Man on the DLR: Are you prepared for today’s meeting? Woman: No. Man: It’s at 9am. Woman: I know it’s at 9am, Dave. And I remain, unprepared.

That’ll be a no from me dawg. Call your local asshole and explain that this ain’t it

Take, take, take // The Sound after the Sound

V good: 'My Socialism is a Christian Socialism, an actual redemption of a Christian Evangelicalism I have rejected, where I had read, 'Blessed are the poor', and immediately amended it with 'in spirit' to deflect it, to not have to deal with the open wound in our society that Socialism addresses.'

I'm which I reflect on losing a city council byelection open.substack.com/pub/stephenp...

Great to be out over the weekend with my good friend @jessphillipsmp.bsky.social campaigning in the Moseley by-election for @stephenpihlaja.bsky.social. Friends in politics are very important. Jess is loyal, feisty, kind, and you know exactly what she’s about. Politics needs more like Jess.

Please follow my Candidate FB page for updates about my candidacy at Labour Councillor for Moseley Ward.

Moseley Farmers Market! Ftw!

The art of the FB argument is giving a person the last work right as it makes them look like an asshole.

🧵Big news thread incoming🧵 Tonight, I participated in my first doorknocking session as a Labour candidate in the Moseley Ward for the city council by-election on 23 October. This summer, the Labour councillor in this Ward, Kerry Jenkins, passed away after a sudden illness.

I challenged my colleagues yesterday to come up with a seven-word definition of Stylistics. This is as close as I could get: Stylistics is the study of how language choice affects meaning.

Take, Take, Take // It was not a dream open.substack.com/pub/stephenp... In which I go and come back

Now we have state sanctioned grieving?

If a Union or a political party is having an internal election, they should not tell you how to vote in that election. Honestly.

I love a BBC interview with an American gun expert where the gun expert is going on and on and on about things like muzzle velocity like there moment has finally come, someone will finally listen to them and the BBC interviewers is like, You realise this whole thing is completely crazy, right?

A new standing desk is great and I have solved the wobble. Yes.

Aaaaaand the internet is terrible there.

I have a place to work in my home for the first time in about 11 eleven years and it's incredible.

New article up on Social Compass: Positioning in discourse about religious belief and practice in superdiverse contexts. It's Open Access so download and read for free!

I can't tell if this is profound or not.

I feel like leadership is wrapping your mind around the task that needs doing and then communicating to your team how that task will get done.

After a brilliant week in Glasgow @baal2025.bsky.social, we’re already looking forward to next year’s conference at Aston University! #BAAL2025 ➡️ #BAAL2026 @stephenpihlaja.bsky.social

For all the people on Bluesky, you get this about fifteen minutes early: www.baal2026.com #baal2026 #baal2025

Final plenary from Angel Lin on the ecological turn in Applied Linguistics. #baal2025

Fuck.

Next #baal2025 talk is Spencer Hazel, talking about Adventures in a Diegetic World.

I think you could do an analysis of types of facial expressions used to perform apologetic regret when entering a conference presentation late.

Start of #baal2025! Looking forward to the Intercultural Communication SIG.

Okay now @lucyjones.bsky.social talking about marginalised identities and intersectionality! #baal2025

Really great pairing of talks in this session at #baal2025.

Now Glenn Stockwell and Yijen Wang talking about GenAi in second language writing learning. #baal2025

Didn't live skeet this talk but it was a good one! #baal2025

Yes Ying Ho is talking about how different disciplines approach GenAI in their approach to teaching and learning languages. #baal2025

Now @emma-putland.bsky.social talking about dementia and genAI. #baal2025

I'm going to make notes on Kamran Khan's plenary so follow away. #baal2025

Okay should I live skeet this? #baal2025

Take, take, take// And then this happens open.substack.com/pub/stephenp...

If you never change your academic profile pic, you never grow old.

Starting to feel like I might tell my students that my assessments are all 'Tell AI to explain anything you like in the form of an essay and turn that in' to make them uncomfortable and get a conversation going about AI.

Hello

Two days of leave. Went for a run and got idea for next funding bid. I guess this is how it works.

Final day of #pala2025 with @carmen-lee.bsky.social talking about digital texts and online aggression.

This Ross Douthat argument that weird things happen so ✨religion✨ is not compelling to me.

Not really tweeting or blueskying much but an absolute fire plenary by @helenringrow.bsky.social for #pala2025 on digital stylistics methods and futures.

I miss posting on Twitter/X, but I've come to second guess everything I want to say through so many different lenses that I decide it's not worth it.

Take, Take, Take // Anger In which I reflect on the persistent anger of middle-aged men. stephenpihlaja.substack.com/p/anger

So I was very excited about Co-Pilot being able to produce an HTML page for me to act as a weight loss app. After getting frustrated, however, with trying to get it to change different things, I started editing the HTML myself, and am now learning HTML...

Kudos to the BBC editor who, when Kneecap said that the BBC editor would have trouble editing out all the Palastinian flags, cut to the crowd of Palastinian flags. You defeat claims of censorship by not censoring people.

Great to see you and have some mutual assurance that things are going to be okay!

Just a reminder to never share (without permission) someone's information with someone else over email, even if that information is theoretically publicly available.