Started writing something, became something else. No idea if it's any good. Don't really care because I like it. I find it interesting. It's at that stage of the PhD. Seething confidence

Nice to see our new local councilor has had two compulsory strike offs from his past two companies. He won by a considerable margin. Imagine how helpful he is going to be. No one cares do they? No one cares.

end not weather

Exam graffiti, 2026

Neither the left or right are prepared to face Britain's grave energy crisis. I've written for @theguardian.com on how decades of complacency cannot be magicked away by drilling in the North Sea – or even by hoping that renewables will quickly power everything.

I just got an OH interview and day in the park booked with another sporting and acting goliath. I had NO IDEA he was from Wapping. Talented bunch. And incredibly generous.

My friend (<- they don't get to deny this) @sexhistorian.bsky.social is advertising for a PhD stipend. It's an amazing project at an amazing department with amazing supervisors, and if you know anyone suitable, let them know. www.strath.ac.uk/studywithus/...

Currently managed to get to 7k from 21k on a bit I am writing and need to get it down to about 5k. Not happy with it, but been a good experience trying to be brave and trust my reader to work some things out for themselves. Or it is just crap and undeveloped. Who knows.

Please support our crowdfund to publish a book of the magnificent portraits of WOMEN AT WORK taken by photographer Sarah Ainslie since 1992. crowdfunder.co.uk/p/sarah-ains...

Michael Collins will be talking about his terrific book on cricket and the making of postcolonial Britain with the (also terrific) Guy Ortolano on May 13th 5pm UK-time, online. www.nacbs.org/event-detail...

..I know everyone keeps saying it makes shit up, but it really does make shit up and then gaslight you. It told me the actual page it wasnt on then agreed it was a lying piece of crap. Nothing is real. I don't use Ai ever, so this is mindblowing for me. Ive emailed the original author.

Wasted a good 3 hours on a proquest parliamentary document a source quoted. Couldnt verify. Read whole thing twice. Gave in and asked Ai. Ai confirmed the stat. I asked it to give page number. It did. I said it wasnt there. It agreed and stated it was taking the information from elsewhere. FFS

I also got teargassed in Manchester in the 1990s when an illegal party got totally out of hand but I hadnt noticed as was worshiping a strobe for my 11th hour. That was my very least favourite experiance for many reasons.

Celebrating the anniversary of being kettled in London on way back from a meeting in punishing heels & suit trying politely asking the policeman to let me out (resounding no). My boss phoned - with my desk in background -asking me to wave as I was on TV.

Turn out the absolute quickest way to draw attention to yourself is to stand outside a former (1990s) but 'unused' blacked out police station and take many pictures. Blimey. Nice morning for a chat with our finest unclothed policemen

Hopefully starting a project on the anti-sexist men’s movement from the 1970s in Britain if anyone has any recommended reading on all things men and the WLM, Achilles Heel etc please send my way!

Had a Horrendous morning then went to get petrol. Kiosk to pay. Said Pump 2. She said no one at Pump 2. I laughed & looked. Car not there. I freaked out that my car had been stolen. Much concern in kiosk within the long queue. I go into full flight Columbo mode. It was Pump 8. The car was at Pump 8

I am full of preconceptions & assumptions so I find it lovely that a 17 yo working class boy from Wapping was comfortable & supported to read & refine his poetry in an assortment of East End pubs and community readings. Just something I had never expected. That boy went on to massive success.

I have nowhere I can blow this particular trumpet IRL, but I taught myself to swim freestyle 18 months ago and today a bloke asked me if I was a competitive club swimmer as my technique was en pointe. I am very happy with that. Thae 'Natural' stroke took about 14k per week for 18mths training

...which I am guessing has something to do with community, self regulation, reach of the police as much as views re domestic abuse. Anyone got any wider reading that would be relevant?

In a study 1985, within London, 82 per cent of people stated they would call the police if they saw someone climb over the back wall of a factory but only 31 per cent would if the neighbours were having row and thought someone might be injured. Wider results reflected property to police over people

London SPG officer. Served Belfast aged 18/19 during Mountbatten/Warrenpoint. Served aged 20/21 in Falklands at Mount Tumbledown. As police was at Broadwater farm, many IRA bombing aftermaths, the Marchioness and the Kings Cross fire. Trying to put it into historical context & it's just horrific

The boxer also explained couldn't hurt himself, couldn't afford to be injured as a kid playing on bombed out sites, or as a teen hooning around where he maybe shouldn't. Fascinating interview which I hadn't appreciated at the time I was collecting it. Hearing happens over time so differently

Chatting to a man in oral history collection who was a world class celebrated amateur boxer. He was telling me how, in his working class masculine industrial environment of the 1960s/70s - that actually made him a massive target - everyone wanted to come have a go rendering it an isolated life

So we are at the endless Polanski and Farage stage of the MSM election cycle. Clowns. Scary, inept, populist clowns.

Someone has written a thesis on The Bill and I am absolutely here for it, despite my promise to myself and my supervisors that I was going to be lazer focussed and not fall down any more rabbit holes..... 'previously, on The Bill'

Following from The Bill TV Series initially shot in Wapping and then being forced to move out of its location due to the Wapping Print Dispute 86 and the harrassment of actors by protestors - now realise that the Met Police immediately moved into the site and made it their residential HQ! Life/art

Di2 battery flat on bike and forgot to charge apare. Athe ridiculousness that I can't ride my road bike because of lack of electricity is not lost on me. FFS. I guess I can ride it as a fixie. Or zwift instead. Booooooo sir, booooo. #failtoprepare...

At 23 none of the more qualified people in the office wanted to do the work. It was such long hours. I didn't like it either but volunteered because I realised I wouldn't have to share the bonus pot, would be promoted quickly and I would be the specialist. So, greed basically.

The Bill TV series was initially set just outside Wapping in East London - until the Wapping Print Dispute in 1986 when many protestors mistook the actors for real police and the threat of violence or actual violence rendered the site too unsafe and production was moved. #todayswappingfact

Lots of "commentators" are rewarded for spreading lies and convincing you that everything is getting worse and you should be afraid. The good news is it's not: homicides at their lowest level in 50 years and killings involving a knife are at their lowest recorded level www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I'm pleased to announce I'm a founding co-editor of the new @manchesterup.bsky.social book series, Radical Histories. Do let me know if you have a proposal for a book that fits our inclusive remit on radical histories. manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/series/radic...

Zigagged 'Hell Hole London' yesterday with 2 massive suitcases & 10 year old. Repeatedly, young men of all ethnicities offered to help, or just helped carry my suitcase/help my son lift his unprompted and unasked but hugely thanked. London always was, and still is, the greatest capital in the world

Closing today - please repost!

I was tired and hot travelling last night so at 1am had a cold shower in a shared open hot room with crackling light and stagnant water. Guess who is now more bites than human. Home today.

Anyone working in history of comedy/satire, television, modern British politics - there's a fully funded PhD to research the Spitting Image archive @theul.bsky.social, with supervision at Exeter Uni. All disciplines considered, pls do share widely. www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin...

All the women packing and lugging children and luggage about to the holding area, then finding somewhere in the shade. All the men faffing off on their bikes and doing feck all. I'm here alone with titch so obviously jealous, but in general equality has a bloody long way to go.

Oakley mitts. The things you wipe your nose on. Short fingered and a little bit padding. €60. I gasped and then looked them up. £60. And Assos mitts (for wiping your nose on) €88. World has gone mad. I'll fashion me some from tea towels and rubber.

Academics, is there an article or paper that you've published that you feel has slipped under the radar? Reply or quote this post with your overlooked piece! Here's mine... www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Sitting at a dark warm launderette on holiday because my son only packed 3 pairs of pants and 5 shorts and spilt his tea down his only jumper. It's fair to say this 'you take your own consequences' hasn't worked out as he is currently playing football in the sun.

Had a great bike ride today, but the gears were mashed and couldnt get into the big ring so descended freewheel rather than fast, then a massive seagull came and rode the thermal practically on my shoulder. It was amazing. I couldnt stop laughing. Me and the bird, side by side. Best thing ever.

This is OA as well!!

Taking Boy on holiday. Both made it through check in & departures in 15 minutes, then a glamorous Italian woman jumped on him and steered him, purring, to the Versace perfume. £72 of his £100 holiday and birthday savings later....a valuable lesson for him re expensive looking women

Dan Warner, When Saturday comes: football, public disorder and Liverpool’s urban crisis, c. 1965–1985 Urban History (2023), 50, 264–282, and his wider PhD, is excellent. The historian I want to be. I am a bit jealous.

If you repeatedly buy a bag for life at one of the big supermarkets, and then apply for insurance through their offerings, it automatically marks you down for moral hazard. I want to be a bit outraged by that, but tbh, I admire it. Quite right you feckless sod.

Easter school holidays. I've been hammered by the 10yo at chess, at star genius, at basketball, at football, at cricket, at Uno, at battleships, at anagrams, at maths (of nany type) at 100m swim races and in 20mins I'm going to bed for a small cry at how old, tired and useless I am.

Hi, I'm looking for a journalist based in Nigeria for help on a radio story. If you happen to know anyone who knows anyone I would appreciate it! Thanks!

If you are able, I'd really appreciate if you could ask your library (local &/or university) to buy a copy of my book. I stand by it being Open Access; everyone should have access to education and scholarship. But I am also unemployed, so any copies sold really do help a lot! Please consider it!

Today has only confirmed the M25 is actually just a showcase of all the knobhead drivers. Braking for no reason. Middle lane 45mph. Swerving. I didnt stop swearing from the moment I joined til the moment I left. Its like a giant roundabout for idiots.

Well, Nick Timothy will have something to say about THIS.