Should have got this for my work on Rosslyn Chapel.

you know who's got some good book titles? The Council for the Care of Churches. "It won't happen to us: a guide to church insurance" "Sounds good! a guide to church organs" "Widening the eye of the needle: a guide to church access" "how not to do it: installing electricity in your church (1940)"

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

In the UK, you could demolish a church VAT-free, but if you wanted to repair that church, you would have to pay VAT.

Is there a material culture journal for short notes of just cool stuff people have found? I have so many little ideas about things that I can’t use for anything longer, but would like to share. I’m imagining a sort of magazine with big images and accessible mini-articles. Could call it ‘Neat’?

florence pew: thread

Oh, to be a Fly... In a Choirbook? #ThingsInBooks

Thou art moss and unto moss thou shalt return

am reminded of the old joke: what did James Watson discover? Rosalind Franklin’s notes.

Okay, but are you ‘general feeling of guilt’ lapsed Catholic or ‘will anoint yourself in any handy holy well’ lapsed Catholic?

Looking forward to talking to East Lothian Embroiders and Textile Artists about Women's clothing in late medieval Scotland on Saturday 22nd at the Bleaching Field Centre, Dunbar at 2pm.

Remember guys, @pcsunion.bsky.social staff at the BL are on strike for the next two weeks. Please don't cross the picket line to go to reading rooms, attend exhibitions or anything else. They've endured so much on low pay since the cyberattack in 2023 and the least we can do is have their backs now.

Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.

Bat dog, bat dog, alone in the world is a little bat dog!

Free Palestine. Migrants are great. Trans people are wonderful. If you don’t believe in these things then go ahead and unfollow.

Keyholes in the ancient cellar door of Neidpath #Castle near #Peebles, #Scottish #Borders 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 #Woodensday #Heritage #Buildings #Scotland

Giving a lecture on settlement archaeology this week so you KNOW I had to include my favorite archaeological book cover of all time 😂🏺

The Govan Stones is one of the most important historical sites in Scotland. It's one of the few surviving places that has material evidence for this lost kingdom and culture of that most elusive early medieval people, the North Britons and I'd love to see it preserved for the future

I would be endlessly grateful if you were to support this crucial fundraising effort for Govan Old's 1,500-year-old graveyard and the @govanstones.bsky.social museum! 💲❤️ tghts.enthuse.com/cf/graveyard...

Great to see the latest issue of Scottish Archives in print! I've written a wee something about James VI's Scottish menagerie 🐆 🐪 👑 Looking forward to reading all the other fantastic contributions when my copy arrives!

#WritingCommunity! Submissions invited to NEW WRITING SCOTLAND 44! We want poetry & prose in English, #Gaelic, & #Scots from writers who are Scottish by residence, birth, or inclination. All successful contributors are paid – deadline 31 Oct! Submit free via Submittable 👇 nws.submittable.com/submit

It’s been a BUSY few weeks getting @churchheritage.bsky.social up and running but right now I’m up in the Cairngorms with the National Lottery Heritage Fund and I got to see a WILDCAT KITTEN at @highlandwpark.bsky.social. It’s so fierce and silly. I’m not a cat person but I do love this little one.

What a fantastic launch event yesterday for @churchheritage.bsky.social, our collaborative project with @socantscot.bsky.social supported by National Lottery Heritage Fund and Pilgrim Trust. Chaired by @lizzieswarbrick.bsky.social, we heard from 20 wonderful speakers followed by a panel discussion.

🎟⛏️ The hottest ticket in Scotland this weekend is at the @govanstones.bsky.social!

Retired Physicists Explain the Humanities to Me by Rebecca Solnit

In the wild!! (i.e. on my mum's sofa)

One for @urbanprehistorian.bsky.social - I was reading this morning about the Asda 'Price Promise' stones that were erected across the country in the 90s loststonesofasda.wordpress.com Some are definitely on the way to being archaeological monuments, such as this one in Trumfleet, South Yorkshire

Remember that dude with the Plasticine Action tshirt, with the pic of Morph on it, who got arrested for wearing it in London? He has set up a site selling the tshirts with all proceeds going to the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP). You know what to do! ⬇️ plasticineaction.com

I think it's really worth shouting out that the first 2 people to withdraw were black debut authors (Mae Diansangu followed by Jason Okundaye). They both had some of the most to lose by doing so before others did, and yet they did anyway. I'm grateful to all who withdrew, but to them especially.

Reviewer 1 | Reviewer 2

In the death registers of early modern Venice, marginalia often marks the cause of death: drawings of daggers for murders, for instance. In 1696, Giovanni Battista Rinaldi was killed by a dog. This is the drawing by his entry.

now google each of those six universities and “redundancies”

I'll use this occasion of frustration to re-up my thread from a couple of months ago about how to hack your way to reasonaly hi-res images you can download from the BL's IIIF viewer: bsky.app/profile/cari... The way you get to MSS from the landing page has changed, but the rest seems still to work.

Apparently it’s World Embroidery Day so maybe you’ll enjoy this aerial landscape I made of my beloved childhood haunt - the White Horse of Uffington. An @nationaltrust.org.uk site from the later Bronze Age or Early Iron Age. Find out more here www.oxfordarchaeology.com/uffington-wh...

An important part of a bigger story that has so far mainly focused on the University of Edinburgh

UK academics - please sign this open letter to the UK government: Request for biometric deferral and safe evacuation of incoming Palestinian students and scholars from Gaza to UK Universities docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

An open letter has been launched today (27/7/25) for members of the UK academic community (academics and other university staff) to sign, to press the UK Home Office to facilitate safe passage out of Gaza for 40+ students with offers for UK universities. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Pleased this is finally published after I proposed it a few years ago. A lot of work by brilliant colleagues & some expected and some shocking findings. It’ll upset some (it’s a long time ago etc) but if a uni can’t speak truth to its own power what’s its point? www.theguardian.com/education/20...

All famines are man-made, all famines are political. Historians of empire and humanitarianism have known this forever. Gaza is not starving, Gaza is being starved, by Israel, and this starvation is enabled by our government and by every other government that does not step in to force food and aid.

There's a type of person who argues there's no point stopping selling plane parts to Israel as they would only get them elsewhere, or the government can't condemn Israeli genocide as it would make no difference, and it's amazing to me that they have never before encountered the concept of "morality"

Every time I see a politician scapegoating immigrants, here’s what upsets me the most: Immigrants are always the tool not the audience of the messaging. They’re counted on to simply stay quiet, grateful & work harder no matter how much vilification they’re exposed to. This expectation is crushing.

Sure, the Epstein files are undoubtedly salacious, but have you ever read a roll of fornication cases from early 18th century Fife?!

Hello pals, a wee help request: do you know of a great academic/heritage website that has a database behind it? I’m going to be commissioning one and I’d like some snazzy examples for inspo. Thanks!

WeTransfer just changed their TOS giving themselves permission to train AI on any content you transfer and produce derivative works based on content you transfer that they are allowed to monetize and you are not allowed payment for. Stop using WeTransfer.

A joyful first event at the Edinburgh Historical Reconstruction lab where we tried European and Chinese early modern cosmetics and perfumes, found out what James I and VI smelled like, and made pomanders from a 1555 recipe.

Few know Orkney to be the home of the world's first recorded Pokémon sighting

AMAZING STUFF! Very well deserved.

New research into the public value and support for the preservation of the heritage of church buildings. Something we’ll be exploring in our @scotchurchfutures.bsky.social project over the next two years. historicengland.org.uk/whats-new/ne...