Tom Rank
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tomrank.bsky.social
Tom Rank
@tomrank.bsky.social
490 followers 280 following 710 posts
Reflections on literature, education - and other ramblings. Was @literaryconnect in the other place 😀
http://www.literaryconnections.co.uk/
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Tom Rank
engfac.bsky.social
Join us for our next OWC #Shakespeare webinar on 2 March at 6pm.

In this online event, Emma Smith @oldfortunatus.bsky.social will be discussing #CYMBELINE with Kim Gilchrist.

Register for your free ticket: shakespeare-webinar-cymbeline.eventbrite.co.uk
English Faculty/OWC Shakespeare Webinar: Cymbeline
In this free webinar, Professor Emma Smith will be discussing the new edition of Cymbeline from Oxford World's Classics.
shakespeare-webinar-cymbeline.eventbrite.co.uk
February 17, 2026 at 10:51 AM
Reposted by Tom Rank
simonc-csays.bsky.social
This simplistic rhetoric is so frustrating.

Between 2024 and 2025, the leading 'small boat' nationalities were Eritrean (17%), Afghan (13%), Iranian (11%), Sudanese (10%), and Somali (8%).

We currently have NO workable deportation treaties with these countries. And that's if you ignore the
February 17, 2026 at 9:40 AM
Reposted by Tom Rank
jesszimmerman.com
More info, from the instagram account that posted the video
underthedesknews On President's Day, the First Amendment Troop staged "ResistDance" - a tribute and act of artistic dissent - at the Lincoln Memorial, followed by a guerrilla performance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Created by the advocacy arm of hungryman Productions, led by Bryan Buckley, with Tony Award-winning choreographer Mathew Steffens, the piece honored Renée Good and Alex Pretti. Twenty-two dancers performed, representing the 22 days between Good and Pretti's deaths. The Lincoln Memorial Resistance was peaceful. The Kennedy Center performance was shut down within seconds by more officers than dancers (23 vs. 22.) The action coincided with the Federal Bureau of Investigation denying access to information in the Pretti investigation, underscoring the campaign's call for transparency. #FirstAmendmentTroop #ResistDance @firstamendmenttroop Music: We Could Fly and Following the North Star by Rhiannon Giddens.
February 17, 2026 at 7:29 AM
Reposted by Tom Rank
dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social
Also, if you borrow an author's book from a library in the UK, that author gets more than 12 pence per loan in Public Lending Rights. Any author can earn up to £6,600 per year this way.
dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 28d
Someone said to me, "I'm sorry but I got your book from a library." Nobody should ever apologise for that. You read my book! That's brilliant! I grew up hanging out in libraries and the idea of a world without them fills me with dread. Without libraries, authors, like readers, will only suffer.
February 17, 2026 at 8:08 AM
Reposted by Tom Rank
pickardje.bsky.social
Cuts to overseas aid by the UK are set to go further and faster than those made by the Trump administration in the US, as Sir Keir Starmer’s government wrestles with funding pressures

www.ft.com/content/ad52...
UK overseas aid cuts to outstrip those of Trump administration
Spending will drop 27% this year from 2024 levels to help fund higher defence budget
www.ft.com
February 16, 2026 at 7:51 AM
Reposted by Tom Rank
tesmagazine.bsky.social
The government should review those chosen to draft the new national curriculum because the list has a ‘deeply concerning lack of diversity’, according to an open letter with nearly 100 signatories
Lack of diversity among curriculum drafters ‘deeply concerning’
Open letter with nearly 100 signatories calls for a ‘more diverse range’ of drafters to write the new national curriculum, warning there is a risk of ‘narrow’ content
www.tes.com
February 17, 2026 at 6:05 AM
Reposted by Tom Rank
backgroundbob.bsky.social
My Beautiful Laundrette, between Omar's father and Johnny: "I don't want my son in this... underpants-cleaning condition. I want him reading in college. You tell him. You go to college. He must have knowledge. We all must, now if we're to see clearly what is being done and to whom in this country."
February 17, 2026 at 7:39 AM
Reposted by Tom Rank
ottoenglish.bsky.social
Am reminded of this bit of satire (which I cowrote) 15 or so years ago.
Generations of Britons have been raised under the false impression that the 'old money' was fiendishly complicated, but even the briefest perusal of the facts knocks that debate into touch The pre-decimalised currency was based on the 'Troy System' wherein a pennyweight of silver was equivalent to one old penny. A pound thus weighed 240 pennyweight and was equivalent to 'one pound', with two farthings being a ha'penny. With twenty four ha'pennies in a shilling and twenty shillings in a pound that meant that two shillings and six pence were equivalent to one half crown, the crown itself being worth (of course) five shillings of which there were four in a single pound. If anyone has ever come up with a simpler way of devising a currency I would be very glad to see it.
February 16, 2026 at 9:34 PM
Reposted by Tom Rank
deaconbiker.bsky.social
..who is going to break it to him that Jesus was a middle eastern jew?
February 16, 2026 at 10:15 PM
Reposted by Tom Rank
jowolff.bsky.social
Restore and Reform sound like two quack procedures for attempting to reverse male pattern baldness.
February 16, 2026 at 7:55 PM
Reposted by Tom Rank
kovesi.bsky.social
My Dad was born in Kőszeg, Hungary, on the Austrian border. When he was 6 yrs old, in 1945, out gathering firewood, he saw piles of white "logs" from which his dad ushered him away. They were the dead bodies of Jews, covered in lime.
The context:
collections.ushmm.org/search/catal...
Brick from a brick factory in Kőszeg, Hungary. Jewish residency in the town began in the 14th century and continued for five hundred years. From 1919 to 1921, Jews in Kőszeg and throughout Hungary were targeted by the White Terror pogroms for their perceived association with communism. Leading up to World War II, the Jewish population in the town was approximately 100 people. In December 1940, a forced labor camp was established with Jewish and non-Jewish workers at a brick field and an old brewery in the town. The camp housed eight thousand laborers who were forced to march 10 kilometers to and from work. They worked 10 hour days, 7 days a week, with only a daily ration of 17 ounces of bread. In March 1944, Germany occupied Hungary and the Jews of Kőszeg along with other Jews from the surrounding area were confined to a small ghetto in the town. On July 4, the remaining Kőszeg Jews were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center in German occupied Poland. In March 1945, the Germans liquidated the labor camp. As part of the liquidation, 95 sick laborers were locked in a sealed barrack and gassed to death on the property of Kőszeg Varosi Teglagyàr (Kőszeg Urban Brickworks), one of two brick factories in the town. In 1985, a park and a memorial were erected on the former property of the brick factory where the execution took place. Image of a Kőszeg brick in the collection of the United States Holocaust Museum.
February 16, 2026 at 6:23 PM
Reposted by Tom Rank
rebeccasolnit.bsky.social
The angel of abundance, the Dolly Lama of literacy, the distributor of almost a third of a billion books for kids.
tusk81.bsky.social Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social · 18h
The study found that children enrolled in Parton’s Imagination Library “were 5 times more likely to be interested in reading, 11 times more likely to be interested in books, and 15 times more likely to join in during shared reading, compared to children who aren't enrolled.”
February 16, 2026 at 4:52 PM
Reposted by Tom Rank
missannthrope66.bsky.social
My house was burgled by a man who stole my personal salt and pepper grinders. During sentencing the judge described him as a seasoned criminal.
February 14, 2026 at 1:42 PM
Reposted by Tom Rank
natecommunity.bsky.social
Upcoming online CPD sessions, 4–5pm
Journal writing to develop responses to GCSE poetry (24/02)
Teaching handwriting for writing fluency (11/03)
Promoting repertoires of talk about writing (18/03)
Planning lessons and schemes of learning (05/05) tinyurl.com/mr2smw67
February 16, 2026 at 3:01 PM
Reposted by Tom Rank
shamlet.bsky.social
That lost scene in Act 4 of Macbeth where European countries release a report that shows Duncan was not murdered by his sons and the Scottish thanes are like thanks, we know
February 16, 2026 at 4:35 PM
Reposted by Tom Rank
jlharrison.bsky.social
If children were more politically active they would be quite pissed to be told that their screen time is “the most urgent public health issue” while the largest measles outbreak since the vaccine sweeps their schools because of conspiracies that the adults in their life believed from social media.
February 16, 2026 at 7:52 AM
Reposted by Tom Rank
mariopro.bsky.social
February 16, 2026 at 1:55 PM
Reposted by Tom Rank
stancarey.bsky.social
A more explicit metaphor that I admired recently, in @timothysnyder.bsky.social's book ON TYRANNY:

"Each story on televised news is 'breaking' until it is displaced by the next one. So we are hit by wave upon wave but never see the ocean."
February 16, 2026 at 1:53 PM
Reposted by Tom Rank
stancarey.bsky.social
Words in the previous post that can be seen as metaphorical include "thoroughly", "enjoyed", "podcast", "about", "metaphor", etc. etc.

Some discussion in this old piece:
stancarey.wordpress.com/2011/05/04/d...

Archive of metaphor-related posts:
stancarey.wordpress.com/category/met... #language
Dictionary of faded metaphors
Over the last few weeks, I’ve written some articles about metaphorical English for Macmillan Dictionary Blog. This is a round-up of those articles, along with related links and additional thoughts.…
stancarey.wordpress.com
February 16, 2026 at 1:48 PM
Reposted by Tom Rank
hhesterm.bsky.social
Today's home truth comes from @alanbeattie.bsky.social who wrote "The extent to which Trump is ceding the green tech field to China remains almost beyond belief in its self-destructiveness." In all of the debates about soft v hard power, don't forget Trump is also doing incredibly stupid stuff.
February 16, 2026 at 1:58 PM
Reposted by Tom Rank
theobserveruk.bsky.social
Key reformists arrested as Iran regime acts ‘to break anyone who speaks up’ bit.ly/4qzbKZL
Key reformists arrested as Iran regime acts ‘to break any...
More than 53,000 protesters have been held – and now cultural figures, politicians are being swept up in the crackdown
bit.ly
February 16, 2026 at 2:01 PM
Reposted by Tom Rank
oddthisday.bsky.social
It’s the 211th anniversary of an editorial in The Times which “deplores the credulity of Londoners”. Apparently, they’d fallen en masse for a rumour that there was a gentlewoman living in the capital who was unremarkable but for the fact she had a pig’s head 🧵
Satirical cartoon accompanying an article from a broadsheet of 1815, entitled "The Pig-Faced Lady of Manchester Square". Shows an elegantly dressed lady of the Regency period with the head of a pig, eating out of a silver trough. Horniman Museum collection
February 16, 2026 at 9:55 AM
Reposted by Tom Rank
sturdyalex.bsky.social
"Even if your social or professional life does not demand it, your patriotism demands that you keep your face bright and attractive so that you radiate optimism."
wildobliquities.bsky.social Grise l’Indécis @wildobliquities.bsky.social · 1d
I went through a book about make-up recently and thought you'd enjoy some of it

Does your reflection give you 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘵𝘦 the satisfaction it gave you in 1914?
Does your reflection give you *quite* the satisfaction it gave you in 1914?
February 16, 2026 at 12:26 PM
Reposted by Tom Rank
andraswf.bsky.social
It would be also great if y'all were to acknowledge that you're talking about people

But that's hard, being Anglo and such
February 16, 2026 at 12:39 PM
Reposted by Tom Rank
andraswf.bsky.social
Y'all want low or no "small boats numbers"?

OPEN SAFE ROUTES
jburnmurdoch.ft.com John Burn-Murdoch @jburnmurdoch.ft.com · 23h
Might be different this time given huge scale of work-based numbers, but if small boat numbers are high next summer I don’t think the reduction in social care worker arrivals will take the sting out of public perceptions
February 16, 2026 at 12:38 PM