Why do I ALWAYS lose the game of pedestrian, puddle bus? 🥺 🚌

Listening to David Hare and @anitaanand.bsky.social on PM discuss the problems faced by regional theatre and thinking they need to also chat with @rob-myles.bsky.social & his Stage Bright Idea award-winning proposals for a regional theatre network.

It’s a good thing I don’t have an Oxbridge leadership role: I’d likely propose a process for centralising JRF recruitment, then assigning colleges (& respective perks) to the successful candidates via a sorting hat/first come first serve or whatever. A bloody civil war would most likely break loose.

It’s just dawned on me that my peers and I began our PhDs in October 2005 and I’m in denial about the passage of time.

God, imagine being driven by unevidenced fears of people you've made no effort to understand, making outlandish claims about who they are and what they do, then stoking those fears in others and making it all worse. And then making a show about witches with Alice Roberts.

Pity my mother, with offspring such as me…

👉 #IsCheeseRational? [if you know, you know…]

There are also instances of women preaching and in positions of power in various sects throughout the Middle Ages and women also had a priestly role in the Early Church.

Remembering the time we tried to explain pelican, puffin, toucan, zebra and pegasus crossings to @matthewharrison.bsky.social, though I suspect he still doesn’t believe us…

Lily Dunn's 'Into Being' is a milestone text in the art of life writing. I'm looking forward to chairing a discussion with her at @rilch-ljmu.bsky.social next month. It will be a great evening about how we raise raw personal material and make it powerfully universal.

👀 @ljmuimpact.bsky.social @ljmuofficial.bsky.social

Can’t believe this book is TEN????

WE ARE OFF! If you're still on commute or school run, you should be able to pick this up later as it's recorded. But always lovely to be able to actually ask questions of our brilliant post-docs. #SkyStorians #EarlyModern

Important work by @britishacademy.bsky.social, keeping track of emerging cold spots, and contracting opportunities for young people who want to make a difference in the world through the study of SHAPE subjects.

Why did they call it “The Never Ending Story” when it has an ending? How come we’re not still trapped, sitting cross-legged in the school hall, wilting under the pressure of having begun watching it on VHS as our class Christmas party treat in 1989? #FalseAdvertising

Very pleased to see our Bee-ing Human film on the @leverhulme.ac.uk website. I will be sharing more from our science-humanities project on bee sentience soon as we finalise our bee book this autumn media.leverhulme.ac.uk/video/charle...

I’ve been busy all day and am just surfacing. Have I missed anything important?

🐝🐝🐝 New to the @leverhulme.ac.uk 'Bee-ing Human' book: do watch and share our 7 mins film about Charles Butler's queen bee piping song, recorded in @theul.bsky.social and @peterhousecam.bsky.social with @sjjackson32.bsky.social Magnus Williamson, Richard Wistreich and choir.

Squire of the Fleas To Concuss a Mockingbird Jude the Mainstream Close to the Madding Couple Hitchhikers Guide to the Clam The Visible Man A Clockwork Satsuma Cowardly Old Globe Confessions of a Justly-Fried Singer Gulliver’s Staycation Prudery Fair The Stripped Screw The Quick Nap 🫣🥴😏

If I don’t say anything, do you think anyone will notice I accidentally put “colloquiums” instead of “colloquia” on that email I just sent?

An absolute masterclass from UK Quakers on how organisations of all kinds can stand up for the rights and safety of trans people, even post Supreme Court ruling and with all of the EHRC's cruelties: www.quaker.org.uk/documents/re...

Come one, come all to lovely Liverpool to hear some fabulous scholarship!

POSTDOCTORAL SHOWCASE! Come and hear all about the exciting work our post-doctoral fellows have done this past year! Starring @claireturner.bsky.social & Jean David Eynard. 25 September, 5-6pm, Crowdcast. Register here: www.crowdcast.io/c/postdoctor... #EarlyModern #SkyStorians

Shakespeare’s granddaughter Elizabeth was married to a bloke called Thomas Nash and the uncessant wheeling and rolling on of my brain is imaging a sit com stuffed full of red herrings and absurdity…

Now reminded of my favourite war: the 335 Years War. In 1651, the Netherlands declared war on the Isles of Scilly, a gorgeous teeny archipelago off the Cornish coast. It is the longest recorded war in European history, primarily because everyone forgot about it. www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/Hi...

Note that this is a genuinely information seeking endeavor. We are well aware that it is not going to be representative in any statistical sense. But details and qualitative info can really help. Whether you are pro or anti action, whether you think we can meet ballot, please respond!

Scientists who study climate don't automatically attribute all changes to human activity. Rather, we carefully investigate every possible natural factor that could explain the planet's warming. Could these be the real culprits? The evidence is in--and the answer is NO. This thread explains! 🧵

A *VERY RARE* PERMANENT JOB IN MUSIC!!!!!!!!!! 🥳

🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁 Thrilled to announce that A Two Woman Hamlet is going to #colchfringe25! Casting got each performance will be announced soon...

I’m in the Rose and Crown with @tracelarkhall.bsky.social and in awe of being acquainted with infamous #Larkhall haunts. HOORAY FOR THE ROSE AND CROWN! 🙌

I’m with @tracelarkhall.bsky.social in her local and all is well with the world. #LarkhallFan

12 August is National Middle Child Day. What do you mean, you didn’t notice????

👀 it’s the nativity of @onslies.bsky.social the Magnificent! Happy #Onslies Day to all who celebrate! 🥳 🎈 💫

And we’ve known about global warming for over a hundred years and have blithely ignored its catastrophic effects: theconversation.com/for-110-year...

Who knew “AI” really meant “anxietatem infinitum”?

So, you mean 80% of graduates have benefited financially from it? And, whisper it quietly, but *UNIVERSITY EDUCATION ISN’T JUST ABOUT SALARY*

👀 @willtullett.bsky.social

My darling nephew sent me a thank you card 🙄

Maybe because “British Literature” is only a fraction of the canon of literatures in English? 🤷‍♀️

Please help me share the CFP for this Literature Compass Special Issue dedicated to the work of Simon J James and covering key Victorian and Edwardian writers like H. G. Wells, George Gissing, Dickens, Wilde, George Du Maurier, and Conan-Doyle on behalf of Hadas Elber-Aviram.

CFP: Speech/less in the Early Modern World Keynote speakers: Rosamund Oates Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 23 April 2026 Deadline: 26 September 2025 All info: www.rensoc.org.uk/event/speech... #EarlyModern #SkyStorians #DisabilityHistory #HistDisability

This looks AWESOME! 🤩

Congratulations @hnewsome-chandler.bsky.social!

Congratulations @cazzert.bsky.social! 🥳 💫 🥂

We're recruiting for a new role in the Early Modern team at TNA to help us integrate the Parliamentary Archives. I'm looking for someone with an expertise in pre-modern Westminster Parliament so we can join the executive, legislative and judicial collections www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOD893/r...

Hurray! (and paging @earlymodernmurray.bsky.social) www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Thanks to everyone who attended in person and online and to the wonderful @racheljwillie.bsky.social for coming all the way to York to chair the event ☺️ The book is part of Routledge's Mid-Year Sale so it's available at a discounted price 📚

Trying to find information about a printer called William Turner is severely hampered by the artist, proving that Francis Bacon isn’t the only early modern figure painted over by artists.

Serendipity of my timeline bringing me two pieces this morning. "Why Read?" by Diane Elam (from a quarter century ago...) about what reading *does* and how we can't quantify or even guarantee that culturemachine.net/the-universi... "Reading literature is not a guarantee; it is a possibility." 1/2

One wing of the phoenix may need to remind itself that it isn’t actually a phoenix… 🙄 🐦‍🔥 🐥 🔥 🐣