Edward

Edward @fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 14:34 UTC

Similarly the Cairo genizah fragments, which are still a long way from being fully transcribed.

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Edward @fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 14:29 UTC

And if that proves to be transferrable to other kinds of texts, it's going to allow the transcription of a lot of currently unreadable manuscripts or fragments.

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Edward @fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 14:28 UTC

Because they had very disruptive reformations, most of our knowledge for the contents of medieval Norwegian and Swedish libraries come from fragments of books used as bindings for exchequer books and land registries. Really useful from an intellectual culture point of view.

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Edward @fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 14:22 UTC

The outside has almost no ink left, having been scraped almost blank by the various bits of lint etc. you will find in an Icelandic farmer's pocket. It's also very stained from having spent centuries in cramped, poorly ventilated rooms with smoky peat fires.

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Edward @fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 14:21 UTC

My other half did some work with an Icelandic manuscript fragment, which records part of a saga that is otherwise entirely lost. It survived because it was used as the cover for a much later prayerbook owned by a farmer. The inside is lovely and legible, but the outside?

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Edward @fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 14:18 UTC

This is one of the reason for the old books smell, I believe.

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Edward @fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 14:17 UTC

The only people who don't play nicely with others that Starmer tolerates work in his office, so it's going to be Alba.

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Edward @fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 13:38 UTC

27 MPs endorsed Mordaunt in that contest and 8 of them are still MPs. 62 endorsed Johnson and 10 are still Tory MPs (plus Lee Anderson.) Some of that is about Red Wall MPs with tiny majorities, but far from all of it.

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Edward @fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 13:36 UTC

Apropos of this, I've just taken a look at MP endorsements in the October 2022 leadership election. The Sunak figures aren't very meaningful, as some of his endorsers just wanted to be on the winning side, but it's notable how much better Mordaunt endorsers did than Johnson endorsers at holding on.

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Edward @fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 13:15 UTC

There is a problem in our politics that we remember politicians in their imperial phase, where they were dominant and stopped thinking twice, and not in the phase when they were actually at their peak of effectiveness.

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Edward @fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 12:51 UTC

I hold enough of a grudge to not believe that the second is any bar to advancement.

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Edward @fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 12:22 UTC

It does look like the Scottish Labour group at Westminster is distinctly underpowered, but I suspect that's partly because up until about a year ago few of those seats were considered likely gains.

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Edward @fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 12:21 UTC

I think Sweeney wanted to run for his old Westminster seat but wasn't allowed to? Additionally, given their personal politics they're more likely to have influence at Holyrood than to get a ministerial office quickly at Westminster.

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Edward @fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 12:19 UTC

Not least because you can then pressure them to do more good things and fewer bad things.

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