Some spectacular cope from Niall Ferguson here

"So ... so I said ... why not sign your treaty here, at Versailles?"

one anecdote: I was searching for a link to one of my old papers on Google, and the automated Gemini summary attributed all of my lab's work to my husband

I continue to beg the media to sense-check the output of their voice to text software

Tonight, in Oxford Tommy Robinson and Laurence Fox addressed an empty chamber at almost midnight. This happened because Oxford residents, ordinary residents, showed up in their thousands to make clear that Oxford rejects the racist and divisive bile that Robinson and his ilk spread.

The Major Oak has stood at the heart of Sherwood Forest for over a thousand years. This spring, it failed to come into leaf and experts now believe it has died. But its story isn’t over. Its ancient trunk & branches will continue to support life for years to come: www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happen...

One thing we mean when we talk about "stronger social norms" is racist chants, slurs not seen as normal by most normal people. Football did more than anything else to put the idea of "zero tolerance" into practice. Elon Musk's X is doing more/trying harder than anyone else to renormalise racism

That’s going to be good news for rural and coastal areas, then

I don’t mind paywalls. Newspapers have to pay the bills. But I really hate the way the I makes you click through the “read with ads and cookies or subscribe” screen and then hits you with a paywall anyway.

Not Crossing Continents!

-Is this line for the petrol pump? -No, this is the line for the pump with no diesel. The line for the pump with no petrol is over there.

Lovely interfaith story from Manchester. Methodist minister mentions scrolls during a radio talk, and a few hours later finds stolen Torah scrolls on her church steps. The synagogue from which they were stolen is quickly identified. Rabbi calls it a miracle religionmediacentre.org.uk/morning-news...

It’s been 28 years since the rest of France and the world celebrated the incredible ‘black-blanc-beur’ team that won the World Cup in 1998, but Dan Hannan and his nice friends:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, and I know that Father’s Day can be a difficult time for ye mighty who have tracked across the lone and boundless sands to gaze upon my works, so if you would like to opt out of receiving intimations of transient mortality, please replay to this email with YES.

Cars do kill children. And the world has not been improved by the fact kids can’t play in the street.

Once again, makes you proud to be Scots

I mean, I don’t trust the Iranian government as far as I could throw them, but it’s bad for the US that even if this is purely a lie for propaganda purposes, it is an really believable lie that lots of people will immediately accept because it sounds so plausible.

Getting extremely sick of people who, the SECOND they discover I ride a bike, immediately launch into stories about how terrible so many cyclists are on the road. I don’t wanna be a bike bore, but this will radicalise me.

Don't believe me? The Southern Foodways Alliance will tell you all about how enriching corn saved the lives and health of thousands of poor folks. I know Corn Slurry Woman probably thinks the poors are icky, but this was genuinely a public health triumph. www.southernfoodways.org/malnourished...

One other important part of the 1945 myth - that the soldiers voted for Labour - also misses ofc that the citizen army of 1945 was a lot more middle class than the peacetime army!

Incidentally I’m glad I pushed past my irritation with the publicity that laid great stress on “in a world where the Norman Conquest never happened, Britain is a pagan country,” because of course that doesn’t follow - but the lack of a Norman Conquest is downstream of an earlier departure point.

Definitely worth a read but does contain quite a few "what the fuck did you think would happen" lines...

You wouldn't guess from the coverage that Makerfield is pretty much average for income and deprivation. It is Reform-leaning because it is old, white and less-educated, not because it is especially deprived

Ahh, that’s my lads (and, occasionally, lasses)

Just Ryan Bridge from Raise the Colours at the Conservative Party Immigration policy launch while on multiple bails in multiple English counties including for wounding "Thank you to the Home Shadow Secretary, Chris Phelps for inviting myself and Siobhan down today" www.facebook.com/reel/1184777...

Since Sept 2025, Keir Starmer and Shabana Mahmood have consistently said opposing things about a core principle here - of whether it wants to force some legal migrants already here to go (perhaps in very large numbers), or whether it is wrong to do that to legal migrants bsky.app/profile/sund...

Right—but the excellent point made here is that the infrastructure for these things doesn’t really exist anymore

Asides from the fact that Al Carns thinks British soldiers in Northern Ireland should get away with murder (literally, no exaggeration), this is also just false. It is very much also about guns.

Because women

Driving to Uig for the North Uist ferry on Friday I glanced across a loch adjacent to the road & noticed a Diver close to the bank & thankfully a lay-by. A quick stop was rewarded with close views of a pair of immaculate Black-throated Divers. Is there a more impeccable bird in the UK? #UKBirding

Scottish soccer fans in town for the World Cup made a side-trip to Fenway on Sunday and brought actual magic with them. It was such a delight and honor to get to accompany their singing.

A great scholar and a great human

Now, 82 years since the great historian Marc Bloch was executed by the Nazis for his sustained opposition to their regime. May his memory be an eternal blessing.

Time to listen to the least represented voices in British politics: those who think if British soldiers commit crimes, they should go to jail.

Oh, good. Really enjoyed book one!

Evensong time...

I think it should be a bigger deal than the US took 400 casualties, including 13 deaths, just to be summarily defeated in less than six months. This is our Falkland Islands War, except we're the Argentines.

I was surprised to see an early 20th c. copy of the 8th-9th c. CE St Martins high cross at Iona standing in St. Oswald’s churchyard in Oswestry. Another link to King Oswald of Northumbria and the battle of Maserfeld in what was north Powys at that time. Oswald was baptised & educated at Iona 617-632

I have absolutely no time for Qatar as a regime but good grief, the expression on his face at that particular remark…

A lot of high-minded theories about what's animating the Trump administration to do the things it does and what that might mean for the near future. But I think "how would the Bluth family from Arrested Development deal with this" is probably a pretty predictive rubric

Entirely seriously, we might not be too far away from another Dogger Bank incident. And as much as we joke about it, don't forget it resulted in the death of two innocent trawlermen.

After all, did the Pentagon’s computer not tell the joint chiefs, some time in 1967, that they won in ‘65?* * possibly not, but it’s a great story

I don't want my elderly relatives finding out that I write sweary books and bothering my mum, but I also know people trying to keep abusive exes from stalking them and 'real names only' policies make me horrified on their behalf.

I have used both. People use alts for all kinds of reasons, most of which are benign or at least shouldn't trouble law enforcement or anyone else (maybe I just don't want my contributions on trainspotting forums to be the first thing a potential employer learns about me!). Some of them save lives.

The target Labour voter, as @duncanrobinson.bsky.social has pointed out, is someone who was born in the 1950s, worked in a manual occupation, married young, bought their council house in the 80s and died during the COVID pandemic

This is the perfect Kemi Badenoch line: obviously crazy, coarsens our politics and the kind of thing that collapses if she ever put herself somewhere she might face a gentle follow-up question. What does she think the Gestapo *did*?

If in 1994, Tony Blair had said 'John Major is using Mugabe tactics', a sentence of comparable insanity to 'Ed Miliband is exactly like the Abacha regime' enough people in the media here in the UK would have a basic familiarity with the politics of Zimbabwe to go 'are you drunk?'

Unscientific survey: do you use an algorithmic or chronological timeline as your main view here? quick poll, 3 clicks total. strawpoll.com/7rnzVXJXYnO

Was it here Way Back in the Day or Mastodon where people used to demand you put a content note on posts that contained food because it might trigger people with food issues? Well, I thought it was ridiculous at the time, but now I'm starting to think it might have been a good idea for other reasons.

Group of teenagers lurking outside a Curry’s trying to bully you into buying them an iPad so they can go on Pinterest