i always marvel over my fathers suggestion that mike set up his beloved machines in an empty wooden attic sandwiched between the roof and the 8th floor of the cambridge genetics department : firstly at the sheer audacity of my father expecting a world-renowned post-doctoral researcher to accept a lab which can only be reached by traipsing through a cleaners cupboard , and secondly that mike is still so delighted with the idea despite the lack of both heating and other human beings .