Plashing Vole
@plashingvole.bsky.social
Mild-mannered lecturer by day…mild-mannered lecturer by night. Welsh lit, politicians’ fictions. Fencer, cyclist, UCU. Dysgwr Cymraeg; tá gaeilge agam. Barnau fy hun.
Read books; join unions; block cookies.
Read books; join unions; block cookies.
Two excellent National Trust bookshop purchases this weekend. I love forgotten novelist Beverley Nichols’ work and never see them with a dustjacket. £8. I’m co/editing a journal issue on Co-ops in literature and culture, so Upton Sinclair’s Coop is another great find - £6.
November 30, 2025 at 9:47 PM
Two excellent National Trust bookshop purchases this weekend. I love forgotten novelist Beverley Nichols’ work and never see them with a dustjacket. £8. I’m co/editing a journal issue on Co-ops in literature and culture, so Upton Sinclair’s Coop is another great find - £6.
Rather a lovely day out at Dyrham Park. More proof that the worst people built the finest houses.
November 29, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Rather a lovely day out at Dyrham Park. More proof that the worst people built the finest houses.
Monday morning used to be about a few moments' fantasy, receiving the Jobs.ac.uk round-up and dreaming of other roles in other places.
The dream died.
The dream died.
November 27, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Monday morning used to be about a few moments' fantasy, receiving the Jobs.ac.uk round-up and dreaming of other roles in other places.
The dream died.
The dream died.
Weird category error to state that a house built in the 1930s can’t therefore be a mansion.
This one is Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, 1931. Here’s another one: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, 1937. Apparently not a mansion.
This one is Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, 1931. Here’s another one: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, 1937. Apparently not a mansion.
November 27, 2025 at 9:19 AM
Weird category error to state that a house built in the 1930s can’t therefore be a mansion.
This one is Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, 1931. Here’s another one: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, 1937. Apparently not a mansion.
This one is Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, 1931. Here’s another one: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, 1937. Apparently not a mansion.
The 1930s house in question:
November 27, 2025 at 9:14 AM
The 1930s house in question:
A terrible cookbook you say? Look no further than The True Blue Cookbook - recipes by Conservative MPs ‘and their wives’. There’s also a recipe for ‘haddock flamenco’. The flamenco consists of one quarter of a teaspoon of paprika.
November 26, 2025 at 9:51 PM
A terrible cookbook you say? Look no further than The True Blue Cookbook - recipes by Conservative MPs ‘and their wives’. There’s also a recipe for ‘haddock flamenco’. The flamenco consists of one quarter of a teaspoon of paprika.
Great #budget news for Cymru/Wales: it’s going to be a playground for plagiarising hallucination machines powered by nuclear waste that will poison the earth for thousands of years!
November 26, 2025 at 12:58 PM
Great #budget news for Cymru/Wales: it’s going to be a playground for plagiarising hallucination machines powered by nuclear waste that will poison the earth for thousands of years!
After teaching it was Print Club. I have the acetates for the yellow and magenta layers of the CYMK process and learned to align and print them. Fiddly and fascinating. Here’s the silk screen, the yellow stage and one with yellow and magenta layers completed.
November 25, 2025 at 10:16 PM
After teaching it was Print Club. I have the acetates for the yellow and magenta layers of the CYMK process and learned to align and print them. Fiddly and fascinating. Here’s the silk screen, the yellow stage and one with yellow and magenta layers completed.
Teaching texts this week are Anita and Me, Most Ardently: a Pride and Prejudice Remix and this, Jane Austen’s Persuasion by Narinder Dhami for the Writing for Children crowd. The theme was adaptations and abridgements: there’s very little scholarly material on it, despite the subgenre’s long history
November 25, 2025 at 10:11 PM
Teaching texts this week are Anita and Me, Most Ardently: a Pride and Prejudice Remix and this, Jane Austen’s Persuasion by Narinder Dhami for the Writing for Children crowd. The theme was adaptations and abridgements: there’s very little scholarly material on it, despite the subgenre’s long history
What a prescient cartoon from JF Horrabin - newspaper strip cartoonist, British Communist Party founder and Labour MP for Peterborough 1929-31. This is from the Noahs and Japhet strip, 1920-52. Not sure what date this one is.
November 23, 2025 at 10:39 PM
What a prescient cartoon from JF Horrabin - newspaper strip cartoonist, British Communist Party founder and Labour MP for Peterborough 1929-31. This is from the Noahs and Japhet strip, 1920-52. Not sure what date this one is.
Oops, meant to post this photo
November 23, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Oops, meant to post this photo
Meanwhile I actually managed to finish a book for pleasure this week: Mary Fitt’s 1940s Death on Heron’s Mere. A nice take on the country house murder: the new occupants are awful new money Brummie arms manufacturers, and the decayed aristocrats are still on the grounds of their ancestral home.
November 20, 2025 at 8:06 AM
Meanwhile I actually managed to finish a book for pleasure this week: Mary Fitt’s 1940s Death on Heron’s Mere. A nice take on the country house murder: the new occupants are awful new money Brummie arms manufacturers, and the decayed aristocrats are still on the grounds of their ancestral home.
Stakes raised in the office kitchenette.
November 17, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Stakes raised in the office kitchenette.
Have raided the office piggy bank for actual change to buy tea.
November 17, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Have raided the office piggy bank for actual change to buy tea.
the invisibility of manual labour and the people who undertake it, and the lack of agency and inferiority afforded to the supposed menial class. It’s a wonderful novel - highly recommended.
Change of tone for next week: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Change of tone for next week: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
November 13, 2025 at 1:12 PM
the invisibility of manual labour and the people who undertake it, and the lack of agency and inferiority afforded to the supposed menial class. It’s a wonderful novel - highly recommended.
Change of tone for next week: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Change of tone for next week: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
New book acquired: Sinykin and Winant’s Close Reading in the Twenty-First Century. Going to draw on it in my ongoing campaign to get students more comfortable writing about style and technique rather than ‘messages’ and ‘themes’, which seems to be the legacy of A-levels.
November 13, 2025 at 9:21 AM
New book acquired: Sinykin and Winant’s Close Reading in the Twenty-First Century. Going to draw on it in my ongoing campaign to get students more comfortable writing about style and technique rather than ‘messages’ and ‘themes’, which seems to be the legacy of A-levels.
Today’s first-year class was Jim Crace’s The Gift of Stones, led by my excellent colleague Nicola. It’s a wonderful, tricky novel, an allegory of the social effects of deindustrialisation and of the role of the storyteller in any society, set at the end of the Stone Age.
November 10, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Today’s first-year class was Jim Crace’s The Gift of Stones, led by my excellent colleague Nicola. It’s a wonderful, tricky novel, an allegory of the social effects of deindustrialisation and of the role of the storyteller in any society, set at the end of the Stone Age.
Idly plucked off the office bookcase my first (only) American edition of Dorothy Edwards’ Winter Sonata (1930). Dutton seemed to think it’s an untroubled novel set in England by an English author. Place not specified: subject is psychological distress: author Welsh and ended her own life in 1934.
November 10, 2025 at 9:36 AM
Idly plucked off the office bookcase my first (only) American edition of Dorothy Edwards’ Winter Sonata (1930). Dutton seemed to think it’s an untroubled novel set in England by an English author. Place not specified: subject is psychological distress: author Welsh and ended her own life in 1934.
I’m still mostly re-reading class texts but did squeeze in another Penguin Crime: Spotted Hemlock by Gladys Mitchell (1958). Good evocation of the atmosphere and culture of twin men’s and women’s agricultural colleges; plot becomes obscured by needless elements; very racist indeed.
November 10, 2025 at 8:27 AM
I’m still mostly re-reading class texts but did squeeze in another Penguin Crime: Spotted Hemlock by Gladys Mitchell (1958). Good evocation of the atmosphere and culture of twin men’s and women’s agricultural colleges; plot becomes obscured by needless elements; very racist indeed.
Someone at a Russell Group university was moved to almost-poetry by their Faculty Meeting… Can anyone do better?
November 7, 2025 at 12:52 PM
Someone at a Russell Group university was moved to almost-poetry by their Faculty Meeting… Can anyone do better?
Change of tone for the next one, which I taught today: Pride and Premeditation by @tirzahprice.bsky.social which went down quite well. Discussion centred on the intersections of genre, and the history of Austen rewrites/sequels etc.
November 6, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Change of tone for the next one, which I taught today: Pride and Premeditation by @tirzahprice.bsky.social which went down quite well. Discussion centred on the intersections of genre, and the history of Austen rewrites/sequels etc.
Note the ‘British soil’ bit. My uni has plans to open a campus in China. The VC scoffed at me when I expressed concern that staff and students wouldn’t be able to speak freely, and that - as he said - the curriculum would be censored. It’s the price of doing business.
November 6, 2025 at 8:05 AM
Note the ‘British soil’ bit. My uni has plans to open a campus in China. The VC scoffed at me when I expressed concern that staff and students wouldn’t be able to speak freely, and that - as he said - the curriculum would be censored. It’s the price of doing business.