In the Summer of 1982 when I was 17 years old I had a summer job working at Britannia Refined Metals for Ron who ran a part the lead reclamation effort. There was a pile, a large stack, of used car, milk float and motorcycle batteries which we would chop open with a four and a half pound axe. We would discard the casings and put the acid soaked lead into a skip. We were paid per tonne of lead we produced cash in hand. Two skips full a day was the norm. It was not unusual to take home £200 per week for five mornings of gruelling labour at low pH and with significant lead dust. I still have a sulphuric acid burn scar on my left elbow. From time to time we would be rested because our blood lead levels got too high. We wore some protective clothing and a face visor.

My father was superintendent for the secondary lead smelter. Our lead fed the smelter. On site there was also a high volume silver refinery. When my dad worked there Ron was not allowed to take his lorries off site. I was employed as a kind of “sweetener” for my dad. But I pulled my weight and me and friend easily kept pace with the others. The battery stack was first port of call for those just out of prison and in need of cash. No referees needed. The crew were motley and mostly hard men. I was innocent but a physically fit rugby player and martial artist. The operation was quasi-legit. But Ron was also a bit of a crim. A few years down the line he and his “accountant” were stopped at the airport on the run with £50,000 cash each in their bags. Ron had “masterminded” a silver heist after my dad left the company. It was partly an inside job.

Ron was perhaps a thieving “pikey” as per “Peaky Blinders” which we watched last night. I had earned my spurs and I was down with them.

One of the battery stack crew had a cobra tattoo on his penis which he was prone to show off. They were hard violent men and I was offered. “If you ever need someone done over or kneecapped we will do it for a few hundred quid!” I used to bang into one of the gang on the council estate near home regularly. That was until he was sent down again. I could at a push re-create a persona which would enable me to fit in the pubs they frequented. I can do geezer again.

I started my chemistry degree in Autumn 1982 at UCL I was barely 18.

In around 2000 I had a working EUV protype and I briefly got to meet Dr Jos Benschop now Executive Vice President Technology of ASML Netherlands BV. For a while I even had his business card. I saw him recently on YouTube in an ASML video about their $300 million EUV lithography tool. It was weird. I recognised him instantly. Jos is probably the most globally significant person I have ever met.

I wrote a couple of patent application for EUV light sources. I did for a while keep track of the hundreds of ASML EUV patents.

I went from pikeys to patents…

Following this morning’s dream I can conclude with some confidence that my dreams and dreaming are unique. There will be nobody else in the world who has dreams like mine and with such a varied scope.

I said to the wife, “I would really like to see some psychology or psychiatry professional provide an explanation for my dreaming. I doubt they could find a satisfactory one…How could they make it internally consistent?”

As it stands I am just a weird anomaly in terms of the world at large…

Again the notion of patents has cropped up and only a few hours after watching “Peaky Blinders”.

From pikeys to patents in under eight hours…