PGR Failure Cafe! April 8th, 1pm-3pm in the PGR Common Room at 8-14 Abercromby Square. We've all dropped the ball, lost the plot, missed a deadline, deleted the wrong file, misread the room... failure is universal and you're not alone! Join us for tea, coffee, biscuits and to swap tales of woe 😩😱

Today's #marginalmusicians (#bagpiper, #lutenist & #trumpeter) are all unfinished outlines, with the colours still to be added. From L'Ystoire du tres sainct Charlesmayne, 1475-1500 BnF, Français 4970 #ManuscriptMonday #MarginaliaMonday #earlymusic #bagpipe #lute #15thCentury

Out-of-office on for the next week, including bonus bank holiday Monday. Hoorah.

@royalmusical.bsky.social Two more excellent presentations! Lindsay Carter on having a publication plan, Freya Jarman and Catherine Tackley on publishing in journals

At @royalmusical.bsky.social event listening to Richard Anderson on his publication journey

Why does responding to a few reviewer comments inevitably lead to a middle phase of creating endless spaghetti-esque tangles?

"We’ve even upped the ante with Free Time 2.0™. In previous versions, a random birthday party for your coworker Trevor could sneak onto your calendar, destroying your Free Time. In 2.0™, we’ve removed Trevor, and you won’t see his text messages anymore."

Great to see a chapter by @cnlester.bsky.social in this important new book on Strozzi www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...

Gave a talk about Dame Ethel Smyth at the Victoria Gallery and Museum today, and discussion afterwards brought up the question of who might play her in a biopic. Top suggestions: Olivia Coleman, Margaret Rutherford, Patricia Routledge, Miriam Margolyes. @victoriagallery.bsky.social #IWD

🚨FOUR jobs in Music🚨 @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social Early Career Development Fellowship in Jazz & Popular Music (2 yr): deadline 31 March 18C Music History (permanent!), Screen Composition (18 mo), Performance (2 yr): deadline 12 March Search "Music": www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs

These remarkable women of early electronic music pushed the boundaries of technology and composition, turning circuits, sine waves, and tape loops into music. https://disc.gs/3ZWRk1U

**NEW POST** LLMs hallucinate, & they hallucinate WORSE on topics we don't already know/write a lot about. This creates a huge accuracy gap. This week I tested ChatGPT on Beethoven & Smyth to show how big this gap is & why it matters. It made up a LOT. leahbroad.substack.com/p/chatgpts-a...

I think about this Tony Benn speech much more than I used to

The amazing Michelle Brown is running her summer school course on Medieval Women at #LRBS this year. In person, in London, book now 👇 #MedievalSky #BookSky #BookHistory ies.sas.ac.uk/study-traini...

Train left the station at just the right moment of the finale of Sibelius No.5 on the radio, mirroring the swans taking off. Glorious.

Amazing what a whole day at home, with nothing more taxing than making dinner and watching the Winter Olympics can do. Strongly recommended.

I'm hugely excited about the return of the Bury Psalter to @stedscath.bsky.social; the donation of the manuscript to the Cathedral means that it can stay in Bury. Along with the Bury Chronicle at Moyse's Hall Museum it's one of only two of the Abbey's books that remain in the town they were made for

Before and after the haircut....a change of hairstyle and lifestyle perhaps BnF Latin 12048; Sacramentarium gelasianum; 8th century (c.780 CE-800 CE); France (diocese of Meaux or Cambrai?); ff.9v, 18r @gallicabnf.bsky.social

Apply for our PhD placement scheme to get involved in extraordinary research at the Library. There are eight available placements exploring a variety of themes including war poetry, 21st-century digital tools, illustrated newspapers and decarbonisation. Find out more: link.bl.uk/PhDPlacements

A day for remembering #HolocaustMemorialDay

Was meant to be a cute, rabbit-themed carrot cake for my wife’s birthday, but has turned out more pagan murder ritual.

gofund.me/ca2d99afb Our fabulous community cricket & bowling club does so much for us all and young people and families in particular. They need a new boiler, not least because it’s Yorkshire!

Can someone with access to Brill's online books help me with a few PDFs from A Companion to the Eucharist in the Middle Ages?

Our latest PhD Placement opportunities - come and work at the British Library for 3-6 months to develop your research and professional skills. 8 projects available, deadline for applications 27 February. www.bl.uk/services/res...

In York for the day and spent the morning walking by lots of special buildings, including the old Borthwick Institute. Hungry work.

The next couple of weeks are essentially to be spent training garden birds to land here ahead of the RSPB bird watch.

Tried to make a map of a medieval town one mile radius around the cathedral today, using AI. It made a map of the modern town on a brown background so it would “look like parchment”.

Together with the @royalsociety.org, we invite applications for the International Fellowships 2026. The scheme supports international early career researchers in advancing their expertise through collaborations with UK partners. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3LaMIBC

#earlymodern - this is a page from Anne Clifford’s 1676 day book. What do you make of it. The marks on the left seem to correlate to the various hands or are they the remnant of an already marked up book? Full transcription in Malay’s edition

Tomorrow the trains will be well, all trains will be well, and all manner of trains will be well.

Music theory teachers! My department at NYU created an amazing free public collection of online resources and examples, including a huge body of pop examples. They want you to use it! sites.google.com/nyu.edu/nyu-...

Just watched the new Knives Out and I think it's really important you know that the scene in the Seminary's Gym is filmed in the same place Rick Astley filmed the music video for Never Gonna Give You Up. I saw the window tracery and immediately made my friends pause the film so I could tell them.

Granted, my Navigator role went awry about an hour from the destination, bringing the total journey time to eight hours. BUT we did end up driving through Romsey, the medieval abbey records of which I was only reading yesterday. My family were placated by stopping also at a village pub. All’s well.

New washing up backing track

Benefits of home working - daughter has made me a Christmas-coloured omelet for lunch.

Benefits of home working - daughter has made me a Christmas-coloured omelet for lunch.

AI-assisted writing in 1716. #skystorians

It wasn't just monks who liked their eels...nuns did, too! In the 1280s the nuns of Romsey Abbey in Hampshire rented lands in the village of Welles to Nicholas de Barbeflete for some customary labor, 57s., 200 herrings, & 300 eels per year. Can't let the monks have all the fun! 🗃️🧪

NEWS | Early Music finds a new home in The Peak District 🔗 go.continuoconnect.com/early-music-... @buxtonfestival.bsky.social

Two more days until Christmas break.

Hooray! The British Library has just released a beta version of its rebuilt Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue: searcharchives.bl.uk 2,619 hits for 'petition' in Western Manuscripts, texts in English, in case you're curious. 🗃️

This is such a lovely image, and perfect illustration for tomorrow’s team writing day.

SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going— SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti— SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE

We have a fully funded PhD (+ research expenses) in Ethnomusicology going in @ucddublin.bsky.social supervised by my new colleague, Abigail Lindo. Abigail is looking to supervise in a host of exciting & pertinant areas. Full details below: www.ucd.ie/music/newsan...

My next book has a presence on the Boydell & Brewer website. 'Constructing Polish Musical Identities outside Poland since 1880: Sounding "Polish"'. Available Spring 2026! boydellandbrewer.com/book/constru...

"Of the 991 history exam questions set in 2023, 357 featured a named individual, but only 31 were women – and nine of those were references to Elizabeth I or her reign." Dr Natasha R. Hodgson of Nottingham Trent University writes this week in The Conversation bit.ly/49ZqTiq

If you are a historian with policy-facing interests who has recently submitted their PhD (or will do so imminently), this fantastic new London-based postdoc fellowship in Applied History could be for you. www.history.ac.uk/fellowships/...