Amused by the algorithmically suggested playlist on Spotify this morning

Treat ECRs like people, prepare ECRs in our fields for other careers, only supervise students if you can really commit. It’s sad this stuff still needs saying. 2nd anon post in ECR in 2025 series on the French History Network asks “What can be done?” 🗃️#FRHistory frenchhistorysociety.co.uk/6693/

'Counting the Stakes: A Reassessment of Vlad III Dracula': new in 'Transactions of the Royal Historical Society' bit.ly/46iJfIU In this new article, Dénes Harai reconsiders the victims of 'Vlad the Impaler' (c.1431-76), the historical inspiration for Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula #Skystorians 1/2

Nothing makes the morning better than page proofs! @cindyermus.bsky.social @ageofrevolutions.bsky.social

Pleased to see the introduction to our special issue of @francemodern.bsky.social 'The BUMIDOM and its legacy: an interdisciplinary approach', written with Malika Danican! Can't wait to see the rest of the issue & congratulations to all contributors! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Unlike GenAI, I *know* why I don’t know, and it’s often much more interesting than if I did know. thesphinxblog.com/2025/09/17/d...

VACANCY: we invite applications for a new job at the Society: Events and Academic Engagement Officer (0.6 FTE) bit.ly/3V8q5PC The post-holder will join our professional Office to help us support history and historians. £36,433 pro rata. Closing date: Sunday 5 October #Skystorians

Today a follow up to yesterday’s post on being an ECR in French History, by @wadehistory.bsky.social frenchhistorysociety.co.uk/6744/ 🗃️ #FRHistory

“Cataclysmically bad” This new series of ECR blog posts on the French History Network makes for grim reading, perhaps grimmer even than some in UK #FrenchHistory might have realised. 1st post, anon ECRs in French History on what it’s like right now out there: frenchhistorysociety.co.uk/6691/ 🗃️

A #poem for #NationalFoxDay! 🦊 #fox #poetry Ian Hamilton Finlay FOX see me wan time ah wis a fox an wis ah sleekit! ah gaed slinkin heh an snappin yeh the blokes aa sayed ah wis a GREAT fox aw nae kiddin ah wis pretty good had a whole damn wood in them days hen

I'm enjoying the new Rivers of London book. I've always been a bit tickled reading them because I've lived by Beverley Brook for years, but there was a bit of a jolt when a supporting character in the new book turned out to be... a Glaswegian teaching French history in the HSS Faculty at QMUL!

At a time when leaders arguably aren't showing much evidence of leadership on the academic research front, it's important to recognise the staff and organisations that are championing, supporting and delivering innovative, high-quality research. Kudos to @uolpress.bsky.social .

🚨Call for Papers🚨Delighted to share the CfP for next year's meeting of @frenchcolonial.bsky.social which we will be hosting in Maynooth June 25-27. The theme is "Après la tempête: Afterlives of Colonial Crisis and Conflict". Deadline for submissions is November 14 frenchcolonial.org/annual-meeti...

It was a very great pleasure to appear on one of my favourite podcasts, and to talk with David Runciman about the Past, Present, and Future (!) of electoral reform & proportional representation

For any of you worried Ed Davey was somehow adrift after the electoral campaign, I'm pleased to report he was in the New Malden station car park today singing with costumed nuns to mark the 60th anniversary of the Sound of Music

Bit more coverage of our report today on the loss of provision of arts, humanities and social science courses www.researchprofessional.com/0/rr/news/uk...

Some quotes from the acknowledgments in my new book which seem apposite: - "The research for this book was funded by research allowances made possible by QR funding" - "This was yet another confirmation of my belief in the importance of research-led teaching and the virtuous cycles it can create."

The Royal Historical Society welcomes Fellowship applications from historians working in higher education and other sectors, as well as independent researchers. Fellows make original contributions to historical understanding via research, public history and heritage bit.ly/4iOu51g #Skystorians 1/2

Book proofs! Exciting to see the next stage of my book 'Make cheese not war: Transnational resistance and the Larzac in modern France' with @manchesterup.bsky.social Trace globe-spanning networks of rough-handed solidarity forged around this 1970s land struggle 🗃️ #FrenchHistory #SkyStorians

If you're interested in watching a live reaction to the PM handover, with analysis of Lecornu's appointment, you can find the clip here: www.france24.com/en/video/202...

Here's the clip from yesterday's longer interview about the fall of French PM Bayrou (before the Lecornu announcement) Wee nod to Maurice Larkin's description of Mendes-France as 'Janus and Cassandra' for the French historians in the room: www.youtube.com/watch?v=djOD...

Quite proud of my on the hoof read-out: on current balance, despite the 10 September protests taking place throughout France, the real blockages remain in parliament and not in the streets

That was an interesting one! Pre-booked on France24 to talk about the 10Sept protests at mid-day, but it quickly became a live reaction to the PM handover speeches as they emerged from the Matignon

In lieu of insightful commentary on the new French PM appointment, I'll offer this clip of the Cantina band. Same song again? Sure! youtu.be/_5nk-BBa4Tc?...

Great start for @sophiasgaler.bsky.social 's 'Universities Challenged' with its 'Tuition Impossible' episode. A primer for the uninitiated on university finance and economic impacts. Hoping research too gets attention in the next episode, when culture wars are under view. Well worth listening to.

Speaking on France24 from home this morning for the first time since moving mid-summer. Had to go into the living room as the spare room/office is still very much a disaster!

If you're interested, events kick off late afternoon in France's National Assembly today. Due to start about 3pm then all parties will contribute before the vote itself

I was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's 'The World this Weekend' show today about this week's coming political crisis in France www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b...

Spoke to BBC Radio 4 this weekend about a longer view on the current French political crisis with the looming confidence vote & threat of strikes. You can hear it on the World this Weekend at 1pm on Radio 4 tomorrow

I'm quoted in this @en.france24.com article on the upcoming protest wave scheduled for 10 September across France www.france24.com/en/france/20...

Labour has been quietly going quite hard on "community empowerment" – possibly because it's one of the few halfway coherent theories knocking around the party about how to tackle anti-politics. I've spoken to a lot of people about it for @newstatesman.com: www.newstatesman.com/comment/2025...

Dear Sir: Thou eunuch of language; thou Englishman, who never was south the Tweed; thou servile echo of fashionable barbarisms; thou quack, vending the nostrums of empirical elocution… —Robert Burns, Letter to a critic (1791) #WorldLetterWritingDay #C18th news.lettersofnote.com/p/thou-pickl...

Tensions between winegrowers & ravers who set up illegal festival on fields cleared by summer fires in the Aude. Winegrowers took action to secure access to fields (inc flipping vehicles with tractors), though worrying reports of armed confrontations (ravers with guns) rmc.bfmtv.com/actualites/s...

If you aren't familiar with Sharon's website collating digital resources for #EarlyModern folks, I'm here to tell you it's the best 🗃️👍👇

I spoke this morning about the French PM's big gamble and the upcoming political stramash www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1d1...

Watching the transfer deadline day rumours come in over the lunch break and I am genuinely concerned that Wrexham may bid on me

It's grim out there, and we should be concerned. However, 'It remains the case that graduates are on the whole better off than those who do not go to university.' Current graduate unemployment rate is 6%. Rate for all 16-24 year olds is 14.3%. Graduate premium is declining, but still over 20%.

Some rentrée reading for you: Will's excellent collaborative book on creative histories, and the co-authored intro to our special issue on material histories of France

National productivity policy suggestion: ensure that Transfer Deadline Day falls on a Bank Holiday

In the office bright and early to speak to France24 this morning about the political rentrée

Summer's end is nigh 😮, so start the new academic year with a positive action. If a member of @royalhistsoc.org (& if not why not?!) get voting for 3 x new Councillors. There are 15 X top history citizens standing to take up this role. Check your emails & junk folder & get voting 🗳️ ✅. #skystorians

What happens if Bayrou loses his vote of confidence? I spoke to @en.france24.com about scenarios: www.france24.com/en/france/20...

If you're keen to see the live reaction (or indeed Bananas the monkey in the bottom left of the screen) then the link to coverage is here (about 35mins into the live coverage): www.france24.com/en/france/20...

In addition to responding to that French political surprise live from a hotel room in Rouen, I now realise that my daughter's soft toy monkey made his TV debut

I joked beforehand that he might as well have said his budget would save 49.3 billion (rather than the stated 44) given that was the only way it'd pass. However, it's article 49.1 of the constitution being used instead!

I was on France24 doing some live commentary on Bayrou's doom and gloom budget speech when he dropped the bombshell of a 'back me or sack me' vote in the French parliament. Lots of manoeuvring to come, but hard to see any arithmetic for him to survive without serious concessions on progressive tax

we used to build household shrines to Going On The Computer and it's no coincidence that as we abandoned these we started straying further from god's light

Chapeau to Côte brasserie for this GCSE results day offer! And many congratulations to anyone who has done well in a languages GCSE and is carrying on with it at A-level ❤️

Another approach for Labour than full-bore retreat to 'yes, immigration is a problem, yes it is a squalid experiment, we hate business and commerce' is available and has worked in the past. www.theguardian.com/politics/200...

'higher education is...profoundly unsuited to very rapid expansion and very rapid contraction at programme, subject and institutional level. But the biggest mistake of all would be to focus on the end of the league tables where the impacts of contraction are closest to the Iceberg’s surface.' 4/5