If you liked this experiment, I published a full piece today in the same vein: a text that gets 100 years older with every section, from a modern blog post to a medieval chronicle. It's a single story spanning 1000 years of English. See how far you get. www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-ba...

Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize shortlist revealed. Shortlist ‘highlights the depth of analysis brought to bear on various aspects of recent Irish history’, says Prof Roy Foster www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

The Poetry of Grief: ‘Mid-Term Break’ 📅 Sat 28 Feb, 2pm: https://www.nli.ie/exhibitions-events/poetry-grief A talk on #SeamusHeaney’s Mid-Term Break—his moving elegy for his brother—and how grief evolves across his work, from childhood loss to reflective repose decades later.

well, this was quick www.irishtimes.com/politics/202...

(New) On the tight and intelligent Riz Ahmed 'Hamlet': www.juliangirdham.com/blog/riz-ahm...

Wait a week and it might be two-for-one, but in the meantime here’s the link should you like a copy bit.ly/4bVQMR7

Professor Claudio Nastruzzi coins the term "semantic ablation" to explain why AI writing is both boring and dangerous. AI not only adds things that shouldn't be there, it subtracts things that should. www.theregister.com/2026/02/16/s...

Join us for our next OWC #Shakespeare webinar on 2 March at 6pm. In this online event, Emma Smith @oldfortunatus.bsky.social will be discussing #CYMBELINE with Kim Gilchrist. Register for your free ticket: shakespeare-webinar-cymbeline.eventbrite.co.uk

English teachers in the Dublin area. The fifth English Meet is on Thursday 7th May. Eager for presenting volunteers. Do get in touch! #edchatie Free tickets: www.juliangirdham.com/blog/english...

Titania: everything is damp, damp to the very bones🌧️ #MoonMad #SlowShakespeare www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo... Titania (Michelle Terry) & Oberon (John Light) in a particularly beautiful Globe Dream in 2013, dir. Dominic Dromgoole. (Feat. brilliant Pearce Quigley as Bottom. More of that anon.)

(New). On Riz Ahmed's 'Hamlet'. It's not 'Hamnet'. www.juliangirdham.com/blog/riz-ahm...

A really smart take on 'Hamlet'.

Online Book Club | #Beowulf 📅 Fri, 27 Feb at 1pm: https://www.nli.ie/exhibitions-events/online-book-club-beowulf#Beowulf Join us for a discussion on 'Beowulf', the definitive translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic, translated by Heaney in 1999. All welcome - no prior knowledge or expertise is required!

Small Prophets is wonderful. And Michael Palin is just heartbreaking.

@sccenglish.bsky.social's eview of Digital Delusion is a great read. Especially if you're waiting on a nearby copy. www.juliangirdham.com/blog/the-dig...

On the most corrosive fallacy in education: that the digital can replace the human. Extra: Teaching, L.M. Sacasas and Rory Sutherland's Doorman Fallacy open.substack.com/pub/juliangi...

ICYMI: New in The Important Work by the wise @kconrad.bsky.social: Questions to ask when the ed tech vendors show up on campus to sell the latest in AI. theimportantwork.substack.com/p/what-to-as...

False modesty is bullshit. So this is an exceptional episode of the podcast I have poured my heart, soul and brain into for ten years. It was a privilege to discuss C.S. Lewis with Rowan Williams, knowing a) you'd get to hear it and b) nobody does it like we do. www.backlisted.fm/episodes/257...

Tomorrow we release the final episode of Backlisted for the foreseeable future.* After ten years, it's a very odd feeling. I am looking forward to spending more time with my books and fewer times on social media. * Boats against the current, we beat on via Patreon. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmQK...

Online Book Club | #Beowulf 📅 Fri, 27 Feb at 1pm: https://www.nli.ie/exhibitions-events/online-book-club-beowulf#Beowulf Join us for a discussion on 'Beowulf', the definitive translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic, translated by Heaney in 1999. All welcome - no prior knowledge or expertise is required!

Fairy floral magic: decking cowslip bodyguards with pearl earrings! fairies are TINY! 🧚 www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo... Puck (Aidan McArdle) and Peaseblossom (Sirine Saba) in the 1999 @the-rsc.bsky.social Dream dir. Michael Boyd, des. Tom Piper. And here's a cowslip.

The 200th edition of The Fortnightly. @lmsacasas.bsky.social on our relationship with technology; Claire Keegan on Foster; Maryanne Wolf; William Trevor; Neil Postman; teaching and learning things from Tom Sherrington and @carlhendrick.substack.com & more juliangirdham.substack.com/p/200-the-bi...

Cover reveal of my new book and a link to pre-order. You’re welcome 🤓https://www.lilliputpress.ie/products/a-hosting-interviews-with-irish-writers-1991-2025

It's FAIRYTIME! #MoonMad #SlowShakespeare www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo... Puck (the extraordinary, inimitable David Moorst, who also appeared in the 2025 revival) and the Fairy (Chipo Kureya) in the 2019 @bridgetheatre.bsky.social Dream dir. Nicholas Hytner 📸 Manuel Harlan

The 200th edition of The Fortnightly. @lmsacasas.bsky.social on our relationship with technology; Claire Keegan on Foster; Maryanne Wolf; William Trevor; Neil Postman; teaching and learning things from Tom Sherrington and @carlhendrick.substack.com & more juliangirdham.substack.com/p/200-the-bi...

Coming on Saturday, the 200th edition of The Fortnightly, which for 10 years has been covering books, teaching and much more. juliangirdham.substack.com

Here’s a poem called ‘Message to the 14-Year-Old Me’.

The 200th edition of The Fortnightly comes out on Saturday. Including Thomas Harding, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Maryanne Wolf, L.M. Sacasas, James Harpur, William Trevor, Fiona Benson, Claire Keegan, Marion Turner, Henry James, Neil Postman, Sylvia Plath and more. juliangirdham.substack.com

Some thoughts on regulating social media. In the past I've compared smartphones to cigarettes, which is unfair - they're obviously more useful than that. Cars are a better analogy - a brilliant technology with horrible downsides. substack.nomoremarking.com/p/what-would...

First post in a while. This one about the new Leaving Cert. john-hurley.com/2026/01/26/t... #speirgorm #edchat #edchatie

This is really good.

We are delighted to announce The Poems of Sylvia Plath. The definitive edition of Plath’s poetry, drawing on decades of research and almost doubling the content of the previous edition of Plath’s Collected Poems. Out 7 May 2026. www.faber.co.uk/product/9780...

💡NEW POST 💡 ‘Learning by hand’ “What if the brave new world of AI and assistive technology means that we stop learning by hand?” alexquigley.co.uk/learning-by-...

No Fortnightly this Saturday, but this time next week it's the 200th edition. juliangirdham.substack.com

Wrote about the version in the @rijksmuseum.bsky.social - www.juliangirdham.com/blog/attenti...

This painting by the artist Adriaen Coorte, made in 1699, shows a simple bunch of dramatically lit asparagus, on a stone shelf. Still life paintings of food, often called Vanitas, were a common theme in Dutch art in the 17th century and alluded to moral themes such as the brevity of life.

🧵 One of the most devastating graphs around AI in education was published by the OECD recently that confirms what those interested in the SoL have known for some time. 🤯 Performance ≠ learning. Here’s the 60 Second briefing 👇👇👇 1/5

I hope all the AI boosters understand that they’re training their kids that only chumps do things the hard way—by working diligently and going through the discomfort and hassle of learning and acquiring skills. And also teaching them that a 30% error rate is good enough.

Ouch. Rosita Boland on 'Hamnet'. www.irishtimes.com/culture/film...

This is great. Are teachers also 'putterer-togethers'? 'It takes years to become a master putter-togetherer. Why - isn’t it just a matter of screwing two parts together? Well, no.'

Blistering piece on ed tech in @economist.com. ‘Although ed-tech companies tout huge learning gains, independent research has made clear that technology rarely boosts learning in schools—and often impairs it.’ economist.com/united-state...

Really interesting yet disturbing article from @emma-okelly.bsky.social in @news.rte.ie. @irishsciteach.bsky.social have been talking about the impact of Senior Cycle Reform on widening the social divide for years - it’s inevitable. www.rte.ie/news/educati... #edchatIE

Hermia: no, shut up, we're running away (this STILL isn't my fault, OK?) #MoonMad #SlowShakespeare www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo... A moment later in the @bridgetheatre.bsky.social Dream revival, 2025: Helena (Lily Simpkiss, L), Lysander (Divesh Subaskaran) & Hermia (Nina Cassells, R)

Fortnightly 199: Eleanor Parker, Andrew Miller, Hamnet & Maggie O'Farrell, Claire Stoneman, Cynan Jones, Conor Murphy, Jared Cooney Horvath and more. juliangirdham.substack.com/p/199-i-will...

Not everything that feels supportive actually helps. Coloured paper and invented retention rates tell a bigger story about why bad ideas persist in schools. open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...

And that is: asking a student to do a literature review isn’t really about the output, the final product. It’s about learning the process - assessing the quality of the evidence as you read it, learning how your question may evolve as you engage with the literature, learning how to spot SALIENCE 1/2

198: A complicated affair. Fortnightly 198 is now out. Anne Enright on Attention, Elias Canetti on Marrakesh, great actors on 'Twelfth Night', John Carey RIP, Bennie Kara on Graham Nuthall, Marc Watkins on AI & agency, and lots more. open.substack.com/pub/juliangi...

Babies have umbilical cords, and other thoughts on Hamnet boxd.it/cFLLil

"In Florida alone, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the nation’s third-largest school system, rolled out Google’s Gemini chatbot for more than 100,000 high school students." As bleak as it is stupid. Tools that undermine learning have no place in schools. www.seattletimes.com/business/tec...

Why more classroom technology is making students learn less with Jared Cooney Horvath youtu.be/OE8AHCHvuX0