Ian Gadd

I seem to remember that Terence Hawkes made the same parallel in a 1990s TV documentary on Shakespeare/early modern theatre… @tracelarkhall.bsky.social may remember??

Aha! Probably a healthier approach... And, yes, it's been too long since we last caught up — Amherst??

I was (briefly) at Reading but university responsibilities are getting in the way of research and conference attending alas...

PS. Still a night-owl, I see… 😬

An even more impressive memory!

And, yes, the house share was quite something... 😂

Impressive archival sleuthing! But I’d expect nothing less…

It’s what apocalyptic times call for…

Photograph of Tom Lehrer

Oh no. Tom Lehrer gone. At his great age, it’s not a tragedy, I know, but it just does feel bad not having his genius in the world.

😂 Maybe! It was my only experience of RGS in that era and I do remember thinking that never again would I have an audience who were prepared to sit on the floor to hear me speak...

...a US Civil War pistol. (Her grandfather(!) was apparently the youngest US Civil War general...)

Everyone else tried to act like it was a completely normal thing to do while subtly leaning out of the way 😂

Yes, I think it was. May(?) 2000, in her rooms at Trinity. I began my paper by apologising for not bringing a gun — as a rather clumsy prelude to a discussion about the respective symbolic power of guns vs books — only to have AB pipe up and say "I have one here", opening a drawer & bringing out...

...early modern guns. It was a lot of fun with loads of fascinating rabbit-holes (urine collection, unfortunate explosions, guns in art etc), so I can't wait for the book 😊 It also prompted Professor Anne Barton to pull out a (real) gun in front of several dozen rather startled faculty & students...

Ooh, this is great! Very keen to hear more about your book project: 20 years ago I researched early modern guns for a seminar paper that compared state regulatory practice of guns/gunpowder with regulation of printing/publishing and was really surprised to find so little research on...

Pageant Stations: Civic Entertainments in The London Journal Published in The London Journal: A Review of Metropolitan Society Past and Present (Ahead of Print, 2025)

NEW VIEWPOINT ARTICLE: 'Pageant Stations: Civic Entertainments in The London Journal', by @tracelarkhall.bsky.social, available open access.

A little 🧵 on the insights it provides...

I think the scribe heard (or read) Sogdahl and then corrected it, hence that slight mess in the middle of the word...

What's the document?

Sogndal - Wikipedia

Sogndal?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogndal Sogndal - Wikipedia

I’ve just put my trousers on back to front.

Im 62 on Sunday.

The boy who came back: the near-death, and changed life, of my son Max It was, we were told, a case of sudden infant death syndrome interrupted. What followed would transform my understanding of parenting, disability and the breadth of what makes a meaningful life

I wrote for the Guardian’s Saturday magazine about my son Max, who changed how I see the world. Took ages. More jokes after the first bit.

Thanks Merope Mills for being the most patient and generous editor.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

BHO is having intermittent downtime at the moment.

We're being hammered by AI bots and scrapers, overloading our servers. Our server engineers will be back on the case after the long weekend.

Apologies for the inconvenience, but this is due to third-party bad actors.

Given I did quite a bit of research on this second misprint back in the day I’m half-wondering if I can report this as evidence of impact… 😂

I was genuinely impressed by the fact they included the “god’s great asse” misprint but they really could have done with some expert guidance on the physicality of a 17th-century bible…

(I confess that I almost bailed after the casual raising of the Lusitania to recover a lost Rembrandt but then they mentioned the Wicked Bible…)

I’d strongly advise limiting your exposure…

The Wicked Bible features 49:30-50:52 and 59:40-1:09:40 (feel free to fast forward the fight scene on one of the balconies in the Austrian National Library). There’s also an optional follow up scene (1:13:22-1:16:35)

It does indeed! And while, amazingly, it does acknowledge that were actually two misprints in that edition, it seems to get pretty much everything else wrong: number of surviving copies, format, paper, binding, techniques for bibliographical analysis…

Sad news from Pocket, the save-for-later and content discovery app.

Pocket will shut down on July 8 2025. Users can keep using the app and browser extensions until then. However, from May 22 it won’t be possible to download the app.

Yet another free digital curation apps I have used and loved.

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Books for Brighter Blackouts, 06/05/2025 Emma Smith reveals five surprising stories about books and reading during World War Two.

Radio 3 next week: 9.45pm - books during WWII. Brief Encounter and Boots Lending Library, POWs requesting books from the Red Cross based in @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social, the first bonkbuster, and much more. Great fun to make
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

A room with French windows in the background. A stand with a blue civic society plague on it - the plague is dedicated to John Baskerville 1707 – 1775, type founder, printer, etc. Two female figures are stood on either side of the plaque and stand. The figure on the left appears to be touching the plague. Both figures are smiling.

#Baskerville 2025 is the 250th anniversary of the death of John Baskerville, Birmingham industrialist, best known for the typeface bearing his name. Unveiling of a Blue Plaque recently took place at The Exchange #LibraryofBham @typetweets.bsky.social

OMG!! The ESTC is back!!!!

datb.cerl.org/estc/

Dr Carla Hayden was a truly great Librarian of Congress. It is an outrage that she has been sacked - a national shame on the United States. I had the pleasure of knowing her and working with her - she’ll continue to do good in the next phase of her career whatever that is.

The MLA, @acls1919.bsky.social, and @historians.org have filed a lawsuit in federal district court today, seeking to reverse the recent actions to devastate the National Endowment for the Humanities. www.mla.org/Resources/Ad...

A close-up photo of a person’s hands paging through an old book. Several slips of paper are tucked at intervals into the pages. Overlaid on top of this is a block of white text on a dark red background, which reads, “The NEH is an essential force for good, helping individuals and communities understand our past, engage the present, and provide a vision for a better tomorrow.  RBS affirms the vital importance of the NEH in supporting programs and grants that enrich the cultural understandings of our citizens, our communities, and our nation.”

The National Endowment for the Humanities is an essential force for good. Rare Book School affirms the vital importance of @nehgov.bsky.social in supporting programs and grants that enrich the cultural understandings of our citizens, our communities, and our nation.