1. You need to register for a free account to read this New Statesman piece by Geoff Dyer, but it’s well worth that minimal effort if you haven’t got one already. The shot seen round the world – the photograph of a bloodied Trump has turned him into a hero and captured the carnage of American politics https://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2024/07/shot-seen-round-the-world-donald-trump-photo-geoff-dyer

2. There’s often interesting stuff in The Knowledge, including good summaries of articles that are behind a newspaper paywall. Here’s a recent edition, which includes a summary of Peter Hitchens’s Daily Mail piece, Is Lucy Letby really guilty? https://www.theknowledge.com/p/lucy-letby-really-guilty I realise that we see what we know and want to see, but I can’t help drawing parallels with medieval witch trials.

Sign up yourself to The Knowledge daily newsletter here https://www.theknowledge.com/

3. Thanks to Jason Skeet for this one, an interesting new(ish) take on classroom observation, Unseen observations by Matt O’Leary https://www.ucet.ac.uk/downloads/12424-Unseen-Observations_MattOLeary_Nov2020.pdf PDF below.

Hosted on the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) website, which I’d not come across before https://www.ucet.ac.uk/ Not something that university teachers in my time got much of, teacher education!

4. Here’s a very accessible way in – courtesy of Katja Hoyer’s podcast, Zeitgeist – to a very well-reviewed book by Andrea Wulf about a remarkable accumulation of genius in a small town in Germany, Jena, at the end of the eighteenth century, Magnificent Rebels https://www.katjahoyer.uk/p/magnificent-rebels-with-andrea-wulf  Along the way, Katja and Andrea share a number of interesting thoughts on the differences between writing in German and writing in English.

Here’s the beginning of Adam Sisman’s review of Magnificent Rebels for The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/11/magnificent-rebels-the-first-romantics-and-the-invention-of-the-self-by-andrea-wulf-review-big-ideas-from-a-small-town

A philosophy student attending a concert in the heart of Germany in the spring of 1797 could scarcely believe the evidence of his eyes. Seated in one row were Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the greatest writer of the age; Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the philosopher of the moment, whose packed lectures attracted students from across Europe; Alexander von Humboldt, just setting out on a career that would transform our understanding of the natural world; and August Wilhelm Schlegel, then making a name for himself as a writer, critic and translator. It seemed extraordinary to see so many famous men lined up together.

Except that it wasn’t, not then in Jena, a quiet university town at the heart of Germany of only 800 houses and fewer than 5,000 inhabitants. For a brief period, as the 18th century gave way to the 19th, Jena had a claim to be the intellectual capital of Europe. The nation’s finest minds were gathered there.

5. And, finally, from the sublime to the ridiculous, Fenton! https://youtu.be/3GRSbr0EYYU

Apologies if – unlike me, but like millions of other people – you’ve seen the video before, and thanks to Jamie Keddie for bringing it to my attention!