"Gus Fest"

Today, we held a scientific symposium in honour of one of our colleagues, who is soon to retire. Our picture shows the audience listening attentively (more or less) to one of the day's lectures.

This was a FestTag, which we renamed after our honorand, Gus. He is the man sitting in his shirtsleeves in the middle of the front row of the audience.

Gus has served our department for 36 years. Recently, he spent five years as Head of Department, and in this rôle, his administrative and personal skills enabled him to help restore the department after it had suffered certain difficulties. Gus is an exceptionally distinguished scientist: he is skillful, creative and imaginative. He is a likeable, amiable and amusing man. I should like to call him my friend, and I hope that I can.

Of course, after scientific lectures all morning and afternoon, we needed some refreshment. This photograph shows that we had a fine dinner in one of the colleges. My head the next morning told me that I had been a little too indulgent with the Laphroaig at the free bar that followed the meal...

For those looking at BlipFoto who might be interested, the symposium was on Laser Studies of Chemical Dynamics, and here I show a gallery of some of the photographs that I took during the course of the day.