Christopher Pittard
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christopherpittard.bsky.social
Christopher Pittard
@christopherpittard.bsky.social
Course leader and Senior Lecturer in Victorian Literature. Specialist in detective fiction, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dickens, Wilkie Collins. New book: *Literary Illusions: Performance Magic and Victorian Literature* (Edinburgh UP, 2025).
In other news, it's hilarious to see Wes Streeting realising that the circumstances of his best shot at deposing Starmer also rule out a Streeting government.
February 9, 2026 at 10:24 PM
I also like to think that when the modern Pelican series was launched, the commissioning editors said "right, definitely no H. J. Eynsenck this time, everybody."
February 7, 2026 at 9:01 PM
One for the kids, there.
February 4, 2026 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by Christopher Pittard
I literally had an online conversation with the proquest 'designer' who introduced the zoom page feature, of which he was super proud, but simply who could not fathom why I would more want to know where/on which page search terms appeared; the implication was that I was eccentric
February 4, 2026 at 1:02 PM
I remember stuff I read by locating it on a neatly printed page. Reading a wall of text in Arial 11pt where the line breaks and indents are often borked is simply a horrible, horrible experience.
February 4, 2026 at 11:47 AM
Whenever I point out a problem with Outlook, someone responds with "ah, but you need to do this and that on the fifth menu of Settings." OK, but getting an email platform to offer basic functions should not require this level of customisation.
February 4, 2026 at 10:10 AM
These were only two years apart, but OUP hadn't settled on a consistent spine design for VSI yet.
February 3, 2026 at 12:22 PM
I think this design only lasted from 1995 to around 2000.
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 PM