Ju and I wandered along to Café Scientifique last night, held at the rather plus Terraces bar on the seafront. There were two speakers: the author Simon Singh, and a guy I know only as Andrew The Cosmologist.

Simon kicked off with a very entertaining talk, giving the background to the big bang theory, where it came from and how it was rejected by mainstream scientists for a number of years before gaining favour. In particular he focused on nicely gratuitous experiments (setting fire to sodium and boron to demonstrate difference in flame colours, twirling a bleeper round his head to show the doppler effect) and the human side of key players in the field (Hubbles wifes first impression of the man, for instance - massively overblown superlatives comparing him to characters of Greek legend).

Andrew The Cosmologist took over for the last 10 minutes of the talk and basically said: "we don't know the answers". He also chucked a beachball representing the universe around the room a bit. I have a feeling that had we stuck around for questions, he would've had more of a chance to impress...

But a very well-attended, interesting event. I'll definitely be going back for the one on consciousness next month...