The Plashing Vole

One of my friends is off to visit 4AD 's headquarters today. Back when I didn't have responsibilities, I would happily spend all my ...

I hope everyone else is as confused by Britain's 'negotiations' with Europe as I am. Cameron seems to exacted a series of pledge...

There's an awful lot of stuff going on at the moment but I'm way too busy to get into it all, while other bits aren't for public...

It's been quite a week. First teaching week of the year so I've covered the entire origins of the Renaissance in one class and the e...

The end of last week was both sad and joyful: it mainly consisted of self-anaesthetising myself at a party to mark the departure of one of m...

I have no opinions this week. Instead I have a pile of marking, a new nephew in New Zealand, lots of Module Specification Templates to wri...

“It is one thing to write as poet and another to write as a historian: the poet can recount or sing about things not as they were, but as t...

Well, here I am, in the deserted building on December 23rd. I like it when there's nobody here (this also happens in the depths of summe...

There is no Star Wars and me really. Coming from a large rural family which viewed VCRs as an instrument of the devil, being inside and...

A while ago I read a children's novel from the height of Empire called  Behind the Mountains   by Wray Hunt , a Victorian/Edwardian nove...