Christmas Eve! Time to wrap up my @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social advent with #24 @tricksterprince.bsky.social chatting about the brilliant Songs of Seven Dials: An Intimate History of 1920s and 1930s London newbooksnetwork.com/songs-of-sev...

Maybe don’t call it a ceasefire then?

Lovely Christmas present left on my doorstep today - it really is as amazing as I’d hoped -all 29 chapters. The illustrations look fantastic - big thanks to Lund Humphries and the editors. Never seen an academic book looking happier on a coffee table 🙂

Christmas quiz: how many flights makes you a "frequent flier"?

"Government officials"? Seems the Trump administration has already intervened in UK politics by putting the LibDems back into a coalition government 😀 (Anyway the intervention in another country's politics here is coming from the USA to the UK, not the other way around. Kindly fuck off.)

Castleford, Yorkshire, Christmas 1976, by Chris Killip. Terraced house and coal mine with a fence made of old house doors and a child looking out of the window.

So my first copy of the North American (Knopf) edition of #AdvanceBritannia has arrived. On sale January 6. Preorders: bookshop.org/p/books/adva...

Santa told us that people that don’t add alt text are getting coal in their stocking this year.

Left: Greta Thunberg arrested for holding a placard in London Right: Labour's Baron Hain, "This gov is treating Palestine action as equivalent to ISIS or al-Qaeda, which is intellectually bankrupt, politically unprincipled and morally wrong. I'm deeply ashamed"

There’s still time to come and pick up any last minute Christmas presents! We’re open today until 6.30 p.m. and tomorrow until 4!

Not just a national asset but an international asset. Trashed, ignored, diminished.

My Christmas story is now on release! The Business of Christmas is the sequel to my Regency story, Christmas Below Stairs, with established couple, Eli and Joseph books2read.com/u/3Lzj50 Publisher: (25% off during December) www.jms-books.com/ellie-thomas...

The #20s30s called…

Important to realise that one of Alice Sullivan's demands in her legal letter to University of Bristol is for the university to withdraw its Trans Inclusion Policy profalices.co.uk/wp-content/u... (the policy is already listed as under review by the university www.bristol.ac.uk/inclusion/lg...)

The degree of ‘over compliance’ has been a scandal for years.

Well, it’s 20 December, so… it’s the 93rd anniversary of a police raid on “Lady Austin’s camp boys” at 27 Holland Park Avenue, in which 60 men were arrested – including Austin Salmon, for conspiracy to corrupt morals, and keeping a disorderly house

Not much has changed - on gentrification and London: ‘Behind them comes big money, for this is not an individual process, though individuals are crucial to it – it is a colonisation, with ideological aims, and economic imperatives.’

Not much has changed - on gentrification and London: ‘Behind them comes big money, for this is not an individual process, though individuals are crucial to it – it is a colonisation, with ideological aims, and economic imperatives.’

Hi. Court reporter here again. I can confirm about a third of local cases I see are domestic abuse of women and girls. Where do you think the men start? And almost every columnist tells you to look elsewhere.

This is the second story in three days The Times has carried arguing against misogyny lessons in schools, which it describes as "some weird feminist attack on male children".

This thread by @goodlawproject.org — to which I would add this: biological sex is itself not binary. bsky.app/profile/kath...

That story didn’t have a happy ending in Seven Dials a century or so ago. It’s great to be reminded that other visions for our cities can win out, though. I wrote more about this at manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526181954/

Young people get a triple lock too: locked out of safe public spaces, then locked out of the job market, then locked out of buying a house Cf this brilliant work by @peterhyman.bsky.social & Shuab Gamote for @thenewworldmag.bsky.social & @demos-uk.bsky.social www.thenewworld.co.uk/peter-hyman-...

‘Community simply cannot exist without the presence of existing long-term residents.’ It’s hard not to be reminded of the battles that played out in Seven Dials in the 1920s & 30s reading this great piece by @jaseokundaye.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This reference to 'cultures that don't respect women' betrays gross ignorance of British (including) English women's history whether medieval, early modern, modern or contemporary. 1/3 #Skystorians

As usual, @nadiawhittomemp.bsky.social is lightyears ahead of her party on trans rights. Take particular note of her call for "co-production of services with trans people", an extraordinary rebuke of the Cass/Levy regime of contrived authority that has gatekept trans healthcare for decades.

‘Community simply cannot exist without the presence of existing long-term residents.’ It’s hard not to be reminded of the battles that played out in Seven Dials in the 1920s & 30s reading this great piece by @jaseokundaye.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

If you've read any books this year that you've really enjoyed, the best Christmas present for those authors is to review their work on Amazon, Goodreads etc. The algorithms live off reviews and a 1 star for 'bad postage' drags the whole thing down. Review the books you loved and balance it out.

Be more Quaker.

Happy Holidays!

Nothing fills me with more optimism than the major journal of publishing signing up for the "steal from authors in order to put all the book people out of work" industry.

Sometimes I have nightmares like this about being peer reviewed in real time

The final nail in the coffin

I keep coming back to this bizarre claim. What do they think the Labour Party is? When was at it best? When it couldn’t win a majority or hold power for more than a couple of years? When it was torn apart and almost wiped out? Deeply weird stuff

"One Whitehall source told The Telegraph there is a growing belief that if the Good Law Project wins its case, Ms Phillipson will tell the EHRC to reconsider its guidance." Well, yes, because it will be unlawful.

“The United States, according to the New York Times, has a Maginot Line problem. The problem is that Monsieur Maginot’s infamous namesake fortification has little to do with what really happened in 1940.” Me in Foreign Policy (gift link) foreignpolicy.com/2025/12/18/f...

jaw-dropping stuff, which in a sane world would lead to an intense media and party frenzy followed by her resignation within 48hrs

📣 New #OpenAccess article 🏮 Margo Buelens-Terryn, Ilja Van Damme and @thomassmits.bsky.social, 'Projecting cities: illustrated lantern lectures as forgotten practice of place promotion in Belgium, c. 1900 – c. 1920' 🔗 doi.org/10.1017/S096... #UrbanHistory

Our team's growing... Bishopsgate Institute is where history lives, learning thrives and people come together. Right now, we’re hiring for three key roles: 🟡 Visitor Experience Team Lead 🟡 Deputy Operations Manager 🟡 Infrastructure & Facilities Manager Curious? Find out more: bit.ly/3KEoy1X

New article out 🎉 Drawing on my PhD research, I explore the construction of the 'prostitute' and the 'client' within England's AIDS Policy in the late 1980s. Published with the @sshmedicine.bsky.social and now available to read here (though sadly not open access!): #histmed #histsex #AIDShistory

You can still order signed Lost Lanes books from me for Christmas if you're quick (i.e. by lunchtime Friday). I'll send them Royal Mail 24H tracked. lostlanes.co.uk/shop/ 🎅

Astonished at the number of creative intelligent discerning people who casually use “I asked Chat GPT” when talking about their daily lives. AI is bad, the work of bad people, who hate you, normalised with bad intent. You wouldn’t say “I wrote to the Daily Mail” I wish people had more shame.

Lola's work on this seriously under-examined aspect of HIV/AIDS and sex work history in the UK is so important, and I'm so happy to see it in print!

So beautiful - a life laid out.

How about illustrating this with a picture of a kid seeing his dad treat women like shit rather than a kid with a phone.

'An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the Russell Group university “does not have appropriate arrangements in place” for managing workplace stress and was unable to demonstrate that it is managing the risks associated with excessive workloads.' 1/2

Beautiful little drawing of a waterfowl in the log of the East India Company ship 'Rochester', ca. 1709-12, headed to China, kept by Captain Francis Stane (IOR/L/MAR/B/137B).

The Sacred Memory Bank ready to be packed up and shipped to Kirkby Gallery. The exhibition opens on 19th January and it’s VERY exciting! Come along. x