On Tuesday, the Israeli military invaded Birzeit University, attacking students with live ammunition. Israel's scholasticide is a core part of its attempt to obliterate the collective life of the Palestinian people. We have written to Yvette Cooper urging the British government to take action.

Trinity College Cambridge targeting recruitment of privately educated pupils from elite public schools...they don't even feel the need to pretend where their interests lie. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

The ‘enshittification’ of academic publishing 💩✍️ theconversation.com/the-5-stages...

Sorting through box of books...some cracking cover art

British universities’ reliance on Chinese fees fuelling self-censorship, say academics www.ft.com/content/a123...

Nottinghamshire MPs have written to @uniofnottingham.bsky.social, urging the university to reconsider proposed course suspensions and potential closures, which would significantly impact staff, students, and our wider city and county.

Cool 1972 Panther paperback cover. Nabokov short stores in pulp edition. £1 #charityshop bargain

How Shabana Mahmood uses her ethnicity & origin story to justify white supremacy...I can think of similar examples within academia. Can you? www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

How Shabana Mahmood uses her ethnicity & origin story to justify white supremacy...I can think of similar examples within academia. Can you? www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Lots to get irritated by in Shabana Mahmood article. I’m mostly disturbed by the emphasis on support for Ukrainians as evidence of British tolerance. Whiteness as a key characteristic of refugee status? Undermines Mahmood’s claim about people who ‘look like me’ www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

“We were absolutely gobsmacked.” 48 courses axed, music, languages, mental health care, childcare. No consultation. No vision. This is why we’re voting YES, to stop the destruction of our universities. #WeAreTheUniversity #VoteYES @uonucu.bsky.social

Terry Eagleton on Andrew 'surplus to the needs of humanity' Windsor: "Andrew doesn’t know very much. No doubt he has some knowledge of ships, horses and dubious commercial dealing, but like almost all of the rest of his family, he’s probably never read a book." unherd.com/2025/11/the-...

More of that blogpost on protected conversations in slide form: qmucu.org/2024/08/30/m... ⭐ACAS guidance: acas.org.uk/sites/defaul... ⭐Unite information sheet: learnwithunite.org/assets/Uploa...

Darker times ahead www.bbc.com/news/article...

This is ridiculous. Sky journo interviewing suspect before and during arrest. Performative policing. Performative news coverage.

Counter-terror police investigate claim UK university halted research after Chinese pressure www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Raising a glass to Dave Ball tonight 🍷 www.theguardian.com/music/2025/o...

Pursued by the ghost of Gene Hackman

Strike action is BACK ON this week and we have plenty of events to show solidarity and learn from each other: RALLIES will be held on Tues and Thurs at 12:40, starting in the Trent Courtyard. We also have 3 TEACH OUTS during the week: uonucu.org/teachouts/ See you there!

Samuel Beckett went into hiding following the news he won the Nobel prize. Tracked down by Swedish journalists he agreed to give an interview only if they did not ask any questions 🤣 Congrats to László Krasznahorkai. Well deserved! share.google/qp00nYfAhrfQ...

Brooding over Jambinai’s performance last night. Absolutely stunning. Reminds me of Th’ Faith Healers, MBV, JAMC, Mahler all wrapped into one. A new happy noisy place for sure 😎 youtu.be/fWvUzkAXOMw?...

Jambinai & London Contemporary Orchestra at the Barbican Overwhelming and massively noisy.

Keir Starmer's narrative that Farage and Reform are 'not racist' just pursuing racist policies underline the Labour Party's longstanding, ingrained racism (and willingness to appeal to racist voters).

Worth noting a lot of funded research in my field i.e. sociology of education/reproduction of race & class inequality seems funded on the basis it produces knowledge that sits comfortably with the status quo. Unfunded research is often the only option to challenge conformity.

Leigh Bowery @tatemodern.bsky.social is terrific. The fashion and Freud paintings all obviously stunning. But its the archive of memorabilia and random odd stuff, mountains of it, that really stand out

The Man from Mar A Lago

Horace Andy still cutting the mustard

This calls into question Harvard's scholarship and credentials as a serious university. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Self-inflicted embarrassment for the University of Warwick — first it rebrands hyper-generically, then someone totally unhinged decides the *front page of the uni website* should say ‘Learn more about our Brand’.

Appended to FR text of *A Dying Colonialism* is Fanon's address in Accra, 1960. Fanon clearly argues why deploying violence in anticolonial struggle is essential. A system founded on violence (i.e colonialism) inevitably reproduces it. The appendix puts paid to dubious assertions re. Fanon's legacy.

I also despair of the Labour left defending Abbott's claim she is only talking about lived experience. She has no lived experience of being a Traveller. Or a Jew for that matter. But she effectively claims her knowledge of Traveller or Jewish lived experience somehow trumps actual lived experience.

I despair of Diane Abbott. After the original comments it was uncomfortable to make case that given her past record she deserved a little leeway for saying something stupid and offensive. And then today she made it clear she stands by anti-Black racism is worse than racism towards Travellers...

Met an art dealer cum tax avoidance advisor (seriously) at exhibition opening. He agreed taxation in principal is a good thing because it funds 'normal schools'... Gawd bless normal people and their normal schools and normal hospitals😎

Teslaesque

London is Over, Finished, and Washed Up By Professor Matt Goodwhinge From the new Private Eye, out now.

Google, Palantir, Amazon named in Albanese’s UN report on Gaza genocide. Now the US wants her silenced. 🤐 Top economists back her. Speaking up is a right. 🚨📢 🔗 zeteo.com/p/exclusive-...

www.markstewartmusic.com @alectasker.bsky.social @keithjknight.bsky.social Gareth Seger performance on 16/07 at art gallery celebration of Mark S

Original texts from Walter Benjamin

Finally got to see Paul Klee's Angelus Novus. All about the aura at small but overwhelming exhibition at the Bode Museum.

We are deeply concerned by the UK government’s use of terrorism legislation to repress Palestine Action, a non-violent group not unlike those Keir Starmer once defended as a human rights lawyer. Write to your MP to take action ⬇️ https:/ palestinecampaign.eaction.online/opposeproscription

End of mini living legends couple of weeks: Iggy, Nik Void, Beyoncé, Jarvis & co, Diana Ross... My own personal anti-Brechtian space. Dark times but singing about the good times 😎

two sugars would be great

Country night at White Hart Lane

@alectasker.bsky.social @keithjknight.bsky.social 😎

Iggy

this is very problematic. Firstly the concerns about introduction of diversity metrics, (cumbersome metrics, performativity, lack of coherence etc.) are largely true of many apects of REF. Raises the question why only focus on diversity metrics?