Lambinglambinglambing.

This weekend, I are be mostly lambin'. I spent 12 hours in the lambing shed on Sunday/Monday, pulling small sheep out of larger sheep. It was actually quite enjoyable; they've given us some responsibility and so we are largely required to make managemental and treatment decisions on our own (though there are many laminated sheets on the walls to remind you what you're expected to do). The morning shift was definitely the best of the two. Were were busy, but not rushed (we had 4 ewes lamb, 2 had to be assisted). I lambed quads (certainly the 1st so far, and my 1st ever), two of which were breeches! Cat dubbed me a "lambing conveyor-belt". A few days later, the quads seem to be doing well, although one has been fostered off onto a ewe with a singleton, so they're triplets now. Apart from lambing lambs, we spent hours trying to eke some life out of lamb 2**1 (don't know if I should put actual numbers up). It seems to wholly lack any ability to thermoregulate, and required an intraperitoneal injection of glucose, stomach tubing and a heat box to get its temperature up to normal (39C). It then lost the heat again as soon as we put it outside. I must admit that it's not looking bright. Still, the vast majority of the lambs are healthy and well, and the farm is much well managed and clean than any I've lambed on before.
The night shift was a bit harder - it was dark and cold, and we were sleepy, but we bashed on through, lambed 2 ewes, rang the vet at 4.30am because a ewe managed to haemorrhage everywhere (even though it had lambed 4 days before). I gave it oxytocin though (under the vet's instruction), and that seemed to stop any prolapse possibility, and the flow eventually stopped. A little stressful for 4.30am though! We also did some castration and docking, weighing, spraying, cleaning and other little chores, just to keep us warm and awake. Ah, tis a vet student's life. Still, I got home at 9, had some cereal, and slept until 2.

We went dancing last night

For the first time in a while...

It was good fun, though Fat Popadaddies was not up to his usual form, we didn't hear any bloc party, and had to endure a hundred middle class white Cambridge students chanting "f*** you I won't do what you tell me" to Rage Against the Machine. Of course, they're all heavily institutionalised (like all us students are), so it seems a little hypocritical. Hehe - we had a good laugh. Couldn't help feeling a tad older than the emo moshers of my sister's generation around me.How mature we are. Pretty soon we'll be sipping Chateaux de Chasoulet and remembering the good-old-days. Pffk.

One bucket of welly sanitiser, £5
One digital thermometer, £3
Stethoscope, £60

Fondling a ram's testicles* at 10am in the morning, priceless.

*strictly for veterinary examination purposes.

Relax

Dear Blog (blog)

A moment of peace has descended on the house. No-one is cooking, doing washing, running around or being loud. I am sat on the sofa blogging (obviously), and trying vainly to install some drivers for my soundcard. In a lame ass computer geek fashion I have installed linux on my computer (groan). This is mostly because windows hates my USB ports. Linux loves them - but hates my soundcard.

When I have done this I will begin working. But currently I am relaxed.

Alex is sat next to me turning up the hems of her jeans, a job she loves apparently - it's relaxing. "I'm doing major surgery," she says. "On my clothes". Being a vet, I suppose you can never be too sure when she'll be performing a laparotomy on the living room table...

Ah. All is well.

I'm in trouble.

Mary asked me to ice a cake while she was out... I fear this may be the last time I am honoured with such a request...

I had to cut the top off one to make it flat so it'd fit on the bottom... but it seemed like such a waste of good cake... so we have the cake of directorly crowning glory...

Sunday

Sunday. Moved some chairs, moved a bath, shifted a trolley back, sat on the floor, got blinded by lights, played a bath, played a table, ate a pasty, ignored free hug man, wandered home, faffed a bit, did some work, found a bedstead, rang a bell, convinced a man to give me said bedstead, brought it home with Tom, drank some tea, did some work, ate some eggs, did some work (on and off), went to bed.

York

York is a beautiful town of ancient walls, cathedrals and cute little streets paved with flags and filled with quaint little shops. It has buses that bend in the middle, a ferris wheel and an Ask pizza house in the stunning assembly hall. Conversely, York University is made out of concrete. Some of the buildings are quite impressive (central hall for example), while some are just plain mad (hedgehog buildings for example), and others just ugly. However, in its favour it does have a huge lake (filled with ducks, and, I am reliably informed, Trevors*) and Heslington Hall, a lovely Elizabethan mansion house which stands opposite a slightly creepy topiaried Yew garden (Alice in Wonderland springs to mind).

As you can probably tell, I visited my sister at York this weekend. We had Friday off (shock horror, thanks to some smart lecture shuffling) so I went up in the early afternoon having gone down to the Corpus Playrooms in the morning to teach some actors the ChaChaCha. I don't really know the ChaChaCha, but mine and Alex's rudimentary knowledge of the basic, new york and turn steps proved useful in forging a bond between actor and actress. Anyway, I digress. Went up to York on the train (which only took 2 and a half hours!), and Hannah met me at the station. Pretty soon toad in the hole was being devoured at a local pub (the Cross Keys if anyone knows it), and Hannah was working through a steak (much to her boyfriend's gall later on!). We then toddled back to campus (on a bendy bus, oh joy of joys!), and sat in her (pretty nice) kitchen for a few hours chatting to her friends. Thinking about it, they are probably reading this, as Hannah often subjects them to this torturous site, so I suppose I'd better say something nice. Teddy Bears.

And so, we went to McQ's (it's a bar, not an exam**... I know, I was confused and slightly worried) and had a few drinks before coming back home. Hannah's house is... functional. Long corridors, no plaster (painted breeze blocks) and mildew, but it's homely now it's lived in and everyone looks settled.

The following day, Hannah took me on a tour of the campus (see above), and then she, George and me walked into town. We got some lunch (Ask - see above), and then came home again, because, like a great big retard, I forgot my camera. Arses. Really, though I convinced anyone it was because I was stupid, this was infact because I figured that was better than admitting that all I wanted to do was ride on a bendy bus again! So unnecessarily fun.

So, much fun was had. I ended up waiting ages for a bus back in Cambridge (as I didn't check the timetable until I'd been waiting for 30mins - I was too engrossed in "To Kill a Mockingbird"), but was greeted when I finally arrived by requests for chinese takeaway... so we did! Huzzah!

*Trevor is the name given to a black Swan that attacks Hannah's kitchen window every day. Due to their rudimentary undergraduate swan differentiation skills however, this results in every black swan being named Trevor despite the fact that many are infact named Charlotte.
**MCQ = Multiple Choice Question.

Lambing

We've just had a small ruminants practical on abortion in sheep and goats which would have been really useful, had I read through the notes - if only there was more time, and I wasn't revising BIDDS whenever a moment for work is found! All I really want at the moment is sleep!

All 4th year students are required to help lamb the uni sheep this term, and we received our timetable yesterday. The sheep are watched 24hours (infact, 24.5 hours*) every day so everyone will at somepoint have to spend a long night in the sheep-shed. Mine are scheduled for the 3rd and the 27th Feb. Here we go again - I've only done a month of lambing!

Have just been to my second consultation skills seminar, which this time involved taking a fake consultation with an actor lady (sometimes known as an actress) and a toy cat, infront of a video camera. Pretty scary you think? Well, actually, you'd be right. We each took a small part of the consultation, so were only required to talk for around 3 mins max - I unfortunately had the wonderful job of telling the lady what we'd 'found' on clinical exam and list the possible options that we could take from there. I got a little verbal diarrhoea and spouted at her, so didn't do a fantastic job, but you live and learn - was well worth doing. The actress was very good, though she didn't have a massively tough role to play, just stand there and seem concerned about her cat, though she did have to reveal information to us bit by bit, and obviously had quite a meticulously planned case history hidden away. I think next time we get "angry clients", which will be... interesting!

Has been a busy morning already! Alex and Andrew have gone off to rotations (Post-Mortem and Small Animal Studies respectively), and Mary and me have been left to our own devices, which in my case has involved making phone calls and writing this blog, whilst Mary is hunting for screws for her new pannier.

Phone call wise, I have phoned our letting agent as my room has started smelling of sewage every time Andrew flushes his toilet, which is a little worrying to say the least! "I'm upset you thought I could make a smell of raw sewage!" he said. Sorry Andrew! Hopefully they'll send out a plumber today to take a look at what's going on.
I have also rung an abattoir in Halifax, and have arranged to go there for a week in August. I now have 9 weeks of EMS organised (10 if the BSAVA congress is allowed to count), and can hopefully book another 2 weeks small animal in summer to get myself up to 11!

I also have new shoes (shock-shock-horror!) to replace the infamous "Davy Shoes" given to me by Davy in 1st year. Unfortunately they have walked a fair few 100 miles in their time, and are giving up the ghost so I got a replacement pair of loafers from M&S with my Xmas voucher. However, as they are slip on, insoles were required, and what better way to use the cut off insole bits than giving them to Alex with a pair of scissors. Meet 'Shoe Shrimp' who has taken up lodging on my clock.

Quote of the weekend:

Alex: "I've drunk 3 and a half pints of water!"
Mary: "Why?"
Alex: "I thought I'd completely replace my body water content."
Mary: "Why?"
Alex: "..Felt like a change."

swift!

We wish to point out that Alex by no means thinks that her total body water content is 3.5pts, the statement was made for comic, rather than physiologically accurate effect. We wish to apologise for any englings, physicists or possibly even vets that have been misled.

Pics from Cambridge Christmas

I've just unearthed some Cambridge Xmas pics:

Pathogenland

Which sector of society is represented by which pathogen?

So far we have decided that students are herpes, because they do alot of sleeping, and occasionally come out for a HUGE party.

Any more ideas anyone?

Excitements!

Exciting news! I am going to be stewarding at this years BSAVA (British Small Animal Veterinary Association) Congress in April. My Dad rang me up with exciting letter-related news, and it said I'd been accepted (I applied back in November)! I get accomodation in Birmingham, for 6 days and a small wage, plus the chance to hob-nob with all sorts of distinguished vetty types. Am quite excited, though a little daunted!

3-1 to me. Oh yeah, you never doubted it did you.

psyching myself up...

Am just about to go play squash. I shall report soon about my tremendous landslide victory over Mr Bates. You will all be proud

Baking for Students

I am making my first loaf of the term. I took to making my own bread last term (even splashed out on a 2lb tin and a book of recipes), I suppose my genetic memory is full of it owing to my Grandfather (who was a baker) and my Dad (who has inherited, and passed on) much baking knowledge. I have even advanced to including such insane ingredients as honey, milk and wheat bran. It's really good fun, and very cathartic (a wonderful word) beating the hell out of a lump of dough, and having a tasty, stodgy, sweet smelling, warm and crisp loaf at the end of it all. The best thing about it is that baking is essentially designed for students. It takes 10-15mins to prepare everything, then you have half an hour of work time while it rises, followed by a few seconds to get it in the oven, followed by another half hour of work before it's ready. Before you know it, in less than an hour and a half you've done an hour of work and you have a tasty home-made loaf. Amazing!
Note to self: less work is done if you blog about how amazing it is that you have time for work.

Another day of lectures today - we had more small ruminants (goats and sheep knowledges were passed) and an animal breeding lecture (including photos of vibrating and thrusting dummy mares for stallion semen collection), and an introduction to nutrition (which is a particularly topical subject owing to the infamous rise to fame of "raw meaty bones"). 4 hours, 4 lectures, and much more stuff to try to learn!

Tom

Full of Toffee

I am currently gummed up with toffee. I forgot to mention that I received a huge amount of sticky nut and raising toffee for Xmas from Hannah (sorry). The toffee is amazing, but there's no way you could eat more than 3 squared cm of it without dying a diabetic death. It's terrifying, but fantastic. I don't know what my dentist will say...

Dracula

Ventured out to the Arts Picture House yesterday with Alex, Vicky and Tom to see the 1958 version of Dracula starring Christopher Lee. It was pretty good, though I must admit to being very bored in the 1st half an hour, it quickly picked up and made for a fantastic film. And at only 83mins, I didn't feel like huge amounts of time were wasted. The film equivalent of the 39 Steps. Much of the action was left "implied" which means the film didn't spend ages romping through all the unnecessary action - e.g. setting up a blood transfusion apparatus etc. Very good film, though surprisingly bright and sunny (when compared with horror films of today).

Back in cambridge

Back in Cambridge. The 1st day involved shopping (bought some door hooks which promptly fell off in the middle of the night waking me up as my coat went crashing to the floor, toothpaste and other such essentials), chinese takeaway, and the major event of the day, website creation for Vicky and Alex's plays, unified under the title "Broken Glass" - click here (brokenglassplay.co.uk) for a look, and if you're in the Cambridge area make sure you come along!

End the Neglect.

I'm currently going through my "Never Listened To" Playlist - as I realised I had about 500 tracks that I'd never listened to. Some of them I have, just not on Itunes etc, but it still upsets me to think that some of my music has been neglected. I like to think that I like all of my music (with the exception of odd tracks on albums). How many unlistened-to tracks do you have? Stop the neglect -listen to them.

There are so many diseases! How can there be!?

Happy New Year Everyone. Welcome to 2008 (he says as if he is the guardian of the lockers to which people are welcomed at the start of a new year), welcome.

I spent New Year at Rahul's - We'd been to Asda a few days previously so he could buy "some" food, and managed to fill a whole trolley (which at Asda is a feat I can tell you - no plastic cutlery (!) and no plastic champagne flutes (!) what is the world coming to ;) ). Then, having driven them home we got all this shopping up 5 flights of stairs (in one trip may I add) and he was stocked up for party. However, when the big day arrived it became clear that buying unprepared food (peppers, mushrooms, lamb) etc. was maybe a bad idea as it required much oven space which was seriously lacking, and time, which was also lacking, particularly as it stole time away from vital celebration and drinking time (in the intervening days he'd bought a huge amount of drink, which I found chilling on his balcony).

Anyway, much fun was had (and we did have some kebabs, which were fabtastic) and Rahul, Duncan, me and many of Rahul's uni friends welcomed in the new year with a fantastic panoramic firework display from his 5th floor window - at least 40 displays going on simulataneously (with one almost exploding right outside the window). Great :)

Resolutions

Resolutons:

1. To blog more during term - now I am a clinical vet student it becomes much more imperative that I blog! Surely my vettings are the only interesting thing that gets put on here anyway!
2. To stay fit. Seemingly walking 4 miles a day is not enough to stave off uber-uni-belly (which I lost in a week of Xmas tree selling). Situps?
   

Happy Christmas Everyone! I hope everyone has had a fantastic day. I have eaten lots (mmm.. pheasant... mm... christmas pudding) and got many pairs of socks (which were wholly needed), lots of things to make me smell nice (because I smell), moisturiser (because Santa is jealous of how rugged I am) and a snooker cue (oooo!)

I attach a picture of our Christmas tree, a beautiful Fraser Fir from The Christmas Forest. It really is a beaut.

Update: 2nd Jan 2008 - The Tree STILL looks great! It's only dropped a few needles and has retained its shape (unlike Nords) even though it's infront of a radiator. I have watered it lovingly though. Hooray for Frasers!

Distributing stock with cannons - no one has really put much effort into this form of delivery - i think it has potential...

Trees and People

This is probably the longest I have ever gone without blogging. How's things I hear you cry? Well, currently I am selling trees (the Christmas Forest, Richmond) again - my 3rd year, and this year I have taken to the helm, and I must admit that it's been quite enjoyable. Generally the staff have seemed happy so far, and I've found it quite invigorating making decisions and being the guy everyone asks for help from. Don't think this means I'm planning a career as a suit, tie, briefcase and blackberry man, oh no. I couldn't stand such a life - anything involving being crammed onto a train like getting wide christmas trees through the 45cm diameter netting machine every day wouldn't suit me. But yes, trees have been sold.

I've often reached the point during this season where I've suddenly become amazed at the sheer size of the population of Richmond/London/the UK/the World. After a huge weekend where people have been queuing the whole length of the place, I think surely there can't be any more people who need Xmas trees - but of course there are. Like that time I was walking down the road and saw (and actually registered their presence for the 1st time) all the TV aerials on the roofs of houses and realised just how many houses there must be in the country (and subsequently how much money the BBC must make from TV licencing!).

These two pictures are of the Richmond Forest, sneakily taken from the back of a huge flat-back we'd filled with dead trees. Throwing trees onto the back of that lorry if TOUGH work - even dead trees - that weigh half of normal because they have no needles... I have a new level of respect for the warehouse people.

1 down, 8 to go.

And so the 1st term as a clinical vet student comes to a close. It's been good. Long, but good. There's been a lot of lectures, but they've been necessary (though some pretty boring, not pointing any fingers radiography and anaesthesia) and generally pretty interesting. I actually quite enjoyed parasitology - it seemed pretty relevant, which was really satisfying. We had a few healthy debates in animal welfare - including one on zoo animals. A surprising number seemed to be against them on welfare grounds - I couldn't help but observe that the vast majority of zoo animals are kept in much better conditions than the vast majority of farm animals. This was especially brought to my attention since working with Richard the hoof trimmer and seeing farms where a large percentage of their cows were lame with significant foot problems. Lameness is a massive problem in the dairy industry especially - it seems that the selective breeding of these animals for high milk yields, along with the massive metabolic burden put on their bodies by this level of milk production has adversely affected their foot condition. Diet also has a strong baring on lameness too. 25% of dairy cattle are treated for lameness every year, and 1% culled because of it.

Un-Recognition

Not the tracing fingers over once forgotten journeys
Memories freshly jogged.
Not the squinted and determined scrutiny of birthplaces
Work places and homes,
And not the futile hoarding of names and places
For Thursday’s Pub Quiz.
Just a myriad of colours, lines, shapes and textures
A jigsaw on a grand scale
And they all blur together as it spins inevitably, and tortuously
Across the floor.

It was dark when we left the vet school today. Wet and cold. Sniffle.

Broken cues

Broken cues - someone (I know who you are WM) has broken the cue in the bar, thus preventing the playing of pool, which is most upsetting - our practice today had to be cancelled.

Parasites anyone?

My goodness me - regular readers, if you are still checking this I bow down to you, for I have neglected the blog for far too long. I am now a clinical vet student don't ya know, and so have been having an inaugural number of lectures, which has been a shock to my system made fragile by last years slack timetable. I have learnt about alot of parasites - those you may have heard of (Ascaris, Toxocara) and those that may never have entered your wormy radar (Ostertagiosis anyone?). Parasitology is very simple: you can split the worms into 2 classes:
1) long wormy things.
2) short wormy things.
If you wish to go into more detail than this, things get very complicated, and of course there is that cut/off point between long and short that no-one can really work out, so I suppose there's a 3rd group:
3) medium sized wormy things that are neither long nor short
And then there are such GI parasites that aren't wormy...
4) Flukes.
And now we're getting into dangerous complicated territory. To tell the truth, our parasitology course has expanded to 137 pages of separation. Phew!

In rainbows.

There's a new radiohead album. Oh yeah - it finally arrived. I've been like a hare (not narcoleptic like the one in the fable) waiting patiently for the tortoise to finish the race - for over 3 years. Finally they've produced something, and it's beautiful. Plus you can pay as much for it as you want! Amazing!

PARTY!

We had a housewarming party, both to celebrate our moving into our funky new magnolia house of innuendo and also to warm it. We felt the number of bodies available would provide warmth for many weeks to come*. People began rolling in at about 8.30pm, and my room became cloakroom (as it's just by the front door) and also toilet (as it is ensuite and downstairs). Many people came, including Bethmo who adventured all the way down from Durham (on a train that took a million hours to get here) to see it, which was really great. Lots of Vicky's course peeps came, along with linguists, vets, friends of Mr Taylor and Mary and much hilarity was had by all.

Until it was gatecrashed that was. Some crayzeees came in off the street after giving some guests some cigarettes and proceeded to drink our wine, piss in my loo and generally get in the way until they left (Vicky pointed them in the direction of the door). Grr.


*Incidentally I wonder if there is an opening for using cows to heat houses? They could be connected up by pipes, and their methane (which would be at a decent average 38.5 degrees C) could be run through the house's central heating system. Just a thought. (Joke)

p.s. photo stolen from Becky VW's facebook page. My apologies. It is of the party.

How to #1

How to...

be a meat-eating fruitarian...

1) Find a goat, or other edible animal
2) Pick up goat
3) Climb up tree, holding goat.
4) Drop goat from tree.
5) Descend tree
6) Tuck in!

we have the internet in the house... a post will come. In the meantime - 14-9 to England, oh yeah.

September forgotten NOT!

I didn't actually post in september. At all. How crazy of me. Incase you're interested I did some hoof-trimming. Went round with a hoof trimmer I know through my Pa, and it was really interesting. They were lovely people, I saw loads of farms (including a farmer I worked with ages ago) and learnt alot. Hurrah!

Houses, Englings and Bronte

Hello!

Recent internet obsession - scrabulous.com and also its facebook ap. They're both great ways of playing scrabble online, and I've become a little obsessed. Best move so far, involved playing "RAPpERS" on the 1st go (70 ish points) and then making it "CRAPPERS" on the next move, getting a triple word and 54 points. Huzzah!

Last week was exciting. I went up to Cambridge for the day to see our new house. It looks about a million times better than it did when we went to look round before (and it still looked good then), probably because there was only me and my sister in there, as opposed to 13 people! It smells a little dusty, but apart from that should be amazing to live in! Me and Hannah had a good day in Cambridge carrying stuff to the house, finding out that the number 7 bus goes straight there, eating in a pub, hoovering (!), talking to lady about horses (?) and making videos on my camera. hehe Larks.

The following day I went to see Vicky (who is looking very well) in London. We went for cake and a drink in a pub around Leicester Square and nattered for an hour and a half before Vicky had to go and feed her family.

This week is Hannah's results week and, apart from that, not alot. I'm reading Jane Eyre (I read Jasper Fford's 'The Eyre Affair' last week, and feel like I should read the real thing) at the moment, and can't really put it down. It's an amazing book - I'm quite surprised really. I got a really old copy from Oxfam in Kingston (along with Wuthering Heights - they were the same print and I couldn't see them split up) - cost me £2.98 in total. Bargainusmaximus!

Tom

On Thursday

Stables, Simpson and Frosts.

I've spent the week at the local stables - the same place I was at last year. It's a It was good fun again, the people there are all lovely, and the horses are all so laid back and relaxed that it's a joy to work with them. We also had visits from the vet and farrier, so I tagged along with them while they were there, spending the rest of my time doing the standard vet student tasks of mucking out, grooming and tacking up. 11 weeks done now - just 1 week of farm experience to do!

In other news, I went to the cinema on Wednesday to see The Simpson's movie. I went with Hannah and Mum and Dad - it was a nice family evening out. The film is good, very funny, just like a modern Simpsons episode by 83 minutes long. The entire storyline does focus on the family which means some of the other characters are forgotten about, but I suppose they had to do that. It is the only movie they've made, and it is called "The Simpsons". However, I think the telly program always benifited from the many well known characters. Still a very good film though! We went on a Wednesday, which meant we got one ticket free (text "film" to 241), but it meant the queue in the Rotunda was huge - stretching out almost to Pizza Express! Rahul said he was going to be in the cinema at the same time (we drew 3-3 at snooker that very day), but I didn't see him. I did see Jfro though, which was cool - haven't seen him properly for ages - we'll have to arrange a drink. Fancy it Jamie?

Radio Shmadio

Last night I decided to take my minidisc player for a little outing (it has been neglected recently) across London to be used during my journey to Rahul's birthday thingie in London. Unfortunately, having exhausted my minidisc on the journey home, I found myself listening to London LBC Radio, for my old minidisc has an FM function. This LBC is a station of moaning. If you've had a particularly tough day, have read the paper (most likely the Express, or Mail) and despaired for the "way the country is going" a couple of times, then this is the station for you. I base this on 1 brief 15 minute listening on the bus on the way home at gone midnight, but it basically involved people ringing up moaning, and, more annoyingly, the DJ agreeing with everything they say, no matter how ridiculous and unfounded their ramblings. Particularly one fellow's argument , "I can't believe they're not giving out killer's names if they're under 18 to protect them. When I was under 18 I was in the army, and was trained to kill", annoyed me. I'm not entirely sure how he managed to link the two statements anyway, but the point I wish to raise is just what a good example of the "guilty until proven innocent" attitude such as that brought up by A Passage to India or Vernon God Little this is. The names of these "killers" are not given, because it is possible that they are, in fact, not killers, and if they are, we have a law system much better placed to deal with them than some vengeful member of the public who will be benefited by a name. In fact, I am often unsure of why the accused are named at all, regardless of age, unless, of course, they are on the run and may pose a risk to the public. I'm sure there will be someone reading this who will have a better idea of what I'm rambling on about - please leave a comment if you do!

In other news, Rahul's birthday was good fun. The food was pretty tasty (though I couldn't finish my main course - I blame the Tetleys Ally bought me) and the place was nice, if a little cramped and over-hot! A little shout out to Mr Todd, who has revealed his frequenting of this site to me. Keep on reading my man, and if you fancy it, leave me a comment to say hi! I hope you've recovered well from last night's shenanigans.

We are not built to cope with all the sadness in the World

"They both regretted the death, but they were middle-aged men who had invested their emotions elsewhere, and outbursts of grief could not be expected from them over slight acquaintances. It's only one's own dead who matter. If for a moment the sense of communion in sorrow came to them, it passed. How indeed is it possible for one human being to be sorry for all the sadness that meets him on the face of the earth, for the pain that is endured not only by men, but by animals and plants and perhaps by the stones? The soul is tired in a moment, and in fear of losing the little she does understand she retreats to the permanent lines which habit or chance have dictated and suffers there."

EM Forster, A Passage to India, p219.

A Passage To India

Before I start, I should just give a small warning that this post may give away some of the storyline. However, I would suggest that this book should not be read so much for the intrigue of what happens to Aziz, but for the people and politics surrounds that story. It sounds like a bold and pretentious statement, but in fact the main story framework is extremely small - it is its telling that I found most fascinating.

Aziz is an Indian doctor working in Chandrapore. From the beginning of the book he sparks a friendship with Mrs Moore and Miss Quested, two English ladies, and eventually invites them an some other friends on a trip to the Marabar Caves. During this trip, Aziz and Miss Quested become separated from the rest of the group, and the result is that Aziz is accused of assaulting Adela, who appears to run from the caves. From the moment of his arrest the affairs of Aziz are never mentioned - you have no idea of what has been happening to him, except through the biased words of the Anglo-Indians, who never once mention his name - he is always "the prisoner". This is just an example of the guilty-until-proven-innocent attitude of authority in this book. As soon as the trial falls apart, Aziz is mentioned by name again as if nothing has happened, and he re-enters the story. "From the moment of his arrest he was done for… he had despaired, not through cowardice, but because he knew that an English-woman's word would always outweigh his own." p208.

It's a fascinating insight to the years of Colonial India, and exposes the racism inherent in the system. As I read the book I was filled with a constant feeling of respect for Aziz - it's the way it's written. Because you see all that happens - you are aware of Aziz's innocence and intentions all along, all the prejudice around him is shocking. Perhaps also as he speaks perfect English, and, being a book, you do not really have any idea of the colour of his skin it feels even more shocking. I wonder if this book changed any opinions in the 20s?

Books...

This holiday, I have done much reading, which has been something I have been looking forward to doing ever since exams got to within 4 months away. I list...

• Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre. A pretty good read. Set in southern texas you follow the expoits of an incredibly unlucky and persecuted individual, Vernon Little. He has been witness to a mass murder at a local school, and as the only friend of the dead killer, he becomes a scape goat for the local police intent on "cause and effect". 3/5
  
• The Player of Games by Ian Banks. One of his culture novels, the first I've read. It took some getting into; his writing style is horrible - very punchy sentences, with poorly worded, forced dialogues. However, the story was quite a good idea, and if you can get past the writing and the fact that the characters names are clearly produced by Mr Banks luring his cat across his keyboard (Chiark-Gevantsa Jernau Morat Gurgeh dam Hassease indeed!), it's quite good. Basically, Jernau is a game player, he plays all, and he usually wins all in impressive style. He is taken away to the empire of Azad, where their game, Azad, is so complex that your positioning in a tournament determines your status in Azad society. 3.5/5
• Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling. You all know what these are, and I love them. They're so well written - very few other books have presented the same interweaving and gripping story lines that the entire HP series have. Perhaps it's because there's around 3000 pages of character history, but the character developments are fantastic. An easy read, but well worth it. Not wanting to give anything away, the ending is great. I may have shed a tear or two... 5/5
• The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. The story slowly ducks and weaves, but it's the writing that really pulls you along in this book. It's written from 4 perspectives - three 1st person and one 3rd person. Leo Gursky writes with stacattoed, regularly punctuated sentences, and writes about his days trying to make himself noticed at the end of his life. He'll go into starbucks and order coffee loudly, and then proceed to deliberately spill it. He's written a book, but it was never published - it was given to a friend to look after when world war II began, and he hasn't seen it since. His only love, Alma emigrated from Poland during the war, while pregnant with Leo's only son. Another Alma writes exceptionally for a 15 year old - always questioning, always reasoning, and her brother "Bird" writes his own confused thoughts in his diary, which I suppose is his own was of expressing love. Their mother is translating The History of Love, a book by the main character in the 3rd person piece, Zvi... as the story unravels the stories begin to link together in breathtaking style. I really enjoyed this book, and will no doubt read it again and again. 5/5

Cornwall - Train Japes.

And so Tom travelled to deepest Cornwall. The train journey was a long one (the longest I've ever made), and took me from Paddington to Truro (via Plymouth). I was surrounded by prepubescent school children who, between the sugar rushes that followed mad dashes to the buffet car, were trying to convince each other that as we rushed across the coastal rail, the large expanse of cool blue water outside the window was not the sea.
"It's not the sea you know, it's just a lake," one would say.
"It so is the sea," a small confused voice would reply.
"It's not! It's a lake"
"It's not! It's the sea"
"No, lake!"
"Mr BARKER!!" the little voice would exclaim. "Is that the sea?"
"Of course it is the sea," the much maligned Mr Barker would reply. Ah, if only we all had an authority figure like Mr Barker to make everything right.

I seemed to have been followed around by the smell of cheap bacon. I foolishly went to burger king at Paddington, and the kid opposite me bought a bacon bap... man it smelt bad. Plus, on the train from Paddington I was sat next to an old lady who also smelt like bacon. As I expected, when I saw Alex in Truro she put these "olfactory hallucinations" down to the only possible cause - brain tumour. Humm.. hopefully not! Thankfully the smell left later that afternoon! Phew!

Truro was lovely, we stopped for a quick cream tea in a little tea shop with incredibly high ceilings with hanging baskets with honed, pointed bases precariously dangling from it. Eep!

I'm sorry it's been so long. As the time since my last post stretched out, so did the amount of stuff I'd done, and so the inclination to write got less and less! Since I last posted, well, loads of stuff has happened. I've graduated (I now have a BA!) with a 2.1, which I am delighted about, and have left Cambridge for another long summer holiday.
Then, family holiday to Centre Parcs which involved much golf (some very poor rounds, and also some half decent rounds) along with swimming, badminton, squash, barbecues, snooker, kayaking, pedaloing and lots of cycling. Was really good fun. Then, home for a few days, during which I tried to organise my last two weeks of farm experience (and failed), and then I toddled off to Cornwall, which is where I'll start catching up the posts. My apologies.

eeek.. it's been a month. Update coming soon, I promise.

I'm a graduate! A boy with a BA. Woah. We had an amazing day, somehow it hardly rained at all, which, considering the recent way the weather's been, was very lucky! We had photos, rehersals, canapes, champagne - the whole shabang. I spent the day wearing a shirt, jacket, gown and hood, which eventually became incredibly heavy on my shoulders - it was a surprising relief to take them off! We all lined up in senate house, and when it eventually got to me I knelt down, had something mumbled to me in latin, and was then Tom Ward BA! Hah!

#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.

Dev Bio Saviour.

I'm posting this for anyone who may happen to study developmental biology at any point. It will seem daunting, it will seem nigh-on impossible, with genes rushing about all over the place. I hope this post will help you. I hope it'll end up on google, like most of my pages do and will direct you to this book in your time of need. PDN dev bio, Cambridge... here you go...

Instant Notes, Developmental Biology

you may think pfff instant notes, what an undetailed waste of time. Nope. This book will clarify everything - in fact, I'm regretting ever going to lectures. Instead I should have just read this book time and time again. It's really brilliant.

Jenga

"A slipped disc is just God playing Jenga with your spine." Me

Knowedge (sic)

"Knowing that you know what you know is almost as important as knowing what you know." Me

Chutzpah (KHʊt'spə) - what a word. Look it up.

Busybusy

Have somehow not blogged for 2 or 3 days, despite this being exam term. I have been pretty busy the last 2 days with this and that, and trying to cram work into every moment in between doing stuff, eating or drinking tea/coffee. Plus it's been bloody freezing (as mentioned in my previous post) and it's going to be the same all week. How depressing!

Sunday night was Open Mic Night (photos). Alex was pretty nervous all day but calmed down while the guy before us was playing, while I did the complete reverse. Hehe. We played "Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, "Proof" by I Am Kloot, and "The Fear" by Travis. It went pretty well, and Sam (who was running the CAMS (Clare Alternative Music Society night) apparently enjoyed CYHSY even though he's a great fan of theirs, and the 1st year medic I met at the Medic's dinner who said "Proof" was her favourite song on the I am Kloot album also seemed to enjoy our rendition. Hurrah! It was good fun!

Yesterday was a pretty full day, so much so that I did no work! OOer. I'll have to have a purge today. Mary came round for coffee in the morning and we sat in the kitchen chatting to her from 10am until gone noon. I then rang Rahul (who was still in bed) at almost 1pm to get him up and out to snooker, and we went to WT's for a few hours. We played 5 games, drank 4 pints (in total, not each) and he pipped me to the post 3-2 on the last black. Nnnrgh. For some reason we got a free pitcher of beer when we got the table, so, not to turn down a bargain, we happily obliged. "It's a little early" I said. "It's never too early" she replied... Fair enough!

We then went to our 1st "Improver's" dancing class in the evening, which was pretty hard. We'd missed last weeks lesson, so we had to catch up the Rumba and the "hestitation" in the quick-step, which was really hard to get our heads around. Still, good fun though, and we got take-away icecream on the way home (at 10pm - hooray for La Margherita). Then, we had coffee in the kitchen with Iona, and I discovered Horlicks... a strange malty concoction that should probably be avoided at all costs, but somehow tasted slightly pleasant. Don't think I'll be drinking it again though. I also somehow got on to the topic of "gene knockouts" and tried to explain the "cre-lox" system for knocking out genes in specific tissues... I wasn't wholly successful, but that was mostly due to my poor explanatory skills. I left in where devils fear to tread... should have gone for something more simple like mRNAi or oligonucleotides. Nevermind!

Adieu,

Tom

Am in the computer room printing - the pleasant and healthy whirr of the colony printer stack behind me, and finally, some warmth. Braeside has been freezing over the last few days. The weather has taken a decided turn for the worst, and the heating has been turned off. I've been wearing a stupid number of layers for May! If it's gonna be cold, why won't it rain! We need the water.

I went to the Clare MedSoc Dinner last night, as all medics are essentially honourary vets, we allow them to name their Soc after themselves. Bless'em. It was pretty good fun, I sat next to a first year and a 2nd year medic, and chatted to them about... well... stuff, as you do, and enjoyed the 4 course lavish meal with "free drinks" as supplied by the fellows. Which was really good! I guess there aren't many places you could go and get a 4 course meal with pre-dinner champagne, wine on-tap, and port afterwards for the measly price of £20 really!

Happy Birthday Blog

Five days ago, it was this blog's 2nd birthday! I guess this exciting redesign can be a part of the birthday celebrations.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOMTHEVET.BLOGSPOT.COM

addendum...

It has been brought to my attention by a Mr Greg that my pictured monkey is, infact, agnathic, being neither prognathic or in the possession of any jaw bones. However, the original quote (referring to one "Tomthevet") stands as "A prognathic mitten-man", for reasons unknown (excepting a slight overstudying of primate-skulls).

I hope that has cleared up some confusion.

Tom (A prognathic mitten man)
and "Chimpy" (An agnathic knitted-chimp).

p.s. This is Post No. 250! Wow.

Stem Cells, Cafes and Facebook

Today... Alex's dissertation was collected - her supervisor hasn't really filled in much so she's a little confused as to what exactly is wanted, but hopefully she'll see him soon and get a better idea. I was quite impressed with it personally. I'm trying to bash my way through a lecture on stem cells which is less than riveting and filled with beautiful pointless sentences like "VEGF maintains Flk-1 and PECAM1+ sheets from day 1.5". Wow. I can honestly say I'm impressed. I'm going to run downstairs now and tell everyone in the kitchen what a wonderful insight into the world of developmental biology I'm having. This was supposed to be interesting. nrrrgh.

In other news, it's been freezing today! Alex and me went to Cafe Rouge for dinner and we nearly froze on the way down there. The food was amazing though. I had beef bourgignon (mmmmm) and Alex had chicken in white wine sauce. I then had creme broule (whatever else!) and Alex had a chocolate crepe (so French, so tasty!) and then coffees and things. Was really cool.

Am also playing snooker with rahul on Monday... no doubt I'll thrash him again like last time. I'm enjoying his facebook status at the moment "Rahul is facing four weeks of unadulterated lie-ins." Mine is "Tom is unable to understand why no-one likes Marillion".

Other highlights include "Lizzi is terrified. Google "lizzi edwards" with the speech marks and the first ELEVEN results are actually her... shit." Mmm... someone's bragging a tad! "Vicky is lacking in judgement after compressing her head" - I assume after the tiny child's crown she wore to the bop, and "Greg is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it".

I really don't want to so this stem cell rubbish. Can you tell??

Tom

currently listening, Rachmaninov, Piano Concerto No. 1.

Banners!

As you can probably seen, my blog has just risen about 900 points in the beauty and general eye-pleasing imageyness scale™ . Allow me to demonstrate:

0 (black screen)
10 (Cambridge bioanth website)
100 (My old blog)
1000 (My new blog)

I found out how to randomise banner images (see this link) and made some pretty pictures involving PG-tips monkey. Yes, not only am I advertising an admittedly quite poor tea company, I'm also showing off my monkey - who is damned cool. And also, the random "prognathic mitten-man" makes ever so slightly more sense when there's a knitted (like mittens) monkey (usually prognathic, though this one less so) on the front page in numerous situations vaguely relevant to my life. Expect many more as the exams get nearer and as I venture further afield with the monkey. There are 4 so far... press F5 or click here to refresh the page and see them all.

Hope you enjoy!

Tom

Weebl and Bob

What day is it now? Thursday google desktop tells me - how convenient! Ah, weebl and bob... CSI edition...

Weebl: "Lo boberto consuarlez"
Bob: "Lo Justice shades"
Weebl: "It look like this baker has been shot"
Bob: "twelve times in the face"
Weebl: "a real *puts on shades*... baker's dozen"
The Who: "Yeeeaaaah (+ guitars)" key intro.
Bob: "but a baker's dozen is thirteen!"
Weebl: "unlucky... for some"
The Who: "Yeeeaaaah (+ guitars)"
Bob: "where that music coming from!?"

Just so good. Watch it

Sunshine!!

The sunshine is beautiful. I sat outside with Iona, Tom and Louisa for about 4 hours on Monday, revising as best we could in the glorious sunshine. Even in April, sitting directly in the sun is tough - we found ourselves shuffling around with the tree's shadow. Alex and Vicky auditioned for 5 1/2 hours over two days, and had a lot of auditionees - we'll have to wait for the results to see who gets selected! They're due a week of sleep pretty soon!

In other news, we went to formal last night, in celebration of Ella's birthday much past, but missed. The food was awful, but we all had good fun. Ella was properly chuffed with her presents (A space hopper, a murder mystery, a purse, some earrings, some chocolates and 2 DVDs - we split off into boys and girls for her shopping, guess who got what...). I've put some photos on flickr.

c u r r e n t l y

Currently reading: The Dawkins Delusion: a critique of The God Delusion - should be pretty interesting.
Currently working on: Limb Bud Development
Currently listeninging to: Interior Lulu by Marillion - an epic track from their 2000ish album Marillion.com. Not an easy one to get into if you've never heard Marillion before, but beautiful none-the-less

Photos

I've joined flickr as an attempt to make my photos more easily available online, as blogger is often a little unsure of which photos it'll keep, and not everyone has access to facebook. My URL is http://www.flickr.com/photos/recognisetheview/ with the username recognisetheview if you just want to search for me from the main page. All the pic resize to 800 pixels, so if you want a BIG original copy, then just email me!

Enjoy!

I've just finished going through Module 3, and am not far off making lecture notes for the other 3 modules. Getting there...

Last Friday was the "What you wanted to be when you were younger" bop, which was really really good fun - probably one of the best bops for a while. Vicky, Iona, Erika and me went shopping (yes, I was a girl for the afternoon) for costumes, and I picked up a hard-hat from an army surplus store for £7. I need more use out of it, so no-doubt next year whenever I do any sort of DIY I'll be putting on my hard-hat. "You need a plug rewiring? Of course, I'll just go and get my hard-hat".

One never can be too careful.

But yargh, bop was good fun and photos (with my exciting new camera!) are available on flickr.

Cambridge

I have returned, and spent much of my time back in Cambridgeland putting finishing touches to my dissertation. It's now all handed in and completed, so it's in the lap of the Gods now. It was nice to see it all bound up and posh-looking, all 23 pages of it. Iona, Vicky and Erika all handed theirs in today, so we're all going out to Dojos to celebrate, hopefully followed by a bar trip.

In other news, I broke my cafetiere! The glass bit now has a tasty hole right in the bottom. No full on (non instant) coffee for me until I can get a new one and I can see me needing it in the coming weeks. The only question now is where to find one!?

__________________
Update: I now have a cafetiere - £7 (-70p student discount = £6.30) from Whittards. I got it from the scary lady. It took all my guts to ask her to go and get them.

I wanna feel alive, gas up the 4-wheel drive.

Good evening all. I haven't posted ALL holiday - which is a bit lame really. First thing's first - there's a new Marillion album, so I'd better get a review out the way.

Marillion - Somewhere Else.
After the first few listens I was, how shall I put it... shocked... and somewhat apalled. H's voice has a real habit of sounding terrible when he's singing something you're not used to. His melodies seem random, and his voice seems droll. But after a few listens it sounds incredible! You realise why he's singing why he is, and how it sits with the rest of the song. Because they have a tendency to make such epic songs, you need to know what's coming to enjoy the rest of the song. That's why I love them so much - every minute of (almost) every song is building up to something big, small, poignant, whatever. Just magical music.
My hilights from the new album are the opening track (The Other Half), Most Toys (which has a radioheadesque guitar line running all the way through it), The Last Century for Man, which builds up beautifully similarly to King (if you know Marillion!) and has the best few seconds on the whole album ("I wanna feel alive, GAS UP THE 4-WHEEL DRIVE). Oh, and A Voice from the Past (which I hated at first), is perfect. Perfect guitar solo, perfect vocals. Glorious.

This album is probably the biggest grower since Marbles!

I've also recently bought the new Maximo Park album, and the new Bloc Party album, and both are pretty good. Somehow none of the songs hold me like Marillion though! I'm going to see them in Cambridge in June! Hurrah!

Finished Gormenghast

It was a really good series.

Well, the 1st 2 books anyway.

It's dark, it's beautifully written, and even in the page-after-page where the castle just undergoes it's painful and unceasing monotony, it's worth reading, and still holds you. And of course, when something does begin happening there's no way you can put it down. The last book is strange, and such a huge leap away from the first two, that I found it a little strange. Titus leaves the castle, and finds a magical land with cars, and flying space-ships. All a little weird and unexpected for my tastes. However, if you get the chance, read them. It's well worth it.

Pub Golf.. FORE!

Met Matt et al. in Surbiton for a number of people's birthday's (Matt and Matt infact!). We played Pub golf all the way to Kingston. Lalalalala. I got hole 1 (Guinness) in 2, that's 2- par. Oh yeah - hardcore me! Then I didn't play the next round, but lied to Dan (who was scoring), or the next round (but lied again)...

Then we all gave up cos everyone was FAR to drunk to carry on (though no hangover for Tom! I know my limit now. Woooo!) and spent an hour or so in The Mill (which had NO drinks. I had to get Gabriel his 4th choice. FOURTH! jeez!) and then went on to McCluskies, and danced to shite music till the night was done. Was pretty good fun all told!

Pic stolen from Natalie. Sorry, and Ta!

Alex's visit

Alex visited - we went into London to see Vicky, and had the classic Wagamama lunch, with the less classic Haagen Daas dessert - the service in that place is terrifyingly personal. Just give me my food and leave! We also ate LOADS of Pret (darling Pret) a mange, bought numerous textiles commodities in Kingston (for Alex is once-again making her own ball-dress!), had chinese takeaway, watched programs about GIANT SQUID. mmm... invertebratey, and generally enjoyed having a couple of days together and without work.

Today I had my last ever lecture in Downing Site. After three years, and a fair few hundred lectures in there it's all done! Can't believe it's the end of my EIGHTH term in Cambridge - it really has flown by. I'm stupidly relieved that I'm not leaving after this year though!

Lots of work done Saturday... many notes made, more lectures understood - all good.

Emma bar that evening. Had scary 9 foot sofa. No-one danced. Was a bit lame. Saw Rich though. Came back to Reece's. Had gardies with Bethmo. Saw the Royal Tenembaums. Was bon. Went to bed at 3am. Sleeeeepy. So slept till 1pm. Lots of work done again. Adventure up Histon Road and scary back streets. DINNNNER

Want house? Get house.

We have a house! We spent this afternoon wandering around the Chesterton region sneaking around cute little terraces trying to find somewhere to live. We saw 3 houses in total, and paid a deposit on the first one we saw. It was really lovely - a great sitting room, big kitchen, side covered outside bit, off-street parking, and 6 bedrooms, 3 of which are en-suite. The rooms are small (presumably the house is made to only have 2 bedrooms!), but it'll do the job, and with the lounge we won't need much space in our rooms. The 2nd house was nice (bigger bedrooms) but the lounge was in the basement - felt like walking into a dungeon. The third house was newly revamped, but unfortunately was ALL corridors - the kitchen was a tight galley, and there was no living room (just a breakfast bar). All in all, a good choice was made. Now all we have to do is set about planning how to "make our mark". Get out the spray paints and skull-and-cross-bone stensils!