Over the past couple months I’ve gently nudged my 12 year old towards more mature reading, with mixed results. Up next are these two classics. Fingers crossed! Rolling Thunder blew me away at school. I really hope she connects with it.

People of Caribbean had some good Qs when found out Euros arrived for gold: 'how miserable art thou, thus to expose thy person to such tedious and dangerous Voyages, and to suffer thy self to be orpress’d with cares and fears! The inordinate desire of acquiring wealth puts thee to all this trouble'.

bloody hell i see Tudor/Stuart seminar at the IHR have David Starkey on their line up for a conference.... if I needed a reminder of why I unsubscribed from that mailing list...! lol!

In trying to get a sense of how Indigenous people saw European settlers in the Caribbean, it appears they considered beard-growing and facial hair a kind of deformity, and baldness a disease. I...would not have been well esteemed by them.

@yalebooks.bsky.social have outdone themselves with the cover of my new book. Out in January for anyone interested.

Our Gaza series continues... ANCIENT GAZA: FROM THE ASSYRIANS TO THE ROMANS @willdalrymple.bsky.social and @anitaanand.bsky.social are joined by @josephinequinn.bsky.social to discuss the 5 ancient empires that conquered Gaza...

Can you help Soad today? Mutual aid is her only income in Gaza at the moment. cc @moma.bsky.social

This app really is just an American echo chamber, isn’t it? I know the Trump stuff is important globally, but it really isn’t everything and I really lament the loss of range of voices and stories from outside America that that binfire Twitter provided.

An important counter narrative to the recent headlines — actual journalism about the daily lives of asylum seekers in the UK www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

One of my favourite parts of Welcome Week is to grab passing students and show them our superb Main Library. Never fails to get a good reaction out of them. A rare selfie of the man behind Bob from Bob’s Burgers himself. Am having a good hair day.

Had a brilliant thank you card from a student in my pigeon hole visualising one of my favourite dad jokes whilst teaching my English civil war course. History has the best students.

First day back at Bangor. Feels weird considering the dreadful changes imposed on us over summer and the colleagues who are no longer with us. We haven’t given up fighting, though! It’s also good to be back in the saddle and looking forward to meeting wonderful new students over Welcome Week.

He thinks Britain has paid its debt for 1917.

I’m going away for a few days and hardly brought enough clothes to wear but have a holdall carrying 6 books.

We’ve lived on our street a while and our immediate neighbours are almost like family. But if I go five houses up the street or five houses down, I’ve no idea who those people are. It’s like I’ve wandered into a different town. Yet every night I sleep hardly a 100 feet from them.

Me when we finally finished: so do you have any other homework I can help you with? Her: you know what it’s fine I’ll tackle it myself Ouch. I’m reeling.

My daughter came to me with her homework on the Tudors. I’ve been waiting my whole life to teach my kids about early modern history. LETS FUCKING GOOOOO

This is why I don’t fall for the ‘lefties did this by not voting for Harris’ schtick. How was suppressing the rights of students to protest genocide any less unconstitutional than what’s going on now? It wasn’t. If you didn’t speak up then, shut the fuck up now. You lost your right.

The Black Legend in action: after detailing an Anglo-French massacre of Indigenous ppl, a French missionary c1650 declared that 'These Nations have not follow'd the inhumane and barbarous maximes of the Spaniards, nor after their example unmercifully exterminated the originary inhabitants.'

Me, amending the Learning Outcomes for my courses this term: 1. evidence a keen desire to become a Founder of an innovative Start Up 2. demonstrate an ability to seek capital and investment from offshore sources 3. create evaluative and analytical pitches to CEOs 4. Assemble range of economic data

I keep Golding’s Lord of the Flies on the desk next to me for inspiration as I write my new book. It deals with many of the same themes and I’m even using some quotes as epigraphs at the start of each section. The most important is Piggy asking ‘What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?’

My fabulous colleague Shaun Evans @ystadaucymru.bsky.social has published his brilliant book 'Coming of Age Celebrations on Welsh Landed Estates'. If you're not immediately requesting your library to purchase a copy and putting it on course reading lists, what are you waiting for?!

The main story on BBC 6 Music News this morning is that a ‘boat carrying migrants is on its way to France’ Delivered in the same upbeat tone as England winning the women’s Euros. The migration ‘debate’ in this country is unmoored from reality, and the media-political complex is feeding it

10/10, no notes

Friends, I’ve done it: I’ve jettisoned the introduction and conclusion in my new book and replaced them with a prologue and an epilogue. No musings on the field or concise laying out of structure; no insightful summations. Just pure fucking story, baby. It’s my third book. Why the fuck not.

If I had a nickel for every time the hosts of mega-hit podcast "The Rest Is History" said rape allegations weren't credible because everyone else said he was such a nice guy, then I'd have almost as many nickels as the hosts of mega-hit podcast "The Rest Is History"

Our members have no confidence in the VC & CFO, as they pursue the same failed cuts they used against @leicesterucu.bsky.social Spending £1.4 million of additional Welsh Gov funding on unplanned spend while making staff redundant was a disqualifying lack of judgement nation.cymru/news/bangor-...

Spent almost all morning thinking of a title for my next book. I’ve read too much Faulkner lately and keep dreaming up abstract and fancy literary titles. But I know ultimately that it’ll have to be something direct and descriptive befitting a nonfic history book.

Putrid, fascist, rape-excusing rag.

Look who came with

I love every single squirm and awkward shift in this video. It's like nectar to me. Billions and billions. And they still can't make a steak sandwich. 4,000 years ago, they built pyramids. Fuck you, techbros.

Watching Victoria Wood’s ‘Great Railways’. She just embodies the memories I have of childhood, both her as a media presence and the world she represents. Sorely miss her comedy. ‘The thing about magnificent train scenery is that you can’t be bothered to look at it anymore after 11 minutes.’

‘I hope this email finds you well.’ How this email found me:

We are horrified and saddened by the death of our colleague Hussein Alnajjar who died yesterday in #Gaza. His death was due to shrapnel injuries caused by an Israeli airstrike near his tent five days earlier.

You know when you laugh because if you don't you think you just might cry? I spent all morning updating programme structures online and realise I had written 'compulsive' instead of 'compulsory' for all our core modules.

Another just occurred to me, after accidentally reading the news earlier when I promised myself I wouldn't: the words of George Bernard Shaw that 'patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it'. Sums these ignoramuses up.

Ahab (Moby Dick): Let’s drink shame upon all cowards! I name no names. Shame upon them! *takes a swig of his drink* Ahab: I’m talking about YOU, Kevin! Kevin: sigh, why does he always do this.

When I look at our country today, the words of the wise Terry Pratchett from ‘Monstrous Regiment’ spring to mind: ‘Do you think it's possible for an entire nation to be insane?’

I do feel like I’m losing my mind over ‘AI’. I feel like Michael Douglas in Falling Down. The next person to shove ‘AI’ in my face is going to bloody regret it. I’ve now written a mini lecture for the start of each of my seminars declaring my courses AI-free zones this year with zero tolerance.

My six year old just added ‘chop, chop’ on the end of his request for toast. Chop bloody chop.

Paging @roperlou.bsky.social !

Today, September 13, women in England march through the streets of London against racism and fascism. #AntiRacismDay #Resist #Pinks

Friend just spotted a Eurasian Hoopoe in his garden!

I enjoyed it when the student said it doesn't damage her critical thinking skills, and then 2 paragraphs later says she uses it to summarise difficult topics. Students don't know how much this is going to ruin the key skills they're paying a premium at University to develop.

Living in the UK today as someone with a modicum of empathy for his fellow humans.

it's absolutely critical to understand in this moment that people aren't largely reacting to who Charlie Kirk was as a person, but who they knew him as because of what tiny pieces of him got clipped out and stuck in their newsfeeds.

It's physically unsafe for people like me to go into the centre of our home city this Saturday on account of the colour of our skin. Most politicians are either failing to stand up to this or actively contributing to the situation. We don't owe any of those politicians our votes. Not one of them.

You can use ChatGPT instead of your own brain to write your paper if I can talk about ChatGPT instead of you in your letter of reference