Tell me an old, old story

Two old colleagues are evidently enjoying themselves at a dinner, reminding each other of amusing episodes of times past. The one listening on the left joined the other at work, according to my reckoning, 47 years ago.

But the purpose of the dinner was to mark the retirement on 30 September of two other members of our department. I noted on 14 September a symposium organized in honour of one of these two, and pointed him out as sitting in the middle of the front row of our photograph. In fact, the other retiree is in the audience three rows back, sitting at our far left at the end of the row. These two are relative youngsters (about 67), having joined us only 36 years ago. Here is one of them, giving his after-dinner speech, and here is the other, telling an amusing joke.

The dinner itself was quite an intimate affair, held in a very elegant room. For the 'foodies' amongst you, this was the menu. The menu was well chosen, the food was excellent, nicely prepared, and accompanied by some fine wines.

I have set up a gallery of some of the pictures I took during the event.

PS For some of my friends who like such things, my "old colleagues" in the first line is deliberately ambiguous. But they are certainly colleagues of long standing: we have all known each other since September 1965!