Haig in Italy The Haig poppy has been appropriated by an Italian group dedicated to preventing the sexual abuse of girls and women. They held a meeting in a room decorated with statues of naked men. www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTju...

Fascinated to be asked to grade an AI response to a request for advice on a romantic trip to Boston avoiding sites of sporting or retail interest. As we all know, Boston is a pleasant little town in Lincolnshire with several churches and an inland port. The AI response ignored these.

In 1940 Hitler succeeded where Möltke failed in taking France, and Goering attempted to follow Giulio Douhet in the bombing of Britain and failed.

Putin is attempting the same thing in Ukraine and has so far failed. Were he to attempt the same thing elsewhere in Europe, now, he would probably succeed.

Nigel Farage needs our help in securing victory for Reform. How ? Idea! Can we persuade Liz Truss to defect to Reform? (Nadine's there, they could have some great chinwags.)

Strategic idea: in the event that the USA remains uninvolved, Russia attacks the EU and Russia loses Europe would, once again, play a pivotal role in world affairs.

Has anyone published anything relating strategy to layered thinking?

When next you consider using ChatGPT remember it generated this (all on its own):

I foresee a notable reduction in the number of French female babies being christened 'Ghislaine'.

Can I visit Lancashire Landings on it?

Donbas - twinned with Sudetenland.

Will European leaders have the courage and means to substitute for the US support which will doubtlessly be withdrawn as soon as Zelenskyy says 'no' to Putin?

202508:2006 Test.

Test.

So just how well is the US tourism industry now?

Can someone please post the link to the database used to train ChatGPT?

"Did Foch stop the battle of Amiens", I asked ChatGPT. In its answer it stated: "By 11 August, it was clear that the initial shock advantage had worn off. ..Foch ... decided that continuing to push directly toward Amiens ... ordered ... Fourth Army to stop its frontal advance in that sector ...".

Test of new feed

Test

It is a measure of the extraordinary accuracy of AI that when I search using the argument 'Torode industrial correspondent of the Guardian' all the replies concern a sacked Australian cook.

I have been told that publishers prefer to deal direct with authors rather than through an agent. Please comment.

If you are interested, CUP have released a 20% discount code for Making Sense of the Great War. You can get it for £23.99 through their website using the code HIST2425. Find more information - and purchase it - here: bit.ly/4mYM08h #History #Military #NewBook #FirstWorldWar #MilitaryMorale

Can anyone comment on the use of Knowledge Graphs and associated software?

So, Cantuar and Gallia gone, How long before Scotus goes? This Reformation idea, bit like Brexit really. 'Course if there were a Pope ... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I do not want anything evil to happen to Simon Jenkins, but should any of his history teachers be alive I hope they hide their heads in shame. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

When Trump begins to suffer from Dementia, how will we know?

Did anyone in Syria ever find those Weapons of Mass Destruction?

This is an excellent example of the fundamental flaw in (almost) all AI systems: they have no ability to self-analyse such that the source of a rule they write themselves (or is written into them) remains undetectable. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Sometimes wonder if Trump modelled himself on Bottomley, spartacus-educational.com/FWWbottomley...

To any Americans feeling desperate, please remember the cases of Stefan Zweig and Walter Benjamin and Don't Go There. All this too shall pass.

Interesting: I had always understood that the surrender was signed on Luneberg Heath. Notably perhaps, Montgomery was absent from Reims. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

For the record: I never asked to live in interesting times.

This ludicrous claim by Rachel Maddow's, that Trump's tarriff obsession derives from a book citing a non-existent person turns out to be, er, true. www.snopes.com/news/2025/04...

Here is the best that ChapGPT can do:

Going through a 1927 first edition of Callwell on Sir Henry Wilson and discover some of the index pages are improperly cut. So that book has had to wait 98 years for someone to open it properly. So, I have taken a knife to Sir Henry Wilson.

Somewhere there is a man called Goldberg, thoroughly peeved at having been excluded from a most important chat. Could be Whoopie, but I'd put my money on ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luciann...

Support for my contention that the big threat AI poses is the inability of (probably) all AI systems to explain how they reach their conclusions. This consequence is a furious Norwegian. Other consequences could include WW-III. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Why might Putin want to end the war ASAP? Could it be because he doesn't want a rearmed Europe on his flanks? Does he think Europe would be so stupid as to believe that he would never restart it?

Will be fascinating to see how, for example, the US Navy copes with rising sea levels overflowing its harbours, for which they remain unprepared because the climate change studies were never completed. www.reuters.com/world/us/us-...

I wondered. www.theatlantic.com/internationa...

Don to Elon: why do we need so many people in the US Army? Apart from the ceremonial stuff, why don't we subcontract the rest to the Russians?

Interviewed by Channel 5 as part of an upcoming series on extreme weather events. My contribution: the 1952 smog of London. Discovered that their oldest interviewee so far is 92 years old and was a new graduate at the time of the smog. He later worked on the Clean Air Act.

Ignoring Starmer's defence spending increase, enormous as it is compared with the last 40 years and trivial as it will seem in three years time, will American bankers loan us and Europe money or will Trump hobble them?

Email from the IWM: "Our First World War Galleries tell the story of how the ‘Great War’ and its impact on people’s lives" Clearly its effect on the IWM's grammar was devastating.

Recent events show we've learned a little since 1918: the Jews aren't being blamed for everything and everyone recognises attempts at appeasement for what they are.

Anyone who declares that Russia invaded Ukraine without provocation and is an aggressor is unlikely to garner much publicity. But in this age of chronic attention-seeking the only way of being noticed is to blame Ukraine exclusively. Balance, analysis, judgement? Who they?

Some rules for the first draft of history which can also apply to the second. www.theguardian.com/science/blog...

Anyone wanting to oppose Musk directly could do worse than contribute to Wikipedia. www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Not entirely clear what tariffs Trump is applying to Russia. Anyone know?