Dr Dominique Gracia

Powis Castle stands talll on top of a hill, daffodils grow in the garden below

The house at Bodnant Garden viewed across a large expanse of grass with daffodils blooming

Dyfryn Gardens with the house and daffodils bathed in sunshine

A child is stood on top of hay bales with the Welsh flag placed in them

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus | Happy St David’s Day

Here’s to Cymru! The nation’s language, traditions, culture, and the heritage that connects us. From dragons to daffodils, Wales’ story is told through the places we look after.

Photos: Powis Castle, Bodnant Gardens, Dyffryn Gardens, Chirk Castle.

History of Science and Science Fiction (Victorian Reading Project) This was the third theme on my Great Nineteenth-Century Reading Project list, which I started in 2023. As with the other themes, there was a mix of poetry, fiction and non-fiction in this list. Reading plan (chronological) Erewhon, Samuel Butler (1872) Vril: Power of the Coming Race, Edward Bulwer-Lytton (first published anonymously) (1871) The Eagle’s Nest. Ten Lectures on the relation of Art to the Sciences of Organic Form…

History of Science and Science Fiction (Victorian Reading Project)

This was the third theme on my Great Nineteenth-Century Reading Project list, which I started in 2023. As with the other themes, there was a mix of poetry, fiction and non-fiction in this list. Reading plan (chronological) Erewhon,…

50 percent of people who go to watch The Cure actually end up watching Placebo, and enjoy it just as much.

(No, YOU fuck off)

UK physics research and science facilities face ‘substantial’ cuts - Research Professional News Exclusive: Science and Technology Facilities Council seeks £162m cost savings, with existing projects facing axe

Major cuts to physics & astronomy research

When staff & infrastructure compete for the same funding, bricks & mortar win

Grim consequences fall on early-career researchers through hiring freezes, non-renewed contracts & broken fellowship pathways

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

How Wuthering Heights seduced its readers Nothing beats the thrills and seductions of Emily Brontë’s novel

I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to bother with the film (because I’m lazy about going to the cinema), but John Mullan’s piece reminds me why it’s great, and I might just reread the novel instead! 😂 www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

Thesis: ICE is un-American and the Minneapolis protestors are real Americans.

Antithesis: Ackshually ICE is operating in a long American tradition of racist terror.

Synthesis: Minneapolis is now the epicenter of a clash between two distinct but historically grounded American political traditions.

How the financial problem is described is not neutral. It reflects and reinforces a particular way of understanding what a university is and how it should function. If the financial situation is framed as a classic demand-and-cost problem (i.e., demand is insufficient, prices are constrained, and unit costs are too high), then the university is, implicitly, being treated as a ‘service provider’ operating in a competitive international education market where students are customers. In that frame, the obvious actions are to emphasise tight cost controls and to strengthen output-focused performance metrics, targets and incentives such as promotions based on publications in highly rated journals, income generation or teaching satisfaction scores. If the same financial situation is framed instead as a system-level shock that threatens the conditions under which teaching, research and public service can flourish, then a different picture of the university comes into view: a ‘living knowledge ecosystem’ serving a public mission and facing financial constraints partly beyond its control. Within that frame, the responses appears quite different. Attention turns to protecting core capacities, reducing harm to the most vulnerable parts of the system and working with others to share risks and resources. In both cases, the numbers in the spreadsheets are the same. What differs is the story told about the problem, and the underlying image of the university that story presupposes. At present, the former factory-like framing is the most common. With it, the danger is that, under a narrative of financial constraints, universities take actions that emphasise governance practices that reshape behaviour so deeply that, over time, what remains may still be called a ‘university’, but no longer acts like one.

Three short paragraphs, and you've got the whole mind-bending mess that is #UKHE finance & governance neatly laid out.

This is why it's all so exhausting: our managers declare there's only one static frame, while we know their framing is part of the issue.

💡 www.hepi.ac.uk/2026/01/10/w...

Cast a Long Shadow, published by Honno Welsh Women’s Press!

The year's #reading isn't quite over, but I'm finishing up my list of the year. Here are some of the best #books I've read (ranging from the 1930s through to 2025 new releases). Plus there's a prize draw if you buy ANY book over the Twixmas period (ending tomorrow). uk.bookshop.org/lists/books-...

Disdain for institutional citizenship/service roles as “for failures” may indeed be part of why those roles are not always filled well.

Eve Armstrong – Murder By Theory (2022) Review ★★★★★ I bought this a few years ago when talking about Dark Academia and detective fiction with a colleague at UCL. I'd particularly been hunting for something that involved economists, but this was adjacent and seemed like fun: two novella-length stories inviting us behind the scenes to see how working in academia can be murder! "Competitive Edge" follows a promotion bid by a precariously employed physicist, juxtaposing governance documents (who…

Eve Armstrong – Murder By Theory (2022)

Review ★★★★★ I bought this a few years ago when talking about Dark Academia and detective fiction with a colleague at UCL. I'd particularly been hunting for something that involved economists, but this was adjacent and seemed like fun: two novella-length…

Are banking covenants the big bad wolf of UK higher education? Dark tales abound of various UK universities being at risk of breaching agreements with their banks. But what exactly are covenants? Why have they come to play such a prominent role in the conversatio...

Are banking covenants the big bad wolf of UK higher education? Excellent long read in @timeshighered.bsky.social by @helenpacker.bsky.social www.timeshighereducation.com/depth/are-ba...

It’s a productivity disaster. So much time on paperwork that serves no-one. 🫣

Craig Robertson – Murderabilia (2016) Review ★★★★ The reason I still love physical libraries is because they make it so easy to wander slowly through a selection of books and pick up something spontaneously that comes with none of the bumph of online selection: no aggregated number of stars by reviewers, no detail about what comes before or after it in a series, no picture or author biography.

Craig Robertson – Murderabilia (2016)

Review ★★★★ The reason I still love physical libraries is because they make it so easy to wander slowly through a selection of books and pick up something spontaneously that comes with none of the bumph of online selection: no aggregated number of stars by…

Why the French do higher education better | Luke Markham | The Critic Magazine Preserved on the campus of University College London (UCL) are the remains of philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Regrettably, his classical liberal view of education has not also benefitted from conservation...

Interesting French-UK university comparison from a British student studying classics at the Sorbonne.

Alice Slater – Death of a Bookseller (2023) Review ★★★ I was really excited about the premise of this book, and the initial introductions to its apparently diametrically opposed characters—Roach (aka Brogan) and Laura—fizzed with the promise of tension. There was a lack of real menace about Roach, despite her developing stalker behaviour. A grungy quasi-loner, actually longing for connection and struggling to find the right way to go about it, Roach's low self-esteem and awkwardness really do provoke empathy, and I have to say of the two principals I'd prefer to see Roach make a transformation rather than alcoholic melancholic Laura.

Alice Slater – Death of a Bookseller (2023)

Review ★★★ I was really excited about the premise of this book, and the initial introductions to its apparently diametrically opposed characters—Roach (aka Brogan) and Laura—fizzed with the promise of tension. There was a lack of real menace about Roach,…

Eds. Katherine Stansfield and Caroline Oakley – Cast a Long Shadow (2022) Preamble If you like mythologically informed (crime-adjacent) fiction, you can also check out my Dear Damsels story, 'In Darkness' as well as some of the stories in this collection, available on Bookshop.Org! Review ★★★★ This collection was published a few years again now, but I read it earlier this year, while the weather was still gloomy and the nights long.

Eds. Katherine Stansfield and Caroline Oakley – Cast a Long Shadow (2022)

Preamble If you like mythologically informed (crime-adjacent) fiction, you can also check out my Dear Damsels story, 'In Darkness' as well as some of the stories in this collection, available on Bookshop.Org! Review ★★★★…

Stuart Turton – The Devil and the Dark Water (2020) Review ★★★★★ I was somewhat slow to this, reading it a few years after it came out. Setting up a master detective requires a deftness of touch; go too far, and they sound rather Mary Sue, but if you don't go far enough in impressing their credentials on the reader then they and the plot can feel very hollow. This is one of the many things Turton does excellently, using small sections of back-narration to summarise the relationship between the "alchemical" detective, Samuel Pipps, and his assistant, Arent Hayes, the synopses feigning a parasocial relationship between us as readers and this detective-and-sidekick pair.

Stuart Turton – The Devil and the Dark Water (2020)

Review ★★★★★ I was somewhat slow to this, reading it a few years after it came out. Setting up a master detective requires a deftness of touch; go too far, and they sound rather Mary Sue, but if you don't go far enough in impressing their…

Universities aren’t often spoken of as ‘brands,’ but Warwick leans into that idea. What does thinking of a university as a brand unlock—and what can it achieve when done well? Seeing a university as a brand unlocks coherence and confidence. A brand is about more than design, it’s about identity and consistency. When you align your values, your story and your impact, you become more than a place, you become a movement. At Warwick, brand isn’t just a communications tool, it’s a strategic asset. It helps us attract brilliant minds, forge global partnerships and create a distinctive space in a competitive world. When done well, a brand doesn’t limit, it liberates.

What drew you to the world of higher education, and how do you see its role evolving in society today? My journey from the world of luxury into higher education has been one of purpose and transformation. After years of working with global brands, I was drawn to higher education as the next frontier of influence, a space where knowledge, identity, and opportunity intersect. Universities aren’t just places of learning, they are platforms for societal impact. Their role today is to be both anchor and catalyst: rooted in rigorous teaching and research, yet agile enough to respond to global challenges and cultural shifts. How has your background in the luxury sector shaped the way you approach storytelling and brand building at the University of Warwick? Working across premium and luxury sectors—fashion, real estate, travel and beyond—taught me the value of emotion, detail, and differentiation. In those worlds, a brand isn’t just a badge, it’s an experience, a feeling, a story that lives in people’s hearts. At the University of Warwick, I’ve brought that same mindset to higher education: crafting narratives that are both strategic and human.

I can't quite believe it, but, it appears that the person responsible for this at the University of Warwick has had a Vogue photoshoot about the rebrand, explaining his 'journey from the world of luxury [goods marketing] into higher education' vogue.sg/university-o...

Thanks for sharing this thinking!

Looking forward to speaking at the City Writes event this evening @citystgeorges.bsky.social.

Still time to sign up to hear some fantastic short stories and @fionakeating.bsky.social talk about her glorious Smoke and Silk 📖

blogs.city.ac.uk/cityshortcou...

And this has been going for a while, with those roles the first to be outsourced to agencies with worse pay and conditions.

@qmul.ac.uk used to take pride in having all staff in-house. This stopped shortly after the current Principal arrived. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... #UKHE #SaveHE

Claire Evans – The Graves of Whitechapel (2020) Review ★★★ Having written a collection of short stories about detective work in the Victorian East End, this is of course going to catch my eye, which it did eventually on a Tower Hamlets library shelf. (And the Whitechapel branch, no less.) This is the second novel by TV producer, Claire Evans, although both stand alone. (I haven't read The Fourteenth Letter…

Claire Evans – The Graves of Whitechapel (2020)

Review ★★★ Having written a collection of short stories about detective work in the Victorian East End, this is of course going to catch my eye, which it did eventually on a Tower Hamlets library shelf. (And the Whitechapel branch, no less.) This is…

Victoria Dowd – The Supper Club Murders (2022) Review ★★★★★ This is the third in the Smart Women series, featuring mother and daughter Ursula and Pandora Smart (in-world, supposedly not their real names) and aunt Charlotte, plus some of their friends and acquaintances, and the series just keeps getting better. As in the previous two books, the Smart women endeavour to go on a relaxing holiday and instead find themselves marooned (although not literally, this time) and in the middle of a murderous plot.

Victoria Dowd – The Supper Club Murders (2022)

Review ★★★★★ This is the third in the Smart Women series, featuring mother and daughter Ursula and Pandora Smart (in-world, supposedly not their real names) and aunt Charlotte, plus some of their friends and acquaintances, and the series just keeps…

I’m always particularly disappointed at how often career development activities and networking are scheduled outside of these times. Often at the end of a full-day “away day” (that could have been an email)

Agatha Christie – Cards on the Table (2021) Review ★★★★ I am slowly picking my way through more of the twentieth-century greats’ novels, and Christie’s Poirot novels are excellent travelling companions. Compact and concise, this one was great for a flight and the long commute back from the airport. In brief, eccentric society man Mr Shaitana is stabbed at one of his own parties while the eight of his guests play bridge at two separate tables.

Agatha Christie – Cards on the Table (2021)

Review ★★★★ I am slowly picking my way through more of the twentieth-century greats’ novels, and Christie’s Poirot novels are excellent travelling companions. Compact and concise, this one was great for a flight and the long commute back from the…

Frank Tallis – Mortal Mischief (2005) Preamble Check out my short story collection of cosy mysteries featuring Victorian “lady detective” Meinir Davies; order now! Or, if you’re a particular Edinburgh enthusiast, try my novella Researcher Wanted, available on Kindle. Review ★★★★ As one of the extraordinary sidekick series I've written about before, I watched Vienna Blood when it first broadcast and so the characters here feel quite comfy and familiar: Oskar and Max, the Liebermann family more broadly, and the psychiatric community of medics in turn-of-the-century Vienna.

Frank Tallis – Mortal Mischief (2005)

Preamble Check out my short story collection of cosy mysteries featuring Victorian “lady detective” Meinir Davies; order now! Or, if you’re a particular Edinburgh enthusiast, try my novella Researcher Wanted, available on Kindle. Review ★★★★ As one of the…

Ambrose Parry – The Death of Shame (2025) Preamble Check out my short story collection of cosy mysteries featuring Victorian “lady detective” Meinir Davies; order now! Or, if you’re a particular Edinburgh enthusiast, try my novella Researcher Wanted, available on Kindle. Review ★★★★ I'm grateful to the publisher and author for an Advanced Reader Copy of this novel via NetGalley. Victorian Edinburgh. I've covered a bit of the summary of why this is fantastic setting for historical detective fiction featuring medical professionals (and aspiring female medical professionals) in my review of Carole Lawrence's…

Ambrose Parry – The Death of Shame (2025)

Preamble Check out my short story collection of cosy mysteries featuring Victorian “lady detective” Meinir Davies; order now! Or, if you’re a particular Edinburgh enthusiast, try my novella Researcher Wanted, available on Kindle. Review ★★★★ I'm grateful…

Victoria Dowd – Body on the Island (2021) Review ★★★★ This is the second in the Smart Women series, featuring mother and daughter Ursula and Pandora Smart (in-world, supposedly not their real names), aunt Charlotte, and godmother Mirabelle, plus book-club hanger-on Bridget and her dog. The unreliable narrator of the series, Ursula, is prima facie a shaky, timid soul who hasn't ever recovered from the death of her father when she was 13.

Victoria Dowd – Body on the Island (2021)

Review ★★★★ This is the second in the Smart Women series, featuring mother and daughter Ursula and Pandora Smart (in-world, supposedly not their real names), aunt Charlotte, and godmother Mirabelle, plus book-club hanger-on Bridget and her dog. The…

Martin Edwards – Blackstone Fell (2022) Preamble Take a look at my short story collection of cosy mysteries featuring Victorian “lady detective” Meinir Davies; order now! Review ★★★★★ It's been a while since I reviewed something that I learnt about on the fantastic Death of the Reader podcast, which seems to be currently in abeyance, but they made the story sound like such great fun that I was happy to jump in partway through the Rachel Savernake series.

Martin Edwards – Blackstone Fell (2022)

Preamble Take a look at my short story collection of cosy mysteries featuring Victorian “lady detective” Meinir Davies; order now! Review ★★★★★ It's been a while since I reviewed something that I learnt about on the fantastic Death of the Reader podcast,…