Monday, February 27, 2006

Orton in Concert



Last night E and I and Nick and Helen hit the Corn Exchange to see Beth Orton in Concert, with support act 'Clayhill'.

Firstly, it was our first time to the Corn Exchange here in Cambridge. The venue is good, a nice size, not to big, not to small. It is great to have a venue that plays international acts at your front door. From all my days giging in Sydney whereby half the night is spent getting to the event and getting home it was a nice change.

We picked our tickets up at the box office, purchased a pint in a plastic cup and headed into the standing area.

Clayhill were unknowns to us. They seemed to have a reasonable following. We had no expectations.... What a great act! The lead singer was to cool with airy vocals and delicious lyrics, a fantastic double bass player with lots of energy, and a confident lead guitar and a drumer and keyboardist. The tunes were good and we were impressed. First track Figure 8 and Hang on were memorable.

Beth came out after a small wait, but played a full set mixed with lots of old stuff as well as the new album. During the middle of the concert she seemed to flag, but picked up again by the end. Her voice seemed to be suffering a little... maybe over-strained? But, some of her new tracks are great (like Absinthe and A Place Aside), and being the first time I've heard them I think I'll be getting the new album. Her classics like Central Reservation and Stolen Car were also great.

Overall a great night out... 4 star.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Back at Work

Well, this is my second day back at work and things are going ahead at full pace. I'm still a bit sleepy in the afternoons. The lab gave E and I tickets to the Isle of Wright Festival, a big camping rock festival in June which I am very excited about! Thank you guys!!!! My lab in Sydney sent across gift tickets to the Covent Garden Opera.... how awesome is that! And two of our best friends gave us a set of Riedel Whiskey Glasses.... needless to say that they shall be well loved and cherished! We are learning about single malts, and have been doing blind tasting of several whiskies at a time. So far we are not very good at it. E is also planning to start brewing ales with the beer brewing things I got him for Christmas. I'll let you know how it goes.

There has been a lot of talk and discussion between my friends about the recent riots in Denmark, and also about the jailing of the british right-wing historian in Austria. The world is a very strange place. However, my belief in Gnomes is not waivering.... and Sven, our wedding prsent house gnome from my mother is proving to be a top little guy.

Long live the gnome!

Sunday, February 19, 2006

We got hitched!


A beautiful sunny day in Sydney,

Saturday the 21st of January

We were very lucky.....













Had some great nights out with friends and family before heading to Lorne in victoria to attend the Lorne 2006 Protein Structure and Function Conference. Generally an excellent meeting, and it is always good to meet up with other Australian Scientists and find out what is going on.



We returned to Sydney then flew out to Perth to spend a week's honeymoon in Western Australia touring the South West and a little bit north of Perth. Overall we had a spectacular time. Went to some great restaurants. If you are ever in Albany, try The Wild Duck, and if you are up near Yallingup or Margaret River try the Other Side of the Moon located at the Quay West Bunker Bay Restort (nice resort by the way).

Saw some excellent sunsets into the ocean, and drank some fantastic wines. E went mad over the climbing.... and we saw lots of wildlife including snakes and orchids and sea cucumbers that look like slugs. We eat lobster and also checked out the stromatolites at Lake Thetis near Cervantes. Stromatolites are constructed of colonies of photosynthetic cyanobacteria that deposit calcium salts to form strange bublous formations at the edges of water (in this case a lake).

We really enjoyed the Pinnacles... they are limestone formations that 'pop' out of the sand dunes, again near Cervantes. I visited this place when I was very small and it was certainly worth the second visit.

We also visited the Valley of the Giants – a forest of ancient Kari trees. There is a suspended 'tree-top' walk here which was worth doing. We also saw lots of Blue Wrens there. Very cute!




The Parks people were doing controlled burns which we drove through, really felt like Australia....

Finally for a bit of a thrill we did two tree-climbs – one called the Gloucester tree, and the other called the Bicentennial Tree. I recommend the later one since the climb is much higher and it is also less well known so it is not as busy. Basically the climb consists of a huge Eucalypt tree with iron stakes driven into the trunk every 30 cm that spiral up the tree.


The climber can step from one spoke to the next in a sort of helical ladder. The whole process is very unprotected (if you fall it could be VERY VERY nasty), and the climb goes up to 75 m (for the Bicentennial Tree, 58 m for the Gloucester Tree).




Ant farms in space!


Ever seen one of these Ant Farms made of a mysterious blue gel?

I was interested to know what the gel was made of.... after some educated guesses and some web trawling I've tracked down the main components:

agar (or agarose) which is a sea-weed based material used by microbiologists and molecular biologists to either seperate DNA or grow bacteria. This substance is mixed with a nutrient media (with sucrose and vitamins and minerals) and heated. The agar 'melts' and forms a clear gel which can be poured into a container and allowed to set. Unfortunately the agar is not all that easy for the average person to track down..... I'll work harder at collecting information about the other components. The original space experiment is described here:
http://www.starsacademy.com/sts107/experiments/ants_top.htm#

And the gel was orginally supplied by: Plant Technologies Inc, New Jersey. Apparently it contains an antifungal agent.