A fast reaction from UNHCR. The UK is becoming a pariah state. And proudly.

Today's picture: for Shakespeare's birthday, Keats's much-treasured copy of the Bard, from the collection at Keats House Museum

I was walking through Rotherhithe today and came across the St Mary Watch House, which was used to watch out for body snatchers who tried to rob corpses from the graveyard for dissection at Guy’s Hospital.

My Talking Books show is at 9.30am tomorrow- listen worldwide to a new interview with an old friend - author Bethany Askew . Find out more about her busy year ahead. She’s terrific as always. 10radio.org for streaming services and listen again 😀

A few years ago in a charity shop, I saw this book - reduced in price because of the ‘untidy inscription’.
They should have put the price up, for the same reason

#cancer is seriously shitty. I’ve had it twice. It’s always best to be open about it. No subterfuge or denial can heal it. No one is immune. Wishing everyone affected, including the #PrincessofWales swift treatment, a speedy recovery and much love.

Ten years gone and never more needed

Discussing Edward Thomas's 'Rain' with students today.
Hell of a poem.
Written in early 1916, while Thomas was in a training camp, before embarking for the Western Front.
An unwanted baptism, before meaning dissolves towards its end.
Interested in responses to those final lines.

I’m not sure anybody listens to me on here now ( #selfpity ) but I’m Framlingham Library in May, talking around my book, Death, Disease and Dissection. Fab venue, tickets are free and you’ll leave even more grateful for antibiotics, anaesthetics and the wonderful NHS. #histmed #history

Just had a great chat with Mai Black for my radio show on 10Radio. Listen in on Friday for Thirty Angry Ghosts and much more!

A year has flown by - I was still in France! I loved making this recording, with two wonderful writers. #IWD2024

#OTD 1815 Keats begins work as a trainee surgeon-apothecary at Guys Hospital. He's assigned to a surgeon whose operations were 'very badly performed and accompanied by much bungling if not worse'

wordsworth.org.uk/blog/2014/10/0… Suzie Grogan

My favourite bird. Their call is so melancholy. Wonderful work.

Please join me at the Brick Lane Bookshop next Thursday, 29 Feb, 7pm, where I’ll be exploring ‘Streets Coloured Black and Blue’, Charles Booth’s East End Poverty Maps.
bricklanebookshop.org/events/

An interesting piece...

Marking, #OTD in 1821, the death of #johnkeats in Rome aged 25. How I wish he could know how revered and relevant he still is today.

Today's picture: Keats listening to the nightingale on Hampstead Heath, by Joseph Severn, 1845

artuk.org/discover/artwo…

wordsworth.org.uk/blog/2016/08/1…

Good morning, and if you love those crisp, bright, sunshiny, good-to-be-alive days in the space between winter and spring, then it really is shaping up to be the very best of good mornings!

I’m really enjoying the honesty in this diary of a writing life by Lucienne Boyce
A Writer's Journal open.substack.com/pub/luciennebo…

#OTD 1818 Keats sends the beautiful sonnet 'When I have fears' in a letter to John Hamilton Reynolds

poetryfoundation.org/poem/173753

Here Suzie Grogan blogs on why that poem means so much to her

wordsworth.org.uk/blog/2014/05/2…