Dr James Waddell
@james_waddell
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In the TLS, Economist, Telegraph, The Fence, Observer, Prospect &c / PhD on distraction @UCL / Agent @tobymundy / Overquicke, hastie, rashe, headie & brainsicke
London
Joined December 2011
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You have to find humour in the French elections where you can. Marine Le Pen's far right party has just announced that its candidate in Belfort in eastern France will be a hard right TV commentator from the hard right C-news channel. His name is Guillaume Bigot.
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Finsbury Park bridge dripped directly into my mouth while I was cycling.. excited to find out what superpower I develop
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absolutely obsessed with this 1643 account of the “true Discovery of a Witch”, in which the witch is caught red-handed engaging in the occult practice of...surfboarding?
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Not to keep giving oxygen to this, but it feels necessary to say that the tory who is actually brat (loves cocaine, messy but also a bit sad) is clearly Gove
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So good to see Euan Blair join The Times roster alongside the likes of Flora Gill, Gabriel Jagger, and Emily Clarkson, who all have absolutely nothing in common except their raw talent
Getting a degree is becoming irrelevant, we need to retrain the nation, writes Euan Blair
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Guys will literally spend 16 years converting a Land Rover into a hearse to bear their own corpse instead of going to therapy
Prince Philip spent the past 16 years converting this Land Rover into a hearse. It will carry his coffin at Saturday's funeral.
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VINTAGE BARTHES
ROLAND BARTHES
𝑏𝑦 𝑅𝑜𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐵𝑎𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠
Roland Barthes by
Roland Barthes
ʀᴏʟᴀɴᴅ ʙᴀʀᴛʜᴇs
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Some slightly odd guy no one knew crashed the halloween party i was at last night, we managed to track down his instagram this morning and I—
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We don’t talk about these guys enough. Constantly in awe of the size of their vibe. No other creature on this earth comes close
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Quite taken with the pollen forecast, ecopoetic vibes
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For a few months, I’ve been hearing from people - mostly young, bright graduates desperate for a job in the arts - who worked at the Institute of Art and Ideas. It’s been a truly wild ride, which you can now read all about in
@The_Fence_Mag
, here:
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can’t believe my major scholarly contribution is going to be to the early modern history of Extreme Sports
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Wes Anderson taking a break from film-making to broker international summits is it
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More than any other Victorian novelist, Dickens was fascinated by financial systems and how they related to the inner lives of his characters. From me, a festive piece for
@TheEconomist
on the economic lessons of 'A Christmas Carol'
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So many gems in this, but my favourite so far is Donne’s fondness for elephants, one of which came to London in the 1620s: “Nature’s great masterpiece, an elephant / The only harmless great thing” 🥹🥹🥹
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Truly moved by some of the work at Frieze. Much to consider
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Quite taken with these pastels by (i think?) local school kids in Hackney Lido. Properly haunting stuff; Bacon after Velasquez vibes
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Hearing unconfirmed rumours this was the source of friendsofglossier
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And are these "adults" in the room with us right now?
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Dying at "king of empathy". King of empathy, master of the barbecue, legend of banter,,
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@sam_kriss
weird but i feel like emily dickinson intuitively got & expressed this in her poems that feature spiderwebs, of which there are quite a few
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Me when I hang up a branch of eucalyptus in the shower
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Not to be all “if this was Corbyn” but if this was Corbyn, Cressida Dick would be leading him out of No. 10 in handcuffs in a TV special timed to coincide with Laura K’s evening live report
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A chihuahua I follow on Instagram posted this pic and all I’ve been able to think about for days is how much he looks like Donne in his shroud
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At least we still have the greatest Christmas tradition of all: crappy winter wonderland local news story
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I wrote for
@TheEconomist
about why the Met Museum should use its cancelled 150th anniversary celebrations as an opportunity to reflect. How should a museum that has served as a showcase for private wealth maintain its founding mission of public good?
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When is the Institute of Art and Ideas longread exposé going to drop, I’m tired of waiting
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Man - catch Rachel Johnson’s eye in the library literally one time and then this happens
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Really pleased to hear this!
🏆 We are delighted to announce that the runner-up for the 2021 Observer / Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism is James Waddell, for his review of The Duchess of Malfi.
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In every couple one person is virtually faceblind, and the other knows the name and face of every single individual they have ever met on sight
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As I approach the end of my PhD, delighted to announce that I have finally achieved my key early modern academic milestone
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Is this good. this means all is well in our polity, right
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Think about this pretty much every single day. People dedicate their whole careers to comedy and never come up with anything as funny and well-executed as this perfect, dumb bit
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Can’t read these lines from Paradise Lost without hearing the voice of my undergraduate tutor reading out “Can it be a sin to know, / Can it be death?” and following it up with “Well? Can it????” and just expecting me to answer the question
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Pleased to announce that I’m changing my PhD topic to focus more on Ratatouille studies
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Really glad that we got through all those long months of it getting dark at 4pm to get through to May, when it’s still dark at 4pm but in a slightly different way and also you get wet
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Me and the boys respectfully decelerating as we pass the Mario Cenotaph
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It’s been said, but worth repeating: the silence of large parts of UK media on this whole Judith Butler thing is just so fucking craven. Why am I only finding out about one of the gravest breaches of journalistic ethics you could possibly imagine via people tweeting about it?
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In
@TheTLS
today, writing about a big but brilliant new history of the library, by
@APettegree
and
@A_der_Weduwen
. In print and online!
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Right, this is as good a moment as any to ask—apropos of absolutely nothing at all!—if you have a story to tell about the Institute of Art and Ideas, please DM me
When is the Institute of Art and Ideas longread exposé going to drop, I’m tired of waiting
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Eating a ferrero rocher in one is the closest human beings will ever get to the feeling of being a hippo crunching an entire watermelon
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Really happy to hear that I’ve been shortlisted for the
@anthonyburgess
Prize for Arts Journalism!
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Teaching this poem to students has been a great privilege of my life. The first way to like it is to like, or at least forgive, Milton, which means realising how much he likes, or at least forgives, Eve. The second way is to audibly utter “fuck this goes so hard” every other page
Are you a Paradise Lost person? What is the point of it? I didn’t like it, and don’t want to reread it. What do people like about it? Why are some people die hards? This is for novel research.
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relieved to find that person on train next to me who kept repeating “Est-ce que tu m'aimes?” into her phone with increasing levels of desperate frustration was not going through a dramatic gallic break-up, but was, in fact, on Duolingo
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Unironically really enjoying everyone posting their lunchtime pints on their stories. Just great vibes. Keep pint-posting
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Can’t believe this is how i find out that my “cool” trainers that i wear on nights out are also owned and worn by…Adrian Chiles
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Sometimes I simply feel overwhelmed by the power of poetry to illuminate and move,, for example when Chaucer says what sound all the different birds make
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And here it is in print - my review for
@TheTLS
of Emma Smith’s idiosyncratic history of books and readers. Complete with big image of big painting:
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My review for
@TheEconomist
of
@breach_theatre
’s new play, a searing account of Artemisia Gentileschi’s defiance in the face of psychological manipulation, victim-blaming and the untouchable sway of powerful men
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My review for
@TheEconomist
of a garden-themed exhibition at the
@gropiusbau
in Berlin, featuring glass grass, polka-dot plants, and a talking skunk cabbage
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BREAKING: He is very small
Honey Possum 🍯🌼
This tiny nectivorous marsupial, found only in south-western Australia, was encountered on recent surveys at our Paruna Wildlife Sanctuary.
The species' Aboriginal name is Noolbenger - an important totem animal to the Noongar Traditional Owners.
📸 C Moir/AWC
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V gratified that a side-track in my thesis has given me an excuse to write about BEWARE THE CAT (1552), possibly the first and certainly the most deranged work of Renaissance prose fiction
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I am once again saying
Is this good. this means all is well in our polity, right
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When you saw only one set of footprints in the sand? It was then that the preternaturally talented cooking rat was hidden in your chef hat
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was already feeling fragile this morning but i’ve just seen a man in this pret eating a croissant with a knife and fork, napkin tucked into his shirt, and it’s really sent me spiralling over the edge
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@ImogenWK
omg, been doing Shakespeare Bros as a bit for years - don't forget playful punches to chest/arm, sitting on a backwards chair, chucking and catching a coin-purse/flask, constantly running, shouting "Sirrah!!", etc. Seeing this tn, cant wait for the sound of backslap on doublet
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In the
@TheTLS
this week, reviewing the
@djbduncan
book about book indexes, which is an absolute blast. In print and online now!
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Obviously have to use the DNA to bring back 16th-century European intellectuals. Could call it Scholastic Park
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From me for
@TheEconomist
, about
@OstgutTon
,
@fabriclondon
, and how we police the boundaries of high culture
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Saki, one of my favourite writers, was born 150 years ago today. I wrote this piece about his Christmas stories for
@TheEconomist
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saw this by david shrigley yesterday and solemnly engaged in my fave form of art criticism which is to point and say: “it me”
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get out there today and carry yourself with the confidence of de quincey editing a newspaper while hooked on powerful opiates (cf:
@LRB
)
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I know the quote “Through a glass, darkly” is supposed to evoke sort of mysterious obscure beauty, but whenever i read it i just see this image in my head
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On newsstands tomorrow, my review for
@TheEconomist
of a powerful, essential collection of essays by refugee writers, edited by
@viet_t_nguyen
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Wrote about the Titan submersible for
@ArtReview_
by way of James Cameron, Jules Verne, Julia Armfield, Lucille Clifton, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Sigmund Freud, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P Lovecraft, Herman Melville, and the Onion. Voila!
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An email I send approximately twice a week
I have never in my life identified more with a piece of writing than this telegram Dorothy Parker sent to her editor after she missed a deadline
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When you head straight from work drinks to the club without getting changed
Iain Buchan, the public health official leading the clubbing trial, larging it! “I feel very old,” he said
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He said son when
you grow up
Would you be
the saviour of the broken
The beaten and the French
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My review for
@TheEconomist
of the Almeida’s Three Sisters, a play which has much to say to angst-ridden millennials
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Completely baffling to me that people are still opening their half-arsed takedown attempts with this genre of admission. Are you not embarrassed !
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Me hitting “Book Now” on the only pub garden slot I could find, at 11am on a Tuesday morning when it’s forecast to be 6 degrees
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My review for
@TheEconomist
of a new play about Charles Darwin, before he grew the beard. Does the world really need another telling of a great 19th-century man's story?
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I will not be satisfied until the
@LRB
has run a Katherine Rundell piece on every single animal in the world
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Extending my PhD deadline for the fifth time
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Nice to be one half of this beautiful double-page spread in this week’s
@TheTLS
, alongside
@kateemccaffrey
presenting her ridiculously exciting new research
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Thinking of setting up a small business with all of my pals as employees so we can see each other. The business is drinking Pints
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Today is deadline day for the second and final Faerie Queene chapter of my thesis, which is probably the last time I’ll ever write about it, 10 years after i first read it - goodbye strange poem
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Found this note in a library book and after my 4th coffee I am starting to think it is the foundational question of not only my research but also the very endeavour of literary production itself
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