Tom O'Shea

Overtourism does profound damage to local communities in Edinburgh. In what is surely the worst example yet, only this morning elderly Americans had eaten all the eggs at the canteen.

I'm in this photo and I don't like it meme

So pleased to see this letter from MPs in support of students in Gaza with offers at UK universities. It's been signed by over 100 MPs and is a real cross-party effort. I hope now that Starmer will respond to our requests.

Dutch academic job interview questions:

You awake in a prison cell with two guards: one always lies, the other always tells the truth. What do you ask them about the principles of research design?

In my defence: this was an academic at a conference I was obliged to attend—so it's the PolProfs not exactly covering themselves in glory once again.

🤢

Met someone recently who thought Rory Stewart was a profoundly insightful political sage. But that's still not as bad as the guy I used to know who had an Andrew Marr T-shirt.

Students of the world, abandon LLMs! You have nothing to lose but your Markov chains!

Received May 2024. Accepted July 2025.

Congratulations—but also: ouch.

If you already have something written, then you could try Public Humanities: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

"When the first of August came round, the Professor realized he had pleasantly trifled away nearly two months at a task which should have taken little more than a week."

--Willa Cather, 1925 and timeless

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Immediately punished with another request to review a worse article.

Turning down a review request as a special birthday treat.

It's a reasonably intelligent guess for someone who doesn't know the etymology—but likely to amuse you more than most!

I used to think this too: an image of a mince-making contraption with meat being extruded from it used to come to mind when I heard the phrase.

There are no such things as omens and portends—other than when I became very ill on the eve of the 2019 General Election.

"This approach to moral reasoning is sometimes labeled 'deontological' because it is not linked to any ontology or substantive theory of human nature"

Reading about Francis Fukuyama in the New Left Review last night, then remembered when someone on Twitter noticed he doesn't know what deontology means.

What makes it worse: I cannot emphasise enough how unsexy actually-existing analytical philosophy conferences are.

The relentless Callardisation of the public reputation of philosophers continues apace.

Davidson’s famous chapter, ‘A Nice Epitaph of Derangements’, is sadly neither about derangements nor epitaphs.

Someone should write a philosophical analysis of derangement. How do we make sense of Britain’s most divorced man getting so obsessed with trans women that he torpedoed his entire life? What was going on when Brexit caused so many liberals to go into a near-psychotic meltdown?

People are really hating on this but creating a narrative voice that melds Patrick Bateman and Alan Partridge is actually a significant technical feat

The Guardian isn't publishing enough articles about the University of Edinburgh.

'I have a lifeline scholarship to study in Scotland - but I'm trapped in Gaza' Shaimaa Abulebda has been given the chance to reclaim some of her old life - but remains stuck in Gaza because of government red tape.

Shaimaa has a funded place at Edinburgh to study for a PhD with me, but is stuck in Gaza due to Home Office restrictions. I'm proud of her for speaking about her situation on TV and grateful to reporter Paris Gourtsoyannis for covering her story. news.stv.tv/east-central...

most of my portfolio is in ancient grains

COST OF LIVING TIP: it's most energy efficient to dwell in caverns beneath the earth, huddled and damp.

Wow ok unfollowing now. Loved his refusal of servitude in heaven, did not know he was responsible for the fall of man

Poster that says "hey come watch me fold a fitted sheet" on Calton Hill

I assume this must be a coordinated set of events because this is happening in Edinburgh later too.

@hannahkateboast.bsky.social your work here is done ✨