Matin Durrani - Science Journalist
Furry Launch: the launch event
Hot on the heels of last Saturday's four-star review in the Daily Telegraph of Furry Logic: the Physics of Animal Life, my co-author Liz Kalaugher and I travelled from Bristol up to London last night for the official launch of our potential smash-hit popular-science book.
Our launch event was held in the Rosalind Franklin room at the headquarters of the Institute of Physics in Portland Place, near Regent's Park. The park, incidentally, is home to London Zoo, which has been in the news after a 29-stone gorilla called Kumbuka escaped last week from its enclosure, with reports today revealing it had drunk five litres of undiluted blackcurrant squash on its dash for freedom.
No such large quantities of liquid were consumed at our event, where Liz and I spoke about some of the animals in Furry Logic. It was, though, appropriate that we looked at some of the mechanisms that animals use to drink, which don't normally involve necking back large volumes of bottled squash but rather, in the case of the cat, clever use of its tongue.
The launch event formed part of the lecture series for the London and South-east branch of the Institute and was organized by physicist Mark Telling from the ISIS muon and neutron source at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire.
Our bash was attended by about 75 people, including several of the fabulous staff from our publishers, Bloomsbury. They included Jim Martin - top geezer behind the Sigma Science imprint - who gave us a rousing introduction, as well as super-efficient Furry Logic editor Anna MacDiarmid and our great publicity boss Rebecca Thorne.
Rebecca's been doing a top job getting Furry Logic out there, most recently on today's Sean Moncrieff show on Ireland's Newstalk radio station. where I talked about electric eels, peacocks, Oriental hornets and loggerheads turtles. Check me about two-thirds of the way in.
There's also a brilliant interview with Liz and me on the Institute of Physics website if you want to know more about my and Liz's book.