5 days and my head is hurting again. Ugh.

Taught about the Gordon Riots of 1780 this afternoon. My first question is always: "Who has heard of the Gordon Riots before?" Out of a class of eighteenth students, only one person had, and she is Brazilian. Fascinating.

Venues when you do have a simple listings page on your website, please use it to advertise the stage times of the gig, in the morning at least. * hate having to hunt around Insta Stories for a 6 point note on image 7 of the band page to find out what time the support is coming on

Just spoken with @oldweirdalbion.bsky.social for his Uncanny Landscapes podcast. Like worlds collide. They say never meet your heroes, but I'm so glad I have. "Ask not do you belong to the landscape, but does the landscape belong to you?"

Eucalyptus branches seem to be the foliage du jour in posh florists and is at similar prices. We have a tree in our front garden which, if you coppice it, will grow an inch a minute if you watch it, so I am wondering how to monetise it.

Our study of three of the 2024 anti-asylum-seeker riots now accepted for publication at J of Community & Applied Social Psych. Link to pre-print below. www.qeios.com/read/17ASAP

She did a moving speech during the encore about the crowd as collective, and that it was now our duty not to sit isolated behind a screen at home, but to get put, join a mutual aid or support group to help targeted people.

CALL FOR PAPERS - Modern British History and the 'Environmental Turn'. A two-day workshop organised by @maxlong.bsky.social and myself at Lincoln College, Oxford, 16-17 September. Deadline for abstracts is 15 May. Details in poster below, please share.

The fabulous Ezra Furman at Kentish Town Forum tonight

The king is visiting the village today. It’s mayhem outside but in the pub I’ve got coffee and appropriate anti-establishment study from @katrinanavickas.bsky.social

Ezra Furman at Kentish Town Forum. "Anti fascist rock n roll." Never thought I'd live in a time when artists actually have to live their message by simply existing and performing. Such a scary time. Solidarity.

I wish people would loosen up and dance more at gigs. Maybe it's because it's London. Maybe because it's Wednesday night. Maybe because clearly no one drinks much anymore. But the band were a rockin' and the audience were fairly static tonight.

Ezra Furman at Kentish Town Forum. "Anti fascist rock n roll." Never thought I'd live in a time when artists actually have to live their message by simply existing and performing. Such a scary time. Solidarity.

The mix of Ezra Furman's audience always amuses me. Half 6music dads into some good ol' rock n roll, and half (as my "very tall" spouse terms them) "very tall women".

Well that's the first time door security have checked what my prescription medication packet was and whether it was 'legal'.. I really dislike O2 venues.

Great "in conversation with" Dr Jeff James, hosted by my colleague Dr William Bainbridge as part of our Heritage Hub seminar series

Exploring the itineraries of King Edward I 🤓

On my slow way to Hatfield to hear Jeff James deliver a talk to our Heritage Hub seminar series. Then Ezra Furman at Kentish Town Forum tonight. First gig of the year.

Thameslink is super disrupted today. Not stopping at London Bridge so it's going the long way round via St. Reatham.

Bands are just not hot like this anymore * *OK maybe Russell has always been hot

Watching Digging for Britain. Iron Age Dog is my new band name.

The gravity of this is really hitting me. I rely on Google Books to do record linkage on minor 19th and early 20thC people, companies, places, who pop up in trade journals, random books and periodically I would never think of searching individually.

Can still access books digitised by google books via Hathi Trust and archive.org as a workaround

Ugh no. Aargh. Google Books has stopped working.

Every now and again, scholars have asked me to return to my "why I am tired of turning" unpublished essay from 2011. So I am now writing a properly theoretical reflection on enclosure, nature, landownership and colonialism. All the stuff I under theorised in the intro to my book.

Took another of my new medication last night, the first time since the disaster of Friday. My head feels oddly squished OK both sides of my ears, but I am not throwing up. Anyone else on anti-epilepsy medication for chronic migraine?

Yes. Hotdesking to 'save the department money on estates costs' even though the university owns all the buildings anyway.

In my book, I write a little about Alker Tripp's attempt to rail off the pavements in Limehouse in the 1930s after a trip to Chicago where it was used to enforce segregation

Reminder that "jaywalking" was literally made up by american car manufacturers to shift the blame for accidents from drivers to pedestrians. "Jay" was a slang term meaning "idiot" or "rube".

It seems to have forgotten to have turned light this morning

In the UK academic recession, you will be at one of these stages since many unis buy the same cuts model from the same consultancies. It is always the same process: *Talk of belt-tightening *Incidental savings (e.g. printing, refreshments) *Travel budgets cut *Promotion freeze (1/4)

Writing a mega essay on theory and culture

As an aside, is anyone watching the Banjo and Ro do up an abandoned hotel on Ulva programme? I don't understand either their finances or the plan of works. All the old house renovations I've seen before take far much more time and effort than this seems to be doing.

As it’s LGBTQ+ History Month I thought I’d share some bits from my new book Tales of the Suburbs: LGBTQ+ Lives Behind Net Curtains (out in mid March) just to give a flavour of what was going on beyond the privet…

It's either candlestick or a candle holder. Not a candlestick holder. #PotteryThrowdown

I'd do a model of a seaside Britannia hotel that's seen better days. If it cracks and bits fall off, even more realistic #PotteryThrowdown

we have got to start being meaner to people who are still fans of harry potter. i don't give a shit what you were going through when you read it. that is not your "comfort character" that is a wizard cop written by a mold-addled racist transphobe

With the disclaimer that this is UK context, not US, when I teach the history of protest the majority of students haven't got experience of seeing any protest in person, so they automatically assume that all protests (and by implication, protesters) are violent and/or majorly disruptive.

Just put an old sofa, a broken old flat screen tv and a computer monitor outside the house for the council to collect tomorrow. By the time we'd returned inside, written a note to say it was going to be collected, and gone back out to stick the note on, the tv had gone. Good luck selling that mate

I am still ill

The hardest thing about chronic migraine is trying not to do anything the day after being very ill, to try not to retrigger myself again. Especially after a bad night. Watching YouTube vloggers when I feel I should be catching up on deadlines.

'We likely require fewer academics with research in their remit, but those that do need greater time allocated, and must be subject to a strategic research management regime'. I remain very sceptical/negative about the medium- and long-turn impacts of separating research and teaching. 1/2

I'll again. Had to cancel class and miss a student's viva because I reacted badly to new medication yesterday. When I got back from work, i threw up outside East Croydon station but no embarrassment as people do that all the time there.

I know everyone has pointed out that there’s a weird focus on the whisky, but those glasses are 100% wrong for the period. This is what 18th century glasses looked like www.roseberys.co.uk/a0362-lot-45...

Happy 45th birthday to Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads, released as a single on this day in 1981. Here's David introducing that video

An Injury To All: The Unmaking of the British Working Class will be published by Verso in October! Today I submitted responses to last comments from my editor and worked on the blurb. It's getting closer and closer!

Lovely to attend the 18th century seminar in honour of Pene Corfield last night. She had no idea they were organising it, and said she found it a bizarre experience.

I agree that it’s high fucking time that we stopped acting like we need to grovel and constantly justify the existence of some of our most incredibly elemental and ancient human pursuits.

And when it comes to social justice activism - Showing up to a protest is useful yes but it’s about 1/1000th of the work that actually meaningfully moves issues forward. The logistics and dull paper work/committee running - it was almost all women