With this settlement the US is worse off in every way than it was before the war; Iran is strengthened by the huge new tolls in the Straits of Hormuz, paid by the whole world. (1/14)

I love this! The brilliant Holly Dunsworth is reviewing Sapiens, one page at a time, separating myth from fact… Let’s dive in! ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2026/03/sapi...

I think a badger is the very least you can expect.

@folkhorrormagpie.bsky.social hurrah for your intro to Bog People. A perfect, succinct, and significantly more stylish counter to the horrors of Matthew Goodwin's view of class, inequality, and national decline: Suicide of a Nation.

Goodness me Jenrick is a brittle angry defensive little man @lewisgoodall.com

mom can you pick me up at the strait of hormuz, my friends are laughing at me and wont help

A few photos from my recent wanderings. I am walking a virtual Lands End to John O'Groats this year which means averaging out 16.8 miles per week. Quite a long a way it turns out (although this hasn't been a massive revelation) but I am now halfway between Exeter and Bristol.

The mistake was putting Churchill on the banknote in the first place. It should have been highly predictable that some people would lose their minds over it being changed. Be great if the UK could get over it's WW2 fetish soon.

Some societies use their surplus resources to build beautiful monuments and places of worship, other societies use their surplus resources to bomb them.

Goodwin on @lbc.co.uk banging on about campaigning in Urdu has put the UK on a short road to an electoral system akin to Sierra Leone's. There is a superb book called Revolt on the Right that he should read on the hows and whys of the rise of Farage.

“Everyone should be allowed to carry a gun for their safety but the government can murder you in the street if you have a gun” is an incredible endpoint for the conservative moment

If you're living somewhere outside the USA, one thing you can do is pressure your leaders to boycott World Cup and Olympic events here.

I love Stephen. The face of a doomed WW1 officer and the wardrobe of John Travolta. #thetraitors

More FBI mind games #thetraitors

The days are again stretching out, and campuses we work on are starting to come back to life, so its time to (re)share a few things at the start of term! 1/4

When you 'telling the truth' is such a novel concept you feel you have to announce it in advance

Honest Bob really rates himself, doesn't he? What a nauseating "you're lucky to have a man like me what with my profound insights" Reform UK speech he's giving. It's almost as if he was a bystander when the Tories made policy.

A new @exeter.ac.uk project, Past Harvests, will use 600 years of data to explore how historic farming systems coped with change. The team will assess sustainability from 1250 to 1850, offering insights to inform future land-use decisions. More info: sites.exeter.ac.uk/pastharvests/ #FoodStudies

@lewisgoodall.com this pastor you're talking to reminds of interviews with Russian diplomats that I have heard on LBC. Remarkable.

I call on my party and my government to remove themselves entirely from X and communicate with the public where they actually participate online and can be protected from such illegality.

Marco Rubio is reportedly saying Maduro will stand trial in US courts. Which means it’s now the US administration’s position that US courts can hold foreign presidents, but not the US president, accountable for crimes.

Recipient of the Fifa peace prize strikes again.

Sitting in a Chislehurst pub listening to the barman tell someone how he's mistaken for a celebrity all the time. "Don't have the heart to tell them I'm not them, they all want to know how I'm getting on. Got recognised in a bar in Alicante once". Nope. Still don't know who his doppelganger is.

Furness Book Fair, 2026 Open to an indie authors and indie bookshops in the South Lakes area. Contact me for more details.

The FIFA peace prize 🤣 Who knew?

Crikey Farage has really lost the plot today... Bernard Manning? He isn't really cut out for the kind of politics where he isn't controlling the agenda, is he?

People of Prudhoe poetry

'Cleaning to the back of the cupboard' - heard this for the first time in a political interview today. Is this the new 'straining every sinew', the new 'rolling up our sleeves'?

Reform is a party that says things that appeal to racists, fields racist candidates, fawns over racist world leaders, made a convicted racist guest of honour at their conference, and whose leader refuses to outright deny having racially abused people. If only there were a word for such a party.

"Torn and twisted at the foot of a burning bike..."

This is an important and heartfelt letter. Unfortunately there has been a real blindspot among some people on the British and European left. We should oppose imperialism and fascism, wherever they occur. heckle.scot/2025/11/an-o...

Meanwhile, if anyone thinks there are are many Reform voters who think "I have zero trust in Labour on immigration, the small boats are still arriving, but *this* latest gesture at hardline policy is the one that will make me look again" I have a bridge to sell you. So who is this policy for?

Fungi and mold earlier today... (Greenlee and Stonefolds, Northumberland National Park)

Published today: 'Atlantic Isles: Travel and Identity in the British and Irish West, 1880–1940', by Gareth Roddy bit.ly/4nwj9Y2 Gareth's book is the latest title in the Society's New Historical Perspectives series @uolpress.bsky.social. Available Open Access and in paperback print #Skystorians 1/2

Congratulations to new Dr Nick Pepper (@thenickpepper.bsky.social) who successfully defended his PhD thesis, "Preserving Thirlwall Castle: Policy, Practice, and the History of Northumberland National Park, 1956-2002" on Friday!

This is what happens when you rely on Matthew Goodwin and other bad faith Twitter actors for your information

Allendale today... glorious afternoon

When everyone has gone home, and I've turned out the lights, after the last gig on a Saturday night... what a day @allenvalleysfolk.bsky.social

Our Allen Valleys Folk Festival decorations team have done us proud with their Land of Lead and Silver themed stage and auditorium dressing... brilliant.

Gulls and graffiti

Go @marina-purkiss.bsky.social! Excellent challenging of the Ferrari obsession with Angela Rayner. He doesn't like it up him!

Sentencing policy has been in the crosshairs of the RW press for decades. It has been the political lever of choice for successive home secs. Consequently we have more punitive sentences than ever before. But it was always meant for other people, we weren't supposed to lock up people like us...

Looking forward to Farage condemning the length of sentences handed down to Just Stop Oil protesters. Surely... surely... he's only interested in the protection of freedom of expression. I can't believe for one second he has other motivations.

fundamentally the problem is that if you think "hotels are where I stay on holiday and I like being on holiday so living in a hotel must be fun and it's not fair others get to do it and not me" then you have the intellectual reasoning of a little child and it's going to be hard to engage with you

Come to this gig in Allendale! Tickets from Gigantic. There will be very few opportunities to see Frankie at this price again.

A walk around Dipton Mill

The wistful pigeon of Conwy Castle.

The plaster(ed) animals of Plas Mawr.

Northumbrian North Pennines... quite a storm.