PSTOIC

Reposted from http://www.g7oli.co.uk/bodge_events.py?23-pStoicJan2024  (where there are more photos). Thanks to Martin.

Bodgers Assemble 2025: The Controversy Chronicles

First off, a massive shoutout to Olivier and Rex for orchestrating this year’s Bodgers Assemble. January rolled in with the Annual PSTOIC dinner, and we stuck to last year’s winning formula. We kicked things off with pre-dinner drinks at Bow Street Tavern at 18:00, followed by a meal next door at Wildwood Restaurant. The date that wasn’t to be missed: Saturday, 11 January 2025. The theme? “Bring Something Controversial.” Let’s shake things up a bit.

Andy, Rebecca & Megan

Now, a bit of drama: Wildwood called Rex at 11am on the day, wondering where we all were. Fast forward to Rex arriving at the restaurant, breezing past the queue, and confirming our table. Winter Warmer was on tap at Bow Street, and we welcomed back Andy, Rebecca, and Megan.

Canada based Ledda was in town so wins the prize for furthest trip to the meetup.  As a pre-dinner warm up, Matt brought in a logic interface board from a pipe organ for us all to analyze. Olivier added an acceptable bodge for the fuse.

Apologies for absence were received from Alex, who submitted an early remote entry for the year’s controversial theme.

Controversial entries for this year’s theme included:

• Alan’s Invermectin Tablets
• Alex’s Rachmaninoff 2nd Concerto Op. 18 (remote entry)
• Andy’s Animal Farm DVD, UFO Crash Landing in Rendlesham book, Better Living Catalog
• Kevin’s Non-standard LED driver
• Ledda’s “illegal” F rated LED candle lamp
• Matt’s Extinction Rebellion starter pack, Wind turbine, Stamped pride flag
• Olivier’s Prince’s lyrics (YouTube link)
• Rex’s Make America Great Again hat
• Ronjoy’s Solar Trump
• ???? Starmer’s blackouts

After a bit of discussion, voting was carried out in three stages. First, everyone voted to select their top four entries. These four entries were then narrowed down to two by Rebecca, Megan, and Martin. Finally, to add to the controversial theme, ChatGPT was asked to pick the most controversial item from the final two entries (which it was a bit reluctant to do).

This year’s medal by Andy

Results:

• Joint 3rd Place: Ronjoy – Solar Trump, Andy – Animal Farm DVD
• 2nd Place: Alan – Invermectin Tablets
• 1st Place: Rex – Make America Great Again hat

Thanks again to Andy for creating this year’s medal. The theme for 2026? Bring something historical.

Reposted from http://www.g7oli.co.uk/bodge_events.py?23-pStoicJan2024  (where there are more photos)

Thanks go to Olivier for organising this year’s Bodgers Assemble (10 people). It was great to welcome Ledda to the meetup, as she now lives in Canada. We sadly had apologies from Andy Bennett, Rob and Andy Clark, but their presence next time will be expected!

Ledda

Olivier, or more correctly the Assistant vice-Deputy to the adjunct Deputy sub-Chair of the Committee volunteers The Democratic People’s Co-operation of PSTOIC helped to arrange a dinner fit for Royalty at a premium location in the world’s most exciting City. Nothing less than the best for the Comrades at PSTOIC! This year’s theme was bring something hot. “Voting” for the date was done via a Doodle poll providing a single date choice to choose from.

The Revolution was arranged to start with pre-dinner drinks taking place at the proletarian pub called “Bow Street Tavern” followed by food next door at Wildwood restaurant. Use of the pub’s Tardis might have been required as the suggested date was for January 2023. Numbers were up again this year, although apologies for absence from Rob (been ill for the past week).

Entries for this year’s theme included:

• Alan’s LCD Hot Air Gun
• Alex’s smoked paprika and AMD CPU
• Andy’s slightly warm wire brushed wrench (remote entry)
• Kevin’s “Hot or Not” meter electronics project
• Martin’s Guinness World Record hottest Pepper-X chilli seeds
• Olivier’s smartphone ammeter / load (repeat entry)
• Rex’s 3D printed red “Hot”
• Wildwood’s Tabasco sauce

Andy, due to preparations for moving house, was not able to send a medal for this year’s winning entry… ChatGPT provided a temporary replacement hot themed medal. Alan suggested a one vote per person voting system…

• Joint 3rd Place
  Alan and Alex

but way ahead…

• 2nd Place
  Martin
• 1st Place
  Kevin

The theme for 2025….

Bring something controversial

That’s if you believe this write up from a 1990’s Imperial College magazine about clubs and societies at the college.

Photo credit: Andy Clark

The photo is from the filming of the short-lived gameshow “Going for Coppers”.

Going for Coppers

A mini-meetup was organised at short nortice last week as a VSPP (very special pStoic person) was in London.

The plan was to meet at the “refurbished” Imperial pub off Leicester Square followed by a meal at the Happy restaurant nearby. We hadn’t realised that Wednesday was live music night at the pub. The special guest was Ledda, a long overdue visit from Canada. Alan, Alex, Kevin, Martin and Matthew also made it.

A big Thank you to those who contributed to the renewal/upkeep of pstoic.com.

It is hoped that the annual pSTOIC dinner will be on January 13th 2024 (or possibly the 6th). A reminder that the theme is “Bring something hot” – these dates have been approved by the VSPP as she said she can make this date.

Here’s a possible suggestion for the 2024 theme from Ledda’s dessert:

Many thanks to Martin for this report, please visit http://www.g7oli.co.uk/bodge_events.py?22-pStoicAug2023 for full report and photos.

Coming Soon: September Londno meetup with another far-away Bodger…

In the present day the idea of recording onto flimsy videotape may seem bizarre to the current generation, but that’s what we had available at the time.

As Student Television evolved into the digital age, the rows and rows of old video tape – primarily Umatic in the case of STOIC, clearly became a waste of potentially useful space.

Massive pile of old STOIC stuff

When STOIC moved from the top floor of the Union building to the basement in Beit Quad, the archive was faithfully relocated and around 10 years ago we recoved some Umatic tapes and with the help of Doug and Alan, this was digitised. But many more hours of archive remained. On a more recent visit, perhaps 5 or 6 years ago we could see no sign of this archive.

I feared it was lost forever but I’ve just read on the blog maintained by the Imperial Television Studio’s creator, Colin Grimshaw, that he rescued the tapes from oblivion. Colin writes:

As discussed in other blogs, in 2009 I was able to save the entire STOIC videotape archive from being put into a skip during major rebuilding work in the basement of the Students Union building.

This is indeed wonderful news, and I recomend all STOIC alumni have a look at Colin’s excellent blog which is at https://blogs.imperial.ac.uk/videoarchive/

I read on the blog that the Imperial College maintained Video Server has been discontinued so it seems some of the digitised material has now gone!  So maybe the tapes were better after all 🙂

Other videos can be found at https://www.youtube.com/@pstoic/videos