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The publishers seem to be making changes at the Aging Cell web pages.  This has meant that the paper is not presently available on open access, for which which Lynne and I paid a significant amount.

In the meantime, I've placed a pdf on this website.

It's also on the Open University research publication repository, Open Research Online.  Click here.

I am not a historian (as should be evident from these web pages), but I am fond of reading books on historical topics.  A few years ago, I read Orlando Figes' book on the Russian Revolution, A Peoples' Tragedy, whiach ably describes the events leading up to the revolution and its immediate aftermath.  The Whisperers, published in 2007, concerns Soviet citizens' private lives during the Stalin years.  The work results from a wide ranging research project (more details from the author's website) utilising Russian and Soviet public and private archives. Eight chapters cover the years from  the revolution to the death of Stalin, with a ninth covering the years 1953-2006.

In the first chapter, I felt as though I was setting up to read a book of lists: listsof people, lists of their privations, lists of instances of misused power.  However, as I mad my way through the book, I found the stories of families and individual being told progressed very clearly and accessibly.  The book doesn't deal with Stalin's personality and motives, but does occasionally deal with individuals with quite close association with Stalin.  What struck me as I read the book was firstly the privations that those not Party members had to endure, both in terms of their accommodation conditions but economically, and how they could cope with this in the belief that the Party was a force for good.  Intriguingly, people often chose to believe theit nearest and dearest must have been guilty when they fell victim to the apparently randomly applied purges.  

Overall, the book presents an important story, in an interesting and acccessible format.  This material is relevant in an era where our own personal freedoms are continually limited and eroded in the supposed war on terror.  Our government aims to be able to lock our citizens up on suspicion, and without charge for up to 42 days, riding roughshod over hard won civil rights and liberties.In the modern IT era, we see increased data collection by central government, and even private companies have the ability to pry into our web-sufing habits (see my articles on this site on BT and Phorm).  Yesterday,the Swedish Parliament voted for routine tapping of cross-border interception of communication.  One wonders how the Soviet system managed to so effectively monitor and thereby repress the population in a pre-electronic era, and quite how the impact of IT on surveillance will ultimately impact on our western democratic societies.

Orlando Figes has a nice website with more information.

Not the most auspicious way to get to a club event - I returned from London at 7pm, discovered there was no electricity in Aspley Guise (it eventually came back on at 3am the next day),jumped into my skinsuit, pumped up the tyres, and dashed down to the start of the event.  A very windy evening, though sunny and warm, which made handling tricky at times for those of us with aero wheels.

Certainly not the best performance, by a long chalk.

Result of the NBRC Time Trial held on Wednesday 25th of June 2008

Course:- F5d/10 (Stoke Hammond By Pass)  League Round 5

Pos	No	Name	Club	Time	Cat	Vets Std	.+ / -	On Vets Std
	24	Leigh Smith	Alpha RC	22.10	S
	8	Simon Cannings	TeamMK	22.41	S
	18	Tony Parks	NBRC	22.45	V43	26.06	.+ 3.21	1
	22	Mark Simmons	TeamMK	22.55	S
	19	Ian Marshall	TeamMK	23.22	V40	25.30	.+ 2.08	7 < /td>
	25	Rob Saunders	NBRC	23.51	V48	27.07	.+ 3.16	2
	14	Geoff Perry	TeamMK	23.56	V48	27.07	.+ 3.11	4
	20	Kevin Stokes	NBRC	24.24	V46	26.42	.+ 2.18	5
	3	John Buchanan	NBRC	24.25	S
	21	Lindz Barral	TeamMK	24.28	S
	7	Ian Stokes	NBRC	24.54	V48	27.07	.+ 2.13	6
	4	Darren Haydon	NBRC	25.45	S
	1	Alan Lawson	NBRC	26.46	V40	25.30	.- 1.16	11
	5	Chris Hartley	NBRC	26.49	V51	27.46	.+ 0.57	9
	9	Stuart Chung	NBRC	27.27	S
	13	Tony Brunton	NBRC	27.42	V43	26.06	.- 1.36	12
	17	Gilbert Wheelwright	NBRC	27.47	V65	31.00	.+ 3.13	3
	2	Chris Parkes	NBRC	28.52	V48	27.07	.- 1.45	13
	16	David Skeggs	NBRC	28.58	S
	12	Russell Page	NBRC	29.23	S
	6	Yvonne Gurney	TeamMK	29.38	SL
	15	Dave Garrard	NBRC	29.43	V60	29.48	.+ 0.05	10
	23	Brian Hills	NBRC	31.36	V72	32.46	.+ 1.10	8
	Two up Team Time Trial
	10	Stuart Tarry	Team Sanjan Design	22.13	S
	11	Nick Pitt	Team Sanjan Design		S
Time Keepers :- Mary Hartley & Tony Farmborough NBRC

Napoleon's Wars: An International History, by Charles Esdaile,

Allen Lane, 2007

I began reading this book