When you have to stop in the middle of one big project and drag out another big project to write a talk. Argh!

Hasn’t been a summer for cut flowers, so enjoying these late charmers even more.

Truth👇

Hispanic pixie dreamgirl@bocadelperro.bsky.social · last wk.

This may be my crabbiness speaking, but I am now very grateful for being taught how to write letters (both informal and business style) in grade school. Judging by the number of borderline-incoherent emails I get from students, this is a vanishing skill.

I’ve spent almost a whole ‘writing day’ documenting intermarriages from visitation pedigrees and narrating them in a single comprehensible paragraph. The footnotes are glorious though.

Presented without comment.

Pretty much sums it up.

Paradise Lost@paradise-lost.bsky.social · 2w ago

To thee, and to thy offspring: good with bad Expect to hear; supernal grace contending With sinfulness of men; thereby to learn True patience, and to temper joy with fear And pious sorrow; equally inured By moderation either state to bear, XI, 358-363

The same government drilling for oil is now initiating panic-buying over the climate catastrophe.

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 2w ago

Minister tells Brits to stock up on days of supplies after ‘supersize’ El Niño warning

(It's almost novelistic: 'theologian' revealed in practice as a moral nihilist who does not believe himself bound by law or virtue when not observed. Many such cases, I suppose. 'Your father, who sees what is done in secret...')

So that’s 6 vols down and, er, 10 to go. (And people wonder why I laugh when they ask what I’ll do when I retire.)

Ellie Collins@elleccollins.bsky.social · 2w ago

Yesterday we published Mary Ann Lund’s new edition in the Oxford Edition of the Sermons of John Donne - a project known far and wide for its editorial rigour and immaculate presentation, under the general editorship of @mcculloughp.bsky.social global.oup.com/academic/pro...

What fun to get a postcard from the present. These should be a staple of the analogue counter-revolution.

First time spot in our garden—- clouded yellow.

Terrible news for an outstanding museum—one of the most diverse and compelling I’ve ever visited.

Dr Jenn Lavers ᓲᐊᐧᐦᑫᔨᐤ@seabirdsentinel.bsky.social · 3w ago

Also, this today

How revolting. And how unsurprising.

British Museum hosted Palantir founder Peter Thiel in private viewing of Bayeux tapestry

Concern among staff that fragile artwork’s scarce ‘light hours’ given to someone with no known interest in museum

theguardian.com

Google maps deleted. First in a wider purge that I should have done before now.

unintended humour in 1594 Norwich Consistory Court deposition: Interrogatory: is the rectory kept in good repair? William Sparke, carpenter: knows it is 'because he hath seene it done him self standinge bounde for the doinge thereof'

Congratulations to the wonderful Mary Ann Lund (Leicester) on publication of her second (!) vol. in the Oxford Donne Sermons edition. Fantastic textual and critical scholarship on his mid-career at St Paul's.

Sub specie aeternitatis, Caligula was not so bad. He only made his horse into a senator. And it was just his boots that were little.

Wise thread, this.

James Butler@piercepenniless.bsky.social · 3w ago

Nobody could doubt that confessional memoir contributes something vital to our understanding of the history of human consciousness, even where it is factually questionable. But it is premised on earnest self-examination (Rousseau takes Montaigne to task for confessing only ‘amiable’ defects.)

No, that’s just Canada glaring at you.

Forbes@forbes.com · 3w ago

Thursday and Friday share forecasts of mild auroral activity around the northern U.S. border, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Wonder how many cans of water I carried for this supper.

Chancery experts — @thegozfather.bsky.social perhaps? I have (for the first time I think) a dedimus potestatem among some C 4 process papers. Since it requires an answer to be taken outside court, how does the dft's answer that is in the papers relate to it? Dedimus issued even after an answer?

Summer’s ending like it started: early.

@oxfordclarion.bsky.social deadpanning it brilliantly, as always. (‘Nigel Biggar moral theologian . . . )

Oxford Clarion@oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 4w ago

A dozen academics at Oxford University have signed an open letter defending self-proclaimed 'race realist' Nathan Cofnas as a whistleblower. Cofnas, who received his doctorate from Balliol in 2020, has been suspended from Ghent University. johnarmstrongmaths.com/openletters/...

Drought notwithstanding, a beautiful evening.

Nice unplanned purple with yellow accents on the greenhouse bench: aubergine, purple basil, French marigold.

Petition calling on the government to make climate resilience a national mission. Why has this only chalked up 24k signatures? You know what to do.

I've signed. Will you? Add your name to help make wildfire prevention and climate resilience a national priority, and stand with the communities affected by wildfires.

campaigns.nationaltrust.org.uk

Such a beautiful book, this.

Damian Barr@damianbarr.bsky.social · last mo.

Cried when I found this in the archives while researching my novel, The Two Roberts. The ‘fellow artist’ was actually his lover of nearly thirty years. My novel brings their hidden love story to light and celebrates them and their amazing art.

Drought annals (cont.) The foxes are really getting desperate.

A bit out of date, but we particularly enjoyed the natural version of the colander trick on Weds.—light in eclipse crescents through the leaves of trees. Photo @tomknoll.bsky.social

What with the eclipse, followed by the Perseid meteor shower, and the heat, and the drought, and grouse slaughter, and *Everything*, someone needed to post Matt. 24 and Hamlet 1.1 today. Even if (ominously) it is my birthday.