Up in Auckland for a conference, on anaesthesia and the brain.
I can’t remember the last in-person conference I went to but I think it would have been in 2019.
Flew up after work on Friday and spent the evening catching up with family. We went to see the live recording of a TV show called The Project. I’ve never been part of a “live studio audience”. It was great fun! And free!
I’d never heard of the show before, it sounded to me like a reality show about building houses or something similar, but it’s actually a current events/magazine/light news type program. (I’m sure there’s a name for that style of thing.) It’s on at 7pm on channel 3, at the same time as 7 sharp on a TVNZ channel.
There are two male and two female hosts (anchors?), three of whom I recognized. The most famous is Jessie Mulligan, who also hosts a show on Radio NZ in the afternoons. He has a lovely voice, warm and charming but more Dad-like than too smooth or unctuous. Also easy on the eye if I may say so. Everyone wore serious, formal, business like attire, although the two men wore shorts underneath – not visible behind the desk on the set. I guess it gets hot under those lights?
Most of the show is prerecorded, but there were live bits in between where we had to clap and whistle (although not while they were talking). There were also live interviews and cuts to crew members around the country at various events.
If you were watching, I was the one with the shiny face and messy hair in the back row.
A bonus for going to the show is that you get a discount if you have dinner at one of the local eateries. We went to an Italian place that was lovely, Al Volo, where we were served by the most hopeless waiter I’ve ever had in my life. He was pleasant enough, but he seemed to have absolutely no idea what was going on. He was certainly completely unfamiliar with the menu. “What sort of beers do you have?” “Well, one is in a green bottle, and the other is blue”. “What’s stracciatella?” “I’ve never heard of it” “but it’s in that pasta dish!” “Is it?”. “What gelato do you have?” “It’s a kind of ice cream” “Yes, but what sorts?” “It comes in flavours” “which are?” “I don’t know”. He also just didn’t seem to grasp the basic functions of hospo. My sister ordered her main, and he then started to walk away. I asked, hurriedly if I could order too? Which I did, “Anyone else?” He says, as if my two nephews might have decided not to eat, having come out to dinner with us. I shouldn’t complain, though, because after the discount was applied, the entire bill was embarrassingly small. Plus, we all know what a hard time restaurants have had over the last year. And the food was really good!
The conference was a solid ten hours today, which I thought I’d struggle to last through, but actually I was fine. Perhaps it was the novelty value of being at a conference in person. During the first couple of talks, some people were having a quiet chat a few rows behind us, and several phones nearby were making various beeps and chirps that were quite irritating, I felt righteously indignant. But then my phone started to ring loudly! I couldn’t believe it at first, as I thought I’d switched it to silent, and that was then followed by a desperate scrabbling through my belongings to find it and turn it off. I was mortified, but when I apologized to the speaker later, she said she hadn’t heard it. The next talk did start with a reminder to turn our phones to silent, though, which made me shrink down in my seat.
One of the local speakers looked strangely familiar, but it wasn’t until his second talk that I figured out why – he looked and spoke exactly like Baldrick from Blackadder (now I’m showing my age). I might be doing some research with him in the coming months, I’ll have to make sure I never get drunk around him or I’ll end up telling him of the resemblance. He’s about my vintage, though, so surely he must realize it?? I hope I never end up asking him if he has a cunning plan.
We had three overseas speakers, a German professor, and two Australian research doctors, one currently based in New York. They all had prerecorded talks, but the two Australians also zoomed in for a live panel discussion, which worked surprisingly well. I guess that sort of technology has advanced hugely in the last year. The woman who was based in New York had very harrowing stories to tell about what it’s been like living and working there in the plague times. I am so incredibly glad we managed to keep COVID from spreading here. It’s an awful disease, and we’re only just coming to grips with the long term stuff. It’s bad. Get vaccinated.
Home tomorrow.