After a hiatus, EMDigIt is back with BIG news! 📯 The Core Italian Itinerary dataset is now publicly available as feature layers published on ArcGIS Online. More than 3,700 georeferenced way-points and 6,000 route segments taken from 8 Italian-language itineraries published from 1562-1720.

It’s good for what ails ye

Thrilled to have my research on Elizabeth's letters, conducted on @misswalsingham.bsky.social 's FEATHERS project, in The Times: www.thetimes.com/article/093f...

I think familiarity with survey research from half a century or more ago makes me a bit more sceptical of the stronger doomer claims of this kind. Functional literacy and numeracy, basic knowledge about core aspects of history, politics etc were not so widespread in the past either!

Everyone says social media needs to be regulated There's just one problem - it *already is* I've had a look at why regulation is failing, what we might do about it, and what the risks are - because nothing is ever as simple as it seems New post: chamindajayanetti.substack.com/p/how-do-you...

“I will make a statement on my future in public life at 2pm.”

I’m SO proud of Dr @clodaghmurphy.bsky.social who was awarded her doctorate cum laude for her exceptional dissertation on Queen Elizabeth I. The @unileiden.bsky.social newsletter now shares some of her remarkable discoveries from our ERC Consolidator project #FEATHERS Congratulations! bit.ly/4fkiMPo

Proofs! coming soon to an Internet Histories near you

Once again I am doing the Great North Run for @actionfdn.bsky.social, a fine organisation who give essnetial support to refugees and asylum seekers in the North East. Give us your money! ajbellgreatnorthrun2026.enthuse.com/pf/peter-mit...

Made a little bot to try and surface archive stuff (10+ years) showing up on iPlayer.

My dentist has set their aircon to “belligerent“.

My latest novel, The Heist Of Hollow London, is out in paperback on 21 July. Barnes & Noble are running a members promotion right now where you can get 25% off preorders, and this is included! www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-heist-...

Salary: £35,993 💀

A fabulous discovery by @jorisoddens.bsky.social of the earliest known painting of the Dutch States-General (1608). Read all about it in the latest issue of Early Modern Low Countries. #earlymodern emlc-journal.org/article/view...

Rough day, so have a poem about the Jar of Moles in the Grant Zoology Museum in London that everyone has regarded as too thoroughly batshit to publish

The Cotton Genesis (Cotton MS Otho B VI, 5th century) was one of the tragic victims of the Ashburnham House fire in 1731. Today, we’re delighted to release new multispectral imaging of the manuscript, allowing us to read its texts for the first time in hundreds of years. www.bl.uk/stories/blog...

Between December 1768 and April 1769 the 3rd duke of Grafton's ministry faced 4 by-elections in one constituency (Middlesex), 3 of them fought by radical John Wilkes from his prison cell. An earlier post describes how things worked out... #HistParl #election historyofparliament.com/2024/03/07/e...

There’s an old Osbert Lancaster cartoon I’ve always loved where his heroine, high society dame Maudie Littlehampton, looks up from her newspaper and despairs “When will these people start courting the upper class vote?” and well

That moment when someone started to talk much faster and the inquisitorial notary transcribing the oral testimony in 1542 had to shift into turbo mode.

Don’t let them out on the moor at night, Watson!

‘We are living under a kind of house arrest, unable to go out, with an oppressive sense that an assault could occur at any moment.’ New from Luqman Saeed in Belfast: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ju...

I am familiar with the works of Lisa Jardine, je t'assure

Just noticed I inserted the “Sir” into the title. Once, when I was a child, I was told off something rotten for referring to him as plain “Alf” within earshot of Lady Ramsey, who would only have “Sir Alfred”.

Excellent Town / World Cup content on Archive on 4 this week: The Sir Alf Ramsey Story: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

loved this (not paywalled) story in the FT's wealth supplement about a Ponzi scheme that purported to turn literary MSS into an asset class www.ft.com/content/56af...

Love that not only did Southampton FC send someone out to spy on Ipswich this season, they did so using full Le Carré spycraft jargon.

If you have never listened to Nilsson Schmilsson on a sunny Sunday morning, maybe you should rectify that. #NowPlaying

brief introduction to Venetic here from @viewsproject.bsky.social with links to some further posts by @katherinemcdon.bsky.social

There’s always a local angle

I promised myself when I left my position at NEH that after a year had passed, I'd write something about my experience as an un/under/employed former fed. Here it is: halperta.com/public%20wri...

Oh my god the photo of Southampton's intern spying on Boro is incredible

It is a great pleasure to announce the return of the Spanish-English Translations Database 1500 - 1640, do bookmark and enjoy: spanish-english-translation.ucl.ac.uk. It may need some tweaking to bring up to date, but it's great to have you back...

is this how Richard Dawkins feels all the time? it’s intolerable

every reminder that UCL employs a chaplain — a minister of the Established Church no less! — is a source of fathomless irritation to me

I see Keir Starmer is banging the drum for British steel. No word, however, about higher education. Steel contributes around £9.8 billion to the UK economy a year (including downstream impact), while universities add well over £100 billion...

if anything comes of today, I hope it is the death by shame of the "I have completely screwed up and I take full responsibility, which means I am ethically obliged to stay on in my job" line of self-indulgent martyrdom

Delia Derbyshire diorama kits fom heykidsrocknroll.etsy.com

Metropolitan Science: London Sites & Cultures of Knowledge & Practice, c.1600-1800, by me, @jasminekt.bsky.social and Noah Moxham, is available as a paperback from Thursday! A relative snip at £26 www.bloomsbury.com/uk/metropoli... #earlymodern #histSTM

CELL is very heavily involved in running this MA in Early Modern Studies at UCL: there's an online event this week, should anyone be interested. New courses this year on Iberian empires & Shakespeare in European context, and as ever, a strong focus on archival research and students as researchers!

"virtue ethics for me, utilitarianism for thee"

please god, would somebody at the FT please stop the HTSI mag trying to rehabilitate the Ascendancy, my grandmother is bad enough on this as it is

Have just noticed that the very lovely glass doors UCL just installed at the Portico’s entrance to the Library means John Flaxman’s ”St Michael Overcoming Satan“ is visibly mooning the whole of the quad and every passerby on Gower St

Very sorry to hear that the poet J.H. Prynne has died, at the age of 89. Here, from 10 years ago, is my attempt to describe the man and the work

It's going to be even worse the next time they appoint Peter Mandelson

Dream positions: 3 (!!) PhD placements at the Prize Papers with emphasis on finding students with the following language skills: French, Spanish, Dutch, and Scandinavian languages. (Of course, I emphasize the Dutch language!) www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/professional...

Very excited by policy offers of bringing back the great British spiv

Our MA Early Modern Studies trains you in palaeography, book history & archival research skills, plus options in information & literary studies, history & language. Join us for a taster lecture, learn more about the course & ask questions 📅1 May 2-3:30pm BST online app.geckoform.com/events-embed...

Seems a good day to remember that, in his book An Intelligent Person's Guide To Modern Culture, Hungary's favourite right-wing thinker Roger Scruton implied that the Pet Shop Boys made a 'minimal contribution' to their own records. They successfully sued him for libel. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/enterta...