1. First up today, another extended online celebration of teaching from the British Council, this one a ‘non-central’ event not included in Tuesday’s list, the ASEAN TeachingEnglish Online Conference 2024, Understanding our Learners. It begins next Thursday, 10^th October, and runs – intermittently! – for a  month. More info and (scroll down) registration here https://www.britishcouncil.or.th/en/programmes/teach/asean2024 Conference programme here (and PDF below) https://www.britishcouncil.or.th/sites/default/files/bcapac-conference_schedule_e-brochure_1.pdf. The times in the programme are Thai time, I think, but the registration page will sort that out for you. Conveniently scheduled in the evening for ASEAN participants! Details of conference speakers here https://www.britishcouncil.or.th/en/programmes/teach/asean2024speakers

2. Colm Tóibín does one podcast a month on The Art of Reading for the Irish Arts Council, most recently on Paul Lynch’s ‘Prophet Song’, which won the Booker Prize last year https://open.spotify.com/show/08oJHDxsS0To5HLDJAKmbT And here’s Colm’s second annual ‘Irish Fiction’ lecture https://open.spotify.com/episode/1BrMT4xX44y3A9edKZVqHc?si=7f0a079fb6f1479e

3. Gallup’s annual Global Safety Report measures how safe people feel around the world. Here’s their 2024 report (PDF below) https://www.gallup.com/analytics/356996/gallup-global-safety-research-center.aspx  and here’s its Key Findings:

• In 2023, 70% of adults felt safe, up from 64% in 2013. However, this is a slight decline from the record-high 72% in 2020.

• Feelings of safety are highest in Asia-Pacific (75%), Western Europe (75%), the Middle East and North Africa (74%), Northern America (72%), and post-Soviet Eurasia (71%). Post-Soviet Eurasia has seen the most significant improvement, with a 34-percentage point increase since its low of 37% in 2006.

• Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean remain the regions where people felt the least safe walking alone at night, at 51% and 47%, respectively.

• In 2023, over seven in 10 adults worldwide (71%) said they had confidence in their local police, considerably higher than the 62% who reported this in 2013.

Thanks to Maja Mandekić for that one!

4. Fredric Jameson died the other day. He was a regular contributor to The London Review of Books, who have made a number of his pieces free to read by way of tribute. I loved all six of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s ‘My Struggle’ books, but I have friends who think me mad for doing so: here’s Jameson’s wonderful piece on Knausgaard, which suggests both I and my friends are right! https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n21/fredric-jameson/itemised and here’s more of his work for the paper https://www.lrb.co.uk/contributors/fredric-jameson

The latest Big Interview from Monocle happens to be with Knausgaard and “explores his fixation with death, family and freedom” https://open.spotify.com/episode/6ac03kTnfhu5dfLeUkcVmi

5. And, finally and worryingly, from The Conversation, Breathing may introduce microplastics to the brain https://theconversation.com/breathing-may-introduce-microplastics-to-the-brain-new-study-239347