The game has ended!

John Isner won - 70 games to 68!
Mahut looks like he's able to cry... T_T
They've been given a 'special memento', along with the (literally) long-suffering umpire. Poor Mahut has to hang around for photos, speeches, etc.

Is Isner due to play a doubles game later this afternoon?!
The people around me are following the football, apart from one person, who was listening on the radio and mentioned out loud that Isner had won, just when I was watching the final serve (TV is slightly behind the radio).

Phew....

Neverending game

I'm watching the Wimbledon, court 18 to be precise, the John Isner vs Nicholas Mahut match. It's very compelling, unbelievable how the games just keep going on and on. Currently 64 games each, and apparently they have each played enough games to theoretically win the Championship. I think practically all the tennis records have been broken too. The BBC live coverage, with the Twitter and text posts is very good.

P.S. Yes, I am sort of working, bringing my lab book up-to-date. And I didn't go to watch the football yesterday when everyone was skivving....

Work during the World Cup

My company has been quite 'understanding' about allowing us to go and watch the World Cup games. They've even opened the pavilion-bar with the wide-screen tv so that people can go and watch the games they want - as it has quite an international community a lot of the games have been shown, but for the England-Slovenia game (being played right now) my department resembles the Marie Celeste....

The office areas

The lab

Amazing given that it's only the first round, nowhere near the finals. Though it may be the 'final' game for England in the World Cup this year - let's hope that they play better than they did last week.

B-boy robot(s)

For all you engineers out there...

(Image taken from the ITN website)

mashimaro mp3 player

I've just taken a peek at the mashimaro website (when I should be working, shame on me) and fallen in love with the Mashimaro MP3 player - 귀여워! (translation: kawaii ne!) I don't know how to get hold of it in the UK though so I may have to call upon overseas friends to get it if I do want one. Sonyway appears to have it, but it ships in China only, and unfortunately Yesasia don't stock it.

Apparently, mashimaro has been described as the rabbit version of Hello Kitty.... I'm pretty sure mashimaro is a lot more violent and ruder than Hello Kitty is supposed to be. If you don't know what I mean, watch the animations on the mashimaro website (don't worry, still PG, or at the very least, not more than 12A)

Tip: there's a pink box in the top right corner of the webpage that links to the english version, if you don't read hangul

More public science events

I still haven't got round to blogging about the Rothamsted Research open weekend, and I have another event tomorrow. This time it's Cereals UK, which is more a business-orientated event. Farmers, agrochemical companies and agricultural research institutes will be there, so it should be fairly different from the RRes open weekend, as the public at this event have more of a vested interest in the work. There's a strong presence from our institute at the event, as a lot of our work focuses on cereals.

The ideal weather for Cereals UK would be rain for a couple of weeks beforehand, so that field diseases have a chance to develop and show strong symptoms in our demonstration plants (we take infected plants with us and they are 'planted' there, as the whole event is spread over several fields). Then some sun and dry weather for the actual event would be nice, given that we will have to stand there! Typically, it's been the other way round this year, with dry weather for the last few weeks, and rain scheduled for the next two days. I've dug some wellies out ready for tramping across the fields.

I also have a slot talking to the public about plant science and soil organisms at the Royal Society 350th anniversity Summer Exhibition at the Southbank Centre in early July. It runs for about 10 days, but I'm only helping for one day (11am to 8.30pm, it'll be a long day, although others have even longer days, from 9.30am to 11.30pm for several days). I have several papers to review too. How am I supposed to get any actual work done?!

It'll have to be an early night tonight, as we're supposed to reach Royston for Cereals UK by 7.30am tomorrow. I doubt that will happen, but it'll be a 6am start at the latest.

Looking forward to be up to my shins in mud!!