Giorgia Meschini
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giorgiameschini.bsky.social
Giorgia Meschini
@giorgiameschini.bsky.social
250 followers 150 following 280 posts
Independent baroqueologist. Author in the making. Architecture, historical fiction, landscape design, historic gardens, urban reforestation, and Oxford comma.
Formerly: creative communication for opera.
—
https://giorgiameschini.substack.com/
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Giorgia Meschini
pboothe.bsky.social
Either education is a public good or it's not.

Hint: education is a public good and also a moral imperative.
onslies.bsky.social Liesbeth Corens @onslies.bsky.social · 22d
Three short paragraphs, and you've got the whole mind-bending mess that is #UKHE finance & governance neatly laid out.

This is why it's all so exhausting: our managers declare there's only one static frame, while we know their framing is part of the issue.

💡 www.hepi.ac.uk/2026/01/10/w...
How the financial problem is described is not neutral. It reflects and reinforces a particular way of understanding what a university is and how it should function. If the financial situation is framed as a classic demand-and-cost problem (i.e., demand is insufficient, prices are constrained, and unit costs are too high), then the university is, implicitly, being treated as a ‘service provider’ operating in a competitive international education market where students are customers. In that frame, the obvious actions are to emphasise tight cost controls and to strengthen output-focused performance metrics, targets and incentives such as promotions based on publications in highly rated journals, income generation or teaching satisfaction scores. If the same financial situation is framed instead as a system-level shock that threatens the conditions under which teaching, research and public service can flourish, then a different picture of the university comes into view: a ‘living knowledge ecosystem’ serving a public mission and facing financial constraints partly beyond its control. Within that frame, the responses appears quite different. Attention turns to protecting core capacities, reducing harm to the most vulnerable parts of the system and working with others to share risks and resources. In both cases, the numbers in the spreadsheets are the same. What differs is the story told about the problem, and the underlying image of the university that story presupposes. At present, the former factory-like framing is the most common. With it, the danger is that, under a narrative of financial constraints, universities take actions that emphasise governance practices that reshape behaviour so deeply that, over time, what remains may still be called a ‘university’, but no longer acts like one.
January 10, 2026 at 2:36 PM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
«…I never thought I’d need so many people.»
giorgiameschini.substack.com/p/ten-years-...
Ten years, what a surprise
And all the fat, skinny people, and all the tall, short people, and all the nobody people, and all the somebody people...
giorgiameschini.substack.com
January 10, 2026 at 8:49 PM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
"...Since I have no room for a cello (nor the required energy to carry a cello around, I’m totally knackered, honest), I’ll leave that to #PedroPascal while I pick up the traversiere, instead. Yay!"

giorgiameschini.substack.com/p/i-once-had...

#baroquetraversoflute #traversiere #traversopractice
January 2, 2026 at 2:01 PM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
I once had a whim and I had to obey it to buy a traverso in a second-hand shop, I polished it up and I started to play it in spite of the neighbours who begged me to stop...
giorgiameschini.substack.com/p/i-once-had...
I once had a whim and I had to obey it to buy a traverso in a second-hand shop...
...I polished it up and I started to play it in spite of the neighbours who begged me to stop.
giorgiameschini.substack.com
January 1, 2026 at 11:04 PM
Reposted by Giorgia Meschini
duille.com
“Misled and Lonely Traveler”. Arthur Rackham. 1921.

Order your beautiful print: duille.com/misled
December 27, 2025 at 9:00 PM
Reposted by Giorgia Meschini
cwebbonline.com
MAGA doesn’t follow Trump because they think he’s a brilliant businessman or a tough guy. They follow him because he’s convinced mediocre, insecure people that their ignorance and stupidity are actually strengths, and that absolutely nothing is their fault. He gives them permission to be hateful.
December 28, 2025 at 2:37 AM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
You’re lucky this newsletter is in English, if it was in Italian it would’ve shamelessly been titled “MenoMahler che Guido c'è”.
giorgiameschini.substack.com/p/cheerful-i...
#GustavMahler #Mahler3
December 27, 2025 at 10:05 PM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
There's a #Gervais in my next newsletter, which I'm hoping to send out not later than tomorrow.

What is he doing in there? Subscribe to the link in my bio and you'll know!

#rickygervais #charleshubertgervais #onceuponanewsletter
December 10, 2025 at 12:53 PM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
It only took a couple of months (...) but THIS landed on my doormat at last — and it'll be the subject of the next issue of my newsletter.
giorgiameschini.substack.com
#baroquemusic
December 3, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Reposted by Giorgia Meschini
rcolesworthy.bsky.social
one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.
November 25, 2025 at 4:15 PM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
Leporello, presto in tavola!
giorgiameschini.substack.com/p/gia-la-men...
Già la mensa è preparata
Oh, look, yet another newsletter that doesn't contain a recipe...
giorgiameschini.substack.com
November 26, 2025 at 9:41 PM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
The haemorrhage of subscribers continues — I'm losing all the readers (?) who don't get #classicalmusic, nor #opera (nor, for what it's worth, airline-related jokes whenever #DanielHarding is involved, shame on you!)…
giorgiameschini.substack.com/p/in-a-few-m...
In a few moments, we will begin our in-flight service. We will be offering Verdi, Ravel, Wagner, Rossini, Rachmaninoff, and Brahms...
Please remain seated without clapping in-between movements until the captain has stopped the orchestra by closing his palm.
giorgiameschini.substack.com
November 20, 2025 at 9:52 AM
Reposted by Giorgia Meschini
tim-waterman.co.uk
CFP for the inaugural issue of Slow Mode Journal, focusing on slow technology and slow design. ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/sl...
Slow Mode Journal
ojs.library.ubc.ca
November 12, 2025 at 1:30 PM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
Being mostly a baroquehead, and not really a contemporary opera fan, I’m just mildly familiar with John Adams’ work...

Read more on giorgiameschini.substack.com/p/the-people...

#JohnAdams #NixoninChina #opera #contemporaryopera
The people are the heroes now
A car, a bank robbery, and...
giorgiameschini.substack.com
November 11, 2025 at 10:43 PM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
Life is what happens while you’d rather be listening to opera instead.
giorgiameschini.substack.com/p/im-wotanwa...
#dieWalküre #Wagner
I'm Wotan/Wälse/Wolfe, I cause problems
Walhalla hath no fury like a Fricka scorned!
giorgiameschini.substack.com
November 2, 2025 at 6:38 PM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
A world without color is a world without sound, a world to keep the rabble down
asnotseenonhgtv.substack.com/p/beige-to-b...
#asNOTseenonHGTV
Beige to beige
A world without color is a world without sound, a world to keep the rabble down (*)
asnotseenonhgtv.substack.com
October 20, 2025 at 9:20 PM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
I hope I live to see the day when the word “obsessed” stops being used instead of “I like [something]”.
Honestly, people using that expression sound like psychopaths to me.
October 12, 2025 at 4:11 PM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
Fancy a Mother-loved pressure cooker?
asnotseenonhgtv.substack.com/p/never-endi...
Never ending story
Turn around, look at what you see (*)
asnotseenonhgtv.substack.com
October 8, 2025 at 9:08 AM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
Una nuova branca della disciplina giuridica: Diritto Internazionale Financertopùnto.
October 2, 2025 at 8:16 PM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
Even cookies have had enough of the current situation…
September 29, 2025 at 12:36 PM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
"I'm talking rubbish to cover up the cracks": asnotseenonhgtv.substack.com/p/prologue-t...
#asNOTseenonHGTV
Prologue to history
I’m talking rubbish to cover up the cracks (*)
asnotseenonhgtv.substack.com
September 27, 2025 at 8:49 PM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
Hope to see you there (please don’t leave me alone with Mum, PLEASE!!! 😱).
giorgiameschini.substack.com/p/starting-a...
#asNOTseenonHGTV
Starting afresh...
...with my new (?) flatmate!
giorgiameschini.substack.com
September 18, 2025 at 7:27 PM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
I filed this publication under “design” and “humo(u)r” because I couldn’t find the “scànzete, Joanna Gaines!” and “Golden Girls” categories.
asnotseenonhgtv.substack.com/about
#asNOTseenonHGTV
September 18, 2025 at 7:22 PM
giorgiameschini.bsky.social
Se ne stanno andando tutti… 😢
#StefanoBenni
September 9, 2025 at 10:00 AM