GWR is planning to introduce direct Oxford–Bristol trains this May, running every two hours Mon-Sat, if Network Rail approves. New documents submitted to the rail regulator say that the Government is backing the service, and that it is targeting the timetable change date in May.

When Harriet died I was researching the death rituals of medieval monks. Last summer, I went to London to record this podcast about that for @historyextra.bsky.social - on the very day Wes Streeting announced his maternity review. That podcast's now been released. open.spotify.com/episode/4How...

When Harriet died I was researching the death rituals of medieval monks. Last summer, I went to London to record this podcast about that for @historyextra.bsky.social - on the very day Wes Streeting announced his maternity review. That podcast's now been released. open.spotify.com/episode/4How...

Phew. It feels like I could spend all my time and more simply answering email... Have been living in anxiousness about the backlog since at least the early autumn. 4 full days have reduced the heap from 450 to 260... Please don't reply!

Coventry University is planning 12 UG intakes a year. At the same time, staff are TUPed into subsidiaries, forced into contracts where teaching loads rise to 750 hours and scholarly activity slashed. This isn’t just change — it’s a shift in what HE is.

Absolutely, and if one would like some inspiration one could buy a book written by a human called Eleanor Baker.

This looks interesting. David Parnell, Justinian's Men, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

George Garnett on Stephen Baxter @oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social. www.history.ox.ac.uk/stephen-baxt...

“This morning, the Israeli Police prevented the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land…from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, as they made their way to celebrate the Palm Sunday Mass.”

Taplow drinking horn mount: close up. Image: ©The Trustees of @britishmuseum.bsky.social. #Sutton-Hoo-on-Thames

Call for Papers for @ihr.bsky.social History of Liturgy Study Day in Cambridge on Saturday 25 April 2026. **New Directions in the History of Liturgy II**

This looks super: Sue Heaser, Anglo-Saxon Beads 400-700AD: A Visual Guide to Types & Techniques. www.sueheaser.com/anglo-saxon-...

The Social History of a Medieval Fish Weir c.600-2020 by the always-worth-reading Tom Pickles. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

A group of strikingly well-preserved wheel-thrown jugs found in graves of the early 5th-mid 7th centuries in the evocatively-named St Peter's Tip cemetery, Broadstairs, Kent and now in @britishmuseum.bsky.social - whose images these are.

We have a PhD studentship available in History or Archaeology at CCCU www.canterbury.ac.uk/study-here/f... - deadline 22 May. #skystorians 1/

'We'd known this family of sperm whales for the last 20 yrs so it wasn't just animal A supporting animal B, we knew it was the grandmother supporting the mother during the labour process...'

Reminded of this brilliant essay in archaeological reconstruction of the dress worn by a woman in the 'Anglo-British' cemetery of Wasperton, nr Stratford-u-Avon by @thegns.bsky.social. They point out it looks v Roman - & would have seemed archaic to Mediterranean eyes. www.thegns.org/blog/waspert...

KCC is pressing ahead with Folkestone Library’s move to Sandgate Road while putting Grace Hill on the disposal track. Our latest piece follows the paper trail, the fight to save the old library, and a council that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. tinyurl.com/ynjzsp22

Call for Papers for @ihr.bsky.social History of Liturgy Study Day in Cambridge on Saturday 25 April 2026. **New Directions in the History of Liturgy II**

Powerful stuff from the outgoing proctors at Oxford: 'We share the disquiet of many colleagues that the rapid distribution of such [ChatGPT] licences by the University sent a powerful signal... that AI usage was being promoted in problematic ways... 👇

December Issue: Alexandra Walsham on 'Heirloom Books: Family Memory, Genealogy, and English Archives, c.1450–1850' academic.oup.com/ehr/article/... @emodcam.bsky.social

Powerful stuff from the outgoing proctors at Oxford: 'We share the disquiet of many colleagues that the rapid distribution of such [ChatGPT] licences by the University sent a powerful signal... that AI usage was being promoted in problematic ways... 👇

Great to see @davidpetts1.bsky.social will be giving the next Deerhurst Lecture.

The @hsj.co.uk are reporting that 'Four trusts rated ‘red’ on baby deaths' - inc East Kent. The stillbirths rate is better but this is where East Kent is after intensive support... Dispiriting to look back over the minutes of the Reading the Signals Oversight Group... ekhuft.nhs.uk/about-us/boa...

And now for something completely different: Free Latin GCSE lessons are on offer for Year 8 and 9 pupils whose schools do not teach it. Oxford University's Latin Teaching Scheme (OxLAT) was first run in 2008 and relaunched in 2015. The deadline for applications is 15 May, with 40 places available.

A good first meeting of the Maternity Taskforce yesterday and I'm glad it's being chaired by @rthonwesstreeting.bsky.social himself. When the East Kent report came out, we never got a meeting with a Sec of State nor, I think, did Bill Kirkup. Good too to get an update from Valerie Amos' Review.

The perfect pop song? Helen Love, Golden Summer... I may be biased. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5lR...

A good first meeting of the Maternity Taskforce yesterday and I'm glad it's being chaired by @rthonwesstreeting.bsky.social himself. When the East Kent report came out, we never got a meeting with a Sec of State nor, I think, did Bill Kirkup. Good too to get an update from Valerie Amos' Review.

From @ukri.org Sept Board minutes: ‘discussion in relation to the risk deep dive on financial sustainability of the UK research system. There is sector concern about the loss of traditional discipline areas, but the evidence does not support this being a major issue.’ www.ukri.org/wp-content/u...

Calling all young UK writers aged 11-14. Great prizes, and a chance to have your writing published. www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

One of the recently-excavated late antique wallpaintings from this monastery - from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism's facebook post about it. Sounds like they have also found figural images too. Anyone seen pictures of them? Or of small finds?

Very pleased to see this article out in Early Medieval Europe! In which I ask what made someone a 'thegn' in the century or so before the Conquest (and whether it really took five hides of land to become one).

And then yesterday was time for my Christmas present from my lovely brother... the last night of a rare revival of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia @theoldvic.bsky.social. It was so good we all wanted to see it all over again... just like we did the first time round 23 yrs ago!

Thank you @theul.bsky.social & @churchillcol.bsky.social for some hermitting days, back writing after 6 months of term-time. Books on shelves! Print journals! Distractionless scandi-minimalism! Blue skyes! Concentration. If only the Moeller Institute wasn't quite so expensive... #seekingpatron

2/5: What excites me most is how each parchment sheet reveals a complete narrative - from living animal to finished writing surface. The 346 calfskins used across three volumes preserve evidence of medieval animal husbandry, craft techniques, and workshop practices.

Returning to this brilliant essay by @bruceholsinger.bsky.social 'The specific formal constraints of the literary artifact are...incarnations of the same institutional, political & cultural forces that elsewhere manifest as peasant revolt & the deposition of kings.' Wot a justification for litcrit!

Outcome meetings confirm: Our academic staff are being moved into subsidiaries on inferior terms, using TUPE to avoid redundancy while cutting jobs. Most academic staff will no longer be employed by the University. We are fighting back. #UCU #CoventryUniversity #TUPE

3/5: The brilliance is in the details: neck rings show the calf's age, tension lines reveal stretching techniques, repair stitches identify different craftsmen's work, and even parasites tell us about animal health. Nothing is merely a "flaw" - everything is evidence!

Truly one of the greatest pieces of research in book history you will ever read. I call Vnouček the "parchment whisperer."

Returning to this brilliant essay by @bruceholsinger.bsky.social 'The specific formal constraints of the literary artifact are...incarnations of the same institutional, political & cultural forces that elsewhere manifest as peasant revolt & the deposition of kings.' Wot a justification for litcrit!

Last chance to make a submission to the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation today. www.matneoinv.org.uk/call-for-evi...

Daunted and delighted to have been asked to be a member of Wes Streeting's maternity taskforce to represent the views of harmed families. www.newstatesman.com/politics/hea...

Sometime in the 1320s, about 25 yrs before Sir Robert de Hungerford died, he commissioned a highly unusual indulgence tablet for the wall of his chantry chapel at Hungerford - praying for his soul would gain you 550 days pardon, granted by no less than 14 bishops! tinyurl.com/ecfn7mvn

Sometime in the 1320s, about 25 yrs before Sir Robert de Hungerford died, he commissioned a highly unusual indulgence tablet for the wall of his chantry chapel at Hungerford - praying for his soul would gain you 550 days pardon, granted by no less than 14 bishops! tinyurl.com/ecfn7mvn

A portal to a longed-for world.

'Some day you look in the mirror and say: 'Where did the time go?' This is such a special song for me - as for many - but I'd never heard this version before. Thanks to Jessie Buckley's Desert Island Discs with @laurenlaverne.bsky.social. #endoftermstillworkingblues www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlJf...

A morning teaching 'Silk Roads' prompts a repost of this...

In other news, my forthcoming book with @fieldsmeyer.com --ON COURAGE, How to Be a Dissident in an Age of Fear -- is now available for pre-order. We interviewed 100+ dissidents worldwide to craft a practical guide to personal courage under authoritarianism. www.harpercollins.com/products/on-...

An embroidery with scenes from the legend of Tristan, with Middle Low German texts, & many heraldic shields. It was made c. 1300 by nuns at Wienhausen, Germany - from where there also survive another two such embroideries of the Tristan legend. #thingsilearnedtoday trc-leiden.nl/trc-needles/...