‘Speaking strictly for me we both could have died then and there’ - Joan Baez, Diamonds and Rust. Or ‘She comes from Ireland/ She’s very beautiful / I come from Brisbane and I’m quite plain’. Go-Betweens, Lee Remick.

At @awwe.bsky.social’s Welsh literature conference Rebecca chases the timekeeper away. Unless Mari Lwyd is lurking nearby.

Diolch i Llion Wigley @wigs24.bsky.social am ei seminar nos Iau ar ‘Ynysoedd Gobaith: Adeiladu Iwtopia yng Nghymru’r Ugeinfed Ganrif’. Gallwch wylio recordiad ar ein sianel YouTube 👇 youtu.be/XioIL7c7-m4

I propose to make universal the old policy of the Blackfriars conference at the American Shakespeare Center: If you do not end your paper on time, you will be forced to exit, pursued by a bear. Literally, a bear will come take your paper from you.

Done.

Idea for the next Winter Olympics: all the cycling track disciplines but for speed skaters. The Madison! The Keirin!

Here we go for the final of the Catholic Six Nations. #IrevIta

Saw Bridget Christie live tonight. Highly recommended.

What an unconventional choice - elite private school folllowed by Oxford. That’ll shake up the establishment.

Department meeting to settle the new curriculum. Feels like we’ve signed our own death warrants. Or each others’.

Looking forward to hearing from his Monegasque neighbours on this one.

Hmm. Who will Big Milk sue next? Coconuts? Of Magnesia? WhiteSapweed? www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Oops these racist stickers just fell off a lamppost as I walked by.

Six (more) historians in my department have taken (been pressured into) voluntary redundancy. Since we cross teach, supervise, & tutor, politics staff now have more work to do. The solution? Pressure staff (those with the biggest caring & teaching commitments) to move onto teaching only contracts.

Visited a 1980s time capsule house this week. Pure sensory overload.

Magnificently dead-pan statement of facts that Reform apparently don’t know (inc. none of the Bangors are in England).

‘Daddy? I barely knew him’ - Wes Streeting for the Guardian

I’d have been tempted to reply enthusiastically, explaining - in Welsh - that the debate would of course be held yn y Gymraeg.

2 of my degrees are from Bangor and I’m very proud and grateful. As is, I hope, Bridget Jones, roundly mocked by Daniel Cleaver for having a Bangor BA in English and Linguistics.

The subheading is inaccurate. Like all university senior managers, they want to cut millions from *other people’s salaries*. Never their own: the number and pay of senior staff only increases.

The report says he’s negotiating a place in the Lotds as a reward to failure. What a way to run an allegedly serious country.

‘We’ve installed these hives to remind you drones that the Queen gets fed first. We hope that this analogy sinks in’.

Good riddance to Morgan McSweeney for so many reasons, but principally for being an immigrant responsible for relentlessly pushing an anti-immigrant agenda, and for reproducing Fine Gael’s negative, joyless political machine within Labour (an open door, one could say). Power without principles.

New on the CDBU blog: 5 low cost things employers could do to help precarious staff 💰 Words by @hagenilda.bsky.social ✍️

Liars, the lot of them.

I’m enjoying the Winter Olympics opening ceremony. Almost every element seems designed to trigger JD Vance there.

I already thought international rugby on a Thursday was abomination. The score so far has not altered my conviction. #IrevFra

I’m allowed to talk about this now, so: CTHULHU CYMRAEG: THE NIGHT COUNTRY will be out on Feb 16th! Five novelettes interpreting Lovecraftian themes from a Welsh point of view. Ebook pre-orders are up now, paperbacks to follow shortly. amzn.eu/d/09yEM2f5

This year's H.M. Chadwick Lecture is being given by Prof. Barry Lewis on 19th March with the title 'The flourishing of vernacular literature in the Wales of Llywelyn the Great'. #Skystorians #HanesCymru The Zoom registration link is here:

Deeply annoyed by enshittified Apple Keynote 15: no improvements, just constant nagging to use 'AI' and pay for a premium version. The old one is simple, elegant, and free (except that users have paid for a Mac). Opening the old one brings up a message to get the new one, every single time.

So when do the course closures, job losses and contract dilutions begin? Becaue there’s absolutely no way that this isn’t the plan. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

The classic managerial response: it’s not *what* we’re doing, we just didn’t *disguise it* sufficiently to fool you peasants.

Barnsley the AI town? I’m old enough to remember when it was going to be a Tuscan hill town. How did that turn out? news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/3000474.stm www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Sitting on the table is the least of this monster’s crimes. Last year she ate the blue tit chicks; the year before she lured her own twin brother down to a busy road and came back alone and unremorseful.

Robert Jenrick demanding probity in public life following the Mandelson story is a whole new level of political entertainment. The pot and kettle must be on the phone to their agent demanding a raise. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

Why are UK universities failing? A pretty good analysis that chimes with my experience as a governor. blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

@keithbeard.bsky.social Condolences on your loss Keith. Having read your Other Lives obituary, she sounds wonderful.

Less than a week until #Wolverhampton litfest and we’re excited about the #blur drummer Dave Roundtree on Friday and @stuartmaconie.bsky.social on Sunday preceded by Francis Dunnery on Thursday www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Currently wishing a gruesome death on the fellow passenger listening to a football match on speakerphone and refusing to switch it off. The guard scuttled past him with eyes averted.

The Time-Traveller’s Mistress? The Time-Traveller’s Second Wife? Didn’t see the first film but hated the novel. Something very creepy about an adult repeatedly appearing to a child announcing that they’ll be lovers at some point in her future. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

I wonder if there’s a downside to having a heavy, power-hungry electrical device powered by batteries directly over your head.

@gwenynen.bsky.social How are you feeling?

Well the three people who turned up for my session on The Cosby Show and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air were very enthusiastic. They love The Fresh Prince!

It won’t fix everything in HE funding but it might help social mobility: charge university students the same fees as their parents paid for their secondary education. (Also all unis to be co-operatives, numbers caps, random distribution of students to institutions offering a course).

I appreciate Murphy's many examples of classical music engaging with communities, but the headline is misleading and I don't think Radio 3, love it though I do, is helping. It seems to increasingly serve soothing, gentle, familiar fare as though classical music is a form of cheap therapy or escape.

Martin has seen the future.

Good for Glass. The thugs in charge won’t care but it’s still meaningful.

Winter graduation ceremony today. Good to see a few of mine through to the end. Decent honorary graduate too - a local lad who now negotiates UN climate agreements.

These important HSE posters have just appeared in my school. No comment