Only if we also bring back compulsory archery practice and call it ‘shooting at the butts’.

BBC really burying the lede there

And the man behind Charles I's 'Book of Orders' of 1631, which helped quicken the implementation of the Elizabethan Poor Laws.

New response to peer reviewers just dropped

Bloody lovely to see Luke Ayling scoring last minute goals and still attempting his infamous cartwheel. One of the nicest guys in football who even has me rooting for Middlesbrough in the Championship.

Delighted to read of marital sex being referred to in a Tudor court case as the 'carnal dole'.

Absolutely classic local newspaper clickbait this. The ‘incident’ is a broken-down vehicle in Witney.

Just had to pay £22 for a 40 page pamphlet about the radical soldier William Thompson.

Reminder that we’re now in the Twelve Days of Halloween and that you should keep your decorations up until the evening of 12 November.

#ICYMI - we are celebrating the publication of our 250th #BigRedBook, and our first publication for the historic county of #Westmorland. In September we had an event to mark this and to place the volume in the context of the series and to showcase the extraordinary work behind it. #Skystorians

Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.

Halloween is nearing, and Serious Academics need to celebrate. Here's the @oxlifelonglearning.bsky.social undead team - @tomrocksmaths.bsky.social, @jonathanhealey.bsky.social and myself - doing what academics do best: ghosting you. 👻🎃 🧪 #AcademicSky

King James I so enjoyed (I assume?) Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice on Shrove Sunday in 1605 that he requested it again on Shrove Tuesday. Love the spelling for "Shaxberd" and "Marchant of Venis". TNA AO 3/908 discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C2...

Johns Lilburne and Lambert becoming relevant again.

All this? *points behind at the chaos of the world* yeah, that’s just your sea foam washing in and out with the tides, mate

Braudel for the win

EP Thompson has just given me a fine new excuse for every time I'm late for meetings:

'The achievement after 1689 of such Leveller goals as liberty of conscience (albeit a limited one), annual parliamentary sessions, and frequent parliamentary elections suggest that the Levellers and their successors had not written, demonstrated, and petitioned in vain.' Am reading Gary De Krey...

Luv a bit of 19th century Cock-er-ney, I do.

Alice has somehow picked up the phrase ‘Oh, shut the front DOOR!’, which sounds extremely funny coming from a seven year old.

In Oxford and love astronomy? Join me on Oct 29th, as I speak with @chrislintott.bsky.social about celestial bodies and citizen science. All part of Hevelius Days in the @bodleian.ox.ac.uk. Free event, but booking is essential: visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/oct25/... 🧪🔭

Vatican to end Dei hiring policies.

Got a marketing event this morning so obviously I've just spilt a load of jam down my t-shirt

I think one of the most outrageous and indefensible statements in Hutton's new Cromwell biography is that the Severn is 'Britain's greatest river'. He clearly hasn't heard of the Lune.

This has been one of my records of the year. Kabeláč was a terrific composer - sort of like a neo-classical Suk perhaps? You can definitely hear the influence of Prokofiev but it’s also recognisably in the Czech idiom. Just great, exciting, menacing music.

Reading Ronald Hutton's second Cromwell book, which is very stimulating. One point he makes, which I'd not really considered before, is that both King and Army had basically reached an agreement on religion in 1647. What scuppered it was differences about the political prerogatives of kings.

Horseshit and coal smoke.

The perfect chapter title doesn’t exis…..

The new Bunny vs Monkey comes in two versions, one with 'Team Bunny' on the spine, and the other with 'Team Monkey'. Publishers should do this with books on the English Civil War.

I think the University-mandated answer is taking a walk, but I like to do all of these and that seems okay?

Doing my University mandated ergonomics training.

I anticipate some sneers thrown Mokyr's way so my preemptive comment... What ever else he might have done, what ever faults he might have, Mokyr has performed a tremendous service simply by stressing the great importance of the Scientific Revolution to the birth of the modern economy.

Joel Mokyr - interesting.

‘It is perfectly in order… for those who value this [British] democracy to hail the New Model Army as ideological ancestors.’ Ronald Hutton in his most recent book.

Great to see the Church of England today arguing about what is and isn’t suitably decorous for the inside of a cathedral.

It was two OUP books.

Lovely bit of understatement here from the Wikipedia entry about Republic, which is still an album I'm very fond of.

About to teach the first class for our wonderful MSc in English Local History at @oxlifelonglearning.bsky.social - including a discussion of some of my favourite local history sources, like this 1586 map of the Isle of Purbeck.

Academics: We're overworked, underpaid and unappreciated. Academics at @oxlifelonglearning.bsky.social: I spent the afternoon in a bedsheet, being a ghost. That's it. That's what @tomrocksmaths.bsky.social, @jonathanhealey.bsky.social and I are paid to do. Things won't get better. #AcademicSky

One of the most daring theological works of the C17th, published by Elizabeth Avery in 1647. It reconsiders every mainstream Protestant teaching about the apocalypse, and caused her to be denounced as a heretic, including by her own brother. I tell Avery’s story in Voices of Thunder #earlymodern

As opposed to what, exactly?

Totally on board with the sentiment here from our VC, but ‘raw smarts’ sounds like another phrase for ‘eggy pumps’.

'Print was a revolutionary medium, with a greater impact on "public opinion" than ever before, yet it was also embedded amongst older media, connected to the intimacies of manuscript transmission and the directness of angry conversations.' Ann Hughes on the role of print in the 1640s.

Yorkshire Photo of the Day - West Doors at Beverley Minster.

Would anyone like to take a guess at the word before “kebob”? Which predates OED - ms is 1660

In 1646, two English army chaplains came to the conclusion that 'universities are of the devil'. This happened after they had been stationed in Oxford for a few months.

'Proportionable share in all general rats.'

Nice review in the Wall Street Journal. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Currently trying to compose AI policy while listening to Frightened Rabbit’s ‘Old, Old Fashioned’. Seems appropriate.