Great piece by the London Centric on a disturbing new funding model for City of London green spaces to 'increase income generation'. Another saga in the hyper-commodification of any and every commons in the city. substack.com/inbox/post/1...

Yes!

Children are ***82%*** more likely to be killed when hit by an SUV than by a regular passenger car. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Re-sharing this piece I wrote yesterday evening for the evening standard, on those 'tree on its way' signs in the square mile, and the problems of nature as superhero: www.standard.co.uk/comment/lond...

An interesting take with an important warning to heed as we continue the push towards swimmable cities outdoorswimmer.com/featured/is-...

Pleased to say that I completed my RLSS Open Water Lifeguard training at Beckenham lake earlier this week (including an additional Automated External Defibrillator training qualification) learning crucial first aid, CPR and water-based rescue skills.

An excellent few days at my second (and the 50th anniversary of!) @leisure-studies.bsky.social conference in York. The interdisciplinary nature of LSA always makes for great presentations and discussions around the borderlands. And thanks to all that came to Tom and I’s workshop and engaged!

Arrived in York on a gorgeous day for the @leisure-studies.bsky.social conference

‘Researching the leisure we practice: unpacking and understanding embodied ethnographic methods’ Tom Critchley and I are running a workshop at LSA 2025 next week in York. If you’re there come along and talk participatory, entangled methods!

Inspiring few days at the first ever Swimmable Cities summit in Rotterdam. More conferences with morning and evening swims in the programming please!

Big news! Temporary...but a step in the right direction regardless www.timeout.com/london/news/...

New Research Article 📚 The leisure of grey spaces, urban play and the chromatic turn. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #Leisure #GreySpaces #Environment

New developments in the Thames Water saga this morning www.theguardian.com/business/202...

OUT NOW #OnlineFirst: Live Methods Revisited Eight new papers focus on @academicdiary.bsky.social‬ and Nirmal Puwar’s Live Methods and its clarion call for more “artful and crafty” sociological methodologies. Edited by @emmakjackson.bsky.social‬ ‪& @kirsteen-paton.bsky.social‬ buff.ly/sM4Uta3

A Shadwell story: the swan and the turtle (/terrapin?)

Bathing by Tower Bridge, 2018 by fine art photographer Julia Fullerton-Batten. Found in the Guardian this morning

Excellent new piece by Isaac Rangaswami, a highly reflexive discussion of pub lists, Instagram and TikTok and how they intersect with gentrification and class in relation to 'local' pubs. 'How long do you have to live there to become local?' open.substack.com/pub/woodenci...

Brilliant article on a BMX event in Wuhan, China where riders launch themselves into a lake. Expanding how we conceptualise polluted leisure and the symbolic 'greyness' of the struggle between leisure and commercialisation. Great stuff. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

No fun

🚨NEW: This is the CRAZIEST breach of national security you’ll ever read. The Trump administration accidentally texted Editor of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, its war plans. Vance/Hegseth/Waltz & others included Goldberg in a group chat on Yemen military strikes. Read this, you won’t regret it.

I've been excitedly awaiting this article from Abi on rooftop exploration in St Petersburg since we did a panel at LSA last year!

Finally got my hands on a copy of the 10foot-edited special issue. A great read so far

Excellent to see our very own Dr. Claire Robertson featured in the @theipaper.com yesterday. Traces of human, cow and sheep faeces have been recorded at two of England’s most popular river bathing sites, an internal investigation seen by the i found.🧵⬇️ inews.co.uk/news/human-a...

“No Ball Games” signs make children unwelcome on their own doorstep, contributing to isolation and inactivity. It’s time for them to go. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Excited to say I am co-curating a new project 'The Museum of Polluted Leisure' with Clifton Evers and Tom Critchley. The collection archives encounters where pollution meets leisure and leisure meets pollution. Drop us a follow on instagram: www.instagram.com/the_museum_o... Photo: Martin Parr

New issue, with a special section on Palestine @sociologicalreview.bsky.social This piece on "Genocide, neutrality and the university sector" by Rafeef Ziadah should be read by all university leaders journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Brilliant article by @chrisguymariano.bsky.social on the L.A. Courthouse. Really like the notion of the 'pollution of publicness' and the whole article leaves me with a lot to think with.

EXC: How UK's biggest companies lock autistic people out of jobs with personality tests ➡️Morrison's, John Lewis, McDonald's, Co-op +more using tests ➡️"I just don't stand a chance" say autistic jobseekers, as charities tell @bigissue.com tests may be discriminatory www.bigissue.com/news/employm...

Zack Polanski, "Austerity was always the problem, not the European Union" "If we want to solve the problems in this country right now we need to tackle inequality" Kay Burley, "How?" Zack Polanski, "Wealth tax.. Inequality in the country.. People are unhappy and our services are broken"

One for the wet, swimming ethnographers and the rolling, skateboarding ethnographers!

Had the pleasure of listening to Theo introduce this research in a seminar last term and look forward to reading!

"Landing by Maen Hammad explores the lives of Palestinian skateboarders in the occupied West Bank as they navigate the layered realities of Israeli settler-colonial domination. The book offers a thesis on skateboarding as a form of resistance to a headspace of violence." huwawabooks.com/landing

[reposted] The storm has broken at Cardiff University. Solidarity to everyone who is going to be affected by leaving the university, or by remaining as part of a substantially weakened workforce. Please join a union.

Got around to reading this morning and it's brilliant 👏 Fond of the insistence that engaging with the street beyond a surface level inherently involves being with and walking with others - present or not. Lots to think with here!

Trying to get some traction on Bluesky as I move from X any reposts of my pub research /work much appreciated @matthew-wright.bsky.social

Brilliant new article that engages with both grey spaces and polluted leisure concepts with attention to the (threat to) spaces of informal youth football: the street, the playground, the cage. Great stuff!

A photo essay and article on skateboarders in Ukraine reclaiming the 'scarred spaces' of war. A pertinent context to think about play and the creation of habitable, liveable spaces. www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

Somewhat new social class identifier of an area in London: the strength of snus (nicotine pouches) available from the corner shop. Heard a bossman last night tell a well spoken young man ‘sorry we have no two-dots, people around here like the stronger ones mate’.

I taught incarcerated firefighters who worked for criminally low wages. It's considered the best job in the prison, because you get to go out, do something valuable, and eat real food. It's also wildly dangerous, and they are given the worst jobs...literally pulling remains out of charred homes.

Just watched A Film Called Blacks Can't Swim by Ed Accura. Funny and highly insightful, most definitely recommended viewing.

Exciting moment in time to see the London Assembly launch this investigation! Despite feeling more like a million years away in the context of a 40% rise in pollution incidents in the Thames in 2024 while Thames Water get bailed out with public money...

New Publication 'The Skater's Ear' addressing the sensory world of sound for skateboarders - Open Access and free to download www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Sociology in the Times of Genocide: call for expressions of interest for a forthcoming Special Section of The Sociological Review journal. More info buff.ly/4izyRjO Deadline 13 January Editors: @kirsteen-paton.bsky.social and Karis Campion #CfP #Gaza #Palestine Keffiyeh artwork buff.ly/41uSBir

tis the season. there’s A LOT of snooker on TV. but what, i hear you ask, can snooker tell us about gender, class and urban space in britain? well… www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Hello BlueSky! Happy to be over here from X and pleased to share a new publication which I co-authored with Jens Binder at NTU during my time there: Prevent duty, safeguarding and agency: The impact of the statutory Prevent duty on enacting professional groups www.ntu.ac.uk/research/gro...