Just the merest hint of a nudge to your collective set of virtual elbows, to remind you that the first Voynich London pub meet for basically ages is this evening (7th March 2013), at The Prospect of Whitby in Wapping. Though having said that, all cipher mysteries are fair game, not just the Voynich Manuscript: hence cipher pigeon fanciers and armchair treasure hunters are more than welcome to come along too. Plenty of room for everyone!

I’ll be there from 6.15pm or so, hoping to catch up on the latest Euro cipher gossip from Gotha and elsewhere, courtesy of Herr Cipher Skeptic himself, Klaus Schmeh, who’s on a flying visit to London having had a swift peek at the various enciphered books in the British Library (“The Subtlety of Witches”, etc). So if you can make your way to Wapping Wall for even half an hour, it would be really great to see you.

[Even stronger nudge: Tony Gaffney, what on earth do I have to do to persuade you to come along? I haven’t seen you in 25 years or so!]

Just so you know: if it’s a nice evening (or if someone happens to bring their dog along with them, John 🙂 ), the chances are we’ll be located in the terraced area through the pub to the back left (looking out over the Thames). Otherwise, we could be anywhere on the pub’s two floors, depending on how busy it happens to be. Looking forward to it!

14 thoughts on “Voynich pub meet (gentle reminder)…

  1. If only I could be in London

  2. John Kozak on March 7, 2013 at 2:10 pm said:

    Can’t make this evening I’m afraid – hope to join you at the next meeting.

  3. Nick – speaking of meetings. I wonder if you’d make a post about a Voynich online conference being advertised through the website of the University of Malta.

    I’m receiving mail from various readers about it and am told that they cannot have a free exchange now at the forum. Among the issues mentioned are ones which sound a bit troubling, if true – such as a supposed requirement that no-one can apply who hasn’t a university email address, which I expect would exclude many specialists in cryptology and conservators who work for public rather than university-funded museums and so on.

    Would you allow open public discussion here? It’s only of interest to me because if there are any international specialists to speak, other than Lisa Fagin Davis, I’d be keen to know who they are.

  4. Agasul on March 10, 2022 at 10:03 pm said:

    @Diane
    The page for the conference is apparently not ready yet!

    LisaFaginDavis writes:
    “The conference isn’t until November, so registration isn’t open yet. Right now we are working on gathering proposals for presentations. Registration won’t open for several months yet.”

  5. Don’t worry – there hasn’t been any censorship at the forum as far as I’m aware. A moderator only asked people to direct queries about why the registration and paper submission forms aren’t working to the technical support people on the uni’s website, rather than ask about it in the thread.

    So whatever happened to what seems to have been a semi-regular London pub meet up?

  6. D.N.O'Donovan on March 11, 2022 at 1:03 am said:

    Agasul,

    My correspondents are speaking about difficulties getting information, about a ‘university email address’ requirement (if that’s still true) and other things such as lack of transparency over just who has set this up and whether ‘registrations’ mean only people whose papers have been accepted or any intended ‘attendee’ online.

    Scholars with reputations in their field aren’t even going to consider submitting an abstract unless there’s a lot more clarity and detail provided – including names and contact details for the members of the ‘Conference committee’ – the sort of information routinely included with any advertisement of this sort. Seeing photos and short bios of the selected keynote speakers isn’t quite enough.

    Interested individuals should have somewhere that their experience, acquired information and helpful hints can be shared and if – as I’m told – there’s a sort of ‘D’ notice now in force at ninja, maybe there’s a little more freedom to speak here.

    Sadly, not one of the half-dozen people I’ve shared the news with have been impressed with the website’s form of announcement and omission of what are usually routine items of information.

    Since not one has been approached and the issues mean they won’t volunteer, and if efforts to send an abstract meet a blank wall.. I can’t see myself rekindling their interest. Maybe open discussions here will do that.
    Too late to put the thing under wraps again or tell everyone to shut up about the problems – the announcement is there on the [world wide] web.

  7. D.N.O'Donovan on March 11, 2022 at 1:44 am said:

    I have a possible solution. Re-name the gathering to something less grandiose but closer to reality.

    How about ‘Online seminar between members of a Voynich forum with one or more external speakers chosen by a member?”.

    If it’s free online I’ll watch it to hear Lisa Fagin Davis!

    Just a thought.

  8. Tavi, this took place. Or in fact, several of them took place.
    I attended one, but it wasn’t the same that Klaus attended. I think it was in 2014.

  9. The conference web site is rather clear, really.

    As it is a university web site, it has (what looks like) a standard university banner at the top, giving access to university resources. These can only be accessed by people with a university account.

    The conference-related contents start at the Voynich banner.

  10. D.N.O'Donovan on March 11, 2022 at 2:10 pm said:

    Oh how nice to see you Rene. May I pass on to you, as one of the speakers, some of the questions I’ve been asked that I’m in no position to answer –

    1. If it’s an international conference, is there any restrictions on the language in which a paper is delivered?
    2. If it’s online, will there be any means to translate papers delivered in a language other than [the person’s] own?
    3. Is there any way to contact the organisers directly?
    4. Who is organising the conference? Should I contact the administration at the University of Malta to contact them?
    5. [The persons – several] have tried to use the online form to express interest/submit an abstract/make an enquiry about registration costs/ etc.etc. and found it impossible.
    6. [Person 1 does not have a university email address, person 2 does but does not want ‘Voynich-related things’ sent there because his secretary attends to his mail] Is it possible to offer an abstract without having to use a university email address?
    7. Are the organisers at the Beinecke end? Should I contact the Beinecke library to get more preliminary information?
    8. I’m not expected to become a member of a Voynich forum in order to address a conference am I?
    9. How do you get updated information if you’re not a member of that forum?
    10. I might have considered it, but sounds a bit obscure for me. No other [professional occupation stated] seems to have heard anything about it.
    11. Is this person (or that) invited/likely to be invited/submitting a paper?

    there’s more, but I’m quite tired of it and would be enormously grateful, if you know who the organisers are – as I’m sure you must because they would have been the ones who chose you as a keynote speaker – to have them understand that this absence of both information and access is a major deterrent to people whom, as I can attest, might really give Voynicheros some solid food for thought and new lines of research. The old ones – honestly -are pretty tired, aren’t they?

    Joy of the spring to you.

  11. D.N. O'Donovan on March 13, 2022 at 12:43 am said:

    As part of the above, I should have kept going long enough to include various questions about whether papers submitted and/or delivered are to be published; whether authors retain copyright; in what medium (if any) such publication of hard-copy is planned.. and so on.

    I think it would be a very good idea, if the organisers do want to attract scholars, to make this aspect of the Conference plan public and be sure it is within guidelines of international copyright law.

    Voynich writers haven’t a very good record of properly citing their precedents and sources, so I’d personally suggest some effort made to ensure the papers delivered at the Conference do.

    Best of luck.

  12. I was wondering why it had stopped – seems to have been pre Covid.

    Diane, there are names of the conference committee at the below link, if not their contact details, but there is the also the conference’s email address for questions.
    https://www.um.edu.mt/events/voynich2022/about

  13. D.N.O'Donovan on March 14, 2022 at 4:41 am said:

    Tavi – thanks so much. I’ll pass that on and hope to re-kindle some interest in the people I notified earlier.

    I thought the meet was to be a conference organised by Yale and the U.of Malta and since it was advertised as an ‘International Conference’ I hoped to get a few people to apply their areas of expertise and open a few windows. Initial reactions were along the lines of ‘ok – maybe – if you think..’ But the problems with the website saying submissions had already closed, and lack of info about languages and papers’ publication (or not) turned the atmosphere, rather.

    Also, the thing looked as if an amateur – one with a theory never debated, defended or published in academic form – might be vetting their papers. No way. One scholar makes it a point of principle only to address conferences in his own language of French so not being able to see immediately what the Conference languages were pulled his blinds down.

    But I’ll try.

  14. D.N.O'Donovan on March 20, 2022 at 2:54 am said:

    Tavi – thanks again for that link.
    I’m hoping especially that a certain palaeographer – whose special study is the lineage of alphabets affecting the Mediterranean traditions – will offer an opinion on the Voynich script, If so, it also see a change in perspective – not only in the historical theories entertained, but in technical matters such as systems for Voynich transcriptions and statistical analysis of the written text. (I use ‘alphabets’ in a loose sense).

    I did think of offering a paper, too, but can’t see much point. I’ve been sharing results of nothing but original research since it came home to me that people working on the Voynich text deserve better than theories and guesses about the drawings.
    If I were to offer a paper it would address matters of methodology and standards of evidence in the field of iconological analysis – not a very exciting subject. 🙂

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