The building has started! It’s amazingly menacing; police everywhere, security and builders with balaclavas, an extra few feet on the fence surrounding the building site, behind which you can hear the sweet sounds of construction. And of course the token handful of protesters.

I work near the new Oxford Animal Laboratory and am absolutely delighted that it is back on.

Today we had a ‘big’ demonstration: at least 20 or so protesters and the token megaphone were marching around town. The megaphone hollering ‘Stop the Oxford Lab!’, which was rather creatively replied to by the other 19 with ‘Stop the Oxford Lab’. Who needs Bob Dylan to capture the imagination of a protest movement? It is a good thing their scientific arguments are as intelligent as their chants.