The Quantum Angler

En uppfångning

2012-01-14T21:08:00.007Z

English translation: http://tinyurl.com/7sc3bdq.

Så, jag tänkte skriva någonting på svenska på bloggen. Men vad kan jag skriva? Faktist har jag inte skrivit mycket sedan jag kom till Sverige. Jag trodde att jag skulle skriver mycket om vad händer till mig i Sverige, so kanske jag kan updatera bloggen om mitt liv.

Väl, jag jobbar fortfarande för ett företag som tillverkar lasrar, och det går ganska bra. Vi har släppte ett nytt produkt som är en direkt diodelaser. Jag gick med i projekten i mitten när kärnen av tekniken var redan utvecklad, men mycket fanns att göra innan vi kunde sälja dem. Jag har gjort många testar, avslöjat många problem som jag löste i samband med vår elektronikkonsult, och utbildat någon från produktion att bygga lasrarna. Nästa vecka åker jag till Photonics Väst i San Francisco, med forskning och utveckling gruppen, där jag ska demonstrera lasrarna till vår försäljare. Det ska var interessant; jag verkligen hoppas att lasern fungera! I alla fall, det ska var trevlig att ser alla vår sju färger i mässan.

Jag bor fortfarande i Sollentuna. Lägenheten är ibland ganska dålig, och killen som jag bor med kan vara alldeles irritande, men det är riktig billig! Jag har sparat ganska mycket pengar medan jag har bott här. I alla fall är Sollentuna inte så dålig. I sommaren kan jag cycla till jobbet, som tar fyrtio minuter ungefär; det är ju jobbigt, men det känns mycket bra efter. Mitt företag har duschar också, som hjälpar mycket när jag cycla! En annan bra sak är att jag bor so nära natur. Järvafältets är bara tio minuter på cykel till väster, och Edsviken är till öster. I sommaren köpte jag en DSLR kamera, och tog många bilder i Järvafältets. Man kan cykla genom naturreservatet också, som gör det lättare att tar bilder i "magic hour" utan att bli fast i parken i mörken. I vintern är Edsviken en bra plats för att tar bilder. Det är tillräckligt nära att jag kan gå till sjön när jag misstänker att en skön solnedgång kommer att finnas. Jag tog den här idag (med hjälp av Photoshop) http://www.farfieldblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Edsviken-4.jpg.

Så, varsågod! Jag vet att jag ska snart glömma min svenska när jag kommer hem från sverige, så den här kommer förhoppningsvis att påminna mig av tiden innan det glömde jag!

Light amplification by stimulated emission of rock

2011-10-24T15:53:00.009Z

Here is the playlist I developed while writing my thesis. It took a long campaign of not working in order to hone this list to perfection. I think the theme is pretty clear, but the exact rules I decided on were that each song had to good, they had to be by artists I had already heard of, and they had to be related to lasers.

1. Queen - Killer Queen
2. T.Rex - Laser Love
3. Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby
4. The Kinks - Sunny Afternoon
5. Super Furry Animals - Lazer Beam
6. Audrey Horne - Threshold
7. System of a Down - Bounce
8. Dethklok - Laser Cannon Deth Sentence
9. Godsmack - Re-Align
10. Tenacious D - Beelzeboss (The Final Showdown)
11. Shirley Bassey - Goldfinger

Nearly half the songs actually contain the word laser in the lyrics (I debated long and hard whether to let the Super Furry Animals in when they couldn't spell, but I really liked the song), and in a further two songs the link should be clear to the non-specialist. Some of the links are more subtle, but somebody who knows their lasers should be able to get 10 out of 11, with the final song left for those who've had the misfortune of reading my thesis.

I think most PhD graduates have a couple of songs they they would associate with their writing up period, and this playlist certainly helped me through it. I sometimes stick it on from time to time, and it reminds me in a bittersweet way of the good times I had in Damlab. If you're my friend on Facebook, you should be able to subscribe to it via Spotify!

Det Svenska språket

2011-07-20T21:30:00.002Z

My swating-up on the Swedish language is finally starting to pay dividends. This week, for the first time in my life, I had a full conversation with somebody in a foreign language.

Sure, I have been speaking Swedish to people for a while now, but the subject was always limited to the kind of tedium you practice in language class. Whenever I spoke Swedish it was essentially for the purpose of practicing it. But this week I found myself using Swedish to have regular, worthwhile conversations with people about stuff we actually wanted to talk about, and that feels extremely liberating! The fact that we are speaking Swedish no longer has to be acknowledged during the conversation, and people act as if everything is normal.

The weird thing is of course how it doesn't feel weird at all. I have often wondered how strange it must be to hear a real person speaking a foreign language and actually understand it, but now I find myself doing double-takes whenever I overhear and understand things people say when I'm not even even paying attention to them. To most young, educated people in this world this would all seem rather pathetic, but I suspect many of my compatriots would sympathise. After five years spent taking German and French at school I was not even close to being able to speak or comprehend those languages, leaving me with the illogical feeling that it was all but impossible to learn a language, so this feels like quite an achievement.

I have to give the Swedes credit though. They can all speak near-perfect English, and I haven't met a single one that seemed to resent speaking English to me. But once you try to speak a little Swedish to a Swede, no matter how bad it is, they will keep the conversation going in Swedish for as long as possible. Initially I thought I would just be wasting people's time if I insisted on using my slow, bad Swedish, but now I realise that is nonsense. Everybody wants to hear others learning their language, especially if it is as small and uncommon (and funny sounding) as Swedish.

So for now I'm happy. The chance to learn a foreign language and to actually immerse myself in it was one of the main reasons I was so excited about coming to this country, and now after nearly a year it is finally starting to happen!

Radio station in trouble after good music is played

2011-06-10T18:45:00.002Z

A Stockholm pop radio station has received hundreds of complaints after a piece of classical music was mistakenly played on Thursday. Listeners across the Swedish capital were horrified when a fugue by the baroque composer Johan Sebastian Bach was inserted into Mix Megapol's afternoon schedule by DJ Bork Bergström. The piece played for a full 3 minutes before station executives were able to shut it down. Bergström has been suspended pending an investigation into how he was able to override the automated playlist software and to play an unsanctioned non-pop song.

The fugue in question, The art of fugue: contrapunctus I (BWV 1080), appeared straight after Enrique Iglesias' I'm fucking you. It also came just before the news break, thus having the further effect of preventing the station from reaching its legally-mandated hourly quota of Robyn songs. In an attempt to appease the Swedish singer, Mix Megapol subsequently devoted the entire remainder of the afternoon to playing Dancing on my own on constant repeat.

The incident is reminiscent of a similar one in 2003 when Entrails ripped from a virgin's cunt by Cannibal Corpse found its way onto the Richard Bacon breakfast show.

Teach yourself Swedish

2011-04-08T18:03:00.007Z

Teach yourself Swedish with the Quantum angler! Here are some handy words to get you started.

Kock - chef
Slut - end
Fart - speed
Väg - road
Rim - rhyme
Hår - hair
Skum - foam
Titt - look
Slag - type
Bra - good
Släppa - let down
Spurt - sprint
Skatt - tax

Lycka till!

Europe debates future of houses

2011-03-15T18:06:00.003Z

The terrible catastrophe in Japan has sparked fierce debate across Europe over the benefits of living in houses. With news networks showing wall-to-wall footage of houses being swept away by the devastating tsunami in Japan, European voters are becoming increasingly concerned over their governments' pro-house policies.

"The days when we could go on telling ourselves that houses were safe are over," writes Stëfan Güntherhausmeinschwürtzelsteinhof in today's Der Spiegel. "Japanese houses are among the most advanced in the world, and if even their houses can be destroyed by a massive environmental disaster of a scale you only find in seismically-active regions of the world, it could happen to any of us."

Europe has one of the highest rates of people living in houses of anywhere in the world, and many of its citizens are becoming increasingly worried about the ticking timebombs they live in. With public opinion quickly turning against houses, European leaders are stumbling to backtrack on previously sensible policies about housing. The Swiss government already looks set to draft emergency legislation to block construction of any new houses, encouraging citizens to leave their homes and go live in a tent in the Alps. One of Switzerland's 438 joint presidents, Arsene Fuquit announced the measures this morning, telling of how he dreamed of a Switzerland free from the dangers of tsunamis.

Within minutes of the first tsunami footage appearing, the UK's deputy prime minister Nick Clegg gave a speech on the issue. "After discussing with my Conservative colleagues, I now fervently believe we must burn all our houses and go and live in a cardboard box under a bridge," said Mr Clegg in absolute contradiction of the party's 2010 election manifesto, which clearly stated that "The Liberal Democrats will never ever ever ever advocate a policy of burning houses and going to live under a bridge," written in bold letters with size 32 Impact font on the front page of the manifesto, and signed individually by Nick Clegg.

An inappropriate name

2011-01-31T17:35:00.001Z

I cannot get over this. There is a company called Fluke, which makes measurement devices such as digital multimeters. You know, the kind of thing that scientists and engineers use to make reliable, accurate measurements. Fluke. Seriously, their name is Fluke.

It's like Lucozade Sport changing their name to Illegal Doping, or a GCSE study guide calling itself Just look over the smart kid's shoulder.

And while on the subject of inappropriate names, what's the deal with the Coherent Sapphire? Come off it. They may as well name their next multi-killowatt fibre laser the Ruby.

Rant of the week: The button fly

2010-11-21T20:28:00.000Z

This has riled me for a long time, and a good rant on the subject is long overdue, so here goes.

Many, many years ago, some clever man had an invention, which became known as the zip. This simple device allowed you to securely join and unjoin two pieces of fabric together at will. It was a brilliant idea, shaving literally seconds off the time it took to do up a coat. Men rested easy in the knowledge that their wang could be readily accessed whenever they needed it. The world, in short, was happy.

But some bright spark had a different idea. The trouble was, trousers had already been perfected, and clothes designers were running out of things to change. After the addition of pockets, arse pockets, and those pointless mini-pockets that live inside the main pockets, what else could be improved? Then one day the answer came: make the fly harder to open. The beauty of it was clear from the start; not only did the button fly on your jeans make you look like an authentic cowboy, but hardly anybody would ever see it. It made a bold statement about your commitment to fashion that you were willing to waste a few extra seconds every time you went to the bog in order to look ever so slightly cooler.

No, of course it didn't. It made you look like what you are: a fool. But still jeans designers won't let it go; probably at least half the jeans you find in high street shops have a button fly. This wouldn't be too bad if buying jeans weren't already such a challenge. As anyone who knows me will attest, I am a monstrously deformed freak of nature with dimensions that are many standard deviations from the mean, so naturally it is hard to find the right size. Compound this with the recent trend towards "skinny jeans", and it has never been easier to come out of a clothes shop looking like a twat.

So please, if you're watching Mr person who decides how we do up our trousers, give us a break!

Sweden

2010-10-17T15:26:00.000Z

Things I like about Sweden:

It's not cloudy all the time
They sell fresh milk in the supermarket
The language sounds nice
They all speak English, and don't mind if you speak it at them
Rental prices aren't utterly ridiculous
Their mustard is tasty but doesn't burn your mouth off
They know how to make good lasers

Things I dislike about Sweden:

My weekly food bill is almost as much as my rent
A pint of beer is almost as much as my rent
A slice of bread is about 2/3 the area of an English slice
It's a bit nippy
My girlfriend isn't here

Knowing me, knowing you

2010-09-27T18:46:00.002Z

I like lasers, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. For the past four years I've had the honour of playing with what is unanimously regarded as the best class of laser known to man - the bounce geometry. The name "bounce" actually derives from the latin bouncius, which means "most efficient, highest power and best beam quality". Times were good, but what I really wanted was money, so I sold out.

I now work for a company that makes other kinds of lasers. I know, I know, these technically aren't lasers, since the term was redefined after Bernard & Alcock revolutionised the field in the 90s, but we'll call them lasers for historical reasons. And despite their obvious handicap, these lasers are actually pretty damn cool. I won't get into exactly how they are cool, because that's a slippery slope (boom boom!), and I'm not a good one for keeping my mouth shut, so why don't you just take my word for it? Cool they are.

As well as a new job, I've also got somewhere new to live! There's actually not so much to say here either really; a flat is a flat. I'm living in a suburb of Stockholm with a New Zealand guy who's main interests appear to be beer and rugby. It's quite a big place, and I've got my own separate entrance which is pretty sweet. Maybe I'll try to find my own place at some time in the future, but for now I'm just going to relax and enjoy the slightly-cheaper-than-London-but-mostly-offset-by-the-really-expensive-food rent. There are some photos on my public Picasa gallery, for any of you who know where that is. Ta for now!

Gimme gimme gimme!

2010-09-10T20:18:00.002Z

I found a bottle of Old Speckled Hen in my local Stockholm supermarket today, but all is not what it seems. Check out the alcohol content in the picture below:

Yep, that's 3.5% Old Speckled Hen. Hardcore ale buffs might also notice that the description "strong fine ale" has been appropriately replaced with "fine English ale", although they'd probably be too drunk to spot that.

"What in the name of Satan's balls is this s***?" I hear you enquire. The answer of course has to do with Sweden's strict alcohol laws. Alcoholic drinks over 3.5% ABV can only be sold in special government-run shops called Systembolaget (although this only applies to consumption off-premises; you can still buy drink in bars and restaurants, but you'll pay nearly an order of magnitude more for it). So, while you can still get the real deal across the street, many breweries do a special girl's version for the lazy drinker (and, presumably, girls). Ok, maybe a bit commie, but I actually quite like having a weaker option, it's nice to be able to have a can or two in the evening without getting drunk.

But enough of that, what's 3.5% Hen actually like? Actually, not that bad! It's full-bodied, bitter, and tasty, unmistakably a Hen. And yet there's something missing. For instance there's little after taste, and predictably it's much easier to drink. At the (h)end of the day though I'm just amazed that there are enough ex-pat English ale drinkers in Scandinavia who are sufficiently lazy to buy this instead of going to System. The numbers surely don't add up! But what do I know? I'm just a lazy ex-pat English ale drinker.

Tennessee man holds strong opinions about poorly-documented 2,000 year-old events in the Middle-East

2010-09-04T17:21:00.005Z

Bob Franklin, a 43 year-old mechanic from Nashville, Tennessee, has expressed an extremely strong and long-held conviction about events that occurred in the Middle-East some 2,000 years ago. He made the claims on Monday, in a statement concerning the life of a man named Jesus of Nazareth, who scholars believe lived in Judea at around the turn of the 1st century AD.

The overwhelming consensus in the historical community is that little can be said with any real certainty about Jesus' life due to a lack of reliable sources, yet Bob is undeterred. Despite possessing no recognised academic qualifications, nor speaking ancient Hebrew, Bob is seeking to single-handedly turn the world of 1st century Levantine scholarship on his head with his thesis "Jesus was the son of God". Indeed, according to Mr Franklin, the scarcity of real evidence for his claim is itself more reason to believe it. "You got to have some faith," exclaimed Bob in a flagrant disregard of the fundamentals of the historical method and indeed basic rational thought.

In addition to knowing that Jesus was the son of God who died for the sins of man, Bob has revealed an intimate knowledge of the minutiae of Jesus' life, such as the names of his 12 best friends, the exact circumstances concerning his birth and death, and his mother's sexual history. The thousands of years and thousands of miles separating the lives of Bob and Jesus apparently present no obstacle, and the semi-literate American father of three has built up a deep understanding of the Jewish man's life and beliefs. "If there's one thing I'm certain of in this dawg gawn [sic] world, it's that Jesus died for our sins," claimed Bob without any real justification, "and you should all be thankful."

Money, money, money

2010-09-01T09:51:00.005Z

As my reader(s) will no doubt already be aware, next Monday I will be beginning my first real job, as a laser engineer for a company based in Stockholm. From the impression I got at the interview, the job could hardly be closer to what I was looking for (with the exception of it being in Sweden). I feel like a marine on the eve of his first deployment, finally being sent off to do what he's trained long and hard for.

The next few months will be very interesting. I've really enjoyed doing laser development for the past 4 years, but what it will be like as a job is a whole different question. I suspect in some respects it will be easier (I will be working with relatively established technology) and in others, harder (the lasers will have to perform for years, not just minutes!) This is also my first job, which means losing the freedom of academia, but gaining evenings and holidays! I know I will miss being in a university, but honestly I'm kinda looking forward to having a real job.

So here I am, sitting in the lounge of a hostel in Stockholm, waiting to go and look at an apartment. I've got my Swedish mobile number, my Stockholm Oyster card, and I know how to say "I don't speak Swedish" in Swedish, but nothing seems real yet. It feels like I'm on holiday, but I know I'm not. I suspect that will change once I have somewhere to live and I start working, and it'll hit me all of a sudden! This is also the first time that anything genuinely worth blogging about has happened to me, so do stay tuned to learn all about my Swedish adventure!

Thesis how we do it

2010-08-18T16:34:00.004Z

So, I think a bit of a catch-up is in order. Well, where to begin? I suppose the first big thing that has happened in my life is that I have written a thesis on laser engineering. It took somewhere around 6-7 months to write, and clocked in at just under 200 pages, but I seem to have retained most of my sanity in the end. Actually, it wasn't that bad. I quite like writing papers and things so some of it was fun, but boy did it drag on in the end.

Writing about science can be frustrating. What you say has to be complete and unambiguous, so you end up saying things that must seem obvious to any expert, just for the sake of being thorough. You also have to repeat yourself, endlessly. Each chapter of a thesis finishes with a conclusion, and at the end of the whole thing there is a chapter devoted to re-stating these conclusions. Some people even give their conclusion a conclusion. But, to cap it all, you have to write the whole thing without saying it was you wot did it. For instance, "it was found that..." is preferred to "we found that..." Of course, this is all part of scientific objectivity, but trust me, some things can be very hard to say without using "I" or "we".

Then there is the endless proofing. Each chapter went through a process of an initial draft, a proof read, an alpha draft, a proof read by the supervisor, and a beta draft. Then the whole thesis was put together and proof read and corrected (which took about 2 weeks), before finally a release candidate draft was produced, which had to be proof read and corrected again to produce the submission copy, which will itself probably receive considerable corrections by my examiners. And these corrections were not just typos; even by the first full draft there were major errors in how concepts were explained or which conclusions were drawn. Writing a PhD thesis is not, in short, a linear process.

But anyway, the process is mostly over now. In a month's time I'll have my viva examination, where I'll find out if my efforts were worth it, so stay tuned!

Next week on the QA: my new job.

Google Chrome

2010-07-26T08:16:00.004Z

I decided to have a look at Google Chrome. I've been resisting it, partly because Google already control enough of my life, and partly because Firefox is really good. But the speed of Firefox has started to annoy me lately, and I thought I'd give Chrome a try.

Almost straight away I've found a couple of features that ruin the experience for me:

You can't remove the "Other bookmarks" folder from the bookmarks toolbar. That's a good 4cm of wasted space as far as I'm concerned, which slightly cheapens the claim that Chrome doesn't waste space like Firefox.
There is too much space in between bookmarks on the toolbar. In firefox, I can edit some files and change this without too much trouble, but from what I've read this is not customisable in Chrome. I'm the kind of guy who keeps his browser windowed and likes to cram in bookmarks on his toolbar, so this ain't going to work.
The home button is not shown by default. Rather annoying.
You have to manually switch to a new tab when you open it. This is probably fixable.

On the other hand, it definitely is faster than Firefox, and doesn't require a raft of extensions just to hide all the unnecessary crap from the screen.

Things I want to do when I finish my thesis

2010-06-12T13:58:00.003Z

You may have noticed that I haven't blogged for a long time, well that's because I've been busy writing a thesis. However as the finishing line is in sight, I've started pondering what I'm going to do with my time when it's all over. In no particular order, I hope to:

Get drunk
Go for a long cycle ride
Perfect Bach's prelude from Cello Suite No.1 on the guitar
Get a job
Play the civ boardgame that Pete bought
Appreciate Wagner
Get some regular exercise
Go camping
See my family for more than a flying visit
Catch up with old school friends
Play the following games: X-COM, Anno 1404, Imperialism II, Uplink, DEFCON, Wurm, Bully, Caesar IV, Braid, Mount & Blade Warband, Red Dead Redemption, Shogun Total War
Catch a fish
Go scuba diving
Blog about my experience of thesis writing

Quorn unveils breakthrough in realistic vegetarian meat

2009-12-03T13:40:00.006Z

Quorn has unveiled a new line of vegetarian meat substitutes, which it claims are impossible to differentiate from the real thing. Announcing the product at a press conference at Quorn Nature Synthesis Labs (QNSL) in California, lead scientist Dr F. Enstein hailed what he called "the biggest breakthrough in vegetarian food for decades".

While remaining tight-lipped about the techniques used, Quorn claims to have developed a method of synthesising artificial meat with "unprecedented detail". Demonstrating the company's new line of vegetarian chickens, Dr Enstein explained the process. "The meals take a while to grow, just like real meat. And when they're finally ready, we pick the plumpest, juiciest looking meals, catch them, and send them off to the vegettoir to be processed for the customer."

"Right from beginning to end, you'd never know these weren't real animals," continued Enstein. "And best of all, everything you see here is 100% vegetarian!"

Rant of the week: People who make for the door half way between tube stops even though they know everyone else will be getting off at the same station

2009-11-12T09:44:00.009Z

Let me paint a picture. You're on the District line, one minute away from a very busy station. You know that most people in the carriage, including yourself, will get off here, and because you're not a jerk you wait until the train arrives at the station before going for the door. However it turns out there is a jerk on board, and he/she has other ideas. Being a jerk, this person decides to make for the door at least a full minute before the train reaches the station. Never mind that everyone else is getting off here, we all have to make way for Mr/Ms Jackass.

Now if the station wasn't a busy one I'd say "go ahead my friend; you'll have to fight your way out of this packed tube as it is, so you may as well make an early start." But it's not, so instead it's more like "if you'd just wait a few more seconds we'll all be able to get out of here without pushing and shoving, so sit down you obnoxious prick/bitch."

Netbook posing: update

2009-09-22T11:31:00.004Z

Well I did install Linux, and indeed there was one thing it couldn't do: connect to the Imperial College wireless network. It turned out Linux didn't natively support Imperial's substantial wireless security fluff.* Infuriating it was to have to go back to XP, cap in hand, once more.

Linux has come on leaps and bounds in recent years, but from my experience there has always been crucial things you couldn't do without significant knowledge of how it worked inside. It has never, in my mind, been a genuine alternative to Windows or Mac OS for the average computer user. Roll on Google Chrome!

* I believe some of the latest distros do support this. I shall have to have another go when I'm supposed to be writing my thesis.

Facebook releases Twitbook Lite

2009-09-11T15:03:00.005Z

Social networking behemoth Facebook today released a slimmed-down version of its service under the name Twitbook Lite. Developers have stripped away the bulk of its third-party content and applications, returning the site to its original, Twitter-based format.

Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg explained. "This is all about getting back to our roots," he told the QA. "When we started Facebook we had a clear vision of creating the ultimate real time micro-blogging network. Look, I have the patent! We were there first, look, look!"

Analysists say the move is the culmination of a gradual evolution for Facebook. According to The Guardian's technology editor James McNetbook, "by stripping away all features not blatantly ripped off from Twitter, Facebook really has returned to the pure Twitter experience it used to be." Response from its user base also appears positive. "It's great to use," said Facebook user Jill Jillington, "the interface is simplified so nothing distracts from its primary purpose of letting people give their opinions on subjects like President Obama and cats".

Added Zuckerberg, "this tool will finally give people the microblogging power to topple the Iranian government and end world poverty."

Gotta keep the higher order modes down in the hole

2009-06-08T10:48:00.006Z

Today saw the finale of the latest season of acclaimed HBO drama The Wire. Set in the the Blackett lab in London, season 6 introduces us to the seedy underworld of solid-state laser research. The plot centres on the Chard optomechanics and chiller cartel, which uses its hold over the lab to extort massive profits in return for using the best chillers and those really good little lateral translation stage thingies. An investigation team headed by Chard's supervisor sets out to smash the equipment ring, armed with the latest telephone surveilance technology. The investigation discovers that the paper trail leads far deeper, with chiller money being filtered off into political contributions to the Photonics Department head of group. However, we soon learn that the investigation has its own problems. Beauracracy and pressure from people in high places on level 10 threaten to derail the investigation, leading to a climactic finish as tensions come to a head.

Critics have praised the show's undiluted sense of realism, with laser scientists frequently conversing in terms such as "cavity stability" and "single longitudinal mode". However many question why the producers chose to include extensive scenes showing members of the lab sitting around writing blogs instead of doing their bloody work.

Netbook posing

2009-01-30T11:28:00.004Z

I finally caved in and bought a netbook. You know, one of those tiny underpowered laptops that are all the rage at the moment. I've always wanted a laptop, but given that I had no use for one whatsoever I've always found it difficult to justify the cost. But when a stupidly cheap one appeared on Ebay I twisted my own arm and took the plunge, leaving me with an exciting problem: what to do with the damn thing?

The obvious one is surfing the web during conferences, and a close second goes to watching American TV on the train. Showing off to friends has worked for me too. Blogging about my netbook whilst teaching 3rd year lab is also clearly a major use for this machine. Then there's looking like a ponce while surfing in Starbucks, and generally using a netbook for all the applications I never needed a netbook for (taking data, thinking about my netbook in between netbook sessions, buying accesories for my netbook). I also plan on installing linux, then realising there's one crucial thing it can't do and going back to XP. But after all that, I'm going to need to get creative.

With their small size and high posing coefficient, notebooks are ideally suited to use in unusual places. On the tube, whilst cooking, on holiday, on the loo, in my lab, in bed. The possibilities are endless! This could be a fun year.

Christian man who refuses to drive atheist bus thinks he knows why

2009-01-16T14:24:00.006Z

A London bus driver who refused to drive a London bus sporting a atheist advertisement today said he thinks he knows why. Ron Heather from Southampton refused to drive the bus when he saw the fucking awesome advert, which read "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life", but initially he had no idea what made him do it.

Heather offered his current working hypothesis on the BBC News website, stating "I think it was the starkness of this advert which implied there was no God." The revelation comes as a suprise to most commentators, whose consensus was that he wasn't too keen on the pink/orange colour scheme.

Coffee training II

2008-07-08T08:18:00.002Z

My experiment is coming along well. Over the last couple of weeks I've been steadily exploring the world of coffee and I'm beginning to understand why people drink this stuff.

I started with lattes, then mochas, before I found cappuccini. The cappucino I had in the SCR yesterday was actually tasty, even by the standards of other tasty drinks such as tea and hot chocolate! As I write this I'm drinking an Americano. I didn't actually realise it was black until the foam parted, but despite this it is more or less drinkable.

I've also been able to confirm what is already common knowledge - that coffee perks you up! I don't ever remember tea having this effect (although I'm probably immune to it by now). My preliminary hypothesis so far is that tea merely relaxes you and makes you feel better, whereas coffee gives you energy.

Another strikingly obvious observation I've made is that real coffee is much much better than vending machine coffee.

Coffee training

2008-06-18T13:29:00.006Z

I've recently made it my business to try to figure out what this coffee thing is all about. I've always been a tea man and I always will, but I've still wanted to understand people who live on the dark side. I guess the mystery simply brews down to the following question: "coffee tastes utterly revolting, so why do so many people drink it?"

The three obvious answers, as far as I can see, are:

Coffee is an acquired taste
People don't really like coffee, they drink it for the caffeine
People don't really like coffee, they drink it because it makes you look grown-up and sophisticated

From anecdotal evidence, all these seem plausible. For example I've known several people who've successfully weaned themselves onto coffee. Furthermore, some people have told me that they only managed to wean themselves to a point where it was 'ok', then they drank it to stay awake or to blend in with other coffee drinkers.

But still, I find it hard to see. Wine and beer are two classic examples of acquired tastes, but I remember them being just about drinkable long before I started actually liking them. Coffee, on the other hand, has always seemed so horrible that surely nothing was ever going to make me like it.

You can meet cute girls like this in coffee shops

Well, it's about time I investigated this. Starting with the girliest coffees I can find (e.g. mochas and lattes) I hope to work my way up through the coffee spectrum and find out if I will ever achieve a state actually liking the stuff.

So far, I've been pleasantly surprised. After just two weeks I'm now knocking back mochas with abandon, and almost enjoying the odd latte. Cappuccino also seems to be just about drinkable.

Stay tuned to find out how it goes, and for some better coffee puns.

John Simpson, hero of the BBC

2008-04-08T15:05:00.017Z

I have to be honest, I've always had an image of John Simpson as being the privileged, senior man at the beeb. I pictured him being flown out specially whenever something interesting happened, donning a flak jacket, reporting live and then heading home to bask in the accolades. But not anymore.

It would be a bit of an understatement to say that John Simpson is no stranger to danger. He once appeared live on the news moments after his convoy in Iraq was hit by an American air-strike. When a US solder approached him he told the man (live on air), "Shut up. I'm broadcasting! Oh yes, I'm fine - am I bleeding?" According to wikipedia, he was even punched by Harold Wilson. But my respect for the man began to change when I was watching a BBC news report about the elections in Zimbabwe. "The BBC is banned in Zimbabwe, but I'm here anyway" he started. What a ledge!

A different John Simpson

In fact, barely a momentous historical event goes by without John turning up. The Tiannamen Square massacre, The Islamic revolution in Iran, Nelson Mandela's release from prison. He even disguised himself as a woman to get into Afghanistan for the invasion of Kabul. Never were a man's nostrils more finely tuned to the scent of a big scoop.

In conclusion, John Simpson is clearly the epitome of the model journalist; tireless, courageous and impartial. Long may the BBC flourish under his example!

Rant of the week: Microsoft

2008-04-01T10:50:00.006Z

This has always annoyed me:

Can you see it? What's missing from my status bar in Microsoft Word 2003? Yes, that's right, a period and a close-bracket! As far as I know, on any computer I can remember using, the language text never quite fits into its allocated space. It's not as though this only happens with UK English either, if you change it to US the same thing happens.

I just don't understand how something so simple can get past quality control. Word is one of the most commonly used applications, developed by the biggest software company in the world, surely it went through a significant amount of development and testing before it was let loose? I guess this serves as a good example of the kind of bad design which you rarely find on a Mac, but is endemic on Windows systems.

Catchy-named video disc format makes cunning move

2008-02-22T13:27:00.008Z

In a last-ditch effort to overturn Blu-Ray's apparent victory in the high-definition wars, Toshiba today released a new version of its HD-DVD format. Along with an increased data capacity, the "d" version of the disc also features Toshiba's new High-Definition Deluxe (HDD) codec. The company hopes the new HDD-DVD(d) discs will revive their troubled fortunes. "The problem was that we just didn't cram enough features into the HD-DVD" the project's lead designer told the QA. However, he declined to comment on suggestions that the name Blu-Ray just sounded cooler.

Extraordinary animal behaviour confouds scientists and drinks manufacturers

2008-02-21T14:42:00.006Z

A rare example of inter-species cooperation has been discovered in the Congo by a team of biologists. A diverse range of jungle species were observed working together to produce a juice which provides their primary source of nutrition.

Local legend holds that the animals regularly come together and use their many specific talents to harvest a variety of tropical fruits to make the juice, however this is the first scientific confirmation of the behaviour. In the UK, this popular tropical juice drink was generally thought to be produced by a well-known soft drinks manufacturer. However, this discovery reveals that it is in fact made in the jungle by a group of friendly animals.

To find the animals, the researchers had to journey way down deep in the middle of the Congo, where they observed Pythons picking passion fruit, alongside Marmosets foraging for mandarins. The behaviour was captured in this remarkable footage. The whole operation appears to be loosely coordinated by a hippo, which combines the fruit to make the juice. One theory is that the hippos use their immense weight to squash the fruit and extract the juice, before a parrot packages it to be sold on for profit.

The drink has apparently become a big hit in the jungle. "From our observations" said the lead researcher, "we conclude that they all prefer the sunny, funny one they call Um Bongo".

Clean bathroom unveiled

2008-02-17T19:01:00.015Z

A large crowd gathered in Southfields today to witness the unveiling of the newly refurbished Wimbledon Park Road upstairs bathroom. The bathroom was officially re-opened by none other than popular music star George Michael.

The bathroom in Southfields has been the subject of a painstaking restoration to return it to its original 2007 style. Despite being partly responsible for its state of disrepair, Simon Chard has done sterling work renovating the bathroom. Sponsors of the project, Mr Muscle issued a statement praising Simon's "unending commitment" to the restoration that is said to have taken a full hour of his Sunday.

Archaeologists studying early 21st century sanitation have been stunned by the discovery that the bathroom tiles were originally white. "You would never have known" said Prof. LaTrine of the Swindon institute for toilet studies.

Speaking to the press after taking the first official dump, George Michael said the bathroom had been "spotless" and described it as "the kind of place I'd love to hang out in".

BBC makes bad pun

2007-12-13T11:32:00.000Z

A cloud hung over the reputation of the normally excellent BBC News website today after it emerged that they had made a terrible pun when describing the pace of the ongoing UN climate talks in Bali.

The BBC's unsustainable use of old, fossilised puns is fueling anger and resentment among many of its readers. Indeed, many are already calling for a legally-binding monthly cap on such icy puns. Please BBC, stop polluting your website with these terrible puns!

A pro when it comes to crastinating

2007-11-16T15:12:00.000Z

As I embark upon the second year of my PhD, I thought I'd give you all a brief historical introduction to my research field. It has been a very productive and enlightening year, and I am well on the way to making a significant contribution to my chosen area of study - applied procrastination.

The foundations of procrastination were set out in the early 1950s by the great Prof. Crastinate (you probably haven't heard of him - he didn't do much work). In those days the methods used to procrastinate were very different, but the fundamental theory remains the same. Crastinate defined his famous Lazy Quotient (LQ) and, when he finally got round to it, he used the principle of least action to show that successful procrastination is achieved by maximising the LQ.

The next major milestone in procrastination came about with the invention of the internet. Contrary to popular belief, Tim Berners-Lee actually invented the hypertext protocol in order to further the cause of international procrastination. In a recent interview he described how he started work on the internet while working at a computer shop, because he "couldn't be arsed" to do his job.

Alongside theoretical and applied procrastination is the school of procrastinary philosophy, which seeks to answer the important questions such as "can we ever be sure we are really procrastinating?". Many great minds have made important contributions to this field, no less than Descartes, who famously said "I think, therefore... oh screw this, I'll think about it later."

Today, applied procrastination is a highly developed field, and the modern procrastinator has a wide arsenal of tools at his disposal. Indeed, in recent years there has been much interest in Facebook. Facebook was actually developed in partnership with the BBC news website, and the two sites are kept in exact antiphase to facilitate periodic switching between the two as a means to achieve perpetual procrastination. The news that the BBC and Facebook had achieved perpetual procrastination was met with disbelief among much of the community. Efforts are currently ongoing to reproduce their result which, if verified, could spell a paradigm shift for this exciting field!

The DVDs, music and games retailer of the beast

2007-10-29T12:15:00.000Z

Today on play.com I was looking into buying a CD by a particularly angry metal band, when I came across the price - £6.66! Was this a sign? A call from Satan himself that I should buy this record and begin worshiping the dark forces of evil? Apparently so. In fact, Satan's been put in charge of an entire music promotion on Play, whereby offerings by many of the most evil bands around are being sold at this devilishly low price. As it happens, the record I'm after is being sold slightly cheaper on Amazon, but I think I'll have to go with Play just to reward this stroke of Satanic genius!

Rant of the week: People who walk out in front of cars

2007-10-16T08:43:00.000Z

It's been a while since I had a good ole' rant on the QA, but this one has been festering for a while. It's a minor annoyance really, but hey, if you're going to change the world, you have to start somewhere! So here goes.

The scenario is this. You're walking along a main road when you get to a bit where a smaller road joins onto it. To cut a long story short, you need to cross this smaller road in order to continue on your journey. So you look around for cars, and notice a car indicating to turn off the main road. "I'd better wait before crossing" you conclude wisely. The guy next to you, however, is thinking differently. He's the guy who neglected to heed the pragmatic advice of the Green Cross Code man when he was a kid. I can only guess the thought chain that goes through his head must be along the lines of "I'm probably more important than the driver of that car, so I deserve priority in spite of well-established road traffic conventions." I'm sure you can see where I'm going, basically he walks out in front of the car.

Fair enough, you might say. "Serves the car driver right for not using public transport" you point out, "and heck, if this dude want to risk his life walking out into the road then that's his problem!" My objection stems from the fact that I've already committed myself to waiting for this car, and now I have to wait for the car to wait for this jerk to cross the road. And this is more common than you might think, it seems to happen to me up to several times a week! Indeed, recent studies have shown that the average commuter will waste around 10 minutes of his life in precisely this situation!

So Mr Jackass, next time you're hauling your vastly over sized ego to work, think about the sensible pedestrian walking beside you, and do the right thing!

Lawn watch: day 16

2007-08-21T19:11:00.000Z

Well, true to it's word, the grass started growing within 14-21 days. The first week saw only very sparse growth, and I was beginning to wonder if the seed had been sewn correctly. Then lo and behold, a second wave of grasslings appeared and it's now starting to look like this hairbrained idea of growing a lawn might just work! Stay tuned!

Lawn watch: day 1

2007-08-06T13:17:00.000Z

Ok, so I was planning on dragging my gardening tales out into a highly contrived three-part Star Wars-based saga (see below), but since I can't think of a good gardening pun on The Empire Strikes Back, I'll have to abandon that plan. Of course this doesn't mean you're going to be spared from hearing all the intricacies of my latest and most boring project: sorting out the garden.

But first I need to explain what a mess the garden was in at the start of the summer. One of our lawns (we have several - it's a big garden) was already reaching knee-height, and another had become so covered with ivy that only weeds and brambles could poke through and survive. Under all this crud however, lies an awesome garden that really does deserve better.

So, after much mowing, yanking, forking and cursing, I finally got the grass under control and removed most of the ivy. With the ivy and the weeds gone however, there was left a great barren space in the shady area under the big tree, and it is here that I've decided to grow a new lawn.

The first thing I needed was of course some grass seed, and with the tree covering the area in shade I needed something special, something that can only be found on the black market. I wandered out under the cover of night to a sleazy part of Wandsworth where rumour has it you can find anything, for the right price. Here, down a darkened alley I found a man willing to sell me what I wanted: some Shady Grass Seed.

Anyway, after thoroughly weeding and working the patch of ground I planted my seed, so to speak. Will I reap what I so? Or will I be exposed as a gardening noob? Only time will tell (specifically between 14-21 days worth of time, according to the packet).

Garden Wars: A New Hoe

2007-07-16T09:24:00.000Z

A long time ago in a Garden far, far away, there was a big old mess of weeds. The Garden was in internal strife, and the grass cutting powers of the Jedi Knives were no longer able to maintain order. Corruption engulfed the Garden as weeds and grass grew in abundance. All hopes rested on an ancient prophecy, that one day a powerful Jedi would come to rid the Garden of this evil.

Excitement spread throughout the Southfields Senate when a young man named Simon was found with whom the pitchfork was strong. Could he be the one to mow the lawn? A Jedi master took him as an apprentice and began training him. He learned how to use a lightmower, a deadly weapon in the hands of a skilled gardener.

After many minutes of training, Simon headed out into the Garden. With his trusty lightmower in hand, he fought his way through, clearing weeds from the patio and the lawn so that it was very nice and pleasant and just right in case you wanted to have a barbecue. Venturing further into the Garden, Simon encountered all manner of scum and villainy as he continued his fight against horticultural untidiness, but as he continued deeper into the Garden, disaster struck.

Simon found himself surrounded. Weeds blocked his every path, and his route back to the lawn was blocked by the terrible Death Bramble, a weed so powerful and so well routed into the ground that it seemed impossible to remove. Left in place, this nettle would surely engulf the peaceful lawn for good. Just then, the voice of his old Jedi master resonated in his mind, "use the fork, Simon". Reaching for his pitchfork, Simon made one mighty dig into the ground and uprooted the Death Bramble once and for all, thus ensuring the safety of the lawn. Back in the house the Residents Alliance rejoiced, but all the while knowing that in many parts of the Garden, the weeds were still there. One day, they would return...

Cold shower

2007-07-07T10:54:00.000Z

So I've finally given up my righteous stand on not having a cold shower. It only lasted a couple of days, but I think I did myself proud. It's not easy for a guy with hair as cool as mine.

Ok, so yeah our boiler broke a few days ago, and since then I've watched while my housemates caved in one by one to accept their cold, watery fate. "I won't be one of them" I told myself, "I'm not going to have a cold shower". Backing up this stubbornness was a cunning plan, I wasn't going to simply stop washing, but instead I intended to make use of the much warmer shower facilities at my university swimming pool, after having a swim. This plan was scuppered however when I scored some excellent free food on Thursday evening, just before I'd scheduled my audacious shower plan at the pool. The food in question was as plentiful as it was delicious, and I found myself with no choice but to stuff my face (the tale of the free food I leave for another day, but suffice to say it involved pork skewers, chorizo and the inventor of the blue LED). After I'd done so, it dawned on me that I was too full up to go swimming. Disaster! So this morning I bit the bullet and had a freezing cold shower.

Cold as it was, it brought back fond memories of my time in Chamberlain House. The plumbing in that house, like the rest of it, was done on the cheap by a bunch of cowboys for our cheap-ass landlords, so it broke all the time. But every time something broke in that house it was a new adventure which brought us together. One of the best times we had was when a pipe under Dan's floor sprang a leak, we had to rip up the carpet, chisel out the pipe, and use tea towels to soak the water up and ring them out into a bucket. Great fun!

Not just a wreckless pastime

2007-06-11T11:13:00.000Z

Back with a vengeance (and a snorkel), the QA presents some deep thoughts about scuba diving, the latest craze to hit the Imperial College Underwater Club.

"You haven't blogged in ages, Quantum Angler" I hear you cry, "where have you been?". A good question indeed, the answer to which is that I've been underwater. Not all the time of course, that would be silly, but rather on those occasions when I have indulged myself in the sport of scuba diving. I will now pass on to you the wisdom I have gained so far in my life aquatic.

So first of all, where do you go to scuba dive? Well, arguably the best substance to dive in is water. One notable example of this is the sea, but there are others. Ok, so you've found somewhere to go diving? Great, now you... hey wait, don't get in just yet! First you need an air tank or you'll die! A load of other stuff like fins and a mask are helpful too. Also you might want to consult a nautical almanac for the current state of the tide. Ok so you're all set up? Right, let's go diving!

Enter the water and descend slowly to the bottom. If you can't fathom how deep you are, take a look at your depth gauge. What's that you say? You've found a shipwreck? Excellent! Shipwrecks are ideal places to dive. When doing your training it's advisable to penetrate as far as possible into the wreck - open water can be dangerous. While you're down there feel free to take a look at some of the fantastic marine life to be seen underwater, such as crabs, fish, eels and mermaids. Be careful with crabs though, as they can turn on you in a snap!

Right, the dive's over now, so make sure you rush to the surface as quickly as possible to reduce the risk of missing last orders at the pub. Alcohol is an important part of any dive, and a good dive computer will calculate the right amount for you to drink, and your remaining 'no hangover' time. Some computers even allow you to specify the mix of spirits you will be diving on. Make sure you look for a good pub though, as some bars around the coast can be real dives.

I hope you've enjoyed the QA's top tips for scuba diving! Tune in next week when the topic will be Skydiving: What should I pack?

Disclaimer: Following my advice may result in death or serious humiliation. This article is written in jest and is not to be taken seriously (although if you do follow this advice you probably deserve a Darwin award anyway).

Foods I have discovered lately: update

2007-04-29T18:12:00.000Z

So it turned out I liked houmous more than I realised. Last week I managed to finish off an entire pot of it with six pitta breads in the space of one lunchtime. Of course I'd intended to eat a couple of pittas at a time, snacking my way through the day, but once I popped I couldn't stop. It's just really tasty, and moreish! The next morning I was in Waitrose looking to buy food for lunch when I found they did houmous in an even larger, 300g pot! I thought surely that'd last me a day or two, but again it was gone pretty swiftly.

By day three I realised what was happening: I was on that slippery slope towards houmous & pepperoni pizza, chocolate houmous, and pre-houmous starters (of houmous). I knew it wouldn't be long before I was found in a toilet somewhere in a sleazy LA suburb snorting houmous off some cheap whore's tits. But luckily for her I managed to break my habit just in time, and I haven't eaten houmous since.

This just in: raw sewage is bad for you

2007-04-22T21:34:00.000Z

I was reading the BBC's coverage of the sewage crisis currently unfolding in the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh, when I came across this quote by a chap named Gordon Greenhill from Edinburgh City Council

Any raw sewage has human pathogens in it which has the capacity to make people ill.

I must say I was shocked. A quick search on Wikipedia confirmed that raw sewage is indeed bad for you. Needless to say I promptly cancelled my plans to go up to Scotland and swim in the stuff.

Charlie and his beef with the chocolate factory

2007-04-09T14:10:00.000Z

If Roald Dahl has taught us anything, it's that chocolate is a magical thing, a thing of wonder that makes a child's dreary life worth living. But when I opened my Cadbury's Mini Eggs easter egg yesterday morning, there was no golden ticket for this Charlie. Instead I found a plastic packet containing just eight mini eggs. Shame on you Cadbury's! Although the mother egg was clearly large enough to contain as many of its offspring as you'd realistically want on an Easter Sunday, Cadbury's chose to give me eight. I mean, do you think this is really what Jesus wanted when he came back to life all those years ago? Of course not! I'm sure he'd have wanted children all over the land stuffing themselves silly with chocolate. Instead, a lot of children have gone hungry this Easter. For shame!

Foods I have discovered lately

2007-03-30T18:00:00.000Z

Recently I have discovered that the following foods are tasty:

Soup
Yoghurt
Houmous

Now, I never really disliked any of these, it's just I didn't really bother eating them. I always considered them bland and boring, so I just ignored them. Recently though I made a decision to live dangerously and throw caution to the wind: I had some soup.

So far I've found mushroom soup to be very nice indeed. Chicken soup as well is quite pleasant, though I didn't care much for minestrone. I'm quite curious about trying oxtail, although I'm not quite sure if it's really made of ox's tails. I've experimented with yoghurts, too. I started on Muller Crunch Corners (a chocolaty compromise) before moving on to Fruit Corners and then full-on fruit yoghurt multipacks from Sainsbury's. Regarding houmous, so far I've found it goes best with fresh french bread (many cite pittas as the leading vessel to transport houmous[1], though I'm convinced they really need toasting, which requires extra time and effort).

[1] Shardlow, P.C., Houmous Opinions (private correspondence, 2007)

Great Halls of fire

2007-02-19T14:35:00.000Z

In the spirit of fire-based procrastination, I thought I'd blog about a fire which is currently underway at a building in Albert Hall Mansions. The fire cannot be more than 10 metres from the Albert Hall, and that begs the burning question "is the Albert Hall going to burn down?". Indeed this has been a hot topic of conversation around the physics department today as postgrads throughout the building stopped working and gathered outside for a look at the flames, or maybe a quick smoke. Clearly no one was too worried about getting fired. It was so exciting that many could be seen on the phone calling loved ones, or even old flames, to tell them the news. Luckily from what I saw I can infer-no one was hurt.

It started with a quiz (never thought it would come to this)

2007-02-02T10:42:00.000Z

Yesterday evening I returned home to find a small nugget of my childhood in a parcel on the doorstep. No, not my Sonic the Hedgehog soft toy, but six packets of Nerds! Along with Creme Eggs, these were some of my favourite all-time sweets. For the uninformed, nerds are small, amorphous crunchy blobs that are either sweet or sour. The basic premise was a box, divided into two compartments, each of which housed a different flavour of nerd; one would generally be sweet and the other sour. How to eat a packet of Nerds was left to the child's discretion, and the excitement essentially came from mixing the two flavours to make a custom sweet.

Interesting Nerd fact from wikipedia:

It has also been noted that there is always one of the opposite color in the package (for example, if you have package of pink and purple Nerds, there will be one pink in the purple section, and vice versa.)

And so, with my box of Nerds in hand, childhood unfolded happily before me. Then one day disaster struck: they stopped selling Nerds! Fortunately by then I was in secondary school, less interested in eating nerds than figuring out how to convince a pretty girl that I wasn't one myself. I literally didn't notice their demise, but it gradually dawned on me over the course of the rest of my life that these things were nowhere to be found, and I was disappointed. There was nothing I could do. That is, until I won a pub quiz in the Holland Club. The tale of said pub quiz is an epic one, which could fill a blog post in itself, but suffice to say each of our team of 6 won £5 for our efforts. But what to blow the winnings on? I certainly couldn't put it to good use buying food or useful items, that would be wrong. It had to be something silly. Then it hit me, a quick visit to eBay and it turned out these things were still around, but only being sold in America. Before I could say "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation", a box of Nerds were hurtling their was accross the Atlantic. And for all this, they're still as tasty as they were a decade ago!

Next target: win £10 on the lottery to get some Toffos.

Ode to a laser mode

2007-02-01T09:52:00.000Z

I once had a diffraction-limited beam
The fundamental mode, it did seem
But I stuck in a Q-switch
And noticed a glitch
For my TEM₀₀ was nowhere to be seen

It's just not cricket

2007-01-12T11:07:00.000Z

Will this nightmare ever end? Surely English cricket supporters deserve a rest from humiliation after that Ashes thingy, so why do they have to play these silly one-day games as well? What are the Aussies trying to prove? They're better than us, ok we get that now, so can't we just give this cricket thing a rest for a while and get back to losing at some other sport? Rugby, perhaps.

Hair chronicles VII

2006-12-28T18:13:00.000Z

Well, it's over. My long hair's gone at last! Unfortunately however it didn't happen quite how I'd imagined. When the time came to cut my hair short, I'd planned to go out in a blaze of glory, possibly with a temporary mullet and some hilarity. But my time came too soon when, trying to save a bit of money, I took my hair to the local Supercuts to get it tidied up. First mistake! The polish woman who cut my hair was truly one demonic wench. When Satan needs a haircut, chances are he summons this bitch. "Do you want to keep it the same style it was before?" she asked. "Yes" I replied. In hindsight, I probably should have told her what that was. By the time I cottoned on to what she was doing it was too late, and I walked away from Gloucester Road looking especially goofy.

Me and 'the do mark II' really didn't get on at first. My old hair and I were like peas in a pod. We laughed, we cried; they were good times. Now who was this imposter on my head? So smart and boring, it felt like we'd forever be enemies. But Christmas came and went, and he grew on me. Then I got a rather fetching brown jumper for Christmas. "This would go great with my new hair" I didn't say. Nevertheless, it did go, and now the hair and myself get on very well indeed!

So, my irresponsible scruffy youth is over. My long hair phase has come and gone, and now it's time to grow up! Oh, and find a new hairdressers...

Vanish rocks my world!

2006-12-11T12:29:00.000Z

I wish to share with you my newfound love for Vanish cleaning products, but first let me set the scene for you. A little while back I bought a nice formal shirt to wear to a big family get-together (buying clothes for me is a rare occurrence, buying smart ones doubly so). By all accounts the shirt was a roaring success; rave reviews flooded in from parents and elderly relatives alike on the subject of how handsome I looked. Buoyed by this success I wore it to a PhD interview at UCL, and was promptly offered a studentship. So, imagine my horror one day when I fetch my shirt of dreams from the washing machine, only to find a big black stain on the collar. Ruined! To make matters worse, my woes were compounded a few weeks later when a rowdy house party left my bedroom carpet riddled with beer stains!

Then I decided to do something about it. I headed for the supermarket and returned with a Vanish stain removal stick and some Vanish carpet foam. Once the foam had been worked into the carpet I got to work on the shirt. "This'll never work" I groaned to myself as I rubbed the stick into the collar, "that's two pounds down the drain!". Then, all of a sudden, the stain started vanishing. I almost had to rub my eyes in disbelief as the entire stain disappeared without a trace before my very eyes! I returned back to my room with a smug grin, where I was greeted with one of the cleanest carpets I had ever seen!

Suspecting these products to be awesome, I decided to find out. I tested them with my trusty awesometer, and found a value of 72 Cobains per square Hendrix for the stick, and 60 CoH^-2) for the foam. Compare this with the awesomeness of your average slime mould (~80 CoH^-2) and you'll see this is pretty awesome!

Rant of the week: Jose Mourinho

2006-11-30T11:27:00.000Z

What a jerk this guy is. I mean seriously, have you ever heard of a more obnoxious, self-important prick than Mourinho? Let's forget for a minute that he's at the helm of the most malevolent force in English football, and thus guilty of ruining the beautiful game, and let's instead hate him for the slime ball he is. A selection of quotes to prove my point follow thus:

"We have top players and, sorry if I'm arrogant, we have a top manager."

"I want to give my congratulations to them because they won. But we were the best team."

"I think I am the special one."

"I think [Arsene Wenger] is one of these people who is a voyeur. He likes to watch other people. There are some guys who, when they are at home, have a big telescope to see what happens in other families."

This man has to be the worst loser in history; he'll never take a defeat with grace, usually blaming either the ref or the other team for cheating (which is rich coming from the man who brought us Didier Drogba). I just can't wait to see his face when his benefactor Abramovich goes down for fraud just like his contemporary Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Haha!

Money money money

2006-11-07T12:01:00.000Z

For the first time in over a year I have a positive bank balance! But what will I do with all this cash, you ask? Will I:

A) Pay my rent
B) Pay back all the money I owe my parents
C) Blow it all on slime mould

Only time will tell!

Smile Moulds

2006-10-27T13:55:00.000Z

After spending the past half hour procrastinating by reading about slime moulds, I now feel compelled to spend a further half hour blogging about them, for you see slime moulds are cool. Really cool.

As anyone who's read the relevant Bill Bryson book will attest, slime moulds are curious things. They live most of their lives as individual single-celled organisms, but when the time is right they join forces to form one giant macroscopic 'slug' which oozes through the undergrowth at speeds of up to 2cm per minute. After devouring enough bacteria and leaving a wake of goo, the communal blob then grows a stalk, terminating in a fruiting body which spews forth spores (the slime world's equivalent of hanky panky).

The fascinating thing about these guys, despite the sheer disgusting gooeyness of it all, is how the individual cells, which start off as completely autonomous organisms, come to form one collective, erm... thing. I suppose the question of whether the slug they form can be considered an organism in itself is academic, as these guys are really just a load of chemical reactions taking place, as opposed to fully conscious beings (some may argue there is no clear distinction here, but that's beyond the scope of this blog!). Nevertheless you have to marvel at how simple chemical processes can produce such complex behaviour.

Some vital slime mould facts:

Some slime moulds can reach over a metre in diameter.
Slime moulds can occasionally be found venturing into gardens on rainy nights.
A species of beetle which feeds on slime moulds had been named after President George W. Bush
Slime is an anagram of smile, which is what I do when I think of slime moulds.
In the outtakes of This is Spinal Tap, singer David St. Hubbins expounds the wonders of slime moulds.

I hope this post will encourage some of you to take up this fine hobby of reading about slime moulds instead of doind work.

Rant of the week: People with sets of annoying functions named after them

2006-10-13T14:27:00.000Z

I'd like this week to talk about some guys I really hate. Two of them are French and the other German, and thankfully they're all dead. What do they have in common? They've all invented bastard sets of mathematical expressions that aren't useful at all (although you know they probably are in some weird way). Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I'm talking about Legendre, Laguerre and Bessel.

Adrien-Marie Legendre was a mathematician of the utmost depravity. Born in the cauldrons of Hell in 1752, he made his fortune selling amphetamines to school children. Some sources say he was born with a long red forked tail, which he was later forced to have amputated before he could receive his mathematics PhD. His Legendre polynomials were an astonishing achievement, describing for the first time the dynamics of evil in a homogeneous field of Satan.

Debate currently rages amongst mathematicians over whose polynomials are cooler, Legendre's or Laguerre's. It is a well-known fact that Laguerre polynomials don't mean anything and are completely pointless and arbitrary, yet since 1902 it has been a legal requirement for all optics papers to mention them in order to make them harder to read. Legend has it Laguerre wrote his polynomials whilst in solitary confinement at a high-security insane asylum in Mexico.

While the functions of Laguerre and Legendre are credited with annoying countless physicists throughout the centuries, few can rival Bessel's for sheer craziness. One of the most complicated Bessel functions is so complicated it even introduces a new type of number, neither real or imaginary, and greater than infinity. Only 12 men (including Bessel himself) can ever claim to have written down a Bessel function. Of the few who have gained sufficient mathematical understanding to do so, most have simply not lived long enough to finish physically writing one down.

Hair chronicles VI

2006-10-11T11:44:00.000Z

It's been a while since I've blogged about my hair, so I feel I should update you with the latest instalment of my epic coiffural saga.

Since episode V my hair has finally felt the civilising influence of scissors. Prior to this, the do was a tangled mess off undesired curls and frizz. My patience exhausted, I headed off to the nearest salon, and sat down in the chair. "Erm, I'll just have to go and fetch someone" said the woman, so I waited.

The deafening roar of a rusty chainsaw chilled my spine, and before I could look round I felt myself held to the chair by metal clamps at my wrists. "I'm sorry, but this is the only way" explained the burly black man in dark sunglasses wielding the chainsaw, "now sit still and don't move!". As the saw ploughed its way mercilessly through my hair, locks and curls flew off in all directions. People ran for cover and babies cried...

Ok, so it wasn't quite that bad, but at least now it's under control and far more manageable. Time will tell if having long hair will make me a better scientist, but at least I should look the part!

Supperbowl XXII

2006-09-24T21:48:00.000Z

The 22nd Supperbowl, at The Bell in Yatton, was won this Sunday by Dad with an easy victory over Grandma. Dad took the 2006 NFA (National Food Arguments) Championship with surprising ease, with the defending champion offering little resistance. After going behind to a well executed "but you paid last time" move, Grandma never recovered. Despite a late fight-back by Grandma with an attempt to walk to the bar with her purse, Dad was proclaimed champion when he paid for the meal.

A highly competitive sport, food payment arguing has been a regular feature in the Chard family calendar for many years. The rules of the game are simple; whoever pays for the meal, wins. Bonus points can be scored by paying for the drinks, or by convincing the rest of the family to have puddings (thereby increasing the bill).

Throughout the '90s Grandma was the dominant force in food payment arguing; she once paid for three consecutive meals, all including puddings (a record that stands to this day). But her period of success was dogged by accusations of foul play. In the famous Supperbowl VI at the Carpenters' Arms in Lacock, Grandma lost an epic match to Dad 3-2, only to be caught running out to the car to covertly pay for the meal by secretly giving extra pocket money to her grandchildren, a practice strictly forbidden under NFA rules [in all seriousness, this actually happened!]

In recent years, food payment arguments have been much more close-fought as Dad began to emerge as a prominent force in the sport. Tonight's victory sees Dad extend his lead at the top of the NFA table. It has been speculated however that Grandma intentionally threw the match in order to have the best chance of paying for her Grandson's upcoming graduation meal (Supperbowl XXIII, Sky Sports 1, kick-off 1.00 pm, 25 Oct). Experts predict this will be a pivotal match in deciding the future of the sport.

The one that got away

2006-09-22T10:30:00.000Z

Greetings, minnows! In an effort to prove the Quantum Angler is not just a name, I shall regale you with a fishy tale!

At my local lake, I sat fishing. My rods (for I use two simultaneously) had sat motionless for the past hour, but this was not unusual. Two traps had been set, and now all that remained was to wait. Modern carp fishing is indeed a very lazy branch of the art; we need not even stare at a float, instead electronic bite indicators sound when a fish takes interest in your offerings. So, you see, not even the logistics of trying to catch fish could disturb my relaxation on this sunny afternoon.

That is, until a fish plucked up the courage to sample the delicious snack I had prepared for him. The scream of the bite alarm shattered the peace in my corner of the lake, and I picked up the rod to pull back against the fish. I knew at once from the ferocity of the take that this was not a small fish, and the power I felt at the other end of the line confirmed this. The fish had been hooked close to a bed of reeds, and he knew, as well did I, that he might free himself of the barbless hook if he could bury himself in them. So he instantly darted for the reeds, and I needed all the power of my rod to keep him out. But keep him out I did, and I worked on cajoling the fish into open water. Easier said than done.

By now this fish was revealing himself to be quite a lump. He was going to go where he wanted to go, and he wanted to go into more reeds. Finding another reed bed further down the bank, the fish darted once more, this time penetrating the reeds a few feet so that I could see them quiver as he pushed past. But once again I was able to force him out. One has to be careful playing a large fish such as this. With my feet on solid ground and the leverage of a 12 foot carp rod at my disposal, I was by far the stronger combatant. However the worry for the angler is the hook, which may pull free if too much force is applied. The skill in the fight is thus to gauge just how much force you can apply to steer the fish clear of obstacles - a calculated risk.

A very evenly matched battle of man against beast was taking shape, my only hope was to keep him out of the reeds until he tired - in a battle of endurance man would win every time. The fish now came closer in, in search of a third reed bed. The angle would make this one harder to deal with, but try as I might I still could not control this fish. In my mind I excitedly speculated as to its weight, definitely above 10 lbs, probably closer to 20, maybe more. What a prize it would be to land. This time, however, the fish dove for the reeds with more conviction, and I had no option but to take the risk of applying still more pressure. Unfortunately my luck ran out and the hook pulled free of the fish's mouth. I threw my rod down in frustration. To have been so close, to have beaten the fish twice only to lose the third battle. I thought of the fish, swimming off into the murky depths, chuckling sardonically.

I had still not seen my opponent.

Consolation for this defeat were the prizes of two carp later in the afternoon, one a beautiful Mirror Carp approaching 9 lbs (both of which were of course returned, if you were wondering!)

Brakes on a Plane

2006-09-05T18:58:00.000Z

Last month saw the release of adventure-thriller movie Brakes on a Plane. Staring Samuel L. Jackson, the film takes an in-depth look at braking mechanisms throughout the history of aviation. Jackson describes the film as "a horror-thriller-decelerative blockbuster epic"; critics have largely agreed.

Starting with the lassos and parachutes used by the Wright brothers, Brakes on a Plane charts the story of airline brakes through to the systems of modern times, and new developments such as regenerative braking. The movie also focuses on some of the all-time classic brakes. Jackson, capably playing the role of a disgruntled brake designer whose daughter has been kidnapped by terrorists, compares two legendary designs in the following classic line from the film. "The double-gauged Lockheed twin-disk XT-9000 Planestopper was one of the most efficient brakes ever used, but the XT-9000-A was a real bad motherfucker."

King of the Assembly Line

2006-08-21T17:22:00.000Z

The social hierarchies of today's factories are complex. In the cut-and-thrust world of manufacturing, nobody gives two hoots about your football team, the cost of your alloys, or how often you say words like "innit" and "mate". Instead, the clever-clogses with the best degrees get all the respect. So, when I began work at a factory three weeks ago, I found instant adoration. Working men grovelled in humility at my Physics Master's from Imperial. In fact, there were few who could match my extensive knowledge of diode lasers or the philosophy of Descartes. In the intellectual debates which frequently raged over lunch, I put many men to shame with my knowledge of the sciences. I even found myself dabbling in some healthy corruption; solving physics problems on the side for the boss ensured I always got to operate the best machines and was first in the queue for the pie van. In short, life was good.

Now there was one man known to rule the factory floor; a fork-lift driver with a Master's from Cambridge, known simply as the Prof. I was told his understanding of the Copenhagen interpretation was unparalleled in contemporary manufacturing; he had published many important papers in respected factory journals. Everything had to go through him, and he took a disliking to my recent social advances. One day tensions came to a head when, as I sat pondering the impossibilities of Cartesian dualism over lunch, he approached me. "I challenge you to a maths-off!" he blurted. The room fell silent; all around men looked up from their Nature journals and gasped.

Maths-offs were once a regular feature of factory life. In a maths-off, two men take turns to set their opponent a difficult integral to solve. The first man to fail to evaluate the function put before him, loses. Such events can be extremely dangerous. In 1989 at a steel refinery in Lancashire, 28 workers died when a riot broke out following a maths-off. The trouble started when one of the combatants was caught using the Runge-Kutta numerical method to the fourth order. This is of course blatant cheating as the functions must be solved analytically, and the culprit was lynched for it, which led to the riot. Following this well-publicised case, the government began a crackdown, and today maths-offs are, thankfully, very rare.

Nevertheless, I accepted the challenge, and a rudimentary blackboard and chalk were produced from their hiding place underneath a workbench (blackboards have been outlawed in factories since the Mathematical Competition Act of 1990). Several men kept watch for bosses as the contest got underway. I went first, scrawling a tangle of pure algebra on the board. "Old skool, eh?" responded the Prof, and he got to work. Five minutes later the integral had been evaluated. His riposte was a fiendish arrangement of coses and sines. Murmurs circled around the room and it looked like this would be impossible to solve, but the Prof's smug smile was wiped off as he watched me convert the function to complex exponentials for an easy solution. My turn again, and I whipped out a nasty path integral. "Child's play!" said the overconfident Prof, and he wrote out his solution. As he stood back I exclaimed "You failed to notice that this was a closed path, and the integrand represents a conservative force; the answer is in fact zero." Fuming with rage, the Prof stormed off, and the maths-off was over.

From that day forth I have enjoyed the luxury of free tea from the vending machines, and my choice of radio station.

The joy of weekends

2006-08-14T19:29:00.000Z

Weekends. Oh how I've missed thee. For months, the simple pleasure of a weekend has escaped me; that is until now.

But hark, I hear the cries of disbelief. You wonder how anyone could miss out on weekends for so long. You may even allege I am taking nonsense for the sake of a blog. Well you'd be wrong. For as long as I can remember I have either been studying or pissing around; during Imperial finals you don't have the luxury of weekends, and once exams are over you monkey around all week anyway to the point where there's nothing really different about a Saturday. But now that I'm taking a short break in what's known as the "real world", weekends have revealed themselves to be a precious comodity.

Wikipedia defines a weekend as "a time for leisure and recreation, and/or for religious activities." Taking this advice to heart, I sought to resolve my recent weekends in the appropriate manner, as set out by Wiki. I began with religion. Bit of a toughie if you're not religious, I mean what could I worship if not a deity? It didn't take long for the answer to come to me, and it tasted great.

"Hop"ping on the first train to London after work, I reached the Great British Beer Festival in the early evening. I met up with regular drinking buddy Alex in the queue, and we braced ourselves for a glorious night of real-ale at that holy temple of beer, Earl's Court Exhibition Centre. After purchasing an extortionately over-priced glass, Alex and I wasted no time hunting out the funniest-sounding ales. Then once our immediate ale-thirst had been quenched, we met up with fellow revellers Pete, Damien, Marc, the Dude Next Door and others. It was then time for some food, and what better way to fill our bellies than emptying a large portion of our wallets into the coffers of a curry vendor with a monopoly that stretched as far as we could be arsed to look. This tactic produced a medium/large-sized portion of chicken tikka, which was quite tasty.

The rest of the evening proceeded roughly as one might expect, with the exception that Alex didn't remove his clothes. He did however, attempt to have oral sex with a life-sized glass-fibre cow (see figure above), and were it not for an irate security guard he might have succeeded. Following this festival of beer we retired to Damien's flat for port and cheese. Along the way we stopped off at Tesco's to acquire said foodstuffs, and of course to use the disabled toilet. The evening ended in a very civilised fashion as we discussed life, women, and the works of Isaac Asimov on the roof while sipping port and eating Danish Blue.

The following weekend I sought to serve up the other two ingredients for a good weekend, leisure and recreation. For this I headed to the scenic Chiltern hills in Buckinghamshire, home of rich people, Pete's brewery and relatively recent acquaintance of the QA's, Library Girl (anonymity preserved!). Recreation took the form of a night out in Aylesbury accompanied by Pete, LG and various friends thereof. Despite many desperate attempts to convince me that Aylesbury sucked, I was actually left with quite a good impression (Pete - come for a 'night out' in Chippenham, I'll show you a real crappy chav-infested town!). The next day we achieved leisure with a stroll around Combe Hill (OK... we drove there and walked for 5 minutes, but it counts!).

So there you have it, the recipe for a good weekend! Now, back to the real world...

Rant of the week: Train tickets and chicken

2006-08-09T17:28:00.000Z

Hello minnows, and welcome back to the Quantum Angler! After a brief hiatus, my fishy blog will now return with a vengeance, and to that end I present to you a new feature - rant of the week! So without further Apu, let the rants begin!

Right, trains. Very fertile ground for a rant you'll agree, but I have a specific one in mind. I mean, tickets are expensive right? £27.05 return from my 'hood to London (with a YPR) ain't cheep, especially as the journey takes just 75 minutes. And then you have to stand up and sometimes they don't run at all. But I'm English, so I don't mind a bit of bad service or high prices. Where I draw the line however is a straight rip-off, so imagine my horror when I try to buy a single; £26.40 would be the price, a mere 65p cheaper than the return. That's a measly 2% saving if you only want half the journey! Before you say it, this is no isolated case, but simply the state of affairs on many if not most journeys around the country. What a rip-off!

In essence then, the tickets are effectively the same price, and that leads to one of two conclusions; either a return ticket is a bargain, or a single ticket is a rip-off. Given I've already asserted that my return ticket is not a bargain, the latter must be true. In other words, they will no longer sell you a one-way train ticket in this country at its true market value.

This is certainly a dastardly trick by the rail operators, but it's not just they who may take the credit. Ever tried buying chicken in Sainsbury's? You'll have experienced exactly the same thing. A standard tray of 4 chicken breasts is priced at £5.99, but if you buy two the second costs just £1 more, i.e. it's £6.99 for 8. Obviously then, you buy 8 breasts to save money in the long term. This "offer" runs continuously. Some may be fooled into thinking they've found a bargain, but I put it to you that the market value of the chicken is actually £6.99 for 8, I mean why would they give you another one almost for free all the time? You are made to buy 8 rather than 4 because if you bought 4 you'd pay almost double its true value. With this the supermarkets make you buy more, increasing their profits.

As a side-note there's the sheer waste which this policy must produce. No doubt a lot of people forget to freeze the extra chicken for later and it goes off. It once happened to me and Alex; collectively we had 16 chicken breasts in the fridge because of this "offer". Because our fridge was so jammed with stuff our flatmates forgot about, it never kept things very cool, so all the chicken went off. What a sad waste!

I could end this rant by citing it as an example of how this country is going to pot, and how we could solve this problem by kicking out a few immigrants. But I'm not after a job with the Daily Mail, it just annoys me when companies use their monopolies to extort you like this!

Hair chronicles V

2006-07-20T11:24:00.000Z

Another hair-growth milestone has been reached. The Quantum Angler's hair is now officially long enough to be tied back. Not completely of course, but enough to reduce the effect of annoying, curly and often damp hair dangling in the wind.

Some have said I should not tie my hair back, that it is a road I shouldn't go down. I wish to reassure those people that this is just for convenience; the mane will be on display in all its unbounded glory at various social events.

Kickin' it country stile

2006-07-04T12:22:00.000Z

The QA is now safely back in Chippenham, deep in the heart (well, not really) of the West Country. Time to relax, take in the comparatively fresh air, and look for a mindless job to occupy me for a while. But first, some fun must be had.

I returned home just in time to catch the West Country’s finest old fogey rockers the Worried Men on display at Corsham's finest ale house The Two Pigs. Despite their age, they rocked very hard, playing a mix of hard rock and fogeycore. Indeed they rocked so hard that I had to return the following day to look for my socks (again... not really). My Dad, the apprentice drummer, was particularly taken by the drum solo, something which is sorely lacking in the repertoires of most modern bands. In fact, the only things which distracted me from the band were the exquisite local brew and the interesting fluid dynamics I observed from the smoke machine.

Then it was time to catch up with some old friends with a day at the beach. I use the word "beach" loosely, for here it refers to a man-made bay on a former-gravel pit lake in the water parks of the Cotswolds (the UK's largest, didn't you know?). Despite the lack of beach-fitties or salt in the water, it was pretty cool. An epic naval battle on catacanoes [essentially two canoes attached to form a catamaran] ensued. Both parties of combatants fought to manoeuvre their craft to present a broadside of splashing paddles to the opposing vessel. If the criteria for victory were to have completely drenched the others, I think we all won. Smelling of ponds, we returned home to our cosy little town where a barbeque, champagne and some relatives awaited me.

As if all this rural excitement weren't enough, I even managed to fit in a spot of night fishing before the weather turned lately. Unfortunately though, the turning of the weather took place just a couple of hours before I was due to head home, which resulted in a very wet Quantum Angler!

Returning the Costa Coffee sign, and other things I did when drunk lately

2006-06-25T11:46:00.000Z

The legend of the Costa Coffee sign reached a dramatic conclusion last night when the sign was returned to the hotel from whence it came. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Chamberlain lore, let me fill you in. Once upon a time (and to be more precise that time was in our mid-2nd year) the members of Chamberlain House set forth for a night of intoxicating beverages at the Black Widow, a public house that at its time was the very hub of student drinking in the South Kensington area. A few pints of beer and some cocktails with biblical names later, the group (plus a few token Americans) set forth on the journey home. It was then that we passed the Marriott on Cromwell Road and saw the sign.

Like a shimmering beacon it called to us. As it sat proud on the pavement outside the hotel, the sign just screamed "take me". Comparisons with the legend of Excalibur would be forgiven, for at this moment we could have no idea what epic adventures lay ahead of us. The steal would be perfect; infinitely better than a traffic cone, and a mere 2 minutes from our front door. A plan was quickly hatched to take the sign; two students flanked it and guided it from the front whilst another lifted it from the rear and provided the support. Not a single hitch blighted our operation, and it was soon perched gracefully in our living room.

Many years passed, and the sign showed its use in many ways. The rotatable arrow provided the perfect mechanism for directing people to countless parties, and it was also found to function as the world's coolest doorstop. As a coat and hat stand it performed admirably, trouncing other drunken steals that came and went, such as the bus stop sign. Bus alas, its day had to come, for no Chamberlain members had either the means or the inclination to take it home. So we decided that after so many years of joy, we should return it to show our gratitude to the kind people at Marriott. We chose to do this at our last ever party, the "BBQ Roof Party". Myself and Alex (star of the recent article "Ooooh , Ladyboys!") did the deed, with Marc following to document the event, and with two other guys for moral support. Alex's sombrero hat added a tough of class to the whole affair.

Turning up at a hotel to return a beer trophy sure did confuse a lot of people. The random Americans who left the hotel at the same time were quite perplexed, but seemed to think it was cool whatever we were doing. The same cannot be said for the security guard, who scowled at us from behind the glass of the hotel. However a quick mooning by Alex soon sorted him out. The message we left on the sign, complete with Marc's beautiful pun, read "3 years of happy memories. It's bean great!! xxx"

In other news, said roof party went swimmingly. The weather held out, and a good time was had by all. All-in-all it capped off an amazing three years of Chamberlain House. Three years of fun, frolics, and the most awesome parties around. Goodbye Chamberlain, it's bean great!

Ooooh , Ladyboys!

2006-06-22T11:05:00.000Z

Ever had a ladyboy? I have! In fact I've had two. I've had ladyboys with a friend. I've even had a double-ladyboy, and I must say they're great! There are things a ladyboy can do you to you that you wouldn't even dream of!

Of course, I'm not talking about transsexual prostitutes from the Far-East, but I am in fact referring to a drink conceived of in the first series of I'm Alan Partridge by Steve Coogan. The story goes thus; in one episode Alan is at the bar of his hotel and orders a gin & tonic. Just then his PA, Lynn appears and Alan offers her a drink, she chooses a Baileys. Next on the scene are two men from the film crew with whom Alan is about to shoot a corporate video for Hamilton's Water Breaks. Eager to impress them, Alan offers them a drink (they select lager) and gets the same for himself. By this point Lynn has wandered off without her Baileys, leaving Alan standing at the bar in front of a pint of lager, a G&T and a Baileys. The two men are perplexed, and quiz Alan on his collection of drinks. The quick-thinking Alan says it's a chaser, but he is then asked what its name is. It is well-known that Alan has a hidden fetish for ladyboys (here I DO refer to Asian transsexual prostitutes) so, being the first thing to come to mind, Alan dubs the drink a ladyboy. The film crew guys guess that this is because gin & tonic and Baileys are a lady's drink whereas lager is a man's drink. By confirming this, Alan ensures the two men do not find out about his disturbing fetish. All that is left is for Alan to drink his ladyboy, which proves very potent. On completion of the chaser he weakly utters the phrase "ooooh, ladyboys!" (click here for the clip of Alan drinking the first ever ladyboy).

Well, inspired by Alan, me and fellow Partridge fan Alex decided to give this a go. Our first ladyboy was at Imperial College Union. The guy behind the bar was a bit confused when Alex asked for a "ladyboy" without explanation, but when the details of the drink were revealed, all was well. The drink actually went down pretty well. It's important you get the order right, or it doesn't have the right effect (it goes lager, Baileys, and then G&T). A union ladyboy will set you back around £6.

Our second was at The Goose in Fulham. After watching the latest footie match (a goalless draw between Holland and Argentina) and seeing in Jess' birthday, our attention turned to ladyboys. One thing to note about The Goose is that it is awesome. More specifically, it is cheap; a pint Greene Kind IPA is £1.50. What's more, their spirits are doubles unless otherwise specified. Your wallet won't notice because doubles are so cheep here, but you'll get mighty drunk! Anyway, I digress. Point is, as we were in a hurry to get in our ladyboys before closing, we forgot about this. Next thing we knew we were each sitting in front of a double-ladyboy with less than a half-hour left until closing. An indication of how cheap The Goose is is that this cost us £6.10 each, pretty much the same as a single-ladyboy in the Union! Now a ladyboy, as you can imagine, is a challenging drink at the best of times, but we bravely saw them away in our allotted time. As I'm sure you can also imagine, a ladyboy will get you drunk; needless to say we finished the evening quite merry, and went home to watch some Alan.

Hair chronicles IV

2006-06-17T10:47:00.000Z

Further to the post below, the QA can report that his hair was instrumental in a recent pull. The girl in question was heard to explicitly complement the hair, citing its curliness as a particularly appealing feature. This puts to rest fears that long hair might reduce the QA's overall pulling rate.

For all my readers who are yet to make the transition to long hair, I offer the following advice. Two kinds of people have long hair; hot male models and physics postgrads who can't be arsed to cut it. In order to come across as the former, it is imperative that you avoid mentioning physics at all costs. As hard as it may be, you must resist the urge to wow her with the M-squared of your laser. Then you just sit back and let the hair do the work.

Pulling is the new integrating

2006-06-17T09:33:00.000Z

Pulling season is back with a vengeance. In a recent excursion to top London bar Tiger Tiger, both Pete Shardlow and the QA himself pulled smokin' hotties in what pundits are already calling a "quality night, mate".

Legends told of a dude; a dude who's pulling life was turned around by simple frequentation of this legendary establishment. Lore has it that he went by the name of Andy. Andy was once a mediocre puller at best, boasting the lady-charming abilities of your average Imperial computer scientist. Then one day, when the moon was high, he stumbled across a bar so rammed full of fitties that even the fabled beast of TBR could not have failed to cop off with countless beautiful women. To end the legend, our hero returned to this mystical cave of sirens up to three times, each time returning home with his prize of a lovely lady.

On hearing this tale, a ramshackle group of Physicists, Cambridgians and Alseburyites was hastily assembled from across the land. Donning their pulling boots, they headed to Tiger Tiger in search of some "banging tottie". After some heated debates about the manliest way to remove one's long hair from in front of one's eyes (the QA's "neck flick" lost to Marc's method of pretending to scratch your head), and about whose blog pun was better (mine was), they got to work. Their efforts were soon rewarded when Pete Shardlow racked up an astonishing total of 4 (unconfirmed) pulls throughout the night. The Quantum Angler, not of a mind to wear out his aforementioned boots in one night, pulled just the one smokin' hottie. As for the non-physicists in our crew, the QA knows little (he was busy).

To conclude, it would seem there must be something in the air at Tiger Tiger, where the ability to solve the Schrödinger equation is no barrier to success with a woman. Needless to say, we shall be visiting it again.

Simon and Cħarlie simultaneously pose for photo

2006-06-06T11:33:00.000Z

It looks like I've managed to sneek my nickname into the name list for the IC Physics leavers' photo. There's no h bar, but you can't win everything!

In other leavers' photo-related news, we can now formally identify the guy who's been swanning around with Alex (not a physicist) Wood's name, causing all sorts of email confusion mayhem.

The folly of fried chicken

2006-05-28T22:25:00.000Z

Whilst busy pondering the intricacies of atmospheric dynamics the other day, the most unexpected of propositions was put forward to me. "Fancy a bucket of chicken?" or words to this effect interrupted my meteorological musings. Initial reactions to this were less than enthusiastic. I had been going through a period of comparatively low chicken requirements; indeed my chicken needs were certainly nowhere near the 1 bucket level. Dismissing the proposal outright, I tucked back into my text on Rossby waves.

It was only when a fellow physicist sat down near me to consume a mouth-watering chicken-based snack treat that my need for fried chicken began to rise. Enquiring once more I discovered that by participating in the chicken-share deal, I would have access to half a bucket of chicken along with fries, cola, and two side orders, all for £5. As any economist will tell you, this is what is known as a bargain. As it turned out, seven hungry physicists were to share in this feathered feast; a lot of chicken would be consumed.

Half an hour later we returned with our finger-lickin' banquet. Three buckets of deep-fried chicken parts and other cholesterol-based foodstuffs awaited consumption by a slavering mob of undergraduate physicists. Needless to say, what followed was not pleasant. Particle physicists collided chips with dip, quantum opticians absorbed the fried chicken legs, while meteorologists adiabatically devoured the wings.

Yet despite the culinary chaos, there was a subtle irony. Though we had resorted to feeding in the most animal manner, the conversation reminded us that we were better. Whimsical speculation on the chicken-and-egg debate turned into a thorough discussion about the nature of evolution. One member of the group even shared a particularly drole joke about general relatively, that I'm sure we will all remember.

Afterwards the scene resembled the aftermath of a bloody battle between chicken and fries, of which there had been no winner. A feeling of general malcontent and told-you-so-ishness engulfed me as I came to realise the sheer volume of greasy fat and bird I had consumed. It must be said; it left me in a fowl mood.

Hair chronicles III

2006-05-25T09:51:00.000Z

The day of judgement is upon me

It would seem the time has come when I must make an epic choice, one that will shape the very foundations of my coiffureal destiny. For you see, my hair is now sufficiently long that towel-drying has become painstakingly ineffective. Coupounded by my early-morning laziness, this results in annyoing, damp hair for the duration of the morning. But I am not alone. Millions of people every day face the same problem, and for them mankind has produced a simple yet effective solution - the hairdryer.

On the face of it the dilemma would appear resolved. "By a hairdryer you lazy, stingy sod!" I hear you cry. But all is not so black-and-white. Yes, I am a lazy sod, and yes, I am about as stingy as Scrooge in Disneyland. But the real reason I hesitate to buy a hairdryer is psychological. The purchase of a hairdryer would signal a point of no return for the hair. I would officially have sissy hair, and all the repercussions associated with it. What's more, there would be an added incentive to keep the hair, for to cut it would be a waste of the money spent on the hairdryer (remember the stinginess I mentioned).

So in short, I must decide soon. Should it stay or should it go?

Other hair news

In other hair-related news, a growing bloc of housemates have begun campaining that I dress up as a schoolgirl for an upcoming 'sexual fantasies' themed fancy-dress party. The obvious implication hair-wise is that my mid-length hair would be perfect for constructing pigtails - a necessary ingredient in any schoolgirl fantasy, er so I'm told. It looks like I have two options: to not dress up as a woman, or to not dress up as a woman whilst vigorously protesting my right not to do so in order to foster an aura of manliness.

The Supervisor: You're Fired!

2006-05-21T08:11:00.000Z

In a dramatic finale to the hit TV show The Supervisor, a laser scientist from Imperial College has beaten a UCL antimatter professor to win the right to supervise Simon Chard in his PhD. More than 5 million tuned in to watch the UCL professor hear the immortal words "you're fired!".

In The Supervisor, contestants had to battle it out in a series of gruelling tasks designed to find out which supervisor was the friendliest, most helpful and had the best project. One highlight of the show was a task which saw contestants plied with alcohol, then evaluated to see who was the most interesting when drunk. The eventual winner, a suitably intoxicated Imperial professor regailed TV viewers with a flawless rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody. The episode then ended with the firing of a Cambridge professor who started a long and drunken argument with Simon about how Cambridge was better than Imperial.

Throughout the series, the winning contestant skillfully played on his previous experience at working for Simon as his Masters' supervisor. Explaining his decision, Simon praised him as a "cool" supervisor, who had a "badass project" that was too good to resist.

Following the success of the show, the BBC and Simon already have plans to produce a sequel, called The Girlfriend. Hot applicants are invited to apply at http://quantumangler.blogspot.com/.

Martin Archer ducks out of Quantum Field Theory exam early to chat up bird

2006-05-18T20:12:00.000Z

In a shock exposé, the QA can reveal that TBR's Martin Archer has been spotted ducking out of an exam in quantum field theory early, to chat up a fittie. The incident occured at around 3.15pm on 18th May when Martin, having finished a full 45 minutes before the end, left the examination. He then proceeded to send a flirty email to a fair miss he's been exchanging pokes with on Facebook. Preliminary investigations suggest that the girl is indeed quite fit.

It is alledged that Archer sent word to the female that she might attend a union night this Friday, in which he himself will be laying down some funky groves. Describing his advance on the fair maiden, Martin admitted to using a "winky face" expression in his email, a telltale sign of true romantic intent.

Correction: Cheese of the week

2006-05-17T17:04:00.000Z

The QA would like to point out that, contrary to a claim in a recent 'Cheese of the week' editorial, Emmental is not a Dutch cheese. The gaff was noticed by cheese expert and blog-commenting smart-arse Burge, who went on to say "The Netherlands is not the traditional home of Emmental. Indeed Emmental refers to the valley of the river Emme in Switzerland."

The Quantum angler would like to apologise for any offence caused to the Swiss cheese community by this mistake. We fully recognise that Emmental is not, and has never been, Dutch.

The Legend of the Blog

2006-05-16T18:44:00.000Z

Once, in the ancient lands of Blogoria, there reigned a mighty poet. His mastery of words was so complete, he weilded almost godlike power over his fellow men. With the most exquisitely conjugated verbs, and sublime soliliquys, he defeated every mortal who dared stand in his way. Legends spoke of many duels, in which the best writers of the land would pit their poems against him. Even the great Verbor, a giant of a man and famed throughout the known world for his literary prowess, looked a vulgar fool at the tongue of the Poet.

With his dominance proven, the Poet rose to supreme power over the land. He ruled, not with an iron fist, but with a silver tongue. With peace throughout the land, he turned his attentions to the succession. Riding the length and breadth of the land, the Poet searched for an apprentice. The search was long and arduous, but his journey reached an end when he found the young boy, Simon, in the small village of Chippenham. A boy of noble character, he was selected to study under the Poet, and to one day take over the throne of Blogoria.

However, peace in Blogoria was not to last. Tales reached the Poet's court of an evil bard in a far off land, with powers rivaling his own. Legends have it, the Black Bard (for t'was his name), ruled with a malevonant tongue, hurling wretched profanities at all those who dared challenge him. The Poet knew he must defeat him, and he set out on a crusade to find and slay the Black Bard, and assert once and for all his right to rhyme over the land.

A vast army of elite nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns was summoned, stretching as far as the eye could see. With his minions, the Poet and his apprentice set off in search of the mythical kingdom of the Black Bard, Profania. For three years they rode, scouring the land for the rumoured lair of the Poet’s nemesis. But their toils were rewarded, and a chance encounter with an elf named Guite led them to the fortress of the evil poet. However Guite was not all he seemed, and he sent word to the Black Bard of the Poet’s coming. In response the Bard summoned his own army of foul expletives and obscenities.

The two armies met near Castle Profania, and battle was waged. The battle was fierce; the elaborate death cries of beautiful adjectives, and the vulgar cursings of dying swear words, could be heard for miles around. The Poet and Simon surveyed the battle from up on high, and with the balance slipping from their favour, they decided they must go confront the Bard once and for all. They rode to the castle, slaying the elite vulgarities that guarded it, and at the top of the tower, the Poet met his nemesis.

The duel commenced. The two wordsmiths exchanged their most poetic blows, and it was clear it would be a close fight. Both men grew weak; the vile insults of the Bard dented into the Poet's self-esteem, while his own sublime haikus left the Bard struggling to come to terms with his newfound admiration for trees. Then, with both men nearing their last paragraphs, the Bard struck with a killing insult, so evil and depraved that the Poet could not resist. He had been bested.

But as the Bard stood over his nemesis’ body, conjugating the one last sentence that would finish him off, Simon emerged unnoticed to the Bard. With an extremely humorous limerick, he caught him off guard, defeating the Bard in one fell swoop. The Black Bard was dead. Cradling his dying master, Simon listened as he spoke his last words. “You have served me well, my apprentice. Now I will pass on to you the source of my power; my secret weapon.” Surprised, Simon listened as the Bard gave to him the source off all his wordy powers. “I give you my name. Henceforth you shall be known as Charlie.” A great light shone as the name passed to Simon, and with that, the Poet was dead.

Charlie made a vow. He vowed to use the name and its power only for the noble purpose of procrastination. He left the castle, climbed back on his horse, and rode off to write the world’s greatest blog.

Cheese of the week: Dutch gouda

2006-05-15T21:53:00.000Z

This week's 'cheese of the week' comes from the Netherlands, home to such classics as edam and emmental. Gouda is the eponymous product of a small town in southern Holland, famous, in addition, for its "smoking pipes and its 15th century town hall" [Wikipedia].

Gouda is a semi-hard, light-yellow cheese, and unlike many Dutch cheeses, gouda contains no holes. This cheese is a far cry from the in-your-face French approach to cheese, and offers a relatively mild and unprovokative alternative. The taste is smooth and creamy, with notable overtones of butter which complement the subtle but always present classic cheese tang.

Gouda triumphantly bestrides the often mutually-exclusive traits of cheesiness and smoothness. This is a thoroughly enjoyable cheese, and I hasten to recommend it to both hardened fromageophiles and cheese noobs alike.

Chair row threatens UK-China relations

2006-05-12T16:52:00.000Z

A dipliomatic row has errupted between China and the UK over the conduct of Chinese diplomats at the recent G8 talks taking place at Imperial College library. Britain has accused Chinese delegates of improper seating conduct, and China has refused to partake in the talks until the remarks are withdrawn

The row began over the Chinese decision to reserve chairs at key window locations at the debate. Sources say Chinese diplomats were seen setting up on all the desks near windows before the other countries had arrived at the talks, effectively reserving the most pleasant seats exclusively for China.

Under UN rules, countries are allowed to pick whichever debating desks they like, but the UK believes China has taken liberties with this rule. The UK ambassador to the UN, Lord D. Bate was quoted as saying "we believe the unnecessary reservation of preferential seating arrangements is unacceptable behaviour for a country of China's prominence." Junior UK diplomat Mo Shun told the QA "We had to sit by the periodicals because they reserved all those nice little tables next to the windows. They weren't even using them most of the time".

The row would seem superficial, but as veteran diplomat R. Gue explains, seating arrangements at debates are crucial. "It can get very hot and stuffy in there, you need a window seat. The outcome of the talks often hinge on who has the nicest seat."

Historian A. Jezago agrees. "Take the treaty of versailles as an example. Germany was widely expected to win substantial territorial gains, but British spies managed to sabotage their alarm clock. By the time the diplomats arrived all that was left was the one with the wonky chair."

Shardlow and Chard publish latest work

2006-05-07T10:13:00.000Z

Last week saw the publication of Shardlow and Chard's opus on adaptive interferometry. The work has been hailed as a grand treatise, presenting for the first time ever the entire body of mankind's knowledge on the subject of optical metrology with speckled beams. Among its thick and numerous leather-bound volumes are detailed every equation, technique, and in-joke that the would-be vibrometrist needs to become his own virtuoso in the art of remote vibration measurement.

The tome is a culmination of a year's work by the two physicists, in which the writers' lives famously suffered greatly as their devotion to the cause deepened. Chard described the ordeal. "Some days we would take data for anything up to three hours at a time. Three hours staring at an oscilloscope does strange things to a man; by the end of it the only people I could only recognise were those who ran past me really quickly from left to right, and were bright green. It made it very hard to hold down a conversation. "The project also led to the Chard's well-documented problems with alcohol. “We would go to the pub after lab and drink up to as much as a pint of ale each. I was a mess."

But it was worth it. The centrepiece of the work has been the development of the Shardlow-Chard Interferometer. Described in full detail across volumes 11-14, the Shardlow-Chard marks a revolution in optical metrology. With unparalleled accuracy it can detect vibrations off any surface, regardless of speckle. "We could point this thing at anything and it worked”, Shardlow described. “It's so sensitive; we pointed it at a mouse and detected it shivering on a cold winter's day."

The book has received rave reviews the world over, from physics to gangsta rap. Steven Hawking described the work as "totally fucking badass", Lord Robert Winston exclaimed "this is some crazy shit", while Snoop Dog was quoted to say "I opine that this work is endowed with an eloquence of expression seen so sparsely in contemporary academia." In addition, the head of the group where the work was carried out confirmed "I'm [going to give you full marks] for [this project]".

On the dynamics of the population of aesthetically agreeable female entities in an inhomogeneous undergraduate physics environment

2006-05-01T11:48:00.001Z

It has been observed [1] that the number of attractive female humans (known in the field as "fitties") has experienced significant rise in recent years. Specifically, studies have shown [2] that the population thereof has followed an exponential increase with time.

where the coefficient alpha is denoted by

where kf is the fittie coefficient, aphys is the appeal of physics to women, and phi is the physics geek factor. This relationship has the known exponential solution

Preliminary data shows that experimental results match theoretical predictions well. However much of the undergraduate physics community is critical of the research. L. Ouseur cites the low rate of intra-physics copulation to suggest the number of fitties has not increased in real-terms. E.N. D'Away counters this with reference to the general geekiness of physics students. Leading fitties' reactions were mixed, R. Kameen conjectured "Oh I don't know. Fancy a cup of tea?"[3].

References

[1] S.P. Chard, Procrastination methods involving the observation of fitties through the computer room window as a means to avoid writing MSci reports (Wiley 2006)

[2] A. Guite, An experimental verification of the Chard law in level 3 Blacket (Cambridge University Press, 2006)

[3] R. Kameen, Invitation for consumption of a cafinated beverage (IOP Publishing, 2006)

The funniest goal ever!

2006-04-25T15:58:00.000Z

Saw this while watching Sky Sports News in the union the other day. I think it has to be the funniest goal ever. Do yourself a favour and watch it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1csQG0ZciFQ&search=own%20goals

Hair chronicles II

2006-04-24T19:21:00.000Z

The hair's really getting long now. I went swimming yesterday and it kept settling in front of my eyes whenever I came up for air. Very frustrating. I worked on developing a system of strategically blowing bubbles of air towards my fringe as I surfaced so it might not settle there, but the results are so far inconclusive (it will also need more work if I'm to not be seen pulling a silly face every time I poke my head out of the water!)

Martin Archery

2006-04-21T23:00:00.000Z

At the risk of following Alex Guite down the slippery road of Martin Archer spotting, I feel I must share with you an amusing find. I think the logo speaks for itself, but if you don't believe me then visit martinarchery.com.

For more information about Martin Archer, visit the official Martin Archer blog.

Sandwich emergencies

2006-04-19T12:21:00.000Z

In light of my recent adventures I thought I'd share my thoughts on the subject.

The first problem one might find themselves with is not having a knife. If this happens to you the first thing to remember is to relax, stay calm. The less experienced sandwich crafter might turn away at this point, running away with their tail between their legs, fleeing for the nearest Burger King. But fear not. Your've better than that. A closer inspection of your surroundings will usually reveal an item which can be adequaletly adapted for the purposes of 'wich craft. Rulers are a sound choice; not least because they more often than not have a slight serration caused by the raised markings.

"But I have no ruler" I hear you cry. "I'm screwed!" Calm down dear, it's only a sandwich. But alas, this is the exact predicament in which I found myself this lunchtime. With my comrades-in-physics tucking into their pre-prepared snacks, time was running out for the QA to fashion his bread, butter and cheese into an edible unity. That's when I turned to another alternative, the credit card. Although not serrated, the credit card is fairly stiff and thin, and will do the job. With this in mind, here is a run-down of some of the best and the worst cards on the market for dividing the humble loaf.

1. HMV Student Card - Stiff yet sharp, this little gem combines sharpness with stiffness, whilst giving you 10% off all the latest tunes.

2. Scream Card - Slightly stiffer than the HMV, allowing increased downwards force on the bread, however it's not as sharp and requires more skill to use. On the plus side they phased out scream cards at our local a while ago, rendering the card useless for anything else.

3. Imperial College Student Card - I haven't tried this one yet, but it looks to have the right characteristics. Which is more, it's every Imperialite's dream to hand over their swipe card to an over-zealous security guard whilst it's still covered in mexicana cheddar!

Next week... butter alternatives.

Hair chronicles

2006-04-19T11:10:00.000Z

A lot of my dreams lately seem to involve me getting my hair cut, only to yearn for my fledgling locks for the remainder of the night. How strange.

Home on the range

2006-04-11T17:27:00.000Z

Out amongst the stars we sat, and with our steeds grazing on the rich grasses and shrubs of the old West, we rested. The Texas kid's mouth organ wailed yearnings for bygone days, and a wolf howled off in the distance. I kicked off my spurs to warm my feet on the crackling fire, and sat in contemplation on the still night. Then Johnny 'revolver' McBride pushed something into my hands. "Get this down yer!" he said in his thick, twangy western tongue. I looked down at my feast, some real authentic Cowboy's Classic BBQ Beans flavour Hoola Hoops. I was home. As soon as I ripped open the packet, scenes of cattle rustles, saloon brawls, and 3 o'clock showdowns wafted past my nostrils. Yeah, this really was the food a cowboy dreamed about. Wasting no time I crunched down on this most essential of cowboy-fodder, and when it was gone, I lay down for the night a contented cowboy.

Student writes blog to avoid work

2006-04-09T20:24:00.000Z

In a shock development today, physics student Simon Chard was revealed to have written an article in his blog in what is alleged to have been a callous attempt to avoid doing work. The incident occured at approximately 22:00 GMT in the Earl's Court area of London, and has already brought swift condemnation from leading academics. Prof E. Lectron of the Institute for Bearded Science (IBS) exclaimed "I was astonished when I heard what had happened. Is this what undergraduates today have become? A bunch of lazy gadabouts?". Others have seized on these events to renew calls for a student tax to help stamp out this kind of behaviour.

The student community has hit back, with statements from prominent student leaders condemning Prof Lectron's comments. President of the University of Cowes Student Union, T. Cherspett remarked "Comments such as Prof Lectron's do not help. This was an isolated incident; most students are very hard working and often go without food because they cannot tear themselves away from their books." The National Union of Students (NUS) is convening an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss the possibilty of more serious retaliatory action, possibly including a national boycott of lectures.

Yet the crisis shows no sign of abating. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said in a statement "although the likelihood [of lecture boycotts] is small, we can assure the public that we have the resources to deal with any action to make sure all students attend their lectures." When asked about reports that all police leave had been cancelled he declined to comment.

Duffman was unavailable to comment for personal reasons.

Welcome to me

2006-02-12T13:51:00.000Z

Welcome to the pointless ramblings of me! Marvel at this unique window into the fun-packed, hedonistic life of a fourth-year physics Masters student. Every week you will have the opportunity to hear me talk about pointless things that you don't care about. So come, one and all, and let's waste time together!