Today is the 40th anniversary of the overthrow of the Duvalier family dictatorship in Haiti, which ruled the nation for 29 years. The promise of that day - a free country & a free people - remains a work in progress. #ayiti #ayitipapperi #haitiwillnotperish

Mick McMahon Monday

Happy 🇬🇧 UK pub day to THE CROWN’S SILENCE—a deeply researched narrative history of the monarchy’s centuries-long entanglement with slavery. This is the new history book the far right loathes. Please buy it b/c it’s important history but—also—it will really piss them off if it does well in the UK!!😉😘

My first ever unboxing video - we finally have the paperback edition of my book 'Black Crown: Henry Christophe, the Haitian Revolution and the Caribbean's Forgotten Kingdom' - and I'm very excited!

Out in PB 🌟 Discover Henry Christophe, the Haitian Revolution and the Caribbean's Forgotten Kingdom in 'Black Crown' by @paulclammer.bsky.social. ‘Grasps the essential tragedy of history, in all its ambiguity and contingency.’ — @telegraph.co.uk Get 20% off w/code CLAMMER20 ➡️ tinyurl.com/54m89364

It's publication week! BLACK CROWN is out in paperback this week – my biography of Henry Christophe, the Haitian Revoltion and the rise and fall of the Kingdom of Haiti. I'm so proud of this book – and hope you like it as much as these reviewers! 🇭🇹👑🔥

It's crazy that Bristol had a statute of Colston the enslaver for decades, yet barely anyone knows about this guy. This book by @brisradhis.bsky.social is good at bringing him into the light.

It's publication week! BLACK CROWN is out in paperback this week – my biography of Henry Christophe, the Haitian Revoltion and the rise and fall of the Kingdom of Haiti. I'm so proud of this book – and hope you like it as much as these reviewers! 🇭🇹👑🔥

With 10 days to go until the US release of THE CROWN’S SILENCE on 1/27, I’m giving away TWO signed pre-release copies!! 🚨To enter: share this post b/n now & noon (ET) tomorrow 1/18. I’ll randomly choose 2 winners (US-based). The book is also available for pre-order now! bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

I'm lucky enough to work near these, and love it everytime I get to walk past them.

Great news – the Bristol Radical History Group have joined Bluesky! Follow @brisradhis.bsky.social for updates on research, publications and events - including their huge free history festival in April. #skystorians

Great news – the Bristol Radical History Group have joined Bluesky! Follow @brisradhis.bsky.social for updates on research, publications and events - including their huge free history festival in April. #skystorians

Are there any fashion #skystorians out there who could tell me the style of hat in this photo please? It's taken from a 1920 issue of The Tatler. @katestrasdin.bsky.social @julieinstitches.bsky.social or @mimicofmodes.com. Many thanks!

Yes everything is a bin fire, but I sent a very speculative email to an archive and just received a bunch of photos in return, including one that was a missing jigsaw piece for a puzzle I've been trying to solve for ages. Hug your archivists close, people - they are the BEST.

Yes everything is a bin fire, but I sent a very speculative email to an archive and just received a bunch of photos in return, including one that was a missing jigsaw piece for a puzzle I've been trying to solve for ages. Hug your archivists close, people - they are the BEST.

Happy birthday, Mr Bowie. Everybody says hi.

Happy new year – and happy independence day Haiti! I'm thrilled to announce that the paperback edition of BLACK CROWN, my biography of the Haitian revolutionary leader (and king) Henry Christophe, is coming out in paperback three weeks today!

Merychippus everyone 🎄🐎

Never thought I’d have a favorite copepod… but behold Sapphirina! These little copepods are so iridescent they appear bioluminescent! When diving for plankton in the Gulf of California on this expedition, we see them as tiny specks of bright blue light. #zooplankton #oceanography #christmasatsea 🌊

Happy memories of a classic December 23 double bill at the Scala - Wings of Desire followed by It's A Wonderful Life. Cinema heaven with all the angels - then trying to avoid all the dodgy punters at King's Cross waiting for the last train home.

I think about this post a lot:

Still buzzing from the wild squall of noise that was Dirty Three playing live in Bristol last night. Very loud, absolutely gorgeous.

Imagine if bigoted billionaires and privileged ‘gender critical’ transphobes with the ear of the right-wing media had put their money and energy into lobbying about *this* - rather than obsessing over banning a handful of trans girls and elderly trans women from Girl Guides & the WI!?? 😣😤

We're watching the wholesale burning of every scrap of dignity afforded to trans people in the UK, their rights, their medical services, their employment, their place within society, their bodily functions. It is a disgrace, and a disgusting stain on the government and media of this country.

The first gender reassigned surgery in the UK was in 1951. She would be over 100 today and lived as a woman for 60+ years. Telling these women they are no longer welcome in the WI is brutal, as they themselves admit. These are our regressive times. #transrightsarehumanrights

My book BLACK CROWN is about to get its paperback edition – it's the story of the Kingdom of Haiti, with revolutionary battles, the overthrow of colonialism, palaces and castles and a visionary king. It's like Wakanda – but it's all true! www.hurstpublishers.com/book/black-c...

A friend just returned from Antarctica, including a trip to Damoy Hut, a former British Antarctic Survey shelter that's preserved as a heritage site. And what were polar scientists reading in the 80s to pass time during a blizzard? Why, the Thrill Power of @2000ad.bsky.social of course!

For those of you in the UK, especially if you are a UK citizen, can you please take part in the consultation on changes to Indefinite Leave to Remain (Settlement) that were just proposed by the UK government. We need as many people as possible to reject these proposals. www.gov.uk/government/c...

A terrible & endlessly-delayed coach trip back from London last night, rescued by a wonderful taxi trip home with the driver chatting enthuastically about the Somali pop and funk bands of his 1980s youth. Just picked up this glorious album as a result. analogafrica.bandcamp.com/album/mogadi...

A little joy for your timeline. The Haitian national team beat Nicaragua 2-0 - and this is the moment they found out they're going to the World Cup! First time since 1974! Grenadye Alasooooooooo

There is no downside

Find someone who loves you like the Mail loves fascists. Hurrah for the Blackshirts!

Find someone who loves you like the Mail loves fascists. Hurrah for the Blackshirts!

3.5 "Just a little bit more research..."

I'm VERY excited to be joining the @terrorcamp.bsky.social crew next month for this online event!

Hello Dublin, it's nice to see you again.

"Yes, this gang stole from the most famous museum in the world but it’s in the name of training their AI software so it can do good doodle of jewels and maximise shareholder value so we are powerless to stand in the way" waterfordwhispersnews.com/2025/10/20/l... #Louvre

If this is how one of the world's most famous people is treated, we can only begin to imagine* what captive Palestinians have experienced. * We don't actually need to imagine. There are countless, corroborated accounts from Palestinians and Israelis. www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/25...

One of the reasons to venerate secondhand bookshops: books with their own life stories! Dedications from long-forgotten aunts, strange marginalia, frantic underlinings and old shopping lists masquerading as bookmarks. What could be more wonderful?

Comics! Antarctica! I loved interviewing @twirlynoodle.com for this article about her Eisner-nominated graphic novel adaptation of 'The Worst Journey in the World' about Captain Scott's final expedition.

It's always reassuring to discover that extremely successful writers are as desperately plodding and uncertain as you are. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

What a very precise way of discovering what I was doing 45 years ago this week: spending my pocket money on my first ever copy of 2000AD. The start of a weekly fix of Thrill-Power that's lasted way longer than most things in my life: a good investment for 14p. Thank you @2000ad.bsky.social!

Unsolicited Crick pic.

I agree with every word Zelda Williams says. And this at the end from OpenAI makes me want to go full Ned Ludd. Creators can’t have a blanket opt-out on copyright infringement of their work and have to fill out a form appealing to OpenAI’s mercy every time? Fuck off into the sun

Useful thread for UK authors—like me—who had their books stolen to train AI and had hoped for even a few crumbs from the Anthropic settlement.

For the 75th anniversary of Peanuts here’s a link to an essay I wrote about Charles Schulz’s deep love of Krazy Kat www.michaeltisserand.com/ottimliffs

This is the alternative universe I'd like to move to, please.

Age yourself with a film you saw in the cinema as a kid.

One of Bristol's best kept secrets: Beese's cafe, where they send a ferry across the river to pick you up for coffee and cake (or a pint). Easy to forget you're still technically in the city.