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  • Summer goals update

    I thought I’d give you a quick update on my progress towards my summer goals: • Definition of ‘ballad’ for introduction.  I’m part way through this, although it needs a LOT more work.  I’m discussing it with friends that I met at the Psalm Culture conference in London in July and I’ve given it a…

  • Thomas Cromwell

    I have spent a lot of time this week re-writing the chapter I blitzed in January on the Thomas Cromwell ballad flyting. I was never very happy with it, mainly because all I did was throw all my thoughts about each ballad down on paper before trying to chop it into themes, which was rather…

  • From the Observer: Why the Incas offered up child sacrifices | Science | The Observer

    It’s possible that some of you will be aware that my undergraduate dissertation was about the Aztecs and rooted in a course that I took on ‘The First Hundred Years of the Spanish in America‘.  I’ve never quite managed to shake my interest in all things Aztec, Inca and Conquistador, so this article in the…

  • Wicken Fen

    By far the most exciting visit we made on our trip to Cambridge was to Wicken Fen Nature Reserve.  Apparently it’s the fifth oldest National Trust property and it was absolutely brilliant.  I’ve liked dragonflies ever since I was a child, possibly because I see less of them than other insects, and Wicken Fen is…

  • Cambridge Archives

    I spent this week in Cambridge. I’ve not been back to Cambridge since I went to the folk festival in 1994, where I got showered in (someone else’s) beer when the Saw Doctors came on stage and everyone cheered.  That was before I got my A-level results.  At eighteen, I was offered a place at…