Channeling this classic XKCD comic (with apologies to Randall Munroe for my edits here) as I review my chapter comments that read "include a map, no one but you knows where these sites are"

More on the state of British academia.

Such cruelty and brutalisation effected through these processes that are dismantling disciplines and universities in the face of governmental indifference

I'm in it too 😎

Book cover of Being a University by Ronald Barnett.

"But spirit-as-flame is only possible amid air. Crowd out the air and the flame dies, and the spirit with it. Increasingly, the air is being sucked out of universities as they become more corporate, more bureaucratic and more managed." (Barnett: Being A University, p.153)

Having to empty the house of my former partner who died in late 2024. Lots of amazing books, journals free to rehome but also rare books for sale including ‘Monumenta Palaeographica Vindobonensia’ vols 1 and 2. Please comment on this post if interested #booksky #palaeography

Excellent news!

The modules, funded as part of the @rewildarch.bsky.social project led by Dr Anwen Cooper of OA, will help users to engage with and present palaeoenvironmental data in engaging and interesting formats without compromising accuracy 🌱

We are looking at the lid of a burr birch wood tankard carved with a derpy looking lion going about his business with a frankly terrifying grimace on his face but with a curly tail and a confident stride. This lion is not bothered that it is Monday.

We are looking at the lid of a burr birch wood tankard carved with a very smiley lion confidently striding along with his curly tail up and a perfectly coiffured mane. He doesn't care that it is Monday as every day is Friday at 4.55pm to him.

Twinnies!

What function did ~100k-year-old engravings from Blombos Cave & Diepkloof serve? Decoration, identity marking, proto-writing? osf.io/preprints/ps... uses transmission chains + cognitive experiments to find out & help answering one of the hardest questions in cognitive archaeology. long thread! 1/

Register to vote Register to vote to take part in elections in the UK. Includes how to get on the electoral register and how to update your address on the register.

THE DEADLINE TO REGISTER TO VOTE IN MAY IS TONIGHT

go get em folks

www.gov.uk/register-to-...

A screen shot of the webpage showing information relating to this talk. There is a photo of brightly coloured mineral samples on a black background. The text reads ‘mineral and Earth pigments in art and architecture - public lecture, 21 July 2016, 18.00-19.00, virtual and Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W1J 0BG’.

I’ll be giving a public lecture on mineral pigments in art @geolsoc.bsky.social on the evening of 21st July. You can attend in person or watch online. Registration details in the link below
www.geolsoc.org.uk/events/miner...

One of my favourite local farm fields, such a resource for pollinators. Acres of Dandelions & Lady's smock. #wildflowerhour

It really is. I didn’t think anyone could have grown up in the last 50 years without reading the very hungry caterpillar!

In the same field Black Grass, Alopecurus myosuroides, already ahead of the cereal crop! #WIldFlowerHour

Greater Stichwort, Rabelera (Stellaria) holostea, at the edge of a traditional hay meadow in Dorset #wildflowerhour

I knew someone who had told a small child that caterpillars turn into butterflies, and the father threatened to punch them for ‘telling lies’.

With early season dandelions blooming in St. Paul, I find myself remembering a person I once encountered who believed that yellow blooming dandelions were a different species of flower than the fluffy seedhead dandelions. Truly an extraordinary lack of natural curiosity.

Everything Will Swallow You, with an owl bookmark.

Everything Will Swallow You, with a Green Man bookmark.

Everything Will Swallow You, with a chicken bookmark.

THREAD. Today I'm giving away 3 signed hardbacks of my latest book, each with fab linoprint bookmarks, made by my mum Jo.

Repost & reply to enter.

You might like it if you like:
Folkloric creatures
Old records
Intricate psychedelic stories
The idea of circular time

All shares much-appreciated.

It is always nice to stumble across a healthy patch of Fir Clubmoss (Huperzia selago) #botany

Duke of Burgundy flying at Butser Hill - Hants today

Blossom

It's the first warm weekend of spring. All the shoots are bright green, the apple is in blossom, lilacs and wisteria starting to open up their scent, bluebells carpeting the woods. I hope Heaven is this vision of Eden. I love this time of year.

Tremendously depressing read. Also: proper reporting.

open.substack.com/pub/londonce...

A blackened preserved pine cone.

Pine cone

Found Spanish Armada shipwreck
- La Trinidad Valencera.

Useful as a source of food & fuel.

Since crew members cooked their own food, the pine nuts could be eaten & the cones used for fuel on the cooking fires.

Now Ulster Museum, Belfast

#archaeology

Anyone working in history of comedy/satire, television, modern British politics - there's a fully funded PhD to research the Spitting Image archive @theul.bsky.social, with supervision at Exeter Uni. All disciplines considered, pls do share widely.
www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin...

Still looking for an interested survey maker. Makes a better @britishacademy.bsky.social small grant application when the self-employed is named and contributes to the methodology set-up. And has a CV. #MCRHumNetwork

It’s 76 years since the world was robbed of Gerald Tyrwhitt, aka Lord Berners, who was responsible for this splendidly weird building

And available as a free download here

www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress...

“Medieval Rural Settlement and Infrastructure Archaeology Across Europe” (eds. 2026, by Carenza Lewis, Neil Christie, Gareth Davies, Aidan O'Sullivan)
Available for a period at reduced price, use website and voucher code as below

www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress...

Game cover image for The Sēance of Blake Manor. The style is that of a Gothic graphic novel. In the background, there is an imposing grey manor house with a full moon above it. The clouds that are wrapped around the moon resemble a skull with the moon being one glowing eye. In the foreground, a man dressed in somber 1890s attire is looking at a piece of paper for clues. Behind him, there is a looming rock bearing a sigil. All rights to this image belong to Spooky Doorway and/or Raw Fury, but I thought you'd like to see it.

Eldest and I are playing The Séance of Blake Manor, and the world-building and available historical and topical information is just staggering. It's like wading into what you think is a shallow lake only to step off a ledge and sink 20 feet.

I'm still not entirely sure what form the antagonist is.

2/2 Photos: Parmelia sulcata across pebbles which have Rhizocarpon reductum & R. richardii; bivalve shell with Xanthoria parietina. If you asked "where do you find lichens?", most people would say woods & churchyards, and in British Lichen Society records mostly come from woods & churchyards,

To the left (west) of the fence rich lichen-clad vegetated shingle (fenced off); right (east) less lichen-rich shingle (where people can walk).

Rhizocarpon reductum var. fibriata

Flavoparmelia caperata

1/2 Church Norton Spit, vegetated shingle, Pagham Harbour, West Sussex. I volunteer as a ranger here frequently to protect the nesting birds. Photos: fenced off area (left) of lichen-rich shingle; Rhizocarpon reductum var. fimbriata on pebble (10x mag); Flavoparmelia caperata; Cladonia rangiformis