I have just got back from Lund, Sweden (which, being dull, grey, wet and drizzly was much like Cambridge) and can report that Tommy Wasserman withstood the opposition of his faculty opponent (one P.M. Head) and satisfied the three examiners enough to be awarded his doctorate (see here and previously mentioned on the blog).
It was good to meet Tommy at last and to scare him a bit with my robust questioning of his thesis. It was nice to meet up with Martin Heide, as well as other NT colleagues from Lund and elsewhere, including Walter Uberlacker (Tommy's supervisor), Maurice Robinson (one of the examiners), Bengt Holmberg (who gave me a lift in his car), Ulrich Schmid (who revealed that his middle name was Bernhard - I think I remember it correctly), Samuel Byrskog (who I was happy to meet up with following corrrespondence about his book which I reviewed), Chrys Caragounis (who was not so happy about a review of his big book on Greek), and several others, not to mention Tommy's wife, three children, mother, brothers, friends and colleagues who featured at the party which followed the doctoral examination/defence.
However, there was no dancing on the tables, which I had been assured would feature at some point in the evening. Perhaps it was the light beer.
Pete,
ReplyDeleteI am finally back from three days in Lund. Yes, probably the light beer, which half of the invited, the absolutists, wouldn't even taste. However, it is uncertain if your British insurance company would have covered a possible "dancing on the table in Sweden"-accident :-)
Thanks for a great examination!