Taxonomic treats

Ever since I heard of the fungal species Neosartorya fischeri I wanted to work with it. Not because it’s especially weird, or relevant but because I love the idea of a fungus that is the new elegance of Dr fischer!
Only now I discover that it’s actually just an Aspergillus in its telemorphic sexual state. For a fungus that doesn’t mean it’s feeling frisky, it means that in this state, it is making sexual spores. When it’s reproducing asexually it’s called Aspergillus fischerianus. Aspergillus comes from the name of a holy water sprinkling device, but I wonder where the -anus came from!!! I know the aspergillus anamorph has been called invalid before but there’s no need to call it Dr fischeri’s holy-water spinkling bum, surely! Taxonomists have quite the sense of humour it would seem.

OK I take it back, Now I know what the aspergillus name means I want to work with it EVEN more.

Life lessons

Things that we learnt tonight:

1. I’m a fucking dickhead
2. You can’t fit your arm comfortably between two flip down seats EVEN IF you put your arm there before the other seat goes down.
3. I am perfectly capable of screaming in public

So….you can do the maths there. I’ll just find some paracetamol and arnica and wait for the embarrassment to pass. At least I didn’t break anything….except my pride.

I totally didn’t spend the whole concert freaking out about the horrors that I imagined were unfolding inside my jumper.

(runs and hides under duvet where you can’t mock me)


I just can’t hear you from here

Stand up and light that oilburner folks, let’s get out of here!


Action doesn’t happen of its own accord.
If everyone just rolled over, laid down and waited for someone else to deal with niggling or gargantuan issues, then we’d be forever stuck in a dark cave waiting for someone else to light the oilburner to find our way out.

Why are so many people so content to stand back and expect that regardless of what the problem is, or how closely it relates to them, they can just throw the reins to the winds of fate? It is someone else’s problem.

I wouldn’t mind so much but everyone seems to be so opinionated with it, so righteous, so quick to criticise. I wonder if they ever really think about how they would handle actually taking action and making a difference? Not just pontificating about what should be done, but genuinely doing something.

The world is so full of expectant spectators. They wait like TV audiences, waiting for the next episode so they can gripe about a show they couldn’t be bothered to vote for.

Next time you have the opportunity to be involved in shaping the outcome of something that will after your life, take it, or keep your criticisms to yourself.

As a distinctly apolotical beast, this rant may seem uncharacteristic, but I seem to be increasingly standing up and taking responsibility for whatever unpalatable roles there are at work that require someone to represent the murmering masses, that no-one else wants to do. They all want action, but they won’t do it. I know I’m not really the girl for these jobs, but I feel strongly that someone has to step up, so why not me.

You have to pick your battles, that’s what the say isn’t it? No one person can do everything, but if everyone did something, wouldn’t that lighten the load?

Precious little enough of our worlds are within our own control.
Why give up what opportunities you get?

I may have a utopian vision but come on folks. This isn’t 1984.

Gurgle. Slosh.

The sun came out but the temperature dropped and an audi driving wanker tried to kill me today. The seahorse pleaded innocence and the ringing is still chasing me around. Don’t worry though, it’s probably just another ludicrous string of slippery things and neoplastic ideas circulating because while science is in the making, imagination refuses to be pinned down for long enough to produce what I’d consider a tentacle.

Beautiful things are not expelled by tense creatures. All the gurgling noises of half digested ideas and I can’t get a plunger into my head to free them up.

Stuff that has happened:

I played the electric fence hokey cokey a few times with buster. You put your horse in, the fencing is snagged, you reach to unhook it and your horse scoots out. Repeat a few times then unclip the beast and give reassuring hugs, telling him that it’s ok, his friend will be back soon. He could see her from where he stood but wasn’t convinced.

I played pony-killing-plastic-bag fun too. It took me about 10 mins but I finally convinced the pair of them that it was ok to touch the plastic bag that had unfortunately blown across them and send them into a frenzied charge.

What I didn’t do was ride. It was windy as hell and I felt a bit nervous incase we had a bolting incident due to say, I don’t know… a homicidal bin liner flying past or something. I’m a wimp, but that’s OK because I figured I’d rather miss out on riding than spend the whole time in dreaded anticipation, wondering which bone will be the next one to break. It’s not that I don’t trust buster, it’s that hes easily led astray…

I’ve removed one of my posts from three years ago about a paper being rejected. It has been responsible for the majority of the traffic to this blog and that is annoying me. So it’s gone. And now we can return to 0.5 readers per post.