Chance meeting in the Senior Common Room

Maybe a good short vignette that indicates a little bit how life on the Oxford faculty is a bit different from life at Caltech is the following:

I was making a pit stop in the Senior Common Room in Somerville about 30 minutes ago to get some coffee and one of Somerville's famous alums happened to be in there at the time. She has a ward who wants to come to Somerville to study mathematics, so we'll perhaps get a chance to talk a little bit more later. Maybe I'll also pick her brain about politics at some point.

Anyway, it's time for me to head off the ping pong.