CFP | Empires and War Royal Military College of Canada & University College Dublin 📍 Newman House, UCD | 🗓️ 17–18 September 2026 Papers invited on imperial war from Antiquity onwards. Panel proposals welcome. 📝 Deadline: 15 March 2026 📩 Submissions to: [email protected] Details below ⬇️

For a lot of people, particularly in the global south, the international rules-based order was obviously a facade but such open, proud, outright criminality, hooliganism, and banditry almost defies analysis. It's hard to find the words but we really do need to.

Anyone else see a dolphin in the middle cloud? #pareidolia

Went for a walk in the cold this afternoon; it was chilly but it brings out the best landscape!

I’ve finally decided that my next book will be “How to Write History from Below” – one part on the tradition of historical writing, one part memoir, one part how-to-do-it, and one part an intervention in the “history wars.” Thanks to all of you for your encouragement on this topic over the years.

I've published something (finally)! It's been in my head for a long time. Relieved to have it out in the wild. On to the next thing. #medievalwales #pottery www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

If the leader of the Fabians, a purportedly leftist think tank, can't have a serious conversation about the impact of billionaires, what does that tell us?

Super proud of Doctoral researcher James Davison who has just submitted his thesis "Trans Lives in Early Anglo-Saxon Period Communities: Translating Archaeological and Literary Records" co-supervised with Bonnie Effros. Early insight here: theconversation.com/the-burials-... #medieval #archaeology

Just met a deer by the river.

From several years ago, Warkworth from the south.

Oral histories of live-in site guardians of heritage sites across Britain. The last generation of people who either lived in heritage sites or grew up in them is in their 50s-60s now.

Troubling new reporting on the effort of the Kremlin-backed Bosnian Serb secessionist regime in Banja Luka to secure the lifting of UK sanctions, after the US already lifted its own measures following a multimillion dollar lobbying campaign by Dodik’s proxies in Washington.

Did medieval people buy each other Christmas gifts? New Year's Day was the main gifting day, but little is known about everyday people's present giving. Our project on London's customs records has uncovered a wealth of affordable items imported around this time: gloves and hats to toys and rattles🧵

Good bit of Lochaber hillscape from this morning, unusually mild.

Not many things in life will have you pumping your fist in the air, but watching little Tommy Robinson’s (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s) face and bravado drop when he gets called out for his racism and hypocrisy by boxer Ty Mitchell is one of them. This is glorious. 🔥

Appropriately enough for the longest night. Great post.

New post, in which I talk about the Old English poem “The Wanderer” and the place of empathy in interpretation. nikolasgunn.co.uk/2025/12/19/t...

Goodly spread of timberwork for #ADoorAbleThursday, though only the middle is actually a door, the other three being shutters for the windows of the great hall at Ludlow Castle. Good bit of saltire bracing for the fans, too.

There is nothing more to this story. The Treasury does not want to spend money or give the appearance of spending money.

This is great news. I absolutely loved my semester in Istanbul where I first discovered the joy of old buildings. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Luxury of luxuries, I’m spending most of the my non-meeting time today reading a big excavation report. Already v excited!

It’s a sad indictment of Britain’s ignorance of nature that Sycamore Gap petitions - for a tree that mattered to humans but not nature - received tens of thousands of signatures but a petition to protect entire peatland habitats is stuck at 1,500 actnow.peatfreepartnership.org.uk/end-peat-sal...

People surely can’t be surprised that the most pathetically thin-skinned man alive views every event through a lens of ‘did they like me?’. The President of the United States is a fascist and a loser who places his own feelings at the centre of everything. So of course he’s being awful about Reiner

Reviewer 2 lol u rascal.

So much of the commentary on the FWS judgment has been driven by reflexive responses to the outcome, but there are so many gaps and leaps in its reasoning that it will spawn litigation for years to come - @aoifemod.bsky.social and I flag some failings in judge craft: nilq.qub.ac.uk/index.php/ni...

I'm on my way to a Chanukah event. It should be a celebration but instead our community is once again mourning. I will be thinking of everyone in Australia and those around the world in the Jewish Community who know this fear and loss. We stand with you.

It's not illegal to use the right toilets and no one should adhere to Mary-Ann Stephenson's headmistressly call to "follow rules" that serve no good purpose, breach the UK's human rights obligations, will be bad for all women, and debase trans dignity. Make her appoint her sodding toilet police.

Breaking news the translation of the Greenloaning Stone and the first writing and name from Scotland! stirlingarchaeology.substack.com/p/results-th...

I am reminded of the train I used to get regularly (circa 2018) from York to Hull which had a wooden ladder hanging from the wall by the carriage door as a means of emergency exit.

British Library staff asked for a decent pay. Instead they got ‘a few money-saving present ideas’, such as ‘consider not giving presents this holiday season’. They are on strike this week. I wrote about it for @lrb.co.uk. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/de...

This was excellent. Well worth a watch!

Quoted here we have Sharron Davies talking about an FoI filed by the Women's Rights Network. None of the people who committed these crimes were trans. Not one. 4.8% were cis male staff.

Appel à contribution – L’absence et ses interprétations. Interroger l’incomplet et le fragmentaire au Moyen Âge et à la première Modernité rmblf.be/2025/12/08/a...

I did a TikTok! 🐗 🦚 🍴 vm.tiktok.com/ZNR8TNFvQ/

Thank you Colin Sheridan for this honest, thoughtful, gracious engagement with my views in the Irish Examiner

My dad abhors any negative comments about immigrants. Asked him recently why he’s so strong on it: ‘Because we’re always happy to take the rich and clever ones. Which means it’s not about disliking immigrants. It’s about disliking the poor and vulnerable. And that’s a bad human instinct.’

A supposedly grassroots anti-migrant movement led by 'ordinary' women, which is backed by Reform and Conservative politicians and is regularly invited onto news channels to promote their views, is funded by a far-right group and has platformed a Neo-Nazi activist bylinetimes.com/2025/12/05/t...

this story isn’t going away www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

The #OmneBonum leprosy image strikes again. Over the course of three years, me, @richardnevell.bsky.social, @medievalbadger.bsky.social & other colleagues waged a campaign to correct a visual "misdiagnosis": an image meant to depict sufferers from leprosy was being misinterpreted as plague.

𝐖𝐞𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝟏𝟎 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝟓 𝐩𝐦 Dr Alastair Oswald will be presenting our next lecture on ‘Patches of the endless forest: landscape, monuments and remote perception in the early Neolithic of southern England’. youtu.be/zhFabvhYk0E

High and mighty, albeit late, contrib to #ADoorAbleThursday: the grandiose entrance to the church of Shap Abbey, below the tower.

Good news for the circa 400 million people around the world suffering from #ME and #LongCovid. em.precisionlife.com/hubfs/01%20K...

Here’s Judith Butler explaining what this movement is and always was, about five years ago.

4. You see, the problem is this: History Reclaimed don’t know much about British colonialism. They’re not actually interested in it. They are a private company funded to prevent any truthful examination of the past that might challenge a right wing, white-centred version of the national story.

Last week I went on a 'research walk', a new thing for me. I was attempting to 'beat the bounds' of the parish of Portishead, which is the central case study in my current book project about everyday life in 17th century villages. A good start; it was a dry day... 🧵

Appel à contribution – Amitiés médiévales rmblf.be/2025/12/02/a...

A week has gone by since the special elections in BiH’s RS entity. With a difference of just 2.21% between the candidates, the evidence of significant electoral fraud by the SNSD regime is overwhelming, ably laid out by Transparency Int. and others. Yet still no reaction from the EU, nor US.

Heritage & interp peeps! I need evidence! #help Know of audience feedback/research on e.g. creative vox pops from historic figures? Ie rather than panel saying 'Brian the baker worked here in 1120s. Baking was important in the medieval household. He had a house by the gatehouse.' It would go 👇

Heritage & interp peeps! I need evidence! #help Know of audience feedback/research on e.g. creative vox pops from historic figures? Ie rather than panel saying 'Brian the baker worked here in 1120s. Baking was important in the medieval household. He had a house by the gatehouse.' It would go 👇