Tom Roper's Weblog

In agriculture, learn from Dazhai

When I was a young thing in revolutionary China there were two slogans, in agriculture, learn from Dazhai and in industry, learn from Daqing. The capitalist version of this, with which librarians have been bombarded throughout the thirty-two years I've practiced the art, is that we should learn from the great wisdom and successes of the private sector.

That this is manifest rubbish is obvious to anyone who's been awake for the past few years, but we seem to be seeing a renewed propaganda effort by those who think that finance capital can do no wrong. Nowhere more so than in the area of customer service.

When I was made redundant recently my colleagues, touchingly and with less than twenty-four hours notice, clubbed together and bought me a leaving present, a Waterstones gift card. Now Waterstones are one of those bookshops that we in libraries are so often exhorted to emulate. I was delighted by my ex-fellow workers' thoughfulness. I ordered two books I have coveted for some time, Julian Bell's Mirror of the World and Gabriel Josipovici's Everything Passes. The Bell came quickly, and is a great book; the Josipovici, though easily obtainable and in print, seemed to cause them problems. I checked my account online from time to time, and it was still shown as on order. Today I had an e-mail from them. It said: 'We are writing to you to inform you that your order contained an item(s) that we are unable to deliver. This is because our supplier has been unable to fulfil the order and/or the item(s) are unavailable to us.' This is poorly phrased, but let that pass. What could I do to find something else to use the present my colleagues had kindly given me. The message further said that, 'Please note that if you paid for your order using a gift card, Waterstone's Loyalty Card or e-wallet credit, the amounts used will be refunded to your e-wallet (giftcard/e-wallet credit) or Waterstone's Card. However, when I checked my account on Waterstones, the amount had not been credited to my account. I looked around the website for advice on what to do, but there was none, At this point I must have lost my presence of mind, for I then decided to ring them. After a bewildering series of options, repeated invitations to look at the web site I'd just been to to find the answer to my question, and a fifteen minute wait, I spoke to a human. He was perfectly pleasant, but said that they could not credit my account for 72 hours (what? the colleagues who bought me the gift card had to hand their money over then and there) and that they could not give me a refund. Having decided on the Josipovici, there seemed to me no reason why, if they could not provide it, they could not give me the money to go and buy it elsewhere. He promised he would ask his supervisor who was 'on the phone' and ring or e-mail me back within a half-hour. I have heard nothing.

Queen Elizabeth II Stakes

Earlier in the week I had considered Red Jazz for a chance of a place, but looking at the ground, it seems unlikely that he will be near Makfi at the finish. So my boringly predictable selections are:
Ascot 230: Frankel
Ascot 305: Theysken's Theory
Ascot 340: Redford
Ascot 415: Makfi

Man Booker: one down, five to go

This is a small experiment to see if it is possible, using only the public libraries I belong to, to read the six books short-listed for the 2010 Man Booker prize before the winner is announced. On 7 September, when the shortlist came out, I reserved them all. About thirty minutes ago I finished Andrea Levy's The Long Song . I enjoyed it, though I'm not sure it should win. July, a slave in Jamaica until emancipation, tells her harrowing story in retrospect. It's well done, but I fear I found it conventional. I also have Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America to start, and Seaford library e-mailed me to say that Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question is available. As for the others, I reserved Tom McCarthy's C with East Sussex, and am third on a waiting list of three. I reserved Emma Donoghue's Room with both East Sussex and Brighton and Hove, and am 13th out of 18 and 58th out of 97 requesters respectively. As for Damon Galgut's In a Strange Room, I am 3rd of 18 with Brighton and Hove.

The prize is awarded on 12 October so I have five books to read in eighteen days. I could do that easily; when preparing for Oxford entrance exams I had to read what felt like the whole corpus of English literature in a term. But I don't feel very confident about the ability of these libraries to provide copies in time.

Have libraries increased the numbers of copies in stock since I last checked on 9 September? Yes, but many are still on order, which suggests that library suppliers may be as much at fault as libraries. <

Author	Brighton & Hove	East Sussex
Carey	5 more copies ordered, but only 3 of 13 copies actually circulating	21 copies in stock, no increase, but only 10 in circulation
Donoghue	Another 6 copies ordered, of 15 copies only 4 circulating	1 copy to satisfy 19 reservations; 7 more on order
Galgut	2 copies in stock, an extra 5 on order	8 copies (curiously the first display in the catalogue claims 9, but next screen shows only 8)
Jacobson	Another 8 copies ordered, but only 2 out of 13 actually circulating	Another 8 copies in the system, all 13 circulating
Levy	Have ordered another 5 copies, 8 copies not in circulation	No change, 24 copies, but 10 of these held in store
McCarthy	Another 5 copies ordered, but only 2 of 13 circulatingk	1 copy on order (still!)

I see there's also an iPhone app, and as it's free I'll download it, but I'm disappointed to see that while it will link to bookshops, it won't to libraries. And why is it age-restricted?

Ayr Gold Cup day

There's some big fields today, and the Racing Post comments that the Scoop Six is well-nigh impossible. I toyed with Genki for the Gold Cup, but I think David Nicholl's runner has the better chance.

I go for these:
Newbury 230: Crown Prosecutor
Ayr 245: Rimth
Newmarket 255: Roman Eagle
Newbury 305: Forte dei Marmi
Ayr 320: Victoire de Lyphar
Newbury 340: Hamish McGonagall

Gulls, cony-catchers and cozeners

I came out of a job interview and, in need of the juice of the roasted beans of plants of the genus Coffea, walked down one of those wide streets on the borders of the City. I should have known that this was a louche area. A drunk man in a high-visibility jacket was shouting at passers-by, but I skilfully avoided him. A little way onwards, an elderly, toothless and unshaven man accosted me. The following words were exchanged.

'Hi, how are you it must be twenty years, don't say you don't remember me?", thus spoke ETUMan
' Um, sorry', I replied
' Come on, man, it was the eighties, it's Ali, you know me. I said to myself, if he doesn't remember me, I'll kill him'
I racked my brain. 'Were you a friend of L's?', I asked, naming the only person I could remember who had a friend who could possibly have been the degenerate in front of me.
'Of course, are you still in touch with her? Give me your phone number.' And at this he produced a pen and a bundle of filthy William Hill betting slips from his pocket. 'Give me your number, so I can get in touch, and you can tell me hers'. I was in a panic; clearly I had to write something down, but who was he? I still didn't remember him, and he had not, I realised, used my name at all in the conversation. Fortunately the pen, also the property of Messrs Hill, failed to work.
'So what are you doing, man?' By now, I was suspicious, but I saw no reason why I should not vouchsafe my employment status.
'I'm unemployed, I've just been for an interview.'
He melted away; clearly there were no pickings for him here.

I have a poor track record with con-artists. I once gave a man who accosted me in Westminster £40 to get back to Truro, which he promised faithfully to send to me, but never did.

I must record that when I found coffee, it was at the most extraordinary place, Look Mum No Hands, a café cum cycle workshop cum shrine to the muse of cycling.

St Leger Day

Today is St Leger day at Doncaster and at the Curragh. It's hard to see any reasons to oppose Rewilding in the English race; the Irish one looks more open.
Doncaster 210: Walter's Dream
Doncaster 245: Quest for Success
The Curragh 310: Pathfork
Doncaster 320: Rewilding
The Curragh 345: Profound Beauty
Doncaster 355: Rainfall

Blog posted here.

The Man Booker shortlist

Is the availability of the Man Booker Shortlist a measure of public library performance?

The shortlist is:

Peter Carey Parrot and Olivier in America Faber and Faber

Emma Donoghue Room Picador

Damon Galgut In a Strange Room Atlantic

Howard Jacobson The Finkler Question Bloomsbury

Andrea Levy The Long Song Headline

Tom McCarthy C Jonathan Cape

I went to the two public library catalogues I use most frequently, Brighton & Hove and East Sussex. This is what I found:

Author	Brighton & Hove	East Sussex
Carey	Eight copies in stock	Twenty-one copies in stock
Donoghue	Nine copies on order or in stock	One copy in stock (with fourteen reservations!)
Galgut	Two copies in stock	No copies
Jacobson	Five copies in stock	Five copies in stock
Levy	Nineteen copies in stock	Twenty four copies in stock
McCarthy	Eight copies in stock	One copy on order

I'd already reserved the Finkler Question, and have reserved C, The Long Song and Parrot and Olivier with East Sussex, and In A Strange Room and Room with Brighton and Hove; what are the chances of these arriving in time for me to read them before the judging on 12 October? Poor old Damon Galgut doesn't do too well in this, I would have thought both authorities would need more copies of Howard Jacobson's, and how on earth do East Sussex think they'll get by with one copy of Emma Donoghue's and one, that hasn't even arrived yet, of Tom McCarthy's.

Plants can't read

'The propagation of this plant without a licence is forbidden'; so reads the label on a rose I bought today for a relative's 90th birthday tomorrow. I don't believe she reads this blog so I think I am safe in disclosing this.

Could there be a better example of the crazy lengths to which capitalism will go than to try to regulate a plant's propagation? Apart from the fact that the plant can't read, so won't know that it is in breach of the grower's intellectual property rights as it does what comes naturally, flowering and fruiting to reproduce itself, would they make criminals of every gardener who knows how to cut and graft, and goes forth on expeditions to other gardens with secateurs, rooting powder and plastic bags?