Cannot stress just how good this bit of news is for UK universities and the student experience. For our part, we have really missed having students from Italy and Greece in particular join us for a year.

Clay letters from ancient Mesopotamia are alive with idiom, sayings, and everyday language that I love. Here are just a few random ones so you can enjoy them too.

BREAKING: 38 Labour MPs sign open letter urging the PM to drop proposed plans to do away with some jury trials. Many more MP’s, not on this letter, have said they will rebel if necessary. I hope the PM is listening

A great event towards the end of Jan - m'learned colleague Daniel Gordon, who recently took voluntary redundancy from academia, is going to reflect on how that feels and what it's like. Since many academics are going to be in that position, important. 👇 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/uk-univers...

"Publishing your research in Classics and Archaeology journals" ICS training session 📆 Wednesday, 21 January 2026, ⏰ 15:00-17:00 💻 Online via Zoom View details and register: ics.sas.ac.uk/study-traini... In conversation with Myles Lavan, Peter Liddel, and Sarah Nooter. Moderated by Emlyn Dodd.

A million Muslims live in New York City. We belong here, as does every other New Yorker. This is vile Islamophobia from the Councilwoman and it has no place in our city.

Today we are launching a new series of articles and podcasts to mark the 100th issue of History Workshop Journal 🎉✊🗃️ In this introductory article, Barbara Taylor reflects on a picnic she shared with other editors in 1984, and what it meant to be part of the HWJ collective.

The final cover for the book on the Blair governments is in! With some great testimonials on the back... You can pre-order now for the 10 February publication date! Publisher's site here: manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526146328/

This entire weekend

It will probably come as no surprise to anyone to hear Reform UK has become the most referenced oppositional party on the BBC and ITV’s major news coverage, new research has found www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/ref...

Delighted to be interviewed for this @artsprofessional.co.uk piece about the progress and enduring challenges for disabled people in the UK's arts and cultural sectors. Thanks to @drmaimusie.bsky.social for inviting me to contribute! www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/fea...

Sorry tagged the wrong David! @profdavidturner.bsky.social I meant!

Delighted to write my first article for @artsprofessional.co.uk celebrating disability! @ncace.bsky.social Thanks to my three wonderful interviewees: Kyle Lewis Jordan @davidturners.tcgs.co & Jessica Thom ! It’s been such pleasure to hear your stories! www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/fea...

Will be @ics.bsky.social @sas-news.bsky.social today discussing the ‘Representation of the ‘Other’’. In light of the gallery redesign @britishmuseum.bsky.social . Come & join us! ics.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

Noem leaves the hearing and is heckled as she departs the room

Magaziner: How many US military veterans have you deported? Noem: We have not deported military veterans. Magaziner: We are joined on zoom by a gentleman who is an army combat veteran who was shot twice while serving our country. You deported him to Korea.

The Heritage Foundation is cracking

Ramirez to Noem: "You lied on the record and you lied to members of this committee. You violated court orders by not turning around deportation flights bound for El Salvador where we know that hundreds of people under your leadership reported they were raped, beaten, and nearly died."

In the name of a unique British identity the far right is becoming more American, adopting a weaponised and hateful version of Christianity because its US backers and funders say so. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

apparently there's 'falling growth' in the 'scientific research' sector, and yes, that is what will happen if you slash jobs in universities

When will this crisis get any attention whatsoever!? A THOUSAND ACADEMIC STAFF AT ONE INSTITUTION SERVED REDUNDANCY RISK NOTICES! And that's not counting what's surely being visited on professional services staff too. This is an economic catastrophe, to say nothing of the intellectual catastrophe!

"Metropolitan police officers must tell their bosses if they are Freemasons, the force has announced, amid fears membership could be linked to corruption "Anyone who is part or had been a member of a “hierarchical organisation that require members to support and protect each other” must declare it"

Please remember this next time you hear Nigel Farage and Reform say we must leave the ECHR to control our borders

good to see, since society must discourage baldfaced lying (especially by authorities) to keep functioning. some other consequences to go along with this would be even better

GLASHEEN: Antifa is our primary concern right now. That's the most immediate violent threat we're facing BENNIE THOMPSON: Where is antifa headquartered? GLASHEEN: ... ... ... we are building out the infrastructure right now THOMPSON: What does that mean?

I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win

Buttigieg on Indiana: "The big part of how Trumpism works is to make you feel totally disempowered. To make him feel inevitable. And yet the clear takeaway from this is he is not unstoppable and you are not without power."

Farage had to come out hiding early because Tice tried to defend him earlier & libelled the target of Farage’s vicious anti-semitism. Rarely have two people deserved each other more.

The Institute of Museum & Library Services has restored all previously canceled federal grants to libraries, following a ruling by a federal judge "Restoration of these grants is a massive win for libraries of all kinds in all states."

Looking forward to our next @ics.bsky.social – British Museum seminar with another terrific group of speakers, incl @hardeepdhindsa.bsky.social @drmaimusie.bsky.social, Eleanor Newman & Joe Skinner. Register at link below!

Jacob Frey: "We are here to respond to credible reports relaying that there are as many as 100 federal agents that will be deployed to the Twin Cities with a specific focus on targeting our Somali community. To our Somali community -- we love you and we stand with you. That commitment is rock solid"

And that's a wrap! Congratulations to the winner of the 2025 #WolfsonHistoryPrize, Hannah Durkin. @wmcollinsbooks.bsky.social

I wrote Between Two Rivers to share something I love in a way that anyone — whatever their work, prior knowledge, or exhaustion levels — could enjoy. So many writers have done this for me on topics I’d never have time for a deep dive on (trees, the ocean, eels), and I wanted to do this for others❣️

A bit speechless, beyond grateful, and incredibly honoured to have been included on this list with some truly amazing science writers. Thank you, Andrew Robinson, whom I cannot find on BlueSky 🙏🏽 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Graduate of the American Studies programme that the University of Nottingham wishes to close wins 2025 Wolfson History Prize for Survivors: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the Atlantic Slave Trade. History, it's a long game. Divest in haste, repent for the longue durée.

One of the lives Stoppard saved was mine.

'I am less inclined to call on the Government for a solution to the British Library’s ongoing issues since, despite repeated calls for action, the UK Government has largely ignored the similar crisis within UK Higher Education.' 1/3

I wrote a piece for Bylines Scotland on the UK government's planned changes to the Motability scheme and how it's going to affect people in the real world. bylines.scot/society/what...

'Britain becomes world’s largest economy to end new oil and gas exploration' Feels like this should have been bigger news... www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/britain...

I hope someone draws this wonderful story about Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and the power of the arts to help us see things differently, to the attention of our Education Secretary. Do read it, it will lift your spirits.

Last week, ICE arrested and separated a father and son after a routine check-in. Six-year-old Yuanxin had just enrolled in the first grade at an elementary school in Astoria. Now he's in custody, alone. ICE won't say where. This cruelty serves no one. It must end.

Funny how @zackpolanski.bsky.social suggesting a raft of policies to try and improve the lives of the vast majority is ‘fantasy economics’, but when Brexiteers were allowed to indulge their lunatic fantasies about leaving the EU it somehow became ‘The Will of the People’. 🦄🤔

Do you work at the intersection of universities, the arts 🎭 & culture? If so, we are very keen to hear from you! At @ncace.bsky.social we are organising our 2nd Festival of Cultural Exchange, taking place in April 2026. If you want to get involved apply by 8 Dec. files.ncace.ac.uk/NCACE%20Fest...

I am playing D&D with five friends via Zoom and we’re all in our fifties and my young teen self knowing this would be happening would be so happy and satisfied.

EPSTEIN BOMBSHELL: my staff is releasing a new report showing JPMorgan Chase executives – all the way to the top – enabled Epstein's sex trafficking operation. You're going to want to read this.

I'm not going to share Stock's Unherd article. But here's the important part: "Abortions should only be done for a highly restricted set of reasons. They should not be just nodded through for any reason a pregnant woman likes." The ven diagram of the anti-trans & the anti-woman lobby is a circle.

Brexit has caused almost twice as much damage to the UK economy than estimated by official forecasts, according to new paper from a group of experts including a senior Bank of England economist

Word of the day is ‘quockerwodger’ (19th century): a puppet politician whose strings are pulled entirely by someone else.

BREAKING: As Reform UK's former Welsh leader and Nigel Farage associate is sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison for taking bribes to spread pro-Russian propaganda, @peterjukes.bsky.social reports on why it opens the door to a broader investigation of Russian interference in our politics

we are going to win