Archive-Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 10:56:32 +0000
Sender: owner-oucs-discuss@vax.ox.ac.uk
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 10:56:28 +0000
From: Stuart Lee stuart@vax.ox.ac.uk

Subject: Russians

"East meets West" or "The Russians are coming"

Last Friday (8/12/95) witnessed the final signal of the ending of the cold war.
You can forget Gorby and Yeltsin, and the collapse of the Berlin Wall [note to
Keith: couldn't we have got the Germans responsible for that in to do the
basement? Would have speeded things up a bit]. Anyway, the sound of sabres
rattling and wolves howling was clearly heard in St Giles last week - the
Russians had come to visit OUCS.

Well, sort of. Through some curious series of events an "educational consultancy
outfit" in Londinium was directed to us at the Humanities hoping that we might
be able to help out. In short, they (along with the Open Uni) were running a
week long seminar series for 22 visiting Russian VIPs in London. At the end of
the week the Russians had been asked which University they would like to visit
most and to a cossack they all replied "Arksfurdski". They were here to see how
the capitalist pig-dogs had mastered the art of multimedia and distance
learning, and hence the request to us.

Having agreed to play mein host to our eastern comrades we drew up a programme
of events for the day. This was all done in conjunction with a series of
outrageously stereotyped jokes about Russian shot-putters and beetroot
sandwiches. Lou began to perfect his world famous impression of Trotsky,
Grazyna toyed with the idea of shaving her head and becoming Lenin, and Mari
practised her bare-back riding (but we won't go into that).

Friday came, so did the snow, and finally (15 minutes late), so did a minibus
full of Russians (all VCs or Cs - known in Russia as Comrade Rector). We
ferried them past the building site outside the lecture rooms (we did this in
haste just in case they tried to form a soviet with the prols and storm the
winter palace, i.e. Alex's office). They were then subjected to a series of
talks from various members of staff as an act of revenge for the 5-year plans,
which were relayed to the audience by an interpreter. Terms like "Hierarchical
File Server" and "Text Encoding Initiative" were followed by a triumphant
"translate that Ivan" and a scratching of the head on his part. He was excused
falling over on the "Text Encoding Initiative" however, because none of us
understand what it means either. Particular mention in dispatches must go to
Grazyna who delivered her talk in Russian much to the delight of the audience.
She was filmed throughout and is now showing at the Odeon, St Petersburg.

After the talks Stephen Miller gave them a tour of OUCS. The focal point of
this was the siege of the machine room which they loved (the interpreter
actually asked if it was OK to take pictures of the computers). In hindsight
perhaps we did give away too many state secrets. If it comes to pass that there
is another War and the Russian tanks steamroll across Europe thanks to
increased World-Wide Web access then the finger of blame must surely point at
Lord Stephen "Haw Haw" Miller.

Coffee-ski was served at the Humanities Centre and then it was a walk down to
see a college. David Womersley, Director of the CTI Centre for Sexual Tudies,
volunteered to give them a tour of Jesus College taking them to the chapel and
library. They got off on this big time going snap-happy with cameras at every
opportunity. One particular gentlemen was the master of posing and had his
picture taken in the Library holding some ancient tome. You can just see it
now, front page of the prospectus of the University of Outer Mongolia, and
there it is a picture of Comrade Rector studying at Jesus College, Oxford. 

Thence to the Bodliean [mind you getting them there was like herding cats]
where Greg Walker (Acquisitions Officer) gave an introductory talk on the
history of the Bod and then took them up to Duke Humphries. Once again there
were gasps of "Ahhh-ski" as they admired the Western capitalist decadence. For
some reason in the middle of his talk in the Duke Humphries one of the Rectors
rushed up to Greg and presented him with a small black box - cue pictures, cue
applause, cue Mike Fraser: "Tut, tut! Well really, this is a library you know".

After that it was perestroika, i.e. free time. You know, that bit at the end of
your school trip to the Natural History Museum when you were given an hour to
run riot, smoke a fag behing the Tyrannosaurus, or half inch things from the
shop. Armed with a Blackwell's map of the city they were told to go forth and
buy Levi's. Unfortunately what we failed to notice was that the map doesn't
mention where the public toilets are so when they all met up again they were
in some discomfort.

We finally bade them a fond farewell at about four o'clock. Strange but
friendly bunch overall. Most of the women were on the size 18 scale, bedecked in
furs, with make-up jobs that made them look like Barbara Cartland. Some of the
men were the size of bears and glared at you with mysterious eastern eyes. You
don't get like that on a cup of potato soup a day and a read of Das Kapital
every night, no sirree bob. Thank god none of us mentioned the word Mafia.

Congratulations to all involved at the Humanities Centre (Mari, Grazyna,
Stephen, Mickey P and Mickey F, Elizabeth Solopova, Dr Zhivago, Uncle Tom
Cobley etc.) But particular mention must go to myself because I was absolutely
brilliant.

[Due to reasons beyond my control, and to protect the innocent, the above story
has had to exclude mention of the following: Oversized balloons; Mari's hat; 
Mike Fraser's tour of the Sheldonian; and above all, Latin American dancing.]

Stuart
CHC