This morning's best autoreply so far, sadly not from Vampire Quarterly, however: 'You have already been uninvited.'

Hoy a las 16:00 estaré de nuevo en el #Festival42, esta vez charlando sobre fantástico oscuro con @franceshardinge.bsky.social , @benaaronovitch.bsky.social , @theprofrog.bsky.social y @gradyhendrix.bsky.social . Se puede ver en streaming también. share.google/8B4lH3jCf5vy...

I pressed the button on this AIPhone in the elevator and a voice told me I was Montgomery Clift and that the telephone was invented by Carthusian monks in the 11th century

Airport waiting lounge logic: it’s now 12 noon, you can legitimately commence shovelling lunch even though breakfast was 3 hours ago.

Fantastic clash: what if Academic Board just read some Heidegger?

Gearing up for a couple of sessions at #Festival42BCN later this week, around Spanish edition of the Graveyards book!

@theprofrog.bsky.social examines a human history of burial rituals and how we honor the dead.

"In working on this project, I developed a kind of double vision – reading the signs of the metropolis for the necropolis that is always hidden inside it." Be sure to check out Graveyards author @theprofrog.bsky.social's new essay: press.princeton.edu/ideas/scratc... #ReadUP #History #Halloween

I did this interview with the lovely Mark Lynch for WICN Public Radio. Gotta love your NPR stations, people! Happy Halloween.

The life of the mind: one minute you're grappling with Kant's divisions on the deduction of pure aesthetical judgments, the next minute you're absently smearing crumbs of raspberry muffin into your cardigan.

Always a sucker for haunted tower blocks and motorway service stations — a lovely coherent collection, this

I’m still waiting for the news to go less racist but it doesn’t seem to be happening and I’m running out of the Three Bean Salad podcast back catalogue and what am I supposed to do then?

Sunday evening, checking out Monday morning

Spanish edition in the wild

It's less than a week till #Halloween ! Get in the spooky mood with these reading ideas for the gothest of seasons - starting with #Gothic by @theprofrog.bsky.social introducing the reader to the Gothic #aesthetics from architecture to #folklore & #monsters & concepts from around the globe

After submitting a FOIA request UKRI, I obtained success rates by three grant call scheme and I can only say that I am disheartened by the results: - AHRC Responsive Mode 2025: 2% - ESRC New Investigator Grant 2025: 1% - ESRC Research Grant Round 2025: 1%

Wrote this piece for Unseen Histories website as intro to the Graveyards book but also with extra material that didn’t make it into the book about the storied St Pancras Old Church burial ground

Email: tell us about your upcoming contribution to Academic Mental Health. Me: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGHHHH

🎶 Cos tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 2021 🎶

Rare and damning photo of the heads of the German Red Army Faction, the political wing of the provisional IRA and FARC

Christ, not again

Wise people in the Wellcome bookshop!

Lunch in the old school Italian they use now and then, completely unchanged, for Jackson Lamb’s meetings with spooks in Slow Horses.

Is the true sound of our times the poorly overdubbed snickering on cat videos?

They do everything to break down the academic staff of universities, but an evening class with spirited and witty students that goes well is still one of the best experiences on the planet

The Haunted Landscape 2025: Ghosts, Magic and Lore 22 November 2025 10 am - 5 pm @conwayhall.bsky.social and online @theprofrog.bsky.social : The Lost Landscape of London’s inner-city Dead Vanished places of the dead. www.conwayhall.org.uk/whats-on/eve... 6/10 @thamesandhudson.bsky.social

Recent journalism: ‘Gen Z: 83% More Spherical’; ‘Why do Gen Z Hate Shoes So Much?’; ‘Over Half Gen Z are in fact Moulded out of Bacon’

Publication day today for this, with short stories by Alison Moore, Wyl Menmuir, CD Rose and others — including my short story ‘You’!

Pilgrimage, back in 2017

I just told the guy in Foyles I was going to wait for the in-conversation/interview between Alan Titchmarsh and Thomas Pynchon to get my signed copy of the new novel. A micro-frown ensued.

AI decides what research to fund; AI does the research; AI reads it; another AI assesses it for REF. Meanwhile the humans sod off to the beach or lie around in their pants watching Celebrity Traitors all day

Today’s gravestone: ‘The Kiss of Death’, Poblenou Cemetery, Barcelona

Weirdly, Visit Scotland are advising you to visit me: doing a talk for the lovely Toppings bookshop in St Andrews, 17th Oct. www.visitscotland.com/info/events/...

At #LFF2025 ‘Becoming Human’ is a lovely contemplative exploration from Cambodia of the limbo/bardo between death and rebirth with wonderful sense of place and some admirably recalcitrant spirits. Fab debut film.

Just sent some early reader reaction to my Graveyards book

Calling English a 'rip-off degree' is one of the most blatant exhibitions of personal barbarism I've ever seen. You've demonstrated nothing but the poverty of your own mind.

God,I’m terrible at properly annotating my photo files, so this is either a recent shot from the Mars rover or the audience assembling at Manchester Central for Kemi Badenoch’s speech

Rob Hell and Emu

Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy: www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...

Overheard in hipster caff: “He’s 45, but he’s still very active.”

From the Caspian Sea to Burma, the Regency to U Boats; our history book picks for the month ahead. With new books from @theprofrog.bsky.social @lmbd1418.bsky.social @highamnews.bsky.social @andrewrsorkin.bsky.social @fourredshoes.bsky.social @edmond-smith.bsky.social @rory-stewart.bsky.social👇

The first burial, Père Lachaise, Paris, 1804

Churchyard in Aldeburgh, Suffolk 2020

October 2021, the time in Brompton Cemetery where I came across a pile of coffins and only slowly realised they were film props

Just back from my 2-3.30pm stint as French Prime Minister, most people not back from lunch so couldn’t get much done malheureusement

Mortsafes in Greyfriars, Edinburgh, designed to prevent bodysnatchers

Assistens Cemetery, Copenhagen

In Heidelberg, disenchanted…

This is a fascinating book!

Morning acupuncture session on my achy tennis elbow, but I do wonder if they’re taking it a bit far