Sod’s Law of Academic Writing: Five minutes before the library closes, you will inevitably be making rapid progress on a difficult paragraph - which it is then necessary to abandon mid-thought.

Baroness Kidron in the House of Lords today on the extraordinary position of the UK government on AI training: "It is extraordinary that the Government’s decided, immovable and strongly held position is that enforcing the law to prevent the theft of UK citizens’ property is

Putting the finishing touches on some slides for tomorrow’s Centre for Early Modern Studies at King's colloquium on early modern war narratives. It’s a great joy to return to the crusader I call ‘Bob’, whose story has been the jumping off point for so many fascinating lines of research since I ‘met’ him in 2018.

It's a no from me, I'm afraid.

Went to the National Gallery yesterday to experience the re-hang in the Sainsbury Wing. Came across this… interesting… potted history of the Reformation. Not quite sure it rises to the level of 1066 And All That.

Colleagues and I are in the last throes of preparing to launch our exciting digital humanities project on the German Peasants’ War (1524-6) at next week’s Society for Renaissance Studies conference in Bristol. Watch this space for the first ever comprehensive map of the conflict!

I've become so out of practice on my clavichord ([insert excuses here]) that I thought I'd go back to a teacher, if only because now I'll be embarrassed if I don't practice. Actual scenes from this afternoon, as I stared gormlessly at a page of Purcell:

Fighting a strong desire to wear this shirt to the Society for Renaissance Studies conference tomorrow, where we’ll unveil our year+ long project on the German Peasants’ War. After all, it’s topical - even if the peasants argued Luther betrayed them by denouncing their rampage.

This is the map of the Low Countries existing in my head. As with the c. 1500 map of Central Europe in my head where Hungary is about 4x its present size, this makes it difficult to figure out exactly where I am in modern Europe. Most distressing when planning research trips.

If one is going to go to the trouble of trying to cast a spell, surely one should be willing to go to the trouble of learning enough Latin to pronounce said spell correctly.

Antisocial neighbours insist on blasting sound that - even in charity - I find it difficult to call “music”. Fantasising about blasting proper music in return (though I won’t). What classical music would be best at loud volumes, do you think? Monteverdi? Bach? Wagner? Grieg?

AI is great at spitting out plausible-sounding but false and pernicious nonsense. Spoiler alert: this is the opposite of what historians actually do. As long as anyone continues to give a damn about the truth, our jobs are pretty safe.

My Saturday project is doing a bit of conservation work on two 17th-century carved panels I’ve just acquired (rather cheaply, I may add). Treated them for woodworm just in case, and now comes the polishing.

Sod’s Law of Research Days: As soon as you request the manuscripts you want to see at the library hours away from your home, several different people will email you wanting to set up urgent meetings for that very same day.