El Reg Christmas Lectures to span space, big data and GCHQ What will you be doing in the run-up to Christmas? Mad dash round the shops? Crunching the end of year numbers? Warm white wine and cold sausages in a meeting room? Or will you be kicking back with other similarly bright people, sipping hand crafted beer and listening to a bona fide expert talk about space exploration; or …
"Unfortunately a London location rules me out. How about doing something in Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, York, Hull, hell anywhere north of Watford?"
El Reg is a media organisation and in common with most media outlets it has never ventured outside of the M25.
Since I'm in London these days, it works for me, but I'd agree with your post. The beer is certainly better the further north you go, and the absence of skinny Geordies suggests the pies are too!
A friend is a Russell Group university professor in something to do with Theoretical Physics. He had a relatively low opinion of Brian Cox based on his TV appearances.
Then he went to something scientific where Brian Cox was one of the speakers. My friend freely admits that changed his opinion to one of glowing appreciation - "He really does know his stuff".
Whenever I've seen any Brian Cox stuff on telly, it's been dumbed down science-lite with soaring instrumentals and lots of shots of him looking moody on mountainsides. But that's not necessarily his fault, that's just TV. So I don't watch any of his telly stuff. Sadly large chunks of the rest of the BBC's TV documentary output have gone the same way, so that Horizon is now pretty much unwatchable for example. Although there's plenty of better stuff on BBC4.
But if you listen to Brian Cox on Radio 4 (the home of civilisation), you get a much better impression. I was just listening to a podcast of 'The Infinite Monkey Cage' on my way into work this morning. Which I recomend. Scientific discussion with a mix of scientists and interested comedians - hosted by Brian Cox and Robin Ince. It turns out that Brian Cox likes to be rude about homeopathy, astrology, mediums... And chemistry...
If you were lucky to get to the Douglas Adams Virtual 60th party a couple of years ago, you'd have seen Jon Cuylshaw mocking him (Cox was meant to be there) by saying he was off on a BBC jolly pointing at stars and stuff.
Would have been nice to have seen him actually prove his stuff.
Sitting empty most of the year in Ibiza and the weather will be better than London or anywhere north of Watford, can't say much for most Spanish beer though we have some excellent local and mainland wines.
If you can't make the lectures there, you can at least do a podcast and post on YouTube
The Reg is of course read throughout the universe, indeed the majority of readers aren't even lucky enough to live in the UK.
So, let's turn this around...
A lecture requires a high calibre speaker, a decent venue and publicity.
The Reg can do publicity and knows some interesting people, venues outside London are a bit harder to arrange and of course the speakers are mostly London-ish.
I've been helping out with getting venues and it is remarkably hard graft, our glorious group editor had to use his charm to get the one we are using.
So who has influence over a nice venue that is accessible by public transport ?
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