30/03 - Incredibly, despite oversleeping by an hour, Kelly and I both made it to UCL by half 9 this morning - it only took 30 minutes door to door, instead of the hour Kelly claims it usually takes. I think that by going earlier, one catches rush hour, which causes a longer delay than just waiting a bit. This was probably a bit of a waste of effort though, as I dozed off on my desk within about 20 minutes of getting in. After the coffee break I stayed in the 'quiet room', sorting some stuff out on my laptop before going for a walk over to meet Kelly for a cup of tea (ended up being a coconut muffin and a pear juice) on Queen Square.
The afternoon's talks were of marginal relevance and interest, which finished just in time for Matt, Tina and I to squeeze in a pint before the conference dinner, which was held in the rather grand Russell Hotel. As far as I remember (I am writing this over a week later), dinner was pretty good, especially the mini rack of lamb we had for the main course - nice and crisp on the outside, pink in the middle. Tegid Wyn Jones, a slightly crazy emeritus Welshman from UCL, gave the after dinner speech, which was rambling but enjoyable, mainly due to his incredible voice. We had four bottles of wine per table, which we soon polished off, and after dessert I popped over to see how Rich was doing. Rich's table had 8 bottles of wine, as there was an empty table next to them which now had no bottles. A waitress came over later and gave them two more as well, so I hung around for a while. It was looking like the UCL people intended to make a night of it, and I was tempted to join them, but I thought better of it and snuck off to meet Kelly in Soho, where we popped to the Evaristo club for a couple of cheeky rums before bed.
The afternoon's talks were of marginal relevance and interest, which finished just in time for Matt, Tina and I to squeeze in a pint before the conference dinner, which was held in the rather grand Russell Hotel. As far as I remember (I am writing this over a week later), dinner was pretty good, especially the mini rack of lamb we had for the main course - nice and crisp on the outside, pink in the middle. Tegid Wyn Jones, a slightly crazy emeritus Welshman from UCL, gave the after dinner speech, which was rambling but enjoyable, mainly due to his incredible voice. We had four bottles of wine per table, which we soon polished off, and after dessert I popped over to see how Rich was doing. Rich's table had 8 bottles of wine, as there was an empty table next to them which now had no bottles. A waitress came over later and gave them two more as well, so I hung around for a while. It was looking like the UCL people intended to make a night of it, and I was tempted to join them, but I thought better of it and snuck off to meet Kelly in Soho, where we popped to the Evaristo club for a couple of cheeky rums before bed.
31/03 - I was not in as early as yesterday, and while seeking out a better lunch than the somewhat puny sandwiches on offer (they had got a lot worse since Monday) I bumped into Rich in Subway. He had an enormous hangover and I was knackered, so we spent a while in the 'quiet room' munching through our respective enormous meals. We went along to the afternoon talks and struggled through, before going for Rich's birthday drinks. It was here that I discovered something rather amusing/tragic that happened last night. Mark Lancaster, the head of the UCL high energy physics group and Rich's supervisor/my former supervisor had had a bit of a tumble last night, smashing his head on the pavement and gaining a black eye, some fierce bruising and losing a tooth. He has an emergency dentist's appointment tomorrow to reattach/replace the tooth, but nothing can be done about his eye. I tried not to laugh when he came in, and failed completely when he asked me for "a Guiness and a straw."
Kelly turned up after a while, we stayed until all the others started looking for somewhere to watch the football, then borrowed Rich's iPhone to look up anywhere close we could use Kelly's taste card for half price food. Incredibly, the closest option was Archipelago, a place Kelly had talked about in the past which has a reputation for serving exotic meats, such as zebra and scorpion. When we arrived we found that both of these were off the menu, so we had Sarawaki Seafood followed by pink gin, lychee and mango palate cleansers, then Hot Marsupial (marinated kangaroo), Menelik's Catch (Berber spiced tilapia fish), Love Bug Salad (deep fried crickets & locusts)and Mouse In The House to finish (cheeses). With our discount card all this only came to £52, including two glasses of wine each (admittedly they forgot to charge us for the second one).
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