(credit: Lucy Orr)

Would I like to cover Barfest? Why, of course! Even though it seems like some form of alcoholic devolution, considering I was very recently in Germany at Puke-Fest… Oh, sorry, I see—you mean BAHFest, aka the Festival of Bad ad Hoc Hypotheses. I consider myself a layperson when it comes to hard science so, in the best familial tradition, I bully my little sister—a massive nerd and PhD-holding research assistant at Birkbeck Babylab—to assist me in ascertaining how any data might be mishandled. By design, there’s bound to be some bad science here.

I’ve attended my fair share of Uncaged Monkeys shows, and love a good Carl Sagan quote, so I feel privileged to be attending the very first international BAHFest. It’s billed as “a celebration of well-argued, and thoroughly researched, but completely incorrect scientific theory.” The festival is running over two days at Imperial College London, where my famous-not-famous particle physicist dad, Robert Orr, studied in the 1960s. I can’t help wondering if I was conceived in a lab nearby.

On the first evening, dubbed BAH! London Evolution, six brave speakers (assisted by inexplicably popular Hogwarts’ escapee, and AV technician, Lloyd) present their awfully absorbing, and utterly loony theories to a live audience of hollering nerds, and a panel of three judges, some of whom might even have valid science credentials.