Private Eye's crystal ball June 1989 - nearly right.

Two more facial expressions missing from Paul Ekman's classic universal taxonomy. Desperate scolding v aggressive sulking. (Photo: Phil Noble/Reuters)

A judge's report on a document submitted to the court, but based on an AI's false account of the law. The solicitor involved spent 59 pages' worth of chat with an LLM rather than looking up statute. Then used AI again to write an apology to the court. A fascinating story, coolly told.

Early career researcher presenting at the ICCA in Edmonton? Only a few days left to send in entries for the ROLSI Award for Outstanding Research by an Early-Career Researcher. Deadline for 5000-word papers is 30th May.

This will give many of us who read Psychology as undergraduates an unhappy flash of recognition. ANOVA was the magic, and interaction terms were the glamour. But danger lurked. Still does. A salutary new blogpost by @deevybee.bsky.social deevybee.blogspot.com/2013/06/inte...

If, like me, you lie awake at night puzzling over the poor state of Belarusian football, here’s a piece for you. On a serious note, I interviewed two journalists, Yauhen Merkis and Maks Berazinaki, who stood up to Lukashenko’s regime and paid the price. Their courage and good humor are remarkable.

Back at university for a meeting, and needs to find that the urns are still in useful operation.

Another in my local paper's series of photo puzzles.

Another facial expression missing from the Ekman catalogue: simpering

New post: CA and social work: an emerging subfield of CA research https://www.conversationanalysis.org/ca-and-social-work-an-emerging-subfield-of-ca-research/# EMCA

Reminder! Entries close at the end of this month. For more information, contact the Editors at [email protected]

A new article I co-authored with Paul Drew has just been published in @rolsi-journal.bsky.social: "Addressee points in conflictual interactions: A reductionist analysis of action". Free-access link: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/IXCAG... More below.

In the new Special issue on "Action Categorisation", in ROLSI www.tandfonline.com/toc/hrls20/5...

Now out online: Special Issue on "Action Categorization", guest edited by Arnulf Deppermann, Alexandra Gubina and Barbara Fox www.tandfonline.com/toc/hrls20/5...

#EMCA @matteofuoli.bsky.social has announced that the Enron Trader Tapes Corpus (500 recorded phone calls between Enron traders and their partners) is available via Aston's Forensic Linguistic Databank (post and links via his LinkedIn): www.linkedin.com/posts/matteo...

Late spring in the neighbourhood

Another terrific post in @profsalwiggins.bsky.social 's blog on what happens when people eat together. What if you don't like the food...? mouthfull.blog/2026/04/26/h...

A new guest blog: analysing the structure of Carl Rogers's Client-Centered Therapy. Rogers was one of the most influential psychotherapists of the late 20th century. Unusually, he left a legacy of therapy sessions recorded on film, a few of which are available on YouTube. rolsi.net

Cambridge University Press royalties flooding in

On 22 May, we're hosting a @circleu.bsky.social Open Conversation on "Navigating power in international interactions: a view across languages and cultures". You can join us online. Register here before 21 May: www.circle-u.eu/events/open-...

Our book chapter "Identity and Membership Categorization Analysis" in the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Conversation Analysis is now freely available.... 📖🪪 @tillyflint.bsky.social #EMCA #identity #discourse books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&...

Announcing the inaugural ROLSI Award for Outstanding Early-Career Research Were you awarded your PhD since June 2021? Presenting at ICCA in Edmonton? Go in for the award! For more information, contact the Editors. : [email protected]

🎓️ We're hiring an LSE Fellow in Qualitative Methods We are seeking to appoint an individual with established research interests and teaching experience in qualitative methods🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Applications close👉️ jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

Ah yes. Much as I used to want, as a schoolboy, to hear the swish of the cane because I wanted to be free. Note to historians - this was quite a long time ago. Also - I only got caned once.

Adjacency pair of the day (with thanks to @davidallengreen.bsky.social for the first pair part)

Yes, targeted, why not. Fairly easy to hit.

Very interesting new Swiss/Swedish project now offering PhD and postdoc positions docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Have you ever donated blood for research? ✨We want to talk to adults about their experience of giving blood for research purposes.✨ Interested? Questions? app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/oxford/blo...

This should be good: an intensive workshop on how what people say gets heard officially, and set into pre-existing categories. What in the patient's talk is coded as illness-relevant? How does the emergency call-taker get to press the "dispatch" button? darg.lboro.ac.uk/working-with...

Stationery browsing at the local John Lewis. Note kind inclusion of ten extra erasers, for when you burn through the first one.

The next big shindig for big-tent Pragmatics people (including lots of CA) will be in Helsinki - one of Europe's most beautiful cities.

call for reviewers for the Language and Social Interaction division of NCA! If you are an expert in discourse analysis, conversation analysis, or related fields, I'd be grateful (as program planner) if you could take a few minutes to sign up as a reviewer by March 25! www.natcom.org/call-for-rev...

British question of the day

I've been using Ecosia as a search engine for a while, to get away from Google's annoying AI default. Seems to do a decent job of straightforward searches. www.ecosia.org

oh hey, convenient. new paper out with some wonderful colleagues on exactly this! (thanks @lizstokoe.bsky.social, @charlesantaki.bsky.social, Leanne Chrisostomou, and @drsimonstewart.bsky.social for bringing me along for this 💗) psycnet.apa.org/record/2027-...

Adjacency pair of the day

In my local store. Sounds a bit severe. (Paragraph 6: she used the bag to nick £30 worth of booze.)

omg

Preach, Allister!

😍 #Loughborough www.theguardian.com/travel/2026/...

The Next-Turn Forum: Emerging CA-SLA Research in Dialogue Kobe, Japan 8 August 2026 A supportive venue for graduate students to present work in progress in Conversation Analysis for Second Language Acquisition. tim792.wixsite.com/can-asia/nex...

www.lboro.ac.uk/study/postgr... @darg-sessions.bsky.social

How cheap we are, and how easily seduced. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Great to see the terrific York team @richardogden.bsky.social and @marinanc.bsky.social land this exciting new grant with colleagues in Germany.

Call for Editor for Symbolic Interaction! The Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction (SSSI) invites applications for Editor(s) of the journal Symbolic Interaction for a five-year term beginning January 1, 2027. More info: sssi.wildapricot.org/Call-for-Edi...

"Choice of language" - hmm. Often used. Of course it distracts attention from the substance, which remains nasty and objectionable. Implies that there is a better way of being racist.