British Combinatorial Conference

The British Combinatorial Conference returns to Queen Mary Univesity of London in the first week of July. The web page is here.

Last time when the conference was there, and I was one of the organisers, the insttution was called “Queen Mary and Westfield College”. We had 319 delegates, a record which has never been broken. When I came to allocate the last contributed talk slot, there were two delegates, fortunately good friends. I offered to toss a coin for the 15 minute slot, but they asked if they could have seven and a half minutes each.

The week was beautifully sunny. The publishers moved their stalls outdoors into the library quad, which was like a street market. Unfortunately I was trapped in the conference office dealing with complaints most of the time. (One delegate didn’t like the breakfasts and wanted a refund, another had left his camera bag at the back of the lecture theatre and came back to find it gone, and so on.)

This time I will be an ordinary delegate; I will not seek re-election to the committee, and just present my contributed talk (and maybe perform at the concert if there is one).

We probably won’t break the record this time, but I hope to see many old friends there.