Eddie the Berserker

I've just got back from my first external testing meeting, where I walked a member of staff from the main campus through a couple of sections of the new virtual learning environment. It had its fair share of problems, most noticeably when it seemed that someone back at the department was working on a bit of code at the same time as we were trying to test it, which resulted in a variety of colourful error messages.

From the response I received when I got back to DeL, though, you'd think I was the greatest hero who ever lived - apparently the staff member that I'd chosen has a reputation for being very critical as a tester, and coming back alive was a feat in itself. They'd strategically not told me that when I announced the tester as the very first to be interviewed.

While standing in the queue at Tesco yesterday, my dad tapped the man in front of him on the shoulder and enquired "Have you demolished any more cars recently?". I thought that was a rather unusual form of greeting, but I then realised that he had been the one that had driven past my dad's parked car some months ago, misjudged the width of his vehicle and scraped off virtually the entire right hand side of the parked Volvo. It wasn't even as rude a question as I had thought, because Eddie, a small harmless-looking man described by my dad as "a complete berserker", had found time to hit another car and back in to someone's garden gate since he last saw him.

When we went outside I saw the potential for destruction that this man has - he drives a white van with a huge crane on the top. We considered deliberately taking the long way round the car park, but it was too late - we had to avoid the behemoth as it trundled out behind us. We escaped alive this time, but if you're in the Aberdeen area and you see an oversized "Aquarius" van, my advice is to run away. Very fast indeed.