I just had morrocan cous cous. My boyfriend makes my lunch for me every morning :) I am very lucky!

There are loads of politics in industry too. Once one of the heads of departments gets it in his head that a target is going to work he allocates loads of resource to it and refuses to admit it's not working.

cycling proficiency (it's early, I can't spell) is like a driving test for cyclists, you learn to signal with your arms, do roundabouts etc they also make you wear hi-vis vests which are hugely embarrasing when you're trying to be a cool 10 year old!

We all shouting about our qualifications now? I can swim 10m unaided

Well, I'd pretty much never reference a review, only ever original papers. I know what you mean about undergrads taking all their ideas from references because if you find a well written review it's very difficult not to take the ideas on as your own if you don't know much else(which is kind of the purpose of a good review surely?). But if you are only referencing original papers you need to have drawn your own conclusions/ideas from them anyway.

That helps a lot! Thanks. Most of my references are from my intro where I'm setting up the idea etc, and a few from the disscussion where I'm criticising other papers that did the sameish expereiment but came to different conclusions. Another quick question, is it bad to have references that are quite old? I have the obvious historic ones from 1960s but also a lot are from 1990's. I do have recent ones as well, just not the majority

I'm currently writing up my undergrad dissertation so feel free to ignore this as it's not strictly PhD related. But was wondering if there is a minimum/maximum for number of references you should have. At the moment I have 35 and about 4,500 words, my word count at the end can't be more than 6,000. Is there a point when I should stop or does it not really matter. (It's a science diss btw)

Well I'm not free from my job for another 4 weeks yet, then have 3 weeks of revision before a final exam, roll on September! After reading all the posts am definitely going to have a relaxing month.

I'm starting a PhD in October but I won't actually be finished with my undergrad degree until end of August. What kind of things should I be doing in the time I have before I start? Would you all recommend starting to read around the area or does it not really matter because I'll just be reading loads in my first year anyway? (It's a science PhD btw)

I'd have thought it would be better to go to a different uni, but I suppose it depends what kind of person you are. Relocating somewhere you don't know anyone is pretty "character building" and you won't fall into too familiar territory.

What about that girl from Scotland who was told she's going to die because they had mucked up her chemotherapy dose.

I think I've been staring at my computer screen too long, I thought that said Sperm in Autumn.

I've had the exact same response to saying I do Pharmacology. But it's no where near as annoying as those who think you're going to go work in Boots, Pharmacy and Pharmacology are not the same thing!

I'm starting at UCL in September/October. I did my undergrad in Edinburgh which is a brilliant place, only didn't stay because my boyfriend is living in London.

In defence of the family on benefits they did have a lot of children and I think they stayed on benefits because they didn't have the level of education to get a job that would pay enough for all the childcare they would need.

But Shabaz is ridiculous, I thought it was meant to be "jobseekers allowance" now, how can someone not find a job in 21 years? People that don't even try to get jobs should't be allowed to have the money.