Michael Taylor

Really glad you enjoyed it!

Third lecture now online - www.history.ox.ac.uk/james-ford-l... - on the New Psychology and ideas of the self. (1/2)

Came close a while back to writing a book about the “nearly men” of professional sport - the guys who worked away but didn’t quite make it, and had little to show for it.

This is much better than anything I’d have written.

‘An unsolved mystery of science’: why do I dream about my teeth falling out? Experts say such dreams of dental distress may relate to the processing of various emotions and experiences

Every night.

Well, every time I dream.

Same tooth every time, the one that got mangled playing cricket in Delhi.

www.theguardian.com/wellness/202...

A large statue of a knobbly bipedal dinosaur, standing in a museum garden, with many trees and bushes around

Impressive guy guarding National Museums Kenya

I’m not sure that Deliveroo has yet had a profitable year, but Viscount Ridley’s pronouncement of doom has not materialised

Amazon and Uber, to name but two, took years and years to turn a profit

This is a cat who does not care about the wreckage of fur on the sheets, or the fact that I cannot reach the book without risking terrible injury

Screenshot of David Simon interview SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems... SIMON: What? SHAPIRO: ...Or saying... SIMON: You imagine that? SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over. SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level. SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this. SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

The only correct take on a fundamentally anti-human technology.

How does an Allen Lane paperback by a Wolfson Prize winner get the name of a prime minister wrong?

Plotting the chapters for the final section of the book I'm writing and, out of context, it looks like I've finally cracked:

After the Know-Nothings in the 1850s and the Union Party in 1860, the biggest third-party delegation in U.S. congressional history (25 reps) was the Anti-Masonic Party in the 1830s.

They believed that the Illuminati and the masons were corrupting the world. Plus ca change.

The Spectator in 1921:

"Mrs. Webster shows what a bad influence certain sections of the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe have played in fomenting revolution ... Our own strong impression is that [she] is getting on the right track in connecting the Protocols and llluminism"

Serendipitous discovery that the first (and maybe the last) Englishman to meet and write about Adam Weishaupt, the founder of the Illuminati, was Henry Crabb Robinson during his German years

Glad you enjoyed it!

Yeah, I guess you need to embrace the forces of embalming or perish

Dunno ... I think the average age of a Caius life fellow is currently about 107

Bizarre dream in which I went back to my old college. I was given palatial rooms (study, library, living space, ornate furnishings) for life, free food, and a massive wine cellar.

Then I realised I had just become a fellow.

Truly the worst day of the year as I attempt to wrestle this creature to the vet for her checkup

Alcaraz dedicating his victory to the Code of Justinian

Ahem

It's (online) publication day!

Delighted to have edited the latest volume in @royalhistsoc.org's Camden Series for @cambridgeup.bsky.social

@alexpreston.bsky.social

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Yep. Immensely learned work, but not sure I agreed or enjoyed it

Delighted that you enjoyed it - thanks again!

I endorse this message … and thank you to @nigella.bsky.social!

I think they’re the best stuff full stop!

Do I want to pay £3066 to make a short book review available via OpenAccess? No, I fucking don’t

Such a magnificent book

Men!

What’s stopping you from drinking under the watchful eye of the German imperial eagle?

Holidays are all well and good until you start missing your cat