Video oblivion

Now, I wouldn’t want you to think I’m the sort of person who wastes time browsing inane video clips on the Internet, but whilst using You Tube for legitimate research recently I came across this video of a job interview. It rang such a chord I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It so summed up my last interview - feeling that there was some clue I hadn’t understood, some answer that was expected of me, but I had no idea what it was.

If you watch it, you’ll see the punchline is that the job had already been given to someone else. This had a real ring of truth about it – or is that just sour grapes?

I was led to a much more cheering video via the HSE website. Apparently Judith Hackitt had allowed someone to set fire to her hands to show science teachers that its ok to do exciting experiments in school chemistry, providing of course that the experiments are risk assessed. Unfortunately the video from the IChemE (select No. 2) doesn’t show Ms Hackitt with her hands on fire, but demonstrates the same experiment with unnamed participants. There are another 9 experiments illustrated and my two children plus one grown-up "child" watched them all. There proceeded a discussion as to whether, since we had no Bunsen burner, the same effect could safely be achieved with butane from the camping gas stove or propane from the gas barbeque...