National Museums Liverpool is 40! The World Museum has a special exhibition, which opened today, of 40 objects from the stores, chosen by curators and staff to represent the collections. Well worth a visit! My faves included Fido the Lion, casts of the Formby footprints and a dazzleship ferry model.

Storm on the #Island - "We just sit tight while wind dives, And strafes invisibly..." So now I need to research if Seamus Heaney experienced a storm on #Anglesey #YnynMôn #Wales #Ireland #Wales #StormDave #IrishPoetry #IrishSea

I met a guy a few months ago who owns a small consultancy specializing in IT emergencies. When things go horribly wrong & nobody on staff can fix it, he’s who you call. In the past year, he essentially has a bidding war for his services every week. This👇is effectively what he does now.

I did this on Twitter years ago and got some amazing answers. Let's see if we can get #LibrariesChangeLives trending and show what amazing things can grow from properly funded public services and the value of providing free access to books, reading and educational resources for all.

I made a little Instagram reel about this image because it’s just so frickin’ cool

1898, a prospector rests for a moment outside his tent. He was likely bound for the Klondike, head full with dreams of gold. Photo by Asahel Curtis, via Washington State History Museum. #alaskahistory #alaska

#ICYMI we published this yesterday!

A magnificent snapshot of one of the world’s most important relationships: Saharan sands on the left, the Amazon rainforest on the right. Carried west by the trade winds, the sand fertilizes the jungle, and the jungle helps stabilize Earth's climate - for now. #Artemis

I really like Bsky, and I want it to work. But I would gently ask some users to remember we are not all American here

The steamer Mariechen wrecked on rocks off Chichagof Island on January 24, 1906. It was a smuggling, blockade runner bound for Russia. The extreme possible profits were why it was attempting a dangerous winter run. Via Washington State History Museum. #alaskahistory #alaska

I am so proud of and honored by this award. Working with the wonderful editors at EH, Mark Hersey and Stephen Brain, was transformative for me as an author and as an editor. My deep thanks, too, to the extraordinary readers who saw what I was trying to do and helped me to do it better. #earlymodern

oh come on, it was STUCK TO A TEA TIN

Management consultants are ruining UK universities ft.trib.al/0LelZP9 | opinion

“Of course, in the real world, LLMs aren’t trained on a relatively ⁠limited set of words but effectively on the whole internet, which means hallucinations are likely an even bigger problem in reality than in this experiment.”🧪

And the BIG BAD I SAID NO blogpost is live! (If you know the cartoon I'm referring to, welcome: childhood memory unlocked). Huge thanks to everyone below who commented on my post about 'how [and whether!] to say no in academia'. drlauravarnam.wordpress.com/2026/04/02/t...

The views of our coastline are breath-taking, but don’t let them be your last. Stay away from the edge and base of cliffs as they do crumble, crack and fall without warning. #BeCliffAware

It's only worth going back to the Moon if it makes us look properly again at Earth, and appreciate how beautiful, precious and fragile what we have here is. The most famous images from Apollo aren't about the Moon - they're pictures of Earth. We need to stop taking our home for granted.

I just finished reading Lily Tuzroyluke’s Sivulliq: Ancestor, a historical fiction about whaling and the smallpox epidemic in the Alaskan Arctic. This gripping book shows how lives intersect between an Inupiat mother, a Black man working as a whaler, a mostly white crew & captain, & missionaries.

Frederick Cook (1865-1940) claimed to summit Denali in 1906. A hoax, his supposed photo evidence was an outcropping (Fake Peak) nearly 15k ft below summit. Claimed to reach North Pole in 1908, almost certainly also a lie. Later convicted of stock fraud. #alaskahistory #alaska

#earlymodern #maritimehistory

I enjoyed this pun from Empires of the Normans by @proflroach.bsky.social. Charles Stanton’s work demonstrates that the Normans had to acquire their maritime abilities once they reached southern Italy, and I argue in my thesis that in 11th-c Normandy maritime military skills were in abeyance pre1066

I don't need a summary of what's available online, in biographies, or even in my own notes. I need to comb through and find the great details, decide what interests ME. No, it's not efficient. It's slow and painstaking. But I don't believe in efficiency as an ultimate good, especially in writing. /

idk guys when i see a lot of similar headlines insisting that editors & authors are all already embracing AI, i don't assume these things are true. i assume there are a lot of very rich people with an unpopular product pushing a particular narrative in my industry!

FOURTEEN MILLION. Goldsmiths spent *14 MILLION* on consultants. That's just 1 uni. @bbcnewsnight.bsky.social, please do as ABC did in Australia & put a spotlight on just how much money gets funneled from public institutions to for-profit firms & the harm it causes abc.net.au/news/2026-03... #UKHE

The. Rise. Of. Cognitive. Surrender. Study finds that people who use GenAI chatbots rely on them 80% of the time, and develop almost no capacity to recognize when a chatbot is feeding them faulty information. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Yeah that’s cool

It's really wild to be teaching the Putney Debates on the day that the Supremes heard arguments in the birthright citizenship case. "Men may justly have by birthright, by their very being born in England, that we should not seclude them out of England". And that is from Ireton, the conservative.

What if we just went back to reading a bunch of books and thinking about them together, and that was the class? With syllabi no longer than three pages.

Lovely to be back at the Queen’s House, Royal Museums Greenwich, to start my Caird Research Fellowship! I’ll be working on my project, ‘Navigating Welfare: Greenwich Hospital School and state-led childcare and welfare, 1806–1840’. #ecr #skystorians #19thcentury #royalnavy #welfarehistory

Absolutely phenomenal talk by @seasideferry.bsky.social tonight on the history of Butlins. Eternally grateful as well for her generous answers in the Q&A afterwards. Make sure you give her a follow, as next up in her series is Festival of Britain, which I have no doubt will be equally good!

Folks its Pub Day for this great collection of essays to mark the 250th of the American Revolution. Happy to be included with this stellar group of historians. Get your copy today from UNC Press!

One month left to apply for grants in Scottish History from the Strathmartine Trust #history #scotland

Writing is researching Prohibition and learning that newspapers weren't immune to playing up the spectacle of clashes between rum runners & the Coast Guard in Miami, complete with sensational text about "gusts of lead" flying over crouching drivers of speed boats & dramatic illustrations like this.

You can’t really learn much if you’re having AI generate your homework, your papers, and everything else you need to complete a class, but for some reason universities keep shoving AI into the learning environment on the assumption that it’s an improvement.

Sennen Cove – The Landing Place of Kings! Seven Saxon Kings enjoying supper, King Athelstan, King Stephen, King John and the would-be King, Perkin Warbeck . . . Monarchs were just washing up with the tide! #Cornwall #Kernow cornishbirdblog.com/sennen-cove-...

Wonderful fellowship opportunities in maritime history at an amazing institution in the heart of Amsterdam 👇👇

Academics of the world, do with this info what you may. Even better, uninstall it from your devices 🧪

Speaking as someone who spent two years negotiating the obstructive, clumsy and often distressing process for getting diagnosed and treated for ADHD on the NHS: *BULLSHIT*

Bluesky academic pals, I’m planning to write a blogpost about ‘saying no’, or at least, ‘how to consider whether to say yes’ to an opportunity. What are your top tips? 🙏🏻

We’re welcoming applicants for a fully funded history PhD project researching the first 100 years of the UK's Public Record Office, ahead of its bicentenary in 2038. Find out more and apply here by Friday 8 May: phd.leeds.ac.uk/project/2475... (1/2)

31 Mar 1943 // HM Trawler Caulonia ran aground in Rye Bay in poor weather. As the stranded boat began to break up, the Hastings RNLI lifeboat rescued seven of her crew and eleven men reached shore safely on a raft. Six men lost their lives. #RoyalNavy #WW2

The most magical sound in the British countryside? The call of the nightjar late on a summer night. When several call together it is a most magical experience. Not many places you can hear them though, due to habitat loss. Have a listen www.british-birdsongs.uk/nightjar/?ty...

Grrr! The last MS update changed all my OneNote Notebooks to 'read only'. They are only saved to my hard drive, and not to the Cloud, and have been for 20 years. I also bought Office 2019; I don't use MS365! I'm so frustrated right now.

Yesterday MPs and the council leader met with over 50 staff and students at Essex Southend. The verdict? "A huge lack of engagement" from university management. 800 students. 400 jobs. This is the face of the Higher Education crisis.

From iconic tricornes to practical workwear, WRNS headwear tells a powerful story of service and strength. On the final day of #WomenHistoryMonth, explore the history behind the hats, written by Dr Jo Horton . ⚓️✨ hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/whats-on/sto...

Having to pay up front and claim back is one of the more extractive practices of an academic system built by and for people who've never had to worry about how much money's in the bank to cover travel and expenses. See also institutions that won't pay at all, forcing staff to cover all costs.

ANTHROPIC IS USING AI TO FUCK UP OUR CLAIMS ABOUT THE USE OF AI???? okay I feel like we should sue again for this

I teach around 20 students. I know them all personally. They have personalised teaching. At an open day, applicants told us they live locally, want small cohorts as they can't cope in large groups, etc. I wish all unis would recognise that smaller is better