Please join us at the Edinburgh Science Festival, where we will be doing four events. (Preview: BBC interview)
- Saturday, April 9, 2:00 pm, (Location: Informatics Forum) Science and Sea Monsters . Ig Nobel Prize winner Charles Paxton will explain the historic and current attempts to observe and interpret sightings of sea monsters. [Note: Dr. Paxton won his Ig Nobel Prize for a very different line of research, involving ostriches.] Tickets; Book tickets online.
- Sunday, April 17, 7:30 pm — “Improbable Research & the Ig Nobel Prizes“. (Location: The Jam House, 5 Queen Street). Tickets: Book tickets online. Featuring:
- Marc Abrahams
- Ig Nobel Prize winner Catherine Douglas (Veterinary Medicine prize 2009, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless)
- Ig Nobel Prize winner Richard Stephens (Peace Prize 2010, for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain.
- Sunday, April 17, 9:30 pm — “Improbable Research After Dark“. (Location: The Jam House, 5 Queen Street) An all-star lineup of scientists and science journalists will perform two-minute dramatic readings from studies that were honored with an Ig Nobel Prize. Some of the studies are on topics that might possibly, conceivably, theoretically, offend individuals who are prim, proper, and of high sensibility. We advise that anyone who is easily offended by anything should not come to this event. Tickets: Book tickets online. Readers include:
- Marc Abrahams (@MarcAbrahams)
- Ig Nobel Prize winner Catherine Douglas
- Ig Nobel Prize winner Richard Stephens
- Steve Farrar
- Sian Bevan (@SianBevan)
- Gordon Rutter
- Glenn Murphy
- Robin Ince (@RobinInce)
- Clare Marsh
- Jon Ronson (@JonRonson)
- Jamie Gallagher (@JamieBGall)
- Barbara Webb
- Others, to be announced
- Monday, April 18, 2:00 pm. — Newly Discovered Poems by William Topaz McGonagall. A Special Event, featuring a revelation of utterly no importance, but great historical interest: the first modern recital of two more nearly-lost poems by the bad poet William McGonagall. [This is a companion event — Part 2, if you will — to the Special Event that happened in Dundee on March 19.] The sequence following will occur:
- First, we will gather at the Old Town Bookshop (8 Victoria Street) at 2:00 pm for the reading of the newly discovered poems. Speakers TBA. Then everyone will together recite the ending of McGonagall’s masterpiece, “The Tay Bridge Disaster“. This event is free. There are no tickets. But space is rather limited. If you arrive too late (too late!) to fit inside the bookstore, please stick around [the bookstore readings will last 1/2 hour at most] and join us for the rest of the event, namely:
- Second, at approximately 2:30 pm, a walk to Greyfriars Kirkyard (map) for a respectful visit to the poet.
- Finally, we will all retire to the nearby White Hart Inn Pub (34 Grassmarket) (map), where anyone who likes will perform their favorite passage from a McGonagall poem.
BACKGROUND INFO: The video here shows a reading of one of the recently re-discovered McGonagall poems. Two additional poems will be revealed at the Old Town Bookstore event: