You, boy! What day is this?

I don't know who coaches the readers at King's these days, but one does not have to deliver either poetry or Christian scripture with that weird ecstatic overemphasis. Let intonation follow the clauses, for pity's sake.

Merry Christmas from Copeland & Lye's 1909 catalogue (www.theglasgowstory.com/image/?inum=...). Wishing you all, according to taste, a Mr Jollyboy, some Rubber Bubbles, and a Happy Fanny.

This is a really fascinating piece of historical texture. Also, inside my head: "Darling, did you make it to Mr Matthew's shop in time?" "Bad news, love: he's completely sold out of japes. Turns out he over-ordered Jesuses and tin cruets, though, so guess what the kids are getting this year?"

I'm frankly disappointed in all of you. A bizarre canal-related accident in a place with a strange name, and you left me to find this out for myself? (Not up there with the 1978 Plug Incident, but still my kind of oops.) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

*loudly and in the hearing of the manosphere* well actually the real test of masculinity is whether you can go six rounds underwater against a shoal of hungry Humboldt squid (Got to be worth a try.)

They don't do pamphlet titles like they used to, and they certainly don't do marketing.

See folk who drop into my mentions to play the old game of tracing everything bad to You Know Who? Blockety blockety block.

Of marking many books there is no end.

It will surprise nobody that the cataloguing system that is slopwashing like this turns out to be Primo. (If you're not sure what system your university library uses: have you ever searched for a book and been offered three pages of links to reviews instead? That was Primo too.)

Good night.

35 exam scripts successfully deciphered in a single day. Bring on Linear A, cowards. I'm ready.

Out of office on. If those three ghosts turn up again this year, each of them is getting handed a bundle of exam scripts and a red pen and told to get on with it.

Rediscovered this short thread while I was looking for something I thought I'd said but apparently hadn't. I'm sharing it in case anyone else is in a state of mind in which they would like to see two coots beating up a heron.

Usual reminder: decisions like this don't mean that AI can do the job of a human translator; they mean that some C-suite creature who is basically a LinkedIn profile wrapped in ham and an expensive suit has decided it provides an alibi for paying human translators less money for less rewarding work.

A last one from that day of mist: Glasgow Cathedral fading out of sight behind the broken teeth of the Necropolis.

Hadn't noticed this before, but the railway beneath the tree at Central Station comes with its own wee Blue Lagoon, for all your late-night deep-fried needs.

Glasgow history nerds! The Trades House Library have scanned the previously missing volumes of the Extracts from the Burgh Records, covering 1759-1809. Now available at www.tradeshouselibrary.org/glasgow.html and as far as I know nowhere else online.

The 1930s Technocracy movement is one hell of a fully-automated rabbit hole to go down. I think I recognise the "we must embrace <thing> because it's happening anyway" mentality in a pamphlet published in 1939. (archive.org/details/Tech...)

This kind of thing is why I'm very cynical about the "just learn to say no" career advice that does the rounds. It is very easy to say "no" to people less powerful than you, like students or junior colleagues, and getting away with saying it to powerful people requires a lot of privilege.

Good morning to everyone who isn't circulating twenty-year old, incorrect, handwritten solutions to their exercises and failing to respond for over a month when students point out errors in them.

More from Tuesday's mist.

Status: surreptitiously googling "least icky way to get disqualified as a charitable trustee" on the grounds that it would give me my evenings back. Do you think they'd accept "I refused a challenge to the field of honour and so may no longer hold my head high among gentlemen"?

Why do so many scholars in STS feel the need to start essays with a para that might as well read "Scientists are such dorks! You know some of them even believe that things exist? LOSERS!" before getting to the interesting stuff?

Please do not apply for postgraduate programmes that do not exist, because an admissions tutor's gibbering invocation of wrathful chthonic powers from beyond the veil of sense often offends.

Prometheus.

In and around the Necropolis at lunchtime.

Turns out people are really surprised when you tell them you've read their doctoral thesis, especially when they and it are German and you're not. It is honestly worth reading a German doctoral thesis and waiting 20 years until you meet the author so you can do this.

Bloody hell. I think a peregrine falcon just went past my office window.

Weather update from Glasgow: at 1341, the sun broke through the mist for the first time today. Sunset is at 1543.

Since it's Austen Takes Day: 1. She was the creator of the detective novel and has bamboozled generations of readers into not noticing this. 2. She did not write in the genre of Regency romance. 3. There is one (1) good Austen adaptation, and you know perfectly well which one I mean.

This made me feel _so_ much better about no longer being an academic. I trust that the authors of the VSI in question have found the time to walk up to the reviewer in silence, blow a party horn in his face, and walk away again.

Good thing on the internet alert.

Another day, another set of questions relating to a policy document that apparently I am the only person in this place who has ever read. (If anyone wants me to sort out Schleswig–Holstein while I'm at it, I'm pretty sure I can remember where the answer is hidden on Sharepoint.)

Just had a charity email headed "2025 - a year powered by hope"; and yes, that is a lovely idea, but PLEASE READ THE ROOM.

The "mysterious circle" from Gérard Thibault d'Anvers's mathematical system of sword fighting, based on geometry and ideal proportions. As far as I can make out it's basically Vitruvian Man Goes To War.

This could be really good for folk with an interest in MacCaig. Anette Degott conducted a series of long interviews with him as part of her PhD research, and while I suspect he was gently winding her up on occasion they're still the best MacCaig-on-MacCaig resource I know.

Hands up everyone else who's marking two exams this semester, both of which will take place on Friday. (Fortunately I am very good at relaxing when there is an unfinished, time-limited task waiting for me in the office. Very good indeed. I'm sure I'll be able to forget about it for hours on end.)

Mensch.

About this time of year I usually do a month-by-month photo thread. Some months this year were lousy, so instead I'll post my least-worst pics in vaguely themed batches over the next week or so. Mute #DominiePics if you want to avoid them.

Hang on: all this Outraged Discourse is because one rather silly vicar preached a very silly sermon? I know we all enjoy a good dose of culture war on a wet weekend, but silly vicars are like silly academics: they are easier to find and speak with less authority than most folk realise.

Morning; gulls.

A Czech friend brought us a supply of Kozel černý, so at least the week is ending with Kozel černý. This may be the best thing about the week.

My mum's eyesight has now deteriorated to the point at which she relies solely on her Kindle for reading. (Yes, I know there are alternatives: please don't Linux-on-the-desktop at me.) If they thrust this mandatory moronbot between her and books, bad things will occur.

The worst thing Charles Dickens did was convince an entire society that office Christmas parties were Fun.

What percentage of BBC Question Time editors don't speak fluent truth?

LLMs are trying to kill us, episode 98027406.

St George informs his dragon that it is Monday morning and that it is time, therefore, to get up.

Internal monologue during the annual photo-sift. 1. I take too many photos. 2. I don't like any of them. 3. Maybe these ones are OK. 4. I have picked too many photos. 5. I don't like any of them. 6. Oh, I quite like that one. 7. No I don't. Etc.