The Daily Grind

To the best of my knowledge, nobody else did a demo at the World Congress of Science Producers.

Yes, the Reichstag; last Saturday. Apparently the parliament had to take a vote to let us in (‘us’ being the World Congress of Science Producers). The whole experience was a tad surreal, but somehow very moving too. As a building it’s such a symbol of democratic rule that it’s hard not to be impressed by the German peoples for managing to put it to its intended use – albeit a century after it first came into use. That alone is impressive.

But somehow, it’s even more surprising to be there as an Englishman. Sixty years ago, our fathers’ generation was bombing the crap out of the place – that I can now stand in the rebuilt (by a British architect, even!) parliament building, with nary a hint of that being remarkable in itself, is a huge achievement. Europe has come a heck of a long way, and that progress honestly gives me hope for the future. Sure, it took some time, and we’ve not solved everything yet by a long stroke, but hey – we’re mostly not killing each other still.

Happily, I made it back to Glasgow a mere four hours late, surprising when Amsterdam and Heathrow were both closed for parts of the afternoon yesterday. Some people weren’t so lucky. If anyone’s seen Sgt Mgr Pratt’s tank, do be a good chap and give him a bell on the old blower.

Over the weekend, we recorded the second half of the new series of How2. Far too much like hard work, but I think the results will be worth the effort.

Tomorrow, or some time like that, I head off to Berlin for a conference, where I’m talking about science TV for kids.

So life is pretty busy. Funnily enough, It Likes You isn’t back up and running yet. [sigh].

This evening, I made a model geyser. Well, I say ‘I’ – one of my colleagues did, I merely helped debug it. It’s not the most spectacular thing ever, but it is rather pleasing in its own way. Hence, it’s an ‘alright geyser.’ Ho ho, how droll.