Kit Richards

A white cat with gray dots and face markings lies on his playmat on the floor. Ludo is looking at the camera with his big yellow-green eyes as if caught mid-existential crisis, between naps.

Ludo, caught mid-existential crisis and between naps. He believes that meaning is a human construct. #Caturday, however, is real.

Cats with jobs - Grandpa's helper: #AGoodPlace

Source: www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/s...

With @shaungunner.bsky.social, Brian Sibley, Jay Johnstone, and @aranelparmadil.bsky.social, making fools of ourselves in “Just a minute in Middle-earth” at #Oxonmoot!
@tolkiensociety.org

Arms: Or a Fesse wavy Azure between three Torteaux on a Chief Gules a Lion passant guardant Or. Crest: Issuant from a Mural Crown Or a Horse's Head Argent gorged with a Chaplet of Hops fructed proper, Mantled Azure doubled Or. Supporters: On the dexter side an Iguanodon proper collared Gules and on the sinister side a Lion Or collared Gules.

The heraldic Iguanodon on Maidstone's coat of arms seems to be drawn a bit differently each time. The designer of this version went to quite a lot of effort to make the dinosaur look as early modern as possible, including giving it mammalian ears. Image source: www.flickr.com/photos/kapta....

On 19 August, T.A. 3019 in #Tolkien's Middle-earth: as part of their bond of friendship, Legolas goes with Gimli to see the Glittering Caves. Gimli later founds a Dwarven colony there and becomes the Lord of the Glittering Caves.

Image: Ted Nasmith #BookSky

TL;DR De-transactionalize assessment. Stop making it about something they “turn in” and you “give back.” Start making it about shared experience.

It’s been a while since I presented at Oxonmoot on-site - looking forward to reconnecting with old friends and meeting new #Tolkien scholars and fans! Who’s coming? @tolkiensociety.org

A portrait head of Walter Scott, painted by Sir Henry Raeburn, c.1822–23, oil on canvas. Walter Scott is clean shaven, with thinning fair hair brushed across a high forehead. His grey-blue eyes look out past the viewer, at something we cannot see.

“The influence of Walter Scott can be felt in every province of the literature of his age.”
—Pushkin

A 🎂 🧵for Walter Scott. Born #OTD, 15 Aug 1771, he was & is one of the most significant figures in world literature
#C19th #romanticism 💙📚
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www.thebottleimp.org.uk/issues/issue...

Medieval Beds: Two Examples from 1488 - Medievalists.net What should a medieval bed look like? A contract from 1488 gives many details about two custom-made beds.

Medieval Beds: Two Examples from 1488 www.medievalists.net/2023/08/medi... #MedievalLife

Tolkien Society Seminar 2025 – Arda’s Entangled Bodies and Environments The Tolkien Society Seminar is a short conference of both researcher-led and non-academic presentations on a specific theme pertaining to Tolkien scholarship. After the seminar, all paper recordings f...

Tolkien Society Seminar 2025

We're pleased to announce that our Seminar will take place online on 18th and 19th October. This free event will have the theme "Arda’s Entangled Bodies and Environments", and you can see the talks, and register, on our website!

www.tolkiensociety.org/events/semin...

A (Disney+) alien egg outside the temporary space exhibition at the @nhm-london.bsky.social. I want to believe Alien: Earth will be good, as many claim, but the Alien franchise, live action at least, has a proud tradition of sucking for many decades now and it would be a shame to deviate.

Lovely to read Dimitra's post on Tolkien's prehistoric beasts! In my forthcoming stupid book I declare that The Past Is A Fantasy World - Tolkien offers us some ways of understanding how that might work mechanically

New Medieval Books: The Book of Marvels: A Medieval Guide to the Globe - Medievalists.net The Book of the Marvels of the World was created in 15th-century France and four manuscript copies survive. This book showcases many beautiful images from these manuscripts and reveals much about…

New Medieval Books: The Book of Marvels: A Medieval Guide to the Globe www.medievalists.net/2024/08/new-... #Books

Letter of the day (in the Times)

Do you read fanfiction? Can you help our @stirlingpublishing.bsky.social student Khushi Shokeen with her research by completing her survey, please?

(Please share!)

forms.office.com/pages/respon...

At #SAGA2025, Yoav Tirosh @realmundiriki.bsky.social is giving a thought-provoking talk on #Trauma as an interpretative framework for #oldnorseliterature.
@au.dk

Our author Ármann Jakobsson gave today’s keynote at #SAGA2025 at the auditorium maximum @jagiellonskiuni.bsky.social in #Krakow. If you want to know more about #oldnorse paranormal encounters, have a look at this volume: www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
@armannja.bsky.social

Great film!

Marrowbone (2017)

Do you have opinions about book covers? (I know you do. ;-))

Could you please spare a few minutes to help our @stirlingpublishing.bsky.social student @oliviagw.bsky.social with her dissertation research by answering her survey?

(Please share, too!)

Hotel Lion d'Or in Heist, Belgium. 4 or 5 motorcars parked in the street at the front. The hotel is a tall building with balconies

Postcard from Heyst sur la Mer showing the front of the Grand Hotel de L'Univers, with images of interior rooms - the salon, the salon d'ecriture, chambre a coucher, and the salle a manger. The latter, with rows of tables in white tablecloths and patterned wallpapered panels is presumably a close match to the one in Marryat's novel.

Detail of the salle a manger - a room with dark wainscoting and patterned wallpaper panels, rows of tables with white tablecloths and delicate white pillars holding up a ceiling with gilt or painted detailing.

I'm writing on Florence Marryat's 'Blood of the #Vampire' (1897-same year as #Dracula). It starts in the dining room of the Hotel du Lion d'Or in the Belgian seaside resort of Heyst (modern Heist-aan-Zee). I've just found a hotel postcard from c.1910 & dining room of similar hotel down the street!

#Latin #Medieval

Photograph of Professor Neil Forbes delivering his keynote speech titled about the twentieth century after the First World War.

Photograph of History Lab conference programmes and Royal Historical Society bookmarks, leaflets and badges.

Our conference has kicked off! We were welcomed by History Lab's Chair @thomascryer.bsky.social, Director of @ihr.bsky.social @clairelanghamer.bsky.social, and Professor Neil Forbes from Coventry University who is delivering his keynote speech 👨‍🏫

Don't forget that you can join us online! 💻

Campop blog #59: Some say rises in lone motherhood since c.1950 indicate breakdown of the nuclear family & call for returns to Victorian values. But 19C levels of lone parenthood & reconstituted families were similar to today's ...
@camunicampop.bsky.social
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/07...

Keir Starmer urged to honour pledge to embed speaking skills in England’s schools Alastair Campbell and children’s author Michael Rosen among advocates calling for oracy to be in curriculum

We are signatories to this important letter organised by @voice21oracy.bsky.social
“calling on him to establish oracy as a core part of Labour’s revised national curriculum & make it the 4th ‘R’ in education, alongside reading,writing & arithmetic. “
www.theguardian.com/education/20...

It me, an official teacher starting i dag… intro to film studies.

Extremely difficult to read document in cursive script. Actually this is a charter of lady Clotilde, Paris AN/K//2/10, from 673

My therapist: Don’t worry, Merovingian cursive is not real, it can’t hurt you

Merovingian cursive:

Asking a friend on WhatsApp how long it will be before judgemental pro-CEO columns emerge regarding the Coldplay kisscam scandal (timestamped 00:15 Sunday)

A judgemental pro-CEO column in the Guardian, written by Miski Omar (timestamped 00:07 Tuesday)

It was one day, twenty-three hours, fifty-two minutes btw