At Sylvia Richardson’s career celebration last Friday, I gave a talk on How many components in a mixture? which was most relevant given Sylvia’s contributions to mixture inference over the years, including her highly influential 1997 Read Paper with Peter Green. The other talks highlighted the many facets of Sylvia to the field and the profession, including obviously her MRC Unit directorship but also her RSS Presidency when she drove along with Chris Holmes the remarkable society’s response to the COVID pandemic. The day ended up with a diner in Emmanuel College (in the Dining Hall rather than the larger, noisier, and more formal Hall where I was once invited for the Midsummer Dinner by Sylvia). It was also a great opportunity to reconnect with friends I had not seen for ages.
Archive for Cambridge colleges
Festschift for Sylvia
Posted in Books, pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags Cam river, Cambridge colleges, Dirichlet process Gaussian mixture, distributed computing, Emmanuel College, Festschrift, finite mixtures, Midsummer, MRC Biostatistics Unit, RJMCMC, statistical evidence, Sylvia Richardson on May 17, 2023 by xi'anstained glass to go
Posted in pictures, University life with tags Caius & Gonville College, Cambridge, Cambridge colleges, controversies, design of experiments, DNA helix, eugenics, Francis Crick, latin square, Ronald Fisher, stained glass, Venn diagram on July 6, 2020 by xi'an
Midsummer dinner at Emmanuel College
Posted in Kids, pictures, Travel, University life, Wines with tags Bourgogne, Cambridge colleges, Chassagne-Montrachet, Emmanuel College, England, Fareoe Islands, French wines, Sauternes, Shropshire cheese, skuas on July 20, 2017 by xi'an
It just so happened that I was in Cambridge for the Midsummer dinner last Saturday at Emmanuel College and that a good friend, who happens to be a Fellow of that College, invited me to the dinner. Making the second dinner in a Cambridge college in a week, after the workshop dinner at Trinity. Except the one at Emmanuel was a much more formal affair, with dress requirement (!) and elaborate dishes. The wines were also exceptional, with a remarkable 2002 Chassagne-Montrachet.
While the dinning room (or whatever it is called) is beautiful, it is also rather noisy and I could not engage in conversation with anyone but my immediate neighbours, but still managed to have a fairly interesting exchange with a biologist studying skuas on the Faroe Islands. The end of the meal was announced by a loud clap and Graces in Latin, followed by cheese and port (and a fabulous Sauternes!, not in the wine list) in an equally beautiful room, where it was easier to talk with my neighbours. All in all, a unique evening and opportunity for a glimpse into College traditions! [And a first wine post for the 20th of the month!!]
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