Helen Lovatt

Our road is closed for the next two months, leaving an extra 20 min journey for anyone giving me a lift. Sigh.

Mood. ‘One with nothing’

Read in public. Read in private. Read e-books, genre books, comics, fanfiction. Read literature. Read nonfiction. Read books you’ve already read. Listen to audiobooks. Read what you want. There’s no such thing as “doing reading the wrong way.”

University Archaeology Day 2024 – UAUK University Archaeology Day 2025 – the future of our past is in YOUR hands!

🎓 We’re at @uniarchday.bsky.social today at The British Academy!

It’s a fantastic day for anyone curious about studying archaeology, with talks, careers advice, and a chance to meet archaeologists from universities all across the UK.

Come and chat to us, or find out more here!👉

Drop an old person you’re going to be in the future

For Halloween (and LGBTQ History Month), a weird tale of a Clive Barker typo. 🧵

Meanwhile reunited with my parsnip soup

Yes, the shift to big grant driven research rather than bottom up/ internally distributed small funding makes the system very *controllable*.

The British academy’s lottery approach is not wrong. Respect to those who can keep knocking out applications; all power to those lucky enough to be successful. But we should also reward those who get research done without playing the game of pretending to be lab scientists/ needing loads of money.

Universities who require grant success for promotion/hiring and governments who fund universities based on grant success but reduce funding for grants are our worst enemies.

1. This can only be a good thing

2. It is going to make people very cross every year

A much needed laugh this morning

Nottingham: birthplace of Su Pollard. Also special pockling in Pocklington (a name we always particularly enjoy as we drive through it on the way to the in-laws, and my husband’s second least favourite town after Exeter). Might try and go in Nottingham!

Strongly dislike

My mental health is definitely better for not being there.

Vile stuff. At my own university all new staff are employed via a subsidiary company to avoid the TPS pension (remember: pensions are pay) and we all fear the costing staff will be next. Management think staff are so desperate that they’ll accept anything.

Remember: university managements are so…

Wow

Maybe I was just really naive in 2005. Maybe we all were. But quotas for student applications/places meant government oversight limited the amount of sudden catastrophic change. Also having watched other universities absolutely destroy their arts and humanities makes us all very wary.

Thinking back to those golden days when a management restructure (say the move from departments to schools in was it 2005?) was just a matter of senior colleagues arguing with each other a bit, renaming a few things and harmonising regulations. Now everything feels like an existential crisis.

I love this so much I drew my own map

Photo of a book with three large pebbles on a vivid blue table. The book cover is black with title in the same shade of blue. It was published to accompany the exhibition "The Word for World: The Maps of Ursula K. Le Guin" at AA Gallery in London, UK, 2025. The pebbles are etched with map drawings by Ursula. The book was edited by So Mayer and Sarah Shin, and co-published by Spiral House (imprint of Silver Press) and AA Publications, with texts by Ursula K. Le Guin, Theo Downes-Le Guin, David Naimon, and others. When Ursula K Le Guin was writing a new story, she would begin by drawing a map. The Word for World presents a selection of these images by the celebrated author, many of which have never been exhibited before, to consider how her imaginary worlds enable us to re-envision our own. Photo courtesy of Silver Press.

When @ursulakleguin.com started writing a new novel, she would begin by drawing a map. The Word for World is the first publication focusing on her maps.

THE WORD FOR WORLD: The Maps of Ursula K. Le Guin is available in the US from @pointreyesbooks.bsky.social

Here: ptreyesbooks.com/book/9781068...

Boo: this week’s Helen brought up a pot of sauerkraut instead of the parsnip soup she lovingly made
Yay: last week’s helen left half a pot of soup in the work fridge, which tasted pretty good with sauerkraut

Train. Coffee. Words.

Mood

Keep it brief, bullet points, explain why.

Reform candidate visibly squirms as he's confronted by a local family in Caerphilly.

Finally watched Oppenheimer yesterday. It was good, but Barbie was better.

Reduce number of events. Take time alone for walks. Plan meet ups with friends. For ‘mingling’ events, sit/stand somewhere out of the way and maybe tell people on social media to come and find me!

History should not be ideological, they say

Remember folks. The original bluesky ethos by us bluesky elders (apparently I count?) is block and move on.

Don't quote dunk, don't pick fights.
Block, and move on.

This is what made this site unpalatable to the right early on, and we can continue to make it unpalatable to them.