PETA are nuts, but hilarious. I read the whole thing and thought, this is rather cute and amusing, but in a b3ta piss-taking sort of way. Until I looked at the URL.

(See also...)

Well, the entire expedition lasted about ten minutes from leaving my flat to returning, but I think it counts. Yesterday while heading out for the shops (via St Davids Hill) I found an apple tree behind the fence that separates this estate from the railway. On closer inspection, the tree seems to be in the garden of an abandoned, derelict house on ( Read more... )

So I came in slightly earlier this morning to get a couple of hours in the laser lab before someone else's booked slot. I went in, powered up the ~£600k's worth of high-powered lasers, and then... the computer (a bog-standard Windows XP PC) that runs the imaging system failed to boot up. Awesome.

Edit: Of course, it spontaneously recovered about ( Read more... )

I might as well stop ever debating any of the 'big' topics (politics, religion etc.) with anyone. Just point them at the relevant Marcus Brigstocke clip. He pretty much sums it up, far more eloquently than I could ever hope for, and more forcefully (or arrogantly, if you prefer) than I have the confidence to pull off. So I won't try, and just let ( Read more... )

OK, so I thought today was my birthday. But it can't be. You see, my birthday is on the 6th of April.

But in early April, Exeter - you know, the one in the South West of England - does NOT look like this:
( Pictures behind cut. Apologies for the shoddy compression, again. )

So this is probably the first time I've spent Easter all by myself - I didn't really want to take any time off to go back to Luxembourg (or rush there and back for the long weekend), and my undergraduate flatmate's gone home for a few weeks ( Read more... )

I want one of theseIn my flat I have no garden or outdoor space of any sort (not even a balcony), and it hurts me to throw away large quantities of vegetable waste when I cook, not to mention the steady stream of teabags invevitable in almost any UK household, and the leftovers that occur at times. I don't quite know what I'd do with the compost ( Read more... )

And I'll just put the main news here without further ado - I've bought a flat.
( Read more... )

which might answer a few questions that have been left open since then:

I've just been offered a PhD studentship in biomedical physics at the University of Exeter.

More details as they become clear; more on what else has happened... later. Maybe :-)

After finishing the dissertation (March 30th), I was hoping for a reasonably quiet three weeks until the start of the new (and final) term (tomorrow). Well, for that, I should've stayed in Exeter... still, it's been interesting ( Read more... )