Beatles and entourage at tea in Bangor, Gwynedd. Wonder if Mick was invited?
You know what? I dont think i have. This might be the greatest one. Especially if, like me, you have a Welsh-things bias.
Can you think of a better one?
Occasionally they surprise you out of nowhere, though. Like the surprisingly detailed conversation I had about Grange Hill last week. Unexpected.
Just walked by a colleague's classroom after my class finished and he was talking about Elvis, getting blank stares and so he had to ask "Does anyone know who Elvis Presley is?"
It's rough out here on these teaching streets.
I think it's simultaneously this and the fact that many enthusiasts seem to have a narrow sense of what job tasks are/can look like. There's a lot of "you don't understand what AI can do" coming at some of us and a legitimate response is "you don't understand what I can do, and need to, in my job."
HELPFUL FLOWCHART
Are you a dude who is about to reply guy mansplain an expert woman on Bluesky?
/ \
Yes No
/ \
Don't Good
To be fair, I did leave myself open to that interpretation.
The interviews at Crufts are so cringe. Nice dog but ...
Hi #EarlyModern Bluesky - did you know that someone brilliant has built working printing presses using Lego and they are trying to get enough supporters so that Lego will release it as a kit?
They look so cool!
beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...
It's right to be critical but the best way to actual shift ideas is always by dialogue rather than being provocative for the sake of it. I get impression that things have already shifted significantly and the report does not recognise this or the people who have done that work.
I don't doubt the good intentions behind it but the way it hasn't involved osteologogists etc. and others who work on these issues on a day to day basis is quite shocking.
For what it's worth this is my full quote. I would love to understand from @ukri.org why this call has been restricted to 4 weeks (with no advanced warning) going against it's own EDI commitments. The response so far doesn't explain why only 4 weeks nor why not 8 weeks.
There is arguably no public figure in Manchester - not even the mayor Andy Burnham - whose role matters as much to the prosperity of the city as the one held by Ivison, a 6o-year-old Canadian academic who wears a hangdog expression and speaks with the pleasing precision of a political scientist. The University of Manchester employs more than 12,000 staff and brought in £1.4 billion last year, more income than Manchester City and Manchester United combined. Its research makes waves around the world. Its 46,000 students are so pivotal to the economics of the city that when Ivison was recruited in 2023, Manchester's council leader was part of the hiring process. When the BBC's economics editor Faisal Islam analysed Manchester's success recently, he noted that along with MMU, it makes up Europe's biggest university campus. "Everything comes back to this," wrote Islam, a Mancunian himself. "The knowledge and the educated workforce are the essential raw ingredient upon which this growth has emerged."
Striking statistics on the importance of the University of Manchester @manchestermill.bsky.social MCC has long recognised this (as did NWDA with Martin Harris on its Board) although initially more as a tool of physical regeneration (eg via the merger with UMIST)…
On the back of being quoted I was contacted by a research administrator at a different Uni. She wants to stay anonymous. She has worked on this call all weekend. She didn't feel able to say no. Nor did the researchers. Unlike them she will not benefit in any material way if her Uni wins this money.
Graduate outcomes are also shaped by factors not considered here: family income, parental education, social capital, mobility, and ability to move to London and other high-pay regions.
This captures a lot of my thoughts, well done @boothicus.bsky.social. This FoI campaign seems to be deliberately stirring up trouble based on poor data rather than a genuine attempt to help solve some of these well known issues.
An expert, balanced & realistic thread on the Guardian human remains article
like to think I lead complex emotional life but then the sun comes out and i am happy. i am functionally no different from a big leaf
I think about this a lot
Good to see Guardian highlighting this, and always worth remembering how many curators, academics, and activists of colour (often women) have spoken and campaigned on this topic for many years. 📜
Yep
Thanks. I sometimes feel like I'm going mad when I see fellow historians going with it uncritically.
The collaborative approach seen the work of Angela Stienne with several museums, the partnerships Derby Museums made with Egyptian curators and schools around their recent Displaced exhibition etc. It's quiet and important work that doesn't provide evidence for a REF impact case study.
So while there *is* an issue that needs to be adressed here, its important not to throw all human remains research under the bus, which alot of the press around this issue does
Honestly there are experts on the ethics of human remains everywhere. Choose yours carefully.
Yes agree about the rhetoric - more heat than light - given most curators of human remains I know are pretty sympathetic to repatriation and would jump at the chance to address it properly you could imagine a version of this that was collaborative rather than reliant on adversarial FoI requests.
If development necessitates disturbing a graveyard (in the uk) what is the most ethical answer? Bulldozing the graves? Disturbing the dead without looking at the skeletons?
I beleive telling their stories is the least we can do if we are going to disturb them. Archives are part of that
This is important.
I get yelled at for saying this but for many hundreds of years people went to university not to get diplomas or be employable but because immersion in the humanities was considered foundational to a good life, and school must return to its original purpose: the joy of learning.
A pair of legs just out from a garden bench looking towards a garden gate surrounded by foliage at different levels of decay.
Pump this Spring sunshine into my veins! (Yes, the new garden needs some attention!)
Solidarity!
The hundreds of meetings tomorrow still lie before me ...
