BBC Proms 2026 presents 86 concerts over eight weeks with every note broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds, and 24 Proms programmes on BBC TV and iPlayer The BBC Proms 2026 run from Friday 17 July to Saturday 12 September at London’s Royal Albert Hall and venues across the UK with more than 70,000 tickets at £8

The BBC Proms schedule is out! The first born is on stage on the 8th of August with the amazing teenagers of the NYO. Come listen! www.bbc.com/mediacentre/...

I went to see my son and his friends in the National Youth Orchestra perform this weekend. Many of the teenage boys (and girls) were in tears backstage- moved by Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. 160 teenagers playing their hearts out on stage. Felt a glimmer of hope after the relentlessness of 206.

And our institution just did an exercise called Assessment Futures to reduce the total number of assessments in the first place. Plus there is huge pressure on professional services staff anyway…

So the impulse behind this is very good but as someone who tried to actually implement this, there are several practical questions to answer. Including at my institution how you actually submit this portfolio with different components in different formats.

What if they don’t submit the process? Do we deduct marks? (at Surrey where they are introducing this whole scale I think they can only deduct 10% when I last checked). What about anonymity if they are submitting audio and video evidence?

Having looked at this very closely, the workload implications are huge. I have to provide feedback multiple times. Am I assessing the process only or both? What happens if the process is great but the product is not and vice versa? Is it just a percentage we set aside for the process?

Well I thought of you, among others when I read it this morning!

I am not convinced their financial argument is correct either. Surely if we have a decent number of EU students paying home fees, that is better than a small handful paying international fees?!

Podcast with Rian Thum, author of “Islamic China: An Asian History” Can someone be Chinese and Muslim? For some academics, this has been a surprisingly fraught question, with some asserting that Chinese Muslims are not really Chinese, or not really Muslim.

Drops today: this week's ARB @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social podcast features Rian Thum, author of “Islamic China: An Asian History” @harvardpress.bsky.social asianreviewofbooks.com/podcast-with...

We miss you too! All the very best with your campaign.

I put on my lawyer hat for this piece on time limits under Indian citizenship legislation, and ongoing constitutional challenges in the Indian Supreme Court for Statelessness and Citizenship Review:

statelessnessandcitizenshipreview.com/index.php/jo...

Mike is a former colleague and will be an amazing councillor. This is very exciting!

A square image with a pink background. The logo for Democracy Classroom is in the bottom right-hand corner. In the bottom left is the title "A roadmap to votes at 16". From the title is a snaking path which has groups of cartoon people clustered along it. Some groups are holding discussions; one is in a classroom; one is on a protest; and the final is queuing at a polling booth.

Another pink square with the democracy classroom logo. There is a large block of text which says "Launching the roadmap to votes at 16, a shared vision to support young people to engage in democracy". There is a smaller cartoon image of two women helping each other carry a large object up a flight of stairs.

🚨 Launching: A Roadmap to Votes at 16 🚨

Kaat Smets and @jamessloam.bsky.social contributed to A Roadmap to Votes at 16 🗳️ - a report co-created with organisations, teachers, youth workers and young people to make Votes at 16 a success.

👉 Read the full report: docsend.com/view/9nnhamt...

In recent years, Jinal Parekh and @antaradatta.bsky.social have published on aspects of the ‘virginity testing’ practice that had not been studied explored yet. For example, they wrote about the Indian response in this article for @globalhistjnl.bsky.social

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Shame on all those news channel that would quote the death tolls with the caveat: ‘according to the Hamas controlled Gaza Health Ministry’ to cast doubt.

The teenager who once asked me if I had ‘ever heard of a cricketer called Rahul Dravid’ has also just asked me if I’d heard of the Weimar Republic…?!

A colleague introduced me to Gill Sans MT and now it’s my default font on Word. I think it’s both pretty and readable.

Like with everything else it sort of depends on the baby. One of mine would have loved it, the other would have hated it.

After my time. My friends have sworn by it. And in the newborn phase it has helped them a lot. It is also mega bucks so…(my most expensive purchase was my lightweight Bugaboo and frankly we used it every single day for both kids…).

If handing someone their arse, was a video clip

Excited our department seminar tomorrow is @duncanbell.bsky.social on #Socialism and #Telepathy: Group Minds and Freedom in Interwar British Political Thought. The talk takes place 1-2pm in McCrea 2-01, all welcome.

Apparently my copy is on the way! Congratulations @kalathmika.bsky.social!

In NICUs we generally don’t stay overnight. We could visit any time we wanted though in the two hospitals we were in. Funnily enough he’s now 8 (and absolutely fine- all hail modern medicine) and still hates bed sharing…🤣

You have to stay and sleep with your child in the general paeds wards and despite the generally excellent care, it is usually hell. (Not to mention that you have a sick child…).

Yes so again pumps are available but we often have to rent hospital grade ones (I did). And yes there are chairs but sitting in those for hours is impossible. I’ll be honest and say I have found the NICUs to be relatively better equipped than the paeds wards.

As a former NICU mum of a 26 weeker, a lot of the money we raise provides for what I suppose are deemed extras- incubator blankets, parents’ coffee rooms, nicer reclining chairs for breastfeeding etc.

New on advance access: "Air Travel, Statelessness, and the Rights Claims of Ugandan Asians, c.1973"

by @riakapoor.bsky.social (@qmul.bsky.social)

#OpenAccess

doi.org/10.1093/past...

And also helped me think through something I am writing about repatriation at the end of WW2 and thinking through the state’s intransigence versus the refugees’ creative use of their circumstances.

I read it yesterday and really enjoyed it. Particularly the contrast between the state’s pejorative view of queue jumpers and ‘shuttlecocking’ versus how the displaced saw these as opportunities.