I had forgotten the delight of finding something on the fax machine that clearly wasn't meant for your eyes

This looks like a fun job for someone working between academia and creative industries

Certainly, with AI you can produce a 2:2 essay much faster than you used to, so that effect probably applies more broadly. I'm still not persuaded it's a good thing.

Twelve working days until my self-imposed deadline for this article and only 2200 words to go. Absolutely doable.

In the early 2000s I worked in the BBC political unit and got leaked a couple of nice things and one thing everyone knew is you did not do that on emails I mean really

There's a simple solution for Labour here: use that parliamentary majority to introduce PR.

the fundamental problem of royalty through the ages is that their kids are as likely as anyone to be dim, but get to combine that with a rabid sense of entitlement

🚨🚨 BREAKING: the Melania content they don't want you to see, click now before it gets redacted 🚨🚨

Besides the issue in the headline, the review found BBC programmes were 'still not using enough female experts' and lacked working-class, Black and non-London contributors

Good news for the post-Brexit Brits on the Costas who never got around to doing their paperwork

Such a pleasure after ploughing through a bunch of AI-drafted assignments to find a student engaging creatively with the question in a way that ChatGPT could never

Okay like this is actually an incentive to go canvass (against Goodwin, to be clear)

It's Manchester, so the only possible answer is the Gallagher brothers, as a job-share

Go back to the 1689 Bill of Rights and gun rights are only for Protestants

In Dante's vision of hell, the ninth and final circle, destination of the traitors, is a lake of ice

Anyway, as we're talking about Gorton and Denton, here's the area's very fabulous Victorian Gothic monastery

Popcorn shortage declared in Manchester 🍿🍿🍿

Last talk on The Roads to Rome (for now at least) completed, appropriately just off Watling Street in Stony Stratford

Autocorrect just changed 'sexual deviance' to 'sexual defiance', and I'm tempted to start using this instead

Oh, the joy of waiting at the airport for a bag that didn't make its connection. Fingers crossed it arrives on the next flight. I didn't even want to check it in but the flight was full and they insisted.

I have a flight booked to Luton for an event near Milton Keynes and Easyjet keeps throwing me into a panic with emails about my upcoming trip to London

A portrait I discuss in The Firearm Revolution - one of several with links to imperial/colonial projects (here the Tudor campaigns in Ireland) that feature guns.

Starmer needs to go in hard with 'hands off Greenland or we rewild your golf courses'

nicely ironic casting for Anne, whose religious allies were leading a campaign against sexual deviance with the flagship Buggery Act of 1533

Mr Harding, who taught my high school classes on the Cold War 1988-1992, probably felt the same way

Inventor of the 😬 emoji

Dropped by the Jorvik Centre today and can confirm 1. they've really toned down the smells since the 80s and 2. they have so many books by @louiestowell.bsky.social that they don't fit on one shelf

Oh god, Jenrick just used the word 'Renaissance' in relation to a Reform government and this is one use of history I could really do without

if you really want to feel wonderful, spending a bit of time with the brain of Leonardo Da Vinci is the way it is interesting. seeking out brand new people is *also* delightful but you'll get a long way in life by going: sad? listen to Bach, look at Leonardo's notebooks/sketches, read Jane Austen

the vagina museum should open a branch in vienna and call it the kunthistorisches museum

Today at 1345 on Radio 4 (or available now online), I'm talking to @naomialderman.bsky.social about Leonardo da Vinci.

wtf KLM

See also my in-flight map last week. I don't know what they call this projection but Greenland is almost the size of North America.

It's worth knowing that this is a right-wing talking point in the UK: if challenged they will say oh well, of course there were some immigrants but it was nothing like today etc. etc.

Fell for a hotel upgrade pitch while very jetlagged last night but this sunrise is worth the money. Say hi if you're here #AHA26

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clock, recently purchased from Heal's on Tottenham Court Road, was striking thirteen.

This is an interesting piece but it kind of misses that Sheffield's steel industry was always closely tied to armaments.

new series of Human Intelligence starts today at 1.45pm! three weeks of an episode every day, to start your year off by learning about some stuff (if you like that sort of thing): www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Applications are also invited for a new RHS programme for 2026, co-hosted with @ihr.bsky.social and @chalkefestival.bsky.social. 'Pitch my Project' is for early career historians to present their research at the Chalke History Festival in June bit.ly/44kfUMM. Closing date: 6 February. #Skystorians

Lovely to get back from my holidays to three emails from readers telling me how much they enjoyed The Roads to Rome. That book was a bit of a departure from my usual work, so it's great to hear that people appreciate it.

The Maltese Falcon, from the point of view of an actual peregrine falcon paid as tribute to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V

A sixteenth-century imperial power would just subcontract Venezuela to some German traders

Afternoon walk

Venezuela media guide (no longer being updated but most of the links still work):

I'm currently costing making a podcast (with a proper script and edits and stuff) for a grant application and we're well into five figures a year before we've paid a single contributor, let alone left the building to record on location.

just thinking ahead to major historical anniversaries that fall within the likely term of the next government, and we have: trial and execution of Jesus (2000) break with Rome (500) abolition of slavery (200) Hitler coming to power (100) so this will be fun

Friends and mutuals with Ghost, Substack, etc - what subscription models have worked for you? Paid-for, a mix of paid and free, free with the option to 'buy you a coffee'? I'm looking to set up on Ghost after my PhD is in, so any tips welcome!

A few years ago I (who worked at the BBC 1999-2004) moderated a colleague's assignments on contemporary media history and had to restrain myself from writing in the margins 'No', 'Didn't happen' and 'wtaf'.

Picture of the staff who operate my account.

At midnight today, it will have been 2016 for the past decade.