Bad Ancient/ Owen Rees

Enough politics. It is publication day for the paperback edition for The Far Edges of the Known World; it's a book that has been described in reviews as both strikingly and refreshingly original.

So if you fancy reading about the ancient world from a different perspective - give it a read!

Hey, @princejvstin.com, this caught my attention -- might be something you'd find interesting too!

Bought this today and SO excited to read it!

I was told there was no apetite for research from humanities staff at our teaching intensive uni. I took over as lead and set up a training day for REF - every single member of the Humanities turned up.

I'm not saying it's a reason to vote Greens. But, since the by-election, it seems all the Union and St George's flags around me have started to be taken down.

This was my thought when I found this out. Loads of empty churches ...

Denton community groups being swamped with angry Reform bots (and voters). Apparently Denton is now going to be overwhelmed with mosques.

Denton does not have a single mosque.

In which people CHOOSE TO VOTE for a female plumber representing a party with broadly liberal values and an unelected life peer declares it to be the end of liberal democracy.

So the candidate who left school at 16 with no A-Levels and who's spent her whole adult life vocational, manual jobs beat the ivory tower academic turned cushy media pundit, but you can be sure we'll still get plenty more casual description of the latter as "white working class".

Yeah that was what we assumed was going on - it's just quite annoying having to walk through a group of people to vote. There was also security ... which was a first for me.

Quite a few parties were doing this at the polling station we went to. Wife was also asked for her polling number by, she thinks a Green, but after clarifying who they were, was then told she was not obliged to give it.

To be fair, you are right. I've taken down the post - woke up this morning happy with the result, but unhappy with the turnout. It is good to have you put this in perspective.

Gorton and Denton by-election result:

GRN: 40.7% (+27.5)
REF: 28.7% (+14.7)
LAB: 25.4% (-25.3)
CON: 1.9% (-6.0)
LDEM: 1.8% (-2.1)

Green GAIN from Labour.

Every single thing in the world now suggests Labour should shift wildly left and become a progressive party if it is to survive.

But you just know, as plain as day, the lesson they’ll draw from this is to be like the defeated Refom.

I can just see it a mile off.

Who would have thought it possible!

yeah, another person mentioned the raw figures. I was working of the % turn out which is down 0.2% but it is a fair point. So I have removed the post

hmm should that be voter share was down then - a terminology issue? Numbers I have seen suggest it is -0.2% from last election?

Does go to show that you don't need to vote Labour to keep out Reform, which is good to see!

* I can't overstate just how poorly Labour is thought of in the Denton area. That Labour got as many votes as they did was as much a surprise as anything else.

Other concern is this Reform narrative that will grow. The idea of Islamists and woke progressives is: 1. racist cr@p, and 2. based on the unknown assumption of where in Gorton & Denton the Greens got their support (Gorton is much more diverse than Denton - we don't have a single mosque).

Areas of concern are becoming apparent. This was a vote based on hate vs fear - thankfully fear won out. Reform are now claiming there was cheating (family voting!), which they will do every time they lose. While Greens won 41% of the vote - 53% of the area did not come out to vote.

Really pleased to hear it!

Nope, and I voted in it! I look forward to reading about it on a stupidly early train to work in the morning...

That's worth a lot! Thanks for sharing.

It's paperback publication day! The paperback version of the Library of Ancient Wisdom is now available here and in all good bookstores:
selenawisnom.com/library-of-a...

Snap!

Oh brilliant - glad to hear you are enjoying it!

Spot on - that was the goal.

Also honoured to be campared to @moudhy.bsky.social's great book!

Sigh. Another one for the list.

In the middle of this excellent book right now. Such a rich portrait of ancient societies you rarely hear about

That I do not know. I feeo for your friend - the weather is not being kind to them.