Met Ariane Sherine, the driver of the Atheist bus!

[CJ]

Today, 19th Dec 2009, the Leeds branch of Sceptics in the Pub was graced with the presence of Ariane Sherine the driving force behind the Atheist Bus campaign.



She gave a presentation on how the campaign came about, how all the money was raised including Richard Dawkins very significant donation. It was very enlightening. Being a comedian meant the presentation was good fun as well as fact filled. She showed some of the hate messages from those 'loved up' christians, you know the sort of thing "FUCK YOU BITCH!", "I hope you and 800 other atheists die soon" etc. From an initial irritation by a christian bus advert she started a process that has, so far, led to campaigns in 14 countries including the USA! It took months of her life and masses of effort to get it all sorted out.

Ariane is also a contributor to and the editor of the book "There's probably no God. The Atheist's guide to Christmas". Ariane described the process of gathering all the 42 contributors together and when she had reached 32 despairing of reaching her self imposed target. So she started randomly emailing people including Christopher Hitchens who didn't reply to her initial polite entirety, so she sent him "quite a rude one" to which he did reply but could not contribute as his other commitments were taking up all his time. Here are some of the contributors to the book:-

• Richard Dawkins
  Derren Brown
  Charlie Brooker
  David Baddiel
  Ben Goldacre
  Josie Long
  Richard Herring
  Simon Singh
  Brian Cox
  Jenny Colgan
  AC Grayling
  Simon Le Bon
  Claire Rayner
  Robin Ince
  Jon Holmes
  Zoe Margolis
  Phil Plait
  Mitch Benn
  Lucy Porter
  Adam Rutherford

Ariane's significant other had been press ganged into lugging a box of copies of the book which Ariane signed. All the profits from the book go to the Terrance Higgins Trust.

One chap had travelled nearly 2 hours to meet Ariane and get a couple of books signed as Christmas presents.


Andy getting his book signed.


I also bought a copy and asked Arian to sign it for me.

Chris, one of the Sceptic's organisers, couldn't resist getting his photo taken with Ariane


Thanks Ariane for a great meeting and a good laugh as well

The next meeting is on the 16th January. Do come along if you can.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I remember Chris from the Leeds meet. Great pics CJ!

[FBM]

From an initial irritation by a christian bus advert she started a process that has, so far, led to campaigns in 14 countries including the USA!

Cool....

[Bella Fortuna]

From an initial irritation by a christian bus advert she started a process that has, so far, led to campaigns in 14 countries including the USA!

Cool....

Yeah!

[FBM]

Wait...in the middle pic...OH, that's you, CJ!!! Just noticed. My eyes were drawn elsewhere, seems...

[RPizzle]

That's really awesome.

[redunderthebed]

Damn she is hawt and smart and funny and a atheist.

Very cool CJ.

[Sisifo]

A Really courageous person, it seems. We atheist are more thinkers and talkers. Meeting a Doer like her ought to be a privileged experience!

[AshtonBlack]

Excellent!!

[CJ]

A Really courageous person, it seems. We atheist are more thinkers and talkers. Meeting a Doer like her ought to be a privileged experience!

It was a privilege to meet Ariane. What one doesn't gain a real impression of is how tiny she is 5ft at most and no affectation to cover it by wearing high heals either.

[lordpasternack]

She seems like a lovely character, and as others have observed, rather attractive. I'd love to meet her too, sometime.

For the record, I got the book off Amazon back in November.