Flu all week

Have had the flu all week. Given that practically all flu around right now is H1N1 then that is what it probably is.

Wishing the best of luck, then, to my ex-boss Stephen Cusack who has just set up a company to develop drugs based on his recent structure of the influenza polymerase.

Finger Stone on Carlton Moor

Couple of nostalgic photos about Britain. The first is of the finger stone on Carlton Moor. A group of us Leeds undergrads walked past this while on the Lyke Wake Walk in 1980, a 42-mile hike across the North York Moors National Park, that we accomplished, as is the tradition, in 24 hours.

Quite what the enigmatic finger stone is no-one knows. An ancient boundary marker? A waymarker on the original Lyke Wake coffin road? It may even date back to pre-history. More likely is that it is a medieval signpost - scattered across the moors are a series of ancient stone crosses which were used for navigational purposes.

Rannoch Moor

Rannoch Moor, Scotland. In the 80s I would frequently take the train across this moor on the way to visit my father at Loch Shiel.

The profound stupidity of football

A brilliant new book lays bare the idiocies of the beautiful game

Nobel Prize in Chemistry...

..for the ribosome structure. A magnificent achievement and a beautiful, critical molecular machine. However, too many chemistry prizes have been given for solving structures using X-ray crystallography, rather than for really innovative work developing new fields, methods, or for some astounding discovery.