Symposium #2 started with a small shock – Adrian telling us to put away our laptops took me back to first year, when I refused to take my bulky, half broken black Asus to meet the masses of Macs. His point that it could lead to a much more focussed audience was a good one, I realised that it was the first lecture I paid uninterrupted attention to from start to finish in a long time.

However I don’t have the greatest ability to recall from hour long lecturers without notes, and I remember a couple of occasions in the lecture where I thought “that’s a really nice point”, but here I am a week later and I have no idea what those ideas were about. I also think there’s merit to the view that switching off for small periods of time can lead to greater sustained overall focus.

I understand where Adrian is coming from, though. These aren’t lectures – they’re symposiums, and symposiums demand, more so than lectures, everyone to be mentally in the room. This week I’ll come armed with a notebook and see if I can get the best of both worlds.