Tommaso Sabbatini
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tommsabb.bsky.social
Tommaso Sabbatini
@tommsabb.bsky.social
Writer, music historian, volunteer lock-keeper. Pour le pain, la paix, la liberté.
Book: liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9780197267738; https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/98059
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19th-Century Music special film issue just dropped! 🥳🥳🥳🥳
With an article by yours truly on Louise — the Charpentier opera and the Gance film.
(Let me know if you are interested but don't have access!)

online.ucpress.edu/ncm/issue/48...
Volume 48 Issue 1-2 | 19th-Century Music | University of California Press
online.ucpress.edu
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
Excellent example of the way our media landscape works against democracy:

Today, Le Monde runs a number of stories on the real, dire cost of AI

In the past few days, it prominently featured an infomercial (clearly labelled but looking like a normal article) on "AI being finally productive"
December 26, 2025 at 9:37 AM
I would obviously commission a seven-season adaptation of Aragon's novel cycle Le monde réel, so that we all can have the historical materialist saga we deserve.
OK, less contentious post:

You've been placed in charge of a movie studio, and have an unlimited budget to adapt any work of your choosing that has never been made into a live-action TV series or film. What are you picking?

For me: PC Hodgell's Kencyrath Cycle and there's no close second
December 25, 2025 at 10:31 AM
‘They don’t want statues to themselves in town squares, like Churchill, Attlee, Gladstone, or even Thatcher. They want the seven-figure salaries and jet-setting lifestyle of a Tony Blair or a Bill Clinton. You don’t get those by trying to re-nationalise water.’ 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Here's me for @newstatesman1913.bsky.social arguing that the only way to forestall a Reform government is to make a more decisive break with neoliberalism than Starmer is ever going to, or most of the parliamentary 'soft left' still seem capable of imagining.
www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...
Why is Keir Starmer so unpopular?
Britain needs a leader willing to break with the legacy of Thatcherism
www.newstatesman.com
December 24, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
December 23, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
#Ravel at Christmas: Noël des jouets (1904). Fascinating new article by Manuel Cornejo, including detail on the first orchestration going missing because of Pierre Monteux's divorce dezede.hypotheses.org/8002
Quelques nouveautés autour du Noël des jouets de Maurice Ravel (1904-2025)
Pour clore l’année de la commémoration du cent-cinquantenaire de la naissance de Maurice Ravel, nous proposons un dossier Dezède regroupant les premières auditions de la mélodie de Maurice Ravel Noël ...
dezede.hypotheses.org
December 22, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Barriers to academic freedom (paging @ucu.org.uk)
December 22, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
"Bradage de la traduction, plan social invisible : Harlequin passe à l’IA"

Faites tourner, parce qu'il va falloir se battre encore plus. :/

#traduction #IA #Harlequin #ATLF
December 15, 2025 at 8:20 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
Nigel Farage said that the 'Raise the Colours' campaign was a "grassroots movement driven by ordinary people”.

Kemi Badenoch said they should be "welcomed" as a symbol of "unity"

Now the campaign has pivoted to racially abusing migrants and intimidating charity workers on the beaches of France
Nigel Farage-Backed 'Raise the Colours' Campaign Pivots to Racially Abusing Migrants and Harassing Aid Workers on French Beaches
Far-right activists were seen stabbing dinghies and releasing dogs to intimidate migrants and aid workers
bylinetimes.com
December 18, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
🔴I've spent the last week speaking to aid workers and migrants in northern France who've been attacked by dogs and racially abused by the far-right.

This is a new phenomenon - Raise the Colours have made five trips to Calais & Dunkirk in the last month - and they're becoming increasingly volatile.
The ‘Raise the Colours’ campaign, widely praised by politicians and commentators as a "grassroots" campaign for "unity" has now pivoted to harassing migrants and charity workers on the beaches of France.

Activists were seen stabbing dinghies and releasing dogs to intimidate migrant and aid workers
Nigel Farage-Backed 'Raise the Colours' Campaign Pivots to Racially Abusing Migrants and Harassing Aid Workers on French Beaches
Far-right activists were seen stabbing dinghies and releasing dogs to intimidate migrants and aid workers
bylinetimes.com
December 18, 2025 at 11:29 AM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
Pleased to be interviewed for this much needed piece on the rising transphobia in higher education.

www.timeshighereducation.com/news/trans-s...

(Archive link: archive.is/oYqXS)
Trans scholars being ‘pushed out of academia’, researchers warn
Universities ‘afraid to be trans inclusive’ after Supreme Court ruling and OfS Sussex fine, leaving staff fearing ‘hostile environment’
www.timeshighereducation.com
December 15, 2025 at 8:34 AM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
For more than 2 years, police in Berlin - encouraged by city and national politicians - have systematically used excessive violence in an attempt to beat the Palestine solidarity movement into silence.

I wrote about this phenomenon for the @lrb.co.uk
Harry Stopes | Police Violence in Berlin
In the last six months human rights officials at both the Council of Europe and the United Nations have written to the...
www.lrb.co.uk
December 12, 2025 at 7:27 AM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
This destruction at Essex isn’t going to result in an improved learning or working environment. It will ossify research, it will diminish student learning environments, it will be catastrophic for working conditions.

Hard to see what the outcome will be aside from something not like a university.
Ongoing decimation of British universities part 252:

Apx. 1000 academic staff at University of Essex just received formal ‘risk of redundancy’ letters via email.

Please share @ucuessex.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk
December 11, 2025 at 8:27 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
Fucking incredible dystopian shit, comparing super rich people risking millions if not billions of lives just to make more money to people that risked their life actually building incredible things that would then make millions of dollars for super rich people.
December 11, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
someone should research why boomers clung to youth and demanded cultural hegemony well into their 60s while millennials went to pure "we are old and going to die soon and our zeitgeist expired years ago" mode before hitting 40
Figured I'd share this on Bluesky because this is the most 38 year old video I've ever seen in my life
December 11, 2025 at 4:11 AM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
Le pouvoir de la novlangue.
December 8, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
Also a characteristically abject response to far right vigilantism from the Home Office, amounting to: “The fascists are right but, tut, going about it the wrong way”
December 9, 2025 at 10:44 AM
Labour preaching unity sounds like Valencia preaching sisterhood:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6B-...
December 9, 2025 at 10:44 AM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
Welcome to Britain’s new benefits lie: disabled people are driving BMWs and Mercedes on the taxpayer’s dime.

My column on Motability and the truth behind the headlines and social media myths. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Disabled people driving luxury cars on your dime? Just the latest rightwing lie peddled by Labour | Frances Ryan
Starmer’s ailing government is happy to pursue ideas like cutting Motability, but all ministers will do is damage lives and themselves, says Guardian columnist Frances Ryan
www.theguardian.com
December 8, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
Look, I know things aren’t great at the moment for (a) anyone, and (b) the Labour Party, but fuck me that’s bleak
December 8, 2025 at 11:11 AM
🫠
December 7, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
Hey everyone, here's the news, if you aren't a high earner, entrepreneur or a "skilled frontline worker" (whatever the fuck that means) the "Labour" Party says you aren't contributing, you're a taker!
This is so disgusting.
December 7, 2025 at 8:57 AM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
This is so disgusting.
December 6, 2025 at 6:45 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
I live in Wales and today received my Join Us letter from Reform UK, complete with SAE which I posted back to them, immediately, empty. If every other person in Wales did this, Reform would spend over £1.5 million on postage. Not sorry. Join me Cymru.
December 6, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Yeah, let's enshittify grant decisions, that definitely won't accelerate the collapse of research infrastructure. Hope that at least, when we rebuild it in a generation to catch up with China, it will be based on secure employment instead of stultifying, exhausting, permanent competition.
December 5, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
This article suggests the possibility of training AI on pre-existing proposals and their review reports, scores and related decisions. I.e. training them on a system which is known to preferentially award larger amounts of money to white men. What could possibly go wrong?
December 4, 2025 at 10:49 PM