This is one of the most damning arguments against AI and one of the most damning indictments of the university admins who gleefully jumped on this bandwagon without once thinking about the long-term damage it might cause. Everyone should read this.

Not for the first time, I’m being told that attacking Farage for his boyhood racism is futile. The opposite is the case, as you can see from how rattled he is by it. And no, it’s not about persuading Farage fans anything, it’s about mobilising the non-voters and encouraging tactical voting.

Rereading Arthur Conan Doyle's *The Parasite*, in which a young scientist hopes his paper on mind matter will gain him an FRS. Now if you want to be an FRS, all you need is to do is buy a car factory and be racist.

Costing some research trips as part of a bid for a three year project that (if funded) won't start until 2027. Predicting the cost of flights and hotels in 2029 feels like a work of entirely speculative fiction.

'Tis the season! If you're interested in Christmas TV traditions, media history and seasonal broadcasting, you may like my piece on The Snowman ☃️ and the history of Channel 4's #Christmas schedule @channel4tv.bsky.social learningonscreen.ac.uk/viewfinder/a...

I'm not convinced that this article does Khan any favours; for all its pontification on colonialism, there's a high-handed tone here contrasting a 'collaborative' London circle of food writers with a business in Cornwall framed here as petty. www.theguardian.com/food/comment...

Greatest news story of the year. I especially like the detail that, if you look closely at the shelves, the raccoon has been messing around with bottles of Lagavulin 16 and various Glenlivets, showing excellent taste. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Two very different approaches to illustrating the same Conan Doyle story during the same period. Left: Sydney Seymour Lucas in the Strand, December 1921; right, Władysław T. Benda in Hearst's International, August 1922. Both for 'The Nightmare Room' (www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/Th...).

As some of you might recall from my Twitter days, I'm often visiting Oklahoma University around December/January. Fortunately, this year, I'm not.

Trying to transfer from iPhone to Android and... is it meant to be this complicated?

An interesting line up of texts for my last few weeks of teaching on the Crime Writing and Gothic modules: Percival Everett's *The Trees*, Martin McDonagh's *Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri*, and Jordan Peele's *Get Out*.

Yes, everyone, it's time for another Very Theory Xmas. We're here until early January with Terry Eagleton's chocolate orange, shameless theory puns, and of course #LastZizekIGaveYouTheReal. Rejoice!

Also, people need to understand false positive rates. If they say it's 90% accurate at detecting AI, that's good, right? No. Wrong. It means 1 student in every 10 will be misclassified. This could be harmless, meaning they get away with AI. Or it could be harmful, accusing them wrongly of using AI.

Apart from the fact that there is nothing that universities can meaningfully offer anti-intellectual groups like Reform, the next election will almost certainly be in 2029. Has any change in government party been accurately predicted this far in advance?

The death of browsing is part of the reason art is the way it is now. Our opinions are largely fed to us by algorithms. Spending a spare 15 minutes wandering around a bookstore or comic shop or video rental place was how you found stuff you wouldn't ordinarily pick up and thereby expanded your taste

Last night I watched *The Stone Tape* for the first time in ages, and despite it being exactly my kind of thing - 1970s Nigel Kneale ghost story/horror/sci-fi - the execution doesn’t quite do it for me. I think it’s the fact that the performances start off as hysterical and have nowhere to go.

Watching the #snooker UK championship on BBC4 and amused that two of the player walk-on songs are “Disco Inferno” and “Daddy Cool”.

Southsea, this afternoon.

Pleased to see that one of the institutions for which I'm external examiner still uses the terminology of Michaelmas and Hilary terms. My place uses Teaching Block 1 and Teaching Block 2, which sounds so Soviet.

Echoes here of Dickens' megalosaurus waddling up Holborn Hill on the first page of *Bleak House*...

One of the books in my office is 290 years old. It’s still in excellent condition and easy to read. I wonder how easy it’ll be to read electronic texts 290 years from now. I expect it’ll be rather trickier.

Oh it’s M People, the band that makes Simply Red look like Cradle of Filth #totp

I can absolutely appreciate this story having once gashed my arm and nearly broken my wrist in the service of Exeter University Theatre Company… www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Two bits of news: *Literary Illusions* is currently 50% off in Edinburgh UP's sale, so grab it now if you want the hardback. But - if you want to wait until July 2026, you can get it for £19.99 in paperback! edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-literar...

Michael Slater not only knew more about Dickens than possibly anybody else on the planet, but he also makes an appearance in Tom Baker’s biography, where Baker credits Michael with introducing him to Dickens. Now that’s impact.

Oh no - this is really sad news.

When I was much younger, my local library had Bamber Gascoigne's *Quest for the Golden Hare*, his account of the whole Masquerade treasure hunt. I've always wanted to read it again, but the few copies out there are at least about £80 now.

The Toryish outrage at Rachel Reeves not lifting the tax threshold is interesting considering that the last threshold raise was a measly £70 in April 2021, from a level set back in 2019. Do we have any records as to who was in charge back in those olden days?

I’m sorry but there is no leftist argument in favour of book piracy (even academic books: because in that case honestly a lot of academics will just send you the PDF if you ask, it might even be open access) while libraries exist. And using libraries is the way to keep them existing.

This is why OpenAI is selling so aggressively to education at all levels—they want to create entire generations of users incapable of reading, writing and thinking without ChatGPT to hold their hands And teachers and professors should call this out for what it actually is

I'm not seeing any reports on the proposed and ludicrous international student tax - is it too recondite for the press, has it been dropped altogether, or has Reeves not got to that bit yet?

Once again, I’m on the panel for the Arthur Conan Doyle Society’s award for scholarly writing. Read a good academic piece published this year? Nominate it here by 30 November. acdsociety.com/Honors/Honor...

I think I’ve reached the age where the world no longer makes sense. This is what it must have been like for my grandmother on first sighting Boy George. www.bbc.com/news/article...

There is a startling level of cultural illiteracy involved in complaining that a school's Christmas play has a plot about refugees from the Middle East. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This morning I had my favourite undergraduate seminar of the year, on Derrida's *The Death Penalty*, of which we read extracts from the first and second sessions. I approach this seminar in a different way from the others on my Crime Writing module...

Nice to see Roger Limb on BBC Breakfast just now, but a bizarre mistake by the reporter - Limb didn’t compose the Doctor Who theme.

okay so here’s the thing about being racist, right you can’t do it nicely!!! There is no kind or complimentary way to be racist!!!

Found this fragment of a lost civilisation in the stack of bookmarks by my desk.

@rosiepaice.bsky.social Got the cover for your next book on *Paradise Lost*.

This bit wasn't in the email I received, but I love the fact there's an even nuttier version out there.

Has every other Victorian literature specialist received that email purporting to 'prove' that Dickens didn't write a *A Christmas Carol* and that it is actually a Spiritualist (in 1843??) text?

Arrived at my office to find my computer has been on all weekend because Windows 11 apparently doesn't understand what "Update and shut down" means.

Suddenly considering an abrupt shift in research projects.

Had a look around @pfieldbookshop.bsky.social yesterday, and they’ve got some lovely Alasdair Gray first editions, if you like that kind of thing.

I never said my school was good at sound mixing. #totp

I see that #totp tonight includes a 1991 episode featuring Altern-8, so you’ll get to see the most famous person who went to my school. It’s not an extensive list. I might actually be on it because I was on Radio 4.

I've said it before and I will say it again many times, people using "AI" to design and deliver 'teaching' to students, to mark their work, and in this case to (!) generate literal voice overs are risking their jobs, and frankly they *should* be at risk if they do this sort of thing:

To “my students and to anyone who might listen, I say: Don’t surrender to AI your ability to read, write and think when others once risked their lives and died for the freedom to do so.” www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...

In good news, my Blackwell’s purchases arrived today. Disappointed they don’t include the free bookmarks any more, though.

OK, but also look at the *total* percentages for each of them. 54% of respondents apparently have no opinion on Polanski or Sultana at all.