How on earth do sportswriters do it? Do they write most of their football/cricket/tennis report while the action is going on, and then go back and write the intro when they know what the result is? Or do they wait till it’s all over to start writing? Or do they guess what the result is going to be, write straight through, and then hastily rewrite when a two-footed tackle and a controversial sending-off turn the whole thing upside down in the last five minutes (which they certainly would in tennis)?

Nobody’s ever told me. I wasn’t trained for this. All my life I dreamt of being a sports writer, but after twenty years in journalism — news, features, Parliament, restaurants — I have suddenly fulfilled that dream out of a clear blue sky, and have no idea how to do it.

I say “fulfilled that dream”. But this is not football or cricket or tennis that I am watching. It is not even shove ha’penny. It’s synchronised swimming.

It is, specifically, a test event at the Olympic Aquatics Centre. A qualifying tournament for the last three European Olympic places (I think), and a chance for late team selection (I believe), but mostly an opportunity for everyone involved in the Olympics — stewards, police, transport, ambulance crews, caterers, journalists (like me, who will be covering the Games for you in the summer, God help us) — to have a dry-run ahead of future dry-runs, ahead of the Games themselves and then whatever comes after them (a vibrant East London cultural hub, or emptiness, wind and tumbleweed?).

So. I’m going to put my neck out at this quarter-way stage in the day’s action and get on with my report. From the top:

On a sweltering afternoon in the packed Aquatics Centre, when something went ferociously wrong with the heating system and even the Japanese reporters (the only other nationality bothering to cover it) were sweating rivers into their laptops, the Russians stormed to a massive victory in this very important thing, whatever it is.

The first girls into the water (does one say “girls”? “women” seems preposterous) were from the People’s Republic of Korea, which I think is the bad Korea, in the North. Certainly, their music and unanimity of action was very military. They scored 84.9, which is apparently quite good, and I certainly wouldn’t like to see that sort of precision allied to a nuclear capability. Or even a small pistol.

San Marino, who came next, were better at this than they are at football, but not much. And the Finns sent a couple of beefy giants who were even worse. The Turks wore a lot of orange and sank. Then the Russians, who I’m told are the world champions, hopped in and did enough to score 97.8, which was more than everyone else had scored so far, put together. So really we could all have gone home there and then. Except I gather one doesn’t.

So this seems a good time to tell you that the “Javelin” train from St Pancras to Stratford International is AMAZING. Less than six minutes. By the time I had grumbled through four carriages looking for a table of my own, we were there. With this kind of service, the Games are as good as in Central London.

The station was an empty concrete canyon but the park and its environs (they cleverly make you walk through the Westfield Shopping Centre to get here) are wonderful: beautiful Zaha Hadid buildings and properly good restaurant franchises like Wahaca, Bumpkin, The Real Greek, and Cabana, where I had barbecued skewers of lamb, pork and monkfish (though the fish could have maybe done with a barding of ham to protect it from the worst excesses of the fire) and a cheeky Portuguese rosé.

Hang on, the other Koreans are in the water, the nice ones, and they’ve scored ... 86.8! The bad Koreans don’t look happy. This could become a major incident, and it’s a bloody good job that rocket test earlier in the week backfired, or we could all have been toast before the Games even started.

Now, I can’t decide whether to do interviews with the contestants for you. Apparently any girl in a bikini that I point out to an official HAS to come and talk to me. Which feels a bit Silvio Berlusconi if you ask me.

Ooh, I might go and talk to these Czech lasses though . . .

It’s America now, and their fans are chanting “USA! USA!” How lame. And they’re performing to Aretha Franklin’s Think, same as the Turks. Predictable college bop dancefloor filler. NEXT!

This is doubles, by the way. Not the team event. Just two girls in a huge swimming pool. It’s a bit like watching a pair of eight-year-old twins showing off to their parents in the hotel pool with “funny” dives and a lot of splashing about. But the crowd loves it. Especially the Borat tune the Kazakhstan pair seems to be using. And the atmosphere is great. And the Dutch girls are doing it to Meat Loaf. And these girls are in truth staggering athletes — no Olympian holds his breath for longer (apart from the guy on end of day loo-cleaning duty). And the facilities are amazing. And it’s all going to settle into a rhythm marvellously by July.

Russia did win in the end (we old stagers are rarely wrong on these things). But Spain were just wonderful in coming second. I was convinced they would outscore the Russkies and was on my feet waiting for their numbers — it’s amazing how you get into these things as the day goes on. There were even false starts with the Italians and the French (you get a reprieve, as you no longer do in the 100m) and then the Japanese, who were hugely fancied and have won medals at every Olympics since the synchro was introduced (hence the heavy presence of their press — who did not look happy with their score and scampered off to claim their interviews before the girls had even left the pool), had a bit of a nightmare, though they can still qualify if they ace the “free” routine on Friday. And, and, and . . . the Olympics are going to be BRILLIANT.

Made me chuckle on the train in to work

The new legislation on data access to be announced in the Queen’s Speech would do away with all this. Instead it would require all ISPs and social networks to build a “back door” into their systems — effectively a portal through which the State can instantly access all user data. It allows snooping in real time.

Such a system was first proposed by the FBI in the 1990s when telephone companies were building digital systems. The companies opposed it for reasons of cost and design, but the Clinton Administration sweetened the pill with $500 million of public money and successfully lobbied Europe to follow suit. Because of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), all the world’s leading telecommunications companies now have interception “back doors” built in as standard.

Whether this has made us safer is debatable. But one proven consequence has been to provide intelligence services in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain, China and other autocratic states with a handy tool to monitor pro-democracy protesters and political opponents.

I did not know about this! Good article (sub required) about the current (much noted) plans to snoop on emails and online activity - they already have the right to request information from Google and Twitter, but don't want the hassle of having to ask the companies for our information and instead want a direct back door which they can use anytime. How could you ever have a problem with that?

This quote caught my eye, they have had a back door in the telephone network (and it includes VoIP).

Good article on the Daily Mail and it's Editor.

Good article on the Daily Mail and it's Editor.

I didn't expect much from this This American Life (a well known, brilliant, US based radio documentary series) providing background to the European debt crisis.

But I should have known better, full of detail and well paced, have a listen sometime, it's worth it.

* Wide bus and cycle lanes in each direction covering the two and a half miles between the Amex stadium and the Vogue Gyratory near Sainsbury’s.  For cars the road would be reduced from two lanes in each direction to one

* A continuous on-road two metre-wide cycle lane both north and south   through the Vogue Gyratory system.

* Widening the shared pedestrian and cycle lane for 300 metres north of Coldean Lane

* An enhanced cycle network to the north giving access to the Amex stadium and both universities

* Extending the 30mph speed limit northwards to near the Amex.

This is quite a big development, the Lewes road is one of the few main roads out of Brighton, it ends at the A27 (which runs above Brighton) where the University of Sussex (where I work) is located.

It is currently two lanes each way, the proposal seems to be to turn one lane each way in to a Bus route, and enlarge the cycle lanes. As a very occasional cyclist (and sans car) this is good news for me, though there is already a cycle lane for the most of the way which I find pretty good.

The worst point by far is the Vogue Gyratory - a sort of roundabout with traffic lights, but not a roundabout at all, and not following any rules used by roundabouts. As well as roads shooting off in various directions (including, brilliantly, two roads that can join it at the same point, which both are on Go at the same time), there is also a petrol station in the middle, and the entrance/exit to a large supermarket car park as well. There is no cycle path at this point, every man and woman for him or herself. Which is less fun when you are next to a bendy bus, or in fact any vehicle, and most of the time you are cycling in the middle of the road, not next to a kerb. There are plans to add a cycle path here.

The other pain point is once you get to the edge of town. The road level cycle path disappears, and you join pedestrians on a narrow, bumpy, overgrown footpath. Simply not up to the job of many people cycling and walking to and from campus. Bullet point three eludes to improvements here (but 300 metres sounds a little sort to refer to the whole of this stretch).

It will be interesting to see how motorists react to the reduced lanes and reduced speed.

Last year Brighton and Hove was controlled by the Tories, who were spending money removing cycle lanes (inexcusable). Now the Greens have near control of the council and things couldn't be more different.

Abstract

Academic libraries are turning increasingly to unified search solutions to simplify search and discovery of library resources. Unfortunately, very little research has been published on library user search behavior in single search box environments. This study examines how users search a large public university library using a prominent, single search box on the library website. The article examines two semesters of real-world data, totaling nearly 1.4 million transactions. Findings include that unified library search is about more than the catalog and articles, though these predominate. Additionally, a small number of the most popular search queries accounts for a disproportionate amount of the overall queries. Also discussed are the merits of ongoing evaluation of library user search behaviour.

I haven't had time to properly read this yet. But a timely look at how users use a search box for a library. Perhaps also a good example of the failings of the current Scholarly Communication model. Accepted in December 2011 (and presumably written months before then) and not published until March 2013.

Why then do we support this legislation? We are against unwarranted and potentially harmful government laws that could undermine the sustainability of the peer-review publishing system. The RWA’s purpose is simply to ensure that the US government cannot enshrine in law how journal articles or accepted manuscripts are disseminated without involving publishers. We oppose in principle the notion that governments should be able to dictate the terms by which products of private sector investments are distributed, especially if they are to be distributed for free. And private sector means not just commercial publishers like Elsevier, but also not-for-profit and society publishers.

nonsense.

The US Government (through the NIH) dictates *nothing* to publishers.

It dictates to *researchers* that as a requirement of US funds for a research project come, a researcher must make the research outputs openly available (e.g. via pubmed), as well as through a journal. Of course the research will therefore need to choose a publisher that will allow them to do this (as a traditional publisher will demand the copyright for the research, for nothing in return).

The parts announced Tuesday represent only a portion of Google’s plans. In an approach the company refers to as “rolling thunder,” Google has been quietly been pushing out pieces of its ambitious social strategy — there are well over 100 launches on its calendar. When some launches were greeted by yawns, the Emerald Sea team leaders weren’t ruffled at all — lack of drama is part of the plan. Google has consciously refrained from contextualizing those products into its overall strategy.

Great article about Google+ and how it is part of a larger move towards social. Larry Page moved his office to be in the same building as the Social project

Great article with background about Air France flight 447. An example of how good journalism can be.

(updated information after this article went to press can be found here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13572569 )

"HOW much would you pay for an annual subscription to Small Ruminant Research, Queueing Systems or Headache? University librarians pay rather a lot. In Britain, 65% of the money spent on content in academic libraries goes on journals, up from a little more than half ten years ago. With budgets tight, librarians are trying to resist price increases. But Derk Haank, the chief executive of Springer, a big publisher, is firm: “We have to make a living as well.”

And what a living it is. Academic journals generally get their articles for nothing and may pay little to editors and peer reviewers. They sell to the very universities that provide that cheap labour. As other media falter, academic publishers have soared. Elsevier, the biggest publisher of journals with almost 2,000 titles, cruised through the recession. Last year it made £724m ($1.1 billion) on revenues of £2 billion—an operating-profit margin of 36%."

Good general article about the state of academic scholarly publishing (I'm one of the commenters but my inadvertently does not show). And yes, the Library I work at does have access to it: http://xd5.be/2p )

From Communicating knowledge bibliometric analysis

Key findings
Dissemination practice
• There were significantly more outputs per author in 2008 than in 2003, particularly in
Biomedicine, and social sciences
• There were significantly more journal articles, and fewer monographs, in 2008 than in 2003
• There were significantly more multi-authored works in 2008 than in 2003, particularly in
social sciences and physical sciences
• There were significantly more inter-institutional collaborations, and more international
collaborations, in 2008 than in 2003
Citation practice
• There was no difference in the average number of citations per output between 2003 and
2008 overall
• There were significant differences between disciplines in the numbers of citations per
publication – humanities cite the greatest number of works on average; engineering the
fewest
• Monographs had an average of over 230 references each, compared to 38 for journal
articles and 47 for book chapters
• Significantly more journal articles, and fewer books and grey literature works were cited in
2008 than in 2003
• Biomedicine, physical sciences and social sciences cite twice as many articles per
publication as other disciplines
• Humanities, and, to a lesser extent, social sciences and education, cite more books per
output on average than other disciplines
• Social sciences, and, to a lesser extent, education, cite more grey literature per output on
average than other disciplines
• Social sciences, education and humanities cite more websites than Biomedicine, physical
sciences or engineering
• Books and book chapters are most likely to cite books/book chapters
• Conference outputs are most likely to be cited in conference proceedings