Dominic Dean
@drdominicdean
Lecturer in Literature at the University of Essex. Researcher and author (Killing Children in British Fiction - SUNY, 2024). I work on contemporary British fiction and film, children, Ishiguro, migration, intergenerational conflict. All views my own.
Had a glorious (though extremely hot) day at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, including hearing uo-close from the Duke of Richmond and Mercedes F1 driver Kimi Antonelli (who came with an actual fanbase of screaming teenage girls giving him a boyband-level reception).
Ashenden converted, I understand, from Anglicanism to Catholicism; so why he is so keen to defend an Anglican oath rooted in anti-Catholicism could be rather mysterious, though the article does indicate some possibilities. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Fun fact, Gavin Ashenden was the lead chaplain at Sussex for my first few years there.
I do wonder though, aside from the Big Names coming out to bat for Exeter (which I applaud, to be clear), we haven‘t (as far as I’ve seen) had this kind of support, and I wonder why not, since surely the core economic case is the same…
Came across this passage from an interview; I'm struck that while Ishiguro always feels like a very contemporary writer - and though he's in his seventies now, he looks and sounds younger - he nevertheless grew up in a Britain that feels like a very distant past, one I never came close to knowing.
Imo this underweights the potential for a rapid deadly spiral – as everyday operations risk slipping into chaos through lack of staff and severe loss of institutional memory, and the risk of a big compliance failure increases, there’s a real possibility of whole institutions crashing quite suddenly.
I agree – and if it’s not their own kids, it will certainly be their constituents. But most MPs seem either unwilling or unable to either understand the case or devote energy to changing the situation, despite their own interests.
This is true. Imo those universities losing out from Russell Group rapaciousness should aggressively point out that many RG students will get a significantly diluted learning experience. It may not work, but there’s no reason not to press the case that RG selfishness is hurting their own students.
This time last year I was heading up to Stirling for the @bacls.bsky.social conference, surely one of the friendliest academic conferences anyone could find. Caught up with many old acquaintances and made a few new ones, in between some fantastic papers. I feel quite nostalgic for it!
The late Dame Hilary Mantel guarding the entrance to the reading room in the BL - @spectres-of.bsky.social would approve
You have to admit that for a piece about age-related cognitive decline this correction is pretty perfect.
Of all media coverage of the financial crisis in UK HE, Hello needs to win some kind of award for this headline and framing. www.hellomagazine.com/royalty/8999...
Beautiful day for the Wilton Wake Up at Wilton House this morning.
Interesting that the MP for *Southport* feels that a story about a failure of government security process, and one which ties ultimately to toleration of harm to women and girls, is a complete non-story...
Brighton & Hove City Council appears to have sent out the information below to its entire mailing list. I would take the fact that there is such public impatience for some local elections as a pretty dire sign for Labour's chances of holding on to the council!
Visit to Shake Shack tonight. It was delicious, their burgers are excellent (much better than it looks in the pic), but this should not cost £25; it just should not.
The sad result is that the Castle looks increasingly emptied out. Look at the Green Drawing Room; furnished in country-house style until the mid-00s, here it's mostly bare except for a historically-inappropriate, irrelevant set of figures of Henry VIII's wives stuck in a corner. The effect is tacky.
Though they attracted some criticism, the Tussauds exhibits were rooted in history genuinely associated with the castle, like the career of Warwick the Kingmaker and Victorian house parties. Publicity emphasised authenticity; Tussauds worked from C19th photos to put objects exactly as they had been.
This unusual situation originated in 1978, when the Earl of Warwick sold the castle to the Tussauds Group. By the time I knew it in the 90s, this commercial ownership had already resulted in an emphasis on entertainment, with creation of the immersive tableaux popular at the time (c.f. Jorvik).