This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.

Easter Thought For The Day: "And, in a very real way, isn't dying and coming back to life the true meaning of Easter?"

Change your future for good 💚🩷. Choose your perfect course at OU. Register now for October 2026, February, and April 2027: https://ow.ly/7w4m50YyuLc #OUfamily #TheOpenUniversity

I think you will find it is pronounced Dogtanian.

I LOVE WHEN PEOPLE LEARN THIS

The ol’Imposter Syndrome has got a firm grip on me.

Extremely disappointed with @ipswichtown.bsky.social right now. Not what I thought the club stood for, frankly. They’ve got some serious making up to do.

I'd completely forgotten it was #ALCSDay - that's cheered me up! A nice little payment on top of my book royalties. :)

Out today in the UK buijones.com/books/everyt... … cc @uselesstree.bsky.social @fromtga.bsky.social (should be available at Blackwell’s on Broad Street ) @prashantrao.bsky.social @peterfrankopan.bsky.social (and some London bookstores too)

A good listen for anyone in academia who feels a tad overwhelmed from time to time (understatement!): www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... I'm off for a micro-break ...

I was looking for something about agricultural diets but found this Victorian version of the Distracted Boyfriend meme

News | Call for urgent international monitoring of Iran’s cultural heritage Sites face ‘intensifying risks’ due to escalating conflict and communication blackout

How nice! I've been given an OU 'Going the Extra Mile' award!

I flipping love the new @callmeteditfc.bsky.social, @ipswichtown.bsky.social collaboration! www.itfc.co.uk/news/2026/ma... #Ipswich #heritage #uppatowen

OpenARC is the hub for Arts & Humanities research at The Open University, exploring what it means to be human and contributing to a more informed and culturally literate society. Follow for research insights & events: 🔗 www.linkedin.com/company/openarc-research-centre 🔗 bsky.app/profile/open...

1️⃣4️⃣ The Objects, Collections and Museums Research Group brings together researchers engaging with material things, the curatorial practices that define them, and the museums and collections that house them. Convenors: Dr Amy Jane Barnes & Dr Amanda Sciampacone. 🔗 fass.open.ac.uk/research/gro...

The UK has fallen from 1st to 22nd within Europe, on LGBTQ-focused protective legislature. It's narrowly ahead of Albania - a Muslim country - and dead last in western Europe. This is owing to a surge in anti-LGBTQ sentiment that needs FAR more attention than you or your party have given it.

I don't think I've seen the Simpsons episode where Lisa got access to a time machine ;) Bronze statuette of a priest or offrant Etruscan 3rd–2nd century BCE www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

The Twentieth Century Society has made a listing bid for David Chipperfield’s River & Rowing Museum in Henley – the architect’s first major UK project

Our A-Z resource of 1,000 women artists gives you a place to start exploring. Here's K 👉 https://artuk.org/discover/curations/an-a-z-of-1000-women-artists-represented-on-art-uk-de-karlowska-to-kyle-18086 🧑‍🎨 Christine Kinsey (b.1942) © the artist 📸 Carmarthenshire Museum #WomensHistoryMonth

I don’t know why a version of this story gets telegraphed every six months. I don’t know why people scoff or find it objectionable and invariably the real story is never one about censorship. It’s a case of giving people information. It’s actually about being aware of trauma that isn’t your own.

A highly recommended read: www.amazon.co.uk/Brain-Rest-d...

This bowl is an example of the Japanese practice of kintsugi - a method of repairing broken ceramics using lacquer mixed with powdered gold.

For 50+ years, The Open University and BBC have co-produced inspiring content 📺 Explore free learning on OU Connect: https://connect.open.ac.uk/ #OUfamily #TheOpenUniversity #OUconnect #BBC

Not gonna lie, the promise of a 'tea-time experience' appeals to me A LOT. www.museumsassociation.org/museums-jour...

Sixty years ago, Jennie Lee's vision created The Open University 🎓 Welcoming all backgrounds, millions have started life-changing journeys. #OUfamily #TheOpenUniversity #OU60 💙

After weeks of camping out downstairs to work, I've take up permanent residence on the sofa. I need to be comfy because of my (flaring) chronic pain condition & there's lots of light because the back of kitchen is a converted conservatory. Also, the cat loves it because she can snuggle up to me. :)

Friends! For the @openuniversity.bsky.social’s free learning platform I wrote a course: Exploring Ovid’s big ideas. It’s about Pacific Islander creation myth, monsters, Brazilian art, how stories change their meaning across time, British-Nigerian poetry, and of course… about Ovid. 💻🏺

He seems really passionate about the building so fingers crossed something positive will come of this! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

*whispers* I somehow managed to get a mark of 95! Maybe I'm better at this than I thought? Maybe I should actually have a bit of confidence in my abilities and registered on the Intermediate course instead! Got to say that the stress of assignments is somewhat putting me off further study though.

NEWS: C20 has supported listing Eduardo Paolozzi's polychromatic Pop Art murals (1983) at Kingfisher Shopping Centre in Redditch, described as the 'Ravenna of the New Towns' by historian Owen Hatherley. The 12 mosaic panels depict the towns industrial heritage. ➡️ c20society.org.uk/news/support...

I've actually done a bit of writing this afternoon. Not on my own research, but for future module materials, about a set of objects that I know really well and I'm (not exactly but kind of) intimately acquainted with (I've looked at them a lot!). It's been really refreshing and revitalising!

Bit of art history, bit museumy … what more could you want from an opening ceremony?

I dreamt last night that I had to write up my PhD and the panic I felt at the sheer number of words I had to produce. THANK GOD I don't have to do that again! 😌

❄️ Today's #OnlineArtExchange is winter sports ⛷️🛷 Here are ten Winter Olympic sports in art 👉 https://artuk.org/discover/stories/athletes-on-ice-ten-winter-olympic-sports-in-art#OnlineArtExchange 'Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean' by Charles J. B. Dodd (1913–1984) © the artist's estate. 📷 Gedling Borough Council

OBVS! www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/2582055...

It’s the definition of driech outside today.

Just submitted my second Chinese assignment. Had to write a passage of text in characters and then record myself speaking it out loud. Flipping stressful! But it’s done. About a third of the way through the module now.

People often say that their least favourite word is "moist" (which I've always thought is a kind of a social media-driven contagion rather than a genuine thing) – but anyway, it might help those people if they interpolate an "A", e.g.

British Library placement profiles include illustrated & illuminated incunabula, Elgar's letters, law & legal studies, UK newsletter publishing, war poetry, digital sustainability, decarbonisation and more. Deadline 27 February. #Skystorians

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

NEWS: C20 is delighted that Norwich Sports Village, the only concrete shell structures in the UK designed by pioneering Swiss engineer Heinz Isler, has been Grade II listed. The graceful, tent-like canopies are only 10mm thick and a masterpiece of engineering. ➡️ c20society.org.uk/news/heinz-i...

New on the blog- it is 10 years since @bethlemmuseum.bsky.social was shortlisted for @artfund.bsky.social Museum of the Year and in my new blog I return to one of the most interesting museums in the UK. tinctureofmuseum.wordpress.com/2026/01/25/k...

my favourite attendee of the London Art Fair yesterday was the girl - I want to say maybe nine years old? - who ran like the wind towards one specific booth, stopped dead, got paralysed by giggles for a solid minute, then got her phone out and took a very zoomed in picture of a painting of a butt

'New [British Academy-funded] research shows that visits to prison museums and other dark heritage sites are shaped less by labels, displays or audio guides, and more by how people experience them together.'

'Over the past decade, a series of discoveries on Sulawesi has overturned the old idea that art and abstract thinking in our species burst suddenly into life in Ice Age Europe and spread from there.'

We're delighted to announce the publication of Issue 12 of OAJ, 'Picturing bodies in medieval and early modern Europe,' edited by Andrew Murray and Margit Thøfner. openartsjournal.org/issue-12-pic...

From delicate design to big, bold splashes, Colour Shape Pattern celebrates it all. Come and explore: ipswich.cimuseums.org.uk/colour-shape-pattern

How are things in general?