Recent News

Hi All
Sorry for the absence for a few days. What's new? Well, I've been marking re-sit exam papers. Some students have indeed redeemed themselves but a few have repeated their first sitting performance and one or two have actually got worse! No-one did what a student in a neighbouring department did though. Apparently they wrote on their exam script, "This exam is ----". The missing word didn't rhyme with "duck", or "pit", but did with "bank", and for that misdemeanour they were thrown out of the University!! It's not as if they would have any plausible defence. "I didn't mean to write that, sir, honestly. I was drunk and high and didn't know what I was doing". "That's quite understable, sonny", the Dean would reply. "We won't throw you out for bad language. We'll throw you out for substance abuse instead!"

I've just started planning a big paper I've been asked to write about all of our porphryin work to date. It's going to be a big job to get it done for the mid-October deadline but it should look good on the ol' CV when it's done. And today Faridah and I have written her first abstract for a conference in Malaysia in December - she's going to that one as part of an extended trip back home. Lab news - we're soon to get a new air conditioner for the clean room which will make working in there more comfortable and will reduce sales in "Sure for Men" substantially and also within the next month, we've been granted part of a new lab room to complement the existing lab space. It's only around 10m2 but it'll mean we can move some non-chemically sensitive gear out of the main lab and free up room there to expand our pollution-inducing sensor experiments.

Well, the only other news is non-work; my new "silent" guitar has apparently arrived today. This will enable me to practice anywhere without causing my wife to shout "Christ! Can't you play something with a tune for once?!" on a daily basis. You may be thinking what a silent guitar is? Well, it's not a guitar without any strings, although certainly that would be silent. It's basically one with a pick-up and collapsible sides to enable you to travel with it. It's got its own pre-amp so you use headphones or it will drive a decent size amp if you want, although that would convert the "silent" into "bleeding noisy" of course. Anyhow, I'll report in a day or two on its attributes.

Finally, a mention to my greatest "blogreader" - Ben R from Bangor - thanks Ben for reading my blog. It's great to know that there is at least one (and probably only one) daily reader out there! Much appreciated and enjoy the quiet while the boss is away!!!