Richard Dawkins, Are You Ready To Rock?

Went to a reading/lecture by eminent biologist, evolutionary theorist and public intellectual Professor Richard Dawkins. The Doctor had got us tickets, as she is a big fan. I was less convinced, having promised post university never to sit through a lecture again, but I perked up considerably when Dawkins marched onto to stage with Lalla Ward aka Romana from Dr Who and Tom Baker's first wife (and now apparently Richard Dawkins's other half.)

It actually turned out to be a great evening and the academic version of a rock concert. We were up the front with all the Dawkins groupies who ooh-ed and aah-ed with each eloquent point and did satisfied little laughs whenever he made a joke (which signalled to the rest of the room "I got that reference, did you?") During question time, one bloke got up and went "Thank you Prof Dawkins I've agreed with all that you've said, but as a science teacher and a Christian..." - which set off audible mutiny in our row, particularly as the unfortunate man twittered on meaninglessly for five minutes, prompting the woman next to me to mutter loudly "GET to the POINT mate." Dawkins was the consummate showman "Can we have the house lights on please? It's question time and I want to see those hands in the air!" The evening only finished when a crowd-surfer in tweed was forcibly ejected from the hall.

On the way home I took a look at some of the bouncers outside the bars and wondered if we've evolved that much. Certainly my (previously quite elegant and house-bound)cat hasn't - if anything she has slipped back down civilisation's ladder. That evening for the first time she bought us in a dead mouse. Nature red in tooth and claw, you see.