Last week our 'Knotted Histories' team with @ox.ac.uk took samples of the carpet at Knole (best known as Vita Sackville-West's house). They're hoping to find out when and where the carpet was made. Spot the hidden parrot photographed by postdoc researcher @emilylsteve.bsky.social 🦜

I do feel that if Thames Water are going to practically double our monthly direct debit they ought to be using that money to committing to not pumping literal shit into my swimming spots. And yet.

Spotted on a walk this morning.

Much vaguer and girlier than I think I should do.

Congratulations, @unamccormack.bsky.social!

This is incredible.

This find-the-owl photo is on a slightly different scale-I made it 2 yrs ago-these are my garden steps in March ‘24. Hidden among the flowers is a small bronze owl pal. If/when you find him you’ll get a ping of owly dopamine in your brain…

The horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me. It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."

And PLEASE can we get it right this time and use “staycation” to mean “holidaying at home”, not “holidaying in Britain”. We have a term for the latter, which is “holidaying in Britain”. “Holibobs”, wherever they are taken, remains a capital offence.

If you happen to be in Oxford today, the far right are mounting a protest against Lush and its staff at the Westgate at noon. We'll be assembling from 11.30 to counter-protest

This is Molly. She was finally found a week after her human fell down a 180-foot waterfall while hiking together in New Zealand. Her human was badly injured and rescued by helicopter, but Molly was missing. A week later, Molly was found at the base of the waterfall and reunited with her human. 14/10

For The Nerd Daily, I wrote about creating a fern shawl pattern for my sapphic sci-fi detective to knit, and how knitting and technology have long gone hand in hand: thenerddaily.com/olivia-waite...

About half the people employed by a university in the UK are not academics, and *everybody* is busy all year round: there are no long dreamy summer vacations with nothing to do

Packing for a week's holiday. Apparently this requires eight different kinds of tea.

Calling parents of neurodivergent kids / people who are ND / people who support ND students. Does anyone have any resources or support relating to Eng Lit analysis tasks, eg 'how does the writer indicate the character's selfishness in this quoted text?' Kid is finding this stuff a real challenge

Oh hey, I am once again going to talk about lack of distress tolerance, specifically for shame, and how it ties together AI, the “male loneliness epidemic,” Trumpism, and yes, people’s indignation that anyone might think they’re a bad person for continuing to buy Harry Potter merch.

This is an excellent thread up and down with a whole lot of takeaways, including that growth as a person and living in a society and developing skills all have as a necessary factor that we sometimes feel bad.

Add a bit of blood to the crozier, add another foot in height, and take away the glasses and this could have been Hild not-quite-1400 years ago. She would be *very* pleased 🥳

First ducklings of the year spotted at lunchtime! #ducks #birds

The morning of March 25 brings a dim light to Mordor. Sam wakes. ‘Now for it! Now for the last gasp!’ He’s able to stand, but Frodo with the Ring can only crawl. Sam lifts Frodo on to his back and starts climbing Orodruin, the Mountain of Fire in the heart of Sauron’s realm.

Fritillary season is here.

Excellent panel discussion between @emilytesh.net and Antonia Hodgson this evening. I was more than half tempted to buy second (paper) copies of both of their books so I could get them signed (and fangirl in a horribly embarrassing manner) but thoughts of lack of shelf space won out.

Aesop: I TOLD YOU

You never forget your first regeneration.

I thought I had an overthinking joke but actually it's probably not that funny after all.

We have, somewhat belatedly, started watching Season 3 of Strange New Worlds and did Captain Pike always look so much like Keir Starmer and I just never saw it before?

A true British icon

Made myself some rice and tuna for lunch. Left it unattended on my desk for a few minutes and came back to find a crime had been committed. But this lil guy said not to worry as he's a detective and is already investigating.

#stpatricksday #minimuslatin Sanctus Patricius serpentes ex Hibernia agit... serpentes eum maxime vexant! (St Patrick drives the snakes out of Ireland... the snakes are annoying him a lot!)

Make Jack Aubrey a commodore with that mission and give him almost no material support

Of all the generations that have ever lived on Earth, this one is the only one to have even attempted to recognise the substantive equality of all people. If it dies, it dies with us. But let it not die without a fight.

The frogs were very frisky today.

Herein my biggest beef with the Peter Jackson films: Faramir would *never*, how very dare he.

Q: What do you call a Mercian king who offers a 50% discount on multiple purchases? A: BOGOFFA

Q: What do you call a Mercian king who has reduced his prices? A: Special Offa

On a day where the news is just awful, have a little escape to a funny, wild little crocus field, that’s been loved and around for centuries.

This is such a simple but also amazingly revelatory thing.

Look, I'll just say it: centrism is basically being right-wing at heart, but still having the decency to be ashamed of it. You know what you *want* to do, but you also know your kids will stop talking to you if you admit it.

Reacting to Labour's devastating loss to the Green Party in Gorton and Denton, Keir Starmer claims that only Labour can unite communities. I agree. He convinced Muslims to vote for a white working class woman representing a party led by a gay Jewish man.

A bit of lunchtime colour #birds

This makes me absolutely furious. Nearly 5 years on from the end of restrictions, I'm still deep in burnout from the effort of trying to move everything online and keep things running as best we could. Everyone in HE was working unbelievably hard and this is just such a fucking kick in the teeth.

I *did* break myself during the Lockdown, trying to keep students sane, learn entirely new skills, change courses to enable online learning, provide so much pastoral care, etc. etc. This entitled consumer behaviour is deeply insulting to all the work staff were made to do, and those lawfirms are 🤬

So The Raven Scholar is absolutely as good as everyone said it was, and I'm now desperate for the rest of the trilogy. (Though, petition to stop people calling books 'The Raven X', there are *so many* and it's hard to keep them all straight in my head.)

Balliol College & the English Faculty are seeking to appoint an outstanding candidate as Tutorial Fellow & Professor or Associate Professor of English with expertise in any aspect(s) of literature in #English of the long nineteenth century (approx 1780–1914) #Academicjob #19C Find out more >>

<staff kitchen> NAZGUL #1: I just... NAZGUL: #2: What? N#1: Like... Seriously? We're hunting HOBBITS now? N#2: I mean okay but clue was in the name N#1: True, but still WITCH KING <entering>: Hey N#1: Hey N#2: Hey <Witch King leaves with coffee> N#1: Maybe we should have said something N#2: Maybe

Whether people can work from home is not actually an issue politicians get to have a say on, it's entirely up to employers. So if a spokesperson for a political party starts spouting off about ending working from home, they're just being a tedious controversialist to get people talking about them.

I didn't need more reasons to love Olivia Colman, and yet.