Professional opposition to the government's higher education policies is growing. Tomorrow afternoon, academics at Oxford will be debating and voting on a motion of no confidence in the minister for universities and science, David Willetts. A similar vote may be going ahead in Cambridge, and petitions have been started at Warwick and Goldsmiths. Philip Pullman's account of going to Oxford for interview gives a sense of what's at stake.
Alan Bennett's Smut: Two Unseemly Stories is published this month by Faber and Profile. One of the unseemly stories is 'The Greening of Mrs Donaldson', which first appeared in the LRB. Here he is reading from it.
From Swamp Post, a time-lapse video mapping protests in North Africa and the Middle East from 18 December 2010 to 7 March 2011. Painstakingly compiled by John Caelan.
Julian Barnes has won the 2011 David Cohen Prize for a 'lifetime's achievement in literature'. As well as £40,000, the winner gets to choose the recipient of the £12,500 Clarissa Luard Award, which Barnes has given to the Reading Agency to spend on their work in young offenders' institutions.
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