London Part 3

We heard PZ Myers was coming to London.  PZ Myers is a biologist and outspoken atheist.  Thus, we had to go.  Chuy rapidly bought the entrance tickets, the train tickets to London and arranged a babysitter for Sophie.  The next day we found out that he was going to do another talk in London, the following day from the other talk and this time it was going to be with Richard Dawkins.  Richard Dawkins is not only a very respected, ground-breaking biologist but he is also probably the most famous outspoken atheist.  Chuy and I are big fans, we really enjoy his books.  He writes nonfiction science books, that really leave you in awe at the amazingness of biology.  Even if you had thought biology was hard or boring.  He has a great way of explaining things, I bet he is a great professor.  Needless to say, even though we were gonna have to pay for two days of London train tickets and babysitters, we didn't even think twice, we were going.

The day came for the first PZ Myers talk.  We were ready and really pressed for time.  We had only left 30 minutes from the time the babysitter was suppose to be there to when our train left.  So when we heard the phone ring five minutes before the babysitter was suppose to arrive, we knew it could only mean bad news.  And it was, the babysitter was going to be late, and by the time she got there, there was no way we could make it to the train station in time.  We got there late, asked the information guy and he was like 'yikes, I guess you have to buy new tickets...'  Well that didn't help much, so we bought new tickets at three times the original price and tried to forget that part.  Our train ride was very pleasant, we are not used to having the privilege of reading peacefully in trains.

A quick dinner on the train...

When we got to London, we noticed we had time to walk there but had to hurry.  So we didn't take many pictures, except of this street art that we saw there from one of the famous street artists, Invader.

Invader!!!

We got to the place, and actually saw PZ Myers there outside the building hanging out, while we frantically looked for our tickets.  We finally found them and made our way inside to sit down.  Honestly, the introduction guy scared us a bit.  I know he is trying to unify the atheist community but he sounded a bit dogmatic with the atheism principles and stuff like that he was saying.  Then PZ Myers came out and put my mind at ease.  This was what I signed up for, a great talk about skepticism with a bit of biology thrown in for good measure.  He was funny and informative, we had a great time.  We walked back, this time with time to spare, a huge sigh of relief for making our train this time.

The next day, we had to do the same trip again, but this time the babysitter promised not only to be on time, but be there ahead of time.  And she was.  We made it on time to the train this time, and again enjoyed our quiet train ride.  But this time we had to hurry to the talk, we were walking fast.

Even though we were in a hurry, Chuy couldn't go without taking a few pictures on the way.

After some wrong turns and back tracking, we made it to the auditorium.  We found some seats and were checking the place out, when suddenly screams demanded our attention.  People were trying to hold the doors close to the auditorium with some yelling from the other side.  The yelling people won and they got inside the auditorium.  They passed right in front us of us, chanting something that we couldn't grasp and made themselves comfortable in the stage.  At this point, everybody in the auditorium is clueless of what was happening.  All anybody could really make out from their chant is 'shame on Dawkins'...I had previously in the week read about Dawkins agreeing to teach at a new private school, and apparently the protestors didn't like that. 

Somehow it was Dawkins' fault that the tuition rates had gone up.  Like if he has any say on it.  So at this point no one was sympathizing with the protesters, everybody felt the protestors were quite misguided.  Chuy and I were on a tight schedule so this was not amusing to us either.  A few police officers arrived and I honestly expected to see some tackling about to happen.  But no, they were protecting the protestors from the audience while trying to persuade them to leave.  I was rather impressed by the lack of police brutality. 

It was fifteen or twenty minutes into what should had been the start and still just chanting and the audience getting quite annoyed.  I bet most of the people in that audience agreed with the free education that the protestors were advocating, but it had nothing to do with the talk they were ruining.  In fact, they were hindering a lecture of sorts from happening.  Finally, a swarm of police officers came and the protesters were intimidated and just walked out. Here is the video we got of that:





The talk started, it was obvious from the start that some of the protestors had infiltrated the audience, so I think everyone was waiting for them to provoke another disruption.  And sure enough, as soon as Dawkins started to talk, someone yelled out greedy.  As two police officers were dragging the protester out, Dawkins in a very stern voice indicating he was irritated said 'Every penny I make from lectures goes into charity.'  And just like that, just like when he argues with creationists, he disarms them with facts.  It was great.  Dawkins and Myers got into a talk about biology, technology and atheist issues.  Right in the middle of it, a few protesters stood up and started reading their protest.  Dawkins was about to lose it, he said 'I will take questions at the end of the talk.'  When they didn't stop talking.  He repeated himself in a way that indicated anger.  The police officers dragged the protestors out.

The talk continued and it was rather interesting, unfortunately it had to be cut short to allow for the Q&A part.  There was a few interesting questions, and I found out that both PZ Myers and Dawkins are working on books, I can't wait until they are out!  As they were about to say bye, another protester walks up to the microphone and starts telling Dawkins to support the fight for free education.  This time the protestor is not rude, even though it was clear that the Q&A part was over, Dawkins replied.  He said that he supports free education for all, and votes for the political parties that support that.  He said that all he agree to do is teach in a school because he believes in education.  And then another protestor yelled out 'Who paid for your education professor?' and Dawkins answered that in those days, the government paid.  'And how is that fair for this generation?!' said the protestor, the organizer then said 'That's enough.'  And the talk was over.  But it's clear that the answer to the protestor's question is it's not fair, but it still has nothing to do with Dawkins.  Here is the entire talk, in case you want to watch it:







We checked the time and noticed that we only had 28 minutes to make it to our train.  We ran to the tube station, got there, transferred once and got with just enough time to see our train taking off.  Defeated again.  We looked at the train schedule and another train to Colchester was taking off in a few minutes.  It was from the same company, so if they told us anything, we would just have to paid and that's it.

But as the train was about to leave, it kept getting full and fuller.  I started feeling really bad about being in the train and was basically very paranoid the whole time.  I could not enjoy the quiet ride at all, I was speculating about wild situations in which we were thrown off the train in a strange town.  Or be fined for like £1000 or something.  But they didn't check our tickets.  But I didn't claim victory yet, they usually check your tickets once more at the train station.  Not this time though.  Finally, I could breathe. And it actually stopped at the train station near our house, for once.  We got home and our crazy adventure was over.