Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World

Friday procrastination: link love – the British pint glass, steampunk and stepmothers

By Kirsty McHugh, OUP UK

Link Love comes to you this week from me, Kirsty, in the UK office. I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend, and I hope you are too (though I hear you Americans have some big football match or something…?). Here’s what I’ve been reading this week.

Is it last orders for the good old British pint glass as we know it?

Going back to the future with steampunk.

The big sporting event in Britain this weekend is the start of the annual Six Nations Rugby Union contest. I’m a big RU fan, so I’ll be digging my Scotland jersey out of the wardrobe in preperation. Former England captain Lawrence Dallaglio talks to The First Post about this year’s tournament.

How do you stop a car with a jammed accelerator pedal?

The Times looks at women desperate to have a baby girl.

The Guardian’s Top Ten Literary Stepmothers.

You can listen to a podcast of Robert Douglas-Fairhurst talk about the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Great Expectations on the Bookhugger website.

There has apparently been a record number of submissions to The Bookseller’s annual Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year.

John Lanchester on why the world of work features in so few modern novels.

Breaking bad news with Twitter Haiku.

Happy 6th Birthday Facebook!

KittenWar: because everyone needs some cuteness on a Friday.

Recent Comments

  1. Russell Cross

    Just two comment on the British Pint Glass article. First, I have to admit that the word “glassing” to describe the act of attacking someone with a glass is new to me. The fact that we need a word to describe this sort of behavior is a little sad but then English has always beem good at filling in the semantic gaps.

    Second, I’m pretty convinced that modifying the glass may cut down on glassings but do nothing to prevent an upsurge in chairings, bottlings, cannings, or plain old-fashioned knifings. Sadly, when it comes to one-on-one violence, people can be as physically creative as they are linguistically.

Comments are closed.