Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

Hello from the North Building

Life with a cat with chronic constipation involves a lot of time watching a cat shit. The plant pot isn’t my preferred place, but better out than in.

I've been so disgusted by everything that's come out about Epstein that I can only handle it in small portions, but this article is such a good survey of the times we live in. It's really worth reading www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Yesterday I arranged a trip to the Cairo Geniza unit with students. The earliest dated copy of the Hebrew bible, next to a shopping list of the Chief Rabbi (lemon chicken and molokhia), and at the other end of the table a letter from merchants in India. Such wonderful collection! @theul.bsky.social

And now consider this happening across the country.. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Contemporary campus novel in which a professor from the US pitches up at a British university for a year and realises that no one told them that they had to set their readings and their coursework five months earlier.

First day of the worst month. But we can get through it! youtu.be/38PB3sBZxf4?...

This is lovely!

It's a slippery slope. Give them a fire station, and they'll want a national health service. Give them a library, and they'll demand free higher education.

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free

Midweek Treat: #RecipeOfTheDay is Sticky Toffee Pudding, the dark empress of desserts! I can’t even write its name, let alone gaze at this photograph, without wanting to eat it, frankly. www.nigella.com/recipes/stic...

Please watch this video of the tool-using cow Veronika www.cell.com/current-biol...

Green slimy salty goodness

Something gnawed your oak tree? Sink hole in your road? How Zurich’s beaver hotline is reassuring residents

Ok, but the time-honoured solution to this problem is to actually read what one cites?

Last week, the media declared a “partial victory” for Sandie Peggie, who sued the NHS for letting a trans colleague use the women’s changing room. In fact, the case was a flop. The gender-critical movement might be persuading journalists, but it’s failing with judges 🧵

This is a masterpiece 💀

Norfolk has a beaver on the loose – and every reserve in the area insists “it’s not ours”! The mystery deepens.

Royal Mail have written a GDPR policy for their letter to Santa scheme that is a) pitched at children explaining how their data is used and b) fully committed to the existence of Father Christmas and it’s just… really cute

‘Most challenging natural disaster in our history’: 1,300 dead after SE Asia floods www.channel4.com/news/most-ch...

Introduce yourself with 5 animals you have seen in the wild: 1. fox (my street) 2. grass snake (in the river Cam) 3. eel (river Cam) 4. peregrine falcons (Cambridge city centre) 5. kingfisher (by the river) Bonus because not really native: muntjac deer (my garden)

Entitled to lower bills. Entitled to a liveable planet. Entitled to make hope normal again. Know your entitlement. Know our collective power. Join.greenparty.org.uk

New issue of Studies in Late Antiquity Vol. 9, No. 4 (2025) online.ucpress.edu/SLA/issue/9/4 Paleoscience and the Study of Late Antiquity @ucpress.bsky.social @janetekay.bsky.social @shakenbeck.bsky.social @r-c-jackson.bsky.social

The Labour Government reeling off the same far-right talking points on immigration. And look who is celebrating. The far-right. There is a political alternative that won’t ever scapegoat those fleeing war, persecution and torture join.greenparty.org.uk

Spending a few days in Ljubljana at a workshop on “Bridging History, Archaeology and Natural Sciences”. A great range of sharp papers by PhD students and ECRs.

Three of the log boats discovered during the Must Farm palaeochannel excavations are going on display at Flag Fen Archaeology Park. Nine boats were found with dates ranging from the Early Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

My annual post about how the Morning Star reported the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 hatfulofhistory.com/2014/11/07/h...

Remember, remember the 9th of November. #OnThisDay in German #history🗃️: 1918: Kaiser dethroned, #WeimarRepublic proclaimed. 1923: Hitler's #BeerHallPutsch coup d'état in Munich fails. 1938: #Kristallnacht. Anti-Jewish Pogroms, synagogues burning. 1989: #BerlinWall falls.

Someone at a Russell Group university was moved to almost-poetry by their Faculty Meeting… Can anyone do better?

Christ, he is supernaturally good at this.

Always stay classy

"We're forty strong, the last holdfast of humanity against the gathering administrative flood. Forty full-timers and adjuncts combined, music professors, theater professors, dance professors."

Shocking news from uOttawa: Greek & Roman Studies closed to new students without consultation. Teaching of ancient languages to end. Open letter coming soon - follow for how you can help. #DefendClassicsUOttawa #Ottawa #AncientHistory #SaveHigherEd #HigherEdCuts #AncientGreek #Latin

It really is quite something that this bill as drafted states plainly that even a net contributor who ever received any state support at any time has to go. Foreigners must do much more than put in more than they take out. They must never feel at home, nor have any access or rights to anything

The professor is in

now i'm not an anti-anglist and many of my best friends are english but the country is overcrowded and it's not culturally harmonious and the obvious solution is to deport all the english. it's not their fault they came here while it was legal in the 5th century but england should be for foreigners

Exodus 8:4.

This is the funniest thing I’ve seen for a while. Congrats @deutschebahn.com ! And yes Germans do a sense of humour as well. I guess things need to go to shit before you discover it. 😉

Beaver overlords etc etc

The details are horriffic, but the reporting is excellent, especially considerng the risks to journalists in Gaza www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

This is a disgraceful reversal by the EAA and a shocking interference in academic freedom.

Swan Lake when?

It is clearly the case that asylum protests were smaller this weekend than the small over-hyped protests on August 8th, and smaller than in the second half of July. No broadcast outlet has accurately conveyed that + asked why: they have explicitly stated and inferred growing protests

Sunday protests seem to be < 500 nationwide, maybe < 300, across 4-6 locations Yet ITV news using language of "erupt nationwide" (!) Epping: 100-150 London: 20 Birmingham: 30 Stevenage: 30-50 Norwich: ? anything of any scale Manchester: ? anything of any scale Dudley: ? anything of any scale?

As an alumna and former holder of one these JRFs, I've just written to the Principal to express my shock and disappointment at this reversal of decades of inclusivity. I'm really questioning my support for the college now.

Getting my book manuscript over the line feels like time is fractalising. As soon as one big task is done, there's a smaller one that somehow takes as much time.

Where’s the kitty?

I have a cat in my office. It's rubbish.

This is amazing