Gah. I pay 30+ quid for a (womens) trim, and it only takes 10 minutes. Rip-off!

Yes, that's a point: my thesis will be a mixture of stuff I was required to do, and stuff I thought of myself. There is a lot of overlap.

Heh...you won't believe this, but I had no idea what you meant with giraffes. I've only just notiec them now that you told me to look for them.

Ignoring banners is a reconised psychological phenomenon; it was discussed in New Scientist a few weeks ago. Advertisers are having to resort to new tricks these days.

The link is in veerrrry small, dark letters! My eyes assume anything like that is an advert, and I just don't see it.

May be an idea to make the link bigger and bolder!

Pain, isn't it? On the one hand I wouldn't be able to do the PhD without the funding, but on the other hand, they do often expect a lot for it!

I feel quite jealous of the "normal" students who only have themselves to answer to. Then again, it keeps you on yout toes.

I am: most of the time it's fine, but sometimes I get a box with 2000 samples in that "need" analysing by yesterday, and then you have to drop everything and do it. I also have to present progress to a board every month.

The major difficulty for me is when instruments are not working: if I was just doing a normal PhD, I would be the only one affected - but as it is, I get angry emails from businessmen asking why I am not doing the work I'm being paid to do. Explaining that your uni is slow to fix things does not go down well

I have heard that German and Dutch vivas are even worse: ther viva is open to the public, and half the faculty turns up. Anyone can question you.

On the plus side, apparantely the viva ther must stop after one hour, though, whereas here it's open-ended.

15 minutes? That would be brilliant, it's around 45 minutes without one. I'll pick one up and let you know how I get on

Wageningen university in the Netherlands is one place you could try:(http://www.wageningenuniversiteit.nl/UK/research/specialisation/Plant+and+animal/).

H, I've seen some on the Argos website and I think I'll get one this weekend. Can you give me an idea of how long stuff takes? Mainly chana daal, green daal, black beans: that's the stuff I cook most often.

Well, in fairness, I'm a native English speaker and I didnn't realise that there was a "find a PhD" bit on this website. I thought it was just the forum. I searched for "Postgrad forums", and this is what I found!

Maybe I'm just a bit dopey.

Yes; that is the reason my second supervisor gives for his disapproval of students taking holidays. If you suggest you'd like a break, you get "Well...if you want to...but as you know, i think holidays are a bad idea...". He even comes in on bank holidays, in protest at the "enforced" day off.

Excellent. I've not had one of those yet, but I'll look out for it.

Pressure cooker: that's an idea. Never used one before, are they idiot-proof?

Missspacey, it was great! I went with Travelsphere by coach: 4 nights for 120quid.
You stayed in Lille and went to the Christmas markets, but also had cheap excursions to Brugge, Brussels and Ypres. Amd you get to stock up at Calais on the way back. I'd recommend it!