with something groundbreaking and "boffins" the rest of the time. Newspapers rarely report a story without a slight mocking sneer at the research. As someone commented, it is as though journalists and media graduates are taught to mock anything they do not understand.

On the television, we have "Lab Rats", an albeit fairly enjoyable sitcom on the BBC which portrays these scientists of unknown provenance as inept, slightly unhinged, lab coat-wearing, socially backward clowns. I love "Bones", but the anthropologists are caricatures. Always lab coat-wearing, nerdy and socially awkward. Consider Hodges the lab technician in "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (and his gang of "nerds"). And Abby in "NCIS". Fragile, a little mentally unstable.

Where are our positive science role models in popular culture? The best scientists rarely get screen time. They rarely get exposure. How on earth do we convince the feckless youths trying to get through school with minimal effort that science is worth studying? Especially when everything they see around them is telling them that they are weird and will never get laid if they enjoy science?

Team Phoenicia Needs Rocket Fuel!

Ages and ages ago, Will asked me cryptically to design a logo (well, more accurately, turn his scanned sketch into an official-looking emblem). I didn't know what it was, but I was more than happy to oblige...


And then, unfortunately at a time when I was in no fit state to blog about anything really (so I missed out on giving my initial support), Team Phoenicia launched, as entrants in the Google Lunar X Prize.

I think this is fantastic news, and I'm delighted that they've officially now qualified for the Lunar Lander Challenge. But (you knew this was coming) they can't do it all without your help. Unexpected rule changes mean they need to find some cash to pay for testing costs. So let's see. I have about 100 readers through FeedBurner. I have a few more readers who come straight to the site or through e-mail subscriptions, and I bet there are a couple of bods who read this in Facebook. If each of you donated the price of a Starbucks latte (£2.50 in London!), that would be over £250, or $500 for the team. If you donated the price of a Krispy Kreme plain dozen, £7.95, that would be over $1500 of funds for the tests.

If you can, and I know some of you have had real financial stresses recently so please don't feel pressurised, I'm asking you to donate your first tea or coffee of the day. There's a Donate button towards the bottom of the Team Phoenicia homepage. I know any amount, no matter how big or how small, will be gratefully received by Will and friends.

And if you'd like to keep track of where your hard-earned pounds, dollars, rands, euros etc are going, subscribe to the Team Phoenicia blog for regular (they hope to update it daily) reports.