1. Will AI rule the world before too much longer? Here’s an interesting paper on exam marking in Spain (courtesy of OLDaily), Consistency analysis of assessment boards in University Entrance Examinations in Spain, the conclusion of which is that humans mark so badly – inconsistently – that AI would make a much better job of it. Online here https://osf.io/preprints/edarxiv/672sm and PDF below.

2. Teaching English as an International Language in the Cambridge Elements in Language Teaching series by Ali Fuad Selvi, Nicola Galloway & Heath Rose was free to download while I was away over Christmas and New Year, so I downloaded a copy while I could. Details online here https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/teaching-english-as-an-international-language/083B560D9D34A42B66B8F9DBBD2F63C4 and PDF below. In future, I probably won’t offer a PDF of publications in this series as my doing so deprives the series editors of lots of useful download data – but I will make sure the free download is advertised in good time!

3. How to respond to the PM’s pride in his international dependant ban is a piece on the WONKHE blog by Wendy Alexander and David Pilsbury which, prompted by Rishi Sunak’s gleeful tweet at the New Year https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1741782514270671194?lang=en-GB, makes the case for “a UK international strategy that responds, rather than reacts, to global concerns surrounding immigration” https://wonkhe.com/blogs/how-to-respond-to-the-pms-pride-in-his-international-dependant-ban-2-2/ I’ve tried to give Rishi Sunak the benefit of the doubt, partly because he’s a popular local MP up in Richmond and partly because he’s clearing up after Johnson and Truss, but that benefit is now exhausted.

If you’re puzzled by the use of both dependant and dependent as a noun in the WONKHE piece, here’s Webster’s take on that https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/spelling-variants-dependent-vs-dependant#:~:text=The%20difference%20between%20dependent%20and,more%20common%20for%20the%20noun.

4. I discovered the Radio 4 Classic Novels website over the holiday: it offers unabridged versions of over twenty classic novels https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09j3xmb

And there’s also a (slightly more diverse) Classic Stories equivalent with a hundred short stories https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06w4v4x/episodes/player

So far, I’ve rediscovered Jane Eyre and I’m halfway through Wuthering Heights, which was a set text for ‘O’ level that I remember enjoying but seem to have forgotten a great deal of!

5. And, finally, here’s Stuart Cassells of the Red Hot Chilli Pipers demonstrating the bagpipe to staff at Frankfurt Airport https://youtu.be/api4OnqwH5w?feature=shared Here’s two more Red Hot Chilli Pipers numbers: Hellbound Train https://youtu.be/TJ4NdxfWdvk?feature=shared and Smoke on the Water https://youtu.be/Isxaq6yuKxE?feature=shared