Craig Venter was on the start the week. I meant to miss it, but ended up listening by random chance. It was strange; he was thoughtful, understated, entirely reasonable and only talk about how great he was once. Unexpected to say the least.

I was going to see him talk on Sunday at Newcastle but it turns out that he's gone home instead. I'm reasonably irritated about this to be honest. I mean, I know he keeps on coming out with these daft statements, but I was going to see hear what he had to say; more just to experience a piece of history. Maybe a bit pathetic, but his work has helped to define my own working life and it would have been good to see it.

There seems to be a theme running along here. I was hoping to see Bo Diddley earlier this year but then he had a stroke.