Alastair and Martin's Web Site
LECTURERS QUOTES 1998-2001


It's all very well that we occasionally put our mouths into gear before engaging our brains (take for instance the Quote Archive), but there is a certain type of lecturey/tutorial professional who should never be caught out in such a way. However, I am pleased to say that my esteemed friends and I have managed to capture most of these outbursts and lovingly catalogued them. Contained here is the complete list for those sunny preclinical days. Enjoy...


Pick a favourite, or scroll through happily indulging in nostalgia!

JA, SJHA, AFB, CB, GKB, KB, HMC, Mr PC, PRC, RC, CD, KLD, PDD, JCE, NE, AG, JG, SJG, SVH, TJH, JJBJ, SJJ, WSJ, AJK, RSCK, GGMcP, GM-K, DM, DRM, JFM, MCWM, RCM, PN, AJP, NJP, PR, PAR, ALS, BCS, ES, GLS, JFS, TS, DAT, IDT, SPW, JDY.




CARB, ADS, PAR, KLD, JCE, TJH, JFM, GKB, CK, TP, KB, AG, AJP, IDT, ES, SVH, WSJ, SPW, etc. THINKING A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ®
   
Joseph F. Clark Louise has a mean streak.
   
JA And this is everbody's favourite - the rectal probe.
Just because I've come back from Antarctica I thought I'd show you some pictures of penguins.
Nobody ever goes there...although I believe the Americans flew in a Hercules on skis once to rescue someone who went bananas
It used to be said that Ronald Reagan would fly out to meetings a week in advance to combat jet lag and clarify his brain - although no-one really noticed any such effect.
   
SJHA Acanthosis nigricans - it's a sort disease where the skin is knobbly and black.
  And it's now that we do a LITTLE BIT of metabolic biochemistry, a favourite subject of medical students the world over, I know
  Oh dear, the overheads are all mixed up. I blame Microsoft ® for that.
  This in itself has a molecular weight of 140,000 so it's quite a respectable protein
  I guess if you eat enough avocados you get a mild hyperglycaemia.
   
AFB Little boys see how high they can pee in the bath.
   
CB (He's just too good. All we've got is...) PLEASE MACHINE GIVE MONEY
  (CB's cash card PIN is available on receipt of beer and when I'm in a good mood.)
   
GKB The man himself, not currently sprinting for the bus
  Sprinting for the bus.
  When you eat you Fish and chips.
  Ketogenesis - a perfectly healthy habit.
  Nothing is ever simple.
  9 out of 10 organs prefer ketones to any other brand.
  You will learn to love your liver.
  I'm not sure horses eat much jam for breakfast.
  If you get serious about ingesting large amounts of alcohol.
  Ketogenic is a stupid name. It's really Fatty-Acid-o-genic, but that's not very easy to say.
  Enough to put the fear of God into any Medical student.
  C.elegans has over 19,000 genes - miserable little worm, hardly does anything.
Peroxisomes are extremely useful with their funny enzymes that can turn nasty compounds into harmless things.
This sort of technology... I'm mean really... it's not... it's witchcraft!
If you happen to damage your muscle whilst playing rugby or something stupid like that
(on being asked if we could keep the diagrams he drew during the tutorial) There must be an underground collection of my scribblings in Oxford University.
   
KB It's sick, it can't take any more, it's going to throw up!
   
HMC This is value added...
  Don't engorge my breasts any further!
   
Mr P C Just hallucinate with me.
  You need 3 pints before you can start looking at ultrasounds.
  After a few pints everything becomes clearer
   
PRC You've got to evaluate whether I'm talking out of my arse. That's what FHS is all about.
  When I saw these background colonies, I thought, "SHIT!!!".
  Living on Earth is dangerous. If tested, Oxygen would fail the British Standard carcinogen test.
Nature isn't a proper scientific journal - it's a sexy journal.
Yes, well that's a politician's answer, in other words it's bullshit.
   
RC Merton kiddies...!
  We need a way of clearing all the diesel fumes, all the bugs, and all the crap we breathe in.
This guy likes a bit of wine, knows his English, a bit of Latin and Greek, so he came up with this word "allocrite".
Bacteria cannot make large proteins because their topology's all screwed up.
Just like a map of the countryside - closer contours mean "protein-rich".
We've got one researcher who overinterpretes all data, which doesn't go down well with the editors. Once we've hanged him, we will finally be able to talk about p-glycoprotein 2-D crystal structure.
   
CD Taking cocaine is better than an orgasm. I wish I could take it.
   
KLD Think of the flow of O2 around the body as if it were a little bit like a waterfall.
  I might just keel over, collapse and die.
  A lot of people could simply stop eating and spend the money on something else.
  This light is pathetic, we'll try a stick.
  I was waiting for science to come out of the apparatus while I read the newspaper.
  In fact, it's almost core material NOT to know this.
  If you happen to be one of those ... wemen.
  My college's Head Porter has a fat supply equivalent to a fur coat.
  It seems that the carotids wind around the jugular in a way that only J0hn M0rri5 understands.
   
PDD Death follows, and the general opinion is that this is bad treatment.
  I do not believe a word of this.
  Your patient will still die anyway.
  Eating fibre is pumping iron for the G.I. smooth muscle.
  Please don't learn triple therapy - people will think you've gone mad.
   
JCE The first thing to say is that protein is digested, and that's obvious.
   
NE Something from the people who spend long hours in dark rooms. (i.e. Histologists)
  The all-singing, all-dancing glutamate blocker that was going to take down synaptic transmission once and for all.
   
AG I'M NOT SAYING ANYTHING IN CASE IT GETS PUT ON A WEB SITE. (Sorry - it was inevitable)
The amount of energy in 10 photons is BUGGER ALL!!!
You're not a real photon, go away.
  One minute to go, so I can get really wild!
  Stimulation in the cerebellum is blatantly disappointing.
AJP The cortex is a very COMPLEX place.
AG The cortex is a very BORING place.
  Don't concentrate on learning facts for the exam.
  Don't write too much that's wrong. It never helps.
  The turgid level of Kandel and Schwartz...
  It shouldn't be doing that!
  You must really want to kill me.
  There are anconeus muscles coming out of your ears.
(AG suggests this may explain.)
   
JG A helicopter flight over the platelet.
   
SJG Lesions in the signalling pathways.
  A deluxe summary of what oncogenes get up to.
  There are some parts that don't bear scrubbing.
  It must be very reassuring to a sheep to know that you can't be eaten.
   
SVH SVH - Nothing to do with electromagnetism, but pretty damn good with B cells
  THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ELECTROMAGNETISM!!!
  What? A whole horse?!?
  Time for a cold shower.
  It's always good to have 1 or 2 bacteria up your sleeve.
  ...like other ordinary God-fearing genes
  You've got to be a lot more fussy about where you get your kidneys from.
  It'll be in a freezer somewhere ... probably in America
  Even if you had a million D.Phil students who were Japanese and completely bonkers, you probably wouldn't succeed.
  Unbelievable, but it works ... sometimes...
  You want a magic ray to switch it on and off.
  Surely you don't mean a whole rat, Martin?
  I can't do a rabbit, but it's got two ears, I suppose.
  They took the normal rabbit walking down the street.
  CD40, CD40-ligand - an absolute classic.
  You would only do this if you were a mad, Glaswegian professor.
   
TJH ... as any self-respecting nerve would do.
   
JJBJ MASSIVE!!! in microscopic terms.
   
SJJ I'm sorry if this has lost some of you to some extent, or all of you to a little extent.
  At the top we have our notional quadruped.
  OOOO!!!
  I'm sure I've given you something there to put on your web site, Martin.
   
WSJ I shall talk a little bit about diarrhoea - it's a lovely subject.
  They're the same, with knobs on.
  No exchanging body fluids in the lab!
  We've done germ warfare, let's do chemical warfare!
  No, I'm going to say it. They'll be scared shitless at this point.
   
AJK I think we can dispose of 5?s@n Gr££nf1£ld now. (Cunning anonymity there!)
  IP3 has NOTHING to do with vertebrate transduction!
   
RSCK FRCS Work's boring. Let's watch brain surgery.
  The delights of general surgery. That's why I changed to brain surgery.
  I spent my Saturday mornings doing appendectomies on fat people.
  You're a first year Medical student, I'm a consultant brain surgeon. I'm SUPPOSED to have more money that you.
  We should move the tutorial so Martin can go to the pub.
  Going to the pub on Sunday lunchtime is part of a decent medical education!
  The patients all died, so this probably wasn't the way to do it.
  (To Mart) 9 gallons? That would last you long.
   
DM It doesn't matter where you inject - just choose any bit of muscle that you find lying around.
  Why should you get increased atherosclerosis in diabetes patients? Well, the answer is the same as for why you get a brown topping if you put a sugary cake in the oven.
  This is a good demonstration of neuropathy. You can shove things through people's feet without them shouting too much.
  So you're looking out of the train window, these things go bang, and you're blind.
   
DRM I must say, I'm getting a bit lost with all this.
   
GGMcP If you think THAT is being confused then just you wait till the last 5 minutes.
   
GM-K HISTOLOGY IS BORING.
   
JFM If I were to say "Mars Bar"...
  Parasympathetic - if you're with a REALLY good friend and you want it to happen.
  Wahey! An old-fashioned light switch!
  Did it bite?
  Details are unimportant, you'll be please to know.
  What stress is there other than BM.?
  (With confused face) Ooh... I left out the lung.
  We've been talking about this ever since Adam looked at Eve and saw there was something different.
  Where has my placenta gone?
You may not think insulin is that important, but John Bassett will argue until he's blue in the teeth...well, that's probably not quite the right phrase but it is Friday afternoon.
   
MCWM The Good Book...
   
RCM Get it right - I want more apple juice!
I NEED COFFEE!!!
   
PN It's a lovely way to die, hypoxia!
  I've got enough blood flow, thank you.
  Goats apparently acclimatize rapidly to high altitude.
  Would you please breath into my apparatus?
   
AJP AJP's brain.AJP's brain. He pays extra for all that fluorescent stuff.
  I apologise for not being <0l!n Bl@k£m0r£. (More cunningness)
  I've nearly lost it already
  I've successfully lost the chalk.
  Chalk is on ration in the Dunn school.
  I'm just losing my way slightly.
  It's now I fall down the stairs
AJP The cortex is a very COMPLEX place.
AG The cortex is a very BORING place.
AJP These smooth curves aren't just any old smooth curves.
  What can I give you that's positive?
  He's quite famous, but he's only known for screwing this up.
  There was a time when each lab had its own brush
  Whatever it is, this thing likes long horns!
   
NJP The Gospel according to Stryer.
  A bent banana!
  Polymerase looks over its shoulder and says, "Oh, God! I've made a hairpin!
  So, in my first lecture, what I do is an impossible task.
I seem to be getting through this topic very fast - by not telling you very much.
Which genome are the Australians sequencing, can you guess? The kangaroo. And the Danish? The pigeon. And the Norwegians are sequencing some sort of fir tree...you see, it all makes sense.
   
PR Give me some insulin or I will be very angry. I'll die actually, but first I shall be very angry.
   
PAR I just couldn't solve the differential equation.
  The idea is not to cook the muscle.
  You get miners going up and down, generally feeling sick.
  I'm always open to offers from physiologists.
  J0hn St£1n?! (hysterical laughter) D£r£ek T£rr@r?!? Have you seen his desk?!? I@n Th0mps0n - Oh my God!!! No, I don't have a strategy for dealing with those individuals!
   
ALS We're talking about the neurotransmitters in their wild, young days.
   
BCS We're not interested in marriage, we're interested in mating.
  From now on we'll be talking about DNA, so hold on tight!
  PCR - things get hot, cold, primers fly everywhere and BANG!!!
  Malaria has never been one of Wigan's problems.
   
ES BEER - you have to take a little bit more.
  I'm tripping over arachidonic acid.
  Every clinician uses drugs. Not personally, although they might.
   
GLS I gather from the last lecture that you are now both asleep and aroused.
  I shall have WORDS with Prof. Bl@k£m0r£!
  They did what rabbits do, at the rate which rabbits do it.
  They did the ecologically friendly thing and gassed the little critters.
  Viruses have learnt that sex is popular in humans.
   
JFS Woooooow SHIT!!!!
  What a bloody ridiculous design!
  You never expected a demonstration of cerebellar inco-ordination, did you?
  Something has gone VERY wrong.
  You get to know your own body pretty well.
  ... and therefore you laugh, if you're that way inclined.
  You are not aware of the pressure on your own backsides.
  I'll kill that Gordon Brown!!!
The basal ganglia - nature's first attempt at making a cerebellum.
If this bloody machine would hurry up I could show you that.
If you fry the neurons they can't oscillate.
(to his laptop) C'mon!!! Speak to me!!!
I do wish I could get away from getting blinded by this.
Curiously, English people brought up in France end up speaking French reasonably well...
   
TS This morning my name is Tr£vor Sh@rp.
  GABAB - 7 transmembrane receptor, a classic.
   
DAT For those of you who haven't got a life, like me.
   
IDT You can do this, if you want, in Swedish Medical students.
  Who knows what the Pacinian corpuscles are doing...
  Let's make a green penetration.
  Here's where my capacity to draw is going to really screw things up. Now I have to do it neuron by neuron.
  We didn't evolve to cope with finger amputation.
  If you lose a limb : TOUGH!!! That's selective pressure.
  What the hell is going on?!?
This is to remind me to remind you what you already know.
The number of Russian Cavalry soldiers getting kicked to death follows the Poisson distribution.
If you put a frog in a fridge, its visual sensitivity goes down.
I would have shown you the movie - you'll just have to blink quickly.
This is the crucial slide... which has got lost.
Today I'm going to be a sleep-deprived zombie.
There's always an odd one in every retinal ganglion.
This is a very implausable thought experiment... ...actually, why haven't I thought about it?!?
I'm just being a complete bastard.
Louise : I'm not sure I understand the question. IDT : That's because I'm trying to put words into your mouth.
It's an interesting embryological phenomenon - (sotto voce) no, it's complete bollocks.
Read anything you can by Moo-Ming Poo - it's an absolute treat.
(crescendo) And I think the very next slide... (pause)...erm, doesn't show that.
I can't remember. I should be able to, because I work on the bloody things.
It doesn't look very comprehensible. I assure you, if it were animated then it would make sense.
   
SPW I apologise in advance...
  If you do biochemistry, you get crystal structures until you're sick of them.
  Anyone who tries to learn this is a FOOL!!!
  Everyone likes to be loved.
  5 times 12 times 16, which I can't work out but is a big number.
   
JDY Unless you become a GP, in which case you get to kill people!
  This is an integrative medical lecture, therefore we will be taking in history and fine art.
  Evasive response to get away from sabre-tooth tigers were designed before Big Macs were invented.




Back to Quote Menu.....

Back to index page.....