Thursday, 13th November (Cambridge)

Posted on November 13, 2025 by roycross

Blog version: https://roycross.blog/

1. Here’s the second pair of Cambridge Elements that I promised on Tuesday:

 Harriet Jacobs by Alan M. S. J. Coffee https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/harriet-jacobs/36A28B248321946C492A2BBF3EC86268 (PDF below.)

Long celebrated for her heroic feat of endurance in escaping slavery and subsequent activism, Harriet Jacobs was also an astute political thinker. Her book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a remarkable philosophical text. It is one of the most insightful reflections, both on the nature of life as a slave, and on the relationships amongst slaves and between enslaved and free people.

harriet-jacobsDownload

Cognition and Conspiracy Theories by Andreas Musolff  https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/cognition-and-conspiracytheories/C0B84AB1F850EEF2769D680EC7BEFEFE (PDF below.)

Conspiracy theories, or “CTs” for short, have a bad reputation – and a great appeal. Together with “fake news,” they can have detrimental effects on the public’s understanding of political issues, leading to confusion and delusions about important topics, especially crises and their possible solutions. On the other hand, many, if not most, people across ideological and cultural divides seem to enjoy accessing and “entertaining” CTs. This observation cannot come as a surprise, however, if we remind ourselves that much of entertainment fiction, from fairy tales to popular novel and film genres, is based on plots that include conspiracies and theories about them.

cognition-and-conspiracy-theoriesDownload

2. Next Tuesday, 18th October, at 12:00 UK time, Anamaria Pinter & Helen Sherwin are presenting a TeachingEnglish webinar on Bringing today’s world into the classroom which aims “to explore gaming-informed ways to make classrooms more engaging, collaborative, and relevant to learners’ real-world experiences”. More info and pre-webinar reading and task here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/webinars/webinars-teacher-educator/bringing-todays-world-classroom There’s also a recording of Gilly Salmon’s webinar last month on Becoming an e-moderator: Skills for the future https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/webinars/webinars-teacher-educator/becoming-e-moderator-skills-future

3. Here’s the latest Engelsberg Ideas (EI) podcast, Andrew Ross Sorkin on lessons from the Wall Street Crash in which Sorkin discusses his new book, ‘1929: The Inside Story of The Greatest Crash in Wall Street History’, with EI’s Iain Martinhttps://engelsbergideas.com/podcast/ei-talks/andrew-ross-sorkin-on-lessons-from-the-wall-street-crash/

4. Very timely, given I’m listening to Andrew Graham-Dixon’s life of Vermeer at present, Tiffany Jenkins’s latest post on her Strangers and Intimates Substack, Lice combs, vaginal syringes and cesspits: at home in 17th century Holland https://substack.com/home/post/p-178402081

This is how Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has chosen to answer one of its most frequently asked questions: what was daily life really like in the age of Rembrandt and Vermeer? Rather than mounting the usual parade of paintings and fine furniture, curators from different fields – decorative arts, textiles, jewellery – have joined forces with an archaeologist and an anthropologist. Together, in the exhibition At Home in the 17th Century, they have reconstructed a day in Dutch domestic life.

5. And, finally, many people have suggested that the BBC’s response to President Trump’s threat to sue should follow the precedent set by Arkell v Pressdram [1971] https://proftomcrick.com/2014/04/29/arkell-v-pressdram-1971/

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Tuesday, 11th November (Richmond)

Posted on November 11, 2025 by roycross

1. The Cambridge Elements series is a treasure trove. Here’s two (very different) Elements that are currently available to download free (and I’ll post two more on Thursday):

Language, Gender and Pregnancy Loss by Beth Malory (PDF below.) https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/language-gender-and-pregnancy-loss/255AC3C75D78AD4783578BAED4CF1537

‘Miscarriage to me implies that you did something wrong, that you mis-carried your baby.’ – focus group participant, May 2024

This Element explores the gendered dimensions and impacts of the ways in which language is used to describe, define, and diagnose pregnancy loss, and how such language shapes experiences of receiving and delivering care during and after pregnancy loss in a contemporary UK context.

language-gender-and-pregnancy-lossDownload

Things of the Past: A Modern Yearning by Kasper Risbjerg Eskildsen https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/things-of-the-past/D4362687425B550FA05B08353BC3B009 (PDF below.)

Plus a short video introduction by the author https://vimeo.com/1124824660

The monks of the Hōryūji Temple protested loudly. For over a thousand years, they had guarded the shrine in the octagonal Hall of Dreams. Hidden behind its walls was the Guze Kannon, a seventh-century bodhisattva. Entering would be sacrilege. Thunder and lightning, the monks warned, might strike intruders, or an earthquake destroy the temple. But the bearded American, Ernest Fenollosa, and his young Japanese companion, Okakura Kakuzō, nonetheless insisted. They worked for the Art Bureau of the Japanese Ministry of Education and were on a mission, exploring temples and shrines in the western region of Japan. The aim was to document and register historical artworks. Now, in the summer of 1884, they had reached the Hōryūji Temple. Over the monks’ protests, they made their way into the shrine …

things-of-the-pastDownload

2. We went to see the film Palestine 36 at the weekend, which was a sobering-depressing-shameful experience. Here’s The Conversation piece by Anne Irfan on the Palestinian Revolt of 1936-39 that the film tells the story of (with one eye on the present) https://theconversation.com/palestine-36-tells-a-forgotten-story-of-revolt-and-how-the-legacy-of-colonialism-endures-in-palestine-269052

And here’s the Wikipedia entry on Orde Wingate, the eccentric and brutal British Army officer who was largely responsible for the repression of the revolt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orde_Wingate

3. Here’s another piece from The Conversation on a well-intentioned request for a vegan menu that misfired and came across as the opposite of cultural appropriation https://theconversation.com/earthshot-prizes-request-for-a-vegan-menu-for-prince-william-leaves-a-bitter-taste-in-the-amazon-268597

4. This year’s winner of The Booker Prize was announced yesterday: David Szalay, for his novel Flesh https://thebookerprizes.substack.com/p/flesh-by-david-szalay-wins-the-booker

The Booker website also has a monthly feature on a previously shortlisted book: this month’s was The Fishermen by Nigerian writer Chigozie Obioma . You’ll find an interview, an extract, a reading guide and a chance to win a copy of the book all here https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/monthly-spotlight-the-fishermen-by-chigozie-obioma

5. And, finally and musically, Raag Jog played by Kaviraj Singh (santoor) and Shahbaz Hussain (tabla) https://outu.be/BIz_7zAzViEof

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To NILE with Love: Stepping Stones in Trainer Development

Posted on November 7, 2025 by roycross

Margit Szesztay and Uwe Pohl are organising an event from Budapest at 16:00 UK time tomorrow, Saturday 8th November, in celebration of NILE’s 30th anniversary, To NILE with Love: Stepping Stones in Trainer Development. Home made PDF attached and registration link here: https://bit.ly/NILE30Hungary

A special invitation to you all from your fellow NILE trainersDownload
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Thursday, 6th November (Cambridge)

Posted on November 6, 2025 by roycross

1. On Thursday next week, 13th November, at 15:00 UK time there’s an ECML webinar for teachers and teacher trainers at primary and secondary level on “Mediation in teaching, learning and assessment” which will present the achievements of the ECML project of the same name, a.k.a. METLA. More info and registration here https://www.ecml.at/en/Resources/Webinars

This webinar introduces participants to the concept of mediation and its role in language teaching, learning, and assessment in primary and secondary schools using practical examples of mediation tasks in various languages for both primary and secondary classrooms. Participants will explore the METLA databank and discover how it can support teachers in designing materials that foster and assess learners’ mediation skills. The session will provide concrete strategies for teachers to:

•            adapt tasks across languages, proficiency levels, and learner groups;

•            draw on learners’ heritage and home languages;

•            integrate pluricultural components into multilingual activities;

•            nurture intercultural understanding, openness, and respect for diversity;

•            assess mediation performance, with a focus on formative assessment approaches.

More information on the METLA project here https://www.ecml.at/en/ECML-Programme/Programme-2020-2023/Mediation-in-teaching-and-assessment

2. A day later next week, on Friday 14th November, between 12:00 and 15:30 UK time, TeachingEnglish is offering three webinars on Creative lesson planning:

How storytelling transforms learning with Claudia Tumba

Inspiring climate action through the arts with Zeny Zerfu

and a final session in which three teachers from around the world will share their own creative lessons. More info and registration here

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/webinars/webinars-teachers/creative-lesson-planning-webinars

3. Timothy Cook was taken aback when his third-grade students at the American Community School in Amman – eight- or nine-year-olds – asked him if they could design an AI engine to help with their learning. Here’s his account on the Connected Classroom website of what they did, Teaching Students to Control AI https://connectedclassroom.org/perspectives/students-control-ai-not-use-it

4. Recognition of Morocco’s claim to the Western Sahara by the UN last week, another notch on President Trump’s ‘conflict resolution’ belt, did not attract a whole lot of attention. The latest post by Carne Ross on his blog, Western Sahara: betrayal of a people, a principle and of international law, makes it clear what he thinks https://carneross.substack.com/p/western-sahara-betrayal-of-a-people

The resolution is an abandonment of the Sahrawi people. It is also an abandonment of decades of international law. Of course, the poodles in chief, the Brits, voted for the resolution, complicit in the act of selling the Sahrawis down the river. Doubtless they’ve reasoned to themselves that this is a ‘sensible’ step forward, while keeping quiet about their abject sucking up to the Moroccans to stop refugees crossing the Mediterranean, sell military equipment etc.. Trump apparently sees it as an opportunity for him to ‘solve’ another conflict. This is also of course a symptom of the erosion of the world of rules that the UK and others pretend to stand for. At least Trump doesn’t pretend.

5. And, finally,  Big trouble in ‘Little Berlin’: the tiny hamlet split in two by the cold war, a piece for The Guardian by John Kampfner, tells the divided story of Mödlareuth, a tiny hamlet in south Germany https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/nov/03/big-trouble-in-little-berlin-the-tiny-hamlet-split-in-two-by-the-cold-war

A creek so shallow you barely got your ankles wet divided a community for more than four decades. By an accident of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

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Tuesday, 4th November (Richmond)

Posted on November 4, 2025 by roycross

1. You get generous (and nonetheless slightly frustrating) extracts from the London Review of Books Novel Approaches podcast here https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readings/ Try the latest one on Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Kidnapped’ with Andrew O’Hagan, Tom Crewe and Clare Bucknell https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readings/novel-approaches-kidnapped-by-robert-louis-stevenson

2. This paper by Andy Green & Neil Kaye, The effects of system type and characteristics on skills inequalities during upper secondary education: a quasi-cohort analysis of OECD data, is quite technical but well worth a skim for what it has to say about in-built education system strengths and weaknesses https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02671522.2022.2150884#d1e167 The announcement here in the UK of the new ‘V’ Level exam has prompted people to revisit the paper, in particular to see to which of the four different systems the authors identify the new V Levels might belong:

Type 1 – mainly school-based systems with general academic and vocational provision in different types of institution, and apprenticeships delivered separately (e.g. Finland, France, Netherlands)

Type 2 – predominantly comprehensive school systems, with academic and vocational provision in the same institution (e.g. US, Canada)

Type 3 – relatively equal participation in school-based general education and employment-based ‘dual systems’ (e.g. Germany, Austria)

Type 4 – ‘mixed systems’ with many programmes of variable length and quality but with dominant academic tracks attracting the most qualified applicants (e.g. England, Ireland, Australia).

Types 1 and 3 perform much better and Types 2 and 4 much worse, the authors concluded.

Here’s an explanation of the new exam on the Department for Education’s Education Hub https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2025/10/new-v-levels-and-post-16-qualifications-explained/

and here’s a BBC piece about it https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyzjp5n5kro

3. Amol Rajan is everywhere nowadays on radio and TV. Here’s an episode of his podcast, Radical, with controversial head teacher Katharine Birbalsingh, British Identity: How Schools Can Improve Multiculturalism https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002k4ln

Headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh thinks multiculturalism in Britain has led to an excessive focus on our differences rather than what unites us, but she believes schools like hers can change that by teaching traditional values and British culture. Known for enforcing strict discipline at Michaela Community School in north London, Katharine explains why she promotes unity over diversity. She is also critical of those in power who ignore what she sees as the concerns of “white British people”, which she says breeds resentment towards minorities.

4. First of two from ELT Buzz – thank you! -a  trenchant guest essay from the New York Times by Anastasia Berg, Why Even Basic A.I. Use Is So Bad for Students https://tinyurl.com/336cr9b3

 Last spring, it became clear to me that over half the students in my large general education lecture course had used artificial intelligence tools, contrary to my explicit policy, to write their final take-home exams. (Ironically, the course was titled Contemporary Moral Problems: The Value of Human Life.) I had asked them about some very recent work in philosophy, parts of which happened to share   titles with entirely different ideas in medieval theology. You can guess which topics the students ended up “writing” about. My situation was hardly unique — rampant A.I. cheating has been reported all over the country. But I felt a dread I struggled to express until a colleague articulated the problem in stark terms: “Our students are about to turn subcognitive,” she said. That was it.

5. And, finally, unfairly, and eye-openingly (for most but not all of us), a video, also from ELT Buzz, We Found the Hidden Cost of Data Centers. It’s in Your Electric Bill https://youtu.be/YN6BEUA4jNU  I might be wrong, but I could imagine that the economics of power generation are much the same worldwide as they are in the USA.

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Thursday, 30th October (Cambridge)

Posted on October 30, 2025 by roycross

1. ‘The more languages you know, the better you are’: learners’ pride in being multilingual and their motivation for language learning is a recent open-access Taylor & Francis article by Giulia Sulis & Sarah Mercer from Graz University and Astrid Mairitsch from Klagenfurt University https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01434632.2025.2576616

The role of positive emotions in language learning has received considerable attention in recent years. However, research in applied linguistics has predominantly focused on enjoyment, leaving other emotions, such as pride, largely unexplored. While research in general education has linked pride to motivation and achievement, its role in language learning remains unclear. This qualitative interview study addresses these gaps by exploring 31 students’ experiences of pride in relation to multilingualism and the relationship between pride and language learning motivation.

2. I don’t claim to even understand the titles of most of these open access Cambridge Core Language & Linguistics titles, but it’s fun browsing! https://tinyurl.com/nhz7j2u9

3. Is this the end of the road for Andrew Mountbatten Windsor? However devoutly that might be to be desired, I somehow doubt it. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/58be80dcf6918581

4. Plus, taking full advantage (which feels especially good from a political perspective) of my Daily Telegraph subscription, here’s their 50 Greatest Albums of All Time, Ranked https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/7a5dfac0af602ef4 #43 should be further up the list!

5. And, finally and artistically, art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon’s website https://www.andrewgrahamdixon.com/index.html You need to register but once you’ve done so, you have access here to all Andrew’s Broadcasts https://www.andrewgrahamdixon.com/broadcast/members-videos.html

 I’m enjoying listening to his latest book, a biography of Vermeer, Vermeer: a life lost and found, on my way to and from Richmond at present. Here’s AGD’s ‘review’ of his own book from The Times https://www.thetimes.com/culture/art/article/the-hidden-meaning-of-vermeers-art-l6vlxt9vf

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Tuesday, 28th October (Richmond)

Posted on October 28, 2025 by roycross

1. The big news this morning is that both the governing Labour party and the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, have hit an all-time low in popularity. I’ve just re-subscribed to The Times (for £1 for three months) and here’s their take on the story, Labour at record poll low with Greens just one point behind https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/labour-election-poll-voting-intention-269v5xz7w and here’s The Daily Telegraph version of the same story, Farage would be better PM than Starmer, voters say for first time https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/63a97c9c5a2223b0 Ask your advanced classes to compare and contrast those two (and their choice of photo to illustrate their article) with each other and with The Guardian, who don’t seem to be running a story with quite the same focus but have a piece by Polly Toynbee seeking to put a positive spin on Starmer’s unpopularity, Yes, Keir Starmer is Britain’s most unpopular PM ever. That could liberate him? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/28/keir-starmer-britain-unpopular-prime-minister-reform

2. There’s an Andrew Marr piece on Starmer and Labour in this week’s New Statesman https://tinyurl.com/3ut9myjm which the NS have kindly made available as part of their sponsorship of next month’s Cambridge Literary Festival, Doom loop: My trust in Labour to get us out of this mess was misplaced. Britain has become ungovernable.

PDF below as well.

New Statesman 24th October 2025Download

3. World Teachers’ Day completely escaped my attention this year, I’m ashamed to say! Here’s the recordings of the three-day British Council event earlier this month https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/world-teachers-day-2025

The programme included:

Cecilia Nobre talking about Rethinking professional development in a connected world https://www.youtube.com/live/sohokXiGV4Y?si=zS9SZDpafVBL0aky

Amol Padwad, Yiviri Rasifatu Tombir, Adrienn Szlapak & Kim Beadle discussing Multilingual approaches in the classroom https://www.youtube.com/live/glugi3xo-ac?si=6-Yr9okAbcVUx9bb

Christopher Graham talking about Making sustainability part of daily practice in ELT https://youtu.be/-4PZdLQ_YsI?si=MkpZv93TyLIkycdC

and lots more besides!

4. Very sad news last week: the Bell schools will cease trading at the end of this week https://bellenglish.com/ Hard to conceive that there won’t be any more Bell – they’ve been at the heart of ELT all my career.

5. And, finally and not at all decisively, a piece by James Hamblin for The Atlantic, The Scientific Case for Two Spaces After a Period about a new study which proves that half of people are correct. The other half is also correct https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/two-spaces-after-a-period/559304/ (You should be able to read this article as part of your monthly free articles allowance.)

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Wednesday, 22nd October (Cambridge)

Posted on October 22, 2025 by roycross

A little early, this post, as I’m on grandpa duty tomorrow.

1. Tax the rich — and save the planet is the title of a TED talk back in the summer by Nobel Prize-winning economist Esther Duflo https://www.ted.com/talks/esther_duflo_tax_the_rich_and_save_the_planet

Nobel Prize-winning economist Esther Duflo brings her data-driven precision to the climate crisis — and the numbers are damning. While world leaders haggle over finances at endless summits, rising temperatures will kill millions in the poorest countries by the end of this century. She calculates the staggering cost of wealthy nations pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, proving that getting billionaires to pay their fair share in taxes is the best way to cover these damages.

One can only hope …

2. Fear And Laughing in Riyadh is the title of a long and thoughtful piece by Helen Lewis on her recent visit to Saudi Arabia https://helenlewis.substack.com/p/fear-and-laughing-in-riyadh

There are quite clearly three cultures (and, effectively, legal regimes) running alongside each other in modern Saudi Arabia. One for citizens; one for tourists and expats; and one for migrant workers, who make up 40 percent of the population.

3. Here’s a National Archives feature, Olga Gray and the Woolwich Arsenal Spy Ring https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-collection/stories/olga-gray-and-the-woolwich-arsenal-spy-ring/

On a cold January evening in 1938, a man hurried across London towards Charing Cross Station. Weaving through the commuters, he was here to pick up a package of British defence secrets from a rogue employee at the Woolwich Arsenal. The plan was simple. Take the records to the safe house, photograph them, and pass the copies on to the Soviets. But unknown to him, thanks to a remarkable female MI5 agent, Special Branch officers had been alerted about his rendezvous. He would not complete his task.

4. Charlotte Faucher has just published a report, UK Cultural Diplomacy in Europe 1989-2025: Lessons and Implications for Future UK Soft Power. Here’s the press release https://www.bristol.ac.uk/policybristol/policy-briefings/soft-power-uk/ and here’s the full report (PDF below as well) https://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/policybristol/briefings-and-reports-pdfs/2025/Soft%20Power%20policy%20report.pdf

The report opens in 1989 with the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Eastern bloc at the end of the Cold War. It was a time of intense and varied activity for UK cultural diplomacy in Eastern and Central Europe which witnessed an explosion of demand for English language teaching, support for developing management and business skills, and an appetite for the arts. The UK was able to cater for this extraordinary need thanks to the FCO’s programme of technical assistance (the Know  How Fund), the creation of scholarships and additional funding bestowed by the government to organisations in charge of cultural relations such as the British Council. British cultural diplomacy was sustained in Eastern and Central Europe throughout the early 2000s as it supported many nations’ accessions to the European Union.

Soft Power policy reportDownload

[file x 1]

5. And, finally, a ninety-year-old Cuban master drummer, Candido Camero, performs Conga Jam with a band of musicians a quarter his age https://youtu.be/H3_aygrb5-g

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Tuesday, 21st October (Richmond)

Posted on October 21, 2025 by roycross

1. First up today, the latest version of Ethan Mollick’s (Opinionated) Guide to Using AI https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/an-opinionated-guide-to-using-ai Click on the images to enlarge them.

Every few months I write an opinionated guide to how to use AI, but now I write it in a world where about 10% of humanity uses AI weekly. The vast majority of that use involves free AI tools, which is often fine… except when it isn’t. OpenAI recently released a breakdown of what people actually use ChatGPT for (way less casual chat than you’d think, way more information-seeking than you expected). This means I can finally give you advice based on real usage patterns instead of hunches. I annotated OpenAI’s chart with some suggestions about when to use free versus advanced models.

2. Here’s the new Cambridge University Assessment Good Practice Guide https://www.cctl.cam.ac.uk/files/assessment-good-practice-guidance.pdf

Plus, a very useful Assessment Glossary https://www.cctl.cam.ac.uk/enhancing-education/assessment/glossary

and the Ordinance for Assessment Formats (more fun than it sounds) https://www.educationalpolicy.admin.cam.ac.uk/ordinance-assessment-formats

PDF of the Good Practice Guide below.

assessment-good-practice-guidanceDownload

The Assessment Good Practice Guide complements the University’s new Ordinance for Assessment Formats. Written in consultation with colleagues across the collegiate University, and including case studies from a diverse range of disciplines, the guidance provides an overview of key considerations for designing assessments.

3. Should you need it, here’s guidance from The New York Times on how to rob The Louvre, How the Louvre Jewelry Heist Unfolded https://tinyurl.com/hyyw6raj

4. Two pieces from the Engelsberg Ideas archive that President Trump has probably not read:

The true sources of Soviet conduct by Rodric Braithwaite https://engelsbergideas.com/reviews/the-true-sources-of-soviet-conduct/

Russian history rhymes — from Soviet collapse to Putin’s folly by Vladislav Zubok https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/russian-history-rhymes-from-soviet-collapse-to-putins-folly/

5. And, finally, the results of this year’s Natural History Museum Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition https://www.nhm.ac.uk/wpy/gallery

The overall winner was Wim van den Heever for his picture of a brown hyena in the abandoned town of Kolmanskop, Namibia https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2025/october/wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-2025-winning-images.html

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Thursday, 16th October (Cambridge)

Posted on October 16, 2025 by roycross

1. I am largely persuaded by More in Common’s social segmentation of Britain into seven https://www.moreincommon.org.uk/seven-segments/

After a global pandemic, a decade of political chaos and rising public anxiety about the cost of living and national security, Britons are increasingly fragmented, and public opinion can no longer be mapped along outdated left-right lines. The British Seven segments provide a new map to help understand the divides and common ground that defines the British public.

2. Not something I was aware of until recently, tomorrow, 17th October is World Vanilla Day https://wickedleeks.riverford.co.uk/features/premium-pods-the-real-vanilla-rainforests-and-how-to-save-them/

Vanilla is an orchid – the only one to produce an edible seed pod – that grows as a climbing vine on other supporting trees. Out of 118 species of vanilla, just two of them, plus one hybrid, are cultivated throughout the tropics. Seedlings grow for more than three years before they start flowering. Incredibly, each yellow vanilla flower blooms for just a few hours between October and January, and farmers hand pollinate the flowers to ensure a high pollination success rate. It takes another nine months for vanilla pods to mature, then pods are dried and conditioned once harvested the following summer. Vanilla farming is slow, labour-intensive and sometimes dangerous. It’s the second most expensive spice in the world after saffron, so theft is a huge issue – many farms have armed guards and specific plantation locations remain undisclosed.

3. Alexandra Mihai’s latest blog post, What do you choose? https://educationalist.substack.com/p/what-do-you-choose

As the initial buzz of the new Academic Year is slowly subsiding, we start looking at our agendas and all too often a sense of gloom replaces the initial enthusiasm. Despite looking forward to meeting the new students and working on new projects, it feels like soon enough we will be buried in so many tasks we’ll hardly have time to leisurely meet a colleague over coffee (this happened to me, as we realised our next joint availability was in December!) or fully enjoy a weekend without teaching preparation or catching up on writing.

If anything, I would like you to read this and have a moment of reflection, zooming out of a busy work day/week/month and regaining sight of the bigger picture. Why are you doing this? What do you love about your work? And how can you keep doing that in a sustainable way?

4. Maybe more for a UK readership (or for those with fond memories of their UK alma mater), the Demos-PwC Good Growth for Cities Index https://www.pwc.co.uk/government-public-sector/good-growth/assets/pdf/good-growth-2025.pdf PDF below.

A thriving high street, better housing and transport, and access to skills are increasingly seen as crucial to economic success. This shift is reflected in the Good Growth Index – the top performers, York, Edinburgh and Bristol score highly across many of these fundamental areas. But for most cities and regions, meeting the public’s expectations will be a significant challenge. Economic growth has slowed, demand for key services continues to outpace capacity and global economic and political affairs continue to create a significant amount of uncertainty. That’s why good growth must start with clear, deliberate choices. Incremental budget cuts won’t restore trust or deliver the outcomes that matter. Services must be redesigned to meet future needs, not simply scaled back.

good-growth-2025Download

5. And, finally, Mark Stephens posts a rich blend of the provocative and amusing on LinkedIn. Here’s one he labelled Oh no you can’t

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