Winter sun. The East Reservoir, Stoke Newington last Thursday…

Art of Laundry. Via FB/A world of washing/Isabel Amaral Lapa Vasques. Jacob Happ (1861-1936) “Washerwomen”. Happ was a German artist and draughtsman. The image is clearly late 19th/early 20thC, but the scene could have been painted any time in the preceding several centuries…

Happy accident department. Was at the Secret Maps exhibition at the British Library yesterday where they have this 1881 OS 1:2500 map showing Troy House in Monmouthshire. The owner, Lord Grenville Somerset MP, in 1841 objected to the map as an invasion of his privacy… 1/2

The late, great Dame Stephanie Shirley discovered this over 60 years ago, long before LinkedIn. Signing her business letters “Stephanie” produced little response. Calling herself “Steve” transformed the impact… www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Toll bridge cat, Whitchurch-on-Thames…

The 458m Bruce Tunnel at the summit of the Kennet & Avon Canal. It’s down hill from here all the way to Bath and Bristol. The commemorative plaque was recarved in 2003 by local stonemason John Lloyd, whose ancestor Benjamin Lloyd carved the original in 1810…

Lovely day for a canal walk…

Spectacular ancient plumbing klaxon: “A boiler like this gave residents and workers something incredibly rare in the ancient world: reliable hot water on demand…”

Art of Laundry. Via FB/A world of washing/Isabel Amaral Lapa Vasques. William Orpen, The Wash House. Orpen understood the work involved in laundry, the fatigue, the monotony…

“A rattling good yarn” and “a lively and judicious study” — a splendid review of Mavericks by Anna Reid in The Literary Review… literaryreview.co.uk/mission-impo...

Great news. Mavericks is now available in India. Appropriate, since several of the characters were Indian imperialists. And if things had panned out differently Persia and Transcaspia might have ended up as part of Britain's Indian empire @willdalrymple.bsky.social www.bloomsbury.com/in/mavericks...

Art of Laundry. Via FB/Rita M Sjöholm. Housing Facades in Napoli ~ Giorgio Sommer, 1878. Sommer (1834-1914) was a German-born photographer based in Naples from 1856 and one of Italy’s leading photographers…

Excellent news from New River Head… qbcentre.org.uk

Agatha Christie’s holiday home, Greenway above the River Dart in Devon, now NT. they have a case full of her signed first editions. Except that one is not actually a first edition…

Art of Laundry. Via FB/Junta Takao (with thanks to Clive Norris). Estendendo a roupa 1953 photo Ramón Dimas…

A couple of old Bela Krajina houses (with just a bit of laundry for @highamnews.bsky.social):

Art of Laundry. Via FB/A world of washing/Rita M. Sjöholm. The Laundress - 1858, Francisco Laso (1823-1869), Peruvian artist and writer…

The oddly named Green in Bishopsteignton, Devon, where Margaret (‘Daisy’) Keyworth grew up. 17thC, heavily remodelled in the 1920s and “rather eccentric” (Historic England). Daisy wed Lionel ‘Stalky’ Dunsterville, one of five mavericks featured in my new book. Pix via Wikitree…

Art of Laundry. Via @blogexhibitions on Ex-Twitter. Woman Running to Take in the Clothes during a Summer Shower, by Suzuki Harunobu, 1765…

I have been coming to Abingdon for almost 40 years and walked round almost all the town, but only yesterday did I discover a) the path by the Stert Stream and b) that next to the stream is the motte of a Norman castle complete with remains of a moat…

Airline strands ex-BBC editor, citing Parkinson's www.bbc.com/news/article... Don’t travel with Turkish Airlines- they discriminate against people with Parkinson’s

www.facebook.com/share/p/19C1... My friend Mark Mardell was chucked off his Turkish Airlines flight at the weekend because he had Parkinson’s and his son had asked for assistance for him. (He’s written about it as a public post on Facebook but the link is proving hard to share outside,)

Art of Laundry. Via FB/A world of washing/Rita M. Sjöholm. Hanging Out the Laundry by Jean-François Millet…

The fancy new signage on this bus is quite impressive. Unfortunately we’re on a 141 to Palmers Green N Circular Rd going up Southgate Rd N1, and it’s not half past midnight…

I shall be in the bookshop at the IWM London tomorrow signing copies of Mavericks and happy to answer questions. It’s had great reviews in the Telegraph and Times and this week in the Spectator. I’d say it’s ideal Xmas present material…https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/meet-the-author-at-iwm-london

Was interviewed about Mavericks by Robert Elms on Radio London yesterday immediately after James Cheshire talking about his fabulous The Library of Lost Maps. Went straight to Foyles and bought it. We discovered both books were commissioned by Ian Marshall at Bloomsbury. What excellent taste he has…

Next Tuesday I shall be giving my lecture on the Art of Laundry at Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution. What do 400 years of paintings, prints and photographs of women who washed tell us about the artists who made them and the society they lived in…? hlsi.org.uk/whats-on/the...

“An action-packed tale of imperial British braggadocio, bravery and blundering on a grand scale.” A splendid review of Mavericks in the Times by Justin Marozzi, no mean writer and historian himself… This 1918 British operation was an imperial Mission: Impossible www.thetimes.com/article/3171...

Art of Laundry. Via FB/A world of washing/Isabel Amaral Lapa Vasques. Gaston Marquet (1848-1923), Lavoir Saint Pierre, a Montmartre (The Washhouse). Perhaps Marquet’s most famous painting. She looks exhausted…

Art of Laundry. Two paintings (c 1928) by Diego Rivera of a washerwoman or pair of washerwomen and “zopilotes” (black vultures or buzzards). Most images of laundry are relatively benign: the buzzards lend this one a rather threatening aspect…

Hat tip to @santorim87.bsky.social who featured Toffoli (though not this picture) on her blogpost this morning…

Art of Laundry. Via Ex-Twitter/Laundry. A typically exquisite woodcut by the great Thomas Bewick, 1797 Northumberland…

Art of Laundry. Quiet Work, by Australian artist Richard Claremont, who writes: “No one ever talks about the laundry. Yet somehow it always gets the best light — the kind that makes even socks look poetic. I love painting these quiet corners, where the ordinary turns quietly magnificent…”

Art of Laundry. La Lavandière, 1987, lithograph by Louis Toffoli (1907-1999). Born in Trieste, Toffoli fled Fascist Italy for Paris in 1928. Known for his pictures of craftsmen and women at work and for his use of colour, flat almost translucent shapes and geometric compositions…

Art of Laundry. Via FB/A world of washing/Isabel Amaral Lapa Vasques. Brita Granström's Rescuing the Washing. Granström (b 1969) is a Swedish-British artist and children’s book illustrator…

Great to meet up with old friend and former colleague Debby Moyse at the Isle of Wight literary festival. And she bought book…!

Cannon to the right… etc. The one on the battlements of Cowes Castle (aka the Royal Yacht Squadron) they use to start sailing races. But what crew of scurvy boarders are the rest of the battery supposed to repel…?

Art of Laundry. Via FB/A world of washing/Rita M. Sjöholm. Dry clothes and rain..1927. Charles Tunnicliffe (1901-1979) was an internationally renowned naturalistic painter of British birds and other wildlife. He spent most of his working life on the Isle of Anglesey…

In 'The Print,' (1931) Harold Knight depicts his wife Laura holding one of her prints from the pile on the table. Another of her works, 'Circus Dressing Room,' can be seen hanging on the wall behind her as can her reflection in the glass of the frame.

Orchids and Marigolds: a study…

If you see a tree in the middle of the road, please be patient as it takes time for them to cross

Tullio Crali - Prima che si apra il paracadute 1939 (at the modern art gallery in Udine)

This is what they did in the 1850s. Appalling it still happens…

'Our Lady of the Hills.' (1921) The word anathemata, as David Jones unpicks it in his introduction to what later became an epic poem, means a lifting up and a setting apart of something for our particular savouring. A precise reading of what art is and always should be.

This was a very jolly saunter with @lauracoffey along a waterway close to my heart. To learn more about London’s New River try this: www.amazon.co.uk/Mercenary-Ri... Retracing the lost river that was built to quench London’s thirst www.thetimes.com/article/1054...

This was a great interview with the charming and knowledgeable Miranda Melcher on @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social about the remarkable men featured in my new book, and the forgotten battle of WW1 that brought them together… newbooksnetwork.com/mavericks

I am at the Isle of Wight Literary Festival on Sunday morning. Come hear about the Kipling character who went to war for real, the younger brother of a British general with an addiction to dangerous sports and the lad from Liverpool who spent his life in fear of communist assassination… #Mavericks

Ghost pubs in the 1970s and 80s (a fine collection) plus some still very much alive… spitalfieldslife.com/2025/10/09/j...

Great pictures by Thomas Purkis of my talk in Lichfield the other day promoting my new book Mavericks. Great audience too, some good questions, and they bought lots of copies…!

“Meticulous research”, “varmint characters” and “a rakish adventure for autumn”! There’s a recommendation. Many thanks to @unseenhistories.com…