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To: Jo Johnson MP, Minister of State for Universities and Science, Research and Innovation (England) Kirsty Williams AM, Cabinet Secretary for Education (Wales) Shirley-Anne Somerville MSP, Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science (Scotland) Economy Minister (seat currently vacant, previously Simon Hamilton), Northern Ireland Executive (NI) Vice-Chancellors of all UKHE institutions Heads of Humanities…

I am pleased to tell everyone that I’ve been appointed a Visiting Fellow at the University of Southampton from today.   I’m proud to be associated with a department that includes Professors Anne Curry and, of course, G.W. Bernard, even if most of the time it’s going to be at a distance! Visiting fellows are senior…

I’m really pleased to say that, after quite a break, I’ve been doing some proper singing again.  I’ve restarted my singing lessons and I’m intending to take a diploma of some sort in due course. In the meantime, I’ve been singing with my family, and it was nice that we were asked to sing a…

Whenever I can, I work on my patio, surrounded my flowers and lots of birds. So here are just a few photos of my garden…  

Just before Easter I applied for a job which I didn’t get. Nothing unusual there.  I didn’t even get shortlisted, and there was nothing unusual there either.  The thing that was different about this job was that I was offered feedback on why I didn’t get shortlisted, so I took the opportunity to find out,…

Around Easter, I was contacted by Zach Warren, a student at the University of South Carolina.  He had read my post on the ballads about Mary Queen of Scots, and asked for advice on images of the queen in popular music.  It’s always nice to discover that people have actually read what I’m writing, so…

At the beginning of May, I was privileged to be asked to speak at the Historical Association Conference in Manchester.  It was an excellent weekend with a wide range of lectures and continuing professional development opportunities. This is the fourth and final entry in a series of blog posts about the various lectures and workshops…

I think I can now safely make the announcement that I’ve signed a contract with Routledge to publish my book Singing the News: Ballads in Mid-Tudor England as part of their Material Readings in Early Modern Culture series.  It’s going to be a while yet before it appears, but it’s nice to have some really…

At the beginning of May, I was privileged to be asked to speak at the Historical Association Conference in Manchester.  It was an excellent weekend with a wide range of lectures and continuing professional development opportunities. This is the third in a series of blog posts about the various lectures and workshops I attended. It…