This year marks the 80th anniversary of the
first sighting of the modern age of the Loch Ness Monster and to mark this
milestone a symposium is to be held in the city of Edinburgh on the 6th of April
2013. A variety of speakers have been lined up to talk on various aspects of
this enduring story ending with a panel discussion on what the Loch Ness Monster
is and is not. The speaker roster is below and the official website is
here and if this is not yet up and running
try the website of co-organise Gordon Rutter at this
link.
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- Adrian Shine - The biology of Loch Ness and
an overview of geography.
- Roland Watson - The pre-1933 history of
Loch Ness Monster and its folklore.
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- Paul Harrison - Loch Ness Monster History
1933-1971.
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- Tony Harmsworth - Loch Ness 1972 to
present.
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- David Martin-Jones - Nessie on Film.
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- Charles Paxton - Statistical analysis of
eyewitness reports.
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- Gordon Rutter - Photographic evidence of
the Loch Ness monster.
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- Panel Discussion - Hypotheses for the Loch
Ness monster: different explanations for the Loch Ness monster as both a
non-monstrous and monstrous phenomena: (panel includes Adrian Shine, Paul
Harrison, Steuart Campbell and Roland Watson).
The event will be sponsored by
Kraken Rum and will be run under the
umbrella of the
Edinburgh
International Science Festival which runs from the 23rd March to the 7th
April. The venue will be
The
Counting House and further details of the event can be found again at the
aforementioned websites.
Ticket purchase is essential to attend. To buy
tickets, send a paypal transfer to co-organiser Charles Paxton (
cgp2@st-andrews.ac.uk) for £20 –
no physical tickets will be issued but the printed Paypal receipt on the day we
be matched to the attendee list.
While we are on the subject of Loch
Ness Monster symposiums, I would say this is the fourth event to bear that
title. The word "
symposium" itself comes from the Greek word for a
drinking party which seems appropriate considering the event is sponsored by a
rum manufacturer and some form of alcohol will no doubt flow later. These
ancient events would be held to debate, recite or celebrate events or works. I
guess the drink lubricated the smooth running of the event and the
"
symposiarch" would decide on the strength of the drink served up
depending on the type of event. Who will have that task in April is
uncertain!
As far as Nessie is concerned the most famous symposium was
the one that never happened in 1975. The word was out that Robert Rines and his
team had got close up head, neck and body pictures of the creatures and various
people from scientific and academic backgrounds were to be invited to a
symposium in Edinburgh under the chairmanship of Sir Peter Scott and the
sponsorship of the Royal Society to discuss these images.
In the words of the Beatles song "I get by with a little help from my
friends". Today there are some posts from Benny, some updates from Bigfoot
Evidence and my first FOZ guest blog donated by Jeff Albertson:
In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that - whereas the study of out of place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot, or lake monsters - it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean Zoologist to be interested in. So, after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo, Corinna has taken the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.
And so another day dawns. It is grey and
wet, but still remarkably mild for the time of year. I voiced my concerns about
the long term effects of this weather on the
latest episode of OTT, and Lars Thomas wrote: "You are almost right about the
mild winters and the wildflowers and butterflies.
A lot of flowers - bulbs, seeds and so on - do need frosting in the ground to
ensure a good crop of plants in spring. But the
butterflies, or actually the eggs, larvae or pupae wintering in the ground,
do not as such need a period of frost. They need
their enemies, bacteria, fungi and parasites to get a good beating from the
frost. In mild winters like this year, all the
things that can kill a hibernating insect have perfect conditions to wreck
havoc among them - and that's why a mild winter
is usually followed by a poor insect or wildflower year". Thanks
Lars.