The Plashing Vole

It has been - even by Induction Week standards - a humdinger. We have students, though an amputee could count them on her finger. They are i...

Good morning. It's late September and the temperature here is 22 Celsius. That's not right. Today is also the date of the short Clim...

OK, so I'm back from my Carol Ann Duffy and the Laureateship conference . With a cold and lots to think about. I was pretty shocked to d...

I am trying to write my conference paper on Carol Ann Duffy and the Four Nations, honestly, but this Cambridge University summer course cau...

You find me much refreshed by my sojourn on the west coast of Ireland - goats were crowned on towers, the Black Atlantic was swum, sun burne...

I am going on holiday. To Ireland of course, packing Factor 50 and a thick pair of gloves for use on the same day, if experience teaches ...

A friend asked me to take some pictures of the rebuilt Birmingham New Street station for a book project. I have Views about the place: as fa...

Well, last week's post insisted that nothing happened. This week everything has happened, though not necessarily to me. The Tour de Fran...

Pretty much nothing to say this week. I've just marked re-submitted essays and attempted to wrestle with the fresh new tortures added to...

This is the end of a week at Gladstone's Library in Penarlâg/Hawarden - one of the few (only?) prime ministerial equivalents of a Presi...

Thanks to the gods of the research budget (they play with us for their sport), I'm away all next week – sitting in the Gladstone Library...