The joy of practicals. It's another one involving vacuum lines, so it's another afternoon of turning the wrong tap and seeing your product disappear into the vacuum pump. It goes well, no taps are turned the wrong way and we are left with a small pile of red powder in the bottom of a vessel. This must be considered a triumph.   Unfortunately, all this time spent doing practicals means that I don't have much time for tutorial work. It must be finished tonight. It's going to be a late one. The one mitigating factor, the one thing that will keep Mark and I happy tonight is that Chris finally has a load of work to do. He goes to bed early.
			The characters and situations in this diary are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happenings. Any resemblance to such things is coincidental, or just for humourous effect. All names have been chosen to implicate the innocent.