My boss Dorothy Byrne - head of Murray Edwards College, one of just two remaining colleges for women in the UK - on her five favourite memoirs by women.

Thank you so much, Thomas, for recommending my book - published in English as The Empress and the English Doctor. I’m thrilled the book is now available in German - entirely appropriate for the story of a German-born empress. Also out or forthcoming in China, Brazil and Russia.

It was a great honour - and even greater fun - to talk about #TheEmpressandtheEnglishDoctor at the Royal RoyalYachtSquadron in Cowes. The Squadron’s bookclub members are thoughtful, hugely knowledgable and welcoming - and they invited me even though my book doesn’t feature boats!

Spring may have come to Bristol, but our Year Abroad students in Latvia are still in the grip of winter!

Our student Maeve, currently in Daugavapils, sent us this evocative photograph of the railway tracks, as seen from 18th November Street.

‘It was a bit scandalous but we had a wonderful time, the first 16 of us.’

Proud to work Murray Edwards College (once New Hall, now Murray Edwards) - a college for scandalous women

Happy #InternationalWomensDay everybody. One of our all-time favourite photos from our Photographic Archive is this undated photo of a very young suffrage campaigner on the streets of Stromness #Orkney , taken by Robert H. Robertson early last century.

This #InternationalWomensDay , can we bury the 🐴 myth for good?

In fact, Catherine the Great used her body for science - to prove the power of smallpox inoculation (forerunner of vaccination).

It’s all in my book, The Empress and the English Doctor 👉 bit.ly/Empress68

People say goodbye to Navalny. We will never forget.

Ты будешь нами гордиться.

Лёша, спасибо тебе за 26 лет абсолютного счастья. Да, даже за три последних года счастья. За любовь, за то, что всегда поддерживал, за то, что смешил даже из тюрьмы, за то что ты обо мне всегда думал.

Я не знаю, как жить без тебя, но я постараюсь так, чтобы ты там, наверху,…

Incredible scenes in Moscow today, surreal even. Hundreds chanting Navalny’s name as his body is brought to the church - honouring a man the Kremlin branded an extremist, and killed

What happens when darkness falls on your degree?

Putin’s war on Ukraine has transformed the meaning of Russian studies. My daughter Ailis Halligan and a fellow Russianist Trinity College Dublin reflect on finding hope in the ‘floating Russia’ of emigrés

thecolloquiummag.com/post/two-years…

The Solovetsky stone in Moscow tonight, covered in tributes to Alexey Navalny

From a Russian friend. She wrote: ‘People just with flowers.’
#Navalny

“Fear nothing. Giving up is forbidden.”
Flowers left by my daughter Ailis Halligan, studying Russian Trinity College Dublin, at Russia’s embassy in Dublin in memory of Alexei #Navalny .

A very sweet post to end the year.

Happy 2024 to all who celebrate it - if not, see you in 2025 🥂💃

'Þeos tid oð midne winter is gecweden Adventus Domini, þæt is, Drihtnes tocyme.' (This season up to midwinter is called Adventus Domini, that is, 'the coming of the Lord'.)

An Anglo-Saxon sermon for the First Sunday of Advent: aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/2014/11/eos-ti…

If you wander around the galleries at The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge you might come across what looks like a just a wooden box on legs but this particular box made from sweet chestnut is a copy of Poussin’s ‘Great Machine’ which he used to accurately rehearse the perspectives…

Congratulations to National Portrait Gallery Getty on this award and for agreeing such a groundbreaking deal! I’m very proud to have campaigned for this stunning and hugely significant portrait to stay in the UK (shared with the US) on public display, for free, in perpetuity.

Join us this Friday at 7.30pm for the first in the FryArtGallery winter lecture series: a compelling account by Lucy Ward 🇺🇦 of the fight to keep this important work by Joshua Reynolds on public display. Tickets £6 on the door or via our website.