The 'stinging rebuke' is open access here. You don't need to be an historian to applaud it. #Skystorians 2/2

Petition to save the Humanities at the University of Hertfordshire: c.org/9JLppW5tMS

On protecting what matters. @ihr.bsky.social @royalhistsoc.org @histassoc.bsky.social History UK www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

My dad would have been 80 today. This is the obituary I wrote 8 years ago www.theguardian.com/education/20...

If you’re after a bit of hope in dark times, I recommend Rebecca Solnit’s latest

When are they gonna do something that IS for the faint hearted? I've been waiting so long.

I was interviewed for this programme about the allure of the lighthouse: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

'Every life is limited by its refraction through light. We pour our guts into it and in the end ... it is just light flickering on a wall, a game of shadows, a half-remembered dream.' I wrote this piece about light, life and islands (open access): www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

as.ft.com/r/e94156d9-b... ‘Vladimir’ and the enduring appeal of campus satire

'Every life is limited by its refraction through light. We pour our guts into it and in the end ... it is just light flickering on a wall, a game of shadows, a half-remembered dream.' I wrote this piece about light, life and islands (open access): www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I reviewed Rowan Williams's Solidarity here www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

'Every life is limited by its refraction through light. We pour our guts into it and in the end ... it is just light flickering on a wall, a game of shadows, a half-remembered dream.' I wrote this piece about light, life and islands (open access): www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Why does no-one leave steaming hot pies next to street-level open windows these days? This is not the future the Beano promised us

Wunmi Mosaku, who won best supporting actress at the BAFTAs, thanked my mum (her old drama teacher) at the end of her speech! youtu.be/ExVzYoaSSec?...

My review of Melvyn Bragg's Another World www.theguardian.com/books/2026/f...

Join us in celebrating a milestone for radical history. The 100th issue of History Workshop Journal is out now, complete with with powerful research, fresh debates, and global perspectives on how history is made and remade: oxford.ly/4qJlO2s @historyworkshop.org.uk

I reviewed Robert Sellers's book about the Cambridge Footlights here literaryreview.co.uk/where-fry-me...

The latest issue of History Workshop Journal is out now, and it marks two exciting milestones: 50 years and 100 issues of innovative radical history. You can read the journal on the HWJ website through the link below! academic.oup.com/hwj...

Here is my review of Emma Warren's history of the youth club: www.the-tls.com/politics-soc...

Now an annual tradition at History Workshop, members of the team share their "Radical Reads" for 2025.

My review of Joseph Luzzi's The Innocents of Florence is here: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...

'Exiting the market' is such a crap euphemism. It's not like the 'university' will then go and apply all its assets to another market. Those assets (human and non-human) will be dispersed, wasted, destroyed. Un-creative destruction. Which we can't afford as a society.

A radio programme like the Shipping Forecast but it’s called Bin Day and it just reads out every single council in the country’s bin schedule

I reviewed Hu Anyan's I Deliver Parcels in Beijing here www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

The BBC are accidentally running the subtitles to Mrs Marple over the Mercury Prize, and it’s rather wonderful. A few of lines could plausibly have been written by Jarvis.

From Jung Chang’s Fly, Wild Swans: Oliver Twist is translated into Chinese as Orphan in the Capital of Fog

I reviewed Sarah Perry's Death of an Ordinary Man here www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

Calling historians and researchers. The BBC Written Archives Centre has changed its access rules without consultation. This means an end to proper independent research into the BBC's rich history. 178 have already signed the open letter. Please join the campaign here: tinyurl.com/bbcwaccampaign

'The newsreader Tina Ritchie imagines she is reading the midnight news to King Charles, who she knows listens in bed.' Joe Moran on night as a space of fear and imagination

Oxford supervision, mid 1980s style. From Richard Flanagan's Question 7

Just added to my collection of graduation booklets (useful for recalling names of past students). No prizes for guessing why there are three for 2022 and none for 2020 and 2021

Join us! We are advertising two part-time, paid Editorial Fellowships at History Workshop in 2025-27. Our fellowships support early career historians to develop expertise in public, radical and digital history & to gain experience of working in an editorial team. www.historyworkshop....

I wonder if the Microsoft Bing algorithm feels hurt that so many people type 'Google' into its search box

I reviewed Ian Mayes's history of the Guardian here www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

The Universal Turing Machine now live. Read online for free. Think about how you'd write your own. universalturingmachine.co.uk

“It’s very important history, but above all, it’s very readable and enjoyable history.” bit.ly/43yzlS9 Histories of news in the news: surviving editions of the 'Belfast News Letter', the world’s oldest, continuously published English-language daily, can now be accessed free #Skystorians

‘‘The mood over in Germany was, inevitably, distinctly more sombre. The defeated country was under military occupation by the Allies, towns and cities had been devastated by bombing, and millions were on the move - refugees in their own homeland, hungry and afraid’ Listening to the BBC on VE Day

Someone on Threads noticed you can type any random sentence into Google, then add “meaning” afterwards, and you’ll get an AI explanation of a famous idiom or phrase you just made up. Here is mine

I reviewed Fara Dabhoiwala's book about free speech here www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...

Really enjoying this new book by @jakecampbell88.bsky.social . A modern pilgrimage through the north country in the footsteps of saints and poets

The Times / Sunday Times paywall is down all weekend, so here's👇where you can read all my stuff for free, with selected highlights to follow: 🧵 www.thetimes.com/profile/john...

"universities are communities, sites of knowledge production, & of collective and collaborative problem-solving. However, they are no longer treated, funded, or indeed governed, as if they are any of these things." Dave Hitchcock on a decade of crisis. www.historyworkshop....

A truly lovely review by @joemoransblog.bsky.social of my book in the TLS (@thetls.bsky.social). www.the-tls.co.uk/politics-soc...

I reviewed Sam Wetherell's book Liverpool and the Unmaking of Britain here www.the-tls.co.uk/politics-soc...

Every so often I make a poem out of the headlines to Adrian Chiles’s articles in the Guardian. This is the latest one

I wrote this piece, 'You are not an angel', as a sort of letter to my students (it's open access) www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Day four of walking from London to New Zealand... www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuAR...

‘The things Chris Jefferies loved – books, music, theatre, opera, architecture, poetry – were, in the hands of the press, weapons to be used against him. They were evidence.’ @padrig.bsky.social on the ordeal of a former teacher wrongly accused of murder: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...