Hilary Mantel's Giving Up the Ghost is wonderful.

Banned from the radio after Princess Diana died: how Levellers made What a Beautiful Day ‘Its release seemed timely as the Tories had just left office. But then Diana died and all cheerful songs were taken straight off the radio. Boom! It disappeared’

www.theguardian.com/music/2026/a...

Very pleased to be part of @imperialmed.bsky.social's Our Stories project, talking with student Shreya Rai about belonging, class, imposter syndrome, financial inequality, and lots more besides:

www.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/stu...

#ourimperial

God almighty how many times does this need to be said?

It is NOT a question anymore. It is an observable reality.

Sometimes I feel unsure of myself, while other people go around in 2026 claiming to have invented the Afro

I think it is preferable to have politicians who have, at some point in their lives, lived like a normal person

It goes on to say “While the Oxford Local Plan generally protects ground floor retail uses within the city centre boundary, this specific site represents an anomaly.” 153 Walton Street is two doors from a property developers’ office.

Riverman Records frontage at 153 Walton Street

Walton Street’s much-loved second-hand vinyl store, Riverman Records, could be at risk. A planning application seeks to convert the shop into a one-bedroom flat, claiming ”removal of the discordant commercial frontage… [would] restore a traditional architectural rhythm to Walton Street”.

I mean, the later stuff maybe.

Why the em dash doesn’t prove a text was written by AI A clear look at the long hyphen—the em dash—and why its use doesn’t prove a text was written by AI. Includes explanation of British EN vs American EN.

A couple of years ago no one except the grammar nerds knew what an em dash was, and now clients are saying we should remove them because it looks like it was written by AI.

Alternative title: You can take the em dash out of my cold, dead hands.
englishtextservices.de/en/ai-em-dash/

Black and white photograph of a white man looking into the camera from a slight angle. He has light coloured eyes, light coloured hair that is cropped short apart from a longer section at the front, short stubble, and two black hoop earrings in one ear. He is wearing a black T shirt.

🎈Headpress 35th Anniversary Extravaganza🎈
Every event needs a good playlist, and @jasonbbernard.bsky.social will be curating ours to play between talks. Jason is a conceptual artist, writer, and the founder of Peripheral Minimal Records.

Tickets: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/headpress-...

Colour photograph of a white man looking into the camera. He wears rectangular framed glasses, has short blond cropped hair, and wears a black collared shirt over a black T shirt.

🎈Headpress 35th Anniversary Extravaganza🎈
Introducing our special guest: Jörg Buttgereit!

The cult director of #Nekromantik, Schramm, and Der Todesking joins us to launch the updated Sex Murder Art: The Films of Jörg Buttgereit by David Kerekes.

Tickets: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/headpress-...

Gorgeous! Here's one of our three.

Ha, how weird! I was also quite moved by the cat sunprint. Great little exhibition.

Weird feeling that we met in the exhibition! Did you chat to three women about the cat?

Oh, I loved this!

I don't know how to explain to the people who pop up when creatives complain about "AI" to say there are legit uses for it just how much they sound like someone saying "Well actually fire is used to make bread" when people are talking about an organized arson ring burning down their fucking houses

From Beyond the Grave: Jaw-crackin' Words YouTube video by Nick D

"Another piece of cake?" RIP Angela Pleasence. SYMPTOMS, of course, but also part of a marvellously creepy double-act, with her father, in this segment of FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE (1974)

Thank you @oxfordfolkfest.bsky.social for saying it loud and clear. Oxford welcomes diversity.

This is absolutely nuts

A photo of a newspaper clipping from the Bucks Advertiser, 1988. It depicts 'PC Payphone', a mascot of a payphone with a police officer's helmet. Children surround it looking either excited or scared, it's hard to tell really. A police officer is gesturing towards PC payphone.

Do you feel safe, child? No?

Time for you to meet PC Payphone who will set your mind at ease.

Energy In Northampton - Linda Jardim YouTube video by EvenThisNameTaken

Just remembered “Energy In Northampton”, a song commissioned by the Northampton Development Corporation to promote Northampton, in which aliens visit Northampton

Silently they came one night / attracted by the glowing light / their scanners led them to the town Northampton

youtu.be/4xKjGqefH7U

Colour photograph of a woman lookjng at the camera and smiling. She is white, has brown eyes, wears dark rimmed glasses, has brown shoulder length hair and red lipstick.

🎈Headpress 35th Anniversary Extravaganza🎈
Introducing our panelists: Jennifer Wallis @harbottlestores.bsky.social

Jennifer is the editor of Fight Your Own War and contributor to various Headpress titles, and joins our Music from the Margins panel!

Tickets: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/headpress-...

‘We’d all be in the destruction zone!’ Can anything stop today’s nuclear free-for-all? The Lib Dems’ Sue Miller has spent most of her life trying to reduce the risk of nuclear war. And it’s not going well. Why are so few people talking about non-proliferation, let alone disarmament?

"[A Chatham House study on nuclear near misses noted that] awareness should be improved as to the effects of nuclear weapons. It seems such a preposterous thing to have forgotten". Yep.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Would anyone like to review Sally Shuttleworth's new book In Quest of a Cure: Literary and Medical Cultures of the Health Resort (global.oup.com/academic/pro...)? Get in touch at bslsreviews@gmail.com if so.

Actually, presume this is the fault of Verso, and I'm maybe being unfair to Printforce?

One of three images, all showing variations on the same thing: close-up photo of book pages that include pixellated copies of a reader's annotations.

I've just noticed a curious thing in my copy of Thomas Richards' Commodity Culture of Victorian England (Verso edn): it includes scanned annotations from a previous copy! Don't use Printforce's print on demand services, I guess.

God, I love her so much. Just banger after bager.

She's in it purely for the love of the game and I respect that.

'I'm a British Donald Trump impersonator - I've been spat at for supporting him' Former postman Paul Cross, 64, opened a Donald Trump themed bar last year

Oh mate, you absolute wardrobe.

Warneford 200 Exhibition - Warneford 200 Warneford 200 Exhibition Step into 200 years of mental health care history in Oxfordshire and trace the story of the Warneford Hospital from its early 19th-century beginnings to its role today at the ...

Headington and east Oxford people: don't miss the Warneford Hospital 200 anniversary travelling exhibition at Brookes and Headington library until the 17th April!
warneford200.co.uk/events-calen...