Random (Library) Meanderings

So I am going to be starting an MA in Library Science in September, at City University. So far so good. It'll be a part time MA over two years while I continue doing my usual work as well. So this Random Meanderings may well end up having a vaguely library feel on the odd occasion. Or not so odd occasion. I'll probably also end up with MA influenced tweets too. In fact I think it may influence my entire life. My poor family and bf :) If it wasn't bad enough to have to cope with the hundreds of books that I already share my life with...

I've been wondering what a Librarian actually looks like. I've known so many over the ten years that I've worked in libraries and they have ranged from the grey haired ladies with sensible shoes (think of the spectre at the start of Ghostbusters before she turns into a skeletal freak) to the self consciously hip and trendy ones wearing jeans and tshirts with logos. The main thing they have in common is their love of the job. Which is where I come in. No, I'm not saying that I'm going to be the scary version of the librarian. Although I guess if I ever go back to public sector and we ever get customers like some of the ones I've had to deal with in the past...no, I jest of course.

I went to the open evening at City on Wednesday. Got hideously lost en route due to my inability to follow directions and read maps simultaneously - a skill which was aided and abetted by a friendly stranger. This kind lady directed me a considerable way in completely the wrong direction and I only discovered this fact by checking with another person after deciding I'd been walking for an awfully long time with no recognisable street names appearing. Anyway.. once I reached the open evening I went to the talk about the course and came back full of information and ideas. In fact I came back buzzing with enthusiasm and the desire to read my books to prepare for the course.

Ok, I am slightly concerned that I won't be able to manage to work and study at the same time, especially given my previous health problems. The fact that I haven't studied academically since 1996 (apart from my C&G) is slightly alarming - but then I don't see why I shouldn't be able to do it!

Life is too short to not seize any opportunities that you get offered.

I can't wait until September :)

The (not so) Great Train Robber

In the papers they are talking about the Great Train Robber, Ronnie Biggs, and his son's disbelief about Ronnie being denied parole. He has apparently had 3 strokes, 2 heart attacks and skin cancer. Poor old man...but is he?

This poor old man is a thief, an incompetent thief admittedly and, he is also at least party to the vicious assault on Jack Mills (the train driver).

Mills was struck on the head with an iron bar and never recovered completely from the blow to the head, suffering severe headaches for the rest of his life. He was unable to work again.

Biggs was arrested and imprisoned but escaped from Wandsworth Prison. He fled to Australia with his wife and children, then to Brazil where he had a son. He made a record with the Sex Pistols, wrote a biography, got kidnapped, had a public party in Brazil for his 70th birthday with other Great Train Robbers, lived the life of a celebrity in Brazil, then decided after over 30 years 'on the run' that he wanted to return to England and:

"My last wish is to walk into a Margate pub as an Englishman and buy a pint of bitter."(as told to The Sun)

You get parole for being repentant. It doesn't sound like he is... Nowhere in any quotes is there anything saying that he wishes that he hadn't done it. That he is sorry that Jack Mills was injured.

"I am an old man and often wonder if I truly deserve the extent of my punishment. I have accepted it and only want freedom to die with my family and not in jail." (Biggs's public appeal)

His son is complaining that this isn't justice. For whom? Certainly not for Jack Mills...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/8131053.stm