Seeing American non-boxing fans on socials suddenly discovering Anthony Joshua this week 😂😅 had half my brain going 'omg essay on 1880s lads doing music hall boxing exhibitions for the ladies!!!'. My brain said, no, drink wine and watch Christmas cartoons with the kid. Still. The thought was there!

I can't help but feel like if the Italians, as a country, could experience what passes for salami in a British Tescos, Western Europe would once again be plunged into war.

A friend of mine, similar age, has teen step daughters and we're in agreement that the star shaped pimple sticker trend is SO Georgian! History! Delightful! No crusty layers of concealer for these 17yr olds. But we do NOT understand the brown lip liner. Where has this come from? Where is it going?

memory slide.

if you have small kids, here’s a cheap and easy last minute gift idea: after they go to bed, pull your sofa out from the wall and retrieve all the toys that they pushed under there over the last year

When your surgeon's absolutely buzzing to be in a Santa suit. Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, 1913

There is no genre of writing I enjoy more than women who have been cheated on doing My Story essays for Take A Break, accompanied by photos of the bastard. Beautiful.

I often go back to this comment by Jamie O'Neill:

Working on a bit of my book, and I get to reference my favourite historian Sarah Wise unexpectedly! Yay! It's regarding 'The Boxing Parson' of Holy Trinity. Also involves Hezekiah Moscow and a nun who mentions young blokes not wearing shirts more times than she needs to over two pages of a memoir.

If you’re just waking up, google “Andrew Tate beaten” for a really good laugh.

Less than 3 weeks until #AThousandBlows season 2! Here's my season 1 'true stories Vs the show' blog. Hezekiah might not be Jamaican He didn't arrive with Alec He wasn't a bareknuckle guy He didn't dream of lion taming Wife WAS white & called Mary &c. grapplingwithhistory.com/2025/03/11/h...

Last December I had a semi-formed book plan that @eliarieh.bsky.social helped shape into something so much better. Today? A deal, 70% of my manuscript drafted, cover design proposals, and a TBC release date. The grey under my eyes is worth it. 2025 was decent to me. I couldn't have done it alone 🙏🏻

If you were the boss of Superdrug, would you put only one gal on the till and one on the perfume counter the Saturday lunchtime shopping sesh before Christmas? Personally, I would not. But maybe I'm not a scumbag, eh. Well done on saving yourself a couple hundred quid.

I don’t keep up with boxing like that but anthony joshua fine so.

its nice when u enjoy ur job

Hah! Independence Day. Great. 👽. Although, I was still 10 throughout most of 1997 so, uh, won't be getting on any large ships...

lol. lmfao

Hahahaha 20 mins of shouting 'what the fuck was that??!!!' at the TV. Astonishing nonsense.

Are you even a historian until you go to the graves with a rum tinny and whisper things in the rain 🤷🏻‍♀️😔 www.grapplingwithhistory.com

Speaking of boxing, today my son (just turned two) managed to give himself a bloody nose by swinging his arms around so wildly he punched himself in the face? Whilst holding a dinosaur magnet?! Extremely proud of the fact he didn't even cry - and this lad cries if a yoghurt is incorrect.

Are you even a historian until you go to the graves with a rum tinny and whisper things in the rain 🤷🏻‍♀️😔 www.grapplingwithhistory.com

Last December I had a semi-formed book plan that @eliarieh.bsky.social helped shape into something so much better. Today? A deal, 70% of my manuscript drafted, cover design proposals, and a TBC release date. The grey under my eyes is worth it. 2025 was decent to me. I couldn't have done it alone 🙏🏻

He had this photo taken on one of the family tables in Clacton Wetherspoons, where everything is sticky, grubby, and it permanently smells slightly like decomposing rodents.

Ring walk time for Paul - Joshua is expected to be 3.30am tomorrow morning, UK time. What do I do here? I'm obviously not staying up, I'm old. But if you do a pre-fight sleep and then wake up for 3-ish, is it still wine and pizza time or is it coffee time? It's not a coffee match is it. Feels wrong.

Frank Bruno, 63, in the latest issue of Modern Boxing Journal. WHAT a cover. 📷 Tom Cockram It's been more than 20 years since I served Frank mussels, fish and chips, and a pint of Guinness and blackcurrant. No, I'll never stop mentioning it 😂 Lovely man. www.matchroomboxing.com/news/modern-...

People who aspire to be academics: I wish to live a life of the mind Actual academics:

Frank Bruno, 63, in the latest issue of Modern Boxing Journal. WHAT a cover. 📷 Tom Cockram It's been more than 20 years since I served Frank mussels, fish and chips, and a pint of Guinness and blackcurrant. No, I'll never stop mentioning it 😂 Lovely man. www.matchroomboxing.com/news/modern-...

Of course it's got EXPLOSIONS 🔥 #AThousandBlows

You may have heard of Bill Richmond and Tom Molineaux on Bridgerton or A Thousand Blows. Now they're set to get a plaque outside the National Gallery londonist.com/london/histo...

Mostly looking at emails and thinking, 'Nah.'

Does someone you love like to read “about wanking in unusual places”? Well, a friend told me that’s what my books cover, with added nature, war, masculinity, Christianity, sex, Airfix kits, Derek Jarman &c. What could make for better Christmas presents? Buy ‘em: uk.bookshop.org/beta-search?...

It is surely not a coincidence that the world presented this pink jacket to me on the same day I heard that I failed to win something life changing. I still won something life changing damnit 😂🤌🏼

"I like that art, and boxing, provide no easy or final answers." 🤌🏼

Somebody donated these coats to the charity shop in Jaywick and I have questions, which include but are not limited to, WHO?! WHY?! And also I love you, if you are currently still alive, will you please be my best friend? 🥹 (£2.50 each)

Unpacking the rucksack after nursery today was better than actual Christmas 👌🏻

I worked at Argos while at sixth form, and a customer once brought in a slice of bread as evidence his toaster wasn't working.

🎤🤹 Researchers, artists, comedians, charities, big thinker types, poets (maybe?), performers, industry partners, all disciplines, all formats, propose ideas, send them to us, and join us in Southampton! #BSF26 ⛵🦠 There's a boat show on there at the same time, if you like both boats AND science >>

Recently found a twelfth - TWELFTH - iteration of Hezekiah Moscow's pseudonym used in 1880s newspapers and medical records. Thirteenth if you include 'Hezekiah Moscow', which is likely to have been one too. My book is so far 45,000 words of 'WHAT is this???' 'WHY???' 'ARGH!'. Plus a bit of boxing.

Very excited to see that CRICK has been shortlisted for the Hatchards First Biography Prize. Here are all five books!

Omg I remember when I used to be the PR for Barts for three years haha I literally named it, also showed Bradley Cooper a diseased ballbag in a pot and said 'diseased ballbag' to Bradley Cooper x

He does his own stunts, you know.

I've written for The Observer about how as teenagers many of us were obsessed with Hitler, just like Nigel Farage – but there's a difference (features Nazi death cry "AIEEEEE!", the song Hitler Has Only Got One Ball, and bisexual commando Micky Burn) observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Oh @robinince.bsky.social is the best of us and it’s criminal that he has to resign from presenting on the BBC while Justin Webb and Sharron Davies and all the poisonous people continue without the “difficult” conversations

Christmas dinner with the parents and small children. decent. Got gammon involved. Took a selfie with my brother because my mother hasn't had a good photo of us both since about 1993. Not sure this is making it to a frame 🧛🏼‍♂️👸🏻

Getting into enormous student debt for a top graded anthropology degree that empowers me in such useful and productive activities as watching a bad history documentary and yelling "who the fuck are 'the ancients' you reductive hack" with genuine feeling

A month to go until you can watch #AThousandBlows season II. 14 months (ish) until my book - 'THE DEVIL'S DANCE FLOOR: Hezekiah Moscow and the Fight for Life in Late-Victorian London' - is on shelves. The true (unaffiliated, hah) story of Hezekiah, Alec, Sugar and pals! deadline.com/2025/12/a-th...

Since June 2024 Farage has mentioned Clacton just a couple of times in Parliament. New MP down the road in Colchester Pam Cox (no relation) has said 'Colchester' 30+ times re. universities, schools, crime, apprenticeships, heritage sites, hospital care, roads, borders, renting, armed forces...

A month to go until you can watch #AThousandBlows season II. 14 months (ish) until my book - 'THE DEVIL'S DANCE FLOOR: Hezekiah Moscow and the Fight for Life in Late-Victorian London' - is on shelves. The true (unaffiliated, hah) story of Hezekiah, Alec, Sugar and pals! deadline.com/2025/12/a-th...