Applicable to this episode as well 🤣 #TheTraitorsUK #TheTraitors

Attenborough's Wild London on #BBC iplayer was unexpectedly wonderful. Bad ass coots, drunken bees, and fantastic foxes amongst some of the highlights.

Great to hear a colleague from another department at Warwick on this, giving some good advice and perspectives.

READY

Fancy-pants curry, easy-watch film, back home by 10.30 to torment the cat and then watch fireworks from street door. Happy NY all, hope 2026 doesn't suck... 🎇🎆💪🏻🙏😬❤️

Morning from the dunnock! ❤️🐦

The evening's reading 🥰 #newbook

Do join us for the Inaugural International Women's Writing Association conference in Falmouth www.cfplist.com/CFP/46601 #iwwa @womenswritingassoc.bsky.social

BetweEves visit to Cotswold Wildlife Park 😊

*Teensy* bit obsessed with light shows... final one of 2025, Sudeley Castle's Spectacle of Light 😍

Disco with the squirrels at Westonbirt Arboretum #ChristmasatWestonbirt

Throwback to snowier times 🤣🤣

Join me and the Viktor Wynd museum online 27th February as we'll still be in the thrall of Winter and I will be chatting about "minor" hauntings by child ghosts in literature & culture (access to recording for 2 weeks if you can't make it on the evening!) thelasttuesdaysociety.org/event/manife...

Other than the last line, which was unnecessary, by far the best of the recent BBC A Ghost Story for Christmas adaptations. Very effective. E.F. Benson, "The Room in the Tower"

A very spooky #Christmas 🖤🎅

Pensive Christmas Cat ❤️

Meowy Christmas everyone 🎄❤️

Fabulous evening at Lichfield Light show: magical story projection of how the Robin got his Red Breast, told in two parts, first on a c17th house & front of Cathedral ❤️🐦 Wandered round Cathedral's Christmas tree exhibition, acquired next year's Advent Candle, got souvenir Christmas decoration.

I'm delighted to announce that I'll be co-editing a special issue of Gothic Studies: Arctic Gothic with Monica Germanà and Sara Wasson. Check out the CFP here: www.globalgoth.org/blog/arctic-...

JUST FINISH THE FUCKING CHAPTER

Birmingham Town Hall (UK). New! Birmingham Civic Society blue plaque commemorates Charles Dickens' first public reading of A Christmas Carol in 1853. #novella #fiction #literature #English

Hello! I’m seeking volunteers to be interviewed for my PhD thesis on the cultural significance of the tailored suit within queer communities during the 1970s and 1980s. If you’re interested and would like more information, please contact me. Thank you, and feel free to share this with your networks!

We are running our short course on Crime Fiction again in 2026. 8 weeks of evening classes @bristoluni.bsky.social. Join 8 university tutors sharing some of their favourite cold cases in detective fiction in an accessible but intellectually stimulating way: www.bristol.ac.uk/.../detectiv...

Another early Christmas gift from @angelawright1794.bsky.social and me: Jimmy Packham's splendid book on 'Coastal Gothic, 1719–2020' has just been published, and is available on open access for the next 2 weeks: www.cambridge.org/core/element...

Errrrm.... not quite what I was expecting... 😳

😍We are rejoining Erasmus. Official announcement tomorrow😍 www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

Am meeting friends for breakfast but it's not until 10a. and I got here over an hour early to avoid traffic and do work. Hadn't eaten anything beforehand but starving and all the cafe had except big breakfast stuff was cake... So...

Decided to move my work downstairs this week...for some light amidst all the gloom and despair.

I think* there are enough lights on it now 🤣

After having got this absolute unit of a tree (nearly 8ft) *last Sunday* but then finding we didn't have enough lights to cover it, as we normally get 6ft, and needing to order some and wait...FINALLY it is decorated 💚🎄

Again. I just took my Italian neighbour (she is 89) a Christmas card and a poinsetta and have come away with a card, a wrapped present, a bag of apples, two mince pies and... two tubes of ibuprofen gel because the doctor keeps giving it her and she says she has too much lol

Fabulous evening with my sister having yummy Italian food and then going to the Birmingham Rep watching the musical comedy #SherlockHolmes and the 12 days of Christmas ❤️🕵‍♂️🐓🕊🥁🦢💍🥛🤴👸🪈🍐☎️🐦‍⬛ Particularly enjoyed comedian John Kearns as Lestrade 🤣

Gothic Poland and British Fiction, c. 1790-1830 by Jakub Lipski now open access for next two weeks in our Cambridge Elements in the Gothic series. Congratulations to Jakub, and hurrah! @dalegothic96.bsky.social @universitypress.cambridge.org

Had fun being on Sky News Breakfast on Friday talking about my kid’s book ‘Do You Believe in Ghosts?’👻 Due to the massive demand I’ll be going into the lovely Pickled Pepper Books to sign more this week - order your PERSONALISED copy from the link below to get it in time for Xmas!🎄🎅 bit.ly/4iD4MjT

A bit behind with #Strictly - I get it's broadcast ahead of the watershed but the sanitizing of the Cell Block Tango lyrics was a bit lame

Testing out a new mode of transportation

Farewell, blue Delonghi toaster. We got you about 15 years ago, along with your matching brother kettle, and you have served us well. But now, even the resident electrician cannot save you and, so, with a heavy heart, your place is filled by this shiny new Sage toaster.

Today's lunch: the dragon egg arancini purchased from one of the stalls at Worcester's Christmas Fayre last night 😋

Join the excellent @johnnymains.co.uk to launch his @britishlibrary.bsky.social anthology, 'Illusions of Presence' on 18th December 7pm (GMT). A ticket also gets you an exclusive recording of the event in case you find you can't make it on the night! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/illusions-...

Bloody hell. I will have to come back to it later because I am on the edge of sobbing and there's too much to do this morning for that right now. Also "Aint no mountain high enough" was playing in the background while I read and contributed to the shakiness 💔❤️

Choosing her next book.

The Girl Guides decision is just so unnecessarily cruel. They say it's just stopping new members, but how will current trans gg's feel? But also, from April? Then fuck them & I hope every trans girl goes & joins now. Women, it really isn't the trans community that we need to be afraid of.

Mood. youtube.com/watch?v=OLHx...

The section on being gay in a 90s boy band - I remember my best friend (aged 10 or so) sobbing when Stephen Gately came out (or, rather, was outed by The S*n) and I rather cruelly pointed out it was unlikely she would have somehow become his girlfriend even if he wasn't 😬

I *think* we have enough #Advent paraphenalia for two people 🤣🤣

Watching #BoyBandsForever on BBC iplayer about 90s British groups, I wonder if any of those screaming girls, who said they were going to fast until Take That reformed, or were sobbing uncontrollably, have watched these clips back? How they feel about it all now, whether they were actually okay after

Me: We should try and spread out the first chapter of #StrangerThingsS5, maybe 1 a week until the next chapter.... Watches all 4 within 24 hours.

A lovely day in Bath yesterday - many years since I last was there - catching up with @pamplemoussepam.bsky.social ❤️