Bwahaha! I play the accordian, and the recorder, will any of those do instead? 
I’m sure we could get from any given place to ‘beer is good’ in fewer steps than that 
I’m sure we could. I have officially signed away my sanity. From the 25th November until the 27th November, I shall be teaching physics (on my own) at a residential course, in Foxton. Cambridge Dopers - fancy meeting up on the 27th in the Pickerel?
Have fun.
I’ll be around.
I’m sure I will.
Jolly good. That’ll make three of us then - you, Lu Tse, and myself.
Anymore for anymore?
So, I’ve got a few weeks to try to get some friends hooked on SDMB
Yeah, except the Pickerel isn’t that big really. But it serves good beer. Which is the main point. Lots of good beer.
I’m sure it seats more than 3. Whether it has beer for more than 3 remains to be seen
Oh, it does seat more than three. As for beer for more than three, well, probably, just about, unless the three include Tir and ianzin, who, according to Gyrate were busy drinking the bar dry at the mini-LonDope.
Mind you, that said, I can’t recall the Pickerel running out of beer.
I have been there, you know. Just because I’m not sophisticated enough to always go there doesn’t mean I don’t like it sometimes
Hehe. First time I’ve ever heard the Pickerel called sophisticated! 
Mind you, that said, I remember (just!) after we’d finished our third year exams, the staff at the Pickerel reserved us a table, right next to the bar, so we could get thoroughly wasted.
You have a more specific beer taste than me, so you are by definition more sophisticated, no?
Yeah, OK. Point taken. 
I’m trying to organise a speaker for this residential course I’m running at the end of November, and chatting to a friend of mine at the Institute of Astronomy. Just mentioned that the speaker gets dinner and £60 for an hour’s worth of work. His response?
“I would do a lot of things for 60 quid plus dinner”.
Never let it be said that academics have zero sense of humour.
Before assuming that, check if he was joking or hadn’t realised what he said Judging from the professors I know, they do find things funny, just not anything anyone else does…
Oh, I thik he realised exactly what he said. He’s a bit of a tart really.
Now that I believe about academics
You do? Wow. As opposed to the stereotype that we’re all dry fuddy-duddies with no social skills whatsoever? Wow.
One of the stereotypes I see examples of is ‘dodgy old professor’ - this doesn’t necessarily imply any sophistication in social skills…
“Dodgy old professor”?? And I thought you mathematicians were a genial bunch, if a little strange. Such as the Cambridge maths professor who is totally teetotal (not that this is strange per say), but he’s strange in other ways too…
There are different stereotypes. There’s Dr. L who’s nice, helpful, competant, but always seems slightly bewildered. There’s Dr. P. who makes the most of the finest college wines (not that he’s normally drunk, just likes to be of a party), intellegent, but not very helpful in supervisions, and really dodgy. There’s Mr. W. who’s helpful, nice, and, according to some of my friends, sweet. Prof. H. who’s like L. but sweeter, less fussy, and less abstract.
They’re not all the same.
I have no idea where the idea of a teetotal maths professor came from.