I have written about Mr Benn for the Telegraph: www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/9f43ae5...

A few thoughts of The Lost Voices of Pompeii by Jess Venner and some snaps from my recent trip there: 0tralala.blogspot.com/2026/07/the-...

Cultural historian @poisonchallis.bsky.social, resident expert on Alex Andreou's Podyssey on Greek myth, will guide you on a journey around the Portico's collections and promises that it won't take as long as Odysseus' homecoming. 🔗 Book here: www.theportico.org.uk/event-calend...

The obsession with Homer & the #odyssey is nothing new. A 19thC Prime Minister wrote volumes on Homer, arguing that the epics were based on fact. This was one of his pretty volumes. Find out more @porticolibrary.bsky.social www.theportico.org.uk/event-calend...

Can’t stop thinking about #AiWeiwei Button Up! @ Factory International last night - an honour to be there. Nothing more profound to say than the works themselves. The small boats made large, entangled skeletons made from murano glass, flags made from buttons, twists on Chinese art & architecture.

New blog on visiting Pompeii and exhibiting human pain: www.debbiechallis.com/post/what-re...

Just been to Naples archaeological museum and seen the real sculpture. Now I’m a bit queasy. 😫

Forgot just how wonderful the archaeological museum in Naples is & yes there was a theme for all the connoisseurs @museumbums.bsky.social. Particularly love the lions reaction with Heracles - looks like he got an eyeful. 🤣 What I had never noticed was how the frescos are framed as if a painting.

There is a theme for this weekend. @0tralala.bsky.social has never been to Pompeii so his family are taking him.

My talk on Doctor Who writers David Whitaker and Terrance Dicks for @yorkfestofideas.bsky.social now up in full at m.youtube.com/watch?v=KzwN...

Sharing as a matter of urgency: A red weather warning has been issued for some parts of the country. We need the rules to keep us all safe at work. Please sign the petition to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for a maximum working temperature. www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/we...

And...Mixing, migration and the lessons of history: Flinders Petrie's racial determinism and defining Jewishness in the 1920–30s - Eva Miller and @poisonchallis.bsky.social www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

New treat book after the past busy weeks.

Join fellow siren @alexpodyssey.bsky.social Dr Amanda Potter to think about libraries past, present & future @porticolibrary.bsky.social w a screening of Dr Who in a library in a library, so to speak. Only a few places left & free - part of Reuniting the Portico www.theportico.org.uk/event-calend...

New @northernballet.bsky.social production of Gentleman Jack was stunning. Sensual story telling and captured gendered violence through dance. Best of all the chorus of words. The joy & agony of writing in set and movement

So tired - need empowerment earring with William Morris today

Amazing performance by @stepheharrop.bsky.social tonight w books by the men who wrote Cressida’s story in Britain - Chaucer (pictured), Shakespeare & Henryson (not heard of latter either). Stephe wove migrant & outsider stories of women together with the myth 🙌 @porticolibrary.bsky.social

Amazing performance by @stepheharrop.bsky.social tonight w books by the men who wrote Cressida’s story in Britain - Chaucer (pictured), Shakespeare & Henryson (not heard of latter either). Stephe wove migrant & outsider stories of women together with the myth 🙌 @porticolibrary.bsky.social

Lovely stretch with themed yoga around love in May - rescheduled as too hot last week - with poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning @porticolibrary.bsky.social Earlier ran slow reading on Robert Browning - one of fav poets - in Italy. A lot of laughter, admiration and profound respect.

Lying in bed after a massive menopause reflux / shakes / flush first thing & thinking how did women do this in the past. Were we all just ‘eccentric’? Yesterday paid respects to Meg Shelton, a supposed witch, who was buried upside down with a rock to stop her escaping. Tempted to remove the rock!

Keeping cool @porticolibrary.bsky.social. Dignity, always dignity.

🗻 NEW: SISYPHUS - Papa was a rollin' stone 🪨 Forever rolling a giant boulder up the steepest mountain side, only to watch it roll back down. Most know the punishment. But how many know the crime? Why was Sisyphus condemned? 🎧 open.spotify.com/episode/6EII... 🍏 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...

Unusually perhaps, I have blogged my book proposal for Mary Severn Newton to hold myself to account & write it - or at least enough chapters to acts as a draft for a publisher. Wish me luck! www.debbiechallis.com/post/strings...

Reading Carl Rogers directly for first time and seeing all kinds of parallels (& rebuttals) of Foucault when comes to power dynamics. Honestly feel like I’ve found a thinker who helps think through my unease with hierarchies & the radical nature of centring people.

Let it be clear: you are wanted here.

Surreptitiously pushing a glass of beer away from 1850 Household Words & 1870 short stories by Elizabeth Gaskell at Haunted Book Club live last night @porticolibrary.bsky.social. Perfectly sums up that medium ground between access & preservation 🤣.

I’ll be giving a talk at @yorkfestofideas.bsky.social on 6 June about the archives of writers David Whitaker and Terrance Dicks, best known for their work on Doctor Who: yorkfestivalofideas.com/2026/calenda...

My professional career in libraries / heritage in 2 photos: how I present & how I am.

On finding a Wonder of the World the other side of the world & what that means: www.debbiechallis.com/post/a-mauso...

Seen so much stunning and thought provoking art today. From renaissance to Andy Warhol to Jeff Koons to First National artists like Aunty Marlene Gilson. BUT this Mother exhibition was stunning and you can see it online too: www.ngv.vic.gov.au/labels/mothe... #Melbourne #art

Look at this rather lovely display on Pandora’s jar which uses a Greek pythos to throw back sorrows in and walls on which to pin up hopes. Hellenic Museum Melbourne. Feel like I’m @alexpodyssey.bsky.social roving reporter but this really made me think again about that Podyssey episode.

One chapter in and seriously enjoying @davidwengrow.bsky.social and David Graeber’s The Dawnof Everything. Much underlining going on.

Massive cruise ships are destroying so many places & giving nothing back to local economies. People eat on board, guides are provided by the ships and mass numbers walk across ancient towns. This is another example of this environmentally catastrophic problem: secure.avaaz.org/community_pe...

I have spent months thinking about writing this blog on intimacy in a 19thC marriage. Corrected a few typos & headed out to start a level 3 in counselling. Still not sure I’ve captured the complexity of sexual and emotional intimacy in a Victorian marriage. www.debbiechallis.com/post/married...

Freezing & almost getting run over, here’s me walking around @porticolibrary.bsky.social streets of Manchester talking podcasts. With full shout out to @alexpodyssey.bsky.social: www.instagram.com/reel/DXpM8E0...

Almost 10 & it’s been birthday weekend for the lady. When she was annoying me in the hot tub, I said ‘remember I was in labour with you for 3 days’ The sass pot replied ‘And remember, I don’t care!’ 🤷🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤣

New concept: PODYSSEY STORYTIME - diddy half hour bedtime stories! 🕷️ Arachne - Web of Truth 🕸️ A talented Lydian weaver, challenges the Goddess Athena to a contest, by accident, and ends up with quite the itsy-bitsy problem. 🎧 open.spotify.com/episode/1BqF... 🍏 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...

Yoga with sonnets for #Shakespeare Day @porticolibrary.bsky.social Gorgeous.

Not sure, given what I do for a job, that I should admit that display cases make me feel queasy, which is also not a very intellectual response to the exhilarating conversations and thoughts of the past few days! Spotting spolia in Ankara - Hisar. www.debbiechallis.com/post/spoiled...

Thought you had enough bulls - think again! Live (almost) from the Museum of Anatolian Civilisation in Ankara - bulls from 6,000 BCE & a millennia or so later & a goddess riding a bull.

The illustrated guide is becoming one of my favourite things about doing Podyssey. Love the fact I throw loads of images & texts together & it get combined with everyone else’s and then looks amazing❤️.

This LUSH illustrated guide and an invite to this week's live Q&A on Europa (Thursday, 8pm) will go out tonight. To get them go to ko-fi.com/podyssey and become a monthly supporter. This week, a bona fide Greek archaeologist is joining host Alex to answer your questions. It will be MOOgnificent.

Matching names to portraits of women by a female artist that gives us a glimpse of her working practice and matriarchal patronage (or matronage) with a note on the legacies of British Slave Ownership @cslbs.bsky.social www.debbiechallis.com/post/finding...

Here is the final part. Enjoy! NEW 🌍 EUROPA II: How to invent a continent How did a myth all about movement, fluidity, and cultural dialogue become an origin story of rigidity, superiority, and separation? 🎧 open.spotify.com/episode/3187... 🍏 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...

a bizarre intervention on entry fees for museums and attractions from Robert Jenrick — and a fascinating comments section in which nobody seems to agree with this apparent Reform UK culture policy www.facebook.com/share/18FNQ1...

Paul Robeson, African-American singer, actor, communist and former shipyard worker was born on this day 1898. He appeared at Belle Vue, Manchester, in 1949 at a rally organised by professional boxer Len Johnson, Communist co-founder of the New International Club.

NEW 🌍 EUROPA I: Quite a lot of bull 🐂 From a Phoenician girl kidnapped from a picnic, to Nazi experiments on extinct bulls; from mechanical cows, to the Minoan civilisation; from the Catholic Church, to the Euro banknotes... 🎧 open.spotify.com/episode/5wy4... 🍏 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...

Finished How We might Live by @suzannefagence and it is a wonderfully intimate biography of William and Jane Morris and their connections. Went to the exhibition at @arcwinch in January and there was no catalogue so bought this instead and it was better!

Had no idea that William Morris’ legendary edict ‘do not have anything in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful’ was first scribbled to the Manchester Literary Club in 1879 or that he gave a talk to them on Art, Wealth and Riches in 1883. #morris #manchester

Always looking after others and putting yourself last can take a toll on women's bodies, as many find out in midlife | Lowri Dowthwaite-Walsh