After my dad split up with a girlfriend, he made a poster in Word with a photo of said ex, and "Beware of the Dog" written above it. Then stuck it on her back gate on bin day.

Sounds bad but trust me, she deserved it...

No need for apologies, that made me laugh

We could talk about dogs. From what I've seen, there is no love like that between a man and his hound.

Well, I'm not a doctor but it works like this: you take a pill for 21 days, then stop for 7 days. During the seven days you may bleed, but it's not a period because no egg has formed. It's called a withdrawal bleed. The 7 day break is actually not necessary: it's designed for psychological reasons to mimic a period. I generally carry on without a break cos I don't see the point in a fake period.

I'm willing to be corrected on any of this cos I'm (allegedly) a scientist, not a doctor.

MistaG: they shouldn't have, cos if you're on the pill you don't have a menstrual cycle. The pill works by making the body think that it's already pregnant, so no egg is released. So I don't think it's possible to have those symptoms whilst on the pill. Unless they're just bitchy and nervous and annoying by nature, and I know a few girls who are.

Re: childbirth. Apparently the cause of the pain is that humans walk upright, and this has (over eons) caused the birth canal to become misplaced within the body. Monekys don't have such trouble. Neither do cats, I've seen that with my own eyes.

Short term advice: go home, go to bed with large box of Celebrations and a magazine. Long term: go on the pill. Gets rid of all menstrual-related problems.

How about farting and burping? That's manly.

grouch-grouch-grouch

Think I need to go and lie down

I have more than three years experience in industry, but I have never been told that it is worth more than a PhD. I was consistently paid less than people with doctorates, for exactly the same job, even when I was supervising them. Mind you industry is corrupt anyway in my opinion, I'm going to try hard to stay within academia now. More bureaucratic, but at least less mercenary.

"Never seek to tell thy love
Love never told should be
For the gentle wind doth move
Silently, invisibly"

William Blake, an advocate of the subtle approach. Mind you he was an acidhead too.

Well, we were allowed to make use of up to 1 glass of supermarket-brand cola. Real coke was considered to be cheating because that would have been too easy.

Transfer seminar - you timed it well, which would have earned you points in a related competition: to see who could burp in the most inappropriate place. The winner (not me) let rip in the crypt of St Bede at Durham Cathedral, although I think it was accidental.

Subtle means don't work on men, in my experience.

Very impressive. As a first year undergraduate I was female belching champion of my halls. A proud moment.

Hi Fabry,

I'm from the UK, yes. I'm trying to learn Dutch because in my field (phytochemistry) much of the research is based in the Netherlands. I know Dutch people speak English but I want to be able to speak at least a little Dutch in return. And it's a bit different; in the UK many people speak a little French or German, but not many people study Dutch.

A lot of people who learnt English as a second language have complained to me about the pronunciation of English words and the inconsistent spelling...so I suppose English may be just as hard to learn as anything else.

I didn't know until we had some exchange students visiting from Milan; and also the Germans use the comma as well, or so they said.

I'm trying to learn Dutch myself: it's fun but the more I try to speak it, the more I appreciate the flexibility of English. No wories about gender or separable verbs or sentence structure...no wonder the English are lazy at learning other languages.

Where in Italy do you live?