Now do his relationships with Russian oligarchs

It me!

Why are the right, bastions of individualism, so much better at damping down factionalism than the solidaristic left?

Well... this is fairly ridiculous Credit: @resprofnews.bsky.social

Bit strange to hear the Today programme interviewing the CEO of Newsmax like he's a public intellectual, then interviewing a Labour minister like he's a war criminal

There really should be much more attention on the cost of living (as from @jeevunsandher.bsky.social here) and far less obsession with flags. People are really feeling the pain of inflation.

After moving universities I now get absolutely pelted with spammy training/conference emails - 2/3 a day at times. Is this now a thing? And is this part of the malign legacy of Sean Cudmore?

Has he been watching a version of Eurovision that we’ve all somehow completely missed? Because, my dude, it is ENTIRELY about politics… Eurovision has never been about politics, says BBC boss Tim Davie www.bbc.com/news/article...

imagine getting qt dunked by ed davey. unrecoverable. you’re furious and he is serenely going down a log flume in bognor regis.

I’m a broken record on this, but — there are so many examples of famous people radicalised by midlife career/personal knockbacks. Ant Middleton was on yday’s march. He got done for tax offences and lost his TV work. Now he’s mates with Tommy Robinson.

It's content. The machine expands and needs ever more content at a lower price per unit.

On the plus side having a trained barrister as PM might be useful in the coming months, as the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 is tested to breaking point.

Market place of ideas, update

Have I taken a bang to the head, or didn't the whole PCE debate emerge from an (eminently sensible) push from a Conservative minister to consider issues around bullying and discrimination that are endemic within certain parts of our research system?

One key observation. In focusing on increasing specialisation this piece - as seems to be the fashion - conflates teaching and research. Moving academics around like chess pieces to ensure optimal research clusters won't work given current HEI business models (i.e. need for high value courses).

I'm calling for a total and complete shutdown of American politicians on all BBC channels until our country's representatives (and/or Ofcom) can figure out what is going on.

It is possible to just not have an opinion worth sharing on any given issue. Go on, try it. You might actually enjoy it.

I don't think anyone who's salivating at the prospect of mass political violence or civil war has the foggiest idea of how bad these things are in real life. It's beyond their memory and their imagination.

There'll be many folks who are genuinely surprised that this isn't already the case. There'll also be more than a few institutions who are worried as they don't have robust processes to account for spend and/or they're playing fast or loose with the concept of 'investing in research'.

This article in the Guardian is wild. Literally 80% of tourist chatter in a funicular railway carriage revolves around the question of how they work.

I'm fairly sure that explains a lot of the coverage of the Reform conference. Could easily have been written up as "these guys are nuts" but people want the "they're on the road to power" narrative for entertainment.

My hunch is that if Zack Polanski's Greens or the Corbyn Party were platforming quite this level of crank madness about cancer in the Royal Family, they would get quite a lot of heat for doing so

You could be the proud owner of problematic curmudgeon Charles Hawtrey's old house for the princely sum of £700k www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/1...

Imagine 20 years ago being told that social media would be the primary source of news for over half of the population, but 75% of the 'news' would look like this. 😱

Seemed inevitable yesterday. It's nice that this government is holding itself to a higher standard, albeit probably untenable in the long run.

People say that bluesky is a bubble, but I feel like if you said "Nottingham is a hair's breath away from massive ethnic cleansing like the partition of India" on here, people would quite quickly tell you no it's not

Very different views on this - ranging from short reset to substantive review. All bets are off in my opinion.

At @productivity.bsky.social conference. In response to the plenary panel the final audience question was 'who is it that actually wants productivity'?

Melvyn Bragg has been one of the last standard-bearers for a really important, and unfashionable, idea: that good conversation, between people who really know their stuff, on complex or difficult subjects, can be fantastic radio - and that the national broadcaster should do this. I hope it endures.

(I agree that the endless chastising of Twitter users can occasionally get grating but lol at the somehow many people going "oh I only use it to post links to my work now", like "oh I'm actively trying to profit from the fascism site" is meaningfully better than "I'm on the fascism site for fun")

I understand (though I do not accept) the government's case for remaining on X. What is totally indefensible is the *exclusive* presence of many MPs & departments on that site. They are handing a monopoly of key government communications to a site that's increasingly run by & for the radical right

With the start of the new academic year hoving into view. The key question remains the same.

Mince pies in the shops before the end of August. What a time to be alive!

A website that lets you select a country or state and move it around a Mercator projection map to yield better size comparisons. thetruesize.com, created by James Talmage and Damon Maneice

🎶I'm sorry Nick Jackson (woo) There is no deal We called off the Bayern loan-to-buy Fly home to replace the injured guy🎶

A non-story, inasmuch as you'd expect focused calls to be framed around government priorities. Notwithstanding whether you agree, this represents continuation. Interesting, however, that the ESRC is also deemphasising the commercialisation of social sciences research (again, people will have views).

Microsoft Copilot when it has to deal with my tortured prose - ruined by decades working in the HE system.

'British people'. Just say what you mean Matt.

In a few years, when it’s too late, some BBC executive is going to do a witty, regretful address to the Royal Television Society about what they got wrong in covering this story.

Weirdly he sounds like Corbyn on this one issue. It’s just not true

Opinion: Don’t wait for the REF to improve the research environment. Universities can act now to improve, if they wish to, say Neil Jacobs and colleagues. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...

But if highly engaged people’s mental image of a group is informed by social media (and I think this is often true) then the small minority of emotive and politicized posts by a small minority of academics will shape the views of “academics” as a whole. That’s a problem.

As the father of a 9 year old boy, this is behaviour I recognise well

Justin Webb simply agreeing with his interviewee from the Wildlife Trust, does appear to make the Government's point for it on ingrained NIMBYism.

It was a good book, but I think the thing I probably do next is read some non-fiction (a rarity nowadays) lest I decide to sack off the day job once and for all 😁. Suggestions welcome. ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Slightly concerning that this satirical suggestion is, in many ways, more sensible/workable than the latest contribution to the discourse from Maurice Glasman

This would be a strong entry in normal years, but unfortunately for Maurice, the bar for “vapid and useless suggestions to the UK’s soluble problems” is now set at “remigration”. Good luck in next year’s tournament, Mo!

When highly selective no longer means 'highly selective'

The people are demanding we disband the public and elect a new one.