Legal historians @thegozfather.bsky.social perhaps - have this CUL copy of what looks/reads like a Chancery answer, but no case papers for these names in TNA Discovery. What explanation? Didn't proceed (but surely a complaint was filed)? A court other than Chancery? Grateful for suggestions.

When presenting this to its wee recipient one of her mums said, ‘Ooo, Mardi Gras colours!’. And I completely failed to pretend I planned it that way. Happy Shrove Tuesday anyway.

When your picture-roll screen-saver taunts you in February.

Streaming with rain (again). Cue weak pulpit joke to diminished congregation about 'days like this it really is the "ark of the church".' 😵‍💫🌧️

Favourite #Herbook . 1545 Luther inscribed by Judith Delamotte (b. Demaistres), widow of Philip Delamotte (m. 1586), minister of the French Church in Southampton, and a powerful businesswoman (cloth maker/merchant) in her own right. St Paul's Cathedral Library. I don't think widely known.

Bread out, pizza in. #Friday

Ultimate niche nerding, but I am always on such a high after Dryden week! So when the last and dreadful hour This crumbling pageant shall devour … The dead shall live, the living die And Music shall untune the sky!

Introduce yourself with the name your parents almost gave you. No idea. I think as adopting (white, middle class) parents in the 60s they went shopping for an infant with the right characteristics (male, brown hair, blue eyes), and ‘background’ to name after their grandfathers. Family planning.

This is wonderful. (But 'Cathedral bosses believe . . .'? Honestly, BBC.).

Wisdom for the ages.

And this just published by @oxfordclarion.bsky.social

What an image; looks 1930s/WPA at first glance.

🔥

Team won 2nd! Generational shock: ‘Known for his acclaimed 2021 series It’s A Sin, what other series by Russell T Davies followed the lives of a group of queer young people?’ *I was the only one who knew the answer.* (PS: what is ‘Chapell Roan’?)

Fellows have been encouraged to attend the LGBTQ+ quiz night in the college bar. 😬 I hope that at l ast some of the answers are ‘Victoria Wood’, ‘Wagner’, or ‘Handel’. 🤞🏻🏳️‍🌈

I despair. In the noughties, I bought the website Y4x4.com with the aim of prodding the consciences of people who were opting for SUVs. But they have no souls. They don’t give a shit. And if you have an SUV and aren’t a farmer, a construction worker or someone who really needs one, unfollow me.

Epic correction

💯💯

The shag rug is such a perfect period touch for this photo. Looking forward to the book.

We need this stopped. Plans for far right people to descend on Oxford this weekend to smother us with their flags. We do not want them here. @bradtbaines.bsky.social @oxfordshirecc.bsky.social @oxfordclarion.bsky.social @thamesvalleypolice.bsky.social

Self-checkout is evil, and this is why.

Hurrah!

This is such a well-curated thread.

Just love seeing this at night. @lincoln.ox.ac.uk chapel (1631; north windows of Old Testament patriarchs and prophets).

Nothing like finding an absolute howler of a typo that you’ve been blissfully unaware of for 30 years.

fwiw I think the Labour strategy of saying Reform is stuffed full of Tory failures risks making Reform seem much closer to normal & less dangerous than they are. The relationship of the Conservatives to Reform is the relationship of the incubating body to the chestburster xenomorph.

'. . . the important truth that what you had most to do, under the discipline of life, or of death, was really to feel your situation as grave. Boston could help you to that as nothing else could' (Just love it when Henry James drops in one of his acid jokes.)

Damn right.

How to make Everything recede for an hour-and-a-half: spend 90 minutes ecstatically discussing a few lines from Milton’s description of Eden with a class.

Laughing through the tears

The quality of Carney's speech The poverty of Starmer's yesterday

Tactfully suppressing the desire to gush and gurn about spotting someone on here who I’ve so missed from the other place. Will make do with a restrained follow.

I give you my esteemed (locally and beyond) husband.

Every day I have a new 'this most epitomises the USA that I don't recognise any more'; today it's the utter collapse in acceptable diction for public discourse from elected representatives.

The FT got is architecture critic Edwin Heathcote to write about data centres and it's wonderful. www.ft.com/content/7692...

The young are so solemnly chaste these days. To the Restoration literature quiz question (which I was rather proud of), ''In /The Country Wife/, what do the women want to get their hands on in Horner's closet?', they all answered, 'china'. 😱

It's crazy that Bristol had a statute of Colston the enslaver for decades, yet barely anyone knows about this guy. This book by @brisradhis.bsky.social is good at bringing him into the light.

Well, at least there is this.

One of the beauties of writing is that language is so subtle. You might think that 'I apologise' means the same as 'I'm sorry'. But just try switching the two next time you're at a funeral.

I looked it up so you don't have to; 'A reckless or high-spirited fellow; a gallant, paramour. By Spenser applied also to a promiscuous woman.' Excellent etymology.

Former students can really get you sometimes. A touching piece of textile Donne from @leahveronese.bsky.social . This was Coleridge’s favourite line from Donne’s sermons.

*hoar* frost for pity’s sake. What a mood killer.

Morning. Love a touch of hose frost and a pink sky.

Wonderful thread, promising more delights to come. 👇

Tragically, her words ‘appalled’ the rancorous, not their rancour. The stanza continues: ‘And suncke so deepe into their boyling brests, / That downe they let their cruell weapons fall, / And lowly did abase their loftie crests / To her faire presence, and discrete behests’. RIP.

I have applied some filters. What a relief.