ANOTHER NEW BOOK
Couldn't concentrate on work at all in the afternoon for some reason, so I slipped away from the library early to stop off to see the photography exhibition at Funabashi-shi Shimin Gallery that we mentioned earlier. Greeted by Yoshiko Ando at the entrance, the gallery featured some lovely atmospheric shots - the kind of images you can only get from behind the scenes and over a long period of time. Well worth popping along, especially if you're going to the track for tomorrow's event, as it's fairly close by.

Another new book just landed today. When I saw the box, which was huge, I thought I'd need another bookshelf, and it came as a bit of a disappointment to find such a regular-sized book in the bottom of it. Still, flicking through the pages made the order worthwhile.

Rather like the earlier Ammonite Press title, illustrating 100 years of horse racing via the Press Association archives, When Racing Was Racing uses pictures from the Daily Mirror newspaper. There's that same wonderful atmosphere provided by monochrome photography from the days of yore, but this newer book also contains a lot more text to help put things in perspective.

Looking at the costumes and working conditions through the ages, When Racing Was Racing is almost as much a piece of social history as it is sporting history. Perhaps tellingly, it finishes in the 1980s, as things became more and more commercialized. For those who hark back to the good old days of sport, when colourful characters abounded, footballers took the bus to matches instead of driving their brand new Ferraris there, and business managers and PR representatives had yet to enter the scene, transforming sportsmen into plastic, untouchable products, this is a nice lighthearted book to browse through whenever the fancy takes.