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Mar. 10th, 2005 09:13 pmWe saw Lalla.
I made Kim and Mim come with me. To a certain degree of made, because they were fairly willing, because it was Lalla, but I made them walk fast because I was worried there would be no seats. There were not many seats.
We were greeted as: "Ladies and gentlemen, staff, graduates and undergraduates..." The man later confessed to being a Dr Who fan. Oh! Outside were people handing out flyers for a Creationist event. This will be important later on.
So they did readings. Professor Richard Dawkins was apparently wearing a tie lovingly embroidered by his wife, but we were not close enough to see. Lalla was terribly posh and wore a long floaty gold thing. It was quite interesting, actually, with stuff about how hippos are closer to whales than they are to pigs, and suchlike. Also, that according to the Catholic church, capybaras are fish. And there used to be giant capybaras, and various other extinct species, and. I might get the book - The Ancestor's Tale - sounds quite good. Though of course it will not have the wonderful experience of hearing Lalla put on an even more posh accent to say, "Sorry, sir, barnacles."
And then there were questions, and the people were terribly long-winded about asking them. Dawkins waved the flyer he'd been given - "'Is Evolution Compatible with the Christian Faith?' I hope so, or the Christian faith is in deep trouble." People laughed. Someone asked about religion, someone asked about truth... oh, he rambled on about Jesus and Pontius Pilate, and the reply was, "I can see why you're taking the part of Pontius Pilate, because you're washing your hands of reality." Um. Um? Also referred to flyer-givers as "lunatics" because of the six-days sometime past the Middle Stone Age. He was careful to separate them from the nice normal people like the Anglicans, though. Oh, and something about memes - I don't know if he's the one who first posited the idea, but it's in The Selfish Gene from 30 years ago, and he said, uh, "Genes are not the only pebbles on the Darwinian beach." Which I thought was a nice phrase.
And we did not stay for signings because I needed food. And now we are in Butts Wynd and we are going to go to Mim's and see Monty and watch Dr Who. Yay.
I made Kim and Mim come with me. To a certain degree of made, because they were fairly willing, because it was Lalla, but I made them walk fast because I was worried there would be no seats. There were not many seats.
We were greeted as: "Ladies and gentlemen, staff, graduates and undergraduates..." The man later confessed to being a Dr Who fan. Oh! Outside were people handing out flyers for a Creationist event. This will be important later on.
So they did readings. Professor Richard Dawkins was apparently wearing a tie lovingly embroidered by his wife, but we were not close enough to see. Lalla was terribly posh and wore a long floaty gold thing. It was quite interesting, actually, with stuff about how hippos are closer to whales than they are to pigs, and suchlike. Also, that according to the Catholic church, capybaras are fish. And there used to be giant capybaras, and various other extinct species, and. I might get the book - The Ancestor's Tale - sounds quite good. Though of course it will not have the wonderful experience of hearing Lalla put on an even more posh accent to say, "Sorry, sir, barnacles."
And then there were questions, and the people were terribly long-winded about asking them. Dawkins waved the flyer he'd been given - "'Is Evolution Compatible with the Christian Faith?' I hope so, or the Christian faith is in deep trouble." People laughed. Someone asked about religion, someone asked about truth... oh, he rambled on about Jesus and Pontius Pilate, and the reply was, "I can see why you're taking the part of Pontius Pilate, because you're washing your hands of reality." Um. Um? Also referred to flyer-givers as "lunatics" because of the six-days sometime past the Middle Stone Age. He was careful to separate them from the nice normal people like the Anglicans, though. Oh, and something about memes - I don't know if he's the one who first posited the idea, but it's in The Selfish Gene from 30 years ago, and he said, uh, "Genes are not the only pebbles on the Darwinian beach." Which I thought was a nice phrase.
And we did not stay for signings because I needed food. And now we are in Butts Wynd and we are going to go to Mim's and see Monty and watch Dr Who. Yay.
