The joke’s on them because the email reads Protestant Service (No Catholic Mass), when any ex-Catholic fule kno that Catholicism famously doesn’t do Mass on Good Friday. The Stations and Passion, yes. Mass, no.

My uni's head of digital' - previously IT specialist in banking his entire career: 'the future of HE is tech- and process-led, not academic led'. Managers/BoG: 'hook it into my veins'. What we're actually *for* other than sharing profits between senior managers and PA Consulting remains unexamined

Did BBC radio 4 #Today programme really just do a whole package about drilling in the N Sea without once even mentioning #climate change? And not having anyone challenging the one-sided claims of former BP boss? So irresponsible #bbcr4today

This silly story revealed something worrying about the BBC’s journalistic practice: instead of getting a second or more authoritative source, it published the story as true, presumably because being early is now better than being right. We should expect better of an important organisation.

If you're in Caernarfon on April 24th, this will be worth attending - Llion is a great thinker and researcher, and his book is a revelation.

Every day a fresh reminder that leaving the Labour Party was the right thing to do. Factory farming is a moral horror and an environmental disaster, and Labour seems incapable of resisting industry lobbyists in any field. The Wye is a toxic soup thanks to the chicken industry.

Today’s agenda: - finish reading a PhD I’m examining - read a friend’s book chapter - meet HR to discuss why they haven’t noticed that an entire department is over contracted hours and being made to do things they aren’t qualified or paid to do, and what they’re going to do about it.

One small editorial change to the leaflet, a quick look online for the Freepost code and Reform’s electoral leaflet is ready to pop back in the post at their own expense.

How I wish I still lived in Wales to vote for this. Still, nice of Reform to do Plaid Cymru and Y Blaid Werdd’s campaigning for them.

I loved spotting this review of a young friend’s co-written book in the LRB. Hoping it will help her get a permanent job.

Good news for all other European women though.

Bad news for Farage’s Italian current partner, and his Irish and German exes.

Ebrill 2020: "Be wna i yn ystod segurdod cyfnod Cloi Mawr y Covid, dwch? Wel dechra blogio wrth gwrs!" Chwe blynadd union yn ddiweddarach dwi'n dal wrthi'n reidio ac yn rwdlan sgwennu hanesion. Yn brysur ar rhif 82 rwan. yrhenddeurodiwr.wordpress.com

Caption competition time! 'Look out everyone, she's going to blow'. 'As the leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party, I can truthfully say that toxic fossils are my life'. 'Profiting from crude emissions? Sign me up'

Live footage of me in quite a few meetings that have as the sole goal profit-making to which the actual tasks of universities are subordinated, and in which deny just how intwined much of the work is (SO many individual senior managers with their individual project who don't talk to each other)

A beige mac to be worn with shorts, according to the Guardian. For that much sought-after flasher look.

Join a monastery they said. Quiet contemplation they said. Now we know where Douglas Adams’s Electric Monk came from.

Hugely delayed by kids on the railway line at Cheltenham. Frankly I expected better of the Ladies College crowd.

This is the production line uni ‘execs’ are pushing for across most of our sector. HE becomes a production line of employment training courses. Criticality and creativity; creation, discussion and debate of new knowledge aren’t even secondary for these people. They don’t see it as necessary at all.

Surely the prime suspect is Fingers McGraw?

I’m a staff-elected university governor, and paying external governors has been raised recently. One argument put forward is that it would help recruit people who couldn’t otherwise afford to do it - working-class ones, basically. I don’t believe it’s a good-faith argument, given the mechanisms…

A thoughtful and open-minded short piece on the impact of LLMs on study, learning and writing by @leomc76.bsky.social and Simon Sweeney. cdbu.org.uk/genai-an-ena...

Good advice for colleagues at institutions near to Birmingham too.

Paradise Lost — John Milton: Satan’s throne ‘Outshon the wealth of ORMUS and of IND’

Oh well, I’d already decided not to watch the World Cup.

A fascinating read about one particular war crime, but it also explains what’s going on in universities and companies everywhere; the automation of decision-making that removes judgment and worker-autonomy in the name of efficiency and management tyranny. www.theguardian.com/news/2026/ma...

Every student who got a round of the Milton Syntax Game right was rewarded with a delicious Salte Fisk in the absence of forbidden fruit. Reactions were very mixed indeed.

Off to teach Paradise Lost now. I used to draw on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as an analogy but now Adam’s self-pitying lament is all about Ken.

I'm looking forward to this too. Reading Walden at 17 changed my life. Or rather added to the guilt over the many ways I've failed to live up to the values I found there: living simply, thoughtfully and lightly, and challenging injustice. www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Rave review for @lukekennard.bsky.social's new novel. HIs first, The Transition was both funny and profound, so I have high hopes for this one. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

Inviting me to do something helping AI into HE is like asking Indiana Jones to hand-deliver the Ark to Berlin, or to ask Luke to lead the forces of the empire to the rebel bases.

A photographer friend of mine is starting a visual and literary project around dementia, memory and time - if anyone would like to join in, it's here: www.becomingunmapped.com

Nominative determinism strikes again. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

“Airport Book Brain is therefore not just a problem of political leadership, but of intellectual self-discipline. It asks whether we are willing to tolerate slower progress, weaker slogans, and messier arguments in exchange for decisions grounded in reality.”

This week’s horror is our introductory module, which examines the literature, art, music, dialect, film and TV from the region 1500-2025 being forcibly replaced by an entire ‘success in HE’ module featuring two weeks on how to use AI. I designed my module to incorporate proper study skills…

‘Speed has never been the primary objective’ … of a railway called High Speed 2 www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Met my librarian PhD student today. Please stop giving them copies of your LLM-generated ‘novel’ as projectile vomiting often offends. Also, gratifyingly, her long-retired head-of-finance dad still remembers me with ill-will for being a union negotiator. Win!

Got a real insight into the realities of not having a fixed office just now: a poor colleague in the tiny kitchenette with her laptop perched on the microwave because she couldn’t find anywhere quiet to attend a departmental meeting. Grim.

You might think an institution that featured heavily in The Handmaid’s Tale might occasionally think through what it’s up to. Unless you’d met the kind of people who run universities these days.

Visit us in the intellectual powerhouse, AWWE.org, 15th-17th May. If the tides are right we’ll do a conference swim.

Very loud train man is saying ‘did you pick up the issue with the PCC…hello…Chris…Chris? More as I get it.

Lead them to Paradise.

Spent the afternoon teaching The Good Terrorist to a tiny group of interested students - now for a visiting research seminar - Natalie Braber of NTU on 'language and coal mining in the East Midlands'.

I'm sure this is going to go down a storm in target seats like Llanelli and Caerfyrddin where a mere 40-odd % of people speak Welsh.

This perfectly describes the situation at my institution, though the vultures are PA Consulting. I challenge the claims at every board and committee meeting and never ever change a single mind.

Rolls-Royce to environment: get lost www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Someone doing a Teams meeting on the train is a whole new form of evil. Obviously if it’s highly confidential being discussed out loud I’ll live-tweet proceedings.

8 months as VC then out - what is going on at Edge Hill University? thetab.com/2026/02/27/e...

Those countries in full: Grand Fenwick Calormen Mordor Atlantis Blefuscu Freedonia Oceania (or possibly Eurasia, we’ll decide later). Oz San Serriffe Tyrania Borogravia

MI9: Masculine Incelligence