I was aware that rats were growing immune to many poisons, but this is the first I've heard about them needing a blood thinner to survive. Which begs the question: If warfarin is now an essential dietary additive for healthy rats, why don't we simply stop giving it to them?

(S M) I think the story is true though there's a possibility it may be a scientific urban myth. Without Warfarin the rats presumably will rapidly evolve back to what they were before the introduction of this substance although a number will perish in the process. Something more subtle is needed.

Dad always swore by a cricket bat during the bad old days.

I see idiots have dropped by (see elsewhere)...

Not my day. A casual chat over coffee led me to realise that flights I was booked to take next week have been withdrawn. The service email got swamped by spam, and though they tried to call me, it turns out they did so on my old office number during the Christmas vacation. Ho hum. The original booking was perfect: nice leisurely departure, direct flight out to a meeting; meeting finishes, evening flight back, airport easily makable after the end of the meeting. Then I could go to a course I was enrolled on the next day. Now, the outward is early morning, involves a change at Birmingham. Then I had a choice of either leaving the meeting before the session in which I was scheduled to speak, or missing the course. I went for the latter in the end.

And now these guys show up.

I think I missed it.

Well where's the fun in that? You are supposed to get the only available flight that puts you in the night before your event, a train ride away from wherever your meeting is to take place. Said train should break down, stranding you overnight somewhere with no accomodation so that you have to sleep on the (open-air) platform where you get molested by stray dogs and policemen. When you get to the meeting you should discover that your powerpoint slides have somehow been erased from your laptop, at which point your wireless connection should pack up. The return journey should see you travel by coach and hovercraft and deliver you into the arms of a UK customs official who is going through a bad patch in his or her personal life. You should return home after 15 hours of point-to-point commuting to discover your pipes burst approximately one hour after you departed.

On the other hand, you are changing at Birmingham.