What does it mean for us being human when a massacre does not stop you in your tracks? In this essay I examine the various ways in which scholars have tried to imagine the undoing of the endless night of the Zong, the undoing of a world we cannot live within.
folukeafrica.com/what-you-do-...
The Poet Laureate of the UK is famous for his translation of St Gawain and the Green Knight, and Kym once got up on stage, looked him straight in the eye, and then performed this.
Unsurprisingly enough, every time they've encountered each other since, he's remembered them.
Workers don’t vote for 5 consecutive bouts of industrial action with a 75% turnout unless something is seriously wrong. Solidarity with all in Unite UCU ✊🔥
All the solidarity!
🚨 FIFTH consecutive vote for industrial action 🚨
🔥 Two week ballot window
🔥 75% turnout
🔥 73% YES to strike action
🔥 81% YES to ASOS
Our members will not tolerate victimisation and won’t be intimidated.
UCU staff are not the enemy. It’s beyond time for the GS to talk to us.
#HandsOffMarie
A governance structure which is run on pleasing one man incentivises people to hide things that aren’t pleasing, make unrealistic pitches & hope the consequences won’t be for you, and refrain from asking critical but needed questions.
In the absence of actual checks, you end up with crazy costings
What *did* they do all day? Because this feels like a key part of the job, the whole ‘knowing what’s going on’ bit?
UK unis: we need to pay mid-six figure salaries to the people in charge, because it is imperative we get the best and brightest to lead us.
Also UK unis: It isn't reasonable to expect us to do anything to solve any of our problems, or even to check whether a new problem might be brewing.
Excellent article: shows small-mindedness of punishing universities here on narrow, insular metrics out of their control. Seeing benefits of a degree in global terms changes conversation (+ it won’t be 2026 forever).
(And in any case UK grad salaries still 45% premium on non grad: not nothing)
Turns out (says @jburnmurdoch.ft.com) it's not so much an oversupply of graduates in the UK (the same would be true of other similar countries but it's not) as an undersupply of the kind of jobs that a better-performing, more productive economy would supply.
A Dr who did nothing other than exist while being trans, being driven from the NHS by bigots and bullies, being hailed as a win.
This is the UK.
New from Penguin Classics on 13 October: Mary Shelley’s Gothic Tales, edited and introduced by Daniel Cook (paperback, Ebook and audiobook): www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/788598...
Audible: www.audible.co.uk/pd/B0GM5TSRR...
In incredible news, the European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly for "The Full Recognition Of Trans Women As Women."
Even the center-right European People's Party voted for the declaration.
It will form a foundation for their position at the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
Our latest.
Did you read all the way through your @royalhistsoc.org newsletter? If not you may have missed my CFP! royalhistsoc.org/calendar/nos...
just reset mine on here! I LOVE having the pronoun labeler, it's so useful to make sure I'm always referencing people respectfully and correctly. please please go do this!
Former senior manager here who got promoted to VC at another university said in a public town hall: "If it looks we're making up as we go along, that is because we're making up as we go along across the sector."
But sure, let that lot run/ruin the entire #UKHE sector.
On the new #WutheringHeights film.
I've co-curated an exhibition (Bronte Parsonage Museum) showing what the Bronte children read & wrote (they invented their own colonies) & how Wuthering Heights was inspired by their colonial reading material.
www.bronte.org.uk/news/new-exh...
@ucunorthumbria.bsky.social are on strike 12, 13, 17-19 Feb and 2-6 March to stop bosses @northumbriauni.bsky.social slashing pay and pensions forever. Please donate to the branch fighting fund here: Unity Trust Bank, UCU Northumbria Univ NE119, Hardship Fund, SC 608301, AN 20295578
This breaks my heart: ‘If I think about what this means, I want to cry’: what happens when a city loses its university? www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Forcing staff out of their pension scheme and threatening dismissal if they object is shameful. It’s fire & rehire by another name.
Show your support for staff at Southampton Solent University striking on 9 & 17 February to protect retirement security. www.ucu.org.uk/article/1439...
yup. yup. yup. to all this by the brilliant @lboroucu.bsky.social members: our bosses WANT us atomised, you can see it in all their actions. They know they have to treat us better when we work together, as we have power that way.
I'm standing for election for Vice President of UCU.
👇This is why.
I am standing for a stronger and more democratic UCU led by ordinary members.
See seanwallis.uk
On uculeft.org you can read about our other candidates, and follow @uculeft.bsky.social
www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6ZX...
It’s @ucu.org.uk NEC election time again. Please read my election address and consider giving me your vote www.ucu.org.uk/article/1436.... Please also vote for Sean Wallis for Vice President HE seanwallis.uk @seanawallis.bsky.social
Vital case of University of Sussex vs Office for Students is in the High Court this week. The results will matter for all of us given the OfS's overreach and directions of travel.
Back to back kid football and shinty - she needs to be prepared and would appreciate the hug
Photo of a black and bronze Jack Russell terrier in a scarf
Sending you all the good wishes, and a dog of commiseration. I’m so sorry.
Trans and non binary people make up about 1% of the population but 43% of youth suicides.
The government has blood on its hands
@rikiwilchins.bsky.social 2026 Jan 29 PinkNews: Despite strong lobbying efforts by anti-trans Sex Matters, human rights body Council of Europe votes 3-to-1 to ban ‘conversion therapy’ across its 26 member states. UK Labour MP Kate Osborn brought the motion & 10k ppl in UK wrote in support of it.
As a proud former @ucu.org.uk @birminghamucu.bsky.social safety rep I know how scary it can be to stand up for workplace safety. I urge @drjogrady.bsky.social to work with @uniteucu.bsky.social @unitetheunion.bsky.social to resolve this case
Photo of Marie, Unite UCU's health and safety rep, who is being victimised by her trade union employer
📣 Hands off Marie!
Tell @drjogrady.bsky.social and @ucu.org.uk to stop victimising Unite UCU's safety rep.
✍️ jgrady@ucu.org.uk
#HandsOffMarie
#UniteTheUnion @unitetheunion.bsky.social
