The number of displaced persons in Lebanon is now over a million. 20% of the population, roughly, is unable to sleep their home tonight.

Bertie knows he's not allowed on the worktop. He says it doesn't count as the worktop up here.

I had a day out and met a lovely chicken who wears (one cup of) a bra to hold her up when she has eaten too much. Absolutely no comment.

It would be *cruel* to include the phrase “cosplay Gutenberg” in relation to Kelmscott Press, but would it be *untrue*?

AHRC Studentship – Invisible Hands: Migrant Labour & British Craft in 18thC (UCL & V&A) Closes 15 April Using historical, curatorial & digital humanities methods, you will uncover visible & invisible ‘migrant hands’ that contributed to textiles, metalwork, ceramics etc www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

If you want to read the full text of St Patrick’s letter where he cites ‘weep with those who weep’ - it is right here - www.confessio.ie/etexts/epist...

My Ides of March fun fact is that the place where Caesar was stabbed is now a cat sanctuary, and I think it’s beautiful that creatures with tiny knives on their feet live there

When you have done all the engraving work to contribute to a famous collection in 1674, and then, after the print run, you realize that you forgot to finish the tail of the damn chameleon ... #skystorians #bookhistory #proofreading

RIEN QUE POUR LA GUEULE DES ANGLAIS

I will lift up mine eyes to the kitchen counter, from whence cometh my fish

Jürgen Habermas ist tot. Der Philosoph und Soziologe starb heute im Alter von 96 Jahren in Starnberg.

I would like someone - a journalist, a backbencher, an opposition leader - to ask the prime minister to defend this, explicitly.

Comme ça les britanniques sauront ce qu’ils détruisent chaque fois qu’ils achètent un truc

Les @annales.ehess.fr ont l'immense tristesse d'apprendre le décès de Jacques Revel. La revue doit tant à son intelligence et à sa générosité. Secrétaire de rédaction de la revue de 1975 à 1980, il observait et analysait avec une acuité extraordinaire les évolutions de l'historiographie. 1/2

I still think about this a lot.

It's 500 years since the first text printed in Yiddish, and one of our amazing grad students is hosting a symposium this October to mark the date: please forward the CFP to Yiddishists, book historians, typography nerds, and anyone you think might be up for this! medieval.ox.ac.uk/500-years-of...

I’m inching my way through Duolingo Kiswahili (and will try and find a real teacher soon too)- an excellent procrastination tool but it’s getting a bit close to home

The most beautiful thing you'll see all day: a depiction of a common thistle in watercolour, gouache and cut-out green paper pasted onto paper – the extraordinary work of multi-talented George Sand from 1848 (The Met)

C’est la journée internationale des droits de la femme et j’ai un cadeau poétique !

You Can Never Go Home Again? Had a lovely time reminiscing about the (currently closed) Annmary Brown Memorial at my alma mater Brown University (curated by bibliographer extraordinaire Margaret B. Stillwell) for this student article! Hoping the renovations conclude soon! theindy.org/article/3996

We were interviewed as part of the research for the Brexit Couples project, housed at Bristol, report now out: I burst into tears during the interview and apparently that happened fairly often - brexitcouples.ac.uk/publications...

the fear and anger last night about this was tangible on X, TikTok (invisible here) the city, sited on a flood plain and with poorly maintained drainage, unregulated sprawl, grinds to a halt; while cancer care budgets are also being cut — but funds to 'renovate' State House again continue to climb

Full book jacket just dropped, and we're pretty happy with it. Huge thanks to @cecilefromont.bsky.social, @soccerpolitics.bsky.social, Alice, and Andrés for your generous words! #earlymodern #BeyondTheOcean global.oup.com/academic/pro...

I am sitting in the NG contemplating Philippe de Champaigne’s Richelieu as hordes of French people walk past without the merest glance at him.

Choose your own adventure

Largely applies to academic books too

👀 Over the last few months, I’ve been working with the terrific triumvirate @spparkle.bsky.social, @emiliekmmurphy.bsky.social & Hannah Yip to set up “Sonance: A Journal of Early Modern Sound Studies”, a diamond open access journal dedicated to historic sounds in all their wondrous & eclectic forms.

*bursts in, sweating, out of breath* “Drop everything, fish doorbell’s back” visdeurbel.nl/en/

amazing cover for a fascinating moment in time. the advent of containerisation famously ended the London Docklands as actual docks (because container ships are incredibly big and wouldn't be able to travel up the Thames)

“We thought we were living in a politically neutral slave state.”

Le père de Marc Bloch donnant un cours d’histoire romaine à la Sorbonne vers 1910. On remarque les trois jeunes femmes dans l’assistance fort studieuse pré-ordis portables. (On adore l’idée qu’un éditeur de cartes postales se dise que c’est un bon sujet, à quand un revival)

The Frenchman has been reading about the Khomeini-Khamenei transition. “Il avait même pas fini sa thèse de doctorat! Vous finissez la thèse, ça vous évite d’être dictateur.” In case anyone needs to encourage students over the finish line.

Went to see that great baroque film L’année dernière à Marienbad and now I’m dreaming of a swan feather gown

I have a WhatsApp group of friends from college: one of them just video butt-dialed us and we all answered instantly, an emergency summit of six middle aged women, reading glasses on and ready to go 💕

Once a key ingredient in iron gall ink, too giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... The little-known commodity fuelling Sudan’s civil war

Traversées de la Manche : 119 migrants secourus en mer, au large de la mer du Nord

On the way to the library I made a little detour for a peek at Powhatan’s mantle - always feels like I should bow

here's to the most elegant and endearing aging process ever seen in an Oxford meeting room

Teaching about phantasmagoria this week, so I dug up this 1817 print of a phantasmagoric chimera from my Douce files. Tabs can be pulled to create "extravagant changes of countenance truly diverting"

The dramatic possibilities of "little libraries" are seriously under-explored

Book events coming up: - 12 March, Oxford, launch www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/stuart-jon...

Professor John Nightingale, iconic medievalist and Fellow of Magdalen, who taught me Einhard's Life of Charlemagne, retires this summer. So Oxford and Magdalen are recruiting. There is no better place to teach and research medieval history than this: in the footsteps of Karl Leyser.

A new issue of HLQ is out - see more via Project Muse. It's really exciting to see the directions the journal is taking with @brettrushforth.bsky.social as editor. muse.jhu.edu/issue/56420

I should have been advertizing this long ere now: but! South London! I will be talking tonight at the Barnes Philosophy Club, about 'vintage thinking', the anxiety of variety, distraction, and attention, in the c17th and now. Come, if you can! osoarts.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/...

So the next Home Office disaster starts in under a months’s time.

OBS / Lincoln College research associate position! We invite early career / grad scholars to apply to our new 2-week research associate position @lincoln.ox.ac.uk. Any interesting projects that will benefit from 2 weeks at Lincoln -- £500, accommodation and meals. Deadline 27th March

Terrific @vittles.bsky.social series on UK Chinatowns - here, a smart article on how Chinese students in the UK have transformed them www.vittlesmagazine.com/p/the-new-ch... - for a delicious spin on UKHE, for a change