It seems like only yesterday that Nature Network, in what struck me as a bizarre fit of misplaced paranoia and pettiness, locked some of its most popular bloggers out of their own sites, preventing them from posting their own farewell messages and receiving any final comments of goodwill. Well, I for one have never looked back – and I’ve enjoyed the past year in my new blogging home immensely. What hit me immediately about escaping the NN sphere, with its clunky interface and registration practices, was that I was suddenly hearing comments from all sorts of people who had never interacted with me before. And that’s been really great, so I thank all my readers for stopping by.
What could be more exciting than Occam’s Typewriter’s first birthday? Why, institute cocktails, of course! Once a month, one of the lab groups puts on a much-anticipated Friday night bash for everyone else. Tonight’s theme was not without its controversies, however, causing a mild kerfuffle that ultimately culminated in the following mass email:
Dear All
It has been brought to my attention by an individual in the department that some people may find the images on the posters advertising this Friday’s cocktails offensive. Let me reassure you that this was not my intention to offend Christians or indeed anybody else, and nobody who had seen the posters before I put them up suggested that they may be offensive.
However, if you have been offended by the pictures of George and Toms’ faces photoshopped on to Mary and Joseph, or Jemima and I transposed onto Mary and the donkey, then I apologise. I will endeavour to get around the building and remove the posters in question and replace them with hopefully less offensive ones. Please let me know if I miss any, or feel free to take them down and dispose of them yourselves. If anyone is offended by pictures of mince pies and beer, then I’m sorry about that too.
After spending a few hours on this afternoon’s lab bonding exercise – scrubbing fungus from the inside of the tissue culture incubators and hoods – I’ll be only too happy to exchange my Virkon for a vodka twist. And I don’t care whose face is on the donkey.
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Update 15.39 PM: Just some proof that our lab has definitely earned the cocktails!
Fungus Counter-attack (a.k.a. How Many Scientists Can You Fit Into a Small Tissue Culture Suite?)
Aww.. I miss the LMCB! Pleased to hear photoshop is still being put to good use 🙂
As a Christian, I’m offended that anyone could take offence at Photoshopping faces onto pictures of Mary and Joseph.
Unless your colleagues are particularly ugly, of course.
I’ll have you know I’m “Devilishly” handsome 😉
Hey, I think offense is a tricky thing to gauge and I definitely respect people’s rights to take personal offense at things – we never know what other people’s personal stories are nor why they might respond the way they do to things that we ourselves see no problem with.
But I have to admit that the apology made me laugh. Reminded me of something you might read in the New Yorker’s “Shouts and Murmurs” section.
Rebecca, the use of photoshop to advertise cocktails has been escalating to dangerous levels recently. We’re definitely on DEFCON 2.
Ian, no one was disputing that! 😉
Oh, I know. It was a joke. I know you know I know you know that.
I know! Just didn’t know if everyone else knew.
Loved raising a couple with you in person, to OT’s first birthday. Thanks much to Erika Cule, and to Richard for enabling our coming together on OT at all. So the principle of “hearing comments from all sorts of people who had never interacted with me before” also extends to “having a drink with all sorts of people whom you’d never have bought one for before” and is equally fruitful.
I find the word ‘offensive’ offensive. Those responsible should be fired. From a very large cannon. In front of their families.
I think we need Jeremy Clarkson to weigh in on whether or not these people should be fired from (or at by) a cannon.
Possibly.
Also, I visited Nature Network for the first time in a loooooooooooooooong time, to read Eva’s brilliant OpenLab post about vitamin C, which I had missed. And all the memories of log-in frustration and irritating interfaces, even from the “client side” as a commenter, came rushing back. Argh.
Yes, I really love the WordPress interface. The only contact I have with NN these days is alerts when spammers post on my ancient forum threads – which is fairly frequently.
Enjoy your hard-earned cocktails! It’s still the tea drinking hour here (and will be for some time), but I shall raise a glass to all my lovely OT co-bloggers tonight!
Jennifer – same here. I don’t think I’ve visited there in over a year, but I still get those messages!
ricardipus – preferably not the cannon the Mythbuster’s crowd used… 🙂
Then, again, it’d probably miss the people—the intended target—and hit the institution, which could be good for laughs?
ahh… fungus scrubbing makes for drink thirst 😉
I hope you had a great time! I’ve enjoyed this first year and as ppl stated before, it’s so much easier to comment and read etc! Cheers for many more happy years to come!!!