A small excited group had gathered in the Lecture Room to hear the man Richard Pyatt described as 'one of the foremost men of letters of our time'. He then went on to read some passages from Peter Ackroyd's work with the author himself looking suitably embarrassed. Mr Pyatt slightly self-consciously asked the first few questions but as the atmosphere relaxed others joined in. Mr Ackroyd has a passion for London, its culture and its literary heritage and spoke inspiringly about a line of London visionaries which he traced through Defoe, Blake and Dickens to the present day.
After the meeting finished he was happy to stay for wine and an informal chat. Eventually the wine dried up but as conversation was still flowing the party moved on to a local pub. Here Mr Ackroyd was enormously generous, standing the whole group round after round of drinks whilst speaking illuminatingly on the role public houses have played in London's history. He also displayed an impressive grasp of Pop culture, admitting that he had, on occasion, been compared to the character Uncle Monty from the film Withnail and I.
Gradually the crowd thinned but Mr Ackroyd was in the mood to continue and offered to take the remaining seven or eight of us out to dinner. Taxis were hailed and soon we arrived at a restaurant in Farringdon, where the staff were a little urprised but happy to accomodate Mr Ackroyd and the group. By this point conversation was merry and animated: one of the evening's high points was the sight of Richard Pyatt, napkin on head, giving impressions of the Bront‘ sisters. Sadly the evening had to come to an end and glasses were raised for Peter Ackroyd, as generous, fun-loving and brilliant speaker as we will ever have at this School.
Howard Gooding (Dryden's) and Nick Forgacs (Wren's)
Dr John Thomson from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories presented a review of modern particle physics and speculated about the major discoveries that may lie around the next corner if we can squeeze more energy out of our existing particle accelerators and crash things together even more violently. This lecture was of particular interest to the group of A-level physicists who are due to visit CERN this year. The following month Dr Christine Sutton, author of such racy best-sellers as The Particle Explosion and Spaceship Neutrino (I only buy them for the pictures... ) gave a lecture called 'Inside the Proton' and hinted at a new discovery that might just blow the lid off the Standard Model (that is the cobbled together theory that links all the known particles and forces). Something odd had just happened at DESY and in this centenary year of the electron, just as we are celebrating the big birthday of the smallest and most enduringly fundamental particle, it might just be that it is not fundamental after all, or that it has some new tricks the theorists never thought of. Watch this space, or better still subscribe to Hooke.
Ken Zetie is really an atomic physicist, but last year he won the 'Science in Print' competition with his essay on why bees can fly (despite headlines that periodically claim that physicists have proved they can't) and has suddenly become an international celebrity and bee-fancier. And apparently bees fly by clapping, so now you know. However, it is true that stiff dead bees can't glide.
Thinking back a bit further to the Play Term, John Hassard from Imperial College gave a lecture on Diamonds. He grows them one atomic layer at a time and you can have any colour or size you want. Perhaps it is not surprising that he also spoke a great deal about making money out of research - he has formed several companies to exploit his discoveries and sees this as the way ahead for many university departments. We also had two lectures by fathers of pupils at Westminster. John Sorrell, Chairman of the Design Council, challenged us with examples of good and bad design everywhere from McDonald's restaurants to Babe the talking Pig. Professor Peter Ell spoke about imaging techniques in medicine and the impact of nuclear medicine in diagnosis and imaging. Both of these lectures were extremely well presented and very popular.
More recently, a small group travelled up to Cambridge to attend two lectures in the Cavendish. The first was given by Frank Close, the second by Stephen Hawking. I can't tell you much about it because, sadly, I couldn't go.
Chris Lightfoot and James Fairbairn who edited Hooke in 1995-96 for issues 7 and 8 passed the magazine on to James Acton, editor, supported by a team of three assistants, Mkael Abrahams, Dora Wood and Leon-Chiew Foong. They had a hard act to follow, but Hooke 9 arrived on time, full of interesting articles, and even saw the return of Bevman and Robbo, now faced with an attempt by the History of Art Department to take over the basement of the Robert Hooke Centre. Strangely this has actually happened - was it a case of History of Art imitates life or art imitates history of art or life or or.... My favourite bit is where the Bevsignal appears in the sky and Robbo looks up and says 'It's the Bevsignal, but holy halogens, Bevman... they've... nitrated it' (I guess you had to be there, or be a chemist...). One new feature for this issue was a book review, Paul Davies's About Time reviewed by two pupils and two staff - and reading the reviews in Hooke is cheaper and quicker than actually buying the book. In Hooke 9 you could also try to answer Jonathan Monroe's burning question: 'Why Sex?' or find out whether a foetus feels pain. There was even a competition, and you can still subscribe for the 1993 price (£2 per annum). By the way Hooke 10 is on the way as I write, as are its tenth anniversary celebrations. Articles are welcome from students, OWW, staff and well-known scientists, and anyone is welcome to subscribe - just send me the money!
Steve Adams