Issue Eight, this ninth day of May, 2003

'Indulging a fantasy'

Hey nonny nonny, summer is a-coming in, lewd singe cuckoo.

Or something.

This week's tip comes from Rosanna, who has left an indelible mark on the Wellcome/CRUK institute;

Don't discard liquid nitrogen by pouring it over a cheap linoleum floor

It's been quiet since the last missive. Hippy finally returned from lands foreign, looking browner than ever (but I'm sure it'll wash off). Sauron has been seen wearing a lab coat, which was scary enough - unfortunately it was your correspondent who copped the fall-out.

To summarize: Collaborators have sent DNA that are part of the 'mindless medic' (see last week) project and some 'strange, Australian DNA' [sic] and Sauron thought he'd better 'see how we do molecular biology these days'. Of course the upshot of that was that instead of giving the clones to me to transform and grow up, which would have taken, oh, fifteen minutes at the outside, I've spent the best part of a week teaching him how to do transformations and use miniprep kits.

Is it Saturday, yet?

There's been a lot of talk (too much talk. This song is Sunday, Bloody Sunday) about NTF2; Sauron believes - or fantasizes or something - that it's an enzyme, and wibbled on about surreal experiments involving dialysis tubing and rat liver homogenates. You're better off not knowing - I wish I was.

Breaking news: Someone is coming in October or November from Finland (huh?) to work on filamin. Okayyyyy . . .

Not breaking news: The ELISA-type plate assays measure EDC cross-linking. I think that's what he was saying, it's difficult to be sure these days.

Only one weird email to share with you, but I think you'll agree this is without peer,
If anyone has accidentally lost a heart valve prosthesis (aortic), please collect it from the Model Room (F43).

It's just too much. I need to go and lie down.

Opening the possibility of doing a MAD experiment,

Richard (- too short for this shit).