To Manchester for an address to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society for the Kilburn Lecture on ‘The Future of the Olympic Games’. The learned society is Britain’s second oldest, after the Royal Society, having been instituted in 1781. John Dalton, the father of modern chemistry, was one of its important past members. My NBF Peter Barnes (I had to explain to him that the acronym meant new best friend) picked me up at the airport and whisked me to Manchester Metropolitan University, and within 45 minutes I had changed into evening clothes and was facing a jolly gathering of bearded professors, smiling ladies and an all-round appreciative audience who laughed at my jokes and were extremely generous with their applause. I spoke for 45 minutes and had an intelligent question and answer period of 15 minutes — one gentleman asked me why Lindsay Lohan hadn’t come with me, and I told him that, alas, she was most likely in jail and incapable of travel.
A lively dinner followed and the wine flowed, as did the vodka later on in the university’s bar.
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