Christmas market

Last night I went for a browse around the German Christmas market set up on Parkers Piece. The smells of stollen and mulled wine were lovely, but the atmosphere was rather flat, probably because it was only 6pm on a Wednesday evening. It made me very homesick for Manchester, where there's been a German market every December that I remember, filled with shoppers and children and people milling around with mugs of hot German-style toddies. My friend always enthuses about the German Xmas market in Manchester, he says it's massive, and the highlight of his trip to Manchester. I don't know if it's that big, to me it always seems cosy, but the atmosphere is always great.

Maybe on a weekend, or later in the evening, the Cambridge market is busier and more holiday-like. I wonder if it's also to do with people tightening their belts this year and spending less. With the strong Euro and unusually weak GB pound, the gifts and crafts at the stalls were on the expensive side. Perhaps luckily for me, as there was a stall that was selling really exquisite music boxes, with tiny beautifully carved wooden figurines. But with the simplest music boxes starting from £13 and the ones that caught my eye being £43, I think my music box collection will stay this size for now.

Quiet Cambridge

MA congregation

This morning, an invitation to take my MA degree next March was part of my mail (in fact, my ONLY piece of mail). I've never really cared about taking my MA - it's not an award of merit, but conferred by right onto BA graduates from Cambridge. So I'm surprised to find that I'm actually quite excited.

Perhaps it's because I'll be leaving Cambridge soon and wish to go through some of the rituals Cambridge offers before I leave for good. It feels almost like a rite of passage, more so right now than taking my PhD degree, which seems more and more elusive as my work drags on. Having checked with several of my friends, it appears that most of the colleges invite their graduands to the same congregation - a good thing, as few of my 'friend-friends' from my year were from my own college.

In fact, few of my close friends have ever been from my own year, with the exception of a few with whom I spent my final year revising and working and thinking about plans for the future. After the initial excitment, I felt that the MA congregation could potentially be a very lonely day, especially since I don't intend to ask my parents to come. Two graduations, assuming they're in the UK for my PhD graduation, seems more than enough to ask. The person I do wish to see would be my brother, but he rarely comes to England now, and he definitely wouldn't be able to in March, halfway through the school-year.

My BA graduation fell on a different day from many of my friends, and so I missed seeing them looking like smartly dressed and coiffured bats the first time round. It'll be fun I think, but I think I'll also feel sad. As I said, it feels like the end of a stage in my life.

Thinking about what's in my wardrobe though, I suspect I'll be wearing exactly the same shirt and black trousers as I did for my BA graduation. Perhaps this time round I'll have my own shoes instead of wearing my mum's.

Slumdog Millionaire

Over the weekend I went to watch the new film 'Slumdog Millionaire'. I hadn't seen the trailer beforehand, nor read the synopsis - I'd just heard that it was a 'feel-good' film.

It's one of the best films I've seen this year, although I'm not sure how good it made me feel. The storyline - a uneducated young man who came from the slums of Mumbai wins 20 million rupees on the gameshow 'Who wants to be a Millionaire?'. The explanation to how he knows the answers leads back to events that have happened in his life.

What this basic, rather dry, description doesn't prepare us for is the wealth of emotion both depicted in the film and drawn out of us, the audience. Whenever we read the economic news, India is always presented as the up-and-coming economic power, with a rapidly growing population and emerging competitor to the West. What we forget is how poor much of that population is. There's a major gap between the poor and the rich in India, as there is in many countries, but not so much in the UK. Life in the slums is still perhaps not as bad as for the orphans - who rummage amongst rubbish tips to find food, or are taken into begging syndicates, or prostitution. Charles Dickens' 'Oliver Twist' seems a ridiculous parody. The cinema was packed, but there was hardly a sound for much of the film.

Where there was sound, it was mostly laughter. Because what makes this film excellent is that it tugs at your heartstrings, but it's not asking for sympathy, or pity. This is how life is for many people in India, how they live. What is most heart-warming, and perhaps amazing to us, is how the children enjoy life to the full no matter how bad things seem to be. In this way, it is truly a 'celebration of life'. In the end, it all ends happily (although up to the last few minutes, after years of watching Hong Kong gangster films, I had my heart in my mouth waiting for a final gunshot) - but it is a film set in the country of Bollywood after all. How could it not be a happy ending?

If it hadn't been a happy ending, it could have been a very depressing film. As it was, it was a reminder not to take our lives and the things in it for granted - things like money, a roof over our heads, but also love, family, friends. And never to give up for the things that are important.

If that sounds a bit too heavy for you, then there's also the beautiful Frieda Pinto, who plays the grown-up Latika. And the grown-up Jamal, played by Dev Patel, is also quite good-looking, if you like his style. If that still doesn't persuade you, watch it to see what India is really like, for people of all social strata.

alien & predator

Certain members of our lab investigate the effects of virus infection on plant 'attractiveness' to insects that act as virus vectors, spreading disease from plant to plant. This means that we can't use insecticides or fungicides to keep down the numbers of other insects that like to nibble and make holey patterns in the leaves. Instead, we use biological control, in the form of tiny predatory mites that feed on the babies of the greedy herbivores.

The mites are tiny and not visible to the naked eye (at least, not to mine). But when I was working on the confocal microscope it was very obvious that the company from which we order our biological control agent wasn't just sending us some sawdust and saying it contained mites. As I was scanning along the epidermal cell layer, I suddenly came across a six legged creature with armour plating down its back, sitting under my lens. I was quite taken aback.

I found a few more on my tissue samples. Normally I rinse the tissue well before imaging, but this time I must not have cleaned the leaves as thoroughly as usual. I quite like the images, they look rather cool. I'm glad it's not a life-size picture though, they remind me of cockroaches.....

Hypothetical xmas wish list (part I)

One for my christmas wish list....


....but that suggests that I have started writing..... (tense - past imperfect)