February 2010
10 posts
5 tags
Skeptics in the Pub with Martin Robbins
On 15th Feb, I went to Skeptics in the Pub to see my friend Martin Robbins, from Layscience and a contributor to the Pod Delusion deliver a talk on the 10:23 campaign.
It had the right mix of fact, laughs and swearing. Excellent.
4 tags
London for a Secular Europe Protest
On February 14th, I went on the London for a Secular Europe protest, most unexpectedly. I was only planning to turn up for a few minutes at Westminster Cathedral, grab some audio and run off, but I ended up going on the whole protest.
Obviously I covered this on the Pod Delusion, and got a horrifying interview with some bigots:
5 tags
Tate Modern
On February 13th, I went to the Tate Modern. I don’t really like modern art.
Aside from the permanent tat, in the Turbine gallery there was a big black box which you could walk into. I thought it symbolized despair.
There was also some weird anime type thing.
Afterwards I went to Wapping, briefly.
++END FACTUAL BLOG POST++
6 tags
Darwin Day Lecture
On Feb 11th, I went to the Darwin Day lecture at Conway Hall, which was this year given by Professor Chris Stringer from the NHM and introduced by Richard Dawkins.
I covered it for the Pod Delusion and INTERVIEWED RICHARD DAWKINS. Listen here:
7 tags
Haiti Benefit at the Cross Kings
On February 10th, I spent the day in my suit at an important Internal Communications conference for work, hanging out with people many times more important than I, from various FTSE100 companies. I point this out because the evening proved to be an amusing contrast.
In the evening I went, still in my suit, with my housemates Jim and Ally to a benefit gig in aid of Haiti at the Cross Kings, near,...
6 tags
Westminster Skeptics - Political Blogging
On February 8th, I went to Westminster Skeptics in the Pub, where they’d invited Paul Staines (Guido), Jonathan Isaby (ConHome), Sunny Hundal (LibCon), Mick Fealty (Slugger O’Toole) and non-blogger Nick Cohen to talk about whether political blogging actually matters.
As you might have guessed, I loved it all, as a political blogging nerd, and a card-carrying skeptic. I also got to...
3 tags
Old Doctor Who
On Saturday 6th I watched some old episodes of Doctor Who at Liz’s house with some people. It turns out the pacing is a little different to the modern Doctor Who that I know and am a critical fan of. By “critical fan”, I mean I’ll slag it off, but I just keep watching it as it is a net enjoyable experience to do so. Even if a lot of it is terrible (I’m looking at you,...
7 tags
Rebel Alliance Tour: Chris Murray, Random Hand,...
On February 5th, I took a trip to Kettering to see that leg of the Rebel Alliance Records tour featuring three of my favourite bands. It was a rotating headline thing, and on this particular night it was opened by Mouthwash (who I was largely unfamiliar with before), who turned out to be awesome to the point where I bought their CD, followed by Chris Murray (who should have headlined, I reckon),...
4 tags
Interviewing Terry Sanderson from the National...
On February 4th I interviewed Terry Sanderson, head of the National Secular Society about the proposed visit by the Pope to the UK, and Cherie Blair putting her foot in a rather large mouth. Hear it on the Pod Delusion:
4 tags
Churchill: The Hollywood Years
Had a relatively quiet evening on Tuesday 2nd Feburary. I watched the film “Churchill: The Hollywood Years” at Liz’s house and it was most enjoyable. Somehow I missed it at the time, but it’s only a few years old and stars pretty much every British comedy actor you can think of. It had a nice balance of WWII and Hollywood references. Excellent.
January 2010
7 posts
9 tags
1023 and Alternative Medicine on Trial
On January 30th I got up at an obscenely early hour for a Saturday to go down to Red Lion Square and witness the 1023 mass-overdose on homeopathy for the 1023 campaign. I won’t describe it here, as we’ve covered it at length on The Pod Delusion. Here’s the special episode I made on the day:
Long story short, I interviewed Dave Gorman and Simon Singh, and a stack of other...
11 tags
Reel Big Fish x2
One of my slightly obsessive tendancies is to go and see bands live multiple times on the same tour - on the basis that there’s only a finite amount of times I’ll ever see them live, so may as well make the most of it. This led me to going to see Reel Big Fish’s recent headline tour, with support from Big D & The Kids Table and Sonic Boom Six at both Nottingham’s Rock...
6 tags
Richard Herring at Fat Tuesdays
Slowly attempting to catch up with my log of exciting things that I have done, I went to see Richard Herring’s Hitler Moustache show in what was basically a practice run of his national tour, which is on now. It was in a pub in Islington, so as you might expect, I ended up speaking to people who worked for The Guardian and the BBC (100% true).
I’d never seen a full Richard Herring...
4 tags
Robin Ince at the Etcetera Theatre
Bit of back tracking, but I went to see Robin Ince try out some new material at the Et Cetera Theatre a couple of Mondays ago. As always he was superb - he literally just picks stuff up at random - books, newspaper articles, things he’s printed off the internet - and is funny about them, which is quite a talent to have.
Also, bizarrely, he gave all of the audience a present at the end of...
9 tags
The Rebel Cell at Greenwich Theatre
I went to see some avant-garde theatre - it was a rap musical - a hip-hopera by Baba Brinkman (of the Rap Guide to Evolution fame) called The Rebel Cell. And it was amazing. Listen to my before and after phlogs where I talk about them.
Before:
After:
5 tags
Interviewing Robin Ince & Westminster Skeptics
I know this is going to sound insane, but on January 19th I interviewed Robin Ince at the BBC offices for The Pod Delusion. He was plugging Nerdstock, the TV broadcast of the Godless show (that I neglected to blog about at the time) from Hammersmith.
Afterwards I turned up late to Westminster Skeptics, and hung out with some more cool people.
4 tags
Graduation & The Old Rope
On the 18th of January I graduated into being a MASTER OF THE ARTS.
Then I went to The Old Rope, and saw a stack of cool comedians, including Robin Ince. Matt Kirshen did a bit too, as did a stack of others who’s names escape me. Possibly Milton Jones? I can’t even remember who was headlining.
July 2009
2 posts
3 tags
Banqueting House
I went to Banqueting House today - the last remaining part of the currently burnt down Palace of Whitehall (which is why, er, Whitehall, is socalled today).
It was only four quid to get in if you’re a student, and you get a free audio tour - though this probably should be expected as all it is is a really big room with no exhibits or anything in it.
It was really good though - the audio...
2 tags
Peep Show - Series 2, Episode 2 →
I watched the Nazi friend episode of Peep Show again on 4oD. One of the funniest episodes of one of the funniest sitcoms around.
June 2009
8 posts
Mark Thomas Manifesto (Radio 4 recording)
After seeing Terminator 4 last Thursday (see below), I went to a recording of Mark Thomas’s new two-part Radio 4 show based on his Manifesto stand-up tour.
Essentially, there isn’t too many differences in the format to Dave Gorman’s Genius - in that it’s based on public ideas, which are sometimes fleshed out by the presenter, and then there’s a vote at the end on...
Terminator 4
I went to see Terminator 4 last Thursday - I haven’t written about it until now though because I’m already slacking at this second blog too.
In short, it’s almost exactly what you expect: lots of action, shooting, killer robots, not much plot, and a film that whilst it isn’t as good as Terminator 2, isn’t the worst thing ever. I rather enjoyed it.
There’s...
Star Trek (Again)
Yesterday was an action-packed day. Not only did I go to the Masonic Hall (see below), but I missed seeing Nick Griffin and the opportunity to shout “fascist!” at someone in Westminster by only a matter of minutes (by the time we got there only protesters remained… though I did see a box of eggs on the grass). I did see former-Cabinet Minister Charles Clarke though leaving...
Freemasons' Hall
Yesterday, I went for a look around the Freemasons’ Hall, which is about half way between Covent Garden and Holborn. I don’t know much about Freemasonry, other that in all likelihood, they secretly control the world.
Their building does nothing to dispell this myth either, so on arriving and signing in to access the museum and library, we gave false names. I chose “Peter...
The Tate Modern's new thing in the Turbine Hall...
As a well-respect art critic, I feel I owe you all a short review of the new thing in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, and some of the other stuff I saw there the other day. I’ve just looked it up, and it’s called “Bodyspacemotionthings” by Robert Morris (click the link for a video), and is literally just a bunch of wooden play equipment that - and I guess this is...
Darwin, Humanism and Science at Conway Hall
Today was terribly exciting, as I got to shake the hand of one of my heroes, Richard Dawkins. I managed this because I attended to the British Humanist Association’s ‘Darwin, Humanism and Science’ conference at the Conway Hall, which is a contender for the best hall in London - they have a Bertrand Russell room and a display up sticking it to the creationists.
It’s perhaps...
Sonic Boom Six / Random Hand / Left Alone / The...
Last Sunday was excellent - I went to see Sonic Boom Six for something like the 12th time at the last date on their tour at Camden Underworld. It was lucky they played the Underworld twice - they started the tour there too, but I went to see NOFX instead.
It was a good gig. After going to the National Portrait Gallery (see below) and having an argument with an ultra-zionist man working in a fish...
National Portrait Gallery
The National Gallery is over-rated. There, I’ve said it- no doubt enraging any art critic or ponce who might stumble upon there. Sure, it contains a priceless collection of world famous art, but my problem is that there’s a lot of filler. For every Sunflowers, Water Lillies, that smokey one of Parliament (Monet again?), or that Turner one of the boat being on fire, there’s...
May 2009
10 posts
Tales of the Black Freighter
I started this secondary blog when I realised I do lots of exciting stuff that I never write about because it’s difficult to find a funny angle on it - and on my other blog, my remit is to basically try to be funny. So I started this to catalogue all of the amazing London adventures I’ve been having. What amazing thing did I do today?
I, er, watched a DVD.
It was Tales of the Black...
Skeptics In The Pub: Edzard Ernst
This evening it was my favourite monthly event, Skeptics in the Pub, where all of London’s Dawkinsistas gather to stand-up and celebrate science, rationalism, and sticking it to the creationists.
This month’s speaker was Edzard Ernst, co-author of Trick or Treatment. It was particularly timely because recently, as you might have heard, his co-author Simon Singh has been suicide by...
Madness at HMV Oxford Street
I had another one of those moments when I realised how awesome it is living in London.
This morning I was sitting working in the British Library, when I saw a tweet come in from someone I follow mentioning that Madness were playing in store at HMV Oxford Street. Needless to say that I jumped up, ran to the tube and 20 minutes later I walked into the store to hear some music. I couldn’t...
Classics of Love (Jesse Michaels) / Mike Park /...
I went to an amazing gig last Sunday night. Jesse Michaels, from Operation Ivy, has started a new band called Classics of Love and was touring with Mike Park, the man behind Asian Man Records. The gig promised “plus special guests”, but I failed to think about this until I actually got to the gig.
It turned out that the special guests were in fact the King Blues, who are close...
Imperial Leisure: Guerilla Gig on Carnaby Street
I got a message on Facebook this morning telling me that up-and-coming ska-punk band Imperial Leisure would be playing a “guerilla gig” on Carnaby Street tonight - so I decided to go along.
I know IL’s work well - I’ve seen them support Less Than Jake, Sonic Boom Six and headline a couple of times, and have their album. I’m a big fan, I guess. I reckon they could be...
Poetry Cafe
I went to the Poetry Cafe this evening, near Covent Garden. To the open-mic “Poetry unplugged” that, er, had a plugged in microphone. You can see a general summary of what I thought here.
Celeb Spots
Walking past Downing Street today, I saw Alan Johnson and James Purnell leaving. I guess it was just the end of cabinet. They left on foot, but there were loads of posh cars parked just outside, presumably containing other ministers.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
I went to see Wolverine today. Having seen negative reviews I set my expectations incredibly low. And as such was pleasantly surprised. It was ludicrously silly, had practically no plot and a clunky script with some of the most appalling dialogue I’ve ever seen.
Though it was fun seeing how silly a lot of it got - a missile destroying a house Wolverine was staying in getting destroyed into...
Votematch launch at the Apple Store
On Twitter I saw that Stephen Fry was going to be at the Apple Store launching votematch.co.uk, a thing that’ll tell you who to vote for in the European Elections, so I went along.
Not only was here there, but a whole bunch of celebrities were - Peter Tatchell, David Davis, Chris Huhne, political blogger Iain Dale, and London blogger Annie Mole, who I had a chat with as I’m doing some...
Star Trek
I went to see the new Star Trek film despite not being a Trekkie - it was on the basis that it “actually looked quite good”. And it was. It was very good.
Even though I’ve never actually watched any episodes properly, I noticed many of the standard Trek tropes - the guy in red was the one who was killed, and so on. And you could tell whenever there was some sort of call-back as...