"free2rhyme"

In a recent attempt to register a new Yahoo email account, I was enraged and saddened in equal measure to see that their example of a 'typical' email address is free2rhyme@yahoo.co.uk

https://login.yahoo.com/config/login?.intl=uk&.src=ym&.done=http://uk.mail.yahoo.com&rl=1


It is simply nauseating to think that these Yahoo 'creatives' assume that anyone registering for one of their tawdry accounts is a by default ome kind of teenage know-nothing Eminem wannabee ( iam assuming that "rhyme" in this case does not refer to the nursery variety, but to the debased US argot known as 'rapping').

And what does "free 2 rhyme" mean anyway? Is it a declaration of defiance, that is to say that they will not permit anyone to get in their way of their human right to "rhyme"...

Ye Gods! can this really be the same nation that once gave Shakespearean prose and poetry to the world?

Library IT developments

There is much talk these days in the library community of Web 2.0. They speak of wikis, mash-ups (whatever they are), of community tagging, or folksonomies. Academic libraries now see the need to have a Facebook or a Second Life presence, and lately there has been talk of Twitter.

Now I am not averse to new technology. Clearly there have been some welcome developments in terms of online catalogues, and in enabling patrons to manage their accounts remotely.

But I fear there is a headlong rush to add ever-new innovative software technologies and developments to something that is already functioning in a quite adequate fashion. In a recent poll of their user group, an Oxford college library [yes, I realise that you'd like a damn link here, but you will just have to take my word for it] learned that its patrons did not want Facebook etc as an adjunct to the library catalogue; no, they merely wanted a catalogue that delivered them information on the materials they required.

The latest 'hip' buzzword is folksonomy, whereby, if I have understood correctly, patrons (or the 'user community', God help us) are able to add their own tags to describe catalogue items. This is all well and good, but who will be monitoring these tags? At best, we will have a plethora of vague, generalized concepts such as 'art' or 'politics'. And at worst there will be an assortment of swearwords such as would make a sailor blush.

It may also be the case that the drive to empower patrons to do this aspect of cataloguing is driven by secret management agendas to reduce further the staff, namely the cataloguers, and to de-professionalize those 'rump' who remain. If one can acquire rudimentary catalogue records (title, author, publisher, phsyical description) free from the publisher, and have the patrons themselves adding the descriptive, subjecty heading elements gratis -why, that may render the professional cataloguer's post moribund and obsolete!

It seems to me that subject classification is best done by the use of a controlled taxonomic resource such as Libray of Congress Subject Headings - yes, we may not agree with some of the more American terminology (such as 'future life', meaning the afterlife), but at least if we all agree to utilise a single taxonomy, the likelihood of inaccuracy or ambiguity is lessened. Of course, the subject headings must still be applied by preofessional, qualified people (such as myself!)

I do believe that there is here a difference in philosophy, with the 'folksonomists' trusting in the people's good sense and ability not to make a damn nonsense of the catalogue. I have no such optimism! I suppose it ultimately rests in whether one can trust the general public not to act the goat...

Mawkish displays

So Michael Jackson, the 'King of Pop', is dead. Doubtless this is a tragedy for his family and close friends, but I fail to understand why seemingly millions of otherwise normal folk are now overcome with grief for someone they had never met, indeed, someone who (to be frank) was a damn weirdo.

Yes, he was a first rate dancer, and made some undeniably superlative recordings some decades back (admittedly with the help of Quincy Jones, a consummate artist), but quite honestly, Jackson hadn't produced any great musical offerings for many years.

What I find unacceptable is the manner in which the British 'stiff upper lip' seems to have vanished into thin air. Instead, we have letters to newspapers and messages on the Internet, all expressing their writers' devastation and grief. Sentimentality is rife! These mawkish, public displays of over-emotion may have their place in the USA, or possibly amongst Spaniards. But I find it an utterly perplexing carry-on for the British to be behaving in this way.

No doubt the streets outside the 02 Arena will now be deluged with flowers and teddy bears.

Utter Intolerability of Everything

Does anyone else find that everyday life in London propels them into an inexorable rage on a near-daily basis? I arrive at the tube station at an ungodly hour, where, half-awake, I am assailed by absurd 'health and safety' announcements made in a strange semi-English tongue. Boarding the inevitably packed train, the next thirty minutes are spent
standing up, someone's elbow jammed into my windpipe, whilst having to listen to a ghastly cacophony of repetitious hissing and popping noises emanating from numerous poltroons' iPods. This distracts me from my attempts to read the morning paper, in which I can learn about rampant gun crime, government lies, and on a lighter note, the latest indignities and degradations that our vacuous 'celebrities' have most recently and proudly subjected themselves to.

Alighting from the station in an intermittently-operational lift (so crowded that I feel I must be an extra in a Merchant Ivory recreation of the Black Hole of Calcutta) which London Underground insist they do not have the money to repair, despite charging the highest fares in Europe, I then try to dodge a multitude of red-light dodging, pavement-surfing cyclists as I walk to the office, where I then spend the next 8 hours engaged in a series of meaningless, unrewarding and repetitive tasks. Any attempt on my part to alert the management to the fact that - in the names of 'modernization' and flexibility' - they have installed a whole series of ludicrous, unproductive and contradictory workplace procedures, will be met by accusations of 'negativity', or of my not being a 'team player'.

The highlight of the working day is my lunch hour, most of which is spent being jostled in a supermarket so overrun by crazed mobs that it resembles the last days of Pompeii. I ponder (as I do each day) whether to choose a 'char-grilled organic vegetable tortilla wrap' or to plump for the 'sun-dried tomato and buffalo mozzarella panini' accompanied by a packet of 'hand-cut kettle chips'. Such is my empowerment as a stakeholder in Brown's New Britain, that this is the only meaningful decision I am now able to make that will have any impact on my life.

I then return to the office for more futile number manipulation and purposeless paper shuffling activities, until I feel I may safely go home, despite having worked the last hour as an unpaid overtime serf.

Perhaps later that evening I may relax by watching some football on TV, as a crew of overpaid, strutting, foreign popinjays bring disgrace and shame upon my once-proud team. It only remains for me to pour myself a third glass of overpriced, disappointing French red (from a supermarket's 'Finest' range), in order that I may be sufficiently anaesthetized as to fall unconscious for a few hours. But not for too long – as I must soon wake up and repeat the entire process the next day, and throughout the working week.

The notion that I will be performing this ghastly routine for the next 30 years or so, or at least until I succumb to some sort of major illness, is becoming increasingly intolerable, and one which fills me with suicidal despair and unmitigated rage in equal measure.

Does anyone else feel that modern life makes them want to literally vomit with fury? Or is it just me?

Free newspaper conspiracy

Look here; this London Lite and TheLondonPaper business - this is all very well in terms of providing commuters with something to pass the time on their journey - but I say, take a deeper look! Now, what is really going on here; hundreds of foreign nationals are being paid a pittance to distribute these free papers to commuters, who invariably discard them in the bus and train carriages after they have dispensed with them. The subsequent litter is then collected by other foreign nationals, again on minimun wages...THIS IS MADNESS.

And if we examine the content of these free papers; why yes, it does pass the time whilst enduring a tube or bus journey - but what are these papers saying? Celebrities' latest escapades and excesses, their indignities and failings being put on display for all to see like a medieval beggar displaying their sores and wounds...soundbite politics with no analysis...overpaid football popinjays throwing tantrums and diving hither and yon...a ghastly compendium of drivel.

And what other message lies within the pages of these papers? CONSUME. Keep "up to speed" with this weeks' "must-have" fashions, musical artists, gadgets, books, interior design, kitchen products. After all, one would not wish to be regarded as out-of-touch...

Besides, the economy depends on it. Do your duty, consume for Britain!

Absurd management jargon

I had to attend a meeting at work earlier today. It was neither enjoyable nor useful. The speakers employed a succession of absurd phrases such as "footprint", "footfall", "outside the envelope", and "singing from the same hymn sheet". Speak English you poltroons!!

Sheep-like use of this silly jargon only serves to highlight the sheer vacuity and bankruptcy of management methods today - short termism, style over content, buzzwords over substance.

Is there a section in the MBA handbook which commends the use of as much meaningless, dribbling jargon as possible, so as to reveal the speaker to be an utter nincompoop?

It would appear so.

Facebook madness

Has the world gone quite, quite mad? I notice from various colleagues that they and their friends are placing the most personal and intimate details about themselves on their Facebook profiles. Photographs of themselves in all manner of contorted positions and states of deshabille, photographs of their families, dates of birth, phone numbers - this is sheer folly! Leaving aside the dangers of fraud and personation, as well as the ever-increasing threat of falling victim to some deranged, gibbering 'stalker', what of the small matter of one's private life becoming public property?

And now I understand that Facebook is to make its 'data' available to search engines such as Google. Ye Gods!