I agree with Piglet, I have said before on this forum that I have never yet met (myself included) a pre-viva student who didn't think that their thesis was the biggest pile of rubbish ever written. As students we learn critical appraisal skills and become our own harshest critics. The work we did early on can seem naive or lacking in depth and all you can focus on is how much better (and how much quicker!) you could do the PhD if you could start again now. Take this as a evidence of how much you have developed as a researcher. PhD theses don't have to be perfect, indeed there is no such thing as a flawless piece of research. Know the weaknesses and limitations of your work, discuss them in the thesis and have an awareness of how you would do things differently next time and you'll be well prepared to defend your thesis.

Us modelling types are used to dealing with masses of graphs, eh Dan?!

If the graphs are all quite similar then pick some typical (i.e. the best!) graphs to put in your chapter then stick the rest in the appendices, or even on a CD which you stick inside the cover of your thesis. Loads of graphs in a chapter do make it harder to read and break the flow a bit, as you say, if you only have a few lines of text between them.

...Thomas is now in a terrible dilemma - should he continue his original dream to embark on a fulfilling but poorly paid research career or should he enter the BB house and sacrifice his reputation for 15 minutes of fame and a wad of cash? Will he publish in Nature or in Heat magazine? You decide...

I agree, the whole giant mooncup thing was a bit grim, but at least Thomas has escaped now!

...and even more acutely aware that, as academically satisfying as it may be to produce his thesis, it wasn't going to help him get out of the pit. After all, sucessful thesis aside, no one would acknowledge his work until he got it published and he'd need to win a couple of grants too before he could really start to find his feet in academia. Slowly, Thomas sank to his knees as the reality of the mighty task before him became all too apparent...

...succulent roast chicken, crispy roast potatoes, fresh vegetables all smothered in real homemade gravy, oh he could almost taste it!! Thoughts of food turned to thoughts about his poor pet donkey - who was going to feed Donkey if Thomas was stuck in this dark, dank pit? Thomas knew that Donkey's welfare depended on him and that nothing short of an extremely cunning plan would get the pair of them out of trouble...

No harm in asking him to clarify exactly what he wants from the report. Good luck.

I guess it depends on your department/group policy. In my group, a PhD was treated very much like any other job i.e. you have n days allocated for your annual leave and a record is kept so that you have a log of time taken and so your coworkers know when you expect you in the lab/office or not (for fire regulations if nothing else!!).

Yes. Does your supervisor not keep a record of your annual leave?

80hrs/week in the first year sounds pretty excessive to me!

Austria?

Ireland...or the USA?

A millionaire in which currency?

nn 404!