God save the... Quiz

That was another shocker. The english are loving Quiz-nights. It all started two weeks ago, a Tuesday night. Actually, it was not a regular Tuesday night. It was a Champions League Tuesday night. To be more precise, it was a Champions League Tuesday night with Manchester United playing. In Manchester.

Me and one of my mates went to "Oxford" to watch the game. We both expected the place to be crowded with teeth-missing, drunk, loud and angry Manchester United fans, or at least the plain ones. Instead, we found mixed-sex groups of five or six studying religiously copies of the same paper and listening carefully to the guy holding a microphone announcing questiongs. We shrugged and said "That's a weird place". Acting rather snobbish, we simply ordered our beers and watched the game isolated from any kind of human interaction.

I discovered the second piece of the puzzle last Sunday, when my Hall of Residence organized a quiz night. This time, we decided to be part of the community and took part. We actually reached rock bottom. I'm just glad that there was a question to name the Greek god of the sea and our answer sheet wasn't returned completely blank. Since my Hall of residence is an international one, the participation wasn't overwhelming, but still, I believe that all English residents (at least the ones I know) where there.

The last piece was found last Tuesday. We went out to have a nice cold beer, sit on a table and listen to some music. At least we got the beer right. All the tables we taken by groups of people concentrating and trying to solve the riddles announced by the host. Once again we were kind of alienated, but at least, we had a good time.

Apparently, in Manchester, Tuesday night means Quiz night and not even football can make the locals miss it.

Different cultures have different kinds of habbits. I am having difficulties even trying to imagine this event taking place back home. No. People would be way too "cool"-ish to participate.

Tomb Raider: Being Lara Croft

OK, the title might seem like an extra from the Tomb Raider DVD or a new gaming title, but it was what I actually lived today.

Before I begin I should say that in order to make ends meet I am working for the University network team. What I actually do is to solve the users' problems connecting to the local network of the University of Manchester and eventually the Internet. The problems I encounter are mainly as simple as clicking a button, or running some commands from the students' computers. In case that none of those troubleshooting techniques work, I have to go to a room full of machinery, cables and lights (what technicians call "The switch room").

until today the problems assigned to me were what I call "the simple ones". Problems that I resolved by resetting some servers or by visiting the students for a couple of minutes. Today, though, it was different. Whatever I had tried had failed, and all the testings from my side made it obligatory to go to "The Switch Room". I must admit that I was intimidated by that room somehow. If you consider that pulling a wrong cable may cause about 100 students go offline and eventually lose your job, you would understand why I was a bit afraid by "The Switch Room". I, eventually, overcame my fear and asked the security guy to give me the keys to the switch room, which (according to a co-worker) was "somewhere at flat X". The security guy gave me the keys. They looked like keys to open a treasure box. I felt too proud to ask him where exactly in room X the switch room was, so I acted experienced, put the keys in my pocket and went on to "the quest for the holly treasure box".

Flat X was actually a flat. With people staying there. I knocked on the door but I got no reply. I used some other keys that the security guy had given me to open the main door and entered the flat. Everyone was I their rooms so I had all the communal areas to search for the room I was looking for. I opened some doors but nothing was there except for vacuums and mopsticks. I entered the kitchen but no luck there as well.

When I was about to call it quits and go back to the security lodge to ask for the room's whereabouts, I noticed a hatch on the kitchen's room. "No way", I thought. "How am I supposed to get up there?". I moved some tables and chairs -trying not to make noise, wake the residents and have to reply to the question "What are you doing?" with "I haven't a clue"- and climbed high enough to take a closer look of the hatch. It only had one hole, which didn't actually looked like a keyhole, but nevertheless I put my weird-looking keys in and turned a couple of times. I heard some metal turning and the hatch was open. The "door" opened to reveal a weird looking thing. I had to pull it down to become a ladder.

Without knowing what I was about to encounter, but positive that I was on the right track, I climbed the ladder. When I reached the top, I couldn't see a thing. It was completely dark. I could recognize some lights glowing at the other side of the room, but I couldn't tell if my next step was going to be on solid ground or not. It was time to use my brand new cellphone with flashlight capabilities. I made my way to "The switch room" and made the tests I had to do.

I had done it. I used all my skills to discover where the switch room was, to find my way to the actual switches and to make the proper tests I needed to do. And the most important thing was that I had done all of that without scaring the flat's residents. I was something between Lara Croft and James Bond.

I was smiling my way down the weird ladder only to discover 2 of the flat's residents looking at me fearful dressed in their pijamas ready to run scared outside the building. They had just seen a guy climbing down from a staircase they didn't even know existed smiling weirdly.

"I am working for the network team, sorry to disturb you" I said quietly while folding the staircase back into the hatch.

"Damn, it would be really cool if that just hadn't happened" I thought...

We follow...Football

So, we had nothing to do on a Saturday and decided to go to an FC United's football match. If you are not aware of the club, it's full name is Football Club United of Manchester and it was created by Manchester United's fans that opposed the club's buy-out by an American entrepreneur - Glazer. Their first season started last year at North-West Division 2 and where promoted to North-West Division 1 this year.

The opponent was called Bacup Borough FC. From the first second we entered the stadium, we encountered something totally different from what we were used to back home. Women and children, teenagers and old people, were having a good time. Before the game had started, all the fans were chanting and laughing. During the game, I did not listen to anyone swearing or claiming that the referee is against them or something.

When the second half started, the opponent goalie went to the goalposts nearer to the main fans' core. He was actually joking with the fans. At the end of the game, he was named as man of the match, and since he was a bit overweight, all the fans chanted "Fatty Man of the match... Fatty Fatty Man of the match" and then cheered him....

It was the first time for me to be to an English football match and I must say that despite the fact that the specific game I watched was the less important I will have ever watched in my whole life, I must say that I enjoyed it more than a lot more important games.


On the other hand, budget-wise the whole day consumed the savings I was struggling to make the whole week, but I am not yet off-budget, and that's a big thing!