Keith Jebb
keithjebb.bsky.social
Keith Jebb
@keithjebb.bsky.social
Writer, poet, reviewer, sometime creative writing lecturer, turn left at Labour and keep going.
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The 3rd annual 24 hour Global Marathon of Solidarity Reading begins this Saturday 29 November. A continuous gathering of poets, writers, artists around the world standing in solidarity with Palestine.

Join live:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGUg...
Global Reading for Freedom of Expression and Solidarity with Palestine (3rd Iteration)
YouTube video by Pamenar Press
www.youtube.com
November 26, 2025 at 4:50 AM
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An immense thank you to Veer Books for the opportunity to take Sea Grammar on an outing! Exciting possibilities ahead 👀 🌊
November 15, 2025 at 10:44 PM
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Northumberland: disgust after young swan ‘shot’ with ball bearing on Northumberland river.
Northumberland: disgust after young swan ‘shot’ with ball bearing on Northumberland river
Police are investigating after a cygnet was believed to have been shot with a ball bearing projectile in a Northumberland park
northeastbylines.co.uk
November 15, 2025 at 10:58 PM
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In sleep, in dream song,
the daylight ghosts are laid
and trouble us no more.
In silence nightlong
a life’s debts are paid
at the open door.

'Truth, Justice, and the Companionship of Owls'
Peter Riley
longbarrowpress.com/current-publ...
November 14, 2025 at 7:29 AM
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I had similar advice from Tom Disch in the early 1970s, about writing into a niche, changed my life & seems broadly applicable
November 3, 2025 at 11:05 AM
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‘I wrote a fan letter to David Thomson. In his reply, he urged me to develop interests other than film. That was Spielberg’s problem, Thomson said – he didn’t know anything else. But there seemed little danger of that in my case.’

Leo Robson’s teenage film obsession:

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Leo Robson · Diary: What I Saw at the Movies
Jean Epstein compared going to a movie to entering a state of hypnosis, an aesthetic experience that ‘modifies the...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 3, 2025 at 9:51 AM
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Never forget what the Republican Party, Turning Point USA, and the Heritage Foundation have done to this country.
November 4, 2025 at 8:54 AM
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A stat we don't talk about enough: Newspapers have lost 77% of their jobs over the last 20 year, more than any of the 532 other industries tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
October 27, 2025 at 11:54 PM
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I've been baking soul cakes for the living and for the dead today. Mine are simple, rustic-looking things but made with love. I wrote about their importance in Shropshire over on the blog -

nearlyknowledgeablehistory.blogspot.com/2023/10/hall...

#folklore #folkcustoms #Shropshire #Halloween
October 19, 2025 at 5:30 PM
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When you can be accused of a crime by this regimes Gestapo without proof, it’s shows to what extent they’ve weakened the rule of law
October 24, 2025 at 1:07 PM
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What a sick world.
October 24, 2025 at 1:47 PM
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Typo in part 1: existing, not costing
October 23, 2025 at 7:43 AM
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Vile stuff. At my own university all new staff are employed via a subsidiary company to avoid the TPS pension (remember: pensions are pay) and we all fear the costing staff will be next. Management think staff are so desperate that they’ll accept anything.

Remember: university managements are so…
October 23, 2025 at 7:37 AM
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"A few more flags at the end of the street, most of the houses have none, but the message is clear, you don’t belong here, and what do I care, I’m leaving anyway, but think of it, living here, every time you look out of the window, or walk to the shop."
longbarrowpress.substack.com/p/unrecovere...
October 18, 2025 at 9:58 AM
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We seem to have lost the understanding that you study things because you want to know more about them, not because you want them to give you a job.

'Transferable skills' are so-called precisely because they are not career specific, my god.
October 13, 2025 at 8:57 AM
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I hope this happens, it should have months ago. My union was terrible (though my individual case worker colleagues were amazing) in organising against the cuts at my university. We need a national campaign against the devastation of the sector
'Universities have collectively announced more than 12,000 job cuts in the last year, new analysis from the University and College Union (UCU) suggests.'
Thousands more university jobs cut as financial crisis deepens
University workers will vote on national strike action this month over a 1.4% pay offer made in the summer.
www.bbc.co.uk
October 10, 2025 at 10:07 AM
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Today is the anniversary of the deaths of the 'Nine Men of Madeley'. Of the nine 'men', most were still boys who died in a mining disaster. I have rewritten my article to reflect new research about the tragedy.

nearlyknowledgeablehistory.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-...

#history #localhistory
The Nine Men Of Madeley
I want to take us back to St Michael’s churchyard in Madeley now, for there are still more stories to be told. Let us pause amongst the head...
nearlyknowledgeablehistory.blogspot.com
September 27, 2025 at 6:18 AM
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🔥 Britain is about to launch a new GCSE in natural history – a vital step toward restoring our knowledge of and respect for the natural world.
Fellow creatures: the new GCSE in natural history
The new GCSE in natural history is a vital step toward restoring our knowledge of and respect for the natural world
westenglandbylines.co.uk
September 29, 2025 at 8:45 AM
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It’s quite do-able from a legal perspective. I don’t think dismissing Reform in this way is wise. Voters need to understand that this stuff can happen if they vote for it - and that it would be morally, socially, culturally, economically disastrous. So they shouldn’t vote for it.
Reform will apparently pledge today that they'd abolish indefinite leave to remain - including retrospectively, to people already granted it. Obviously this is a moral abomination but it is also a practical and legal impossibility.
September 22, 2025 at 8:37 AM
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Anyway well done to the BBC for laundering the leader of a movement which in no substantial way differs from the 1970s-style National Front into our living rooms
At the risk of repeating myself: there’s no bargaining with these people. What they’re calling for now is mass expulsions of long-term residents deemed insufficiently economically productive. There’s no way these demands won’t get even more extreme by election time.
Farage vows to scrap settled status, placing thousands at risk of deportation
Reform UK plans to force non-citizens to apply for visas with high salary thresholds and no access to NHS services
www.theguardian.com
September 22, 2025 at 8:24 AM
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An actual quote from the Secretary of State for Business and Trade

Too often people go to university to ‘explore research and knowledge’

Look forward to Wes S saying 'too often people go to hospital to have operations' or Heidi Alexander saying 'too often people go to the station to catch a train'
September 19, 2025 at 10:25 AM
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“Off the scale.” - That’s how sewage readings looked in the River Cam.

Councillor Richard Pavitt has spent five years warning of crisis.

Now, the water is more sewage than spring.

Kate Moore reports during #BigRiverWatch
Dry summers, dirty water: the river Cam’s slow collapse
The river Cam faces crisis from sewage pollution, over-abstraction, and inaction – locals fight to save its wildlife and natural flow
eastangliabylines.co.uk
September 19, 2025 at 11:01 AM
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The rewriting of American history at our National Parks — including the removal of images of slavery — is disgraceful.

At our hearing this morning, I demanded answers.
September 18, 2025 at 7:37 PM
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Do you see what is happening before our very eyes?
September 18, 2025 at 11:45 PM