Tom Roper's Weblog

Frog Spawn Development

When I was a boy I would often go out and observe frog spawn in ponds, on Coe Fen and further afield. In our garden pond we had newts. Everything is Permuted has some extraordinary pictures: Frog Spawn Development]

frogspawn

Food for the aorta

Making suet dumplings as part of my pre-marathon diet, I was struck by the curious fact that the manufacturer's name is an anagram of aorta, the artery that I am about to clog.

suet, dumplings, anatomy

Navan and Newbury

A quiet day, before next week's Aintree meeting.

255 Newbury: Scarvagh Diamond
325 Newbury: Dancing Dasi
340 Navan: The Railway Man
450 Navan: Mutineer

Free wireless at the British Library

The British Library, thanks to the efforts of the British Library Readers Forum, is to offer free wireless for a trial period of six months, starting in October. The BL was persuaded by the Forum's arguments that a free system was actually the easiest to operate and most in line with the Library's purpose of open access for all.
See this for the bad old days: http://tomroper.typepad.com/tr/2004/09/british_library.html

PS: on Saturday the Guardian ran a profile of Heather Brooke, without whom ( and her Your Right to Know blog) none of this would have happened:

wifi

Epictetus

Today I join an online Greek reading group, reading the Enchiridion of Epictetus. I hope I can keep up with the pace, but I hope to do my homework on the train.

I've never learnt anything this way before. It will be hard work for me, though far more so for the convenor who has to collate all our submissions.

elearning

Plumpton

I went to Plumpton, accompanied by the Burra Mem and no 2 child. We had a succesful afternoon, though arrived late: I scored two winners, while the BM managed 1.

The going was heavy, and then some.
3.40: Joli Classical (won)
4.15: L'Alsacien
4.50: Foly Pleasant
5.25: Pochard
5.55: Jordan (won)

The Flat

I was struck that, of the four selections I made on Saturday, three on the flat and one over jumps, my judgement was only true in the Carlisle race. And how fast the Doncaster races were, over in an instant, as unsatisfying as fast food.

In this morning's Observer, which, by the way, cannot be bothered to print the race cards for the days three meetings at Musselburgh, Plumpton andTowcester, Nic Coward, chief executive of the British Horseracing Authority, is quoted as saying, 'one of our challenges is how to take a traditional fixture list built on centuries of understanding how horses develop...and build something into the existing framework to bring it to life for more people. A lot of it is about narrative. The summer story is not an easy one.'

Ignoring Coward's use of vogueish PR vocabulary such as 'narrative' and 'story', nothing could be easier to understand than the sequence of flat races through the year, the steady increase in distance from the Guineas meetings through to the autumn meetings at Newmarket, the criss-cross as racing moves from Doncaster to Newmarket to Chester to Epsom to Ascot to York to Newmarket, and so on...if the chief executive of the leading body of the sport cannot see the 'story', heaven help us all.

Spring has sprung

Spring must have sprung, for the flat season opens at Doncaster today, after yesterday's rest. The Guardian reports moves to fix the date of Easter and that William Hill shops opened yesterday, in spite of there being no British horseracing to bet on. Opponents of the present system of arriving at the date of Easter, and of stopping racing on Good Friday, are frustrated by the continuing existence of days when they can't fleece the public. Though a militant atheist, if the present system was good enough for the Council of Nicea, it's good enough for me. Jockeys, trainers and lads need a couple of days a year off the relentless, bookie-driven juggernaut. There's no need to attach them to Christian superstition; we could just as well use the even crazier lunar calendars of some other cults.

250 Doncaster: Zaahid
325 Doncaster: Wi Dud
340 Carlisle: Star Player
400 Doncaster: Vitzanau

Our Longest Days: A People's History of the Second World War

One of the many excellent add-ons to LibraryThing is the Early Reviewers group. Members sign up, are entered in a monthly draw for a limited number of titles donated by publishers, and, if successful, are encouraged to write a review. Publishers and authors get free publicity for their new titles, readers get free books, and LibraryThing is enriched by the reviews added to bald catalogue records.

Some of the titles are only available to North American readers, but I was pleased to see in the March list of titles for British users the late Sandra Koa Wing's Our Longest Days: A People's History of the Second World War by The Writers of Mass Observation. I expressed an interest and was even more pleased when I had an e-mail telling me I had been successful. As soon as the book arrives, and taking advantage of the time afforded for reading by my new commuting life-style, I shall read and review it as quickly as I can, and post the review here, against the book's entry in my LibraryThing library and in the Early Reviewers group.

Sandra Koa Wing worked in the University of Sussex Library's renowned Special Collections before her early death last year. There is a fund in her memory. I met her when I worked at the University, through the Library and a study day in 2004, Our Hidden Lives: Publishing Everyday Diaries organised by the Centre for Life History and came to know her blog, which survives her, A Glimpse from the Attic

massobservation

Uttoxeter and Weatherby

With an unavoidable sense of anti-climax, racing forsakes Cheltenham for the everyday: the Midlands Grand National meeting at Uttoxeter in which I take Arnold Layne to win the big race, and a small affair at Weatherby.

150 Uttoxeter: Pertemps Networks
220 Uttoxeter: Kings Euro
225 Weatherby: Sprosser
255 Uttoxeter: El Zorro
330 Uttoxeter: Arnold Layne