Ploughing, Tilling, Fighting is available again on the Arte Channel. It's great fun. Highly recommended. www.arte.tv/en/videos/RC...

I've just posted all my radical yet pragmatic New Year's Resolutions for Universities on my blog. Happy to hear any suggestions or additions! www.tim-waterman.co.uk

orcas have the chance to do the funniest thing

history moves in us as we raise our voices and then our glasses to pour a little out for those who poured out everything for us, we pour ourselves for them, so they can eat again. --Jake Adam York, 'Grace' Happy New Year!

Source: EL PAÍS English share.google/6dK9mZ3AhLFj... Peace ✌️ Francesca Albanese. Recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2026. Now on a Trump black list.

Also closed out 2025 with two incredible documentaries watched on Kanopy.com: 'The Price of the Ticket' (1989) with fabulous interviews with friends, family, and lovers of James Baldwin and 'FTA' (1972), chronicling the anti-USO/Vietnam/war variety show starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland.

Last book of 2025. Elaine Scarry on how writers bring things to life for readers, itself written with extraordinary verve. On every page I am exhilarated by her choice of words and her artful construction of phrases.

"If you think everyone is lying, why not go with the lies you like rather than the lies you don't," is how I've tried to explain the appeal of Reform to cynical voters. Garbage like this from Labour and its outriders just creates the conditions for Reform to flourish.

For the record, I was an advisor to Ed Miliband's Labour Party on tax policy, I strongly support a wealth tax, and I am aware of a viable and fully costed proposal to implement one in the UK.

Oh, we do. Since her appointment Mary-Ann Stephenson has declined to recognise that trans women are women, has affirmed the hideous guidance drawn up by her predecessor, and has proven correct the two Select Committees who rejected her appointment because she was hopelessly out of her depth.

If you donate $100+ before the end of the year, you can receive your very own set of mail-ready Places postcards! ✉️📬 placesjournal.org/donate/

Eurostar services cancelled and delayed due to problem with overhead power supply in the Channel Tunnel – business live

CFP: Solidarity! A joint conference of the Space Between Society and the Feminist inter/Modernist Association (FiMA) University of North Carolina, Greensboro, May 26 – 29, 2026 spacebetweensociety.com/home/annual-...

Okay everybody! Please help me with this! Universities everywhere are increasingly awful, so let's put together some New Year's Resolutions to help them get better! I'll start! 1) Stand up for the importance of good education for good lives for people, society, and planet.

So, you thought enshittification was just about being trapped in bad software-as-a-service. OH NO, it's about bullshit markets too. It's about everything. Ed Zitron is well worth reading in full. www.wheresyoured.at/the-enshitti...

We’re doing a photography conference! Please circulate!

Mini nuclear reactors are already losing their glow ft.trib.al/V1KUH2e | opinion

The exhibition "Hyakkō: 100+ Makers from Japan" at Japan House in Kensington is absolutely stuffed full of gorgeous objects. www.japanhouselondon.uk/whats-on/hya...

Neat, but this also sounds like a case of fairly simple machine learning being rebranded as "AI".

LeMonde said, not on our watch

I'm pleased to see that the manifesto by staff and students at Aberdeen University 'Reclaiming our University' is still available on the web. It is still a terribly necessary and well-considered list of demands. reclaimingouruniversity.wordpress.com

Best pub porn I've seen in yonks.

Reminder that Henry Hoovers are made in Britain by a unionised workforce

This is perfect. The DOJ's embarrassing snafu with disappearing redactions was the fault of Elon Musk. Musk cancelled government subscriptions to Adobe programs that would have made the redactions permanent. What a pack of fools.

Make a Bond movie academic: Dr., no?

Make a Bond movie academic: Octopedagogy

Behold: the first-ever list of news outlets that have banned generative AI in their reporting. As of today, this is literally information that you cannot find on Google. My goal is to fill the starter pack, so please send over suggestions with supporting evidence! go.bsky.app/8cn1XfT

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and please complete your mandatory e-learning by 31 December.

#OtD 25 Dec 1837 the Africans and Native Americans who formed Florida's Seminole nation defeated a vastly superior US invading army bent on cracking this early rainbow coalition and returning the Africans to slavery stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9721...

“It’s [Citizen Lab] one of the few institutions that investigate cyberthreats exclusively in the public interest, and in doing so, it has exposed some of the most egregious digital abuses of the past two decades.”

Apparently staying on X allows MPs 'to shape political conversation'. Not clear which one, as no examples are offered. With a sharing link for 3 non-subscribers.

Not just a national asset but an international asset. Trashed, ignored, diminished.

If you think this is about free speech - rather than a wilful goading by money and power of a screwed over minority - just ask yourself how the media would cover this story if Alice Sullivan was an anti-semite and these were Jewish students rightly protesting at her being invited onto their campus.

'Beyond universities being unable to afford the new deals, [Caroline] Edwards warned that the financial pressure facing many institutions means the sector is “only starting to see the acceleration in redundancy announcements coming out of UK libraries, which will continue through 2026”.'

MPs question UK Palantir contracts after investigation reveals security concerns

"...those of us who talked about privatised gains and socialised losses were, not to put a finer point on it, completely right" www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Six political prisoners awaiting trial in the U.K. for supporting the banned protest group Palestine Action have been hospitalized as their health declines while on prolonged hunger strike.

'Though completely eclipsed by Don Quixote, Cristalián de España, which was first published in 1545, has a unique claim to fame. Its 800 pages, bristling with swords, sorcerers, dragons and damsels, make up the earliest known work by a female Spanish novelist.' 1/2

International Workshop: “More Than Child’s Play: Global Perspectives on the History of Playgrounds” 26–28 August 2026 ETH Zürich gmw.ethz.ch/en/

CFP: Sophia Journal Vol. 11 Landscapes of Repair - The Invisible City: Manplan and Contemporary Forms of Repair www.up.pt/revistas/ind...

On my way to give two last invited talks for the year. Looking forward to seeing old and new friends at SLU Alnarp and University of Copenhagen.

Release all the Epstein files. Impeach Trump.

'Nottingham Trent University – which reported a £2 million deficit – paid its departing vice-chancellor Edward Peck a bonus of £66,000 in his last year in the job....Peck...received a total pay package of £435,000 in 2024-25 – up from £407,000 the year before.'

This is a wonderful truth ‘The real history of Italian food is turbulent: a saga of hunger, improvisation, migration, industrialisation and sheer survival instinct. It is not a serene lineage of grandmothers, sunlit tables and recipes carved in marble.‘

Hi to everybody joining Bluesky. Please be aware this place isn't safe from far right enclosure either, and consider hedging your bets by also opening an account on the federated and decentralised platform Mastodon.

“Ultra-conservative José Antonio Kast elected Chile’s next president *** The son of a Nazi party member & an admirer of Pinochet, Kast built his campaign on a promise to expel tens of thousands of undocumented migrants” 12/14/25 …1/ www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

I know there’s a lot happening but I still find it incredible that this isn’t getting more attn. This BAD you guys. For the youngs who don’t know: Pinochet was a violent dictator (US supported ofc) who tortured & disappeared ppl. Having a Pinochetist in charge of Chile again? Heartbreaking 💔

With Trump playing Scrooge now, this is the year Tiny Tim will snuff it.

The latest issue of Environmental Values is a special issue called 'Taking care together: Conservation as more-than-human process' edited by Sara Asu Schroer, Paolo Gruppuso and myself. Read our introduction, Tim Ingold's commentary and most of the articles here: journals.sagepub.com/toc/enva/34/6