Today – the second Tuesday in February – for the 728th time, that trial will take place in the City of London, and once again, the coins produced by the Royal Mint will be subjected to an array of testing to check that they are of good quality.

Last year, I had the privilege of being amongst a smallish group of observers invited in to watch the trial take place.

You can read about my morning at the Trial here

Fortunately, last year the trial passed without a hitch, and in May the final verdict was declared so that we can rest assured that the coins in our pockets and purses were indeed made to the high standard demanded of the Mint by law.

If you are interested, the formal verdict for 2009’s trial is available of the HM Treasury website as a pdf file.

This is truly one of my annual highlights as it is a fantastically enjoyable evening of weird science and humour.

Click here for my review of last year’s show

This year, the show will include:

Elena Bodnar, a physician, is a 2009 Ig Nobel Prize winner in public health, for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.

Catherine Douglas of Newcastle University shared the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize in veterinary medicine with Peter Rowlinson for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.

Erwin Kompanje studies overlooked spectacular medical history. He is a clinical ethicist at Erasmus University Rotterdam. On this year’s tour her will show scientific investigations of Rudolph’s red nose.

John Hoyland created and edits the “Feedback” column in New Scientist Magazine. He will present a fresh batch of oddities.

And Dan Meyer, a swordswallower, shared the 2007 Ig Nobel Medicine Prize for the penetrating medical report “Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects.” In 2010 he will present evidence of some of the unexpected physical objects people have swallowed.

Time limits will be enforced by twin eight-year-old Miss Sweetie Poos.

Tickets are free, but limited to two per applicant.

To request tickets, simply fire off an email to events@imperial.ac.uk with your name and address. Tickets will be confirmed and posted out at the beginning of March.

The show itself is on Thursday March 18th, 2010, at 6pm.

Look forward to seeing you there on the night.

It’s quite a bizarre effect when done well, and using an online tool, I had a play with some of the photos I have taken over the past few years. You can use more sophisticated cleverness to get a more pronounced effect, but the online tool gives a good idea of what can be achieved.

You can click on each to see the original photo (over at Flickr).

A 1938 tube train on a special outing to High Barnet station

Side Street near the Brunswick Center

Soldiers passing under Wellington Arch by Hyde Park
(open on London Open House Weekend)

London from the top of Northala Park

From the top of a car park just off Oxford Street

Another photo of the 1938 train at the same location as above

And finally – St Giles in the Fields as seen from one of the upper floors of CenterPoint
(taken on London Open House Weekend)

]]> http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2010/02/05/some-photos-of-london-tiltshifted/feed/ 2 http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2010/02/04/underground-maps-unravelled/ http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2010/02/04/underground-maps-unravelled/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:45:29 +0000 IanVisits http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/?p=2005 This event is being held at Southend on Sea – but I thought it would interest people in London.

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An exhibition by Maxwell Roberts

Since revolutionising map design in 1933, Henry Beck’s iconic London Underground diagram has set the standard for the mapping of transport network worldwide.

The exhibition explores the success of the Beck map and the rules that it adopted, and asks whether the increasingly complex networks of today demand fresh approaches.

Roberts presents a collection of his own work: maps that are easier to use; maps that teach us about good design; maps that challenge our preconceptions; and maps that are purely decorative.

Runs: Fri 25th Feb to Mon 8th March.

Mon-Fri: 9am-5pm
Sat: 9am-4:30pm

The artist will be “in residence” on 26 & 27 Feb and 6th March.

Admission: Free

Address: Campus Gallery, South Essex College of Further & Higher Education, Luker Road, Southend on Sea, Essex.

Thanks to London Reconnections for letting me know about this.

An early map

Inspired by the Art Nouveau movement?

A slightly redesigned version of the modern map (note the changes to the Bakerloo and Victoria lines).

Maps from other metro networks will also be on display.

Also, slightly heretical, but I prefer the pre-2005 episodes as they had a lot less special effects and generally more interesting plots!

However, I was still rather excited to see that Bonhams are going to sell off some of the BBC’s Dr Who memorabilia – which usually means public viewing days to have a look at the goodies. As usual, I can’t afford to buy anything, but I can go for a look.

Although public viewing days for auctions are normally free, this time they are being charged for – I guess Bonhams guessed it would be rather popular and spotted the opportunity to cash in on it – damn!

Entrance to the view and to the sale will be by catalogue only. Catalogues cost £15 and each catalogue admits two people. Children go free if accompanied by an adult, and a minimum of £5 from each catalogue sale will be donated to ‘Children in Need’.

Still, you do get the catalogue to keep, and sales catalogues do tend to be rather good quality – expect a lot of glossy photos and history about each prop.

PS: Yes, they are selling a DALEK – if you have a spare £5-£7,000 lying around.

The viewing days are:

Sun 21 February 11am – 3pm
Mon 22 February 9am – 4.30pm
Tue 23 February 9am – 4.30pm
Wed 24 February 9am – 12noon

More details on the Bonham’s website – the auction house is on Montpelier Street, just across from Harrods.

I think I might try to go on the Monday – as I suspect the place will be PACKED on the Sunday with lots of adult sized children ohhing and ahhing over the props.

Click on the image for a larger (much larger!) version. Enjoy.

Scanned in using an A4 scanner hence the slight misalignments of some “segments” and colour differences. I need to learn how to blend scanned images better, and probably invest in a larger scanner – anyone want to buy me an A2 sized scanner?

This is a well known Moon Illusion, so to show the photo below as I saw it, a bit of digital photo trickery has been employed.

Click on the photo for the larger version, or View On Black.

For example, the Natural History Museum has a “species of the day” series going on at the moment, along with general natural history chatter – or there is the Imperial War Museum who regularly mention “this day in history” type events from previous wars.

A group have therefore declared that today (1st Feb) is Follow a Museum Day, and Twitter users are exhorted to click the necessary and keep informed with what museums are up to.

I naturally follow about every museum in London I can find, mainly for the purposes of maintaining the events list, but also as some of them are genuinely quite interesting.

For your convenience, you can follow all of the London museums with a single click by subscribing to a list I maintain – @IanVisits/London-Museums.

Alternatively, the full list I follow is below – there is also a list over at the Follow a Museum Day website.

London Museums on Twitter
	BarbicanCentre Barbican Centre | London
	BFHouse Ben Franklin House | 36 Craven St London
	bletchleypark Kelsey Griffin | Bletchley, UK
	britishlibrary The British Library | London NW1 2DB
	britishmuseum British Museum | London
	Burghhouse1704 Burgh House
	DesignMuseum Design Museum | London
	DickensMuseum Dickens Museum | 48 Doughty Street, London
	DulwichGallery Dulwich Gallery | Gallery Road, Dulwich, London
	ExploreWellcome Wellcome Collection | London, UK
	GEFFRYE London
	HornimanMuseum Horniman Museum | Forest Hill, London SE23
	ICALondon The ICA | The Mall, London
	I_W_M Imperial War Museum | London, Duxford, Manchester
	ldnfilmmuseum London Film Museum | County Hall, London
	ltmuseum L T Museum | London
	MuseumChildhood Museum of Childhood | Bethnal Green, London
	MuseumofLondon Museum of London | London, UK
	Musevery Museum of Everything | London
	NHM_London NaturalHistoryMuseum | South Kensington, London
	postalheritage BPMA | London, Essex and Shropshire
	RaggedSchool Ragged School Museum | London E3
	RAFMUSEUM RAF Museum | North London + Shropshire
	sciencemuseum Science Museum | Exhibition Road, London
	SomersetHouse Somerset House
	Tate London, Liverpool and St Ives
	UCLMuseums Central London
	V_and_A V&A | London
	WallaceMuseum Wallace Collection | Central London

They ran a display of maps a couple of years ago which kept me enthralled for hours, so I feel an afternoon (at least) will vanish again in a few months time. Especially, as three-quarters of the maps are being shown for the first time.

According to the blurb from the Library, the “new exhibition will showcase over 80 of the most impressive wall-maps ever created, dating from 200AD to the present day, most of which have never been seen before.”

Woo!

As in increasingly necessary – there will be a tie-in with the BBC for a TV series and an accompanying book.

The exhibition opens on the 30th April 2010, and will be free of charge to visit.

Highlights include:

• Fra Mauro World Map c.1450 by William Frazer, 1804 – a hand-drawn copy of the first great modern world map, made for the British East India Company as self-perceived heirs of the Portuguese empire in the Asia

Photo courtesy of The British Library

• Confiance – ses Amputations se Poursuivent, 1944 – a German propaganda poster portraying Churchill as an octopus, drawing on earlier comic maps
• Chinese Terrestrial Globe by Nicola Longobardi / Bartolomeo Dias, 1623 – the earliest Chinese terrestrial Globe, made by Jesuit missionaries for the Chinese Emperor
• A Chart of the Mediterranean Sea by Diogo Homem, 1570 – a luxury map with gold leaf possibly produced for royalty, made after Homem fled from exile in Morocco for his involvement in a murder in Portugal
• Americae, sive quartae orbis partis, nova et exactissima by Diego Gutierrez / Hieronymus Cock, 1562 – a map to flatter King Philip II of Spain and celebrate the Spanish domination of the New World
• World Map by Pierre Desceliers, 1550 – a compendious world map made for the King of France, celebrating the discoveries of Jacques Cartier in Canada, and showing the myths, animals and natural history in their correct place in the world.
• The Klencke Atlas, 1660 – the largest book in the world, and intended to be a summary of the world’s knowledge, produced for the exclusive appreciation of Charles II of England on his restoration to the throne, now on show for the first time to the general public

Photo courtesy of The Guardian.