Time to think...
For the first time in some time, I've slept well, and my head's buzzing with all sorts of things that I need to blog about.

First up, students. I don't know if there are more than there ever have been or what, but it's hell out there. Somehow over the months of summer when it's blisfully quiet in the department, I forget what it's like to have the screaming hordes about, but then I come back to Earth with a bump when they turn up again. Standing around in their little cliques, defined by the clothes they wear and generally looking more than a little gormless, it's hard not to laugh at them. I'm sure I was never that bad, but then everyone says that, don't they?

Next, the intangibility of blogs. It's lovely to have this kind of diary available wherever a net connection is, and it may even be useful to be able to share this shit, but there are certain things that I can't do with a blog that I used to be able to do when I had a notebook with me all the time. I'm not saying I always did these things, but having the knowledge that I could was good. Let me give you a couple of little examples, then you can go away and think of a few for yourself. Leaves. Example number one. I walked through the park this morning, an activity which has recently been curtailed by a need to go via the chemistry building and turn on my microscope, allowing it sufficient time to warm the lasers before work commences for the day. The park, I realise, has changed in my absence, taking on its autumn livery in spectacular fashion. I love this time of year in the park, and work is threatening to deprive me of it. Ok, maybe not deprive me, as I could go out of my way to turn the 'scope on, but I have to add a little drama to make all this hammering at a keyboard worthwhile. If I was still using a notebook, I could have taken one of the many fallen oakleaves in their gorgeous hues and stuck it in with excessive selotape, and hoped the colours would have held. Unlikely, but it would still have been a more visceral reminder of the season than a few clumsy words jotted down here in cyberspace. And no, a picture on the cameraphone uploaded won't do - where's the spontaneity in that?
Example two is the ability to sketch. Or lack of, in the case of the net. I have a graphics tablet. I can't sketch on it, because it's attached to the computer at home. I can't sketch with a mouse, I write left-handed and operate computers in the normal way. Besides, it doesn't have the effect of graphite on paper. This is no good. The answer, of course, is to get a notebook and carry it around.

[I am an idiot, but I have my resaons for being so. I hold on to my insensibility like a protective blanket. I'm not rational or logical, I do go off on tangents, and I daydream as though it is more important than real life. I have highs and lows, dramatic mood swings, and I'm really enthusuastic about things to the point of annoying people. All of these things allow me the artistic side to my personality that I believe a lot of people see as an affectation on my part. It genuinely isn't. I told someone recently that on a scale of artistic ability versus a scale in ability in the physical sciences, I'm a lot higher on the artistic scale than I am on the physics scale. This is true. There are a greater number of people in the world who are better than me at physics, than there are who are better at drawing than I am. That is not to say I have artistic talent in any great abundance, but then nor do I have talent as a scientist. It's all smoke and mirrors, and blagging. I hate science, when it comes down to it. It's not science's fault, it's just that when you get labelled and you have the sort of anti-authoritarian attitude that I have, you tend to hate the label and the source of the label.]

Third on my list of things today is another list of three. Watching a little daytime TV this morning (part of my getting enough sleep routine), I was shocked to see a three-minute-long advert break filled with adverts that could all have been fitted into one of the following categories:
1) insurance offers
2) loan offers
3) crappy legal advice.
They aren't well made, and they don't convince me that the companies behind them are particularly nice or all that clever. I intrinsically won't go for a company called something along the lines of "Let's sue the bitches!!", or similar. I won't ever take legal action because I tripped over somewhere. I won't ever need to remortgage my house because I'm so fucking stupid with money that I've racked up four quadrillion pounds worth of debt on nineteen credit cards, and I certainly won't ever buy insurance from a company whose advertising campaign revolves around a small CG knight in a 1930s racing car (Hastings Direct, if you must know). Who the fucking hell do these people think we are, and how the hell did the advertising companies ever convince them these concepts could fly? Oh, and one more thing - please shoot me if I ever take out a life-changing amount of money on loan from a company that includes ".co.uk" in its name. Cretins...

BBC SPORT | Cricket | England | Injured Gough replaced by Onions
And I always thought he looked like a sack of potatoes... Don't bother reading the story, the headline's the funny bit.

Paris Hilton targeted in CD prank

Another genius ploy. Hats off to Banksy for once again showing that modern British art isn't about chopping animals in half. Although I'm a little surprised to find this in the Entertainment section of BBC News - since when has Paris Hilton constituted 'entertainment'?

Stroller, Strider or Stormer
Everyone fits into one of three handy pigeonholes in this regard. Unless you have no legs. You are either:
a) a stroller - someone who slows down when walking uphill,
b) a strider - someone who maintains their speed no matter what gradient they're faced with, or
c) a stormer - someone who is so pissed off that the hill has the afront to be in their way that they actually speed up when faced with an incline.
So, which are you? Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

No purchase necessary. Closing date 1st October 2012. Thomas Rowson Ltd. cannot be held responsible for any disappointment felt at the lack of a real prize, or any loss or damage incurred by third parties as a result of any actions he may perform. This is not a VAT receipt.

French Goodness
I'm an argumentative old git, I really am. In any conversational situation, I will take a view contrary to the general opinion often just for the hell of creating a bit of a stir. So, when the whole table is Frog-bashing, I'm secretly lining up a series of things the French are good at in my head. Here, then, is my comprehensive list of French goodness:
1) The Citroen DS (not to be confused with the similar, but ultimately slightly smaller, Nintendo DS).
2) Parkour (ankle-breaking joy).
3) Claire French (good friend and one of Jen's bridesmaids, and not even technically from France).
So, you see, the French really are good for something.