The scene so far.

The scene so far.

Today marked the final Frontiers of Science lecture featuring Emlyn Hughes. Last week, Hughes foreshadowed that everything would be explained today; thankfully, since the brouhaha about his first lecture mostly died down, there was no added security today.

Adele’s “Skyfall” began the lecture, followed by a video of a girl changing and putting on makeup; her underwear was visible in some shots, prompting giggles from the audience. Then played scenes of Earth from space, at which point Hughes fell to his knees and started to… worship the projection? That’s kind of what it looked like.

The class proceeded normally for the majority of its duration; the only comment he made during that period was, “I made it to the front page of the NyTimes [for CERN discovery of Higgs boson]—I’m done, I don’t need any more press than that.” He was, of course, wearing his traditional hoodie and sunglasses.

At the end of lecture, however, things came to a true conclusion. Hughes pulled up a video, announcing it was “the last video of the lesson, think about that.” It featured the girl from the beginning of class (in the make-up and changing video) talking to the audience in a vlog style.

After the video, Hughes took off his hood and sunglasses and began his long-awaited speech. He described being pulled into the provost’s office as “a lot of fun” and called the investigation “the inquisition,” despite knowing that the act would “cause a real mess.” “Maybe I would get into the Spectator,” he said, completely forgetting who broke the news first :(.

And the incendiary professor closed by explaining that he did want to make the campus blow up… but on the issue of nuclear bombs. He gave an inspiring talk, describing his dream of getting rid of fission bombs, saying that Columbia can do it by making Obama come to campus (there may have been an Obamanard joke somewhere in there). “Don’t let the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki die for nothing…” he said, “It has been great talking to you guys.” Big applause. Apparently, Hughes had only been trying to make a statement, but all the media attention distracted from it.

During the spiel.

During the spiel.

Finally, the explanation for the twins arrived: “The only way I can explain the twins to you is to ask you a question. During the time the twins were on stage, how well were you able to follow my lecture?”

And as for the rest? “I was just messing with you.”

Bwog applauds Emlyn Hughes, one the biggest trolls in Columbia’s history.