On the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway (#OTD 1825), here’s my memoir of growing up on the East Coast Main Line, where I witnessed of the demise of the steam age. #Railway200 pamelaclemit.wordpress.com/2024/10/25/n...

Oh, this is SUPERB.

The great Tony Harrison has died. With others such as Raymond Williams he represented a post-war breakthrough that the philistine assault on education threatens: the possibility of being working class while storming the heights of the most elite culture and transforming it

For anyone who is #teaching #18thcentury politics and/or electoral culture, or is doing #localhistory or #familyhistory, do check out our ECPPEC web resource : it's chock-full of short informative essays, polling data, and artefacts #skystorians ecppec.ncl.ac.uk

Sad to hear Tony Harrison has died. In The early days of the Indy I suggested we print all of V in the paper, so that people could read what they were being told to be outraged about. Didn't reach the end of the sentence before Andreas Whittam-Smith said yes. Never proof read anything so carefully.

Tony Harrison RIP I taught Long Distance, his beautiful & honest poem about bereavement to my students for decades. Eventually, it provided consolation to me as well.

Tony Harrison's V was arguably the definitive early Channel 4 programme, with a message that somehow felt both already archaic and chillingly ahead of its time, and the vehemence with which he, they and admirers like Stephen Fry defended it against rentagob MPs is something we could do with more of.

In memoriam. A powerful television event by a great poet.

Well, bless my soul, another long, long post, this time Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders by Terrance Dicks, featuring Blackpool, Indiana Jones and Mr Toad. 0tralala.blogspot.com/2025/09/doct...

We’ve just moved into an old house where the carpet underlay seems to consist entirely of copies of the Times 1965-1970, and it’s kind of reassuring to find the headlines (arms sales to Israel, teachers’ strike, rows about some MP calling another MP a drunken buffoon) are so utterly relatable

Daphne has just sent off her entry and she looks forward to you all voting for her when the time comes. She will be making a note of who her loyal supporters are.

The evidence for this argument has grown and grown, and become increasingly convincing. The policy remains difficult, unavoidably. But the rhetoric is clearly wrong. Critically, the centre left must directly challenge the slow normalisation of far right ideas for both moral and tactical reasons.

Reposting cries against the tide of misinformation about immigration and the government's foolish indulgence of it, as if I could turn back the flood of wrongheadedness and malignancy. (But we must, we must.)

The UK doesn’t have “uncontrolled legal migration” otherwise anyone from any other country can come in here at any time without going through some form of lawful application process. When did this ever happen in modern history? The govt is using this term without telling us what they mean by it.

These false beliefs do not arise in a vacuum. Yet we seem collectively incurious about their origins.

Out for a turn as Life of the Day, my ODNB entry on Mary, née Lepell, Lady Hervey of Ickworth: www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1...

Next month @histparl.bsky.social will leave its home in Bloomsbury Square after almost 20 years. Robin Eagles used this as an opportunity to reflect on the history of the square, which witnessed one of the most violent episodes in London's history: historyofparliament.com/2025/06/05/b...

Approaching the end of another reporting period here at the Georgian Lords. We kicked the period off with a valedictory online article by Stuart Handley on William Pulteney, earl of Bath, true holder of the title of Britain's shortest-serving PM (3 days): historyofparliament.com/2025/04/25/f...

'Doctor Who' has nothing to do with the world of private members' clubs...does it? A deep dive into how the 3rd Doctor came to have a London club - and which one - and how it was probably the 1st Doctor who first put his name down for it. clubland.substack.com/p/clubs-in-p...

Just visited the magical Jewish cemetery in Frankfurt. Many of the headstones have the symbol of the house the family lived in, which was then later often taken to be the family name. Here is a headstone with a distinctly non-Kosher lobster symbol.

Royals are notoriously hard to buy for. What do you get people who have everything? When in doubt, do what Admiral Boscawen did in April 1750 for Frederick, Prince of Wales and get the royal in your life a 476lb tortoise. 🐢 #18thCentury #Hanoverians #Georgians

Ah, he has seen what regulatory lawyers look like: with their seven heads and ten horns, and upon their horns ten crowns, and upon their heads the word ”compliance”.

I know everything seems awful right now, but this is an INCREDIBLE breakthrough and such good news.

Hurrah for NHS community dentists who come out to visit the elderly and infirm and provide amelioration for dental problems.

I’ve got a paper coming out very soon that answers this call in The Times, showing pseudoscience and pseudo history is coming from the top, including from within elite universities, and from people educated by them during their ‘golden age’.

Here's a #HigherEducationPostcard of University College Buckland, which operated briefly in the 1960s and 1970s, offering courses leading to University of London degrees If you like this image, please retweet it - remember, BlueSky has #NoAlgorithm

From w/c 23 September 1989 : Not now, Baldrick as Blackadder goes to war via this Radio Times cover. #80s

"the meaner sort (which is the majority) of voters are grown so ungrateful, mercenary and unsteady, and several persons of interest... going now from us to the other side, it could not be saved." Such a bore when people don't vote for the right candidate. General election of 1715 #HistParl

How to seperate the two television channels 70 years ago #OnThisDay in 1955... BBC TV was known as "Television" and what would be ITV as "Commercial Television"

Time to talk about one of my favourite Oxford buildings, 26-27-28 Cornmarket!! Popularly known as The Old Pret

Period dramas lull us into a false sense of knowing what the past looked like. I've been looking hard at this presumably normal for 1906 students jacket and ...scarf? combo for far too long and still can't work out what's going on

So I won't be second-reader-ing an MA after all. Office politics which has led to, amongst other things, the head of that programme quitting. Sigh. REALLY need a job, preferably outside the US, if anyone has anything... #media #comms #culturalstudies #esl

Just finished re-watching The Enemy of the World. It’s terrific. I’ve never quite twigged before that David Whitaker invented a brand new DW story genre here: The Future Historical. 1) 🧵 #DoctorWho

I don't know who's currently based in the old Didsbury HQ, but they might want to put any post with US stamps on it to one side for a while.

Occasionally, one finds a street where time flows a little slower or a mews that remembers its former horses in discarnate sounds of hooves clipping its cobbles. For not all hauntings are psychic stain of violence. We are just as likely to be haunted by absence. – #CJosiffe #Ghosts

The Hollywood Reporter just published a nice oral history of Ron Howard's Apollo 13 (1995) by @aaroncouch.bsky.social I recommend that all fans of this film read this article, but in the meantime, here are some good quotes. 🖖 1/18

We have a cover! ‘For the Dead Remember: The Life of M. R. James’ will be published by Oxford University Press on 10 September 2026. Set your watches, mark your calendars, and spread the word!

Sounds like a great speech from Tim Farron, and I’m very glad someone is speaking for those who don’t just love this country, they actually like it.

This is the not sleeping, can't read or watch anything stage of grief.

Taking a long bus journey into town as I don't particularly feel like driving at the moment. Bus running 20 minutes late, but comfortable. Patronage a little lower than 30 years ago of course.

It's a shame Nicholson's gone from Westminster as he'd have been the perfect MP to raise this in the house. There must be some friendly former hacks and co in the Lords who could highlight it?

The actions leading up to the campaign to restore access to the BBC Written Archives, from Ian Greaves for CST: cstonline.net/is-the-bbc-a...

In Britain, every time you... — turn on a tap — flip a light switch — board a train or bus — post a letter — drop your child at nursery ... you take part in a system designed to extract wealth & concentrate power. 🧵 From cradle to grave, this is how a failed experiment has shaped your life.

Right, I have seen altogether too much Trump in my timeline today, and nowhere near enough cats, and you all need to fix this now, please.

Seeing links to podcasts from a few months ago reminds me of happier times, now lost and unrecoverable.

After the removal of the giant wooden steps, the University of London (Senate House) still seems keen to create some kind of giant ritual landscape - now with this circular formation of benches. From a Victoria County History perspective, I'm enjoying the knowing nod to English folk horror.

There are dozens of claims to be the oldest pub. As a buildings archaeologist, I find the evidence for some claims to be a tad thin. Take the Fighting Cocks at St Albans: the claimed date is 793... but its a dovecote of c1400 re-sited as a house c1600 & open as a pub by 1756.🧵

A very welcome repeat of this landmark 1992 series which also led to a BFI book of the same name. One of its researchers, Stephen Bourne, would be quick to point out it depended heavily on exploratory research of BBC files. You couldn't do that now.... www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

My dog is basically a Skarasen

Easington, County Durham, photo by Mary Turner from her series Dispossessed. Charity fundraiser to support a boy's cancer treatment.