As we enter the Conference Centre in Knoxville, Tennessee, there are notices on all the doors "No weapons are allowed inside the Conference Centre. Please leave all guns behind." I would be the first to admit that sometimes talks can drag on and on - I am no innocent in this area myself - but surely shooting the speaker is a punishment too far... Or is it?
Our hotel is very convenient for the huge Knoxville Convention Centre, a purpose-built affair with a capacity of perhaps 4000 people, and my room is on the 10th floor. The lifts are nice and quick however. Well, there is a freeway running in front of the hotel and the serious traffic starts up at about 6 a.m.. I have noticed an interesting "courtesy" behaviour from lorry-drivers. As police cars head down the freeway with their sirens at full-blast, lorries in the vicinity start honking their horns. In sympathy ? Well, I now realise that this is a road safety issue to warn traffic downstream (appropriate word !) of the oncoming police car and to take appropriate evasive action. I suppose you eventually get to filter this out during the night.
Here we all are in Knoxville, 28 brave souls from Scandinavia - 7 from the ESSS Secretariat - who have run the gauntlet of swine flu and the possible end of civilisation as we know it, to attend the International Conference on Neutron Scattering in Tennessee.
With our specially designed shirts (thanks Karl !) we are quite a visible presence here, demonstrating the very solid scientific strength which Scandinavia has in neutron scattering. When we get a delegate list we can see whether in fact we are the largest delegation. Neither has the weather been kind to the organisers, with tornado warnings on Sunday, but we were thoughtfully supplied with umbrellas in our delegate pack, a nice practical touch - just like the delegates to the Bilbao meeting a few weeks ago were. There was lots of reminiscing about the warm sunny weather which we had left behind us in Lund but we have been warmly welcomed here.
Last night the whole Scandinavian team all went out to dinner together at Calhouns waterfront restaurant, an inspired choice of Sofie, Therèse and Johan, since the heavens opened up especially for us and it was quite dramatic over the Tennessee river. Waterfront was therefore the word. We had a really lovely evening with the friendliest waiter and waitress you could imagine. Such enthusiasm and involvement with the (admittedly good-looking!) Scandianvians.
Interestingly, a senior local fellow had earlier asked me how things were doing at ILL. I told him that they had said goodbye to that old guy who used to be there about three years ago and had replaced him with a (somewhat !) younger version (news can travel slowly sometimes...) and that now I was in Sweden. "Oh", he replied with a glazed look in his eye, "the weather must be really bad there." As he said this I glanced out of the window - there was a torrential rainstorm outside, with cars being washed down the street in front of my eyes (no, no... I made that last bit up!). But it is really interesting how we as humankind comfort ourselves with preconceived ideas. I resisted saying (as I admit I sometimes do) that the Polar bears have migrated north for the summer now and the streets of Lund are safe for a few weeks. Let us hope that the imminent decision on the siting of ESS will be made objectively, setting aside preconceived ideas which all of us carry around with us. I feel confident that that is in fact happening.
Thursday, on my way to Berlin. I was being checked through the gate at Copenhagen airport by a rather nice-looking dark-haired young lady. My eye was caught by her name-badge. “Carina Gaugin”, it read ! Could it be, I wondered… ? No, surely. Only one way to find out. “Are you related to the great man” said I ? She blushed (was I the first one to notice and ask this question.) “Yes !”, she said with a big beaming smile, which repaid handsomely my curiosity, “he was my great-grandfather.” “He married a Danish woman, you know” she continued, “I’ve been to see his grave twice.” She became so animated. I felt somehow elevated by this encounter, and life was suddenly that bit lighter. Not for her the naming of some exotic perfume, or using her famous name in some spurious way. She had chosen a genuine use of her talents; part of the team which would get me, and others, to Berlin; part of the team, unwittingly, which would contribute to bringing the ESS to Lund. Teamwork values all members of the team whether they are called Smith or Gaugin, whether they are heavy hitters or they have a lighter touch. Everyone can make a difference.
And Copenhagen airport was confirmed with me once again as so people-friendly; look out for a painter’s great-grand-daughter next time you pass through. But remember, I’ve already asked her the question…
Somewhat drifting in thought on a recent journey from the windy south to the windy north, I leafed through the “duty-free” magazine. “Pensive, though not in thought” was the way Robert Southey expressed it. (I hasten to add he wasn’t on the same flight !) Anyway my eye was caught by the poetic description of the richnesses to be discovered in a particularly costly bottle of cognac. “Its flavour combines a mixture of oak, floral and fruity notes, predominantly vanilla, with a hint of liquorice, the roundness of summer fruits, especially ripe apricots and peaches and the impertinence of wild flowers, particularly violets.” “…the impertinence of wild flowers…” How true I thought ! I have myself been startled this year, so close to the spring equinox, by an impertinent primrose or two, even a sneering snowdrop, poking their noses cheekily out of the grass in Lundagård park. And soon we’ll have to run the gauntlet of the daffodils… Are the wild flowers getting more disrespectful nowadays or is age beginning to tell on me ?
But perhaps there is a message for us to learn here. Shouldn’t we enthusiasts for the ESS be less prosaic and allow ourselves to be more poetic in our messages ? Not to misrepresent, but simply to appeal. After all it’s human beings who decide whether they need the cognac, and it is human beings who will decide on the ESS. Whether we like to admit it or not, the same psychological forces are at play.
