As if it wasn’t crazy enough on Friday, I went to London again on Saturday this time with my Dad. He’d sent me an email about a Family Christmas Lecture that was going to be on in London. The lecture was presented by ITP (Institute of Telecommunication Professionals which is some organisation that my Dad belongs to because of his job). The guy leading the lecture was called Mark Lewney (yes it is pronounced Looney).
There were kids at the lecture who were like 7/8 maybe a little younger so I was in the middle of the range. Lewney uses various props including an air bazooka, bullwhip and his own very cool custom Ibanez guitar. (Various pictures on it including Einstein, Plank and the E=MC2 equation in full. (I always thought that E=MC2 was the full equation but apparently I’m wrong lol.)
We all took our seats and before the lecture started Lewney was having a jam, he asked for requested and no one said anything so I shouted “Stairway to Heaven” and people laughed at me. Well I was going to ask for The Who but wasn’t sure what was in his repertoire lol. Then again he did play The Twilight Zone and Hall of The Mountain King (Aka Alton Towers theme) during his talk. There was also Slayer in there which was interesting as we were in a church (maybe I should have requested Personal Jesus by Marilyn Manson!)
The talk was amazing – given the fact it was about string theory and the origins of the universe and stuff like that I thought I was going to be completely baffled all the way through but actually I was really interested. Apparently the guy has a degree or a doctorate in Guitar Acoustics which sounds like so much fun! Following the talk we went for a mammoth walk. We were heading along Regent Street but it was so busy we turned off and nipped round the back streets. We headed over to Carnaby Street to start with – it still kinda disappoints me lol. When I first went I thought it was going to be like trendy independent stores and things like that but when I got there were quite a few big brand stores. Following that we walked towards Leicester Square and then onto Trafalgar Square. From there we walked along Whitehall and stopped at the Cenotaph to discuss the different flags that were hanging on either side – there are 6 flags, two of them are the Union Flag (it’s only a Union Jack when it’s flying on a ship in certain circumstances according to my Dad – He also recounted the actual circumstance but now I can’t remember it! The other four flags are as follows: Red Ensign, Blue Ensign, White Ensign and the Royal Air Force Ensign. The Red and Blue Ensigns are the respective colour with the Union Flag in the canton (the canton is the top left hand corner)
From the Cenotaph we walked past 10 Downing Street and round to Horse Guards Parade. After that we walked into St James Park for some lunch at the cafe there. After that we walked up past Buckingham Palace on the way to Victoria to get the train home. Again I have lots of pictures but they are on my mum’s camera.
EDIT: Guess who wasn’t paying any attention while writing this blog post yesterday – the title should have been NaBloPoMo: Day 22 rather than NaNoWriMo (which I am seriously failing at!)
That lecture sounds great! I worked in a physics department for a few years, and really appreciated the scientists that would take the time and patience to explain complicated theories to me (I do NOT know math or science). It’s hard to believe how interesting it can be!
Maths was my favourite subject till the end of lower school (so I was about 8 or 9) and the classes just weren’t challenging enough then I decided that music and dance were my thing somewhere along the line. Physics was kinda boring for me because there weren’t as many experiements whereas Chemistry there were more – and Biology just wasn’t my thing – I loved human biology but couldn’t be bothered with plants and all those bits that you have to cover as well.
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