In less than a week I am off on a busman’s holiday to the home of sport lockpicking, to compete, as I have for the last 5 years, in the defacto world championship for lock picking, at Sneek, in The Netherlands.

While the thought of a single day of the most hardcore lock nerds & geekery would fill many with dread, for those who attend – even those not really interested, such as journos and other halves (lock widows) it is interesting and, dare I say it, fun. (Or they are just being polite!)

Truth is, for me it is one of the highlights of the year. While some UK locksmiths are paranoid about data leakage and how hackers will learn things they shouldn’t, most locksmiths outside the UK seem to realise, as I and many others have, that they are going to work things out for themselves, and often, as they as looking only at the aspects they find interesting, for far longer and in far more detail than any locksmith normally would.

An example is forensic locksmithing, which most general locksmiths know nothing about. We have now heard several talks from world renowned (in their field) experts from the USA. And talking of experts from the USA, they don’t come much higher than Peter Field, who has done several 5 (yes, five) hour presentations on locking systems! Most people haven’t spent that long in a lecture since school – indeed, that would have been a full day!! – yet this is just one of the talks scheduled for that day.

We really, really pack it in, and often the event becomes a 24 hour thing, with some people turning in early and rising again long before others have called it a night (or morning) and there is always something you have missed due to being in a talk while something happens elsewhere, or breaking for lunch, or giving a talk that runs parallel to one you want to see.

Which reminds me. I’d better go and start writing mine, which this year will be on British Standard euro cylinders and their mechanisms and resistance to snapping attacks.