I'm watching a militaria auction in Belgium. Judging by these prices, I don't think my bid will be successful.

Driving past Penny Lane this morning, John's on the right, resting on a peace sign...

I've been researching the journalist Dorothy Lawrence for many years but have only now been able to fill the key gaps in her story. Hopefully soon I will be sharing the details with the wider world.

Liverpool this evening.

I'm due to be on BBC Radio 5 Live at 7.45am tomorrow, 11th November, to talk about the life and work of the journalist Dorothy Lawrence.

Liverpool said thank you to Simon Rattle this evening...

North of Liverpool is a two-mile stretch of beach where rubble from the bombing during the Second World War was dumped.

My third attempt to post a photo of Anthony Gormley's Another Place that doesn't get blocked by BS's sexual content filter!

Facial prosthesis, c.1917. THREAD for #RemembranceSunday🧵 From the moment the first machine gun rang out over the Western Front, one thing was clear: mankind’s military technology had wildly surpassed its medical capabilities. Bodies were battered, gouged, hacked, and gassed. /1

The mystery of coffee in a glass.

Liverpool Cenotaph.

This is amazing. The Imperial War Museum before it was a museum.

Sunrise over the Mersey this morning.

The 11am silence on Armistice Day, London, 11th November 1925.

Two panels commemorating the contribution of Black American soldiers towards the liberation of the Netherlands in World War Two have been quietly removed from a cemetery in Limburg. It follows a complaint by right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission.

Patched leather waistcoat worn by the anti-submarine commander Captain Johnnie Walker, seen in the Western Approaches Museum and on his statue at Liverpool Pier Head.

Mersey sunset.

Oriel Chambers by Peter Ellis, 1864, described by Nikolaus Pevsner as 'one of the most remarkable buildings of its date in Europe'.

Waiting by Judy Boyt, the memorial to the working horses of Liverpool, is one of my favourites.

I'm currently experiencing massive and emotional nostalgia for my old home city.

I have to admit to being a little disappointed after seeing David Olusoga at the Liverpool Phil last night. The latter part relies entirely on Ellis's 50-year-old polemic The Social History of the Machine Gun, giving a very lazy and uninformed presentation about the weapon during the 1stWW.

I've been revisiting this from 1975 in advance of seeing David Olusoga's A Gun Through Time tonight in Liverpool. Ellis's book is catastrophically dated in respect of the First World War but DO cites his chapter on the Maxim gun in Africa in The World's War. I'm looking forward to it.

If I had £10-15k... The copy of Over the Brazier that Robert Graves gave to Siegfried Sassoon on 6th May 1916 is being auctioned in two days' time. www.forumauctions.co.uk/component/co...

The First World War: Five Rare Books for Collectors www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine-books-n...

Putting unground Sumatra Mandheling coffee beans in the foodbank is peak Windsor Waitrose.

This is terrible news for the completion of my book. The British Newspaper Library is processing a massive shedload of First World War period content (presumably for Remembrance Day). These are just some of them.

Post of the day.

Would you like to know about 100 objects from the First World War in the Bavarian Army Museum? The link below is to a PDF of the whole of this fantastic book. Vielen Dank an das freundliche Bayerische Armeemuseum.

If you're a National Trust member, it's that time of year again: Midnight tonight is the deadline. It's a shame people have to keep doing this to keep a toehold on historical truth in this country, but here we are. Voting link: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/who-we-are/a...

Keep your archives.

They did it to the Duke of Buckingham in 1521, but no sign they did it since then? www.stgeorges-windsor.org/degradation-...

I didn't know until today about the British royalty who were stripped of their titles and honours after the First World War for siding with the Germans. www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue...

Just a polite reminder.

The Thames at Windsor. Spot the DUKW.

They've just reinvented my understanding of music. Thank you @tenebraechoir.bsky.social.

I'm inside this building where Tenebrae are creating astonishing sounds with their voices.

Does this tune sound familiar to you too? 🤔 Our Principal Double Bass Jason Henery shows off a solo from Mahler's First Symphony, which we'll be bringing to the Royal Albert Hall tonight, along with Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and Puccini's Preludio sinfonico.

Live auction bidding is dangerous. I just bid on a hand-drawn First World War trench map, estimate £100-150. I intended to bid up to £200 but went to £350. It sold for £440 (+24% premium).

Thank you @royalphilorchestra.bsky.social and Vasily Petrenko. That was emotional.

Every time Radio 3 plays de Falla I think it's @aiannucci.bsky.social in a homburg.

This 1910 film of Wigan coal miners and women surface workers, the 'pit brow lassies', is completely fascinating. The women are doing everything except working underground, which was prohibited after 1842.

That's probably the end of my pilot's career then.

'...the "Yearnest" generation. Mollycoddled by an over-ethical age, which actually preached vegetarianism...' Israel Zangwill makes an ironic attack on Siegfried Sassoon in The Daily Herald, 1 December 1917.

The artist Nina Hamnett, painted by Roger Fry (1917). To see an example of her work, click below to bypass Bluesky's prudish anti-art software. (Seen at Pallant House).

I love the fluid economy of Nina Hamnett's portrait of Roger Fry (1918). Seen in Pallant House.

Putting background music into audio narrations shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how words work. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

John Currie, 'Some Later Primitives and Madame Tisceron' (1912). The artist painted himself with Mark Gertler, C.R.W. Nevinson, Edward Wadsworth and Adrian Allinson. On the right the owner of their favourite café, the Petit Savoyard in Soho, gazes out enigmatically. (Currently at Pallant House).