Life on board ESS

Here we all are in Knoxville, 28 brave souls from Scandinavia - 7 from the ESSS Secretariat - who have run the gauntlet of swine flu and the possible end of civilisation as we know it, to attend the International Conference on Neutron Scattering in Tennessee.

With our specially designed shirts (thanks Karl !) we are quite a visible presence here, demonstrating the very solid scientific strength which Scandinavia has in neutron scattering. When we get a delegate list we can see whether in fact we are the largest delegation. Neither has the weather been kind to the organisers, with tornado warnings on Sunday, but we were thoughtfully supplied with umbrellas in our delegate pack, a nice practical touch - just like the delegates to the Bilbao meeting a few weeks ago were. There was lots of reminiscing about the warm sunny weather which we had left behind us in Lund but we have been warmly welcomed here.

Last night the whole Scandinavian team all went out to dinner together at Calhouns waterfront restaurant, an inspired choice of Sofie, Therèse and Johan, since the heavens opened up especially for us and it was quite dramatic over the Tennessee river. Waterfront was therefore the word. We had a really lovely evening with the friendliest waiter and waitress you could imagine. Such enthusiasm and involvement with the (admittedly good-looking!) Scandianvians.

Interestingly, a senior local fellow had earlier asked me how things were doing at ILL. I told him that they had said goodbye to that old guy who used to be there about three years ago and had replaced him with a (somewhat !) younger version (news can travel slowly sometimes...) and that now I was in Sweden. "Oh", he replied with a glazed look in his eye, "the weather must be really bad there."  As he said this I glanced out of the window - there was a torrential rainstorm outside, with cars being washed down the street in front of my eyes (no, no... I made that last bit up!). But it is really interesting how we as humankind comfort ourselves with preconceived ideas. I resisted saying (as I admit I sometimes do) that the Polar bears have migrated north for the summer now and the streets of Lund are safe for a few weeks. Let us hope that the imminent decision on the siting of ESS will be made objectively, setting aside preconceived ideas which all of us carry around with us. I feel confident that that is in fact happening.