Andrew’s Blog

So it’s January again and the department is only just now starting to get back up to full steam. I’ve been back in since the 2nd in order to give myself plenty of time to get going again while it’s quiet. I actually quite like it like that. For most of the first week, there were very few academics in. Notably, Phil was around (the mark of a good head of department) and Marian was also in towards the end of the week. Other than that, it was pretty much just me, Monika, Kirsty and a few other VT students (Henry and Maslita then Mohammed and Ali on the Friday) around our part of the building.

Henry spent most of the time trying to finish sorting out his new accommodation and, most importantly, his Internet connection. It seemed like a good idea to go with the discount O2 gave him via his existing mobile contract in theory. In practice, their website was obviously designed by idiots and caused no end of problems. Why should we have to tell the web site that we’re logged in? Surely it should know!

Ibby also made an appearance on the Thursday (although much later than I expected from his phonecall the day before!) and Henry suggested some post-birthday drinks which was very nice of him. We spent a couple of hours in the Swim, having a good chat before going home.

This nice little spell of quite winterdom was over by the next week when people started to reappear en mass. There still weren’t enough people to warrant a postgraduate seminar session though, on the Monday, so it was cancelled much to Ramsay’s dismay at the loss of pizza. Most of my time over the last two weeks has been spent on getting the Sun stuff going, of which you can ready more on my other blog; other than that, it’s been lots of nice chats over cuppas as usual.

The biggest event of the last couple of weeks has to be our impromptu night out. Last Thursday, me and Henry bumped into Emily in the kitchen (she having returned on Monday, when we sadly took all the Christmas decorations back down) and were given a rather strange invitation to a night out. You see, she didn’t ask us if we wanted to join her but rather if we’d meet up with her if we were already going out. Kind of bizarre. We weren’t sure what to do, given the short notice. I know Em would never go out at such short notice, so it seemed a bit cheeky her expecting us to.

In the end, we decided to go and I texted Em to let her know. We were forewarned it was apparently a ‘girly night’, whatever that means, but even without any mascara, we still decided to go. Unfortunately, we were a little late in getting across to the Varsity and when we got there at 9, Em had left. We stayed for a drink anyway, then went across to the quieter Cavendish for another. As usual, the Varsity was playing loud music for the very few customers it has, while it was noticeably quieter but packed with people in the Cavendish. After some interesting chat, the two of us headed down to the Leadmill, again via the Globe, having agreed to meet Emily there.

The streets were desolate, with the Cavendish seemingly having the majority of tonight’s party people. To say we got to the Leadmill later than we have before (about half eleven), and yet it was still nearly empty, it shows how much the night-going population of Sheffield is dominated by the students, who were all still mostly away on Christmas vacation. We spotted Em and friend not long after getting there, but there seemed to be little hint of the girly night we were told about. Rather than interrupting her, we waited until she spotted us as well and decided to come over.

The night was a bit different to what I remember the last Thursday at the Leadmill being like. The music in the main room was way more cheesy than before, being a smattering of all sorts of pop music, while room 2, rather than being the usual indie stuff, was playing house music. Sadly, as always popularity surrounds the worst music, and the poor DJ in that room had very few people on the dancefloor. These kids today just don’t have any taste — I mean, Peter Andre? The guy kept repeating tracks too which always annoys me. 3 Britney Spears songs (1 twice)?

It worked out well though, because I think the DJ in room 2 realised he didn’t have to play to the crowd but could just play what he fancied. We went back and forth a few times; I got Henry to join me in there the first time, then the second time he initiated us going in there after hearing that the guy had moved on to playing some trance. The main dance floor was a joke. Not only was the music not too good, but the majority of people there weren’t even dancing and seemed to take it badly that some of us wanted to actually enjoy ourselves. They’d rather just stand there like idiots and get drunk.

Towards the end of the night, there were people falling all over the place, so I escaped once again to the other room, especially when I heard the DJ was now playing some drum ‘n’ bass! That made me very happy, even I was one of only about three people in there, while the rest were staggering around in the other room to Whitney Houston. Admittedly, it was commercial drum ‘n’ bass (Pendulum’s ‘Slam’ followed by Puretone’s ‘Addicted to Bass’) but this was still a league above what the annoying wedding DJ was doing in the other room. It’s always a sign of a bad DJ when they feel the need to talk to their audience and tell you what tracks they’re going to play. Honestly, it was like listening to Hallam FM or something.

The DJ finished the night with some old skool stuff, and then I met up with Henry again and we walked back up towards his house. I was in no rush to get back and I didn’t want to leave him until I knew he was cognoscent enough to get home okay. All in all, it was a good night and I enjoyed the chance to have a good chat with Henry. He’s a really good friend.

No, this is nothing to do with James Bond. We’re now two and a half hours into 2008, and so it’s time to look back ponderously at 2007 — just like we looked back at 2006 last year…

January

Last year I struggled to remember anything from the first couple of months of the year. I put this partly down to it being fairly uneventful (I couldn’t remember much) and also not having a blog for that period (I didn’t start properly until September 2006).

This year, I’m struggling to remember much about the first couple of months of the year too. And guess what? — I have a blog. Guess what I wrote in it? Hardly anything. Looks like we’ve got a great couple of months to look forward to then if the last couple of years are anything to go by. Although with all the stuff that’s ‘about’ to happen, I have a feeling it won’t be true this year.

My main memory of last January is of Mike Stannett discovering the Internet. Most people would have discovered it before 2007, but not Mike. He got a new computer and developed a sudden fascination with all things net, insisting that we all get webcams and microphones so we could talk to him at home. I still don’t understand why, and fortunately by the time the next semester had started this obsession had somewhat subsided. I think it had a lot to do with wanting to stay at home to be honest.

In my 06 year blog, I mentioned Shaukat joining earlier in the year. At the end of January last year, he left. We made our first VT expedition to Jumbo’s as a goodbye meal. Going back to the beginning of the month, for some reason the first few days stick in my head because I didn’t go back on the 2nd, having an optician’s appointment, but Ramsay did with him and Mahmood ending up in a fire alarm practice outside in the cold. Weird how I remember that.

February

The first week of February saw Mike Stannett’s birthday, and we trooped down to see him the week before to give him a present. The other big event of the month, for me at least, was my trip to Brussels and FOSDEM. I remember planning to leave rather late because I thought me and Henry had to actually attend Siobh´a;n’s lectures for her module as well as do the marking. But it turns out we didn’t, so that, coupled with a late plane arrival and trying to find everything, made me get there a lot later than I would have ideally hoped to. I’ll be going again this year so hopefully the travel and stuff will be better. The event itself was great and I expect this year’s to be even better too.

March

There still doesn’t appear to have been much happening even in March, given that I resorted to using my blog to write dramas. But at least I wasn’t alone in blogging then because Mike was actually doing so at the time (although checking that link just now shows he has posted again for the first time in six months). Looking back at mine brings back a few interesting memories. And to blatantly re-use that format, that was the month that:

• Simon bought a RISC PC which has since mainly festered in the corner of the lab.
• Simon bought a GP2X which has seen more use.
• Ramsay acquired a SGI box from Kirill which has since mainly festered in the corner of the lab (spot a theme here…?)
• Zubair was mad enough to install Vista — oh how we laughed.
• Scarily, that was the first time I talked about DynamiTE — has it really been that long?
• Ibby passed his transfer report at long last on the 13th; unlucky for some but not for him.

But mainly one of just being in the lab I guess. I know there was a lot of demonstrating going on. Me and Henry taking packed COM162 classes with Sanaz, Ben and Swampi. Lots of the aforementioned marking. COM2030 tutorials for Georg. And the Turnitin stuff started to kick off as well, not to mention Crossover as always so that probably explains why not much else went on.

April

April always seems to be where things start to kick off, with May becoming a veritable tornado of activity. In 2006, it was the month we spent gallivanting around the country (BCTCS, MGS, Types, TFP and all that jazz) and April 07 was similarly pretty busy. Although my blog again shows my whimsical musings, it also clearly demonstrates a busy month. I suppose the most memorable bit is that bloody CONCUR paper. I spent two entire evenings in the lab with Mike while we cranked it out and while I spoke lyrically of it back then, the response to it clearly showed it didn’t smell of roses.

Speaking of MGS, Simon went off there again and this time Henry, Ibby and Peter went too. Memorably, Ibby travelled there and back every day, was less than diligent in claiming back the expenses for this, got lost, most enjoyed looking in the pond rather than at the lectures, made a racist slur, set the department in a bad light and phoned me every day. Not bad for a week’s work.

This was also the time of my eponymous blog about the Information commons. From what I’ve seen, it still all holds. In fact, in all accounts everything I’ve heard since has merely darkened my opinion, notably including its effect on the opening hours of St George’s and the name of the Main Library as well as its ridiculous mandated 24-hour policy. There’s no money to helpfully open St George’s for a few extra hours of an evening which students actually want, but keeping the Information Commons opening at 2am and during the Christmas break is a must.

It’s all been departures this year, and sadly April saw the unhappy story of Ravie leaving, as he lost funding to continue in Sheffield. He was given the option of continuing back home in Malaysia instead and took it. These changes have had quite an effect on the lab, and its makeup today is quite different than it was this time last year.

May

What a heady month May was! It even kicked off quite dramatically, when we did the final rearrangement of the VT lab to what it is today. I’m quite pleased with how it is at the moment, to be honest, although judging by what Mike Holcombe told Mesude it’s not that clear that we now have some space in there, and, thinking about it, the current space is pretty akin to the space that was there before the last shuffle. Interesting.

May was also the start of the Emily odysseys. I remember running in to her in the kitchen (not literally) at some point, Henry had past history of seeing her in the disgrace that is Embrace/Mingdom, and it all kicked off there, with us arranging a night out. That ended up being the same day that Alice left. Quite strange really, because I’d only recently got to know her through the whole Turnitin debacle. Both her and Em joined us on what was the first of several VT07 nights out that culminated in a trip to the Leadmill. It was a Thursday and I still think the best night we’ve had. Everyone made it to the end for one thing. It was also the only one Ibby attended (partially) — certainly the only time he came out clubbing and as a result lost his phone. I’m surprised, as I thought it was surgically attached. Strangely enough, only myself and Henry have been on all our many adventures last year.

It was also the month of the GRADSchool trip, which I moaned and whined about beforehand, but which turned out to be quite brilliant. I chronicled it all pretty fully at the time, in probably my most epic blog to date. But suffice to say, I made some good friends on the trip, maybe even learnt a little and had a good break from the usual hussle and bussle of the DCS. It even seemed to have a positive effect on Simon — well, for a few days anyway until he reverted. We’ve still got to have a reunion, which I hope will happen sometime this year.

Oddly, once of its most notably effects in the short term was the consequent rise (and later, demise) of Facebook. I’d actually become a member back in November of the year before, when invited to it by Fran. Me, him and Zubair conversed on there a bit but there wasn’t really much point. We were all seeing each other day in, day out anyway. It took off when I then used it to keep in contact with the members of Team S, my new-found friends from GRADSchool, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was Emily finding out. I don’t know how many times we messaged each other over the first few days but it became quite bonkers to be honest. Thankfully, things slowly calmed down until it was basically dead by late summer.

June

The 1st of June was marked quite notably by the inaugural VT lab party, which celebrated the start of summer, the leaving of the undergraduates and the successful completion of transfer reports for everyone from the 05-06 bunch. Yes, we actually had a party that wasn’t a VT Christmas party, nor just a few drinks and a chat in the retreat. This was a full blown thing with music, food, drink and even non-VTers (Emily, Sanaz, Ben, Swampi, Daniella, Julia and James all put in an appearance as far as I remember). And it didn’t stop there; we went out afterwards too, ending up in the Leadmill with a severly inebreated Mike Stannett (who me and Em had to roll in to a taxi) and Henry (T to his friends) who proceeded to fall over people and had to be delicately manouevered home by Julia.

On the way to the Leadmill, Henry instead decided to try Gatecrasher One. They didn’t let us in. It burnt down a week later. I swear there is no relationship between those two events, though no-one has yet been able to prove either way. Yes, June was certainly packed with events. We were invited to Alice’s party, but that somehow went awry. I organised two seminars, one being the return of Gerald and the other my final Theory SIG with Nick Bezhanishvili. That’s probably significant because of Emmanuel’s track record in inviting speakers in the first half of 2006, although we didn’t do that much better even with me in charge.

Also in that month, Peter Höfner left us to return to Germany, following some sausages and potato salad in the DCS quadrangle. Henry celebrated his birthday with a night out at Nando’s and Havana, proceeded by a rather pointless postgraduate research day hosted by the University. Finally, Sheffield was submerged by floods in the final week of June (usually one of the hottest times of the year) and we really needed our umbrella-ella-ellas (ay ay ay). What a rollercoaster that was!

July

Things started to dry out a bit in July. I remember taking a trip around the ghost town that Meadowhall had become, post-flood before returning to the university for the postgraduate barbeque. The most memorable event was of course the departmental picnic which was preceded by my move to VT Lab 3 and an afternoon spent with Mike and some old cassette tapes preparing the music quiz. That was the first time we didn’t make it to the end with Emily (the last three times we got a taxi back home together) and we haven’t managed it any time since either.

August

In August, we had a yearly visit from Barry, this time without his sidekick Monika. Memorably this marked the beginning of the collapse of party planning which didn’t really recover until November. Having had four successes fairly close together (the kick off in May, the June lab party, Henry’s birthday and the departmental picnic), we were trying to get something together for the day of Barry’s visit but this was scuppered by Simon’s Theory SIG arrangements and a general lack of interest.

The following week we did go out for the August birthday celebrations, but things went quite differently to our past events. To start with, Emily missed this one (she was on holiday as I recall). It was much more a VT affair. The usual triage of Henry, Emmanuel and Abraham were there, along with Stannett who was also becoming something of a regular. However, initially we also had Simon and Ramsay, and Mahmood also came along, being keen to finally try a nightclub.

My most vivid memories of that night are of us eating lunch outside at the University arms and then heading to the Harley for seemingly endless games of pool, with Mahmood being something of a dark horse. We’d lost both Simon and Ramsay by the time we moved over to RSVP, where Stannett was showing severe signs of intoxication and Mahmood finally gave up and went home, after being exposed to the volume of the music there.

Now a quintet, we ended up in hell, also known as Embrace, where I first took the position that popular venues are like popular music i.e. generally rubbish. The events I’ve been to since have been an order of magnitude better, and going off on my own to organise things has been one of the best things I’ve done since. Not that I don’t still enjoy our nights out — just as long as we end up at somewhere vaguely decent like the Leadmill and not a preposturously overhyped place such as Embrace. It really is no different from what Kingdom was and I knew that well enough by reputation before. The departmental holiday afterwards was so much better.

September

The first week in September was notable for my trip to Lisbon. The main thing I can remember is the heat which was all too much for me. I think I’d prefer future conferences to be in Antartica or something. Well maybe not, but at least somewhere where the temperature isn’t overbearing. On my return, I acquired access to the University CMS after jumping through the appropriate hoops, and Liang left us after completing his MPhil panel successfully. His desk was quickly taken by Csaba, who’s visiting John for six months. It was also the last month that Ibby was with us, as far as I recall. At the beginning of the month, he was organising gym sessions with me, but by mid-September he’d decided to take a year out. We’ve yet to see if he will actually return.

I’m reminded of him also because he was originally going to go to Gatecrasher’s 14th birthday party at Magna with me. In the end, he gave it up due to Ramadan, and I ended up going with Henry instead. It was a fantastic night, and something I’ve since experienced again with the Boxing Day event. I’m now looking forward to the Resurrection on the 22nd of March and the eventual return of Gatecrasher One around September (if I’m still around by then).

October

October was a month of quite a few nights out, but none of them involved the VT crew. On the 2nd, I visited the Tuesday Club for the first time and was treated to a brilliant show by DJ Yoda. The week after, it was the Octagon for Oakenfold (along with Ben Gold and Riley & Durrant who been at all three Crasher events so far). The month culminated with a return to the Tuesday Club on the 30th to see Skream and High Contrast. That was also my first experience of a D&B crowd though (or rather a student D&B crowd), which wasn’t pleasant. Let’s not dance, let’s just push each other about… what fun.

Back in the DCS, we gained two new PhD students, Andrea (who I’d already met in April when she came for an interview) and Mesude (who Mike told there was no room in the lab…). Both have proved really enthusiastic so far, and it makes a nice change to actually have some people who are willing to get involved, do things and be sociable. On the subject of social events, the last weeks of October also saw us kick off our postgraduate meetings (which Mike had mentioned to me back in July at the picnic) with free pizza and a second postgraduate meal (this time for new students) at K Pasa, having moved from Wokmania and its rather dodgy food (health inspectors anyone). Saying that, K Pasa has gone somewhat downhill since, and after numerous trips over the past six months or so, me and Mahmood pretty much say goodbye to it in December.

The postgraduate meetings were something of a trial to get going. The first one was attended by just me, Maslita and Mahmood and resulted in an e-mail and associated discussions which meant that the next meeting had only three people missing. Since then, things have settled down to just over half of the VT postgraduates attending. It will be interesting to see if this continues in the new year. Also in October, I acquired the role of Sun campus ambassador. It’s still yet to really kick off but things are looking promising (unlike with the Google debacle).

November

November saw our clubbing trips re-established after a few false starts and me going it alone for a bit. The first of two took place on the 2nd, where Emily rejoined me, Henry and Abraham. Csaba also joined us and we briefly had the company of Mesude, before she had to rush off for her Design Patterns meeting. Csaba made it as far as Reflex before he also decided to head for home, and we finished the night in the Leadmill again. Memorably, Emily went off home early, because her feet were aching and both Henry and Abraham headed off not long after. I finished the last hour or so off on my own before heading home when the club closed. It was quite empty given it was still middle of semester, and even more so by closing time, with the taxi driver also commenting on this on the way home.

The week after I returned to the Tuesday club for the big birthday bash and Pendulum. I was already a bit doubtful of it, after last time’s experience with the D&B folks, and was also feeling a bit tired. However, it ended up turning into a fiasco when the fire alarm went off not once but twice and we all ended up outside in the cold. We ended up seeing probably about an hour of Pendulum and went in the other room for about half an hour after they’d gone off to make up for it and also avoid the cloakroom queue.

On the 21st (a date chosen especially for this reason), we celebrated Emily’s 21st (actually on the 19th) with another trip out. The socials list proved its worth when Dave came along and it was one of our best nights out in my opinion. We kicked off in the Cavendish as usual, before going to the Varsity. However, we didn’t stay there when we discovered that they’d decided to show some football match that night. Instead, we headed for the Forum which was blissfully free of such torrid entertainment and we had a nice chat there going briefly to the Frog and Parrot (where we parted company with Csaba) and then the Leadmill. We were a little early, so we ended up having to wait to get in. Emily’s birthday tickets paid off when we all got a free drink, discounted entry and they enjoyed a bottle of champagne.

It had to be one of the weirdest nights though, given they had some bucking cow thing that people were riding on and they were playing all sorts of classic pop tunes such as the Spice Girls, PJ and Duncan and S Club 7. What I’ve said about popularity obviously rings true because it was packed to the rafters for this. I was soon pretty fed up of it and I think this was also felt by the others. Emily left early again and, in hindsight, I probably should have gone with her, as we left not fifteen minutes later.

December

December was indisputably the party month, though I feel only me and Emmanuel were really feeling the vibe. We had two VT lab parties, the first being a postgraduate one but this was nowhere near as successful as the one in the summer. Only the usual VT suspects turned up, and we reined it in by about 7pm and went home. It was however a good chance to try out the new speakers and amplifier before the Christmas bash the week after.

The VT party was really quiet to begin with and I don’t think it ever really took off for the academics. At 12pm, you’d not have thought there was a party imminent, and it must have took until at least 2pm before there was a sizeable amount of people there. They seemed to come in dribs and drabs and it was quite late on before the VT choir (myself, Henry, Mesude, Abraham, Emmanuel and Tony Simons) gave our rendition of ‘VT The World’. Fortunately, we were spared another slideshow from Tony, and the party took on a life of its own when it was left to just the postgraduates for the last few hours.

There was quite a final ring to all this, as this is likely to be the last Christmas we’ll all spend together. As a result, it’s a good job all three parties (these and the departmental one) were good fun, if not anything spectacular. It will be interesting to see what 2008 now brings and how VT continues to change…

It’s Christmas party time again. Quite unbelievable that it’s been a year already. This time last year, the VT folks were only just starting to go out together at night, whereas this year has been packed with dalliances and debacles with the creatures of the night. Yesterday was the departmental Christmas party, where the members of the DCS all got in their spaceships (ours looking strangely like a Supertram) and headed for the Moon. That was after a fairly busy morning of handing out Christmas cards and preparing the lyrics for the VT choir to sing their little hearts out.

We set off about quarter to one, having waited for Em to close the gates of reception and keep the students at bay for the day. We’d decided to take the tram there in order to carry the instruments for the VT choir (Tony’s guitar and Henry’s keyboard) but somehow we all got split up. George lead a contingent of people (including Monika, Daniella, Chris and Tony) there on foot, while myself, Henry, Em and Csaba held on for Mesude who was running late (we were worried we were going to be short a keyboardist) and then when to catch the tram. Em was trying to get hold of Anna, who we thought was still in the department, but it turned out she was already at the tram stop and we saw the tram arriving as we were on the other side of the road. We dashed across but I ended up getting on the tram while Henry, Mes and Csaba got left behind and had to get the next tram.

In the end, we all got there, although a rather depressing turnout from the VT lab with only the five of us (Abraham arrived shortly after). Emmanuel would have come, had it not been for him deciding to stay in the VT lab all night (!!!) and then only go home after me and Henry arrived in the morning. He was still sleeping when Henry called him. I saw him later on when we returned to the department to drop off the keyboard and camera, and he wasn’t that bothered about missing the food after he found out how cold it was and that there was no hot chicks (of the edible variety) like last year. The design of the venue this year was better (we were all sat at tables in the back room of the pub, rather than sitting separately and circling a huge hole like last year at the Walkabout), but the catering was very lack lustre. As already mentioned, the food was all cold and we didn’t even get a free drink! Csaba had to cough up money for an orange juice which is disguisting when they were offering drugged up drinks for free. We ended up getting Henry two free drinks while he bought me an orange juice.

Once again, we performed miserably in the quizzes. Last year I think we did fairly okay with Stannett’s quiz, but this year we were up against Phil’s rather lengthy quiz and a barrage of bizarre questions about the earnings of the department. We succeeded in guessing a few people’s middle names correctly, and did okay on the Christmas section but given most of the questions were from around 1984 and the oldest in our group were only about five or six at that time was kind of a disadvantage. I still think we should have divided the score by the combined ages of those of the group instead of the number of people in it (although we lost 3 along the way; it was nice to see Swampi again though, brief as it was). However, it was still a better performance than the 05 quiz where I think we managed just 2. Dave once again had a guess the person picture quiz, and I think we did better than we had before, using our phone-a-friend to get some help from Mahmood and (belatedly) one of Mesude’s friends.

By far the funniest of the quizzes was George’s face quiz, but unfortunately only the die-hard contingent of Monika, Pete, George, Tony (Chilton), Dave, Em, Csaba and myself stayed around for this, after we scared the rest off with our renditions of the VT song and Slade’s ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’. The quiz had two parts, one where you had to guess whose eyes were starting at you from the page and another where you had to determine the parents of a series of mutant bastard children, resulting from dalliances in the broom cupboard by various members of the department. I was surprised to find George had put me in there twice, but I couldn’t spot either. Em found the eyes one. She also appeared twice but was pretty easy to spot. Certain of the partnerships were pretty scary and will probably continue to haunt us for weeks to come.

We made our way back to West Street around 6. Csaba kindly helped me bring the keyboard back to the department, but then called it a night, so I headed off alone to join Dave, George, Pete, Monika and Em in the Bath Hotel where we stayed for one drink before heading to the Swim with the prospect of some food. Memorably, Em showed considerable control by having only a Diet Coke to go with her lasagne, but she did seem quite worried about being okay the next morning for the secretaries and support party at RSVP and the other plans she has for this week with two days off. We had a nice chat over food, with George’s usual lude remarks, before Henry finally rejoined us, having gone house hunting. Monika and George decided to call it a night at that point, and she guided him off towards the tram stop.

The five of us moved on to first the Forum (with salsa dancers), then the Green Room (with a guy singing Buddy Holly’s ‘It Doesn’t Matter Anymore’ among others) and finally the Frog and Parrot, moving at Emily’s ‘drink up’ pace. It was there that she decided to call it a night at about half nine, and literally jumped in a taxi right outside the door. Henry was keen for more though, but it was down to just me and him after Emily jumped ship. Pete had a train to catch, and Dave, seemingly half asleep, decided to stay there enjoying the music. We walked down to the station with Pete, and then the two of us headed in to the Globe for a drink before the Leadmill opened.

Arriving at the Leadmill, we still had to wait even though it was quarter to eleven by this time. It seems the band of the night, Gogol Bordelli, had overrun a little and people were still filtering out. When we did get inside, it was only the second room that was open but it soon warmed up and we enjoyed a good selection of indie tracks from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and naughties before we headed home about 1am. Quite early, but still a pretty good session, totalling 12 hours in all, and certainly one of our more memorable departmental Christmas parties. It was easily better than the first year, where we headed home after only two hours, and last year’s as well I’d say. Interestingly, the only person I saw on both this year’s and last year’s outing was Em, who appeared last year in the Devonshire Cat with Fran. This year, Ramsay has generally been pretty boring, becoming settled down and not coming out with us at all much unlike last year. He chose to go to listen to lecturers droning on in Birmingham instead this year with Simon and Georg. Stannett seems to have also become something of a party pooper of late, not appearing at either this or the VT party, but hiding away with some MSc students somewhere.

Oh well, that will probably be our last one, so a good job it went well. I wonder where we’ll all be next year…

Tonight we went out for quadruple birthday celebrations (Emmanuel, Mahmood, Simon and Ramsay). Clearly, as Ramsay says, people liked having sex at Christmas parties in the 70s and 80s. We let Henry plan things. In retrospect, that was a bad idea…

The night started out quite nicely, although it took a while to get things moving. Simon had to leave relatively early to get back to Chesterfield in good time, so he left for the pub with Ramsay and Stannett earlier than the rest of us. Myself, Henry, Emmanuel, Mahmood and Abraham headed off just after 6pm, after being informed that we’d had to change our pub from the Star and Garter to the University Arms as the former was shut. Took a while to get them all out of the building, due to some prevarication, but we eventually headed off there dropping by the cash machine on the way. We were notably Ibbyless; he’d already whined about not staying the whole thing earlier, but decided to do a sly little wander off again and not come at all in the end.

We had a nice drink there (formally Club 192 or whatever) and some interesting conversation including Stannett telling us about his ‘picnic’ (which turned out to be rather unlike the departmental one and more like the Gay Pride parade) and Emmanuel letting on about his fear of bees. It’s not as bad as Ibby who is apparently scared of everything including kittens and ants. I hope Mike Holcombe doesn’t decide to do any live experiments near him.

After that, and Simon leaving, we headed to the Harley where most people indulged in several rounds of pool. Emmanuel, like the time we went out the first time, chose to sit out. I did as well, knowing I’m no good at it, but Stannett eventually made me have a few shots. Another guy in there (Keith) also decided to join in, giving the guys tips and eventually playing them in a game. It was interesting to see Mahmood’s first encounter with someone relatively intoxicated…

After a fair number of games had been lost and won, Mahmood turning out to be something of a pool shark, and Ramsay having bid his goodbyes for Walkley and a warm bed, we headed to RSVP via Aslan’s. Emmanuel seemed to perk up a bit after getting some food, and he was dancing about both in Aslan’s and RSVP. The music in the latter was really good, the DJ playing an eclectic range of stuff from the Chemical Brothers through ‘Yellow Submarine’ to Barry White’s ‘The First, The Last, My Everything’. Stannett passed on details to him offering him the chance to broadcast on his station and I hope he does.

Mahmood got a headache and so went home rather than going on to Embrace. What a good choice! The fact that they were handing out free entry/drinks flyers should have been enough of a hint as to what a dive it was but we still went anyway. Last time, we had to queue up and then got turned away, so we’d all made sure we had shoes not trainers on this time and such, and then there was no queue, no interrogation and we just waltzed in. I wish we’d not bothered on both counts. I’m glad we didn’t pay (it certainly wasn’t worth it) and I would have been more comfortable in trainers.

Inside, the Ibby tunes pounding were a good hint to how things were going to be. They only seemed to have the one room open. I’d looked at them on dontstayin.com the day before, and none were mega-appealing, but some were bearable. The only one they decided to have open was this Decuba room which plays ‘Pop, Chart & Party featuring stunning stage shows and Tropicana style cabaret’ apparently. That description is enough to put you off to start with.

The music was awful. I like most of the tunes, don’t get me wrong, but I wouldn’t want to go out and dance to them. Most of them were far too slow and this DJ guy had no idea how to order things. He puts two trance songs on (terming them old skool wrongly — since when is mid-90s old skool?) and a bit of electro house (but awful commercialised versions, like what they’ve done to The Creeps), then we’re back to slow-ass r’n'b, and not even good ones. I mean Mariah Carey and Justin Timberlake??? And repeating songs — how many times do you want to hear Out Of Office? It’s boring the first time.  I could have done a better set from my iPod. Heck, Ibby would have done a better set. At least he would have probably stuck some Darude, some Brainbug and Hans Zimmer in there. I don’t know if they were doing requests, but it would have been very tempting to request some Prodigy or Pendulum. Most of their stuff I’d play in the day as background music. Heck, the Frog and Parrot was playing better music as we went past, banging out some Dizzie Rascal.
The floor was full of chavs. Seems this rethink has already fallen on its face. Stannett put it aptly when he said it was more gay than the Gay Pride parade. This was something more akin to a seaside disco in Skeggie than a nightclub. Seriously, drop the booze and it’d be a good spot for school discos. They having some Galaxy 105 shite this weekend, which says it all. Ripped up the flyer they gave me straight away, as there’s no way I’m going back there. It might be fine if you’re so fucked out of your head you’re willing to dance to Bob the Builder, but this place truly is awful. Sleazy Kingdom by another name…

For what has actually been a four day week, it’s seemed quite long, busy and pretty hectic. There was a lot of catching up to do after not being around last week, and, of course, a party to organise…

Back In The Office

Certain things can be very distracting. It’s difficult to maintain one line of thought when, after a week away, your e-mail box is piled up with updates on just about everything and then, to top it off, your new-found friends discover Facebook… It’s been fun, make no doubts about that, but work output has probably reached an all-time low.

Catherine and I were already posting things over the weekend, and once the week had started, most of the others had appeared, either via e-mail or on Facebook, or in most cases, both. Thanks to Simon being in Paul Spencer’s team, I got hold of the photos that were used on the slideshows, so we have some already, while we’re (still) waiting for Danny and Paul to post theirs. Paul is the only one we haven’t yet heard from since the GRADSchool, although he has been spotted around the country by both Catherine and Martin. We’ve also only had one e-mail from Lou so far.

There’s already talk of meeting up again (with Rosemary even offering to play host, and Asli accommodation), which is something I’m really looking forward to. I can’t believe how much I’ve missed them this week. The blow has been softened a bit though, by the aforementioned e-mails and Facebook postings, particularly some really nice wall postings from Asli. It was also great to actually get to see a photo of her dog, Bailey.

Being reignited on the Facebook front by all this action caused me to also link up with some friends closer to home. Swampi, Emily and Alice in SCHARRland have all made an appearance on my friends list this week, and Em and I seem to have been exchanging messages at an almost scary rate. Which is doubly odd when you consider she’s just down the corridor…

I still have quite a bit of demonstrating to chase up and claim. I managed to put through Siobhán’s this week, but I still have to wrap up Crossover, work out what the hell is going on with COM162 and tie up lots of other little loose ends. Speaking of which, one of these has come back to haunt me with a vengeance. I thought the masters students had submitted their reports two weeks ago, but it turns out this isn’t the case. So after my week away, I came back to a lot of Turnitin kerfuffle and I’m still chasing things up now (mainly by repeatedly waiting for replies from the folks at Turnitin). The main problem at least is solved, that being that students couldn’t submit revisions of their reports due to a mixup in the settings. The solution was to create a revision assignment and link the two, but a lot of things are still unclear and retrieving the assignments later will no doubt be a nightmare.

I haven’t be able to make a great deal of progress in my chasing, as Sara’s currently away and she’s the one in control of all that stuff. Me, Henry and Sanaz are not even officially on the list for COM162, so sorting that out should be fun — we need to chase up Peter more next week. The office to the left of reception has been pretty empty all week in fact, with just Em, Karen and Kirsty (who’s temporarily doing Alice’s old job). When I popped in on Tuesday, there were actually more non-secretaries in there than secretaries with both George and Stannett hanging around.
There was a bit of magic in the air too, as it seems a fairy wand has been found floating around the department. I’ve always thought it must take a bit of extra something to run this department, given the less than abundant amount of administration skills in some of our academics, but this was a nice proof. Back in the lab, myself and Simon spent a lot of Tuesday reminiscing about the week before, and sharing experiences (having not really spoken to each other at the time — we don’t negotiate with our enemies…) and he seemed a lot happier and interesting than previously. Unfortunately, he seemed to have pretty much reverted to form by the end of the week.

Ibby reappeared on Wednesday with claims on wanting to be in the lab more often and asking me to make sure he comes in. Haven’t quite worked out how just yet. Personally, I don’t see why he wants to. I’m getting throughly fed up with being there and have been making the most of escaping where possible this week. I’ve managed to get my hours back down to leaving at five, and it’s been better. And I get bored of just seeing the same old faces. It’s been great chatting to Em and Monika a bit more over the last few weeks instead. I also had an interesting meeting with Amanda, and we have some interesting plans for an upcoming postgrad meal. I’m also going to be sorting out a little Pacman game for the open days which should be fun.

VT Party

Friday morning was manic because I was trying to sort out tunes for the party. Henry came up with this wonderful idea of asking everyone for tunes, which they then didn’t supply until the last minute (or did, and he didn’t bother to mention it). I ended up getting stupidly stressed out about it and what with various intermissions (like lunch and Simon’s talk) we ended up running late for the party and the thing ended up a right mess. Henry not turning up until gone three o’clock didn’t help and I ended up having a regrettable argument with him, not helped by Henry already being a bit tipsy by that stage. Next time, I think we’ll just pile them all up, hit the random button and run. It’d be much simpler than trying to be clever. It seemed to end up a right mess, and we just seemed to end up going round the same tunes. I noticed afterwards we seemed to have very little R ‘n’ B or rap for one.  Maybe just sticking one of my mix cds on would have been easier…
We did get quite a good turn out in the end. I’ll leave it up to others to comment on whether they thought it was any good, as I always seem to end up so in the middle of these things I can’t be objective. There were quite a few comings and goings. Our NLP friends (Swampi, Ben and Sanaz) turned up but left fairly early. A text from me managed to get Mike in as well, and we just seemed to keep picking up and losing various other random people.

Ibby was one of those who unfortunately departed early (although not as early as he originally said he would fortunately). Work was calling clearly. Male strippers are much in demand these days it appears. We tried to get him to show us a few moves on the VT dancefloor before he left, but he was too full of giggles. He seems to know the Saturday Night dance but wouldn’t do much more of it than twirl his arms. Zubair and Mahmood fared no better. Even Emmanuel did very little Honestly, where do we get these people?

As far as the afterparty went, it was me, Em, Henry and partner, Emmanuel, Ramsay, Mike, Peter and Daniela & friends who set off for the pub (we chose the Devonshire Cat in the end). Only a valiant seven of us actually ended up staying there. Daniela and co departed as soon as we got there, having to meet some other friends. Emmanuel got as far as the door, but didn’t seem to be able to work out how to open it… don’t know what happened there.

Peter left after about half an hour, having to catch an early train for London (which he’d got a ticket for surprisingly cheaply). While we were there, it became clear that Henry, Mike and Ramsay were already pretty inebriated. Ramsay was glowing red again, which always seems to be a sign that he’s had a bit to drink. Mike was singing to us on the way there, but seemed a bit more with it while we were there than say, Henry, who decided he was called ‘T’ (PG Tips to his mates).

Ramsay (of the jumping across tables fame) left at about 10:30, as the rest of us departed for the Leadmill. Henry and Mike seemed to decide that we didn’t need a taxi, yet neither of them seemed to be that clear on where we were going. Walking through town at that time of night is not much fun. On the way down, someone decided to try to get into Gatecrasher instead, with Mike warning what a snobbish bunch they were. Turns out he was right, when they refused me for being too ‘casual’. Apparently, I didn’t pack my top hat and tails for dinner with the queen. Exactly why you’d want to be dressed up to the nines to go and jump around with a load of sweaty people I don’t know — we’d have been better in leotards.

When we finally did find and arrive at the Leadmill, we headed straight for the bar and then struggled to get Mike to stop being a wallflower and show us a few dance moves. We did succeed in the end, but I don’t think this time was as good as the last. Both Mike and Henry were too far gone to make any coherent sense most of the time. I’m really glad Emily was there, otherwise I think I’d have been completely lost. I don’t really know Henry’s female friend well enough to try and talk to her (and I mean try over the music, this being a nightclub), but she seemed relatively sober and at least came to tell me that she was taking Henry home. Apparently, he had to work in the morning. Walking would have been a start, after he spent most of the evening struggling to stand on both feet, and not fall over people (which he failed at on at least two occasions).

When they’d gone, the rest of us made tracks as well, Mike not being in much of a state to do anything. We popped Mike into a cab outside. Luckily enough, he could still remember his address. I was a little worried he wasn’t going to at first. Having seen him off, myself and Emily went to grab a bite to eat at Pepe’s before heading home ourselves. I’d say this time was more interesting than great to be honest.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to whatever comes next. In the immediate future, we’ve got the movies tomorrow which should be noticeably more restrained than Friday’s antics. It’s Henry’s birthday in two week’s time, so maybe he’ll want to do something for that, but to be honest, that seems a bit too long to wait…

End of the Year

The academic year ends today. I’ve just collected three of the Crossover folders from TC, so I’ll be able to make a start while locked away in this GRADSchool thing. At least I’ve completed Siobhán’s marking and nothing else has come through yet. Plus, it appears the travel fees will also be paid for, after I was quite annoyed at the thought of having to pay a `cheap’ train fare for something I didn’t particularly ask to go to.

VT lab is also pretty sorted. Last Friday, Henry, Mahmood and I completed the last few changes by moving the post-war cupboard up the lab and matching desks to windows on the light side of the lab. The cam is also now positioned on the top of this cupboard, surmounting pi, which provides a different view to any VT lab enthusiasts. vtprint1 is back again, so Ramsay is much happier.

Bad Boys

Last night was the first proper VT night out we’ve had for a while. We’ve had some movie trips, but this has pretty much just been a hardcore few (me, Emmanuel and Zubair), and the odd lunch but nothing major. But last night pretty much topped anything we’d done in the past, and that’s pretty much thanks to Henry (also known as H Drive) and Emily’s w1ck3d plans

Unfortunately, our VT numbers dwindled before we even started. From our initial listing, Mohammed dropped out due to back problems (which I fear are caused by VT movements) and it was just too late for Simondo. The fun started in the department, when we all gathered in the retreat for the usual send-off thing, this time for Alice who is taking a long and dangerous trip across the quadrangle to join the SCHaRR crew. Good luck to her, and all the best in the future.

We returned to the lab for a bit and chilled, while Emily went home to ‘powder her bits’ (to use Henry’s terminology). At about quarter to seven, after Ibby, Emmanuel and Ramsay had warmed up with a few dance moves to ‘Kiss Kiss’ and ‘Family Affair’, we headed to the Common Room where pool and pizza was the order of the day. Just before eight, we headed back towards West Street and the Cavendish where we met up with Emily, with Alice to appear later. Some of the VT guys seemed to be feeling a little rambunctious and some interesting questions were floating around the table. We learned that Ibby is a big, yellow banana, Abraham is a passion fruit and Henry a sweet little strawberry (who’s he kidding?) Ramsay unfortunately has a bizarre phobia of fruit, and thus it was not that surprised that he departed early, leaving us in the Varsity for the shackles of his lady friend.

Speaking of which, we crossed the road to the site of our previous entanglements at about 9:30, and promptly met up with Alice. Unfortunately, she didn’t stay long, leaving us when we left for the Leadmill and avoiding any of the bizarre questions with which Emily was bombarded. Taking a taxi to the Leadmill, we reunited with Ibby and Emmanuel who had left early to sort out their shit and clearly powder their bits too. Certainly it was a pleasant surprise to see Ibby return, although I did give Emmanuel strict instructions to ensure that he did. He obviously been busy doing his hair too, which I couldn’t resist messing up

Fun ensued, and after Henry had breakdanced the night away, we left in our taxis at closing time. Folks were a little worse the wear the next morning, particularly Henry, who probably indulged a little too much, and had to examine students with a pounding headache. Luckily the bouncing from the pinballs was left to me.  Bad news is that we later found that Ibby has mislaid his phone somewhere, and it’s probably when me and Henry were throwing him around the dancefloor. Poor guy…

Departmental Politics

This has also been a week of some intriguing internal debacles. We’ve had the bad news that our undergraduate student intake is not looking as good as last year so far (less confirmed places) and just the general reminder that so many of our department are overworked and underpaid, especially our fantastic admin and support teams. Next academic year is likely to be fairly interesting, if not only because Stanny will be ultra-stressed, being exams officer, running part of Crossover and having a grant to spend. I also seem to have ended up as a sole student representative, after I said I’d prefer sole representation next year and the others didn’t seem willing to compete (or bothered at all, to some degree).

I also mentioned our buddy system at the board, and its planned use in VT, and found that Daniella already organises something similar for graphics and it apparently works well. I’m also now working with her and Chris on developing something to represent VT for open days. Should be fun.

Party Wheels In Motion

Our Friday 1st party is taking shape, although I still have doubts that Henry will fulfill on his proposed lighting claims (although we do now have a flickery light at the back of the lab — not sure if this counts as yet…). It is set to be a diverse evening, with people bringing a variety of food, Maslita inviting her children and myself and Henry trying to drag in other cohorts from the admin team and NLP. Apparently Anna doesn’t go out much so, so we’re helping her to do so in small steps by first getting her from the admin office to the lab. Next the quad, and then who knows… The idea seemed to go down well with Ben, Sanaz and Swampi this morning and they will hopefully bring more NLP folks. I just hope there is enough space in VT lab, but we will probably move out and about later. Providing the music should be most interesting as we’re trying to get as much from as many as possible, so a diverse variety should be the order of the day.

Looks like more fun packed times are still to come!

Blame Mike, he inspired me. I’m doing this off the top of my head, so I’ve probably missed many. I’ve also avoided going for too many from the same artist.

Nineties (and a little before)

• New Order - Blue Monday
• Black Box - Ride On Time
• Adamski - Killer
• The Adventures of Stevie V - Dirty Cash
• Snap - Rhythm Is A Dancer
• The Orb - Little Fluffy Clouds
• SL2 - On A Ragga Tip
• Goodmen - Give It Up
• The Prodigy - Out Of Space
• Baby D - Let Me Be Your Fantasy
• Robert Miles - Children
• Brainbug - Nightmare
• Energy 52 - Cafe Del Mar
• Olive - You’re Not Alone
• Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
• Double 99 - Ripgroove
• Sash! - Encore Un Fois
• Alice Deejay - Better Off Alone
• Faithless - Insomnia
• Faithless - Salva Mea
• Madonna - Ray Of Light (erm… the album?)
• Tori Amos - Professional Widow (Got To Be Big)
• Dario G - Carnaval De Paris
• Cornershop - Brimful of Asha [Norman Cook Re-mix]
• The Prodigy - Smack My Bitch Up
• Apollo 440 - Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Dub
• Fatboy Slim - Right Here Right Now
• Fatboy Slim - Going Out Of My Head
• Chemical Brothers - Setting Sun
• Nakatomi - Children Of The Night
• DJ Flavours - Your Caress (All I Need)
• Wildchild - Renegade Master ‘98
• Basement Jaxx - Red Alert
• Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy
• Massive Attack - Teardrop
• ATB - 9pm (Till I Come)
• Groove Armada - At The River

Naughties

• Delerium featuring Sarah McLachlan - Silence [Tiësto’s In Search Of Sunrise Re-mix]
• Storm - Time To Burn
• Darude - Sandstorm
• Azzido Da Bass - Doom’s Night
• Zombie Nation - Kernkraft 400
• Tomcraft - Loneliness
• The Prodigy - Voodoo People [Pendulum Re-mix]
• Röyksopp - What Else Is There? [Trentemøller Re-mix]
• The Knife - We Share Our Mother’s Health [Trentemøller Re-mix]
• Moby - Go [Trentemøller Re-mix]
• Madonna - Paradise (Not For Me)
• Madonna - Let It Will Be [Paper Faces Re-mix]
• Tiësto - Adagio For Strings
• William Orbit - Adagio For Strings [Ferry Corsten Re-mix]
• Da Hool - Meet Her At The Love Parade
• Electric Six - Gay Bar
• Arctic Monkeys - Fake Tales of San Francisco
• Hot Chip - Over And Over
• Skream - Kut-Off
• Oakenfold - Faster Kill Pussycat [Roman Hunter Mix]
• Ferry Corsten - Junk
• Lilly Allen - LDN
• Amy Winehouse - You Know I’m No Good
• Prydz vs Floyd - Proper Education
• Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
• Justice vs. Simian - We Are Your Friends
• Mason - Exceeder (esp. Brass Band version…)
• Fedde Le Grand - Put Your Hands Up For Detroit [TV Rock and Dirty South Melbourne Militia Re-mix]
• Roger Sanchez - Lost [D. Ramirez Re-mix]
• 50 Cent - In Da Club
• Paffendorf - Be Cool
• Intenso Project - Luv Da Sunshine
• Mirwais - Naive Song
• Tiësto featuring Maxi Jazz - Dance4Life
• Faithless - We Come One
• TV Rock - Flaunt It
• Sander Kleinenburg - This Is Not Miami
• Madonna - Impressive Instant
• Basement Jaxx - Get Me Off
• Shy FX - Shake Ur Body
• Puretone - Addicted To Bass
• Timo Mass - Get Down
• Philippe B - Ibiza Mi Amor
• Kinobe - Slip Into Something More Comfortable
• Trentemøller - Chameleon
• Oakenfold - Southern Sun [Tiësto Re-mix]
• Rapture - Whoo! Alright! Yeah… Uh Huh
• Drumsound and Baseline Smith - Cold Turkey
• Drumsound and Baseline Smith - Cape Fear
• J Majik and Wickaman - Crazy World
• DJ Yoda - Wheels
• Gorillaz - Dare [Soulwax Re-mix]
• Gorillaz - Dirty Harry
• Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood
• Electric Six - Danger! High Voltage

This Year So Far (Or Thereabouts)

• Fedde Le Grand vs. Camille Jones - The Creeps
• Freaks - The Creeps (You’re Giving Me) [Vandalism Re-mix]
• Mika - Grace Kelly
• Just Jack - Starz In Their Eyes [Trophy Twins Aftershow Re-mix]
• Gossip - Standing In The Way Of Control [Soulwax Late Nite Version]
• Calvin Harris - Acceptable In The 80’s [Tom Neville Re-mix]
• Alex Gaudino featuring Crystal Waters - Destination Calabria [Drunkenmunky 2007 Re-make]
• Panda - Panda Style
• Mark Ronson and Paul Smith - Apply Some Pressure
• Mark Ronson and Daptone Horns - God Put A Smile Upon Your Face

Hardcore

• CLSM - John Peel (Is Not Enough)
• K Complex - Adagio
• Druid & Sharkey - Bonkers Anthem
• Scott Brown - Boomstick
• Scott Brown - Ghosts
• DJ Eclipse - Ultraworld 5

Woah! It’s been such a long time since I last wrote… It’ll soon be November, dark nights are here and it’s bloody cold. It’s so long ago that last time I blogged I was still wearing glasses, yet now I’m over three weeks post-surgery. Still touch and go, but it feels great!

So what’s been happening back at the ranch? Well, the week after I last blogged was very quiet. I had the op on the Saturday, and decided to take the Monday off to recover. I only did bits of days for most of that week, being drugged up with antibiotics and steroids… what fun! I was unimpressed with how few people noticed (or, at least, didn’t have the balls to say anything). Oh dear, some of these folks can let you down sometimes… I had to go in for the demonstrating anyway, but I also realised over the weekend that I would drive myself crazy if I stayed at home and did nothing anyway. Better to go to the lab and do nothing with the crew instead…

The only problem with blogging so late is I’m now struggling to remember some of the real old stuff so this might get even more random than normal. Main thing I remember about the first two weeks is things being very quiet, not many people about and lots of VTers not being able to eat… I do remember that Fran blew back in on the second Thursday (the 19th) like a breath of fresh air, and he noticed straight away — knew I could rely on him! Turns out that people in España actually get told their perscriptions while we Brits don’t… obviously we’re too stupid or something. We had a fair range of VT talks — Henry, Abraham, Liang and Zubair all bit the bullet in those two weeks, with Zubair accidentally swearing during his…

Also during the second week, myself and Ramsay discovered the real library. Hidden away underground where only crazy postgrads can go are shelves and shelves of books, lit only by little lightbulbs and surrounded by a gorgeous atmosphere of eerie silence and knowledge. It was fun! I also went down there with Fran later in the week, when we were searching for some biology books for him (which we put on my ucard because of the crazy way he’s registered here). Turns out that was the older edition we didn’t want, but it was worth it just to see the caged books on level 2.

Also had a cool meeting with Mike in week 2, where we pretty much just chilled out with a cuppa before Simon’s transfer panel. He passed, so his death sentence is increased by two years. Last week was important, because that was my panel. After waiting _forever_ for Mike to read the draft, I found out the week before that the problem was that he thought that was the finished copy and was waiting for the party to start! So we quickly arranged the tea party for the week after, he scanned through the draft at light-speed and we had a crazy hour on the Monday whence I passed.

Concurrency Reading Group restarted, but I didn’t have time to read the flipping paper, and, after doing so today, I still don’t understand all this stuff about lettuces and cabbages and what-have-you. Surely there should be a simpler version for normal peeps? I was knocked out a bit by Mike turning up even though he said he wasn’t going to. Ibby also shocked us all by actually going to his first ever distributed systems session and getting served with an exam paper by Salim.

By this time of course, a party was long overdue (Ramsay’s booze supplies were running down for one thing), so we chilled out in the retreat on Thursday evening with some tunes and a passionate discussion on universities. Simon attended for the first time, but seemed very disinterested, preferring to pour over a book on someat or other.

Talking of food, we should backtrack here a bit because, of course, by this time, Ibby and co. were back on the wagon. That Monday was really scared because it was Eid and there was no-one there at all. I had three fucking hours in that lab with no-one!!! How bloody depressing. Fran arrived to save me around 11, and it was just us two until Ramsay rolled in at 12. It was so quiet that we all managed to go for lunch about the same time, and I locked Fran out because I didn’t realise he’d be back so soon. Whoops! That made me feel bad…

It’s getting busier again now. For one, Emmanuel is about a lot more after quitting his job. Certainly, there were plenty of folks about today. In fact, today was weird because everyone decided to get up early for some reason. Ibby was online about 8:20 or something stupid, and Ramsay appeared at 8:30. Way to knock my brain out of gear, folks! Anyway, to further aid the completely non-chronological order of this blog, let’s go back a bit again. The party was the end of my week last week, because I toddled off to little London village on Friday to see Google, coming away with some goodies and an idea of what our lab should be! I also found out more about our pizza and I’m awaiting my ‘I’m feeling hungry’ shirt now and, more importantly, the money. You can find out more specifics on my other blog. I kept in contact with the lab folks though; both Fran and Ramsay texted me while I was doing a little sightseeing tour, and it was nice to hear from them. Seems they did a good job of sorting out the seminar too; looks like I missed some fun in Ibby and Mahmood’s session, but Google was worth it.

Monday morning was kinda scary this week, because I walked in and the door handle fell off on me. Seems the folks have left it like that on Friday to trap me! Then my flipping spoon broke too when I made some tea. What’s going on? Main events of the day were a trip to the library with Fran to finally get a copy of the same book that didn’t need renewing every five seconds, sorting out the end-of-the-week events (more later) and a meeting with Mike that went on for about three hours, but finally saw him contributing to Totally Nasty Teddybears or whatever were calling it now!

Anyway, there’s been a lot going on, suffice to say, and I’ve probably missed truck loads. Hopefully I can cajole Ibby in to doing a blog that will fill in some more from his unique point of view. No doubt he will tell more about his new master, Ramsay, and how the UK is the capital of the world (an idea he raised to much derision at the lunch we had last Wednesday). Up and coming, we have a cinema trip on Thursday and a bonfire on Sunday which should be fun. Quite a few people interested; things are warming up again after a real depressing start to October with a really quiet lab (the establishment of VT Lab 3 is partly to blame, I think). We need something to contrast the weather which is getting fucking freezing. We should definitely move VT lab to its own customised ship and sail the world, attending conferences and catching up on our tans (and that’s just from the servers on board…) We also need to get set up for Christmas soon… the lab needs some decorations this year and Fran is leading the call for that.

Anyways, catch you on the other side!

Well, it’s been over a week since I last blogged, but my fellow blogging cronies haven’t done anything further either… Stuff has happened though. Last Thursday, we did have a little party in the Research Retreat, with Abraham, Fran, Ramsay, Liang, Ibby, Mahmood and myself all in attendance. Pictures are available on my web site. I don’t remember much about the Friday, other than that the new room still wasn’t sorted, but would be for Monday, and that I had to tell Mahmood it would only be for two. That’s also when we sorted out Simon a desk for his return. Also the last time I saw Fran in the flesh….

Monday was the big move. I hardly spent any time in the original VT lab (VT Lab 0) after about midday, as we moved Mahmood, Sarah and Shaukat in. Yes, that’s not a mistake. Mahmood did move in there in the end, and that was the cause of much debate. It was clear that, with how the lab initially looked, another desk of the same size as Shaukat and Sarah’s couldn’t be fitted in. So Mahmood brought in what has since been christened ‘the baby desk’; one that Georg wouldn’t even give his children and Tony Chilton also said wasn’t a desk. With the removal of the bookshelf though, and three of the shelves, Mahmood got a bigger desk on the wall and everything seemed okay. The lab was christened ‘VT Lab 3′ and they seem to be quite happy in there now. After they moved in, I ended up in a discussion with Mahmood and Emmanuel on topics varying from Turing completeness through communicating X-machines (of which Emmanuel is apparently ‘the god’ with a small ‘g’) to girls… ’nuff said. Zubair also made a reappearance, but seemed very quiet.

Tuesday morning kicked off with me finally moving across the lab, and then spending some time with Georg going over the transfer report; he’s actually read it you see… We had a Concurrency group in which Simon spoke at length on prioritised calculi and Mike didn’t appear for. I tried to have a conversation with Fran, but the stupid messenging thing played up on me, and I got insulted by Simon for my trouble.

Wednesday saw me demonstrating on Peter’s module, which turns out to be the Intro. to AI one. Some interesting sessions, especially when he missed most of the first one, and I had to make the decision to kick it off on my own. I also went to the later one with Sanaz and Ben, which got a lot more students (helped by not being at 9am). There certainly are a lot of first years this time round, but I think we could do them all in one session next time.

It was nice to see Ramsay again on Wednesday, and we went on a mission to find the Main Library and Kirill’s thesis, which failed as it’s apparently somewhere in the vaults. We may have another try next week though, after Simon mentioned we can go down there as postgrads. We also went to St. George’s, where the early allocation of books to the Information Commons confused us completely. But it looks like most of the boring undergrady stuff will be moving, leaving more space there for the good stuff. The day finished with some tunes, as the lab emptied, bar me, Ramsay and Ibbs.

Thursday was a bit more relaxed. Ibby turned up and struggled on with his transfer report… poor guy… while myself, Ramsay and Kirill again tried to tackle that Sun machine, although removing the memory seemed to make things worse not better. It’s now down to the point where one of the processors is being removed too…

Today (Friday) has just been a really tiring day. Simon arrived earlier than normal, which knocked me for six a bit. I kind of expect him around 9:30ish. We had the fire alarm go off at about 9, and I ended up getting soaked because we had to go out in the rain and I was out of the lab, on my way back from the bathroom, when it went off. No-one seemed to know if it was for real or just a test, but I do remember there was one this time last year when I first started. Fortunately, Peter turned up after about five minutes with an umbrella and sheltered me, which was nice of him. It seems a odd time to do it because there were so few people in; it was mainly just secretaries, the three of us (Simon, me and Emmanuel) from the lab and Tony Simons, along with some members of the other groups and some undergrads.

Couple of hours later I did Siobhan’s database course, again handling the demonstrating with Henry. Nice to be back doing this stuff again. The seminar followed. Simon wasn’t too impressed with how his went, but I thought it seemed okay. Mine seemed to get the best reception I’ve had yet from one of these things, and I was quite happy with it.

It’s best not to say anything about the afternoon. It suffices to say the lab was very quiet, by the time it got to 3pm and Theory SIG, neither myself nor Simon seemed that keen and having to deal with Mike in a mood where he constantly contradicted himself and just argued every single point wasn’t the best way to end the day.

The last two days of this week have been a bit weird, after the overexhaustion of completing the transfer report, lots of late nights and renovating the lab. Haven’t seen Zubair since the lab move, and only saw Ibby briefly today. Also, before I start on the last two days, I should make my upmost apologies for missing something out of my last blog, which I rushed to complete at about 5ish on Thursday morning. I got a text from Fran in China saying his presentation went well and he’s waiting to see what we’ve done to the lab… hope he likes it.

Thursday morning was quiet — just me getting stuff sorted really, and finishing off the lab from the day before. Nothing really much happens in the morning; things seem to get going around noon, generally. But, on Thursday, that’s when I had to leave so it did turn out to be a fairly quiet day allround. Just as I was about to leave, Frank turned up so I made sure his machine was sorted and I saw Ramsay, who decided to start attacking the Ultra 60 — good luck mate

The consultation went well, after being a bit confused initially. There was some stuff I should have seen/filled in first, but I only found that when I got home and it was in the letterbox. Result of the quick appointment I guess. It appears I can have it done, so I’m scheduled in for two weeks on Saturday; hope it all goes okay. In the end, I probably could have got home with my pupils dilated, but it was nice to have a lift, although I wasn’t sure what to do with myself with all the time in the afternoon.

Friday was a really cool day. I started off by just trying to sort out lots of my shit, now that I finally have a little time to just clean things up on my desk, and make it more liveable. I am eyeing up Sarah’s position though if she moves; I’m a little too far back now, and I want to be physically more central to the lab. Couple of things were clearer up; postgrad meeting is on Wednesday in the retreat, and we do get Rod’s office for VT. Tony Chilton is going to sort it, and then we’ll have a new room we’ve nicknamed SMS for Sarah, Mahmood and Shaukat.

The afternoon was really nice, as I spent most of it just fiddling around with these Sun machines with Ramsay. Reminds me of doing something similar around last Christmas when I first started, and how I’ve not had time to do things like that recently. Speaking of which, Ramsay shouldn’t have had time either, having a proposal to write… hope he gets/got it sorted this evening.

Drinks in the research retreat before the new year went well, although it was a little crowded. Get in the wrong place and you get a bit trapped. Left with Ibby’s stuff to read (which I’ll do tomorrow), but forgot to take any of my CDs…. oh well. The Fatboy Slim did finally arrive, which is something off my mind too, as I was worried about what was happening with that. As a result, I’ve been watching lots of music videos this evening and not much else… nice to be free for a bit, and even my supervisor seems happy with that. Lots to organise next week, but should be fun