Warehousing asylum seekers?Are you serious, Home Secretary? Cooper suggests asylum seekers could be moved into warehouses instead of hotels – UK politics live www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...
Classicist and Modernist, Em. Prof. Working on a monograph on E. M. Forster and Classics, and a new edition of his novel The Longest Journey for Cambridge UP. Welsh/Irish.
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Warehousing asylum seekers?Are you serious, Home Secretary? Cooper suggests asylum seekers could be moved into warehouses instead of hotels – UK politics live www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...
Accidentally switched on the BBC World Service instead of R4 in the car this morning and had a really interesting 20-minute drive with wide international horizons (India, Myanmar, even Guyana in the picture) and no rage at journalistic incompetence and bias.
@samcoatessky.bsky.social hi Sam, this morning you stated “…the main opposition parties, the Cons and Reform UK…” Unless I missed 67 Parliamentary by-elections since July, the Lib Dems are very much the main opposition party with the Cons, not Reform. Do we have to keep doing this?
Labour Home Secretaries have pretty much all been horribly authoritarian since 1997, starting with Straw (who now wants to undo the one good thing he did, i.e. incorporate the ECHR). It's a long time since the great reformer Roy Jenkins (and he quit Labour too).
If there's just one issue Starmer should be decisive about, it's this. Keir Starmer’s legacy could be electoral reform – or Farage as prime minister | Polly Toynbee www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Congratulations!
Taken at Camp Donald, Maryland
It's Camelot
I have this sense too. On the other hand, his acolytes may put his embalmed body on display like Lenin's. (Imagine the money they could make.)
Good sense and kindness here Ordinary people outside hotels raging at ordinary people inside them: that’s the tragedy of this refugee controversy | Rowan Williams www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
1. They did it in Canada recently, and in the UK in 1963. 2. Manchester/the northwest, I assume. 3. No reason, but if I were a party member I'd prefer to take a punt on it than to carry on with this living death.
A new fascicle from one of the world's greatest lexicographical projects. Always a good day for scholarship!
Do you think a radical move such as parachuting in Andy Burnham as leader (with a radically shaken-up cabinet to follow) would improve the position? (It goes without saying that a new comms team is also vital.)
Lush. Mwynhewch!
The pusillanimity of the present Government is beyond belief. Radical change needed in that party urgently.
And a painting that 'appeared'!
Note the language in the Shropshire Star post: 'vandalised' with the "Love All, Stop Hate" message.
Eliot Ness for President
My wonderful colleague Lawrence Jones and I organised a symposium on Modernist Editing at Reading @cbcp-unirdg.bsky.social! We’ve got a DREAM lineup of leading scholars in textual scholarship, especially @greenbowlerhat.bsky.social! And we have a few travel bursaries. Details👇 Gonna be a fab day!
Indeed, and more recent examples and counter-examples should be in the mix too. (At the same time, it needs to be stressed that democracy is not reducible to the possession of a vote!)
In my final year at primary school, aeons ago, my class mirrored the GE campaign then taking place, with 'candidates' from all three (as they were) main parties. Brilliant. Key issues included fox hunting and the state of the school loos.
Not a good look
Today's new arrival, and it's hot stuff!
This is excellent. Languages matter for all kinds of reasons, and governments should be pressed to facilitate and encourage their take-up in schools and universities.
Llongyfarchiadau!
🏴 🇮🇪
Lovely tribute, Robin.
A great contributor to Neo-Latin studies too.
Just received the sad news that Michael C. J. Putnam has died, at the age of 91. Not only a Latinist of great distinction, but a lovely man. He will truly be missed.
Hm. That's strange. Frequently saw him on the Other Site back in the day too.
"Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick has attended a demonstration organised by a neo-Nazi party and posted a picture of himself with Eddy Butler of the founders of Combat 18, whose funds have been frozen for funding terror organisations." socialistworker.co.uk/anti-racism/...
Even before AI, there was far too much talk of 'knowledge' as a thing, a slab of stuff, and not nearly enough of 'understanding'.
Who needs protein powders? Build muscle with MGH.
Perfect emoji!
So right. Writing starts with ideas, but more importantly begets ideas, as we search for understanding.
Absolutely!
So which six wars has Trump ended, exactly? The Hundred Years' War? Peloponnesian War? War of Jenkins' Ear?
The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. One of the world’s greatest lexicographic projects, ongoing since the 1890s. Indispensable for Classical research.
sic subway tyrannis
Yup. Something I never used to quote when editing Classical Review, of course!
'The most expensive way to acquire a book is to agree to review it' - Momigliano (attrib.).
Honestly, these two restaurants are next to each other in Nelson Mandela Square, Sandton (the northern end of Johannesburg).
Philistines at a great university.
View from the lodge
The Welsh Government is making £30 million in additional funding available to local authorities to strengthen community-based social care services and improve hospital discharge processes
This morning on the edge of Kruger
Tonight on the edge of Kruger
Great idea!
⚠️ Seminar announcement: in semester 2 of the new academic year (Feb-May 2026), I will be teaching a 𝐒𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐧 𝐀𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐂𝐞𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 (SG648) in the Dept. of Early Irish (@ceilteachomn.bsky.social) at Maynooth University. Guests from outside are very welcome. More info ⬇️
The most surprising thing about our lovely safari lodge in South Africa is that all the other guests are Brazilian (and not a single group). BRICS solidarity.
06:39 this morning, Limpopo Province.
Our Johannesburg hotel in winter. (Also, for all the crazy traffic and the potholes, this city still has a fantastic vibe -- and the greatest shopping malls in the world, without exception.)
Ballito Bay at night
Spot. On.
I miss the unmatched subtlety of the alpha-gamma ...
Oddly, only used in History!
Please help me share the CFP for this Literature Compass Special Issue dedicated to the work of Simon J James and covering key Victorian and Edwardian writers like H. G. Wells, George Gissing, Dickens, Wilde, George Du Maurier, and Conan-Doyle on behalf of Hadas Elber-Aviram.
4* plus-query-plus, 4* double-plus, ad inf. ...
Good spot!
Daniel O'Connell. Born 250 years ago today.
Windy in Ballito today, but lovely in the sun! The stop at the Fordoun Hotel was also very good.
Ballito Bay
Snow on the Drakensberg
Saturday night in Jo'burg
Trust me, no Irish person has ever said 'Begorah'!
Absolutely nothing compared with the Irish.
😆
So honestly, Johannesburg is still one of the great cities for food and for shopping. Fantastic range of both here in Rosebank.
It's the hwyl that does it, Darryl!
It's rare to get it right. Even professional classicists can't necessarily be trusted!
Good luck! Apply for everything for which you're even vaguely a plausible candidate. Jobs only ever go to applicants!
Trust an Irish theologian to think ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation 'correct' for graduations! (Latin generally execrably pronounced either way at such events, actually, because the speakers have no idea where to place the word-accent. And no one ever asked me in 22+ years!)
Yes, and she’s quoting IMMA.
But I have a recollection of a former university president using it some years ago. What I find odd in English is the combination of 'abundance' and 'caution'. 'Abundance' normally connotes positivity, and is not (I think) commonly used with abstracts ('enthusiasm' an exception).
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/ju...
Interesting. But sounds very strange to me.
Isn't 'an abundance of caution' a very strange phrase?
Hole in one from David Trotter.
Coimbra
Indeed! And 34 Celsius ...
Not a terrible place to be attending a conference.
Renaissance cheese
You're most welcome.
The Roman emperor Claudius died in AD 54 after eating poisoned mushrooms -- this at any rate was widely believed by Roman writers of the time. It was very likely a deliberate act of murder by his wife Agrippina.
Less dramatic to rename it. I propose Beef Claudius.
One of my favourite views. Cardiff Bay.
Things are not what they used to be. No foot-warmers! Disgraceful.
Does it come with foot-warmers?
Looks fantastic!
Fabulous first episode of Three Transformations of Virginia Woolf on BBC Radio 4's Inner Lives slot just now. With Fiona Shaw, @markhussey.bsky.social, Michael Cunningham, Anna Snaith, and others. Very, very good.
The first step in building the new Cardiff university has been cuts of around 280 academic jobs and at least a dozen programmes, mostly from the arts and humanities, in a four-month manufactured crisis
Shelley’s prescient vision of Anarchy unleashed …
“It's the day! ...The longest day's begun ... and to-morrow's as long.… The summer solstice, you know.… After to-morrow the days shorten towards winter. But to-morrow's as long.… I'm so glad ...” Ford Madox Ford, Some Do Not… (1924)
There's a pervasive myth here in Wales that we live within a two-tier society - that Welsh language speakers have got it made. The media, the film industry, the council, you name it - it's a revolving door with jobs for the boyos ✍️ Stephen Price
Um, that was rather my original point.
But of course. But I wouldn't have photographers around to create an image susceptible of being interpreted in the way I suggested.
Oh dear. Humiliating photograph. G7 leaders are paralysed by their fear of upsetting Donald Trump | Rafael Behr www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
This. The bill is flawed. MPs have personal beliefs, but also solemn duties: that’s why they must reject the assisted dying bill this week | Gordon Brown www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
It’s a little early, it must be said …
Well, it makes for an excessive taste explosion, anyway. And probably destroys the subtlety of the Pinot Noir.