Andrew’s Blog

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…

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!

This Week’s Tune: Gossip — Standing In The Way Of Control [Soulwax Nite Version]

So this week has mainly been about getting the Turnitin system up and running. Our inaugural use will be for the 3rd year projects which have to be handed in two weeks today (Wednesday the 2nd) at 11am. We’ve already had to make the decision to have an additional handin deadline of the Friday as well, to allow Turnitin time to generate re-submission reports. Basically, two printed copies will be handed in as usual, but they also now have to handin their plagiarism report. As a side-effect, this also gives us an electronic submission of the writeup. The mail to students went out yesterday, and it looks like some have already started to play around with the system. They’ve been directed to Anna in the first instance, as UG secretary, but any technical issues I’ll have to deal with.

The next stage will be the MSc dissertations, the initial part of which has a deadline of the week after. For that, the plan is for me to write a guide on how to setup the system, rather than doing so myself, and then to get Alice, as MSc secretary, to actually set it up. Should be fun…

We’re missing a few folks from the lab this week, but it’s not that much different because the majority were also missing last week too… Henry, Ibby and Simon are enjoying the delights of MGS at Nottingham with exciting lectures on operational semantics, category theory, stone throwing and other such shenanigans. Tonight, they get to enjoy dinner at an Indian restaurant which prides itself on its decor… or rather, Ibby won’t, as he has decided to commute every day. Yesterday morning, he managed to end up on the way to Derby instead, and missed the lambda calculus lecture while being kindly directed by some ladies who, apparently, enjoyed getting to talk to a nice Yorkshire lad. I do think he’s missed out on the best bit, which is the social side; 175 pounds plus travel expenses for lectures he could have had here is a bit of a con. Interestingly, we heard nothing from him last week, even when I texted him on Anna’s behalf about the open day, yet this week he has phoned me about four times so far…

Back in the lab, Emmanuel is stuck in a bit of a rut while he waits for Tony Cowling to read his transfer report. I think he was a little displeased to find out that he hadn’t got round to it yet yesterday. Here’s wishing him all the best with it, and hopefully we can a celebration when he completes, as that will be all our 05-06 students. At the same time, this year’s students are getting ready for their six month reports. Mohammed is certainly putting a lot of work in to it to please Siobhán and Barry Eaglestone, while I think Ramsay’s current research direction may be more suited to the graphics group… Poor Mahmood is struggling with a mountain of marking from Phil, and Zubair has had to stay away from the lab due to catching a Vista virus, but did find time to visit the new Information Commons briefly. A proper trip there is planned soon…

Woo woo woo!

Time for some research plans, but first a news update:

• Google has still not supplied us with ambassadorial delights. Alex reports that they are still having problems with the credit cards. Unmarked notes in brown envelopes remains a possibility.
• Ibby’s death panel is finally imminent; Tuesday the 13th.
• Lots of undergraduates have been bamboozled in various ways.
• Simon has been hacking away at a paper for YR-SOC.
• Mike still hasn’t read the revised transfer report.
• Zubair’s laptop has been destroyed by Vista.
• Susheel attended the next departmental meeting.
• Simon bought a GP2X and a RISC PC.
• Fran managed to finish the first chapter of his thesis, and started lecturing to undergraduates (with Scheme too — what fun); go Fran!
• Kirill gave Ramsay an SGI music box
• Lots of Moor fisheries and Swim Inn visits
• The earth exploded in a puff of smoke, but then went back to normal again. Fortunately, no-one noticed.

And now on to the meat. Where do we go from here? Well, the first task is to get 2006 out of the door: a finished technical report/transfer thingy-me-bob and a paper for CONCUR 07. Then, the next stage of evolution for TNT will be in the form of the DynamiTE tool, which allows processes to both be simulated and used as the basis for concurrent programming.

The general idea is to realise processes as objects, with the tau process allowing internal behaviour to be defined. Other plans include:

• An infrastructure for channels, so that they can be built on top of various different communication techniques.
• Similar system for handling execution, allowing both a simulated execution (ala Simon’s ConCalc tool) and a real thread-mixing thing as well
• Some kind of GUI for playing with this stuff. Eclipse might even be worth a look, but I don’t want to be too emotionally scarred.

The other thing we need is some nice application for this. A few things have crossed my mind. I don’t think biology would suitably show off the characteristics of TNT, but it might be interesting to use it to define a P Systems semantics. Sociological modelling seems more applicable; something with workflows or basically any context where we want to define discrete subsystems which have their own behaviour but are then nested inside larger systems, the overall structure of which can change over time. I need something which will show this off in the best light.

Update

Zubair claims Vista now works given he spent three hours installing drivers.  He hasn’t yet been able to come up with a plausible reason for this or the upgrade itself.

So it’s the beginning of the new year, and an appropriate time to wrap up 2006 and move on to new and better things in 2007. It concluded rather quietly; most of the last week was spent with family over Christmas, although we did have one VT crew outing to Zubair’s house. Lord Ibby provided us with a Monopoly board, and Zubair ended up rolling in it, just about bankrupting the both of us. Turns out the expensive ones aren’t the best ones… trust Wikipedia next time. We unfortunately failed in our task of organising something for New Year’s Eve. Not many of us were left though; with Fran having returned home, Zubair going down to London and Ibby working, it left only me and Ramsay and I failed to find a way to motivate him out of his crypt.

So let’s try and review 2006… not that I can actually remember much of it that clearly. I know it more or less started and ended with Fran. He arrived in February (along with Luca and Dario), and left us just the other week. He was pretty central to most events of 2006, and it will be a different world in 2007 without him. Hopefully, we will get out to see him in Sevilla… Emotions are still pretty raw on this subject, so I’ll not dwell on it for too long.

Early 2006 also saw the completion of the VT crew for 05-06, with Zubair, Emmanuel and Shaukat all arriving and our vain attempts to squeeze them into our overcrowded lab. It looked quite different back then. Things rolled on quite quietly; plenty of VT and Theory SIG seminars going on, and the odd bit of demonstrating. It was quite a busy program of events at the time, with Graham Birtwistle, Georg Struth and Gerald Luettgen all giving talks to the SIG. Marian’s unfortunately underwent a number of false starts though…

Easter saw myself, Mike and Simon take to the road, embarking on a UK tour, which had us giving a talk at BCTCS (to which Graham also tagged along, managing to end up falling down Mike’s stairs and spending most of it hobbling) and attending MGS (sans Mike) and Types. I recall WSDL being the main focus of Simon’s attention (according to Mike anyway) and a conversation at Types gave birth to TNT.

World Cup fever was soon in full flow on our return (and the plants were dead). This was probably the year I paid the most attention to it. It’s somehow more poignant when there are actually people around you from the various countries. Our visitors, Fran, Luca and Dario certainly got in to the spirit, with an additional dose of friendly rivalry. This was the time we also saw the return of Ibby to our flock; we hadn’t seen much of him after his plans for organising DCS spending went awry at Christmas and he missed out on MGS. He made the most of supporting our (as usual) pathetic team, and gloating over Spain’s loss to Fran.

Summer was certainly very busy. In early June, we sparked off a series of lunches, to increase the social activity of the group, the last such social having been way back in the autumn of 2005. We made a few visits to the Swim (where we also took Conor McBride during his visit) and the Cavendish (to which I first went at the invitation of Fran, Luca and Dario back in May). There was also an abortive attempt at visiting the Varsity, which demonstrated the excellent loyalty of our fellow VTers.

Research wise (I suppose I should mention that at some point), things were dominated by Ibby’s panic attack following his six-month panel and the Concurrency Reading Group, which ground itself in to a rut with a discussion on flocking. Lots of whiteboards were filled, lots of pictures taken and erm… lots of music was heard…

Speaking of research, we also had the Research Away day, for which me and Simon spent considerable time hacking away at posters and where the idea of postgraduate reps was first launched. I was later crowned as VT’s rep, but we are still lacking a full set.

Mike is responsible for what must have been the most significant part of the summer. On the last day of June, the Theory SIG embarked on a picnic and managed to gain most of the VT and CompBio groups as members. It was a fantastic day, with some fabulous sunshine (rare — this is Britain), strawberries and socialising. It ran in much the same way as the VT christmas bash, with everyone bringing some food, and seemed to go pretty well.

Simon unfortunately missed out on this, as it took place during his sojourn in Milton Keynes. The poor guy was harshly pulled back to reality by GSC6100 and its bizarre idea of literature reviews… never again. A second picnic was attempted (The Revenge of the Strawberries) but didn’t seem as successful. Quite a few people were away by this point.

August was a big month of change. It began with Fran’s birthday party, and ended with the beginning of the VT lab renovations. Myself, Zubair and Mahmood stayed until 10pm one evening and created the nucleus, celebrating its completion with a kebab. We ended the summer with a little party in the retreat, involving music, food and much laughter. The final Friday was an interesting departmental holiday, and I then spent the next week (bringing us in to September) at RelMiCS in Manchester, the most memorable part of which was the outing which went on from 12pm to 2am.

September was quite a momentous month. Most notable was the arrival of Ramsay, who slid in to the VT crew with a surprising synergy. We soon had him out and about, visiting a noodle bar (East One) that Fran suggested. The meal was also something of a turning point, as Simon left on his holidays straight after, and Fran went to China a couple of days later.

Earlier that week was Mike’s hypercomputation workshop. Myself and Simon ended up helping out, and Mike got quite stressed (and managed to piss off Gillian). Best moment was the meal at Las Iguanas — some nice food and free (for me) to boot. Of course, the week finished with the Mexican Independence party with both Ramsay and Ibby dancing the light fantastic.

The end of the month saw the climax of the lab reshuffle, with just about everyone turning up to pitch in and help. We kicked it off with lunch in the Cavendish and then proceeded to throughly revitalise the place. Soon after, Shaukat, Mahmood and Sarah also moved out in to VT Lab 3, which gave us a fair bit more space, but also seems to have had a notable effect on the ambience.

Ramadan kicked in towards the end of the month, which had an effect on our partying, as most of the crew were fasting. We had another research retreat party, this time with Fran (freshly returned from China and jetlagged) and Ramsay, but it was let down by Ibby and Mahmood being unable to eat. The same week also saw us bid farewell to Carlos who returned to Mexico, and not bid farewell to Fran, who decided to return after his visit to Spain over the next two weeks.

October was relatively quiet and subdued, partially due to Ramadan and partially due to Ibby hacking furiously on his transfer report. I went mad and rushed mine through for the end of September, but it took until Christmas to see the back of Ibby’s (at least we hope that’s the back of it…) This was also the month I had laser surgery. Looking back over my earlier blogs (a use for them!) it seems we also had another little party in the retreat (the last — it’s not the best venue) and it was that month that me and Ramsay discovered the library basement. Things were dominated by the VT postgraduate seminars, and of course, I finished the month by visiting Google in Little London Village.

November was characterised by outings a plenty. We kicked off with the anticipated postgraduate meal, in which I had more input than last year, being a rep. following the research away day. VT lab wise, we had a cinema visit to see ‘Borat’ (with me, Fran and Ramsay also going to see ‘Children of Men’) and of course Bonfire Night.
The week after we went bowling, and the following week saw an extended trip to the Interval, my visit to Gerald in York and Fran’s Spanish night. A very busy three weeks…

We had another cinema visit to see Bond the week after, but things kind of went wayward after that with a fair bit of fragmentation occurring. Me and Ibby managed a wide range of lunches, but most of the time it was only us (although Ramsay came a few times). Ramsay and Fran similarly had a few nights out on their own. Of course there was also mine and Ibby’s disastrous attempt to find CompBio… least said the better… and my attendance at my first departmental board.

We did managed to get a fair number of Christmas decorations, and we had Mike as our honorary guest to perform the switch on. Me and Ibby somehow managed to wind up spending an entire afternoon at Meadowhell, and our attempt to get people out to the pub for lunch left just me and Ramsay going. The VT party was also pretty low-key this year.

Things came together in the final week. Monday saw Ibby, me, Fran, Ramsay and Simon all visiting Summer Street, as guests of Mahmood and Zubair, for some of their cooking. It was a nice evening, with me, Fran and Ramsay not leaving until about 10 (and Ramsay feeling oddly sober).
Of course the departmental party and Fran’s departure followed over a very eventful couple of days. On the Thursday, it was just me and Ibby in the lab — or rather out of the lab, as we spent most of the day out for lunch. What time we did spend there was spent reminiscing a little, just as I have in creating this blog.

And so, we arrive back where we started, with Ibby cajoling me into writing an account of 2006. Truth is always stranger than fiction. Hope you all enjoyed 2006, feel free to leave comments on your own memories of the year and let’s make 2007 even better!

Memorable Quotes

• These stairs look a bit steep…
• Craaaayyy–zy!
• We’ll go to the Interval for a quick coffee and home by eight
• What would happen if carbon suddenly left the Earth?
• Ramsay is defo right and me wrong
• Ah-hah!
• Zoo-bar
• How about a picnic?
• paz amor respecto
• Daytime bad

Today’s been quite a good day. It started with a late and very crowded bus, due to the one before turning up early. In the morning, I tried to read the paper for concurrency, but got sidetracked by print cartridges and Mike ‘007′ on a mission for a laptop. After what was a very low turnout meeting (with just me and Simon, we went back to the lab instead in order to involve Ibby and Ramsay indirectly), me and Ibby headed off for a quick drink and some cake at Waterstones. We had a good chat about various stuff, including our new roles as postgrad reps, but Ibby failed in his challenge of downing the huge cappachino he ordered.

I returned to meet Mike and we ended up in the retreat. I managed to sort out some plans for the ART module with him, as well as telling him about Gerald’s comments (basically why another process calculus, applications, tools, modelling chairs with pi and plans to visit CONCUR and BCTCS). Back in the lab, we got ready to head out for the cinema and Bond. Ibby bottled it again, but Frank, Fran, Ramsay and Peter all tagged along.

Once outside, I managed to somehow lose those guys. I ended up saying goodbye to Ibby, and then wondering where the fuck they’d gone. Peter and Frank soon reappeared, and I learned that Fran and Ramsay had gone back for Fran’s phone. We soon got to the cinema, and, after a nice chat over drinks, saw the film. It was good. As hinted out by the reviews I’d heard beforehand, it was refreshingly different, not relying on special effects but instead on a good storyline. It felt slightly more like an evening drama than a film. Some of the action sequences did seem a bit tedious, and some of the story was a little predictable. A few lines were pretty lame and cliché too. But, all in all, it was a good night.

The only problem with having a cinema trip as a ’social’ is there is very little actual socialising. I was glad we did get there early this time and go for drinks because otherwise we talked very little. Ramsay was especially subdued on the way home, but I think this is mainly because he was in the icky situation I was in last week of thinking about work he should have been doing. Ah, c’est la vie…

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!

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

Today has been one of the busiest days for a while, and there have been some hectic days recently. I had a nice quiet start, where I managed to get about half of the remaining transfer report work done by the time Ibby landed. Soon after that, things started to go an ickle bit mad…

But first we had to decide what to do about lunch. I think the Ibbster was almost too in to his work today as he didn’t seem inspired to go. There was no sign of Zubair or Mahmood either which got me worried. Then Zubair appeared online but I couldn’t speak to him! Damn thing! So we had to use Ibby as our intermeditary conduit and it all worked out. We waited half an hour for him, then left because Ramsay could smell the beer and wouldn’t wait any longer. But, contrary to Ibby’s assignations, he did appear just after we arrived.

We then had lunch, surrounding by some exhilarating sights… especially of a couple of girls behind us in rather short skirts. I don’t know how we will control the testosterone levels in VT much longer. On our return, a cuppa was in order before we started work. Then it was all hands on deck as we destroyed the VT lab, making such a noise that Monika had to close her door to down the corridor. I’ve never seen the lab so full; seems we got about 16 of our 19 residents in all (although not all felt like participating in the day’s activities). Mike popped his head in and was surprised at how active the lab was too. He told me that Frank was upset about his machine, which I knew nothing about… hopefully it is all sorted now.

Anyways, desks swerved round corners, papers flew, monitors and machines went awol but all in all the lab turned in to a nice place, although I’m not sure we nucleus folks should be as far back as we are now. I stuck to my guns on the window seats and I think they look really nice. The whiteboard is accessible. The printer is out of the way, in the other corner, in a perfect position to just grate on Yasser’s nerves and confuse the hell out of anyone coming in to the lab. Neil fell for it already.

We finished around 5pm, when me and Zubby went to grab another cuppa. I spotted Mike and Frank in the retreat on the way back and decided to see what was going on. Lots of deep mathematical gubberings it seems, which should eventually result in a Theory SIG talk. I also found out that his tutorial sessions for his pi-eating course will be on Tuesdays, so I should be able to participate. Mike plans to escape next week, it being the only week he can get away from the place as he isn’t teaching, Simon is still on his sojourns and there is no Theory SIG yet. He also suggested I should take a holiday, which fits in rather nicely with the planned bash next week. Simon’s transfer report went on the back burner too, when he realised he wouldn’t be back until the 2nd. I don’t think Ibby was too impressed when I told him though; hopefully his other pasttime of hunting down the rare sight of a woman in the department will keep him entertained. Seems from Zubair’s blog that he, Henry and Zubair all spotted a girl going past during the movements, and raced to catch her, Ibby in the lead. Oh dear, the boy is insatiable these days…

And in the evening…? Well, the first draft of the transfer report is finally finished. Hopefully, I won’t have to do anything on it until 2008 when Mike has finally read it all… wishful thinking I guess.