Christopher Hilton

With Betjeman here (though Fens headwinds can sap a cyclist's soul).

A turretted, Scottish-baronial style country house seen slightly from below. A Scottish flag flies from the left turret.

A 19th century stately home library, with a cast iron balcony running round the room a little over head height. A large tiled entrance hall is visible through a door, where two people stand talking.

A display board, headed (in italic handwriting-style type): "The Cataloghuing Conundrum". Below, three paragraphs begin "For archives to be usable and accessible, they must first be accessible. Our new cataloguing project will lead to the creation of a searchable database of the Scott family papers for the very first time."

19th century leather-bound books behind mesh in a bookcase. A white light meter, looking like an old-fashioned mobile phone, sits in front of the mesh.

Cracking visit to Abbotsford today (memo to self, read more Walter Scott). Of course, elements of a busman's holiday in visiting another member of the Lit Houses group: you spend a lot of time reading about cataloguing projects and spotting the environmental monitoring kit. Recommended, anyway!

Coming up on Friday: Lara Melda and I tell the story of Myra Hess in the National Gallery, in, what else, a lunchtime concert. We will be in the same space she used, Room 36! Admission freeeeee. Please join us!

www.nationalgallery.org.uk/events/myra-...

Next year they revive the tradition of the seaside conference: it starts with them leaving at five in the morning without any warning, taking the first train to Walton and standing on the seafront laughing...

Good grief. Just when you think the wackiness must have run out, there comes another twist, and another... The next Thomas Pynchon novel needs this man in it.

A dark metal statue of a 19th century naval officer on a podium in a town square. The inscription shows this to be Sir John Franklin.

There's a real convergence of Victorian figures (both from Lincs.) in Spilsby, where "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield" is carved round the base of Sir John Franklin's memorial. Who else's poetry could they possibly have used?

Hogarth masterpieces restored at Barts Hospital open to public The restoration of the north wing has 'recaptured its beauty and dignity', the project teams says.

The Grade 1 listed North Wing of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London reopens after £9.5 million restoration with 2 William Hogarth masterpiece murals available for the public to see for the first time. 👇
BBC News - Hospital's Hogarth opens to public for first time
www.bbc.com/news/article...

All aboard! 9:25am BFI: NIGHT MAIL (1936). The critically acclaimed British documentary film about the operation of the 30s #RoyalMail train delivery service.

Whether this is just that it looks antiquated now, or a greater sensitivity about trauma to people who were there or who lost loved ones, I'm not sure, but it does seem to have gone from trainers' repertoire as mentioned here.
It *was* a tough watch, but really showed you what the stakes were.
2/2

Season 1984/85 Episode 6 - The Slum Sport (Part One) Podcast Episode · Nessun Dorma Retro Football Podcast · 03/10/2025 · 53m

Indication of the passage of time on the latest @nessundormapodcast.bsky.social episode, on the football tragedies of 1985: not only is the Bradford fire a long time ago now, but it's long enough for film of it no longer to be used in fire training, apparently. 1/2
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/s...

Ink and watercolor of James Joyce

Never-before-seen papers from beloved author James Joyce, part of @uorspeccoll.bsky.social's remarkable new Solange and Stephen James Joyce Collection, will form the free exhibition, James Joyce: Enigmas and Puzzles.

Opens 7 Oct at @themerl.bsky.social

whatsonreading.com/venues/museu...

Good news here for a cracking collection that really deserves exposure.

My new book of science cartoons, PHYSICS FOR CATS is out in a week! Order a copy today from you local bookshop or at one of the links here: www.tomgauld.com/comic-books-v2

I have ten of these PHYSICS FOR CATS pins to give away! Share the post below👇 for a chance to win one. (UK only: you can share from anywhere but I can't send you a pin).

Lovely to see this again - a bit under 40 years ago I landed here in the southern hemisphere summer and was struck what a cool shady area these concrete "trees" over the foyer created. I had no idea it was almost new at the time.
(No photos of my own: photographing infrastructure was discouraged.)

A range of angular, modernist beach huts in various shades of blue, on a sunny day in autumn

Start of another month, so here's a new @geograph-gbi.bsky.social calendar image for October: New beach huts at South Beach, Lowestoft.
www.geograph.org.uk/photo/7299684

Illustration of the precinct shopping centre in Coventry, with its shiny 1960s architecture, walkways and colourful flower planters

“An example of the town of the future is Coventry.... Traffic and pedestrians are kept apart and the roads are planned to let traffic flow smoothly”

(Our Land in the Making, 1966)
Artist: Ronald Lampitt

Gosh, that's a seriously 80s poster! Funny how fonts and colours you take for granted as the neutral defaults of the times take on a really strong flavour of an era as time passes and they get more remote.
Good to come across someone else who remembers that venue: sometimes feels as if I dreamed it.

Yes, and I think also somewhere that TfL can test out platform designs.
Even when in use it had unused corners - IIRC there was a second platform, never used but left over from when it might have extended south under the river.

I saw the Go-Betweens there a couple of times, and Stump in 1986. Stump were an experience - two people in trench-coats dancing (one of them me), which given Stump's weird rhythms risked dislocating something, and about 15 other people flattened against the back wall horrified.

Tangent to the main topic but back in the mid-80s as St Paul's Arts Centre it was a decent gig venue; maybe the building itself, possessed by the spirit of R'n'R, is refusing all further changes and trying to get back to what it once was.

I'm fond of it for nostalgic reasons, but it was a long way short of five stars in 1990/1... the trams were ten years off, there was no Sunday service, and the last train left Victoria at 19:20 (or 18:50 on Saturdays). Got to know the schlep up from Elmers End very well indeed...

Looking at the lift photo, I'm reminded that I'd often dodge the lift queue by running up the spiral stairs; that alone tells me how long ago this was.
That Piccadilly Line commute ended when we went south of the river, but we continued our tour of obscure stations by having Birkbeck as our local.

Blimey, 31 years ago. Growing up looking at the Tube map in the back of my diary I was always intrigued by the little stub leading to Aldwych and it was a bit of a treat to have that station, for 18 months or so, as part of my regular commute.

Century-old lungs stored in jar reveal how 1918 Spanish flu pandemic began Findings could lead to better understanding of how viruses adapt to humans during a pandemic

“Another mutation of a protein in the virus’s membrane improved its ability to bind to entry point receptors in human cells, making it more resilient and infectious.” #isogg #DNA #epigentics #1918Flu #SpanishFlu
www.the-independent.com/news/science...

Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 - Wikipedia

This is a delightful diversion - it turns out that one of my regular walks used to be an enclave. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countie...

Events Stay up to date with the upcoming events organised or hosted by the Institute of Historical Research

History curious? You don't need to be in London (or the UK) to attend many Institute of Historical Research seminars, although if you're in Bloomsbury you'll enjoy doing so. Most are hybrid (online/in person). They're free, usually fortnightly and open to the public.

Starting this week:

Well, this is a turn-up for the books: Marmite, one of those British foods you expect the rest of the world to look at with bafflement, is first made by a Swiss immmigrant.
(As someone part-British, part-Swiss, I now clearly have to adopt it as my very specific national cuisine.)

True: and there's a street that pre-65 had Wandsworth on the E side (Battersea on the W), the post-65 has Wandsworth on the W side (Lambeth on the E)...

Got an old floppy disk lying around?
Come have your floppy disk data transferred onto a modern format at Cambridge University Library!
Booking is required at: https://loom.ly/FRjMsM8