Under a Binface government, anyone who doesn’t accept human-made climate change as fact will be sent back to school, from Year 1 right the way to A Levels, to see if anything goes in the second time round. #VoteBinface

In May we said Nigel Farage probably didn't owe tax on his £5m gift. The Guardian now reports the gift followed talks where Farage said he'd need £5m to return to frontline politics. *If* that's right, we think there's a high risk of a £3m tax bill - payable by Reform.

Ahead of England v Norway in the World Cup, enjoy this classic from my old pal Patrick Kidd in The Times

Pleased that British Library has reinstated its Ethos thesis service, but disappointed that it does not include the 1000s of older PhD theses available in the earlier version. The effective destruction of this huge research archive is a tragedy: ethos.bl.uk

I was watching a TV documentary about WWII last night and caught this shot of Wilhelm Canaris [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm... ] His lampshade has part of a feast of St Paul: [Ne] magnitudo [revelatio-] num extollat [me datus ...]

Extraordinary detail in the new book on Trump's second term administration

There's a Bodleian visiting fellowship available to those in the book trade! I heard today that the person who was to be this year's Peter Selley Fellow has had to drop out for health reasons, so the application deadline is going to be extended. Details here: www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/csb/fellowsh...

Bodleian Visiting Fellowships in Special Collections

bodleian.ox.ac.uk

The Christie's summer sale (7 July) of medieval manuscripts is now online, and includes some very nice things. This large (c. 300 × 300mm) Don Silvestro cutting, for example. (It belonged to William Young Ottley, and was lot 184 in his 1838 sale). www.christies.com/en/auction/v...

Standard tickets for a 40-minute visit to the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition will be £33. Some reductions are available, but even 16-year old students pay £25. This seems expensive to me; I'll wait until the Tapestry is back in Bayeux, and go see it there. www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/...

First look at the British Museum's Bayeux Tapestry exhibition - Museums Association

Institution ‘confident’ about transporting artefact to London after two successful dry runs

museumsassociation.org

Announced for publication in November: Fragmented Illuminations: The many lives of manuscript cuttings, ed. by Catherine Yvard uclpress.co.uk/book/fragmen...

I have read of unwanted medieval parchment MSS being used by gold beaters in the making of gold leaf, but a conservator friend recently poured cold water on the notion. So I was glad to find evidence that the practice was stilled used as recently as the 1950's (but using post-medieval MSS) 1/

I was just out in the garden and a man asked me if I'd seen his pet rabbit. "It's black, grey, and brown. I didn't lose it today", he explained, "it went missing two and a half years ago." Also, he lives in Littlemore, a couple of miles away, on the other side of the Thames. I wished him good luck.

"Iran’s parliamentary speaker and chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, took to X to deliver a derisive one-line epitaph. “Operation Trust Me Bro failed,” he wrote." www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

“Given the very high number of instances of plagiarism, the complainant’s issue is not merely poor citation practice, but a fundamentally flawed understanding of what constitutes plagiarism,” judges wrote in the decision retractionwatch.com/2026/05/05/c...

Court orders historian to repay grant funding for “pattern of plagiarism” in books

A federal court has ordered a “romance philologist” to repay the Swiss National Science Foundation roughly $51,000 after the group found the author responsible for “massive” scientific misconduct i…

retractionwatch.com

Just now I idly wondered when the word 'fragmentology', and the discipline of 'Fragmentology', became popular, so I did a Google n-gram with interesting results. #fragmentology

I used to fly to a sunny beach and read books for 2 weeks each summer. Then I realised I could read the books at home and not have to tramp through 2 airports. Sorry Heathrow, you've lost my trade because you make the experience horrible. And home is really nice.

My blog is currently available, but it will not be long before Crazy Carla gets it pulled, yet again, claiming harassment. (Google have reviewed it several times, and found no harassment). Print out, or save as a PDF, anything you may need to refer to.

Things like this do not appear for sale very often ... www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auctio...

Things look grim in the markets right now, but at least the U.S. economy wasn’t already being propped up by a massive speculative AI bubble that is highly sensitive to rising energy costs.

That‘s the spirit.

Lennart Jonasson@lennson.bsky.social · 6mo ago

God forbid the BL should make MS availability known or its catalogue more user-friendly. It's almost as if they don't want users.

Can’t believe they released the Epstein files to cover up for the Melania movie.

The full ruling (in German) can be read or downloaded here: entscheidsuche.ch/view/CH_BVGE... It is very long and detailed, but there is a summary at the end. #ReceptioGate

Entscheidsuche Recherche d'arrêts

Das frei zugängliche Portal entscheidsuche.ch bietet eine Suche in allen publizierten Gerichtsurteilen von Schweizer Gerichten aller Instanzen. Le portail entscheidsuche.ch, accessible gratuitement, p...

entscheidsuche.ch

For Carlo Rossi's imaginative interpretation of the same court ruling, see: www.receptiogate.org/post/recepti... Spoiler alert: she did nothing wrong, and everyone else is to blame. #ReceptioGate

ReceptioGate 2026

ReceptioGate is the name given to a documented online defamation campaign that began in late 2022 against the RECEPTIO research centre and its founder, Professor Carla Rossi.The campaign originated fr...

receptiogate.org

«Scientific misconduct»: Affair surrounding Zurich professor ends up in court #ReceptioGate www.watson.ch/schweiz/just...

Affäre um Zürcher Professorin landet vor Richtern

Eine internationale Internet-Gemeinde bringt eine Mittelalter-Forscherin zu Fall – und fördert einen Skandal zutage, der unter Schweizer Akademien seinesgleichen sucht.

watson.ch

«Massive scientific misconduct»: Former professor at the University of Zurich loses in court #ReceptioGate www.nzz.ch/zuerich/selb...

Selbstplagiat: Ex-Professorin der Universität Zürich unterliegt vor Gericht

Die Forscherin hatte aus eigenen Arbeiten abgeschrieben, ohne dies kenntlich zu machen. Es ist das vorläufige Ende einer skurrilen Affäre.

nzz.ch

Plagiarism verdict against former University of Zurich professor: Massive scientific misconduct #ReceptioGate www.tagesanzeiger.ch/st-gallen-bu...

Plagiatsurteil gegen frühere UZH-Professorin: «Schwerster Fall wissenschaftlichen Fehlverhaltens»

Der Schweizerische Nationalfond forderte Fördergelder wegen angeblich nicht korrekt zitierter Passagen zurück. Das Urteil bestätigt «massives Fehlverhalten» bei zwei ihrer Publikationen.

tagesanzeiger.ch

Having enjoyed the first, I am now reading the second volume of Brian Sewell's autobiography. It includes these startling details about Antoine Seilern: