Issue Eighteen, this third day of October, 2003

'Next scheduled refill at 20:30 Hrs.'

For I have slipped the surly bonds of the Mercenary Results Council, and trekked halfway across the country to the cubic zirconium synchrotron lab. What's more, I've done it without the guiding hand of the Beast, so my mental state is somewhat more relaxed than it might otherwise have been.

Two pints of Mr Theakston's best probably has helped a tad.

My companion, Rob, decided that all his crystals were crap and is driving back to Cambridge tonight to get some more, and intends to drive back in time for breakfast at eight (he's mental), so I have the 'light of a thousand suns' all to myself.

Mwah hah hah.

Ahem.

So, I'm drinking coffee, eating Bournville and listening to Beethoven while babysitting this dataset through a 'scheduled refill', which as far as I can gather is when they pour more electrons into the tank as the ones that have been running around for the last 12 hours are getting tired, poor wee things.

The only things that would make the atmosphere just right is more beer (naturally) and a fine cigar. But DIC a synchrotron beam, while maybe not a criminal offence, should probably not be encouraged.

Sitting in the canteen at lunchtime and seeing the powerstation and the industrialization reminds me of when I used to stay at my grandparents' as a child, looking across the Trent valley at the three sets of cooling towers, and again, driving past Ferrybridge on the A1. Little Richard will probably know what I mean about a kind of industrial romanticism; the brooding, impassive stacks dwarfing the coal-fired engines of civilization beneath them, the sentinel tower and its souless, panoramic eyes; the steps up to the hostel like some latter-day, budget stairway to heaven (or ladder to an inner circle of Hades if you're coming the other way); tipping dewars prowling the recesses of the ring a hundred feet across, with her myriad particles of nothing travelling at unimaginable speeds, making hand-brake turns and emitting X-rays as they counteract the oversteer . . .

All right, I've been drinking, but not _that_ much.

Later . . .

The pervasive hum of the machinery - the air-conditioners, the bits and pops that direct the kilosun light into narrow beams and focus it at the crystal apex - blurs into the background after a while, like the engines on a long-haul flight. At least here I've got leg room, I can go and make a cup of tea, and the added bonus of being able to freeze my fingers off when I mount a fresh crystal in a couple of hours' time. But the tiredness behind the eyes and the greasy feeling of wearing the same clothes for eighteen hours straight is similar. Of course, by now I'm stone-cold sober and there's no chance of getting any sleep for at least another three hours.

Perhaps I'll write a more Mordor-ish letter next week.

Fortunately, no one will mind if I sing along,

Oh Freunde, nicht diese töne! Sondern lasst uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere!