Il adorait les chats, il en avait un qui s'appelait «Polémon» et qui avait le privilège de circuler au milieu de l'amoncellement des livres ou des revues.

For a second I thought Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869) had a cat named ‘Pokémon’.

Is Chucky still there? I remember seeing him over a year ago (and of course being utterly terrified).

Just checked and this is real - Scottish Labour’s manifesto refers to trans people using slurs and commits to a policy of explicit segregation in public life

😖

Cathedral of St Michael, Priory Street, Coventry - Sir Basil Spence, 1951-52. Grade I listed. Image credit: Diliff, Wikimedia Commons

🕊️ Happy Easter weekend from Coventry Cathedral (Basil Spence, 1951-52), one of the greatest works of 20th century British art and architecture.

I had to reboot my router for the site to work again for me, which I guess is definite proof that my IP had ended up in a naughty list.

Anche la Manica ormai è un piccolo Mediterraneo. Naufragi (due morti ieri), grandi statisti che pensano che l'indifferenza alla vita umana sia segno di intelligenza, squadracce. Un orrore. Poi però scopri anche che c'è gente normale, nel tuo quartiere, che va a fare volontariato a Calais.

Sir David Attenborough reveals the animal characters inhabiting the hidden world right on our doorsteps Secret Garden explores five very different locations across the UK

Looking forward to finding out from David Attenborough what kind of creature keeps pooing in my back garden.

😳

He'd been in the Navy, of course he knew everything about seamen!

Here in Brum they are so proud of their racism juste milieu that they've put it on their election newsletters!
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Sauf que depuis que les travaillistes ont perdu le soutien des minorités, ils viennent d'importer dans le discours public britannique les accusations de communautarisme et la bonne vieille islamophobie à la française, dont on se serait volontiers passé.

It is the year 2035. There is no food but every centre left politician has a podcast talking to a right wing politician. All are spiritually called That's Centretainment. Only the same 300 people listen to them, the rest of us save our phone battery for emergency broadcasts

London South Bank to create ‘two track’ academic workforce Staff to be divided into teaching and research roles, with new starters hired via subsidiary firm

The dismal tide accelerates, sweeping from Coventry through Sheffield Hallam to London South Bank. 1/2

As Israel prepares to implement the ‘Gaza model’ in Lebanon, where is the international reaction? | Ben Reiff This is not the time for empty condemnations but sanctions and arms embargos, says Ben Reiff, deputy editor of +972

As Israel prepares to implement the ‘Gaza model’ in Lebanon, where is the international reaction? | Ben Reiff

A quick reminder of Starmer's leadership pledge number 4.

Although, judging from the blurb for the guest's book, this is a different flavour of centrism from the long-90s one. No longer socially liberal, pro-market ‘openness’, but socially conservative with some vague gesturing towards economic populism. (Different but equally bankrupt, if you ask me.)

carte de Paris représentant la prévalence des votes pour Sarah Knafo montrant ses scores les plus élevés dans les 16e et 8e arrondissements

et cette extrême droite proche du peuple, elle est avec nous dans cette pièce ?

That's a picture from the 1830 revolution, which famously led to a juste-milieu liberal government, so, in fairness, it's well chosen.

The biggest conspiracy theory in the UK is the persistent belief in this gigantic group of deliberately unemployed lazy layabouts who live entirely off the largesse of the state, and whom have proved intractable to any of the policies designed to punish them back into work over the last 20 years.

Let's Stop Talking About The '30 Million Word Gap' It's one of the most famous studies ever done on kids. It's often cited as a reason children from poor families struggle in school. But it may be neither 30 million words, nor exactly a gap.

Ah, oui, c'est une idée reçue qui était très répandue dans l'Anglosphère il y a quelques années, fondée, évidemment, sur des études quelque peu douteuses… www.npr.org/sections/ed/...

On peut très bien ne pas aimer les dirigeant·es LFI, mais ce niveau de mépris pour l'*électorat* LFI est inacceptable.
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Interview d'Emmanuel Grégoire dans Libération: Ce n'est pas la première fois dans l'histoire que nous faisons des efforts en votant au deuxième tour, voire au premier, pour des gens qui ne représentent pas la totalité de nos engagements.

Précisément, le problème n'est pas qu'il faut «faire des efforts», c'est la façon dont ces efforts sont distribués. On demande toujours plus à ceux qui ont le moins de pouvoir: bien sûr que le monde est ainsi fait, mais à gauche, on devrait essayer de ne pas reproduire les inégalités de la société.

Antoine Oberdorff @A_Oberdorff 🔴 Info @lopinion_fr | Le probable désistement de Sarah Knafo au profit de Rachida Dati ne fait pas bouger d’un iota Emmanuel Grégoire, qui continue d’exclure toute fusion (même technique) avec l’insoumise Sophia Chikirou. 👉 Auprès de notre quotidien, la tête de liste du PS @egregoire réaffirme sa ligne : « Même avec le retrait de Sarah Knafo, je suis serein. Ça ne change rien, la politique c’est un sujet de constance, de cohérence et de clarté. Je ne définis pas ma stratégie en fonction de mes adversaires. On a fait le choix d’une union large de la gauche hors-LFI. Vis-à-vis du respect que je dois à mes électeurs, je ne bougerai pas. Maintenant, à Sophia Chikriou de prendre ses responsabilités. »

Grégoire parle de «respect [pour ses] électeurs». Le non-dit, c'est qu'il y a un électorat de gauche qui mérite le respect, et un autre (moins blanc, moins vieux, moins bourgeois) qui ne le mérite pas, et auquel on peut tranquillement demander de renoncer à être représenté.

This has been brought home to me again and again in my three years as a Reviews Editor: identify someone with perfect qualifications for reviewing a given publication, search for them, discover last known university position was five years ago.

Man, one of the most depressing aspects of modern scholarship is finding a great article and then looking up the scholar to see what else they’ve done and just catching a glimpse of an abbreviated career hopping between visiting positions and publishing great pieces before disappearing from academia

‘The law changed around me’: top Sudanese students blocked from UK universities by visa ban High-achieving applicants’ educational plans derailed by ‘emergency visa brake’

39 Sudanese Chevening Scholarship finalists ejected this week from consideration for the scheme, for being Sudanese.

Birmingham Labour leaflet: They [Reform] want to deport people who have played by the rules and lived here for decades — that's not about stopping boats. It's about ripping apart families and attacking our neighbours.

Classic Dril tweet: Turning a big dial that says ‘racism’ on it and constantly looking back at the audience for approval like a contestant on The Price Is Right.

Birmingham Labour really doing the meme here, aren't they.

The danger to my job from AI isn't that AI can do my job, it's that my job is made even more precarious by the way AI is shaping ideas of the value of work. It can't do my job, but it can be part of convincing people (incorrectly) that my job isn't necessary.

Mm, no, normalmente all'interno del Labour la hard left è l'ala sinistra del partito e la soft left il centro del partito (*non* l'ala destra). Poi questo è un tizio della destra non-Labour che fa il tifo per la destra Labour, quindi potrebbe usare le parole orwellianamente.