Morals aside...

The fish dissection was terribly interesting. The poor creature was a sardine from Morrisons, and we began by inserting a probe through his (it had a sperm sack) alimentary canal. We were 'lucky' as the probe came out of his anus, and from here we cut up to its chin and opened it out. At first it was daunting, but soon I became accustomed to poking and pulling the corpse, so it was fine.

We then removed the sperm sack, the intestines and the heart, which was kind of pyramid-shaped. Following this were the gills which contained many red false-eyelash-like surfaces. Upon extracting these, we saw that they had a large surface area to enable gas exchange to take place adequately (this was, of course, the point of the dissection, so it paid off).

After examining the semi-inflated swim bladder which kept the fish afloat when swimming, we moved on to the eyes. At first it was a rather violent affair - we pulled the eye up using the surgical forceps and snipped the connections. After this, it was time to find the lens, and having rolled perforated eye ball around a little, out popped a perfectly spherical transparent ball. This was the fish eye lens, the origin of the eponymous camera lens. This was quite a specimen, and on hovering the lens over newspaper we could read the text, albeit with the distortion that one would expect from a fish eye lens (Google some fish eye lens images if you want to).

Finally, and most brutally of all, we cut open the sardine's head just above the eyes (or, rather, where they were before we ripped them out). Brain tissue was pulled out and we came across the hard cartilage, but then it was time for the ambitious task of removing the spinal cord. With my partner, Sara, grabbing the fish I used the surgical forceps to pull at the spinal cord with all of my supposed might, but, alas, we were cut short and forced to dispose of Lesley, our sardine.

Despite the spinal cord failure, it was a thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening experience, however I can't say I'll soon be cutting up anything outside the human food chain that has been killed specifically for dissection. After all, it's more beneficial to dissect a sardine than it is to eat it.

Scalpel, please

It's my first dissection tomorrow in Biology. We're going to be dissecting small fish, and although I'm not easily disgusted and I've been fascinated by dissection since I was around 7, it still doesn't feel perfectly right.

I'll only do it if the animals died naturally or if it was something that currently couldn't be avoided e.g. small fish getting caught in a fishing net when fishing for marketable fish. Both the Biology teacher and technician are vegetarians, so hopefully this issue will have been carefully considered.

Could things be working out, maybe?

I didn't do much today. First I ate BBQ beans and fried mashed potato and then my mum went to town and I basically just watched TV from then on. First I watched 'You Have Been Watching' which takes a cynical look at some of the TV of the week. That was amusing and made me want to watch the programme in which an elephant, a crocodile, a giraffe and a whale are dissected. Next I watched 'The TNT Show' which is puerile according to my dad, and I kind of agree, however it's still mildly enjoyable though a bit too scripted to allow any of the presenters' potential and latent charisma shine through.

After that was a programme about the world's oldest mothers who were impregnated via IVF. It does seem very wrong for a 70-year-old women to carry a baby and I think the upper age limit for IVF should be about 50 or perhaps 55 at a push. The concept of this does seem a bit strange to me as these women's eggs have been used up so they have to use donor eggs and that, of course, makes them not the biological mother at all. However, I'm not against adoption and it's a similar idea in that respect.

Finally, I watched a programme called 'Boob Job - My Big Decision' which followed two girls, one 17, one 13(!), who wanted breast implants and embarked on a journey which tried to put them off it. In the end it worked and it was very intriguing however some of the links that were made between wanting larger breasts and other factors in their life were a bit sketchy.

I'm supposed to be going bike-riding with Sam this weekend but I don't know what day or anything like that. But it sounds nice. I'm going to London from Monday to Wednesday which will, of course, be good. London's never disappointed me, hence the reason that I'm determined to live there from the age of 18.

In London, I want to go to a proper sushi restaurant. Not just Yo! Sushi. I'd love to go to Nobu, but I doubt they'd have many vegetarian options. Might see some celebrities in there, though.