I have made the first five chapters of my serialised novel FREE TO READ for the next TWO WEEKS. I would love for you to read it and to tell everyone you know to read it. calamitystrinket.ghost.io/a-stranger-a...

And here's my assistant, Little Parker Booowles!

Editing and grumpy about it

Shout out to the elderly man opposite me on the train in Sussex grumbling to his wife about the flags all over England right and ending his grumble with the very emphatic "Nazis! All of them!"

Great news for my fellow Ned Beauman fans: he has written an Anti-capitalist horror novel about the spawn of satan and it's absolutely fucking great titanbooks.com/creators/kit...

every “ancient tradition” was invented between 1848-1870 and every “modern perversion” is so ancient as to predate writing

Starts 17th September! Our new online course 'Roman Coinage in Britain' with Dr Peter Guest. A 5-week course, 6.00pm - 7.30pm (UK time) + recordings will be available. More info and booking at: www.hellenicandromanlibrary.org/Events/Event...

Pretty uncool how dust just accumulates on all your stuff even if you didn't do anything wrong.

I'm sitting here trying to map the I Claudius character names (Castor for Drusus the Younger eg) and I feel like I do when I try to look at US tax forms

I actually can't do a proper alt text for this image because words cannot express how much of a tangled nightmare this attempt at the Julio Claudian family tree is

Its more of a saxophone solo than a question really

Today’s news from Belfast. An actual proscribed terror group supposedly on ceasefire and enjoying the benefits of the Good Friday Agreement, doing actual terror. m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/...

This absolutely exceptional anecdote from Craig Brown's A Voyage Around the Queen made me laugh so hard I cried

Finished my book draft on Monday and I am already so full of energy that I've already started a new project and painted all the radiators on the ground floor of my house

In which I defend my boy, the handsome horror Caracella and explain that I would rather die than spend 20 minutes in a room with Marcus Aurelius

Today on #BetwixtTheSheets I am playing Shag, Marry, Kill, Roman emperor edition, with none other than the marvellous Emma Southon. First up, the emperor Caracalla Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

I have reached the disasterious Vorkosigan dinner party scene in A Civil Campaign while painting radiators and have absolutely lost control of my paintbrush several times

Don’t know who made this but thank you

“Between 2009 and 2012, iPhones had a built-in "Send to YouTube" button in the Photos app. Many of these uploads kept their default IMG_XXXX filenames, creating a time capsule of raw, unedited moments from random lives.” walzr.com/IMG_0001 this is beautiful 🥲

Me five minutes ago: I'm not going to read the Prince Andrew biography, so I'll just read this article about it Me after reading these two paragraphs: LMAO GOOD GOD

"We should go back to farming like the ancients." The ancients: "Farming is a literal curse from God."

@mangmangmang.bsky.social I need you to see this tiny container ship candle jdandkateindustries.com/products/canal

Just found my book in an airport WHSmith's for the first time and feel like I have achieved a life goal

I have finally completed the first draft of the next book so I hope everyone is ready for the next couple of months of my interminable complaints about editing

Wow Sally Rooney. Fair play. ‘I feel obliged to state once more that… I too support Palestine Action. … If the British state considers this "terrorism", then perhaps it should investigate the shady organisations that continue to promote my work and fund my activities, such as WH Smith and the BBC.’

This remains my finest work

Very funny cartoon from @stephencollins.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

After many years of idly hearing @ewacat.bsky.social talk about how great the Vorkosigan books are I finally read one this year. It's now 7 months later and I just finished the 11th book and am getting preemptively stressed about running out because they really are GREAT

We've all gone very soft on the Bush era now because the world is so terrible but we're watching the Katrina: Race Against Time documentary and fuck me

Never forget today, when, on this day in 1988, Zero Cool crashed 1,507 systems in one day.

This whole lineup is so extremely my jam I've spent the morning wondering if I can go to Bonn for 48 hours

Love reading the New Yorker Archives. The past was fucking wild

Our judges have been through literally HUNDREDS of websites and selected their shortlist for the Tiny Awards 2025 - voting's open now, so take a few minutes to check out some of the best, most beautiful, oddest, silliest websites of the past year, pick your favourite, TELL THE WORLD!: tinyawards.net

After 9 months of injury, physio and knee rehab and slowly going mad, I finally ran my first 5km of 2025 and my reward is I had to run past a dead, upside down badger

Excavations at Rome ahead of a new subway route have found a Roman-era street preserved nearly as well as parts of Pompeii, some walls still with remains of plaster!

Prohibitions are not spells. Law is not magic. When you prohibit a thing, all that means is the thing may be attended by different legal consequences than before. The thing is not extinguished by a mere prohibition: it can continue but in a different way with different (and unforeseen) effects.

Consistently amused that photos on vinted are always a blurry close up of a top in dim lighting and photos on depop always look like professionally shot onlyfans teasers

This is a BRILLIANT book, absolutely fascinating on both the social & romantic lives of international socialists in pre-Stalin Russia, but also a great book on how historians do their research. For a mere 99p!!!

If you want a weird but true fact to talk about: Dexter Holland, lead singer of The Offspring, was instrumental in this. His doctorial thesis in molecular biology was sequencing mRNA in HIV. The paper was also heavily cited in creating the COVID-19 vaccine.

Friends, my book HOTEL LUX is currently available for £0.99 on the Kindle Store. An intimate view of the revolution that changed the world, based on 7 years of research in archives across the globe. Please do check it out! www.amazon.co.uk/Hotel-Lux-In...

Pliny the Younger apparently thought sports were very stupid but it's funny that it's for the exact reason laid out in Seinfeld s6e12 ("The Label Maker")

We’ve made it to the top 20 again! If you love #BetwixtTheSheets, you can vote for us for this year’s Listener’s Choice Award at the British Podcast Awards. www.britishpodcastawards.com/voting

Using the Internet on mobile is great, huh?

"However, per the feedback from one of the couple, James Somerton, not only did he not bring his camera equipment, but he also started pretending to be the bride at the wedding." Leaving this sentence without further explanation should be a crime

Fair play to whoever this is holding up a Palestinian flag with “Let the aid in” on it right behind Micheál Martin as the Sam Maguire is presented 🇵🇸❤️

Exceptional work from the lad holding up a Let the Aid In Palestine sign at Croke Park directly behind the cup so he'll be in all the photos

If you loved an author’s book, tell them! They will completely ignore it because they’re fixated forever on the anonymous person who once gave them two stars on goodreads but it’s probably good for your karma

If I were an Ancient Greek I would be normal. I wouldn’t bang a god or my mom or anything

only one thing can truly fix everything wrong with all of us: another massive and extravagant world’s fair in chicago