#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