Category: Uncategorized
-
Juggling the workload and watching the strike
BBC News has just noticed that many people working in our universities are on precarious contracts at several universities, as well as doing other low paid work for which they are massively over-qualified. Hardly a shocker for anyone working in the sector, but it’s presumably come to light because of the UCU strike, which has…
-
Recording ballads 3
I’ve spent a lot of time since the beginning of the year recording ballads for this website, to accompany my new book. This is the third in a short series of posts about what I’ve been up to. There are more than 30 musical examples in the book and my plan was to record all…
-
Singing the News is Out!
A small parcel of books arrived on Thursday lunchtime! It’s quite exciting to see it in print, as it seems to have had the gestation time of an elephant (even though in fact it was relatively quick). Singing the News Flyer
-
Recording ballads 2
I’ve spent a lot of time since the beginning of the year recording ballads for this website, to accompany my new book. This is the second of a short series of posts about what I’ve been up to. Moving the ballads from scores to sound recordings has been an enlightening experience. In some cases, there…
-
Recording ballads 1
I’ve spent a lot of time since the beginning of the year recording ballads for this website to accompany my new book. This is first in a short series of posts about what I’ve been up to. First, I must thank Stephen Kelly for prompting me to begin this project. While I was working at…
-
Books and ballads
Earlier this week, I had an email from the publisher of my book to say that it has gone to the printer. According to their website, it is due for publication on 22 February, so it’s not long now. It’s an exciting, if somewhat scary, prospect. I decided that it was about time I created…
-
Copyediting and Proofreading
I spent a lot of my Christmas and new year checking the copy edit and page proofs of my forthcoming book Singing the News, and writing the index. It was a strange experience. My fiend rang one day while I was sitting at my desk staring at the page proofs, and asked if I were enjoying…
-
Teaching witchcraft
In the run up to Christmas, I taught for four weeks on Liverpool Hope’s second year witchcraft and witch-hunting course. It was interesting to look into the subject in more depth than we do on the first year survey course, especially as I had lectures to write as well as seminars and tutorials to run.…
-
1st January 2018
1st January 2018. The start of the year when my first book will be published. And it came as something of a surprise to me to see that Amazon is telling me it will be released on 22 February, as I was expecting it to be March, and what’s more, I am still checking the…
-
Singing the News at Ewecross
I was delighted earlier this year to be asked to give my talk on Singing the News in mid-Tudor England at Ewecross Historical Society which meets in High Bentham on the top edge of the Forest of Bowland (being a forest, there’s no direct route there from here, so it’s actually about an hour’s journey…