I just finished an afternoon lecture on evo-devo at Queen’s University Belfast, which went well, I think. At least I didn’t pass out at the lectern. Then I also did an interview with William Crawley that I think is going to be aired on the BBC on Sunday. I managed to remain conscious through all that, too. I’m leaving in about 15 minutes for the final lecture (Peter Froggatt Centre (Room G06) at Queen’s University) of my grand tour of Ireland, and yes, I shall be perky and alert throughout it! If you’re there, do not mock the bags under my eyes, the tremble in my hand, or the rumpledness of my clothing, those are badges of honor. Then the students shall work their godless wicked ways on me and force me to drink Guinness again. That’ll be it. I expect catastrophic collapse tonight.
Tomorrow, at least, is a light day back in Dublin, before I fly back home on Sunday.
Hmmm. The students in Galway gave me a fifth of Irish whiskey. I’ve been assiduously avoiding the touch of demon drink* this entire trip — now I’m wondering how I’m going to get it on the plane for the flight home. Or do I have to drink it all tomorrow?
*The Guinness doesn’t count. That’s sustenance.
If we evolved to drink alcohol, how come there’s still alcohol?
Take that, godless scientist!
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Glen, have you been drinking? If humans evolved to drink alcohol, that means that alcohol should be used, not that humans replaced alcohol.
It’s a glass of bread! :)
(Glad to hear it’s been such a good trip!)
Still learning,
Robert
kind of a semi-troll move, but if anyone wants a good laugh, you can play my sporcle quiz. it only takes one minute:
the best religion
I do not drink a lot of Irish whiskey, mostly scotch whisky, but I would be happy to take it off your hands if you do not want the burden of deciding what to do with it.
Having done the US< ->UK trip and brought back many of the fine distillers art I can pass on this wisdom to you. You are allowed to bring back two 750ml bottles without trouble, but now you have to pack them in your check through bags. If it did not come with its shipping tube, go to the local liquor store and see if you can get and old one to pack it in. Stuff some socks around it. Roll it up in a couple of shirts and bury it in the middle of your bags. Should be just fine.
If you can’t think of a way to get it home, sharing it with the students suggests itself.
The last time I brought alcohol home from a foreign country*, I bubble-wrapped it and put it in my checked bag. But that was 2-1/2 years ago, so I don’t know what the security is like now. You might also look into shipping it to yourself.
*Scotland. See if you can guess what kind of alcohol.
Don’t forget to drink some Bulmers while in Ireland. Don’t ask for ice with it…please.
When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night –
A pint of plain is your only man.
-Flann O’Brien
Ah, the “gift bottle before you get on the flight home” problem. There are basically options:
1. Wrap it in swaddling clothes and hope it makes it back home intact (unbroken) in your checked luggage.
2. Attend a party where they don’t mind you bringing your own booze, and share it. You’ll be even more popular than usual.
3. Drink it yourself before your flight. (Not recommended!).
I’d go for option 2 myself.
Careful PZ, you don’t want to turn into Hitchens.
You can buy a special packing box (most liquor stores have them), and check the whole box. I successfully transported 6 bottles of German wine that way only a few months ago.
Good luck!
Name of the whiskey, please!! (A sip o’ it would be even better.)
I’m curious as to just how friendly those Galway students were.
re #1 and #2
A fair number of the things we evolved to eat aren’t around anymore. Perhaps Glen was referring to the surprising manner in which Ethanolus guinnessii has avoided extinction despite centuries of extreme human persecution?
#13:
Not to mention Ethanolus maximus bushmillissii.
On the other hand, it’s very easy to explain why there is such a proliferation of Coorslightus minimi.
“Tomorrow, at least, is a light day back in Dublin, before I fly back home on Sunday.”
You still aren’t in jail? I expected better from you, Myers. Are there no crackers to deface, there?
You have to check it or drink it, PZ. I think you know this. :-)
>The Guinness doesn’t count. That’s sustenance.
Beer! It’s what’s for breakfast!
NUIG (I knew it as University College Galway) is my alma mater, and it is great to see certain standards are being maintained.
Though I have picked up bits of paper from three other institutions of higher learning – Galway is always my spiritual home.
PZ, thanks for making my day.
Drink 1/3 of the bottle tonight before bedtime. Drink 1/3 of the bottle tomorrow on your light day. Drink the remaining 1/3 prior to boarding your flight. Hope that solves the predicament.
Ship the whiskey to yourself by post.
I thought it was drink bottle 1 tonight before bedtime. Drink bottle 2 tomorrow on your light day. Drink the remaining bottle prior to boarding your flight. Take the rest home with you…
If you do drink it, be sure and locate the barf bag whilst listening to the flight attendants drone on about the various safety features of the plane.
Why would I mock the runpledness of your clothing? Aside from being a standard and endearing feature of professorial attire I always found it to be the one sure way to distinguish an unknown faculty member from the janitorial staff.
Why not? Aside from the politics, I’dn’t mind being Hitchens.
You can keep your Éire as long I have my Somerset.
Great lecture this evening in Belfast and excellent Q & A, PZ. Thank you for coming to Ireland and to Belfast. Hope you’ve enjoyed your trip and safe home.
I was very surprised to find out that 12oz of Guinness only has 120 calories as opposed to say, Smithwick’s, which has 150.
Light “Beer” typically has somewhere around 100.
tsg-
Yeah, but the only proper way to drink Guinness is by the pint. (160 calories)
@7:
Well my first guess would be Castle Moniack Mead, because it’s one of my favorites. But you probably went with a nice safe scotch whisky.
PZ: Enjoyed your lecture in QUB this evening and even managed to get a question in at the end. I was the guy at the back who aked the question about Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and the creationist claim that the teaching of evolution causes Christians to become Atheists.It went well although some of the biology was a bit over my head. Anyway, a good evening and met up with some of my friends in the BHA and William Crawley’s blog.
By the way, as to YECism in Norn Iron, every single evangelical denomination here is preaching it, including the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the province’s largest Protestant denomination. Repeated surveys and polls have shown that we are the YEC capital of the UK. Amoungst the Protestant population it’s probably as bad as the likes of Texas and Kansas. Thankfully we have the national curriculum to fall back on although really, that’s not good enough. That so many are YECs is really hard to fathom.
Safe home as they say in these parts.
daveau-
Understood, but you have to compare equivalent volumes for it to make any sense.
Plus, Guinness comes in 12 oz bottles here, so fair enough.
Blasphemy! And i thought there was a law against that.
(For the uninitiated out there, it should be drunk draft)
Quite right. When my dear old Dad was still with us, he was always adamant that Guiness was pure liquid steak and eggs. He would happily consume it for breakfast.
I went to the BBC link posted and found an interesting program on the Murphy report on child abuse in the Irish church.
The priest and bishop on the show are supportive of the findings of the report until they are asked if a certain bishop mentioned in the report should resign. Then their equivocations and evasiveness begin.
This is a very powerful program. I recommend listening to it as well as reading the Murphy report.
Guinness has a high iron content. My dad was told to drink it after his tripple bypass operation a few years ago. It was also recommended to my wife by her GP after her last pregnancy. unfortunately she couldn’t stand the taste and ended up taking it along with ribena !
#31
“Thankfully we have the national curriculum to fall back on although really, that’s not good enough.”
Indeed, but under threat daily.
That lovely bunch of moronic retards…*’Truth in Science’ are at it again.
* aka… Lies for jeebus!
There is an e-petition here if anyone values the National curriculum of the British Isles not being dumbed down with cretinism.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/NoCreInSciEd10/
[OT] More news on the benefits of religion:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8501181.stm
Oh yes, I think I’ll be going out of my way to find a nice loving religion today.
Thanks PZ for a really entertaining talk and also for also being an awesome drinking buddy. Hope you enjoyed the squid and Bushmills.
Well, you can try an Irish Carbomb. I hear it’s delicious.
Save the whiskey until you get home to prop your feet up in front of the home fire. Then pour out a wee dram, sip it and let it hit your feet. That’s real heaven, below only sex.
You won’t enjoy your plane ride home if you aren’t used to indulging.
Fly back by Air China. Last time I flew with them you could take bicycle on as hand luggage and they didn’t care. Just be sure to join the throngs and ignore any concept of seat allocation. Get on early so as to find the one seat with a seatbelt. Oh, and use the toilet at the airport before you go as it wil be the last one that you see that is capable of being flushed for a 8 hour bloody flight.
Agreed, and when out that’s how I prefer it. But for those of us who don’t have the luxury of a tap at home, the Guinness Draught bottles are a passable second, however I do wish they would come in 16 oz bottles since my pint glasses look so pathetic only 3/4 full.
I will further qualify that statement by admitting I’ve only ever had the American version which I don’t find bitter at all (but I also eat orange peels). One day, before I die, I will get to Dublin and have a pint of real Guinness in a real pub.
Ah, the perennial question, can you live off a diet of Guinness alone?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-25264,00.html
Yes, just not for very long.
PZ, if you get time for one more Guinness back in Dubh Linn, try to make it in Mulligan’s or The Gravediggers (Kavanagh’s). Both authentic locals with superior Guinness. Otherwise, Porterhouse if you want more than a pint of plain- I recommend the Chocolate Truffle stout or the Oyster stout. Enjoy!
Indeed, but under threat daily.
That lovely bunch of moronic retards…*’Truth in Science’ are at it again.
Which is why I stated that just relying on the national curriculum isn’t really good enough. Just as like falling back on court decisions in the Isn’t either. Chidren need to know why YECism is not only a load of crap but one giant fraud. However, Truth in Science aren’t a bunch of moronic retards unfortunately strangebrew. They include plenty of well educated people. Professor Norman Nevin, a highly qualified and leading Belfast geneticist, along with Professor Andy McIntosh, a lecturer with Leeds University. Hardly moronic retards ? That well educated people buy into Ham’s crap is beyond me but it gives YECism an air of credibility, and the impression that there is an ongoing debate in science, which there isn’t. I don’t know how to tacle the problem from that angle, but good science education surely plays a part. It was the geology that I learned at school under a well known Belfast geologist, Herbie Black, that has prevented me from ever becoming a YEC.
I’d just like to echo everyone’s gratitude for taking the time to visit Belfast. Too often we’re neglected! I was at both lectures and they were fantastic, both educational and entertaining. No sign of any creationists lurking around though, which was a pity.
Hope you enjoyed your time here, despite being worn out. Come back any time! Safe home tomorrow.
I saw a couple of well known QUB creotards lurking at the back of the lecture hall at the 6pm lecture. But they only asked one weak question/point that Reason, Questioning, Evidence are Christian values and that Naturalism is a faith, but PZ set them straight.
Complete and utter non sequitur.
And what’s this nonsense about a “pronouncement”? Who should make one? There is nobody with the authority to speak for all of science. There cannot be anybody with the authority to speak for all of science.