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Space Shambles
Jun. 17th, 2018 08:53 pmOn Friday night, I met Alistair at the Home Office, went on to dinner and then on to Space Shambles.
The Home Office turns out to be the first department I've met with the reception area on the other side of the security clearance. I had planned to read a book whilst waiting. In the end, I booked myself in (explaining I wasn't going inside, and helped by having a civil service security pass) and was then allowed to sit in reception. Security were nice, but the arrangement was weird.
Dinner was at Ask Italian by Gloucester Road tube. Whenever I go to events at the Royal Albert Hall, that's where we go for dinner (up until now it's been all the Chris/Krys' and Martin for Distant Worlds). It was a decent dinner (a version of carbonara and profiteroles for me along with a diet coke), although by the end I was keen to get the bill and leave.
The Royal Albert Hall seemed further away than it had on the map, but we got there eventually. The door we wanted was the first we found and we breezed through security. We also spotted Andie, Sarah and Adam. Inside we found a Hanbury and discovered that, whilst on the same row as the others, the row itself separated at the aisle. We were effectively two rows forward of them because we were on one side. We chatted in the interval though.
The show itself was a mixture of comedy, music and space. It was presented by Robin Ince (a comedian) and Chris Hadfield (a Canadian astronaut). Highlights included measuring pi using a pie on a pendulum, landing a space rocket in a laser version of an old arcade game, discovering that space smells of witches (!), Professor Monica Grady (who talked about the Rosetta spacecraft and ought to have her own show), Professor Lucie Green (who explained that the technical term for a picture of the sun in visible light - as opposed to ultra-violet, etc - is "boring") and Robin Ince reading out the Daily Mail editions from various historic points such as the moon landing, it was scarily unchanged (front page "Man Lands on Moon", second page, "Astronaut's wife goes shopping"). I enjoyed it and my main complaint is that it over-ran so much that I had to leave before the end in order to be sure of the train I wanted to catch (it was supposed to finish at 10:25 and I left at 10:45).
I think I would go again, if there were other people around keen to go and if the start time was earlier - or, at least, no later.
The Home Office turns out to be the first department I've met with the reception area on the other side of the security clearance. I had planned to read a book whilst waiting. In the end, I booked myself in (explaining I wasn't going inside, and helped by having a civil service security pass) and was then allowed to sit in reception. Security were nice, but the arrangement was weird.
Dinner was at Ask Italian by Gloucester Road tube. Whenever I go to events at the Royal Albert Hall, that's where we go for dinner (up until now it's been all the Chris/Krys' and Martin for Distant Worlds). It was a decent dinner (a version of carbonara and profiteroles for me along with a diet coke), although by the end I was keen to get the bill and leave.
The Royal Albert Hall seemed further away than it had on the map, but we got there eventually. The door we wanted was the first we found and we breezed through security. We also spotted Andie, Sarah and Adam. Inside we found a Hanbury and discovered that, whilst on the same row as the others, the row itself separated at the aisle. We were effectively two rows forward of them because we were on one side. We chatted in the interval though.
The show itself was a mixture of comedy, music and space. It was presented by Robin Ince (a comedian) and Chris Hadfield (a Canadian astronaut). Highlights included measuring pi using a pie on a pendulum, landing a space rocket in a laser version of an old arcade game, discovering that space smells of witches (!), Professor Monica Grady (who talked about the Rosetta spacecraft and ought to have her own show), Professor Lucie Green (who explained that the technical term for a picture of the sun in visible light - as opposed to ultra-violet, etc - is "boring") and Robin Ince reading out the Daily Mail editions from various historic points such as the moon landing, it was scarily unchanged (front page "Man Lands on Moon", second page, "Astronaut's wife goes shopping"). I enjoyed it and my main complaint is that it over-ran so much that I had to leave before the end in order to be sure of the train I wanted to catch (it was supposed to finish at 10:25 and I left at 10:45).
I think I would go again, if there were other people around keen to go and if the start time was earlier - or, at least, no later.
