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All posts for the month November, 2011

50,000

Posted by Roddy MacLeod on November 30, 2011

Posted in: Meals. 7 Comments

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.

17 more Open Access (OA) Journals with TOC RSS feeds added to JournalTOCs, the free journal current awareness service

Posted by Roddy MacLeod on November 28, 2011

Posted in: Info stuff, Web. Leave a comment

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.

Mathal/Mashal : Journal of Islamic and Judaic Multidisciplinary Studies –
Latest Table of Contents via JournalTOCs

Ars Disputandi –
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International Journal of Integrated Care –
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International Journal of the Commons –
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International Journal of Biomedical and Advance Research –
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International Journal of Pharmaceutical Chemistry –
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International Journal of Biomedical Research –
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International Journal of Medical Research –
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International Journal of Pharmacology Research –
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International Journal of Advances in Pharmaceutical Analysis –
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International Journal of Phytopharmacy –
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Journal of Hydrology and Hydromechanics –
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Journal of Conservation and Museum Studies –
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Journal of Teacher Education for Sustainability –
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Inquietude : Revista dos Estudantes de Filosofia da UFG –
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Electra –
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Nursing Reports –
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JournalTOCs now contains details of the latest Tables of Contents of over 17,250 scholarly journals, including over 2,700 Open Access journals.

Things that baffle men #1

Posted by Roddy MacLeod on November 28, 2011

Posted in: General. 1 Comment

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.

Salisbury Arms

Posted by Roddy MacLeod on November 27, 2011

Posted in: Music. 6 Comments

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.

Cycling with Fat Mac

Posted by Roddy MacLeod on November 23, 2011

Posted in: General. 5 Comments

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.

A novel for everyone to enjoy

Posted by Roddy MacLeod on November 19, 2011

Posted in: Books. 4 Comments

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.

Many more Journals added to JournalTOCs

Posted by Roddy MacLeod on November 16, 2011

Posted in: Info stuff, Web. 4 Comments

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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