You woulda thought they mighta learned this with the frigging paperclip that we all wanted to beat to death with a mallet.

One of my students has emailed to thank me for the “cozy vibes” of my teaching & I’m now considering writing a book about my teaching philosophy “The Cottagecore Curriculum”

Some thoughts on the Far-Right content i've seen e-jac'd over my feed in the last 24H (after Tommy's "Fashtonbury" march)... 🧵 1) There is a noticeable trend of content creators dismissing the term "Far-Right", by sharing images of grandmothers/kids...

“Those promoting the rush for hyperscale AI datacentres seem to be living in a parallel reality where the last 50 years of climate science hasn’t happened, and where we aren’t already experiencing the signs of climate breakdown.”

Reform UK Councillors Gone Since Local Elections: Update: Stephen Mousdell has resigned. Lost Seat Mike Morris Clarence Mitchell Alan Cook Mark Shooter Kira Gabbert Resigned Daniel Devaney Stuart Prior Jay Cooper Ashley Monk Barry Martin Stephen Mousdell Defected Nick Farmer

Blimey

The digitalisation of historical records used to be a net positive. But with the rise of AI, digitalised records now run the risk of being scraped, which leads to misinterpretations and erasure of key information. You cannot replace historical analysis with a machine.

Last day of teaching (insert emotional collapse gif) Managing a creative practice group of 80 UG & PGT students has been a lot, but I think this has successfully nurtured them all into capable creative digital storytellers

The whole ‘Christian heritage’ schtick is utterly nauseating, especially if the brand of Christianity preaches that queer folk deserve to die

I've hit 100 responses to my survey on personal tutoring - half way there! If you're an academic in UK HE who's had pastoral responsibility for students in the last five years, whatever that's called, I'd love to hear your thoughts - it shouldn't take more than ten minutes. Do share if you can.

Thousands of University of Nottingham staff told they are at risk of redundancy

Insane dystopian shit here, totally unacceptable. I expect politicians and commentators to be outraged by it, regardless of their opinion of the crimes these people were convicted of.

We need some kind of Truss-like lettuce-omata to monitor this

Nosing at local Reform group on FB & saw education plans for the first 100 days of Reform government: Schools will have to have a picture of King Charles up, fly a Union Jack & teach ‘proper’ British history. Who cares about SEND crisis, lack of funding, lack of teachers or infrastructure problems?

As the sixth British PM in a decade is about to resign, we now have Italian politics without the cuisine

'After cutting 350 professional services staff posts...Nottingham is now looking to make a further 608 full-time job cuts....This comes after it reported an £85 million deficit in its most recent financial accounts – up from £17 million the year before.' 1/2

Ready, willing and able to teach media literacy, as are all of my media studies colleagues

Via Reddit: “They will come in with big ideas, realise most councils are barely getting by, almost nothing with be altered. Half of all elected will realise this is actually a job, then will quit or be forced out within 16 months. Many will be shocked that local councils are not ideological roles”

Dozens of professors face the axe at Teesside University with cuts possible as soon as next month. Management claims strong finances yet staff are being pushed out at speed. You don't strip decades of experience overnight without consequences. www.ucu.org.uk/article/1449...

English voters are massive fash sympathisers shock. A flag on every streetlight and concentration camps all round, huzzah

Voted early and voted Green. my long term situationship with Labour is well and truly at an end

Finally got a reply from my MP to an email I sent about Gaza in September 2025. Elections looming then

On Friday afternoon before the Bank Holiday, colleagues in the Humanities department were called to a meeting on Tuesday. They were informed that the University Portfolio Review had decided that English Language, English Literature, Philosophy, History & Creative Writing UG degrees would close

This is disgusting, but so deeply rooted that the media return to this again and again

This is beyond sickening. UH is a poster child for this utterly bankrupt HE funding system: an outstanding history dept as per REF in 2014, which is then throttled by the removal of the student number caps in 2015-16.

Everyone likes being told they’re clever, even if it’s coming from an AI chatbot. But their sycophancy has serious consequences for truth and trust.

This is vandalism. Pure and utter vandalism.

University of Hertfordshire closes a swathe of Humanities courses, accelerating the sweeping tide against Human-centred disciples in the UK. Because understanding humans is so yesterday today. With such happy consequences, as we see when we look around us.

Pathetically grateful my students email me to ask if they can use AI to do something creative in their work. Grasping that opportunity for discussion as a sliver of hope

How many times do we have to say it? AI is a disaster. It needs stopping. It needs stopping now.

Reform Candidate tweeted about White people as the Master Race, cheered an asian woman being raped, and unwisely also tweeted pictures of his house and dog to prove it was him.

The levels of blatant antisemitism on here, the absolute straight line drawn from Jewish people in the UK to the vile acts of Israel’s government & horrors of war, by people who are meant to be educated critical thinkers is astounding. Some serious medieval tropes being rolled out, it’s sickening

In response to the horrible antisemitic attack in London, Mark Pendleton and Bijan Parsia submitted the following late motion to tomorrow's NEC (1 May 2026). #UCU ucucommons.org/nec-late-mot...

"Traditionally, digital sovereignty has focused on “hard” assets—data centers, high-performance chips, & network cables. Yet this focus neglects a more fundamental layer of control: the invisible architecture of meaning that determines how AI interprets human intent."

Glad to see this from UCU. Threats, violence & any form of antisemitism, racism, or discrimination towards *any* minoritised community or faith group is always unacceptable, & has no place in our workplaces, on our streets, or in our places of education www.ucu.org.uk/article/1449...

@a-rfa.bsky.social have you seen this?

The latest blog is up! Following on from Prof. Paul Jackson's look at dogwhistles, Dr Dan Jones talks about how the extreme right have engaged with environmentalism - using mainstream language to cloak concept-dense narratives. www.northampton.ac.uk/research-blo...

Urghhhhhhh... really disappointed (but sadly not surprised) to see York #archaeology students becoming wrapped up in this vile party. Never ceases to amaze me how you can learn about the past and still believe this crap... ... and to be proud of it??? Urrrghhh

Oh I do love a nice May

Happy May Day everyone

🚨 NEW: Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain is becoming a new home for old fascists. The latest faces turning up at meetings: ex-BNP, neo-Nazi alumni, far-right pagans. hopenothate.org.uk/2026/04/30/r...

A cool thing you can do if you're criticising Israel is just not mention Jews at all. Like, you don't actually have to talk about anyone's religion at any point.

And the top rating for AI cheating goes to: "In the most extreme case, our model achieved the top rank on a standard chest X-ray question-answering benchmark without access to any images." futurism.com/artificial-i...

There is never an excuse for antisemitism. Jewish people are not the Israeli government. FFS.

After years of talking about it, collecting data for it, fiddling with it and a lengthy review process, my Stonehenge paper has been accepted for publication. I’m over the moon, time for a small sherry

'A rise in service issue complaints can mean financial pressure finally biting through into module cancellations, staffing thinness, withdrawn options, and broken commitments – or it might mean students are just getting better at recognising what they were promised.'

‘AI for climate’ is a distraction from the decision to worsen the pollution of data centres through an unprecedented explosion of digital bloat. ketanjoshi.co/2026/02/17/b...

'Protecting what matters': a new government policy paper identifies history as central to social cohesion. At the same time, history teaching and research, in our schools and universities, is at risk as never before. To ensure cohesion, we must protect what matters: bit.ly/3QyZQCO #skystorians

With my mum at a follow up neurological appointment, which she’s been waiting for for three (3) whole years. Even the GP was horrified at how long she’s waited but waiting lists are less list, more linear feature

“The coming redundancies will officially be called ‘voluntary’ but this is the equivalent of giving a condemned man a pistol in his cell prior to being led to the gallows and classifying him shooting himself as suicide”