To celebrate this blog going past the 50,000 views mark, I chomped on some green curry crickets. Nice, they were!
Crickets
You can get them at Harvey Nichols.
50,000 may not be much in general website terms, but I think it’s quite good for a retirement blog.
Washing machine soap container
Even though I’ve received training in this, I can’t remember where the soap goes, and what the other bits are for.
Last night we went to the Salisbury Arms, opposite the Commonwealth Pool. Nice pub – I haven’t been there since 1970, when it was a student bar, and had another name.
Jon Jacobs was playing an acoustic set.
Evening's entertainment
Jon Jacobs
Jon has a lovely voice, and normally plays in The Wee Small Hours, a successful party band. He plays a wide range of music and styles, and can even sound just like Stevie Wonder.
I made the mistake of going for a bike ride with Fat Mac on Sunday afternoon, in an attempt to get him to do some exercise. Within a mile of his house he was completely lost, on a cycle path heading for Balerno, which wasn’t the original plan. I think he knows of a cheap pub in Balerno, or something. Starting at Stockbridge and going round in circles, after half an hour of cycling we emerged from the path at my insistence, and somehow had only got to Murrayfield.
We headed off north west for a while, with Fat Mac puffing up the hills like an old steam engine, when he suddenly shot off downhill at great speed. He’d remembered a pub in Crammond, and there was no stopping him.
We had a couple of pints there, and then left to head back into town along West Shore Road.
“This is a mistake, Rods!” he complained, “There are no pubs on this road.”
Eventually he found one, and then another, and then another. We ended up in The Shebeen Bar, on Dock Place.
Shebeen Bar barman
The barman in The Shebeen Bar, who was South African despite being a dead ringer for Darren Lehmann, was very entertaining. He can juggle glasses and bottles like they do in movies, catching them behind his back, etc. No-one in The Shebeen knew the cricket score from the South Africa/Australia test. We drank Namibian lager, which was excellent.
I then discovered that every time I’d been going outside for a ciggie, Fat Mac had been ordering an extra pint for himself, so by the end of the evening he couldn’t work his bike lights, and had lost his padlock key. Fortunately, I’d used my padlock to chain up both bikes.
I had a nice ride home. Fat Mac fell off his bike twice on his way back to Stockbridge.
TheBlissBook is the first book I’ve read on my new Kindle. It is by John McKenzie, and cost only £0.86
I read this book for a number of reasons. Firstly, I wanted to see how easy it was to download a book onto the Kindle. It was very easy. Secondly, I know the author. In fact, I was John’s line manager on more than one occasion when we both worked for Heriot-Watt University Library. Thirdly, the lead character in the book is a librarian based in Edinburgh. A school librarian, in fact, so fortunately it is not based on the author’s time with me in university, but rather on the librarian of ‘St Jobsies for de Boysies’ – a semi-fictitious, disfunctional catholic school. I say fortunately, because early on, the school librarian’s boss meets a sticky end.
The lead character is a rather unusual school librarian – he is known by the pupils as ‘The Mad Librarian Who Can Stand on His Head’ and who, when he catches a thug kicking in the door of the library, grips him tightly by the collar and tells him “Do that again and I’ll pull your legs off, ya wee shite!”
There’s a lot of humour in TheBlissBook, and I chuckled to myself on just about every page. Behind the humour is one serious issue – the sad state of many school libraries in the UK. It all gets too much for the ‘Mad Librarian’, despite his Buddhist tendencies, and mayhem results.
If you have anything to do with libraries, you’ll really enjoy this book. If you’re a teacher, you may be shocked by it, and want it banned. If you’re a parent with kids at school, you should definitely read it. If you’re a pupil attending secondary school, I guarantee that you’ll fall off your seat laughing at it.
I’ve added the following titles to JournalTOCs, the free current awareness service for researchers, students and lecturers. These are mostly subscription journals from various publishers, though in some cases some or all content may be freely available online.
Advances in Nutrition –
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American Journal of Critical Care –
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American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy –
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American Journal of Occupational Therapy –
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American Journal of Public Health –
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Anticancer Research –
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In Vivo –
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Asian Cardiovascular and Thoracic Annals –
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Biological Bulletin –
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Canadian Family Physician –
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Cancer Discovery –
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Cardiac Cath Lab Director –
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Cell Biology Education –
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Molecular Biology of the Cell –
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Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine –
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Cold Spring Harbor Protocols –
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College & Research Libraries News –
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Contemporary Education Dialogue –
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Critical Care Nurse –
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Current Legal Problems –
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Imaging –
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Economic Geology –
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Environmental History –
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Frontline Gastroenterology –
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Gifted Child Today –
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History and Sociology of South Asia –
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In Practice –
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Interface Focus –
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International Data Privacy Law –
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International Journal of Care Pathways –
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International Journal of Discrimination and the Law –
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International Review of Victimology –
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Interpretation : A Journal of Bible and Theology –
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Journal for the Education of the Gifted –
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Journal of Advanced Academics –
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Journal of Dental Education –
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Journal of Music Theory –
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Genre –
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Limnology and Oceanography: Fluids and Environments –
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Minnesota Review –
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Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art –
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Novel : A Forum on Fiction –
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Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery –
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Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine –
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Learning Disability Quarterly –
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Medical Law International –
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OAH Magazine of History –
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PDA Journal of Pharmaceutical Science and Technology –
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Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting –
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RBM : A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage –
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Review of Asset Pricing Studies –
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SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal –
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State Politics & Policy Quarterly –
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Veterinary Record –
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Vision : The Journal of Business Perspective –
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Yearbook of European Law –
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Yearbook of International Environmental Law –
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JournalTOCs now contains details of the latest Tables of Contents of over 17,200 scholarly journals, including over 2,600 Open Access journals.
I’ve added the following Open Access journals to JournalTOCs, where you can find the latest Tables of Contents from over 17,000 scholarly journals, including over 2,500 Open Access journals.
Previous journals added are listed here. Unfortunately, many other OA journals do not produce TOC RSS feeds – see my post on why they should. See also why any journal, OA or otherwise, should produce a TOC RSS feed.
If you know of any OA journals with TOC RSS feeds which are not already included in the JournalTOCs service, you can Suggest them for inclusion.
You can follow JournalTOCs on Twitter.
Vascular Cell –
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Web Ecology –
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Journal of Isfahan Dental School –
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Annals of Family Medicine –
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AoB Plants –
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Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery –
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Asian Journal of Neurosurgery –
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World Journal of Nuclear Medicine –
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AYU : An international quarterly journal of research in Ayurveda –
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Studia Anglica Posnaniensia –
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JournalTOCs now contains details of the latest Tables of Contents of over 17,100 scholarly journals, including over 2,600 Open Access journals.
