When I was a student I worked in the steel factories in Sheffield, now defunct, er the steel factories not the city, in the two-week shutdown in the Summer when the workers went on vacations and bands of students came in to clean the place up. These weeks were called Stop Weeks. The money was fantastic. We worked 12 hour shifts and some years I worked very hard shoveling sludge from pits underneath huge rolling mills. Other times I did nothing at all, such as the year that I was  a welder’s mate. He, the welder, would lead me to some lost corner of the massive steel plant where we would sleep all day. Once we slept beyond the knocking off time, whereupon we claimed and were paid overtime. The steel factory we worked in was Steel,Peech and Tozer, affectionately known as Steelos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel,_Peech_and_Tozer

Anyway in Kyoto at a big deal meeting called STS Forum http://www.stsforum.org/ I am on a panel with a chap who mentions he was at Sheffield University.  He was sitting on my left. I mentioned Steelos and he had also worked on the Stop Weeks as a student! We spent an intense 5 minutes of nostalgia for the bad old days of pollution, soot and yellow and blue No 60 buses. He introduced me to the man on my right who had also been at Sheffield University!

We exchanged Sheffield shibboleths such as: “D’areet chuck?” – “Are you feeling well my dear?” and “Tint tin tin.” – “It is not in the tin.”  Very good time was had by all. The man of the left was Rich Roberts:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_J._Roberts

On the right was Jeremy Grantham:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Grantham

Go Sheffield.

Anyway it was a great meeting with lots of old and current friends.

Mighty Cashmore

Jerry Friedman with another gentleman.

Jerry is one of the best. Check his interview with Ali G.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU0vOThFXGA

Jonathan writ large

Yay! Carlo looking good

Cashmore gets ready

Good couple of days.