So, I am chilling in Edinburgh this week – I was asked to serve on the Science Advisory Board of the National eScience Centre (http://www.nesc.ac.uk/) in Edinburgh. I love the eScience center because it is a neural cross-disciplinary place where it is not about a single science or field – where all fields meet on neutral turf – I have learned much from the people I have met and friends I have made during my six visits to the NESC in the past 4 years. Now I am on their advisory board – Sweet!
But NESC is not what this story is about.
After the day long board meeting, most of the participants scattered to the airport and their hotels – a four of us including Malcolm Atkinson decided to get a pint (or two) at the Royal Oak – Malcolm’s favourite pub – it is on a side street off Bridge street about a mile from downtown and the train station.
Here is a link to a map showing the Royal Oak on Infirmary Street in Edinburgh
It is smaller on the inside than on the outside – it is about 16-feet by 16-feet and we were four guys having a pint and one other person who looked like a street person getting warmed up (perhaps earlier he had been sitting on a park bench…). The place could only hold about 18-20 people max. A guy walked in and started talking at the bar. Malcolm noticed my eyes get really wide and asked me “what is the matter” – I stammered “I think I know that guy” – who was about 4 feet away but had not even looked at me because he was trying to find out if the bar was serving food. He was wearing weird glasses so I was a bit confused. But his accent was right and everything else about him looked right.
Apparently the bar was not serving food so this guy started to bolt out the door because he had a group of people waiting on the street for him – again he was not looking at me because he was so focused on getting food for his entourage.
Before he got out the door – I took a risk and shouted “Hey Tony – is that you???”. My eScience pals were confused – we had just been talking about Tony Hey (a UK eScience legend – picture at the right) – so they thought that somehow I had seen Tony Hey. Tony Hey *is* on the Science Advisory Board but he could not make it because he was busy at Microsoft – so it would be weird for Tony Hey to not make the meeting and yet come all the way from Redmond, Washington to have a pint at the Royal Oak.

But it was *not* Tony Hey it was none other than Sakai’s own Tony Atkins (aka Dr. Collab) – sporting his new glasses (see photo) that he recently had to get to take his UK drivers test.
It turns out Tony and his family was on vacation from Stornaway in Edinburgh. We laughed and hugged and took a picture – and then Tony had to scoot because his whole family was pretty hungry. We said that we would see each other again in Paris.
With me 3000 miles from home and Tony 150 miles from home and given that I am only in Edinburgh for 36 hours and Tony was only likely here for a day or so – and that the bar is pretty far away from downtown – and on a side street – it will be pretty hard to top this “small world” story.
I only regret that the Sakaiger was not with me to say hi to Tony! Sakaiger was back at my hotel room.