After watching QI and seeing them talk about the higgs boson I thought I would get a book on the subject and see what it was like.

I did what I usually do and searched through the books on the ereader site and picked the one which seemed interesting to me and not too tedious. I went for "Natures Blueprint - Supersymmetry and the Search for a Unified Theory of Matter and Force" by Dan Hooper and I was pleasantly surprised as it is quite an enjoyable read.

He narrates a tale, rather than going into the mathematics of it, and takes you from the 1900´s through to the present day. Although I am only half way through it I have found the evolution of particle physics damn interesting. As well as whom did what and the roles that were played in taking the science to the next level or discovery.

His descriptions and analogies help to make a difficult subject seem easy to understand (and I do mean seem as quite evidently you cannot hope to understand the finer points without the deep mathematics involved)

Those physicists need to learn a bit about naming things as calling something "strangeness" and defining quarks by colour just seems abnormal...although I am starting to like the colour definition..I must be succumbing to the dark side!

On the whole I can highly recommend the book as an enjoyable read.

Ahh the Shed, I now have two weeks off so it is with great trepidation that I plan to do version 3 of the roof. The roll off roof project. The last removable roof, version 2, turned into a 3 meter Kite during high wind so I have decided that pond liner doth not makeith the roof.

I understand I have to make a frame, remove the roof, put it on wheels and chuck it all back together. It all seems too easy!

Only problem is I have no idea were to get the materials in spain but I will post some pics as I go along.

Add to that the inability I have to make anything, even those blue peter things were impossible for one as incompetent as me!

Well 2 weeks so we shall see what happens.

Neil C