Welcome to the IOP's first blog - as some of my younger colleagues would say, we are at last joining the 21st century!
I'm just back in the office from a great visit to the Diamond Light Source yesterday. I thought I knew a lot about Diamond beforehand, but until you actually see the scale of the facility, and get a flavour of the range of experiments that users will be able to do there, you can't really appreciate what a success story it is. Gerd Materlik showed us round, and we were comparing notes about interpreting fuzzy photographs of X ray diffraction patterns in the 1970's, compared to Diamond with its robotic sample changing every few minutes, and automatic data collection. I'm pretty envious. And thanks to everyone who showed us what they were working on and explained it with such enthusiasm.
Now I've got to get back to clearing my desk before I go on holiday next week. The main thing I need to do is sort out arrangements for a discussion we're organising in Parliament in October, to remind policy makers about the spin-off benefits you can get from fundamental research programmes. I need to find a really good chair - someone who can be firm but fair, and is a recognisable name, like a radio or TV journalist. Let me know if you have any ideas - or would like to volunteer yourself!
