Christmas Lunch and HIVE Games

We had our departmental christmas lunch today. The meal was good and so was the company (of course). Previously we have eaten at lunch time, and woe betide any students seeking help from me in the afternoon of that day. I'm very sympathetic to whatever problem is brought along, but not usually in much of a state to do anything about it.

The good news is that the meal started in the middle of the afternoon and so there was no need to stagger back to the office and do any work. Instead we staggered back a bit later and played some stupid games. Never played four player Halo 2 on a screen 12 feet tall? Never lived.

I reckon that there is no point in having a "Hull Immersive Video Environment" if you can't play games with it every now and then. Even though I got shot a lot.

Heists

Watched a TV program last night called Heist. A gang of hardened criminals are given a task each week and a film crew track them as they go about their nefarious business. This week they had to steal a one million pound car and take it Belgium. Why Belgium was not made clear. Perhaps there are people wandering round Brussels going "I just wish there was someone I could buy a stolen car worth one million pounds from".

Anyhoo, the gang soon got into the spirit of the occasion and were happily plotting away. The one fly in the ointment was that, this being a sort of family show, they weren't allowed to bash anybody over the head with a crowbar, that being the most effective way of achieving some of the more physical parts of the challenge. Instead they had to create a fake site entrance and dress up as security men to get their hands on their ill gotten gains.

One thing that impressed me was that all the villains looked exactly like they had been hired straight from central casting. The bluff boss, the gentleman cat thief, the hard man and the brainy one all looked just as you would expect. Only the computer hacker spoiled things a bit by looking remarkably like Jesus Christ, but there you go.

The plot ran through to completion quite satisfactorily, although the action was intercut with scenes that were supposed to leave you with the impression that crime doesn't actually pay. Smuggling the car to Belgium was in fact the easiest part of the job, this being achieved by putting the car on a lorry and driving the lorry through customs and out of the country. However, at this point the narration did point out that if they really had stolen such a valuable artifact this bit might have been a bit more tricky, what with ports and stuff all having been alerted.

The funniest bit was when, having tricked the driver out of the cab of his lorry, they put him at ease by saying "Don't worry, it's not a real robbery, we are all from Channel 4". This seemed to work remarkably well. Perhaps alongside jemmy, gelignite, swag bag and the like we will start to see criminals using video cameras, clipboards and producers in future.

Goods and Chattel and Hunted Men

Going to Durham tomorrow to fetch number one son and his goods and chattel. Opinions in the coffee lounge were mixed on whether or not men are allowed to have chattel. Women can apparently be supplied with this stuff, and goods too, but we weren't sure about men.

I've been digging on Google and it turns out that chattel is just "an item of tangible movable personal property (as livestock or an automobile)". I hope he hasn't got any livestock to bring back.

And I've been thinking about Google. If the police are after someone, why don't they just google his name?

Invigilating People

Spent a big chunk of today sitting in an exam hall watching students write furiously. The exam was from the Psychology department. Some of the questions looked quite hard. I felt rather bad about wearing my Micky Mouse sweater.

The chap invigilating with me was from the Theology department. He runs a neat web site about his courses. I said something along the lines that I would love to come back to university and do a subject like Theology where you can "never be wrong".

"Sure" he replied, "You can never be wrong. But you can be stupid". That is such a superb observation. I spent a big chunk of the invigilation wondering whether I'd rather be wrong or stupid.

Still not sure.

Christmas Lottery

Been up in the loft playing "chirstmas lottery". This is a game where one year you hide a set of decorations in the loft. Then the next year you go up and either find them and use them for that year, or find nothing and buy a new set. Then put them in the loft for next year and repeat. I think we have three complete sets of decorations up there. Including trees.

The set we found this year had tree lights that didn't work. When I was a kid, and people were more easily impressed by things like the electricity, I seem to remember that we had a set with 20 bulbs in it. The next year there were eighteen, then fifteen, then the whole lot blew up and I left home....

Nowadays nobody has just 20 lights. Nobody. I went out and bought a replacement set for our failed onces. I thought 40 would be a good enough number but this just looked paltry. Fortunately they were seilling the lights half price and so I was able to get some extra ones without breaking the bank.