Ray Verrall

Looks great. Wish I could make it.

If you think artificial intelligence is bad - wait till you see artificial grass.

There’s a Gerhard Richter quality to these video grabs of the sycamore being felled.

I just spent three minutes trying to construct an amusing reply to a post on here, decided it wasn’t working, deleted it and started writing this instead, which I’m sure everyone will agree is a far more valuable contribution to the cut and thrust of online discourse

Ha! Could be.

Yes! I do this too. Thought I was the only one.

I’m all for hibernation. Tempting.

The microclimate on Whitley Bay promenade feels particularly "fresh" at the moment.

Would love to spend May through September in UK, then October through April in New Zealand. Pricey commuting back and forth each year though!

Ha. This is true.

Every year, when February rolls around, I forget how bleak and useless a month it is. Feels particularly grey and grim this year. Up there with November. Any redeeming features?

The Guardian view on campus cuts: academics pay a high price for Westminster’s mistakes | Editorial Editorial: The government should not stand aloof as a crisis unfolds in our universities. A new settlement is needed

An entirely new financial settlement is needed in Higher Education - as many of us have been saying all along. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Thanks Patrick!

A really boring PhD thesis photographed from above.

A really boring PhD thesis photographed from a slightly more interesting angle. It has some coloured pages!

Well, here it is folks. The PhD thesis is submitted! Everything you (n)ever wanted to know about the RIBA’s 1958 Oxford Conference. It’s a bit of a chunky beast.

‘Mainlined into UK’s veins’: Labour announces huge public rollout of AI Plans to make UK world leader in AI sector include opening access to NHS and other public data

What worries me is not government use of AI per se but the slightly credulous way that the government talk about it, which makes me suspect they will be taken for rubes by the tech companies selling their services.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Keeping it real

I might be taking the "typing up" phase of the PhD a bit too literally.

One thing you will never think after reading a great book or listening to a great album or seeing a great piece of art is, “I’m really glad this person remained cautious while they were making this and guarded against being perceived as weird.”

It’s Not Your Fault That Academic Life is Getting Harder by Glen O’Hara Universities are in trouble, and it’s not just money we’re talking about. They are living through something of a crisis of confidence, even of trust and faith. More and more, I find myself, and my col...

A couple of weeks ago I wrote an essay about the reality of working in a UK university 'system' that may be broken beyond repair. It evoked quite the reaction! If you haven't read it already, it's here: voicesofacademia.com/2024/04/05/i...

Radical Histories Join the conversation

Looking for radical histories on Bluesky?

We've made a Starter Pack of people & organisations who stretch our idea of what history is, who it is made by & what it is for.

Please share and let us know if you'd like to be added.
🗃️ & ✊🗃️

go.bsky.app/Bb57VmV

Doing History at the end of the World (1) In a recent piece in the Guardian George Monbiot imagines an all-seeing eye scanning the dying earth, and concludes humans are a species ‘that knows it is destroying itself but is too greedy …

“What are we saving the world for? If the solution involves abandoning our humanities, are we imagining a future for humanity?”
🗃️

williamgpooley.wordpress.com/2024/11/18/d...

We've written a Researcher's Guide to Bluesky!

It's a bit like all those other useful guides to Bluesky, but with several useful insights from University of York academics about using the platform, and we'd love it if it was reposted far and wide...

>> blogs.york.ac.uk/library/2024...

🧵 below

There’s a tiny but super-thick painting of his in the Laing, here in Newcastle. It looks good enough to sink my teeth into. Haven’t tried.

Childhood isn’t just something that children have to get through on the way to adulthood. Childhood is children’s lives. Children deserve playgrounds and other public spaces.

Motivational poster style meme of a seashore. "Text says: Stop wondering if you're good enough. You're not."

This is surprisingly comforting.

Posted this a month ago. I'm pretty invisible here so I don't expect much interaction, but if you're seeing this, and like all things mappy and colourful, please have a read of Professor Legg's article in which he discusses my artwork 'Atlas'. It's a sophisticated essay on why maps are really cool.

Just Stop Oil protesters jailed for throwing soup on Sunflowers Just Stop Oil activists Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland threw tomato soup over Van's Gogh's piece.

No jail terms for those running companies that knowingly damage the environment and with repercussions which will cost vastly more than repairing a frame

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

How odd. I literally used this word for the first time in a piece of writing yesterday, and here it is again! I’m gonna be seeing it everywhere for a week now aren’t I.

When you’re writing, sometimes less is more, but sometimes more is more and, from time to time, too much is not enough.

Libraries will only exist for as long as we borrow from them. Consider it your civic duty | Jodi Wilson In a world as noisy as ours, we need the quiet space of libraries. They are community hubs that serve whoever walks through the door

“Libraries will only exist for as long as we borrow from them. Consider it your civic duty”

Excellent here - written in Aus but applies everywhere.

Don’t forget borrowing is not just physical books - huge selection of digital audio, ebooks, magazines too.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...