"It's a special pie"

This one's especially for lollardfish. Just in case you're a few day's behind on Bruce's Friday Squid Blogging:

Cephalopod Surprise by Skippy.

This Week: 2009 Ig Nobel Tour of the UK

It's National Science and Engineering Week in the UK and Improbable Research is back for the fun of it all.

Marc Abrahams will review the past year's improbable research and Ig Nobel Prize winners. Several Ig winners and colleagues will try to explain what they did and why they did it. And, yes, there's swordswallowing, too.

The first show was on Saturday in Oxford. (Sorry I didn't give the heads-up sooner.) There are 4 more shows on the 2009 Ig Nobel Tour:

Monday: Newcastle
Tuesday: Portsmouth
Wednesday: Bristol
Thursday: London

All of the shows are free and reservations are recommended (required in Bristol). Details available at the Ig Nobel Tour link above. Thursday's show at Imperial College in London is fully booked; it's possible that a very few tickets for that will become available on the day of the show.

Tonight's show in Newcastle also features the Newcastle University Gilbert & Sullivan Society in a special performance of the mini-opera Atom & Eve. I wish I were going to be there!