*Smiles broadly*

And the voluntary nature of the proposal raises questions in a crisis-ridden energy market where sellers have the upper hand.

Good news that Hopkins Architects have been commissioned to update Terry Farrell's Charing Cross/Embankment Place - after the continuing awfulness of the Liverpool St plans.

15 minutes; no questions; government got the blame; my department to have 60% of us sacked. Apparently sacking us will lead to a ‘new, improved’ curriculum. No voluntary scheme, straight to selection and legal minimum redundancy payment.

Palestinian Nonviolence Won’t Bring Peace Without Israeli Partners The best hope for building sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians will be a nonviolent movement on both sides.

I thought this, by @matthewcebul.bsky.social, was really good on this endlessly resurfaced trope.

We have other ways to practice being together on this earth.

Interdependence is not weakness.

Collaboration is generous and hospitable.

On the way to the shops: what feather, what bird? London #UKbirds

*The name of George Antonius's book is The Arab Awakening, not the Arab Revolt -- a reissue of this book is needed too.

Julius Malema: What next for South African opposition firebrand? The sentence raises huge questions marks over the political future of one of South Africa's most controversial politicians.

#BBCNews - What next for South African opposition 'firebrand' Malema after his five-year prison sentence?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The Lord was republished by @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social -- I hope there is a possibility of Antonius's second novel Where the Jinn Consult (1987) being republished too. #SorayaAntonius

Read it in a reading group, if you have one. If you read it on your own (it takes time to do this, though it is a short book) you will still be part of a group. #SorayaAntonius #Palestine #Lebanon #Books

Antonius's book adventurously written, without chapter headings, forcing the reader to inhabit a range of characters and positions, modes of speech; it is concerned with women's lives as well as men. /

At a moment when Israel has revised the death penalty law, continuities between colonial mindsets (and indeed the actual prisons used) are of course, relevant. /

Every page of the book is soaked with life experience and knowledge -- of the way journalism and the colonial administration meet, of the landscape, becoming through the 30s more and more divided between Palestine and Lebanon, and of British insouciance and violence. /

The Lord, Soraya Antonius, New York Review paperback, image a black and white photo of distant mountains, Palestine/ Lebanon

A page from the book focusing on the thinking of the fictional Challis, the chief of police intelligence (Mandatory Palestine, 1930s)

The Lord, 1986, is one of the two novels written by Soraya Antonius (1932-2017). It is a brilliant book that captures the disaster of Mandatory Palestine before the disaster itself (and after the other, earlier disasters of policy and execution documented by her father in The Arab Revolt, 1938). /

• Publisher/series: Haymarket Books — Historical Materialism book series
• Cover art and design: David Mabb
• Artwork: Construct 24, Morris, Medway / Rodchenko, Gas
• Medium: Wallpaper and montage mounted on canvas
• Year: 2006
• Reference: www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2813-h...

I reflect quite a lot on the almost total absense of discussion of empire in the house I grew up in, apart from very occasional references to Gandhi, & equally in the history we were taught at school (England, 60s/70s).

Some flea and tick treatments are extraordinarily toxic to wildlife, especially insects and aquatic invertebrates.

Critical Atlantic current significantly more likely to collapse than thought Scientists say finding is ‘very concerning’ as collapse would be catastrophic for Europe, Africa and the Americas

Terrifying. "A collapse would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which millions of people rely to grow their food, plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters & summer droughts, & add 50-100cm to already rising sea levels around the Atlantic." #Climate #Amoc
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Britain’s complicity with Israel in Lebanon and the West Bank | Letters Letters: Alexandra Lucas asks what has to happen for our government to act, rather than simply condemn Benjamin Netanyahu, while John Deards notes Alan Bennett’s prescience on Donald Trump

The letters page, and UK complicity. Alexandra Lucas: 'Lebanon is different. Three hundred people killed in 10 minutes is hard to ignore. So the message from Washington is simply: not like that. Keep it quiet. Take the land. Just don’t let people notice.'

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

This is pretty incredible! I am thinking about people painting themselves with it, as they raised their kids, as they lived out their complex social life

OMG 49000-yr-old mix of #ochre and antelope #milk for paint at #Sibudu

journals.plos.org/plosone/article

REVEALED: How Britain is shielding big oil's Iran war windfall Long read: Britain and its offshore territories are at the centre of oil industry tax avoidance

REVEALED: how Britain is shielding big oil’s Iran war windfall: open.substack.com/pub/abolishw... - by me

thanks -- I am quite good at that though a lot of other things go to pot

I interviewed the brilliant @stuhennigan.bsky.social about his debut #keshed @ortacpress.bsky.social. We chatted about his process, the complexities of writing class & addiction, blistering sentences, T.Harrison, Dylan Thomas, Pat Barker, punk poets & more. All thanks @minorliteratures.bsky.social.

It is one of the many plants that have 'common' as part of their name that you may have to look for rather carefully!

Time to read Ernaux's 'I Remain in Darkness'. I spent three hours repeating answers about basic family relationships and I made the classic mistake of disagreeing about my mother's account of a serious recent event.

Amy Levy . . . just started reading her this year.

History: AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Studentship in History with Museum Wales (RS949) - Swansea University We offer a wide range of funded and fully funded research scholarships in all subject areas. Explore your options and apply now.

Fully-funded AHRC PhD scholarship at Swansea: the history of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Wales, 1945-1994.
www.swansea.ac.uk/postgraduate...

Side view of base of sculpture, showing how the wings of the figure are supported by two unequal and separated parts.

Front view of sculpture, on side of John Lewis. It is made of aluminium I think.

The plinth of Barbara Hepworth's Winged Figure, 1963, is of high interest. It indicates to the viewer that the figure has notional feet, one forward of the other, almost taking a step, as in Ancient Egyptian sculpture. No wings without feet. #sculpture #plinths #C20