Ran the Vitality 10K face! Managed to knock 2.5 mins off last year’s time, too. Think that warrants putting my feet up this afternoon!

Two perspectives of the theatre at Uncanny last night in Brighton with @aridge.bsky.social! Inept purple squiggle roughly locates our spot! It was fab, though I remain #TeamSceptic

The IHR Black British History Seminar is now on Bluesky, thanks to @oliviawyatt1999.bsky.social! Give a follow for updates:

Look what we have here then.

Very much this. The IHR really is open to everyone and this includes our common room and our library as well as our wonderful seminars. All free, all welcome!

It is now apparently a September tradition that I bung packed lunches in the wrong bag, though the 2025 edition is my school dinner-eating son getting my pasta salad and me getting… nowt!!

Academia.edu is changing its Terms and Conditions, and they're so outrageous (AI training; signing over ownership to them etc) I closed my account today. A thread with some practical tips if you want to delete your account (5 steps):

About to kick off here at #PostCivilWarSocieties symposium in Helsinki & looking forward to our panel later with @tiinalintunen.bsky.social @drmarymcauliffe.bsky.social & @profingrid.bsky.social. @ucddublin.bsky.social @erc.europa.eu

Our great thanks to Matthew J. Smith who gave our public lecture yesterday evening at the University of Aberdeen. Matthew's lecture, which explored new digital histories of Caribbean families and kinship networks, is part of the Society's visit to historians at Aberdeen bit.ly/4miT3aB #Skystorians

Many thanks to Karin Friedtich, Jackson Armstrong, and all the other colleagues at Aberdeen for making this event a success.

Heading back to Glasgow after two busy days at the University of Aberdeen, where hosted a brilliant @royalhistsoc.org visit to the outstanding historians working here.

This Wednesday we are visiting historians at the University of Aberdeen. The visit includes a public lecture, 5.30pm on 17 Sept, given by our guest speaker, Matthew J Smith (Director of the Centre for the Legacies of British Slavery, UCL) bit.ly/3IjbMVj. All in the region are v. welcome to attend.

All I saw was cheesecake boat and ocean for at least 5 minutes

No time of day is going to be perfect in a university for a Big Email. But 7.45am isn’t in the standard working day: sure, some people were on their email then, but most were getting themselves + kids up and out for the day… maybe had the radio on, maybe looked at the BBC News app, maybe WhatsApp…

If you're on campus today in Canterbury we've got a table set up in the Gulbenkian from 12 noon. Come and chat to us! This was planned well before this week's news as an opportunity to see and talk to a UCU branch committee member - we'll be holding drop-in chats like this throughout term.

The Senior Leadership Team at Kent have just stated that we are NOT on the verge of insolvency. Any reporting that says the contrary is incorrect. This is reassuring for staff.

Well, some good news: I've the honour of being awarded one of the Royal Historical Society's Funded Book Workshop awards for this year! The book is a cultural history of the early English East India Company, tentatively called 'The Uneasy World'. #earlymodern #skystorians

We've also been told that despite yesterday's news nothing will change - at least in the short/medium(?) term. That's something that remains to be seen. Let's hope we can have a quiet and dull term.

It has been made very clear by both Kent and Greenwich that we are at the very beginning of discussions. Unions and the wider staff have not yet been consulted - we're told it will happen. Announcing a single UCU branch is, at best, premature, and at worst unhelpful and ill-informed.

The first main session of our Staff Conference was business as usual which was sort of reassuring, but also generally avoiding the elephant in the room. There's a planned session this afternoon where staff can ask senior leadership anything. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone has any answers yet.

Off for a run. Solves most problems!

It is quite the morning here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Sadie's new article is available free Open Access, as is all content published in 'Transactions' bit.ly/486BF5d The journal's editors welcome submission of research articles and comment pieces, on historical practice and debate, from historians working within and outside education 2/2 #Skystorians

New in 'Transactions of the Royal Historical Society' 'Irish Catholic Recruitment into the British Army during the American Revolution: A Case Study of the 46th Regiment of Foot', by Sadie Sunderland bit.ly/4m80z84 What can Irish recruitment tell us about the complexity of the C18th military? 1/2

I'm looking for researchers on crime/punishment in Britain, particularly Cheshire. I'm in touch with CRO, but access is limited due to the move. I've also spoken with Cheshire Policing Museum (records are mostly at CRO). Any time period, but esp Victorian! There may be a freelance research opp here.

Helen's new book, 'The Holograph Letters of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots, 1489-1541', is currently available free to read in full via the CUP website, until 30 September: bit.ly/3JJsCgH. For more on the Society's Camden Series of primary editions, please see: bit.ly/469UEJw #Skystorians

New in 'Transactions of the Royal Historical Society' '"your poore distressed suppliant": ‘Madness’, Emotion and the Archive in Early Modern England', by Jonathan Willis bit.ly/4mM49G4 How can perspectives from the history of emotions inform understanding of 'madness' in early modern England? 1/2

Why wait for History?

The NHS roll-out of the chickenpox vaccine for children is excellent news. Sure, private jabs have been available, but they are £££ + supply has been v limited/participating chemists are miles & miles away. Children to be offered chickenpox vaccine on NHS www.bbc.com/news/article...

So I've written a book! Waterscapes is about how impactful our need for water is on the environment and people. It's also about the ways in which infrastructure projects can impact place for good or bad.

Steve Shirley escaped the Holocaust as a child & went on to found one of the earliest software startups. The really impressive part? She employed women programmers who had been pushed out of the workforce after having kids, & allowed them flexible, family friendly, work from home jobs—in the 1960s!

Academic historians rarely speak up like this but have made an exception in speaking in support of trans people in the UK and against the current trans exclusionary situation over there. Not just a few historians but hundreds signed this. www.thepinknews.com/2025/05/02/h...

Re-upping this for the Friday crowd: My piece on Postman Pat: Special Delivery Service and the reimagination of postal work in the wake of privatisation and digitisation. All reposts (and subscriptions) much appreciated. x

The witch trials of 1612 still cast a long shadow.

📣We're into the FINAL WEEK for applications for two Editorial Fellowship positions 2025-27!📣 Deadline is midnight 15th August (that's this Friday!), and the fellowships are open to any early career historians. See the post below for the full details: www.historyworkshop....

Yep, we certainly did! Postman Pat: Special Delivery was such a… treat in the CBeebies years. I think it later contributed to my son penning a number of “missives” to Yodel etc when they weren’t making PP:SDS-style efforts to get dinosaur toys to him during COVID…

Reports that the governments solution to uni collapse will be a kind of clearing to find students new courses. That will be a nightmare - ignoring credit transfer etc, many universities are already struggling for teaching space. Taking out a whole uni worth of estate … just fund the sector properly.

The Substack I have been waiting for: @drdiongeorgiou.bsky.social on Postman Pat: Special Delivery Service! CBeebies’ early learning offer encompasses the transformation of public services and work: open.substack.com/pub/academic...

Apropos of today’s news I just had a piece published in Radical Philosophy about the turn towards biological essentialism in law and policy. I’m arguing the SC decision in FWS and attempts to restrict disability welfare fundamentally come from the same place of wanting to limit state protections

wonderful essay here on archiving obsolescent technologies: flash is now history 🗃️

A vulpine interruption at the Hundred yesterday…

The new Journal of Historical Criminology looks great! Looking forward to reading its contents and using with students.

Turns out legislation.gov.uk is 15 years old today. How the time flies @jenitennison.com!

A fab thread!

Absolute scenes today when a scammer gatecrashed the Year 6 WhatsApp group to flog Oasis tickets. They really weren’t prepared for the onslaught of “Who’s your kid? Who are they friends with? The biggest giveaway, though: who joins a Year 6 group a week AFTER the kids have left primary school?

This is *always* true but *even more so* if you are innocent/think there is a misunderstanding…

Locked out of my office again! Such fun!

You love to see it!!

In the late 1940s, my grandma, Hilda, played for her village football team: Grassmoor Ladies. I’m sure if she was still around she’d be thrilled to see the Lionesses in their fourth Euros final! In this photo, she’s in the back row, third from the right.

"I did sometimes wonder if it might have been more straightforward for the students to, you know, actually read the sources and write the essays themselves." On the rest, it seems very like having your own personal, affirmative court astrologer/adviser ever ready to serve