NPP 2023 (part 2)

I’m an absolute eedjit!

Not only did I ignore most of the photos I’d taken during the course of the day at NPP, but I also omitted one of the funniest stories of the day… so here are some more pics and the story I forgot!

This story starts with Frank’s pre-NPP rituals – he likes to dust the puzzles in his puzzle cave so that when we move things around to find puzzles to play with, we don’t spread the puzzle-dust all around the house – at least that’s what I think he said.

During said ritualistic cleansing, Frank spotted that his Klein Bottle was a little (puzzle-)dusty and set about cleaning it… and at some point he decided that introducing some water would be helpful – yes, yes, we ALL know… and that didn’t go quite to plan, so on the Saturday morning Frank had a slightly moist Klein Bottle with some little drops of water in some rather hard to reach places…

Which is where Steve, our super-cleaner takes up the challenges and broadly announces that what it needs is rice – everyone who’s ever seen anything on the internet knows that rice is used to dry out anything precious… Frank helpfully provides a 3-kilogram sack of rice (Basmati, if you’re interested) and some rice is duly decanted into a lovely little milk jug (no milk is currently in residence).

Steve pours a little into the orifice and shakes it around and it does indeed do a passable job of mopping up the moisture – HURRAH!

Somewhere around now Dan and Andrew arrive and between the usual greetings, Dan asks what Steve is up to so he explains that Frank had tried washing his Klein Bottle only to find some moisture trapped inside it so we’re trying to help him – Dan solemnly raises his hand and comes up with the single geekiest comment of the day: “Hang on – may I just take exception to the fact that there is moisture inside of a Klein Bottle?” – cue short philosophical discussion about the fact that there is no inside of a Klein Bottle.

Anyhow – back to the rescue mission - the rice, however, is now somewhat damp, and doesn’t really slide as well as it used to and sort of sticks to the glass and won’t come out… but Steve doesn’t panic, for he knows that the answer to this new problem is in fact more rice… enough rice to bash the original rice off the wall and carry it out of the way with its momentum!

By now Rich is involved and they dispense with the little milk jug and resort to pouring rice straight from the 3-kilogram sack into the dainty Klein Bottle… until they fill it with rice.

Right about now Quigley looks up from his puzzle and tells the lads they’re all idiots and they’re just going to end up with white rice dust inside it (I know, I know – but you know what he means!).

Undeterred, Steve persists with the Klein Bottle puzzle until all of the rice, and indeed all traces of the moisture are out of the Bottle… which would have been absolutely brilliant had it not been for the little film of white rice dust coating the inside of the glass… Quigley doesn’t crow, much…

Frank declares it even messier than before he’d started his ritual and duly puts it under the warm water tap and washes it again… this time he refuses to give it to Steve and places it on the radiator in the kitchen… where it dries gently without the need for any further rice.

No Klein Bottles were harmed in the making of this story – some rice may been sacrificed in the name of science.