Tom Roper's Weblog

Wirelesss Brighton

I ate last night at Due South, on Brighton (t d) beach and, in the interests of experiment, to say nothing of impressing people at the other tables with my sophistication and technical know-how, got the PowerBook out to see if i could pick up a wireless (t d) signal from the Pier-to-Pier network. There was a signal, but very weak: a pity. There's a little way to go before we reach the state to be discussed at next week's SCONUL conference as wireless Brighton.
I had an excellent meal though, potted shrimp, venison with red cabbage and spinach and a hazelnut and honey tart.
On a more positive note, the people behind the wireless signal I sometimes pick up on the train have been in touch and ask if I want to be part of a trial.

Only in Cambridge...

...would the advertisements at bus stops promote an academic journal. On a Sunday morning run while visiting my mother for Easter I was amused and surprised to run past a bus stop in Trumpington Road advertising subscriptions to Science. In a Roper-run Britain advertising would be completely banned and its practitioners sent to productive labour in the countryside, but I suppose if we must have it, advertising scientific journals is better than many things, for example poisonous food or ridiculous magazines about celebrities, usw, usw

Patrick Hamilton at the NFT

I'm a little late with this, as the last day is tomorrow, but i was catching up on old newspapers and found Iain Hamilton writing on film adaptations of Patrick Hamilton.
The National Film Theatre has a season of films based on Patrick Hamilton novels and plays; they're all unsatisfactory (or utterly dire in the case of Hangover Square) but worth recording.

Director of Student Life

This is over-ambitious to the point of hubris.  I see in the Times Higher that the University of Birmingham is advertising for a Director of Student Life. It sounds like a doomed project to me. Even if they could find a candidate arrogant enough to think they could direct anyone else's life (God knows I can't direct mine), students' lives must be the least amenable to direction of any.

An Oxford spy

John Branston kindly sends me another of his profiles of twentieth century literary figures published in the Morning Star. This is the full version of the article, including some material cut from the print version. Also by John on this blog:Patrick Hamilton: Love and Death in Publand

Was the Propaganda War fought on the playing fields of Eton? John Branston investigates an improbable anti-nazi propagandist inside MI5.

An Oxford Spy

This month marks the centenary of the birth of Brian Howard, the brightest of the 'Bright Young Things', incontestably the most brilliant wit of his generation, an Etonian aesthete and 'new symbolist' poet, who was also a colossal snob who toadied up to peers of the realm, and a drunkard and cocaine addict. So, you may ask, how was such an indiscreet individual recruited into Britain's secret intelligence service?   
After all, Howard, the notorious, louche, dandified teen-age protégé of Edith Sitwell, and disciple of Gertrude Stein, is remembered more today for providing the model for Anthony Blanche, the social butterfly in Evelyn Waugh's 'Brideshead Revisited', than for his far more sombre role as a spy in MI5 during WW2. Yet, in Howard's dedicated social climbing at Oxford, his exclusive pursuit of the university's younger peerage, lies the secret of his value as a spy in the highest echelons of the British Establishment.
   

PLoS Biology: Funding the Way to Open Access

Robert Terry, Senior Policy Adviser to the Wellcome Trust on proposals for a UK PubMed Central:
PLoS Biol. 2005 Mar 15;3(3):e97
Funding the Way to Open Access.
Terry R.
PLoS Biology: Funding the Way to Open Access.

Adipocere

Dorland's Word of the Day for Mar 21, 2005 is:

adipocere
a peculiar waxy substance formed during the decomposition of animal bodies, and seen especially in human bodies buried in moist places; it consists principally of insoluble salts of fatty acids.

Brought to you by Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary.
www.dorlands.com - The First and Last Word in Medicine

Uttoxeter and Cheltenham post-mortem

In the wake of Cheltenham:
130: Why The Big Paws
200: Pretty Star
235: Howdydoody
310: Beau Supreme

Final score for Cheltenham:
24 selections, 5 winners, 2 placed, strike rate 20.83%

The fourth day of Cheltenham: Gold Cup Day

2.00 JCB Triumph Hurdle: Cerium
2.35 Brit Insurance Novices' Hurdle: Thames
3.15 Cheltenham Gold Cup Chase: Beef or Salmon
4.00 Christie's Foxhunter Chase Challenge Cup: Earthmover
4.40 Johnny Henderson Grand Annual Chase: Impek
5.20 Vincent O'Brien County Handicap Hurdle: Bongo Fury

It's a pity Baracouda just missed the Stayers Hurdle. He couldn't match Inglis Drever's pace at the finish. He's ten years old now. So the score so far: 18 selections, 5 winners, 2 placed, strike rate 27.77%

The third day of Cheltenham: Stayers' Hurdle Day

2.00 Jewson Novices' Handicap Chase: Joes Edge
2.35 Daily Telegraph Trophy: Thisthatandtother
3.15 Stayers Hurdle: Baracouda
4.00 Mildmay of Flete Handicap Chase: Le Duc
4.40 National Hunt Chase : Point Barrow
5.20 Pertemps Final Handicap Hurdle: Basilea Star

So far: from twelve selections, four winners, one placed, strike rate 33.33%