Great start to the #proms! Love ‘An American in Paris’ after playing it at uni. First time I’d had to make a car horn sound with my saxophone 🎷

A #tinyjoy to distract you from the overwhelming bad news of this moment, a portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft that deserves to be better known--by Irish painter John Keenan, predating the better known portraits. Don't you love how one sleeve is rolled up, as tho' MW were an #18thc Rosie the Riveter?

PhD work is hard for research assistants in the summer

Classic Rutland County Council Fingerpost in Empingham, not sure whether the Cricket Club appendage is official… #FingerpostFriday

Today we said farewell to my uncle, a man who lived a strange life and spent most of his final years sat on a bench in town. But he was always friendly, had many friends, and remained content. I wrote a poem to help me cope with the grief and read it out at the service - it helped: poetry works

1825: Still uncommonly Hot.

c.1905 image of the former Black Bull inn on Finkle Street/St Sampson’s Square in York. the Hand and Heart inn is just visible to the left. The area was once known as the Thursday Market. The jettied building was probably 15th century and operated as an inn during post medieval times #York

Congratulations to the government on saving 2700 jobs by nationalising British Steel. Now, about the 18,000 university jobs lost in the last 18 months, with more coming…

Decided to spend the evening in the rectory paddock writing a letter to my son instead of causing mischief. The meadow will be cut tomorrow, so it was nice to watch the sun turn it golden for the last time

Tempted to go out this evening to the brown grass near my house with a watering can and water weird patterns into it. No one will see me, but the results will confuse people for ages 😂

The Society will write up a summary for History for next week. Key points at this stage include: > 11% decline (-440 FPE) across all History staff between 2018/19 and 2024/25, compared with a 7% decline across all humanities > loss of 140 FPE History roles 2022/23 to 2024/25 #Skystorians 1/3

Today I visited Cambridge again. I was going to discuss the box I went to see, but that wasn’t the theme of the day. Today I chatted to several people from the bottom of the financial pyramid. I met them throughout my day because they always feel an affinity or compassion with people in wheelchairs

📢 Once more for the people in the back: - Most [more than 95%] of archives have not been digitized. - Most of humanity's knowledge and memory is *not* reachable by LLMs. - Believing that AI can provid you with comprehensive, definitive, "intelligent" results is folly.

Ringing someone I’d just seen and letting the phone ring 3 times to let them know I’d got home safe (because that didn’t cost anything)

It’s so cool and windy here that I’m actually considering wearing socks today! Tomorrow I’ll be back to sweating through my eyeballs

Happy birthday to John Clare!

233 years ago, on the 13th of July 1793, French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat was killed by political rival Charlotte Corday. Marat died after being stabbed in the chest while in his bath. Corday had managed to enter Marat’s house by pretending to hold important information. #otd #history 🗃️

I spent a lovely afternoon at St Andrew’s church in Northborough where I gave a talk on Martha Clare, wife of poet John Clare. This extraordinary blanket of crocheted flowers was created by the committee who organised the event. I’m sure Martha would approve

I'm just a man... Standing here asking if anyone else has spotted a 17th C "presbyterian intruder" on a list of parish church incumbents? Thanks.

This is particularly relevant to people who live on the South Lincs/Peterborough border. Pegas lived at Peakirk and Guthlac founded Crowland/Croyland. I would personally love to see these comics/authors at the next Deeping Lit Fest talking in St Guthlac’s church. That would be fun!

I’m at the edge of the cloud and it peaked in my garden at 23C, which is about 10C lower than it has been

It is a beautiful evening in South Lincs. It was amazingly quiet out there, but I met a beautiful dog and his owner and had the paths to myself. It smells great too!

Fell asleep in the heat as usual. Woke up find The Vikings on the TV and it is a strange film! It’s everything that’s wrong with historical films (although I can’t prove Vikings didn’t wear leather hot pants!) as well as being racist, treating women as objects etc don’t recommend

Love it when one local newspaper is like "THE DETAILS OF THIS ABHORRENT CASE ARE ALTOGETHER DISGUSTING AND UNFIT FOR PUBLICATION" and then their rival paper is like... HERE IS SOME VERBATIM EVIDENCE

Because these are all things that will be done by robots and AI, right?

10/10 no notes

So many I know who've been in #archaeology for years are leaving - work pressure is overwhelming, pay & conditions are crap. We're scything thru uni courses & field staff. Soon there'll be no one to teach archs of the future. We are *that* close to arch becoming preserve of rich & hobbyists. 🏺

A drop in the number of international students coming to the UK cost the country nearly £3 billion, according to new estimates https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/fall-international-student-numbers-cost-uk-ps29-billion

This Sunday I will be giving a talk on Martha Clare in the gorgeous Northborough church. There will also be a talk on the Victorian overseers book, which has been newly restored. If you’re visiting the #JohnClare festival or local, it would be lovely to see you. Starts at 2.30pm!

This coming Sunday I’ll be talking about Charles Booth’s Poverty Maps (1889-1903) as part of Stanfords’ ‘Mapping Lost London’ mini-festival, at the Guinness Vaults, Mercer St, Covent Garden. 3pm, £12.50. (Should be cool) Tickets: londonmonthofthedead.com/tickets.html

Paging @historyhaze1.bsky.social !

This Sunday I will be giving a talk on Martha Clare in the gorgeous Northborough church. There will also be a talk on the Victorian overseers book, which has been newly restored. If you’re visiting the #JohnClare festival or local, it would be lovely to see you. Starts at 2.30pm!

The creative industries employ more than 2million people, contribute around £130bn annually to the UK economy, or over 5% of GDP, while growing at double the UK average, but sure let’s cut government funding for arts education, that’ll help our ailing economy I’m sure.

Today I was given my first prescription in about a decade. I had no idea the system had fundamentally changed and I had an allocated chemist!

history is also specifically listed. I will confess I thought it no longer received strategic funding for teaching but seems I was wrong. how can this government be so committed to ruining the universities

Just realised it's graduation season so I should probably share these cool pins I make again. They make great gifts and help to fund my transition canopyrobin.etsy.com/listing/1841...

An argument of historians! We met up today so @dot8.bsky.social could show us the MANY MANY historical sights of Thorney!

“Reading the Riot Act” used to be a legitimate way to get crowds to disperse. Once it was read, the crowd had one hour to go home ON PAIN OF DEATH You might notice “death recorded” sentencing in the 1830s and 1840s following riot convictions

I ran an absolutely 100% human, zero AI-involvement at any stage passage of my writing through an "AI detector," curious if it could really tell human from AI work, and it said my own writing was "84% AI written" then asked I wanted to pay to have it "humanized." So there's that to keep in mind.

Behold this gorgeous thatching from a house in Northborough near Peterborough - the mullet of thatching!

Youngest is currently in America. Asked him how his 4th of July celebrations were and he just sent me a picture of a weather map and the word ‘cancelled’. Heavy rain washed away all the events planned!

This has my name all over it!

Spent a gorgeous hour or so at the Norman Cross Gallery today. It’s open for the Peterborough Artists’ Open Studios event and it’s a great opportunity to visit the site and see/buy some artworks from local artists. . Open tomorrow and next weekend

Evening Light, Isle of Benbecula, Outer Hebrides, painting by John Lowrie Morrison, Scottish artist.

Lindisfarne Castle, painting by Kate Lycett.

I met a very good boy on my pootle to the river. Storm the Alsatian saw me coming and immediately moved over, pulling his owner with him to make sure I had room - what a charmer! Turned out he lived with someone who had a scooter, so he knew what to do. He got a big head scratch from me! 🦼 🐕

Beautiful everyday Ladybird things. The cotton-reel tank/tractor (Toys and Games to Make, 1966) Artist: Robert Ayton

I swear my NHS app had similar information when I tried to book a doctors appointment!

This is from an AI-generated film of London in 1348. The eagle-eyed among you might spot a problem…

The watering hole at West Cambourne produced the longest log ladder currently known from Britain, with its full surviving length measuring over 3m. Contextual information suggests the ladder dates to the late Iron Age.