Categories
fangirling nostalgia

With Deep Anger And Resentment

bopadams-1.jpg
I’ve only once been to a booksigning. My favourite authors hardly ever visit Oxford (two of them, never, what with being deceased). When they do it’s probably as an honoured High Table guest at one of the colleges rather than a humble book signing session.

But once, I did have a chance to meet a literary hero, none other than Douglas Adams, author of “The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy”.

I may have mentioned before what a total fangirl I am and always have been. I was actually a member of ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha, the HHGTTG fan club, once… (John Lloyd, producer of the original radio show and later, via QI.com, a customer of my IT company, gave me a hug when I told him that!). So when I had my chance to have Douglas Adams (or as he’s known to the fan community, ‘Bop Ad’) actually sign his latest book, I of course included some obscure reference to the BBC radio show. And asked him to sign my copy of ‘So Long And Thanks For All The Fish’ with the words:

With deep anger and resentment.

Well, it won a smile from dear old Bop, who was kept busy all afternoon that day in Blackwell’s.

Categories
nostalgia science

Bioscience Nostalgia

Every so often I get all nostalgic for molecular biology. Ah, they were good days, so much work to do that you hardly had time to think about anything but science.

I found some videos on YouTube which made me smile. This has got nothing to do with Joshua Files, btw, but if you’ve half an interest in science geek humour, and the nostalgic musings of a former scientist then read on…


Here’s the PCR song. It’s from BIO-RAD, the manufacturer of the thermal recycling machine which makes the Polymerase Chain Reaction possible (at least optimal). Lucky BioRad, they had a bright employee named Kary Mullis who when faced with the dilemma that piqued many scientists in the 1980s, didn’t stop thinking. No; he took a long drive up to Marin County (or from…) and thought long and hard about it.

This was the dilemma: We were all using purified enzymes like DNA polymerase to amplify DNA ‘in vitro’ (as in, not in a cell but in a test-tube), but only on a small scale. We weren’t making enough DNA to use in DNA subcloning work or enough to see on a gel with the naked eye. It wasn’t possible.

We all knew that DNA can be replicated simply by melting the two strands, using DNA polymerase to fill in each strand. In theory, if you kept repeating the process 1 molecule would become 2, then 4, 8,16,32,64 etc. But the process of melting the DNA each time would destroy the enzyme. And it was a big hassle to keep swapping the DNA from water baths to ice baths to cycle the process of melting/annealing.

And that’s where most of us stopped thinking.

Kay Mullis, however, remembered that some bacteria exist at high temperatures (e.g. near volcanic vents under the sea), and have heat-stable enzymes. If he could use the DNA polymerase from such a bacteria, it should be possible to invent a machine that would heat-and-cool tubes for the optimum times so that small amounts of DNA could be melted and annealed 20,30,40 times.

And that would seriously amplify the molecules. That would make it possible to eventually detect teeny weeny amounts of DNA.

And so PCR was invented. As an employee Mullis didn’t get rich but he did invent a process that made the lives of all molecular biologists much easier, revolutionised forensic science and paternity suits.

For some reason I only once had a chance to use PCR. In my early days it wasn’t around and later it just wasn’t applicable to what I was researching, until the last month or so. And then I used it to detect a subcloned DNA molecule I’d made the day before. It was the fastest subcloning I ever did and the PCR worked first time, like a dream…and I thought Jeeeez…why wasn’t this around 6 years ago?!

Categories
mexico nostalgia zero moment

Looking for inspiration: Remedios Varo

Some writers like to have a vague idea where they’re going when they write and make it up as they go along, some writers like to spend a great deal of time with the plotting and planning.

I’m one of the planners. I’ve tried it the other way – with me it tends to produce plot structures that lack sufficient impact at the key points. So now, I plan.

But a story also has needs to have some magical, organic quality; something that feels as though it crept in by itself, wasn’t calculated into the mix from the start. Even if actually, it was…

Every writer has their own way of factoring in that magical bit. I suspect we all discover it on our own. Mind-altering substances might do the trick, but that’s a bit risky…

My own ‘method’ came from the realisation that even working to a structured plot, there was still room for movement. So even my ‘finished’ plot plans are in fact only about 85% of the way there.

The last 15% has to be found during the writing. And with me, it is always inspired from outside.

It seems to be something about understanding what makes you tick and connecting something in the story with that.

Without getting too psychoanalytical, we all have something deep down that we really care about and drives us.  Some people are very self-aware; they know what this is…the kind of people who care deeply about politics or religion…are probably going to write books that reflect their thoughts on that.

But if lie me you’re generally vague and mixed-up, it’s a bit more complicated!

However, by accident, I did find the way to extract this magic final 15%. And so far it has worked every time.

I’m not telling though! Nope; that’s going to be my secret.

Here’s a clue though, one thing that inspired me today, in finding the some of the magic 15% for Joshua book 3.

It’s a picture by Remedios Varo, a Mexican artist, a surrealist painter of fantastical works. A close friend of mine in Mexico City introduced me to her work when we were teenagers. I remember a very happy afternoon we spent together in the Museum of Modern Art in Chapultepec looking at these paintings…

The painting above is called Naturaleza Muerta Resucitado which translates as ‘Natural Death Resuscitated’.

Categories
nostalgia

In Praise Of Maths and Mr Graham Sadler

Our teenage daughter made me very happy today by telling me that she’s choosing maths as one of her four ‘A’ Levels next year.

Maths is a subject that she’s always found a challenge – and I like to see her push herself, to do a subject that she really doesn’t find easy. This year I’ve had occasion to field phone calls from several annoyed teachers complaining about her not handing in coursework on time – and the maths teacher was one of them. But in the past few weeks her attitude has shifted somewhat. I hope it lasts!

Something similar happened to me – maths was always a subject I grappled with, and yet bizarrely I ended up taking it as an ‘A’ level and even having to sit the Oxford University entrance exam’s ‘maths for scientists’ paper. Crumbs that was scary.

In fact, it’s fair to say that maths was my weakest subject at ‘O’ level. I wasn’t an all As student, far from it. I even failed my maths mock ‘O’ level, which ignited a panic – you needed maths ‘O’ level for most science university degree courses in those days. So my mother found me a tutor – Graham.

Graham was the partner of one of my mother’s best friends. He was vague and eccentric, but a brilliant mathematician and a teacher at Xaverian 6th Form College. An unreformed hippy, Graham was fair-haired and raggedy-bearded with sad blue eyes and a pensive countenance He hardly ever smiled, but told many jokes.

Graham’s Victorian terraced house in Chorlton was a shrine to his interest in music and his travels in India. The walls were draped with rugs, pictures of Hindu deities, old stringed instruments including a sitar. The front room was so crammed with antiques and knick-knacks that you could barely shuffle in between the upright piano and the setees, Ottoman and mahogany coffee table. The air was infused with the smell of marijuana mingled into sandalwood and cloves.

While Graham and I talked quietly about maths in the back room, my mother and her friend would drink tea and talk about German literature in the front room. Graham would look over what I’d done in class that day, explain anything I didn’t understand and sketch out problems on scraps of paper. He’d chain-smoke hand-rolled cigarettes throughout and I’d try not to show that it bothered me. When we’d finished Graham and I would join the others in the front room and we’d eat poppy seed cake or some other home-baked German cake. Graham would play – very badly, a Chopin Nocturne, almost oblivious to our conversation.

It was Graham who persuaded me to do ‘A’ level maths. When I told him I was too thick he just shook his head. “You’re good at maths. You’d be even better if you just believed it.” It was Graham who persuaded me to move away from my beloved high school in the middle of the lower 6th, to Xaverian – a place which would provide the serious hard work and challenge I’d need to have a shot at Oxford.

It was Graham who nodded calmly when I told him in a breathless panic that I…I who couldn’t string two numbers together…would have to take the maths entrance exam paper for Oxford. I was almost choking with fear.

Graham and his then-partner had a child together – Sebastian – named for J.S. Bach. Since he refused to take money for the tutorials, I used to babysit Sebastian a little, until I left for Uni. But nothing like as much as I owed them.

Many years later I asked after Graham of my mother’s friend. Apparently he’d died alone of some gastric complaint and been discovered several days later. A pretty sad way to go and I really felt for his son. Graham wasn’t a good friend and was definitely a difficult man, but he stuck by me that year for no personal gain, just because he believed in me. That’s a REAL teacher.

Anyway…thanks to Graham I got B’s at both ‘O’ level and ‘A’ level maths. And I still hold as one of my personal triumphs that my mark for the maths entrance exam wasn’t my lowest – I got an alpha minus. My tutor at Oxford maybe thought I was some sort of maths genius (biochem candidates notoriously did appallingly on that paper…) – could be that’s what tipped him into awarding me the entrance scholarship.

But honestly it was a stroke of luck; a good paper and the calming influence of Graham Sadler, may he rest in peace.

Categories
nostalgia

Fin de ano in Summertown Costa

Fin de ano in Summertown CostaOriginally uploaded by mgharris


It’s usually more crowded than this…

If we’d got our act together and organised a babysitter we could be looking forward to a sizzling New Year’s Eve party tonight, at Vauxhall’s Club Colosseum, chez Salsa Republic.

But…pfahhh…London. Who’s got the energy?

So it’s a quiet night in with our youngest whilst Teenage Daughter stays up all night with her mates.

We’re going to close Costa…they’re trying to grab the chairs from under us.

Happy New Year, y’all. Hope I get to meet some of you in 2008.

MG
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