ABSTRACT
I first heard Gunnar Olsson speak at the Department of Geography, University College London (UCL), as a third year undergraduate in the spring of 1978. In my last year, I would sneak into Departmental seminars supposedly reserved for staff and post-graduates. I remember seeing Ray Pahl and Alan Baker present, both of whom I read and were excited about, but who in seminar mode were rather dull and dry. Then just before Finals, I saw that Olsson was speaking. I knew I should study for my exams, but Olsson already interested me. Earlier in the same year in a philosophy and methods seminar, a post-graduate student dressed up as a bus conductor declaimed to the class selected passages from a dog-eared copy of Olsson’s (1975) Birds in Egg. He said the passages proved the end of causality. I wasn’t so sure, but I wanted more, and which is what I got that spring day when Olsson came to UCL.
