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By Paola Kathuria & Frank Wales

Click on the thumbnails to see larger photos.

On the afternoon of Monday, 5th January 1998, John Domingue welcomed us all to PPIG's 10th Workshop. The rest of the afternoon was spent listening to the opening papers and the invited talk.

That evening in the Cellar Bar, we had the opportunity to meet people who had come to the UK for the the workshop from all over the world. We also enjoyed folk music played by Thomas Green (flute), Mark Simos (fiddle) and Alan Blackwell (double bass).

The next day, we gathered again to listen to a selection of papers and the second invited talk .

That evening, we were treated to the Workshop dinner and stimulating conversation.

Returning to the hotel, we found ourselves drawn to the bar. Enjoying our drinks, we noticed the piano player, who took our song requests in good humour. It wasn't long before the piano player was joined by someone else, to the delight of the others in the bar. The others soon joined in the music-making. The piano player soon needed a rest and we all listened to Mark Simos playing the piano and singing folk songs. After some time of musical merriment, the piano player left us to entertain ourselves. Music was played late into the night by the Mighty Alan Blackwell on double bass, the Magnificent Thomas Green on flute and the Multi-Talented Mark Simos on piano and fiddle.

The next and last day of the workshop we gathered again to listen to the papers. Before we left the lecture theatre for the last time, Frank Wales and Thomas Green presented the prizes to the competition winners:

Nadezhda V. Gruzdeva, for travelling the greatest distance for the workshop; Helen Sharp, for seamlessly introducing the competition word 'didgeridoo' into her presentation; Allen Cypher, for "saving the bacon" by acting as a Russian translator; Mordechai Ben-Ari, for the best science fiction; Marian Petre, for the best hat; Paul Brna, for being Better Late Than Never; Stuart Watt, for the best new word syntonicity; Alex Repenning, for the best arithmetic; and Meurig Benyon, who received the Turing state machine prize. Prizes were also awarded to Mark Simos, Willemien Visser and Judith Segal.

Finally, we gathered outside to watch Thomas Green cut a birthday cake, celebrating PPIG's 10th Birthday. With a final look back, we headed home, already looking forward to next year's PPIG workshop.

Text by Paola Kathuria - Photos by Frank Wales

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Psychology of Programming Interest Group
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