Tom Roper's Weblog

Newcastle and Ascot

Today's Lincoln, moved 110 miles north to Newcastle while Doncaster has the builders in, marks the start of flat racing, though there is still the National before I turn away from the jumps. So today's selections are taken equally from the two.
Newcastle 240: Dicoh
Newcastle 315: Steenburg
Newcastle 355: Gentleman's Deal
Ascot 415: Tamarin Bleu
Ascot 450: Dublin Hunter
Ascot 525: Warning Camp

Locating technoscience: Spaces of Secrecy and Transparency

I like working in a university: serendipity often strikes, as for example it did yesterday. A group gathered for a vacation seminar in the lecture theatre next door. Posters appeared about directing people to something called Locating technoscience. We joked about it, wondering why they would need paper posters to find such a conference.
A quick web search determined that it was anESRC seminar on Spaces of Secrecy and Transparency, one of the Locating Technoscience series. Not only this but one of the papers was Discovering Spin: The Transparency of the Production of the British Dossier on Iraq's WMD. I wish I had heard it. Apropos, I see that the Royal Navy base their claim that their RIB was not in Iranian waters on the evidence of a Garmin device. I would be wary; my Garmin is very good and useful, but runners discussion boards are rich with comments on their inaccuracy.

Technorati Tags: technoscience, GPS

Virginia Woolf

Sixty-six years ago today Virginia Woolf drowned herself in the Ouse. If I was not in Cambridge (not somewhere without Woolfian associations) I might have gone to the river bank near Rodmell. I doubt if the precise spot where she entered the water is known; her body was not found for some days.
I have been reading her diaries, on and off. Sometimes I need to go back to the notes to remind myself who people on the Bloomsbury periphery are, but otherwise they are easily read in short bursts.
See here for the Virgina Woolf Society

Technorati Tags: bloomsbury, virginiawoolf

Reed Elsevier and the arms trade

A footnote to my comments on multinational publisher Reed Elsevier's involvement in organising arms trade exhibitions: on Saturday I received a copy of their annual report. Apart from the ugly and sometimes meaningless language in which it is written (example: "leverage our leadership brands and authoritative proprietary content to deliver innovative solutions orientated products that become embedded in customers’ workflows and enable Reed Elsevier to move up the value chain"), there is a section on corporate responsibility, which they define as a "commitment to operate profitably, ethically and openly". They mention a Socially Responsible Supplier network, which "tracks the social and environmental performance of key suppliers", but do not say whether involvement in the arms trade is one of the criteria by which suppliers are assessed.
In the open access debate apologists for publishers often argue that they  have an important part to play in scientific communication. But this document does not even try to mount a defence of that position.  They say starkly, "our objectives are to deliver good revenue growth,
continuous margin improvement, strong cash generation and growing returns on capital".

To declare an interest, my late mother's estate owns Reed Elsevier shares. I have not yet decided whether to dispose of them.

Navan and Newbury

Newbury 255: Chamoss Royale
Newbury 330: Apollo Lady
Navan 400: Nickname
Navan 500: Royal Man

Turning the pages, for Vista users only

"Turning the Pages 2.0™ runs with Internet Explorer on Windows Vista or Windows XP SP2 with .NET Framework version 3, on a broadband connection. We have detected that you do not have the necessary software. You may also need to check that your hardware meets the 'Vista Premium Ready' specification": that was the friendly error message I got when I tried to access the new version of the British Library's Turning the Pages service, which allows one to look at digital versions of some of the BL's greatest treasures.
Is this a result of the BL's cosy relationship with Microsoft, the Bl being used for the British lanch of Vista? What next? Will users with laptops that don't run Mr Gates' latest operating system be banned from the reading rooms?

Elsevier, the arms trade and library conferences

Today's Guardian reports correspondence in the Lancet (full text requires a subscription) on that journal's publisher Reed Elsevier's involvement in  arms trade exhibitions.
Reed Exhibitions also organise next month's  London Book Fair, a fine chance for concerned librarians, booksellers and publishers to use the LBF to make our views on their involvement with the arms trade known.

Alcoholism, masochism and Marxism: Patrick Hamilton event, 21 March 2007 Jubilee library, Brighton

Interest in Patrick Hamilton’s work is growing, to judge by the attendance at Brighton’s Jubilee library on a cold March evening. A panel, consisting of Richard Crane , former resident dramatist at the National Theatre, Peter Gutteridge,  the Observer’s crime fiction critic, and Laura Wilson, the Observer’s crime fiction critic,  and chaired by Faynia Williams, , discussed his work following free screenings of Gaslight and Rope earlier in the week. In her introduction Williams referred to Doris Lessing’s, Grahame Greene’s and Hitchcock’s’ admiration of Hamilton. Why then, she asked, is he not taught in schools?

Vernal equinox

It being the vernal equinox, it seems a good time to moan about a weather site I was using, Accuweather. After North America moved to summer time early this year,  apparently to save energy, Accuweather decided to move the rest of the world to summer time too, regardless of our quaint local customs. I queried this with them and had an e-mail back saying, "we do not currently compensate for Daylight Savings [sic] Time in international locations". Fie, for shame! It was a rotten site anyway, with irritating advertisements.  I shall use the BBC in future: their forecasts are less detailed and often wrong, but at least they know what time it is.

The final reckoning for Cheltenham, and some selections at Uttoxeter and Wexford

The last day of Cheltenham salved my wounds a little: two good winners in Wichita Linesman and Kauto Star.
The overall score:
Selections: 24
Winners: 4
Placed: 1
Strike rate: 16.67%
For today:
315 Uttoxeter: Nil Desperandum
330 Wexford: Sacundai
350 Uttoxeter: Geeveem