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It's been some night! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

On the way back from the US a few years ago, I got trapped in the middle seat of a middle row, between an octogenarian who was terrified of flying and a lady who had only just managed to get her tiny baby to fall asleep in her arms. Of course, the second the plane took off, I needed to pee.

On my way to the pub over the weekend, I was waiting for my friend at the corner of his street. A huge firework went off in the distance and all the dogs inside the houses went berserk, howling and barking in unison for at least a couple of minutes. It was like the Twilight Bark. Poor things! 🐕

These are fascinating. Thanks for sharing!

What a lovely room to read in, too! A lovely light.

I thoroughly enjoyed your lecture, Adrian. Well outside my area of expertise, but nevertheless, I'm interested in reading habits, literacy, and bibliographic history, particularly as the latter pertains to my home institution. Many congratulations on the completion of such a wortwhile project.

Unless academics start to win the argument against generative AI by persuading students that using it is self-defeating, I think universities will, sooner or later, have to rethink how to assess students. Entirely new modes of assessment may be needed. Otherwise, it'll all become a total sham.

Would be really interested in your thoughts on this once you've finished reading it. I read it last year and had mixed feelings. 📚

1958 proving to be another vintage year. 🤌

A fascinating discovery, particularly the marginalia.

I suppose that annotations, while not being an exact account of their thoughts, give clues as to how the reader engaged with the book – as a repository of ideas, as a tool, as an object, as a status symbol, etc.

Great work. 👏

💙📚 #Booksky

...and I'm someone who values theory, has learned a lot from the "cultural turn" in intelligence studies, and is generally persuaded that underlying structures affect how organisations function. Scope for applied critical theory, perhaps, but abstract theorising is becoming less useful now, imo.

In much the same that we are all post-postmodernists now, I suspect that we will all be post-critical intelligence studies in a few years' time. Not because critical studies aren't valuable in themselves, but simply because we're reaching the "...but what's the point?" stage of that research agenda.

Not sure if you'll be giving the talk in the same venue as in the picture, but that looks like a lovely room to give a talk in!

Read this. His life story is genuinely remarkable - born in Uttar Pradesh, an Indian nationalist who served in the war, visited Hiroshima after the bomb under MacArthur, moved to Britain, worked for the BBC.

Incredible story of a man whose life is a story of how modern Britain was made.

If you're a big reader, you'll love it! One of the best second hand bookshops in the world.

Have you given Barter Books a try? It's something of an institution in that part of the world!