TAM London Blog: No. 8 - Kirby your activism

(2.30 pm, 16^th October, TAM venue, Edgeware Road, London )

Hello again. Another massive break between blog reports about TAM London speakers where there was no actual break between the talks themselves. I feel like I'm introducing an element of discontinuity where there was none. In a way, this makes me like a very very low-key Time Lord. Interestingly, I live within a few minutes walk of a number of Doctor Who locations, and the official Doctor Who exhibition is in the cinema/restaurant complex down the road. You should go there some time, it's actually much smaller than it looks from the outside. It's a bit like and anti-TARDIS, in a way.

Anyway, back to the talks.

We were first treated to a quick talk by Karen James, who told us all about the ongoing Beagle project. It's a very inspirational project, which you can read all about in the links I just put down. Basically, it's a project to rebuild the famous Beagle, the ship that carried Charles Darwin across the world, and re-make the original journey, during which he invented evolution. I've always loved the way that, before Darwin, the world was only 6000 years old and everything that existed had always been that way and dinosaur bones were put there as a joke by a deity who, despite having infinite knowledge, infinite space and infinite power with which to put these things to good use, clearly has a low boredom threshold so amuses himself by burying the remains of monsters for the sole purpose of confusing some of his more curious apes.

Flippancy aside, it's a wonderful project and quite inspiring when you think about it. There was talk about an incident where an astronaut on the International Space Station voluntarily got involved and ended up speaking to a group of Brazilian School children. That's either an incredible account of the inspirational actions that people do in order to promote and further the wonder of Science, or the absolute mother of all wrong numbers. Either way is cool for me.

It's a great scheme, and I do think it's worth the time and effort that's being put into it. Although Karen did say that they were needing a £100,000 donation to complete all their aims. I genuinely expected the hat to be passed around at this point. It's a ridiculous sum to ask people to cough up at a moments notice, but then I was persistently surprised by how many people were able/willing to put up the £200+ entry fee for the conference. It was amazing that so many people were at the meeting, to be honest. Maybe that's why it's called that?

(Just a note, I also tweeted during the talk that I was surprised that the Beagle was docking in Pembrokeshire, seeing as they don't have evolution there. This was of course a stupid joke, as we all know that Pembrokeshire has lots of evolution; the place is riddled with Neanderthals)

The next talk was by Paula Kirby. This was one of the best talks, as far as I'm concerned, because it was simultaneously baffling, amusing and terrifying. It was essentially a run-down of the actions, aims and views of the UK Christian Party. They are, in the loosest sense of the word, a political party that wants to, um, further the values of Christianity in UK society. I say 'um' because, as someone raised in a nominally Christian environment, I don't recognise any of them. They include:

- Opposition to all forms of equality apart from those that favour devout Christians, which sort of undermines the whole concept of 'equality' when you think about it.

- Abolition of CCTV cameras and other forms of social control measures, and replacing them with bands of roving street Pastors (an idea which I actually quite like, as I'd want to see what happens when they have to 'control' a clash of Cardiff and Millwall football fans. Do the spiritually enlightening qualities of the Bible prevent it from causing damage when forcefully inserted into various orifices?)

- A complete crack down on teachers in general as they are somehow linked to the sexual corruption of children.

- Free speech for Christians only. And only 'proper' ones. None of these liberal types, they may as well be sodomising minors while smearing chocolate Koran's over their oiled torsos as far as the Christian party are concerned.

- The promotion of Christian love and compassion via the use of oppression and death (e.g. they support the death penalty and nuclear weapons, which makes sense when you consider that without the death penalty Christianity wouldn't exist, and a mushroom cloud does look slightly like a cross).

I don't really recognise this aspect of Christianity. Presumably it's based on the gospel according to Saint Psychopath. it seems that the Christian party has no chance of being elected, but the fact that they exist at all and seem to be entitled to respect and consideration is still a worrying fact. There was also some discussion of why the majority of Christians don't oppose or resist these despotic bastards, and why Christianity gets an easier ride of it in UK society than other religions. It was very interesting and thought provoking, to the point where I don't want to sully it by making crap jokes about it. Kudos Kirby, an exemplary talk from an interesting person.

The final part of this section, before lunch, was the panel discussion. This was delivered by the holy trinity of the skeptical society (inappropriate religious overtones very much intended), Dr Evan Harris, David Allen Green (a.k.a. Jack of Kent) and Dr Simon Singh. All the brief introductory talks they did were very good, but unfortunately I didn't see much of the discussion as I had to run outside and re-charge my iron-age Nokia to continue my twitter stream. It's a shame really, I doubt anyone was actually reading them but seeing as I had a press pass I felt duty bound to continue it. It was quite enjoyable, like the on-line equivalent of a tramp shouting in the street at cars; pointless but strangely cathartic.

I did learn several interesting things though. Dr Evan Harris really doesn't like singing, like he did at the Science is Vital rally (I was there, remember?), but this may have effectively combated the Science cuts. It's like a WMD, only to be used when absolutely necessary. David Allen Green showed us that, although lawyers are widely disliked and regarded as untrustworthy, if they have a Birmingham accent this completely offsets the clichés and makes them likable again.

Simon Singh is possibly one of the most respected and popular people in the scientific community. And rightly so. I'm biased of course, as he actually wanted to speak to me r.e. my Science is Vital talk and to offer me help with my scientific promotions. He also announced the launch of the Nightingale Collaboration, an organisation designed to help coordinate and streamline sceptical activism activities. Read about it, it's well good.

I was outside for this bit though, so missed most of it. Bet it was fun though. Then there was a coffee break. I've been to many conferences all across the country, and there appears to be one rule which unties them all; the coffee is always shit. It does the job though, and if you have to make enough coffee for nearly a thousand people in a very short space of time, quality is bound to suffer.

Unless this was a subtle reminder of how nonsensical homeopathic claims are? Seems a bit unnecessary though, seeing as how everyone there had forked out £200+ to be there. You wouldn't do that if you were still 'undecided', surely? But then maybe that's just me.

Email: Humourology (at) live.co.uk

Twitter: @garwboy

TAM London Blog: No. 7 - Some Scary S**t

(1.40 pm, 16^th October, TAM venue, Edgeware Road, London )

As has been mentioned previously, I was at TAM London because the organiser and all round wonderful human being Tracy King decided to take my sarcastic request for a press pass at face value and granted me one. She said I'd caught her in a good mood. I worry that this good mood was one of the extreme chemically-facilitated judgement-impairing sort, but I kept my mouth shut about that.

But as a member of the 'press', I was given several perks, outside of the fact that I get allowed in without paying. But I didn't take advantage of these perks, I was already feeling massively guilty about wasting everyone's time as it was. I sincerely doubt anyone's even reading this right now.

But as a member of the 'press', we had reserved seats in the front. I ignored these, I feel you need to be in amongst the people to get a real impression of how things are going at an event like this. But then I'm not a proper press person, so I would say that wouldn't I?

The press were also granted the opportunity to go to a press conference with James Randi himself at 1pm. I went and had lunch instead. I'd missed the earlier opportunity to eat as I was talking with Simon Singh, who is well important and brilliant and actively suggested we meet up so that's nice. It meant I didn't get to eat, and I was hungry. People seemed shocked that I'd consider passing up the opportunity to meet the great man himself, but I was ravenous. And besides 'are you a gnome?', what would I ask him?

Anyway, that happened. Back to the people saying stuff.

First talk after lunch wasn't a talk per-se, but a bit of a chat between Richard Wiseman and Andy Nyman. Say those two names together, it sounds like some sort of mystery-solving duo. This isn't too far from the truth really. The problem with this talk for me was the fact that I wasn't really familiar with Andy Nyman's work. The name was ringing a bell, so to speak, but when someone is introduced and treated like a big star then this is a bit confusing when you're as clueless as I was.

Turns out Nyman is sort of like the Buzz Aldrin to Derren Brown's Neil Armstrong, being his writing partner in his various big screen outings. He's also responsible, with Jeremy Dyson, for creating the show Ghost Stories, which is brilliant and terrifying by all accounts.

Then it was pointed out where I knew him from; he was the evil producer Patrick in Charlie Brooker's Big Brother based zombie horror Dead Set. You'd think this would help me appreciate the conversation and anecdotes, but in fact it made it worse. If you haven't seen Dead Set (it's very good if you like that sort of thing), at one point Nyman's character defecates explosively into a bin. That's not an image that's easy to forget, and it kept coming back to me throughout the interview.

"So, how did you first come up with the idea for Ghost Stories?" "Well, I he shit in a bin he shit in a bin he shit in a bin he shit in a bin he shit in a bin and then Dyson suggested that he shit in a bin he shit in a bin he shit in a bin he shit in a bin it turns out Liverpool is full of Catholics he shit in a bin he shit in a bin he shit in a bin he shit in a bin he shit in a bin and thank you all for coming".

Andy Nyman, clearly a very talented, intelligent and charismatic man. Who once shit in a bin.

Email: Humourology (at) live.co.uk

TAM London Blog: No. 6 – The Alpha and Ow-Mega

(11.00 AM, 16^th October, TAM venue, Edgeware Road, London )

The reason this post is different from the last one is a result of hassle with timings, resources, low battery power, hectic schedule and the incompetence of the author in looking after his stuff, e.g. notes, so this is all based on memory and old tweets. So that's nice.

I reality though, there was literally no break between the Dawkins talk and the ones I describe here. Unless you count Prof. Wiseman's MCing duties, which were excellent as always. I've already mentioned that though, so won't go over that again.

The next talk was from Cory Doctorow. Coroy Doctorow is, as far as I can make out, not a real doctor. But he has 'Doctor' in his name, which is quite cool. Doctor Ow made me think he would be some sort of super villain in a superhero cartoon aimed at the under 5's. This may in fact be the case, but he wasn't there in that capacity, that much is certain.

I hadn't really heard much about Doctorow before the talk, so didn't know what he would be speaking about and in what capacity. One thing I do know is that he has terrible timing. I say this because as soon as he was introduced, that was the moment my bladder decided it was no longer happy about having to act as a receptacle for my waste fluids, so I had to run out and use the toilet. Ergo, I missed the part where he explained who he was and what he would be talking about.

It turned out to be Copyright law in the end. And very interesting it was too, particularly the original story about how Hollywood was originally founded by people who had essentially nicked Thomas Edison's camera technology and used it outside his stranglehold. I was pleased by this, I don't really like Edison for ripping off Nikolai Tesla, the genius physicist who has a cooler name and a mighty moustache.

Doctorow essentially informed us all about the pros, cons and potential impacts of the various different copyright and information controlling plans with regards to new technology. A highlight was the observation of the way that everyone who uses a new technology to share creative works gets called a pirate by those who did the exact same thing previously. Whether or not Eye-patches or parrots were included was not addressed. I like to think they were

Up next was Adam Rutherford, he of the broody byline picture (check the link, it's impressive, or creepy, one of the two). The celebrated Guardian columnist told us all about his experiences with the Alpha Course. When I heard the title, I assumed it was some evening class that taught you how to be more dominant and assertive in your business dealings, some 'release you alpha male' shite. Something that turns you into a vacuous irritating dickhead, in other words. Turns out it's some ongoing course/campaign which intends to subtly convert people to conservative Christianity. Something that turns you into a vacuous irritating dickhead, in other words.

Dickheadedness seemed to a theme for the Alpha course from the off, with a lot of their promotional material being based on the trashing of actual impressive things the world has to offer. There's also the massively weasely manner in which they try to oppress homosexuals without actually saying they're doing that. They clearly want to have their cake and eat it. Don't know why they're bothering, it would probably just turn to messiah flesh in their mouths anyway, and that can't be nice. I've seen pictures of Jesus, he looks quite stringy.

It does have a very culty vibe to it, but then you could say that about a lot of things to do with promoting religion. The most amusing part was when he informed us that the Alpha course uses two texts to underpin much of it's teachings. These are the Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings. Much hilarity and surprise greeted this revelation. Apparently, people were surprised by the possibility that a Christian group would base much of its ideals on long-winded largely fictional books, which I felt was a little naive.

But, as per, the talk was excellent, but even if it wasn't I would have given it top marks for inclusion of the phrase 'solipsistic wanker'! I challenged everyone to say it at least once a day from now on.

Email: Humourology (at) live.co.uk

Twitter: @garwboy