I really enjoyed it. My friend @apstrange.bsky.social put me onto it.
There's a rich history of UFO encounters in Scotland. These accounts should be preserved for cultural and historical purposes. There's so many other people in different countries doing similar things.
Well worth checking out if you're into Scottish ufology.
I really enjoyed this recording this podcast episode on Scottish UFOs: the host, Rick Palmer, had lots of thoughtful questions for me, and he also has a great backlist of previous conversations with academics studying paranormal culture @davidwclarke.bsky.social @glasgow.ac.uk
The new 'Edinburgh Companion to Alasdair Gray and the Arts' @edinburghup.bsky.social, edited by Marie Hedon, Camille Manfredi, and Kirsten Stirling, is now available for pre-order!
Episode 149 is out this week! My guest is @drgavinmiller.bsky.social who joined me to talk about his research on the history of UFOs in Scotland. We discuss how UFO interest developed in the country, along with some the people, practices and organisations involved. Out on Wednesday! #Podcast #UFOs
Lee Murray and I have an interview with Georgia Walton from @uofglasgowasc.bsky.social British Horror and Psychologization Project. This is a follow up conversation after our recent article in @psychmag.bsky.social
Here’s the link:
horror.glasgow.ac.uk/bonus-interv...
Worse than limited opening hours, it's the withdrawal of 2/3 of the archive for curiosity-driven research that is the real scandal for what is supposed to be a public-service organization.
A great interview here between George Walton and two horror authors in the BPS magazine, The Psychologist (also to appear in the print issue in due course)
Some reflections here from Georgia Walton on the somewhat obscure(d) figure of Freddie Francis, whose movies we've recently been enjoying as part of the project.
I'm so excited that the short story collection I've been working on with @oliverklangmead.bsky.social has been picked up by @lunapress.bsky.social . It comes out of my work with the @wellcometrust.bsky.social -funded Future of Human Reproduction @lancasteruni.bsky.social.
Oh my god it is actually out - like actually now. Over a week early! They snuck it out without telling me! lol.
Well, here it is people, and you can download the whole thing for free - thanks to @wellcometrust.bsky.social
Fill your boots: www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mon...
'And, if we become gripped by this type of fear, our minds
are opened wide to the psychological suggestion that we
too are at risk of invasion by similar powers of evil.'
- A pamphlet distributed by campaigners at screenings of The Exorcist (Ban this Filth! Letters from the Mary Whitehouse Archive)
This week I’ve been chatting with Dave Jeffrey and Lee Murray, whose recent collection This Way Lies Madness has been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award @horrorwritersassoc.bsky.social. Congratulations to them! 🎉🎉🎉Read more about the collection over on our blog horror.glasgow.ac.uk/this-way-lie...
New post now live on the project blog. Follow this link (horror.glasgow.ac.uk/herbert-read...) to learn more about how art critic Sir Herbert Read thought about the horror comics controversy of the 1950s
The cover of the book "Unsuitable Film and Video Audiences: Underage Viewing Memories and Practices in 1980s United Kingdom" with an image from the movie POLTERGEIST of a girl sitting in front of a large TV, her hands both on the screen.
GenX Brits, get ready to revisit your night terrors, secret softcore, and video nasties. @ilovethatfilm.bsky.social's "Unsuitable Film & Video Audiences" revisits the memories of the first generation to grow up with home video. @edinburghup.bsky.social
edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-unsuita...
The Turkish sauna in the Arlington Baths Club, Glasgow is 150 years old, and I'm giving a lecture on the history and context of the baths on 13 March 2026 at 7pm.
Typeset in InDesign by my own hand, with cover slide (courtesy of A. Gray, who sent it in the post) scanned at UoE's King's Buildings so I could drop it into Photoshop. Mercifully, publishers do that kind of thing for us now. No more laboriously etching each page into half a potato, like we used to.
This looks like a cracking issue of @c21literature.bsky.social - especially interested in the pieces on stuckness, technology and Wikipedia.
A really interesting article on Wikipedia and fiction by Kiron Ward in @c21literature.bsky.social, published by @openlibhums.org.
Complements nicely the article on Wikipedia and the Novel by Ryan Ruby in the current issue of New Left Review.
c21.openlibhums.org/article/id/2...
Cover of C21 Literature, Volume 12, Issue 3 (2026), titled The Century at 25.
New C21Literature @c21literature.bsky.social special issue: “The Century at 25”, guest edited by Alice Bennett, Arin Keeble, Melissa Schuh and Denise Wong:
c21.openlibhums.org/issue/1422/i...
We are looking for review essays! You can see some of our selected titles at the post below. Get in contact with our review editors @heyitsdenisew.bsky.social and @olihaslam.bsky.social to request some or for further info
Some Other Sphere returns next week with the first episode of 2026! My guest is author and academic Alice Vernon, who joined me to discuss her new book 'Ghosted: A History of Ghost Hunting and Why We Keep Looking'. Available next Wednesday! @alicevernon10.bsky.social #Podcast #Paranormal #Ghosts
This is a very good piece on the policy changes at the BBC Written Archives at Caversham, which have closed off most of the archive even to established researchers. It may seem a small thing, but it’s indicative of the wider assault on public institutions. Do read & sign the petition.
A hand holds a copy of the book in a bookshop
Today's pick for my paperbacks of the year is @oliverklangmead.bsky.social's Calypso: epic space scifi... as an epic poem!
It's so unusual and creative: a tale of a character awakening from cryosleep on a colonising spaceship, but the narrators & style make this something really special.
📚💙🪐
Great to see our project well underway. Our thanks as ever to @leverhulme.ac.uk for funding this Research Project Grant.
Thrilled to announce our new issue, Novel Media/Media Novel, edited by Dong Xia and Sandro Eich:
c21.openlibhums.org/issue/1286/i...
One of our reviews editors @heyitsdenisew.bsky.social has a book out! Congratulations Denise!
Happy Halloween! My interview with @historyextra.bsky.social is quoted in this article about the infamous Harry Price and his Borley Rectory investigation. Mollie Goldney, his secretary and fellow ghost-hunter, deserves just as much research and discussion!
www.historyextra.com/period/victo...
Philip Larkin’s this be the verse mangled into Ozymandias, the text reads They Oz you up, your mandyias. They may not mean to, but they do. They give you vast and trunkless legs A sunken shattered visage too. But they were Ozzed up in their turn By Mandyias upon the sand Who half the time had wrinkled lips And half in sneering cold command. Oz hands on mandyias to man. Like mighty works atop a shelf Look on them early as you can Ye mighty and despair yourself
