Spanners the chemistry teacher
Now I've come to the conclusion that all chemistry teachers are a bit odd, and encouraging eccentrics into the profession is a good way to keep them out of harm's way.

Take Mr "Spanners" Spandrel, our 'O' level chemistry teacher. Mad as a sack of badgers, but great fun with it. He lost an eardrum after an attempt to make the school fireworks really exciting, an incident that saw an oil drum fired about 100 feet into the air before embedding itself a foot deep in the rugby pitch.

Other highlights include blowing out the front of a fume cabinet after an experiment with sodium went badly wrong, a detailed ten minutes on the production of LSD that was only stopped when the bell sounded (wish I could remember the details) and a slightly sweaty recounting of the sexual proclivities of Marie Curie.

As a man he just screamed eccentric. Imagine the hair of Einstein after a severe electric shock, the dress sense of a man who'd been dipped in glue and dragged backwards through a Salvation Army reject bag and fingers that both trembled and were stained with more obscure chemicals than you could shake a stick at.

However, like Bagpuss, he was loved by all and a lot of us turned up for his funeral (sadly a boring old heart attack - we'd all envisioned him dying of something more exotic like developing a new toxin or opening a gate to the nether regions of hell). Many of us then spent a happy afternoon/evening in the pub swapping stories about sundry weird lessons. Spanners, I salute you.
(paxvobiscum, Thu 30 Oct 2008, 21:10, 6 replies)

Yep
sounds like every chemistry teacher I've ever met. Mine wore the same green wool jumper every day of the six years I was at school, with the same massive holes and gravy stains.
( Peregr1n @peregr1n, Thu 30 Oct 2008, 21:33, closed)

Believe me,
you get through a lot of clothes in the lab, so you usually only wear the crappy ones to work. Just this morning, the newbie split a bottle of very reducing compound over his shiny, new t-shirt.
( Colonel Boris "...a desperate Buzzfeed imitation...", Thu 30 Oct 2008, 21:55, closed)

I'm a chemistry student
We all have to be weird in one way or another to do the subject. And as for the clothes, no, you never wear your new ones in the lab for fear of unexplauned holes later...
(Petite chien is going to do science to it, Thu 30 Oct 2008, 22:56, closed)

And pyromaniacs.
You all have to be pyromaniacs.
( idonthaveafunnynickname Drink-Aware? Sure. I'm aware I want another drink., Fri 31 Oct 2008, 19:07, closed)

Fair point on the clothes
But this wasn't a "I want to keep my best suit clean," more a "Fuck you, I'll wear whatever is closest to hand - but we respected him for it.
(paxvobiscum, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 7:08, closed)

Lovely word-age
You get my click for "the dress sense of a man who'd been dipped in glue and dragged backwards through a Salvation Army reject bag"
( Strangey is present at, Sat 1 Nov 2008, 12:48, closed)