Stephen Gregg

📢 Birmingham UCU members – the Employment Rights Act 2025 is now live and it’s a big shift for us in HE.

Key points for staff at UoB:

Unfair dismissal: qualifying service will fall to 6 months and the cap on compensation is going, increasing the risk to employers who sack staff unfairly.
1/4

And just look at how Adam Tickell, economic geographer and vice-chancellor, has chosen to word his attack here: 'getting access to the student loan book', 'investing money in people who are not really capable of graduating'

Link to the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee report on 'AI, copyright and the creative industries': publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5901/ld...

A girl and a boy rush excitedly towards the river. It is a cloudy day, but the sun is shining.

That Friday feeling

Artist: Martin Aitchison (1964)

“He who laughs last, laughs longest “

Ugh

Sorry to hear that. My Sympathy. I travelled over to Bristol last week expecting scan results. ‘Sorry - they haven’t come through “. Have to go back this week. 😡

23:13 S01E02 Gatherings October 1 1999

For those who are minded to do so, there's now a petition to sign too...

#DirtyBusiness

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/75...

Being a Luddite Is Cool and All, but Have You Seen the Hilarious Tapestries These New Looms Are Making? Don’t get me wrong, I’m as invested in keeping my job as the next weaver. When the boss brought in that big new power loom, I was pretty skeptical....

When the boss brought in that big new power loom, I was skeptical. He said once he got it running, we’d be out of a job, so when the boys started talking about breaking into the factory and smashing the thing, I was on board. Until, that is, I saw the funny tapestries it could make.

Steve is back from the pub. I can tell something has happened. He has shenanigans written all over his face.

Today is St David’s Day: patron saint of Wales, of course, but also of vegetarians and poets. He was reputed to have helped introduce bees to Ireland. He is famously quoted as saying “Gwnewch y pethau bychain”, meaning “Do the little things”. Small changes and good choices matter, especially now.

Bright and breezy illustration of three daffodils painted on a simple, grey background

St David's Day
Dydd Gŵyl Dewi

Artist: H Woolley (1954)

This is great.

Number 4!

Attention @iangadd.bsky.social

And Arvo Pärt’s Berliner Messe!

A big ask for my #Letterpress friends! I would like to ask a few working printers (amateur or pro, different experience levels welcome) to share their thoughts about the current state of the craft with a particular emphasis on their feelings about deep impression / debossing as … 1/2

Thanks!

Slowly beginning to feel normal 🙂 scan results next week 🤞

Predominantly yellow primroses clustered on bare earth in open woodland

Primrose, Sweet Violet, Wood Anemone (1957)
Artists: Edith Hilder,
Rowland Hilder

Open call: two five-day residencies for writers experiencing displacement to the UK - News & Events - English PEN English PEN open call: two five-day residencies for writers experiencing displacement to the UK

Apply & share! @englishpen.bsky.social writing residencies for "writers currently based in England who identify as experiencing displacement – including (but not only) refugee writers, writers seeking asylum, and writers in exile."

www.englishpen.org/posts/campai...

Congratulations Sophie! This looks excellent- on my reading list!

You’ll be interested to know they my colleague is teaching your students’ edition of Haywood’s The Parrot this week on our module Novel Forms.

In foreground is a tan whippet with black (greying!) nose and black ears. He has a black collar and an orange hoodie. We’re in a muddy field, bushes and trees in middle distance. Looking down on and Further away is a grey and misty-looking city (Bath, UK).

Turner looking out over a misty Bath this morning.

Cool

My thoughts exactly

18th Century specialists, a question for you: I’ve come across several period sources claiming that Britain was notorious among neighbouring countries for its high rate of suicide. Was this actually true, or just a national self-image? If anyone can point me to modern sources I’d be v grateful

‘Reality’ - now you’re asking! More seriously, you’re best with a historian 😁

The stereotype - and national self image - was certainly that England was a nation of melancholics. See George Cheyne’s The English Malady (1733). But I’m sure the image existed before then.