Symposia do not just happen, and those which venture on the Bureau of IUT AM. I was on the train like a into new territory happen even less frequently. Never shot armed to the teeth with excuses. theless, faced by the challenge of organising such an I rehearsed my speech all the way down. I had event, many of us volunteer eagerly for the task. I am studiously opted for the environmental side of seabed not one of this select band. studies. I could prove it and produced papers on the Confronted by what at fIrst sight was but a casual correlation of geotechnical properties of the seabed invitation to consider whether I might be interested in with the populations of bugs that live there. Elsewhere commenting on the possibility I attended an informal (as in my defence package were items on landslips, clima I then thought) meeting at Newcastle University in 1980 tology, cluster analysis applied to business development to discuss the subject of Seabed Mechanics. Professor - anything I could find to illustrate my dissociation Len Maunder, Head of Mechanical Engineering here at from Seabed Mechanics proper.