I sense a treatise about the guy's main research (ie 'working memory' and how it is specifically different from and not 'short term memory'). Not bad, not overly interesting so far and also I think unfortunately not a great translation.

Mother-in-law's suggestion, so far totally charmed but finding it very interesting sideways insight into the austerity of disaster situations.

"The black iron would never shine, but every surface had been scrubbed and dried. As for the hot plates, you could eat your dinner off them. If you wanted a job done properly, you had to do it yourself. Juliet's version of cleanliness was next to godliness, which was to say it was erratic, past all understanding and was seldom seen."

The Patrician to a sip of his beer. 'I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberworld I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged on to a half submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior'