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Can vice-chancellors ever really know what it’s like for emerging researchers and precariat postdocs? I was reading two vice-chancellors discuss how to take pressure off young academics the other week and it made me increasingly ragey. Set-ups like this are doomed in many ways because you’re asking people with incredible privilege and a fair whack […]…

During the summer, we went to Rufford Old Hall‘s family fun day, where we had a go at archery and visited our friends at the North West Reptile Club (someday I hope to be able to take Dave along). To be honest, I wasn’t going to bother going round the house this time, as we…

This is the second of two short posts about my summer holiday in France, only this time it’s not really about anything historical.  I was just blown away by Le Grand Éléphant at Les Machines de l’Île in Nantes.  Unfortunately, we arrived too late in the day to have a look round the workshop, but…

Spotted this!  It’s exciting to see it on the web…

It’s always nice to get an email that shows that there are actually people out there who read my blog when they come across it, and yesterday afternoon I received a message from someone at Artsy,  who wondered if I could help them to promote their Edvard Munch pages.  Now I’ve said before that I…

This is the first of two posts about my summer holiday in the Loire Valley.  It’s a long time since I’ve been to France, so I wanted to see a bit of the countryside and the culture as well as the place where we stayed.  We had a couple of day trips to Nantes, which…

As I write this, I’m still waiting to hear whether I’ve been granted any money to pay for the images and permission rights for a few illustrations for the book, so I’ve been thinking a lot about the problems of images recently. My royalties won’t cover the cost of the illustrations (unless, of course, it…

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last few weeks working on my book, which is due to go to the publishers, Routledge, in the autumn.  The first task was to apply for some money to pay for a few high quality images and the rights to use them, and I’m still waiting to…