Professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Glasgow, recently retired. Opinions arising from wide reading and evidence-based research.
Joined June 2022
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28 Photos and videos
Apr 5
My wee song for the World Cup. Up there with “Yaba daba doo, we support the boys in blue.”
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Apr 3
"The first class oppression coincides with that of the female sex by the male”. (Friedrich Engels)
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Mar 5
Soon to be an ex-professor but my commitment to research remains bone deep. archive.ph/U72Mw
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Feb 7
When The Guardian was grooming Peter Mandelson as the next Labour Leader: theguardian.com/politics/200…
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Feb 1
Back on the chemo trail again. Wrote this wee history of the treatment, trying to unravel the mystery. It’s no magic bullet but it can target cancer cells and mine have triggered a spread. willymaley.scot/2026/01/20/c…
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Jan 6
Elizabethan inventor Hugh Plat suggests “a man may walk safely upon a high scaffold wearing spectacles whose sights be so gross he may not discern anything far off. For it is the sight onely of the steepnesse of the place, that bringeth the fear and overturneth the brain.”
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Jan 2
When I lectured on the Communist Manifesto I always included this rap. m.youtube.com/watch?v=LsUDGx…
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Jan 2
This sets out my skeletal metastasis: ‘63yo male with T4 N1 M1b high risk high burden Gleason 10 carcinoma of prostate with bone mets (Thoracic & Lumbar spine, sternum, proximal left humerus, sacrum, innominate bones & proximal left femur)”, spread to base of skull and lungs.
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Jan 2
I’m donating my body to the University of Glasgow. My unique skeletal metastasis will be displayed in the atmospheric Anatomy Theatre. A concealed a microphone in my jawbone will deliver lectures on cancer, chemotherapy and death. I still have a research contribution to make.
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Jan 1
Nothing says punching down more than a man with his fist raised to a woman.
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Jan 1
Elizabethan inventor Hugh Plat says a man may walk safely on scaffolding wearing spectacles with sights so gross he may not see anything far off, but close at hand only. For it is the sight only of the steepness that brings the fear and overturns the brain.
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31 Dec 2025
I studied Scottish witch-prickers of the 17th century. I know their names & those of the women they tortured and burned. I won’t deadname the prickers. Ignominy is their only mark now. Long dead, they are up to their old tricks again, & their female helpers are lending a hand.
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30 Dec 2025
I’m chemically castrated since July 2023 adding time to my life. My friend’s on immunotherapy for cervical cancer. My treatment has euphemisms. I like my facts cold like my climate. My disease is male, hers female. She has 18 months.
I’ve got 3 years. My pronouns are fact. You?
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28 Dec 2025
As someone who has followed proceedings in the mother-faker of all parliaments since the sixteenth century I can honestly say that the level of debate today - not even debate, but deplorable discourse - is lower than it’s ever been.
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25 Dec 2025
When I was ten I we throat-punched at the sweetie van. The boy who did it was notorious. I looked like a siamang, thought I’d never have an Adam’s apple. Next day my throat was flat as a pancake. But when men threaten to throat-punch women I get a lump in my throat.
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25 Dec 2025
I have terminal prostate cancer. I had chemo next to a woman getting immunotherapy for terminal cervical cancer. At 69, she missed the cutoff point for screening. Too old to care about. 18 months to live. I was given 3 years. There’s only 2 sexes and you can’t change sex.
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