Briony Neilson

Yes. It's got a branch of the National Tertiary Education Union (union for academic and professional staff) and a branch of the Community and Public Sector Union (for professional staff only). I don't know what membership density is like there though and it's not thought of as a militant campus.

Terrible news on the grapevine today that after their brutal "spill and fill" exercise, Macquarie University has announced which academic staff members no longer have a position. Devastating for the people who've lost their jobs. Dreadful for those who've been spared (for now). Awful for everyone 💔

photo shows a set of gardening tools laid out on a grey background

An extravagant set of late 16th-century French pruning tools for an ostentatious gardener. Crafted in Moulins c.1575, the set consists of a pruner, three specialised knives, a saw, and secateurs. Made of steel, with gilding and handles in shimmering mother-of-pearl (The Met)

photo shows a portable dining set

Photo shows a portable dining set

Photo shows a portable dining set – items unscrewed

A portable dining set for your late 17th- or 18th-century traveller.
Consists of a knife, fork, spoon, and – most importantly – a corkscrew, all the items come apart to fit neatly into the compact case. Made by artisan unknown in either France or Italy (The Met)

photo shows a portable dining set

Photo shows a portable dining set

Photo shows a portable dining set – items unscrewed

A portable dining set for your late 17th- or 18th-century traveller.
Consists of a knife, fork, spoon, and – most importantly – a corkscrew, all the items come apart to fit neatly into the compact case. Made by artisan unknown in either France or Italy (The Met)

Agreed. And there should be another ritualistic gonging performed daily to mark the ousting of the execs trying to push through with these cuts.

photo shows a round gong made of brass with a wooden stick on top of it

Brass gong with wooden striker (State Library of Victoria)

Every day from the 1850s to the mid-1990s a librarian at Melbourne's State Library of Victoria would circle the reading room, striking this brass gong to mark closing time. In the 1990s the gong was replaced by a pre-recorded announcement.

photo shows a round gong made of brass with a wooden stick on top of it

Brass gong with wooden striker (State Library of Victoria)

Every day from the 1850s to the mid-1990s a librarian at Melbourne's State Library of Victoria would circle the reading room, striking this brass gong to mark closing time. In the 1990s the gong was replaced by a pre-recorded announcement.

colour photo taken inside a Brutalist church looking over the altar and to the organ behind, built in the shape of a hand

A church organ in the shape of an alarmingly massive hand inside the Église Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, Alpe d'Huez, France.

The organ – which, unsurprisingly, is the only one in the world to be shaped like a hand – was designed by Jean Guillou and crafted by Detlef Kleuker. Photo by Peter Atkinson

Sign the Petition Save the State Library of Victoria!

Melbourne's State Library of Victoria – the third most popular library in the world! – is being threatened with cuts to staff and facilities. Add your name to the petition to save jobs and resources www.change.org/p/save-the-s...

colour photo taken inside a Brutalist church looking over the altar and to the organ behind, built in the shape of a hand

A church organ in the shape of an alarmingly massive hand inside the Église Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, Alpe d'Huez, France.

The organ – which, unsurprisingly, is the only one in the world to be shaped like a hand – was designed by Jean Guillou and crafted by Detlef Kleuker. Photo by Peter Atkinson

I misread your post as "the whisky of an advent calendar". A quick search reveals that such a thing already exists 🙃

An episode of Grand Designs with a "coarse language" warning for viewers – the people building this house clearly went waaaaaay over budget and probably will never celebrate Christmas ever again anywhere, let alone in the house.

Thank you for your solidarity! Your fire is lovely – enjoy it!

Oh for a comforting, well-contained fire.

At this time of year, in this part of the world, talk of "fire" means something quite different – bushfire hotspots... Just look at them all 🫣

Sydney weather is certainly giving us all it's got today ☀️💨⛈️⚡

New York City helped my mother become the artist she is today. The next generation deserves a City Hall that lifts up tomorrow's artists as well.

How fascinating. Would you say your experience of school was positive overall?

Am I right in assuming you went to school somewhere in the US? Funny thing is that the stereotypical American school that was projected to the world thru pop culture always had a shrill electric bell to mark the end of a school period.

I suspect it’s a good thing you were spared it. That tune would do funny things to people.

Just think how your life would have panned out differently if you’d heard this unsettling and unresolved tune broadcast to you multiple times every day instead.

😂 I feel at once such an affinity with the gag-maker and such a sense of alienation from all those others.

If I’d been a student at a French school in the 1990s and heard this play at the end of every class, I’d have felt like I was in some low-budget TV series about a detective who investigates everyday, I gripping and yet disturbing mysteries in a small village in the mountains.

Rebecca Ruth Gould S5E23

I enjoyed speaking about my book Erasing Palestine, the Gaza
genocide and famine and forced starvation for the Savage Minds podcast

open.substack.com/pub/savagemi...

YouTube video by La Cloche Française SONNERIE ÎLE-DE-FRANCE (VERSION GRAVE ET LONGUE) | SONNERIE ÉCOLE/COLLÈGE/LYCÉE/EREA/CFA

It seems this theme was broadcast at the end of each class in schools across the Paris region in the 1990s. So unresolved, so unsettling.

I’m delighted to share that my first journal article has been published in the special issue 'Labour Archives and Methodologies' of Labour History.

Honoured to have this piece included alongside such distinguished work: doi.org/10.3828/labo...

The limits of strong government: attempts to control criminality in thirteenth-century England* Abstract. This article examines how far centrally-directed structures of peacekeeping influenced communal reactions to criminality in thirteenth-century En

Want to learn about medieval coroners, tithings & the frankpledge system, crime & punishment, peacekeeping, the hue & cry, amercements, etc? Then check out my article “The limits of strong government: attempts to control criminality in thirteenth-century England”.

academic.oup.com/histres/arti...

photo of a four-leaf clover against a white background

A family member spotted and plucked this honest-to-goodness four-leaf clover today. Definitely means good luck for everyone.

Sorry to hear about the rough day. Hooray for thoughtful students (and delicious biccies ✊🏻 🍪)

Violent Laughter: Commemorating Anglo-French Co-operation and Forgetting Violence through Gilbert and Sullivan in Colonial Vanuatu Thomson Reid Cowell, assistant British resident commissioner in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), wrote a musical comedy – ‘with humblest apologies to Sir William Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan’ – depic...

And in this wonderful open-access article in our special issue, Kate Stevens looks at performative transimperial co-operation between the British and French in the New Hebrides Condominium (Vanuatu), and at how theatrical forms of critique helped obscure the violent realities of imperial domination.