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).
Reposted by Christopher Pittard
With great sadness I learned today of the death before Xmas of Faith Clarke née Dawson, aged 85. She was the last living grandchild of Victorian novelist Wilkie Collins and the last bearer of the Dawson name which Wilkie invented for his lover Martha Rudd and their 3 children.
January 4, 2026 at 8:08 PM
With great sadness I learned today of the death before Xmas of Faith Clarke née Dawson, aged 85. She was the last living grandchild of Victorian novelist Wilkie Collins and the last bearer of the Dawson name which Wilkie invented for his lover Martha Rudd and their 3 children.
Just watched the Jeremy Brett "Man with the Twisted Lip" for the first time in ages, and it's an interesting adaptation. There's an emphasis on Hugh Boone's literary performance skills as explaining his level of income, which isn't really there in Doyle's story...
January 3, 2026 at 9:39 PM
Just watched the Jeremy Brett "Man with the Twisted Lip" for the first time in ages, and it's an interesting adaptation. There's an emphasis on Hugh Boone's literary performance skills as explaining his level of income, which isn't really there in Doyle's story...
I mean, it's not as if Keir Starmer is a lawyer or anything. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Starmer won't be drawn on whether US strikes on Venezuela broke international law
The PM told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg that he won't
www.bbc.co.uk
January 3, 2026 at 7:03 PM
I mean, it's not as if Keir Starmer is a lawyer or anything. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Reposted by Christopher Pittard
I mean, Henry Kissinger had a Nobel.
January 3, 2026 at 6:56 PM
I mean, Henry Kissinger had a Nobel.
I've long thought that the committee for the Nobel Prize for Literature was questionable after some very dodgy decisions, but I'm wondering now if the whole Nobel thing is suspect.
January 3, 2026 at 6:10 PM
I've long thought that the committee for the Nobel Prize for Literature was questionable after some very dodgy decisions, but I'm wondering now if the whole Nobel thing is suspect.
*The Eagle Has Landed* is on. The Alderney scenes are actually Charlestown in Cornwall. My dad watched them film the bits with Donald Sutherland and the stuntman coming through the window.
January 3, 2026 at 5:05 PM
*The Eagle Has Landed* is on. The Alderney scenes are actually Charlestown in Cornwall. My dad watched them film the bits with Donald Sutherland and the stuntman coming through the window.
I miss the days when you could go to Woolworths and fill up a bag with Blirer in the pick and mix.
London in the good old days - before everyone's feet pointed forwards.
January 2, 2026 at 10:21 PM
I miss the days when you could go to Woolworths and fill up a bag with Blirer in the pick and mix.
The cultural whiplash of this episode of #totp - Terry Wogan to Bob Marley to Brotherhood of Man to Wings is quite a welcome to the world.
Just realised that this #totp on BBC4 is the first episode broadcast in my lifetime.
January 2, 2026 at 8:28 PM
The cultural whiplash of this episode of #totp - Terry Wogan to Bob Marley to Brotherhood of Man to Wings is quite a welcome to the world.
Reposted by Christopher Pittard
Can magnetic fridge poetry show contrition. Do dice feel pain. Is this calculator my friend.
An AI chatbot does not have PERSONHOOD. It has no agency. It cannot meaningfully apologise. It cannot speak on behalf of another. It cannot speak for itself; it has no self. Stop asking it for quotes for articles. Stop printing its quotes.
January 2, 2026 at 7:49 PM
Can magnetic fridge poetry show contrition. Do dice feel pain. Is this calculator my friend.
Ninth day of Christmas, so still within the zone for rewatching the BBC 'The Signalman.'
January 2, 2026 at 5:39 PM
Ninth day of Christmas, so still within the zone for rewatching the BBC 'The Signalman.'
2025 in a picture per month: a thread.
January 1, 2026 at 11:43 PM
2025 in a picture per month: a thread.
Well, at least Elon Musk put people on Mars by 2025, right?
January 1, 2026 at 2:10 PM
Well, at least Elon Musk put people on Mars by 2025, right?
Reposted by Christopher Pittard
Not perfect by any means but a deeply unsettling film, replete with a series of inexplicably stomach-churning nightmare images (the apple seemingly falling upwards through the car windscreen to name just one) that will stay with me for a very long time. The Robert Aickman comparisons are spot-on.
Happy New Year, Offbeaters! Kick-off 2026 the right way by catching The Appointment on @talkingpicturestv.bsky.social tonight at 9.55pm! @headpress.com
January 1, 2026 at 12:28 PM
Not perfect by any means but a deeply unsettling film, replete with a series of inexplicably stomach-churning nightmare images (the apple seemingly falling upwards through the car windscreen to name just one) that will stay with me for a very long time. The Robert Aickman comparisons are spot-on.
2026 reading commences.
January 1, 2026 at 11:44 AM
2026 reading commences.
Surely a new record for earliest BBC News on-screen typo of the year.
January 1, 2026 at 12:34 AM
Surely a new record for earliest BBC News on-screen typo of the year.
Not really a fan of new year, to be honest. December is the best month and now we've been plonked right back at the beginning.
January 1, 2026 at 12:18 AM
Not really a fan of new year, to be honest. December is the best month and now we've been plonked right back at the beginning.
A reminder that you have just under two hours left to read Agatha Christie's *The Mysterious Mr Quin* and experience this bit properly.
An uncanny moment in a rereading of Christie’s *The Mysterious Mr Quin.*
December 31, 2025 at 10:10 PM
A reminder that you have just under two hours left to read Agatha Christie's *The Mysterious Mr Quin* and experience this bit properly.
Also, charming Christmas lights in the window at Barton Books in Penzance. You see that tote bag in the window? We had to buy a couple of those.
December 31, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Also, charming Christmas lights in the window at Barton Books in Penzance. You see that tote bag in the window? We had to buy a couple of those.
The human eye/brain: That moon over St Michael's Mount looks amazing.
The mechanical eye:
The mechanical eye:
December 31, 2025 at 9:41 PM
The human eye/brain: That moon over St Michael's Mount looks amazing.
The mechanical eye:
The mechanical eye:
Final book purchase of 2025, from The Edge of the World bookshop in Penzance.
December 31, 2025 at 9:37 PM
Final book purchase of 2025, from The Edge of the World bookshop in Penzance.
Final novel of 2025. For the last few years now I've ended the year with a Yokomizo.
December 30, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Final novel of 2025. For the last few years now I've ended the year with a Yokomizo.
Mine is genuinely a Holland & Barrett one, as a shop assistant in the branch in the original Exeter Princesshay branch (long since demolished) was convinced that I was the footballer Harry Kewell. I have never understood this encounter.
Please quote this with stories of your minor interactions with non-celebrities, e.g. “I once accidentally bumped into a man in the Wellingborough branch of Holland & Barrett”
December 30, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Mine is genuinely a Holland & Barrett one, as a shop assistant in the branch in the original Exeter Princesshay branch (long since demolished) was convinced that I was the footballer Harry Kewell. I have never understood this encounter.
Birthday book shopping in Falmouth.
December 30, 2025 at 6:33 PM
Birthday book shopping in Falmouth.
Topical question: what very specific thing do I, *Amandaland* actress Lucy Punch, and Oakland Athletics pitcher Grant Balfour have in common?
December 30, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Topical question: what very specific thing do I, *Amandaland* actress Lucy Punch, and Oakland Athletics pitcher Grant Balfour have in common?