Thucydides
Thucydides was an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work. .. more
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But they are loans, so students don't start paying them until after graduation. Agreed that there are major issues about support for living costs, but that's a different issue, and quite separate from the question of university finances.
August 14, 2025 at 10:49 AM
But they are loans, so students don't start paying them until after graduation. Agreed that there are major issues about support for living costs, but that's a different issue, and quite separate from the question of university finances.
Leaving aside research funding via UKRI and QR funding, and the fact that tuition fees are loans that the government pays to universities up front, not a lot; there may still be residual top-ups for expensive and strategically important subjects, but pretty negligible.
August 14, 2025 at 9:50 AM
Leaving aside research funding via UKRI and QR funding, and the fact that tuition fees are loans that the government pays to universities up front, not a lot; there may still be residual top-ups for expensive and strategically important subjects, but pretty negligible.
According to the BBC, a factual description of the etymology of a word like ‘xenophobia’ is unacceptable when applied to right-wing politicians. They probably won’t like the etymology of ‘sycophancy’ either.
August 14, 2025 at 9:46 AM
According to the BBC, a factual description of the etymology of a word like ‘xenophobia’ is unacceptable when applied to right-wing politicians. They probably won’t like the etymology of ‘sycophancy’ either.
Certainly, but (1) there’s a choice about which version to emphasise, (2) saying this in the context of possible university bankruptcies, it doesn’t look as if the latter sense is being taken on board, and (3) “so high NOW” suggests recent change, rather than twenty years ago.
August 14, 2025 at 8:25 AM
Certainly, but (1) there’s a choice about which version to emphasise, (2) saying this in the context of possible university bankruptcies, it doesn’t look as if the latter sense is being taken on board, and (3) “so high NOW” suggests recent change, rather than twenty years ago.
It is not my choice to have it on.
August 14, 2025 at 6:25 AM
It is not my choice to have it on.
Reposted by Michael H. Whitworth
Oh good, BBC Radio 4 Today line is that some universities are in danger of going bust “despite tuition fees being so high now” rather than “because tuition fees have lagged behind inflation and don’t cover the costs of degree programmes”. Wilful ignorance?
August 14, 2025 at 5:47 AM
Oh good, BBC Radio 4 Today line is that some universities are in danger of going bust “despite tuition fees being so high now” rather than “because tuition fees have lagged behind inflation and don’t cover the costs of degree programmes”. Wilful ignorance?
I’m afraid that quote has nothing to do with Thucydides, though often misattributed to him on the Internet; it is in fact a simplified version of a line by nineteenth-century soldier and author Sir William F. Butler.
August 14, 2025 at 5:01 AM
I’m afraid that quote has nothing to do with Thucydides, though often misattributed to him on the Internet; it is in fact a simplified version of a line by nineteenth-century soldier and author Sir William F. Butler.
Etymology is unacceptable.
August 13, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Etymology is unacceptable.
Etymology is now unacceptable.
BBC apologises over Thought for the Day ‘xenophobia’ claim against Jenrick
Corporation says Krish Kandiah’s criticism of senior Tory not appropriate for faith-based radio segment
www.theguardian.com
August 13, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Etymology is now unacceptable.
Reposted by Thucydides
What better way to commemorate the start of the construction of the Berlin Wall, 64 years ago #otd, than by listening to this podcast interview I made with the New Books Network about The German Democratic Republic: The Rise and Fall of a Cold War State podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/n...
Ned Richardson-Little,
Podcast Episode · New Books in History · 13/08/2025 · 53m
podcasts.apple.com
August 13, 2025 at 2:43 PM
What better way to commemorate the start of the construction of the Berlin Wall, 64 years ago #otd, than by listening to this podcast interview I made with the New Books Network about The German Democratic Republic: The Rise and Fall of a Cold War State podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/n...
After the latter, several people commented that they preferred my ungrammatical but enthusiastic Denglish in the discussion to the formally correct text, so I decided that being lively and engaged trumps careful preparation every time.
August 13, 2025 at 2:09 PM
After the latter, several people commented that they preferred my ungrammatical but enthusiastic Denglish in the discussion to the formally correct text, so I decided that being lively and engaged trumps careful preparation every time.
I read a prepared text for my first ever paper for an audience outside my university as a PhD student (esp. as it was a 15-minute slot, so major risk of getting the timing wrong), and for my first paper at a proper conference (as I was terrified) and for the first time I gave a lecture in German.
August 13, 2025 at 2:06 PM
I read a prepared text for my first ever paper for an audience outside my university as a PhD student (esp. as it was a 15-minute slot, so major risk of getting the timing wrong), and for my first paper at a proper conference (as I was terrified) and for the first time I gave a lecture in German.
Reposted by Thucydides, David Bartram, Andrew Thacker
This is what I'm hearing too. A total failure of public policy all the more staggering for having been totally predicted and predictable. A disaster.
Hearing a lot of Russell group unis are taking on staggering numbers of Home UG students to offset weaker international recruitment. This has been a recent trend, but it seems to be out of control this recruitment cycle. Downstream impact on newer unis will be catastrophic @gsoh31.bsky.social
August 13, 2025 at 12:47 PM
This is what I'm hearing too. A total failure of public policy all the more staggering for having been totally predicted and predictable. A disaster.
I'm not sure what is making me feel more out of touch with the world this morning, the idea that one should always read a prepared text at a conference or the idea that there are right and wrong spoons.
August 13, 2025 at 11:05 AM
I'm not sure what is making me feel more out of touch with the world this morning, the idea that one should always read a prepared text at a conference or the idea that there are right and wrong spoons.
Slightly diminish a band:
Have A Good Trip Deputy Under-Secretary
Have A Good Trip Deputy Under-Secretary
Slightly diminish a band:
Kilodeth
Kilodeth
Slightly diminish a band:
Black Saturday
Black Saturday
August 13, 2025 at 10:28 AM
Slightly diminish a band:
Have A Good Trip Deputy Under-Secretary
Have A Good Trip Deputy Under-Secretary
Slightly diminish a band:
Intravox
Intravox
Slightly diminish a band:
Kilodeth
Kilodeth
Slightly diminish a band:
Black Saturday
Black Saturday
August 13, 2025 at 10:22 AM
Slightly diminish a band:
Intravox
Intravox
Reposted by Thucydides
Slightly diminish a band:
Kilodeth
Kilodeth
Slightly diminish a band:
Black Saturday
Black Saturday
Slightly diminish a band:
Prince and the Incremental Reform
Prince and the Incremental Reform
August 13, 2025 at 10:18 AM
Slightly diminish a band:
Kilodeth
Kilodeth
Reposted by Thucydides
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"Don't bother your silly little head about the possible environmental impacts of vast new data centres; they are The Future and nothing to worry about. But please do delete your old photos and emails because they might put a strain on the environment because of the water demands of data centres."
August 12, 2025 at 4:14 PM
"Don't bother your silly little head about the possible environmental impacts of vast new data centres; they are The Future and nothing to worry about. But please do delete your old photos and emails because they might put a strain on the environment because of the water demands of data centres."
Truly magnificent use of the passive voice to avoid talking about agency and responsibility: "Initially, the move was argued as offering universities a route to reducing government spending on higher education"...
August 12, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Truly magnificent use of the passive voice to avoid talking about agency and responsibility: "Initially, the move was argued as offering universities a route to reducing government spending on higher education"...
All my sympathy, John. It's never easy.
August 12, 2025 at 3:20 PM
All my sympathy, John. It's never easy.
Reposted by Thucydides
Reform MP Sarah Pochin’s praise for men who “protect their wives and daughters” from asylum seekers reflects the point in my column. “It’s an extension of the centuries-old racial prejudice ethnic minorities are a sexual threat to white females - and the white males who claim possession of them.”
August 12, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Reform MP Sarah Pochin’s praise for men who “protect their wives and daughters” from asylum seekers reflects the point in my column. “It’s an extension of the centuries-old racial prejudice ethnic minorities are a sexual threat to white females - and the white males who claim possession of them.”
Reposted by Thucydides
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It's time to harvest the Szechuan peppers!
August 12, 2025 at 9:59 AM
It's time to harvest the Szechuan peppers!
Reposted by Thucydides
Ramping up the rhetoric and generating a predictable response.
August 12, 2025 at 6:25 AM
Ramping up the rhetoric and generating a predictable response.
Reposted by Thucydides
A simplistic use of genAI doesn't provide this training. If you let it in to the undergraduate setting then you can very quickly be training students in "how to google effectively" or "what prompt to type" and not "how to think about this problem".
August 12, 2025 at 9:05 AM
A simplistic use of genAI doesn't provide this training. If you let it in to the undergraduate setting then you can very quickly be training students in "how to google effectively" or "what prompt to type" and not "how to think about this problem".
Well, quite. I take it you’re shouting at the inappropriate business mindset rather than at me…
August 12, 2025 at 8:51 AM
Well, quite. I take it you’re shouting at the inappropriate business mindset rather than at me…
It was an eye-opening moment when the then Director of Finance announced to a faculty board that staff costs were 65% of turnover, which is much higher than in any normal business and therefore clearly a problem that needed to be addressed urgently.
August 12, 2025 at 8:47 AM
It was an eye-opening moment when the then Director of Finance announced to a faculty board that staff costs were 65% of turnover, which is much higher than in any normal business and therefore clearly a problem that needed to be addressed urgently.
Reposted by Thucydides
I don't think many of the (ex-)academics who end up notionally in charge of universities are particularly good at drawing a line between "we need, methodologically, to view things like a business to continue operating" and "we are a business and so must intrinsically see the world like one".
August 12, 2025 at 8:34 AM
I don't think many of the (ex-)academics who end up notionally in charge of universities are particularly good at drawing a line between "we need, methodologically, to view things like a business to continue operating" and "we are a business and so must intrinsically see the world like one".
Your periodic update on how the world of social media looks through the incredibly specific prism of looking for misattributed Thucydides quotes…
thesphinxblog.com/2025/08/12/p...
thesphinxblog.com/2025/08/12/p...
Plastic People
It is of course distressing to realise that demand for my opinions on Thucydides is limited… Just over a fortnight ago I embarked on one of those “One like, one X” social media things on Blue…
thesphinxblog.com
August 12, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Your periodic update on how the world of social media looks through the incredibly specific prism of looking for misattributed Thucydides quotes…
thesphinxblog.com/2025/08/12/p...
thesphinxblog.com/2025/08/12/p...