Thursday, 25th September (Cambridge)

Posted on September 25, 2025 by roycross

1. First up today, Familiar Strangers, an ambitious post by Jamie Keddie on his LessonStream blog, “in which (says Jamie), with the help of three videos, I want to explore how media shapes the way we see each other and challenge the lazy idea that the political right are simply stupid”. https://www.lessonstream.com/newsletters/lessonstream-blog/posts/familar-strangers

2. Here’s a typically useful video from Russell Stannard, CHATGPT for Language Teachers & Students: Practical Ideas. “In this video (says Russell) I develop some more advanced ways of practising speaking with ChatGPT to practise language learning.”https://youtu.be/ItF96l_64dw

3. It’s a long time since I was a teenager, but I don’t remember needing extra sleep  – which might have been a function of boarding school life where each minute of your day each day was accounted for, I guess. Here’s a piece from BOLD, How schools can adapt to teens’ sleep rhythms  https://boldscience.org/how-schools-can-adapt-to-teens-sleep-rhythms/

During adolescence, a lot is going on: hormonally, emotionally, socially. It’s a phase filled with challenges and changes, which is why sleep is absolutely crucial. The teenage brain needs to rest and process what’s going on. Despite needing more sleep at this stage of life, many teenagers don’t get enough. They have to wake up early for school, which often prevents them from getting the recommended 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night.

4. Provoke with Describe image is the slightly cryptic title of the next Pearson webinar, with Kamil Petryk, at 16:00 UK time next Tuesday, 30th September https://pearson.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nEwY9Pv2TumKYPkrFwIUMg#/registration

This session encourages teachers to think creatively, discover innovative techniques, and embrace non-traditional study methods. Through analyzing images, you will learn how to enable students to create vivid descriptions and communicate complex ideas effectively. Our experts will lead engaging activities and thought-provoking exercises that push the limits of traditional learning.

5. And, finally, a piece for Engelsberg Ideas by Muriel Zagha, The pen that became a symbol of France https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the-pen-that-became-a-symbol-of-france/ Do you know which pen that is? We all had one in our pencil case at school, as I remember.

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Tuesday, 23rd September (Richmond)

Posted on September 23, 2025 by roycross

Later back at my desk than promised, as re-entry into UK atmosphere took longer than anticipated!

1. A trenchant piece from University World News by Katy Sian, Decolonisation means no longer being silent on Palestine https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250903102212352

(…) in adopting the language of decolonisation while refusing to confront its political demands, universities turn critique into a form of institutional self-validation. The very discourse meant to challenge power is reworked into evidence of the university’s progressive credentials. The sharp limits of this dynamic are revealed when universities are confronted with Palestine. If decolonisation is to mean the dismantling of colonial structures in both their historical and contemporary forms, then the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians represents one of the most urgent contemporary sites of struggle.

2. Donald Trump gave a typically trenchant speech to the UN earlier today, having made a statement on paracetamol and the MMR vaccine yesterday with which few doctors agree. Americans have 400 days to save their democracy said Timothy Garton Ash in The Guardian last Tuesday https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/16/us-americans-republic-midterm-elections-democrats

I return to Europe from the US with a clear conclusion: American democrats (lowercase d) have 400 days to start saving US democracy. If next autumn’s midterm elections produce a Congress that begins to constrain Donald Trump there will then be a further 700 days to prepare the peaceful transfer of executive power that alone will secure the future of this republic. Operation Save US Democracy, stages 1 and 2.

Hysterical hyperbole? I would love to think so. But during seven weeks in the US this summer, I was shaken every day by the speed and executive brutality of President Trump’s assault on what had seemed settled norms of US democracy and by the desperate weakness of resistance to that assault. There’s a growing body of international evidence to suggest that once a liberal democracy has been eroded, it’s very difficult to restore it. Destruction is so much easier than construction.

3. Are we losing our civil liberties? is the title of a recent Prospect podcast with Conor Gearty, the Professor of Human Rights Law at the LSE who died surprisingly early last week, dealing with among other subjects the UK government’s recent banning of Palestine Action https://open.spotify.com/episode/27xXOihobhafuNpfFNhoL8

Here’s his obituary in The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/sep/18/conor-gearty-obituary – no obituary in The Daily Telegraph, less sympathetic to Gearty’s views, as yet – and here’s his entertaining (and serious in intent) 2014 Sir David Williams lecture at Cambridge University, ‘Not in the Public Interest’  https://youtu.be/erVF82f9vMM

4. Two pieces from The Guardian on the changing landscape in Higher Education:

The first, on a film, The Shadow Scholars, about the essay-writing industry in Kenya and the talented young people that work in it, Inside the world of Kenya’s ‘shadow scholars’ paid to write essays for UK students https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/sep/14/kenya-shadow-scholars-paid-to-write-essays-for-uk-students

There is a secret industry that generates billions of dollars a year. Its workers are bright, industrious and completely anonymous. Their job is writing essays to order for students – in the UK and elsewhere – to help them get good degrees. These are “shadow scholars”, highly educated Kenyans who earn a living by working for essay mills. They are contracted to ghostwrite essays, PhD dissertations and other academic papers for students across the world, who pay a fee then pass off the work as their own.

Here’s a SKY News item on the film https://youtu.be/x3ZTkPT69ng

The second, a letter by two professors from York University, Leo McCann & Simon Sweeney How AI is undermining learning and teaching in universities https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/16/how-ai-is-undermining-learning-and-teaching-in-universities

In many degree programmes, Large Language Models have little to no practical value. Their use sabotages and degrades students’ learning and undermines critical analysis and creativity. If we are to make better sense of the impact of AI on work, education and everyday life, we need to be more sceptical and less celebratory.

5. And finally, with acknowledgement to OLDaily, a piece from Open Culture, A 107-Year-Old Irish Farmer Reflects on the Changes He’s Seen During His Life (1965) https://www.openculture.com/2025/09/a-107-year-old-irish-farmer-reflects-on-the-changes-hes-seen-during-his-life-1965.html

Born in Ireland in 1858, Michael Fitzpatrick was interviewed on television 107 years later in 1965. That device (the television) was well on its way to saturating Western society at the time, as the automobile already had, while mankind was taking to the skies in jetliners and even to the stars in rocket ships. The contrast between the world into which Fitzpatrick was born and the one in which he eventually found himself is made starker by his being a son of the land. A lifelong farmer, he can honestly reply, when asked to name the biggest change he’s seen, “Machinery.”

There’s subtitles on the interview just in case you need them!

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Wednesday, 20th August (Cambridge)

Posted on August 20, 2025 by roycross

Blog version: https://roycross.blog/

This post is late because of my nine-month-old grandson, Mateo. We’ve just spent five days together with his mum, Emily, making a trip from London to Yorkshire to see his great-grandmother, Pam. Those five days have been hugely demanding, hugely enjoyable and deeply shaming. The demand and the enjoyment are perhaps obvious to all of you lucky enough to have children and grandchildren, but why the shame? That’s because I buggered off back to work as soon I could after Emily was born, working stupidly long hours, and left Boba to cope on her own – and I’m now very ashamed of having done so and painfully aware I can never make it up to her.

This is my last post until Thursday 17th September: I’m off to Croatia, arriving two days before Mateo and his support team arrive, with four days en route to think about what I might have done better thirty-eight years ago.

1. From The Guardian last Friday, African Union joins calls to end use of Mercator map that shrinks continent’s size https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/15/african-union-true-size-world-map-replace-mercator-version

The African Union has backed a campaign to end the use by governments and international organisations of the 16th-century Mercator map of the world in favour of one that more accurately displays Africa’s size. Created by the cartographer Gerardus Mercator for navigation, the projection distorts continent sizes, enlarging areas near the poles like North America and Greenland while shrinking Africa and South America. “It might seem to be just a map, but in reality, it is not,” the African Union Commission deputy chair, Selma Malika Haddadi, told Reuters.

2. A not unrelated post on the UKFIET blog by Susan Marango from the REAL Centre at Cambridge, The role of education in decolonisation, climate and conflict: A call to action https://www.ukfiet.org/2025/the-role-of-education-in-decolonisation-climate-and-conflict-a-call-to-action/ Susan’s post includes a video of the panel discussion if you’re not in too much of a hurry.

This blog post provides key takeaways and insights from the panel discussion on ‘Decolonisation, climate and conflict’ at the REAL Centre’s 10th anniversary conference held on 12 June 2025. Intriguing questions and themes explored on this topic included: What does decolonising education mean? What makes climate change a wicked problem? What is the role of education in mitigating the effects of conflict? And how is it exacerbated by inequalities and conflict? How can we address climate change adaptation in education during a time of complex organisational crisis?

3. Here’s the latest episode of the BOLD podcast, Ed-Technical, in which Libby Hills & Owen Henkel speak with assessment expert Dylan Wiliam, Emeritus Professor at UCL Institute of Education, about how formative assessment and AI are reshaping classroom practice. https://boldscience.org/assessment-in-education-to-ai-or-not-to-ai/

They cover:

  1. Why formative assessment remains underused despite its proven impact
  2. How AI is reshaping summative assessment and teacher workload
  3. The limits of AI in delivering meaningful feedback
  4. Rethinking homework in the age of AI
  5. Oral exams, conversational assessment, and the future of grading
  6. The potential for AI to shift the teacher-student dynamic for the better

4. The British Council’s annual Master’s Dissertation Awards promote those dissertations with the best potential for tangible impact on English language teaching worldwide. This year’s winner was Chathuska Undugoda from Coventry University with An explorative study of classroom practices for cultural inclusion and integration of refugee and migrant students in ESOL adult classes in the UK. Here’s the titles of the other dissertations that were highly commended this year, nearly all of which I think I understand https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/publications/elt-masters-dissertations/elt-masters-dissertations-winners/2024-2025-winners

5. And, finally, from Tuk South https://www.youtube.com/@Tuk-South, who are circumnavigating the world in tuk-tuks for charity, The Longest Tyre Roll in the World! https://youtu.be/tLpQ5bcxouw?feature=shared

See you on 18th September!

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Thursday, 14th August (Cambridge)

Posted on August 14, 2025 by roycross

Blog version: https://roycross.blog/

1. The Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University are offering a free online event with Tony McEnery at 14:00 UK time on Tuesday 19th August, Navigating Challenges in the use of AI and GenAI in Applied Linguistics. More info and (obligatory) registration here https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=Ec2bnHqXnE6poLxzQJAWSkcynVpuhjVFlqIkhN5_0JpUODY3UjQ1RUI1UExIMkVUWEFCNjNHRFBaMC4u&route=shorturl

2. The LRB blog is open access, I think – shout if that’s not the case, please. Here’s three good, very diverse recent posts (the first of which taught me something I’d never have guessed about filter cigarettes):

i) Compensatory Puffing by Nicholas Hopkinson

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/august/compensatory-puffing

In any case, cigarette filters are a fraudulent product, providing no protection to people who smoke, while giving the false impression that they are doing something to reduce the risk. International survey data suggests that around three-quarters of smokers believe erroneously that filters make smoking safer. Tobacco industry documents make clear that they knew filters didn’t work in the 1950s, when they introduced them along with ‘low tar’ brands to give false reassurance to smokers who were anxious in the face of growing evidence that smoking causes lung cancer.

ii) Trumpists against Trump by Judith Butler

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/august/trumpists-against-trump

Trump insists that the whole Epstein affair is a ‘hoax’ and that his own followers are ‘stupid’ and ‘weaklings’. Their reaction has been intense and swift, since Trump now sounds like the elitists who disparage them – elitists like Hillary Clinton, who called them ‘a basket of deplorables’. Trump scoffs at their complaints, noting that his supporters have nowhere else to go. They feel not only deceived by their hero but demeaned, insulted and outraged, the way they felt when Democrats were in power.

iii) The World’s Largest Deforestation Project by Douglas Gerrard

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/august/the-world-s-largest-deforestation-project

In the West Papuan regency of Merauke, close to the border with Papua New Guinea, Indonesia is rapidly clearing land in the world’s largest ever deforestation project: three million hectares for sugarcane and rice production. Within three years, Indonesia plans to convert an expanse of forest roughly the size of Belgium into profitable monoculture.

3. Here’s a recent UNESCO publication, Languages matter: global guidance on multilingual education https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000392477 PDF below as well.

UNESCO champions all learners’ right to a quality education in languages they understand. The linguistic landscape has significantly changed in recent years. This evolution has been shaped by migration, technological developments, and growing recognition of multilingualism’s cognitive, social and economic benefits. This guide presents up-to-date principles for language-in-education policies that recognize multilingualism as both a fundamental human characteristic and an essential educational approach. It supports Ministries of Education and their partners in integrating multilingual education into policy and practice, with the goal of improving learning outcomes, promoting inclusion, and safeguarding linguistic and cultural identities, knowledge, and practices.

UNESCO Languages matter – global guidance on multilingual educationDownload

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4. This one in the Applied Linguistics Review by Jim McKinley, Mariusz Baranowski & Piotr Cichocki is possibly a bit recherché, Do open access plain-language summaries increase engagement with research? https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/applirev-2024-0269/html but it allows me to make the clever dick remark that surely plain language summaries – and articles! – should be our default position? I’d attach a PDF but I’d get into trouble with Jim ….

5. And, finally, what difference does the colour of your football team’s shirt make? https://theconversation.com/premier-league-from-red-success-to-grey-failure-how-kit-colours-appear-to-impact-performance-263062

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Tuesday, 12th August (Richmond)

Posted on August 12, 2025 by roycross

1. On Life and Death in Gaza: a doctor shares his story by Abdelkareem Alsalqawi https://www.persuasion.community/p/on-life-and-death-in-gaza

More than once I have chopped a leg or a forearm or a hand without anaesthesia. I remember one case very well: it was at Al-Aqsa Hospital, about a year ago. It was a little child—a male patient, two years old—and I took his left leg out below the knee. We had to move quickly to stop the bleeding. I don’t exaggerate when I say there simply was no analgesic at the ER back then. Now the situation is a little bit better, but still we struggle. To save resources, we give diclofenac or paracetamol for pain relief. For a patient with an open fracture, with a leg about to be amputated, how can a paracetamol ease the pain? But what else can we do?

2. Here’s a recent blog post by Simon Borg, Increasing Teacher Engagement in Online Professional Development Groups, reporting on a recent piece of work of his evaluating a Facebook group for English language teachers. https://simon-borg.co.uk/increasing-teacher-engagement-in-online-professional-development-groups/

Simon notes, A relatively small number of members (whose identities change over time) contribute actively (by commenting on posts) while a larger sub-group read posts without commenting.

How do we find out what that larger sub-group are thinking and doing, I wonder? The fact that they keep coming back (silently) for more is itself evidence that they perceive their membership of the group to have value.

3. Oxfam has some good ‘home learning activities’. Here’s their set of materials on the topic of water https://www.oxfam.org.uk/education/home-learning-activities/water/ PDF below as well. And you’ll find their materials on a range of other topics here https://www.oxfam.org.uk/education/home-learning-activities/

Oxfam edu-water-home-learning-activities-060121-enDownload

4. We could discuss forever plastics forever. Here’s Wicked Leeks take on the subject https://wickedleeks.riverford.co.uk/news/global-plastics-treaty-hopes-to-tackle-worsening-problem/

In the next few days, expect to be hit with a plethora of statistics and studies, soundbites and social media posts about plastic – because talks to finalise and agree on a Global Plastics Treaty are underway in Geneva, Switzerland. “Plastics are a grave, growing, and under-recognised danger to human and planetary health,” noted experts writing for The Lancet journal on Monday August 4th. “Plastics cause disease and death from infancy to old age and are responsible for health-related economic losses exceeding $1·5 trillion annually.” The review also noted that plastic pollution has in fact worsened – 8,000Mt of the materials now pollute the planet. In the UK alone, the largest plastic waste survey by Greenpeace found that 1.7bn pieces of plastic packaging are thrown away by households every single week.

5. And some nonsense – literally and highly successfully for the singer – to end with, Prisencolinensinainciusol by Adriano Celentano https://youtu.be/fU-wH8SrFro? Treat it as a dictation!

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Thursday, 7th August (Cambridge)

Posted on August 7, 2025 by roycross

1. I think the husband-wife ‘Mankeeping’ debate in The Daily Telegraph that I mentioned on Tuesday has been carefully choreographed in advance! Here’s the kept man’s perspective https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/75c944d1cd63e5c1

2. The Guardian’s ‘Audio Long Read’ series ranges very widely:

From Sold to the Trump family: one of the last undeveloped islands in the Mediterranean

to Outdated and unjust’: can we reform global capitalism?

to The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTube star

You’ll find all three and another 621 episodes here https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-audio-long-read/id587347784

3. The Booker Prize longlist has just been announced. You’ll find bags of stuff on each of the thirteen books longlisted here https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/2025

Be sure to enter the competition to win a copy of all thirteen books – and a Fortnum & Mason hamper! https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/win-a-set-of-all-13-books-from-the-booker-prize-2025-longlist

4. The three Cs – chocolate, coffee and cheese – are my favourite foodstuffs. Here’s a TeachingEnglish lesson on the first of those three, chocolate https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/teaching-resources/teaching-secondary/lesson-plans/pre-intermediate-a2/chocolate

Stacks of learning and teaching resources: a student worksheet, a lesson plan and a presentation – copies of all three below, plus a PowerPoint version of the presentation (which is a much bigger file).

Chocolate_Student worksheetDownload
Chocolate_lesson plan_0Download
Chocolate_presentationDownload

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Chocolate_presentationDownload

5. And, finally, it was Nnenna Freelon’s birthday last week. Here she is singing ‘Skylark’ https://youtu.be/m55qF-2WdH4 The YouTube subtitles are a bit approximate, so here’s a more accurate version https://genius.com/Nnenna-freelon-skylark-lyrics Love the concentration on the face of the bass player in the background at the end of the song!

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Tuesday, 5th August (Richmond)

Posted on August 5, 2025 by roycross

1. First out of the blocks today, the Cambridge English Generative AI Idea Pack for English language teachers, put together by Jasmin Silver, Jo Szoke & Vicky Saumell https://cambunipress.prod.acquia-sites.com/sites/default/files/media/documents/GenAI-Idea-Pack-for-English-language-teachers.pdf

PDF below as well.

We have designed this idea pack to help you become more confident when using generative AI tools in your teaching practice. It offers research-based, practical suggestions that will aid you in navigating the exciting yet occasionally daunting field of generative AI. Some of these ideas are ideas for activities in the classroom, others are for you to consider and perhaps embed in your professional development goals. You might go through the whole pack at once, or you could take a one-a-day approach and start your week (or day) with a new card.

GenAI-Idea-Pack-for-English-language-teachersDownload

2. I’d forgotten I have ten gift articles from The Daily Telegraph each month, so here’s three:

i) the Telegraph take on that Edinburgh University report on slavery and racism that I shared last Tuesday https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/b8cc2d5ee44bf5bb

This devastating critique was not commissioned by Edinburgh’s rivals but by the university itself. Led by academics, the investigation into the university’s historic links to slavery and racism is being lauded as one of “the most ambitious, wide-ranging and sustained consultations of its kind”. The result is 130 pages of self-flagellation.

ii) a comment piece with which it’s unfortunately hard to disagree, Trump just exposed how irrelevant the Europeans have now become: Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer are small men commenting on events over which they have no control https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/721273fced4463aa

Before flying to Scotland on Friday, Donald Trump subjected the preening French president to his worst humiliation: that of irrelevance. Macron’s geopolitically illiterate announcement on recognising Palestine “doesn’t matter”, Trump said. “He’s a very good guy. I like him, but that statement doesn’t carry weight,” he added (…) As if that wasn’t bad enough, then came the real twist of the knife. “Here’s the good news,” Trump concluded. “What he says doesn’t matter. It’s not going to change anything.”

If you’re unsure of The Daily Telegraph’s politics, here’s a clue from the article: When Israel and America so magnificently bombed Iran last month …

iii) Mankeeping: Finally, a word to describe the emotional labour of my 38-year marriage The term describes the unreciprocated work women do to manage the emotional and social needs of men in their lives. I know all about that https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/f5d24fb499d13f29 The unfortunate – or should that be fortunate? -man in question was, however, prepared to be photographed in his pyjamas for the rather strange photo accompanying the article.

3. Boba and I have supported the UK charity, Freedom from Torture, for a long time, ever since we won an uncomfortably large raffle prize from them, which we’ve since repaid many times over https://www.freedomfromtorture.org Their current campaign is Test your memory! https://secure.freedomfromtorture.org/page/175435/survey/1 We know that memory is not straightforward. Our ability to remember things is impacted by both time and trauma. To help demonstrate this, we’re asking you to share a recent memory with us. In 40 days’ time, we’ll reach out again and see how accurately you remember the same event. Give it a go? I just did.

4. This one’s not for everyone. Kristian Krempel’s cold-eyed Afghanistan war documentary about The Battle of Qala I Jangi in 2001 https://youtu.be/S3zdczaYDs0

The Battle of Qala-i-Jangi, also known as “The Fortress of War”, was a 2001 uprising of Taliban prisoners held at the Qala-i-Jangi fortress in northern Afghanistan, which lasted from November 25 to December 1. The uprising began with prisoners-of-war, and Northern Alliance fighters, with assistance from British and American special forces, eventually quelled the revolt after seven days, leaving only 86 prisoners alive out of an original 300. At least 470 people were killed, including CIA agent Johnny “Mike” Spann.

5. And, finally, free to read courtesy of Granta until the end of August, Frederick Seidel’s The Desert Song https://granta.com/the-desert-song/ There’s also an audio version read by the poet: maybe read along as you listen?

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Thursday, 31st July

Posted on July 31, 2025 by roycross

1. 10 scenarios for education in 2035 https://edtechhub.org/evidence/10-scenarios-for-education-in-2035/ from the EdTech Hub https://edtechhub.org/ plus, a wealth of weekend reading in their Evidence Library https://docs.edtechhub.org/lib/

2. The August issue of Humanising Language Teaching has just been published https://www.hltmag.co.uk/aug25/ It includes:

i) details of an online Event to Honour the Memory of Mario Rinvolucri on Sunday 28th September https://www.hltmag.co.uk/aug25/event-to-honour-the-memory-of-mario-rinvolucri

ii) a piece by Vicky Saumell on GenAI’s Environmental Impact: Current State and Strategies for Mitigation https://www.hltmag.co.uk/aug25/genais-environmental-impact

iii) a piece by David Heathfield, Tell Our Stories to the World – Fighting Oblivion in Gaza https://www.hltmag.co.uk/aug25/tell-our-stories-to-the-world

3. From the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025: addressing high food price inflation for food security and nutrition https://openknowledge.fao.org/items/18053f75-4c71-4a35-a0d9-1eb2fe204364

Some of the report’s key findings:

  • Updated global estimates point to signs of a decrease in world hunger in recent years.
  • It is estimated that between 638 and 720 million people, corresponding to 7.8 and 8.8 percent of the global population, respectively, faced hunger in 2024.
  • About 2.3 billion people in the world are estimated to have been moderately or severely food insecure in 2024.
  • Food prices rose throughout 2023 and 2024, pushing up the average cost of a healthy diet globally.
  • Despite the increase in food prices during 2024, the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet in the world fell from 2.76 billion in 2019 to 2.60 billion in 2024. However, the number increased in Africa from 864 million to just over 1 billion in this period.
  • Accelerated progress is needed to achieve the 2030 global targets for key indicators of child malnutrition.
  • New updates of the prevalence of anaemia in women aged 15 to 49 years reveal an increase in the global prevalence from 27.6 to 30.7 percent.
  • Globally, about one-third of children aged 6 to 23 months and two-thirds of women aged 15 to 49 years achieved minimum dietary diversity.

The FAO World Hunger map, their World Food Insecurity map, and a PDF of the report all attached!

FAO 2025 world food reportDownload
FAO world hunger mapDownload
FAO food insecurity mapDownload

4. Jack Dickens of Engelsberg Ideas In conversation with Elisabeth Kendall on what the Houthis really want https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/in-conversation-with-elisabeth-kendall-on-what-the-houthis-really-want/

Some really major things have changed in the region since 7 October. But would I say that it has been fundamentally reshaped? I think that is less clear just now, because there are so many persistent, intractable issues that haven’t changed. But let’s start first with what has changed. I think that one of the big ones is the tumbling of Iran’s longest-standing proxies.

5. And, finally, a ten-part adaptation of William Golding’s The Spire from BBC Radio 4 for your journey to and from work (and my next trip to Richmond) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002g37p  Well read by John Heffernan and Lucy Davidson.

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Tuesday, 29th July (Richmond)

Posted on July 29, 2025 by roycross

1. Edinburgh University’s Review of Race and History has just been published https://www.ed.ac.uk/about/race-review

The publication of the University’s Race Review is a significant moment in this ancient institution’s willingness and determination to learn from and repair its past, as well as its present, in order to shape its future. An academically-led examination of the University’s historic links to slavery and racism, it is thought to be one of the most ambitious, wide-ranging and sustained consultations of its kind and is the result of more than four years of dedicated research, community engagement and collaboration. It has brought to light important, confronting and often uncomfortable accounts of our historical ties to slavery and colonialism, the legacy of racist teachings and ideologies, and current challenges we face around race and inclusion. The University has set out a series of immediate reparatory actions and long-term commitments, recognising that sustained and meaningful change requires time, transparency and ongoing engagement with our whole community.

PDF of the review, entitled Decolonised Transformations: Confronting The University Of Edinburgh’s History And Legacies Of Enslavement And Colonialism here https://www.ed.ac.uk/about/race-review/read-the-review and attached.

Here’s The Guardian article on the review https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/jul/27/edinburgh-university-outsized-role-creating-racist-scientific-theories-inquiry

The University of Edinburgh, one of the UK’s oldest and most prestigious educational institutions, played an “outsized” role in the creation of racist scientific theories and greatly profited from transatlantic slavery, a landmark inquiry into its history has found. (…) Fewer than 1% of its staff and just over 2% of its students were Black, well below the 4% of the UK population, and despite Edinburgh’s status as a global institution.

I wonder how well most UK universities do against that last criterion?

Decolonised Transformations_ Confronting the University of Edinburgh’s History and Legacies of Enslavement and ColonialismDownload

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2. Another one from The Guardian, by Alex Holder, ‘There’s an arrogance to the way they move around the city’: is it time for digital nomads like me to leave Lisbon? Like so many others, I moved from London to Portugal’s capital for the sun, lifestyle – and the tax break. But as tensions rise with struggling locals, many of us are beginning to wonder whether we’re doing more harm than good … https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/27/lisbon-portugal-digital-nomads-foreign-remote-workers-integration

No tax at all is an extraordinary – and unnecessary? – concession.

3. Thanks to Rob Gibson for this, Dialogue for Social Cohesion from UNESCO. Slide show version here https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000393249.locale=en and PDF attached.

The Dialogue for Social Cohesion brief—developed in collaboration with the Berghof Foundation and Search for Common Ground—bridges theory and practice to explore the horizontal (community-to-community) and vertical (citizen-to-state) dimensions of social cohesion and highlights how inclusive dialogue can support both. Case studies from Afghanistan, Germany, Somalia, and South Sudan illustrate how dialogue—whether through theatre, education, local governance, or environmental peacebuilding—can cultivate mutual understanding and trust, bridge identity-based divides, and restore, step by step, the social fabric in fractured societies.

The first in what will be a four-part series was Dialogue for Prevention https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000394493 PDF of that below as well.

UNESCO Dialogue for Social CohesionDownload
UNESCO Dialogue for PreventionDownload

4. The Rainbows We Cannot See is Elif Shafak’s latest post on her blog Unmapped Storylands https://elifshafak.substack.com/p/the-rainbows-we-cannot-see

As a writer who commutes between languages I have always been intrigued by the works of linguists. It is an incredible profession, but more than a profession, it is surely a passion. Linguist Michael Krauss reminds us that his discipline will go down in history “as the only science that presided obliviously over the disappearance of 90 percent of the field to which it is dedicated.”

5. And, finally, in memoriam Tom Lehrer, who died on Saturday at the grand old age of 97, one of his best known songs, National Brotherhood Week, which opens this concert of his from Oslo in 1967 https://youtu.be/a1IiVF6Ehw8 Listen to the rest of the concert, too!

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Thursday, 24th July

Posted on July 24, 2025 by roycross

1. A free ‘reading experience’ with which to start today, The Universal Turing Machine: a memoir by Richard Beard https://universalturingmachine.co.uk/ The Universal Turing Machine is a reading experience not a game, a memoir about what it means to live a human, unartificially (sic) intelligent life. It is a whole-life memoir – from the age of zero to sixty-three – with a thousand words allocated to each year. The reader can plot a course starting at 1986, a year for falling in love and for Garry Kasparov to check-mate ten supercomputers, blind-folded, at the same time. A very fine year for humankind. Re-enacting the mental leaps of anticipation and memory, other years can be reached by moving like a knight in a game of chess. Available moves are outlined in blue, and progress can be monitored by turning on tracking which marks every opened square with a red dot. Great stuff!

And here’s the interestingly different Engelsberg Ideas ‘summer reading’ feature from which I pinched that recommendation https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/a-summer-of-reading/

2. Bad Days and Worse Days by Selma Dabbagh for the London Review of Books blog https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/july/bad-days-and-worse-days

Last month, Gazans honoured their donkeys, dressing them up and walking them down a red carpet to celebrate the animals and contrast their resilience and support to that provided by global leaders. Reports soon followed of the large-scale theft of donkeys from Gaza by Israel. Some are being transferred to a farm in Israel called ‘Let’s Start Again’. Glossy videos describe their care. Some are said to have been exported to France and Belgium.

Meanwhile trauma centres in Gaza are recording the questions that children are asking: when it rains will we drown in the tent? When they bomb the tent, will we burn? Why do they always bomb us? I don’t want to die in pieces. Will the dogs that ate the dead bodies of the martyrs turn into humans? Do children who have their legs amputated grow new legs? Do the Israeli pilots who bomb children have children?

3. Two new think pieces from Chatham House:

Why the Indo-Pacific should be a higher priority for the UK by Ben Bland, Olivia O’Sullivan & Chietigj Bajpaee https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/07/why-indo-pacific-should-be-higher-priority-uk

Although UK foreign policy has for some time acknowledged the Indo-Pacific’s importance to Britain’s long-term interests, the government has yet to articulate and instrumentalize a sufficiently coherent approach to the region. Worries over European security, and over unpredictable US foreign policy, have understandably dominated policy attention. This paper argues, however, that the UK does not have the luxury of focusing on one region or problem at a time.

What the UK must get right in its China strategy by William Matthews https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/07/what-uk-must-get-right-its-china-strategy

China’s power, economic reach and technological prowess mean the UK’s relationship with it is of vital importance. However, the UK’s approach has fallen short of the strategic response required by the challenges China presents. Deeper bilateral links are unavoidable given China’s geopolitical and economic influence. But closer engagement requires significantly stronger mitigation of the risks China poses to UK national security, as well as steps to build resilience to the effects of Sino-US competition.

PDFs of both papers attached.

Chatham House Indo-Pacific Strategy paperDownload
Chatham House China Strategy paperDownload

4. A gift article from The New York Times, The Essential Jane Austen https://tinyurl.com/yp8d6wf2

5. And, finally and cross-culturally, ‘what a palaver’ was an expression my grandmother used to use, to mean ‘such a fuss’ or something similar. I just learnt today about palaver trees, where perhaps conversation is more valued than in North Yorkshire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaver_(custom) The Cambridge Dictionary definition, however, is one my grandmother would have recognised https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/palaver

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