Episode 7 - On London

To my most honour’d & highly esteem’d readers,

I have been greatly honour’d by the comments wch, on connecting to ye Internet, I was plea∫ed to find from ∫everal of you. I humbly ∫uggest yt it is more than I de∫erve, the∫e writings being primarily a diver∫ion from ye boredoms of travelling, & ∫pringing from a de∫ire to maintain my own records of my activities in ye great City of London. But, if I may be ∫o bold, I hold out ye fainte∫t of hopes yt these ∫cribblings will be yet of ∫ome amu∫ement to you.

Above the gates of the British Library

OK. I can’t keep this up any longer. How did people write so many letters like this? And read them too?? In the above paragraph, I was trying to give you some idea of the kind of writing I’ve been reading for the last week (and, indeed, for much of the last three years – only it’s worse in manuscript form). I arrived in London just over a week ago – Sunday 1st July. I stayed for 7 nights (I’m now in Cambridge) and spent most of the days in libraries, attempting to decipher handwriting from the 17th century. It’s a multi-faceted problem. Not only trying to read the actual handwriting of each person (some is virtually illegible) but add to that the poor condition of a lot of the manuscripts (the pages are yellowed; the writing is sometimes blurred; the ink has faded; some words near the edges are incomplete); the differing spellings (e.g. speake, booke, philtration, fansying, physicall, subtile); the long ‘s’; the unusual contractions e.g. ‘ye’ instead of ‘the’; ‘yt’ instead of ‘that’; ‘wch’ instead of ‘which’); and the fact that some words and names are just unfamiliar to me (e.g. menstruum – Isaac Newton wrote to Boyle, “And the same principle may cause menstruums to pervade with violence the pores of the bodies they dissolve” – still need to look that up) – it’s a puzzle that takes quite some time and effort to solve. Fortunately, I enjoy this kind of thing!

The British Library

On Monday, my first full day in London, I went to the British Library. I’d been there before, so I already had a reader’s card and I could go straight into the manuscript reading room. I put in four collection tickets for manuscripts I already had reference numbers for, and while I waited for them to be delivered, I perused the catalogues to see if I could find anything else worth looking at. I love the way you just have to put in these tickets, and then the manuscripts will be delivered to your desk for you to delve into at leisure. No one asks why you want to look at these ancient and incredibly valuable papers. I suppose that no one would really try to steal the kinds of things I’m looking at, but I often see people poring over beautiful illuminated manuscripts which I’m sure are worth a huge amount of money. Of course, there are strict limits on what you can take into the reading room, and a bag check on the way out, so it would be rather difficult to steal anything, but still, it’s very cool.

A sculpture of Newton outside the British Library

Among the manuscripts I studied on Monday I found a letter to Samuel Clarke (one of the most famous Boyle lecturers, a “Newtonian” who engaged in correspondence with Leibniz on Newton’s behalf) from Samuel Bradford (a less well-known Boyle lecturer). Clarke got into a bit of trouble over his view of the Trinity. Like Newton, he didn’t believe in it. Interestingly, Clarke wrote a book entitled The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, in which he proposed to examine every passage of Scripture which dealt with the doctrine of the Trinity, and he concluded that it was not a Scriptural doctrine. The letter from Bradford concerns this book. He writes that although he doesn’t agree with all of Clarke’s interpretations, or the conclusions he draws from these interpretations, he must commend Clarke for the way in which he has written this book: firstly for the “truly Christian” manner in which he has treated such a difficult topic, with humility and courtesy to those who disagree; and secondly, and more importantly, “that you have made it your Endeavour to reduce Men’s Judgments on this argument to the Determination of the holy Scriptures.” This is particularly interesting to me because it is widely assumed that people who rejected doctrines such as the Trinity put reason above revelation. Here is an example of someone who rejects the doctrine of the Trinity on the basis of revelation, not merely reason, and is acknowledged and commended by others for so doing. Additionally, the type of natural theology found in the Boyle lectures (well, actually, there are many types, but many historians seem to think there is only one, or at least only one worth noticing) has often been held out by historians as opposed to revelation. Again, it’s nice to find one of the major pin-up boys of this interpretation doing something completely based on revelation (in spite of its heterodoxy!) Bradford commends Clarke for upholding the Reformation principle of sola scriptura, and hopes that works such as this will only aid in the cause of unity in the church.

See? It’s riveting stuff!

I finished up in the manuscript reading room a little after 4pm. I had one more manuscript to look at, but it was quite long, and my head was feeling the effects of the endeavour described above, so I went to the café to have a cup of tea. I was thinking about going back to my room to freshen up before going out for dinner, but for some reason decided to keep working at the library instead. The British Library is really quite a nice place to work. On the first floor, there are a number of comfortable armchairs with desks and power points for plugging in computers, and there is wi-fi internet access available (for a cost, unfortunately). It’s quite atmospheric – just in front of the King’s library, and overlooking the main gallery and foyer. I sat there for awhile, responding to a few emails and reading some of John Ray’s The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of Creation (a pdf file downloaded from Early English Books Online – EEBO – one of the most fabulous databases every conceived, but to which the UNSW library does not see fit to subscribe). And then I headed off across the city to the Dukes Hotel for my super-high-class martini, but that was the topic of another post…


On Tuesday, I visited Dr Williams’s Library at the Dr Williams’s Centre for Dissenting Studies. It’s located just a few blocks from the British Library, quite close to the University College, London. The staff there were quite cute and a little bit scatty, but extremely friendly and helpful. I was hoping to look at some of Richard Baxter’s correspondence, which was unavailable as it is being conserved, but I was directed to a “calendar” of his correspondence – a two-volume indexed work with a brief description, location, and important citations of each letter. That was extremely helpful, and I was then able to decide which letters to look at on microfilm. Not all the correspondence is held at Dr Williams’s Library – there was one letter each at the British Library and the Royal Society library that I hoped to consult. Looking at the calendar took me a couple of hours, so I took a break for a sandwich and cup of tea before delving into the microfilm. When I returned to the library, the only staff member who wasn’t on lunch had no idea how to use the microfilm reader, but we figured it out from the instructions on the side, and she was quite happy to just let me do my thing. It took me over two hours just to get through one letter (from Richard Baxter to Joseph Glanvill, concerning Baxter’s views on the nature of spirit), and I think it was only two double-sided pages at most. Contrast that with the two hours (maybe two and a half) I spent today on a letter from Newton to Boyle which was fourteen double sided pages. Hmm. When I finished that letter, I’d had enough for one day. I went back to the British Library to use the internet for a little while, and then walked to the Angel, Islington to meet my friend Erin.

The outside of Dr Williams's Library

Erin was one of my ISCF bible study leaders when I was in high school. She also went to uni with my brother, and has been lurking on my blog for quite some time (hi Erin!!) After she tracked me down on Facebook, and I found out that she was in London, we organised to catch up. I was running a little late because I underestimated the distance between Kings Cross and Angel (I was walking), but she was even later because her current boss is evil and is working her way too hard. We had a drink at a funky little place called Frederick’s, and then dinner at another place in Islington, but I can’t remember the name. I hadn’t been to Islington before, but it’s Dido’s favourite neighbourhood, and Tony Blair moved there after leaving No. 10. It was great to catch up with Erin. We probably hadn’t talked in years, but we had no trouble at all holding a conversation together. We talked about all sorts of things – work, church, relationships… She told me which were the “approved” churches to go to in London, Cambridge and Oxford, and which newspapers I was allowed to read. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten which ones those are… I don’t buy newspapers over here. I read the free ones, and if there’s one lying around in a coffee shop I might have a look, but generally I just check out smh.com.au from time to time. Come to think of it, I forgot to ask Erin where this list comes from. Hmm. But it was a great night, and I had a fantastic time with Erin.

On Wednesday I went back to Dr Williams’s Library, but the letters I had left to look at were quite short and didn’t take me long to read. I went back to my room for a rest, and then out to Milk & Honey – see episode 6 for a description of that experience!

I declared Thursday to be a “rest day”. My parents called me at 9:30am and I was still in bed. I’d been up at about 6:30am – checked my email and ate some yoghurt – but was so tired that I decided to try to get some more sleep. I did some washing and then set out to do some non-research related stuff. I had lunch at a pub called the Slug & Lettuce – it’s a chain, but it’s quite good actually – a very tasty steak sandwich and a glass of wine. I was reading a book called Dissolution, by C.J. Sansom – a crime thriller set during the reign of King Henry VIII, the time of Reformation when Henry was dissolving all the monasteries. It was quite good, but perhaps a little too much like Susanna Gregory’s Matthew Bartholomew Chronicles. I liked the way it showed the range of views – Reformed and “Papist” – some good and some extremely evil on both sides. I realised that in spite of being a Protestant, I don’t really know much about the Reformation. I should read more about it. I guess my uninformed view is that the English Reformation was quite different to the Continental Reformation, and was really more of a power struggle and (it seems, particularly from this book) a quest for money. I suppose it’s part of the reason I’m not an Anglican, given that the Church of England sprang from King Henry VIII’s desire for a divorce. I know that’s not all it was – need to do some more reading!

I spent quite awhile in the pub just sitting and reading. It was quite comfortable, and the book was very engrossing, and no one kicked me out, which was nice. I realised afterwards that I was right next to the Borough Market that Erin had told me I had to go to, so I wandered in for a look. Unfortunately, I’d already had lunch, and the chorizo sandwich stall was closed, but I did get a brownie. I don’t know if it was the one Erin had told me to try – I saw at least three types in different places – but it was very good indeed! I ate it while walking across London Bridge and along the Thames to the Tower of London.

Walking across London Bridge

I’ve been to London twice before, both times for a week. The first time was all tourism. The second time was partly research, partly sight-seeing. This time I was intended to do mostly research, but the Tower of London was the one London tourist attraction that I had not yet seen, but really wanted to visit. I got there, and the area around it was PACKED with tourists! The lines for tickets were not that long, but quite slow, and when I noticed that not only did I only have just over 2 hours before it closed, but also that I’d missed the last Yeoman Warder guided tour for the day, I decided to come back another day. I walked back to Borough Market, bought this fantastic bread thing filled with vegetables and cheese, a bottle of New Forest cider and some fruit, and went back to my room to relax.

On Friday morning, I had quite a late start. I think I got out of bed at around 8am, which wasn’t too bad considering the Royal Society Library wouldn’t open until 10am anyway. But when I checked my email, I found out some very shocking news in an email from the church and from Donna. You may have seen on the news or read in the paper about a tragedy in Revesby – a father and teenage daughter dead from stab wounds, the mother in hospital with serious injuries and another daughter under police guard in hospital with minor injuries. This is the family of a friend from my church (I don’t know him very well, but I’d still consider him a friend). He was away leading on a youth camp at the time – how unbelievably shocking to be called back to something like this. I was extremely shocked and saddened by the news, so I called my mum for a chat (on my mobile, which I’m trying not to do, but I figured this was a good reason). I got in touch with Donna via text message, and then we chatted on MSN for a little while, which was great. She was about to go off to a prayer meeting for our friend and his family. I haven’t heard any more aside from what I’ve read on smh.com.au, so I hope he is going ok. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in his situation. Perhaps any of my readers who feel comfortable doing so could pray for the Walicki family. There are 5 children in total. The youngest, 15 years old, was the one who died.

Because of this, I got a rather late start that morning. I had eaten some yoghurt for breakfast, but by about 11am when I was heading off, I was hungry again, so I stopped in at the Slug & Lettuce for brunch – the first coked breakfast I’d had so far this trip. It was very good indeed. After that, I made my way to the Royal Society of London. I hadn’t been earlier in the week because the library was closed during their annual Summer Science Exhibition (which I would have gone to the day before if I hadn’t been so tired). The exhibition ended on the Thursday, and the website didn’t say anything about the library being closed on the Friday, but unfortunately it was. Very sad. Apparently it would all be back to normal on the Monday, but that was too late for me!

The Royal Society is quite close to Piccadilly, so I wandered up there to Waterstone’s, which is supposed to be the largest bookstore in Europe. It may well be, but their history of science section is still not very good. And their 5th View restaurant was closed before 2pm! Grr. Not happy. So I went back to the trusty British Library, where I had to wait quite a long time for my books, so I sat reading another novel – The Interpretation of Murder, by Jed Rubenfeld – another historical crime thriller, this time involving Freud and Jung. Very enjoyable.

Walking across the Tower Bridge

On Saturday morning, I set off quite early for the Tower of London, partly to beat the crowds and partly because I had a lunch reservation at 2:30pm. I walked across the Tower Bridge (about a 30 minute walk from where I was staying), took a few photos and then my camera battery died. I didn’t have time to go back to my room to charge it, so I’ll have to make do with my memories. The Tower of London was fantastic – well worth the visit and the £13. I always thought of the Tower of London as one very tall tower, people imprisoned right at the top, with a spiral staircase all the way up. I don’t know where I got that picture from. But the Tower of London is not just one tower – it’s a massive complex of 20 towers, as well as other buildings, lawns and gardens. I went on a Yeoman Warder guided tour, which was great. I like guided tours when the guide knows a lot about the history of the place, which this guy did. And he was funny. To be a Yeoman Warder, one has to have served 22 years in the armed forces (but the navy is excluded, because they don’t actually swear to protect the monarch, or something like that) and they live onsite with their families. That would be rather strange, I think, but they’ve got their own church, chaplain, doctor and pub! And pet ravens too.

Flamingos at the Roof Gardens

I was there for about 4 hours, but I still didn’t manage to see it all. However I had to head off to Kensington to the Babylon restaurant at the Roof Gardens, which even include flamingos. I got confused and got off the tube at South Kensington instead of High Street Kensington, so I had to get a cab. Not good. Also near there was a place called the Whole Foods Market (Tim and Tegan, you would love this place) – three massive floors of gourmet fresh and pre-prepared food. I didn’t buy anything though, and didn’t actually have time. I had to get to Westminster to go on the London Eye at 6pm. Getting the tube to Westminster was not much of a problem, but getting across the bridge to the Eye was – so many people! I don’t know whether it was my severe hayfever attack and the heat inside the capsule, but I thought the London Eye was a bit overrated.

This is me on the London Eye

I managed to coax my camera into taking one photo – the only photo of myself taken on this trip so far. After getting off the Eye, I just wanted to go back to my room and lie down. My feet were killing me, and my nose and sinuses weren’t much better. I got across the bridge only to find that Westminster station was closed for entry – something to do with the Tour de France – so I had to walk to Embankment. I stopped at a Starbucks for a cup of tea (better than Costa’s, but not as good as Caffe Nero) and a rest. After I got back to my room, I collapsed on my bed for awhile, and nearly finished reading The Interpretation of Murder before feeling rather hungry. Don’t know why – I had a big lunch. I wasn’t in the mood to go far, so I just slipped across the road to the Roebuck for a quick and cheap (but not healthy) dinner of chips and a pint of Strongbow!

Other people on the London Eye

The next day I left London for Cambridge. This post is probably far too long already, so I’ll save my experiences of St Paul’s Cathedral, London and Holy Trinity, Cambridge for another time.

The Eagle in Cambridge - a very important pub in the history of science!

P.S. I’ve been writing this while sitting in the famous Eagle pub in Cambridge. I enjoyed a dinner of bangers and mash and a pint of cider (how very English) and have just been enjoying the atmosphere. It’s a much nicer place to sit and write than in my rather small room. I had an early dinner after working in the library all day, and it’s been well over an hour since I finished. The room I’m in was completely empty (aside from me) for quite a while, and the waiters would look in from time to time to see if anything needed to be done. One of them brought me a drink (lemon mineral water), saying that he thought I looked thirsty. Isn’t that sweet? I knew there was a reason this is my favourite pub in the whole world!

This is me inside the Eagle pub in 2006 with two very eminent historians of science - Peter Harrison (next to me) and David Lindberg (at the front), as well as David's lovely wife Greta

Interlude - London Bombs

I was given strict instructions to stay away from bombs this time, which, as the obedient young lady that I am, I did. I was in Manchester while the failed bombings in London and the attack on Glasgow Airport took place. Today was the 2nd anniversary of the bombings in the London Underground. I read in the paper that the recent attempts were supposed to be sending a message: that despite the West's war on terror, these groups can still attack. Well, they failed, so that's good. I hope and pray that they will not succeed at a later date.

I should also point out that my blogging so far has not covered all of my activities, particularly my time in London. Contrary to the belief of some, I do not spend all my time in pubs and bars! It just so happens that sitting and enjoying a nice, quiet drink provides an excellent opportunity for writing in my journal, which can then be typed up and posted online. Perhaps I should go have another nice, quiet drink tonight and write about some of the other exciting things I've been doing! Maybe I will. After church.

Episode 6 – Milk & Honey

I was going to give it a miss, but didn’t want to disappoint my big brother, and I though it would be sad to miss out for the second year in a row, so here I am at Milk & Honey.

I called from the British Library this afternoon to make a reservation, before going back to my room for a rest (it occurred to me that I’ve been going for 10 days straight without a break – surely not a good idea). I almost didn’t make it out again. I thought about cancelling my reservation because I had a bad headache, but I wasn’t sure I’d get another one, and again thought it would be a shame to miss out. So I took some trusty Nurofen, and I’m feeling better now.

I could only get a place at the bar. Apparently it’s going to be a busy night, but it’s pretty empty so far (it’s a little after 7pm). When I called to make a reservation, Emma nearly forgot to give me the address – I had to ask for it. The address is not available on the website, and even knowing the address doesn’t make it an easy place to find (also rather inconvenient that the numbering on the street goes up one side and down the other, rather than having odd numbers on one side and even on the other). There’s nothing on the outside to advertise it as being Milk & Honey – just a plan black door with an intercom and swipe-card system. Fortunately, just as I was switching off my iPod (love Mika!), a member arrived, so I snuck in behind him.

Once inside, there’s a reception desk where a smartly dressed guy checks the details of your reservation (computerised, of course), offers to take your coat and bag, calls through to the area in which you will be sitting to let them know someone is coming, and then directs you through the appropriate door. Once inside, there are 7 booth-style tables, each seating 4-6 people; a few smaller tables and 3 seats along the bar, where I’m sitting. The cocktail menu is quite good – not too many typical cocktails – and there’s a tapas-style snack menu. I’ve ordered some edamame which haven’t arrive yet, and I’m very much enjoying my first cocktail – a Pink Lady. It has gin, calvados, lemon juice, grenadine and egg white. Very tasty. Could really do with some food, though.

The room I’m in is not very big. It’s dimly lit, with a dark ceiling that seems lower than it actually is. The light just near where I am sitting is held together with sticky tape. There are incense burners and small candles scattered around the place, and a few shelves of vintage cocktail paraphernalia illuminated by candles in liqueur glasses. In one corner is a table of businessmen, drinking beer. Jackets off, unlike the businessmen at the Duke’s Hotel. It’s strange, but I expected there to be more women. I’ve just been joined at the bar by a couple, and to my left is another couple who look like they are on a date, but fairly early in the relationship. The greeting when she arrived (I can’t believe he didn’t meet her outside!) looked a little awkward. A kiss on one cheek – oh wait, we’re going for the other one too!

Mmm… Edamame. I’ve got Tim and Tegan (and Iori) to thank for introducing me to Edamame. This time I didn’t manage to hit anyone with a stray flying bean, though I was tempted to try. I’ve been here for an hour, and I’ve got one more – non-members can only make reservations for two hours, and need to be gone by 11pm at any rate. Members can stay until 3am. I think I’ve have some chorizo (still hungry – edamame are tasty, but not too filling) and another cocktail, and then go back to my room for an early night.

There are two Australian reds on the Red Room Reserve List:

• Tyrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz 2001 - £50
• Yalumba “The Menzies” Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 - £52

The most expensive red is Echezeaux Grand Cru Domaine Perdrix 2000 - £125. A complimentary £9 cheese platter seems superfluous with that!

The priciest champagne is Krug Special Collection Vintage 1979 (magnum) - £900 – “Probably the best champagne ever made.” Next is the Cuvee Don Perignon Rose Vintage 1995 - £275 – “The world’s most prestigious rose.” I thought the first one was more my style and price range, though!

It’s starting to fill up in here now. I don’t know whether they’ve turned the music down or whether it’s been drowned out by the sound of conversation. I’ve had some chorizo (very tasty indeed) and I’m now having a second Pink Lady. It’s served in one of those old style champagne glasses –think of the champagne cocktails in An Affair to Remember. It’s a lovely shade of pink, with a layer of fine foam on top. It’s a little fruity, but very smooth. Quite delightful. I am very much enjoying it. But after two cocktails, salted edamame and chorizo, I think I’ll need to drink lots of water tonight!

Episode 5 – Dukes Hotel, London

Earlier this year I was in Borders with a 15% off voucher that was about to expire. I couldn’t find any novels I particularly wanted, and their selection of science/history of science was not great (it was Canberra) but I found a little red book called London Secrets, a collection of comments by a variety of people – authors and such, even the historian T.K. Rabb, if I remember correctly – on their favourite places in London – walks, historic buildings, shops, bars and so on. One described the martinis at the Dukes Hotel cocktail bar as he best in the world, so I felt compelled to try one, if only for research purposes so I could tell my brother about it.

Today I’ve been at the British Library all day – dressed fairly casually in olive trousers, white top, black cardigan, flat shoes with socks (unfortunately visible, as the trousers could be longer), no make up and hair in a ponytail. I was planning to go back to my room before venturing out again this evening, but decided to work a little longer at the library instead.

So I rocked up at the Dukes Hotel, a little damp as it was raining, with my laptop bag over my shoulder. I walked down St James’s Place, past the house where Chopin was staying when he gave his final performance, turned into the courtyard of the hotel, walked past people bearing spiffy Dukes Hotel umbrellas, saw the doorman and realised that this was a very swish place. I thought about giving it a miss, but decided to go in anyway. I shook off my umbrella (outside, not on the carpet in the foyer!) and found the entrance to the cocktail bar just to the right. From the door, I could see a small room with a few tables of suited businessmen. No women. I nearly walked out again. But to the left was another door leading to the bar, more tables of suited businessmen, and some spare seats. I sat myself down, perused the menu, and ordered a gin martini (they have a separate list for martinis). A few minutes later, a bartender in a white dinner jacket and tie arrived at my table with a stool and a tray bearing a bottle of (apparently frozen) Plymouth gin, a small cut glass perfume bottle of vermouth, a lemon and a chilled glass. He misted the inside of the glass with vermouth, filled it with gin, peeled a strip of lemon rind, gently swiped the edge of the glass with it, and then released it into the cocktail. I was also brought not just a small bowl of spicy nibbles, but a bowl of olives, a large bowl of rice crackers, and a large bowl of mixed nuts. Very classy indeed. I considered wrapping up the remaining nuts and crackers in a serviette to take back to my room, but somehow it didn’t seem appropriate.

I’m sitting here writing in a notebook because pulling out my laptop doesn’t seem the thing to do. I feel extremely underdressed, and quite out of place, which is kind of strange because I am fairly used to swish bars and quite capable of dressing appropriately. I’m rather tempted to come back later in the week, dressed up all fancy, and see if the service is any different (not that it’s bad – it’s very good). I might have a chocolate martini next time. Mmm… Rather expensive, though. £14 just for the martini.

Just finished the martini – took me over 45 minutes! I’m eavesdropping on the people at the next table. A guy is saying that he has a friend in the police force who said that there was a huge bomb threat at Canary Wharf that was defused but didn’t make the press because it’s just too scary. Hmm.

(I mentioned that to my friend Erin, who I caught up with the following night, and she said she’d heard that rumour too. She said that there’s no way something like that wouldn’t make it into the papers.)

Episode 4 – Manchester to London

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in a pub called The Roebuck just across the street from the Great Dover Street Apartments (student accommodation for King’s College) in which I’m staying. From today, all pubs in England are smoke free. Fantastic move, particularly since last time I was here, this pub didn’t have any smoke-free areas. Fairly decent menu, though. I’m having a steak burger – just had a craving for a burger – and a glass of Tempranillo. Other choices that sounded good: pork and Guinness sausages with mash and homemade gravy, and a field mushroom and brie burger.

The Roebuck - though I took this photo last year...

I arrived in London from Manchester this afternoon. The conference was great, but exhausting, so it was nice to relax on the train. I was in first class (only because it was cheaper than standard) and it was nice and quiet, until we got to Birmingham New Street, which was only halfway through the four-hour journey, unfortunately. I did a bit of work on the train, but was feeling a little motion sick, so I finished reading my book instead – The Ghost Writer, by John Harwood.

After arriving in London, I unpacked a bit and then had a little rest. I’ve stuffed up the one Su Doku puzzle twice now. It’s only “difficult”, not even “fiendish”! I don’t know what the problem is. Must be tired.

As I said, the conference was busy but enjoyable. On Thursday morning I had to go shopping for an outfit to wear for my presentation. After much searching, I found a nice top in Oasis (love that shop!) and then a lovely black skirt in the Coast section of Debenham’s. I also bought a cable to connect my laptop to the network in the college, but didn’t manage to sort out access until lunchtime on Friday. I took the bus back to Hulme Hall instead of walking, because my feet were killing me.

In the afternoon, I skipped the EGM to have a rest and a nap. I had trouble getting up, so I was a little late for the first session – Cultures of Domestic Chemistry. The papers were quite interesting – looking at interactions of chemistry with everyday life, such as textbooks teaching chemistry through simple procedures like making a cup of tea; chemistry and the ‘science’ of fashion; and the marketing of toy chemistry sets. After that was dinner, where I met Eleanor, who is doing a PhD (practical mathematics in the 16th century) at Oxford; Shana, who is from Toronto, teaches for a US university online, but is based in London; and Martha, who is at the University of Toronto. Afterwards was the plenary lecture given by John Pickstone, from the University of Manchester. After that I ate some chocolate (bad, but it was so good – from Hotel Chocolat) and went to bed early.

Friday morning at breakfast I met a guy called Michael Hawkins who works for the Newton Project (IT and history of science!) and on Thomas Willis, a 17th-century physician. He was very interesting, not least because he was interested in hearing my paper. I went to a session on Darwinism – interesting to a point – and then to one on chemistry, which I left early to work out my internet access and get ready for my presentation.

My paper was in a session called “Frameworks of Thought and Belief.” The first speaker was Sophie Weeks, formerly of the University of Leeds, and now of the University of Cambridge. She has a junior research fellowship with one of the colleges (something I’ll be applying for in the next few years). Sophie works on Francis Bacon, and relations between his political philosophy and natural philosophy. The speaker after me was French. He had a very strong accent and spoke very fast, so I couldn’t understand much of what he was saying. That was a shame, because it seemed quite interesting. There was one quotation he used which was along the lines that if the physiological body was used as an illustration for the political body, what it would show would be that there should be more government control, not less.

(This is as far as I got while writing in the Roebuck pub last Sunday night. It’s now Friday night, and I’m in another pub down the road from where I’m staying, called The Trinity.)



My paper went quite well. I find I’m not getting as nervous before these things as I used to. My paper only took 15 minutes to read, which left 10 minutes for comments and questions. Michael Hawkins, from the Newton project, asked if there was any “bad” use of natural philosophy by natural theologians who just didn’t have sufficient understanding of it. He said that there was a lot of poor use made of Thomas Willis’ writings. I wasn’t too sure, because I’m looking at people who were natural philosophers, not just people who used it. However, I know that some of the Boyle lecturers were criticised for putting up such poor arguments that the case of the deists was thought to be strengthened rather than weakened. Also Ralph Cudworth, who I was talking about in this paper, and who was, at least in some sense, a natural philosopher, was said to have “raised such strong objections against the being of a God and providence, that many think he has not answered them.” I had someone else ask me how Platonist the Cambridge Platonists (Henry More and Ralph Cudworth anyway) actually were, or in what sense they could be considered Platonists. This is a tricky one, and something I’m still working on. Overall, I think I dealt with the comments and questions quite well, and I had an interesting conversation with Michael Hawkins afterwards, which turned into a discussion of ID and the differences between the political spectrum in the US, UK and Australia.

The session after my talk (after a coffee break) was a panel discussion with four past presidents of the British Society for the History of Science. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Society, so it was a rather event filled programme. The discussion was very interesting. Each of the four past presidents spoke on a different aspect of their involvement: one on how they came to be involved in the first place; another on being president at the time of the 50th anniversary of the society; the third on being involved with the journal; and the last one… Can’t quite remember. That’s why I should take notes! After this session, we all traipsed up the road to the Manchester Museum (which I visited on my first day in Manchester) for the presidential lecture and a drinks reception in the mammals exhibition area. The current president, Frank James, spoke about putting the history of science to work, and about Faraday. I didn’t follow much of it –not sure if I was just tired, or maybe his manner of speaking and his accent. The girl next to me fell asleep. During the drinks reception I had a nice chat with Sophie Weeks (the girl who presented before me) and with Rebekah Higgitt, who I’ve seen at previous conferences, but met properly for the first time while she was in Australia a few months back when she gave a seminar in our school. I feel as though I am very slowly getting to know people and making inroads into the inner sanctums of the society. I’m having difficulty breaking into the main group of young people who are extremely involved with the society – I’m finding it a little cliquey. I guess it’s difficult when I only see these people once a year – and only three times in total so far. I guess it would be easier if I were living and working in England, and had more opportunities to be involved with the society.

BSHS presidents preparing to cut the cake. From the left: John Hedley Brooke, Geoffrey Cantor, Peter Bowler, Frank James (current president) and unfortunately I don't know the other two

During the reception there was also a toast to the society, followed by the cutting of the 60th anniversary cake, with all the past and present presidents who were present. Afterwards, a group of about 30 or 40 people traipsed back down the road, following someone (I don’t think we knew exactly who) that apparently knew a good curry place, though the word was that any place along the curry mile was good. A good number of us managed to cram into the upstairs section of one place. I can’t remember what I had, but it was good – rather spicy, though. I met a guy called David Muns who said he once got drunk with my PhD supervisor, and who did his Masters at the University of Sydney about 10 years ago with Nicolas Rasmussen, who I have been working for as research assistant. Small world. Sophie and I left just after we had finished eating – we were both pretty tired. I still didn’t get to bed until late – it took me quite awhile to work through the 100+ emails I’d received and catch up on blog reading!

On Saturday, I went to all the events organised by the BSHS Outreach and Education Committee. The first session was about teaching the history of science online. Graeme Gooday chaired the session, and spoke about a tutorial he’d developed to help students learn about the limitations of internet resources. Michael Hawkins talked about the Newton and Livingstone projects, and John van Whye took us through the Darwin Project website. Fantastic resources. I particularly liked Graeme’s tutorial. It takes students through a series of activities, searching for things on the web, and finding out that sources can give conflicting information, and showing that some sources are more reliable than others.

After that was a session on “Talking Objects” – writing the autobiographies of museum artefacts. The committee has run a couple of pilot events, encouraging people to write the autobiography of objects from a museum. For one of these, they had an author and lecturer in creative writing to help out, as well as having curators on hand to answer questions. The idea is to use the motivation of writing the autobiography to “interrogate” the object and to find out more about it. It’s a fairly old practise – the example that inspired the project was the Autobiography of an Electron which Graeme Gooday spoke about at last year’s conference. The group I was with wrote about a box of wooden crystal models. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it, but I did. We didn’t win the competition though. Very sad.

In the afternoon, the committee performed a role play called “Plague on the Streets” – creating a kind of courtroom scene where members of the York council questioned witnesses to try to find out whether there was plague in York, and what to do about it. The aim is for this to be performed for teenagers to teach them the history of medicine. It’s supposed to be interactive – members of the audience can ask questions of the witnesses and suggest what the council should do. It’s got a lot of potential, but the people involved tended to speak too softly and it was rather hard to hear.

Cillian Murphy, who plays the physicist Capa in Sunshine

Another coffee break, and then a viewing of the movie Sunshine along with a discussion with the scientific consultant. I didn’t like the movie much. It’s sci-fi, but then all of a sudden turned into a B-grade horror flick which I wasn’t expecting and which brought back bad memories of Event Horizon. What was most striking was that the main character in the movie, a physicist (Cillian Murphy), looked remarkably like the scientific consultant (Dr Brian Cox), also a physicist. He said before the film that for him, it wasn’t about whether or not the science was accurate or feasible, but what it was like to be a scientist. I tried to watch the movie with that in mind, but I just couldn’t see it. If anyone else has seen it, I’d be interested in your thoughts. Another striking point was that the female characters were very “female” – much more emotional than the others. What we found out was that the script was written in a gender-neutral way – any character could have been played by a male or female. In fact, the first actor to be signed on was Michelle Yeoh, and she had first choice of characters. She could have been the physicist, but she chose to be the biologist who cried over the loss of her beloved oxygen-producing garden. Similarly, the astronaut played by Rose Byrne (hurrah for Australian actors!) wasn’t written to be so explicitly emotional – that’s something the actor brought out herself. Very interesting. Brian Cox spent quite a lot of time with Cillian Murphy, who learned from him what it is like to be a scientist. Cillian Murphy got to go to CERN at Geneva, and took quite an interest in particle physics - apparently even presented a paper to the Royal Society of London!

The multi-talented physicist Dr Brian Cox who was once in the band D:REAM

After the movie, we set off on a guided tour of the main history of science and technology sights of Manchester. Unfortunately, it rained for most of the 2 hour walk. It was still very interesting. Manchester is a fascinating city – so much history. I wish I’d had more time to explore it instead of shopping for clothes, but I probably wouldn’t have found many of these places on my own.

Touring Manchester in the rain

We ended up at the Museum of Science and Industry (which I’d wanted to go to) for the conference dinner in the Power Hall. Lots of trains. The dinner also included the presentation of the award for a photography exhibition. Dinner was quite nice – four very small courses (amusingly, there was only one vegetarian meal provided, and more than one hungry vegetarian!) but no dessert. Shana and I were thinking about exploring the Curry Mile for Indian sweet shops, but once we got onto the nice warm bus, we ended up feeling pretty tired. I wasn’t really that hungry either, so I just went to bed.

Joe Cain, from the University College, London, with his winning entry in the OEC's visual image competition

Sunday morning – a quick breakfast, then I skipped the last couple of sessions. The cheapest train ticket available was for the 12:03pm train, but I decided to leave even earlier than I had to, and had a nice relaxing cup of tea at the station while reading. And I got the chance to call my parents from a pay phone where my calling card actually works. And that gets me on to the train, where I started this post…

Episode 3 – More of Manchester

Part of the University of Manchester

After the church, I stopped off at Caffe Nero for a sandwich (a low-far option – some kind of wrap with duck in it – but quite tasty actually) and a decent LARGE mug of tea. I’m not really the kind of person who enjoys tea in tiny cups. After I got back to my room, I decided to lie down for an hour – which turned into 2 ½ hours. After checking with reception to see if my suitcase had turned up (which it hadn’t) and waiting on hold with the British Airways Baggage Tracing Service (service? What service?!) for about 20 minutes with no result, I went out in search of food. I wandered up and down the main street (which I found out later is Manchester’s “Curry Mile”), but didn’t see anything that took my fancy. It’s a very Indian/Lebanese/Middle Eastern area – lots of kebab shops (and fried chicken shops, actually). I ended up buying a sandwich from Tesco’s, which was quite ok. I watched an episode of Heroes on my laptop (“5 Years Gone”) and went to bed early. In my clothes, unfortunately.

This morning, I had breakfast in the college dining room, pinched an extra croissant and some fruit from the buffet, and checked with reception. Still no suitcase. Called British Airways again. “We are experiencing a higher than usual volume of calls. Please call again later.” I convinced someone in reception to let me use a computer to try the online tracking service, but the lady at Manchester Airport didn’t give me a file reference number. Oops. Hung out in my room, doing some work, until a text message from my mum convinced me to go shopping. Caught a bus into the city centre (would have walked, but it was raining and I wasn’t sure my light-weight umbrella would survive the wind) and endured about four hours of humiliation, trying on every pair of jeans and casual pants (and some skirts) in Manchester to no avail. What’s the deal with UK sizes?! I seemed to be between a 16 and an 18, but even some 18s were too tight. Insanity! I bought two lovely tops from Oasis (my favourite UK store – bought a gorgeous dress from there two years ago) and the girls were extremely helpful suggesting places I could try for jeans. I finally found a pair in Debenham’s (no, I didn’t get my colours done!) that weren’t too hideous.

I walked back to my room (there’s something about trying on clothes that makes me want to exercise, and I thought I should walk off the apple and low-far sandwich I had for lunch!), had a shower and called BA again. After about 25 minutes of holding (on my mobile, mind you) I finally got through. When I was told that they weren’t sure where my bag was, but that it was probably still at London Heathrow, I flipped out. “How is that possible?! I’ve been here for over 24 hours! I was told my bag would be delivered yesterday afternoon! How can it still be at Heathrow??” Poor guy. He probably has to deal with so many angry customers, and it’s not his fault. Apparently Heathrow is having lots of problems with baggage at the moment, although the ladies at Hulme Hall told me it happens all the time. Not good. He did give me a file reference number so I could check on my bag’s journey online.

Anyway, I was pretty upset. While I was desperately trying to find clothes, I kept calling the reception desk at Hulme Hall to check if my bag had turned up, which would mean I could stop shopping. And I had only bought a few things that day, because I fully expected to get back to the college and find my bag waiting for me, which would have meant that the shopping trip was a waste of time. And if the bag might not arrive for several days yet, I would have to go out shopping for an outfit to wear for my presentation. Jeans just don’t seem appropriate for presenting a paper to the British Society for the History of Science!

I snuggled under the doona and did some Su Doku, and when I felt calmer I got dressed in my new clothes. The jeans were actually not quite as bad as I’d though, and with one of my new tops and my corduroy jacket, it looked kind of trendy.

This is the Great Northern Railway Company's Goods Warehouse, with the Hilton in the background. It's now a swanky (but not very busy) shopping/entertainment/restaurant centre. I saw Mika just around the corner from here!

I got the bus into the city centre again, and started looking for one of the restaurants I’d thought about trying. As I was walking along, I could hear loud music and realised it was Mika’s “Love Today”. It didn’t sound like recorded music, but I couldn’t hear a crowd. I kept walking, and soon came upon a whole bunch of people in a square, and Mika performing LIVE!! I was so excited! Of course, I stopped to listen (and watch!) I don’t know how long he’d been performing before I got there, but I head “Love Today,” “Grace Kelly,” and “Lollipop.” I couldn’t get much of a view, but I was only a couple of metres away when he left the stage and walked into a nearby hotel. Ah, that made my day! But why had I left my camera back in my room?!?!

Since I forgot my camera, here's a picture I pinched from Mika's website!

At the moment, I’m sitting in a pub called Mr Thomas’s Chop House. I had fish and chips with tartare sauce and mushy peas (fantastic!) and a Bulmer’s cider. I think I’ll walk back to my room to work it off. It’s been quite nice and relaxing sitting here; at least, it was until some loud Americans turned up. This pub was established in 1867 by Mr Thomas Studd, and continued until 1900 by his wife and daughter. There’s a board listing all the owners – only 8 from 1867-1953, but 23 from 1956 to the present.

Episode 2 – Around the University of Manchester

Sculpture at Whitworth Gallery made from saucepans, metal jugs, spoons etc.

The Whitworth Art Gallery

Castaways, by Virginia Ryan

Since 2003 I have produced more than one thousand Castaways at my studio in Accra, Ghana. Each work is a collage composition created from washed-up materials I collected along four local shorelines: Pram Pram, Jamestown, Labadi and Anomabo. All the works are resonant with the colours of foam and sand, as the waves break on the very shore from where the inhabitants were once taken and enslaved to build the New World.

Castaways are hung close together in rows, as if in a continuous wave, remembering and recording the simple stuff of people’s contemporary needs and desires along the one-time Gold Coast of West Africa. The pieces are constructed from organic and inorganic materials, objects that were once desired and purchased, used and worn, carried and discarded, left to wash out and carried back in.

Anomabo Shoreline, by Steven Feld

When I first saw Virginia Ryan’s Castaways in 2004, I found them quite echoic. In their material tactility, color, volume, and assemblage they were audible to me as a complete sound environment. Viewing some one hundred Castaways on Ryan’s Accra studio floor, I felt as though I was putting my ear to a huge seashell and listening to the detritus of history. In the rows of objects I could hear the washing-up-and-out sounds that deposited Virginia Ryan’s raw data, her signs of multiple human and material pasts, on the shorelines of Ghana in the present. Anomabo Shoreline is a composition that responds to this way of hearing the visual material of Ryan’s Castaways, creating for and with them an acoustic memory of where the Gold Coast becomes the Black Atlantic. Composed from recordings made at several locations along the Anomabo beach, this composition is both a stand-alone listening document and part of a sound installation to accompany exhibition of Castaways.

Information from the Whitworth Gallery site.

More info on the Castaways Project here.

My reflections:

A long white room with a grey concrete floor. Ceiling sloped like a wave. One wall a brick façade. The opposite, a collection of Virginia Ryan’s Castaways. 11 x 51. Shoes, including a child’s Reebok thong. An abandoned teddy. Dolls’ heads and other parts. Combs, toothbrushes, trowels, bottles and other unidentifiable miscellanea. Dirt, sandy objects held in a neat white frame, some restricted by the boundary, some moving beyond. And all the while, the sound of waves crashing on the shore, carrying out and washing back up.

It made me think of "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" by T.S. Eliot:

The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.

Jennifer Vickers (b. 1977), Yesterday’s News, 2004

Newspaper coverage of the West’s “War on Terror” stitched into a patchwork “Log Cabin” design quilt. Exploring the subject of war from a female perspective.

The use of the quilt medium throws into contrast the highly ephemeral sentiments of tabloid headlines with the labour-intensive process of producing a family heirloom.

Manchester Museum

Not fussed. Just a typical natural history museum with lots of school kids! Looks like they have lots of interesting science activities for kids, though.


Highlights:

• Wild Britain photography exhibition (a bit like the “Wildlife Photographer of the Year” exhibitions at the Australian Museum, but all from the one photographer)
• Live frogs in “natural” habitat
• Bronze sculpture of Jenner’s first inoculation
• Matroushka (not babushka!) dolls in the shop

The Catholic Church of the Holy Name of Jesus



Do I feel closer to God in beautiful ornate churches? I don’t think so. But what does it mean to feel close to God? What does it feel like to experience God’s presence? Ornate cathedrals don’t seem like places God would hang out – he doesn’t dwell in places made by human hands – but he did give specific instructions for the temple to be built by Solomon. Perhaps I need to revisit this part of the Bible.

When do I feel closest to God?

• Experiencing the beauties of nature gives me an appreciation of the might of God, the creator
• Hearing about, or seeing, someone do something loving or totally self-sacrificing gives me a glimpse of the Christ-imitation to which we are all called.
• The depravities of human nature remind me of how fallen we are, of how much we need God, and of how deep and wise his mercy, grace and love are.
• I feel excited when I grasp a theological point or have something explained to me in a way I’ve never thought of, which opens up a whole new way of thinking about God.
• I am amazed when I read in the Bible how God always loved and forgave his people, and how he never gave up on them, no matter how many times they turned away (particularly in the writings of the prophets – the coming judgment but the promise that God would always preserve a remnant of his people) and I rejoice in the truth that God has shown this mercy, grace and love to me as well.

But I’m still not sure about this concept of feeling God’s presence. One thing I do know, is that ornate churches don’t really do it for me, although I do like church bells! I also like the way that these churches are so often open to the public, so people can come in, wander around, admire the architecture, pray, sit and think, light a candle, or whatever they want to do.

Strangely enough, after writing the above, I decided to spend some time in prayer, and I had one of the best prayer times I’ve ever had. Usually I’m not very good at praying – I tend to get distracted – but this time was really good. For some reason, I felt compelled to light a candle (in front of a statue of St Peter, as it happened) and I left the church feeling quite uplifted.

Episode 1 – Back in a Green and Pleasant Land

I have arrived safely at Hulme Hall, one of the residence halls at the University of Manchester. I’m here for the annual conference of the British Society for the History of Science, although it doesn’t start until Thursday afternoon. I decided to take a couple of days to get over jet lag. I’m glad I did. There’s no way I’d be able to sit through even one afternoon of the conference in my current state. I’ve been awake now for over 36 hours, only excepting a few short naps on the plane. I left Sydney at 5pm on Monday, and it is now 8pm on Tuesday evening. Of course, it’s only 11am here, so I need to stay awake for quite a few hours yet.


I went through my usual departure rush – finished packing just before we left for the airport at 1:45pm (check-in opened at 2pm!) but everything was fine. The lady at check-in was very grateful for my conformity to the baggage weight restrictions. Quite unusual for me, actually, so I was pretty happy too! My parents and my boyfriend, Matt, came to see me off at the airport. We had a cup of coffee, did a little shopping for small gifts to give to people in the UK, and then I said goodbye and disappeared through the sliding doors, looking back and waving until I could see them no more. I passed through security with no incident. I completely forgot to take out my little 1L bag with my bottles (less than 100mL) of liquid for inspection, and no one asked. I sat looking out the window at the planes, doing sudoku puzzles until it was time to board the plane.

Window seat – hurrah! Of course, there’s no perfect place to sit on a plane. I like the window seat because I find it more comfortable to sleep if I can lean against the window.

(Interlude: While writing the above, I was sitting in the bar at Hulme Hall waiting for my room to be ready. I’m the only early arrival for the BSHS conference, and they weren’t quite ready for me. Georgina, the lovely girl from reception, came up to tell me that my room was ready. I got my keys, trundled down to the building, found room G15 – door open, trash not emptied, bed not made, towels on the floor – not ready at all! So I went back up to reception, someone came down with me to check on the situation, and now I’m sitting in a little common room, again waiting for my room to be ready.)

OK, no perfect place to sit on a plane. The window seat is good for sleeping and admiring the view, but not good for getting up to use the toilet. The aisle seat is good for getting up whenever you want to, but you have to deal with trolleys banging your elbows and people climbing over you, and it’s not so comfortable for sleeping. The middle seat is just not good for anything. Fortunately, I don’t need to get up all that often. My legs do get cramped, but I can wiggle them around enough to (I hope) ward off the threat of deep vein thrombosis. I try to get up to go to the toilet when one of the other people in my row gets up. If it’s the person on the aisle, I can climb over the person in the middle. If it’s the person in the middle, they have to get the person on the aisle to move anyway.

(Finally in my room now!)


On the flight to London, the person in the aisle seat of my row was particularly cranky. He didn’t seem too happy when he had to stand up to let me get to my seat in the first place, and he was distinctly unimpressed when the lady sitting in between us and I decided to go to the bathroom. True, he was about to go to sleep, but I thought it would be better to disturb him while he was getting ready to go to sleep rather than wake him once he had already dozed off. But there’s no pleasing some people.

On the leg from Sydney to Bangkok, my entertainment-on-demand system wasn’t working, so I was just getting scheduled movies. I watched The Holiday – I missed the beginning, but it didn’t matter because I’d already seen it. I also watched Zodiac, which is not the best in-flight movie. The sound through the headphones is not great, so it was difficult to work out what they were saying at times and it was a bit hard to follow. Also, I was getting exhausted, and it’s a really long movie – 2 ½ hours, I think.

From Bangkok to London I had my entertainment-on-demand. Hurrah! I watched an episode of House, and a movie which I have already forgotten… At least I think I watched a movie. Maybe I didn’t. I was rather sleepy by that point. But it was an eleven hour flight – surely I watched more than just House! Hmm. Thinking… Ah, that’s right. Music and Lyrics. Obviously not very memorable. It was kind of cute, but not great. I also watched an episode of The Chaser’s War on Everything – the one with the Trojan horse. Highly amusing.

We arrived in London slightly early, but I still only just made it to my flight to Manchester on time. I had to get from Terminal 4 to Terminal 1 – fortunately they provided a free shuttle bus. But when I got to Terminal 1 and was about to go through security again, I had a problem. Apparently what I consider a handbag is too big for UK domestic flights. So, I had to go out through passport control and check in my carry-on bag. Unfortunately, I only had 30 minutes until I was due to board my flight, and the queue for non-British and European Union passport holders was immense. There was no way I would get through in time. There were a few other people around in the same position. One girl, whose flight was leaving 15 minutes after mine, was even more stressed than I was. She asked at the desk for British passport holders if they would let her through, and was told “it’s not my problem you’ve got two bags.” I must be much sweeter – when I went up there and explained my situation, the lady said “well, since you asked so nicely” and let me through. So then I had to find the check-in counter, check in my bag, go back through security and finally made it to my plane with several minutes to spare before boarding began. Unfortunately, my other suitcase didn’t make the connecting flight with me. Apparently it will be delivered this afternoon.

It’s interesting how security standards vary at different airports. My mum was helping me pack (don’t know what I’d do without her!) and we carefully prepared my little bag of little bottles of liquid, and I had those in my handbag, ready to whip out for inspection if required. When the plane landed in Bangkok, we all got chased off the plane, but fortunately were allowed to leave our carry-on luggage behind. After I turned my phone on in the airport, I received a message from my mum. She’d woken up at 1:30am and suddenly realised that despite our careful attention to regulations on liquids, we’d still packed all my toiletries in my carry-on bag. What were we thinking?! Fortunately, I had left it on the plane, so I didn’t have to get it through security at Bangkok. And since I had to check it in at Heathrow, I didn’t have any problems there either. But the security people at Sydney Airport let me through with not only several bottles of liquids, gels and pastes (more than 1L in total), but also a mini Swiss Army Knife and a manicure set containing scissors, nail file and nail clippers. Hmm.

Aside from that, the flight to Manchester was quite uneventful. A nice sausage, scrambled egg and tomato chutney roll and (finally!) a decent cup of tea. But once we touched down in Manchester, I was so glad that I didn’t have to be back on a plane for almost 6 weeks! The only problem is that my suitcase has not yet arrived in Manchester, but hopefully it will be delivered sometime this afternoon. It’s now 12:08pm, and I guess I should be out seeing the sights of Manchester. It’s so tempting to have a nap, but that probably won’t help me get over jetlag. Perhaps I’ll do a little work on my conference paper (still have to prepare the PowerPoint presentation!), go for a little wander and with a little luck, my suitcase will be here in time for me to have a shower before finding somewhere to have dinner. Stay tuned for the next episode!

(By now you will have realised the drawback of having a laptop while travelling – super long blog posts!!)

"The look"

Oops

I drove home from church last night with a flat tyre. Oops!

Field of Women

I'm keen to organise a group of girls to attend this event to support breast cancer research. Let me know if you're interested!

Saturday evening 11 August 2007, Telstra Stadium

13,000 women wanted to stand united in pink

We’re calling on 13,000 people – representing the number of Australians diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007 – to stand together and create the first ever Sydney Field of Women LIVE before the Sydney Swans v St Kilda match on Saturday evening, 11 August 2007.

Breast Cancer Network Australia welcomes everyone – supporters, friends, survivors - and anyone else who wants to be a part of this spectacular and memorable event.

Registration is $50 and includes a pink poncho, admission to the AFL game and public transport. 100% of your registration will go to support Breast Cancer Network Australia's important work.

Why Mr Darcy?

Colin Firth/Mr Darcy has the ability to make girls swoon. Why? you might ask. Stan did. He said:

Actually, when I watched Pride and Prejudice, I thought Colin Firth? What?! What's so good about him? Is it the one look that he gives to express many emotions?

I found that he was a bit of a player as well. I don't know - I just don't see it. When I was a single man, I thought, what's so good about Mr Darcy? I still think that now.

(BRACING FOR THE BACKLASH...)

I do have some thoughts on the topic that I'd like to share, but unfortunately I don't have time at the moment. I still need to work on the second draft of my second conference paper, finish the first draft of my third conference paper, sort out travel insurance, get an "academical letter of introduction" from my supervisor so I can look at manuscripts in the Cambridge Univesrity Library, photocopy my travel documents, and sort out countless other last minute details. Oh yeah, and at some stage I'll need to pack.

Stay tuned for Lara's theory on the attraction of Mr Darcy!

Obsessed?

I had a dream the other night that I kissed Colin Firth. It's possible that the picture of Mr Darcy has been at the top of my blog for too long. Oh well. I don't think I'm the only one enjoying it!

Weird coincidence

The library at UNSW is currently in a bit of a mess. Previously, we've had three separate libraries - biomedical, social sciences and physical sciences - plus the law library, which is still separate. All the collections (books and journals) from the three libraries are being merged into one single sequence. As a result, things are a little crazy at the moment, and books can be hard to find.

While I was working on one of my conference papers last week, I began a list of books that I wanted to check something in - just a list of call numbers on a scrap of paper. Today I finally got a chance to go to the library. I was looking for a book with the call number S283.0942/1. The book I picked up had a title that didn't sound familiar, but it was relevant, so I figured I must have forgotten. And I was expecting to have a biography of John Wilkins in my list, but since I already had enough books to carry, I decided to leave that until later.

I just realised that I picked up the wrong book - S283.092242/1 instead of S283.0942/1. The latter was the biography of John Wilkins, so I was right about that. But how strange that the one I picked up by accident was so relevant - Science, Religion and Belief: The Clerical Virtuosi of the Royal Society of London, 1663-1687 - and my paper is on natural theology among the early members of the Royal Society of London, c. 1660-1690. Ok, ok, so the dewey decimal system means that related books are close to each other, but still, that's pretty cool!

Therapeutic cloning

Gordon Cheng suggests that Christians act now.

Craig agrees.

Here's what I wrote:

19/6/2007

To the Honourable (insert member's name here),

I am writing to express my opposition to therapeutic cloning for the purposes of embryonic stem cell research. This type of research involves the creation of a human embryo solely to be destroyed and used for the extraction of stem cells. Even if there are medical benefits to be had, these will not outweigh the cost of human life involved.

Adult stem cell research, which does not involve the destruction of human life, is already achieving much more tangible results than embryonic stem cell research. I implore those with the power to make such decisions to ensure that funding is directed towards ethically acceptable avenues of research which are already proving fruitful, rather than morally questionable endeavours.

Yours respectfully,

Larissa Johnson

Update 12:04pm: I received an email from Fred Nile's personal assistant thanking me for my "excellent" email and informing me that both Fred Nile and Gordon Moyes would be opposing the legislation. I'm not a huge fan of Fred Nile in general, but this is such an important issue that I guess it doesn't matter to agree with him, just this once...

Update 4:37pm: An email from Hon Duncan Gay MLC, Deputy Opposition Leader & Leader of the Nationals in the Legislative Council of New South Wales, Shadow Minister for Roads, Shadow Minister for Ports and Waterways

Thank you for your e-mail regarding the human cloning bill.
I will take your views and comments into consideration when making my final decision.

We'll always have Paris

Nick is trying to make people jealous because he is in Paris and they are not. Nice beret!!

Christianity - the foundation of liberty

Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter.
- Jürgen Habermas

Click here.

Christianity - the foundation of liberty

Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter.

And the sky full of stars...

I drive past the airport every day on my way to and from uni. When I am driving home at night, I like to watch the lights of the planes coming in to land. For some strange reason, the shape of the lights - like an elongated star with the side "arms" cut off - reminds me of a Minbari war cruiser from Babylon 5.


As I've said before on here, I think there is something seriously wrong with me...

Happy Birthday Donna!

I hope you have a fantastic day!!

Enjoying it

Very fun indeed.

I like Mika

Is that bad?

Open up your heart and let the sun shine in!

Hear Frente's version here.

My mummy told me something
a little kid should know.
It's all about the devil
and I've learned to hate him so.
She said he causes trouble
when you let him in the room.
He will never ever leave you
if your heart is filled with gloom.

So let the sun shine in
face it with a grin.
Smilers never lose
and frowners never win.
So let the sun shine in
face it with a grin
Open up your heart and let the sun shine in.

When you are unhappy,
the devil wears a grin
But oh, he starts to running
when the light comes pouring in
I know he'll be unhappy
'Cause I'll never wear a frown
Maybe if we keep on smiling
He'll get tired of hanging 'round.

If I forget to say my prayers
the devil wears a grin.
But he feels so awful awful
when he sees me on my knees
So if you're full of trouble
and you never seem to win,
Just open up your heart and let the sun shine in.

So let the sun shine in
face it with a grin.
Smilers never lose
and frowners never win.
So let the sun shine in
face it with a grin
Open up your heart and let the sun shine in.

Bringing back memories...

St George Girls' High School.

On Wikipedia.

New links

If you peruse my list of links extremely carefully on a regular basis, you might have noticed a couple of changes. I've removed a couple of blogs which I no longer read or which have closed down, and I've added two new links.

• To Live Is Christ by the lovely Georgina (who I met in person before reading her blog!)
• True Lies by the talented preacher Stan Lie (who married a friend from my church - the lovely Clare)

In other news, I've decided to change the date of my post on "the look" so it remains at the top of the page for a bit longer. I rather like opening my blog to find Mr Darcy gazing at me. Matt seems to have an issue with that, for some strange reason...

It's Happy, Drug Free Bunny!

I've moved this back up to the top because yesterday I received a whole bunch of Drug Free Bunny stickers! I'm very excited! It seems that when I linked to the website, Google alerted the site's owner, Aaron Yeats, who then asked for my address to send me some stickers. Aaron is from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, Texas Alliance, and apparently Drug Free Bunny has been a big success. Hurrah for bunnies!

---

I've been a big fan of Happy Bunny ever since I saw the classic "love sucks" cartoon,* but the Drug Free Bunny website is just incredibly cool! Great to see that my favourite sarcastic and rude cartoon character also has a social conscience.

Here are some highlights:

Alcohol makes you say and do stupid things that you'll regret later. It also makes you fat, gives you zits, or even worse, it messes with your brain development.

Smoking loads your lungs with tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide and more than 200 other poisons. That can really hurt your game. Besides, nobody wants to kiss a smoker.

Meth rots your teeth, gives you diarrhea, and makes you scratch so much you get scabs all over. What would you expect from a drug made from gross stuff like battery acid, drain cleaner and antifreeze?

Using drugs, alcohol and tobacco doesn’t make you cool and won’t solve your problems — they’ll just create other problems.

It's Happy Bunny! really is the coolest bunny around.

*Phil, the guy who sits at the next desk in the FASS, commented today that I used to have something above my desk which proclaimed "Love Sucks." He wondered whether my removing this badge was related to "a change in the air" or something like that. Perhaps. I certainly can't say that boys suck anymore. Well, at least I have to acknowledge that there is one significant exception! Still love this bunny though...

Inside and outside the blogosphere

Out of the blogs that I read fairly regularly (and have links to in my sidebar) nine belong to people I either haven't met or didn't know before I started reading their blogs. I began my adventures in the blogosphere by reading Karen's blog (she had a link to it in her email updates), and as I'm a PhD student always in need of procrastination avenues, I started reading other blogs that she linked to. Karen has a fantastic list of blogs - I recommend checking some of them out!

One of the ones that stood out was Craig's, These Infinite Spaces - I liked the title and the Pascal quote in his header. I also started reading Duncan's blog regularly, and then when he posted about his brother, Matt, starting up his own blog, I began to read that as well. And through one of those, I came across Stu's blog. Through Craig's blog I started to read Nixter's, and both Chris and Tim found my blog somehow (still haven't figured out how). Through Craig's blog I also found about about Mike and Christine and their fairytale internet romance, and started reading their blogs regularly.

I've now managed to meet four blog friends in person. I dragged Tim along to a Descartes lecture a couple of years back (I'm impressed that he managed to stay awake!). I met Duncan at a CASE seminar on September 11 in film (though I didn't realise it was Duncan from Drawn From Still Water until the next day, when he blogged about the seminar). Matt and I started emailing at the end of last year after someone insulted me on Matt's blog, then met in person for the first time at a Word by Word dinner in January. A couple of weeks later he suggested we meet up for coffee, and after a bit of a rocky start, we've now been going out for over two months (yay!) And yesterday, I finally got to meet the very lovely Nixter!

I have to give credit for this to Facebook. Fantastic website. I'd been catching up with a few friends from high school and primary school, including Liz D who I hadn't seen in years. Nixter and Craig were both in Liz's friends list, as they all go to church together. Obviously, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to stalk them on Facebook as well as Blogger. After chatting to Nixter a little about England (she's giving me tips about sightseeing), we organised to meet up for hot chocolate - Nixter, Liz and I - and we finally got to do that yesterday afternoon.

The Lindt cafe alone would have been an experience, but it was great to catch up with Liz and to meet Nixter in person. They are both very lovely girls, and I hope we manage to meet up again sometime soon.

Email scam

From Dr. Mark Colby.
Address: 12 Kenneth Road
Tottenham London N8 9HG

Attn,

Do accept my sincere apologies if my mail does not meet your personal ethics although. Be so kind to contact me at your earliest convenient for a possible business deal involving money transfer of about £25,000,000 (Twenty-Five Million British Pounds).

In one of our peroidic auditing, I discorved a dormant accounts with holding balance of 25,000,000 (Twenty-Five Million British Pounds) which has not been operated for
the past three years. From my investigations and confirmations, the owner of this account is a foreigner by name Mr. Gregory.B.Wilson, and he died without a WILL.

I am presently in London working as an investment consultant with the above bank at their London office. And I am poised to work this deal out if we can do business.

As at this moment,I am constrained to issue more details about this business until your response is received. As we have not meet before,I will give you every details you
need to know regarding the business, and about me as we progress with the business.

So send me your nominate account information as states below where you like the money to be transfer so that I will write and apply an application for the release of the fund immediately into your account.

Beneficiary Name.......
Bank Name..............
Bank Address...........
Account Number.........
Swift Code.............
Routing Number.........
State & Country........
Your Tel/Fax Number....For easy communication.

I look forward to hear from you as soon as possible.

Warmest regards,

Dr. Mark Colby.
Chief investment Consultant.
Allied Irish Bank (GB).
www.aibgb.co.uk

Unbelievable

I'm already in a bad mood with people today, and the responses to this piece have not made me feel any better. I just want to sit down and cry for the state of the world.

A young man named Anthony Succar has written an excellent piece for The Australian opposing embryonic stem cell research and calling for resources to be given instead to adult stem cell research which, to date, has shown much more promising results. He writes:

ONE of the most frustrating experiences of life is the feeling of being used, exploited for the benefit of others while suffering loss or harm. It is a feeling of being violated and, while leaving self-esteem shattered, it kindles a deep sense of outrage.

This is how I feel every time I hear one of our politicians claiming that people who suffer from crippling diseases support embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning. When I was 14 I was involved in a motor vehicle accident that left me a C4-5 quadriplegic, paralysed from the neck down. With all the hardships I undergo everyday as a result of my disability it is even more unbearable being used as a marketing tool for the agenda of others.

Despite the rhetoric surrounding embryonic stem cell research, adult stem cell research has great potential to help people, with a record of documented results that excites great hope. Research is achieving substantial results using stem cells acquired from adults and umbilical-cord blood. Sadly, this inspiring research, which has filled countless people with hope, is being attacked by those brandishing alternative agendas, with the rise of embryonic stem cell research usurping the necessary resources for adult stem cell research to continue.

It is all the more heartbreaking knowing the frailest and most vulnerable in our society are being used by politicians and pharmaceutical companies to sell their lies. In addition to holding back authentic medical research, choosing an avenue with no foreseeable benefits over documented evidence of success, politicians have also opened the door for anyone to legally assault and destroy human life.

Considering that opponents of embryonic stem cell research are often condemned as having no compassion on those who the treatment will help, it is fascinating to read such an impassioned plea from one of those who would stand to benefit from the research, if it were successful. Some of the responses to this piece, however, are truly astounding:

There is only one key thing that explains your views on this subject. That is that you are catholic. You believe irrationally in an all powerful sky-god and the fact that people have a magical quality called a soul. This is because your holy-men told you that this is how things are.

The problem for you is that those who engage in medical research don’t believe in these things. But they are still engaging in their research to do good. Not so they can kill “babies”. They do good not because of the fear of going to an imaginary place called hell, but simply because they are good people.

Understand that most people do not share your irrational view of the world and suddenly people’s motives become a lot clearer.

A few undifferentiated cells is not a baby.

The Australian’s attempts to set itself up as the Catholic newspaper have surely reached rock bottom with the publication of this crap. You might enjoy being a quadriplegic Anthony, but millions of others don’t enjoy being disabled and desperately want the chance to be normal that stem cell research brings. Shame on The Australian for printing this and the moronic editorials defending Cardinal Pell.

The Australian has always taken a biased editorial view on stem cell research, utterly abandoning any pretence of balanced journalism.

How ridiculous to disparage medical researchers for holding out hope to people. No, not ridiculous: disgusting. Yes, there is hope in therapeutic cloning using pluripotent stem cells.

And it is ingenuine to claim that there’s sufficient evidence to abandon embryonic stem cells in favour of adult stem cells. Tell me, is an IT support analyst a valid source for expert opinion on the potential for stem cell therapies? It’s time that a scientifically literate journalist provided some unbiased reporting of the evidence base for each of these approaches. That might debunk some of the myths perpetuated by the theologically-motivated.

You ask me what I think… I think that this newspaper needs to lift its game, stop pushing a particular regilious line, and start representing all sides of this important debate. For now, The Australian does not deserve its name as the national broadsheet.

It's just incredible...

Singleness is better than marriage

Some interesting thoughts on singleness from Craig. Click here.

Richard Rorty is dead.

Click here.

One person commented:

While every death brings sadness, when we lose a philosopher it is hard to argue that we've lost much. Philosophers may set to themselves the task of thinking all that is thinkable. After getting my philosophy degree and postgraduate flirtations, I am much more interested in what is doable than what is thinkable.

Of course, it's much more of a tragedy that Paris Hilton was sent back to prison...

Isaiah, the atheist

A very nice post from Drew.

How to solve the world's problems - equal rights for women!

A very interesting article on women's rights.

Thanks, Duncan, for the link.

Nice. Very nice.

Just a little more evil than Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone."

Can a Scientist Believe the Resurrection?

Tom Wright gives a lecture at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion - click here.

And lots of other cool stuff on the Institute's website.

I'm just a girl (2)

Take this pink ribbon off my eyes
I'm exposed and it's no big surprise
Don't you think I know exactly where I stand
This world is forcing me to hold your hand

'Cause I'm just a girl, little 'ol me
Don't let me out of your sight
I'm just a girl, all pretty and petite
So don't let me have any rights

Oh...I've had it up to here!

The moment that I step outside
So many reasons for me to run and hide
I can't do the little things I hold so dear
It's all those little things that I fear

'Cause I'm just a girl, I'd rather not be
'Cause they won't let me drive late at night
I'm just a girl, guess I'm some kind of freak
'Cause they all sit and stare with their eyes
I'm just a girl, take a good look at me
Just your typical prototype

Oh...I've had it up to here!

Oh...am I making myself clear?

I'm just a girl
I'm just a girl in the world...
That's all that you'll let me be!

I'm just a girl, living in captivity
Your rule of thumb makes me worry some
I'm just a girl, what's my destiny?
What I've succumbed to is making me numb

I'm just a girl, my apologies
What I've become is so burdensome
I'm just a girl, lucky me
Twiddle-dum there's no comparison

Oh...I've had it up to-
Oh...I've had it up to-
Oh...I've had it up to here!

- No Doubt

I'm just a girl (1)

I might be a little concerned with my hair
I might need comfort more than my share
I might seem to follow fashion but claim that I don't care
My heart is your best friend when it rules my head

I might want to talk a lot but don't ask me why
And I'll get impatient if you don't reply
I might always search for something wrong, I want you to deny
And if you love me just stay close and hold me when I cry

Don't try to understand me, I'm just a girl
One of the greatest mysteries, you'll find in this world
I'm not hard to handle, I'm just a girl
I'm just a girl

I don't seek money but I want your time
'Cause I'd give my life for you, when you are mine
And it hurts me more than I can say when you pull away
But if you love me you should tell me everyday

Don't try to understand me, I'm just a girl
One of the greatest mysteries, you'll find in this world
I'm not hard to handle, I'm just a girl
I'm just a girl

You might think I'm too demanding
But you're just not understanding

I might like to take advice, but go my own way
And it's when I hurt the most I swear I'm okay
And it's always when you least expect I say I want to stay
It might take just a single kiss to steal my heart away

Don't try to understand me, I'm just a girl
One of the greatest mysteries, you'll find in this world
You think I'm an X-File, but I'm just a girl
I'm just a girl

Don't try to understand me, I'm just a girl
One of the greatest mysteries, you'll find in this world
I'm not hard to handle, I'm just a girl
I'm just a girl

- Bachelor Girl

There is something seriously wrong with me...

We are now in week 14 - the last week of classes for the session. Today I have my last tutorial for my Tuesday group in the first-year history of science subject I'm tutoring. I bribed my students to turn up by offering chocolate chip biscuits (home-made, too - they're really good!)

Anyway, we're looking at Thomas Kuhn today - scientific revolutions and how science progresses, etc. I had a bizarre dream last night. I was teaching this class, and not only did I forget the biscuits, but Karl Popper, Kuhn's arch-nemesis, turned up and and took over my class. He dominated the discussion and wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise! Keep in mind that Popper has been dead for 17 years, so if he did appear in my class, it would be a miracle. But aside from that, why wouldn't I want to hear from someone as famous in HPS as Karl Popper? I'm sure he'd do a better job teaching than me!

All very strange. It makes me worry...

Against religion

Nice. Very nice.

Click here.

Greg Clarke leaves CASE

Click here.

I look forward to seeing what the future holds both for CASE and for the new Christian Studies Institute that Greg will be directing.

An even more important question...

Why am I having so much trouble focusing on my conference paper?!

A very important question...

Are peppermint Tic Tacs not as strong as they used to be, or am I just getting used to serious mints?