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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This sold out way quicker than I expected, Bayeux Tapestry style! If I hear anything more about further screenings of the film I'll post it here.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The BFI has a fantastic Billy Wilder season starting next month, and on 27 October I'm excited to be presenting an introductory talk prior to a rare screening of THE MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS MURDERER (DER MANN, DER SEINEN MÖRDER SUCHT), co-written by Wilder in Germany in 1931. Tickets on sale today!

whatson.bfi.org.uk

Buy cinema tickets for Billy in Berlin: The Man in Search of His Murderer + talk | BFI Southbank

A rarely screened early gem, written by Billy Wilder, is accompanied by a discussion of the German émigrés who were to indelibly change Hollywood cinema.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

A promise of *free money* from a man who has spent a lifetime scamming people. It's beyond parody. Boris Johnson's laughable utopian Brexit promises look plausible by comparison.

bbc.co.uk

Trump says every adult American will get $5,000 if Republicans win midterms

Speaking at a party convention, the US president gave no details on how the plan would work or where the money would come from.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Scorched quad, Founders Building, Royal Holloway.

A photo of the South Quad with the grass entirely brown.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

So we're having a 'fifth heatwave' this week apparently. I wasn't aware that the last one had finished. It was 32 yesterday.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Billy, posing for both #Caturday and International Cat Day (which is celebrated daily round these parts).

A black and white cat standing on the branches of a tree.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Important commentary on a sad case. Leaving aside the allegations, the rapidity of Arday's career progression (PhD to a Chair at Cambridge in just 8 years, off a modest track record) was highly anomalous, and put the man, institution and even the discipline in a vulnerable position.

theguardian.com

The takedown of Jason Arday has overjoyed the right, and must be a wake-up call for the left | Jason Okundaye

The Cambridge academic has rightly now resigned. But that won’t end the targeting of senior black figures or the lazy way institutions promote faux equality, says Guardian columnist Jason Okundaye

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

RIP Keven Keegan - what a legend he was. And a rare example, long before Kane, of a British footballer who was a cult in Germany. His German wasn't bad! Here he is discussing and performing 'Head over Heels in Love' on Aktuelles Sportstudio in 1979. Has to be seen to be believed!

youtube.com

Kevin Keegan - Aktuelles Sportstudio 1979

YouTube video by Hummel1974

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Just read that Sepp Blatter, that well known paragon of integrity, has voiced concerns about FIFA corruption under Infantino. We have officially reached peak absurdity in an already farcical World Cup. The tournament is not worthy of the sport it is facilitating.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Lots to agree with here - and yes, it’s true that it’s ‘easier’ to get a place to study languages than other more competitive subjects, even at ‘elite’ universities. BUT the piece gives the impression that only Russell Group really counts - a myth that really needs to be challenged.

theguardian.com

Cutting language courses puts social mobility at risk, say UK experts

Exclusive: University moves and falling exam entries fuel concerns about opportunities for working-class pupils

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

So I’ve just discovered the E-bay app is now fully unusable because of ‘magic’ AI you can’t switch off. It refuses to let me list a pair of women’s trainers in the ‘women’ category because it can see they are mainly black. And because women obvs only wear pink. Enshittification par excellence.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

I love the eccentric details in this story. 'The painting belonged to a Seville family [...] who were in the habit of taking it on holiday with them.' People take books to the beach so, hey, why not art too ;)

theguardian.com

Valuable Spanish painting left on street salvaged by man who liked its frame

Andrés Hurtado found work by Joaquín Sorolla after its owners mislaid it, before responding to theft alert

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Good work BBC Verify here. This sort of thing needs to be more widely understood. ‘Infantino's travel is believed to have produced roughly the amount of CO2e in just over a fortnight as about 78 people might produce across a calendar year.’

bbc.co.uk

World Cup 2026: How Fifa president Gianni Infantino is jetting around

Gianni Infantino has clocked up thousands of air miles across North America so far.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Ffs, It’s 7am and around 24 outside, and rising. Suddenly clothes seem overrated, may not bother with them any more.

static.klipy.com

Homer Simpson Walking Nude in Kitchen

ALT: Homer Simpson Walking Nude in Kitchen

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Summer style from Marlene at the Hotel du Cap, Antibes, in 1938. My own vibe in this weather is more like an outtake from 'Ice Cold in Alex'.

Marlene Dietrch reading a newspaper in a deckchair in a sunny, coastal spot.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

So it will be a coronation. A shame, as I was intrigued by Streeting starting to position himself further to left. A contest might at least have given a chance to address the continued nonsense of Brexit. Burnham wont't do anything about it.

theguardian.com

Wes Streeting will not stand for Labour leadership as Andy Burnham announces candidacy

Former Greater Manchester mayor will be overwhelming favourite to succeed Keir Starmer

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Have just enjoyed an incredibly rich and enjoyable first day of the Rethinking Weimar Cinema Conference in Oxford. Super papers and equally good discussion and chat. Even Tommy Robinson‘s shameful presence in Oxford (‘debating’ at the Union) couldn’t spoil it.

A colourful border in Worcester College Oxford.

A building at Worcester college surrounded by trees and grass.

Sara Hall presenting her keynote lecture.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

The Kristallnacht playbook in the age of social media and AI. The key elements remain the same: a ‘trigger event’ followed by disinformation and co-ordinated racial violence masquerading as ‘protests’. And just imagine if Reform were actually in power.

theguardian.com

How Belfast knife attack became the latest far-right ‘trigger event’

The rapid spread of footage shows how social media is pivotal in enabling far-right agitators to mobilise internationally

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Our recent episode of 'In Our Time' on Joseph Roth is now available globally wherever you normally get your podcasts - e.g. Apple podcasts, Spotify, as well as BBC Sounds. (And also kudos to the panel who did the episode in front of a live audience at the Hay Festival last week!)

podcasts.apple.com

Joseph Roth

Podcast Episode · In Our Time · 4 June · 55min

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

The far right have been wanting a martyr figure, and clearly see this as a potential ‘Horst Wessel’ moment (compare how Nazi newspaper Der Angriff weaponized his death in 1930). Shame on the Telegraph but I expected no better.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

An interesting reflection on immigration and identity from Robin Lustig (I particularly like his speculative suggestion that asylum seekers might be invited to join the British armed forces, as happened to his father - can you imagine the reaction from Reform types).

theguardian.com

My father, the German refugee who fought the Nazis as a ‘secret listener’

As the far right fulminates about who ‘belongs’ in Britain, let’s remember Fritz Lustig, who arrived here in 1939, just months before war broke out. Initially jailed as an ‘enemy alien’, he played a v...

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Suki guarding the emerging canna lily #caturday

A grey cat sitting in half-barrel next to a canna lily.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Remember the scene in BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN where the sailors are served maggot-infested meat, and it's basically a metphor for the corrupt and rotten state? Well... 👇👇👇

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Breakfast time. The chicks here queuing like good little Brits, which unfortunately doesn't work so well with predators. Hard to watch the one at the back get left out. It's not always the same one however!

Screenshot of 3 peregrine hawk chicks being fed.

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Steve Shilstone @steveshilstone.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

now THIS is a lamp #art #deco

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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 27/05/2026

I love how we're the go-to global example of Doing Stupid Stuff

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Current soundtrack for another afternoon marking dissertations and exams. So good.

Album cover for the soundtrack album for John Carpenter's ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

'Hitzewelle' / 'Heatwave' - cartoon by H. M. Bateman published in Das Magazin, 1929. I'm currently the guy in the third panel. 35 degrees outside, which is just insane.

6-panel cartoon, 'Heatwave', showing city commuters suffering comically in the heat.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Highly recommend @royalholloway.bsky.social's live feed of their nesting peregrine falcons (as long as you don't mind watching chicks feasting). They are currently having a late lunch. www.youtube.com/live/NDv_Q9Q...

Screenshot of the falcon feeding her chicks.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Well, I got that all wrong! Of course I'm biased and ranked lists are daft, but fair to say I raised an eyebrow at the complete omission of e.g. Joseph Roth and Günther Grass while e.g. Virginia Woolf gets 5 titles in the list. There are in any case more interesting lists out there.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Discovered today that if you prompt ChatGPT to write a 2000 word formal essay on a specific topic, it not only produces the essay but boasts, unprompted, that the work 'is suitable for submission at a university'. Wouldn't be suprised if it added 'Go on, you know you want to.' Zero shame.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Gwenno in concert last night - not only fantastic trilingual songs (Welsh, Cornish, English) but an impassioned defence of the beauty and inherent value of all language. Superb. ✊

Gwenno performing at the Boilerroom in Guildford. She is wearing a black outfit and playing keyboard.

Rhys Edwards performing on guitar with Gwenno.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Sharing this petition in support of colleagues and students at Hertfordshire, which is proposng to cancel its remaining Humanities degrees in English Language/Linguistics, English Literature, Creative Writing, History and Philosophy. Please read about what's happening and sign/share. 1/2

c.org

Sign the Petition

Save the Humanities at the University of Hertfordshire

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

The bottom 20 released today, with Buddenbrooks in at 81. Which other German-language authors do I think will make the cut in this anglocentric list? I'll say Kafka (obvs), Remarque, Grass, Sebald, Roth (The Radetzky March), and maybe Bachmann, Christa Wolf, Jelinek, Kehlmann, Erpenbeck, Döblin.

theguardian.com

The 100 best novels of all time

A countdown of the greatest literature ever published in English, as voted for by authors, critics and academics worldwide. How many have you read?

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Royal Holloway @royalholloway.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

One of the great writers to shape our world 🔊 Contributing to a discussion on BBC Radio 4 show 'In Our Time', Dr Jon Hughes, of our Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, shared his expertise on the work of the writer Joseph Roth (1894-1939). Listen back: ow.ly/YwWJ50YVVke

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

On a day on which the UK news is full of flag-waving, grinning populists claiming total victory, I'm off to give a talk to 6th-formers about young people in Nazi Germany... I won't labour the point but if I'm lucky one or two will realise that the topic is not entirely 'historical'.

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Larry the Cat @number10cat.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

An important point to remember for today's elections in Scotland, Wales and England:

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Simon Tillotson @simontillotson.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

On air now: Joseph Roth (and since starting on this I’ve found myself buying his books for friends which is a sign) www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

bbc.co.uk

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Joseph Roth

One of the great writers on Central Europe after WW1 and author of Radetzky March.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Ah, the dreaded 'portfolio review', aka the axe. What a shocking decision - a diasaster for Humanities provision in the region and one which will diminish the University of Hertfordshire. I look forward to adding my name to protests against this.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

American poster for DIE HALBSTARKEN (1956) in which not only the title is badly translated but also the name of the star - Horst Buchholz becomes 'Henry Bookholt' (why did they bother), supposedly the new James Dean. Buchholz did go on to star in American fillms, but not as Henry Bookholt.

A colourful poster for the film TEENAGE WOLFPACK (ie DIE HALBSTARKEN).

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

A heads up - tomorrow (7 May, 9am BST) you can hear me (alongside 2 wonderful colleagues) discussing the life and work of the great author Joseph Roth on BBC Radio 4‘s ‘In Our Time’ show. Available to stream via the BBC Sounds app and as a podcast later in the month. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

bbc.co.uk

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Joseph Roth

One of the great writers on Central Europe after WW1 and author of Radetzky March.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Ah, academic publishing, you've gotta love it. I bet those hardcover editions are selling well.

A screencrab from Amazon advertising the prices of a book - £27.99 in peperback compared to £400 in hardcover.

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Jon Hughes @riderjon.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

My sort of of erratum announcement, from Close-Up film magazine, December 1927. Not a bad alternative!

'Error: An interveiw with Fritz Lang was erroneously announced for this issue. This month the director interviewed in G. W. Pabst.'

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