Simply astonishing. Maybe Lecturer A should not have to mark over 100 essays in a two-week window in the first place? Invest in qualified staff and reduce impossible workloads FFS www.kcl.ac.uk/about/strate...

The scenes on our streets are shameful consequences of decades of austerity - government after government fanning the flames of anti migration instead of tackling inequality. We can & must make different choices. Solidarity to all communities under attack. We stand together.

Congratulations to @drleith.bsky.social and Kevin James for this wonderful volume and for inviting me to write about spies.

The only suitable replacement for Melvyn on In Our Time

At Port of Leith Distillery with the bro.

The Andy Goldsworthy exhibition at the National Gallery is terrific if your in Edinburgh before November

Back from Orfeo ed Eurydice at the Festival. A superb updating of 18th c music and dance. And despite all the war on such things, it sold out a 3,000 seat theatre.

Apparently in the 1930s academics could pay for their summer holidays by writing reviews and articles, or at least a book on English lyric poetry.

Acquired a copy of Upton Sinclair’s spy novel World’s End and it had this inscription. “Head high and don’t give up hope for a better world”. But who was Karl and what was he doing in Glasgow in 1943?

Long lunch after a Queens Hall concert. @jennyrichards.bsky.social

Whiskey sours anyone?

Had a preview of the library's acquisition of this fabulous collection of Walter Scott character portraits. The artist much preferred illustrating feisty heroines, and although he does feel he has to include the most famous hero, Ivanhoe is a complete fop.

Look at these pommes boulangère that I made.

This thread nails everything that has gone wrong with universities.

Just donated to the restoration of the place I learned to swim. Then a freezing purgatory only made bearable by wagon wheels and hot vimto, but in the future a sun-drenched aquatic paradise (apparently). Anyway, best of luck to them.

Classic Freudian humour.

‘England’s higher education system risks long-term decline unless ministers overhaul their “confused, if not incoherent” approach to universities’ FT interview with outgoing @britishacademy.bsky.social President Julia Black where she pulls no punches! www.ft.com/content/3162...

Love the way these booze ads promote drinking in the face of grotesque outcomes: www.alcoholprofessor.com/blog-posts/b...

But Edinburgh is a mad god’s dream, Fitful and dark, Unseizable in Leith And wildered by the Forth… —Hugh MacDiarmid, “Midnight” published in The Complete Poems (1978) #BookWormSat

Summer evenings

Last visit to the wonderful @pierartscentre.bsky.social in Stromness where I can never resist buying a print from a local artist.

Henry Brougham was quite a looker, and ended his career in Cannes making it a popular resort. Not really what you expect from a Scottish lawyer.

Hello!

Working in the Orkney library under the watchful eye of George Mackay Brown

Orcadian stoat defences.

Landing in beautiful Orkney

Bloomsday blooms

It may be raining but it’s summer, damn it.

Overwhelming Shosta 11 for the @rsno.bsky.social season finale. Superb playing. I found myself literally holding my breath at one point.

📣 Publication alert! Honoured to have joined Cathy Caruth, Marianne Hirsch, Jill Jarvis, and Ann Rigney for a pandemic-era roundtable on literature and memory - now published in The Palgrave Handbook of Literary Memory Studies, edited by Lucy Bond, Susannah Radstone, and Jessica Rapson. (1/2)

So great to see The Third Man on the big screen where it belongs.

What 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotsman was caught up in a civil war before he was 20? Wrote a book that inspired an Oscar-winning film? Met a runaway teenager in Paris & married her against the wishes of his family? Lost his ranch to raiding Apaches? Buckle up – it’s going to be a long, wild #Scottish #literature 🧵… 1/18

Robert Louis Stevenson & Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne married #OTD, 19 May, 1880. In this article, Prof @penfielding.bsky.social explores the dangerous collaboration between RLS & his wife: granting female agency on the page & in life #C19 #literature 1/3 dangerouswomenproject.org/2017/01/06/a...

For those who missed it: The English Short Titles Catalogue (ESTC) has finally been relaunched with the help of the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL) following the cyber-attack on the @britishlibrary.bsky.social. Find it here: datb.cerl.org/estc/

Well done, Austria (even though you cheated by being actually quite good).

It’s Eurovision! Time for ridiculous cocktails

Labour seem hell-bent on finding out first hand what happens to UK cities and communities, their local economy and overall welfare etc, when a university (aka large-scale employer, economic driver and infrastructure provider) goes bust …

Tried to apologise in an email for “falling behind” with something and actually wrote “falling by rhino “. Pretty good excuse, though

It’s that time again

*New University History Fellowship!* Are you interested in university history? Do you want to explore the history of @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social and its collections? Apply for this new #fellowship that we managed to create with support of the University Library and the Descartes Center!

Wonderful review for my friend’s play. If you’re in London you should see it!

It was a pleasure to speak at the @swinc-edi.bsky.social symposium yesterday&to hear wonderful scholarship from @claireconnolly.bsky.social @madelinepotter.bsky.social @dalegothic96.bsky.social and Matt Sangster! Thank you for inviting me, Maddy and @penfielding.bsky.social!

Kudos to this journalist for the term “pursuant yob”

For your consideration: “Nothing could be so delightful as the style of living in Scotland; the people were so frank & gay, & the manners so easy & engaging…” Susan Ferrier’s MARRIAGE: a 3-part dramatisation currently on BBC Sounds, with @wrathofgodherself.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Brilliant

Well, I guess I do like The Major Works

I have brilliant colleagues. @swinc-edi.bsky.social

It’s been a while …

#OTD 29 March 1797: marriage of William Godwin, author of An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793), and Mary Wollstonecraft, author of Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), at St Pancras Old Church, Somers Town. The rest is history.

Scotland! Ireland! Gothic! All in one afternoon. Come and hear @claireconnolly.bsky.social @dalegothic96.bsky.social @mjrsangster.bsky.social @madelinepotter.bsky.social @drtinamorin.bsky.social