Well, well, well. FCC chairman Brendan Carr—who wrote a Project 2025 chapter—attended the “Reboot 2024” Conference with two VIPs from Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund (Trae Stephens and Mike Solana) and Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts (who spearheaded Project 2025). h/t @sf_mills on X. 1/

Heads up @igagoths.bsky.social - delighted to announce the CFP for IGA 2026: 'Gothic Selves/Artificial Others' hosted at the University of Hull 28-31 July! hullgothic.wordpress.com

I’m more used to saying this to people on the Left than people on the Right, but, “hate speech” is not an exception to the First Amendment. “Hate speech” is protected by the First Amendment unless it falls into a traditional established exception.

A social media user—wrongly accused of posting negatively about Charlie Kirk—was suspended from his job alongside a tidal wave of threatening messages and phone calls, sending his mother and sister fleeing from their home. trib.al/pOclcrP

“CBS shifts to appease the right under new owner,” David Ellison, the “son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, one of the richest people in the world & a vocal backer of…Trump.” 9/12/25 (Larry Ellison has also been identified as a prospective TikTok buyer, along with a16z aka Andreessen Horowitz.) 1/

@teenvogue.com www.teenvogue.com/story/ice-wa...

Woo hoo the Tote bags and Programmes have arrived for #SeaChanges looking forward to meeting all the delegates! #GothicMermaids

Woo Hoo the box of printed programmes for @OGOMProject #SeaChanges conference has arrived!! Only a week to go. We're so excited to meet all the delegates. If you are going to be joining us join with our hashtags #SeaChanges #GothicMermaids @UHresearch

Great day 2 at the Sea Changes conference @britishlibrary.bsky.social! #seachanges

C is for CEASG In Scottish folklore the CEASG is #mermaid with the tail of a salmon. Said to grant three wishes to anyone who can catch her. She can be found in Scottish streams and rivers #SeaChanges #GothicMermaids 🎨Waterhouse's Mermaid 1900 has a silver salmon tail

X is for XANA Nymph-like beings that inhabit rivers & lakes in Northern Spain. Part of Asturian folk tradition, their legacy endures today. XANA emerge on Saint John's Eve & they can use magic to shapeshift into dragons or Cuélebre. Image: P. Swan, Water Nymph 1907 #Seachanges

A big OGOM thank you to @betsycornwell.bsky.social for her insight into the Selkie myth and how it can be adapted into fiction and memoir #SeaChanges. A beautiful and memorable reading for everyone attending the online day. So glad you could stay for days 2 & 3 Betsy!

A big OGOM thank you to #SeaChanges keynote ‪@kgarner.bsky.social‬ so much helpful advice on humanities funding seamlessly interwoven with her research into Scottish #mermaids and Romanticism. We are sharing the slides with all our delegates. Wonderful to have you!

So grateful to @ogomproject.bsky.social for bringing us together for the dream mermaid conference. A brilliant three days thinking about submarine fantasies 💦🧜‍♀️🩵

On my way back from the fantastic #SeaChanges conference organised by @ogomproject.bsky.social. Best opportunity to present my project on #mermaids before I go into hiding for the last stretch of writing

A big OGOM thank you to our star keynote @catherinespooner.bsky.social for bringing sparklefication to our discussion of #GothicMermaids #SeaChanges and for being such a wonderful long standing supporter of our research project for over 15 years!

A bewildered fairy king in a lovely scene by Charles Altamont Doyle (1832-1893).

It's Monday, cleanse your timeline with a bookshop cat. 📷 Shrew Books, Fowey.

The Cat's Tales: Feline Fairy Tales and Folklore published 23 October 2025 by @eandtbooks.bsky.social eandtbooks.com/books/the-ca... #cats #fairytales #folklore

Although we couldn't attend the #seachanges conference this week, delegates can find out more about our @ogomproject.bsky.social books, and take advantage of a special 30% discount here... manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/the-open-gra... @billbloodyhughes.bsky.social

This government promised us 'the biggest wave of insourcing of public services in a generation' 🌊 Have you seen it?! We definitely haven't. 🧐 BUT now that the government are planning changes to the Procurement Act, we've got a chance to put the pressure on. 💪 Take action now. 👇

🚨 Mayor Wu faces criminal charges because she is decent. We all know what ⏰ it is. Of course you are going after a female POC first. She is a “suspicious person” in 2025.

Q is for QUILLER COUCH The author of 'Cornwall's Wonderland' (1914). A collection of folkloric tales bringing to life the mystical landscape of Cornwall and featuring 'Lutey the #Mermaid' . Image: Green-haired mermaids by Arthur Rackham #SeaChanges

R is for RUSALKI Malevolent Slavic river sirens, they will tangle victims in their long hair & drown them. Thought to be the spirits of young women who died tragically. They frequently resemble the concept of the mermaid. Image: Ivan Kramskoi, Rusalki, 1871

T is for TRITON Greek Sea God, half man, half fish, son of Poseidon. I am worn out with dreams; A weather-worn, marble TRITON Among the streams (W.B. Yeats) #SeaChanges

S is for SELKIE Selkies, found in Celtic & Nordic folklore, particularly Scotland, & Ireland including the Orkney & Faroe Islands, transform from seals into humans by shedding their skins & dancing. Selkie novels include 'The Secret of Ron Mor Skerry' (1957) & 'Tides' (2014)

So many people have asked whether the state of academia in Australia is really as bad as I represent it in An Academic Affair, and it's hard to know whether to laugh or cry when I tell them that it's much, much worse.

Authoritarianism in plain sight. Texas Rep. Nicole Collier was forced by police to hang up on a press call after being threatened with a felony arrest—for daring to speak. She can’t be in the bathroom, can’t be on the floor, can’t even talk to the press without GOP cops breathing down her neck.

The use of national security rhetoric to justify mass incarceration today echoes the same logic that led to the incarceration of Japanese Americans. It is inconceivable that the US is once again building concentration camps, denying the lessons learned 80 years ago. www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-a...

P is for PRINCESS HWANG-OK According to legend Princess Hwang-OK comes from a mythical kingdom of merfolk called Naranda. She married King Eunhye of Mugung Kingdom. A bronze statue of this #mermaid sits on a rock facing the sea in Dongbeck Island in Busan, South Korea.

O is for OTHERWORLDS Regarded as a sign of sin, the also mirror represents the mermaid's ability to see through the veil that separates the visible and spirit worlds, according to the folklore of mirrors 🎨 C19th book plate; C14th Bestiary; Hours of Yolande

The Ronald Blythe Fellowship is John Clare Society's new scheme awarding a PhD student focusing on Clare a £1000 bursary to support their work. Please pass on - &/or contact me or Honorary Secretary of the Society, Karen Lakey, for further information: johnclaresociety.wordpress.com/contact-us/

If you are wanting to come but simply can't afford to - we have you covered. We have 5 free tickets still up for grabs. You just need to email me to ask for one. Details in the ticket links below.

D is for DUGONG The Dugong & Manatee with their flipper tails and habit of suckling their young in an upright position out of the water led them to being mistakenly associated with their more glamorous marine companions, the mermaids. 🎨Carrington's Mermaids & Mastodons, 1957

D is also for DAGON Dagon is an ancient fish-tailed god from Mesopotamia; a bearded male with the lower body of a fish. Dagon's worship was believed to bring prosperity through his control over the seas. He appears in many literary works including Milton's Paradise Lost 1667

F is for FEEJEE MERMAID Mummified #mermaids were popular C19th sideshow attractions. Japanese in origin, artists & taxidermists fabricated such creatures using animal parts. The most famous of these monstrous artifacts is the FEEJEE MERMAID, displayed by showman P. T. Barnam

I is for IARA an immortal mermaid from Brazilian folklore associated with the Amazon river. In the Tupi language her name means 'mother of the water' she is said reside in the depths of rivers and to have a river dolphin tail. Image: Black mermaid from The Book of Hours

J is for JAWS OF THE MERMAN a C19th Bavarian tale. Bridegrooms discover their brides have fish scales and the women are sentenced to burn. As the flames grow the jaws of a huge merman emerge from the ocean forming a gateway to the watery underworld & the mermaids are saved!

K is for KRASHENINNIKOV, an C18th naturalist who named the 'sea ape' or 'sea monkey' off the coast of America. He linked this strange hybrid to Conrad Gesner’s C16th discoveries inspired by mermaids. Image: simia marina, sea-monkey. Conrad Gessner (1558).

L is for LITTLE MERMAID published in 1837 in Danish by Hans Andersen, titled Den lille havfrue. The mermaid strives to be human & undergoes a journey of pain & longing, suffering & redemption. The most iconic European mermaid tale & the saddest. Image: H. Clarke 1816

M is for MELUSINE of French medieval legend, she is associated with fountains and springs and her tail is of a serpent rather than a fish. Her husband famously denounces her shape as demonic. Thomas Keightley retells her tale in Fairy Mythology, 1850

N is for NINGYO 人魚, 'human fish' #Yōkai first appears in the Nihonshoki in Osaka in the year 619. Ningyo can bring catastrophe or good fortune & if consumed, immortality. According to myth, Happyaku bikuni is an 800 year old nun who ate a Ningyo as a child. Images: Meyer; Hsu

G is for GOLDEN #MERMAID She appears in a story of that name in Lang's Green Fairy Book 1892. A magical wolf assists the prince to lure the #mermaid with beautiful silks and she is captured. The 'golden mermaid' in modern slang stands for 'the biggest catch of all'.

MERMAID A-Z A #mermaid a day to mark the build up to our conference: Sea Changes: The fairytale Gothic of mermaids, selkies, and enchanted hybrids of ocean and river 6-8 Sept British Library & online #GothicMermaids #SeaChanges opengravesopenminds.com/sea-changes-... Image

A is for AMBOINA MERMAID Writers recorded the capture of a mermaid on the island of Amboina 1712. Said to be 5 feet long, it screeched like a mouse & would not eat fish. The mermaid appears in 'Fishes, Crayfish & Crabs', a collection of the region's sea-life (1712) #SeaChanges

B is for BEN-VARREY Ben-Varrey is the Manx word for the mermaids that supposedly inhabit the mystical waters around the Isle of Man. Beguiling, seductive & benevolent, they bless those who help them with good fortune & even hidden treasure, featuring in Manx Fairy Tales 1911