Educational YouTuber Steve Mould and Stand-up Mathematician Matt Parker visited Jonathan Deane‘s house on 17 September, in order to see for themselves the Wirtz pump in the stream at the bottom of the garden. Jon Bevan joined as well. Jonathan and Jon published a paper on the Wirtz pump in 2018 and this is how Steve Mould came to know about it. The pump is based on the simple idea of using a rotating spiral pipe to pump water and it was invented in 1746 by Swiss pewterer HA Wirtz. The spiral is easily built into a waterwheel in order to make a water-powered pump. During the dry parts of this summer it has been extremely useful for keeping the garden watered.

Steve Mould is friends with some or all of the members of the band Blur and two of them came too: Alex James (bass guitarist) and Dave Rowntree (drummer). Owing, partly at least, to the difficulties of transporting a full drum kit, we unfortunately weren’t treated to an impromptu recital during the visit. Jon, Jonathan, and Steve are shown in the photo below.