venta

Last Christmas, I got an unexpected text message from leathellin: she was in London, did I want to meet up (I think we went and ate pizza, but that's not important right now).

She'd been in town the previous evening for some sort of Christmas extravaganza organised by Robin Ince and Brian Cox. It all sounded like fun. Should she get tickets for us when she bought next year's? Yes please, we said.

Last Friday, it suddenly seemed to be nearly Christmas again and time for this year's performance. Despite the rather grandiose title, Brian and Robin's Christmas Compendium of Reason is actually a science-based variety show. Now, I do love a good variety show - I like the idea that I can be interested in anything, if it's done well, and that I don't know what's coming next. And this variety show could not get more various. We'll have a talk from a geneticist about the role of virus DNA in the human body, then someone explaining the primary sexual characteristics of the spotted hyena, then a section on astronomy and then Charlotte Church will sing. After the break, Ben Goldacre doing statistical regression live on stage (no, really), then Andrea Sella to blow some shit up, and a classical string quartet.

There were a lot more acts that that - Bridget Christie, Andy Hamilton, Chris Hadfield, and a host of usual suspects like Greg Foot and the Festival of the Spoken Nerd... Not to mention more musicians, academics and comedians whose names I didn't catch (there is no formal program). So many acts that I've only just remembered the guy who (backed by the house band) did a song explaining the relative sizes of things in space using fruit as a reference point. The evening closed with short set from New Order.

It was a genuinely great, and educational, night out. Thanks to Leathellin for both telling me about it and organising me into going.

Ince and Cox announced that - apparently because they've burned through all their favours now - there wouldn't be a Christmas Compendium in 2016. On Saturday, ChrisC spotted that they'd lied. Tickets are on sale, I highly recommend it.

Leathellin and AdamH stopped over with us, so the following morning I dragged them down to my new favourite brunch spot and then we wombled slowly over to the Natural History Museum. I think the vague intention was that Leathellin wanted to do some Christmas shopping in its shop, but really who needs an excuse to go to the NHM? It's one of my favourite pieces of architecture, ever, and apparently they have exhibits in there as well.

We strolled around and looked at stuff, then Leathellin and AdamH went off to catch a train and we found a nice comfy bench in the main hall. I can quite happily stare around that hall almost indefinitely, and it was nice to get a chance to say cheerio to Dippy before he goes.

We went to see what was going on with the semi-dismantled whale skeleton who will replace him, and accidentally ended up in among the dinosaurs. For the first time ever, there wasn't all that much of a queue to see the T-Rex. If you're not familiar with the NHM, then they have a real live T-Rex which they have caught and corralled at one end of the dinosaur exhibition. You'd think that'd be rather dangerous, but apparently they're allowed to do it - the tyrannosaur stands there roaring and menacing while people look on over a frankly too-small fence. I'm honestly not sure about their lighting choices, though, they're rather B-movie...