My blogs

About me

Gender	Male
Industry	Science
Occupation	Synthetic organic chemist
Location	Prescot, near Liverpool, Merseyside, United Kingdom
Introduction	With my time as a Chemistry undergraduate well and truly behind me (and with my 5 month break coming to a close), I'm preparing to embark on a life as a synthetic organic chemist (i.e. making funny little hyrdocarbon molecules in a poorly aerated lab.) The job I'm doing now is a stop-gap prior to doing a PhD (also in synthetic organic chemistry) in September/October 2008 (so I'll probably be booking a fair bit of time off to visit departments around Christmas/New Year.) As well as being a geeky scientist, I'm also a keen follower of Liverpool FC (and, indeed, football in general) and I'm also into music in quite a big way; I play the piano and sing a bit (often a bit more when I'm plied with sufficient alcohol), and am thinking about learning the bass (just to try something new and different, you know!) I also enjoy a good film, as well as being a bit of a foody person (good food and drink surely count among the most important things in life.)
Interests	I'm into football (LFC especially), music, film, food and drink etc., as well as being a keen linguist (I speak Spanish fairly well and, in the future, would like to make a proper stab at learning French and Italian).
Favorite movies	I enjoy films that require you to think a little bit or are quite witty in some way. Among my favourite films are the likes of The Godfather films, Dr Strangelove, Donnie Darko, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs (are you sensing the theme here?) and, more recently, the likes of Sideways and Lost in Translation. I also enjoy foreign language cinema; I'm a BIG fan of Pedro Almodóvar, and have also enjoyed the likes of The Edukators and Zidane: A 21st century icon recently.
Favorite music	Most of the music I'm into at the moment is indie and electronic stuff, though I do like quite a bit of soul, jazz, blues, Latin stuff (getting into late 60's Brazilian stuff right now); most stuff except bubblegum pop shite, most hip hop and R&B (though I do like Dizzee Rascal and Plan B) and the type of dance that gets played in most places you go to in town. Among the bands/artists that I'm enjoying right now include Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, Air, The Coral, Ladytron, Jim Noir, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Go! Team, ¡Forward, Russia!, We are Scientists, Tom Vek, The Long Blondes, Kings of Leon, Daft Punk, The White Stripes, Super Furry Animals, Radiohead, Chemical Brothers, Royksopp, early Streets stuff (1st album), Bloc Party, Belle and Sebastian, Basement Jaxx, Hayseed Dixie, Giant Drag, Sigur Ros, Sufjan Stevens, The Decemberists, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Knife, The Young Knives, CSS, The Pipettes, Animal Collective (and Panda Bear solo stuff), Battles, Richard Hawley, Digitalism, Justice, The Hold Steady, LCD Soundsystem, M.I.A., Maps, Peter Bjorn and John, The Rapture, Squarepusher, !!!, as well as bits of things like the Pixies, BRMC, The Pogues, PJ Harvey, Elvis Costello while among the fine acts of yesteryear, I enjoy The Smiths (best band ever, for me), The Stone Roses, The La's, My Bloody Valentine, The Beach Boys, Blondie, Talkingheads, David Bowie, Joy Division/New Order, Bob Dylan, Suede, Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Portishead, Pulp, REM (OK, I know that, technically, they're still going, but they haven't done anything to compare with Automatic since) and The Libertines.
Favorite books	Given how much crap TV I watch, I probably should read a lot more extensively than I do now. I'm afraid that I don't really read that many books outside of technical Chemistry textbooks, although I've been given a couple of biogs (John Peel and the Pythons) recently as presents for Christmas and birthdays. I tend to read more newspapers and magazines, if truth be told.