Tom Roper's Weblog

Doncaster and Sandown

An exciting day: Tony McCoy goes for his 3,000th winner, with two to go, and two rides today; also there's a lot of money to be had if anyone can crack the fiendishly difficult Scoop 6. These two phenomena come together in the 345 Chase at Sandown, in which McCoy rides Eric's Charm, my selection, and one that will be the final leg's selection for many Scoop 6 punters.

Sandown 235: Herecomesthetruth
Doncaster 300: I'm so lucky
Sandown 310: Blue Shark
Doncaster 330: Jass
Sandown 345: Eric's Charm

Christine Reid: What If?

I enjoyed a presentation at Kingston University's Information Services staff development event, to which they generously invited representatives from partner institutions such as my own South Thames College.

Christine Reid, from Strathclyde's Business School, gave a tour d'horizon of technical and social developments, asking at the end how our services would meet these challenges. It was a presentation that defies blogging, at least as a linear account. She didn't say much about the impact the current financial crisis and consequent slump might have on technology, on society and on the way we deliver services. It seems clear to me that we will not be unaffected, and I think it may mean we have to rethink the simplistic belief, the Whig view of networking as it were, that there will be continual and unimpeded progress towards a wired utopia.

But a lot of the issues she discussed were echoed in a paper by Lorcan Dempsey which has been sitting in my briefcase for weeks and which I finally read on the train on the way to the meeting:

Dempsey, Lorcan. "Always on: Libraries in a world of permanent connectivity" First Monday [Online], Volume 14 Number 1 (30 December 2008)

The meeting was enriched for me by some serendipitous discoveries with fellow delegates.

Auntie's impartiality

Whatever position one takes on the BBC's refusal to show the Disasters Emergency Committee's appeal for the people of Gaza, their protestations about impartiality ring hollow. I had in the post the other day, I can't imagine why, a mailing from the local Tories inviting me to an Energy Forum where, doubtless, the speakers would turn up on bicycles followed by flunkies carrying their briefcases in 4X4s. This event is to be opened by a BBC weather girl, Ms Lee-Preston. This is scarcely impartiality. I cannot not remember Michael Fish, Bill Giles or Ian McCaskill lending support to political parties. But I suppose I'm an old-fashioned Reithian.

Cheltenham and Doncaster

I made a vow to start adding some glosses to my selections, to make them more interesting. But I'm out of time, and beyond observing that the word heavy does not do justice to today's going, will plunge in medias res. Cheltenham 205: Private Be Cheltenham 235: Tidal Bay Doncaster 325: According to Pete Cheltenham 345: Punchestowns

LRB: Patrick Hamilton's drinking and Athenian democracy

The paper version has yet to arrive, but the London Review of Books Newsletter alerts me to two articles I must read in the new issue:
Christopher Tayler on Patrick Hamilton's Drinking
David Runciman on Athenian Democracy and Google

The e-versions are for subscribers only, but readers who want to follow this up could either buy a copy of this issue, or even subscribe.

Writers' rooms

Though I've had my own study, for the first time since school-days, for nearly three months now, the Guardian have yet to send a photographer to capture it for their writers' rooms series which appears in the Review on Saturdays. They prefer to give space to less significant  talents. No matter, because now we have blogs and every man and woman can be their own Guardian Review.

My desk. It belonged to my father, a GP, and he sat behind it in his surgery on the ground floor of our house in Cambridge. It is Victorian, but I do not know its provenance. It may have belonged to my grandfather, also a doctor, or my father may have bought it. He would sit behind it; on the other side, tens of thousands of patients sat on uncomfortable chairs, to be told good news or bad, to hear diagnoses and prognoses, to be given prescriptions or referrals, to have their infants vaccinated and their suffering alleviated.

This pestle and mortar sit on the desk. My father still, in the early stages of his career, dispensed his own medicines, my mother acting as apothecary's assistant, but he kept these for decorative purposes. I still regret that, when he retired, he sold his leech jar to a local chemist who collected such things, though it would have been too large to keep on a desk.

Some books. At last all my books are out on shelves, rather than inaccessible in boxes in a garage. They are two or even three deep in some cases, and the arrangement is not yet logical. There are a lot to add to LibraryThing.

Technology corner: this doesn't do justice to the mare's nest of cords, chargers and other electronic detritus here. It needs a thorough purge.

A writing case, used by my mother. Like so many of her generation, she was a great correspondent, with her mother, her sister and old friends, and disappointed that the practice fell into abeyance. I know use the case for writing paper and envelopes for my much rarer letter-writing.

And finally the view from the window of Seaford rooftops and gardens. Corsica Hall stand slightly elevated to the left of the photograph, behind it the sea

Guardian on OCLC records

It is rare for the Guardian to report on library catalogue intellectual property issues, but OCLC appears, though without glory, in a piece in the technology supplement this morning on the records ownership controversy:

Why you can't find a library book in your search engin

Perceptions 2008: an International Survey of Library Automation

Marshall Breeding of Vanderbilt University Library has published the 2008 library automation survey. I read it with close attention, as we analyse our requirements for a new system at South Thames College, for the new organisation that will be the result of our merger with Merton, South West London College.
Perceptions 2008: an International Survey of Library Automation.

Sussex wrecking

How strange.It's just over a year to the day since our last lot of free timber, from the Ice Prince. Sadly the latest reports suggest the timber is likely to end up in Kent.
BBC NEWS | England | Sussex | Ship loses timber in rough seas.

Ascot, Haydock and Wincanton

Selections today are somewhat overshadowed by the news that Great Leighs, the first new racecourse to be opened for eighty years, has gone into administration, after the British Horseracing Authority refused to grant them a licence for 2009; they had been running on a temporary licence for their first meetings of the year. I doubt if many race-goers are surprised. Apart from the fact that it was an all-weather track, the opening was delayed several times, then the admission arrangements were bungled. I never visited during its brief life and, I'm sorry to say, feel none the poorer for it.

Ascot 105: Lead On
Haydock 120: Snap Tie
Haydock: Dear Villez
Ascot 215: Master Minded
Ascot 250: Circus Rose
Wincanton 345: Zacharova