Ask this question and its follow-up. Like Begum before him, Alaa el-Fattah is being used as a crowbar to shift reasonable people - even some progressives - into a space of thinking that full citizenship, if granted recently or dual, is retroactively conditional or attracts a lower class of rights.

My father in law has done his traditional Christmas Day Facebook post to remind us of the true meaning of the day: Reminding us of the greatest Christmas of all, December 25th, 1989, when they shot that bastard Ceaușescu

One of the reasons that emergence of ‘cold spots’ of subject provision matters: 52% of 18 year olds from the most disadvantaged backgrounds (the most deprived quintile in the Indices of Multiple Deprivation) plan to live at home when they go the university www.thetimes.com/article/22cc...

This is actually quite brilliant, up to and including the final sentence 🔥

Tony Smith on Ch4News saying international students should be limited because they’re “economically inactive”. International students pay around £27k p.a. in fees to their universities, at least half again to landlords and they spend their parents’ hard-earned money in local shops.

Mentally replacing every "ChatGPT says..." or "we asked AI..." headline with "bold, bin-raiding raccoons may have a surprising answer."

I once asked a bookseller at a large indie store how many people would have to buy a book for it to get the attention of the store buyer and cause an additional order and they said: Three.

It’s the exclusive everyone wanted, the story that will win next year’s Pulitzer… I can reveal London’s giant AI generated Christmas artwork, the subject of much online mockery, is being torn down - and I honestly *genuinely* think you’ll never guess why. www.londoncentric.media/p/ai-artwork...

I really hate it when scientists keep saying that “we need to rebuild trust in science,” because it implies that scientists are to blame for the mistrust rather than the millions of dollars of dark money that have funded political attacks on science in order to advance a far right agenda.

Just picked up my contributor's copy of The Cambridge Urban History of Europe, a MIGHTY three-volume tome extending from antiquity to the present day in which I am lucky enough to have a chapter co-authored with @cpdickenson.bsky.social on Zoning the City.

Hey authors! Check to see if Anthropic stole your book to train their slop generator on. You’re entitled to $1500 per stolen Work. Look up your work, and if you’re in the database, file a claim secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/

Think it's critical for people to realise that when we talk about accommodation of the far right undermining centre-left and centre-right parties, we're not just talking about voters defecting to the far right directly. We're also talking about voters defecting to more 'authentic' left parties.

The Danish Social Democrats are currently on course for their worst election result since at least the Second World War, despite their brand of far-right accommodationism being touted as a blueprint for other centre-left parties.

We need to move away from First Past the Post. 🗳️ #PR #ProportionalRepresentation #FairElections Full article: https://loom.ly/ojnMd-A

‘I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe’ – This is climate breakdown

A little milestone moment today: I have signed the contract with Cambridge University Press for my book, 'Augustus Around the World: The Bimillennial Commemorations of 1938'. 🥳

Save languages at the University of Nottingham c.org/fWNV5PrpGZ

Ed Davey wants to 'work with government' on electoral reform - BBC News

Masque of the Red Death #Art by Iren Horrors

'Music and modern foreign languages degrees are among courses being suspended at the University of Nottingham, with the institution saying it “cannot rely on additional income” from the coming tuition fee rises.' 1/3

If you aren't seeing skeets from some of your fave people, they might have been labeled "Rude" by bsky mods. Idk what they are thinking, I don't need a mommy to tell me who to be buddies with. Anyway, go into Settings > moderation > bluesky moderation (advanced) and turn Rude off.

As social media, like all disruptor tech, enshittifies a couple of decades in, there’s this weird feeling I’ve only just noticed: where is everybody. Your friends aren’t in a place where your friends used to be. They’ve left, or been swamped by paid content. A meaningless hollow sadness.

What's that I see before me? A new Romancing the Gothic conference! Celebrating the 200th anniversary of Radcliffe's last publications with a conference on the work of women and people of marginalised genders in the Gothic and horror... romancingthegothic.com/2025/10/15/r...

For reasons, it would be v. helpful to have information from a broad range of academic and non-academic (incl. GLAM) users of the BBC Written Archives OTHER THAN historians, briefly on: 1) What you've used it for and 2) How the proposed changes would impact on your research. Reposts welcomed.

Classics friends may enjoy this. Some of the Latin pronunciation is a bit weird, but the essence is spot on! 😆

New Orleans couple discovers ancient Roman grave marker in their yard www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

That every TV spot and discussion I have seen about the NHS has been about 'winning the next election' not 'so what, exactly, are we spending this money on and is that a good idea?' again shapes which MPs get rewarded and also forces smart MPs to sound stupid when they speak in public.

All are welcome to our first research seminar of the academic year with Dr Simon Glenn on ‘The Bactrian Mirage: coins and history in Hellenistic Central Asia’ on 16 October, 17:15-18:30 UK time. More details in the thread below. Please note the change of on campus venue to Michael Sadler 1.01

THE QUATERMASS EVENT takes over QUAD in Derby on Saturday 6 December 2025 from 12pm. All three Hammer films plus full supporting programme and guests. Booking and details available at derbyquad.co.uk

When the last Labour government got in, if you married a UK citizen you could get British citizenship after one year for less than £100, and claim benefits straight away. By 2010, it was a minimum five-year process that cost seven grand, you had to do a test, and couldn't claim benefits in that time

This train terminates here (and so might you): Horror on the Underground www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/thi...

Mrs R: "There was a woman on the ward today who didn't want to take paracetamol. We've had to explain that we're not giving it to her because she's got a fever and we want her to feel better, but because she's got a fever and if we don't get her temperature down then her baby is going to die."

'Counting the Stakes: A Reassessment of Vlad III Dracula': new in 'Transactions of the Royal Historical Society' bit.ly/46iJfIU In this new article, Dénes Harai reconsiders the victims of 'Vlad the Impaler' (c.1431-76), the historical inspiration for Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula #Skystorians 1/2

Just your basic reminder that a slogan that mobilises your base does not necessarily do anything good for anyone else.

I think we're actually all sleeping on the fact that the Lib Dems 'only' polling at their GE level is a very good result for them, they usually collapse in midterm because they don't get much attention.

Picked up some Lib Dem stats at conference. Some of these surprised me (especially given media coverage): 1. The Liberal Democrats now control more councils than the Conservative Party 2. In May's local elections in England, the LDs elected more councillors than either Labour or the Tories. (1/x)

Do the BBC know they don't have to make every stupid thing Donald Trump says their leading headline for the day? 🙄

Imagine you're in a weird romcom where Paul Hollywood is your rival. Do you go "let's have a bread baking competition" or do you emphasise your own relative strengths? Because that in short has been the central problem with the traditional two's approach to anti-immigration voters and Reform UK.

Seriously how hard is it to say “This is an outrageous attack on our friends and neighbours who are in this country legally and have followed all the rules to get settled status, who are valued members of our communities, get to fuck frog-face”?

Reform's latest interventions IMO show the futility of trying to address 'legitimate concerns'. You persuade almost no-one and the opposition move on to demand more anyway. Meanwhile you have missed an opportunity to state the liberal/economic case for migration.

Did you know... there's a tiny Dracula statue hidden in Hungary? 🧛‍♂️ Perched just outside Budapest’s Vajdahunyad Castle - a building inspired by Transylvanian fortresses - this little bronze statue shows Count Dracula reading... Bram Stoker’s Dracula! 🦇

reposting with alt text because this feels incredibly significant. the right-wing disinfo machine means a lot of the people grieving Charlie Kirk never heard any of the things he said that would have tarnished his brand as Guy Who Just Wants to Have Dialogue Across the Aisle

We're delighted to announce that we're going to be joined for 2025-26 by Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts. She's an expert in Greek History, especially accessed via material and visual culture, with a particular interest in the rituals and beliefs of ancient religion! www.elliemackinroberts.net

This frontispiece in my book just made me laugh a lot. Is this Buddhist reincarnation, or some other form of afterlife?

Reform’s polling lead is astonishingly brittle. The headline numbers may look impressive, but the underlying data reveals a fundamental weakness. 4 major headaches for Farage:

"We will police the streets and not the tweets" says Nigel Farage, who previously demanded the police arrest a comedian for making a joke about him

Just look at the state of this polling over the course of this century. The absolute partisan conviction that things are only OK when your guy is in charge, and when he isn’t, everything is terrible. Moreover, everything becomes instantly terrible when the other guy gets in.