Some good news.

“It was designed like this so that the men of the coalfields, when they came to represent their pits, would enter an entrance hall equally as glorious as the entrance hall of the owners of coalmines. It was built on this grand scale to equal anything built by the aristocracy.”

#Durham #Mining #TradeUnions

‘Durham’s other cathedral’: mining union hall reopens after £14m restoration | Trade unions | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jan/04/durham-mining-union-hall-redhills-reopens-after-14m-pounds-restoration

Not one word of condemnation by our government of Trump's illegal act of war in Venezuela. Not one word.

@adamgreenfield Your post evokes in me a wish for loudness! my ability to play loud (ie 'listen loud') is limited these days by my location (block of flats, so it can't be really loud) and my sharing of the flat with another. Perhaps I should get out more, to Cafe Oto and . . . elsewhere.

Non-fiction reading collapsed, apart from reading about architecture and a happy few weeks reading Edward Said, Culture & Imperialism. I half-read a lot of good essays online that I have now forgotten. My main reading rec for 2026 is: turn off those devices. Thanks to Southern Rail for the opportunities.

C20 reading is marked by a long-term commitment to the period of modernism, and an avoidance of much post-1940 writing. C19 writing is focused on the later period when realism is collapsing & being reinvented. Beatrice Webb's My Apprenticeship (1929) is among the best late C19 writing imho!

C21 fiction is maybe a growth area for me, though I usually wait for a consensus to emerge before trying things out. In the case of See You Through (a book I will maybe try to write on, poem-novel) and The Lodgers, I am waving a small flag so that a few more readers try them out.

I started reading #African fiction in the 90s, but that was mostly S African. Started again, with more commitment, ten years ago, beginning with the small selection in the college library. Lots still I need to find. Someone go to interview Ayi Kwei Armah in Senegal, please! always neglected US fiction (not poetry, not art) as US culture is so dominant in other ways. Hence singling it out as a region on my year end list: relenting a bit, to fill in some gaps.

Most of the fiction I read is historical, by which I mean ‘pre-1970’. This is a list of books old and new read in 2025. Some aren’t novels. These aren’t recommendations though many are enthusiasms. Seeing what we read is a way of learning about gaps: as you attempt to fill in gaps, other gaps become clearer. #books #reading

@SusiArnott Faber republished it with a new introduction, it is in bookshops --- & I had read Peter Abrahams's book Mine Boy . . . which is also very good . . .

Was ist schlimmer?

Udomo is a moderniser, like Nkrumah, who Peter Abrahams knew in London: the fictional country 'PanAfrica' is non-specific, like the book's geography, but most closely maps onto Gold Coast/Ghana. 'Pluralia' is again non-specific but with a larger white population: suggests Rhodesia or South Africa.

A Wreath for Udomo, 1956, is powerful, almost Brechtian in its presentation of competing realities & ethical dilemmas. Peter Abrahams was a superb & very clear writer of narrative who does interesting things with clarity as a method. #AfricanLiterature #reading

@Talia discarded on the street too. It's their world!

@bookish Just happened to have read New Grub Street recently, so intrigued to see this series.

" ‘Widespread death’ of Shisham trees in Potohar "

https://www.dawn.com/news/1896863/widespread-death-of-shisham-trees-in-potohar

#ClimateChange implicated in tree deaths across the country. Unusual extreme drought and floods have upset the natural balance in soil, stressed trees enough that mass die backs have begun due to fungal infections underground.

As usual, this was only noticed once businesses began feeling the effects (furniture/carpentry).

#Pakistan #ClimateCrisis #Paktodon #Forest #Trees #LastOfUs #SouthAsia #Shisham #ClimateDiary

@timwaterman Sorry that I can't get to this Tim . . . some time!

I'm delighted to say we have moved my Professorial Inaugural Lecture this coming Monday to a larger room, so more places are now available! https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/events/2025/mar/inaugural-lecture-professor-tim-waterman

Speaking at a conference: on the LCC which coming up at London School of Architecture https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sixty-years-on-from-the-london-county-council-legacy-impact-learning-tickets-1223429674089?msockid=3a54126d96c261a807d8071097f36054

Meanwhile, #Iran and "...a broader battle over relations with the west, with the conservatives convinced that experience shows Trump and Israel, his ally, are not just untrustworthy, but bent on regime change in Iran..." #PatrickWintour
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/09/iran-is-riven-with-conflict-donald-trumps-offer-of-talks-wont-ease-it?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

I've just signed this petition. Add your name and #StopBurningTrees
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/university-of-sheffield-stop-partnering-with-drax?source=web-share-api-button&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_source=web_share_api&share=6f42058e-ec68-4880-97c1-7dedfe5d4b38