Science and religion. Left and Right. Cat and dogs. Now add burlesque dancers and climate scientists the list of naturally incompatible items.
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Well I’m a fan of burlesque, but wouldn’t something like a string quartet be more normal for a conference dinner?
Weird!
Maybe somewhere the same night there was a function wondering why a string quartet showed up instead of the promised burlesque dancers.
I know we have a few scientific types on LP. Maybe they could chime in with appropriate scientific dinner entertainment.
Couldn’t the hornier of the scientists have waited until *after* the conference for the strippers??
It being Canberra I’m sure they needn’t have gone far to ah relieve the pressures of manhood…
Perhaps they were following standard practice at Law Firm noshups?
From Crikey today:
Copious amounts of free booze is generally entertainment enough. Sometimes there might be a humouress speech given by someone with a sense of humour, or at least someone that we can all laugh at when we’ve had enough of the aforementioned booze.
The perfect stress relieving combo of bubble wrap and masturbation.
Ooh, good one Mark. I wish I had made that connection. Bugger!
mick, I am somehow not suprised.
This is a classic case. Instead of a storm in a teacup; we have a case of Gale in a A/B/C/D cup. Soft science trying to promote hard science.
Heh!
The few scientific dinners I’ve been to have been too painful – the wine helped.
Went to a standing up dinner incl. alcohol in a large park in Madrid recently where a band played dixie American jazz (at the conference where the Fields medals were handed out). Very strange – plus the centre of the area was dirt, so when some people went and danced to the strange music, all this dust came up.
The paella was good though.
In Madrid a vodka means half a tall glass of vodka (including some icecubes).
I went to a great one at the JFK museum in Boston. We had the place booked outside opening hours so that we could spend our time going through the museum without the general public getting in the way. All of the Australians dashed through the exhibit, straight to the free booze in the gallery overlooking the bay. I had a lot of fun questioning the patriotism of the first American that made it to the booze.
Friend of mine had a vodka like that at Bravo earlier in the week, but in a chilled glass and strained over ice, but no ice in the glass as such. I contented myself with a nip of Laphroaig and a beer chaser.
So Bravo’s still around? Troy and I went to its opening night – was quite enjoyable and the food was quite ok too. I remember that they wanted a cool inner-city crowd, but it soon was very popular with suburban young things.
Very much enjoyed the crisp spanish white wine in madrid. Was going to go to a few funky bars, but usually just shared a bottle of wine at night on our hotel room’s terrace.
It’s back to the cool inner-city crowd. Much favoured by models and property developers (in couples of course). But it’s got a good wine list, and yummy tapas so isn’t a bad place to stop in.
Sounds like you had a good time in Spain!
Entertainment at scientific conference dinners is almost uniformly bland, and mostly terrible…
Bland, because you’re guaranteed to offend somebody otherwise.
Terrible, because there’s no money to hire somebody decent (despite the bloody enormous registration costs of going to a conference).
Generally, I try to locate the PhD students and postdocs at the conference and head out elsewhere as soon is as decently possible. I’ll network at the equally bland and terrible conference lunch, thanks.
“The shadow environment minister, Anthony Albanese, has called for an inquiry into the matter.
“This is appalling and completely inappropriate and the Australian Government should immediately investigate how on earth this occurred,” he said.”
I’m not surprised that Ian Campbell pulled government funding but surely Albanese is taking the piss?
Anyway, I can help him out: it happened because conference organisers thought that burlesque cabaret might be an amusing entertainment at the conference dinner. Turns out some of the attendees thought otherwise but the rest of Australia is hugely entertained by the whole thing.
With a bit of reworking, it could be a smash hit. I see orange-bellied parrots being freed from vintage bustiers and ascending skywards (Campbell will be rapt) as the balloons of climate change ignorance are deftly pricked. Chuck in a couple of big production numbers, a remix of “Stormy Weather” and hello Tony awards!
I’ve seen some spectacularly bizarre conference dinner entertainments over the years (many of them spontaneous and unscheduled) and to be frank, a group of middle-aged Canberra ladies doing a “Cabaret” interpretation in vintage lingerie is pretty tame.
The most entertainment I’ve ever had at a history conference dinner was watching a pro-Vice Chancellor drink, uninvited, most of the bottle of wine my partner and I brought. Two big glasses, down the hatch, stumble away. Oh how I laughed.
…
Geoff, you’re missing the point entirely. Since when are strippers of any sort, burlesque or just plain flesh-show, appropriate for a professional environment? As Christo says, it’s not like the hornier climatologists couldn’t have found release in the Canberra burbs.
Several years back, The Dept of Communities held a conference for community based Domestic Violence staff and workers from across Qld. Rather than burlesque, the conference organisers hired Circus Clowns to entertain delegates which also prompted walk-outs and much protest at the inconguity of the entertainment to the subject of women being killed and abused by their partners.
What’s wrong with ‘Futurama’ on the big screen?
Surely, this is the sensible take-home message from this lame-brain episode:
But who wants to be sensible?
I have it on good authority that the artistes informed their audience that their balloons were actually inflated with CO2.
The scientists who stormed out were suffering extreme emotional overload. Their perve impulse was at war with their ethical commitment to environmental responsibility.
Grief counsellors are available to help these bolters to talk through their “issues”.
“But it’s got a good wine list, and yummy tapas so isn’t a bad place to stop in.”
Spanish tapas is very different to Oz tapas – it’s very plain and inexpensive. Toasted salmon sandwiches are exactly that. Jamon on bread has just a little extra olive oil. The seafood – mmmm!
“Geoff, you’re missing the point entirely. Since when are strippers of any sort, burlesque or just plain flesh-show, appropriate for a professional environment?”
Liam. Please. A conference dinner is not “a professional environment” by definition. It’s supposed to be the point at which the professional environment makes way for Dionysian excess. In Canberra it seems that ANU psych majors of a certain age doing Sally Bowles impersonations is one interpretation of Dionysian excess – it’s obviously not to everyone’s taste. But for all the huffing and puffing going on, you’d think that the poor old climate scientists had been forced to a participate in cross-species live sex acts involving uncontrolled carbon emissions.
Dionysian excess? That sounds a bit over the top …
I note that the costume is now being sold over the internet. Does Ms Gale come with the costume?
“Dionysian excess? That sounds a bit over the top …”
We live in hope.
“Dionysian excess”
*laugh*
At last! A voice of balance and reason!
BURLESQUE entertainment at a climate forum in Canberra was “probably not appropriate” but people shouldn’t overreact, Prime Minister John Howard has said.
The government last night withdrew funding for the 17th Australia New Zealand Climate Forum after a number of top scientists, many of them women, stormed out of the forum dinner at Old Parliament House on Tuesday night, offended by the organising committee’s choice of burlesque entertainment.
Today Mr Howard said he understood the performance may have upset some women but “we don’t want to overdramatise our reaction”.
“I’m sensitive to the view of many women in relation to this but I do think we shouldn’t overreact,” he told Southern Cross Broadcasting.
“My reaction is well, probably not appropriate but I’m not going to list it for discussion at the next meeting of the national security committee of cabinet.”
And this isn’t a governmental overreaction?
gimme a break
Ahh how dastardly can Howard get? He’s said something I agree with.
It all sounds more Bacchinalian that Dionysian to me.
c-borg hit the nail on the head,
If I went to a conference dinner that did that it would be the best conference ever.
I heard Rebecca Gale on the radio this morning. She said they were surprised to get the gig and modified it to tone it down a bit. She didn’t see why some female scientists needed to get upset and more or less suggested that they should take a deep breath, cool down and give her a ring. She would give them free lessons in burlesque.
I think Rebecca Gale is being a little naive. While there is a substantial difference between burlesque and stripping which some understand, for a lot of people they are one in the same. Still not a good choice though the reaction (such as the guvmint withdrawing funding a little extreme).
It all sounds more Bacchinalian that Dionysian to me.
I suggest a compromise. We’ll refer to it as ‘Ishtarian’.
It’s *Canberra* furrfu; what did anybody expect?
I hate entertainment at conferences. It detracts from time spent at the bar chatting up pretty PhD students.
Not that *I* do that anymore, being happily married, of course.
It never ceases to amaze me…
You centre “left” men demonstrating your internalisation of misogynist behaviour.
Thanks for the laugh — I needed it!