“What are you in for?”

“Felony bralessness”

😭🤬😤

In 2017, Southampton's only two 2014 REF-table-topping departments, Music and Nursing and Midwifery, were subjected to VS schemes under the threat of compulsory redundancy (2 of over 2 dozen consultations btw). Guess in which departments the UCU branch pres (me) and VP were in?

UK HE, everyone. Will Labour ever acknowledge this crisis?

Thinking this has the requisite features from all three panels, especially tritones with a muffled Pang of Foreboding youtu.be/KJsvMYfVZ3I

This feels personal. Also perfect. #nuntastic

It’s perfect

Constantly reminded of this Ted Chiang passage on capitalism, technology and progress from the New Yorker whenever I see the tech “elite” snowflaking about criticism.

The live Europa Q&A with archaeologist @aalekas.bsky.social.

And what a corker it was! We went from immigration policy, operatic deaths, and immaculate conception, to ancient tax havens, property theft, and flying penises.

🎧 open.spotify.com/episode/2W8X...

🍏 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...

or Tim Roth (this post is brought to you by 2010)

And... Was just saying last night that when we sold 6K copies of *Sacred Hearts* (because of the tie-in with Sarah Dunant's novel) in 2009, that was 10x what you'd think was an excellent number to shift for a classical CD. Now, it's foolish to consider pressing even 300, let alone 500...

I am never crowdfunding again. It was cool while it lasted, but it's just not worth the 24/7 effort for weeks on weeks.... Probably could make more driving an Uber.

And that's what it costs to produce a quality recording and to pay everyone properly, feed and accommodate them....

REJOIN "is the rational and the patriotic approach," Neil Kinnock says at the launch of @bestforbritain.org's new report. "In an era of Trump's tariffs and tantrums, colossal Chinese advance, Russia's war on the West, and turmoil in the Middle East, our 'special relationship' has to be with Europe."

Vance keeps making it clear that he was taught to understand Catholicism as a set of loopholes and get-out-of-Hell-free clauses, which oddly is the very caricature that people used to cite to oppress and exclude Catholics in America. Now it's "Humble fidelity? No, arrogant casuistry!"

BBC News is going very hard on its investigation into advisers who help people ‘fake’ asylum claims, focusing especially on people who falsely claim to be gay. But it doesn’t say what percentage of claims are made on the basis of sexuality. As of 2023 — the last available figures — it was 3%.

Women make up half of this world and The Cleveland Orchestra spared 30 minutes combined across 23 concert programs in Severance for pieces written by women.

Trump. Camp and evil.
Antichrist Liberace.
Act Five is coming.

The thing that stuck with me from that book is the idea that we can’t possibly imagine what comes after capitalism while we are in it - but maybe now, 15 years later, we can get some kind of hopeful post-petrochemical glimmer?

Um… I don’t think this is what Terry Eagleton had in mind re the end of capitalism in “Why Marx Was Right” but…

The End of Capitalism? We might miss it once it's gone

Of the many things I didn't expect to live to see, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America working together to end capitalism may be the least expected.
arthursnell.substack.com/p/the-end-of...

For me, as a kid I was at a Sadlers Wells production of Butterfly, in which Pinkerton did not come on for the curtain call. No one knew why. Apparently he’d had a heart attack but carried on to the end of the show. Died next day en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H...

This was shared recently on another platform. Opera, not symphony, but it’s still sublime writing about a truly unforgettable performance.: tryst-cottage.net/levin.html

Electronic music concert in grad school featuring music for Disklavier (player piano); at the end of a contemplative work, nobody was at the piano but it spontaneously burst out in “Surrey With A Fringe On Top” from “Oklahoma!”. Later in the same show, the fire alarm went off.

Yet another example of the shameless dishonesty of framing anti-trans campaigners as pro women's safety campaigners. There are no trans women in NI women's jails. There are, however, men and women held together in Larne House immigration detention centre. Not a peep from this lot about that.

A great moment to remember why Scruton's FT column came to an abrupt end.

anyone teaching L’Arianna - esp if you are using the last chapter of my Ferrara book - please get your students to listen to this!! Women on the water’s edge, indeed

Forgot Alt text. Feminist killjoy cake!

It's mostly loud bigots with a lot of money behind them. I can't overestimate the point to which there is capital-m Money behind the anti-trans lobby. People have paid employment in being anti-trans. It's no wonder they have the time and capability for lawfare, media work, etc.