The rapid erosion of the mainstream political taboo on Powellism and Mosleyism (etc) is one of the most striking and alarming features of the present moment. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

One of the oddest things about Tony Blair is that he has turned into the cartoon image drawn by Steve Bell since the 1990s. It’s spooky.

‘The task facing a mature society is to adapt its methods of financing universities to sustaining the purposes for which such institutions exist – rather than, as at present, the other way round’. Essential context for Britain’s university crisis.

Acrid smoke now in East Edinburgh. WHO recommend a PM 2.5 limit of 5 µg/m3, tonight it’s over 82.

That’s Arthur’s Seat ablaze again. 2026 bushfire season starting in May not August.

"wild swimming ... causes issues with private ownership" is genuinely a sentence written by the national park authority for Kinder Scout, the locus classicus of public access protest in England

First time I've seen a Cinnamon Bug (Corizus hyoscyami), seems unusual for Scotland but seems to be spreading north. Striking colour against spinach.

The late Ian Jack would have had a cracking column out of this story.

I’d love to hear how other academic colleagues are managing written assessment in light of AI. (but please not “I let them use it but ask that they reflect on their use of it”)

I teach both academic writing and creative writing to geographers and this has been the most dispiriting semester of my career, for many of the reasons below.

I heard just now that Clutag Press will shortly come to a close, and with it Archipelago an end. Understandable as its presiding genius, Andrew McNeillie, will be eighty. But I never had such friends as I met through it, and never such a sense of home, and nowhere else such encouragement. Ach.

I witnessed this from the public gallery. The weight and pain in the Assembly Hall were palpable. Moving responses from Jamaican, Nigerian and Ghanaian churches.

The situation at the University of Edinburgh is so grim right now. To deduct 100% salary for a marking boycott … is a likely illegal move from management.

At the height of George Osborne’s austerity, we used to joke that keeping your job is the new pay rise. Under this Government, it is literally true.

I could not be angrier or more heartbroken today as thousands of staff at the University of Nottingham receive official communication that they’re up for redundancy. But I also could not be prouder of my inspiring colleagues who refuse to simply accept this as inevitable. We will fight for our jobs!

I went to check in on Gulliver’s foot and ankle this afternoon – one of the most interesting listed ruins in Edinburgh. c20society.org.uk/news/remnant...

One of their MSPs is a Tommy Robinson supporter who wants to deport all Muslims. Project hate and expect a welcome? Naw, man, being hateful is lonely.

Pleased about this, not least because she made the case for prison reform which is electorally unpopular but principled yet @katenevens.bsky.social held firm.

Really perceptive piece that no-one in power will want to read.

I'm Lead Judge of the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction, awarded at University of Edinburgh since 1919 and due to be announced this month. But the university is currently withholding 100% of my pay for participating in a marking and assessment boycott. So, at present, there will be no prize.

My day started with the song of my first whitethroat, and it ended with this requiem for a palm tree. Wonderful.

Truly one of the easiest and most delicious things to grow, taste is incomparable from supermarket versions, 10/10 radish win 🫜

honestly, what a choob but credit to Ross Greer for rapid-fire moral clarity

BREAKING: smashed the household composting record – 80°C Accidentally melted the garden with the neighbour's grass clippings, please don’t call SEPA.

University management spent £80 million on new building that wasn't needed (presently for sale at £14 million) and now decide 600 staff should go to 'save' £50 million. This is the math currently shaping future of UK HE. Staff paying the price for mismanagement. Govt looking the other way

Everyone goes on about spring sunshine but what’s better than a cold night haar? So underrated.

A new study claims charging VAT on Scottish private schools will leave the state worse off by £180m a year. That’s a big claim. But it rests on some VERY shaky assumptions 🧵

Feeding time: coffee + food waste + bedstraw + undergraduate dissertations



Lovely day with students thinking about community ownership enabling Gaelic revival and ecological restoration. 12.11pm: the sound of a US KC-135 Stratotanker above us. Profoundly unsettling.

Just saw Everybody to Kenmure Street, magic film. Catch it if you can.

Things feel pretty bleak at work. This isn't normal.

Cold, determination ✊

I'm reminded of that terrible warning from the apostle James: “Weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you … Listen! The wages of the labourers … which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries have reached the ears of the Lord”

Absolutely this

Edinburgh being Edinburgh

NEW: We often hear that Scotland’s more progressive income tax is “driving people out the country.” New HMRC data shows the opposite. Far more taxpayers are moving to Scotland than leaving it. Let’s look at the data 🧵

The BBC has run an interesting piece about USAF air refuelling tankers using Prestwick in Ayrshire to resupply for operations in Iran. John Swinney has implied when questioned this is untoward and his hands are tied: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Really? 1/4 🧵

The most Edinburgh thing to have Edinburgh’d – a stand of Colin Baxter postcards scattered to the wind over Princes Street, a lost red squirrel snagged in a pothole.

An incredible achievement. Hoping that this can be rolled out across Scotland too…?

Some very interesting work here on the biodiversity impact of land abandonment during the Black Death. I'd love to see something similar on the Highland Clearances ... it would usefully inform re-wilding chat.

‘First as tragedy, then as farce’ – bombing a girls school followed by this grotesque UN panto. It's a truly grim timeline, friends, but we hope and work for justice.

I have some hot compost news

Wow! Palestine Action win judicial review - Guardian report. This is a *big* legal win. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

The future of the university – AI getting high on its own supply

Ring? Just don’t.

An analysis of systems – patriarchy, billionaire capitalism, violent borders – is rarely popular but exactly right. I’m grateful that an MSP is willing to say this.

Hello, I have a new book out in the spring with Picador and I would love it if you could help me spread the word. IF WE TOLERATE THIS draws on years of work, to help readers understand why British politics is hurtling rightwards and what to do about it. Pre-orders: uk.bookshop.org/p/books/if-w...

Despatches from the biocide aisle in Tesco. 👇

Geographers, in case you missed this detail, Alex Pretti graduated from the Minnesota Geography department in 2011.