Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 8h

(Also had a future Fall member in one of the support bands that night: Marcia Schofield playing as one of Khmer Rouge. What with that and the other support, the Jazz Butcher, doing "Southern Mark Smith", it was all very in-the-family.)

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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 8h

Seems right, and reflective of the endless churn, that when I first saw the Fall live it was a line-up not on here: 11.5, I suppose, Steve Hanley on paternity leave and Simon Rogers in to sub for him (Rogers' 2nd gig with the band, I think). Normal thunderous SH bass was restored next time.

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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 21h

There can be great stuff too, though: at Attingham we found all 4 volumes of Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage for a total of £8. The quest is part of the fun...

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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 21h

One of the joys of recent years has been the way heritage sites come with secondhand bookshops: great wherever you are but boy, hats off to the National Trust for Scotland at Culzean Castle, where the secondhand bookshop is about twice the size of the only bookshop we had in my home town growing up.

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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 3d

With Betjeman here (though Fens headwinds can sap a cyclist's soul).

Andy Marshall @fotofacade.bsky.social · 3d

🚴John Betjeman said that it was worth cycling 40 miles in a headwind to see them.
🪽The early C16th Angel Roof at St Wendreda in Cambs is adorned with over 100 oaken angels.

View along the nave of St. Wendreda’s Church, March, showing the magnificent medieval angel roof with carved wooden angels soaring above the slender stone arcades.

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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 3d

Cracking visit to Abbotsford today (memo to self, read more Walter Scott). Of course, elements of a busman's holiday in visiting another member of the Lit Houses group: you spend a lot of time reading about cataloguing projects and spotting the environmental monitoring kit. Recommended, anyway!

A turretted, Scottish-baronial style country house seen slightly from below. A Scottish flag flies from the left turret.

A 19th century stately home library, with a cast iron balcony running round the room a little over head height. A large tiled entrance hall is visible through a door, where two people stand talking.

A display board, headed (in italic handwriting-style type): "The Cataloghuing Conundrum". Below, three paragraphs begin "For archives to be usable and accessible, they must first be accessible. Our new cataloguing project will lead to the creation of a searchable database of the Scott family papers for the very first time."

19th century leather-bound books behind mesh in a bookcase. A white light meter, looking like an old-fashioned mobile phone, sits in front of the mesh.

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Reposted by Christopher Hilton

Jessica Duchen @jessicaduchen.bsky.social · 4d

Coming up on Friday: Lara Melda and I tell the story of Myra Hess in the National Gallery, in, what else, a lunchtime concert. We will be in the same space she used, Room 36! Admission freeeeee. Please join us!

www.nationalgallery.org.uk/events/myra-...

Myra Hess Festival: Lunchtime Concert 2025 - Jessica Duchen and Lara Melda | Events | National Gallery, London

Jessica Duchen, author of Myra Hess – National Treasure, joins forces with the award-winning pianist Lara Melda to tell the inspiring story of Myra Hess and her wartime National Gallery Concerts in wo...

www.nationalgallery.org.uk

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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 4d

Next year they revive the tradition of the seaside conference: it starts with them leaving at five in the morning without any warning, taking the first train to Walton and standing on the seafront laughing...

Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 4d

Good grief. Just when you think the wackiness must have run out, there comes another twist, and another... The next Thomas Pynchon novel needs this man in it.

Coates is Odd This Day @oddthisday.bsky.social · 4d

Well, if it’s 6 October, it’s the 82nd anniversary of the day the world was deprived of Ignatius Trebitsch-Lincoln, who was born a Hungarian Jew, got elected to the House of Commons, spied for Germany in both world wars, and eventually declared himself the 14th Dalai Lama...

Frontispiece from Lincoln’s 1916 book Revelations of an International Spy, showing a man in a suit and bow tie, holding papers, wearing a moustache, and looking at camera through small round glasses

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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 4d

There's a real convergence of Victorian figures (both from Lincs.) in Spilsby, where "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield" is carved round the base of Sir John Franklin's memorial. Who else's poetry could they possibly have used?

A dark metal statue of a 19th century naval officer on a podium in a town square. The inscription shows this to be Sir John Franklin.

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Reposted by Christopher Hilton

Ancestral Enquiries - Tony Smith 🌳 @ancestralenq.bsky.social · 4d

The Grade 1 listed North Wing of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London reopens after £9.5 million restoration with 2 William Hogarth masterpiece murals available for the public to see for the first time. 👇
BBC News - Hospital's Hogarth opens to public for first time
www.bbc.com/news/article...

Hogarth masterpieces restored at Barts Hospital open to public

The restoration of the north wing has 'recaptured its beauty and dignity', the project teams says.

www.bbc.com

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Reposted by Christopher Hilton

Talking Pictures TV @talkingpicturestv.bsky.social · 5d

All aboard! 9:25am BFI: NIGHT MAIL (1936). The critically acclaimed British documentary film about the operation of the 30s #RoyalMail train delivery service.

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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 6d

Whether this is just that it looks antiquated now, or a greater sensitivity about trauma to people who were there or who lost loved ones, I'm not sure, but it does seem to have gone from trainers' repertoire as mentioned here.
It *was* a tough watch, but really showed you what the stakes were.
2/2

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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 6d

Indication of the passage of time on the latest @nessundormapodcast.bsky.social episode, on the football tragedies of 1985: not only is the Bradford fire a long time ago now, but it's long enough for film of it no longer to be used in fire training, apparently. 1/2
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/s...

Season 1984/85 Episode 6 - The Slum Sport (Part One)

Podcast Episode · Nessun Dorma Retro Football Podcast · 03/10/2025 · 53m

podcasts.apple.com

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Reposted by Christopher Hilton

What's On Reading @rdgwhatson.bsky.social · 7d

Never-before-seen papers from beloved author James Joyce, part of @uorspeccoll.bsky.social's remarkable new Solange and Stephen James Joyce Collection, will form the free exhibition, James Joyce: Enigmas and Puzzles.

Opens 7 Oct at @themerl.bsky.social

whatsonreading.com/venues/museu...

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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 8d

Good news here for a cracking collection that really deserves exposure.

Oxford Clarion @oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 8d

Oxford’s History of Science Museum, the world’s oldest purpose-built museum building, is to be revived with a project for new exhibitions, a “welcome space”, and accessibility improvements. The improvements have received planning permission from Oxford City Council.

Artists’ impressions of new covered walkways at the History of Science museum

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Reposted by Christopher Hilton

Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 8d

My new book of science cartoons, PHYSICS FOR CATS is out in a week! Order a copy today from you local bookshop or at one of the links here: www.tomgauld.com/comic-books-v2

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Reposted by Christopher Hilton

Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 8d

I have ten of these PHYSICS FOR CATS pins to give away! Share the post below👇 for a chance to win one. (UK only: you can share from anywhere but I can't send you a pin).

A pin badge depicting a black cat floating in a black void orbited by colourful particles.

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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 9d

Lovely to see this again - a bit under 40 years ago I landed here in the southern hemisphere summer and was struck what a cool shady area these concrete "trees" over the foyer created. I had no idea it was almost new at the time.
(No photos of my own: photographing infrastructure was discouraged.)

Airport Architecture @airportarchitecture.byerussell.com · 9d

Dar es Salaam (opened 1984), by Paul Andreu. 📷 DR via Paul Andreu. #airportarchitecture

www.instagram.com/p/Cf1JUITOp1E/

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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 9d

Start of another month, so here's a new @geograph-gbi.bsky.social calendar image for October: New beach huts at South Beach, Lowestoft.
www.geograph.org.uk/photo/7299684

A range of angular, modernist beach huts in various shades of blue, on a sunny day in autumn

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Reposted by Christopher Hilton

Helen Day @lbflyawayhome.bsky.social · 9d

“An example of the town of the future is Coventry.... Traffic and pedestrians are kept apart and the roads are planned to let traffic flow smoothly”

(Our Land in the Making, 1966)
Artist: Ronald Lampitt

Illustration of the precinct shopping centre in Coventry, with its shiny 1960s architecture, walkways and colourful flower planters

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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 9d

Gosh, that's a seriously 80s poster! Funny how fonts and colours you take for granted as the neutral defaults of the times take on a really strong flavour of an era as time passes and they get more remote.
Good to come across someone else who remembers that venue: sometimes feels as if I dreamed it.

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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 10d

Yes, and I think also somewhere that TfL can test out platform designs.
Even when in use it had unused corners - IIRC there was a second platform, never used but left over from when it might have extended south under the river.

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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 10d

I saw the Go-Betweens there a couple of times, and Stump in 1986. Stump were an experience - two people in trench-coats dancing (one of them me), which given Stump's weird rhythms risked dislocating something, and about 15 other people flattened against the back wall horrified.

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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 10d

Tangent to the main topic but back in the mid-80s as St Paul's Arts Centre it was a decent gig venue; maybe the building itself, possessed by the spirit of R'n'R, is refusing all further changes and trying to get back to what it once was.

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