Sunday 13th March
World Science Festival

Day

Bronwen and I went to the grandly named “World Science Festival: Brisbane”—or at least, its free “Street Science” event at Southbank—which wasn’t grand, was mostly for children, and was quite wet. In fact, it was downright pathetic, because it rained on and off—a little heavily at times but nothing overly exciting and never close to a storm—and they freaked out and turned the power off so all the stalls that used power closed down. Not very impressive for something our esteemed premier spent $650,000 of our money on. “This is an enormous coup”, she said (apparently quite seriously), “to be able to attract this world class festival to Brisbane, the first time ever it has been away from New York”. “Luckily in QLD it never rains”, she should have added, “because if it does we’ll have to shut it down”.

After seeing where our money had been wasted—and having a wander through the Museum’s Science Centre because the turtle hatching which we had planned to see in the museum had the longest queue I have ever seen—we headed back to the city to have some Sushi, but when I shook my Hungry Jack’s app I won a “2 for 1 Whopper” deal so we had veggie whoppers for lunch instead. Bronwen even went and complained for me when mine came with onion and our “large chips” was pathetically small.

Entering the festivalCrowds were intenseThere were robotsThere were many childrenUQ had a superconductor and quantum locking displayUQ freezing burger ringsUQ’s quantum locking displayUQ’s quantum locking displayUQ’s quantum locking displayMost displays were aimed at children“Freedom class” drone prop compared to a normal 250-sized propA mockup of a “Freedom class” droneQUT’s solar carThe “Freedom class” giant drone (mockup)Things that turn into brightly coloured gooBronwen with an awful spiderGenesis One, a useful looking robotTubby the robotBronwen at the Science CentreAll that remains of BronwenBronwen’s head at the Science CentreBronwen not falling overA partially stuffed birdUQ giving out frozen burger ringsSpelling wasn’t one of their strong pointsI wasn’t sure if the spelling mistakes were intentional?Who knew there were yellow watermelons?A girl with two heads walks casually down the street as if that is normal

Night

I had pasta for dinner, and a cup of tea and some biscuits I found amongst the things I’d rescued from Maz’s cupboard when he left the country.

A vegan motorcyclist