Really worth remembering how genuinely brutal Covid was. In our Welsh community, grandparents died, shop workers died, parents and school staff with complex health needs died.

Surprised Eel Historian, PhD@greenleejw.bsky.social · 3d ago

Very early in the pandemic, I spent 2 terrible weeks in isolation, unable to breathe or walk across the room. Waiting my temp. to spike. Worrying about my kids. Fighting against dying. In the middle of this covid revisionist, anti-vax bullshit, it was worth saying what that felt like:

I adored my English A Level: Friel’s Translations Joyce’s Dubliners Walker’s The Colour Purple Levi’s If This Is A Man Heaney’s Death of a Naturalist Synge’s Playboy of the Western World Selected Metaphysical Poets Anthony and Cleopatra (Didn’t love Wuthering Heights - sorry Emily lovers).

Tenebrous Press@tenebrouspress.bsky.social · 2y ago

US and UK friends, I'm curious: What books were part of your required reading for highschool literature class? Which of them do you remember loving, and which did you loathe?

Please share! A rare PhD studentship @kingshistory.bsky.social *fully* funded by @slaveryinwar.bsky.social to work with myself and Maeve Ryan, supported by a broader community of experts in Caribbean history, transatlantic slavery, and the history of war. www.kcl.ac.uk/study/fundin... 🗃️

AHRC Studentship: Slavery and the Seven Years’ War within and across the Caribbean Archipelago | King's College London

The Leverhulme Centre for Research on Slavery in War (CRSW) is pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded AHRC doctoral studentship, to be jointly supervised across History and War Studies

kcl.ac.uk

Very moving on the importance of some of subjects (in this case History) which are being dismantled in the current cull of jobs, courses and research in higher education. 👇

Dr Laura Sangha@lsangha.bsky.social · 2w ago

Last week, about a third of the History department were able to gather together on graduation day. Rather than lend our intellectual authority to the official procession and ceremony we invited our students to come and celebrate their achievements with us in a shady courtyard. They came. 1/

NEW! #FirstLastAnything Ep 37. Journalist, broadcaster and author @samiraahmeduk.bsky.social joins me on the textcast to discuss her superb new book on the Beatles’ first film, 1964’s A Hard Day’s Night, and chats about some of her cherished music purchases. firstlastanything.co.uk/2026/07/05/f...

FLA 37: Samira Ahmed (05/07/2026)

Samira Ahmed with Squeeze singer and songwriter Glenn Tilbrook, Front Row, BBC Radio 4, June 2026 It was such a pleasure to welcome Samira Ahmed to First Last Anything, and invite her to talk about…

firstlastanything.co.uk

I put you on a pedestal; you put me on the pill.

Secret Drug Addict@scrtdrugaddict.bsky.social · 2w ago

Everything Joel says. Writing is not respected as a career. Writing is seen as a hobby, a joke - frivolous, middle class, unintellectual and feminised. The degree that many of us took (English) is being defunded. Meanwhile writers create product for a sector which generates more than £100bn a year.

Joel Morris@gralefrit.bsky.social · 2w ago

It’s cool that this country’s cultural identity is built on freelance writers from Shakespeare to Michael Bond, from Paul McCartney to Beatrix Potter, but nobody thinks it’s an actual job.

In my writing (novels/scripts) I’ve been highly adverse to writing about the murder of women. a) I don’t find the murder of women entertaining b) it’s a cliché There is an argument about culture ‘processing’ VAWG. But I still think it’s seen as titillating. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

Nine out of ten bestselling novels in UK have one thing in common: a woman is murdered

Author Wendy Jones highlighted the trend in an Instagram post: ‘What is going on here?’

theguardian.com

Did Bertie Wooster write this

It’s graduation day in Cardiff and quite a number of posh, loud English parents have turned up in the middle of town. It’s a sea of dyed blonde hair, designer sun glasses, and pink shirts out there. They look like shiny wildebeest who’ve wandered onto the wrong part of the plain.

brandon flowers’ therapist: i don’t think you are acknowledging how traumatising being in a cage was for you

Authors you’ve read at least *20* books by. A slightly crazy ask. Terry Pratchett Iain Banks Agatha Christie Iris Murdoch Elinor M Brent-Dyer Enid Blyton Hergé Gary Trudeau (This would be easier if we were doing playwrights!) For my kids it would be Jacqueline Wilson… That woman is *prolific*.

BeijingPalmer@beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 4w ago

alright, authors you've read at least *20* books by, living or dead Patrick O'Brian Dan Abnett Isaac Asimov Michael Moorcock Ursula K. Le Guin

This is my ward. Really interested in the way in which throwing weight behind Plaid has become the Welsh default in progressive areas to stave off the prospect of Reform. Great for Plaid, but really tough on our local Labour and Green candidates.

Election Maps UK@electionmaps.uk · 4w ago

Baruc (Vale of Glamorgan) Council By-Election Result: 🌼 PLC: 47.7% (+11.2) ➡️ RFM: 23.9% (New) 🌳 CON: 12.2% (-8.2) 🌹 LAB: 10.0% (-15.1) 🌍 GRN: 5.0% (-13.1) 🔶 LDM: 1.3% (New) Plaid Cyrmu HOLD. Changes w/ 2022.

Oh and finally! The aim back in 2012 was for individuals to bear 60% of the cost of a degree, and the state 40%. Anyone want to guess how much of the burden is estimated to fall on individual graduates now? Any guesses? 95%. www.newstatesman.com/politics/edu...

Government mis-sold student loans to a generation, report finds

A new Treasury Committee report has found that the state did not sufficiently communicate the terms and conditions

newstatesman.com

Hello, I’ve an event for my Muriel Spark biography next Weds (15th) at Waterstones Liverpool. We’ve sold barely any tickets, however, and it might be cancelled as a result. Please get a ticket if you’re nearby - it’ll be a lot of fun, and I’ll bring badges! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/waterstone...

Pitch Imperfect: @bbcradio3’s Essential History of Classical Music reaches the age of #JSBach! Key Changes with Gillian Moore & @sixteenthcgirl.bsky.social 1pm Sat 5 July or listen any time @BBCSounds Producer Chris Taylor #history #classicalmusic www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

I personally contain elemental hydrogen that is almost as old as the universe itself, along with a range of heavier items (e.g. iron) that predate the solar system. I also have a mug from the 1980s.

Pookleblinky@pookleblinky.bsky.social · last mo.

I always like thinking about: what is the oldest object you regularly use, the oldest thing you're using in your normal everyday life

The reviews for Pride - the Musical, which I saw in previews and enjoyed immensely, are hilarious: Virtually every paper: “stirring, joyous, uplifting, moving, a hit!” Dominic Cavendish in The Telegraph: 2 stars, “A dud”

One of the lessons of the last two years is that Labour urgently needs to stop being afraid of its own shadow. Burnham should appoint whoever he thinks would be the best Chancellor and throw his authority behind them. The Daily Mail will try to kill them anyway. So just govern.

Tim Bale@timbale.bsky.social · last mo.

Hard not to regard this as a classic example of a pre-emptive campaign by certain sectors, along with their media sympathisers, to discourage a new prime minister from appointing someone who might damage their interests in the long and short term. And it will almost certainly work.

Fwiw I have a theory that part of the problem in the Labour Party (which you also see in the union movement, in a lot of religious groups, and in the country I live in, Wales) is that men have become really good at leveraging group identities which cleave to moral rectitude to cling onto power. 1/

Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Why is Labour the last party im British politics to have a female permanent leader? Since the Conservatives chose 4 female leaders, before Labour chose one, and had the first Asisn & blsck leaders too, does this go deeoer than chance & coincidence about diversity reaching the very top?

On a slightly less horrifying note, something which appears to be getting generations of kids through An Inspector Calls at GCSE is the sheer amount of fanfic around the male characters. Youngest’s class dipped into Mr Burling x the Inspector yesterday. Who says reading’s dead?

Louie Stowell@louiestowell.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I regret to inform you that there exists Matt Goodwin/Hannah Spencer fanfic on AO3. (I discovered this after someone confessed to fancying andy burnham and I wondered if there was any fanfic about him and..I don't even want to note down what those ones are about)

Indeed. I was working on narratives around female boxers when the university decided to “gift us” AI. Out of curiosity I asked it to create a lit review for a paper on women’s boxing. 15 of the 16 authors cited were male and it ignored almost every major voice in the field - all of whom are women.

Mel Andrews@bayesianboy.bsky.social · 2mo ago

When generating bibliographies, the models not only omit female authors or misattribute women’s work to male authors; they will also produce lists of works cited in which all work by men is attributed to its authors, while work by female scholars is simply left unattributed.

Really interesting thread here on academia and use of AI. I wish I was more surprised but I’ve come across some impressive academics who seem deeply beguiled.

Crystal Fleming クリスタル@alwaystheself.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I'm attending a digital humanities event in Montreal. There was a keynote on AI and something about the talk made me wonder if it had been written by Claude. I said as much in the Q&A. As I posed the question, the speaker shifted, looking slightly uncomfortable. What he said next shocked the room +

Excellent but surreal gig last night - inside Cardiff Castle, next to 12th-century stone keep, watching Pete Tong and orchestra play Ibiza anthems in a swirling rain storm. Really fun, if a bit exhausting given the average age of a Pete Tong audience member.

⬇️ The 2016 referendum campaign was stunningly male-dominated. Newspapers privileged male voices over female by 85% to 15%. TV coverage favoured men by 3:1. In the press, 90% of business voices were male & 85% of politicians. This was markedly worse than in *1975*. blog.lboro.ac.uk/crcc/eu-refe...

Charlotte O'Brien@cobrien.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Carry on Campaigning? Or Brexit as Not-So-Jolly Gents' Japes, plus Wives and Sisters making dinner. I have just done a rough and ready analysis of the 'talking head' contributions to the BBC's 'Brexit: a Very British Civil War'. A short 🧵about this Blokey Affair: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

A specifically anti-immigrant agenda and amplification and outline the ways in which they are actively doing that to get into power now, having been responsible for such a national and international calamity. Linking these things.

Having had Bluesky remove posts I put up yesterday i would ask why there hasn’t been a major mainstream piece on something like ‘What the Brexit boys did next’, outlining the way in which after such a colossal failure and act of harm to the country, many of the exact same people have shifted to

If for some reason you wanted to buy Careless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams' account of her time at Facebook - the one they are now preventing her from speaking about, here's a link: www.amazon.co.uk/Careless-Peo...

This is a phenomenal piece of reporting.

The Londoner@londonermag.bsky.social · 2mo ago

In November 2023, police discovered the decayed corpse of Tracey Turnell in Walthamstow Market. She had no phone, job, passport, friends or lovers. There wasn’t a single photo of her. It was as if, in her far too public death, she entered the public record for the first time. Who was she?

Hello! It doesn’t cost anything to repost but it helps me spread the word about my small business. My online shop is full of bold & colourful prints, homewares, T-shirts and cards. I’m also available for freelance design work and art licensing. gailmyerscough.co.uk