Amusing Quotes from Reviewers...

..of papers in Environmental Microbiology in 2010 can be found here.

These are my favourites:

* Done! Difficult task, I don't wish to think about constipation and faecal flora during my holidays! But, once a referee, always and anywhere a referee; we are good boy scouts in the research wilderness. Even under the sun and near a wonderful beach. 

*This paper is desperate. Please reject it completely and then block the author's email ID so they can't use the online system in the future.

*The biggest problem with this manuscript, which has nearly sucked the will to live out of me, is the terrible writing style.

*I usually try to nice but this paper has got to be one of the worst I have read in a long time.

*Well, I did some of the work the authors should have done!

* I feel like a curmudgeon, but I still have problems with this paper.

* The lack of negative controls. . . . results in the authors being lost in the funhouse. Unfortunately, I do not think they even realize this.

* Reject – More holes than my grandad's string vest!

* The writing and data presentation are so bad that I had to leave work and go home early and then spend time to wonder what life is about.

Extraordinary!

On 8 August 2009 Norwich City, who had just sunk to the doldrums of League One (the English Third Division) were hammered 7-1 at home, the worst home defeat in their 107-year history, by the tiny minnows of Colchester United. That day of humiliation will ne'er be forgotten. However, the hitherto useless Board then miraculously saw the light, as they then summarily sacked the Norwich coach and (ahem, illegally) stole the Colchester coach, Paul Lambert (below), instead!



..............................Tough Glaswegian................


Now, 21 months later, Lambert has steered City not only to the League One championship but, today, to the English Premier League. Back to back promotions, on a shoestring budget, and trashing Ipswich twice (4-1 and 5-1) along the way! Surely the greatest achievement in City's history? Although 23 million pounds in debt, the club will now receive a slightly obscene 90 million pounds for joining the big guys.

Now in 2009 I did write a bitter, angry poem to accompany them on the way down to oblivion. But somehow poetry excels only in times of grief so there will be no lines of verse this time round.

But, ahh, the heart could sing like a Norwich Canary!

Watch out Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U: you're all in for a serious pecking next season!

Update: this is why teams have difficulty in scoring against Norwich.

Hmm.....

Hmm...despite being a wizened old republican, I can't begrudge 2bn viewers their gooey romantic feelings.

Notwithstanding, I couldn't help but chuckle at some of the wryer comments.

One, from a London Times writer, capturing Miss Middleton's strategic hoist from commoner to royalty, described hers as a tale of “shiny new money systematically raising a girl so perfectly to a prince’s eye level that she is virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.”

And then, a commenter in our own beloved Knoxville News Sentinel: "She has perfect teeth. She can't be British. I demand to see a birth certificate."

Gorgeous!