A Blogpost by Patrick Redmond. Listen to the podcast here.
It’s a bit of an eclectic podcast this week. The main interview is with Ben Pugh of the Falstaff Factor. This is a competition to find the UK’s up and coming medium through a series of trials and tests. It’s the kind of thing that would have many skeptics adopting the classic palm to face position so I was interested to hear what Ben had to say about the venture.
It’s a funny thing when I do this kind of interview, never having had any kind of “meedja” training, knowing the position and tone to take. I know who the main audience is going to be and so there is a temptation to play to that crowd and score sceptical points. To adopt a position of intellectual superiority and say things like “I believe you’ll find that you’re talking about the idiomotor effect”. But I think that’d make me a bit of a knob.
I’m not rehashing the “sceptics should be respectful in their dealings etc” debate; it’s just interesting to be in this position. Hopefully you’ll listen to the interview and see that Ben is no idiot and that the intentions of the Falstaff Factor (however misguided I might think them) are not evil. In fact Ben comes
over as a good guy and is probably more representative of the average person on the street’s view than us skeptics. Certainly when I’ve told friends about Hayley Stevens’ upcoming talk for us on “Why aren’t Ghosts Naked?” there has been a lot of interest. It seems everybody has a ghost story, or at least knows someone with a ghost story that is difficult to explain.
over as a good guy and is probably more representative of the average person on the street’s view than us skeptics. Certainly when I’ve told friends about Hayley Stevens’ upcoming talk for us on “Why aren’t Ghosts Naked?” there has been a lot of interest. It seems everybody has a ghost story, or at least knows someone with a ghost story that is difficult to explain.
What else is there on the podcast? Well the long lost October post SitP interview with Simon Singh has turned up in one of the many folders hidden within my PC. It’s a quick chat with a man who had delivered a great talk, had a train to catch and had a queue of fans trying to grab a few minutes with him.
There are also a series of snippets from my visit to Cheltenham Sitp. Dean Burnett makes a second appearance on the Birmigham Skeptics Podcast having just given a great talk. He’s a funny bloke and talks some good sense too. Hopefully we’ll be seeing him in Birmingham sometime in the future.
There’s a brief chat with Trystan Swale where he plugs an event that has happened and one that is about to happen any minute now. Despite the tardiness of this posting the conversation was good and I was pleased to put a face to one of the voices behind the RIPodcast. The fact that neither of us can remember many details much about anything shows you the frightening effect of having a microphone thrust in your face and a couple of pints of beer can have. Be warned.
Finally I have a quick word with the wonderful Jin_Shei one of the organisers of Cheltenham Skeptics in the Pub. Tired and exhilarated after another successful event she spares me a few minutes of her time.
Patrick Redmond was Born in Stoke and moved the vast distance to live in Birmingham. He is one of the organisers of Birmingham Skeptics in the Pub.
1 comment:
Cracking work Patrick. I know exactly what you mean about 'scoring sceptical points'. No idea how you manage to find the time to get all these great interviews done though.
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