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…

I’ve just got back from Gatecrasher’s 14th birthday party and am enjoying an afterparty with a cuppa in the DCS before returning home.  It was a really good night, even if my feet are now aching a little after dancing for nine hours.  Henry went with me in the end, after Ibby bottled it.  I was worried for a bit that I’d be stuck with no-one to go with, but fortunately he saved the day.  I think he wondered what he’d let himself in for at first; the guys and gals we shared the bus with to Magna were already a little inebriated to say the least, it took us ages to work out how to get in there (about a ten minute walk right round almost in a circle) and he didn’t look too impressed with the two rooms at first - I left him for a bit because he was just hanging round at the back texting.  However, this was probably because we’d not let him drink anything so far.  A couple of drinks later, he seemed happy enough though and had a big smile on his face.  He made it until quarter to five which was more than I expected given he had to work the next day.  I stayed the remaining hour and a quarter, and am now off home to get some sleep at last.

I arrived back from a very tiring and exhausting trip to Lisbon yesterday evening. It seems the whole thing was fraught with chaos pretty much, but there were lots of interesting talks and it was great to meet people working with JikesRVM for their research. In retrospect, I should have planned things earlier and better, but you learn from experience. I’m still a little shocked at how fast I suddenly had a paper accepted there (if only in the workshop) and was heading off to Portugal.

I left last Monday morning, after only about three hours sleep. I ended up finishing the presentation the Sunday before, after various things took me off track earlier that weekend. Taking three attempts to get my camera being just one of them… I did have a nice trip to the gym with Ibby on the Saturday but getting up early then too really didn’t help. I think there’s only the Sundays in the last two weeks that I haven’t been up at 6am.

The only direct flight I could find was via Air Portugal down at London Heathrow so I got a coach down there on Monday. That itself took nearly five hours. It makes me glad I have an iPod, so at least I can while away the time listening to good tunes (should take it to Embrace if I ever have to go again). There was a lot less waiting time for flights this time round, unlike when I went to Belgium (four hours in the airport IIRC). It did however mean that I was worried about making it in time all the way down to Heathrow, and then things all got messed up on the way back. Next time I need to go to the continent, I’m taking a train.

I took advantage of a chance to avoid Gordon Brown while in the airport, and got a tax-free copy of the new Gatecrasher Immortal CD which will help prepare for the big night out in a couple of weeks. After a bit of food and drink, I boarded the plane. I’d booked the outward flight business class (as that was all that was left, and it was about the same price) and got treated to a nice three course meal before landing in Lisbon where it was noticeably hotter!

Once there, I took the advice given in the conference travel notes and bought a taxi ticket at the airport for about 15 euros. It was a bit more expensive, but better than risking the taxi driver charging what they wanted. Another conference delegate got charged about 45 euros to get from the hotel to the conference site! The hotel was okay, if not that grandiose. I don’t reckon it was as good as the one I went to for either Gradschool, MGS or my various IBM visits, but it was better than the campus accommodation I stayed in for Types and BCTCS obviously (and much better than that for RelMiCS this time last year, where you had to walk out of the room to the shower). It completely confused me (and had to go and ask at the desk) that you had to put your room key in a slot to get any electricity! I tried to get in the Zurique instead, but it was booked up by the time I registered. Again, should have got my act together quicker.

I then went out for a look round and managed to go all over the place but where I wanted to go. I didn’t exactly get lost (I always knew where I was) but I never found where I wanted to go. The most annoying thing is I started heading in the right direction, and then decided it wasn’t somehow, and went back the other way — duh! I did get a few good pictures though, but no restaurant I went back and had something in the hotel bar instead.

Even more fun ensued on the Tuesday when I tried to find the university for the Java PT event. I asked at the reception and the guy there kindly told me what train to get. The train was quite cheap (only 3.2 euros both ways) and very efficient (arriving exactly on time on every occasion), but when I got there it turned out not to be as close as I thought. Again, I started going in the right direction, and then changed again! Grrrr! I got there eventually but an hour into the event (when I started out an hour before). They had my name badge all ready for me though.

The talks were very interesting (those that I could understand anyway — one was entirely in Portuguese, but looked boring anyway — all about UML and stuff). Dinner was a bit odd — it just seemed to be a buffet of rabbit food and chocolate sauce. Lots of drinks though, which was what I needed more. It was 24 degrees at 8:30 the night before, and over 30 degrees in the daytime! Next time I want a conference somewhere cold, preferably Iceland or something. We had talks on JavaFX, GlassFish and NetBeans. I managed to miss the one on open sourcing Java, but given the number of faux paus made later, I’m glad I did. As Tom Marble said before I left, they wouldn’t be able to tell me much new about that anyway. The most interesting was the Sun SPOT demo (I believe Gordon is going to use some of these) and I have a nice bit of video of this, with robots and Project Looking Glass.

For some reason, we got an umbrella for finishing the conference. It wasn’t raining, and I think they just want to have the joke of giving us a Sun umbrella (get it?). Heading back was quite a trek, but at least I knew where I was going this time. I got an Iced Tea (ha ha) at the railway station. They seem to be keen on this there instead of real tea. I had some peach Ice Tea in the bar the night before too. Not much negro cha though…

Back at the ranch, I had a shower (after all that heat) and then went out again, hoping to be more successful this time. Indeed, I did make it to Barrio Alto on this occasion, which Fran had recommended, and had some of the local cod fish at a restaurant there. Very nice but also very boney. Again, it was a bit of a distance to go though, so I decided to stay closer to home in future, and was quite happy that I wouldn’t have to think of my own plans until the Friday evening…

The next morning I again got the train and did the walk to the conference, but later realised that I could have got a coach! The e-mail didn’t mention the 5th! Anyway, I made it, registered and finally got my talk out of the way! I felt much better after that. Not sure how much of it just went straight over their heads, but at least I tried.

There was also an interesting talk by IBM on their VM (which GCs they use and such like) and on using Java together with Petri Nets. The conference (PPPJ 07) started proper in the afternoon, with the first session on how people had used Java. There were some very interesting talks, one on a FOSS web teaching system (both FOSS and GNU/Linux seemed very much in vogue, although they were using Windows Vista to present which caused the usual problems) and one on a scripting language for programming on a phone. One of the four talks was postponed, as the speaker was stuck in a Parisian airport, so we ended up having it the day after. Some very nice practical talks which makes a change…

Things really started properly after that with the conference cocktail party. It was at this point that I met up with Jeremy Singer who I saw in Manchester the year before. Both he and Matthias Hauswirth had seen my post to the JikesRVM list before I left but not had chance to reply! Matthias told me about some problems they’d had running tests with Eclipse 3.2+JikesRVM, which I’ve just started to try and chase up. I had a good chat with Jeremy about all sorts of stuff related to JikesRVM and Classpath during the cocktail party. It was in these lovely botanical gardens with a beautiful view of the skyline — see my photos on Facebook. The waiters seemed very keen on shovelling food down us, even going so far as to replace the cocktail stick in my hand with another at one point!

The next day was dominated by more talks and a nice trip round the area. We went to a convent (actually inhabited by monks, as the word merely describes the size of the place there), a castle and a winery. Again, see the photos. We ended up at Hotel da Mar, with a nice view of the beach and sea (obviously) where we had a four course meal again including codfish! The final day was purely talks and some very interesting ones. I especially enjoyed Jeremy’s, where he demonstrated generational garbage collecting using socks — reminded me of Piero. I felt sorry for some of the speakers as they were obviously having trouble with giving a talk in English (especially the French).

Arriving back at the hotel after the conference had ended, I packed up as much as possible while deciding whether to venture out again. Eventually I did, deciding I’d be too hungry otherwise. I went to a restaurant I’d remembered fairly near by (after getting there much too late on Monday) and ordered some grilled pork (which initially was nearly a coke — the Portuguese seem to struggle with English and can be very abrupt). My stomach full, I went back to the hotel to bed.

Saturday was spent almost entirely in travel. I left the hotel after breakfast at about quarter to eight, getting a taxi to the airport. I had to check the umbrella specially into oversized luggage to get it home. The plane was then late taking off by an hour (we were sat there all strapped in for ages) and I missed my connecting coach. Luckily, I could amend the ticket for 3 pounds so didn’t have to pay again although it wasn’t fun waiting an hour and a half just to get the coach. I finally got back to Sheffield at about 8:30 and fortunately the 123 turned up and I was home by about ten past nine. It was quite an experience, but I’m glad to be back in the UK where I can at least survive outside in the daytime and get people to understand what I’m saying …. most of the time…

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…

Barry visited on Friday it what was originally supposed to be a party, quickly became a fiasco and ended up in some relaxed visits to the pub. He arrived late, so his panel meeting was pushed back to 2pm. With Simon having scheduled Joachim at 3pm, there seemed little point in trying to have a party in the half hour after Barry’s talk, so we instead just went for lunch. It was nice to see Barry again (now 88 months into a PhD) and things were a bit more laid back and chatty this time, which was good. Interestingly, it’s exactly a year since he last visited (well as close as can be — it was the 18th last year and things move forward by a day each year)…

Stannett has been getting increasingly crazy and bizarre recently, but in a very good way. It’s probably got something to do with what is now two trips to Hove, where they are apparently ‘all really hard working’ despite the stories he keeps telling. Sounds like he enjoyed the ‘picnic’ he went to, despite it being very different from the ones we’ve held in the department. He also had a sudden desire to remove all trace of himself from t’Internet — well from certain sites (last.fm, facebook). To my mind, he went the wrong way about it and only seems to have made it more difficult for him to edit the data they hold about himself rather than eradicate it (especially in the case of Facebook, where there’s now an odd authorless comment of his). Changing his details would have been a better option… the Internet allows you to create countless identities for yourself, and there’s not much enforcing them being in any way real.

Last week, me, myself and Ibby went to try out Patillos, the new restaurant in Leopold Square:

It proved very expensive and it’s doubtful we’ll go back (for lunch anyway), unless Stannett’s paying again. The library folks seem to be trying to further promote the Information Commons by subduing the power of the Main Library; it’ll be renamed the Western Bank Library from September. So any hopes that that gigantic expensive green spaceship will return from whence it came seem unlikely so far. Might be a good idea to add some books then. You know, I mean proper books… ones with things like, gosh, pages and such. Ones that you can pick up and eat if you so desire.

Other than that, things have been fairly relaxed and normal. Ibby’s not done any work, so nothing new there. It’s been raining again, so seems like summer is over (it lasted about two weeks, sorry if you blinked and missed it). Time to get ready for Christmas again then. Jingle bells and all that…

What a fucking awesome 14-hour session! Today was the long-awaited date for the departmental summer picnic that’s been in planning for about two months and I do believe it duly kicked ass. There were a few lows but these were overshadowed by some terrific highs.

We kicked off laying out food in the Lewin Lab at about half twelve, after me, Simon, Monika and Emily converged on Tesco’s to get some food. Things were a bit quiet initially, and me and Mike spent the time sorting out the music and his quiz, that we spent a good five hours going through the night before (interspersed with numerous YouTube videos).

Things eventually warmed up a bit. I did a quick bit of going round, cajoling people. The VT folks were big slackers; most of them preferred to stay in their ice cold lab rather than venture downstairs for fear of…oh no…an academic actually talking to them! I’m glad I’ve moved out of there and I think the fresh air is much better for me.

After an initially depressing looking start, Mike asked George to give out the quizsheets and get people organised, which worked wonders. The actual quiz seemed to go down really well, and Mike certainly knows how to set a good ‘un. As he says, there was something on there for everyone.

Mike was already getting quite out of it by that stage, although he was still able to indulge in some political debate with Ibby. We left the department about 5ish, and originally planned to go to the Red Deer with some of the NLP crew, but neither them nor the Devonshire Cat would let us in with Sam’s baby. We ended up in the Forum instead, and it was debatable whether Mike was already too sozzled to go much further.

Fabio also appeared after about the first hour, and preceded to gather his WIG hommies around him in a scene reminiscent of a cross between Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Wayne’s World. Mike even gave him some respek. Emily seemed to insist on going to the Common Room for some reason, so eventually we all trooped out over there (although only after managing to lose Mike who got fed up of all the pissing about).

The place was packed and we ended up getting jostled about all over the place and separated several times. We eventually found a seat near the back, although Emily seemed to decide to huddle in a corner with Ajay instead. I texted Mike to let him know we had eventually ended up there and eventually went out to find him. He’d acquired food from Subway in the mean time and who knows what else, but he’d certainly perked up a bit.

We were slowly losing people by this stage, and we said goodbye to nearly all of the NLP crew after about an hour in that dive. Mike then played pool against both Henry and Sam, and managed to win. Emily left early with Ajay sometime during this, but we never saw her at the Leadmill.*[See below]

After Mike had been challenged and thrashed by another guy at pool, we headed down there ourselves, stopping at Simon’s fabled Devonshire chippy on the way for some chips. They have remarkably big fish. We went past the pile of ashes that is Gatecrasher One on the way and Mike again told how they wouldn’t even let him in when he was supposed to be managing a live broadcast of PvD from Zurich for them. It’s a strange twist of fate that it burnt down about the week after they didn’t let us in…

Inside, it was a bit weird because we couldn’t seem to get into Room 2 at first which has a cheaper bar. However, it was definitely open later as I went in there for about an hour instead, after being completely fed up of all the utter shit (Take That???) they were playing in the main room. Mike and Henry seemed happy enough to dance to it, but then I guess they were out of it enough to dance to the sound of our coffee machine… They had stuff like the Arctics and the Killers on in the other room, which was much better.

I went back at what seemed to be just about the right time, as they went into the more anthemic dance stuff like ‘Jump Around’. Both me and Mike stuck it out to the end, but Henry strangely decided to leave after they announced 15 minutes to go. He missed all the best classic stuff like ‘Set You Free’, ‘Children of the Night’, ‘No Good (Start the Dance)’, ‘Sandstorm’, ‘No Limit’, ‘Boom Boom Boom’ and finally ‘Superstylin'’ which ironically Mike had put in his quiz earlier. It was great fun, although I thought we were going to knock someone over when we were bouncing around together to ‘Sandstorm’.

Mike was seemed much more aware of what was going on this time, even remembering to collect his coat. We got a quick drink from a van outside (which strangely claimed to do tea and coffee, but didn’t) before getting taxis down at the railway station (which was shut but seemed to have a train due within the next hour). All in all, a very good night for those of us who stood the pace…

Update — We Found Emily

After not hearing anything from Em and getting very worried on Saturday, she fortunately popped up on Facebook on Sunday and all was well with the world again. It turns out she did make it to the Leadmill but somehow managed to miss each other — she got there earlier and left earlier so it’s not too surprising. I’d have been in the other room at that point. It does seem she had a little too much to drink, because the poor thing was throwing up most of the next day.

She’s been my saviour today though, as she managed to recover the missing camera. I nearly had a heart attack this morning when I realised it wasn’t down in the lab still. I’d be thinking about it since later on Friday, but thought it would be okay there. But I come down to the Lab and someone has cleared away everything! So I pestered just about everyone I could think of — Emily, Monika, George, the porter, Henry, Simon, Neil — and eventually an e-mail from Em got it returned.

So in all it’s been a pretty mad cap day. Em did still have fun on Friday by the sound of it, but none of the orgasmic throes of passion Mike referred to. We know her better than that

Yesterday, I made my auspicious return to the lab as there was barbeque food to be had. As far as free food goes, the last two Thursdays have been good for us postgrad students. The week before, we had our yearly departmental meal at K Pasa and I think of the two that was the most successful (but then I’m obviously biased…) I blatantly stole the networking game from our GradSchool experiences and it worked quite well in the end. Describing the game to those assembled in the research retreat, I thought they were just going to stay sat there instead of socialising but things soon got moving. People from different research groups actually spoke to each other, which is amazing in and of itself, although, as perhaps expected, there weren’t that many from NLP (given its size) and VT accounted for over a third (but didn’t seem to dominate).

The meal was nice (although some poor souls got burnt pizzas). We should definitely introduce that place into our regular rotation. Ibby slacked off as usual, and so we decided to stop him coming in the lab until he had also completed the networking game, but failed miserably. I don’t know, free food — you’d think more people would turn up. Ramsay was notably absent too and Zubair decided to spend time with friends instead. Ah well, maybe next time. It seems to take that long to get one of these together and also get the department to fund it. I don’t think we’d have one much more frequently. We’re keeping the new postgrads one smaller this year so that they don’t get overshadowed by the existing students. I’m happy, because as rep, I still get to go

Anyway, suffice to say, I think they could have done with the same game at the postgrad barbeque because those who bothered to get out from behind their desks (me and Henry tried in NLP and ML and failed in both) just came, ate and left pretty much. We ended up in the pool room, mainly, for me at least, because there was some attempt at music in there while the party atmosphere seemed to be lacking outside and we saw nothing of Ramsay’s fabled topless waitresses. Simon got excited and smashed a glass, but otherwise things seem to go well. Ramsay was in search of a wireless network connection which some gits had stopped in Bar One, so, unable to pull the plug, we headed for the interval instead and hung out there with teas and cappachinos until the weather was sufficiently good to allow us to return to the department.

We seem to be having nothing but departures this year, while last year it seemed to be mostly arrivals. Peter checked out of Hotel VT a week last Tuesday and we saw him off with drinks in the Red Deer and some heated debate with Emmanuel. Good to know he’s got home okay and hopefully we’ll be able to blag a way of getting him back for a talk sometime. Speaking of which, with me now leading the seminar charge, things are looking up and lots of invites have been sent. Hopefully some people will still want to come and see us.

Other than that, I’ve been chillin’ at home. Seem to have been more productive actually. Wednesday I went to Meadowhall for some retail therapy. The lower level is like a graveyard, so many shops shut off in need of refurbishment. No music shops! ;( Oh dear, oh dear. Ibby’s been complaining all week about me not being in the lab, so I was going to invite him to come along too but he vanished in a puff of smoke on Tuesday afternoon. He’s been very withdrawn lately, think his impending panel make be making him shit himself inside. Cheer up, bro!

Simon and I have already started planning our concurrency roadshow for early next year, and it seems I might be going on tour in a couple of months after all too. Things are looking up at the moment. Surprising lack of gossip though, I don’t think Em will be impressed when she returns next week.

It’s been a funny old week. It’s sort of like Sheffield has been on an attention seeking rampage. First, Gatecrasher One went up in flames the other week and now we see the worst flooding for more than a century. I’ve been considerably lucky to live in an area unaffected by this, and the few inconveniences I’ve had to suffer have been nothing compared to those who’ve lost their homes, their most valuable possessions and in some cases their lives.

The extent of it all was lost on me on Monday. I got soaked coming in that morning, but thought little more about it until it was time to go home. I knew it had caused some flooding at the station (Zubair couldn’t get a train down south), but didn’t realise the effect would be anything like it was. Going out to get the bus at 5pm proved a forlorn hope. The entire left-hand side heading towards Crookes and Walkley was packed solid and nothing was coming back down on our side.

I was lucky enough not to be on my own, being with Monika and another lady (Margaret) who works for the university, as we all usually catch the 123 together. Monika luckily had the foresight to get one of the few buses that did come down (a 30) and, in hindsight, we all should have. I’d pretty much given up on the 123 (as it tends to be a bit errant anyway), but we expected to see at least one 52. As it was, we waited until it was nearly six before we gave up, having seen only a few 120s go down and the odd First bus.

Walking down West Street we saw a couple of 123s going up towards Walkley (at last), but it seemed doubtful that they’d be coming back down again, at least anytime soon. On Leopold Street, one of the First drivers stopped to let us know what we’d already begun to guess; that they were stopping all the buses and taking them out of service. It did however seem a bit dumb that they didn’t at least take passengers as far as the depot, given that they had to drive the buses there anyway.

In the end, we went to the taxi rank at Barker’s Pool and joined the waiting queue of anxious people waiting to get home. A lady came past to tell us what was going on, and that they were providing food, drink and shelter in the Winter Gardens. That’s when we knew how extreme things were I guess. Quite a few people waiting couldn’t even get a taxi to take them home, as the routes were flooded, so I guess that’s where they were headed. As our route was just a case of heading up the parkway towards Woodhouse, it was easy enough to get a willing taxi driver to take us there and by half past seven I finally got home.

Listening to the radio on Tuesday morning made me skeptical as to whether I’d be able to get back in again, and I was contemplating not bothering at all. I only did in the end because it would be my last day for a while and there were quite a few things I needed to get sorted. As it turned out, there were no problems getting in, the bus was actually early and I spent a really nice day with Henry, Emmanuel, Abraham and Ibby.

Myself and Ibby had a rather extravagant final lunch at Nando’s where Ibby complained about the cost even though he wasn’t paying… It was really nice and worth the money, I thought. On the way home, I went through the Wicker on the 52, and it was a real mess following the flooding. Most of it looked more like a building site.

There were still problems on Wednesday. I had to get to Leeds for my enhancement operation, but the Sheffield bit of the M1 was closed. We ended up having to take a tour through the windy backroads, going out towards the Pennines and Manchester before following Mortimer Road up to Milhopestones and driving along the A626 to eventually get back to the M1. In all, a journey which took about an hour for a distance which should have taken about 15 minutes.

We also had to make the same trip on both Thursday and Sunday, as Meadowhall (where I’d usually have followup appointments) was flooded and has only just reopened today. Fortunately, the M1 was open again and so the journey only took about 40 minutes each way.

I tried to chillout for most of the remainder of the week, in order to allow myself to recover, but it’s not actually as easy as it seems. Last weekend I’d have preferred to do nothing. The end of last week I found it really difficult to do nothing. It also meant being out of contact with people (although Ibby rang twice which was really nice) and having lots of time to think; which can be both a good thing and a bad thing.

Still not sure how well this is going to work out, and still having to pump myself full of drugs. I’m taking going back in slowly, partly for this reason, and also because I couldn’t actually think of many reasons to be in the department at the moment. I’m actually happier here right now, which is strange. And actually finding it easier to get things done — although so far it’s mainly been emails and such like that I’ve had to follow up on from last week.

Sounds like Mike has also had a fair old time of it too, from reading his blog. He texted me on Monday asking for the CICS number to get online which I gathered meant he had no broadband connection due to the weather. There’s a postgraduate meal coming up this week, organised by Amanda, which I hope will work out well. I’ll be going in for that at least.

Fingers crossed all works out well. I’ve had too much stress by far over the last nine months from this…

Up to now, it’s been a relatively quiet couple of weeks, mainly because certain people were recovering from becoming rather intoxicated at a certain lab party. With the end of the semester, it’s also meant that there are less things going on generally, and we’ve seen noticeably less people in the lab. Both Emmanuel and Henry have been working hard done their respective coal mines instead of being in the lab, and we’ve not seen that much of Zed either. I’ve been moved to having headphones on most of the time, because I can’t stand the silence.

There have been a few good points. Me and Ibs have had quite a few nice lunches out and about, but we must make our choice of where to go early than we do. We’ve also had our only two external speakers this year — both came on consecutive Fridays. Gerald’s visit was something that had been on the cards for a while, and went pretty much as expected, with a good VT seminar turnout and lunch in the Swim.

Nick’s Theory SIG talk seemed a bit more risque, especially when we discovered that they’d decided to have an exam board that day as well. I was worried we weren’t going to get much of a turnout, but we actually managed to get easily the largest Theory SIG turnout we’ve had all year (including Georg and Kirill who escaped!). I reminded people, I bugged them by phone and it seemed to work. We also had a really nice social down the Red Deer afterwards. On this kind of high, I’ll be bowing out and taking over the VT seminars from July instead. Beware…

We’ve also got a departmental picnic on the 27th to look forward to now as well. Phil’s given the okay, and is even sorting me out ‘ bit of a budget’ — woo hoo! I’ve also managed to chase up most of my demonstrating claims, although I still seem to keep being offered new really interesting ones. I had an afternoon earlier this week of phoning around prospective undergraduates, which proved to be really nice in the end — mainly because I escaped the lab and borrowed Karen’s desk instead!

I’ve just got the open day stuff to sort out now, and posters to chase up. I want to get as much done of that as possible before I disappear from Wednesday on. I’m actually kind of looking forward to the chance to have a rest and get away from the depressing place the lab has become of late.

Henry Becomes 28… Or 19… Or Whatever…

So here’s the bit I know certain people have been waiting for, the full gory details of tonight’s shenanigans. It’s been quite a bizarre day when all’s said and done (for me at least), given that I actually spent only like 20 minutes in the department, but still saw most of the same people.

Trying to organise tonight has been a nightmare from start to end, and I don’t think I ended up doing anything in the end. I can try all I want, but I may as well be talking to the wall or e-mailing the pope. It was Henry who did it all in the end as it should have been, being his birthday and it’s clear that I should leave these things to our resident party goddess and little party monkey in the future. There’s only so long you can feel like the spare wheel, especially when it’s the one that gets a puncture. It was good while it lasted, but we can’t always change as we’d like.

On to the events. Friday morning, things finally seemed to be arranged, so I e-mailed around and let people know, before grabbing a quick cuppa and heading up to the postgraduate research conference with Simon. We left Ramsay in charge of the lab, after I was less than impressed than the alarm had once again not been set, by, I have a feeling, someone who shouldn’t even have been there, but I don’t know for certain.

Overall, the day was quite interesting, but a lot of the information was a case of if you’ve heard it once, you don’t need to hear it again. I think the sessions could have benefitted from a little more participation (too many times, especially in the morning, we were sat just listening, which never works for me). This also impacted on the fact that one and a half hours felt far too long. I also thought there was a lot of room for improvement in the catering — I don’t really count a few sandwiches as a lunch, but more importantly things were unmarked, making things difficult for many of our students. Timetabling was also a problem, given that the early afternoon on a Friday is prayers for our Muslim students (which from the majority in VT). Even though I saw lots of DCS folks, my choices meant I spent a lot of the day with Simon who was more sociable than he has been of late, as he was in the pub last week — getting him on his own obviously works…
We returned to the department to drop off the stuff they gave us and pick up others, most notably Emily who was waiting patiently for us in reception at 5, dressed up to the nines and looking wonderful. Seemed a bit odd to then lead her in to the mess that is the VT lab, but oh well… we eventually cajoled people into leaving and headed for Nando’s for some food. This was not before losing both Zubair (who hurried off with excuses of work to do) and Ibby, who’s pathetic text doesn’t even bear mentioning. Someone should teach him that honesty really is the best policy…

The eventual party that left was thus just me, Henry, Emmanuel, Abraham and Emily. At the restaurant, we got seats for seven as we were soon joined by Henry’s girlfriend, Julia, and his friend, Mary. We then gormandised our way through three plates of chicken, rice and chips with bottomless supplies of Fanta, Sprite and Coke. Over this, Emmanuel told us how apparently Henry should traditionally be whipped in Ghana on his birthday. Believe what you want, maybe Henry has some kind of masochistic streak…

Even after the meal, Henry still hadn’t decided what we were going to do. Apparently, he’s a man, can’t multitask and can only juggle two balls… Eventually hopping over to the Cavendish, wine was the order of the day, while Henry devised me a non-alcoholic cocktail called ‘Strawberry and Bits’. I have to admit it sounds kind of intriguing, but I’m definitely going to stay away from his other alternative, ‘Henry’s Banana’ and leave that to the ladies.

After finding that, due to me chatting with Emily, Julia and Mary, that I must be learning about ‘women’s things’ (including lipstick and tampons apparently), Henry was inspired by Julia to become a transsexual and shake his ass like Beyonc&eecute;. This led on to another conversation about Henry living with a homosexual, and Emmanuel discovering this when him and a friend came out of the bathroom wrapped in towels. You have to wonder what these two get up to sometimes…

Of all coincidences, we happened to see James going past the window and he popped in, agreeing to come back and join us later. That he did by the time we had moved across the road to the Varsity, a place which I’ve still failed to work out the point of. I can understand going to a bar to socialise and chat with people. I can understand going to a club to dance. What’s the point of some weird middle ground where there’s loud music that drowns out conversation but no dancefloor?

Me and Emmanuel were again exposed to a bit of Henry’s data quality shit during our time in the Varsity. He had us applying 0 to 1 scores to women in the room, with no criteria on how to judge these scores (a clear floor in his analysis). I’m waiting for the day this reaches his thesis and Siobhan sees it…

Leaving the Varsity about an hour later, Henry and Emmanuel beatboxed our way to Havana, but we decided not to go in as they were still serving meals at this time (it was still pretty early, given we’d started at five). Instead, we headed to Reflex, and cut a few moves on the dancefloor.

For some reason, we then went to try and get into Embrace, even thought it was obvious I wasn’t going to get in, as I hadn’t bothered to dress up, having come straight from the PGR conference. In retrospect, I should have just gone home and left them to it, instead of fucking things up for everyone.

We ended up retiring to our homes at about 1am, after spending the rest of the evening back in Habana, where everyone showed off some seriously good salsa moves — I’m well impressed by their hidden talents. On the way home in the taxi, we went past the remains of Gatecrasher. Still hard to believe it burnt down like that on Monday. It will be interesting to find how it happened.

Hope you had a good birthday celebration Henry — don’t work too hard!

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…