14 July 2016, 8 pm
At dinner I sit next to Professor Sir Robin Jacob. I have mentioned before that Sir Robin does not suffer fools gladly, so sitting next to me for three whole courses makes him very un-glad. Luckily, the person on his other side shares his interest in the Test Match, so they are able to look at Sir Robin’s mobile phone all evening to keep an eye on just how testing the match is, which is not half as testing as talking to me. I talk instead to the new Chair of IPReg. I tell her all about CIPA. She writes notes on the back of her menu when she thinks I’m not looking. Oh, but I am. After dinner we have a Famous Speaker. His name is Robin Ince and apparently he has been on telly a lot, but that means little to at least half the people in the room who have not watched live television since John Noakes left Blue Peter. Still, Mr Ince being a Serious Grade Celebrity (ie one that the rest of the world has heard of as well), even Sir Robin is moved to look up from his phone for a moment. Mr Ince gets hugely passionate about science, especially when you are paying him to do so. We must have accidentally paid the “After Dinner Speech with Extra Bounce” supplement because he does indeed appear to be bouncing at times, so passionate is he about wave-particle duality and the bollocks behind homeopathy. But thanks to Mr Davies’s briefing notes, he has well got the measure of tonight’s audience. He tells lots of geeky science jokes, but he tells them quickly so we don’t have time to question his accuracy. The jokes are about the Large Hadron Collider (which I think is a fairground ride) and Quantum Physics (which I think is a James Bond film) and Brian Blessed (which I think is something they sing at church, only MUCH MUCH LOUDER). Mr Ince also makes fun of Professor Brian Cox, which I think is just plain tactless because Mr Davies is in love with Brian Cox and it is Mr Davies who will be paying the speaker’s fees. Following Mr Ince’s getaway, the Black IPs take to the stage and we realise that Brian Blessed is actually a little on the QUIET SIDE compared to the noise levels Mr Roberts and his colleagues can generate. It is little wonder, in fact, that Mr Roberts is in charge at UNION-IP and that UNION-IP is always written in CAPITALS. Even our Chief Shouty Person Mr Lampert cannot make himself heard over the Black IPs. So we give up trying to talk to one another and take to the dance floor instead. The pleated corpse completes its death throes. By midnight I am so weary I don’t even mind that I’m sleeping in a wardrobe tonight.
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