Conan Doyle

That's a lot of fucking, and I'm not sure I'm up for it. Could we just guillotine the emperors instead?

I found half a hair here. Did you split it?

"They were hired to be Gestapo officers and they are behaving as Gestapo officers" is perhaps not the flex you think it is!

ice agents simply aren't trained well enough to be on the street. they are a genuine danger to citizens

A pint of Guinness in an unmarked beer glass on a wooden table.

I wanted to maximise time with my parents, so now I'm flying back to Prague on my birthday. At least I can have a birthday Guinness.

No Blood For Oil vs. Exactly How Much Oil Are We Talking About?

Expect to see a lot of this classic Onion headline, from 23 years ago, over the coming weeks.

Well, I've survived, another darkest day in the Northern Hemisphere. It only starts to get brighter from here.
I just hope I can get the momentum back and publish as much in 2026 as I did in 2025.

Dear Republicans,

No one has ever asked you to apologize for being white. They have asked you to apologize for being racist.

Love,
Non-Racist White Guys Who Are Weirdly Never Asked to Apologize for Being White Despite Republicans Thinking That's an Inescapable Everyday Occurrence

this recent genAI discourse is at least helping to identify the non-serious scholars. like if your point is to use it to help you find things or summarize things or weed out things that might not be relevant, you are not a serious scholar. and if you can't see why that is, you are a bad scholar :)

This is some fucked up 1984 shit! Don't you all see the blueprint of a totalitarian regime when it's in front of your eyes!?

I spent the day seeing multispectral imaging of medieval binding fragments in 16th century incunabula, which was interesting. In one chant fragment we could read the hidden side of the parchment binding.

Vaccine for smallpox invented in in 1796. Vaccines for TB, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and whooping cough came out between 1921-1926. Polio in 1952, MMR (individually) by 1970.

Observe.

"UNDERAGE WOMEN" ARE GIRLS

"UNDERAGE WOMEN" ARE CHILDREN

thank you for your attention to this matter

I watched the first part of Guillermo Del Toro's Frankenstein, and I was struck by how much he drew visual inspiration from the old classics of the genre
.
.
.
Specifically The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whiles, like a puff’d and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.

Sorry, Christine Salazar (author of chapter 1, may she rest in peace!)

Publication no. 5 of 2025. My contributor's copy of this lovely essay collection finally came home yesterday (no thanks to Česka Posta). Well done to all the authors and editors. I genuinely shed a tear for both Audrey Meaney and Christine Sallazar yesterday...

Some friends brought their dog around while delivering a TV to my housemate. I entered the apartment a few minutes later, and their doggy barked at me. I think he quickly realised that it was in fact my territory, as he spent the rest of the visit asking very politely for pets and cuddles.

And now I can't shake the thought that, given this was the 14th Century, and he was a university man, this was either a by-name given by his classmates because he honked like a goose when he laughed, or there was some incident at a St Martin's day dinner which he never lived down!

I was just thinking about St Martin's day traditions in Czechia when I realised Jan Hus was really 'John the Goose'!

You might as well have just sent a pamphlet out saying "start panicking!"

I'm so glad this is open access. I gave my Hildegard lecture yesterday and students are already asking for more reading materials :)

I love that film!

It has been a very strange presidential election. Being able to call the result before the first count is virtually unprecedented.

Read about Conan Doyle's research into early medieval Latin medical texts for his book, The Reception of Latin Medicine in Early Medieval England in his Q&A blog > buff.ly/CHVeRqU #medievalsky @conandoyle.bsky.social

I had a moment today that reminds me why I teach. A student told me "I started reading that Ann Oakley book, and I started to get mad, because she's so right about everything."

Dear reader, Sex, Gender and Society was published in 1972!

You can take the altarboy out of the catholic church, but you can never take the catholic guilt out of the altarboy!

I'm decoding some manuscript fragments and I realised I recognised <Aga>tha, Luci<a>, A<n>na , Cecelia
as part of the Eucharistic prayer,
but then I scanned it again, and I thought
The TRUMPETS...
and that's why I'm going straight to hell!

Please tell me Disney/Marvell are going to sue!