Not enough attention is being paid to the effective closure of the bulk of one of the 2 or 3 most important public archives for modern British history. A terrible own goal for the BBC as a public-service agency.

One of our students has created a petition. Please sign and share: www.change.org/p/stop-the-s...

I am told shipments of my book are on their way by air/sea from the US, as OUP try to meet demand, which has exceeded their expectations. A reprint is also now underway. The key message is, if you want this for Christmas, ORDER IT NOW. It's had glowing reviews. Also available on Kindle immediately.

I saw this in action. I built up my research profile and thought that would save me if our department were ever for the chop. Surely REF would mean they wouldn't let me go? Wrong. It was the most research-active who were shoved out first.

Although senior managers don't care about research, this does not mean that they care about teaching instead.

Another ringing endorsement for my new book, this time from Stephen Bush in the Financial Times.

I'll be on @bbcradio3bot.bsky.social at 6pm, discussing the new Tosca from the Royal Opera with Ian Skelly. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

The lure of Beaton’s sublime surfaces | @amwilson.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/reviews/the-...

I recently went to the National Portrait Gallery's new Cecil Beaton exhibition and thought it was sublime. Read my review for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social here. engelsbergideas.com/reviews/the-...

The interior of the Master’s lodge at Balliol College Oxford. Thanks to Dame Helen Ghosh for exclusive access for our members. #vicsocagm

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.

Someone Else’s Music is proving to be excellent train reading @amwilson.bsky.social !

Just got my copy of Someone Else’s Music, the new book by Alexandra Wilson — looking forward to starting it over the weekend. More info: www.jesus.ox.ac.uk/someone-else... #Opera

'Now, Alexandra Wilson’s new book, Someone Else’s Music, unpicks the myth that opera is alien to the working class. For much of the past century, Wilson shows, opera was a hugely important thread in working-class lives.'

Luciano Pavarotti was born 90 years ago today in Modena. A great tenor – in all senses – his voice was like golden sunshine. I was lucky enough to see him three times, twice in Tosca – a wonderful Cavaradossi. He left so many great recordings. Your favourites?

EXACTLY! ‘Where once there was a yearning to be “exposed to something extraordinary”, today politicians and arts administrators are besotted by the notion of “relevance”, of the arts as something with which people must immediately identify or recognise.’ observer.co.uk/news/columni...

Tamara de Lempicka, Blue Woman with a Guitar, 1929 Polish painter who created her work in an Art Deco style #womensart

Under offer(tory)

Today I’ve been visiting Reims (pronounced Rrrrass), a city in the Champagne region, about 45 mins from Paris on the train. Because it was hit hard by World War I, a lot of Reims was rebuilt in the Art Deco era, which means pleasing buildings galore. So here’s a thread 🧵

I am delighted with this review of my new book in The New Statesman. The reviewer really gets what the book is all about. www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

I am delighted with this review of my new book in The New Statesman. The reviewer really gets what the book is all about. www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

My new article is out in Nineteenth-Century Music Review! ‘Hearing London’s Sailortown in Shanty Repertoire’ explores how 19th-century sailors’ songs reflect the noisy, lively, often precarious world of London’s docklands. www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #MaritimeHistory #Musicology #SeaShanties

This book means more to me than any other book I have written. I want to get copies into the hands of everyone who cares about opera or is interested in the broader cultural history of our country. Please consider buying a copy. Thank you. 🙏 global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Durham Station Road, painting by Eric Thompson (b.1947). #NorthernArt

There's been an annoying glitch in publisher supply chains for my new book just at the point of UK publication (boo) but Amazon has copies (hurrah!). Buy yours while stocks last! Also available with no issues in the US and immediately on Kindle. www.amazon.co.uk/Someone-Else...

Booking is now open for this year's Royal Historical Society Public History Lecture, with @greshamcollege.bsky.social: 'Minor Criminal: The Trial of the Man Who Murdered My Grandmother', with Daniel Finkelstein bit.ly/4op6Wpd 6-7pm, Tuesday 4 November: in person and online #Skystorians 1/2

Students can be customers, or they can get a university education. They can't do both.

Universities are getting away with selling the idea they are research institutions (with associated degree value) after having abandoned research.

We've updated our three BlueSky starter packs for historians. Our principal list now includes details of 130+ societies and networks, based in the UK and Ireland, that advance the study, research and promotion of history go.bsky.app/AZaYQDd Please let us know if there are gaps. #Skystorians 1/2

I went to the new Tosca at Covent Garden and this is what I thought. engelsbergideas.com/reviews/an-u...

At this event I will be talking to singer Adriana Festeu and Christopher White, Head of Opera at the RAM, about the opera-elitism stereotype and how things differ between Britain and Germany. Free to attend and open to all but you need to book a space.

My review of the Radical Harmony (aka Pointillist) exhibition at the National Gallery.

My friend @georgehallmusic.bsky.social is trying to locate a manuscript full score & orchestral parts of the cantata Once Upon a Time (Boosey & Co, 1903) by the composer Liza Lehmann having failed to locate them via Boosey & Hawkes, the British Library et al. If you have any ideas, do contact him.

Please come along and hear me discussing my new book "Someone Else's Music: Opera and the British" at this event at the Royal Academy of Music on 26 September. www.ram.ac.uk/whats-on/ope...

Doesn't sound as if this is being well-handled. www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/2544414...

A VIENNESE COFFEE HOUSE "is a democratic club to which admission costs the small price of a cup of coffee. (...) every guest can sit for hours on end, discuss, write, play cards, receive his mail, and, above all, can go through an unlimited number of newspapers and magazines." Stefan Zweig 💛

If you want to understand the debates we are having about opera today concerning "elitism" and "who opera is for", you need to read this book. The official UK publication date is a month today but you can preorder your copy now. Thank you - every sale counts!

G is for Greenwich ------ 'The Terrace of the Trafalgar Tavern, Greenwich, London' (1878) by James Tissot (Private collection)

Please come along and hear me discussing my new book "Someone Else's Music: Opera and the British" at this event at the Royal Academy of Music on 26 September. www.ram.ac.uk/whats-on/ope...

"Sometimes, you begin to realise, one must look to the periphery of a country to discover its heart." My latest essay for Engelsberg Ideas.

If you're starting a postgraduate course in History this autumn, please do consider joining the Royal Historical Society bit.ly/41mTuck Postgraduate Membership brings access to research funding, events, publications and networks. You'll join an international community of more than 6500 historians.

My latest article, on the "un-Italianness" and yet quintessential Italianness of Turin.

‘… social historian David Kynaston, told The Observer he suspects “a serious scandal is unfolding” John Wyver, Ian Greaves, Erica Wagner and others on the growing battle to prevent damaging changes to the BBC’s priceless behind-the-scenes archives:

Train leaving Newcastle upon Tyne station, 1937, photo by Bill Brandt.

Some thoughts on the problems with our current system of academic peer review. There aren't any easy answers but I think revealing the identity of reviewers might at least make it more civil. thecritic.co.uk/the-pitfalls...

A modest but moving exhibition of Jean-François Millet’s works illuminates the divisions, routines and solitude of French 19th-century rural life. Millet’s rural rides | @amwilson.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/reviews/mill...

I wrote this after seeing James Inverne's new play "That Bastard, Puccini!" Catch it at the Park Theatre in North London until 9 August. Recommended!

Our short story prize is open for submissions again! Please share this widely - and please send us your stories: www.galleybeggar.co.uk/prize Closing date 8 November!

Writing tip. Before you start, locate your inner critic. They’re not hard to find. They’re the arsehole sitting on your shoulder saying “nope that’s shit” every time you type the word “the”. Bind them. Gag them. Chuck them into the linen cupboard, to subsist on crumbs and water. Now you can begin.