Eurovision for Geeks! After an evolving conversation on Twitter, on Sunday 25 May we’re organizing a night at our local “Irish” pub, Kelly’s On King, Newtown, to watch the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2008. The delayed broadcast starts 7.30pm Sydney time on SBS TV, so we’ll be avoiding spoilers. We’re probably also organising a live Internet link-up with pubs in other cities — because we can. Details to come later, but is “Eurovision for Geeks” an OK name? Geekvision?

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I’m currently writing an essay to explain what I mean by “middle class values”, but I’ve been sidetracked into childhood memories about cows (don’t ask!) and rediscovering one truly wond’rous part of my childhood: the How & Why Wonder Book series.

If you can point to one thing that made me the geek I am today, it’s this series of books.

Each one was just 48 pages long, and the illustrations were usually paintings — pretty corny by today’s standards. But they really did create a sense of wonder for the Science and Technology which was unfolding in The Space Age. The first one was issued in 1960 and they ran well into the 1970s.

Looking through the lists put together by collectors intabits and Joe Roberts, I reckon I had at least 23 of the titles.

My favourites were The How & Why Wonder Book of Planets and Interplanetary Travel (insanely optimistic, in hindsight), Rockets and Missiles, Atomic Energy (no nuclear waste here, just atomic trains!) and The How & Why Wonder Book of Robots and Electronic Brains — man, there’s a whole essay in that last title alone, eh?

I bet my mother still has them stashed away in a cupboard somewhere.

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