I spoke with @luketurner.bsky.social about my exhibition INCOGNITO @humberstgallery.bsky.social absolutelycultured.com. @theobserveruk.bsky.social observer.co.uk/culture/inte...

Each time I write a book the why-did-I-bother-doing-that? stage comes around that bit earlier.

I’d like to bury these disruption labs in an ideas sandpit.

the fun thing about the BBC story is that I can't actually read about it for more than couple of minutes at a time because it makes me feel too insane :)

Interested in the MA in Gender & Sexuality? Come talk to me this Saturday at our postgrad open day. (Or just email me, that's cool too.) www.birmingham.ac.uk/study/postgr...

Still fuming they are using the Lovelace name to give themselves licence to bring together five dudes to discuss the future of the UK’s research system #AdaWashing

I blame the supplanting in the popular consciousness of The Royal British Legion with Help for Heroes.

A clear separation between Remembrance Day and Armed Forces Day (originally called Veterans Day, before a rebranding in 2009) at the end of June would be useful, lest we continue a descent into War Winterval or whatevs.

That was a very happy chat! You might enjoy my first foray into interwar London: read.uolpress.co.uk/read/democra...

One for @agregory.bsky.social - the Americanisation of Remembrance Sunday as generic Veterans' Day?

Really sharp piece from @davidhendy.bsky.social on the crisis at the BBC - well worth your time reading. There's a useful #20s30s comparison as well. davidhendy.substack.com/p/crisis-at-...

Remarkable how often the most confident and bullish takes come *not* from experts in the technology, *not* from experts in social and ethical implications of technology, but instead from some business school guy who specialises in "elite strategy" or similar.

Thought Anna Funder’s Wifedom brilliant. Perhaps the most effective dissection of patriarchy I’ve read. Here’s some reasons why I liked it as a historian.

I’d like to bury these disruption labs in an ideas sandpit.

This is a really sharp and suggestive essay on war, memory, and the raw sense of loss we have lost since the #20s30s. I’ll set it on my special subject next year.

How can we see the ecology of what isn't there? A pharmaceutical plant that wasn't built - and the industrial agriculture that lives in its place. A lake that was built for fishing and drained for industry and is mourned to this day. The ghosts of the landscape are also the history of capitalism.

💯

Of course, because this is precisely why they were put up and what they’re for.

Each time I write a book the why-did-I-bother-doing-that? stage comes around that bit earlier.

Rimbaud of Maghull!! What an amazing review of Wild Twin. @jeffyoung.bsky.social #BookSky

Very proud and thrilled to be on this shortlist, for books that 'stimulate new ways of thinking about contemporary Europe as a whole' nanovic.nd.edu/news/2026-la...

Several of these have been digitised as resources for a module on Anglo-German relations - warwick.ac.uk/services/lib... Cycling diaries kept during tours of 1933 & 1938, & lantern slides from journalist 'Petronella' in which tourist snaps are rendered less innocuous when you see the banners flying

Just to get this straight in my head, we've gone from "BBC badly edited a piece about Trump, but was accurate overall", to the "BBC isn't transphobic enough and is all woke", and we're still arguing, regardless of the myriad of issues with the BBC, whether there's a genuine right wing attack on it?

New article, definitely something for the social history fans - the monkey parade (or 'monkey run'). Teenagers promenading in towns and cities on Sunday evenings, flirting, cruising. It was dubbed the “monkey parade” or the “monkey run”. davehaslam.substack.com/p/before-tin...

19C Covent Garden as gothic nightmare

Thought for the day: On Bluesky, it's "nice" to "Like", but it's (more) effective to Repost. Be effective. (You can also be nice).

putting her phone in a pouch would have made her killers less transphobic and violent?

This is beautiful. #20s30s

Excerpt from #AdvanceBritannia which is now available in the UK! North American release January 6. uk.bookshop.org/p/books/brit...

There are many subtle and complex arguments one can have about the future of the BBC — but I guarantee you that no other channel or streaming service will be as committed to factual programming, children’s education, history shows, religious discussion, poetry, arts, or state of the nation debate

Obviously, it’s been a tough day for the BBC. Big organisations, working under big pressure, will sadly make errors But I still feel huge pride in hosting a BBC podcast, and having previously spent 11 years making a world-renowned children’s show that no other broadcaster would have made

Tidying up and reunited with no 32 of @themodernist.bsky.social journal as edited by #RuthLang. My contrib was an exploration of the contemporary not-seeing of Elizabeth Denby.

Hi there! We’re the Archive Sector Leadership team at The National Archives UK. We support archives of all types and sizes across England. Lend us a follow and we’ll keep you updated with opportunities for free training, networking, grants, written guidance and more! (1/2)

This as not simply populism, it's an extreme assault on public institutions and structures. The last week has been about the BBC, but comes alongside mounting attacks on judicial independence/the European Court of Human Rights. Treating each issue in isolation will see them killed off one by one.

"There is more realness in Dennis Potter’s weirdness than in the majority of overwrought series striving for authenticity" An excellent @thequietus.com long read by Darran Anderson on one of the greatest writers ever to work in television thequietus.com/opinion-and-...

I think this counts as successful research impact. Turning your archive work into a bestselling trade book, which is then optioned as a feature film. www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Incompetence and failure is the objective.

A good day to listen to our proud, joyous history of the BBC: One of the greatest British inventions of the 20th Century. An institution which, even at its worst, is far better than its detractors podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

What you’re witnessing is a populist assault on the BBC. This is not an institutional scandal in any meaningful sense of the word. It is an attack on public service broadcasting. iandunt.substack.com/p/extra-edit...

A few weeks ago, I met up with @dannycarrier.bsky.social from the Camden New Journal to talk about histories of London, the 1920s & 1930s, and my new book Songs of Seven Dials. You can read more about the book and our conversation at edition.pagesuite.com/html5/reader...

There really is something magical about encountering a document full of aliveness & intimacy among other more prosaic, less singular ones. I think it almost feels like momentarily being able to converse with the person no matter how many decades or more divide our lives from theirs

'Student Voice' in universities functions the same as 'The People' in contemporary political debate. Discuss.

Managers cite concern for students in everything they do, but never actually prioritise student opinion or voices in any of their decision making. They do irreparable harm to student courses and turn around to staff and ask: ‘right: how can we improve student satisfaction and recruitment?’

The right have always hated the BBC because, for all its faults, it isn't owned by a billionaire who would use it to get govt to do what he wants. Its founding principles, inspired by what dictators were already doing with radio in the 1920s, were to broadcast in the service of the British public.

Was really struck by what a lovely inspiring exercise this is, like a primary school version of Mary Oliver’s Instructions for living a life Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it