The Plashing Vole

To: all staff. From: university security and ceremony directorate Subject: Graduation Ceremony protocol. Colleagues, like every universi...

I guess we shouldn't look to celebrities for a reasoned examination of the facts, but this caught my eye: Madonna has described the l...

No depressing or negative post today. Though if you want to follow the ramifications of Stefan Grimm's demise, I'll point you toward...

A while back, I sat in the audience while a friend gave his professorial inaugural address (the closest I'll ever get to one). A busines...

Cover of Niall's latest novel projected onto a stage curtain Talking for a moment about happier academic events, last night Niall G...

I should be marking. I should be reading a colleague's book. I should be writing next week's lectures. I should be replying to stude...

OK, I've been pretty slack on the blogging front for some time now, though in my defence I have moved house while doing extra teaching a...

What a week. I am quite literally bruised, but also exhilarated. Some great things have happened. I did my usual load of teaching, and the c...

Teaching. Tutorials. Review a play and a PhD proposal and a journal article. Write a piece for the THES Write a piece for the university...

Last Saturday, I went to Stoke-on-Trent's Potteries Museum and Art Gallery for the annual Stephen Hagger Lecture (very sadly I was t...

Are you a student at an 'alternative provider'? You could be forgiven if you're not sure - the terminology is deliberately obscu...

Over on my local MP's Twitter feed, you can see him boasting about the frankly astonishing uplift in employment in the constituency. ...

I'm getting increasingly bored by the glut of super-hero films: the studios are now run by men in their late 40s trying to recreate the ...

Amongst the many literary sub-genres I keep an eye on with a view to one day doing some work is the dystopian novel, particularly the Young ...