glasogliath

Ah yes, when I was a youngish lad I would pop into the bed with a Raymond Chandler and ten fags and go to sleep when I'd finished it. The back is not up to reading in bed any more. (And the fags are long gone.)

Fair enough. I am too short on livery experience to judge.

Ah, *they*.

An infant.

I had you for younger than that!

But why glamorous Watford? Did it come out of a hat or is it something to do with Elton?

A painful experience, I expect. The original was qualified by one reader as 'the book I have read in which I would least like to be a character'.

Close Reading Is For Everyone Dan Sinykin and Johanna Winant Call for Pitches Based on our previous Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century, we are at work on a new version that’s shorter, slimmer, and aimed at a more general audience. We’re looking for a new set of contributors who would write excellent, brief, model close readings of texts that high schoolers might know and care about. Think: “The Gettysburg Address,” Macbeth, and Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” but also song lyrics, idioms, or even a visual image. What is your best, most instructive, most exciting, most welcoming example of how a close reading builds a real argument out from a tiny, perhaps overlooked detail? If you’re interested in pitching us, please send us your 250-word close reading of the text you propose. Your close reading should be mappable using our vocabulary of close reading: the five steps of scene setting, noticing, local claiming, regional argumentation, and global theorizing. (Our close reading of “The Red Wheelbarrow” in the early pages of our introduction is the sort of thing we’re seeking.) If we think we can use yours, we’ll ask you to expand it to a 1,200 word essay in which you explain how your close reading works step by step. We seek close readings both of texts that are canonical and also ones that aren’t. And so we invite contributors both from the discipline of literary studies, and other disciplines across the university, and the public humanities beyond it. Send your pitches—please include your name and contact info—to daniel.sinykin@emory.edu and jwinant@reed.edu by March 15.

CALL FOR PITCHES

@dan-sinnamon.bsky.social and I are at work on a new version of Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century aimed at a more general audience.

We’re looking for new contributions: your model close readings of texts, canonical and not, from literary studies and not.

Details below!

Winning elections and implementing policies isn't everything. There's striking attitudes and being holier than thou.

Quite simply an outrage. Not everyone is fascinated by people farting around in the snow.

This Anas Sarwar?

Seems a bit rich for his view to be held as any threat to Starmer.

By their friends shall ye know them. Works both ways of course.

Well said, Mr Bunny!

Lovely poster too.

Gordon Brown by James Macintyre review – a very different kind of politician A new biography reveals Brown to be a man of exceptional vision and probity – what a contrast with today’s politics

www.theguardian.com/books/2026/f...

Fascinating read. The achievements mainly due to this man, are astonishing. The public, persuaded by a hostile media, turned to Cameron and austerity. Which is arguably one if the main reasons why we had Brexit and the far right.

a brown wire-haired pup stands on a wooden deck in a grassy yard. he looks at us with golden eyes and his right ear flipped inside out. he has a pipe-shaped stick in his mouth, giving him the appearance of a sophisticated and dapper gentleman. just give him a deerstalker cap and a cloak, and he'd give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money.

This pup found a stick shaped like an old timey pipe earlier today and has already solved three mysteries. 13/10

Finally, some non-bad news.

'An underpeformance against the fundamentals'? What's that when it's at home?

And that the answers to difficult problems are completely obvious.

Cartoon by @dennisgoris.bsky.social.

The mystery poster.

Perhaps now you can focus on Farage and the danger he and his right wing friends here and in the USA present to the UK and not on someone who is decent and hard working
Perhaps probe his finances ?
The media in this country are a disgrace

A rather arrogant and self-satisfied perspective. Not sayinng she's wrong about Morgan.

I've heard he will be headhunted by Barry's Tea.

Does sloth (far right) look a bit like Donald? Lust - wouldn't ya know? - is a woman.

Romanians are buying generators, other energy equipment, and devices and are bringing them to the Ukrainian Embassy in Bucharest.

Thank you, Romania! 🇷🇴🇺🇦

The Ukrainian Embassy will organize the shipment to people affected by Russian energy terror.

An unforgiveable sin.

I know it is the role of a political commentator to announce that 'it is time for the prime minister to quit' several times a year. Are there any other necessary qualifications?

Possibly also that Dublin is not the capital of Ireland.

British values