If you lived in Pigeon Street Here's a Royal Highland Fusilier you could meet Here's the pigeon who who would say Coo coo coooo coo coo, Coo coo coooooooo coo coo Every day

Yes lockdown was really tough for kids. Lots of those kids are teenagers now so maybe as a thank you our establishments could stop deliberately making even more things worse for them due to a weird systemic hatred of our own youth

The UK is torching one of the few sectors in which they still have a global edge, horrifying to watch.

Vandalism

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 6d ago

Creative & performing arts subjects received £16.8 million SPG 2024-25; £12.9 million in 2025-26; £ O million in 2026-27. The University of Creative Arts will thus lose half of its government funding this year; Art University Bournmouth 40.7%, Norwich U of Arts 40.4% and Leeds Arts U 30.3%. 1/2

The RCA is pleased to announce a historic agreement with Norwich University of the Arts to establish jointly awarded undergraduate degrees, creating a new model of creative higher education collaboration in the UK. Read more: https://bit.ly/4hk6Vmb

Looking forward to joining Writing the Occult: Time & Place on 5 September! writingtheoccult.carrd.co bsky.app/profile/laur...

Writing the Occult: Events

All about the "Writing the Occult" series of events, which look at various occult and esoteric topics through both a fiction and non-fiction lens. For both writers and non-writers alike.

writingtheoccult.carrd.co

Lauren (LJ) McMenemy@laurenwrites.bsky.social · last wk.

Every crew of time adventurers needs its futurist, the one member who can see what things *could* be instead of what's in front of them. We happen to be joined by a Professor of Design & Imagination, who'll share how we can deal with the previous possible futures we're haunted by. Meet Dan Lockton ⬇️

Every crew of time adventurers needs its futurist, the one member who can see what things *could* be instead of what's in front of them. We happen to be joined by a Professor of Design & Imagination, who'll share how we can deal with the previous possible futures we're haunted by. Meet Dan Lockton ⬇️

I struggle to see how, from the point of view of ACTUAL STUDENTS, "institutional exits" can be "a feature of a healthy... well-functioning higher education market". It's not like KP discontinuing Brannigans or whatever. These are huge parts of young people's life paths, wrecked by authority figures.

Glen O'Hara@gsoh31.bsky.social · 2w ago

The government has now washed its hands of universities in England. Prospective students and parents should be warned: they are now almost unprotected in the event of a failure, and it's possible doors may close *same day* in case of a collapse. wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/...

An insightful glimpse from @jonkolko.com of just how far Design Studies has fallen as a journal: www.jonkolko.com/phd/writing/...

The illustration style reminds me of what was used for "humanoid alien encounters" in The Unexplained. Nevertheless, this c1969 ad for Freedom Petroleum of Broadheath Oil Works, Altrincham—HF Brien & Co—leads into some interesting #petrolstations #petrocultures history www.flickr.com/photos/danlo...

What even is a map? There are many definitions and I'm working on mine. I think most of us have a mental model of the earth and spaces around us in our brains and anything that activates that mental model to convey information counts as a map (even if it doesn't look like a map).

Just endless incompetence

Arts Professional@artsprofessional.co.uk · 4w ago

Performing and creative arts university courses will no longer receive funding from a government teaching grant as part of “difficult decisions” about spending priorities, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has said.

Joseph Weizenbaum's 1976 book, Computer Power and Human Reason, has long been out of print - used copies sell for hundreds of dollars. It's wild that this is not more widely available given how much his ideas still apply to the world we're in now. 🧵/

OK, let's imagine a world where the humanities never goes into crisis in the 2010s. let's say a multi-billionaire tech dies and his will lists "the humanities" as his only beneficiary. what does your field look like? Here's what I think English would be. /1

I think this is the least appealing thing I've seen in my entire life

Has she got any idea what happens in universities?

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · last mo.

'Speaking at an event hosted by thinktank Policy Exchange...[she] said her party wants to stop funding courses “that are not delivering for young people” and...focus on expanding apprenticeships “which are much more likely to lead to jobs” and deliver better “value for money for the taxpayer”.' 1/2

I feel like there could be a really interesting research-through design project around experiential—or metaphorical—qualitative understanding of wet bulb temps. What if instead of just a number for tomorrow's weather forecast, we had an interface giving us an actual experience of that temperature?

Brigitte Nerlich@bnerlich.bsky.social · last mo.

I just reread what I once wrote about 'wet bulb' and I DON'T LIKE IT ...https://makingsciencepublic.com/2022/07/01/climate-change-and-language-change/

Begging news outlets to stop illustrating deadly heat waves with happy beach fun 🏖️😎 and life-saving vaccines with terrifying needle assaults 💉😭. Especially on social media (where many/most people get their news) the photo is the most prominent part of the story; these choices undermine it completely

Bianca Nogrady@biancanogrady.bsky.social · last mo.

FFS I thought we'd moved past the ignorance of illustrating stories about deadly heatwaves with photos of people frolicking at the beach/in lakes/in fountains. Heatwaves are the deadliest agents of climate change. They kill nearly half a million people each year, and that's only going to increase.

the media and voter messaging should be this: the current government and the government in waiting do not want your children to be able to go to university, they will not support people in the UK to do original research, they do not care about job losses in one of the largest sectors in the economy

Lucy Burke@lucyburkemcr.bsky.social · last mo.

It’s wild that politicians don’t seem to grasp the degree to which universities contribute to the economy- local, regional, national. The failure to intervene is a stain on this govt - a shocking dereliction of duty to every worker, every local business, every student, every area that is suffering

It’s wild that politicians don’t seem to grasp the degree to which universities contribute to the economy- local, regional, national. The failure to intervene is a stain on this govt - a shocking dereliction of duty to every worker, every local business, every student, every area that is suffering

Stephen Shapiro@stephenshapiro.bsky.social · last mo.

UK to Universities: drop dead archive.is/PN5y7

Delivering this, in every city, is going to be part of future public services, whether governments realise it or not.

Helen Czerski@helenczerski.bsky.social · last mo.

Londoners, there is a webpage for you to see where your nearest "cool spaces" are when the extreme heat hits - places with water, air-conditioning & shade. Have a look and spread the word, especially to those who may need this but might not think to look for it: apps.london.gov.uk/cool-spaces/

A certain dark justice that all the chaos being created by fossil fuel funded politicians, is actually driving people into the arms of renewables

In the end, there were just a lot more human rights abuses than I was expecting from the human rights lawyer.

was the gred [phosphor display] there?

The Content Apologist@contentapologist.bsky.social · 2mo ago

'It's a Desk! It's a Computer! It's Desk-Computer!'

Interesting @philtinline.bsky.social story about Alternative 3. www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

‘Wow, it really worked!’: the 70s TV show that’s causing worldwide panic – 50 years later

When UK mockumentary Alternative 3 tried to spook viewers that scientists were vanishing as part of a sinister space plot it succeeded. Today, the resulting conspiracy theory has even seen Trump’s gov...

theguardian.com

One aspect not mentioned by anyone at all in yesterday’s happy-clapping about the ban ban ban: young people who need to document urgent journalistic content in the public interest, which is the world we live in, will now be banned for their “safety” (!) heatherburns.tech/2026/01/16/t...

okay but what if a 10-year-old thinks moby dick is better than middlemarch, what then. where are they supposed to go

News Eye@newseye.bsky.social · 2mo ago

BREAKING: The UK Government confirms that Bluesky will be INCLUDED in the ban on social media for under 16s. The government said it will be BANNED because it is a “user-to-user platform who purpose is to enable social interaction.”

"Keep yer 'air on!" as I said to the pushy Herman Miller salesperson

More and more, submissions follow template-like formats, with 3- or 4-part frameworks, numbered major findings, and bullet point-like lists of conclusions and implications. The text is pristine but dead. It reads like prose but feels uncanny like those human-like robots somehow. 3/

Lead story on the BBC. Our national broadcaster. Not a single mention of the fact that this guy is fomenting racial violence on our streets. This is dysfunctional. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Elon Musk becomes world's first trillionaire as SpaceX soars in stock market debut

Musk is now worth $1.11tn according to the Bloomberg rich list, while SpaceX listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange with a value of $2.2tn.

bbc.co.uk