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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 12m

We need an Académie Anglaise in this country that enforces ‘elevensies’ and suppresses ‘brunch’

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 2h

It could be worse, I suppose

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 12h

A new issue of Tiltas, the magazine of the British-Lithuanian Society, is now out and available to members:

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 16h

This takes me back to when I was a school library monitor in Sixth Form and allowed to log on to the librarian’s computer, which was one of the few with a reliable internet connection. Of course, we used it for important things…

Internet Archive @archive.org · 17h

🐹 Before viral videos on TikTok or YouTube, there was Hampsterdance.

Full of dancing hamster GIFs & a sped-up tune, it became one of the internet’s first viral hits.

You can still dance to it on the #WaybackMachine ➡️ web.archive.org/web/19991222...

#Wayback1T

🧵

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 17h

Thank you! (I hope that's a good thing?)

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 17h

That means their claims that they will remunerate authors for the use of their work in training LLMs are probably lies as well. I'm tired of the dishonesty from publishers about AI.

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 17h

I don't see why a lawsuit in the UK has to come from authors; it ought to be publishers who are outraged by this. But I've seen no sign that they care at all. Which suggests that any claims they make to be able to *control* how AI uses authors' works are lies

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 17h

Given that UK publishers have bamboozled authors into signing AI contract addendums on a promise of greater control over how their work is used by AI, why aren't those UK publishers suing Anthropic for stealing authors' books anyway?

The Society of Authors @societyofauthors.bsky.social · 5d

A searchable works list has been released to identify the authors’ works that were stolen by US Corporation Anthropic, to train its AI models. It includes UK authors whose works were copied without their permission or payment.

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 17h

😩 I wonder that myself

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 19h

Thank you!

Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 19h

Ooh

Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 1d

'A nationwide survey commissioned by Henry VIII on the property and wealth of 16th century England and Wales is to be made publicly accessible for the first time.

The survey, known as the Valor Ecclesiasticus, set out to discover the financial state of the Church'.

National project launched to rediscover Henry VIII’s long-forgotten ‘Tudor Domesday Book’

A nationwide survey commissioned by Henry VIII on the property and wealth of 16th century England and Wales is to be made publicly accessible for the first time. The survey, known as the Valor Ecclesi...

news.exeter.ac.uk

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 21h

“Both discoveries show the crucial role of county council archives and their staff in preserving this musical heritage.”

Dr Ian McCormick @wokestudies.bsky.social · 22h

GOOD NEWS !
"A team of musicologists has unearthed the printed score of a previously unknown Purcell song, as well as the original manuscript for various keyboard compositions."
#baroque #music
www.theguardian.com/music/2025/o...

‘Almost unheard of’: experts find more music by English composer Henry Purcell

Printed score and keyboard manuscript by Purcell, who died in 1695, unearthed in Worcestershire and Norfolk

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Dr Francis Young

Dr Alan Montgomery @classicalalan.bsky.social · 23h

This is my ink drawing of Wayland's Smithy, a Neolithic long barrow close to the Ridgeway in Oxfordshire. It is said that if you leave your horse there with a coin then Wayland will magically reshoe it.
The original artwork is now available on my Etsy shop here: shorturl.at/HDzSI
#TombTuesday

A black and white ink drawing of the neolithic tomb known as Wayland's Smithy

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 23h

Those were the days

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 23h

The ceremony of the formal re-consecration of the Cathedral of St Stanisław and St Władysław came on 5 February 1989

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 23h

The re-opening of the Cathedral made it possible to install this plaque, slightly belatedly commemorating the 600th anniversary of the Baptism of Lithuania in 1987

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 23h

Lithuanians gathering under the trolleybus wires on Gedimino Prospektas to celebrate the restoration of Vilnius Cathedral as a place of worship, 23 October 1988 (the Soviets had turned it into an art gallery)

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Reposted by Dr Francis Young

Andy Marshall @fotofacade.bsky.social · 1d

🚴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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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 1d

No relation! But the coincidence of names does sometimes cause confusion… If you have the 2nd edition of ‘Magical Folk’ there’s a chapter by me in it!

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Reposted by Dr Francis Young

Cat Rees @catrees.bsky.social · 1d

Absolutely devastating news about a major theft from Amgueddfa Cymru - thieves have stolen Bronze Age gold artefacts held at the St Fagans galleries 😭! St Fagans: Bronze Age gold jewellery stolen from musuem - BBC News share.google/wHR1bDtJxDq4...

St Fagans: Bronze Age gold jewellery stolen from musuem - BBC News

Police are investigating a burglary at St Fagans museum in the early hours of Monday morning.

share.google

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 1d

I’m pleased to say you can now pre-order my next book, ‘Fairies: A History’ (out in February 2026) from
@politybooks.bsky.social. Thank you to Jeremy Harte, Simon Young, Jo Hickey-Hall and Owen Davies for such generous endorsements! 🌿📚 www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 1d

A great turn as the admiral in Persuasion; a face like a mahogany sideboard

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 1d

I watched it at an impressionable age en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_(...

Alice (1988 film) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 1d

Do you know the deranged Czech one?

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 1d

Why couldn't he have just set up a massive carved Perkūnas pole on the coast of Kent like a normal person

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