what are 5 topics you can talk about unprepared for 5 minutes? ["can" is quite a low bar for me, take this as "with any level of expertise"] British Empire (especially Egypt and Sudan) Infrastructural history The Anthropocene Cites and the environment Pink Floyd

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Roger Sterling's response to MLK's assassination on MAD MEN sorta sums up the entire series, and acts as a grim reminder of where we still are in America

genuinely fascinated by this and wondering how it relates to the history of television, where a human talking straight to the camera is considered a quite old-fashioned look. Does the vertical, phone-friendly video suit this better than a TV aspect ratio does?

This is a little bit of a long shot, but won’t hurt to ask - does anyone know of any books / articles about the planning / logistics of polar exploration, Heroic Age or a little later. What foods, what allowance for loss/spoilage, what weight on a sledge, distances per day, etc.

For your holiday weekend reading & reflection, here’s my 259th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, share as widely as possible, & solidarity, all! 🗃️ blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...

Are you a people pleaser who doesn't know how to say no? I present to you No as a service: an API that returns a random rejection reason Test is: naas.isalman.dev/no Check the GitHub repository : github.com/hotheadhacke...

If you actually had "open borders" in the conventional meaning of that term, the immigration wouldn't be "illegal." (Which is secondary, of course, to the fact that everything Reed is saying here is a lie, premised on racism.)

Oh wow. Trump got a hand-me-down Nobel Peace Prize! Did you know: It would not be the first time a Nobel laureate has given his or her medal away: in 1943 Nobel Literature laureate Knut Hamsun gave his medal to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

Work to use the full spread of marks more is generally good imo, allows clearer recognition of outstanding work, but it does of course change students' relationship to marking and the odds of getting Firsts. Also degrades the status of marks in the 60s, where a lot of interesting development happens

Don’t underestimate the influence of External Examiners saying “I think markers could use the full spread of marks more” to give them something to say at Exam Boards

France is bacon

As someone who has only taught in the Russel Group but was mostly not educated in it, I found the discussion here of who awards what degree levels particularly interesting

A voice of informed reason in a weltering wilderness of wild claims.

if you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit.

Excellent and empoweringe educacioun will nevir be "efficient" yn the waye that a businesse doth stryve to be "efficient." It ys the heighte of knavery to use one standarde to measure everye human activitye. Businesses are ther to make profits. Educacioun ys ther to make the future.

Timeline cleanse, for anyone who is having or has had a difficult day. youtu.be/BhqQFs7huwU?...

There are challenging questions as to where the burden of funding should fall, how to balance academic autonomy, accountability to students, and attainment of government policy goals. But just so many of the sector’s problems have arisen from successive governments’ visions of how to do this.

So many of HE’s problems are the product of these efforts to generate market structures that just simply don’t work because the conditions that markets need to work really aren’t there, and all they do is create uncertainty (and financial problems) for students, staff, and institutions.

Bandcamp has a good record of trying to do the right things, glad to see it maintaining that

"The Making of Grimsby’s Dock Tower: The Entanglements of Infrastructural Relations" by @samgrinsell.bsky.social is the third post in our Urban and Environmental Dialogues series, published in collaboration with @urbanhistorya.bsky.social niche-canada.org/2026/01/12/t... #envhist #urbanhistory

A number of people on this platform have been claiming that it's not up to government to shorten people's time on remand, however far beyond the statutory limit that time extends. Well, take it from a very eminent retired judge. It is. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

I chair the acquisitions meeting of @reaktionbooks.bsky.social, an independent publisher. We're open to unsolicited book proposals: history, art, music, film, food, animal studies and any great indefinable non-fiction book ideas you might have. Check out the list and get in touch.

New on the blog! @samgrinsell.bsky.social on Grimsby's Dock Tower: themetropole.blog/2026/01/12/t... @nichecanada.bsky.social #UrbanHistory #CoastalHist #NorthSea #EnvHist #EnvHums

A canny political and media strategy from @zackpolanski.bsky.social. Immediately he defuses climate delayers’ favourite cynical attack lines, and avoids headlines like “Polanski says you should never go on holiday, drive a car, or eat meat”. But, crucially, he's leading by example... 1/🧵

niche-canada.org/2026/01/12/t... The Making of Grimsby's Dock Tower - new post by me on @nichecanada.bsky.social @urbanhistorya.bsky.social #UrbanHistory #CoastalHist #NorthSea #EnvHist #EnvHums

(If you've not seen Rye Lane, do seek it out it's lovely)

Show Rye Lane in schools to fight these dangerous anti-London narratives!

Here we go: long-term fellowships for international mid-career and senior academics in Europe. These are aimed at colleagues wishing to relocate more permanently as most of these (seem to) lead to permanent positions/are "tenure-track", listed in no particular order by country/research foundation 1/

Dreamed I was lost in the Barbican on the way to meet Werner Herzog & my thumbs & tongue were made of wax & kept melting & when I finally found him he took one look at me, eyes filled with pity, disgust & a deep intimacy with the void & said “Rose, the furnace of your vanity is destroying you”

Show Rye Lane in schools to fight these dangerous anti-London narratives!

Strange isn't it... the people who actually live in London overwhelmingly think it's safe.... almost like everyone else is falling for a lie

Captcha where you have to click on all the jokes before you're allowed to reply to people

It's very good, 1 thing missing though, important to understand here, is that the incentives for managers and institutional leaders to change, as suggested, simply are not there. They benefit disproportionately from things being the way they are now. Why would they willingly relinquish?

"The question is not only how to keep universities solvent, but how to ensure that, in ten or twenty years’ time, they are still universities."

This is a really good piece, and the mismatches snd gradually changing behaviours it describes seem spot on to me

Multiverse's tiniest violin needed

As a Palace fan I had one of the best days of my life at Wembley last year. If we weren't going to successfully defend our title I'm glad we go out giving another group of fans one of their great days

Working on the ‘Jolyon Ratio’; for every, what, 10 or so self satisfied self regarding minor centrist coded sleb radicalised On Here into fascism via Terfery the left get one (1) well meaning Actual Liberal radicalised into revolutionary fervour

Eggcellent thread here

Always impressed by my @durhamhistory.bsky.social students' public history assignments, which can be a short story, exhibition proposal, or piece of journalism. I've read brilliant work today on the Notting Hill Carnival, Mexican cinema, and lurid Victorian newspapers - with 27 more still to go! 🗃️

I wrote to my MP. "We try to live lives full of purpose, of service and usefulness to others. What purpose are our lives if we don't help Heba Muraisi and Kamran Ahmed stay alive? We will all have failed so badly. Please, please help stop this." Find yours here: members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP

If the Palestine Action hunger strikers die - which they could do at any moment, as they are now very close to the end - it will be the government that killed them. Today’s column explains why. Please share, and write urgently to your MP. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I miss social media that was “here’s a photo I took” or “I just ate tacos for lunch” instead of “gonna mainline the internet’s psychoses, bad news, and constant advertisements and rage bait” Strava is probably least toxic social media platform

The way that Tech World sold itself as somehow separate from, and better than, anything that wasn't the Tech World, seems to have allowed people to develop ideas under that cover that would not have been tolerated elsewhere

samgrinsell.hcommons.org/2026/01/05/t... I've been thinking about how online culture always feels indoors even when it isn't necessarily anymore

i agree, and i think it is more important than ever to go out into the world and exist. go to a local school board or city council meeting pick up from the restaurant instead of door dash buy the things in the store instead of online etc