Happy new year from Aphra Bear.

Betelgeuse, which is hundreds of times bigger than the Sun is easily visible in the night sky as a little red blot. It is unimaginably massive & one of the biggest things it is possible to see with your own unaided eyes.

A new essay from me on the contentious topic of the sexuality of James VI and I - an attempt to get past the old ‘did he or didn’t he’ by looking at the king’s style as read by his contemporaries and subsequent historians. King James - QAF. main--britishartstudies-29.netlify.app/issues/29/qu...

Ricky Ponting clearly doesn't like Jofra Archer. Come on now, the guy took 5 for and is now 30 odd not out. He is not the problem here and wasn't really the problem in either of the earlier tests either. I wish there would be more commentators calling out this stuff.

Does anyone have acceaa to and can anyone photograph, the contents page of MUP's Three Renaissance Usury Plays ed. Lloyd Edward Kermode?

Just saw a kingfisher. They are so extraordinary. How do they belong here?

It is grimly funny that the University of Oxford shut down their Future of Humanity institute.

We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it...

Behold! resolve.cambridge.org/core/books/r... out in summer 2026

Wow. This is so interesting. Fascinating to see the number of revivals dropping. We can now also see in figures how the canon of revived classics has been reduced further. Shakespeare accounted for 89% of all classical revivals in 2023!

A book about approaches to/methodologies of the study of historical audiences: is it a thing? Should it be?

Monty Panesar has just cracked a broad smile

An important part of being on strike is walking dogs on a beach.

Don't really use bluesky much & don't have the following I used to have on Twitter and so my inane posts don't get the traction they used to. The one below is actually on an important topic though so would appreciate it if you could amplify.

ON STRIKE AGAIN BECAUSE THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH REFUSES TO RULE OUT COMPULSORY REDUNDANCIES!

Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog Which I Gave to His Royal Highness I am his highness’s dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

Happiness in early modern drama is an interesting topic because it seems to be on the fringes of both tragedy and comedy. The former shows it fleetingly before obliterating it; the latter gestures towards it, sometimes unconvincingly.

I don't understand the semiotics of the game ending mechanism in The Traitors. Red means banish and green means don't banish but red also means continue the game and green means stop the game.

Would love to see a production of Tamburlaine that was just part one. No sequel.

Any chance anyone has a copy of the Malone Society An Alarum for London? And if so could I have a reference checked?

We are going to be going on strike again...

What were the most popular plays in 16/17 century? In no order, a non-exhaustive list: Cambyses, Tamburlaines, Spanish Tragedy, Jew of Malta, Faustus, Mucedorus, 1 Henry IV, Hamlet, Othello, A Game at Chess, a bunch of B&F: Philaster, Maid's Tragedy, Scornful Lady, Cupid's Revenge. Others?

Put tiny kettle on lad, I'm gasping - one of the many great underrated The Thick of It quotes. Add your own below.

For a long time I thought the expression 'why do only fools and horses work?' meant why is it that only fools and horses do/are made to do work? But now I see it means why should one do work, which is after all made only for fools and horses; why should one do the work of horses and fools?

Batter my cod three personed God

Today I taught Edward II, the sequel to Edward I.

I can't be the only one who found Hamnet almost offensively mawkish and trite?

I miss chatting about silly plays

Tell you what is a really brilliant play - The Spanish Tragedy. It's such a terrible name for a play (though admittedly, Hieronimo is Mad Againe, while baffling, is a good alternative).

Things I have been reading lately: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. The Book of Margery Kempe by erm Margery Kempe. Things I have been listening to lately: The Cranberries doing an acoustic version of Linger, about a million times.

In class today I played a 2 minute video of a cuckoo singing. Would recommend.

Is Falstaff's 'I am old, I am old' echoed in Eliot's 'I grow old... I grow old... / I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled'?

Nothing has changed, so we are on strike again, this time for a week.

Occured to me yesterday that I haven't lived in England for over a decade

I have a possibly misguided idea I want to trial. How to do so? I guess one could just write an essay but what if one does not want to do so?

TFW someone tries to recall an email but I'm like a little goblin on my phone with my email open and it's too late I've already seen it

Just say someone were to write a book specifically about Shakespeare and Audience - what would you want/expect the book to cover?

One nice thing about living my the beach is that I have got back into kayaking (I used to do a lot when I was young). Tonight I rolled a kayak for the first time i about 15 years.

Actor playing Hotspur in 1 Henry IV coming back as Rumour in 2 Henry IV. Someone must have done this? Anyone have an example?

Found a fish on the beach. It flapped about. Picked it up and put it back in the sea.

Another thing it would be fun to do but I'll likely never get to (and would it even work?) - a book about two different (but related) sets of audiences 400 years apart: London playgoers in the 1600s and Premier League matchgoers in the 2020s.

Goodbye to the history department at Lancaster University, where the @socialhistsoc.bsky.social was founded 49 years ago. From tomorrow we are part of a School of Global Affairs. Next year, who knows what will be - please sign our petition against mass redundancies chng.it/PZfTFDjNcr

- 400 jobs to go at Lancaster University - 1 in 4 people will be made redundant But where's the financial evidence for this extreme action? Please read 👇 Sign the petition 👇 chng.it/7F52bThYqn

Hello UK friends - please, please could you sign this petition against the job cuts at my place of work - 1 in 4 us will be out of a job by August next year if we don't stop the cuts. And once you've signed it, please share. We need your help! www.change.org/p/stop-mass-...

Just used 'outwith' in an email for the first time #Scottish

Do we like this for a book cover image?

As a long time user of the English language I am really baffled. 'This is our city. This is our time' is obnoxious but what about 'we convey our pride in place'? Has anyone ever spoken like that? It feels like whoever did this has had to invent an idiom in order to create an even worse one.

1 like = 1 UK university rebrand

Listen, for a reasonable fee i will rebrand all UK universities.

Hahaha wtf how much did this cost?