h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today we had a 2-minute Remembrance Silence at work which I attended. It was held in the Spark Atrium, you can see a picture of it here – we were beneath the large screen at the back: http://www.solent.ac.uk/news/life-at-solent/2016/assets/reception-spark.jpg. Once again there seems to have been no real effort made to consider its significance and was simply done to tick off doing it. The person leading the 'event' (I wouldn't dignify it by calling it a ceremony or service) started at 10:50am and seemed to be in a hurry to get it all over and done with as quickly as possible, saying 'People during the first war made sacrifices. They sacrificed themselves. Try and remember them. I'll now read a poem as quickly as I can as I want to see if I can do so without pausing for breath at any point. "They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old age shall not weary them nor the years condemn at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them". We'll now wait silently for 6-minutes before the 2-minute silence will start, after which I'll spend 30 seconds telling you where they are holding Remembrance services in Southampton.' And then he took his mobile phone out and started photographing those of us who were gathered, which didn't seem at all respectful.
As it was held in the Atrium at 11 o'clock, it coincided with the time lessons started so rather than a silence the building was full of the noise of students going to and from their classes.

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Don't you love officious people with no sense of occasion?

Wow, that's a building and a half! I'm not sure I'd like to sit in one of those meeting rooms sticking out into mid air

That is a shame that the organisation of such an event was so poor

Wow, that must have been strange.
The only thing I suggested could have been done better at the ceremony I went to, was that the reenactment people looked too clean to be authentic...

The uni's other campus, Warsash Maritime Academy, has the opposite approach and goes to the extreme. It even has a flagpole of all things where it raises and lowers flags to the sound of bugles.

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Ah, yes - they have to practise their clove hitches and sheet bends

I just came back from driving Lola to the groomer's. It's raining lightly and it's a very grey day. As usual, the students meander across the street around the campus like a herd of grazing cows.... (And yes, we used to do this in Pittsburgh when we were students.)

The ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) are the worst offenders. This wouldn't be so bad, but like I said, it's raining, it's fairly dark, and...they're all wearing camouflage.

If the one hadn't been with his girlfriend, who had on a bright red hat, I might not have seen him.