How I Learned to Stop Worrying

After a long bout of laziness and transport hang-ups I finally started attending Skeptics in the Pub again. For anyone unfamiliar with these types of event they are casual / enjoyable / laid back lectures and presentations on a variety of science and sceptical-based topics, the ones I previously attended discussed alternative medicine and psychic conmen.

The talk on Monday was titled ‘Progress in Astronomy’s Big Questions or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the 21st Century’ and was presented by Chris Lintott, an astronomer who works on the BBC’s Sky at Night. Chris was personable and engaging, and made what could possibly be very tricky information understandable and clear. The talk touched on a lot of topics within astronomy, which was great for an astropleb like me, though anyone more familiar with the subject may not have learned much, but that is the risk with any talk, I suppose.

Physics, with astronomy in particular, have a weird effect on me. This effect is characterised by i) existential dread, which then morphs slowly into being ii) seriously chilled out. Had I gone expecting this ‘drop tower’-style ride of emotion, I would not have been disappointed.

Some of the current theories and hypotheses of astronomy seem custom made to blow minds. The observation that only around 4% of the Universe is made from regular matter is deeply, deeply odd. It also suggests that use of the term ‘regular matter’ is ill-advised, given that since it’s in the minority that kind of matter is actually highly irregular. It is currently thought that 23% of all stuff in the Universe is dark matter, which is stuff that we cannot see, but whose effect is observable on ‘regular matter’. That is to say if a certain planet should be moving in a perfectly circular orbit (illustrated here O) and it isn’t, it follows that there is some invisible matter whose gravity is affecting it. Having climbed up to this level of understanding, it is then necessary to make another difficult clinb. We have matter: stuff we can see, dark matter: stuff we can’t see, and then in order to make calculations work in simulations, we get dark energy. We cannot directly observe dark matter, and from my understanding we don’t even know where or what dark energy is, how it works or where it’s coming from. However, when factored into calculations, we end up with models that correlate almost entirely with the Universe we see, which strongly suggests that dark energy is in fact there, and it makes up over 70% of what makes up the Universe.

It is this sort of information that leads to what I mentioned in point i). How am I meant to shield myself from complete intellectual meltdown when the vast majority of the Universe is made from something no one understands? I dabbed at my ears with a kerchief to stem the flow of brain (there’s little more embarrassing than rogue brain matter in a beard) and continued to listen as the topic changed.

So, according to Google the speed of light is 299 792 458 m / s, and I have no reason to distrust Google, after all it knows everything, and is my friend. And, of course, as we all know, nothing can go faster than the speed of light, right? Wrong, apparently. By this time my poor kerchief is aflood with grey matter, so fully has my brain been blown. According to observations, distant galaxies are moving away from us very fast indeed, of this much I was aware. However, I was informed, these distant galaxies are in fact moving away from us at around 40 times faster than the speed of light. I would have thought this would have been a problematic observation, but the solution to it is akin to stepping outside of the Matrix. The speed of light is not the fastest that anything can travel. The speed of light is the fastest that anything can travel THROUGH SPACE. The answer is that because space itself is expanding, this is contributing to the speed at which those distant galaxies are moving away. The speed at which space is expanding is not subject to the same limitations as are things moving through space, so it seems that it can expand however fast it bloody well wants to. At this point I’ve run out of brains and it is the actual structure of my skull that is now crumbling.

So with all the factors contributing to seemingly insurmountable levels of i), how does astronomy bring it back around?

The answer is stunning pictures and videos. Since Chris is a working astronomer, some of the talk was able to focus on very recent research, footage and images. He talked of the Sloan Survey Telescope in New Mexico which created a 3D map of large tracts of the local areas of the Universe, and we were also treated to images from the Hubble Deep Field telescope, which are always a delight. It is in these images that I find myself becoming ii). Such a simple technique, a pull back and reveal, applied to these pictures of such enormous complexity and depth, is so immeasurably soothing. As the picture pulls out, revealing layer upon layer of blips, swirls and clouds of light, each individually a galaxy, and as you focus on the foreground all the galaxies we have previously passed form a majestic, near infinite cloudscape in the background. Stunningly, stunningly beautiful. So, why does this in particular chill me out so much?

Perhaps the most fallacious component in the human psyche is our own inflated sense of self importance. It is very difficult for us to view any state of affairs from anything other than an anthropocentric vantage point. This is where all religion comes from in my opinion. We look at the world and from our observations we see a world, and in fact a universe, that doesn’t care about us at all. Humans indiscriminately die for no moral reason, simply due to the chaotic nature of things. This is an unpleasant situation to consider, and so there is no end of imagination and wish-thinking that we will go to in order to convince ourselves that this isn’t the case. For me, the deep field astronomical images are the perfect remedy for this problem. When confronted with this reality, it is impossible to countenance our wishful thinking. It isn’t negative to be freed from our fantasy in this case, for while it strips us of the false comfort of eternity and supernatural protection, the simple vastness of the scope of the Universe, for me at least, is an incredibly comforting thing. In my life I worry about a lot of things. Some of these things it makes sense to worry about: whether there is enough food to eat, a place to sleep, people around that I can rely on and whose company I enjoy. However, there are a large number of things I worry about that aren’t of any use. Wandering around alone in public I find myself very self-conscious, though in attempting to define the exact nature of that anxiety I find it difficult to actually explain. Am I anxious about people watching me, judging me? I think that is part of it. Also, days are filled with numerous unimportant encounters which, if you allow them to, can colour your life, bogging you down in petty concerns. These are the anchors which those images cut loose, for me anyway. I am vastly cheered by those pictures, because I can go about my business far happier, for a short while at least I am possessed of a fresh perspective which allows me to discount events and concerns for which there is no reason or function in allotting any importance.

I have been really cheerful ever since Monday, because I spent some time bathing in images of other galaxies.

Also I learned a little about the Universe where we live, in the company of pleasant people, and it only cost £3. All in all, time, money and effort well spent.

I believe a talk is planned for December if possible, though none is currently booked in. The next talk on the books of Cardiff Skeptics in the Pub is on Monday, February the 20th and is titled ‘Why Nothing Matters’. That sounds like I’ll be so chilled out afterwards I might need assistance leaving the building.

http://cardiff.skepticsinthepub.org/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/123642454331540/

Skepticism

Recently I have become preoccupied by skepticism, rationalism, critical thinking and science, and I have been watching and reading widely on these subjects. My research efforts have been a little formless and scattergun, so I decided to start blogging about it in order to give more form to my efforts. I am intending it to be somewhere I can write as I learn, to serve as a tool to help me keep track of what I am learning about, and also, hopefully, serve in some small way as a link to a community which is growing ever larger in the world, and especially online.


Who am I and where am I coming from?


My name is Adam and geographically I am from the South Wales Valleys. I am an atheist, and while I've never considered, nor experienced anything that suggested, that position to be socially controversial, it seems that it is widely considered as a minority position, and so in the effort of upping awareness I have no reservations about broadcasting my position. I am an atheist because there is no evidence for the existence of a god/gods.


I would like to be able to say that all of my beliefs boil down to:


I believe in x because there is sufficient evidence to support it
or
I do not believe in y because there is insufficient evidence to support it.


Unfortunately that isn't the way life works, and I, as everyone else is, am subject to presumptions and trust in arguments from authority. I believe it is only a rational approach that can help filter out presumptions and falsehoods from actual truth. At this point in human history our knowledge is so vast that it is impossible for any individual to have tested and to conclusively know everything we have discovered or worked out as a species. No one person knows everything, and every individual has been wrong or mistaken at some point in their lives. I believe it is through a process of rational thinking, skepticism and critical analysis (and self-analysis) that we can discover what is actually true or correct.


I don't believe this aim is easy to achieve. This is why I subtitled this blog 'A Skeptical Effort', because being skeptical is a constant effort, it is not something you achieve and then have built into you and suddenly you can think critically about everything. It is something you have to work at, and it involves the willingness to alter your position if you discover you are wrong.


I have a degree in English Language and Communication which, of course, is of minimal use when it comes to scientific matters, but I would say it has made me very capable where it comes to picking apart illogical or inconsistent statements, and also gives me a grounding in research and analysis. Perhaps stating it in such a way is slightly hubristic, time and my efforts will show whether I am mistaken in my self-assurance.


I am eager to improve my scientific knowledge and understanding, which I have left wither somewhat since school, but I am actively taking steps to improve. While I have an interest in all things skeptical, the specific area of interest where I have an acute fascination is religion, as it has such clear and tangible positions on morality, where it's pronouncements, by their very nature, are not open to discussion or alteration, which I believe is a stubbornly ignorant position, and ultimately negative.


My aim is to always be learning and thinking, and using what I learn to be better in interacting with other people. I believe in the importance and value of discussion, and am seldom happier than when pointedly philosophising with good people. I hope that I am always trying to become a better writer. I write fairly often, though broadcast the writing less and less lately, and I also record vlogs, up until now on the topic of the Welsh language, and I also write, perform and record sketches, podcasts and videos with my friends, in a comedy group called The ACRE. I, increasingly infrequently, perform stand-up comedy. I enjoy reading (favourite author Haruki Murakami), playing games (favourite game Final Fantasy 7), watching good films, good comedy and anime regardless of how good it is. I have recently discovered the abundance of long debates and talks on youtube and I have become obsessed with them. Above everything else I value thinking and talking, by myself and with other people. I can't do very good impressions and I know very few jokes. I almost always have a beard of some kind, but I distrust moustaches.


That's some of me and Why.

Fiction of a Political and Scientific Nature

The title of ‘most annoying news article of the day’ is shared between articles from the BBC and the Guardian today, though it seems self-defeating to award this prize, as they are the only news sources I habitually check.

The BBC article that has caused some annoyance to me is one that states:

“The Electoral Commission has said it will not be able to police the expected explosion in spoof internet videos at the next general election.”

What throws me slightly about this claim is that it is based on the presumption that spoof videos should be ‘policed’, as surely that would be quite a shocking example of censorship. The article doesn’t really go into details with regards to what constitutes a ‘spoof video’. This interests me quite a lot as I have written a sketch that is essentially a mock party political broadcast, and it intrigues me that if they could, the Electoral Commission would attempt to pull it. I could of course be misunderstanding exactly what sort of policing they had in mind, and it doesn’t really affect me directly as the sketch doesn’t exist as yet, but I reserve the right to follow in the proud British tradition of grossly overreacting to nothing in particular.

“complaints about potentially defamatory material, under electoral laws, remain a matter for the police and that cases will be investigated”.

The article fails to define the term ‘defamatory’, whose synonyms range from ‘insulting’ to ‘libellous’. While I agree that genuinely libellous claims are damaging, surely merely insulting videos are hardly a ‘matter for the police’? Or maybe I am just a desensitised cynic. We’ll take my sketch as a case in point.

Regardless of whether you believe the sketch would be funny, I am interested in whether it could be considered ‘defamatory’. It was meant to be a short sketch, opening on a shot of a chubby man sitting behind a desk, looking pristine in a suit. Without saying anything the man would then begin to growl softly, slowly building up to a crescendo where he starts barking, jumps onto the desk and eventually attacks the camera. The sketch would then end with a voice over disclaiming “this was a party political broadcast for the ”. I was wondering whether this sketch, which is clearly meant to be comedic in nature (whether you would be amused by it or not) would be considered ‘defamatory’ and removed. I hope not, otherwise I’d have to become righteously indignant along lines of free speech, harrumph.

The other article which rubbed me up the wrong way is one in which the Booker Prize, and more specifically its perceived bias toward historical or ‘worthy’ novels, was discussed. The article retold the opinions of one Kim Stanley Robinson, who I am told (by the article) is a well famous sci-fi author all up. He believes that the genre of sci-fi is tragically overlooked by people who are predisposed to judge sci-fi as being of no artistic merit. He believes that “the best British literature of our time” is based in sci-fi, and believes that there are “very brilliant writers doing excellent work who are never in the running at all, for no reason except their genre”.

I am not a huge fan of sci-fi, having grown up reading more fantasy-based swords and sorcery novels, and taken quite a sharp turn into straight fiction as an ‘adult’, but the sci-fi novels that I have read have all been utterly wonderful, however they have all been classics. So while I think that ‘I am Legend’ and ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’ are magnificent and thought provoking works, I’m not really in a position to comment on more contemporary sci-fi works, which is why I shall be reacquainting myself with the genre in the near-future. Whether or not Kim Stanley Robinson has a point, though I would argue he does, what aggravates me the most is the reply from Booker judge and all-around-numpty John Mullan.

Now what is particularly worth bearing in mind when you read the quotation I am about to provide, is that John Mullan is a Professor of English at University College London, and, therefore, should know better. In regards to why sci-fi isn’t better represented he says:

"When I was 18 it was a genre as accepted as other genres," he said, but now "it is in a special room in book shops, bought by a special kind of person who has special weird things they go to and meet each other."

Now the words I would pick out of that sentence as being of note are ‘special’ and in particular ‘weird’. People who read sci-fi are, apparently, “a special kind of person who has special weird things they go to”. I’d say that statement is hardly more intelligent than the childish labeling of people as ‘nerds’ and ‘freaks’ whilst in school. He is essentially saying “Oh of course there’s no sci-fi in the Booker, sci-fi is for weirdos”. What a knob.

If it was less depressing it would be amusing that someone holding a position at a University, who I would hope to be slightly less close-minded, would view a section of the public in that way. The way in which he describes readers of sci-fi sounds as though they have some kind of dubious sexual fetish. Of course I have fallen into my own trap there, by marginalizing individuals with a colourful sexual preference, which I have only done so that I am able to highlight this mistake in this sentence you are reading here. Huzzah, I am the King of self-referential meta-bloggery.

John Mullan seals his fate by denouncing the complaints as “absolute bullshit” at the end. I have no problem with University Professors swearing, but it hardly lends credence to your opinions, and makes you look like a reactionary dunce, cloaking the fact that you have no real evidence to back up your claims with aggressive language.

Schaa~ I am tempted to end this on a hilariously ironic fit of swearing to send up my own conclusion, but I like my last sentence so much, I shan’t.

You twonk.

Eu Hiaith a Gadwant

The focus of this blog is a topic that I have been avoiding for several months as I felt it was necessary to allow myself time to cool off as it is a subject that is quite close to my heart.

 

I currently study at a University in Wales, a University which boasts a proud bilingual heritage and views equality as being of key importance.  It is also important to point out at this juncture that the University has a Welsh-English bilingual policy, so that both languages are respected equally.

 

 It was due to this, and also due to the importance of the Welsh language to my own personal identity, that I was appalled at claims made by a lecturer (of Science) that the Welsh language was a hindrance to learning, pointless and should be abandoned since, as a language, it was dead.

 

Now were I living in a cartoon world at the point that information was given unto me, my face would have turned red, steam would have screamed out of my nostrils and my head would have eventually exploded.  The actual claims made by the lecturer were wide-sweeping, and so I will attempt to lay them out, as I understand them, in order to comprehensively critique and reply to them as well as I can.

 

Her claims, as I understand them, are thus:

 

1. The Welsh language is dead.
2. The Welsh language is pointless.
3. Students who learned science through the medium of Welsh have trouble adapting to it in English at University level.
4. Speakers of Welsh have trouble spelling in English.

 

I will now debunk these as far as I am able to.

 

Claim One: The Welsh Language is Dead.

 

My problem with this assertion is that the classification ‘dead’ is a vague one, that is ill-defined.  When does a language become dead?  Is a language dead when there is no-one left who can understand it?  Is it when the native speakers of that language all die out?

 

One definition I found was that a dead language is “A language, such as Latin, that is no longer learned as a native language by a speech community". (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dead+language).  Even this is unable to successfully tested, as it would be impossible to discover whether or not a language was learned as a native language.  The same website defines ‘native language’ as “the language that a person has spoken from earliest childhood” (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/native+language).  As I grew up bilingually learning both Welsh and English simultaneously, I would find it impossible to choose one or the other as a standalone ‘native language’.  I could define both languages in other ways, for instance I would select Welsh as the language of the geographical, social and historical context that I reside in, and yet I use English far more than I would use Welsh, mainly due to English’s status as an international lingua franca.  As Britain becomes increasingly more multicultural it is far safer to use English as the individuals I interact with on a daily basis range from Welsh to English, Chinese to Nigerian, Polish to Somali.  Should I use Welsh as a conversation starter in order to stubbornly stress a moribund point?  No, far more sensible to use English.  Does this make Welsh a dead language?  I would argue no, especially in terms of a dictionary definition.  It is estimated that there are 750,000+ speakers of Welsh (though this is from Wikipedia, and as such may not be hugely reliable), I think you would have to be slightly stubborn to insist that that number of speakers constitutes a language that is ‘dead’.  Notably, Welsh is one of a few small languages whose number of speakers grows every generation, usually when something is characterised by growth I tend not to describe it as ‘dead’, but I suppose I am not given to bouts of ethnic and cultural prejudice.

 

Claim Two: The Welsh Language is Pointless.

 

I will start this discussion by defining the term ‘pointless’.  In the same dictionary I used earlier it is defined as:

 

1. Lacking meaning; senseless.

2. Ineffectual: pointless attempts to rescue the victims of the raging fire.

(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pointless)

 

If you place these into the claim it becomes 1) The Welsh Language lacks meaning or 2) The Welsh Language is ineffectual.  All of these claims all work on the assumption that any given language is being used to achieve a goal, or that there is some underlying reasoning behind its use.

 

I feel that the assumptions upon which these value judgements are based do not apply in my own understanding of language.  Also I believe that if I were to look for meaning and effectiveness in the continued use of the Welsh language I could certainly find it.

 

In my personal experience of discussions on this topic, it is this perceived lack of ‘reason’ that troubles many people in regards to the Welsh language, especially individuals from a monolingual English background (the language not necessarily the country).  I believe that this is because any ‘foreign’ language that is taught in English-medium schools is taught with an eye for justification.  What I mean by this is that if monolingual English-speakers are taught French/German/Spanish (or whichever language) in schools, they are told that it would be profitable to have the skill of this new language (esp. in a financial/business sense).  Thus monolingual-English speakers relate bilingualism with practical aims and goals, which in my case is certainly not true.  My grasp of the Welsh language is a part of my cultural heritage, it is also a part of my identity, it is integral to who I am.  In this way I would argue that there is no need for a practical/financial ‘reason’ or ‘meaning’ for a language.  Even should this practical/financial line be pursued, it is incorrect, as I very recently got a job in no small part due to my ability to speak Welsh.

 

Generally the ‘point’ of a language is communication, and as long as there are people out there who can and do speak Welsh, it has a communicative ‘point’.  If it is insisted that this is not enough of a ‘point’ then I offer you this:

 

Mae unrhyw berson sy’n agor ei geg i twlu cachu ar yr iaith Gymraeg heb rheswm yn wirionyn, a dylai meddwl pa mor hurt yw ei eiriau cyn adael iddynt carlamu o’i geg.

 

Though that is a childish ‘reason’ for the Welsh language, it is merely satirising the equally childish and ignorant nature of the original claim.

 

Claim Three: Students who learned science through the medium of Welsh have trouble adapting to it in English at University level.

 

This is an interesting claim, as I have the least hands-on knowledge of this occurrence I am less certain of my rebuttal.  Though I am studying English Language at University, a number of my close, Welsh-speaking, friends are studying Science, and seem to be having little trouble succeeding.  No more trouble than monolinguals at any rate.

 

Though I no longer study the subject, I had studied it, through the medium of Welsh, until A-Level.  I studied triple science at GCSE level, and though they weren’t my strongest subjects did okay in them.  It interests me that this claim notes that studying science through Welsh hampers their understanding of the subject in English.  For the most part, scientific terminology in Welsh are largely borrowed from English, and English itself borrows heavily from other languages in terms of scientific terminology.  Here is a non-exhaustive list of some of the huge changes that Welsh has imposed on science terminology.

 

English – Welsh

 

Biology – Bioleg

Physics – Ffiseg

Chemistry – Cemeg

Electronics - Electroneg

Alkali – Alcali

Acid – Asid

Atom – Atom

Atmosphere – Atmosffer

Battery – Bateri

Celsius – Celsiws

Capillary – Capilari

Decibel – Desibel

Electrolysis – Electrolysis

Energy – Egni

Mass – Mas

Molecule – Moliciwl

Momentum – Momentwm

Osmosis – Osmosis

Oxygen - Ocsigen

At this point I think I’ll stop as I feel I’ve expressed my point satisfactorily.  Of course this similarity isn’t universal, and there are some terms that aren’t so obviously linked.  Some examples of these are:

 

Buoyancy – Brigwth

Current - Llif

Bunsen Burner – Llosgydd Bunsen

Freezing Point – Pwynt Rhewi

Friction – Ffrithiant.

 

The difference between these terms is that they also exist outside of science, and so these terms are certainly in the minority, and as the science gets more complicated, the terminology get ever more similar.

 

At this point I must also note that there are students of all nationalities studying science at University, and I can’t help but note that no first language interference is suggested with any other nationalities.  Would the claim that a student's bilingualism is affecting their ability to study science be taken quite so passively if the first language of that student was Arabic?  Or French?  Or any other language at all?

 

“People who speak Arabic as their first language can’t do science in English.”  This claim wouldn’t be accepted quietly in the current social climate, especially with the amount of research there is to back up that claim, namely none at all.

 

The claim that a knowledge of Welsh interferes with ability to study science through English is one I refuse to accept, and only watertight evidence to suggest otherwise would convince me to reappraise my conclusion.

 

Claim Four:  Speakers of Welsh have trouble spelling in English.

 

When this was told to me I laughed until my head hurt.  The utter preposterousness of this claim gave me a migraine.  I offer you this anecdote.

 

A small child in a Welsh-medium school receives an English spelling test every week, on Friday.  At the beginning of the week the entire class are provided with a list of words they will be tested on, and sometimes a few wild cards are added, just for that little bit of extra excitement and jeopardy.  Week after week that child receives full marks in the spelling test (as he also does in a parallel Welsh test) because he is a fucking amazing spelling machine.

 

THAT CHILD WAS ME!

 

I challenge any hapless curmudgeon foolish enough to claim that my ability to speak Welsh affects spelling in English to a spelling competition.  I will spell you all over the walls, your rotting illiterate entrails will hang from the rafters of my linguistic cathedral, and you will bow down in obeisance to my superior spelling might.  The supernatural war-hammer of my spelling glory will splatter your idiocy all up on my altar.  My unholy spelling lightning-bolt-of-Zeus will incinerate your absurd preconceptions of the nature of spelling accuracy.

 

I think the general level of spelling accuracy in English, which in my experience is fairly poor, has reasons that lie outside of bilingualism, and the fact that many English-speaking monolinguals can’t spell for shit certainly backs up this claim.  It isn’t bi- or multilingualism that is to blame for poor spelling, I would suggest that it is the prevalence of ‘electronic language’, in particular txtspk.  Ba mebbz I dno wa I is tlkin bwt laik lol.

 

I suppose my conclusion, such as there is one, is thus:

 

Welsh isn’t ‘dead’, language doesn’t have to have a ‘point’, speaking Welsh doesn’t make you crap at science and speaking Welsh doesn’t inform how good you are at spelling in English.

 

It seems to me that there is an underlying dislike of the Welsh language, and perhaps the Welsh culture, in the individual who made these claims.  Perhaps when the individual was a child, the Welsh language invaded the farm where she lived and slaughtered her parents, and then perhaps the Welsh language held the individual captive and eventually sold her into academic slavery, and this resulted in the dislike that she feels for the Welsh language.

 

Whatever the reason, there certainly is a level of prejudice against the Welsh language that is fuelling her desire to pointlessly besmirch the language in the ignorant way she did.  What I really can’t understand is this:

 

If you dislike the Welsh language so much, why would you come to work in a University that has a very strong policy of bilingualism?

 

If you don’t like Welsh, why work in Wales?

Seizures, Science, Rockets, Radox & The Bristol Stool Chart

I find myself indebted to the Science Festival that was the cause of the comedy night that I had the privilege of attending last night (Sunday 7th). It fashioned itself as an experimental night, an attempt to discover whether Science & Comedy can be mashed together in a sweet & sour mix of information and hilarity.

The night was itself was a bit like a campfire. A stuttering beginning could have led to a regret of ever going camping, but after awhile we were all very glad to have made the trip. By the end of the night there was a veritable bonfire of hilarity to be witnessed, though, as comedy is a subjective thing, I may not be speaking on behalf of all attendees.

The line-up was a good one then, and though we had seen one comedian, Henry Widdicombe, perform on the Tuesday previous, seeing him go through the same set made it funnier, rather than tedious, perhaps due to the nature of the particular audience. Though the material hadn't gone down badly in the Union, it went down particularly amazingly in front of a crowd of scientists (or at least a pro-science audience).

The compere, Mark Olver, was masterful in his ability to stoke the audience, especially considering the unique nature of the crowd.

The opening act then was Dan Mitchell, who we'd also seen recently, and his material this time around was just as good. We found particular glee in his use of Welsh translation as a comic tool, and we agree that jellyfishes are indeed Conts Y Mor.

The specifically scientific comedy was brought by Helen Keen, Dave Steele and Dean Burnett, each looking at both science and comedy quite distinctly from each other, and yet each teasing the comedy out of their subjects well.

Overall it was an absolutely hilarious line-up, each quite different from the other and yet all styles fused together wonderfully. The audience certainly were a bit static at times, and it was mused on by the acts that perhaps comedy and science weren't wholly compatible due to this, however for me, the times where the audience were slightly awkward simply aided the comedy. At the very least, I wholly enjoyed myself.