The Irish government has released a report on the benefits of the pilot for a Basic Income for the Arts, and in a total shocker, it seems like it was good for the country as well as the artists. Nobody could have seen this coming. #SpeirGorm #UBI www.gov.ie/en/departmen...

An extraordinary, depressing and beautifully told story.

Oh my. Is there anyone in America who still thinks it was a good idea to vote for this failed real estate tycoon-turned most powerful man in the world?

Me after THATTrump UN speech (credit: Angeles Agrela, 'Lucia y sus trenzas, 2016).

It's feeling decidedly chilly here in London. Time to cosy up for some crafting. On 11 November, knitters can join us in the Linnean Society library to try Lady Pleasance Smith's nature-inspired patterns, and learn how Victorian crafting differed from today. Get your ticket now!

In better news my book is coming out in paperback next March (pre-orders now available)! www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

As well as the fantasy £234 bn, journalists should also be clear Farage's claims most new migrants don't work, and those who do are on low wages, are entirely false. In fact, 1.8 million recent migrants are on payrolls (others will be self employed). migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/co...

Today is #HobbitDay because both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were born on September 22nd. Normally we'd shire a hobbit pun or two but it might just feel like a tolkien gesture and we don't want to embarrass our elves. Anyway come and boromir #Tolkien books.

If you write professionally in the UK, make sure to sign up to ALCS for your fair share of royalties

You guys, so many Romance girlies are reading "On Tyranny" that they've broken the Goodreads recommendations algorithm. 10/10; no notes. #romancelandia

🔹 #AcademicSky 🔹 “If chatbots have made school easier to get through, they are also making school equally as hard to grow out of. The technology is producing a generation of eternal novices, unable to think or perform for themselves.” ⮛

View of the Chateau d'If, made famous by Alexandre Dumas in his Count of Monte Christo, after a short but powerful storm off the Marseilles coast

This is the second violent threat against another country he's made in the last 24 hours. That Nobel Peace Prize is right around the corner.

I’m having intro chats with dissertation students this fortnight, and one of them asked which historians I’d recommend for beautiful writing they could absorb to further develop their own writing style. So, gang, which are your favourite *writers* among historians, any time, any topic, any place. 🗃️

⚕️MedSky⚕️ Being Too Thin May Be Riskier Than Extra Weight, Major Study Reveals

It’s been sad this year watching how the White House press corps refuses to back each other up. Here a female journalist is insulted and denigrated and the next male reporter just moves on to a new question. You’re all in this together, folks. Time & again, they won’t stand up for their colleagues.

CARTOON OF THE DAY 🇺🇸

"My thoughts turned to David Rose, who volunteered to try to prevent another such attack on our country, and then, when back home, ran toward danger once again to help his fellow Americans." www.thebulwark.com/p/a-hero-dav...

A lost week in the south of France, stealing sunshine out of an English autumn. I've read ONE book, but what a book! So much more than a travelogue. It's about life, growing older, living with neuroses, and all those missed and unexplored human connections. I feel wiser and happier for reading it.

Bar the novel read as pdf, voila, my Wigtown book festival chairing roster. Yes I have read all but the one I am merely introducing (save that for a winter’s day). Brain whizzing with thoughts. It all kicks off this time next week.

Any early C20 lit enthusiasts happen to know which of Stella Gibbons' short stories published in the Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm collection was originally published in Good Housekeeping magazine? I've lost a reference! 🙏

⭐NEW SERIES LAUNCH DAY⭐ Gaza is one of the oldest urban centres on Earth, and today we start a series in which we explore its long history... In Episode 1, @anitaanand.bsky.social and @willdalrymple.bsky.social are joined by Josephine Quinn to discuss Philistines and Pharaohs in Ancient Gaza.

Any early C20 lit enthusiasts happen to know which of Stella Gibbons' short stories published in the Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm collection was originally published in Good Housekeeping magazine? I've lost a reference! 🙏

On our shelves! :)

We're hiring! Could you help us support & grow the community of botanists across Northern Ireland? Manage our @daera-ni.gov.uk-funded Botanical Skills Training Project? Help boost participation in @npms.bsky.social across NI? Please apply by midnight this Sunday, 21 Sept: bsbi.org/botanical-sk...

"Britain must burn more fossil fuels and bills must rise in order to power the robot that'll fire everyone. How else will I afford my next private island?"

Last night the Republicans overseas gala dinner to celebrate Trump's second UK visit was disrupted. Many feel Trump's politics have no place in the United Kingdom.

It's sobering to realise that for the first time since about 1945 (for Europe and the US, & it started 2008 really), things aren't getting better for ordinary people; we're at the mercy of global vulture capitalists who can take everything, from our homes, our media, to our democracy away from us

🚨 NEW: Britain’s most powerful people are still 5x more likely to have been privately educated than the general population. Our brand-new research reveals that jobs in the media, business, charity, creative and public sectors remain dominated by those from private schools ⤵️🧵

The launch of my new @manchesterup.bsky.social book Songs of Seven Dials will be at 6pm, Tues 21 Oct, at Waterstones Covent Garden. I'll be in conversation with the wonderful @julialaite.bsky.social. Please do come along. Free tickets, but register in advance www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/songs-of-s...

FUEL SUPPLY & ECONOMIC IMPACT ARE NOW TOP LEVEL WORRIES IN RUSSIA The Russian business elites at every level are now panicking about the fuel supply situation. They are seeing sales of retail fuel drop by 20% - because there’s insufficient to buy. Russia’s leading business magazine is warning that

Canterbury / Kent people please share:

Brexit is the toxic epicentre of the political shitshow we now have to endure. It promoted idiocy and deceit, endorsed racism, divided us, made us poorer, weaker, less safe and less sane. It’s belittled the country, killed the Tory party and given birth to Reform. A relentless klaxon of failure.

Such a huge pleasure reading M F K Fisher's Map of Another Town in the city that inspired it. I must confess to not having heard of her until recently, and now making up for lost time. She writes with such ease about food and life and the 'condition humaine', its beauty only hits you in the recall

Born #OTD in 1894, mountaineer, writer, feminist Dorothy Pilley for whom donning a pair of breeches was an act of rebellion. Not only a brave climber, her editorship of the first climbing journal for women gave a platform to silenced voices. Here's page 1 of my first chapter on her in my book!

Not sure why they're spending tens of thousands of pounds not learning how to think

Recovering from a surfeit of beauty at the Cezanne in Aix; staying in the Calanque de Mugel just east of Marseilles. Coming from cool, windy and very much autumnal UK, I feel like I've caught the tail of an escaping summer and stolen a small scrap. The gods will probably punish me, oh but the light!

I think some people may be slipping into the fallacy of assuming "UK Radical Right Vote Intention High" implies that the UK Radical Right has gotten more popular. It's actually substantially more unpopular than UKIP in 2014. What's different is that the Cons. are *waay* more unpopular than 2014.

Any historians out there know *why* there was a Venus statue in the middle of the Monkey House at Alexandra Palace in c1906? 🤔 👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums Thanks @allypallymuseum for sharing 😁

Why does it take the leader of the third party in UK politics to call Musk's address for what it is...incitement to violent insurrection and the overthrow of a democratically elected government. All politicians of every persuasion should stand against this billionaire thuggery

they were developed in a fentanyl lab located in Asbestos, Quebec, to be Woke, fireproof and deadly to the touch. their glands secrete generic prescription drugs and they all believe in climate change. these aren’t your granddad’s 30-50 feral hogs. they’re bilingual. they will win

I do think maybe we should be making a bigger deal of the world’s richest man calling for the violent overthrow of British democracy.

Now is the time that Keir Starmer stands up and confronts those peddling hate and intolerance, and rallies the majority who are still decent people, with a rousing speech, a clear declaration that this is neither British nor patriotic. But I'm afraid he's simply not up to it.

Govt should take this message seriously. The far right, backed by the world's richest man, is actively stoking racial & political violence. Staying quiet, flattering them, saying "we hear you" won't work. Stand up for decency, for respect, for the best of modern Britain or watch those things burn

Esp given assassination of Kirk in US i find Musk's intervention here, calling for dissolution of parliament and a new govt, really scary . Also UK govt bodies should get the fuck off X.

Imagine living here. You'd absolutely have to be a poet or a novelist at the very least

Add your message and we will deliver it to Number 10 to show the strength of feeling in our communities. ✍️ secure.hopenothate.org.uk/page/177398/...

I wrote a thing. As someone who survived the 1970s and kept the receipts.

In beautiful Aix en Provence for the big Cezanne exhibition and am reminded of that time in lockdown when people were recreating old masters en tableau. This is my and my daughter's recreation of The Card Players. Can you tell which is which!?

As history matters, a short thread on Horst Wessel - a Nazi paramilitary member whose murder in 1930 was turned into propaganda by Goebbels and Hitler.