⚡ #FLASHBACKFRIDAY ⚡ Today we revisit this beyond wonderful reading by @muireanndinosaur.bsky.social from Aleksandr #Beliaev's 'Professor Dowell's Head', from RED STAR TALES, the first comprehensive collection of translated #Russian and #Soviet #sci-fi. Don't wait; dive in! youtu.be/WVyW7ZQeazs?...

Having talked to my students recently it seems like the 18ish-year-old population think "AI" is cringey awfulness that devalues learning. They say this before I've told them my opinions. The world is in good hands, and this is a bubble. Let's not waste our resources on it please.

Immigrants don't suppress your wages Bosses do

The beloved BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Time has been awarded the 2025 British Academy President’s Medal! Professor Susan J Smith, President of the British Academy, praised the programme for bringing rigorous yet accessible discussion of complex ideas to millions of listeners: buff.ly/1bn63FD

Not that anyone seems to care, but just a quick reminder that Hungary is still a member state of the ICC and Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin still under indictment by the Court and Hungary still under an obligation to arrest him.

Every decade, university administrators excite themselves over the prospects of firing all the faculty and 95% of the staff. Early 2020s: LLMs Early 2010s: MOOCs Early 2000s: Wikis

"expert" is just a word for someone who knows what they are talking about.

Today is the centenary of the birth of the great Tony Hart who opened the eyes of generations to visual art and who is forever associated with this, the shimmering Gallery theme from Vision On – which was also pretty much everyone’s introduction to the vibraphone. youtu.be/-ZNkJXKV7_w

All of this is being put out to placate the right wing press... In the meantime, it's causing fear & confusion. As I understand it: ● this only applies to some people on skilled visas ● it's not "A level English" it's something called SELT ● much the same requirement exists elsewhere in EU

This really triggered a lot of folks who struggle so much with the past they can't tell you what will happen yesterday.

GenAI truly was the worst technology to come along at this moment. An energy and water guzzler when we most urgently need to take climate action. A disinformation machine as our journalism fails. A bias machine as fascism takes root. A job killer in a cost of living crisis.

Good to blame Farage for the dull-arsed, ruinous, tedious failure of Brexit. Not that good to keep punishing us for that failure, rather than looking to swiftly boost our prosperity by asking to rejoin the Single Market and Customs Union. But yes. It’s a start. www.thetimes.com/article/8875...

I hereby declare war on premature Christmassing. Any shop caught doing this before 1st December must be shut down and turned into affordable housing. Choose sanity. Vote Binface. (Photo dated 9th October 2025)

I’ve been saying this for ten years now but possibly not often enough: Ask Them What They Think The Words They’re Using Mean. And then ask them to name the ‘problematic’ people. We had ‘sovereignty’, ‘laws’ & ‘unelected bureaucrats’. The US now has ‘Antifa’, the ‘radical left’ & ‘insurrection’. Ask!

What the hell does Farage thinks he’s doing, going off to America *again* to maliciously slag off British teachers at some private Christian college, while offering to peddle their courses over here? What a repulsive, grubby little traitor. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Our authoritarianism is run on clichés borrowed from the Eastern Europe of twenty years ago. Paid protestors, disloyal cities, evil Soros, vast conspiracies — it was all tiresome then and there, and now it’s pathetic.

What do you call a Russian mother who buys her mobilised son a carton of long life milk for the train ride? An optimist.

I remain puzzled as to why some continue to trot out that academia is not the "real world". I have endless responsibilities, deadlines, expectations, and work long hours. This is my "real world" & I hope that my efforts over a long career contribute to improving the "real world" of others. 🧪

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

Boxes also work on bobcats

The look of shock and horror on one of the mums at my daughter’s school face when I explained we have seen a massive drop in international students because of UK immigration policy. She was completely unaware students were counted in the numbers. Which begs the question why?

Calling English a 'rip-off degree' is one of the most blatant exhibitions of personal barbarism I've ever seen. You've demonstrated nothing but the poverty of your own mind.

Best 3 minutes you will spend on the internet today.

Just to be clear, an English degree - learning to critically assess texts - is actually one of the most dangerous for people such as Badenoch. An educated population, able to bring hundreds of years of context to statements in a dawning age of AI slop and attention-seeking dishonesty is also vital.

As more of my valued colleagues face the threat of redundancy, here’s a quick reminder that it takes years and years of public investment to train an academic. Cutting someone with this wealth of experience loose isn’t “saving” anything. It is a massive waste of our collective resources.

Today is the 89th anniversary of The Battle of Cable Street when the people of the East End of London halted the march of Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts through Stepney.

AI: the ultimate human ingenuity in service of producing an abundance of mediocrity.

Bravo.

Very interesting on productivity and the UK approach to employees. All very familiar…https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/rethink/id1518570266?i=1000712613953

Disadvantaged students ‘more likely to miss out on GCSE foreign languages’ www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

I would like a Settings option to turn off AI on apps and websites automatically. A little button to press only once. I have old tech that hiccups with AI.

Cant even have men Archbishops any more Because of Woking

Ofc as all true fans know her greatest performances were as Kitty in Victoria Wood's show: "I shall be watching this, as my TV has now been fixed. Well I say fixed, a pimply youth in plimsolls waggled my aerial and wolfed my gypsy creams, but that's the comprehensive system for you."

How many FRSs interfere with overseas politics, finance right-wing groups, dismantle US scientific infrastructure, perform Nazi salutes on camera, and use the largest social media platform on earth to promote disinformation on vaccines, COVID, climate change...etc? Naughty boy? Outright disgrace.

A very good article on Russian colonialism. newlinesmag.com/essays/the-h...

I sort of feel like we don’t talk enough about the two pre-election National Insurance cuts that were brought in by Hunt and Sunak last year, and how they feel like they were absolutely meant to hobble what they knew at the time would be an incoming Labour government.

Just came across this very very excellent @exeterunispeccoll.bsky.social photo of Sir Viv Richards receiving an honorary degree from Exeter in 1986. Surely later also awarded 'Best Dressed Graduate'. specialcollectionsarchive.exeter.ac.uk/items/show/630

Hooray. National Poetry Day. If you want to have a laugh, Write a verse about a giraffe, send it to the Derby Telegraph.

🚨 Call for Papers 🚨 The BASEES 2026 Annual Conference will be held at the University of Birmingham, 10–12 April 2026. ✨ 📢 Deadline extended. 24 October 2025. Join us in Birmingham!

I will not, but am reposting as the next* best thing

"I hope Starmer wakes up tomorrow morning and feels ashamed about what he has done," says man who unveiled this poster the day Jo Cox was assassinated by a far-right terrorist.

Stop the Yachts.

“That Brexit has made control of immigration more difficult, damaged our economy and weakened opportunities for future generations should make people think twice before putting Brexit's chief proponent in charge of running the country” Times letters: a lonely oasis of sanity in the far right storm.

It would be terribly unfortunate if this got shared absolutely everywhere.

PUT IT ON EVERY PICKET PLACCARD.

half day of mandatory faculty meeting on giving "better" feedback to students: no one made this point that within 20 days mandatory turnaround time, commenting 80+ student essays, writing detailed feedback which is meaningful, plus second marking, whilst teaching still goes on... the body breaks

2 years ago I worked on a project to restore a 1920s WHS railway station bookstall. It was in pieces & in a bad state. A colleague & I found old photos of it in the WHS archive at @themerl.bsky.social which helped the restoration work. Look at it now👇 Full story www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Indeed the REF is completely out of line with government priorities, as well as anyone else's priorities. It just exists to give the impression the UK cares about research when it only cares about having its own bizarre metrics. www.timeshighereducation.com/depth/where-...

Is going to #university still worth it? General public think 40% of students regret going to university but in fact it’s much lower at just 8%. Nice to hear some optimistic voices about the future of #UKHE for a change. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...