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Sunday, 29 June 2025

Much missed - Supper Talks at the Chelsea Physic Garden with the Tangerine Dream Café

I often go to public talks, about all sorts of topics. One series that was a regular in my 'season' was the Supper Talks at the Chelsea Physic Garden (CPG), sadly no more. 

Here's a photo of the room the talks took place in upstairs (not my photo so haven't embedded it).

https://x.com/ChelsPhysicGdn/status/738431887576829952/photo/1 and you can find more tweets and images here.

Everything about this was utterly lovely and genteel - you got to hear someone talk about something interesting and eat something delicious. You could choose to have your supper before or after the talk (I always took the earlier sitting so that I could take the Thames Clipper ferry home to Greenwich afterwards; it runs from Cadogan Pier but there aren't many ferries after 9pm). Talk, nice food, ferry - just perfection in my book.

CPG is economic botany / ethnobotany heaven. It is a beautiful and interesting garden with areas for different kinds of plants that are used for different purposes (dyeing, food, medicine, clothing) with lovely little greenhouses and all sorts of interesting features. The shop is also wonderful and I had several happy snacks and suppers in the Tangerine Dream Café.


 

That café has now moved to the Ragged School in Poplar (the Ragged Café is on the 309 bus route, or a short walk from the 339) but the Supper Talks at CPG seem to have stopped. The current café arrangement does run what look to be lovely supper events. Outside tables laden with deliciousness, but it's just eating not learning so I've never felt that tempted. I realised I'd not actually been to the gardens since 2018 (!) so I will have to remedy that soon, I suppose Covid didn't help.

In December 2018 lots of celebrities wrote to (then) Prince Charles asking him to save the Tangerine Dream Café which lost out to Rocket And Radish Ltd, there was a bit of a hoo ha about it and it made the Daily Mail: Stars plea to Charles to fight to save garden cafe under threat of closure.

Annoyingly, for the purposes of this post, I don't have a record of all the talks I attended but have managed to find some info about a few of them.

This page shows the current events at Chelsea Physic Garden.

4 October 2018
Supper talk: 'Captain Bligh & the Breadfruit'
"William Bligh (of ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ fame) undertook two remarkable Pacific voyages before 1800, transporting Breadfruit from Tahiti to the West Indies. A fascinating evening presented by Pieter Ban der Merwe, outlining the challenges and outcomes of these missions." 

I wasn't able to find the info on the Wayback Machine / Internet Archive but this snippet came via the Cadogan VIP magazine PDF.

They had some breadfruit at this talk and I rather enjoyed it - a bit like a very light pineapple.

4 October 2018 - sampling breadfruit at the Chelsea Physic Garden supper talk on Captain Bligh and the Breadfruit. Both of which I enjoyed.

 

4 October 2018 - possibly a very similar meal to the one below (I can see edamame beans in there) but I didn't make a note of the menu options.

Before I had supper and attended the talk I took a wander round the gift shop.

4 October 2018 - 1 of 3 - the shop at Chelsea Physic Garden

4 October 2018 - 2 of 3 - the shop at Chelsea Physic Garden

4 October 2018 - 3 of 3 - inside the Tangerine Dream Cafe at Chelsea Physic Garden with some lovely bunting

7 December 2017
Fashioned from Nature’ with Edwina Ehrman, Curator of Textiles and Fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum - all about clothing from natural fibres.

From my contemporaneous tweets - 

  • "The best bleaching was in Haarlem" Nthlnds - rich folk would send linens there for a spruce up! (also area unpolluted)" 
  • "Uncreasable and dye-absorbing linen seems to be the holy grail for textile mfrs. Now hearing about mythic linen-tweed mix" (mythic because original samples hard to get hold of) 
  • "Drapers used to *explain* fabrics to their customers, highlighting things to look out for when buying. Harder w synthetics!" 
  • "Cotton is v *environmentally* "hygroscopic". 6tn litres used in dying industry. Low-water finishing denim is an improvement" (may be an improvement!) 
  • "+, cotton from US, shipped to Colombia for weaving, then to New York for printing. Zipping abt the globe in container ships" 
  • "Learning about pineapple fibres which are used in a bonded not woven fabric (I might need to google that)" 
  • "Also apparently people in the Balkans have been making alternative leather from mushrooms for *ages*(!)".

7 December 2017 - The tables in the garden were covered with the largest wreaths I've ever seen.


13 July 2017
Supper talk: ‘More than cotton: textile secrets of Kew’s Economic Botany Collection’ with Dr Mark Nesbitt, Curator, Economic Botany Collection Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Below is a photo I took of the supper I had on the night.

13 July 2017 - Goat’s cheese, gruyere and sun-dried tomato tarte (recipe link, Daily Mail link), edamame beans & green & yellow courgettes, plus feta, olive and watermelon, plus orange polenta cake & a glass of white.

4 August 2016
Scented Decadence with Dr. Christina Bradstreet
"Why did the scent of roses encapsulate the spirit of decadence in late nineteenth-century art? This talk explores the use and abuse of perfume and its pleasures and pains in scenes of fragrant intoxication."

You can see all the Chelsea Physic Garden Supper Talks for the 2016 summer and winter season here.

[NEW] She is also presenting "Watts' Choosing: talk and tour with Curator, Dr Christina Bradstreet" at the Watts Gallery (GU3 1DQ) near Guildford on Friday 11 July 2025 from 5.30 to 7pm.


11 Aug 2010
Chelsea Physic Garden talk: 'Hans Sloane, Quinine (Cinchona) & Malaria' by Prof Monique Simmonds. Technically not a 'supper talk' but the restaurant was open and there was a price given for the combined talk and food.

Sloane, Quinine and the Battle Against Malaria
"Chelsea Physic Garden has been growing cinchona (the source of quinine) since Sloane’s time. Professor Monique Simmonds who works at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, is an expert on ethnobotany and on the plants which have been used to combat this life-threatening disease."

2007 photo of large wooden box labelled Cinchona succirubra at University of Leiden (I was there doing a two-week course in Economic Botany - fab).



Other posts in the Much Missed series

Somerset House and Film4's Summer Screen series of open air films in the courtyard (9 June 2022)
The Bankside Frost Fair 2003 - 2008 (24 November 2020)
Speechification, curated radio documentaries (9 January 2020)
The National Geographic shop on Regent Street, London (4 January 2020)
MOMI, London's Museum of the Moving Image (2 January 2014)

 

Tangerine Dream Café - as far as I can tell this began at the Chelsea Physic Garden in 2005 before moving to Brook Green in 2018, then became Café Tangerine at the Institut Francais in 2019 before moving to the Ragged School in Poplar (in 2023..?) and becoming the Ragged Café. 

Here's the Tangerine Dream café recipe for Goat’s cheese, gruyere and sun-dried tomato tarte (all Daily Mail links) also for Crunchy lemon cake  and Fig, thyme, almond and honey tart.

Friday, 20 June 2025

Reach for the Sky Challenge Fund - CAA / DfT funding now open to encourage young people into aviation careers

I have literally (not figuratively) been clicking the first link every day for months as I'm going to apply for this funding. My project, if funded, will be an issue of the CS4FN magazine (plus a new aviation portal on the CS4FN blog about flying and careers) about the computer science and human-computer interaction involved in designing, flying and tracking of aircraft and development of lower carbon options. Very excited, wish me luck!

Here's what I've posted to psci-com, the mailing list for science communicators.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••




 

 

 

 

The Civil Aviation Authority and Department for Transport are keen to encourage young people to find out about careers in aviation so this fund is less about public engagement with the science of flight and more about careers outreach (but the previously funded projects obviously do include plenty of flight-related scicomm!).

Reach For The Sky Challenge Fund
https://stem.caa.co.uk/reach-for-the-sky-challenge-fund/
• open today until 12 September 2025
• Total pot is £750k, likely spread among 10+ projects

They are looking for outstanding outreach projects that can meet the following three objectives:

1. Inspire the next generation of aviation professionals, championing the opportunities available in the sector.  Applicants’ activities should focus on developing interest and engagement with the opportunities available in aviation, showing clear links to career pathways. This might also involve supporting someone in developing skills or gaining experience that could be useful for a career in aviation or aerospace, but should not replace formal education, i.e., delivery of statutory licences or educational qualifications.

2. Reach individuals who would not otherwise be aware of opportunities available within the aviation sector. Applicants should consider how their project might benefit under-represented groups (i.e. women and girls, people from minority ethnic backgrounds, people with disabilities or those from lower socio-economic backgrounds).

3. Have a broad impact by reaching and engaging multiple people. This might be achieved through some form of mass participation event, delivery through an education setting or youth group, or via virtual methods that can reach a mass audience.


Other useful links
Today's press release:
Reach for the Sky evaluation (26 September 2024, updated 17 Feb 2025)
Evaluating the success of the Reach for the Sky Challenge Fund and its ability to get young people into aviation careers.

Last year's press release (they upped the pot with additional funding, to £810k, and funded 16 projects (actually 18 if you click on the 'successful applicants button on the first page linked).

PDF listing the 2024 successful applicants with a summary of their projects.

The CAA's (quite fun, cute cartoons page on Careers in Aviation and Aerospace which includes everything (engineering, programming, logistics, ground crew, pilots and cabin crew).

Generation Aviation Group (Gov.UK)
"Generation Aviation is a multistream programme that helps build an aviation workforce fit for the future by raising the profile of aviation careers, removing barriers to access and attracting diverse and talented people to tackle new technologies, decarbonisation and other emerging trends."

Flight tracking pages
FlightRadar24 | ADS-B Exchange | Flight Aware (enter an airport name to see what's coming and going)




Thursday, 19 June 2025

How is it even possible that I've never knowingly heard of the Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence until today?!

How??

I work* in computer science-related science communication and actively go looking for interesting things to share with people, including lots about artificial intelligence. Absolutely gobsmacked to learn, while reading this in Sian Meades-Williams' freelance writing jobs newsletter, that there's a whole charity related to AI scicomm and I didn't know about it.

"The Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence - a charity that bridges the gap between public interest and robotics research - needs a part-time assistant editor."
(10hr/wk, £30.3-36.0k pro rata, clos 11 July 2025)

Amazing!

Anyway they have two websites: https://aihub.org/ and https://robohub.org/

I've shared the job advert with psci-com and pecs Jiscmail mailing lists (for science communication in general and science communication in computer science respectively) and the Association of British Science Writers list. I'll also add it to the TechDevJobs site as it's a computing-adjacent role and I collect those.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

*I work (at QMUL's Computer Science department, EECS^) at the intersection of computer science and 'scicomm' (science communication) & public engagement. Effectively I'm an embedded science writer (editor, proofreader, admin, events wrangler) on CS4FN (the Computer Science For Fun magazine and blog) which is an outreach project for schools from our department. I often write about artificial intelligence, or highlight events and interesting things to do with it - for schools, teachers, general public, colleagues.

^EECS = the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science

Friday, 13 June 2025

Atoma Union C.I.C. / Atoma C.I.C. and Youthworksunion C.I.C. - fundraising at stations in London and possibly elsewhere

I've been making notes about the various Community Interest Companies (CICs) which are involved in selling magazines or otherwise fundraising outside various stations in London and elsewhere. I've been approached by people from these companies as I pass through Farringdon and have been surprised by the volume of "chuggers" operating there (I counted 11 on one visit). 

These are not charities (so not strictly 'chuggers', a pejorative portmanteau of charity and mugger) but several members of the staff are quite persistent in getting your attention, telling you that you've dropped something (even if only your smile), or complimenting you. Many people find this sort of fundraising makes them uncomfortable. 

This post is about Atoma Union C.I.C. / Atoma C.I.C. and Youthworksunion C.I.C.

Also in this series are posts that are written to try and help me get a sense of the various different organisations under similarly-named umbrellas.

What are the organisations?
1. Atoma C.I.C. (12773310) - incorporated on 28 July 2020 for the purposes of "46180 - Agents specialised in the sale of other particular products". The accounts are delayed (were due on 30 April 2024) though the company is still listed as active. Run by Omokehinde Oreoluwa Aladenola and Ayoola David Osaruwvense Obisesan.

It looks like moves were made to have the company struck off voluntarily in 2024 but there was a court-ordered restoration on 3 February 2025 (PDF).

2. Youth Atoma Enterprise Ltd. (15045868) - this is a private limited company, not a CIC. It was incorporated on 2nd August 2023 for the purposes of "87900 - Other residential care activities not elsewhere classified" and "88910 - Child day-care activities" so may be quite unrelated to the companies above. Its accounts are delayed (due on 2 May 2025) and it's run by Omokehinde Aladenola (Ayoola David Osaruwvense Obisesan resigned in 2024). Formerly named Youth Atoma Enterprice Ltd.

3. Atoma Union C.I.C. (15686104) - incorporated on 27 April 2024 for "47990 - Other retail sale not in stores, stalls or markets", accounts not due until January 2026, run by Omokehinde Aladenola.

4. Youthworksunion C.I.C. (15790735) - incorporated on 20 June 2024 for the purposes of "47990 - Other retail sale not in stores, stalls or markets", run by Kenny Aladen.

Companies 2 and 3 both operate from a CV2 company address post code (#1 from DA8) and there are quite a few other companies operating from that address including #4, run by someone else with a slightly different surname. 

The website for Atoma Union says that "We are currently undergoing a name change from Atoma Union to Youth Works Union. This is to clear any misunderstanding if you see a representative of ours using a different logo . We are just currently in a transition period.". 

Alamy has a photograph purporting to be someone from Youth Works Union selling Uplifterz magazines (I'm not sure how the two companies are related), also Alamy has mis-labelled them as a charity.

Appointments records
Because each company has its own correspondence address (this is completely normal) it means that the records of the officers can too so there are multiple appointments records for Mr Aladenola.  

Omokehinde Aladenola aka Omokehinde Oreoluwa Aladenola has three appointment records: this record lists two appointments including Atoma Union C.I.C., this record lists one appointment for Youth Atoma Enterprise Ltd and this one (which includes his middle name) lists one appointment, for Atoma C.I.C. 

Misc
There is also a seemingly unrelated company (dissolved) called Union Atoma Ltd (14405810), included for name-search completeness.



Thursday, 12 June 2025

We R Blighty C.I.C. now has its own subreddit

Edit: 26 June 2025 - Veterans fundraising firm We R Blighty guilty of unlawful cash collections (26 June 2025) The iPaper, following a 'hearing at City of London Magistrates’ Court earlier this month.'

I've not actually encountered We R Blighty C.I.C. (14349080), a Community Interest Company (CIC), which is unusual as they seem to be everywhere in London and in other cities raising funds to support homeless veterans. Their record on Companies House says that their next accounts are due on 30 June 2025.

They came to my attention solely because of news articles, and later information on Reddit, expressing concerns about the organisation. Having never met them I've no particular beef with them but am currently making a note of the various CICs that operate at London's stations.

There has been a bit of a proliferation of these CICs and I've encountered Uplifterz, Atoma Union / Youtth Works Union and Safehaven Initiative (new kid on the block, one of the two Savehaven CICs having been incorporated only on 2 June 2025). I've also encountered Inside Success at Stratford and Mile End.

We R Blighty personnel

 

Further reading

We R Blighty subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/werblighty/

Do those ‘We R Blighty’ fundraisers outside stations really deserve your cash? (22 May 2025) The Londoner

Revealed: Armed forces fundraiser We R Blighty that collects thousands to 'get veterans off the street' is subject of TWO investigations by police and watchdog over its conduct (9 November 2024) Daily Mail 

Cash collections for homeless veterans probed by police (8 November 2024) The iPaper

We R Blighty - Forces Charity Scam (27 May 2023) Walter Mitty Hunters' Club HQ



Wednesday, 11 June 2025

Trying to get my head around "Inside Success" (station magazine sellers) and their various companies

Inside Success is a Community Interest Company (CIC) which has attracted a lot of attention for both the way some staff have behaved towards the public and the way in which staff have been treated by the company. They have been investigated twice by the Fundraising Regulator in March 2023 (1) and January 2024 (2) for pressurised fundraising and for not having the relevant licence to accept donations. ITV did a piece on them (3) which indicated that some of their staff had not been paid. Barking Council (2019) and Manchester City Council (2023) fined them for collecting money without a permit (4) and the Daily Mail drew attention to the large sums of money being collected (5).

As far as I'm aware CICs can ask for donations publicly if they have been given a permit to do so by Metropolitan Police (in London) or the local council. That doesn't appear to be the case here. (Companies don't actually have to be registered with the Fundraising Regulator to fundraise however; registration is voluntary).

I think that without such collecting permits in place they are only allowed to sell magazines.  

There are a lot of different companies operating in a similar way in London and elsewhere and I've itemised the ones I know about here (6).

How many Inside Success companies are there?
I think it's four; two active, two dissolved.

Active
Inside Success Union C.I.C. (10174759) is the one investigated by the Fundraising Regulator. It was incorporated on 11 May 2016 (previously known as Inside Success Union Ltd) and its accounts are currently delayed (should have been published in February 2025). The company is run by Darren Olawale and David Sonowo. 

There's also Inside Success Ltd (15932606) which is not a CIC but a private limited company. It was incorporated on 3 September 2024, its accounts aren't due until next year and it's run by Darren Olawale.

Dissolved
Inside Success LLP (OC357911), a limited liability partnership, was incorporated on 15 September 2010 and dissolved on 26 February 2013. It was also run by Darren Olawale and David Sonowo.

Inside Success UK CIC (08237681) was incorporated on 2 October 2012, dissolved on 20 December 2016 - five months after it was supposed to have submitted its accounts. It was run by Darren Olawale, David Sonowo and Cecil Hugh Quartey.

David Sonowo also had three other companies, with 'U Got Jokes' in the name (all dissolved), two of which he shared with Darren Olawale. Mr Sonowo spoke, on 29 July 2020, on Day Two of the BBC's CDX [Creative Diversity] festival, in the 'U Got Jokes' session with a few others.

How many correspondence addresses?
All of these companies have different company addresses (perfectly reasonable!) which also means that the officers and directors etc also have different addresses and consequently different appointments records. This does make it a bit harder to keep track of things and as far as I can tell there are four records for Darren and three for David (there may be others).

Darren Olawale has one appointment here (for the dissolved Inside Success UK CIC [08237681]), seven appointments here (for Inside Success Ltd (15932606) active, Inside Success Union C.I.C. (10174759) active and, Inside Success LLP (OC357911) dissolved), and several unrelated companies - see more in reference (7)

There's also a Darren Ola who has one appointment for an unrelated company. I think it's the same person because the other officers for the company are David Sonowo (and Anthony Sinclair Greenidge). I also found a record for a Darren Olawalw (typo) with one appointment for another unrelated company. The company's correspondence address was changed from an WC2H address to an SW8 one in 2021; both of those addresses are used by other companies Mr Olawale runs too.

David Sonowo has three appointments here (for the two dissolved Inside Success companies and an unrelated company), five appointments listed here (for Inside Success Union C.I.C. and four unrelated companies) and one appointment here (unrelated to Inside Success companies). There's reference here to another U Got Jokes company starting in 2005 but I cant find it on Companies House.

When did Inside Success begin?
The first Inside Success company (Inside Success LLP) was incorporated on 15 September 2010 but this tweet from November 2009 made me wonder if there might have been an earlier company (if so I can't find it on Companies House).

The links don't work now but point to an earlier version of the Inside Success website which exists on the Wayback Machine - the pic•gd link goes nowhere but the bitly one points to (dead) https://ww1.insidesuccess.co.uk/lander whereas their current website has the insidesuccessuk format.

References

(1) Investigation summary: Inside Success Union CIC (March 2023) Fundraising Regulator
Registered company no. 10174759.

Code themes examined: Pressurised fundraising, dealing with vulnerable donors, fundraising licenses, causing an obstruction.
Code breach? Yes

(2) Investigation summary: Inside Success Union CIC (January 2024) Fundraising Regulator
Registered company no. 10174759.

Code themes examined: Pressurised fundraising, misleading fundraising, fundraising licenses, causing an obstruction, wearing appropriate identification when engaged in street fundraising, complaint handling and learning from complaints.
Code breach? Yes

(3) Anti-knife crime group Inside Success Union accused of harassing public to raise cash (1 August 2023) ITV

(4a) Bosses of magazine Inside Success Union are fined for selling in Barking without a licence (4 February 2019) Barking and Dagenham Post

(4b) Company who illegally 'pressured people into donating' to them on streets of Manchester fined (3 November 2023) Manchester Evening News 

(5) Exposed: Where the £3million we hand over to anti-knife 'charities'' pushy High Street collectors REALLY ends up (25 May 2024) Daily Mail

I hope the writer of this Reddit post, about the company fundraising in Bristol, won't mind me excerpting a bit of their comment as I think it's important - "It's worth noting that a section of the racist arsehole press in the UK (the Daily Mail and GB News) is down on this organisation because it is predominantly run by people of colour. Racists and racism can of course fuck off, this is Bristol after all, but ... I'd encourage everyone to respectfully engage with each of them [IS staff collecting at stations] and encourage them to do something better with their lives..."

(6) Community Interest Companies (CICs) selling magazines, collecting donations ('chugging') at many of London's stations (9 June 2025) Brodiesnotes: Stuff that occurs to me (this blog)

(7) Companies listed are: Inside Success Ltd (15932606) active, My Sounds Global Ltd (15096639) active, U Got Jokes Comedy Ltd (14290194) dissolved, Inside Success Union C.I.C. (10174759) active, Inside Success LLP (OC357911) dissolved, U Got Jokes Limited (07163628) dissolved, Kick Up Academy Limited (10052282) dissolved.



Monday, 9 June 2025

Community Interest Companies (CICs) selling magazines, collecting donations ('chugging') at many of London's stations

The term 'chugger' means 'charity mugger' and refers to people who are either paid by a charity directly to do face to face fundraising or, more commonly, are paid by a third company to which this has been outsourced. There are plenty of complaints to be had about the methods used by chuggers, some of whom even call at people's homes, but they are at least fundraising for a genuine purpose even if they annoy lots of people while doing so.

Community Interest Companies (CICs) are different but have followed a similar pattern. They are not regulated by the Charity Commission and have much less oversight on them. Consequently there are one or two that are or have been under investigation for raising money without a permit or for harrassing members of the public to give them money. They also fall between several regulatory gaps which makes it harder for authorities to do much about them.

Here are some of the CICs I've encountered or heard about.

Atoma Union's website says "We are currently undergoing a name change from Atoma Union to Youth Works Union. This is to clear any misunderstanding if you see a representative of ours using a different logo . We are just currently in a transition period." though if it's the same Atoma Union as the one above they have different officers (but who share the same correspondence address).

Plus at least one which has been dissolved.