Last post of the year so it's a big one.

There's been a few reports and things I'd like to mention to you before 2013 waves goodbye.

I don't usually stick different things together like this, but I thought one message might be easier on this occasion.

So the first thing is the annual report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) looking at poverty in the UK. If you're a first year this may be your first introduction to the JRF. As a word of explanation they're a charity who conduct excellent research in the areas of housing, ageing, poverty and welfare. The new report is a vast exploration of social exclusion in the UK and you can read (and save) it from here.

The second thing may be of interest for criminology students. There's been a study looking at re-offending rates which the Guardian has reported like this. I think the full thing may be out tomorrow so I'll draw your attention to it in the new year.

OK. One more. An academic called Jock Young died a few weeks back. You may have seen his most famous book on your reading list (The Drug Takers) although he's done many more recent things on criminological theory.

Here is a video of him discussing the concept of moral panic.

I'm now away until January 8th so please don't be offended if you don't hear from me until then. As fabulous as you all are I'm really looking forward to doing nothing more academic than eating cheese for a few weeks. Thank you for all your encouragement this year, I hope your Christmas break is everything you're hoping for.

Al

Second episode of Whatever Happened to Community?

I didn't intend mentioning this series again after I drew your attention to the first episode last week, but episode 2 last night was just brilliant. Such an intelligent 30 minutes of radio touching on nostalgia, architecture and far right politics and the sort of thing that Radio 4 does brilliantly.

In conclusion, do yourself a favour and listen to this.

Would you like the research to read itself to you?

You may have heard me say in the past that one short cut you can never take is with the reading. After all the clever searching, the tricks and the uses of technology, at some point you have to sit down and just read.

Well I've recently discovered that in some cases that isn't entirely true.

There are some journal articles on DISCOVER that'll read themselves to you.

Interested? Thought so.

Here's what you do:

1) Search DISCOVER as usual with appropriate keywords.

2) Select any journal articles that offer html (not pdf's) as a full text option.

3) Click on the orange play button to hear the article in a choice of accents. You can even save them as MP3's.

4) The screenshot below shows you what it should look like.

5) Don't make me regret showing you this! If I hear any stories from lecturers that students are only using articles that are html formatted I'll know why.

6) You're welcome.

Reminder of my next workshop

Hello.

I'll be in training room 1 (TR1) in the library on Wednesday afternoon from 2pm until 3pm.

You can turn up at any point during the hour and ask me questions about anything you like.
Not geography though, as I'm rubbish at it.

But anything else is fine.