Issue Twenty Five, this eighth day of June, 2005

I find your lack of method disturbing

Run! Hide!

It's that time of year again, when the bluebells are in bloom (well, it was when I started writing this. I kind of lost the will to live after writing the first part, but then decided it was too good an introduction to lose), the house martins are nesting in the canteen eaves and the mating call of the common or garden lawnmower shatters the afternoon calm; and Sauron stops travelling to the US and puts on a labcoat.

"My, Sauron, what a white labcoat you've got."

"All the better to go 'WAAAAAAAA' in, my dear."

This is a stressful time for us all. Sauron has been focussing his energies on the Doctor. You know what this is like; when one person gets Sauroned everyone else breathes a sigh of relief and watches from the sidelines. It's not that we're sympathetic and heartless, rather that we have a deep understanding of suicide inhibition. So we're very sympathetic to the Doctor but there's no bloody way we'd rescue him. He has to learn, just like we all did.

Unfortunately when Sauron gets in the lab there is no escape (except for certain lazy cunts who are never seen in the mornings before coffee). So despite the Doctor's selfless valour under fire I copped a full broadside of waaing incompetence on Thursday morning:

"Waaaa, Richard, where's the DNase?"

"In that fridge, probably; but I don't use that method so I don't know if we've got any." Note the cunning use of a semi-colon even in my recorded speech.

"Where in this fridge?"

"I don't know Sauron, I don't use it."

"How much do I use?"

"I don't know Sauron, I don't use it." Notice a pattern forming?

"I need magnesium. Do you use manganese as well?"

"I don't know Sauron, I don't use that method."

"How much magnesium and manganese do I need?"

"Look Sauron, here's the methods folder."

"Waaaa we need it in a better place."

WHAT?

Okay, five minutes' peace, then,

"Have you got some magnesium I could steal waaaaa here it is" closely followed by "and some manganese waaa" and I'd had enough, and it wasn't even coffee time.

I've got a note scribbled here that says malonate/citrate is the new betaOG/ammonium citrate. You can probably work it out - it's too painful for me. At least we haven't (yet?) had the synchronizing our experiments crap this time around.

All this before he kicks off a lab meeting by wibbling about the hoops he jumps through trying to save money when flying to the US. . .

I have a headache.

There was a very bright patch early last week. The Honorable companion has gone on to better things, and he sent us (including Sauron) an email that shows just how far he progressed under what I modestly like to call my tutelage:

It is a nice feeling indeed to be back in home country and to be the "boss" of the lab, although there is a lot of administration to do. Perhaps part of my job now is to ask "HOW IS BUSINESS" everyday and to look for SMART people to work with (but of course, being smart is not enough).

Unfortunately we didn't manage to clone him before he left - although I guess a sweep of his bench for epithelials might turn up something. (Watched Gattaca at the weekend. What a pile of poo that was). 'Nutha letter coming soon. At least, sooner - seeing as the previous one was on the shortest day, maybe I can get one out before the longest. And that reminds me - I guess I should now add the Honorable Companion to the Fellowship. Boy is he in for a (hopefully pleasant) surprise.

Thinking desperately of fresh strawberries,

Richard