Whoever wrote that daft "what your holiday reading says about you" piece can pick the bones out of this.
Matthew Francis @mjfrancis.bsky.social · 3h agoBooks 68-76 were read on holiday in Krakow (and on trains between there, Leipzig, and Brussels).
Matthew Francis @mjfrancis.bsky.social · 3h agoThe people yearn for an LLM trained on Laszlo Krasznahorkai novels.
Kevin@reginageorgebush.bsky.social · last wk.one impact of LLMs is that everyone's sentences are organically shorter now. even mine! while in my case that's unreservedly a good thing as I tend towards run-ons, for most people it...isn't
To quote a friend: this is all very well for the World Cup Final, but could Justin Bieber do it on a cold Tuesday night in Stoke?
While I am not much of a photographer, I was quite pleased with this Galwegian heron.
To me, this is just watching any team you support. Why do I renew my Wolves season ticket every year? Because suffering is inevitable.
Marie Le Conte@youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 3w agosorry I'll stop going on about it soon but it is so funny to me that last night I kept having to explain to my brother and his friend that watching England play isn't like watching France play, you're not actually meant to be having a good time, it's not a fun activity at all
You will hear people say that there is no common European culture, but I think we're seeing here evidence of a continent-wide love of shithousery.
James Nalton@jdnalton.bsky.social · 4w agoBelgium players mocking the US and Trump's meddling in the World Cup by doing the Trump dance after scoring the 4th goal against the USMNT
While my sums are not as precise as Owen's, by my (back of a fag packet) reckonings, over the past century the average ministry has only lasted about three and a half years...
Owen Winter@owenwntr.bsky.social · last mo.Since 1945, PMs who came to office mid-term have lasted an average of two years and 324 days. Longest Macmillan (almost 7 years), shortest Truss (49 days)
France v. Senegal is, for me, a footballing madeleine, conjuring memories of watching the first game at the 2002 World Cup while revising for my GCSEs. The rest of you are watching Nicholas Jackson, I am experiencing a Proustian rush...
No Score Draws ✍🏻⚽@noscoredraws.com · 2mo agoFrance v Senegal is it?
The @sweeperpod.bsky.social, I think, commented on the fact that a poll had shown that the match fewest people were interested in was DR Congo v. Uzbekistan. Personally, I can imagine no fixture more exciting... ... though I am sort of ambivalent about this World Cup as a whole.
Henry Mance@henrymance.ft.com · 2mo agoIt is not possible to this excited about Cape Verde against Spain
Will confess that I did not have "Belle and Sebastian do a World Cup song" on my bingo card.
It Only Takes One Lion
YouTube video by Belle & Sebastian - Topic
youtu.be
As this is doing the rounds again: a few months ago I dreamt the entirety of a (non-existent) @themountaingoats.bsky.social song. When I woke up all that remained was the title: 'Alice and the Coconut'.
Mags Display Name@mags.colvett.online · 9mo ago“Recreation of something I saw in a dream” is basically my favorite genre of post, always send me this, send me yours, I am here for it
When I still taught in a Politics department - fifteen years ago now! - I ran a session with students that thought about the merits of electoral reform, and was regularly told that PR was "a nice idea in theory but will never work in practice", as if, say, Denmark or Spain did not exist.
Anthony Painter@anthonypainter.bsky.social · 3mo agoI love these "critics of proportional representation" who have been watching seven years of Governments with sizable majorities under first past the post disintegrate but still stick to the line they learned in A Level Politics. Next level resolution.
You have to hand it to Ojeda: Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun really does sound like a deep cut from a John Peel playlist.
Matthew Francis @mjfrancis.bsky.social · 3mo agoBook 43: Mónica Ojeda's Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun and a Põhjala Maple Bänger.
🎶 Well, it was back in Blind River in 1962 / When I last saw you alive... 🎶
Long May You Run (2016 Remaster)
YouTube video by The Stills-Young Band - Topic
youtu.be
A point that students on #ThatcherBham are probably bored of me making is that, whatever their other faults, both the Thatcher and New Labour governments had a theory about how the world worked and what that meant for policymaking. I am not persuaded you could say the same of any government since.
Colm Murphy@colmpm.bsky.social · 3mo ago"...my generation thought more in argument. We tried to make an argument for how the world was, what we wanted to change, and how we were going to do it. This generation seems less intent upon that" I think that's right. It's a problem.
I was right to be excited about this; very probably the best book I have read all year.
Matthew Francis @mjfrancis.bsky.social · 4mo agoBook 37 is one I've been looking forward to: Polly Barton's What Am I, A Deer? (from @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social).
Registration for MBS2026 is now open! Registration link and the conference programme can be found here: www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/moder...
Modern British Studies Conference 2026 - University of Birmingham
Conference information
birmingham.ac.uk
I suspect this is true - for me, at any rate. I have been on some form of social media since Usenet* in the '90s, and if this place doesn't survive I am probably done. * Ask your dads, kids.
evelyn@evelynwebsite.com · 4mo agoI think one of the things about bluesky is that for a lot of its users, it represents a kind of retirement from social media. Like I’m tired and I want to get out of the game
Two days of marking has not made for a fun weekend, but it has been an excuse to listen to a lot of records...
The fact that cricket offers a place for the likes of Rakheem Cornwall is, in my opinion, one of the best things about the sport.
Duncan Weldon@duncanweldon.bsky.social · 5mo agoOne thing I find genuinely fascinating about cricket: how much the physiques of players vary. Even amongst, say, great batsmen, you get really muscley looking blokes and then really lean ones. In most sports there seems to be an ideal physique for each position.
Obviously not the main story in the team selection, but France's substitute tighthead is named Régis Montagne - "King Mountain" - and if that isn't a perfect name for 132kg prop then I don't know what is...
Le Monde@lemonde.fr · 6mo agoAntoine Dupont et Matthieu Jalibert, de retour aux manettes du XV de France pour lancer le Tournoi des six nations
The good news for Rosenior is that, even if he does not make it until 2032, he has already outlasted the mere ten minutes that his dad spent as Torquay United manager on 1 June 2007.
James Dart@jamesdart.bsky.social · 7mo agoCongratulations to Liam Rosenior on getting a Chelsea contract … until 2032 (!)
While I suspect these threads are of interest only to me, I find them useful to help track what I have read, so for 2026... Book 1: Lina Munar Guevara's Imagine Breaking Everything.
Am seeing out 2025 with a bottle of Pomona Island's If Only I Had A Hammer (from the 2021 release, I think).
As @themerl.bsky.social might say: would you look at this absolute unit.
Matthew Francis @mjfrancis.bsky.social · 8mo agoBook 89: Michael Lentz's Schattenfroh - which may be my final book of the year, given the size of the thing, and which was procured for me by @vocebooks.bsky.social - and a Vault City Gingerbread Latte Imperial Stout.
I don't really post about #ThatcherBham on here, but I think it would be news to my students that the mid-1970s were a "safer, happier" time.
Dorian Lynskey@dorianlynskey.bsky.social · 9mo ago"What is certain, and felt instinctively by almost everybody, is that things cannot go on in their present way" – The Times, May 1975 “It is difficult to imagine a previous period when such an all-pervasive hopelessness was exhibited at all levels of British life” – Professor Stephen Haseler, 1975
