#129 - HALEFEST

Greetings,

I'm exhausted and jet-lagged after my third trip to England this year alone. I believe it was my 12th trip to the UK overall. My first was in 2006 when I was a vendor promoting my ARACHNOCULTURE magazine. Around the same time my mate Andrew Smith asked me to become the British Tarantula Society's North American Representative. I returned twice the following year - the first time to be the keynote speaker at the BTS Lectures and the second to once again attend the Exhibition. By then I had put ARACHNOCULTURE to rest and I was there to work as a committee member. My employer at Northwest Zoological and owner of Tarantulas.com Alex Orleans was with me.

Although the first two UK trips of 2016 were for the BTS Lectures (early March) and Exhibition (mid-May), this visit was to attend a party. Yep, I flew 8000 miles round trip and spent $2000+ to go to a party! It wasn't just any party though. Ray and Angela Hale have been the backbone of the BTS for 25 years and they run our Head Office and are the Exhibition Organizers/Promoters. Every year they have an early July party called "Halefest". This was #14. The theme was "Back to the 80s" and us metalhead types dressed in kind. I have been invited the past few years and finally accepted. The day of the party was also the Hales 33rd wedding anniversary. The party is largely comprised of people who have a BTS association and many are current or former BTS Committee members. That, of course, includes my brother-from-another-mother Mark Pennell and his wife Kim. I tried to surprise them with limited success. A few hints I dropped were "sussed out" by Mark and Kim and they felt the atmospheric disturbance I cause.

The Hales. Ray in Lemmy costume. 80s party. Photo credit: © Matt Cooper

Me, Mark and Tyrion Lannister have things in common.
I brought Mark's T-shirt over as a gift.
This is shortly after the Pennells and the Wills arrived from Bristol
#tigerlager #ftw

My costume. Me in a Venom T-shirt and denim vest and wig.
My hair was never black, but it was always ridiculous in the 80s.
Love the flag of England in the background as I was celebrating the
New Wave of British Heavy Metal with my costume.
The vest had a Venom patch on back, my nickname "Jake" on the breast
 and a NWOBHM patch, but all are obscured.

I will see Mark and Kim and Ray and Ang soon in Budapest. This is the third year Mária and László of MaciLaci Spiders, Hungary will put on a lecture series in Budapest that features five BTS-associated presenters. This year Mark and Ray will speak, as will Andrew Smith, Stuart Longhorn and Peter Kirk. I am going to bring a lecture or two on my flash drive in case I am needed as a pinch-hitter ;) Or perhaps they want to extend the talks by another hour? No worries. The reason I am going is just to hang with the Pennells and the Hales. Seeing what everyone says is an amazing city will be a bonus, and so will having the opportunity to spend time with the Hungarian contingent.

Kim, "Lemmy" Ray, Haidee and Mark.
The Pennells and the Wills came as Bucks Fizz.
They danced along with the hit "Making My Mind Up"
#sillybrits

Me and the mad genius that is Carl Portman.
METAL GODS!
Not sure why I look so constipated.
But I am sure why I look so sunburned. Tricky English clouds.

So as I spend the day recovering from exhaustion and jet-lag I reflect on trips past and adventures to come. Budapest October will be here before I know it. Then I will be counting down the days until my February 2017 trip back to Langkawi Island, Malaysia where this year the Hales will join us. The week before many of our group will also be in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo where I hope to find vipers and spiders in the jungles of Bako National Park. In between hopefully I'll be able to swing England 2016 #4 with yet another visit to Bristol.

All the best, MJ

#110 - 14th BTS LECTURES PART III

Breakfast is done and the AGM and Committee Meeting begins in 40 minutes. I can't believe that in 24 hours I'll be about to land back in Dublin and then land at O'Hare at 2:10 pm Monday afternoon. Our UK week has flown by and I'll be sad to leave the Pennells and my home away from home.

I will be bringing back a very limited number of BTS t-shirts for distribution in the US. I made a couple of Instagram posts but haven't had any replies so I thought I'd advertise it here. Here's some pix. 

The above black T has the BTS logo and celebrates our 30th anniversary last year. It is an exhibition shirt and the back is like a concert tour shirt with all of the past Exhibitions listed. 

This shirt also mentions the 30 years of the BTS and is available in this grey version as well as black. 

Email me at m.a.jacobi@icloud.com if you are interested. The cost will be around $29 shipped or two for $53 shipped. I'll work out exact price when I return, but preferred payment will be check made payable to me and sent snail mail or friends/family PayPal payment to spidershoppe@icloud.com. As I wrote, this will be a limited availability offer and I'll only have L-XXL shirts. 

Tonight I'll give you a final wrap up of the 14th BTS Lectures and our UK adventure   MJ 

#109 - 14th BTS LECTURES PART II

Today's BTS Lectures were brilliant!

Last night 22 of our attendees gathered for dinner and night before party. The Aztec Hotel and Spa is a posh boutique hotel and has a cozy pub area and nice restaurant. Hopefully you've seen some of my pix on Instagram. It was especially good to see old friends like Jean-Michel Verdez. Many pints were drained and I think I drank my weight in Guinness. This morning Joel and I met Mark and Kim for breakfast and then we began to prepare the Costwold Suite at Aztec for the Lectures. It was great when dear friends who couldn't make it last night, especially Ray and Angela Hale, begin to arrive. 

The lectures kicked off at noon with an opening talk by BTS Chairman Peter Kirk. As is the tradition, the first talk is a humorous opening act delivered either by Pete or Ray. Pete's theme was "Spiders and the Media" and he pointed out the ridiculous and sensationalistic way spiders are portrayed with great wit and clever slides. Peter was followed by Mark Pajak who works at the Bristol Museum. His interest is the native spiders of Bristol, which include the mygalomorph Atypus. He gave a great presentation on both urban and rural populations of spiders in the western country of England. Next up was Benoît Menárt from France. He is an arachnoculturist who has made four trips to peninsular Malaysia. He travels to the Lectures with mon ami Jean-Michel and is a lovely, dread-locked, reggae-loving young man. He was nervous to lecture in English, but did an excellent job. His extensive lecture covered all of the known tarantulas from the region as well as some yet to be described, and also included some great photographs of other arthropods, reptiles and more. Then it was time to break for coffee, tea and biscuits, which for people like me and Mark meant a trip to the bar. After our brief intermission Ray Hale kicked off a brilliant talk on adaptation in organisms. He was followed by our special guest speaker Dr. George McGavin. George is an entomologist who worked at Oxford Museum for 30 years before launching a second career as a nature program television presenter in the mold of David Attenborough. He specializes in tropical insects and has a great interest in spiders. His BBC series include a number of Lost Land expeditions and Monkey Planet. His talk was full of energy and great wit and included some behind the scenes looks into the filming of nature documentaries as well as clips from the series he has been involved in. If you haven't seen the Lost Land of... specials I suggest you look for them. Again, please check out my Instagram for photos from the day.

After the afternoon's lectures concluded we headed to the hotel bar and I sat with George and Martin Nicholas for awhile. Once we all freshened up and reconvened for dinner our head table was comprised of George and Martin, Mark and Kim, Ray and Ange, Peter Kirk and Connie, Lee Cole, and Joel and I. A fine bunch and we were treated to more of Dr. McGavin's stories and, of course, the sharp wit of both Hale and Pennell. Dinner was very good and once dessert had been served Andrew Smith kicked off his traditional after dinner talk, which this year was about the field trip to the Atlantic Coast of Brazil he took in December with Dr. Stuart Longhorn and Benoît Vignaud. Then it was spider talk and drinking for all, although I must admit many topics were covered including the upcoming American presidential elections.

It's now 1:30 a.m. and I must crash. A day of Guinness and a few vodka tonics as a nightcap are in me and we are meeting for breakfast at 8:30. The Annual General Meeting runs from 10:00-11:30 a.m. and then it's "Sunday Funday" with Mark, Kim and family and friends. Rumor has it that we will hit the social club to play skittles. More on that soon ...

MJ

#108 - 14th BTS LECTURES PART I

Greetings from Bristol, England. Tuesday morning my stepdad Joel and I arrived in Bristol after leaving Chicago on Sunday and spending Monday in Dublin, Ireland. Tuesday we picked up our sweet rental car, a Volvo S80, but soon discovered that the steering wheel was on the wrong side. Then as I pulled away and entered traffic I learned that it was best to stay to the left to avoid a head on collision. This is a funny country ;)

Actually, although I had piloted a right side steer vehicle on the left side of the road in Suriname, it is madness to try to do so here in the UK. Roundabouts, narrow roads, foreign signage and pavement markings and loads of pedestrians make driving here quite the harrowing experience. Worse still was the fact that I had printed directions from Bristol Airport to Mark Pennell's Serious Ink Tattoo Studio from Google Maps. Unlike GPS (or what they call "Sat Nav" here), when you miss a turn there is no electronic voice informing you that "she" is "recalculating". We were soon properly lost. The pretty Hungarian girl who assisted us at Europcar asked me if I wanted GPS. Silly and confident, I declined. However, our luxury Volvo has built-in GPS so it was time to figure it out. Unfortunately, the last renter must have been French. As I explored the controls while driving a car completely back asswards, I found that the entire vehicle's electronics were in Français. Fuck me running.

Eventually I pulled to the curb and invested the time in figuring out how to change the Volvo's language to English. American English wasn't an option. We had driven through Bristol's City Centre for at least 30 minutes, driving in circles while doing our best not to kill anyone or ourselves, and now we finally had instructions on how to get more ink. I was "happy as Larry" (as they say) when I pulled into Hung Road and saw Mark's studio on Nibley at the end. As we pulled in we saw Mark and his daughter and apprentice Brandon waving. Mark is my brother from another mother and Joel and I were "chuffed" to finally get to spend the day with him.

Hopefully you're checking out my @exoticfauna Instagram and have seen my pix thus far. Mark did his usual absolutely brilliant and skillful job of finishing off my right sleeve. The tattoos all represent death and loss and pay tribute to the two important "women" of my life: my mother and my sweet pup Taylor. They are gone but never forgotten. The finishing touch on the inside of my bicep/tricep area was to add a couple more roses and a raven sitting on a skull. The raven's head has a partially exposed skull itself. During the day Mark's wife Kim came by and later his sister Chris and brother-in-law Alan plus friend and client Harri. It was a great day that ended with awesome curry at Bengal Raj. Thanks once again to my great mate Mark for graciously and permanently displaying his talent on my skin.

We are staying at the Aztec Hotel and Spa, which is the home of the BTS Lectures. Now in its 14th year, this weekend's lectures promise to be outstanding. This boutique hotel is quite posh, and has a classy and cozy lounge and pub, plus every luxury amenity you could ask for. The full English breakfast is delicious and service charming. Yesterday morning at breakfast we were served by two people who were American-philes. One was a baseball freak whose father had worked in Arizona, and the other a pretty young girl who had traveled to Orlando a few times. They both paid special attention to the Americans in the corner.

Yesterday Mark's sister and brother-in-law took us on a "lovely" day trip to Wales. During my last visit to Bristol we had done the same, but I was eager to return and also have Joel experience yet another country. This is Joel's first visit to the UK so it is awesome to be able to have him visit Ireland, England and Wales all on the same trip. The weather was chilly and a bit wet, but we had an amazing day. Again, pix are on Instagram @exoticfauna. We returned to the hotel about 5 pm and had a beer and freshened up. At 7 pm Mark, Kim and Brandon collected us for dinner.

As I type this it is 6:45 a.m. here and I'll meet Joel for breakfast at 7:30 and then we will drive towards London. It is 105 miles almost due east. Hopefully my second day in the Volvo will go well. We will drive to Hounslow West tube station and then take the tube (underground train) 41 minutes to Piccadilly Circus station. We will then walk about Piccadilly and Leicester Square, etc. and up the Strand to a pub called The Coal Hole. Andrew Smith is supposed to meet us there just after noon to take us on a walking tour of London. I've been a guest in Andrew's home on several occasions (he lives in southeast London [Lewisham]), and on each trip he was an excellent guide to London. The three of us will walk about and visit St. James Park, Buckingham Palace, Parliament, Downing Street, Westminster Abbey... the usual tourist spots. More pix will follow tonight.

But back to the Lectures...

This is just my first installment and I will keep you up-to-date on the weekend's festivities. It is my goal to get at least one of you to start setting aside funds to make the trip over here for the 15th annual Lectures in February 2017. Tomorrow kicks it off as guests will start arriving. We have 68 people registered and over a third will join us for a Friday night dinner and party in the hotel lounge. It is the best opportunity to meet and mingle with some of Europe's great arachnoculturists. I love May's yearly Exhibition too, but the committee, traders, and eager buyers are distracted by all the goodies. There is work to be done; commerce to take place. People are busy. The Lectures is the better venue for socializing. Kim and Mark do an awesome job of putting on the event and it all starts with tomorrow night's social. Then Saturday morning many of us will meet for breakfast and then midday the lectures will commence. To celebrate our 30th Anniversary, this year we have booked a celebrity keynote speaker. He will be unfamiliar to my American readers, but based on his bio I expect a very interesting talk. Between the Lectures and dinner those of us on the BTS Committee will have a brief meeting and then after dinner Andrew Smith will deliver his after-dinner Lecture and then drunken debauchery will continue. Sunday morning we have the AGM (Annual General Meeting). This is a chance for the members in attendance to take part in a committee meeting as it is open to all BTS members. I expect my taking on the role of Editor of the Journal will be a hot topic, as I know there will be some in attendance that disagree with a few papers published in the past year, most notably the Phormingochilus and Ornithoctoninae revision that Andrew Smith and I co-authored. There are always dissenters and critics. They are free to publish their own findings. Andrew may be a "splitter" and old-fashioned in methodology, but he certainly has made his mark on Theraphosidae taxonomy. He continues the great tradition of "amateur arachnologists" who have worked on tarantulas. He admittedly is a throwback to the 1900s and the work of Pocock and others, but you can't deny his expertise and contributions. The opposition should be respectful, and I challenge them to do better. People won't find much result in critiquing me. Whether they are happy with the American in charge or not, I am the Editor and the BTS has always given each Editor complete creative control of the Journal. I take my responsibility very seriously and am honored to take over the prestigious publication. I won't be bothered by the unruly.

More Saturday morning as I give you a report on Friday night's social (most likely with a pounding hangover). I'll have some hair of the dog and set to typing regardless. I want to take a few blog entries to do some journalism; sideline reporting from the great 14th BTS Lectures if you will. Maybe you'll decide to join me next year. You are very welcome to!

Thanks for sticking with Kiss My Big Hairy Spider. MJ