.

Gone fishing....

2009-03-25T15:57:00.005Z

Ok, not really, I've just moved elsewhere, after a two-year hiatus, this time running my own Wordpress blog:

Mental Indigestion
(http://www.mentalindigestion.net)

The smell of bullshit....

2007-01-10T23:55:00.000Z

In the light of recent (and all too often) experience, I want to make one thing clear: my bullshit detector is second to none.

Tea and wine tasters have nothing over me. I can smell a million shades of bullshit, and see it a mile away.

This is partly why I get so annoyed when recent "graduates", foolishly thinking themselves lord and masters of the intelligencia, try to pull one over on me. There's nothing quite worse that being on the receiving end of bollocks, and enduring the smug satisfaction upon the communicator's face as they revel in their wildly inaccurate belief that they're telling you something new/made-up. They are, in effect, saying you're stupid. Do they think I was born yesterday? Do they not realise just how well-battled a skeptic I am? How logical my cogitative faculties? That I know what a dangling modifier is, or correlative conjunction for that matter. If you push me, I can even tell you the difference between a gerund and a present participle?

Of course, polite gentleman that I am, I rarely proffer the retort they so richly deserve. I recall Richard Dawkins mentioning in his book Unweaving the Rainbow, in the chapter entitled Hoodwink'd with Faerie Fancy, how children of a certain age can't believe that anyone knows anything other, or more, than what they know. This happens either before, or after (I forget), they become completely gullible and believe anything anyone tells them. Most of us grow out of that. Some don't.

Anyway, let them have their cake. Mine's home made, organic and there's nary a humectant in sight!

Happy New Year, you bunch of animals...

2007-01-05T16:30:00.000Z

Yes, yes. Happy New Year and all that. Tally ho!

So, let's start this year's blogging with another rant shall we?

There's been a real brouhaha over this human-hybrid embryo business. One minute it's unethical to harvest the Human eggs needed for implantation of Human genetic material and when an alternative, and more efficacious, "animalian" source is used, well the Frankenpress go to work on their "First Born" like mutant hybrid horror stories.

"He [Blair] said there were "difficult" issues surrounding creating the embryos, which are more than 99% human but have a small animal component. "

...but I would like to make just one comment on terminology. Now I may be wrong, in an ecumenical sense, but it was always my understanding that Humans are in fact animals. I wasn't aware that we had reclassified Humans to give us our own taxonomic Domain or Kingdom? Nor Class, Order or Family for that matter. Thus the issue being described in terms of Human-animal hybrid is somewhat bizarre and I would like it to stop. Stop it. Right now. Ssh.

So, fact check: they're talking Human genetic material inserted into a non-Human egg cell. They're not talking invasion of the Monkey-Boy hybrids here. They're talking cells, to study cells and purely in a scientific context.

As for the public consultation, I'd love to know just whom they consulted, no doubt readers of The Sun, Star, Mirror or Daily Mail for that matter; or people who get their scientific information from celebrities on Big Brother. Such is the level of scientific illiteracy in the UK at the moment, I'm not sure I'd trust anyone to give a fully informed opinion on any matter of bioethics. Hell, given the successful franchise in public fear that the Government has fostered so carefully, I'm not sure I'd consider anyone's idea of ethics full stop. Too much hype for sense and sensibility.

Not far from the truth...

2006-11-29T14:32:00.000Z

An amusing little nugget from yesterday's Onion.

Jim Bond....

2006-11-18T17:12:00.000Z

I have something to say...

Daniel Craig is James Bond, and a splendidly entertaining one at that!

You have been told ;-)

Event horizon....

2006-11-14T19:00:00.000Z

It is, frankly, all a little scary.

Event Horizon. That is currently where I stand in my life. I have been very preoccupied with the impending end of my research contract. Hence the absenteeism. Come the end of February, I will no longer be working in my lab. I'd like to say it was all a conscious choice, but it is largely due to the rejection of our submitted research grant, which itself came down to some rather cranky politics and personal conflicts of interest that have left me rather bitter towards certain members of my research community.

So here I am, waiting to see what happens in my life. I'm busy trying to network and apply for the few research positions that I can find, i.e. those that don't require me to start my life all over again in some new part of the country. I'm staying North. For now.

Some days I find myself about as despondent as one can be, but other days I am joyful at the opportunity to do something a little different. I was, if I admit it, getting a little stale. I want new things to focus on and get stuck into. I'm too close to what I work on right now. I don't want to leave science (the thought leaves me cold), I don't even want to leave bacterial molecular genetics (my bag). I'd like to get into science communication and science policy. I like the bigger picture, I'm a little tired of the minutiae. As long as whatever I do actually means something, is useful, and ultimately keeps me in the fun of finding things out, I don't mind leaving the bench. That being said, some research money may be forthcoming in June, following the next round of grants. So if I'm not gainfully employed by then, I may crawl back into one lab or another ;-)

....and if I can't find anything better to do, I'll be the one streaking across Centre Court at Wimbledon next year ;-)

Torchwood

2006-10-23T12:06:00.000Z

Having sated myself with an excellently prepared, though not universally appreciated, Spanakopita (Spinach Pie), the will to move or do anything that would diminish the comfortable and reassuring feel of successful digestion was thoroughly abated.

SO I found myself switching on th’elly (Northern parlance for the cathode-ray tube of horrors), I figured I’d see whether the BBC is continuing to wipe it’s corporate arse on the hard earned pennies I’d used to purchase my license fee. Being the sci-fi fan that I am, I thought I’d give the ubiquitously advertised Torchwood 15 minutes of my time; 15 minutes I’ll never get back.

I should have known that anything that is “spun off” from the complete and utter garbage that was latest Doctor Who, could only be, well, complete and utter garbage. Like Doctor Who, the series looks like it’s been filmed with a bargain-basement “camcorder” using props from a playschool broom cupboard and the four worst actors since those in my primary school’s version of Dick Whittington; oh, and it’s situated in Cardiff.

If it weren’t for the mindless interjection of the odd random swearword, spurting blood, same-sex snogging and a sex craved alien that feeds off “orgasmic” energy, you couldn’t have convinced me that this was a series for adults. If this typifies the level of sophistication in current British sci-fi, as I can only imagine they must have commissioned a focus group to rate previews, then it is a sorry day. I guess this is what happens when scientific-illiteracy reaches epic proportions.

Of course, it seems the series is targeted at adults, and I’m afraid that the only people who could possibly enjoy such tripe are likely to have a dribbling problem, either from their frontal lobotomy or their thorazine drip.

Big, friendly giants....

2006-10-10T23:48:00.000Z

I hugged one of the largest living organisms on the planet, and it felt really good!

[Giant Sequoia in Tuolumne Grove, Yosemite]

You can just about see me in the bottom right-hand corner! Alas my digicam battery had run out by this point, so I was on an emergency disposable camera, which wasn't really up to scratch.

When pioneers first came across these trees, they used to have competitions to see who could chop one down the fastest. Just for fun. So sad.

There and back again....

2006-10-07T09:41:00.000Z

Having just about recovered from my jetlag, which has manifested itself in an odd form of narcolepsy, rather than any lasting tiredness, it's now time for some piccies and blurb! You can see all the piccies here.

Piccies & Blurb

Getting there...

The flight over to the States was relatively uneventful, but I did miss being in an Airbus (as with US Airways). Instead I was in an aging Boeing courtesy of Delta for the 9 hour flight. I had a 4 hour stopover in Atlanta, where I was assaulted by some terrible Chinese food, before then next hop on to Reno. I had two seats to myself on this 5 hour flight, but most importantly, there were personal video screens for each seat. I was also introdcued to a quiz game where I could compete with other passengers. After a shaky start (it was the equivalent of 2 am for me and I'd been awake 20 hours) I was victorious, winning in straight sets and leaving a highest score of 5800, which was unbeaten by any of the 30 other passengers playing, hehehe.

Reno...

[Room with a view]

Reno is an odd place in all fairness. I thought I'd hate it, but thankfully there was a huge biker's meet in the city that week (Street Vibrations), and there were literally hundreds of the most excellent Harleys and OC choppers lined up outside The Nugget, where I was staying.

[Picture from Mathieu]

So after flaking out for the night, I was up to have a craic with the rather worse for wear bikers - drinking Bloody Marys - as they polished their bikes. Most of these guys are lawyers, lol, but about 2 weeks before their roadtrips they let it all go and grow in the handlebar moustaches. Guys after my own heart ;-)

Fallen Leaf Lake....

The conference was at Fallen Leaf Lake. This is a small lake just south of Lake Tahoe and sits at 6,300 ft in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by mountains. It is the location used in The Bodyguard when Costner takes Houston and co to his winter retreat; and also where Meg Ryan's character takes Nick Cage after he "falls" in City of Angels.

[Fallen Leaf, and Tahoe in the distance. Taken on my hike]

It is a beautiful place! As soon as I got there, still jetlagged, I grabbed one of my old conference buddies and headed up a further 1500 ft to a lake called Cathedral Lake, though it was more of a pond at this time of year. Having run the final steps we realised that the air was too dry and thin to catch our breaths, so after a small panic attack, we hurriedly descended and nursed our altitude headaches, along with everyone else, for the next few days. I spent the whole week verging on dehydration, which was annoying. The days were warm and sunny, but the nights were freezing.

[Early morning from my cabin deck!]

I didn't see any Bears, though saw their scratchings, but did see plenty of Chipmunks, Squirrels and Stellar Jays. As far as the conference centre (Stanford Sierra Camp) is concerned, if you ever get the chance, go stay there. The place is absolutely fantastic. Great timber buildings with open fires. The staff there are great, so friendly. They really made the trip I think.

The Roadtrip...

[The 1000 mile route]

All too soon, the conference was over and everyone had left. I was left sitting by the lake, although in the company of some of the great staff, waiting for my fellow roadtripper Rob to turn up. I met Rob at the same conference in Pittsburgh in 2002, and again in Corfu in 2004. We've always stayed in touch and this trip had always been on the cards.

Rob turned up in a dog ugly Chevy Malibu, lol, but it was new and it moved, so that's all that matters. We gave a fellow conference delegate a lift to Davis, halfway between Tahoe and San Francisco. Davis is an odd little place. Somewhat boring in terms of it's 70s architecture, but it has a geeky, student vibe that friendly enough. We ate pizza whilst deciding what to do on our roadtrip.

[On the road]

[....and heading in the right direction!]

Needless to say, there was a lot of road, but it was all new, it was all California and it was all good! We headed straight to Sonoma, having decided that we wanted a grand entrance into San Francisco the next day. We didn't see much of Sonoma itself, under cover of darkness, but we grabbed a half decent motel and got an early night.

[Dreary morning in Sonoma. I can imagine the scenery in early Summer would be great]

Alas, the next day was overcast, misty and dreary. We decided to forego the planning drive through the Sonoma valley and instead headed due West to get onto the Highway 1 to travel some of the famous coastal road.

[Rob, and the Pacific Coast]

Travelling down Highway 1 took us straight to Muir Woods, a national monument of ancient coastal redwoods. I also knew this place, as a Hitchcock fan, as the place that Scottie (Jimmy Stewart) brought Madeleine (Kim Novak) in Vertigo. Muir Woods, being the site of enduring redwoods, was also the site for one of the first meetings of the newly formed United Nations.

[The Redwood cross-section used in the movie - the tree was over 900 years old when it "fell", the white markers denote important dates in history]

[Me. Dwarfed by a redwood]

On the road again, we were a mere 15 mins from San Francisco, and entering a tunnel we emerged to see the Golden Gate Bridge.

[Shrouded in mist, which apparently is usual]

No sooner had we enetered SF, we left, via the Bay Bridge and went to Berkeley. We got a tour, via a contact, of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (we are scientists after all!), then took a walk around the UC Berkeley campus and ate fantastic Burritos and a Mexican place just off campus.

[The Bay Bridge]

We were staying at The Green Tortoise in North Beach (Little Italy). If you like your hostels, then you'll like the Green Tortoise. It was also in an excellent location, right in the hub of activity. We had a view of Downtown from the window of our private room, and also of the strip clubs that lined the street below ;-)

[That's the Transamerica Building on the left]

[...and the strip clubs below]

[But the fantastic City Lights Bookstore was around the corner...well worth a visit]

The first night we ate at a restaurant called The Stinking Rose, in North Beach. Here the tag line is "We flavour our Garlic with food", and they certainly did. Great food, very garlicky!

The one thing that bemused me about California though is the lack of restrooms. Every restuarant we visited, no matter how many people they catered to, had only one unisex restroom, with one toilet. Either they don't shit, or they all get colonics every week!?

We also ate at Francis Ford Coppola's restaurant Café Zoetrope in the Sentinal Building. Very stylish atmosphere and half decent food. The wine was the best thing though, I was on the Coppola Rosso Merlot.

[Sentinal Building and Café Zoetrope]

Doing San Francisco...

So, on our first full day in San Francisco, we descided to get up close and personal and walk as much of the city as possible. We set out at 08:30 and didn't stop until 17:30.

[The route (blue) and bus trip back (green)]

We started with Chinatown, as it was around the corner. Lots of funky smells, some disturbingly whole (inlcuding head and feet) cooked chickens, unidentifiable foods and jars of weird and scary things. It all looks a bit scatty, but it fits the image.

[Chinatown]

We made our way up to Russian Hill via the famous Lombard Street (the curviest street).

[Lombard St.]

[View East down Lombard]

[View West down Lombard, towards Alcatraz!]

So, we headed through Japantown, and through the Japan Center and made our way to Alamon Square to take a piccie of the famous Painted Ladies on Filmore.

[Painted Ladies]

[We also got the message ;-)]

We eventually got to Haight-Ashbury. What a load of fun that place is. Every shop is worth visiting, and their clothes stores are fantastic, I had to drag myself out! We ate at a place called Asqew Grill, which I can HIGHLY recommend!

We then wandered amisdts the hippies and vagrants in the Golden Gate Park until we found ourselves in Richmond, amidst some very expensive neighbourhoods. We wandered into one dead end that could have been Wisteria Avenue. I was sure we were going to be shot by some Soccer Mom fearing for her property, given our state after 7 hours on the street!

The final destination for the day was the Golden Gate Bridge. We'd walked all the way there and after hacking our way through the Presidio, missing George Lucas's graphics company completely and avoiding the Coyotes and naked old men running up and down the beach front, we arrived!

Gold Gate Bridge...as if you didn't know!]

We couldn't cope with the walk back, so I managed to nag Rob into taking the bus. I kind of feel bad about this as the poor guy got accosted by some mad old Southern black guy who was convinced Rob was in town to fight in a death match at "the ottagon". It took us sometime to figure out what the hell he was talking about. He walked up and down that damn bus telling everyone on board that Rob was hard as nails and could kick anyone's asses; and if anyone wanted a go, they'd get the "guillotine". Needless to say it was all very embarrassing, but most of the passengers were laughing, rather than grimmacing.

We got off at Union Square and walked back to North Beach.

Yosemite Sam....

The next morning, rudely early, we got on the road to Yosemite. After going in circles in a boresville noweheresville town called manteca, we finally found the 120 and started heading up, and up and up for hours.

[Up and up...]

BUT EVENTUALLY, we descended into Yosemite Valley and got our first glimse of the big boy. El Capitan.

[El Capitan]

[One of the Three Graces opposite]

We got up close and personal with the old man, which I don't imagine too many bother to do, but it's rude not to.

[I think he needs a shave!]

...and of course, I needed to climb the obligatory 20 ft - this isn't a staged shot, I sweated to get up here!

We went of in search of "The View" that everyone had been telling em about. We found it. Tunnel View. Beat that!

[Tunnel View]

We also visted Glacier Point, which is abit of a trek out, but we arrived at sunset and it was well worth it. A hell of a view!

[Half Dome and Cloud's rest - behind - at sunset]

And on....

I'll continue this later, I'll let you catch up. There's not far to go, just our trip down, me hugging a giant Sequoia(!), an alkalis lake and a visit to Bonanza.

I will share this with you. Every picnic bench in Yosemite has this nailed to it. I wonder, given the low quality nature of the food available, whwether they get the irony of this statement!?

Have ticket, will travel...

2006-09-19T16:49:00.000Z

So, I'm off to Lake Tahoe, California at the end of this week. Woot!

Just got my dollars, and er....when did they change the money!? You'd think someone might have mentioned, or that we'd have heard? Someone could have mentioned that dollars are no longer Green! At least in their entirety. Pfft.

Aaaannyway.

So my amigo is flying in next Wednesday, after my Tahoe conference, and then we are heading straight over to San Francisco - via the Napa Silverado Trail route, Muir Woods (to see some Redwoods) and then entering The City from the North, over the bridge.

Three days and three nights to get up to mischief in The City, then it's back on the road again to Manteca, Jamestown (Jimtown ;-) and Sonora (old Gold Rush towns), then to Yosemite, where we have a cabin. The cabin, in Curry Village, is more or less EXACTLY the size of two double beds, and it does of course contain only two double beds. This doesn't leave much room for anything else, though if the extra cost of a cabin (over, say, a tent) means that the sound of splintering wood wakes me before the Bear eats me, I'm all the happier.

We leave via the Tioga Pass. This is a road that gets blocked with snow, rockslides and the odd Moose/Bear/State Trooper. It clings perilously to the mountain sides, á l'Italian Job. Good views though. Very good views. We then do a loop of June Lake, because that's what you do apparently, then up to Mono Lake and up along the Eastern Sierra Scenic Byway to Virginia City, Nevada, where I'm meeting Ben and Hoss Cartwright for a beer out on the Ponderosa ;-) Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Got a night in Reno before a killer early morning flight out, now what ever will we do with ourselves in Reno. Hum...?

Screaming like a girl...

2006-08-30T22:45:00.000Z

Yes folks, I was unduly phased-out this morning by an embarrassing incident that saw me scream like a girl.

There I was, dealing with my morning emails having just arrived at the office, when an unnecessarily large spider fell from the bookshelf above and landed upon my keyboard in front of me.

Que the bit where I scream like a girl...

I zipped backwards (the joy of a chair with wheels) whereupon the dastedly beast leap onto the floor and pursued me across the office.

Well that really was the last straw, I wasn't about to climb on my seat! Now I should point out that I don't actually have a fear of spiders, at least normally sized ones. I'm also aware that I am famous for castigating youngers for killing insects/arachnids for no reason.

With great power comes great responsibility. To a spider, you may as well be a God. It would be the easiest thing in the world to squish it...but just because we can, doesn't mean we should. It is the enlightened option to use what you have (and the Spider doesn't) - a strategic brain - to capture the beast and then defenestrate it, which is to say, throw it out the window.

Of course, my usual choices of spider catching tubes were going to be no good for this chemically-enhanced monster, so it had to be a 1 litre beaker and my lab book. If I'd been closer to my carbon dioxide cylinder, I've have blasted it (knocks them out) and man handled it.

Anyway. Took some time for my adrenaline levels to steady. Sometimes I'm glad I have the office and lab to my own!

United States of 1984

2006-08-26T00:28:00.000Z

This was a rather shocking event that occurred in JFK airport, NYC. Full transcript here.

Raed Jarrar's Story - An outrageous incident at JFK. Go to Democracy Now! to hear more http://democracynow.org/

I went to JFK in the morning to catch my Jet Blue plane to California. I reached Terminal 6 at around 7:15 am, issued a boarding pass, and checked all my bags in, and then walked to the security checkpoint. For the first time in my life, I was taken to a secondary search . My shoes were searched, and I was asked for my boarding pass and ID.

After passing the security, I walked to check where gate 16 was, then I went to get something to eat. I got some cheese and grapes with some orange juice and I went back to Gate 16 and sat down in the boarding area enjoying my breakfast and some sunshine.At around 8:30, two men approached me while I was checking my phone. One of them asked me if I had a minute and he showed me his badge, I said: "sure".

We walked some few steps and stood in front of the boarding counter where I found out that they were accompanied by another person, a woman from Jet Blue.One of the two men who approached me first, Inspector Harris, asked for my id card and boarding pass. I gave him my boarding pass and driver's license. He said "people are feeling offended because of your t-shirt". I looked at my t-shirt: I was wearing my shirt which states in both Arabic and English "we will not be silent". You can take a look at it in this picture taken during our Jordan meetings with Iraqi MPs.

I said "I am very sorry if I offended anyone, I didnt know that this t-shirt will be offensive". He asked me if I had any other T-shirts to put on, and I told him that I had checked in all of my bags and I asked him "why do you want me to take off my t-shirt? Isn't it my constitutional right to express myself in this way?" The second man in a greenish suit interfered and said "people here in the US don't understand these things about constitutional rights". So I answered him "I live in the US, and I understand it is my right to wear this t-shirt".Then I once again asked the three of them : "How come you are asking me to change my t-shirt? Isn't this my constitutional right to wear it? I am ready to change it if you tell me why I should.

Do you have an order against Arabic t-shirts? Is there such a law against Arabic script?" so inspector Harris answered "you can't wear a t-shirt with Arabic script and come to an airport. It is like wearing a t-shirt that reads "I am a robber" and going to a bank". I said "but the message on my t-shirt is not offensive, it just says "we will not be silent". I got this t-shirt from Washington DC. There are more than a 1000 t-shirts printed with the same slogan, you can google them or email them at wewillnotbesilent@gmail.com . It is printed in many other languages: Arabic, Farsi, Spanish, English, etc."

Inspector Harris said: "We cant make sure that your t-shirt means we will not be silent, we don't have a translator. Maybe it means something else". I said: "But as you can see, the statement is in both Arabic and English". He said "maybe it is not the same message". So based on the fact that Jet Blue doesn't have a translator, anything in Arabic is suspicious because maybe it'll mean something bad!Meanwhile, a third man walked in our direction. He stood with us without introducing himself, and he looked at inspector Harris's notes and asks him: "is that his information?", inspector Harris answered "yes".

The third man, Mr. Harmon, asks inspector Harris : "can I copy this information?", and inspector Harris says "yes, sure". Inspector Harris said: "You don't have to take of your t-shirt, just put it on inside-out". I refused to put on my shirt inside-out. So the woman interfered and said "let's reach a compromise. I will buy you a new t-shirt and you can put it on on top of this one". I said "I want to keep this t-shirt on". Both inspector Harris and Mr. Harmon said "No, we can't let you get on that airplane with your t-shirt".

I said "I am ready to put on another t-shirt if you tell me what is the law that requires such a thing. I want to talk to your supervisor". Inspector Harris said "You don't have to talk to anyone. Many people called and complained about your t-shirt. Jetblue customers were calling before you reached the checkpoint, and costumers called when you were waiting here in the boarding area".it was then that I realized that my t-shirt was the reason why I had been taken to the secondary checking.I asked the four people again to let me talk to any supervisor, and they refused.The Jet Blue woman was asking me again to end this problem by just putting on a new t-shirt, and I felt threatened by Mr. Harmon's remarks as in "Let's end this the nice way".

Taking in consideration what happens to other Arabs and Muslims in US airports, and realizing that I will miss my flight unless I covered the Arabic script on my t-shirt as I was told by the four agents, I asked the Jet Blue woman to buy me a t-shirt and I said "I don't want to miss my flight."She asked, what kind of t-shirts do you like. Should I get you an "I heart new york t-shirt?". So Mr. Harmon said "No, we shouldn't ask him to go from one extreme to another". I asked mr. harmon why does he assume I hate new york if I had some Arabic script on my t-shirt, but he didn't answer.The woman went away for 3 minutes, and she came back with a gray t-shirt reading "new york".

I put the t-shirt on and removed the price tag. I told the four people who were involved in the conversation: "I feel very sad that my personal freedom was taken away like this. I grew up under authoritarian governments in the Middle East, and one of the reasons I chose to move to the US was that I don't want an officer to make me change my t-shirt. I will pursue this incident today through a Constitutional rights organization, and I am sure we will meet soon". Everyone said okay and left, and I went back to my seat.

At 8:50 I was called again by a fourth young man, standing with the same jetblue woman. He asked for my boarding pass, so I gave it to him, and stood in front of the boarding counter. I asked the woman: "is everything okay?", she responded: "Yes, sure. We just have to change your seat". I said: "but I want this seat, that's why I chose it online 4 weeks ago", the fourth man said " there is a lady with a toddler sitting there. We need the seat."Then they re-issued me a small boarding pass for seat 24a, instead of seat 3a. They said that I can go to the airplane now.

I was the first person who entered the airplane, and I was really annoyed about being assigned this seat in the back of the airplane too. It smelled like the bathrooms, which is why I had originally chosen a seat which would be far from that area.It sucks to be an Arab/Muslim living in the US these days. When you go to the middle east, you are a US tax-payer destroying people's houses with your money, and when you come back to the US, you are a suspected terrorist and plane hijacker.

In defence of Atheism...

2006-08-25T23:15:00.000Z

A fantastic YouTube video:

[Athiest]

Having nice communication skills....

2006-08-24T17:16:00.000Z

We received an application for PhD study from someone in India today. This is nothing new, we get hundreds of them. They all get filed in the bin because the page they're being referred from (www.findaphd.com) clearly states to contact the graduate school, and not the research labs, directly. So an inability to follow simple instructions is not a good first impression.

However, I mention this one as it particularly amused us. Now bear in mind this is supposedly an academic CV for a research science position. She started by stating, in huge letters, that her religion was CHRISTIAN (completely irrelevant/unusable information for such a CV). Under "Strengths", she had entered that she has "a nice communication skill", which is always useful, unfortunately nice is possibly the most redundant word in the English language. She said nothing more about this skill of hers, just that it was nice.

It was one of her other "strengths" that caught our eye: "My Great and Almighty God".

Oh-K. She also entered "browsing the internet" as a hobby. Great. We all do it, but in reality it's actually a complete waste of time; it's nothing to be proud of. You may as well say "I play computer games".

Film fun...

2006-08-23T18:14:00.000Z

I'm going to be travelling around to see some good cinema in the next week or so, there's some good stuff coming up. Two that I really want to see are:

I hope this is another good one from Almodovar. It's the kind of quirky foreign cinema that I love. There's also the Edinburgh Film Festival, the tale end of which I may catch this weekend; there's a great deal of Brit film action going on this year.

I really want to catch The Lives of the Saints, which looks like a thoroughly excellent bit of gritty, urban Brit cinema. Set in North London, it takes of the Italian renaissance idea of taking ordinary lives and catapulting them into situations with a magical twist. Should be good.

A Midsummer's Night Dream: Act 2...

2006-08-21T15:45:00.000Z

What a fantastic play!

It drizzled throughout with just one torrential downpour (luckily at the intermission - see my video on YouTube). The set was great, staged within the cloister's of Kirkstall Abbey. Very atmospheric. MSND is one of my favourite plays, not only for the interweaving plot, but because theatre companies have some liberty to adapt the comedy, whether that be by stage craft or the occassional ad lib.

This was done to great effect by Mina Anwar and Wayne Sleep, who were both very funny. Wayne Sleep was a fabulous Puck and performed many rather impressive ballet forms for which he is known.

They had a live dog to play the part of "Dog", as part of the Mechanics story....however, despite being well trained, he was getting a littled pissed at the rain and started playing up. Then he proceeded to mount the leg of Starveling as he played "The Moon" in the Mechanics play....he gave the poor guy a right old shagging whilst the cast and audience cracked up in hysterics.
I'd highly recommend the British Shakespeare Company. You can see pictures of the cast performing MSND here (in Norway).

A Midsummer's Night Wet Dream....

2006-08-19T10:15:00.000Z

I'm off to see A Midsummer's Night Dream with my lady and an old friend today. It's part of an open-air Shakespeare festival being staged in the ruins of a 12th Century Abbey....right within the ruins themselves. Should be good....

....except it's going to piss down ;-(

Oh well, a typical English summer event then!

Confession
I have a confession. I've been two-timing with MySpace. *shock*. I have to say though, I vastly prefer the Bloggerdom, MySpace seems to be full of people who can't format a page, write in phonetics a lot, don't blog and are often overly zealous Christians, which I find more than a little tiresome. In fact, the only reason I still go back there is that some of the "friends" there are quite interesting....and I have a kick ass page. That aside, it's time to move on to my topic of the day, which today has been contributed by a just another mindless Christian thoroughly locked within the box:

"James 4:4 states, “Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” John states in 1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” He goes on to say that the world and everything in it will come to end. Why place yourself in a no win situation? Living for the world will not get you anywhere. Living for Christ has eternal benefits. A pretty easy choice, huh? God and eternal life or the world and nothing. Why can’t you make this simple choice for your life? Just don’t pass this off as you do every other thing having to do with changing your lifestyle. If you are truly Christian you will willingly do anything to better yourself. Christians should have their eyes set on what is above, not on worldly things that perish. If you aren’t a Christian you just live a worldly life."

So what he's basically saying is fuck the world. What do we care. We'll just wait for something better. We'll just look in ourselves. As ever, the truly religious engaging their own egocentrism. Of course, this is all very well if you live in the Western world where all your material and energy needs are provided; where you have clean water on tap; where, if you're truly unethical, you can afford to not give a shit about the world. Meanwhile, they can be safe in the knowledge that at least they're ok, nevermind those countries whose "worlds" are suffering so that you can have your daily bread. I'm sure impoverished families farming on the edge of the Sahel in sub-Saharan Africa, or in southern Sudan, or the communities displaced by loggers or agro-velopment really get a warm feeling by being told to give up and wait for the better life that comes later.

Is this unfair? Yes, a little. You see, this isn't actually a Christian view, it's a parochial, brain dead, conservative Christian rhetoric. It's sad, it's bad, it doesn't actually help anyone and it means next to nothing to quote from 1600 year old tripe by a guy in a society where people vanishing over the horizon were falling of the edge of the world. Who'd not want to escpae such confinement?

Pluto and worrying science...

2006-08-15T11:50:00.000Z

There is a meeting of the International Astronomical Union this week, which amongst other things, aims to decide the fate of the “planet” Pluto. Is it, or isn’t it, a planet?

My opinion is that the appropriate definition of a planet is: an object that is “big enough to be spherical”, i.e. the gravitational force is great enough to overcome the material strength; this results in a spherical body, rather than an oblate, chunk of the like seen in various meteor disaster movies.

However, this incurs the slight problem of there being quite a number of spherical bodies orbiting our sun, roughly 20 thus far. Many of these are new additions, identified in the Kuiper Belt, but undoubtedly there will be many more as technology improves. One such object, 2003 UB213 (or "Xena"), is bigger than Pluto (itself smaller than our own moon) and this more or less sparked the debate.

So should we have 20+ planets? Well one suggestion is to split the planets into different groups, so your inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars) become “Rocky Planets”, as they’re already known. The “Gas Giants” remain (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune), but the controversial 9th planet Pluto would find itself grouped with the increasing number of “Icey Dwarfs”.

The alternative is to drop Pluto, and the other Kuiper Belt bodies, from planet status. This would be on the somewhat arbitrary basis of their being rather small compared to the other 8 planets in the solar system, and their consisting predominantly of ice. If you're going to start getting into what constitutes a planet, well that’s ropey territory given how different Earth and Jupiter are for example, and we’ve already set a precedent for what constitutes big enough – sphericity.

However, this is all by and by. I mentioned before "should we have", and "should we drop". This is not science. The thing that really worries me is that the reason no-one has settled on a definition has nothing to do with science. It has to do with something far less rational and logical. Faith. Belief. Emotion. History. All of these things have no business in the decision. We should be “indifferent” towards the results of a new standardised classification. I don't mean that we shouldn't care, but we shouldn't allow personal opinion to cloud the outcome.

Science is about revision and correction, irrespective of people’s beliefs and historical relevance. Yes Pluto was a great discovery, with a great story. Yes it captured the public imagination with its tightly held secrets and unimaginable distance from the sun; but unless we intend on turning planetary science into a new religion, it needs to be treated according to the science, and a few old, stubborn scientists need a slap in the face and told to wake up.

We should set a logical and scientific definition and then re-classify accordingly. If we get Pluto and a whole load of other planets, then fine – just more things for kids to remember – if we lose it, well it’ll still be there in the history books, just not in any new textbook that would call itself a science text.

Science has the greatest of obligations to make itself available to the public, to present wonders, but also the knowledge that enables the wonders to be understood in the proper context. However, when such wonders are put in the public domain, the onus is upon scientists to not get caught up in the Chinese whispers that augment the real science into something rather less scientific with which the public feel more comfortable.

Mystified...

2006-08-14T17:47:00.000Z

I mailed my bank to ask why I couldn't add a particular account, one entrusted to me, to my online portfolio. The response:

"In response to your query if an account is held in trustee that will have access to the account Online."

...is a little confusing. A single sentence! All be it flanked by the usual blurb of bank opening times and thanks for my mailing them. Can anyone spot the answer to my question?

Dare I mail them again?

Hobnobbing...

2006-08-13T14:18:00.000Z

My mother came to visit this weekend, so we all decided to trek over to Hebden Bridge where we heard there was a music and beer festival. Most of the afternoon was spent negotiating the tourist trap that is Hebdon Bridge, but come 4 pm we headed off to the gig, such as it was, for a spot of music and a drop of beer.

Despite appearances, and the prospect of spending an afternoon with die-hard socialists, The Trade's Club was an ok place to be. We were there to see Nell Bryden whom I'd heard on BBC Radio 2's Bob Harris Saturday Show at the start of July. I always note the names of artists I like, but was especially pleased to hear that she was going to be in The North this month, after the Edinburgh Festival.

We weren't to be disappointed. She was immediately likeable, cracked the crowd up with a few quips and leapt into the songs from her latest album. Nell sings with a fantastic vocal range and her songs are quite soulful, but sung with a playful kick. She had to admit that they'd largely been driven by the string of breakups she's had as a result of her touring, though she was amused to note that when she played a gig back in her native New York, four of her ex-boyfiends all turned up and sat there scowling at each other.

Anyway, she found our table over in the corner we chatted for the best part of an hour. A really great girl, but having been on the road since April, is very much looking to get back home.

She was amused that I didn't hold back, as I invariably can't once I get going, as I delved into science, the geography of the uk, cultural observations as well as drilling her on good ideas for places to visit on my up coming roadtrip, which she was game to help me with.

I know, I know. Poor girl, lol. She had a lot to say about US domestic and foreign policies. She commented on her disgust at how NOLA was handled (she recorded her album there just before Katerina); one of her songs was a requiem for a woman she'd known there, and who'd died. She mentioned that she'd like to be challenged more in her interviews, where she is usually subjected to the same old glib questions, but as a magna cum laude graduate in English from Wellesley, she has a lot more to offer....but then it was time for curry.

Anyway, she's playing again at the Blue Cat Café in Stockport next week, which isn't far, so we'll go support her again over there. She's back in the UK touring in October, and with any luck, she'll get onto Jools Holland when she's over. She deserves the next break up in her career.

I duly bought her album from her, with a token scribbed inside, but given our mutual shortage of change...

....she owes me £1, which is a position I like ;-)

Ramblings of a Scientist...

2006-08-05T19:09:00.000Z

THE trickiest thing about writing an essay is getting it started. The next trickiest thing is blogging an essay, because no one reads long posts. This is invariably because people talk bollocks. With that in mind, I’ve decided that the best way to start it is to moan about how essays are difficult things to get started. Thus low and behold we’re here, we’re up and running, and now I can talk about what it is I wanted to talk about.

I’ve spent the last day and night with a good friend of mine, a friend with whom I can share candid discussion on many topics from science to society to sex. Thus, having being immersed in this environment for this time, I’m feeling thoroughly revitalised. So I spent this afternoon reading several books in Borders, taking the opportunity to get out of the muggy warmth outside, sit down in a comfy chair with some decent music and plenty of book choice [features that are rarely to be found together in any library nearby].

I started thinking about my blog and how it’s not really representing me terribly well. It has become somewhat artefactual, partly because I know my family reads it, thus I’m limited to what I can talk about and partly because I’ve found it difficult to communicate the things I’d like to talk about because the subject of these things, being science and philosophy, are never firmly set in my mind.
Once something is committed to paper, then it is in some manner fixed. However, my view at that time may not be my view in months to come. If there is one thing that make a good scientist, it is doubt; doubt about the level of ones knowledge and doubt about the subject, validity or factual correctness of that knowledge. Thus setting down any particular view is folly as it can only be based on my received knowledge at the time, with the appropriate amount of synthesis.

This is why I much prefer to speak to people face to face. It is far easier to iron out ones views and state of the art in a dynamic conversation. My reticence to write about such things is of course a little silly. There is plenty I can talk about in science and philosophy, without coming to regret my words. So I aim in future blogs to spend more time discussing what science means to me, in the hope that I can better understand this myself and, god forbid, I may even communicate some science to the outside world.

Last week, when I was walking with the same friend, a bird flew onto a slate wall in front of us. It was an amazing flash of yellow, it stopped briefly then departed. My friend asked me what sort of bird it was, but I was unable to oblige him with an answer because, like him, I am useless at bird identification. I don’t feel diminished by this admission, far from it, and I’ll tell you why: It is because I can tell you plenty about the rock that the bird landed on, the slate, how old it is, when it formed and under what conditions. I can tell you about the sort of people who mined it and the context of it being there. I can tell you about the biochemical constituents of the bird shit that the yellow bird left as it departed. I can tell you about the lice and mites that are likely to parasitise the bird, but what I cannot tell you is the name of the bird.

Well, actually I can, having since looked it up. It was a Yellowhammer. So why am I telling you this? Well I’m reminded of an excellent lecture by the Nobel laureate Richard Feynman, whom I hold in the greatest esteem. He mentioned once that knowing the name of something tells you nothing about what that something is, because that something will be called something else by someone in another country and something else by someone in another country and so on. All you’ll in fact know, is that this something is called five or six different things depending on where it is. As is the case with birds.

So from the name Yellowhammer, we do glean some information [information that we are not blessed with in other bird names], as we can in fact see that it is yellow, but as for the hammer bit, well, I couldn’t tell you. Thus merely knowing the name of something is so pointless that you may as well not know the name of it at all. It is false knowledge, and it is invariably designed, either consciously or unconsciously, to make people think you know what you’re talking about.

There is no rock that I can name that I do not know something about, but there are a great many rocks that I can’t name and about which I know nothing. What is the point of remembering the name of a rock if you can’t say any more than that, if only, at the most basic level, that this one is slippery when wet and this one isn’t. Sage knowledge if you happen to be a climber. I can say the same of identifying microorganisms, chemicals and metabolic pathways. I generally never know just names.

It is for that reason that apart form those few birds that we could identify, all unidentifiable birds were henceforth called Pelicans. They may as well be until we know something more about them.

Richard Feynman was once asked to talk about what science is, which is a hell of a tricky task. In a subtle way he answered it, but likely not to his satisfaction, nor to that of many others, but it communicated a feeling of what science is. We are fortunate, as a species, to be able to communicate. In this manner we accumulate and disseminate knowledge which becomes fixed in the species as a whole. This means that each new individual is not forced to learn a fresh the entire body of knowledge that will be necessary for a successful life; knowledge that once hard gained, could be lost due to untimely death or forgetfulness. Thus the rate of knowledge accumulation needs to out way the potential for forgetting that knowledge or dying before it can be passed on. This is called Time-Binding, apparently.

The only problem with this, Feynman continued, is that with all the good and practical knowledge accumulated and passed on, there is also a great deal of bad, corruptive and prejudiced knowledge passed on in a form of Chinese Whispers that continues down the generations. This disease, as Feynman called it, has a cure. The cure is doubt; some level of scepticism that leads the recipient of that knowledge to question its validity and therefore to set out to discover once again from new what the situation is, rather than just trusting the form received. That is what science is, at least as best as Feynman could conclude. I don’t disagree, even though it is not a complete definition.

The question remains, why are people so scientifically illiterate as a whole? Again, Feynman helps us out here by suggesting that it is because science is irrelevant. The process and development being largely outweighed by, and divorced from, the end products of science in the minds of the public. Perhaps a more interesting question he raises, is why people are able to stay that way without it worrying them at all, and why they are happy to do so when so much of the knowledge is denied them? It is for this reason that despite being in the 21st Century, as if that is supposed to mean something, things like pseudo-science exist. It is likely the fault of the scientists themselves really. Society detaches itself from the more complex or unpleasant things, trusting them to individuals who are deemed to be better suited for the job. They can just reap the benefits at the end. [Interestingly, Plato said the same thing of the Greeks some 2340 years ago, his disappointment that unlike the Egyptians, philosophy and mathematics were the the plaything of scholars and ignorance the plaything of the common man; whom he said were like pigs].

What we should be doing as scientists, is to openly discuss pseudo-science, which can only have the effect of forcing the pseudo-scientists, psychics and faith-healers into a position where they have to actually learn some science in order to defend themselves. Only the blindly faithful can argue a case without knowing anything of the other side. Perhaps in that action, they may realise that perhaps their knowledge isn’t so well founded. Perhaps they will have doubts, and as I mentioned before, doubt is where it all begins.

A bit of fun...

2006-08-01T00:07:00.000Z

This amused me greatly. Puerile, as we like it.

Chuck Norris Facts. My particular favourites are:

"Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs."

"There is no such thing as global warming. Chuck Norris was cold, so he turned the sun up."

"Contrary to popular belief, America is not a democracy, it is a Chucktatorship."

and...

"Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice."

I know, I know. It's all very silly, but then, so is Chuck Norris.

Blog Nazis

2006-07-31T19:36:00.000Z

It's been a week or so since I last visited Petite Anglais, but I was shocked to discover, on a recent visit, that she has fallen foul of the blog nazis. Fired for keeping a blog, an anonymous blog, one in which she barely mentioned her workplace!

This short of thing should make us all very nervous.

Just sad and wrong, as ever the result of employers who clearly don't understand technocracy.

We went a hikin'....

2006-07-31T18:46:00.000Z

...and got piss wet through!

So for anyone who's been living in the far North of Scotland, or across the pond, you may know there's been something of a heatwave in old Blighty this past MONTH (grrr).

- Calm -

Anyway. A work colleague friend and I finally managed to get organised and went on a yomp in the Lakes, the Greenburn Round (Lt. Langdale - Wet Side Edge - Lt. & Gt. Carrs - Swirl How and Wetherlam). We set of in Stinking heat, thoroughly over heated, even in our thin shirts and shorts, but very enjoyable as my friend's grin will testify to.

None the less. After stopping for lunch, in the time it took for us to put our respective accoutrements away, the weather turned from airy and pleasant to rain storm and 20 mph winds. Now I've been caught out a few times in the past. I also happen to be pretty good at on the ground weather prediction. AND I'd read the mountain forecast, so was expecting SHOWERS, just as the synoptic charts had indicated.

...but this was not showers. This was nasty. This left us, and several other shorts 'n' t-shirt wearing walkers, rather shocked and suddenly rather exposed on the top of a big hill. Needless to say we all fled back to our respective valleys of origin, though ours was a rather boggy, cross-country affair.

We took refuge in Cathedral Cavern, home of much childhood spelunking.

Arse. After all this scorching heat sapping our energy! I will remember to pack ALL waterproofs next time.

Even in the desert. Naughty Mountain Leader!

To tell you the truth...

2006-07-27T12:08:00.000Z

So, CONGRATS to (Dr) Pew on passing her PhD viva ordeal yesterday. Now shush, LOL.

When confessing a hitherto withheld point, why do people say "To tell you the truth, it's like this..." I mean, what exactly am I supposed to take from this; that they've been lying to me up to this point?

Weeds. Given that there is thankfully nothing worth watching on TV these days, other than Top Gear, I was surprised to find this US show called Weeds. It's a dark comedy of the of the middle-class/soccer-mom/Desperate Housewives ilk that the US seems to be exploring at the moment. Essentially, 40-something, well-to-do Mom (the lovely Mary-Louise Parker) is widowed and turns to selling Pot to "keep up with the Jones's".

I especially love the opening credits song "Little Boxes" by Malvina Reynolds:

"Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of tickytacky
Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same
There’s a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses all went to the university
Where they were put in boxes and they came out all the same,
And there’s doctors and there’s lawyers, and business executives
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course and drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children and the children go to school
And the children go to summer camp and then to the university
Where they are put in boxes and they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business and marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky and they all look just the same."

(I would have inserted a link to the official webiste, but it seems they block all traffic outside of the U.S.A!)

Planning. I've done something that I'll probably regret today. I've decided not to attend a Council Planning Committee meeting regarding the proposed housing development in the woods behind my house. I opposed it and encouraged the neighbours to do so. We evidently put a spanner in the works as it has gone to committee (less than 10% of cases do so), but despite that, I know that most of the committee are in the developer's pockets. It would be a waste of my time as my words would have no effect on the decision they have indicated they will make, i.e. the development goes forward.

I can't help thinking, but what if. What if my presence there would have had an effect? The site is a "brownfield" site. So these are regions that are first dibs on development....but it's not a derelict factory or piece of waste ground, it's a piece of well reclaimed and incredible biodiverse woodland. Reclaimed brownfield sites are often more biodiverse that even "greenfield" sites, which may be limited due to open space, recreation or extant climax communities of large trees blocking ground growth.

The developers still have a lot of loops to jump through and have a mountain of considerations to take into account. Plus they have to include some public amenity planting in their site. They've been limited to 17 houses due to nature of the site.

But I feel bad now. I couldn't follow through this time and it has made me realise, as if I didn't know, that the appearance of public involvment in governmental and quasi-governmental policies is just a facade. It's the impression of democracy to placate the masses, when really "The Party Rules" policy of big brother, his mates and their big pockets is king.

Is it important?

2006-07-24T01:09:00.000Z

"The following statement is true:
The previous statement is untrue"

Chew on that for a bit.

It's late.

Bed

Priceless television....

2006-07-22T12:36:00.000Z

The only thing worth watching on TV these days, Top Gear. Watch the clip through to the end. I was on the floor with hysterics:

Top Gear Magazine
BBC Top Gear Site
Watch the whole series

PC in science writing...

2006-07-21T12:51:00.000Z

I hate political correctness in scientific papers. It’s especially insulting given the readership of such articles. I especially hate the use of the term “sacrificed” or the one in the current paper I’m reading “euthanized” to describe the killing of test animals as part of an experiment. In the latter it was the killing of test chickens to look at the results of antibiotic trials on their gut flora. However, perhaps “killing” has it’s own connotations, but it’s semantically different from “murdered”. Perhaps “rendered dead” is the way to go?

I’m reminded of an excellent, if wax-lyrical, 1955 Nature article by John Baker entitled English Style in Scientific Papers. It was popularly received as it was one of those moments where someone sticks their head up and says “Err…..just what on Earth do you think you’re all playing at?!”; his subject being the grandiloquence and foibles that “are the enemies of good English” and hinder the effective communication of science.

[Those with subscriptions can see an online copy via an Editorial and recent reprint in the Journal of Biological Chemistry Classics series: Kresge N. et al. (2006). J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 281(17): 14 - original article via pdf link].

He loathes the “grandiloquence” that has crept into scientific papers, and waxes particularly about the use of such terms as “vide supra” rather than “see above”, which he finds particularly amusing when in the such papers the lack of Latin knowledge is often demonstrated by the author not realising the word “data” is pleural. He is also bemused by the use of “circa”, “ca.” or “c.” ahead of a year, rather than just saying “about”, or the use of “juxta-“ instead of “near”.

I have to admit, I’ve been guilty of grandiloquence without even realising it. It’s just the climate you’re trained in. Although, I do find myself using the words “putative” (def: supposed or thought to be) and “ligate” (def. to bind or join) in common day situations, which is a little sad. Especially as most people outside of science stopped using such words years ago.

The one thing that does catch all scientists out though, is phrase construction. Baker suggests that you wouldn’t, in ordinary speech, say “a tea containing cup”, you’d say “ a cup containing tea”. So why then do scientists say “iron containing globules” when what is meant is “globules containing iron”? Or they say “eight micra[sic] thick sections” when they mean “sections 8 µ thick”. By the way, the “[sic]” means I’m indicating that the word is spelt as quoted, it’s not a typo on my part.

A scientist would never say "the Jones associated people", yet write "the nucleolus associated chromatin". I must say, I'm getting a little a little blog associated RSI with the length of this post! But I continue....

He cites, as one of the worst examples of piling up qualifying words (other than adjectives) in front of the noun they qualify, the example “adenosine triphosphate activated actomyosin contraction” when of course it should be “the contraction of actomyosin, activated by adenosine triphosphate”.

Where does such piling of adjectival phrases come from? Well it’s a German-American import apparently. Writing in 1955, Baker comments that it is not surprising that a Germanic sentence construction should have crept into scientific papers given that many American scientists are of German descent, evident by the list of authors in journals published in the USA. He suggests it is the product of a generation of scholarly Americans writing in the manner they’d become accustomed having grown up with parents who constructed their sentences in their native, German way.

Word piling works in German, where they have sufficient inflection to carry you through the adjectival phrases to the eventual qualifying noun, but in English, well, one just gets lost. None the less, despite many of us English and Scots having an otherwise syntactically clear, logical sentence construction, we find it necessary to copy the American-German import, just because that’s the culture of scientific papers.

Why God doesn't have a PhD?

2006-07-15T22:29:00.000Z

Browsing my archives, I felt this was due its annual airing:

Why God doesn't have a PhD?

He had only one major publication.
It was in Hebrew.
It had no references.
It wasn't published in a refereed journal.
Some even doubt he wrote it by himself.
It may be true that he created the world, but what has he done since then?
His cooperative efforts have been quite limited.
The scientific community has had a hard time replicating his results.
He never applied to the ethics board for permission to use human subjects.
When one experiment went awry he tried to cover it by drowning his subjects.
When subjects didn't behave as predicted, he deleted them from the sample.
He rarely came to class, just told students to read the book.
Some say he had his son teach the class.
He expelled his first two students for learning.
Although there were only 10 requirements, most of his students failed his tests.
His office hours were infrequent and usually held on a mountaintop.

Putativity...

2006-07-15T12:06:00.000Z

On experiments
I think my experiment worked. All be it slightly. I think perhaps that this is rather more annoying than it not working at all. After all, when something doesn’t work, you know where you are. It doesn’t work. The end. Goodbye.

This time, it did something. When I added A to B, it got that silvery feeling and gave me a little of C, except C isn’t a product, it’s a reaction…..and when I added a little of D, all the C was reset to zero. Take it from me, this was a useful thing to see.

I think my problem was perfectionism. My previous approach to the experiment was flawed because I was too close. I’d liken it to spotting a blotch on your parquet flooring, and avidly setting to cleaning it up….but as the alien sees from above, if you’d only looked further a field, the blotch was everywhere. It was the pattern.

So I started big. Big changes for big “C”. Once I have big “C”, I can start refining to find little “c”. Then I have something to write about.

Superjoke
In completely different news, I went to see Superman Returns last night. I cannot pass any judgement on it though. Not until I’ve seen it again. The reason I need to see it again is because I missed the start. Oh, I was in my seat in good time, unfortunately the projectionist decided he could not do his job, so instead of starting the film, he started an advert reel. We sat through this for 10 mins, with the house lights on, until (I guess) he realised. We then saw the next 10 mins of the film with the house lights still on. We were all crying at them to rewind, but they told us they couldn’t – god forbid he has to go home 20 mins late for his cock-up.

Unfortunately, I was so excited to see the film that I stayed, and got the gist of what I’d missed.

That being said, I’m off to get a refund now ;-)

The Thursday that was....

2006-07-13T23:40:00.000Z

So as it was, the experiment didn't work. So that's a 3 week round-trip to tackle it from a different angle, with nary a sniff of success. I'm starting to quietly panic. I won't mention that I've rested the remainder of my research fellowship on the functioning of this technique. Nor will I mention that I've told my funding body that we're going to use this technique to characterise a whole glut of other wonderful things.

I'll give it another go tomorrow. Of course, I would be helped if the supposéd inter-/multi-disciplinary research centre that claims to be in existance at my research institute would actually function as one. For a mere cost of £2000 per annum, we have the "right" to access the facilities. Let that not be confused with the actual costs of hiring and running the machines and purchasing consumables. It's just an executive ticket to "access" them. But one might think that a bioscientist with a highly developed set of skills in bacterial genetics and biochemistry might rely on the equally extensive skill set of those people responsible for such complicated pieces of biophysical wizardry as are found in our research institute?

Such assistance, if it were at the level it should be, would remedy my issues considerably. Alas, once again I am faced with the choice of (yet again) spending time becoming a part-time biophysicist in order to operate and troubleshoot the equipment I'm trying to use, or, getting on with the ton of other equally pressing work in my own area of expertise, which to be fair, is more than enough for two people to be getting on with. Fancy-pansy "Research Facilities" are just money-spinning, attention seeking gimmicks. I am yet to find someone in my institute who as successfully navigated all the equipment available.

Maybe the next time a physicist comes for help in learning the biochemical aspects of manipulating DNA as a molecular scaffold, I'll just give them a biology textbook and tell them to start with the paragraph beginning "Deoxyribonucleic acid consists of four bases: A....."?

On birthdays...

2006-07-12T11:23:00.000Z

It’s my birthday tomorrow, so it figures that I’ve had a glut of birthday txts today, and I expect another glut on 14th. Why is that? Why not the 13th? It’s as if my actual birthday is a rather fuzzy target, no one has ever been able to hit it dead on.

It might be due to the fact that growing up I had three friends at school all of whom had their birthdays on the 14th July, thus our group parties used to be then. I guess it was easier to remember the one date. Or perhaps it’s because the 13th is somehow unlucky within Christian traditions.

Anyway, I’m not 30 yet, but I’m knocking on the door. I’ve got things I want to achieve before 30, so I better start running. My PI and I have just submitted a grant proposal for another 3 years funding, so fingers (and everything else) crossed, I’ll get it. I won’t know until September though, which could make the California trip the trip of a lifetime, or a sad farewell to my discipline’s community.

September is a little close to my contract ending to be resting all my eggs in one basket, so I’m going to have to hit job street. Easier said that done when your loved one has set you the task of finding such specialised work within this county or the neighbouring one. I could walk into jobs in Cambridge or any number of places in the South, but I’m not ready to take the hit in spending power.

Must. Stay. Positive.

…bit of the birthday blues I guess. Hopefully the experiment I have planned for tomorrow will work, which largely depends on me getting off my ass and prepping some stuff today! I was born on a Thursday. It's my day.

*sigh*

On the road....update.

2006-07-11T17:36:00.000Z

Well, not quite, but working on it.

So due to the dicky scheduling (and costs) of Delta Airlines, my road trip around North California has been cut from 6 to 5 days. Boo! But I have my flights booked and paid for (by my research grant! Hehehe). So that leaves me with 5 days in South Lake Tahoe (Fallen Leaf specifically), then 5 days on the road. My bud from Atlanta arrives from Reno in the afternoon of the last day of my conference, hopefully in our hire car....I'm still of a mind to splash out and hire a bright red Ford Mustang convertable!

I still have absolutely no idea where we plan to end up the first night. We're trucking it up North along the west of Lake Tahoe to Truckee, then following the roads toward Davis, Sacramento, Fairfield and Napa. I'd like to stop somewhere over in the Sonoma valley (Napa being overpriced and overrun with people). That'd set us up well to head into San Francisco the next morning, via the Golden Gate Bridge.

Accommodation in SF...what a nightmare! So expensive! Anyway, stumbled across The Green Tortoise Hostel in North Beach and booked a private room for the two days we plan to stay in the city. Looking forward to the vibe! The parks, Golden Gate, Haight-Ashbury, Chinatown, Berkeley and a few other places are all on the cards. We can't do everything, so we're not going to try. Quality, not quantity.

Then it's off east towards gold country, Jamestown and Sonora before spending the afternoon driving around Yosemite. Staying in, or just outside, Yosemite that night. The next morning we're through Yosemite via the Tioga Pass. We don't have time to hike, so there's not much point doing much more than stop-starting our way through. Another time. Then the last full day will be spent doing the June Lake loop and Ansel Adam's country, then back up the East Sierra Scenic Byway to Mono Lake, then on past Carson City to the "Western" town of Virginia City, and finally to Reno for the evening. It's not all gambling in Reno these days I'm told, there's a new trendy art cafe-society district there apparently?

I'm buying myself a US PAYG SIM for the duration...no nasty roaming fees for me this time. Pittsburgh taught me that!

Anyway. Advice on places to visit or places to stay is very welcome!

Alien scream....

2006-07-07T10:18:00.000Z

"In order to frighten his sister this guy puts a very creepy child's mannequin next to her bed in the dark and tapes her reaction. He was expecting her to be scared, but not that scared. She goes completely hysterical!"

Rise Against...

2006-06-20T18:42:00.000Z

Currently enjoying the group Rise Against.

Being buried in the scientific backwaters of Blighty, I've only just discovered them. Liking "Give It All" and "Swing Life Away".

They're going to go on my Road Trip iPod playlist. Oh yes, I've started it already and it's not until late September. Fallen Leaf, Lake Tahoe....in the Fall people! I've stepped up the preparation and have a more detailed route outline. I'll be blabbing on about it endlessly in a few days/weeks, so just enjoy the calm whilst you can.

CALIFORNIA. Woo!

Sony Brevia's been tango'd...

2006-06-13T23:28:00.000Z

Now you've probably all seen the very cool Sony Brevia "bouncing ball" advert by now, accompanied by the ever fantastic José Gonzalez....

I did however find myself in stunned glee when I saw the new Tango (soda drink) take-off of it, but this time using fruit bouncing down a South Walean inner city street.

Great stuff!

Weekend on th'moors...

2006-06-13T20:33:00.000Z

I bet you're wondering where I spent the heatwave weekend?

Was it beside the sea? No.

Was it under a parasol by a pool? Nope.

Was it in a local tavern watching the football? Nope.

Was it out on the open moors of the Peak District National Park, the so called Dark Peak of Marsden, with nary a stone plinth to hide myself from the relentless sun? Yup.

(Image by Joe Cornish)

I was out supervising the Gold Duke of Edinburgh practice ventures. The group were a special needs group, one with a physical handicap, another with a visual one, someone with a mild form of autism and a couple more. I put them all through their paces and despite the stinking heat, a good time was had by all.

It's amazing how your perception changes when at some points it takes 2 hours to walk 0.9 km. You start seeing the route from their perspective and find yourself groaning at the next rutted section, even though you'd hop over the same section on your own. A good experience.

I could have done without the occassional rotting sheep, whose stench in the heat was unbearable, and the constant bother of salt-seeking flies was more than an annoyance.

Talking of which, I recall an experiment I did with house flies back during my first degree. We were looking at the gustatory response (i.e. the feeding response) of starved flies vs well fed flies. You see, your average fly has gustatory receptors on its feet, and when it detects salt this stimulates the fly's proboscus (feeding apparatus) to extend and allows them to feed.

We knocked the them out with a blast of carbon dioxide and each grabbed ourselves a starved fly and a well fed fly. We then glued a vertical matchstick to their backs. This allowed us to pick them up and dip their feet into increasing concentrations of salt solution. Surely enough, the starved flies were able to detect salt at a much lower concentration than well fed ones. An adaptive starvation response.

I never did know what they did with all those flies, we just left them upside-down on their matchsticks, which were bluetacked to the bench top.

Hehehehe. Wasp Factory eat your heart out.

In the dark...

2006-06-08T10:12:00.000Z

I thoroughly approve of the recent introduction of automatic motion-detector based lighting in our research centre, being in favour of all energy saving approaches.

HOWEVER, when they installed them in the toilets, which are just off the main corridor, you might have thought they’d put the motion detectors in the actual toilet itself, rather than the ante-room that leads into them!

The rather amusing email that accompanied the electrical works suggested that “if you find that the lights go out in the toilet whilst you’re in there, you can just wave your arms about and have the satisfaction of knowing that you’re still alive”, but alas, in the absence of a motion detector, you’re just left to flounder helplessly in the pitch dark.

Now this is not an issue for someone such as myself, but may pose significant problems for those on your typical “Westernised” diet ;-)

p.s. Whilst we're on the subject of toilets, let me draw your attention to the "Toilet Snorkel" a device patented in 1982 (U.S. Patent 4320756, input no. here for reference) that can be employed in a apartment/hotel fire where escape is prevented by noxious fumes.

Abstract: The recent rash of fires in high-rise hotels and deaths occasioned thereby has given rise to the need for a breathing device and method for supplying a hotel guest and/or fireman with fresh air until he can be rescued. The device and method of this invention provide for the insertion of a breathing tube through the water trap of a toilet to expose an open end thereof to fresh air from a vent pipe connected to a sewer line of the toilet, to enable the user to breathe fresh air through the tube.

I like the reference to there being "fresh" air from a vent pipe. Mmmm.

HVC who?

2006-06-05T14:54:00.000Z

So I was doing my online banking today when I noticed a direct debit set up to “HVC Limited”, and that a payment of £15 had been made on 24th May.

Hmm. Who the hell are HVC Limited I wondered. I called my bank, got a reference number and contact details and called them up to see who they were.

“Home Video Channel”

“…erm, excuse me, but could I ask why I would have a direct debit set up to the Home Video Network?”

[Naivety really showing now]

“It’s the Playboy channel”

".....[silence]…but I don’t have a subscription to the Playboy channel. I didn’t even know I got the playboy channel”

I was transferred to accounts who confirmed they had all my details and that the account had been set up on 14th May through our Sky digital….but I’d been away staying with friends in Manchester that weekend.

I asked my fair lady about it, who apparently knew nothing, but that she’d had 8 friends around that night, so I think we will find the guilty party.

The thing is, I’ve had access to the Playboy channel for nearly a month, paid £15 for it and have now cancelled it, but what really pisses me off is I’ve not gotten to watch a fucking minute of it! ;-)

Figures.

Back after these messages...

2006-06-04T09:50:00.000Z

I have some stuff I wish to discuss, but oh busy, busy....

See Debrett's for my social calendar.

Services commencing very soon.

Toodle-pip.

Hell and High Water #2

2006-05-21T18:10:00.000Z

You may recall that back in February I mentioned that a friend of the family from my Dad's village was rowing across the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to Antigua, and if successful the would be the oldest team to row across any ocean. Since then, whilst the rest of us were getting on with our lives these past 4 months, they've still been fighting it out with the Atlantic. Well there're about to hit land with just 41 km (of 4722 km) to go. Their last positions and blog.

...and finished!

To satisfy curiosity.....

2006-05-17T20:12:00.000Z

Picture: Diesel jeans, a rather fine Gieves shirt and blazer type jacket - except without the blazer type jacket, which was thankfully saved by one of my mates as I hurled it behind my head.

Shirt sleeves summarily rolled up, top few shirt buttons undone. Roll on The Kinks, The Doors, The Who and other rock legends - for that is the bread and butter of Mojo. My mate and I had a whole wing of the floorspace to ourselves and all those with a need to rock made their way to our corner. I seem to recall having an in depth conversation about Rocco Deluca with two guys and a girl who I think were just waiting for the bathroom, but they seemed to appreciate the heads-up. We also spent an obligatory period of time staring at the huge Beatles: Abbey Road picture that dominates one wall. That's a great one to sit facing.

Despite my inebriety, I can vividly remember everything, which is how I like it. If Id been on vodka I wouldn't have remembered a thing, but then again I wouldn't have had the hangover!

Anyway, the trek home - and I say trek, but it was actually less than 1 km - was arduous as it took two cab rides. The first guy couldn't drive, so we told him to pull over and we flagged other. This guy didn't know where the hell the address was, despite being well known, so we directed him.

When we arrived, he tried to charge us £5 fare - for a few hundred metres as it turns out. "Where's your meter mate?? - he didn't have one(!) - we're not paying that!" we stated...what followed was comical, in a sad sort of way.

He got on his radio and seemed to put out an All Points Bulletin (APB) to get all the taxi cars in his company to come to his assistance.

Bearing in mind he was addressing four well turned-out chaps: two lawyers, a business man and me, so we don't exactly look like gang-bangers. Our occupations may have slipped out because he shut up. We told him he could have £3, and he should get a f**king meter.

I'm sure as we walked away I overheard radio-chatter to the tune of "Stand-down guys, it was only bloody Raja doing his f**king APB bollocks again...Raja, stop with the APB bollocks, we've got better things to do!"

I think the rest of the night/morning was a bit of a blur. Food was eaten, beds were made from sofa cushions, and that pissing awful Welsh movie Twin Town was played. What a thing to go to sleep on!

Nuff said.

This week, I am mostly listening to...

2006-05-16T23:14:00.000Z

...Rocco Deluca and The Burden, their new album I Trust You To Kill Me....

...and lovin' it. Buy it now...and pay for it, they deserve it.

I would also tell you of my tale of inebriation and dancing til 6 in the morning in Manchester's fantastic Mojo bar, but those who know me probably wouldn't believe me.

All I can say is that Magner's Irish cider is an evil thing. Evil.

Melior tardus quam nunquam...

2006-05-12T10:32:00.000Z

Have you ever mixed two liquids together and then thought to yourself, “Ooh, I don’t think I should have done that” [slowly backing away as the temperature of the new creation rises dramatically]

No?

Ahem. Me neither.

--------------------------

It is conference season again, to which I unashamedly ascribe my current tardiness/absence (delete euphemism of choice) from my own blog. The conference in Birmingham yesterday was thoroughly enjoyable though, and is probably my last “official” attendance at that meeting, given that my contract will have ended by this time next year. Birmingham itself however continues to bear a striking resemblance to an anus, in a purely metaphoric civil engineering manner. What a hole, but the university campus is pretty enough and ales we imbibed on the grass of Chancellor’s Court at the end of the day were also good.

-------------------------

I bought one of those “innocent” pure fruit smoothies at the student union this morning. The cashier said she’d give me 5% off because there was a slight dent in the bottom of the plastic bottle. I suggested that if she was willing to give me 5% off, she may as well make it 10%. So she did. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

I popped the dent out as I walked out of the shop.

Anniversary...

2006-04-28T11:45:00.000Z

It's one year ago today since The Beast arrived:

What fun it's been.

I should be high tailing it, with my fair one, over to our alma mata tonight for the annual Old Boy's Weekend. A reunion of all the university alumni for the playing of sports, climbing of mountains, plenty of good food and craic, washed down with liberal quantities of ale. Alas, despite being a tradition for the past 7 years, and a standing appointment, the rest of our gang have found organising a ride and accommodation on this 1/52th of the year a little taxing. Thus they're not going. Nor, consequently, are we. I, on the other hand, had managed to arrange cushy accommodation using my academic contacts and credentials to actually stay at the university's fancy conference centre manor, but no good. So I'm a little pissed.

I hate having three days off and no POA. Pfft.

Back o' Glyderau

2006-04-12T21:40:00.000Z

Yup, I found a back way up the Glyderau in Snowdonia. Photos from the lastest climbing trip:

~~Slipped~~Taking a well earned break.

Trying to avoid getting blown into the Cwm.

The Cantilever stone on Glyder Fach. Cliché photo op.

Some random Mountain Goats that we smelt coming (man do they stink!), but they still scared the bejesus out of us when they jumped out at us!

The dog ate it....

2006-04-10T10:13:00.000Z

The dog ate my homework, er, my blog. I spilt paint on it Sir. I left it on the bus, Miss. I wasn't hear at the time, Sir.

Well. It's not like I've not had plenty of topics to write about, in fact just the opposite. Gent was so relaxing a break that I actually enjoyed not having to compartmentalise and distill my lifely experiences into blog material. Anyway, I'll start in reverse chronological order and work my way back, or forward, whichever. With any luck, I'll enter my highlights from Gent, for personal posterity. Not all in the one posting though.

I was in Manchester this weekend, visiting an old friend for a day and a night out. Food was eaten, cider and beer drunk, the theatre attended, philosophy discussed and the world put in its place. I arrived Saturday morning, dropped off by my fair lady, to find my amigo in a somewhat dishevelled state, waking with a start believing it was Thursday. It turns out that he was mugged the previous night and freed of his phone. After giving chase for almost 800 metres, he'd decided that he really was rather too drunk to be chasing the bandit at 1 am in the morning.

So this fact was a continuing source of annoyance for him throughout the weekend. The reason I mention all of this....? Well, after leaving Mojo at 2 am Saturday night/Sunday morning, we made our way into the centre of Manchester where, right in front of us, a young lass is mugged, her purse snatched and she is left spinning and on the ground. My mate was off like a shot after the mugger, desperately seeking revenge or closure for the previous night, I followed on to ensure he didn't get himself into too much of a situation, but it seemed that the mugger wasn't prepared from someone being so determined to catch him so dumped the purse - not before removing the cash and a few cards.

So we delivered the purse back to the girl, who then became distraught and intermitantly sobbed on each of our shoulders for the next 30 mins as we walked her across town to Oxford Road where we put her on a bus back to her friend's house. She'd studied in Manc for three years and never been mugged, then after graduating, she'd returned to see a friend with her boyfriend, who'd ended their relationship that night, on the street, and had jumped into a taxi. Not 10 minutes later, she was mugged. Figures.

Anyway, she sent a thank you text to us the following day, the complete strangers who'd helped her out after life had taken a dump on her.

I don't think we're ready for Batman and Robin costumes yet. Wearing underpants on the outside was never a good fashion statement.

Gent: Zonder Dank...

2006-03-25T00:22:00.000Z

Gent (Ghent) was great, many thanks to Le Pew for making it such fun! More later, when I recover.

Artwork within The Gravensteen (The medieval "Castle of the Count")

Toodaloo...

2006-03-19T12:02:00.000Z

So why the rash of blogs recently? Well, I'm making up for the fact that I will be away next week. I'm off to visit Le pew (of Ubiquitous) in Belgium, to go catch up, see some sights and get away from the lab.

I was just reading through the dos and don'ts of the airline I'm flying with:

For safety reasons, we may decide not to allow you to use electronic devices when you are on board the aircraft, including:

- mobile phones
- laptop computers
- personal recorders
- personal radios
- MP3, cassette and CD players
- electronic games or
- transmitting devices (for example, radio-controlled toys and walkie-talkies).

[No mention of GPS receivers, hehehe]

You must not use these items when we have told you that they are not allowed.

We will allow you to use hearing aids and heart pacemakers.

It's so good of them that they will "allow" people to wear hearing aids and heart pacemakers, though to be honest, I believe these things go without saying!

Anyway, smell you later.

Goof....

2006-03-18T13:45:00.000Z

A BBC Online article entitled "Earth Could Seed Titan With Life" discusses the possibility that meteor impacts on Earth could have seeded life on Titan, one of Saturn's moons, however, I take issue with the following comment:

"The theory of panspermia holds that life on planets like Earth and Mars was seeded from space, perhaps hitching a ride on meteorites and comets."

I wasn't aware that we'd actually confirmed there is life on Mars, seeded from space or otherwise. Are they perhaps getting a little ahead of themselves?

Pissed with Science...

2006-03-18T01:27:00.000Z

Yes, I'm having a bit of a grump with my discipline today. Not the discipline that has me running amok in the halls, spitting and graffitiing, but that which I spend my life sweating blood and tears over.

I've been waiting 4 weeks to hear the response from my editor regarding the revised edition of my manuscript to the premier journal in my, and a few other, fields. Now the first time round I had comments from three reviewers. The first referee basically sent a paragraph describing the contents of my manuscript and that it was all relevant. End of. The second and third referees, who identified themselves, sent an exhaustive list of (some) petty whims and wishes including some very constructive advice that strengthened the paper considerably - at the expense of 3 months extra work!

So now I was just waiting for the A-OK, we'll publish. I did, after all, meet all the referee's comments, questions and suggestions. Only now the 1st referee has decided he/she has a question! It's a stupid shitty pointless question which means they're not paying attention (which probably accounts for their response the first time round). So now it's back in my bag to deal with, politely and professionally. Twat. I'll answer it. It'll go back to the editor. They'll publish it. Eventually. Hopefully.

Science on the edge:

The front cover of this week's Nature left me feeling a little puzzled. Why? Well take a look.

Here we have what the author described as a "disk with holes" followed, tongue in cheek style, by "(smiley)". As if we didn't know. It's a nanostructure made with M13 phage DNA, constructed tile fashion, in two-dimentional, rectangular blocks that contain cross-overs (interlinks) that make the structure more rigid.

The construct is then visualised using atomic force microscopy - where a molecular needle taps its way over the surface, tracing the contours of the molecule thick structure.

I'm curious because the only question it raises in my head is this: Why?

Honestly, of late I've been seeing a lot of this sort of silliness. I'm concerned with real questions, real solutions, real discoveries. Quantum leaps and paradigm shifts, things that will improve our lives, the environment and, perhaps selfishly, the lives of researchers and academics. However, what I'm seeing is an increasing trend toward wacked out craziness that gets itself into the doyen of science journals. It is, in my opinion, a cheap shot. At the end of the day, you have a giggle. You think, wow, that's quite clever, look what he's made with DNA. Then you turn over the page and read some real science.

The News and Views section of Nature contained a favourable appraisal of the article, but none the less ended with "The barrier we have to surmount next is to deploy our knowledge to develop structures and devices that are really useful." Yes indeed, and herein lies my position. Those useful structures are what I want to see in Nature, a double whammy of "wow, look at this, isn't this cool" and "wow, look how important and useful this is". Don't get me wrong, I think he's perhaps on to something, but this particular paper: cheap shot.

So I leave you with some of his "unuseful" creations whilst I go listen to Cyndi Lauper's "I don't want to be your friend".

Absurdity...

2006-03-18T01:20:00.000Z

Now I know we've all heard of the little bags of nuts that say, in warning, on the back of them "May contain nuts", but to be honest, I've never actually seen one myself.

The bag of crisps (chips) that I didn't almost buy in Sainsburys had, emblasoned on the back:

Ingredients:

Potatos, vegetable oil, sea salt, cyder vinegar. No nuts.
(I shit you not, it said this, and right underneath this...)

Warning:

This product may contain traces of nuts.

!

I've just downloaded an email from my tailor, yes, I have a tailor. Anyway, he's having a Mother's Day sale. I've never seen a single piece of feminine ensemble in their store. So just why the fuck is this guy having a Mother's Day sale! What am I supposed to do, dress up nicely?

Answers on a postcard.

On being famous...

2006-03-17T23:16:00.000Z

Not only did I used to live around the corner from Chas & Dave, but now I find that none other than Paul Daniel's son lived around the other corner.

I therefore summise that I am almost famous, by proxy.

So suck my toes. Plebs.

(p.s. for those over the pond, or with good taste, don't ask)

Responsible research...

2006-03-15T22:41:00.000Z

Now I'm not one for blabbing out poorly rumenated opinions, but I need to get this one down for further development. Something occurred to me whilst doing my usual literature searches today.

You often hear we scientists say that cures for cancer and other diseases could be found in the great pharmocopoeia that are the rainforests. You also hear that certain traditonal medicines, particularly in the orient, say that the gonad of some rare big cat, or shavings of an equally rare species of coral, can make you live forever.

Now there are many beneficial biologically active compounds that have been isolated from the environment, and we rely on the chemists to be able to distill the essence of the compound, the active part, then chemically synthesise an identical, or very similar, molecule. Thus preserving the original organism. They then scale-up and the manufacturing cogs whir into motion. But what happens if they can't? What if the only way to get this life saving drug is to distill it from said rare animal, plant or habitat thereof?

So it raises the question, all be it a philosophical one, of whether we should start looking for answers in such places in the first place, lest the unimaginable happens and we're forced to destroy a species for the purposes of treating a particular disease? Of course we should look at these areas. It is irresponsible not to, but perhaps unethical to do so? We have to have faith that the chemists can synthesise the compound.

I haven't yet scanned for how many such situations exist, where unique and rare species, unpropagatable in other environments, are harvested for medications. I know that you can buy special calcium supplements made from ground up coral. Bad and wrong. I also know that there are compounds in pre-clinical trials, also derived from a rare coral, that are highly effective against certain cancers. No chemical synthesis has yet been solved.

I guess it's all too easy to take the moral high ground when you don't need the drug, but when you do, well, that's a different ball game.
Hmm. Perhaps I should give this as an undergraduate Bioethics tutorial, under the title "Discuss"?

Overheard...

2006-03-14T22:57:00.000Z

...in a bus queue (yes, I've started to use the Free Metro bus into town. Occassionally). Two guys, one a researcher I know (English), the other and overseas student, looks and like he could be from Kenya.

Kenyan: Now what the hell is this!?
Researcher: What man?
Kenyan: This stuff falling from the sky? I don't know how to describe it.
Researcher: It's Sleet.
Kenyan: SLEET!?
Researcher: Yup, Sleet...it's like snow and rain at the same time.
Kenyan: Shit. I can't believe it. Is there anything else that can fall from the sky?
Researcher: Do you want to make a list?
Kenyan: Shit.

...or words to that effect. Got to love Blighty. If you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes.

Planet Earth

2006-03-14T12:14:00.000Z

My lovely lady is in the Sahara Desert today. Mad as it sounds, it's the complete truth. I'm not envious or anything, especially as I'm not having to turn the lab upside-down due to one of the six electrical circuits in the lab blowing out. So of course half of the equipment in the lab is now on my bench, which still has power.

Planet Earth. So far I am completely stunned by this series. As far as I'm concerned, BBC Natural History can do no wrong, but they've really pulled out the stops with this one. It is completely mind-blowing. Just when you think you've seen it all, and believe me, my house if chocked full of books and material on this subject, you realise you haven't. The way they have chosen to contextualise the animal life with some detailed coverage of the underlying climate, geology and flora that form their habitats is superbly done. I was completely entranced by the footage of a Snow Leopard hunting in the Karakorum peaks of Pakistan, chasing its prey down a near vertical cliff. Fantastic. DVD on order.

I also recommend the Open Earth Archive where you can freely download video clips from a large natural history database and edit them into your own homemade natural history programme.

Parcour fun...

2006-03-11T11:20:00.000Z

This is a great example of free running. For more about the E.M.C. Monkeys.

[see YouTube here]

Thanks to Dawn, I have been completely hooked on YouTube since last night. Help.

In other news, my lady is off to Tunisia tomorrow with two girlfriends, so it'll be bachelor week next week, hehehe. I mention this trip as an example of some of the things she occassionally forgets to tell me, as it now seems that I am to take them to the airport. "Oh, didn't I tell you?", "...er, no!". "Well you are". Good job I asked really. I honestly believe that I wouldn't have known she was off to North Africa if she hadn't needed me to dig out her passport. That girl!

We're about to get snowed on. Big style...well 18 cm. I have buckets of grit on standby, but my neighbour and I were rather annoyed to discover that the lazy, self-centred bollocks who live up the road have practically emptied the public grit bins to layer an inch of grit outside their own properties. Total overkill and a waste. Meanwhile, I can do the whole lane sufficiently on the same amount. Buggers. If there was any justice, someone would empty a few buckets of water onto their driveways tonight, hehehe.

Wayne Rooney

2006-03-10T12:25:00.000Z

Why!?

Why, oh dear God why!? Do we really think that the autobiography of a decidedly average chav is: a) worth reading and b) worth the £5m they're paying him for it!?

The "first volume" is due out in July. FIRST volume! Just how many volumes could there possibly be?!

Apparently, he has said that the books contain some "surprises". Perhaps these will include how his parents shared a womb? He also wants to get it across that hes "just a normal young lad who plays football". Ok, so we need volumes for this? The country is crammed full of normal young lads who play football, the only difference being that Rooney really can play football. That's it. Said and done in one paragraph.

Another mark against why I hate footballers.

Le jardin....

2006-03-04T18:52:00.000Z

Snow arrived last night...

...and this morning

Planning the trip....

2006-03-03T12:11:00.000Z

So, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m going to be at a conference at Fallen Leaf Lake, South Lake Tahoe, CA in September, but I figure it’s a LONG way to go just for a 5 day conference. I’m getting together with a mate of mine, a guy I met in Pittsburgh in 2002, who works at Georgia Tech, Atlanta, and who similarly has never done California; we’re thinking of taking off after the conference to see some of the state.

Thing is, it’s a bit like kids in a sweety shop, too many things to do! So far, on our potential short list, we have Yosemite (that’s at the top), then there is the Napa Valley, San Francisco and a coastal road trip up to the Redwood National Park. Of course, we’re probably going to be too busy to actually book any accommodation and my inkling is that we should just wing it. I’m thinking that if we get ourselves a rental car with unlimited mileage and just hit the road, we can bag all these places on our own terms and stay in guesthouses/motels etc. where ever we find them?

…BUT, if anyone has some travel experience in CA, then let me know – I’m fishing for ideas and information.

Hypnosis...

2006-03-03T01:45:00.000Z

I know, I know, but in my defence I've had a cold and major dilemnas at work. Coming good now.

It's Stupid O'Clock right now, but I felt I needed to point people in the direction of this fantastic hypnosis therapy.

(disclaimer: this is puerile silliness and probably thoroughly beneath me, but can I just say that the "FF+G" in sprint mode is just bad and wrong!)

Thinking about eating...

2006-02-23T15:37:00.000Z

An article that popped up in Biology News recently describes how a hormone, ghrelin, which is produced in the stomach, has a direct stimulatory influence on the hippocampus (important in spatial learning and memory development). The researchers (Diano et al., 2006) noted that as ghrelin is at it's peak levels during the day, when the stomach is empty, it supports the observation that spatial learning and unfocused attention are enhanced during fasting. This, they suggest, seems a logical notion given that the time when an animal needs to be most cognisant is when on the hunt for food. Thus, it has been suggested that the apparent correlation between childhood obsesity and impairment of learning perfromance may well have a physiological link.

They go on to suggest that the supplementation with ghrelin could also benefit certain neurodegenerative diseases; of course, I'll watch out to see if it starts cropping up in spam mails selling "learning pills". One drawback however is that due to other associated hormones, ghrelin may actually increase appetite and adiposity (storing of fat) and thus treatment with it may lead to obesity. So I guess you can either be obese and potentially do less well at school, or you can be obsese, constantly hungry, but ace your SATs?

Hmmm. Of course, you could just reduce the saturated fats, which can impair hippocampus-mediated memory formation. Anyway, the idea that the way to enlightenment is directly linked to your stomach amuses me, and probably accounts for why Zen Buddhists reach such Zen-states by eating only rice crackers.

Fiddler on the roof...

2006-02-23T14:59:00.000Z

Snow. It can be a lot of fun, but more often than not it's a real bastard. There have been five roof collapses in public buildings in Germany, Poland and Russia this year, three of which have been in this month alone!

The first was an Ice Rink in Bad Reichenhall, Germany.

The second was the roof of the Katowice Trade Hall in Poland, which collapsed on - of all things - a gathering of world Pigeon enthusiasts.

The next to fall was that of a supermarket in Toeging am Inn, Germany

Then there was the collapse of the glass roof at the Transvaal Park swimming pool, Moscow, Russia.

Finally, this week, the roof of the Basmanny indoor food market, Moscow, Russia collapsed.

In all about 150 have died in these incidents, and rather more injured. What more can I say? It's all a little bonkers.

So it goes.

2006-02-19T19:17:00.000Z

It happened on the same day that I first realised one could eat “breakfast” cereal at any time of the day, at least, I think it did?

Independence.

The occasion of eating cereal at any time of the day marks a break with tradition, with the received order of one’s repasts, with the dictation of meal times as a child. I now eat when I want to, but it was not always so.

What is the significance? I was in my teens. Most teens then, as now, were probably mid rebellion. I never had my rebellion. I did skulk in my room a lot, but I wasn’t listening to loud music or fighting a swamp of discarded dirty linen and used plates. My room was neat and tidy and I was studying and reading. The whole rebellion thing rather passed me by. I just ate cereal. At midnight. Because I could. I should have been Amish. I wasn’t though, far from it.

These thoughts just pop into my head as I sit here, eating cereal, at silly o’clock. The new computer is up and running. I would have preferred that it didn’t take 3 days before I could say such a thing, but an endless chain of software conflicts kept me otherwise occupied. I really have no idea how computer newbies ever cope with their first computers? It must drive them bonkers. Even to a seasoned computer dabbler they were getting stressful. Anyway, registry beaten and battered into line, tons of OEM shit removed from the hard-drive and all my software installed and I’m left with one error for which there is no apparent fix.

I may as well mention it in the vain hope that someone has a solution. It happened upon installing the latest iTunes/Quicktime on my WinXP Pro platform, and now, whenever I start iTunes, I get the following error message:

Error Msg:

Windows - No Disk
There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk into drive.

Cancel - Try Again - Continue.

It goes away after clicking "cancel about 60 times, then iTunes can start. There are plenty of mentions in the forums. A “supposed” fix by (Cr)Apple, but really it is a work-around, which doesn’t in fact work. Very annoying.

I finally managed to get my revised manuscript into the journal Molecular Microbiology on Friday. I managed to deal with all the reviewers nit-picking comments and suggestions and now my sizeable piece of work is at the mercy of the editor. Arrrg. So back to the lab on Monday!

I’ve started two new books. The first, which is vanishing at a rate of knots, is Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. I’ve read one of his other books before, Cat’s Cradle (also excellent), but I’m thoroughly enjoying his dead-pan dry wit in this one.

The other, which I started reading in the university arts library last week (on a dusty 1956 edition) is The Light in August by William Faulkner.

I’ve been looking to get into Faulkner for some time, but now seemed as good an opportunity as ever. He writes about a time and a place with which I am only vaguely familiar. I’ve always romanticised about this period. Basic, conflicted, rustic, real. I tried to read Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury in my teens, but couldn’t get past the language. Well, 15 years later, and a few tens of movies set in the American South later, not to mention several non-fictions on the US Civil War, I understand the language and intonation, as much as one can gather intonation in text. So I was pleased to discover that I can now slip through his books with great ease, picturing scenes and grasping his underlying social commentary. So it goes.

Hell and high water (or no water)

2006-02-16T10:39:00.000Z

Old gear
I'm due to go on a weekend Mountain First Aid course at the start of March. The information letter says to bring old waterproof clothing. This is not the first time that a mountain activities company has suggested I bring "old" waterproof clothing. Here's the thing: waterproof clothing costs a bloody fortune, so I therefore keep it going until it's deader than a dead thing. It then goes in the bin, and I go out and buy new horrendously expenisve waterproof gear.

What the fuck would I want with old waterproof gear? I mean, in the absence of actually being waterproof, it's just a claggy, rather ineffectual piece of kit suitable for nothing more than perhaps the odd bit of impromtu sledging. Of course, I'll keep my current stuff if I buy some new gear in the future, for the sake of eventually owning some old gear, but that could be years yet!

Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink
Why don't people drink water? When I say people, I mean Plebs of course, and when I say drink, I mean non-alcoholic daytime drinking. I don't know about the States, but the UK is just crammed full of people who don't drink. Anything. Except maybe cups of tea or coffee. Thousands and thousands of people go through every day drinking, what are in effect, diuretics. When you ask someone what they drink, if not tea or coffee, it is invariably Cola (or some equally noxious, sugar infused fizzy drink) or pure Orange juice (the cartoned, highly acidic, hypertonic stuff). Only "health freaks" are deemed to drink bottled water, and only complete nuts actually carry a bottle of water with them where ever they go.....where do they thing these people are, they wonder, the middle of the Kalahari Desert?

Given that water is the cheapest and most effective cure all for most of the daily complaints people have, their response when you explain this to them is one of complete incredulousness. "Water!?" and chuckle to themselves at the absurd concept of it all. Drinking water, who ever heard of such a thing? My fair lady found herself, once again, in this situation. Faced with an arthritic reluctant new gym member whose excuse for not coming to the gym very often was that sometimes his joints hurt so much he can't get up in the morning. That's all very well, but what does he do to help himself besides popping pills? "What do you drink during the day?" she asked him, "What do you mean?". "Err, what, do you drink, y'know, drink during the day?", "I don't" says the bloke. "What, nothing?!", "Well, maybe a cup of tea or two". "Did you know that when the body gets dehydrated, one of the first places it draws water from is the joints, further exacerbating any pain and inflammation there?". "Oh". "So perhaps you should try drinking more water each day?". Where upon she received the old "Water!?", followed by the chuckle that means to suggest you're having them on.

Hopeless, just hopeless. Never mind, the NHS will pick up the bill, it's not like they're hard-up or anything!

Ocean Rowing
An old friend of the family is, as I write, rowing across the Atlantic from St. Sebastian de la Gomera in the Canary Isalnds to Antigua. Tim (54) and his mate, Mike (58), will be the oldest team to row across the Atlantic if they succeed. I've been following their progress since they set off, but only with the airing of the documentary made by Ben Fogle and James Cracknell (two time Olympic Gold Medallist Rower), who finished rowing the same route on 19th January, have I seen first hand what I already knew to be a fucking hard adventure. Blisters, cuts, bruises, fatigue, an infected elbow and mindnumbing boredom and the odd run-in with bloody big ships are all common place on such an endeavour. They can be followed via http://www.oceanrowing.com/ (half way down the page) and their blog is here. They're raising money for four worthy charities as well, so with 339 nautical miles (out of 2550 n. miles) bagged, I wish them the best of luck!

Killer...

2006-02-14T10:59:00.000Z

I killed a young Squirrel this morning.

I was only doing about 5 mph as I pulled up to my garage. I didn't even see the little blighter as I reversed and then, as I looked back into the road, there was a dead squirrel in front of me. That sucks. Anyway, I duly lifted it off the road and deposited it in the rose bed opposite.

I've had better starts to the day; mind you, I'm sure the Squirrel had too!

Audi 1 : Squirrel 0

Squirrel Killer

Yeah, I thought so too...

2006-02-13T11:58:00.000Z

Puerile amusement.

Something and nothing...

2006-02-12T17:48:00.000Z

Strange faces
A chap, known to my fair lady, had been working overly hard in recent weeks and had become a slave to coffee and late nights. It was for this reason that he thought himself hallucinating when, one morning, from behind the wall opposite his house, a small head popped up and stared straight at him. He was of course unsettled by this head, which he described as being white with huge black eyes, “like an alien”.

So, befuddled as he was, he accidentally spilt some of his coffee whilst attempting to get into his car, whereupon the head, attached to a body no less, sauntered over to start drinking his spilt coffee. Clearly this chap was now thoroughly unnerved and descended into whimpish shrieks as he tried to gently push the head away from him with his foot, in order that he may better able gain access to his car and escape this madness.

All that day this chap had tried retelling his tale of shock to his unbelieving, condescending work colleagues, receiving many a pat on the back and “there, there....”s. That evening, having started to unwind, he made his usual sojourn to the garden shed to retrieve much needed bottles of beer. “You’ll never bloody believe what I saw when I opened the shed door!? It was that damn head again. Staring right at me!”

The last we had heard, the RSPCA had been called, and the chap was relieved to discover that this head did actually belong to a creature known to science. A Polecat. The unknown, no matter how domesticated, evidently continues to unsettle the unknowing.

Memory Swot
I was a bit of a swot at the Duke of Edinburgh meeting on Thursday last. I managed to commit the names of 30 new faces to memory in the space of 5 mins, quite stunning everyone there. I didn’t tell them that as a party trick back at uni, my fair lady and I both learnt a special memory technique. We used this technique to great “party trick” effect as we’d ask for a pack of cards to be shuffled and each one shown to us in order. We would then be able to recount each and every card in that order. I haven’t tried that trick for a while, but the technique still works.

Finding Forrester
I watched Finding Forrester last night. Such films are interesting because in writing a film about great writing, the screen-writers must accurately reflect the characters and words of such great writers. They are, when you think about it, being self-congratulatory about their own writing abilities. At least that may have been the case in this film, but thankfully in this case the one time when young Jamal’s words are read aloud, the focus isn’t so much about the words, the oration of which is drowned out by incidence music, but the impact these words have upon the people listening. All in all a reasonable film, with a great soundtrack.

The screen-writers did write an interesting section of dialogue about starting a sentence with a conjunction, i.e. “and” or “but”, the correct use of which, in a simple sense, is to join to halves of a sentence. This, we were sternly told in grammar lessons at school, is a firm rule, but Jamal’s contention was that this rather odd rule can be deliberately broken to draw attention to the particular sentence that begins with such a conjunction. Of course, for that reason it should be employed very conservatively. And, I hasten to add, I will use this argument as a defence the next time I feel it necessary to employ one thus.

New Computer
I've finally bought a new computer. I seem to recall posting in a comments board that the poor old beast had suffered several binary infarctions and was suffering the slow death of one whose chips have slowly baked to death. So, having reached the comly age of 5 years old, having received several transplants, upgrades and vacuum cleaner sessions, I'm putting it out to pasture; a bitter irony, perhaps, that I use the poor thing as the instrument of it's own demise, having used it to order its replacement online.

So from some point in the (hopefully) very near future, barring a DOA machine, I will be driving a: Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 630 with HT technology (3.00 GHz, 800 MHz fsb, 2 MB cache), Windows® XP Professional SP2, 1024 MB Dual Channel DDR2 (400MHz) RAM, 256MB ATI Radeon® X600 HyperMemory graphics card, 1 x 160 GB and 1 x 80 GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst™ cache (RAIDed together, or not, depending on what I decide), 16x DVD+/-RW Drive, Internal 13-in-1 Media Card Reader, blah blah Soundcard, McAfee Security Centre and eventually all my lovely software. Those specs will probably keep me current for a day or two, then I can go back to being "a bit behind" for several more years. Rock on FrankenPC mark 2.

Fight. Behind the bike-sheds. Bring evidence.

2006-01-27T17:18:00.000Z

The Intelligent Designers have a message….

They would very much like us all to stop researching now, stop, stop everyone! Put your pipettes down, sorry, you over there...put it down! You can’t keep finding things out, it’s not fair! We've found the answer! We didn't know it before, but it's ok now, we've remembered what it is. How silly of us. Phew, things were getting a little complex there for a moment, a little too difficult to explain. We were wondering if there was an easier option, and then it came to us. It was ~~God~~ the Designer, all along. Sorry to waste your time folks. You biologists can all just become accountants now. Go on, and don’t forget to burn your lab coats on the way out!

I've spent all day in discussion with colleagues following last night's Horizon: A War on Science. Whilst we were not unaware of the situation, it occurs to us that the insidious nature of Intelligent Design and its purported, yet fallacious, scientific-basis is more of a danger than the outlandishly ridiculous yapping terriers of ignorance (a nice Dawkinism) that are the Creationism proponents.

Intelligent Design of course, pitches itself very much over the head of the layman, spurting scientific evidence in support of the same old religious rhetoric favoured by its more bucolic cousin. It preys, nay relies, on the uninformed nature of its target audience, and as such further robs them of an informed choice, from both a theistic and scientific standpoint. What on Earth are people supposed to think when confronted with the topic? The trouble is people believe what they can understand. They will always be incredulous when faced with something clearly over their heads. It is inevitable what choice average Joe is going to make, especially given the undeserved degradation of the public trust in science and scientists through media demonisation, sensationalism and our apparent poor attitude and dress sense.

We, those literate in science, have a duty to convey the rational science to anyone who wants to know, whilst at the same time describing the duplicitous tactics, dubious facts and intellectual dishonesty employed by fundamentalists; whether they’re hiding behind an out-dated science text book, or well worn leather bound copy of the Old Testament. The aim of course to teach science and not engage in artificial debates and controversies where there are none. Like Dawkins said “When people say that Intelligent Design is getting a hold of the scientific community and the intelligentsia, they are incorrect. It is not getting a hold of the scientific community; it is only getting a hold in the community who don’t know anything.” Time is a precious commodity that scientists have in little supply, so don't waste too much breath. Btw, those scientists out there might enjoy reading this rational rebuttal of irreducible complexity.

I’ll probably have plenty more to say in days to come, but I’m not about to turn this blog into a) a creationist debunking site, there are plenty of worthy sites out there, nor b) a site to explain evolution beyond the context of my own experiments.

On a more important note.... ;-)

I discovered, on The Putmy Papers blog, a reference to a most excellent Zen-like method of folding T-shirts, a perennial annoyance of mine. This appeals to me on so many levels I can't even mention...and it works! I'm so anal, I've tried and testing it already.

Dailymotion blogged video

Meme: Four Play

2006-01-25T16:57:00.000Z

I was tagged by Ms Biology Geek; so given that my experiments are (ostensibly) working today, I've taken some time out to scoff my elegant pasta lunch and write some prattle about myself:

Four jobs you've had in your life:

Process Operator. Once, being an impoverished student at the time, I took a summer job as a “processor operator” (i.e. conveyor belt monkey) in a brake pad factory. Shift-work, night shifts, stupidly good pay, absolute, mind-numbing, hell on earth. The only instruction I received was “how to keep your work-station tidy”, and I was duly taught (with no sense of irony) how to move a broom back and forth, and how to blow (yes, they attempted to teach me how to blow) the dust off the brake pads. Spending time with a group of blokes who have spent the last 14 years happily packing brake pads for 12 hours a day isn’t right up there with my most enjoyable moments. Reading was forbidden (probably because none of them could) and it was too noisy to play music or talk, so I worked like a bastard to occupy myself; I then got a dressing down for doing too much work and making the old timers look bad. They were all replaced by machines the following year. I started term debt free, ready to run up some more!
Ditto. Masochist that I am, I did it again, this time in a beverage can factory. It was all state of the art machines, having replaced grumbling lazy workers several years earlier, and students were drafted to quality control 2 million can ends (the bit you drink through) because the QC cameras had botched up. Much more enjoyable work and good pay, but still long shifts and surrounded by luddites.

Postgraduate Teaching Assistant. Yes, yes, but it was a little more than demonstrating. For the 4 years that I did it, I was presented with a bench of 25 wet-behind-the-ear 1st years, and 20 damp-behind-the-ears 2nd years for whom introducing the experiments and theory, demonstrating the experiment, cajoling them to do the experiment, mentoring, marking, providing feedback and writing references was the order of the day. The modules were core Practical Biochemistry, core Microbiology and the same again, but “for Medics”. Kept me on my toes and it’s always fun dressing down cocky, arrogant medics.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Having successfully co-written, and won, a three-year research position, I entered the mad world in which I currently reside. When I’m not desperately trying to tick all the boxes in my hugely ambitious grant application plans, I’m designing and supervising final year undergraduate projects, mentoring Wellcome rotation PhD students and various other visiting researchers, and writing the odd paper. Oh, and starting to look for what on Earth I’m going to do next.

Four movies you could watch over and over:

Amélie (2001)

Real Genius (1985)

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

Wall Street (1987)

I know, I’m a sucker for 80s movies. If I stumble across one, I can’t help myself. I would of course put Lord of the Rings as a favourite one to watch over and over, but who on Earth has time for that!?

Four places you've lived:

Cumbria (where I’m from, my most favourite place in this wide world)

Snowdonia (where I studied for one of my degrees and met the missus. A fan-bloody-tastic place to live with mountains cascading into the sea, beach parties, woodlands, history, and no clubbing infrastructure, so we benefited from making it up as we went along).

Somewhere urban. a drastic change to anywhere else I’d lived. Took years to accumulate and am still working on it. Just a country boy.

Somewhere slightly less urban. In my (our) very own place at last! Mortgaged to the hilt, but enjoying the greater distance from the big smoke where I work, and easy access back home to Lakes/Snowdonia.

Four TV shows you love to watch:

Stargate SG1/Atlantis (Geek, yes, I know, I have no defence)
Threshold (…again, no defence)
ER (who couldn’t like this, I defy you!)
Desperate Housewives (Mmmmm, lol)

Four places you've been on holiday:

Canada, ON. Kayaking in Algonquin.
Pittsburgh, PA. Yes, a little off the beaten track, but very enjoyable. Would recommend Hemingway’s for a drink in Oakland and a Primanti Brothers sandwich, if you’re mad.
France. Take you’re pick, I’ve been practically everywhere. Love it to bits, it is the foody mecca.
Kerkyra (Corfu). First found out where all the Brits go (Kavos, the south of the island), then booked accommodation right up on the other end of the island, just a few hundred metres from where Lawrence Durrell wrote Prospero’s Cell. Fantastic island, fantastic people. Speaking more than a little Greek makes all the difference, as does going on holiday with your Greek mate.

Four Websites you visit daily:

news.bbc.co.uk
PubMed (I know, I know, but it's what I do!)
Lakeland Cam (for my daily dose of the Lakes)
BioTechniques Molecular Biology Techniques Forums (formerly of NWFSC)

Four of your favourite foods:

Spanakopita (Greek: spinach and feta pie made with filo)
Full roast dinner (chicken or beef).
Curry! (Not just any old slop. Only the finest, and most unpronounceable, Indian cuisine)
Cumberland sausage. Well it’s rude not to.

Four places you'd rather be:

South Island, New Zealand
Highlands and Islands of Scotland
In a Lavender field in Provence
Kyoto, Japan

Four Play (tag):

Ubiquitous (come on, have a break from that thesis writing!)
Mad Dog (probably not your bag, but if you find time between grant writing and watching the rally?)
Mostly Harmless (though I'm aware she's hiding in the uttermost north of Scotland at the moment)
Evil Science Chick (...but don't blame me if the cookies burn whilst you're thinking about it ;-)

Driving me Miss Daisy!

2006-01-24T17:30:00.000Z

Sod it!

Damn cells, I didn't want you to grow at the same rate as each other anyway. See if I care!?

Stupid, brainless bags of chemicals that you are!

.....as for you "pretty gel", why so elusive? Why now, just when I need you!?

You're all bastards and I only have one thing to say to you....

VIRKON!

Rocks and hard places...

2006-01-23T15:15:00.000Z

So it seems that some silly British diplomats are between a rock and a hard place. Evidently the culmination of the Cold War is no excuse not to play spy games.

…but honestly, a rock!? You can fit a microwave transceiver inside a Gnat’s arse and they go and use a bloody great rock. Perhaps the Russian authorities are somewhat incensed at the assertion their streets are so crumbling that a rock on a pavement wouldn’t be missed? I guess it’s tantamount to putting a spy cam in a Coke can and leaving it on Downing Street.

1st Moveaversary...

2006-01-22T21:43:00.000Z

We completed and moved into our own house 1 year ago this weekend, though to be fair, it took us pretty much the whole week to move in.

So in a haze of housey-pride, we'll have a little regurgitation of two old posts, M'lane (Snowed under last February - looking forward to more in a month - not!) and m'pad.

Right, back to my stack of meant-to-read-last-week papers.

Any other Sunday...

2006-01-22T12:05:00.000Z

I've just finished reading "King Fu High School" by Ryan Gattis. I only picked it up on Friday night and have found myself glued to it ever since. It is a compelling read in so far as the explicit violence kind of draws you in, much in the same way a car wreck does. It's the same ilk of inner city genre as Dangerous Minds, but this is Dangerous Minds on crystal meth, with no opportunity for redemption and no saintly teacher trying to make everything right. Complete carnage with a bitter message. Scary. Anyway, I recommend it as something a little different to read.

The Independent review pretty much sums it up:

"Whether or not you read Kung Fu High School will probably depend upon whether or not you have the stomach for blood and gore. If you can't even cope with Casualty, then you'll never pick this book up. It's so tense that at times you have absolutely no idea what has just happened in the real world because you're in The Fu, entirely. You feel every blow, every break. And what a climax: it lasts from page 177 to page 248. Epic. I want to tell you all about it so that I can discuss with you how wonderful, tragic and ultimately cathartic it was... but I won't. You'll just have to keep a strong stomach and see for yourself."

Wild Health:

I've now moved on to a (non-fiction) book called "Wild Health: How Animals Keep Themselves Well and What We Can Learn from Them" by Cindy Engel. It is a collection of anecdotes regarding the self-medication or behavioural responses of various animals to illness, infestation or poisoning (called zoopharmacognosy). A very interesting read.

Some of the blurb:

Desert tortoises will travel miles to mine and eat the calcium needed to keep their shells strong.
Monkeys, bears, coatis, and other animals rub citrus oils and pungent resins into their coats as insecticides and antiseptics against insect bites.
Chimpanzees swallow hairy leaves folded in a certain way to purge their digestive tracts of parasites.
Birds line their nests with plants that protect their chicks from blood-draining mites and lice.

For a full review, see the London Review of Books (one of my preferred sources for new and interesting books). I haven't seen it in my usual Waterstones or Borders, though you can get it on amazon.com (and amazon.co.uk). I have it on loan from the university library.

Navigation – easy, Timing – always a problem

2006-01-20T17:05:00.000Z

In my eagerness to get started with the Duke of Edinburgh award group at which I’m instructing, I duly arrived 15 mins prior to the kick off at 7 pm last night. I hadn’t rushed from work or anything, but I had driven straight there, to the village on the other side of town.

I sat there for 30 mins waiting for the rest of the team to turn up. Wind howled through the trees and rain sloshed down on the eerily deserted road.

Then I remembered. It starts next week. Pfft.

Fretting complete...

2006-01-17T23:05:00.000Z

Given my current disposition, being two glasses of vin rouge to the right of having had enough, I shall keep this short and sweet.

My missing phone number has at last manifested itself, in no small part due to an uncharacteristic bout of stroppiness down the phone to O2. Once again, playing Dr nicey, nicey paid no dues and it's sad that I had to get arsey. Anyway, after over a week's wait I am contactable again.

Anyway, that's quite enough for this evening, epic tome that I've written this evening, it's quite rude to leave an opened bottle of good wine air for too long.

The virus of Faith...

2006-01-17T14:47:00.000Z

You’ve got to hand it to the man; Professor Richard Dawkins is certainly not one to pull his punches. The second part of his two-part, polemic, wax lyrical called The Root of All Evil, was aired last night. Entitled “The Virus of Faith”, he takes his usual bulldozer methodology straight into the world of the religious right.

What a fantastic programme though! I felt thoroughly enlivened by it, much as I do after a good boxing match. Not because it presented anything that I am not already aware of, but because I love it when someone such as Richard Dawkins gets to make his argument without the incipient threat of violence always encountered when such views are aired in public debates. It’s always nice to have someone finish a sentence without the threat of being blown up, beaten up or vilified by a right-wing ranting lunatic.

Whilst the brazen way Richard Dawkins approaches his anti-theism is a little cringeful at times (akin to shaking a red rag at a bull), it’s jolly good fun to watch the religious tirade that follows. Sure, perhaps he is a little prejudiced, but that doesn’t mean to say he’s wrong; after all, he’s a scientist and argues from a point of logic. It’s not like he’s making shit up. If religion is so transparently inadequate, then they have themselves to blame. On the other hand, the institutionalised prejudice of religion is based solely on the rhetoric of an outdated, long gone society of men. They have everything to gain by making shit up, so they do. Whatever it takes. So his documentary describes how "faith" is a software virus that infects people and can be passed person to person within society and within families.

Points raised by the programme were that of biblical morality, which if one is going to be literal about it, is reprehensible by modern standards, or “poisonous” as Dawkins puts it. Another was that there is no point arguing with Bible-bashers indoctrinated from their earliest years, as I guess this would be comparable to telling a native English speaker that the words they were speaking are not in fact English.

...more follows (for those of you who aren't religiously sensitive)

Clearly the context of the Bible is wholly out of date, and those living their lives by a literal interpretation will invariably be, through their actions, pariahs. How anyone can choose to live in a modern society by embracing rules written by a very select group so long ago, which have themselves been subject to translation, politicisation and reinterpretation, is forever beyond me. If you’re going to follow such strict rulings, you could at least read the transcripts in the original Aramaic/Hebrew, but even then you’ll miss the context, as these languages make up for their lack of vocabulary, relative to modern languages, by use of context. It would also help if half of the New Testament wasn’t written by idealists who not only didn’t know this Jesus chap, but were living several hundred years after him.

It’s not hard to see why people believe such things though. As Dawkins describes, it is merely indoctrination, or brainwashing to put it bluntly. No-one passes comment when a child writes a letter for Santa Claus, being a permissible indoctrination. Of course, it is socially unacceptable for an adult to do such a thing, and this is likely to be the only reason why children grow out of it. The fact that religion is accepted in modern society means that the same doesn’t occur with hardliner religious doctrines.

Science is seen as the enemy, perhaps even another faith or religion in a contest with the fundamentalists. However, the scientific method, per se, has no agenda, no political message, and no bias; this largely depends on who is employing it and who the end user is, but this isn’t “science’s” decision. The scientific method is simply an evaluation of the best evidence collected date, in order to describe a particular problem or phenomena. It is ever progressive, building on the work of others, layer upon layer, hypotheses confirmed, refined, and made richer in detail. This is something that organised religion can never be. It has a message, a doctrine, and despite what developments and investigations they undertake, they will always already have the answers and their research must always end up with these answers.

The religious right are still happy to pick and choose which scientific theory they’re going to “believe”, which I think is hypocrasy. They can’t say that the scientific method, as employed to explain human development, the world around us or anything that flies in the face of their preferred religious doctrine, is wrong. Why? Because you can’t live your life in the comfort of what scientific discovery has provided you and look down your nose at it. I only wish they'd consider this as they sit at their computers, let the TV wash over them, pop their medications, drive their cars, talk on their mobiles, put on their spectacles, have the energy to keep warm, live in a house constructed of materials all provided off the back of the scientific method.

What annoys me most is when fundamentalists say, in retort to your evidence based description of some phenomenon, “Well that’s what you believe”, as if belief comes into it! I no more believe it than I believe the air I’m breathing contains oxygen, or that it’s gravity keeping me on the ground. It’s about knowledge. I believe nothing; I don’t have to because belief is an aspect of faith, which in itself is merely trust in something; and can be independent of logic. I don’t require faith, because I don’t have to trust that a fact is true or false; I don’t have to live my life by a doctrine that flies in the face of logic and common sensibility.

"Physicist and Nobel prizewinner Stephen Weinberg describes religion as an insult to human dignity. 'Without it,' he says, 'you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.' Dawkins agrees. It is more moral, he says, to do good for its own sake than out of fear. Morality, he says, is older than religion, and kindness and generosity are innate in human beings, as they are in other social animals. The irony is that science recognises the majesty and complexity of the universe while religions lead to easy, closed answers."

If we atheists are to be damned to spend eternity shaving Satan’s back side, then why are religious zealots so intent on sending us on our way to him by whatever means necessary? Surely they’re merely doing his bidding, beating him to the kill as it were? So whose servants are they, God’s or Satan’s? I’m sure it’s nothing they ever stop to think about. Then again, why should they have to, they have faith and such a thing precludes any such thought on the matter.

State of Arrogance...

2006-01-14T21:37:00.000Z

A number of people, including family and friends, have wanted to get my opinion on one of Michael Crichton’s recent books “State of Fear. Unfortunately, I never seemed to get round to buying it, so “Santa” left it for me over the holidays.

I’m very fond of Michael Crichton’s work. He writes thoroughly excellent contemporary science fiction. Having a background in medicine and research, he is very good at detailing “prior art” theories and technologies as well those state of the art and concept model technologies. As any good contemporary science fiction writer does, he re-packages them as working tools used by his protagonists, all making for a jolly good read.

However, he doesn’t usually include an author’s note at the end of his books presenting his own views on the central topic of the novel. In State of Fear, he does just this, but worryingly it merely confirmed my suspicion that through the mysterious character of Kenner, he was very much writing himself into this novel. My worry is that given his background, readers may be hoodwinked into believing that he, as the intelligent “everyman”, has in fact done the hard job of sifting through the environmentalist and political rhetoric on the topic and presents the real answer to whether we should be worried about global warming. It is worrying because the way he has presented his “for” and “against” arguments, in the context of the novel, could well be likened to the way that “intelligent design” and “creationist” promoters approach the debasement of evolutionary biology, i.e. non contextual paraphrasing, scientific literature mis-management and intellectual dishonesty, not that I believe Michael Crichton demonstrated dishonesty per se.

You see, it is so hard to present all the necessary information on a subject in order that people can make an informed decision. Michael Crichton may believe that he is doing us this favour, but any of us familiar with the scientific literature knows that citing one paper, from what would invariably be a chain of to-and-fro’ comments, arguments, retractions, letters and addendums means that we lose the context of any given argument and statement thereof. In addition, whilst using references and precedents is pretty much the central dogma of the scientific method, anyone citing a single reference as the be all and end all of a particular “fact” (such as our friend "Kenner", on occassion), even if it’s in the lofty annals of Science or Nature, is potentially setting themselves up for a fall.

In fact, all we can really do is have trust in the collated opinions of a number of people who have been immersed in the subject for some considerable time, who are aware of the foibles and subtleties; too many a conspiracy theory has been dreamt up by “dabbling” outside of one’s specialism. Now there’s nothing wrong with this, but Crichton is a big guy, with a big readership. He therefore has the greater responsibility in such matters. I’m known for being a bit too much of a skeptic, so I certainly can’t say that I’ve made my own mind up on the global warming scenario. I also happen to agree that government policy is shockingly mis-directed and ineffectual when trying to tackle any new aspect of perceived climate change. So whilst I enjoyed having a skim through some of the references he cited, I'm not yet swayed by his argument. I would agree with one thing though; there seems to be a tendency in some of the climate science literature, for ambiguity and vagueness when it comes to their conclusions, almost making it seem as if the mysterious arm of their benefactor is guiding them. Perhaps they just don't want to commit themselves to the point that their papers are essentially trying to make, for they can be only too aware that it may come back to bite them. Then again, if we all worried about this then nothing would ever be written! Hmm.

If we take the novel as a work of contemporary fiction, which it is, then it is great stuff and it presents some of the real issues and controversies surrounding climate science, the difficulties, the politics and the extremists. If it serves to highlight some of the finer intricacies of this highly complex and contentious subject found between scientists, politicians and environmentalists, then it may do its job. As for the validity of his arguments in a real sense, at least have a look at the opinion of one expert reader at the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

I just can’t help feeling that Michael Crichton’s bullet-point comments in the appendix are, well, what’s the word I’m looking for? Glib. I guess I’m not the only one to think so. As for his personal “back of envelope” calculation of his predicted mean rise in global temperature, well, what can I say? A little arrogant perhaps? To quote the Guardian review: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Crichton, and the Word was Crichton”. I guess that’s what annoyed me about the appendix, not the novel as such, I can take that at face value, it’s just the arrogance of the appendix that rattled me a bit.

It also amused me that his last comment was “Everyone has an agenda. Except me”. I hope this was humour on his part, because it seems that spending three years researching this area, and writing a novel as a medium to present those views, strikes me as somewhat of an agenda. He’s an intelligent guy, so I will give him the benefit of the doubt and guess he’s playing games with some of those comments.

p.s. What has also been in my mind as I write this are the many arguments between evolutionary scientists. Zealots and conservative extremist groups love to jump on this and use it as fodder for their own ends, stating that these debates are evidence of the insecurity of the underlying theory of evolution. Of course, what the evolutionary biologists are arguing about is not that evolution actually occurs, which they all agree on, but merely some of the finer points of how and why it occurs. It strikes me that similar debates undoubtedly abound in the climate science world.

What a (crap) week!

2006-01-14T13:04:00.000Z

This week has been very trying, and for once it isn't really because of work. Yes, work is (as ever) a lonely place to be at the moment. The lab cycles from being full to the brim with researchers, visiting researchers, project students, PhD programme interns, but invariably they all leave or move on to other labs leaving little old me behind. Alone again. I hate to think of exactly how much time I spend on my tod in this lab!

Digression #1
I love working as part of a team and have a throughly excellent time whenever I go away on courses and meet new people. I'm also the one who ends up keeping all the new friends in contact after such meetings - generally because I now have no remaining local friends. How sad. Late 20s and no mates to go for a pint with! This is the trouble with "contract friends", as I've mentioned before, this is the nature of our work; people move on. I have plenty of friends on a "worldwide" basis, but unless I'm willing to fly to Atlanta, Sydney, Athens, Tokyo, Ghent (! ;-) or Edmonton I'm stuck. Likewise, I have UK based friends, but only one who lives within 100 miles of here!

So you see, this feeling of being stranded has been pressing in on me recently. I ask myself, do I really want to go and initiate new friendships with other postdocs/grad students, just to have more "long distance" friends in the mean time? Anyway, most of the research groups around me are quite large and form very strong cliques - thus there's no way of introducing oneself without 10-12 people forming the classic "no-intrusion wall". I also hate being one of the relatively few people in the gym that doesn't have a gym buddy. This is of course due to the afore mentioned lack of local friends, but also due to the appalling lifestyle of my work colleagues, who would quite literally melt if they came near a "health place". They all know me in there, the same old faces, but the "rules of Englishness" forbid me from approaching them to talk, and vice versa; that's why so many of us will silently shake our heads at the prat clearly lifting too much, their backs buckling under the pressure, because of the same rule. So strange. Probably wouldn't happen Stateside.

Digression #2
On a little side note, I should point out that I had to laugh at this "detox doesn't work" business that came out after Christmas. Apparently a number of scientists claimed that all you need was water, some sleep and some exercise to get over the Christmas excesses, rather than diet pills, detox tablets etc. Of course, they're absolutely right! However, it got me to thinking that of the hundreds of scientists I see every day, literally only two or three of them are actually fit and healthy. They're all toxically overweight, and by that I mean they have the kind of fat associated with complete inactivity and poor diet, they're pale, have bad hair, have appalling posture and invariably have very poor dress sense - so I always find it funny that scientists - and I know it's a different sect of scientists to the geneticists, biochemists and biophysicists that surround me - have anything to say on the matter of "keeping fit".

Back to Digression #1
I thought I could make some friends volunteering, another of the reasons I embarked on that mission. Unfortunately, these people may as well be from Mars for all that I have in common with them. Yeah, sure they're good people at heart, but they're from such different worlds - socially, economically, politically and culturally. I'll just have to see how things go.

Back to the point (well, almost)
Anyway, this week. Experiments were going ok, if a little slowly. They're for my Molecular Microbiology paper, which was accepted but was felt that it would have even more impact if I made one set of experiments more rigorous. I anticipated this, which is why I'd initiated all the preparatory cloning immediately upon submitting the manuscript. Of course, just to make life difficult, one of the four strains I've prepared has decided to "bug out" and I'll have to go back and fix it. There's no point moving on with the other three, which I'll have to keep ticking over, as the end products all need to be assessed side-by-side. grr.

At last
No, so to get back to my main point, this week has been crap because of other people. Firstly the porting of my mobile number from Orange (boo) to O₂ (yay), which went ok at the Orange end, but O₂ seem to have "lost" the number somewhere (boo!), so now they're trying to trace it - won't know until Monday!

I also ordered a mobile phone case last Friday, which wasn't dispatched until Wednesday and there's still no sign of it! I've never had to wait, what will effectively be, 10 days for anything ordered online! They also don't reply to mails or answer phones. Bloody wasters. So if you're thinking of buying anything from www.time2talk.co.uk, I wouldn't bother.

I've been trying to get in contact with this bloody chimney flue materials company all week, but it seems they're not interested in the shit load of money they could have from us because despite having quite an advanced website, they seem incapable of answering their mails or picking up their phone.

So this brings me on to my final point of the day: If someone, or a company, has a serious website, it gives the impression of internet savviness, which means one might reasonably expect them to respond to emails. However, I'm beginning to suspect that such sites are invariably run by 50-something year old working class enterpreneurs, probably from Yorkshire, who get their young whipper-snapper son or daughters to whip them up one of these "new fangled t'internet sites", then fail to actually use any of the business it brings them.

So I'm done with being ignored, the bastards.

Two blogs in as many days...!

2006-01-09T17:15:00.000Z

I know. I must be bored. Or have a lot to say? Probably the former.

Firstly, can I just say that I'm thoroughly enjoying the London Underground Song that is doing the rounds on the interweb these past few weeks. I heard it as a ringtone over Christmas and someone finally gave it to me at the weekend. The easiest way to hear it is to check out this new Flash version of it here. Though, as the creator of said Flash animation says, it contains many a dangdoodle cussword.

Other news: in a startling outpouring of humility, the ever arrogant (but aimiable - in my opinion) Clarkson admits he is sometimes wrong, but not about the 1000 bhp Bugatti Veyron. I'm inclined to agree.

I received an email today, well, actually it was another example of the "official spam" we are inundated with at the university. Anyway, this time it was to give us the times of the new Research Institute Director's Weekly Surgery. Surgery!? Please, what do we think this is, a parliamentary constituency?

Mobile woes, and joys, and woes again. As many people who know me personally will testify to, I've been a bit of a bore recently. Why? Well I've been moaning about my slowly dying mobile phone and terribly outdated contract (with Orange). Being thoroughly ripped off, but none the less taking it on the chin (all be it without realising) for some years now, I decided I would see if they'd cut me a better deal. I did my research, read all the literature about "customer retentions departments" and the things they'll do to keep your custom and came up with a wholly reasonable deal, including a phone upgrade.

I duly called said department, eagerly awaiting the cornucopia of offers to come flying my way. All I got was an "...errr. ok" on the other end. "Er, ok what?" I asked. "I'm sorry, we can't do that for you?" Feeling a little hurt (and stamped on) at this point, I pulled out the bigs guns, "Well can I have my PAC code?" (this being mobile speak for: I'm really am going to leave you and I'm taking my mobile number with me. Biatch). To whit the usual response, according to many a forum, is prostration, begging for forgiveness and offers galore of any phone and a million free minutes a month for £1. Ahem, excuse the hyperbole.

Anyway, do you know what the call centre monkey did? Well, she gave me exactly what I asked for, my PAC number. I couldn't really complain, as I did ask for it. I guess I was too subtle? Anyway, then they asked which network I'd be switching to. I gruffly, if a little tearfully, told them "I'm going back to O₂". "Is there anything else I can help you with today?". "No, thanks, bye". Damn my polite "Englishness". Of course, I'd thought of an excellent retort some hours later. Typical.

Anyway, I floated around in limbo all Christmas, oggling the lovely Sony Ericsson K750i. I now have it. What a great phone. I'm still waiting for O₂ to port my number. I've called them several times and they've given me no estimate yet. I'll cry next time and see how they take that.

(P.S. I should add that within seconds of posting this blog, I received a text message stating that my number will be ported on the 12th. The power of blogdom!)

(P.P.S. Well it's the 13th and my phone number still hasn't ported, though it no longer works, so that's a change at least!? I will sit here and enjoy the further reduced contactability, as if I wan't cut off enough! Boo, Hiss!)

Aga do...

2006-01-08T18:05:00.000Z

Apologies for the shameless pun of the ever-hated Blacklace song.

...however, yesterday we had ourselfs (at long last) a visit from a real life chim-chiminy sweep, and what a character he was; a real "Bert" (i.e. Dick van Dyke), though of the Yorkshire persuasion.

He gave our Rayburn a full service, told us it was a little gem of a stove and we've had it on all day today. Wickedly hot!

However, Bert - for his name really was Robert! - also answered one of the continuing sagas we have in this house. Our sitting room is very cold. I've long suspected that this is due to the open chimney flue that basically sucks 8 room volumes of radiator-warm air out every hour and causes a horrible draught from down the open staircase. However, point in fact, if you have a self-contained cast-iron stove in your inglenook fireplace, then the primary flue should apparently be joined to (and sealed around) the secondary stove flue so that all the draught pulled by the chimney is pulled through the draught slot in your stove, underneath your burning fire! Doh. No wonder I could never get my anthrocite to burn!

He told us that what we effectively have in our sitting room, is a rather decorative barbeque! Needless to say, with the prospect of blast-furnace fire and no heat loss beckoning, we're wasting no time in having all the necessary works done to deal with our wayward draught....at some expense I might add!

Anyway, after all this affair, I took off on Saturday to spend the day with a mate in Manchester. We (my mate and I) then found outselves in a local pub, drinking John Smiths, and looking after two 12 year old lad and a 5 year old whilst their father, a nice chap and neighbour of my mate's, was off playing piano all afternoon in an classy exotic dancing place in Manc. It was good though. I kept the lads suitaby enthralled with my catalogue of horrible and disgusting scientific and medical trivia, which was probably a bit of a shock to them as at that age they're thoroughly convinced that they know everything and we adults are idiots!

In return, the father cooked us all a lovely meal, which always goes down well!

Right, off to eat fire cooked meal, hehehe.

...Ahem, yes, well...Happy New Year!

2006-01-06T16:32:00.000Z

Yes, yes, I'm still alive. I did make it through the festivities and I'm afraid the only pathetic excuse I could come up with is that I've been busy toiling in the lab. I know, pathetic!

My blogs have also been scuppered by the temporary loss of my "little black book", thus sitting here, as I am, I am completely unable to recall any of the little snippets of topical, yet ultimately pointless, anecdotes/observations/rants (delete as appropriate) of the past week.

Thus, in the absence of anything of great import to prattle on about...hang on! I was about to say something along the lines of how we blog because otherwise we'd forget the chaff that comes betwen the highs and lows that we remember. Then, on a whim I checked what I wrote this time last year (and I should point out that I made my first blog of 2005 on the 7th, so I'm improving on that record) and realised I'd said exactly the same damn thing! How truely sad and repetitive am I!?

So I won't say it again, but needless to say this blog counts as some of the chaff best forgotten. Seeing as I haven't forgotten my Blogger password over the Christmas period, I guess I should make a stab at keeping a little more current over the next year.

Merry Christmas

2005-12-25T12:01:00.000Z

I am enjoying christmas this year. Perhaps it is because the stress of study is ever further behind me and I am still secure in the middle of a work contract, which is continuing to be productive - give or take the odd wasted week!

Whilst the family seems to be a little flaky at organising get togethers, I'm just enjoying that fact that my childhood home is looking fantastic following the chaos of the floods in January 2005. The week of holiday is still ahead and I will be meeting old friends, hitting the fells and generally eating too much.....and sparing not a thought for the world of science (well, my science at least). The weather has been good too - though I'm slightly pissed off as I sit here staring at the blue sky when the Mountain Weather Information Service told me it was going to be snowy and strong winds - which is why I'm not out on the fells with my lady and Sister today. I see now they were lying, so will have to have words ;-)

Talking of which, this is a rather amusing photo of me, Sis and the Old Man on an early outing. You might be forgiven for thinking that we're screaming at the prospect of another long walk, but if memory serves, it is likely that my Old Man has just put his freezing cold hands up our backs!

I'm stuck in smog of nostalgia at the moment, the evening spent scanning old pictures for posterity, so I'm going to inflcit two further pictures on you. You will, I'm afraid, just have to indulge me for the moment!

That's me in the middle, with the Old Man, and Sis on the left. On the right is an old friend.

Woods in Winter near Edinburgh.

Good friends...

2005-12-21T15:57:00.000Z

Old friends
I've just had a visit from an old friend these past couple of days, all too brief, but worthwhile; hence my absence. In fact, I'm in danger of becoming a Wednesday poster.

My mate Giorgos, who just under a year ago embarked on his enforced National Service in the Greek Air Force, came over for a flying visit (no pun intended) now that he's (almost) a free man. His visit reminds me of how important friends are and how, in the nature of my work, such friendships are often bound by the length of whatever contract period people are working, which is a great shame. Whilst I like to think I get on very well with any new people I meet, I sadly rarely get the opportunity. I sit alone, quite literally in my ivory tower, and while away my days doing experiments - ahem, baking bread (see analogy) - and singing along to myself.

It is perhaps for the better that noone else is around, lest I assault them with a low octave!
(Though I assure you, I can carry a tune)

On Darwin

A short note, without getting sucked into one of my politico-ecumenical rants, to say "Yay" and "Go Judge Jones". Avoiding any other keywords that might attract freaks to my blog, see here.

The day today...

2005-12-14T12:53:00.000Z

On the Nativity…
It’s that time of year again, and my mind is cast back to my youth, the days before my “enlightenment” from indoctrinated, organised religion, where I took it at face value that I wasn’t being ~~brainwashed~~ lied to. I do however have fond memories of Christmas time at primary school, particularly the run up to the Nativity.

Nativity plays are being performed in primary schools across the country (at least those who aren’t subsumed with political correctness). Of course, most of the nativities I hear about on the radio tend to digress somewhat from the actual subject matter, fearing the taboo of taking things too seriously. It seems there is a role for every child these days, from playing trees, piles of hay, a frog, a lollipop man (don’t ask), or a variety of barnyard animals.

In my day, where the nativity was very much of the traditional ilk, you had a Narrator, an Angel, Mary and Joseph (with a doll), three shepherds, three kings/wisemen/magi (depending on the teacher) and an innkeeper. Eleven roles, heavy sought after by all the children in the school, though only two roles for the girls and the rest for the boys. The girls however formed the bulk of the choir who would be singing in the background.

(That's me on the far right - just where the photo creased!)

I played Balthasar, the third wiseman bearing the gift of Myrrh. I still remember the too-long musty smelling robes I wore, the gold-faced cardboard crown and the box I carried, carefully wrapped in iridescent red wrapping paper. All, I assumed, completely authentic. Of course, being painfully shy and nervous as I was, I managed to chew the beautifully prepared (yet empty) box as I walked the length of the school hall to the stage. By the time I presented the gift to “Mary”, it had lost much of its lustre and was nought but a rather soggy mess missing several corners.

Fond memories.

Buncefield Petrol Depot…
It seems they have this rather audacious fire, hailed as the largest in the UK’s peacetime history, under control now. I found this picture of the plume on the BBC website:

It’s a great picture, but highly disturbing.

The difficulty of volunteering

2005-12-07T11:47:00.000Z

This year is apparently Year of the Volunteer, not that this has roused me into action, I've just been waiting for the right thing to come along. So following my Mountain Leader training, it seemed only natural that I gain more experience by volunteering with the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme as an Instructor. I have and I am, starting after Christmas.

I get practice organising a training program for them, teaching it, devising practical activities that test their skills, but are sufficiently interesting for 14-16 year olds. Then I get more leadership experience with them out on their practice walks on weekends come Spring. The local authority also subsidise or pay for extra training in various other skills and my mountain first aid certificate that I have to have before Mountain Leadership assessment. Plus it gets the legally required CRB (criminal records bureau) check out of the way, and paid for, which will be useful.

The people at the local DofE seem pleasant, though they live in quite a different world to me. I'm not sure they appreciate how busy I am and that I'm not satisfied to just "wing it", so I'm trying to get all the information out of them that I require to sort this training out before I actually have to do it. The last thing I want is to do all this planning in one go the week before I'm due to deliver, when I have a day job to do! They work at their own pace though, and the other volunteers have rather sporadic employment, so have more time than me. It's like getting blood from a stone, so I guess I will either cajole them into keeping up with me, or I'll grind down to their pace.

In a bid to both improve my skills and provide a further service, I have joined my local Mountain Rescue Team, intially as a trainee member after Christmas. Their catchment is the northern Peak District, which is but a few miles away and whilst not as demanding as the Lakes, Snowdonia or especially Scotland, it is none the less extra training midweek and on occassional weekends. Plus I'll get training in assisting police search and rescues and RAF airlift operations.

Hopefully I can juggle all these things into appropriate time slots during the week/ends. Just to throw a spanner in the works I've taken on a client for a flash-based website design. Seeing as I have the software and the knack, I figured it'd be a waste to not put it to use - plus the money would come in useful too. I'll use this as a test case to see how time consuming developing de novo websites is (as if I don't know - but simplicity is my new mantra) compared with modifying my currently designed templates....though I don't look froward to the hassle of getting all web browser compliancy, what a headache!

Here we go again....

2005-12-05T13:29:00.000Z

So what did I spend my morning doing?

Was it science?

Unless it was the science of how to gain entry to the garage you have just locked yourself out of, then yes, science.

I park my car in a rented garage adjacent to the university. In my rush to make my lab meeting I flew out of my garage, shut the door and locked my super-heavyweight-no-bugger's-getting-through-this-hardened-steel padlock into place. Then remembered that my key bunch was in the boot of my car. Arse!

Two failed attempts with different sizes of bolt cutter and a hacksaw later I gave up and begged the school mechanic workshop to help. Unfortunately, the angle grinder I required needed a power source and there wasn't one near the garage. They supplied me with a wrench, a carbide tipped saw and some simple instructions (along the lines of put saw on padlock and move back and forth slowly - thanks for that guys) and told to go forth and multiply.

After about an hour, thankful for my gym sessions, I'd gotten 2/3rds of the way through. Only then did Security pull up and ask what I was doing. After proving my identity, they then pulled out the largest bolt cutters I'd ever seen, which weighed a ton, and together we managed to cut through the last little bit. Yay!

In that time, of the many tens of people who had walked past me trying to break into a locked garage, only one guy stopped to ask what I was doing. Well done that chap! A true citizen.

Anyway, I guess I better go do some science now. I've finished an experiment to determine the angle that my protein bends DNA on binding, but the experiment was the easy bit. Determining the angle is a little more difficult because the mathematic methodology described in the two papers I'm using may as well be written in Urdu for all the sense it makes. Grrr.

Tale of woe...

2005-11-28T14:56:00.000Z

Perhaps it was when I was unable to resuspend some carefully prepared and deeply frozen bacterial cells that I should have taken note of the direction the day was running?

Perhaps when I dried out my expensive chromatography column this morning - TWICE - I should have reconsidered my days plans?

I had after all spent a week, several months ago, preparing all the materials for todays protein purification, with the aim to mix some special components togehter ahead of a synchotron trip on Friday (this is where the crystallographer slaves shoot their crystals with high intensity radiation and get the data they need to solve protein structures). I was to have prepared just such a crystal by Friday.

So when, after performing the penultimate step in treating my cells, I managed to drop the tray on which I was carrying EVERYTHING, including four glass beakers (all smashed), about two litres of ice (everywhere - and very nicely hiding afore mentioned smashed beakers), my pride (gone completely) and four very precious protein samples (only three of which I've found so far - figures - and none of which had secured lids), I started to feel like a bit of a tit.

I refer you to my "What do you do" page. Further to my work analogy, I think I can safely say I have dropped the toast on the floor; it of course landed jam side down on a pile of dog shit.

I hope we can all understand what has happened here today. Now I have to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my day (week!)

*sigh*

"Pat" Morita "waxes off" this mortal coil...

2005-11-27T10:20:00.000Z

Pat Morita (1932-2005)

Today I discovered that Noriyuki "Pat" Morita has died aged 73. Two of my favourite characters from childhood were Mr Miyagi of Karate Kid and Arnold of Happy Days...simple times. It was of course Karate Kid that got me interested in Martial Arts, though not Karate, which I found very dull - probably why they used so little in the actual movies, favouring more exciting Taekwondo moves instead, or at least the more exciting Karate style of Shito Ryu. I still practice Aikido and Judo (when the damn student clubs aren't on holidays - which is most of the time!), which are my preferred forms these days.

Anyway, by gones. Despite not being a practicioner of Karate, he will always embody that character for me.

eBay woes...

2005-11-25T17:05:00.000Z

Once again I find myself trying to get myself a bargain on eBay, and once again I am being thwarted by newbie eBayers who seem complicit in their aims of driving the prices toward their retail values! Arrgghhhh!

I think with some of these people it's more about the winning than the bargain. My tack is one of stealth. I case out the other "early bidders" to identify which of them like a last minute battle and whether they use random odd numbers in their bidding (the like of which has won me many auctions by mere pence). I usually bid in the last 10 seconds with the absolute maximum I'm willing to pay, plus a silly amount like £3.62 or something.

However, more important to me is that I get the bargain! So when you see some over zealous newbie ramping up the price of an 18 month old used item to 80% of its current retail value, you have to ask yourself: Are these people stupid? or is the seller using a friend to drive up the price. I'm a cynic, so I believe people are capable of both, but it is more likely the former. As Einstein said: "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the former".

Anyway, I'll wait for the next one to come along and hope the losing newbies don't flock to that too. Perhaps I've got this all wrong? Perhaps what I should be doing is selling more gadgets on eBay. After all, I have an iPod I bought for £140 six months ago....so that would probably sell for £200.

p.s. Thankfully the newbie flaked out before we reached £100 and I went on to win the day, getting my item for a reasonable price with a £2 lead in the last 10 seconds. Score! Not that it's about the winning or anything. No, no, no....but it helps ;-)

Driving dyslexia....

2005-11-22T18:00:00.000Z

There is this electronic sign on the motorway I travel along every night on my way home. It usually says:

THINK
DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE

But I always read it as:

DON'T THINK, DRIVE

That probably says more about my driving than perhaps I should let on!

...but whilst I'm on the subject, it occassionally says:

DON'T USE YOUR MOBILE PHONE WHILE DRIVING

This really annoys me as I'm sure it should read "WHILST DRIVING", the former being "a portion of time" and the latter meaning "during that time, meanwhile or for a time".

Why I'm anal about grammar on one occassion and dyslexic the next is beyond me.

Meh.

"A Mini adventure...."

2005-11-21T18:23:00.000Z

...but without the Mini, afterall a mountain top is a silly place for a car.

I spent the weekend in Great Langdale in the Lake District, staying at the Stickle Barn Bunkhouse, for a mere £10. On that basis alone I'd recommend it, but the fact that the room was warm, cosy and didn't leak was a bonus. Thumbs up.

Steve (a friend I made on my Mountain Leader course) and myself were the only two people occupying a room for eight. Given the weather was freezing (and liberal quantities of hoar frost may well have hampered half-hearted attempts to bend pegs into the ground), the warm bunkhouse room was infinitely preferable to the camping we'd initially intended.

Cold evening

Cold morning

The food was ok, as is the pub (with roaring fire), but it's overpriced. That being said, get the steak and ale pie; it's cheaper and also freshly made. Great stuff.

Anyway, come Sunday morning we met up with another chap from the Mountain Leader course, Stuart, and his housemate, Sarah, who was an enthusiastic novice walker. The plan was to head up Pike o' Blisco, along by Great Knott to the Crinkle Crags. Do all the Grade 1 scrambles over the tops before finally bagging Bow Fell, the highest peak of the day at mere 901 m.

Route plan - including dipshit detour!

View over my shoulder

View over the other shoulder ;-)

As I said, the weather was freezing, but generally clear. There was a bit of an inversion going on, meaning the valley floor was an ice bowl, though thankfully the temperatures rose as we ascended. There was more mist than we expected, but the day was physically, rather than navigationally, strenuous. Or so we thought.

Icebowl Great Langdale

We set off up Bow Fell at 3 pm, leaving ourselves one and a half hours of daylight to get up there and be back on route by darkness. However, for no apparent reason, when we left the top of Bow Fell we did so in the wrong direction. This is the one caveat of this tale, the admission of a silly mistake; has to happen as some time in your climbing career. It was misty, so ideally we should have taken a bearing to ensure the correct descent, but instead we alighted on a path that we believed to be the route we'd taken up (not that we were thinking too much on it).

Fancy a bit of Grade 1?

It was only as the mist cleared that we realised that we were in the wrong valley, there being no civilisation in the valley below being a good clue. A quick parlé and a few compass bearings later we'd realised our mistake. We knew where we were, but given that it was now very much dusk, we had about 20 mins to get back to the col between Bow Fell and the Crinkle Crags. We contoured around Bow Fell by darkness - avoiding the crags - and then night navigated our way down The Band, which is the spur of Bow Fell leading back to Langdale.

Excellent sunset - taken whilst descending into the wrong valley!

As it was, Sarah took all this in her stride, and we guys, despite being rather pissed off at taking our eye off the ball (too many cooks and all that), were quite enjoying the extra challenge and night nav. At around 6 pm, two-thirds of the way down, I saw a flashing light from a mountain side on the other side of the valley. It was signalling SOS. I communicated back towards it to notify I'd seen the signal, and a signal was returned in acknowledgement. We dug out the GPS and got an exact fix on our position and I took a compass bearing to the light source. Checking the map we determined its origin as Mart Crag Moor, a high level moor with a very steep scree/craggy slope descending into the valley. We called Mountain Rescue, who interviewed us, took all the details and sent out a team. Meanwhile more team members met us at the valley floor and gave us a lift to the rescue base at the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel. We spent a bit of time there making a report before being dropped off at our cars.

When we got to Ambleside for Fish and Chips, we received a call to say they'd found a lone male lost on the edge of Mart Crag Moor. The Mountain Rescue call-out entry is online at the Langdale and Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team website. As ever, I think these MR team members are excellent. So job well done, and had we descended several hours earlier as planned, we'd never have seen his distress call.

So all in all, a quality mountain day, and one for the log (if they believe it).

More pictures here

Weekly blog...

2005-11-18T16:24:00.000Z

Yes, I seem to have become a weekly blogger, a temporary lull one can only hope. I shall be off walking again this weekend - the full weekend, and this is why:

That's a big fat high pressure system that's been sat on top of the UK for most of the week. We've had crystal clear skies, beautiful winter sun coupled with some seriously freezing temperatures. It's also repelling the low pressure systems, bouncing them away back to Greenland or into the Bay of Biscay. This is set to continue into the weekend, which is what I will be enjoying. Look out for some decent pictures becuase I'm taking Big Bertha (Canon EOS 300D) out with me.

Where does meat come from?
Anyway, I'm venting some spleen right now. I have stumbled across yet another "sign of the times". Apparently there have been complaints at an advertisement by Burger King that depicts a living cow with the Burger King logo. The complaints run to the tune of "the message of an animal being made into a burger is distasteful". Whilst the advert is perhaps a little misguided, and I certainly don't condone Burger King or any fast food (for it is all crap), when will people realise where their food comes from?

I wouldn't think to mention it, but apparently Jamie Oliver's killing of a lamb in his current Italian tour programme - on rustic Italian cooking - has been commented on as "immoral". Immoral! he was the guest of a farming community who live off the land in a sustainable and ethical manner. This particular killing was perhaps the least distressing I've ever seen and there was no wastage of the sacrifice. On the other hand, when people go by their joints of de-animalised meat, perhaps they should wonder at how these animals were killed, and how many of those killed whose meat is wasted?

When the UK has the same level of understanding as the Italians when it comes to children (and adults) knowing what their food looks like at the "living" end, the less likely successive generations of Brits will be happy surviving on reconstituted, re-formed, high fat, high salt, deep fried meet products.

So to those ignorami out there - WAKE UP and smell the mochaccino!

This weekend, I 'ave mostly been....

2005-11-13T21:18:00.000Z

...well, here:

Back o' Skiddaw (the ridge)

About to get pissed (and snowed) on!

Borrowdale and Newlands Fells

Sky over Ullswater this evening.

Ullswater

Today, I 'ave mostly been....

2005-11-05T23:55:00.000Z

....getting piss wet through and kicked about by a gale on the top of Sergeant Man in the Central Lakes.

Yes, I've been for a yomp in the Lakes to hone my navigational skills to something Ray Mears could use to fell bamboo! Alas, I must admit that doing this kind of thing in a pair or group, even if you are the one member of the group who can read a map, is infinitely prefereable to going alone; as I did today. You see, when you're faced with the descision of back tracking off your intended route due to highly unpleasant weather and the nagging uncertainty of something awful befalling you, it is often easier, when in a group, to justify the action on behalf of the other group members, rather than one's self.

Easedale Tarn

You'd be forgiven for thinking there is a smouldering volcano on the horizon.

As it was, this is where I found myself today. Thoroughly harranged by the wind and rain and not enjoying the boggy underfoot, nor the multitude of sub-10m ring features throwing out my "navigation by the land" approach. My top quality waterproof jacket also wetted out and started seeping - so that'll have to be re-proofed now. I ended up cutting short my intended sally over some of the most exposed summits of the central fells and took the next path out into the Easedale valley.

For those not conversant with an Ordnance Survey map, any knoll or hillock below 10 metres in height escapes notice on a 1:25000 scale map. Occassionally you can predict where they might occur, but not today. So here I am, trying to negotiate my way from one map-featured ring feature (hillock) to the next using pacing and bearings, and I'm surrounded by huge land structures where the map says I'm in an openly flat plateau. I should point out that I pointedly left the path as soon as I could, in order to rely on my compass and maps skills, but in the absence of a better handrail ( a land feature than you can follow, i.e. fence, wall, stream, cliff face, path), I had to track back to the path and plod along.

The injured party is under that yellow speck (a bothy bag/kisu shelter) in the distance

Anyway, I came upon a chap with three teenage lads, one of whom appeared to have broken his ankle. The chap had it well in hand as he had a shelter and had called Mountain Rescue. Typical, by this point the shitty front that had been kicking my ass for the past 3 hours passed over, leaving beautiful clear blue sky and great views. Damn! I wanted to go back up, but there just wasn't enough daylight, and I still had to make the 150 mile car trip home. Anyway, I left the guy some of my water (I'd had plenty!) and proceeded back to the car - passing nine Mountain Rescue team members on the way, poor buggers, those stretchers and cumbersome weighty affairs.

MR team members with strechers on their backs - good job the wind had died down as those things are like sails!

The French are revolting!

2005-11-04T12:47:00.000Z

They like to go to town when they do anything don't they?

Revolutions, strikes and now anarchy. I'm not sure whether it is all immigrant led, or whether there is an unrestful contingent of disaffected French youths involved, but seriously, come on Paris, get your house in order!

On absurdity...

2005-11-02T18:17:00.000Z

Toothbrush trouble
I destroyed my electric toothbrush this morning. It was a desperately impetuous act and I fully admit that it was a stupid thing to do, but it drove me to it. There I am, minding my own business, trying to go about my ablutions and the said toothbrush failed to work. Rather than yielding the batteries to me, so I could replace them, it decided to remain welded shut. Despite a thorough pounding the only thing I managed to free was the business end of the brush. Which isn't exactly meant to be free. Oops.

So now the buggering thing is in the trash. With it's dead batteries fully intact.

Hindi strangeness
I have a lot of Hindi friends, well, three, but more than the number of similarly devout Christians I know. Anyway, I happened to catch the tail end of a documentary on British Hindi life last night. It seemed there was this "group" who had spent some not inconsiderable time trying to decide what to do about some Women's shoes (made from leather) that had been adorned with the face of their Lord Rama. Evidently heretical - the leather, and the God thing.

Anyway, they sat around this pile of shoes, which they'd obviosuly commandeered at great expense, deciding how to despose of them in a sacred way. They just couldn't decide, so called in a holy woman who suggested that the face of their Lord Rama be carefully picked off, stored and sent to India to be sanctified and purified in the River Ganges before disposal. The now plain leather shoes were to be ritually burnt.

I mean W.T.F!

There is too much pain and suffering in this world to spend inordinate amounts of time, and undoubtedly money, on such ridiculous trivialities. Honestly! Can't their time be better employed seeing to their families, looking out for the welfare of their friends and countrymen, or bettering themselves?

Hmm, perhaps I will retrieve my toothbrush and ritually dispose of it? After all, it has been in my big, toothy trap so I'll freely admit it's probably quite holy. After all, I'm on the final stretch before 30 and I have not one filling. Nope. Clean as a whistle. That's genetics and good diet for you folks; dentists, schmentists.

ML pictures...

2005-11-02T13:00:00.000Z

So here are some pictures from the Mountain Leader course (courtesy of Steve and Stuart - cheers chaps), click to get the full (quick load) image:

On the way to Camp

...still on the way to Camp

Our group, with Keith Fleming MIC.

On way back from a demanding high-level climb in the Glyderau. Llyn Bochlwyd in the background.

One time, at camp...

View from the tent.

Atmosphere

2005-11-01T09:01:00.000Z

It has been just over a year since I took this picture, and I still haven't done anything with it - so much for digital photography! For those interested, it is Derwent Water, looking south from Keswick towards the rocky volcanics that are the Borrowdale Fells.

Samhain...

2005-10-31T21:53:00.000Z

Yes, bit of a pagan at heart, so it's Samhain (pron. "Sowan", in the Munster dialect at least) rather than Hallowe'en, but I do like tonight.

I could just curl up with Sleepy Hollow or something right now. Plus I also see that we have The Brothers Grimm from Terry Gilliam, The Goblet of Fire and The Chronicles of Narnia to look forward to in November, which nicely sates my requirements as a fantasy genre geek. I was also a little peaved to discover that Terry Gilliam had been in pre-prouction on the film "Good Omens" (Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - one of my favourite books for the teenage years), with Johnny Depp cast as Crawley (the Demon) and Robin Williams cast as Aziraphale (The Angel) who are the protagonists of this quite wascky and amusing tale of the apocolypse. Unfortunately, because the "Hollywood" bigcheeses were convinced that Depp was only into European arthouse movies like Chocolat, they wouldn't put up the final $15 million. Bastards. Then Pirates came out and they were throwing money at them. The short sighted bastards that Hollywood are.

I arrived home tonight to find a little Hallowe'en Dell, created by my fair lady. All the lights were dimmed and our rather fabulous becandled porcelain Jack o' Lantern was glowing in the window. All our many fancy real flame candelabra were flickering away, and she'd prepared a little tray of sweets and chocolates mixed in with witch sand filled silk frogs. Apparently she'd had 5 trick or treaters so far, and had quizzed them thoroughly to ensure their Harry Potter knowledge was up to scratch before relinquishing the much sought after chockys. The little witch!

Anyway, horror movie time - must go see what is available.

Mwahahahahaaaaaaa.