Daryl
@drleeworthy.bsky.social
Writer, historian. Labour histories, social histories, biographies of writers, mostly British but occasionally elsewhere. Always got my nose in a novel.
“Each day is a little bit of history” — Jose Saramago
“Each day is a little bit of history” — Jose Saramago
Giving my first talk of the winter season this afternoon: the local history of pantomime. Two hundred years of popular theatre, which will be quite the rush in forty minutes!
November 19, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Giving my first talk of the winter season this afternoon: the local history of pantomime. Two hundred years of popular theatre, which will be quite the rush in forty minutes!
The thing about not being on social media much these days — book writing takes precedence — is that when I then log back in, nothing makes sense, and so off I go again. The worldview on here (and elsewhere online) is far angrier than it needs to be, I feel.
November 18, 2025 at 12:08 AM
The thing about not being on social media much these days — book writing takes precedence — is that when I then log back in, nothing makes sense, and so off I go again. The worldview on here (and elsewhere online) is far angrier than it needs to be, I feel.
So I stood away from here and read Finnegans Wake for the first time. I laughed at various bits, frowned in confusion over others, but generally marvelled at the inventiveness of the piece. I'm not sure if I'll stay here any more, tbh, but maybe dropping by every once in a while is enough.
November 11, 2025 at 8:10 PM
So I stood away from here and read Finnegans Wake for the first time. I laughed at various bits, frowned in confusion over others, but generally marvelled at the inventiveness of the piece. I'm not sure if I'll stay here any more, tbh, but maybe dropping by every once in a while is enough.
Absolute genius announcement on the railway. Things are stuck because of a “broken down tree blocking the railway”, yes I did a double take too. A BROKEN DOWN TREE!
October 28, 2025 at 12:48 PM
Absolute genius announcement on the railway. Things are stuck because of a “broken down tree blocking the railway”, yes I did a double take too. A BROKEN DOWN TREE!
Husstenhasstencaffincoffintussemtossemdamandamnacosaghcusaghhobixhatouxpeswchbechoscashlcarcarcaract.
🤧
🤧
October 26, 2025 at 11:54 PM
Husstenhasstencaffincoffintussemtossemdamandamnacosaghcusaghhobixhatouxpeswchbechoscashlcarcarcaract.
🤧
🤧
Nooooooooooooooooooo.
It's my last BBC Radio 3 Sound of Cinema tomorrow, and I will be saying a proper goodbye. So tomorrow's show is an argument for the intellectual depth and richness of the film music, and how it should never be treated like wallpaper. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
BBC Radio 3 - Sound of Cinema, A place for ideas
Matthew Sweet's weekly look at music for the screen.
www.bbc.co.uk
October 24, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Nooooooooooooooooooo.
Reposted by Daryl
How do you know whether a suspect of a crime is guilty? Maybe, jurists & psychologists proposed around 1900, with a word association test. My new article on a predecessor of the lie detector in NTM @springernature.com has murder, jealous scientists and CG Jung! link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Experimental Interrogations: Tatbestandsdiagnostik, Objectivity, and the Impact of Experimental Psychology on Early-Twentieth-Century Criminal Justice - NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaft...
In 1904, Max Wertheimer and Julius Klein published a paper that shook the worlds of criminal justice and psychology. They proposed using psychological experiments, particularly word association tests,...
link.springer.com
October 24, 2025 at 9:08 AM
How do you know whether a suspect of a crime is guilty? Maybe, jurists & psychologists proposed around 1900, with a word association test. My new article on a predecessor of the lie detector in NTM @springernature.com has murder, jealous scientists and CG Jung! link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Re-reading The Cider House Rules and found the date stamp in the library copy from when I read the novel as a teenager. A nice discovery to say the least. The library branch no longer exists - thanks Austerity - so this is all serendipitous happenstance.
October 23, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Re-reading The Cider House Rules and found the date stamp in the library copy from when I read the novel as a teenager. A nice discovery to say the least. The library branch no longer exists - thanks Austerity - so this is all serendipitous happenstance.
Off to Cardiff this evening to join a panel on the Queer Irish Diaspora and links with Welsh LGBTQ+ history. It should be both edifying and entertaining, and a lovely opportunity to see the Out in the World exhibition once again. And y'know it means such a lot to be asked. Really does.
October 22, 2025 at 12:40 PM
Off to Cardiff this evening to join a panel on the Queer Irish Diaspora and links with Welsh LGBTQ+ history. It should be both edifying and entertaining, and a lovely opportunity to see the Out in the World exhibition once again. And y'know it means such a lot to be asked. Really does.
Came up with a personal Top 10 of Nobel winners in literature. So, as it stands:
1. Jose Saramago 🇵🇹
2. Albert Camus 🇩🇿/🇫🇷
3. Gabriel Garcia Marquez 🇨🇴
4. Kazuo Ishiguro 🇯🇵/🇬🇧
5. Thomas Mann 🇩🇪
6. Orhan Pamuk 🇹🇷
7. Heinrich Böll 🇩🇪
8. Han Kang 🇰🇷
9. Naguib Mahfouz 🇪🇬
10. Annie Ernaux 🇫🇷
1. Jose Saramago 🇵🇹
2. Albert Camus 🇩🇿/🇫🇷
3. Gabriel Garcia Marquez 🇨🇴
4. Kazuo Ishiguro 🇯🇵/🇬🇧
5. Thomas Mann 🇩🇪
6. Orhan Pamuk 🇹🇷
7. Heinrich Böll 🇩🇪
8. Han Kang 🇰🇷
9. Naguib Mahfouz 🇪🇬
10. Annie Ernaux 🇫🇷
October 21, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Came up with a personal Top 10 of Nobel winners in literature. So, as it stands:
1. Jose Saramago 🇵🇹
2. Albert Camus 🇩🇿/🇫🇷
3. Gabriel Garcia Marquez 🇨🇴
4. Kazuo Ishiguro 🇯🇵/🇬🇧
5. Thomas Mann 🇩🇪
6. Orhan Pamuk 🇹🇷
7. Heinrich Böll 🇩🇪
8. Han Kang 🇰🇷
9. Naguib Mahfouz 🇪🇬
10. Annie Ernaux 🇫🇷
1. Jose Saramago 🇵🇹
2. Albert Camus 🇩🇿/🇫🇷
3. Gabriel Garcia Marquez 🇨🇴
4. Kazuo Ishiguro 🇯🇵/🇬🇧
5. Thomas Mann 🇩🇪
6. Orhan Pamuk 🇹🇷
7. Heinrich Böll 🇩🇪
8. Han Kang 🇰🇷
9. Naguib Mahfouz 🇪🇬
10. Annie Ernaux 🇫🇷
Evening read after a day of writing, blood donation, and library runs: Vargas Llosa's The Time of the Hero. At last one of his books that clicks from the outset.
October 20, 2025 at 10:43 PM
Evening read after a day of writing, blood donation, and library runs: Vargas Llosa's The Time of the Hero. At last one of his books that clicks from the outset.
Reposted by Daryl
Re-reading John Irving's The World According to Garp for the first time in many years. It sorta holds up, thanks mainly to a Dickensian mode of storytelling, but not in its entirety and not, I suspect, to a less forgiving audience.
October 19, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Re-reading John Irving's The World According to Garp for the first time in many years. It sorta holds up, thanks mainly to a Dickensian mode of storytelling, but not in its entirety and not, I suspect, to a less forgiving audience.
The coincidence of inflatable frog suits and this short story by Murakami being released at the same moment is worth noting, for the esses and gees.
October 18, 2025 at 10:30 PM
The coincidence of inflatable frog suits and this short story by Murakami being released at the same moment is worth noting, for the esses and gees.
Having a Bookish afternoon — brilliant words from the doc, @drmatthewsweet.bsky.social
October 18, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Having a Bookish afternoon — brilliant words from the doc, @drmatthewsweet.bsky.social
Anyway, my Friday night literary observation is that once you conquer Ulysses, so much more twentieth century literature makes sense. Not that this is an original thought, particularly, I grantcha, but that doesn't make it less accurate.
October 17, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Anyway, my Friday night literary observation is that once you conquer Ulysses, so much more twentieth century literature makes sense. Not that this is an original thought, particularly, I grantcha, but that doesn't make it less accurate.
“...and made him admit that the Lee was a much finer river than the Liffey.”
October 17, 2025 at 8:47 PM
“...and made him admit that the Lee was a much finer river than the Liffey.”
Handy piece this from a friend in the north. Caerphilly's sociology, especially in its current form, lends itself to a plague on all your houses squeeze. But let's be honest, turnout will be atrocious and oh so many stay-at-homes, who will be the absent majority, will be embarrassed Labour voters.
Great to see Robin Mann and my new article published via the Conservation about next week's Caerphilly byelection and the impact of political history and changing sociological trends @bangorhistory.bsky.social @prifysgolbangor.bsky.social #BangorPolitics
theconversation.com/what-the-cae...
theconversation.com/what-the-cae...
What the Caerphilly byelection could reveal about Reform, Labour and Wales’ political future
The Senedd byelection tests shifting loyalties in postindustrial Wales, and the strength of Labour, Plaid Cymru and Reform.
theconversation.com
October 16, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Handy piece this from a friend in the north. Caerphilly's sociology, especially in its current form, lends itself to a plague on all your houses squeeze. But let's be honest, turnout will be atrocious and oh so many stay-at-homes, who will be the absent majority, will be embarrassed Labour voters.
Having fun reading A House for Mr Biswas, which is quite a relax after a series of heavy Latin American reads. VSN had such mastery of fragile relationships.
October 15, 2025 at 10:34 PM
Having fun reading A House for Mr Biswas, which is quite a relax after a series of heavy Latin American reads. VSN had such mastery of fragile relationships.
Reposted by Daryl
Well, @Waterstones is offering 25% off online orders of the paperback of The New Forest Murders. OCTOBER25 is the code. Easier to crack than the one its hero and heroine must solve. www.waterstones.com/book/the-new...
October 15, 2025 at 10:26 PM
Well, @Waterstones is offering 25% off online orders of the paperback of The New Forest Murders. OCTOBER25 is the code. Easier to crack than the one its hero and heroine must solve. www.waterstones.com/book/the-new...
And, just, like @smidbob.bsky.social, the author of a fine book about French wine.
‘When Asa Briggs left school, there were only fifty thousand university students in the whole of Britain. Today, to a substantial degree because of Briggs’s campaigns and ideas, there are more than three million in higher education.’
Neal Ascherson on the historian: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Neal Ascherson on the historian: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Neal Ascherson · Professor Heathrow: Asa Briggs says yes
Asa Briggs used sweeping educational change to increase equality in England. He helped to make history, as well as...
www.lrb.co.uk
October 13, 2025 at 4:16 PM
And, just, like @smidbob.bsky.social, the author of a fine book about French wine.
Autumn has truly arrived.
October 13, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Autumn has truly arrived.
Reading/partly re-reading a swathe of post-war Latin American literature at the moment: Amado, Asturias, Carpentier, Roa Bastos, Vargos Llosa, Garcia Marquez, Sabato, Fuentes. So many great ideas among them, especially vis-a-vis history and memory. None an easy read but all utterly rewarding.
October 11, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Reading/partly re-reading a swathe of post-war Latin American literature at the moment: Amado, Asturias, Carpentier, Roa Bastos, Vargos Llosa, Garcia Marquez, Sabato, Fuentes. So many great ideas among them, especially vis-a-vis history and memory. None an easy read but all utterly rewarding.
And of course Gould's favourite novel for a very long time was Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus, which is *extremely* German.
Great moments in Canadian-German collaborations (this is the best I can come up with):
October 10, 2025 at 5:53 PM
And of course Gould's favourite novel for a very long time was Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus, which is *extremely* German.
My favourite variation is most definitely "socker football" (from c.1892).
Something for @sszy.bsky.social, if you are still interested in the origins of "soccer" as a word!
The Oxford Review has been digitized by the BNA. It covered the last university news during term time. This is the first mention of "Soccer" on the 7 March 1888.
The Oxford Review has been digitized by the BNA. It covered the last university news during term time. This is the first mention of "Soccer" on the 7 March 1888.
October 10, 2025 at 3:39 PM
My favourite variation is most definitely "socker football" (from c.1892).