‘There’s a giant spider in my room,’ I said conversationally. Damjan and I were talking to each other on the phone.

‘Oh! Are you going to kill it?’ Damjan asked.

‘I can’t. When I came in, I saw something black rush across the floor. I just caught a look at a massive hairy spider before it scurried under my chest of drawers. I can’t get to it now.’

‘You’re just going to leave it there?’ said Damjan.

‘I don’t really mind, as long as it doesn’t bother me. But if it comes out, it will be sorry. YOU HEAR?’ I shouted at my chest of drawers. ‘IF YOU COME OUT YOU’LL BE SORRY!’

Damjan laughed. ‘My sister would be terrified. She wouldn’t be able to sleep in the same room with a spider.’

‘Well, it’s not like it’s an Australian spider. It’s just a piddy English spider.’

Recently at work, we put in a bid to do a life cycle assessment of a head of lettuce. This is a serious issue. Lettuce wastage rates are very high. We’ve all experienced having to throw out lettuce because we couldn’t use it all up in time, or because the fridge had frozen it. Now, multiply that wastage to retail and agricultural scale, adding in the risks of fluctuating consumer demand, cold snaps, and malfunctions in storage, transport and retail refrigeration.

During our research, we discovered that there is a ‘voice of the salad industry’ — the British Leafy Salad Association. Who would have thought? You would not be surprised, probably, that while working on this bid I would spontaneously start giggling at my desk.

As I constantly extolled to my team mates, all the wastage problems could be solved by installing ‘lettuce capture and storage’ systems alongside farms and major grocery stores.

Excess lettuce would be stored in the less perishable ‘rabbit’ form. Later, rabbit would be harvested and the useful lettuce nutrients would be returned to the global food cycle.

There’s something strange going on in British supermarkets.

In Melbourne grocery stores (and as far as I know, those of the rest of Australia), you reach the checkout, pay for your shopping, then walk to the exit via a kind of corral or corridor.

It’s not that way in the UK. When you check out your items, to get to the exit you often have to walk back through the shop. I’ve gotten lost before, wandering through the aisles in search of the exit.

It would be very easy to pick up something and slip it into your shopping bags on the way out. I’m guessing others have worked this out too; the rate of ‘inventory loss’ must be very high. (This might even explain why shopping is so expensive here — the Brits are paying the consequences of poor retail floor layout.)

Last Friday, I went to Chinatown to replenish my Chinese sauces. Then I went to Tesco for a snack. At the Tesco checkout, the lady scanned my bagel.

‘Do you need to see my other bag?’ I asked helpfully.

‘Sorry?’ she said, confused.

‘Do you need to look in my other shopping bag? In case I stole something?’ I reminded her.

‘No…’ She looked at me curiously. ‘Where are you from? America?’

‘Australia,’ I said.

‘Oh. Yeah… I heard they do that there sometimes. You know, check bags.’

Hmm. Maybe the British are just too polite to steal.

Very funny! Here is a rap about the End of World Machine (aka Large Hadron Collider) by the hip dudes at CERN. Commentary and explanation is at the New Scientist blog.

CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

Hi everyone,

I’ve been on a blogging and email break because I’m minimising computer time for a while.

I have been chocolate free for almost four weeks. My workmate, Jessen, came back from Switzerland with a giant cylinder of my favourite chocolate — Lindt balls. My team mates gorged on chocolate, while I huddled at my desk. I almost caved in at one point. This was the biggest test I could ever face — two solid days of people eating my favourite chocolate within one metre of me.

I did take a single ball and lock it in my drawer. When I get to one month, I will eat it.

In other news, out of curiosity, I looked for the earliest calendar entry in my Palm Tungsten C. I went back to 2005, then 2004. Much to my surprise, 2004 was full of meetings and events. I had to go back to 8 October 2003 to get my first calendar entry. WOW! I’ve had my PDA for five years! I am amazed that the thing has held up for as long as it has — and that I’ve stuck with it.