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Okay. We all know there’s nothing more annoying than an expert who analyses TV shows about their profession, like the (other - not me!) chemists who watch CSI and exclaim that you would never centrifuge one sample alone or that the GC takes an hour to analyse a sample, not 10 seconds (although I do get really excited when I see that CSI uses the same pipette or HPLC as me, and then Adam laughs at how geeky I am).

But I do have one CSI beef. Why do they keep doing things when they have already done them? For example, one of the CSI people will be shown taking a sample from a carpet, plating it on a slide and then looking at it under the microscope. Then a colleague walks up and they immediately explain how they found this sample of carpet, analysed it and found that it is from a specific manufacturer and they have a list of buyers. If you already did all this, why are you still taking a sample and looking at it under the scope? Or they will be pipetting a sample and getting it ready for the GC, and their boss walks in and they proceed to show him the GC printout of the sample he is working on. Why are you still taking a sample from something you already identified?

I am never going to be able to plausibly deny my geeky-ness after that confession, am I?