Plain brown wrapper

So me and my mate who I will call Matt run a twig of the mighty Cafe Sci tree. We meet once a month in a rather funky Arts Club (you almost expect the door bell to gush daaahling at you when you push it), an 18th century town house dressed in boho baroque, and and adorned with members 'work'. The society itself is as hilarious and up itself as only the art world can be. 'Dark', 'tortured', 'sensitive' and any other emotion you care to put in inverted commas that they feel more than you. Don't get me wrong, art fascinates and moves me, it's just the threadbare piss-ant romantic persona that so many artists dress up in that irritates.

Anyway, they are normally absent on Cafe Sci nights being allergic to science thank god, or maybe just the act of listening to anyone but themselves. Always intrigues me how many scientists I know who are fascinated by, and knowledgeable about art, and how few artists can reciprocate. Those that can are gold, witness Sue Buafo who once talked to us (look her up!).

So, random expert of the month has completed his lecture on Astronomical Magnitudes and the basket of young and old, geeks, nerds, iconoclasts, bored, amused and confused which make up the Cafe Sci multi-crowd chatting and arguing over beers. I'm packing up the screen and projector, sipping my beer, prior to giving Matt and his co-worker a lift home. When I locate them they are talking to 'Professor Phillip' and his wife, a very elderly and incredibly distinguished mineralogist with an impossibly fruity avuncular public school voice.

As I join them I realise they are talking about the danger of constantly evolving digital media, from the point of view of the archivist (how many people do you know who can run even a 3.5" floppy disk these days?). Prof. Phillips: "...a constant and wearisome problem. Mmm. I have hundreds of geological papers to archive safely. Mmm. Mmm. And of course I have an enormous collection of extremely exotic Erotica I would be loath to lose. Mmm."
Dead silence.

Fighting the urge to force Guinness through my nose at astronomical magnitudes I muttered to Matt I'd pick him up in a minute and moved away to study the suddenly frozen group from a safe distance. Awkwardness has mass, radiates embarrassment and has a half-life (if you are within 1 meter of the fields origin) of a billion years....

Mmm. I wonder if Prof. Phillips would like to offer us a talk next month. Could be interesting. Mmm.