Andrew Frayn

"I haven't fully worked this out, but here goes"

How many did you buy?

Remember guys, @pcsunion.bsky.social staff at the BL are on strike for the next two weeks. Please don't cross the picket line to go to reading rooms, attend exhibitions or anything else. They've endured so much on low pay since the cyberattack in 2023 and the least we can do is have their backs now.

Sometimes, when you're travelling and your laptop battery dies, then the plug socket doesn't work, and then your pen runs out, you've just gotta accept defeat in the attempt to work.

I haven't come across it, but I do keep getting pushed videos on other socials of a woman buying AI generated tat to see how bad it is...

YouTube video by David Byrne David Byrne - "The Avant Garde" (Official Lyric Video)

Absolutely savage burn by David Byrne on modernists and avant-gardists:

"Now I'm not sure how I feel about the avant garde / Now I like the idea, their politics too / But I'm not really sure if that means that it's good"

youtu.be/Z97dtHprbAo?...

There's also an exhibition, organised by colleagues in the Centre for Military Research, Education & Public Engagement, on British Army soldiers killed in Kienholz, Northern Germany, near the end of the Second World War. Free but register at link: www.eventbrite.com/e/remembranc...

Quick reminder that this is 3 weeks today! Please sign up if you haven't already - in-person and online.

Some retailers posted pre-orders early, so I've already been enjoying this. Matt does a great job of linking the very personal and local with larger historical trends in engaging style. It deserves and is accessible to a readership beyond the academy. Congratulations!

Alright, who's this...

That annoyed me too (the US language of advisor/section etc), though I did have to keep reminding myself that it was in a fictional department of magic!

I think it'd be a really good UG text, though I can see the point about representations of tech.

Got my copy through the door today too, congratulations!

books should have an anti-acknowledgements section where the author talks shit about all the people who fucked them over while they were trying to write the thing. not bc I personally want to write one but bc I love gossip

Yes, that's his son. I'd have had Roddy more likely in London, where I think he still lives. Definitely a memorable night in Edinburgh tho!

*FIFTEEN THOUSAND JOBS LOST*.
If this were in a sector in which the PM could go and do a photoshoot looking like One Of The People, we’d have had a government intervention by now.

My looking glass, we are through it

"we cant uninvent ai" no we cant but we couldnt uninvent nfts either and nobody gives a fuck about them anymore

I was a bit worried it'd be pathos and willing him on, but it was really high quality stuff and absolutely joyful. What a career.

A great band, but they're not carrying him - the voice is still instantly recognisable, deep and rich, clearer and more powerful than a lot of singers who haven't had life-changing illnesses.

'Don't Shilly Shally' of course - autocorrect is against Scots vernacular.

Edwyn Collins seated, singing, in front of his band, and the Edwyn backdrop in Elvis 1968 style. The photo is taken from the venue balcony looking down.

But you also got the solo classics and hits like 'Rip it Up', 'Don't Silly Shally', and 'A Girl Like You', as well as a finish of the Orange Juice classics 'Felicity' and 'Blue Boy'.

A seated Edwyn Collins, singing next to his son, standing, in front of his band. The backdrop says "Edwyn", in the style of the Elvis Comeback Show backdrop.

Just back from the last show of Edwyn Collins's last tour, in Edinburgh, his birthplace. An incredibly moving show, packed with favourites and hits. And the beginning of the encore, where he played 'Low Expectations' and 'Home Again' was absolutely emotionally devastating.

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

The best things happen where social media enhances your real life - so, meeting some great people in person, but also thinking about writing pithily has been good for me whatever audience I'm writing for/speaking to.

Environmental protections are there for a reason, and shouldn't be disregarded for commercial efficacy.

Wild to live in a country where the names of the two major parties bear zero relation to their agenda. Labour regularly acts against workers. The other lot has no interest in conserving anything. So here we are.

Image of a cover from an issue of The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. Blue banner sits across the centre of the image reading: Now Open Access.

MUP and @thejohnrylands.bsky.social are thrilled to announce that Bulletin of the John Rylands Library is now fully #OpenAccess🔓

Throughout October, the Bulletin's Editorial Board are highlighting journal issues or articles of particular importance on the MUP blog.

Douglas > Middlesbrough > Buxton > Cumbernauld on consecutive days from 30 Sep, in what will be the dog days, is an absolutely insane sequence.