"You weren't behind t'mangle when they handed out stair rods!" is a beautiful line.

I've been on my guard against grumpy old manhood for years, but I'm afraid it's taking over. All tonight's trailers at the cinema were underscored by obnoxiously banal music that did my head in, and Sense and Sensibility has a 'vunrable' in it so I'm not going to be able to see that either.

I get it now, fork handles, I thought it was funny because he was deaf

Trinity are doing Howells Gloucester tonight if you're in the mood (which I always am)

In 2015, the UK scored 86% on LGBTQ rights protections. This year, we’re down to 43.9%, and as a big old homosexual living here, I would be lying if I said that doesn’t increasingly worry me.

We’ve been told our content needs to be more informative so here you go

Took younger daughter (who wants to be a paleontologist) to a lake near Peterborough last night. We found these Jurassic microfossils-teeny ammonites & crinoid ‘ossicles’-these little rock stars were part of the stems of crinoids/sea lilies-animals with 5 axes of symmetry related to sea urchins 🐚

I will hammer this point. It took five years for a High Court to determine exactly what I and dozens of others said was happening: this was a manufactured moral panic, based on flimsy (and, as it turns out, nonexistent!) evidence, to remove harassment policies protecting trans professors/students

Happy 90th birthday to Zubin Mehta! I'm very fond of his recording of Schmidt's 4th with the Wiener Philharmoniker.

House ad for ‘Some Panther authors’ circa 1970.

I read a chapter and a half of this book at lunch and am quite in love with it.

Discovered in a second-hand copy of What Maisie Knew: “my knees!” #usedbooks

Love the Cinna, hate the bad verses. #ShakespeareDay

Beth worked as a doctor for years until a transphobe turned up. Now, she's had to leave her job, leave her home, move to the other side of the world and is still being hounded and harassed by the media and cult. She did nothing but exist as trans in the orbit of Sandie Peggie.

This tweet is highly defamatory and Martina Navratilova should be fired from BBC Sport for it. It demonstrates an horrendous level of hatred for a trans woman (who was cleared of all wrongdoing in a recent tribunal) because she is a trans woman.

Oh, isn't it great? All hail Queen Ivy! #1961Club

I am doing two talks on Zoom on Renaissance art, as fundraisers for the bookshop - we're a bit behind with finances! They will be recorded, so you don't have to be able to watch live. Accessible, fun, gorgeous art, supporting the bookshop, can't go wrong! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/online-art...

—What ails thy brother? Can he not hold his water, at reading of a ballad? —Oh, no: a rhyme to him is worse than cheese or a bagpipe.

'And talk about a preachy book! Everybody's a sinner! Except for this guy...'

Some thoughts on In A Summer Season by Elizabeth Taylor for my next #1961Club read www.stuckinabook.com/in-a-summer-...

The greatest novel of 1961? Reading this makes me want to read it again right now, but I have to ration myself. #1961Club

Can't help but think about the 'virginity testing' carried out by immigration officers in the 1970s - and that the Home Office has yet to apologise: edition.cnn.com/2022/02/03/u... The official brutality towards immigrants is a feature, not a bug.

Post your favorite film from the year you turned 18

Woohoo! Makes a difference having a really nice edition too. #1961Club

When you talk out of turn And my ears start to burn That's a paddlin' When you stare at my shoes Like you've nothin' to lose That's a paddlin'

Also, this is why I have absolutely no time for people online who say you can't be queer and Religious/Christian. This is the kind of thing that rhetoric enables, and it's actively harming vulnerable people in real life. Just because you can't be queer and religious, doesn't mean other people can't

When you talk out of turn And my ears start to burn That's a paddlin' When you stare at my shoes Like you've nothin' to lose That's a paddlin'

- When I was a doctor, one of my patients was a famous swimmer. He was very trendy, but a complete nitwit. I can't tell you who he is though. - Hip, aquatic oaf? - Yeah and Data Protection too.

I've got a bunch of books to post about for the #1961Club this week, the first of which is Peter De Vries's THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB, which sent me overboard. It's really something. #BookSky

The world might be going to shit but there's always Hockney and Burchfield and van Gogh and . . . . . Oh, good morning! David Hockney, No 180, April 11, 2020, iPad painting

the artemis crew tucking into a well-earned nando’s

Do you know Stanchinsky? I've just listened to this for the first time in a while and it's so beautiful. Such a catharsis. youtu.be/W3imVUS7N70

Recommend a film from the '60s

Just bought this giant antique embroidery to go above my bed and now that I've carried it home and can look at it properly - 'Eliza Jones aged SEVEN years'!

Small daughter (accusingly): Where have you been? Me: At work. SD: I thought you were wandering in the forest or something. Me: No I was… SD: But Mum said you were on campus. Me: That’s where I work. SD: No — a campus is like a watch and it tells you which way to go when you’re in the forest.

Not long to go until the #1961Club!

It's my own fault for using ChatGPT as a search tool, but this really made me laugh. "...with an important nuance..." is sublime 🤌

"the good news is that we have found a relatively cheap and easy way to prevent the cast from going through puberty. the bad news is that not everybody in this room is going to like it".

I finally got around to Laurie Colwin a few days ago, also Happy All the Time, and it has made me quite deliriously happy. What a smart and funny and kind writer.

like what is wrong with her

This is exactly what students will tell you, vehemently, that they don't want. Yet here we are.

As a cis woman it is hard to find the words to articulate how I feel about my safety being used as a pretence for this egregious bullying of children

Oh, this is super. The shared ground of Marty and Company, of course! I'm not a great crier, but Ernest Borgnine saying 'Dogs like us, we ain't such dogs as we think we are' can set me off like that.

Yep. In fact, the real failing of students was when we stopped requiring them to regularly search a library catalogue for their reading and instead produced lists with hyperlinks that students simply had to click. As soon as they have to go off list, they’re lost.

This is a very good joke.

Just checking into the #1961Club to say my 1961 reading has begun in earnest and I am having an absolute BLAST. Can't wait for next month!