You'd think at the very least they'd provide free transport from Southend to Colchester for those students left stranded by the closure. But no. It makes me angry that my home town lost a brilliant polytechnic and art college, as well as a very fine library and adult education provision for... this.

University of Essex putting up a big new billboard in Clacton ('Your Local University') to attract students after closing their Southend campus, ruining young Southenders' plans, and putting 400 staff up for redundancy seems like a bit of a poor taste pisstake somehow, I don't know.

god I can't wait for the "Wuthering Heights" reviews to start dropping, have absolutely no desire whatsoever to go watch it myself but will I be reading 5 to 17 pieces on it? absolutely

obsessed with this Victorian gothic excuse for not going for extra drinks in this weekends guardian blind date

It'll never stop angering me, the number of times I've read "we don't know much about the real Hezekiah Moscow" in #AThousandBlows press coverage. I'm trying to trim 40k drafted words to fit in an 80k book. Yes, there are many mysteries still. But I've spent seven years with him. Just ask me?! 😂🤦🏻‍♀️

Somewhere in Hell, Richard Nixon is being forced to watch everything Tr*mp is doing with absolutely no consequences. It's the most devious punishment the Devil could come up with.

Celebrate #BlackHistoryMonth! George Dixon (1870–1908) was a boxer known as "Little Chocolate". He was a world bantamweight champion, the first Black man, and the first Canadian to win a world boxing title. A #Halifax recreation centre is named for him. biographi.ca/en/bio/dixon... #BHM

My favourite modern era boxer Nick Ball (no known relation to late-Victorian middleweight legend, bioscope pioneer and puma puncher, Alf 'The Greatest Showman' Ball) against a lad seven inches taller than him tonight. Looking forward to this. Reckon he's got it.

As if I wasn't already persuaded... Zack realised he was gay because of Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Razor Ramon and Rowdy Roddy Piper 🤌🏻💚 www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

This story feels like my career.

Imagine Brody King walking out on the Dynamite after Revolution wearing his ski mask, parka, Abolish Ice shirt, and the #AEW Men's World Championship around his waist. That could be a watershed moment for wrestling, and honestly for the American cultural zeitgeist. No hyperbole. #WrestleSky

Hahaha, I ACTUALLY got a dodgy bloke message after posting this. I WAS joking. Don't have anything to offer in exchange. Daily 1880s Sporting Life boxing poetry DMs? Selfies in terrible 1980s jumpers? Ngl, I would probably whip up UK size 8 foot pics for the one on the right if you're so inclined.

Anchor.fm/ifwtpod 🎥 NEW EP! 🎥 Writer and contributor to The Fight City, @andrewrihn.bsky.social joins the show to bring us Humphrey Bogart's last ever screen performance, 1956's THE HARDER THEY FALL - a boxing noir(?) w/ a complicated history that includes the HUAC, lawsuits & more!

The pivot to video is a tax on women's time and dignity, I will die on this hill.

I don't often post my son on here. But sometimes we need a hero. Or at least a laugh 🤦🏻‍♀️😂👊💚

~ Nigel Farage's pitch to the worst people in Britain ~ https://anotherangryvoice.substack.com/p/nigel-farage-pint-policy-child-poverty

Rainy Bakes cake n' shakes shop in Jaywick has already promised me campaign catering and HQ 😂🙌🏻💚🥤

I'd sleep better at night knowing my son's Clacton nursery classmates have a bit of fruit and veg at home, the heating on, and a pair of shoes that fit. This might be the worst policy he's touted yet. And as MP for a town with high unemployment, min wage work, and a LOT of kids on the breadline!

The aforementioned bloke is film writer and director @charlesnewland.bsky.social, he just hadn't been on BlueSky for over a year so I didn't think to tag him. Also his name is quite big on the poster.

Maybe it was just "dinner recorded" and it never really happened.

The aforementioned bloke is film writer and director @charlesnewland.bsky.social, he just hadn't been on BlueSky for over a year so I didn't think to tag him. Also his name is quite big on the poster.

If you're a critic and invited to a press screening, but reviews are embargoed, when did it become okay to chuck your thoughts about it onto a social media post to thousands of followers a week early? This is apparently a thing now. Even from senior people! www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...

@cycologies.com One foot. Makes a change from one leg.

My bloke's new BFI-funded short drama Smooth The Edges should be heading to short film festivals later this year! I am very proud. It stars, and was written, directed, and produced by British Romani actors and filmmakers: filmfreeway.com/SmoothTheEdges

"The boxing ring is just the beginning of a bigger fight - against racism, exclusion, and the idea that some destinies are predetermined at birth." "It's not a series made to please everyone. But it's precisely this position that makes it relevant..." Brilliant analysis of #AThousandBlows II 🥊

The 'Illustrated Newspapers: Beyond the Illustrated London News' project looks like an absolute dream. One of my great grandads worked on the presses printing such things from the late 1880s, then some of his sons. No PhD for me so can't apply but hope that whoever does is COOL and appreciates it 📰

Strangely sad about John Virgo. Thought he was a magician as a kid (not just because of the waistcoats). Properly weird that 14 million of us used to sit and watch a snooker show really though isn't it. Glory days!

Heartbreaking piece here on the closure of the University of Essex’s Southend campus. Unlike much that’s written about universities, it really captures the deep emotional connection between university and place, and what it means when that’s lost: www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Jem Smith’s a lad of mettle, And champion long will reign, After he’s smashed up Sullivan, And knocked out Jake Kilrain. - Sporting Life, 24 September 1887 It's Jem Smith book chapter month in my attic! So: FUN 👩🏻‍💻📕 When and WHY did British sports reporting stop including jaunty poetic verse?

If you enjoyed season II of #AThousandBlows and have questions about actual history, I might be able to answer them! For example: Did Hezekiah Moscow do a murder? Did he train royalty? Get banned? Chill with French Anarchists? Weigh more than 140lb? 💥🥊 grapplingwithhistory.com/2026/01/09/s...

This morning I watched a bloke wearing a lanyard indicating that he worked for a high-end bank absolutely chug a can of Strongbow, crush it underfoot, then slide the crushed can beneath the shutters of an estate agent, before getting on the 8.15am bus.

Is it, like, against Ko Fi rules to solicit for a sugar daddy / mam to buy me Jem Smith cigarette cards?

Choose your fighter 😜 A rare piece of 1887 tobacco advertising and pugilistic history! Currently on ebay (Anyone got $300?): Jem Smith, England's Heavyweight Boxing Champion; Thomas Hum, Champion Juvenile Skater; John McPherson, Champion Shot Putter; Clarence Freeman, Champion Chess Player.

"We want to stop them bleeding people dry." The Green Party want to see stricter regulations on gambling to reduce harm. Nigel Farage thinks gambling shops are great places for lonely people to hang out... What do you think?

Jem Smith’s a lad of mettle, And champion long will reign, After he’s smashed up Sullivan, And knocked out Jake Kilrain. - Sporting Life, 24 September 1887 It's Jem Smith book chapter month in my attic! So: FUN 👩🏻‍💻📕 When and WHY did British sports reporting stop including jaunty poetic verse?

Fellow speakers come from @wellcometrust.bsky.social, @collegeofsurgeons.bsky.social, @nationaltheatre.org.uk, @unisouthampton.bsky.social, HSBC... ooh yeah. Quite big time! 😂 Fancy professional conference talk. I'll do a Powerpoint. Wait, no, Canva! Just love talking about Hezekiah Moscow. Happy >>

Had a recruitment agent message about a dream day job. Manager. Two direct reports. Absolute snort laughed at the salary. About £2k a year more than I was on as a press officer a decade ago, before Liz Truss Mortgages and Greater Anglia insanity and a basic-ass coffee being £4. The state of it all.

He licks chalk powder off his blackboard, and this morning tried to cut up a sting ray with an electric jigsaw 👍🏻

1887 - a time when newspapers had no photography or much in the way of graphic design, of course, just pages of dense text - Lewis's department store in Manchester (now Primark, Market St, I believe) knew how to catch the eye! Stunning advertising work in The Umpire:

Starting season 2 of A Thousand Blows and All Hallow's mumming as part of the plot? Yes, thank you.

😺🌊☀️

Nigel Farage called 'w*nker' in Gorton and Denton by-election visit t.co/06ufdRfTyq

Took a nice photo of some cats eating brunch (some sort of rice and curry dish) on the beach in Jaywick. A lovely day! 😺😺🍛

My 73yr old dad, a local newspaper reporter from 1969-2015, was stopped at the door of a beer festival today by the Colchester Gazette and asked to vox pop on difficulties facing local pubs in the current economic climate. In his ELEMENT. Actor on Oscars red carpet excitement. Love this for him.

I used to be a press officer for a famous skeleton. Yes, more stories should start like that. Anyway, in three years I only let one publication come in and see him. More than a decade on, that publication is now writing about ME and MY research. What?! WHAT. What's happening. This is too much.

Got your HistFest tix yet? 🎟️📚 18-19 April at the British Library and around the world (I think?) online. More speakers to be announced soon! Learn things, have a nice time, buy some books, maybe a coffee or wine! And also Michael Palin Michael Palin Michael Palin ⏬ histfest.org/histfest-2026/

A Thousand Blows out here doing for the intersections of race, class & gender w/in historical context what Black Sails was doing for the intersections of sexuality, class & gender. While I have critiques of this show in terms of pacing and plot, I fear this will be slept on in terms of tv history.

My talk is mostly going to be me raving about how much I love the National Archives Education Resources Team and everything they've done to help, and help me, share Hezekiah Moscow and Alec Munroe's real stories with the world 🥊♥️

SOME NEWS, BYE!

Hope this chicken that my child made yesterday cheers you up as much as it did for me 😂🐓 It was drawn from life shortly after he met an actual chicken!!!