Compare and contrast...

Here is the perky advert London used to secure their olympic bid- its a spot the celebrity tour around London (including the former mayor of London). All jolly and happy.

This is the official olympic anthem (Survival), by Muse. Somewhat less jolly, all about winning and surviving and pushing yourself. I guess more appropiate to the athletes competing. I'm a bit of a Muse fan, so I like it. I like the hints of Queen and ELO that are in it too.

Will it inspire Team GB? who knows.

10 days to go....

cough! cough! splutter......

Yeah, not been around much recently; I was stuck down with a chest infection. Not had that before- don't want it again. I'm not sure what was worse, the hacking painful cough or the side-effects from the antibiotics or the double whammy migraine, chest infection combo (yeah, that was really lovely day off work).
Happily on the mend now, I'm getting all the health issues out the way in one go- all the tests I'd been putting off -done, getting a mole removed this Thursday too. Hopefully that should see me through another 4/5 years of not going to a doctors.
The crappy weather continues here, although the rain has let up, its still only around 12C (hard to believe that its supposed to be the middle of summer). We had some spectacular rain a couple of weeks back- never seen the sky so dark before; truly apocalyptic weather. There were numerous lightening strikes and the rain, oh the rain! an entire months worth of rain in 2 hours (on top of already saturated ground) just around the start of rush hour. My usual route home by bike was impassible, the rain had flooded the underpass completely. The alternate route home was still knee deep in water. Some houses went on fire due to lightening strikes, we just lost all internet. The rain hasn't really let up since the beginning of June really. Strange that almost as soon as half of England declared a drought, it started raining and now there has been so much rain all the hose-pipe bands have been lifted across the country.
Ah well, were would be without some useless weather to moan about- not in the UK thats for sure. Still, I hope it cheers up for the holiday I've got coming up. Oyomesan- pack your wellies and jumpers!

I got to see it!

Happy, Happy, Happy!

Zip wiring from the Tyne Bridge with Bear Grylls

I can't remember, but she looks happy despite the rain! 

Oooooh..... feeling very olympicy now

light my fire

The torch has landed and is currently making its way around the UK. It will be coming past where I work on June 17th just as work finishes, I was really looking forward to seeing the torch. I'm not going to the games, so this would be the closest I could get and lets face it, its not often an olympic torch visits where you are.
Unfortunately, it seems like I'm not going to be there on that day- I'm being sent to Cambridge for a week of work. I shall have to make do with this video instead... complete with slightly cheesy epic music.

Its been so busy in work recently, I feel like I'm barely keeping on top of things. I had the added joy of some charming bug (tonsilitis, cough, feeling like crap) 2 weeks back too on top of computer woes and grumpy colleagues- just to really add to the pile...
Still at least tomorrow we're going to have a wee jubilee street party- inside, in the lab coffee room so we can try bring some joy before the extra long bank holiday weekend.
 I for one am really looking forward to having 4 days away from work, especially as I have been in and out of work at the weekends too much recently.

Something is coming....

There is no escape. Everyday a new olympic themed advert appears on the screens here.

This one I saw at the cinema and thought it was a pretty cool one (even if its for The Sun newspaper). Apparently the torch will be going by my place of work, which is kinda cool!

Springy,spring, summer

Spring is springing here- like old billie-o.

February is best left to a distant memory- it was crap in a word. Experiments failed left right and center along with equipment. It was a slog frankly and really didn't feel like interacting with anyone at all. The only good thing was joining a choir. Its just for a short time (until April), but its been really great to switch off from work and sing in a group. Its been years since I've been in one, but I'm loving it.

So far March has been an improvement, although work isn't letting up. I survived a 2 day workshop on bioinformatics- a charming combination of computers, computer language, statistics and things on chips and big scary machines with a sprinkling of statistics. My brain hurt after that. Then the whole department went into safety overdrive with the arrival of a health and safety executive visit. There were emails and spot visits and a rash of new signs and instructions. We were under strict instructions to be suited and booted in our labcoats and gloves today.....and nothing, zip, nada. Apparently they got to one place and that was it.

Now, I'm currently trying to wind things down for easter, which seems to be rapidly approaching, if the cells will let me!

Having one of those days....

Weeks....

You know....when the gods of science decree that your 14 day experiment will suddenly fail and become infected on the last day; the same one you've been trying to get to work for more than two months. When your incubators you grow cells in grow mold and suddenly stop working in cacophy of alarms and failing gas supplies.
When your careful plan of work for the day is turning into a day of being wearing masks and rubber gloves with a tub of disinfectant. And the website you really need in order to arrange going to a conference is down for 3 days and counting....

These are the days when you escape and eat cake.

A big slab of the most chocolately, gooey, moist cake....with an extra topping of chocolate sauce.

The march of time...

This time last year I was spending my last few days in Japan...It feels weird, like it was yesterday and years ago at the same time. This last year has been pretty full on...starting a new job, moving, LOTS of new things to learn in lots of places. From September to December last year it was super busy. I had reports to suddenly write and prepare, courses to do (who'd have thought that financial management could have been so fun!) and I went off to 2 weddings and met up with friends I haven't seen for years. So Christmas was a really nice break away from all of that, though I still managed to meet up with a former flatmate and another uni friend during that time.

This year is filling up too... new projects and aspects to the project will start to happen, papers to write and maybe a conference or so. I'm looking forward to Oyomesan sailing in for a visit in the summer.

so 2012 bring it on!