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There's very little that gives me a rush like passing an 8% check in Disco Elysium

My grandfather emerged from the plains of Saskatchewan to become a professional ice hockey player in the 40s/50s and I will always defend the sport. It is completely insane. This is a great piece. Forget the shortform media content and watch people smash each other about on the ice as a replacement!

Starmer has gone from a draconian head of the Crown Prosecution Service to a jewel thief in just over a decade. One of the most insane lateral moves of all time

Bring back Chartist plays - not BBC Schools necessarily, just an absolute boatload of Chartist plays. A Director-General vote for Duncan is a vote for common sense

Reading some old BBC Schools broadcasting notes because the incredible Thomas Cooper play (WRITTEN BY ALAN PLATER) is featured and - man, the Beeb used to be something, didn't it? Our Tom would have strongly approved of the educational angle.

William Morris's 'News From Nowhere' is actually a how-to guide on what we should do with cities

Another lovely day working on my thesis about radicalism in the 19th century - now to spend several hours writing about Anglo-Saxon Witangemots

Apart from the desire to produce beautiful things, the leading passion of my life has been and is hatred of modern civilization. -William Morris

Last night I started David Olusoga's new Empire series (excellent and I hugely recommend it - David is a much better historian than he is a Faithful). Monday in the archive and the first pamphlet I open is a case of some good old Imperial Federationism from an ex-Chartist. Many, MANY such cases.

all if forgiven, this show is perfect. #GameOfWool

Had a long-overdue haircut this week and made the decision to do a close shave afterwards. This proved to be a mistake but it has, at least, allowed me to complete the Carroll diagram of Duncan's Many Looks Yes, I look good with the scruff and the cropped hair, I'm not ashamed.

I am ~15 years into my Europa Universalis V game and I'm blown away. This is a simulation of the ENTIRE world for 500 years (1337-1821), yet still deep enough for me to lose myself in battling Devonian and Cornish tin merchants over their weird local legal system #SmashTheStannaryLaws #EUV

Hoping this helps our colleagues across the industry

In Newport South Wales on November 4 1839 Chartists nearly succeeded in sparking a revolution. The crack regiment of the British Army shot 22 dead wp.me/p15p2Q-8NH

Listen to Journey Through Time, available on all major podcast platforms 🎙️

After an extremely full-on week followed by an even more full-on weekend (don't do 8hrs of trains in one day, kids) I fully reserve the right to swan around Hexham in various high-quality items of wool clothing

You know what time of year it is

An order of chicken fingers is called a hand. “Gimme a hand of fingies,” you say. If you want dipping sauce you ask for them to “paint the nails.”

Three bloody years on this PhD and I still get jumpscared by the low-contrast Thomas Cooper

Armando Iannucci and Stewart Lee on the language of politics is perfect (and very distracting) background noise to write to

There's a strange sort of enjoyment in seeing someone I massively respect and admire intellectually be so confidently wrong all of the time #CelebrityTraitors

Starting my literature review with "*record scratch* *freeze frame* Yup, that's me. You're probably wondering just how I got into this situation" (I know this isn't the Sunset Boulevard quote but it IS the quote of the mythologised version of the trope ca. 2010)

Style icons

Shopping at a pop-up market, upgrading my laptop with some new RAM (EUV get hype) and deep cleaning the entire flat after putting it off for, frankly, way too long. If anyone deserves burgers* and chips for dinner it's this guy *big up Linda McCartney

I defy anyone to find a better Friday night than a sensible couple of beers and an Ealing comedy. Tonight's showing is The Titfield Thunderbolt, a film I refuse to hear a bad word about

The history and legacy of the British Empire with @davidolusoga.bsky.social Coming in November. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... 🗃️📚📺 #history

Late Chartism is wild. What do you mean Ernest Jones is coming out to bat for Thomas Cooper against Gammage's 'History of the Chartist Movement'? Whose side is anyone on?

Banger Young Ones reference from SOAS #UniversityChallenge #ToxtethOGrady

I currently spend my Mondays doing just about the greatest thing: cleaning and cataloguing pre-1930s pamphlets published by the co-operative movement. I would be lying if exposure to early CWS ephemera wasn't having a massive effect on my politics

Proud to pay my respects to KING DAVID HARTLEY OF CRAGG VALE and also this poet my partner likes I guess

Uh, whose Wuthering Heights?

Brilliant book but especially essential reading for anyone interested in the history of commons land management

The Pilgrimage of Grace was a great northern rising that began as the Lincolnshire Rising before spreading to Yorkshire in October 1536 and then across the region. Described as the most serious rebellion of the Tudor age, it was driven by anger at Henry VIII’s break with Rome, the

Going over a couple of articles from "Cooper's Journal" about rebuilding a mass movement and it's just hit me. Thomas Cooper tried to do a 'Your Party' in 1850. I have to write a blog article on this immediately.

Thomas Cooper's long prose is good

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Very unwell, but the steady medication of a chunky jumper, lots of tea, lots of travel writing and lots of Martin Carthy is starting to make a dent. The contrast between my music and the techno-nonsense I occasionally hear from my neighbours only affirms my smug sense of superiority.

I only started watching this for David Olusoga but I regret to admit that I'm quite enjoying it

Manchester historians! @historylabplus.bsky.social and @porticolibrary.bsky.social are uniting again for another History Open Mic Night! Come down on Dec 11th to hear brilliant speakers from the Manchester history scene on a range of topics - book below! www.theportico.org.uk/event-calend...

Big day - my parents inform me that it is finally the start of Long Dog Jumper Season

I think there's another anti-immigration protest going on in my locale tomorrow, which makes it all the more appropriate to be spending this evening reading my grandfather's own immigration paperwork. Yes, his profession is listed as 'hockey player', he was the most Canadian man to ever live

After something to listen to over the weekend? Our newest podcast with @katrinanavickas.bsky.social dropped yesterday! We talk about the history of the commons (communal resources), enclosure, and resistance to that encroachment. Plus, Untitled Goose Game. merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/abso...

Slow Friday. Trying to distract myself from the Your Party discourse (which I am FAR too proximate to) by writing up a few of my earlier thoughts on how Thomas Cooper felt about my favourite place in the world, the Lake District: dnhamiltonblog.wordpress.com/2025/09/19/t...

Everything I hear out of Peter Kyle's mouth makes me dislike him more. God forbid, people go to a research institution to conduct research! www.lbc.co.uk/article/brit...

Predicting a further split on the Corbyn wing, when it transpires that an alliance over international causes such as Gaza fractures on contact with domestic policy - as pro-Corbyn progressives find themselves sharing a bloc with MPs from staunchly socially conservative Muslim constituencies.

No words.

Did I say tomorrow? I meant Tuesday. They both begin with T, after all. One for the blog on some thoughts I had about Thomas Cooper and local river phenomena, after an interesting tour of his hometown as part of Gainsborough Wordfest 2025! dnhamiltonblog.wordpress.com/2025/09/16/t...

"We do not like the nomenclature of this novelist. It is too literally allegorical." Finally, a literary critic with the pluck to call Cooper out on his bullshit character naming conventions (I'm still not over the gardener, Eli Grubroot, and doubt I ever will be).

The drop in price in Coke, and increasing purity of supply, is definitely playing a role in *gestures at everything*.