Elise Bell @eliseybell.bsky.social · 15/04/2026Need to talk to someone about the absurd intensity of Ben Lerner’s publicity photos 3162
Elise Bell @eliseybell.bsky.social · 15/04/2026Increasingly going to start calling myself part of the 'Lost Leeds Tram Generation. My last words to my grandchildren before the Dignitas injection takes me will be that Leeds is the biggest city in Europe without a mass transit system.theguardian.com‘Field of Dreams stuff’: will Leeds finally get its trams after decades of promises?Plans for return of such transport have been discussed for years, and not all local people believe that service will come 1112
Elise Bell @eliseybell.bsky.social · 04/03/2026Keen to read Lost Lambs by Madeleine Cash - in part because the Substack commentary is driving me insane and I haven't even read the thing. I get 'dimes square-adjacent' is annoying, but a lot of the critique amounts to: This plot point is WEIRD and I don't agree with it! 020
Reposted by Elise BellTate Collection @tate.bsky.social · 01/03/2026Angus Fairhurst, Pietà (first version), 1996 botfrens.com/collections/14375/cont… 05110
Reposted by Elise BellJeremy Millar @jeremymillar.bsky.social · 30/01/2026Very sad to hear of the closure of CCA, Glasgow, and the loss of all those jobs. I have such fondness for the place, not least as it was the site of one of my finer moments. 4401
Elise Bell @eliseybell.bsky.social · 10/11/2025I love John Updike but I had to stop reading ‘Couples’ because it was so compulsively nasty that for the two weeks I was nose deep it genuinely made me a meaner, and like, Activated for a Fight. www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fi...telegraph.co.ukCancel John Updike? Not so fastThe great writer has been branded a misogynist and narcissist. Yet as his letters prove, his writing remains uncannily evocative 040
Elise Bell @eliseybell.bsky.social · 04/11/2025Obsessed with ‘The Office Party’ episode of Man Alive on iPlayer - a 1969 documentary about an office Christmas party at a London based advertising agency that has it all: marital affairs, eyeliner, drunk directors, a man singing opera in Welsh. Long live the archive! 160
Reposted by Elise Bellstuart @stuartp.bsky.social · 29/10/2025the point of this isn't that Elon is getting Tolkien wrong 6712
Reposted by Elise BellAlex Howlett @alexhowl.bsky.social · 10/09/2025My story for @service95stories.bsky.social on @sosmediterranee.org's Ocean Viking. The Libyan 'coast guard' opened fire, risking the lives of survivors and crew. It was a privilege to see them in action - truly incredible people #searchandrescue #Mediterranean www.service95.com/the-reality-...service95.comThe Reality Of Europe’s Border Crisis: This Is Life Onboard Migrant Rescue ShipsIt was late afternoon, the heat thick and unmoving, when the call came through. I was the only journalist aboard the Ocean Viking, a search-and-rescue ship patrolling the Central Mediterranean, wh 011
Elise Bell @eliseybell.bsky.social · 05/09/2025The problem with people my age and younger going on Masterchef is that 90% of the time everything they cook feels a liiiitle bit too Mob Kitchen. The Ben Lippett effect needs to be studied. 100
Reposted by Elise BellHetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 31/07/2025New @hepi-news.bsky.social report shows continued fall in foreign language study in England at A-level. Language teacher recruitment consistently falls well below government targets – in 2024, just 43% of the target was reached. on.ft.com/4l5SYX4 (Full report www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/07/31/n...)on.ft.comStudents in England shun foreign languages at A-level, report findsOfqual figures show a sharp fall in pupils taking exams in French and German 138243
Reposted by Elise BellFinancial Times @financialtimes.com · 27/07/2025One in three Gazans goes multiple days without eating. Malnourished mothers can no longer produce milk to breastfeed their children and hospitals have run out of nutritional supplements to treat gaunt babies on.ft.com/3H9L154 2221156
Elise Bell @eliseybell.bsky.social · 26/07/2025Incredible wall signage at the Titanic Immersive Experience 181
Elise Bell @eliseybell.bsky.social · 24/07/2025Lot of big celebrity deaths of late. I feel in my waters a 2016-wave is approaching. We need to keep tabs on Al Pacino or so help me god 060
Reposted by Elise BellCharlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 24/07/2025All famines are man-made, all famines are political. Historians of empire and humanitarianism have known this forever. Gaza is not starving, Gaza is being starved, by Israel, and this starvation is enabled by our government and by every other government that does not step in to force food and aid. 3122041020
Reposted by Elise BellJeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn.bsky.social · 24/07/2025It's time for a new kind of political party - one that belongs to you. Sign up at yourparty.uk. 1261813605
Reposted by Elise BellLaura Tisdall @lauratisdall.bsky.social · 21/07/2025Terrible. When I got my AHRC PhD funding I applied directly to the AHRC with my own project. Now students are increasingly tied in to what universities and partner organisations want them to do, stifling research independence - plus fewer projects getting funded overall. 26525
Reposted by Elise BellSaul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 11/07/2025Yesterday Palestinian mums & kids were queuing at a clinic to get nutritional supplements when Israel attacked. At least 15 people were killed, including at least 9 children. James Elder from UNICEF tells how one of those young children had spoken their first word that morning - mama 7142121
Reposted by Elise BellGregk Foley @gregk.co.uk · 10/07/2025AI technologies and other techno-utopian potentialities are currently ripping through film, television, music and the platforms through which they are distributed. The last time I (a layperson) remember a similar story in the Noble Arts was NFTs, and no one’s talking about Beeple anymore. 012
Reposted by Elise BellEliza Goodpasture @elizag.bsky.social · 10/07/2025I also read this as a consequence of gig economy/doggedly monetising your hobbies. Obviously rich celebrities don't NEED the money, but I think now it's an expectation that you publicise/professionalise anything you do for 'fun' 041
Reposted by Elise BellGregk Foley @gregk.co.uk · 10/07/2025Maybe it speaks to an implicit, unspoken recognition of the devaluation of their original art medium (i.e. film, tv, music) and a retreat (however naive) to a medium of art perceived as more ‘concrete’, ‘traditional’ and resistant to devaluation by current trends? 131
Elise Bell @eliseybell.bsky.social · 10/07/2025Real trend at the moment re famous people (actors, musicians etc) releasing to the media news of their artistic practice, almost always some terrible version of abstract expressionism and/or cartoonish version of pop art. A way to get cheap clicks? Media boost with faux sense of intelligence? 5132
Reposted by Elise BellDani Garavelli @danigaravelli.bsky.social · 04/07/2025"I was under no illusion that The Collected Prose would solve the mystery, or lay to rest the lie, of how Plath was absolutely ordinary up to the point that she wasn’t." Brilliant Patricia Lockwood piece on Sylvia Plath. Cracking intro, too. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...lrb.co.ukPatricia Lockwood · Arrayed in Shining Scales: Solving Sylvia PlathI was under no illusion that The Collected Prose would solve the mystery, or lay to rest the lie, of how Plath was... 3145
Reposted by Elise BellSodders 🔜 MFF 📌 ❤️💚 #RememberingSlash 💚❤️ @sodders.bsky.social · 04/07/2025I think about this clip alot. 2862642526
Reposted by Elise BellMollie Goodfellow @hansmollman.bsky.social · 02/07/2025I don’t know why and it’s simply not rational but those electric salt and pepper mills make me really angry, like you know when a dog hates something for no reason and barks every time they see it, that’s how I feel about them 131718
Reposted by Elise BellSaul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 24/06/2025On LBC @zoejardiniere.bsky.social lists 3 previous instances where military aircraft have been targeted by campaigners in order to prevent them being used in war crimes, and she describes the govt banning Palestine Action as terrorists as an abuse of state power. Well said. 562241988
Reposted by Elise Bell𝔐𝔞𝔤𝔫𝔢𝔱𝔰 🧲 @magnets.eurosky.social · 11/06/2025seeing Heat in the cinema is a lifechanging experience 6201
Reposted by Elise BellPostcard From The Past @pastpostcard.bsky.social · 06/06/2025Dickie & Sylvia caught several sea-trout. Thought of you, your ankle & Bert's bolster. Remember? 41017
Elise Bell @eliseybell.bsky.social · 05/06/2025If it is a stunt by some anti AI group, fair play but also I’ll be sick from the humiliation of taking it too earnestly on the internet. 110
Reposted by Elise BellTom Usher @tomusher.bsky.social · 05/06/2025will just be interesting to see when the interests of vying big business will start worrying about what AI will do to many other aspects of the economy that relies on society structured as it currently is. you can't have a city in essence as we have it now when AI has taken all the white collar jobs 2453
Elise Bell @eliseybell.bsky.social · 05/06/2025Yeah not to be over-reactionary about this but I really think adverts like this should be illegal. This is plastered all over Old Street station. 2229360
Elise Bell @eliseybell.bsky.social · 02/06/2025Walked out of Old Street station where the interior ads are almost entirely dedicated to posters that read ‘DON’T HIRE HUMANS’ for a company offering its AI services, to an enormous billboard on Laura Bates’ new book about how AI is reinventing misogyny. 170
Elise Bell @eliseybell.bsky.social · 31/05/2025You know a 3,200 km thru hike across France’s great national parks hates to see me coming 080
Reposted by Elise Bell𝔐𝔞𝔤𝔫𝔢𝔱𝔰 🧲 @magnets.eurosky.social · 30/05/2025the early days of birth control organisations in cities are just a cavalcade of horror stories 3152
Reposted by Elise Bell𝔐𝔞𝔤𝔫𝔢𝔱𝔰 🧲 @magnets.eurosky.social · 30/05/2025one of the more gut-churning things about the yassified mary barbour mural is that she was one of the people who opened Glasgow's first birth control clinic in an environment of extreme misogyny. the mindset of "let's make her young and sexy" is even wierder in that context 5559
Reposted by Elise BellKate Bevan @katebevan.com · 29/05/2025Sci-fi view of The Future: We'll all have flying cars and holidaying on Mars! Disease will be fixed with a quick blast from a Star Trek thingy! The Actual Future: 361135431
Reposted by Elise BellJoshua McElwee @joshmcelwee.org · 28/05/2025Pope Leo at his weekly audience now: "In the Gaza Strip, the intense cries are reaching Heaven more and more from mothers and fathers who hold tightly to the bodies of their dead children."reuters.comPope Leo appeals for Gaza ceasefire, laments deaths of childrenPope Leo appealed on Wednesday for a ceasefire in Gaza, and called on Israel and Hamas militants to "completely respect" international humanitarian law. 05118
Reposted by Elise BellTandem Magazine @tandemmagazine.bsky.social · 27/05/2025Museum “rehangs” are everywhere, most recently at London's National Gallery. They inspire furious debate about mixing old art & new politics, but we forget that museums have always done that: their Victorian roots have never been more visible.tandem-mag.comThe Victoriana of museum “rehangs”Put on your hoop skirts 152
Reposted by Elise BellJen Calleja @jencalleja.bsky.social · 26/05/2025You can read the amazing review of Fair: The Life-Art of Translation in The Observer online here observer.co.uk/culture/book... @prototypepubs.bsky.socialobserver.co.ukAI can’t match the human art of translation | The ObserverTwo translators and a Nobel-winning novelist illuminate an undervalued skill 26123
Elise Bell @eliseybell.bsky.social · 26/05/2025All parents want is for their children to also enjoy the latest Guy Ritchie series, Mob Land. Unfortunately, they have achieved their goal. 000
Reposted by Elise BellTate Collection @tate.bsky.social · 25/05/2025Per Kirkeby, Untitled, 1995 #artbots #tate botfrens.com/collections/14375/cont… 0183
Reposted by Elise BellAna K @anakinsella.bsky.social · 24/05/2025Such a beautiful, moving piece of writing 031
Elise Bell @eliseybell.bsky.social · 23/05/2025I’ve given up Instagram whilst I’m in Scotland for a week and have already read one book in less than a 24 hour period (Still Born, Guadalupe Nettel) and so maybe there is something in the - Instagram reels is atrophying my brain - discourse 160