The greatest progress so far in decarbonising the global economy has been made by governments that ignored the advice of economists. Investing in new technologies turns out to be a more effective way of changing things than taxing the incumbents. We need to stop being surprised by this and start replicating those successes.

This chapter looks at a humor subgenre of manga defined by form, the four-panel (comic) strip known in Japanese as yonkoma manga. While this form has played a significant role in modern manga history, including a close interrelation with story-manga, it remains underrepresented in comics studies today. Yonkoma manga can be found in magazines and on internet platforms, but in this chapter, the focus leans toward newspapers where the strips initially developed and today still reach their widest audience. A brief historical overview of the development and current situation of four-panel strips is given before attention turns to their structure, usually described as ki-shō-ten-ketsu (introduction-development-turn of events-conclusion). How this conventional narrative structure is approached varies. This is demonstrated by introducing the creative processes of a few artists. To highlight this structure, an example strip is described. To move beyond mere explications of narrative pattern, however, this chapter ends with a simple application of linguistic humor theory to reveal in part how the humor is created, and to call for more engagement with humor theories in manga studies.

From 1810 to 1830, Viennese piano construction evolved in an attempt to combine the special sonority of Viennese instruments with new advances in technology. One important factor was the possibility of varying the sound between full and reduced or dampened action. A particularly striking change of sound could be produced by the soft or una corda pedal, which shifted the hammer rail so that the hammers struck only one rather than the standard three strings of a triple-strung piano. Although detailed knowledge of which composers wrote which works for which instrument is lacking, hypotheses can be advanced regarding the influence of the action of certain instruments on compositional style. A comparison of works by two composers from different generations – one earlier (Beethoven) and another later (Mendelssohn, who had a predilection for Viennese instruments in his youth) – sheds light on several peculiarities of Schubert’s piano music. Beethoven’s late works and Schubert’s works of the 1820s both exploit this potential in order to coordinate sonority and structure. However, the two composers differ in one key respect: Beethoven tended to use the sonic contrasts he exploited (and meticulously notated) to articulate the work’s architecture, whereas Schubert used them to refine atmosphere and mood.

For much of its modern history, linguistics has taken an ontological stance on language as a structural entity, with a wide set of implications for how languages are understood as bounded entities. This is not about the different epistemological approaches to a structural version of language taken by various schools of linguistics, but about the basic ontological assumptions about what language is. A structural ontology made it possible to treat language as an object amenable to scientific study, enabling descriptions of languages around the world and facilitating many advances in our understandings of languages as structural entities. Yet this very tendency towards seeing languages as autonomous systems has enabled those forms of thinking that emphasize boundedness. When we contrast a structural ontology with a practice ontology, where the focus is on what people do with available linguistic resources, it becomes clear that in some of the recent translanguaging debates, people are talking about different things, language as structure and language as practice. Because structural and social (practice) language ontologies are so different, the debates about translanguaging have become mired in misunderstandings.

Welcome to this book. We welcome local and international readers in both rural and urban contexts. This book is about linguistic diversity in schools and how teachers can harness multilingual resources and diverse worldviews to promote the wellbeing and achievement of all students.

Throughout the book we present examples of effective practice in classrooms around Australia, ranging from Menindee (New South Wales) to Yarrabah State School (Queensland), from Kalgoorlie (Western Australia) to the Eyre Peninsula (South Australia) and from Mallacoota (Victoria) to Tennant Creek (Northern Territory). The principles and pedagogies promoted here will also apply to multilingual classrooms and communities globally. In Australia or elsewhere, you may be training to become a teacher, or may be a graduated teacher wishing to expand your skills. Our goal is that this book will shape new ideas and perspectives on teaching practice within all schools.

Over the past three decades norms research has become a subfield that matters beyond the boundaries of International Relations (IR). Like other such generative processes this subfield’s path is marked by debates over conceptual and methodological preferences. This book argues that irrespective of how we understand these divides, the critical question for today’s norms researchers is how have our understandings of norms developed over this period? To address this question this book brings together a range of junior, mid-career, and senior scholars, working at the leading edge of norm research, across a diversity of issues and subfields, and using different epistemological perspectives. Two lenses feature in this endeavour: the first considers the history of norm research as a series of three distinct and theoretical moves, and the second examines the potential of practices of interpretation and contestation (which we term the ‘interpretation-contestation framework’) as a way of bringing together a range of theoretical tools to understand norm change, evolution, and replacement. In short, this book focuses on the past trajectory of the field to argue that norm research continues to hold significant potential and promise for theorising within IR and studying current issues and problems.

Over the past two decades, we have seen a significant shift in the norms literature away from the idea that a norm reflects a fixed and universally accepted shared understanding to notions that any norm – even those which appear to be widely institutionalised in international organisations of global governance – remains subject to contestation and interpretation at multiple sites in world politics. In this chapter, we take up the challenge of studying these diverse types of norms and their meaning, use, and role in practice. We begin by returning to the three moves laid out in the introduction and use as a vignette the forced landing of Ryanair Flight 4978 in Belarus in May 2021 to explore how each of these three moves can explain these events. We then draw out three sets of conclusions from the book, focusing on the process of contestation. We end by noting that the distinct approaches to norm research developed over the past thirty years do speak to one another in meaningful and innovative ways. By focusing on contestation in a holistic way, we can not only understand norms in a unique way but also how they constitute the world.

Storytelling is the magic ingredient for ensuring your messages make an impact and are remembered. But, to work well, stories require certain ingredients, including a classic narrative structure, jeopardy, pace and the use of character in telling them.

Advanced writing skills can make a piece of content truly excellent. Such tricks of the wordsmith’s trade include specialist structures, ensuring your content is inclusive and appealing to all, elegantly laid out, and efficiently edited.

Eight under-accomplishing premierships since Thatcher stood down in 1990, and a long list of long-standing domestic problems not resolved by successive administrations, including stalled productivity in the economy, crumbling transport infrastructure and chronic housing shortages, repeated failures to address social care and a failing health service, speak of a failure of leadership at the top. Many PMs – not all– who stepped up were potentially well-equipped for the job. So what has happened? Has the job now become impossible: or is it the quality of the incumbents and their preparedness for office that have declined? This final chapter seeks to provide answers. It probes the issue of quality, and examines which prime ministers have been successful and why, assigning them to one of six grades. It examines how judgements about premierships are formed, and the role of the individuals themselves in shaping those perceptions, before concluding with five proposals to ensure that, as we move towards the mid twenty-first century, prime ministerial performance might improve.

This chapter explores Wittgenstein’s two references to the arts in 4.014. The first is his musical example of the unity of language and the world; the second his allusion to the fairytale The Gold-Children by Brothers Grimm. The chapter argues, first, that Wittgenstein’s early notion of logic incorporates forms that for Kant belong to transcendental aesthetic, namely, space and time. Second, it spells out how this commitment motivates Wittgenstein’s musical example and why it is crucial to draw a distinction between transcendental form and empirical structures made possible by that form. Finally, the chapter argues, pace Peter Sullivan, that the unity of language and the world is guaranteed by the metaphysical subject as their common origin. If the fairytale is read as a condensed illustration of Wittgenstein’s position, then this common origin is signified by a golden fish.