I just loved the Area 51 metaphor.

I wonder how Mark is doing with his abstinence programme? I can feel the growing need to follow his example. Especially after Nicola's farewell.

Nicola was the only person that I told that packages were on offer - when I found out - and she's gone already. She says she is going to train to be a carpenter. Her friend Stephen has already gone too - he looks like Michael Bentine. He didn't know until yesteday that we studied the same subject at the same place. We celebrated this fact in what may be our last ever conversation by comparing Hume, Kant and Aristotle on deliberation. Hume won. When you've had that much to drink he's bound to especially in relation to Kant.

I moved on to a more Aristotelian discussion - the nature of mutuality and collective obligations. Someone who I think wouldn't want me to mention his name shared the advice that he had paid �250 an hour to get on the implied and inalienable rights in the employment contract. Fortunately the DTI rep of the First Division Association was to hand. I promised to rejoin there and then.

Fortunately I had written a first draft of my lessons learned in Cz paper before I got to the party. Here are a few points from the Annex:

"In the 1640s, Kominsky celebrated for his revolutionary ideas on education (including the importance of play) was invited by the English scientific elite to lecture here. General parallels between Prague middle classes and those in Birmingham and Manchester in the eighteenth centuries � outside the ruling elite with broadly Protestant sympathies.

The Czech Estates Engineering School founded in 1707 - the first institution of its kind in the world starting with military engineering and moving onto civil engineering. Universal education introduced around 1780 � well in advance of the UK

Prague Polytechnic founded 1803 by a professor of mathematics and mechanics � also a European 1st. In 1869 the Czech Technical University split out. Czech became the language of instruction . CTU expanded rapidly supporting local industries.

1891 Czech engineering achievements featured strongly in the 1891 Exposition in Prague. Foundation of Czechoslovakian Republic in 1919 coincides with establishment of 2nd university at Masaryk (Brno) � seeks to link scientific research and technical progress to social needs

By the 1930s Czechoslovakia was in the top 10 most developed countries in the world and a major player in films, photography, highly engineered modern architecture, automotive etc, But Czech Universities closed for 6 years from 1939

1953 Liberec University founded around the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering . (Liberec is the birthplace of Porsche). From early on UL offers courses on the Design/Construction of Textile, Glass and Ceramics Machinery and undertakes research for local thriving industrial base. Now includes a major TRW plant using brownfield sight for high volume European supply of complex brake assemblies using full TRW production system.

In the 1950s Professional Schools for 14 � 18 year olds are established which include those with a technical focus � still exist although grammar schools retain prestige.

1989 Velvet Revolution � Czech society in general and universities in particular extremely enthusiastic to re-establish links with the West and play a full role in the new social regime especially following the years of repression which followed the Prague Spring. In Comecon Cz automotive specialised in weapons and heavy commercial vehicles � dramatic reorientation needed in the 1990s. Cz universities keen to support this although conscious that they have lots more to learn."

I got a thank-you letter from Skoda Auto College.

This is not from the Cz paper - it would be nice if it was:

A stick a stone / its the end of the road

Its the rest of a stump / its a little alone

Its a sliver of glass / it is life its the sun

It is night it is death / its a trap its a gun

The oak when it blooms / a fox in the brush

The knot in the wood / the song of a thrush

The wood of the wind

A cliff a fall / a scratch a lump

It is nothing at all

Is the wind blowing free / its the end of the slope

Its a beam its a void / its a hunch its a hope

And the river bank talks of the Waters of March

Its the end of the strain

Its the joy in your heart

I also bumped into someone from my last area of work - there were some files that you had to be especially careful of - part of MoD is paid to look into people's backgrounds - not many people are allowed to read the resulting reports and I was the person who signed them off. So I know more personal details about colleagues than they know I know. I guess I better leave it at that rather than get into any specifics.