Some scientists are also excellent artists, poets and performers. I’m not one of them, but I do love a good limerick [1]. In honour of the blog’s first anniversary, here’s a few for you to enjoy.

Written by me:

If anhydrous your reaction must be,

Use only flame-dried glassware, Said he.

Run argon with care,

To keep out the air,

or FOOSH! There goes the BuLi!

The lit. reaction I thought was a gem

But in the supp, they haw and hem

The results were chaff;

They got less than half,

So they just said “B.R.S.M.”

Our research is vital, you’ll agree

To cure diseases, one, two, and three

You’ve heard this before,

But please, I implore,

Can we haz moar funding, mebbe?

There’s a scientist shortage, I heard

But the unemployed, they say that’s absurd!

Are things that bad,

For every new grad?

Just ask Chemjobber, the jobs wizard

The journals is trapped in a fog,

Without a post-peer review log,

Benefits I see

To pseudonymity

Chemistry blogging’s for dogs

Bruce Banner was feeling quite green,

As he mixed gamma rays with benzene

The flask fell with a crash,

The rest, a big smash

Chemistry Hulk was on the scene

Laura enjoyed her candidacy

Until she came to Professor Dundee

Who said with a glare,

How would you prepare,

The solvents ether, chloroform and t-Butyl-OMe?

One day I was surprised to see

A chemist, crouched on bended knee

My advice Mable,

Get on the table,

It still happens, periodically

There was a fewllow named Judd

Who thought Chemistry was in his blood

He felt quite able

To make the unstable

Hexanitro-amino—BOOM—Oh crud.

From the annals of history:

A woman in liquor production

Owns a still of exquisite construction.

The alcohol boils

Through magnetic coils.

She says that it’s “proof by induction.”

A dying mosquito exclaimed,

“A chemist has poisoned my brain!”

The cause of his sorrow

Was para-dichloro-

Diphenyl-trichloroethane

There was a chemist once from Lahore

But sadly the chemist’s no more

For what he moments ago

Said was just H 2 O

Was really H 2 SO 4

There once was an old man of Esser,

Whose knowledge grew lesser and lesser,

It at last grew so small

He knew nothing at all,

And now he’s a college professor.

[1] If we’re being honest, I like most bad limericks too.