Congratulations to my PhD student @loladickinson.bsky.social on passing with no corrections! Her PhD, 'Sex work, public health & activism at the height of Britain's HIV/AIDS crisis' is an immensely important intervention in the history of sex work & of HIV/AIDS & is an absolute tour de force. 🎉

Kid the Younger, watching Chris Packham hold a strange breathing land-fish on Evolution: I want a pet. I want that.

I call this series "Green Things; Waiting".

the colonial urge to possess what belongs to nobody and belongs to everybody

Do non-migrants have any idea how *utterly terrifying* it is for those who have IDL in the UK; have built a life here, have British kids & forged a sense of love & belonging to be bombarded with news that a sizeable % of the population & government want to be able to take that away & deport us?

No matter what happens today, this week, this year... A kingfisher still landed on my head.

I'm wondering what it means when a kingfisher lands on your head. Because I was just sitting eating breakfast with the patio door open. AND A KINGFISHER FLEW IN AND LANDED ON MY HEAD.

The correct term for attempting to get the stench of Axe Body Spray out of your teenager's possessions is 'de-axescentioning'.

Glorious in every language.

Blackbird says: the late bird also gets the worm.

IF YOU FUCKING WHAT?

Someone bought an old shoreside property in my parent's town in Newfoundland. They rebuilt it three stories high & painted it a hideous shade of purple, blocking the view of everyone in the cove. Now it's on Air BnB for £2300 a week. As we say back home: May the Lord God spoil all their fish.

The victim in this horrendous case is not calling for it, but honestly I’d just like to see dockless electric hire bikes banned. They’re a menace and extremely dangerous. Casual cyclists can get by fine with standard hire bikes. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

They don't deserve the F. Let the government know.

We've known for a while that trans exclusionary radicals (I've decided they don't deserve the F) don't speak for the majority of women; and that the majority of people see these policies as cruel, unworkable, and against human rights. So let's prove it. Sign and support: goodlawproject.org/s/d23a8a

A colourful day at the allotment, with wild plums, white currants, beetroot, broccoli and pointed cabbage in my end-of-work bouquet.

Sunset over the chimney pots

Yeah, and they shouldn't be advancing science, winning Olympic medals, or developing the most influential political and economic theories of the twentieth century either. How DARE they. God, what a frothing racist piece of shit Matt Badlose is.

Today (or at least this morning, before it turns to Canada Day) is Memorial Day in Newfoundland, marking the anniversary of Beaumont Hamel, the 1916 battle that saw the Newfoundland Regiment get virtually wiped out by enemy fire as they crossed no-man's-land... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoria...

Today (or at least this morning, before it turns to Canada Day) is Memorial Day in Newfoundland, marking the anniversary of Beaumont Hamel, the 1916 battle that saw the Newfoundland Regiment get virtually wiped out by enemy fire as they crossed no-man's-land... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoria...

Have been largely avoiding the news about failings in NHS maternity care so as to not re-traumatize myself (I'm sure I'm not the only one), but I have this to say. Is appointing a new Commissioner/Inspectorate really the only form of idea any government in the UK is capable of producing?

Times are terribly tough for historians at the moment, but this is a wonderful scheme, a ray of light. #Skystorians

In Newfoundland we often use 'fuckin' in place of 'like' or 'um'. Maybe de Berniers would prefer that? I haven't read the article. I don't need to. The first sentence of the precis tells me that doing so will result in throwing my laptop against the wall. Down with the sanctimonious speech police!

To all the Americans flexing about how it's not really that hot in Europe, just a typical day in the southern US, etc: I almost froze to death at a conference in Austin in June, such is the nature of your insane air-conditioning, so maybe shut up? Here, our schools don't even have AC.

It will never stop being funny and true that when the Great Northern recorded voice says, 'Welcome to this Great Northern service to King's Lynn', it says 'service' as though it's in sarcastic air quotes.

A blessed solstice to all, from a place where this day has been marked by humans for tens of thousands of years.

Hi #IndigiSky I need your help! The gov't of Newfoundland is censoring a cultural heritage exhibit by Innu Nation in Nitassinan/Labrador. All details in this article. We're furious and up for a fight. I need advice and tips on the best way to do so. theindependent.ca/news/provinc...

Hi #IndigiSky I need your help! The gov't of Newfoundland is censoring a cultural heritage exhibit by Innu Nation in Nitassinan/Labrador. All details in this article. We're furious and up for a fight. I need advice and tips on the best way to do so. theindependent.ca/news/provinc...

DR CONGO!!!!

I have had SO many students like Robot Mel--late diagnosed dyslexics who just didn't get the support they needed early one--and they are often some of the most creative and alternative thinkers I've taught. Exactly the kind of people we need in higher education!!!

Bans, moral panics, the shutdown of thousands of third spaces, and now maybe you can't get a student loan to study anything unless you pass the worst subject (for many) at the most chaotic (for many) time of life. Why does England hate its young people so much? www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Bans, moral panics, the shutdown of thousands of third spaces, and now maybe you can't get a student loan to study anything unless you pass the worst subject (for many) at the most chaotic (for many) time of life. Why does England hate its young people so much? www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Around mid-late May, Burnham started spouting the same anti-immigration lines as the Government. Could we please start taking seriously the idea that most Labour voters (and perhaps most voters!) actually don't like this anti-human attack on migrants?

Now this is public history with teeth! Starbucks deserves this and more for using AI to create a marketing campaign that turned the 1980 massacre and torture of pro-democracy protestors into a joke. If only we took our democratic heritage as seriously. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

Today is the tenth anniversary of Jo Cox's murder by a white supremacist on her way to a surgery in Birstall in her constituency whose ethnic diversity she praised in her maiden speech to the Commons. Her murderer shouted "Britain first" as he shot and stabbed her to death.

Now this is public history with teeth! Starbucks deserves this and more for using AI to create a marketing campaign that turned the 1980 massacre and torture of pro-democracy protestors into a joke. If only we took our democratic heritage as seriously. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

Palestine Action is not like the suffragettes, it’s true. Because one suffragette threw a hatchet at the prime minister, while another bombed the chancellor’s house.

Is it possible to buy shares in popular VPN businesses in the next couple of months? I have a feeling VPNs are about to get really popular in the UK.

And this is why people hate the Oxford Union. Ashamed of the association doesn't even begin to cover it. I'll be out there protesting with the other anti-racists. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Under 16s to be banned from social media, and a white supremacist who fuels riots on our streets, still allowed to run a whole platform.

For a historian of attempts to 'ban' things, this poll is nonsensical. If you do not think banning something will work, then *you do not in fact support banning something*. Maybe one day I'll see an end to morally-symbolic & deeply ineffective/harmful legislation, but that day is not today.

it costs us over £600 a month to have our 3yr old in nursery full time and that’s after the free working parent hours and tax free childcare but yeah it’s probably the phones

Facebook memories informs me it is the sixth anniversary of Ice Cube using this picture to prove some Erich Von Daniken shit about the Mexicans originally coming from Ethiopia, and forgetting to crop out “a gift from the people of Ethiopia from the people of Mexico” on the relevant picture

It is astounding to me how the Manosphere has turbocharged toxic masculinity largely by attempting to convince boys/men that friendship, kindness, and even love itself are unmanly. Thank god almost every man and boy I know, including my own kids, demonstrate the utter lie of this every day.

Even 'race riots' is a euphemism for 'racist riots'.

I have to say, listening to the Today programme dedicate an entire (context free) section about whether migrants are more likely to be convicted criminals *the morning after* hundreds of non-migrants of my own ethnicity committed a pogrom is blood boiling.

Want to ban harm? Want to ban hate? Want to seriously curtail the use of the Internet by a particularly dangerous demographic? Ban X.

I watched a beautiful Lancaster sunset yesterday evening, on a hillside entirely populated by me and a bunch of teenagers. Well played, teenagers of Lancaster, on your hang out spot. Well played.

Frozen concentrate juice returns to Canada!!! Not only does it taste better, contain more nutrients, generate less rubbish & consist of more *actual juice* than overpriced cartons, when you mix it just right it has a pleasing icy slush on top. Now to get it in the UK... www.cbc.ca/news/busines...

It's rage-inducing that kids are being banned from social media yet they also have to do every inch of their bloody homework online. Do lawmakers & the DoE realise how difficult this makes policing screen/device use? And how shit it is for learning? Scrap this stupid law & fund schools better.