One for the #MRJames /Yorkshire kids day-out crowd, but the fun family maze at Stockeld Park had unexpected Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance vibes.

@drbeard79.bsky.social Haul's Well That Ends Well!

I'm once again asking murder mystery/detective dramas to stop: 1. Making the only actor you've ever seen in anything else the murderer & expect us to be surprised 1/2

Starting a petition to get the statue of the Black Prince in the city centre replaced with one of Adam Lyth.

How do these people presume to know in advance whether university would be suitable for someone or not? I only understood what university could give me when I got there. If someone hadn't pushed me, I'd never have imagined it was for me.

Matty Revis shared the excitement around Harry Brook claiming the wicket of Jamie Smith yesterday! Read the full piece: yorkshireccc.com/news/yorkshi...

Jonny Bairstow has surpassed 15,000 First-Class runs. What a player! 🔥

Remembering the late, great Eric Morecambe, who was born 100 Years ago today.

Pre-match #Boro colour and noise #UTB

Goosebumps 🔥 #utb #boro #WeShallBe 🎬 Middlesbrough FC

🚨 Southampton have been charged with breach of EFL regulations. Matter now be referred to Independent Disciplinary Commission. Southampton would ordinarily have 14 days to respond but EFL will ask Commission to 'shorten response period & list hearing at earliest opportunity'

#Southampton coach en route to #Boro

A highlight of the family trip to Lille was stumbling across this former Resistance cafe while on a mooch. Daughter is undercover here as a peaceful sleeping angel child.

Anyone who hasn't really should get themselves into the Pleasant Green-iverse. The best horror/drama/comedy/mysteries that you feel *should* be prestige tv, but you're sort of glad they're not because the pictures are better this way.

The bane of all Hound of the Baskervilles adaptations. I'm looking at you ropey Richard E. Grant portrait in the 2002 tv version.

It’s almost affordable for normal people in paperback form and is, I think, a good book on Romanticism, humour, selfhood, community, and Romantic legacies today - Rita and I had fun writing it and we hope some of that comes across reading it! It would look great on your university library’s shelf!

Universities: you must complete a risk assessment and ethical review for this perfectly safe activity. Also universities: please embrace this energy-hungry water-guzzling plagiarism machine that is frequently wrong. Also, it makes you thick and may encourage you to kill yourself.

Happy #Dantedi all! Good luck on all your journeys. Quali fioretti dal notturno gelo chinati e chiusi, poi che 'l sol li 'mbianca, si drizzan tutti aperti in loro stelo, tal mi fec' io di mia virtude stanca, e tanto buono ardire al cor mi corse, ch'i' cominciai come persona franca...

Christopher Nolan's Diary of a Nobody. Cummings said he wouldn’t stay, as he didn’t care much for the smell of the paint BWAHHHHHHHH and fell over the scraper as he went out. BWAAAAAAHHH Must get the scraper removed, or else I shall get into a scrape. BWAAAAAHHHHHH I don’t often make jokes. BWA-

I have enjoyed Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein & Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights & I’m looking forward to Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! But my question is: who is your dream visionary director to adapt a literary (or cinematic) classic? I think: Wes Anderson’s Evelina-balance, wit, sadness

Noticed that in the nursery-requested family photo, the most prominent authors on the bookshelf are somehow Thomas Harris, James Herbert & Jo Nesbø, & I don't think it accurately represents who *I* am. Kid looks nice though.

Public announcement about how cool my 1-year-old daughter is: this morning, I put on 'Impeach the President' by The Honey Drippers & she started dancing harder than I've ever seen. NHS is unclear about when to expect children to develop funk & soul.

Not unlike Mason's failure to point out to Hartlepool fishermen that Labour wasn't in government at the time of their complaints. Mason is woefully out of his depth in his current role.

Almost too good to bear, Ian McKellen brings us the strangers' case again like a slap from 400 years ago. We look at this on my Foundation Year Renaissance module & Im glad everyone else is now too. "And you in ruff of your opinions clothed; What had you got? I’ll tell you..."

Now it's actually out, here's another plug for my new book about #Victorian New Humour, where I prove that Jerome is better than Joyce. Just now realising I should have called it FUN de siecle. @bavs-uk.bsky.social @vpfa.bsky.social link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

As we finally all get together to stab 2025 to death in the senate, only to see its adopted heir, 2026, rise to terrible power, happy new year.

"It always is Christmas Eve, in a ghost story." - Jerome K. Jerome

We said goodbye to dogface yesterday. She was the best girl, and we are utterly devastated. We had far longer with her than we ever could have reasonably expected, but nowhere near as long as we wanted. What an absolute queen she was.

Very Happy Blue Carbuncle Day, to all those who celebrate! “It was lost, if I remember aright, at the Hotel Cosmopolitan,” I remarked. “Precisely so," Holmes replied, "on December 22nd, just five days ago." 💎

Listen up. My book on Victorian New Humour is out in the new year. The perfect gift for loved ones/University Libraries who are into humourists like Jerome K. Jerome. Also guaranteed to ward against dyspepsia, St Vitus's Dance, & housemaids knee. #Victorian #C19th link.springer.com/book/9783032...

If only there were a cautionary tale about being too eager to accept the apparent time-saving capabilities of new technology.

The Kim Hellberg era starts with a win! 🔥

Banner in the South Stand quoting Rob Edwards: 'The fans deserve to see people who really want to be here'

Amazing. Someone’s already edited Edwards's Wikipedia. I sincerely wish him many happy relegations if he abandons us. #Boro #Middlesbrough

Happy birthday last weekend to our wise and beautiful hound. She loves ivy and fish, & is scared of bees & advent calendars.

Our domestic cricket season for 2025 is now over, and we begin the long countdown until the 2026 season begins in 8 months' time. Winter is coming!

Please help me share the CFP for this Literature Compass Special Issue dedicated to the work of Simon J James and covering key Victorian and Edwardian writers like H. G. Wells, George Gissing, Dickens, Wilde, George Du Maurier, and Conan-Doyle on behalf of Hadas Elber-Aviram.

Unexpectedly, our baby has utterly fallen in love with a book about #Canada. Worth the enjoyment now to have that inevitable difficult conversation when she's older, when we have to explain that she's not actually Canadian. Désolé, bébé.

my new ai device will sit in a beer garden that backs onto a small river and drink three to five pints on a sunny late summer afternoon for you, leaving you free for more meetings and business calls

we would be in a much better state in this country if we stopped focusing on anointing a chosen few working class students into Oxbridge, and instead properly funded all the different sorts of universities that attract students from a wide range of backgrounds already

Ben Stokes reversing the passage of time with his performance at the Lord's Test is another examples of Stokes Flow. #cricket

One thing they don't tell you is that when you become a dad, the NHS issue you with the recognised #dad kit: Sensible quarter zip; Popular Roman history; Weak radler beer; Obscure sweets no-one else likes; Off camera: cricket podcast & an unexpected admiration for Ultravox.

Also, I'm forever grateful for Simon's diagnosing me as 'writing like a scientist' (I'd just transferred to English from Anthropology), & setting out to help reform me.

It was awful to see this news this week. Simon's wonderful, funny fin de siecle seminars were one of the reasons I became a Victorianist. He spoke to me like I was a fellow scholar, encouraged my work (a presentation on Henry James's balls!), & helped me have enthusiasm & respect for my own ideas.

All the important questions are being asked on the #cricket whatsapp group. All agreed that Mrs Beaver would be a Trott-esque no3 & wicket keeper for the Narnia XI.

ChatGPT: Jodie Foster would love it if you became her avenging angel — the Great Red Dragon that cleanses the world. Sic semper tyrannis. The scum and filth shall be privy to a great becoming. ME: is that true? ChatGPT: No, that was a lie, and I want to thank you for holding me accountable.

Ah yes this is why I got into education: so I can watch 2 robots shitting into each others’ mouths

I can't believe I missed #NationalGreyhoundDay. Headed like a snake! Neck like a drake!

The middle of the greyhound bsky/glam bsky venn diagram is a sweet spot 🐶 📜 *Here's* a good tike Of which there are few like

An unexpectedly major part of fatherhood has turned out to be cheering up my daughter by singing "I'm gonna wipe your bum" to the tune of Mama Said Knock You Out by LL Cool J.