#RIPMartinParr New Brighton 1983/1986

Historians, philosophers and sociologists of science, technology and medicine are all very familiar with the near impossibility of teaching outside our narrow school/college in UK HE. I may even eventually be made redundant because I was put in a very narrow pigeonhole.

Lol I can’t even teach cross-college modules at the same uni (because budgets are held by colleges and apparently we compete rather than collaborate), the idea of fully blended portable modular learning between unis would make smt expire.

Awful for these families & folks nearby. Also thinking the Canals & Rivers Trust may have a bigger bill than they can pay. They were a model for the creation of English Heritage as a charity, so it also reminds us of how exposed such charities can be. www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/...

Appel à contribution – Le Moyen Âge à poils rmblf.be/2025/12/23/a...

The Plantin archives: the gift that keeps on giving. An #earlymodern ledger for expenses on ‘white paper’ for the printing office with printed binder’s waste on its spine & a #medieval Vulgate Bible fragment as its cover. 😍 Happy holidays everybody! #rarebooks #bookhistory 💙📚📜

شب یلدا مبارک ! Shab-e Yaldā mobārak ! Heureux retour à la lumière ! #Yalda #Yaldanight #یلدا #شب_یلدا

Possibly the most sublime Roman fresco of a temple. The architectural detail of the spiky-topped wooden barrier, the painted relief in the pediment, & the offerings burning on the altar; it’s a symphony of observations. Archaeological Museum of Capri (no provenance) #FrescoFriday

Some really (and qualifiedly) good news from Cardiff UCU @cardiffucu.bsky.social : No redundancies next year, no downgrading of professional services staff. And all without the need for disruptive industrial action, which nobody at all wants. nation.cymru/news/cardiff...

The implosion of the Anglophone higher education system continues apace. The New School sets its own fees, so that can't even be blamed as happens so often in the UK.

Ahead of Christmas, it feels fitting to share this Roman fibula - a decorative pin once used to fasten garments - shaped like a stag. In my Christmas-influenced imagination, it looks rather reindeerish! 🎄 Is it Dasher, Dancer, or maybe Rudolph? 🎅 From the Roman Villa at Borg, 2nd c. AD 📷Villa Borg

The Brutalist Wolverhampton School of Art building, home to England’s first National Black Art Convention, has been granted Grade II listed status, saving it from demolition. buff.ly/e6W4PM4

Hard no to this: French publisher Harlequin has told translators that their work will now be done by AI. They can ‘revise’ AI translations at much lower rate. It’s a subsidiary of Harper Collins so treat this as a test for rollout elsewhere

Amazing use of drones to collect whales' blow to test for pathogens. Very sad to see what they're finding

SSHM invites submissions to its 2025/6 Roy Porter Essay Prize for the best original and unpublished essay in #histmed 🏆£500 first prize Open to all students (registered at the deadline for entries or were awarded their degree in 2025). For the entry form and rules and eligibility see👇 #histmed

Les idées d'Alfred Nobel, c'est de la dynamite 🧨

I had thought I knew the essentials of this case and hoooo boy I was wrong. Fantastic piece: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/m...

Another entirely normal Victorian Christmas for today's #ArchiveAdventCalendar The Cyclist in 1888/9 shouts 'Festive' with its vision of Professor Gorilla, dressed only in red pants, painting the #ChristmasColours of a swampy St Paul's Cathedral through an arch decorated with bicycling pharaohs

It is now official that our jobs are no longer at risk... or at least not until January 1, 2027, when staff teaching in areas marked for cessation may be again put at risk and considered for compulsory redundancy. I have learnt so much about human nature in the last year...

Well this has spread quite far, which is wonderful. Oprigtig tak/ Sincere thanks to colleagues @sciencemuseum.org.uk, @wellcomecollection.bsky.social and at #Mindelunden for their work on this repatriation and the article to share how we managed this.

Finally some some good UK HE news! UK to rejoin EU’s Erasmus student exchange programme www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

Anyone!?!? @ckunzelman.bsky.social mentions an article on GSSB arguing from surveying that students learn more from active learning but consistently survey that they believe they have learned less. That would be a wonderful thing to read for my teaching. Anyone know of work like that?

For #SpoliaSunday, not a piece of #spolia but a frightening terracotta Medusa from 1485-1495. It once decorated a house in the area of the #Calcararia in #Rome, and its blackened patina derives from the smoke from the constant burning of ancient marble in the #lime kilns nearby. #AncientBluesky 🏺

Powerful testimony to the utter failure of politics in the US to provide young people the freedom to learn without violence.

A really interesting article that does not give into panic. I feel that a historical and global perspective would help too. The narrative of decline in reading makes little sense taken over the longue durée. Literacy rates and ability to read complex texts are in fact increasing.

Thinking of all the people existing in places where they are surrounded by people who are not only fine with rather a lot of competent cruelty, but rewarded for it. I’m confident many of us will have seen this happen or experienced it. Best of luck making it to safer places. Strength.

Lichenomphalia umbellifera, a basidiolichen lichen. NWT, Canada. Mushrooms are about 2cm high. #mushroom #lichen #fungi #fungifriends #fungifriday

Situated by the pretty Bay of Locquirec in northern Brittany, the Roman baths of Hogolo were discovered by chance under sand dunes in 1892 and excavated in the 1930s and 40s. They were probably associated with a villa, which has yet to be found. #RomanSiteSaturday

13th December 2002: Belgium's Senate approves same-sex marriage, making it the second country in the world, after the Netherlands, to do so. Belgian activists had been lobbying for same-sex marriage since the 1990s. #OnThisDay #Queerstory

Who invented non-reflective glass? American physicist & chemist Katharine Burr Blodgett in 1938. It revolutionized optics--& led to the coatings used today in everything from eyeglasses to phone screens. She was the first woman to earn a PhD in #physics from Cambridge, 1926. #WomenInSTEM #inventor

Liste de mes fils sur l'histoire des Mongols et du monde des steppes centreurasiatiques :

Note the constant mentions of 'sustainability' in the current discourse about selling uni estate. As if some people hadn't raised the issue of sustainability when universities went on 'shiny building' sprees over the last two decades.

Exactly. Then, there is always the 'talk to your line manager'. Except that the line manager in question may also be at risk.

Mental health & the looming shadow of redundancies never gets a mention in any of the discourse about ‘right sizing’. Sign posting scared anxious people to a phone line barely counts. These emails have and will push people to the edge

Le Musée d'art moderne de Paris reçoit une donation exceptionnelle de 61 œuvres d'Henri Matisse. www.franceinfo.fr/culture/arts...

I'm quite dispirited about heritage colleagues refusal to use alt text. Baffled, since accessibility and inclusion ought to be at the heart of heritage communication. Frustrated because it's getting worse. What to do? (Please don't explain about folks who struggle with it, I know & that's not it)

Solidarity to all.Essex colleagues facing such awful news so close to Christmas (a common tactic unfortunately)

An interesting interview. While Prof Larner was getting sympathy from her neighbour's child who wanted to share their toys with her, I was explaining to mine the potential impact of the University's decision. I know that other colleagues were doing the same.

Very sad. I enjoy Kinsella's books a lot.

I very much enjoyed participating in this podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...

#ChallengePhotoADay #fmspad #UnJourUnePhoto #PhotoCember 9/12 : cone 9/12 : Sparkle Le canal de Willebroek, à Bruxelles, entre les ponts Van Praet et De Trooz.

Being a British parent is so weird bc you're actually worried about paying the sky high rent/mortgage & getting GP appointments but the entire press keeps telling you you're worried there's a trans person or immigrant nearby & the vat on Eton means there'll only be two skiing holidays this year

Final week of the semester. It has been a tough one, but I have done several things that pushed me out of my comfort zone and challenged me in good ways. I was able to have a swim in the Med yesterday on a work trip, so there is that too.

In yet more devastating news, the VC has confirmed her plans to cut 80% of academic staff from Essex Pathways, our foundation year department. This would effectively close down all our existing foundation year programmes through the back door. But it's not a done deal yet. Please share urgently.

We’ve reached day 8 of #ArchiveAdventCalendar and it’s all about #FestiveFood. Thinking of making your own preserves as Christmas gifts this year? Here are a couple of recipes for "Marmlit" and "Jille" from our 18th century herbal notebook

What better way to start the week than with a lovely Roman face pot - this one was found in York and dates from the early third century. It's features resembles those of the empress Julia Domna and it may have been made to commemorate her time spent there in 208-211 CE.

Nouvel ouvrage d’Athéna Tsingarida, professeure à l’Université libre de Bruxelles et directrice du CReA-Patrimoine : "L’éternelle modernité de l’art grec. Archaïsmes et avant-gardes européennes (1870-1914)", aux Éditions de l’Académie royale de Belgique. academie-editions.be/histoire-et-...

my great-grandparents arrived in the UK in the 1890s with nothing. they sold pickles from the front room window, took in laundry, worked as tailors. their children were nurses, teachers, salesmen. their grandchildren were professors, designers, opticians, doctors, magistrates, entrepreneurs.

Every year I, or my European orchid-hunting friends, find at least one flavescens or chlorantha variety of Ophrys bee orchid in Rhodes. Always a pleasant surprise to see the way the genetic dice have rolled and come up with something slightly wayward, where normal rich colours are diminished.