Tom Roper's Weblog

Diary of a nobody

...or further thoughts about the Lebrecht programme, though now ancient history. But I still want to give my reactions to parts of the programme.

Sandown

I'm leaving the Agfa Hurdle well alone.
For the rest:
135: Bohemian Spirit
240: New Little Bric
315: Verasi
350: Flintoff

Language networks

Jill Kempshall of UWE, having read my column in the CILIP gazette (not online, I'm afraid) contacted me to point out that there is a network of language specialists, the West European Language Studies Library and Information Network (WESLINE), an umbrella group for specialist language groups such as ACLAIIR (Advisory Council of Latin American and Iberian Information Resources), the French Studies Library Group, the German Studies Library Group and the Italian Studies Library Group.
Some of their websites are in need of updating, but there are some useful resources nevertheless.

Lebrecht.live on blogs and art

I shall have more to say on the lebrecht.live programme on  blogging last night. First of all, it struck me forcibly that the BBC missed an opportunity. The programmes's web page merely says:
Norman Lebrecht debates another cultural issue with guests in the studio and around the world. This programme asks whether the blog is emerging as a new art form. In a media environment that is changing by the minute, news and comment about the arts are increasingly being driven by first-person websites. Is this the end of criticism as we know it, or the beginning of an interactive audience?
If I was producing a radio programme on blogging, I would, as a minimum, list the contributors, and link to their blogs, to say nothing of providing a way of monitoring comment on it.
Perhaps Radio Three interprets user-generated content to mean that others will do their job for them? Through frustration, I have .
The contributors were:
Anon of OperaChic
Mena Trott of SixApart
Dorian Lynskey of the Guardian Arts blog
Tim Heald, crime writer
John Sutherland, the LRB's internet expert 
To see comment on the programme, try this technorati search. I'll post more when I get round to writing it up.

Black Jack Ketchum

I've been in two minds all week about Black Jack Ketchum, as, it seems, has his trainer. I have some sympathy with PG's view, but when I looked at the opposition, could see nothing convincing. So I think he will handle the ground. Today's selections, all at Cheltenham, are:
100: Wichita Linesman
210: Black Jack Ketchum
245: Halcon Genelardais
320: Paulliac
355: Idole First

Lying about reading

A Museums, Libraries and Archives Council press release, which naughtily fails to give a reference to the survey they discuss, reports that, "a third of British adults have lied about reading a book to appear more intelligent".
They give a list of the top ten books people lie about reading, as follows:
1. The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R Tolkien
2. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
3. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
4. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus – John Gray
5. 1984 – George Orwell
6. Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone – J.K Rowling
7. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
8. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
9. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
10. Diary of Anne Frank – Anne Frank
This is ambiguous: did the survey find that people falsely claimed to have read these books, or falsely denied having read them? For myself, if I had read numbers 4, 6 or 9. I would keep very quiet about it; and I have read the first in the list, but in my defence I was quite young at the time. As for the assertion that, "one in ten men said they would fib about reading a certain book to impress the opposite sex", wide reading never did me any good. Having read Ulysses at the age of fourteen made most girls of my acquaintance look on me as a freak.

Advanced, forthright, signifficant

'Wot is yore opinion of colin wilson, the new philosopher?' sa fotherington-thomas, hanging by his weedy heels from the cross-bar.
'Advanced, forthright, signifficant,' i repli, kicking off the mud from my footer boots.
'He takes, i think, the place of t.s.eliot in speaking for the younger genneration. Have you any idea of the score?'
This exchange, from Back in the jug agane, the final volume of the Molesworth tetralogy, was irresistibly brought back to me when I heard Colin Wilson on the radio on Sunday, speaking on Private Passions. I read the Outsider when a young thing, and I found it hard to square the existential gloom of that work with the jolly-sounding man who discussed his obscure music choices with Michael Berkeley,
Willans, Geoffrey and Searle, Ronald
Molesworth
London: Penguin, 1999

Technorati Tags: existentialism, molesworth, outsider, radio3, stcustards

Haydock, Naas and Wincanton

Haydock 125: Torkinking
Haydock 155: Wild Cane Ridge
Naas 215: Mattock Ranger
Haydock 230: Amaretto Rose
Haydock 300: My Way de Slozen
Wincanton 350: Puntal

If the Academic Library Ceased to Exist...

I found this via ACRLblog

Cochrane, Lynn Scott
If the Academic Library Ceased to Exist, Would We Have to Invent It?
EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 42, no. 1 (January/February 2007): 6
http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm07/erm0714.asp

Reflections on the recent period of unemployment

Now I'm back in a job, I think I can speak my mind on the experience of being unemployed, and more particularly on some of my more negative job hunting experiences. I name no names, but hope fervently that when I was on the other side of the interview table, I never behaved like this. Certainly if I ever find myself recruiting again, I shall be scrupulous in giving candidates a fair chance..
Here are my top seven tips for recruiters:
1. If you wish to give your mistress a sinecure, but tiresome HR procedures force you to mount a sham recruitment, be sure to give the game away by kissing her passionately, in full view of other candidates, as you escort her down to reception at the end of her "interview".
2. Don't pay candidates' travel expenses promptly, if at all; the longer you delay, the more likely they are to give up. It does the unemployed good to get out of the house and they should grateful.
3. Ensure staff who meet candidates are briefed to be at their most surly. Nothing prepares a candidate better for an interview than a discourteous reception.
4. Divide the sheep from the goats more effectively with an old buffer on the interview panel who falls asleep. If he (for it was a he in my experience) can do so during the candidate's presentation, even better for morale.
5. Ensure unsuccessful candidates find out their fate accidentally, rather than directly from you. The best way to do this is to ensure they see the post re-advertised as publicly as possible before you can be arsed to tell them anything; they may well telephone you in a state of distress, ensuring great fun all round.
6. Candidates enjoy having to juggle coats and bags while appearing in front of the panel, Make sure there is no opportunity to leave such impedimenta in safe keeping.
7. Interviewing in an open plan office is fun, and privacy is very overrated. Make sure the whole team have the chance to eavesdrop on a candidate's stuttering answers.
And agencies are useless.

Technorati Tags: employment, interview, jobsearch