- The whole of the market street in Angel was closed due to a police incident.

- I went down the university for the Festival of Geology www.rockwatch.org.uk . It must be the UK's biggest one. I had to listen to the States of Order and Disorder lecture through the door, but the bits I caught were good. Basically Duncan Wingham like other geologists I have heard he was pooh poohing a lot of the claims made by Climate Change panic people .. "no, we've seen all that before etc". Things are complicated than the bandwagon people assume
- in particular there is the order of the solid as opposed to the disorder of the liquid. Water doesn't always freeze at zero it can freeze at 3C like snowflakes or actually be liquid to -40C as water cannot freeze without a "seed". So one special amoeba keeps it's inside contaminant free to avoid it's centre freezing.

- Went to the globetrotters.co.uk meetup. It was strange that most of the people there were older people interested in travel rather than real globetrotters. As normal people are afraid to go and "do it", The lectures were interesting though.

Martin Featherstone Northern India - Rajahstan to Varanassi Martin takes us on a journey to india visiting the Elephant Festival in Rajahstan, bodies burning on the Varanassi ghats, inside the Rat Temple ,the Indo-Pakistan border ceremony and also the sex temples of Kujaharo .. a very good speaker, but of course he was not there long enough to give deep cultural insights.

Jennifer Barclay How I Went to Korea and Learned to Love Kimchi. A brave effort writing a book about Korea when she has only been there 3 months. Most of the stuff she mentioned is listed in the culture section of the guidebooks anyway,

- I went to an Irish Music session in the pub, but it was too noisey to hear it.

- I was at the Wellcome Museum - it wasn't great

- Then I was at the kids performance the The Trad Gathering- Camden Irish Music Festival- the musicians were expert, but I find the music is not to my taste it's too monotonous

Research Seminars History of Psychiatry Why History Matters: 'Deep' Reasons and Rhetoric in the History of Psychology by Roger Smith from his 2007 Book Being Human (Philosophy of)

- he argues : can't study humans without studying history around them, they are governed by the context.
- so criticises psychologists etc for wrong targeting of research.

- I say : Yes in the past science was vague having to toe the line of a party or king etc, but surely today has it's own culture above human culture scientists are concerned with precision not vagueness ? they seek universal truths.

- 2 types of knowledge
-1. universal
-2. context
.... so it's like universal research vs anecdotal
- universal is of much higher value you can take it to the bank .... anecdotal is way inferior
- we can test universal cos it seems to work across contexts and even species
- e.g counting research in Australia aborigines don't have words for the number, but clear lthey can count.

- surely scientists are a victim of the imprecision of language.
- maybe he is arguing that psychology is different : it depends on language so lacks precision
- but surely we deliberately use mathematical notation in psychology to be more precise

- talked about problems of specialization. saying that it doesn't carry over into other scientific fields.

- looping - gave Dutch heroin experiment as an example where style of the experiment influences the guinea pig ..... better than street heroin.

-Question in soviet times did they try any unethical research like bringing up children in an artificial environment ? that would be an experiment out of culture.

- "Quite simply the best open mic currently running in London"
- Nothing spectacular that night, but interesting to see : no public just musicians and their friends .. some can play really well.

- It was interesting to meet the Malaysia musicans (Peter and Markiza) daugter

- Actually I'm not interested in the subject I just went for the experience cos it was at the Royal Academy .. the building is just like the old British club used in the film : Around The World in 80 days .

... 80 years ago someone left money so that their could be an annual lecture about archaeology as a tool to confirm the bible .. obviously archaeology has changed quite a lot since then, so the lecture seems rather antiquated ... they were all church society people
- classy free wine afterward.

- The study I did turned out to be this years famous experiment ..the one where your own hand is put in a box and you watch a plastic hand being stroked .. on seeing this many people begin to feel it's their own hand being touched.

- I went to a lecture at SOAS about the Tribes of Arunchal Pradesh : ( between Tibet and Assam an exhibition at the British Museum)
-1. Monga Tribe - Buddists with a culture similar to Bhutan & Tibet.
- Recently rebuilt one of their main temples.
- Mask theatre is large part
- build iron chain & bamboo bridges

-2. Apatani Tribe - another language, but not written.
- Religion -chicken liver astrology
- industry is basic a bit of basket weaving, a bit of weaving with unpicked wool and cymbal making.

- Now the trade border with Tibet is open so Chinese products are trickling across the pass.

- obviously the temple has been rebuilt., but I was concerned about the loss of traditions so I asked
- Schooling is in Hindi, many people end up going away and learning English.
- so maybe this is an elephant in the room people don't talk about for political reason ... as the answer was "yes indigenous traditions a declining, but that's progress."

- I knew I could take a bus from Liverpool St for £9, but it felt wong to travel south to go north. It would have been 30mins +maybe 15m wait + 75 min trip = 2 hours. - Instead I used my travel card to take the 259 bus NW through London then 279 to Waltham Cross, but in the last stretch there were road works so it took 105mins. I could have paid £7 for an Arriva daypass and taken a bus to Harlow and switched to the local bus passing the airport, but time was a bit tight so I switched to the train.

- but again I was unlucky the Stansted Airport Train passes Waltham Cross, but doesn't stop, so I had to first take go to Cheshunt then take a train to Harlow, but I had to wait a while there as not every train stops there so 40 mins of train & 35 mins waiting.

- It took me 3 hours door to door. However since check-in closes at 40 minutes before and not 2 hours I expected I was 50 minutes ahead of schedule anyway !

I can't understand why my friend Richard is so much luckier with girls than me ... all he does introduce himself "Hi, I'm Rich", is all he says and then they are all over him.
original joke by me