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FoI, DPA, searching, errors, slow network, RSS hassles, the whole shebang seems to be giving me grief right now. Fling in the dead Archos that requires a visit to Curry's where I witness bad A-level fallout (been there, done that, went to Northern Ireland - best thing I coulda done). Some side effects from yesterday's training session. Ring Katherine about that. Search issue is that acute I remember the thing in question and run it at home!

Home via supermarket, don't see any abominable snowmen down by the peas and carrots. Bit disappointed by that but I do gather the required ginger but avoid the beer.

Er.....

OK so the Big Contacts experiment is interesting. Spin offs include a Refgrunt blog. FoI and DPA go a little mental. Keeps me on top of some task management. Not certain that makes me more productive but does seem to be more systematic. Sales Pipeline? Need to think how that makes sense.

Wiki stuff goes on.

Progress on the mission to provide intelligent booklists. I ring Softlink, speak to the ever helpful Hannah, send some files down and she purges our Main Subject database allowing us to build a lighter more practical version. Time spent an hour or so. Difficulty, none, just a bit of FTP'ing. Why didn't I do it sooner? Aaaargh!

Crash.....

Finally get round to structuring the blog that will form my portfolio for PDR purposes, it's the first step towards filling the thing in, not that I've got a scooby who I'll sort my PDR with! The point is Elaine was right the other day when she suggested I've no right to expect other people to have done theirs without sorting mine. If I'm honest I figure it'll do me good to sort the thing and now I have a route that my head is content with rather than the poxy paper from the LDB it should be OK. Tere is a danger it may lead me to getting off my arse about Chartership, that'd be a miracle in its own right. Not that any of this stops me muttering dark words about things being a pile of kak.

Sort some server space for next year and save the library £1100 along the way, not bad for a marginally grouchy e-mail and bit of chat. Just need to sort the mechanics with Stevie P now. Happy to pay the same amount as a Trust because that means I can shout as loud as them if things go wrong!

DPA calms down and my thinking seems to concur with upstairs, need to drop them an email because it reassures them as much as it does me! Also means that I'm sure that we're gonna do the right thing regardless of the hens on acid situation.

The afternoon brings with it freakiness that quite frankly spooks me. The acrobat files created in Dialog when we send a search to people have weird properties. For ages we've giggled at the number that come back ticked next to e-docs rather than a click to get the doc, what none of us realised is that the library holdings links are live too and lead to an e-mail Inter-library loan request from Dialog not in the name of the person requesting the document. I maintain vigourously that this can't happen but it does, repeatedly. Anyway this is a freaky prelude to a mighty fine lit search training sesh. Secon one I've done recently emphasising PICO and ECLIPS and they've both gone well. Mind you this is one to one stuff. Be interested to give it a go in a group setting.

So Arsenal leave the Champions League. Shame, but they're still learning their trade this season and there is a lot of promise there. I listen to it, live in hope after the own goal only for it to go horribly wrong. Next season'll be better.

Bashing the Bishop

There is definitely something marginally surreal as I download both Pere Ubu and a vodcast from the Chief Exec of NHS Northwest at the same time, while listening to Goldrush. I guess it's an interesting mix. I'm impressed with the notion of the vdcast, anything that can be used to leverage NHS IT into admitting IE6 is dead has to be a good thing.

February Briefing from NHS North West

Today is D-day! Hooray! As well as Pere Ubu, some Richard Butler, Miles Hunt, The Blue Aeroplanes. Should keep my ears in fine fettle for a while.

Corporate induction is game for a laugh. Again we're at the Lace Conference Centre home of the Bish. With the vacancy freeze the numbers aren't huge and for the session we do which is in the form of an exhibition at which we get ten minutes to peddle our wares to small groups of folk (actually a good route to send out the message for us) has the danger that the exhibitors will outnumber the delegates. The good news is that we get sprung from the Bishop's Fuhrerbunker and out into the hall (people have complained that we're to loud in an enclosed space - not bad for a softly spoken git like me!) We suggest to the LDB folk that four groups of four would work for us nicely (yer voice could have a rest in the gaps!). Flexibility and adaptability though aren't the name of the game today so we get 6 groups of two and one of four. Whole thing is a bit of an abortion really. Still it does provide cheap fun as we giggle our way through it with our friends for WFAS and Howard from the counselling service. Tracy even bums us food. Hardest group was Helen's pair where I unashamedly ignored her and focussed on her partner from the Prison Service. Seem to be a load of folk we're dealing with from the Prison Service and that was the case last month too.

Fallout of MTAS continues. Some advice comes my way to be checked. Not impressed, call the Information Commissioner 's office, seems my view is not far off their's. The advice is pants. Drop a couple of e-mail's smokewards. Looks like it's hens on acid time but this time during a period of avian influenza.