#Marillion, Marillion, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Marillion.#

Marillion are the best band in the world, and yesterday they came to Cambridge. They did a little signing session, and played a few songs (See it Like a Baby, 80 Days (which I really didn't expect) and The Answering Machine) in the HMV in Lions Yard. I was stood at the back listening to the Answering Machine and did a little double-take as I realised the person standing behind me was Mark Kelly*! He had turned up a little late, but signed my CD none-the-less. I managed to get my CD signed by all the guys and had a little chat with Mr H about The Cooper Temple Clause split-up (I was wearing my TCTC T-shirt). It was incredibly weird seeing these guys who have had such a huge influence on my life in the last 5 years in the flesh, and realising they are real people (though a little objectified by the signing-session). When I walked into HMV they were playing Marillion on the PR, there were Marillion CDs everywhere and everyone was wearing Marillion T-shirts. Having spent the last 5 years spotting every little reference to them that I can it was like sensory overload!!

*Marillion Keyboardist and Sample Man

Then, in the evening they played at the Junction, supported by Kingrat (who were pretty good, a little datedly prog, but ok). They played a huge two hour setlist: Splintering Heart | The Other Half | You're Gone | Thankyou Whoever You Are | Ocean Cloud | Fantastic Place | The Last Century for Man | Somewhere Else | The Wound | Between You and Me | King, and then as an encore: Easter | Garden Party | Neverland (a 26 ish min encore!).

It was amazing to hear Garden Party live, an homage to the prog days, chosen by H due to the fact that it's a Cambridge University piss-take:

#Champagne corks are firing at the sun again | Swooping swallows chased by violins again | Straafed by Strauss they sulk in crumbling eaves again ... | Please don't lie upon the grass | Unless accompanied by a fellow | (May I be so bold as to perhaps suggest Othello)#

It was written before I was born, and is typically Fish, but good fun in Cambridge. They also played Ocean Cloud, which was great lice - I've often wondered how they'd play it live. It's always amazing seeing those 5 guys make such an incredible and full sound. H is an amazing leading guy and put on a proper good show, even climbing over the gear during the encore. King was incredible, I completely lost myself in the ending, and Between You and Me was amazing live. All in all, a fantastic gig. I left with an incredible buzz and a sadness that so few people get to experience Marillion... jeez, I sound like an evangelist!

xxx

BBQ!

The pictures from the barbecue are up on flickr (click here), and a couple are on facebook too. It was an amazing night - everyone seemed to have fun, no-one got set on fire, and hopefully all the sausages were properly cooked. Unfortunately Sainsburys barbecues are useless, the first one didn't get very hot, and the second one failed to light - the paper burnt, but none of the coals caught, despite Bethmo, Alex and my best efforts (including pouring on half a box of matches, and some dried grass). However, I made a commando trip to Sainsburys (on Andrew's bike, which is pretty nice to ride, though the gears were broken) and got a 3rd one which was amazing.
We ate, drank and were merry, plus Bethmo brought a frisbee which we played until it got so dark that decapitation was a real worry.
We also drank my birthday bubbly. It's a little late I know but it was nice to have a celebration now the worry of exams is passed.

Passive Smoking

I have just been playing snooker, and despite having probably lopped a week off my life expectancy and come back smelling like an ashtray, I won 4-1. Well, the 2nd frame was a travesty given that I only won by a point and that was only because Rahul gave away 20 points in unlucky fouls, so 3-1. Still a decent victory though, and I did get a 17 point break (Red-Black-Red-Black-Red) and a 15 point break (Red-Blue-Red-Black).

Excitingly, not too long before the snooker hall will have to become non-smoking. Just over 2 weeks till ban-day!

Through a last-minute email, I played Cricket this afternoon for Clare. Unfortunately there was a severe lack of players, but a few people were drafted in by the captain to play. Unfortunately they spent the majority of their time taking in Sri Lankan, so the team spirit was not really there, but it was a good game, and we had a fantastic day for it. It's the perfect thing to be doing in the sunshine! I scored a cracking 10 runs, and wicket kept. It took me a few overs to get into keeping, given that I haven't done it since my days playing for the 3rd XI with Tiffin, but eventually I got the hang of it.

The evening was spent making a quick dinner and then heading down to the bar. Alex and Vicky discovered Cranberry Mojitos, and I drank J2O. It was nice to have an abstenance evening, and we had the bar pretty much entirely to ourself. It was nice to have a chat with the bar staff, play a game of pool and laze around on the sofas for 2 hours.

Tom

p.s. Tomorrows is barbeques days!

Finals Almost Over

It's Thursday, and I've been free for 50hours and 24 minutes. Alex is in her final exam (must think statistical thoughts!) and will be finished in an hour and a half, Ella will be finished in two hours, and then this evening we have formal. Tom finished on Tuesday afternoon and arrived home with tonnes of M&S biscuits (not just biscuits) and with the phrase "I love English". This is a good sign that a) he has made the right decision moving from Physics to English and b) that the exam went ok! My daughter Vicky has finished her exams and is currently languishing in the bosom of her family back home in Somerset, Louisa is nearly done (tomorrow) and her exam yesterday on the Kuran went ok - she had some funny anecdotes of exciting points she made. The Englings Vicky, Iona and Erika finished last week, as did Reece and Bethmo finishes tomorrow.

The summary can be generalised as "Cumulatively exams are almost at 100% completed". Hurrah!

So, what have I been doing for the last few days? Well, reading mostly! I've finished "The Dawkins Delusion", which was well worth reading, probably before you an embark on "The God Delusion". See my brief review below. I've also just bought "Can a Darwinist be a Christian: The Relationship between science and religion" by Michael Ruse. The journey to understanding begins!

The Dawkins Delusion

The Dawkins Delusion - by Alistair McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath.

I must admit that this was a very good read. McGrath gives a fair and well argued critique of a book he describes as "often little more than an aggregation of convenient factoids, suitably overstated to acheive maximum impact, and loosely arranged to suggest they constitute an argument". He essentially portrays Dawkins as an "Athiest Fundamentalist" who's main aim is not to pass on the message of evolution to the uninitiated, but to wipe out all world religion. One of my favourite quotes sums up how McGrath views Dawkin's world view:

"Here is Ruse's comment on what happened next:

'When John Paul II wrote a letter endorsing Darwinism, Richard Dawkins' response was simply that the Pope was a hypocrite, that he could not be genuine... Dawkins himself simply preferred an honest fundamentalist.'

Ruse's comment immediately helps us understand what is going on. If Dawkins' agenda was to encourage Christians to accept biological evolution, the Pope's statement would have been welcomed... Dawkins is unable to accept that the Pope - or presumably any Christian - could accept evolution."

It appears that Dawkins is a character who shares many attributes with fundamentalist Christians and is in fact doing more damage to the atheist/Darwinian cause than any creationist. In my opinion, and I have held this view for some time, he does genuinely believe that evolution is the be all and end all of life on earth: "no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.” (A River Out of Eden, Dawkins 1995). However, until reading this book, I pretty much agreed with him - though I was willing to compromise for religion. Having read this book my eyes have been opened even further to the possibility of a God. One of the most important revelations (as well as the aforementioned "Real Magic" was that many scientists are religious. And, in the words of Gould "Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with atheism"). Religious belief is not infantile, or stupid.

Thus, I must agree with McGrath. While Dawkins' books on the natural sciences are well argued, clear and enlightening, it appears that The God Delusion is a departure from his usual well argued, scientific, evidence based writing. Now, I have not read The God Delusion, but having read this critique I'm not sure I want to. Dawkins arguments seem to lack depth and carefully researched arguments - many of his points rely on long-defunct Christian theology, in short, if you do read the God Delusion, read The Dawkins Delusion as well - at least give religion a fair shot. McGrath has the advantageous position of an ex-atheist Christian trained in molecular biophysics and also theology. Read the book, and make your own mind up. In my mind, Dawkins has lost alot of respect.

How much is religion "blind faith" and how much of it is reasoned?

The AMAZING Sheep

It is done! The photo of the finished sheep is on flickr.

So that's it then! After two months of preparation, they're done. Not really out in a blaze of glory, the essay I wrote on Mod4 was very poor, but hopefully my Mod3 essays will make up for it. It still hasn't really sunk in that I've finished. I finished my exam and was met by Rich and Dan outside (with a bottle of champagne), and then skipped back to Braeside with Alex via sainsburies. Then, much beer and hamburgers later I've tidied my room, done some washing and made a new monkey picture - such are the labours of my day. I'm slighly confused - surely there must be some work to do!?

All in all, the exams went ok. I wrote 12 essays, 62 pages of writing in 12 hours. My poor wrist is knackered after the exertion. Some essays were bad (generally the DevBio ones), others were pretty good (Hurrah for fetuses!). But, most importantly they're done! Results in about 2 weeks!

There are a couple of things for me to catch up blog-wise. There are photos of the rise of the sheep of furry-whiteness (which if you're really lucky, and I'm not too drunk might even be animated), and similar photos for the grow your own pet egg dinosaur thing. Explanation to come soon.

Anway, that's me free! I'm gonna look after Alex for two days, she finishes on Thursday, and then it's off to Formal on Thursday evening, and hopefully horribly downhill from there! Yay!

Yours Relievedly, Tom.

3 down, 1 to go. So close

Real Magic

Nnrgh - I can't sleep. Winding down time with a bit of a conundrum - I'm not eloquent on the subject, but here's the way it seems.

My fear is thus: If one assumes there is a "god", for want of a better term, then all I have spent the last 3 years learning about is pointless.

Why? If one assumes there is a "god", then all the glorious feats of science and biology that I am confronted with, baffled with, and amazed by are nothing but simple creations to him. It's not this apparent simplicity that upsets me, more the "magic". It' s all here by magic. Our hugely complex physiology is all there by magic, the brain... magic... he did it. Oh... How dull.

Here comes the revelation (I'm sure it's been said before a million times, a million ways, but it's a personal realisation that has got me thinking properly for the first time about this subject). Maybe it is "magic", but, magic that functions in a way we can describe - science. It is incredible, but explainable. Where does this leave God? There's no reason why there shouldn't be a God. Science can explain a lot extremely well (the expression patterns of Engrailed in the Drosophila parasegments to take a poignant example), but surely a point will be reached where we just cannot explain some things - they'll be outside our field of understanding? Is such a wangling in of God into scientific understanding just an "easy way out" for the religious? I'm no longer sure that it is. Many scientist are religious, and they are certainly not "deluded fools" as Dawkins would have you believe.

Why God? this is my main problem now. I've leaped over the "Science and God are mutually exclusive" boundary (that, incidentally, Dawkins still seems to be stuck behind), but why bother with believing in something so unbelievable, why bother with "Church" (though of course, by church I mean any sort of religious ritual)? I'm working through these parts slowly... but it's an interesting journey. This "real magic" point really has excited me, but I'm still nowhere near anything but agnostic.

Any (constructive - no knee-jerks) ideas are welcomed.

Experimental Design

Experimental design questions. They've not mentioned them all term, but a few turned up on our sample exam paper (and a few is a significant amount when you have to write 3 essays out of only 6 titles - just read about what interests you indeed! Pfff!), and I haven't got a clue about how to answer them. I went along to Sidney today for a chat with some other people doing this module (which apparently is not being run next year - it seems we are the 1st, and last to do the making babies module), and we spoke about a few ideas for some practice questions. Unfortunately, they have all done experimental projects (in fact, I think only 2 out of the 11 people doing Mod4 did theory projects, me included), and so as a result they know loads about experimental procedures. Apparently grafting experiments cannot be done in Zebrafish as they're not robust enough - do it in chicks instead. These questions seem a little biased towards those who did experimental projects. Now I find out!

Anyway - that's what's bugging me at the moment, and is the reason I can't sleep... maybe writing it down will have helped. Goodnight!

currently listening, Elgar - The Dream of Gerontius. Ahhhh.. better.

I'm glad to see that this blog is No.1 on a Google search for "mitten man". I was worried it actually meant something!


currently listening, The Cure - Bloodflowers. Probably not the most relaxing thing for trying to get to sleep, but a really good album none-the-less

Somatic Recombination

"If only my brain could be somatically recombined - then I'd know all my stuff" Alex

Squash.

Hello again! T'is me, Tomthevet. Who'd have expected such a face on here, this blog of sorts... The work continues... who'd have thought that 'n'all!? I've taken to saying "Right!" in an important directing sort of a way, to try to motivate myself into getting up out of the tea-chair and into the work-chair. T'is tough. I've kinda reached the stage where I've been revising for so long that I don't know what I do and don't know. It's about as confusing as a confusing thing on confusing pills walking on confused stilts in the worlds shortest confused person championships.

I played squash with Andrew this morning. We went down to the court at about 8.30am, and played for just over an hour. It was good fun, nice to be able to get out some pent-up aggression and adrenaline on a little-black ball. I feel quite calm now (though I have just woken up from a wee nap). En plus, I must work on fetal growth. What does insulin really do?

21!!

I am now 21. My brain cells are 21. My essence is 21. How old! And so, I am now a MAN. I have to be MANLY and OLD and MATURE. Apparently. According to these "age-based stereotypes". Well, hear this peeps, I'm probably gonna stay the same. For a few years more anyway :).

I had a good day. It is exam term, but I managed to avoid work for pretty much the whole day. We all went for a picnic in the sun at lunchtime to mark the day, and will certainly have an uber party after the exams have finished. Unfortunately the Englings had their 1st exam the following day, so there were stressy-exam vibes, but that's the way it is. It was good to have everyone there in the sunshine. Plus there are more cakes in Braeside kitchen now than any human could eat.

You may have noticed the massive 3D "21" in the right corner of this post. Alex gave me my presents in sculpture form - Suffice to say I was somewhat impressed, though it didn't last too long - I got many exciting things (including an Aston Martin!!). Vicky and Erika gave me cool presents too, including a "Magic Sheep" and a "Growing Pet Hatch 'Em", both of which involve growing and will feature on this blog in the coming days. Oh, and socks... I ALWAYS need socks.

Looking up

Things are looking up slightly. It was really sunny today, and I slept in so was actually awake all day - it's definitely the best way to get the most out of revision. Also, Marillion are doing a signing-session in the HMV in Cambridge on the day of their gig. Hurrah!! 5pm. Don't let me forget. ANYONE.

I went to a Chalk-talk yesterday lunchtime, my 2nd talk/lecture thing all term, and also my second in a week. It's only when you start revising that you realise how much you hate some things, and how interesting other things are. The talk was really interesting and linked a few lectures we'd had in Mod 9, which will be pretty helpful in an essay.

Nnnrgh - work. It keeps on coming. On the plus side I have two pigeon hole packages. Oooo

2001 A Space Odyssey

Just watched "2001 A Space Odyssey" in Tom's room. It's Kubrick so Iona's doing it for her exams, but Iona's literature and visual culture paper is a good excuse for us to still get to watch a few films in exam term. It's very good. Very slow, tense and beautiful, but slightly un-understandable (are you supposed to?) and is full of strange references to the human body (sperm, uterine lining, egg, fetus, CNS etc).

Olfactory Ensheathing Cells.

Yesterday was spent mostly in the midst of an extensive amount of Neural Degeneration. Why won't CNS neurones regenerate when PNS ones will, and what can we do to stop this? And, I read about some very interesting cell types, the olfactory-ensheathing-cell. The injured CNS provides an inhibitory environment to axon regeneration, but the OECs may be able to ensheath the axons and provide a permissive environment for axon growth by integrating with astrocytes in the brain. It's all quite exciting. In mouse studies they've helped axons regenerate across a cut spinal cord and led to some functional improvement. Clinical trials have started so watch this space for developments.

Plans

In other news, a last-minute "I can't be bothered to cook" turned into an exodus to Nando's last night, though, as it was closed, we ended up at Wagamama. They've just opened one in Cambridge, and it's really nice. Classic Wagamama food, but a nice view over Emma college too! It was nice to escape the work for 2 hours, and plan what exciting things we're going to do after the exams.

• Go to London
• Go punting to Granchester (of course!)
• Possibly a 3-legged shared gallon challenge. :)

It's my birthday on Wednesday! How exciting.

Tom

Exams.

I haven't blogged for a while - my apologies! The work has got huge, and a massive apathy-fear-thing kinda took over. BUT, I've made a revision plan now and I have more of a concept of how long I've got before the exams. Hopefully I can follow it through and remember the stuff I did first in just under 2 weeks time (this time in 2 weeks I'll be in my 2nd exam). I've got diagrams of signalling in gastrulation on my wall, so, fingers crossed it'll stick.

In other news, it has pretty much rained solidly for about 3 weeks (look out for headines of "Wettest May Ever"), which I suppose is good for the sake of the reservoirs, though less so for us. Yesterday was sunny though, so the world has been re-happied.

Pff... here goes another day.