We Solve Murders by Richard Osman Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He still does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers the pub quiz and afternoons at home with his cat Trouble. His days of adventure are over – that’s his daughter-in-law Amy’s business now. Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul, which makes being a private security officer to billionaires the perfect job.

Way back in 2017 we launched the first ever University Top Trumps. The game generated huge excitement across the sector. Now we present the 2025 update – a whole new set of card games which i…

Universities are hotbeds of innovation and a recent report from HESA provides an interesting list of successful higher education spinouts. But not every HE-endorsed innovation turns into a runaway success. As one university discovered with a radical new mode of transport it tested back in the 1980s.

Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru Once Jay was tipped for greatness, a rising star of the London art scene. Now, he lives out of his car and earns money delivery groceries to the wealthy of upstate New York, while all around a terrible pandemic rages. When Jay arrives at a house set in an enormous acreage of woodland, he is shocked to see somebody he thought forever lost to him.

The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald Frank Reid had been born and brought up in Moscow. His father had emigrated there in the 1870s and started a print-works which, by 1913, had shrunk from what it was when Frank inherited it. In that same year, to add to his troubles, Frank’s wife Nellie caught the train back home to England, without explanation.

Way back in 2017 we launched the first ever University Top Trumps. The game generated huge excitement across the sector. Now we present the 2025 update – a whole new set of card games which i…

Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru Once Jay was tipped for greatness, a rising star of the London art scene. Now, he lives out of his car and earns money delivery groceries to the wealthy of upstate New York, while all around a terrible pandemic rages. When Jay arrives at a house set in an enormous acreage of woodland, he is shocked to see somebody he thought forever lost to him.

Way back in 2017 we launched the first ever University Top Trumps. The game generated huge excitement across the sector. Now we present the 2025 update - a whole new set of card games which is sure to excite everyone working in higher education. Or maybe not.

Oxford and Cambridge, once crowned the top two in terms of pushing contentiously progressive ideologies on students, came joint-fourth in The Times Good University Guide 2026.

Way back in 2017 we launched the first ever University Top Trumps. The game generated huge excitement across the sector. Now we present the 2025 update – a whole new set of card games which i…

Way back in 2017 we launched the first ever University Top Trumps. The game generated huge excitement across the sector. Now we present the 2025 update – a whole new set of card games which i…

Way back in 2017 we launched the first ever University Top Trumps. The game generated huge excitement across the sector. Now we present the 2025 update - a whole new set of card games which is sure to excite everyone working in higher education. Or maybe not.

The Post-16 White Paper, due out this autumn, seems to be taking longer than everyone hoped. Will it actually deliver what is required for that big match atmosphere? Or do we need a proper full-blown HE Review to do the job instead?

The Post-16 White Paper, due out this autumn, seems to be taking longer than everyone hoped. Will it actually deliver what is required for that big match atmosphere? Or do we need a proper full-blown HE Review to do the job instead?

A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark Set on the crazier fringes of 1950s literary London, A Far Cry from Kensington is a delight, hilariously portraying love, fraud, death, evil, and transformation. Mrs. Hawkins, the majestic narrator, takes us well in hand and leads us back to her threadbare years in postwar London. There, as a fat and much admired young war widow, she spent her days working for a mad, near-bankrupt publisher ("of very good books") and her nights dispensing advice at her small South Kensington rooming house.

There is one line in the 2025 OECD Education at a Glance report which should be in bright flashing lights for this and all governments. The supporting data is on page 112 of the main report. It is thi...

The new chair of the OfS delivered his first speech recently at the Universities UK conference. There were some positive messages for the sector including the launch of a Provider Panel. A good new…

The new chair of the OfS delivered his first speech recently at the Universities UK conference. There were some positive messages for the sector including the launch of a Provider Panel. A good new…

The new chair of the OfS delivered his first speech recently at the Universities UK conference. There were some positive messages for the sector including the launch of a Provider Panel. A good new…

Very brief review of another powerful thriller (from a while ago) by Eric Ambler