Excellent essay here on the slow strangling of mass literary culture in the West - most clearly in the US, but it's obviously happening here too

At her first interviews in 1906, 6ft 2 Lady Wrestler Miss Juno May huffed that she wished people would "stop asking if she was a woman suffragist" - confirming she wasn't. V. fun that she may have JUST missed meeting Kitty Marion (see @drfernriddell.bsky.social Death in Ten Minutes) in 1907! 💥

Proud to see @meghamohan.bsky.social commitment to important LGBTQ+ & women’s stories has upset the telegraph. Read her determined coverage of the horrific murder of Agnes Wanjiru here: www.bbc.com/news/article... and preorder Megha’s debut book, Herlands, here: www.penguin.co.uk/authors/3047...

Fresh from The Traitors, David Olusoga’s new series about the British Empire starts on BBC2 in 10 minutes

So I’ve been working in TV for nearly 14 years, and for the first time yesterday (on a shoot) I had to bring my passport to prove my right to work in the UK. Does anyone have any more info on why this is, I was told there’s ’new legislation’?

The world’s first trillionaire initiated a move that has left more than half a million people dead, most of whom are children.

New episode coming tomorrow! Catch up with the first episode of UPRISING: THE CIVIL WARS now… play.megaphone.fm/quvuyhkqs66t...

I don't understand why this isn't front page news everywhere: China intimidated UK university to ditch human rights research, documents show Shame on Sheffield Hallam www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

'To erase or distort history is not benign' ... this talk by Rev Dr Brown Douglas is chiming with the book I just finished by @drfernriddell.bsky.social about Queen Victoria..... Destruction of history is a violent act

Ps folks, if you haven't read 'Victoria's Secret: The private passion of a Queen' by the ever brilliant @drfernriddell.bsky.social, get that shit on your crimbo reading list, it is bloody brilliant, and a bit heartbreaking, but also AWESOME HISTORY DETECTING

Worth saying that despite asking for more than 12 hours we’ve had nothing back from Labour on this

Absolutely obsessed with this, someone check in with Nicholas Cage immediately

*😱 in historian*

Charles Dickens is the worst thing to happen to the Victorian Novel. Mary Elizabeth Braddon for life.

I did not know that Glasgow played a pivotal role in Rocky Horror!

Secrets of Cambridge 'porn' library revealed www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/...

“I’ll declare war on you if you don’t give me the peace prize” is an incredible bit

Just to say that teachers do an incredibly difficult job, with all the right intentions, and can be the defining influence on a young person's life. They are the exact opposite of poisoners because good teaching provides the antidote to so many dangers

There’s a reason academics universally rejected the initial push to canonize Charlie Kirk as a saint devoted to free speech. We know all too well that’s the exact opposite of reality.

Jilly Cooper forever. Devastated.

This article manages to name her husband before it names… her.

Here I am in 2020 in the flimsiest, most pitful PPE - like so many other NHS staff, some of whom died from the Covid they caught in their hospitals. Tory peer Michelle Mone - who today lost her legal case & must repay the govt £122m - dares to claim she’s been ‘scapegoated’. What, Michelle? 🧵

Michael Crick, journalist: ‘Today's accusation by David Lammy about Farage & the Hitler Youth probably stems from a story I did years ago about a teacher at Dulwich College writing to the headmaster to say Farage was unsuitable to be a prefect since a colleague said he had "neo-fascist" views.’

Hello good people of Bluesky, would anyone have access to a PDF of this pls: Victorian Crime Fiction in the Twenty-First Century: A Review Essay, 2015–2024 Available to Purchase Michael Harris-Peyton Dickens Studies Annual (2025) 56 (2): 311–358. doi.org/10.5325/dick...

tempt them back to room with banana

For anyone who is #teaching #18thcentury politics and/or electoral culture, or is doing #localhistory or #familyhistory, do check out our ECPPEC web resource : it's chock-full of short informative essays, polling data, and artefacts #skystorians ecppec.ncl.ac.uk

@clarefurniss.bsky.social - The Things We Leave Behind @davidcflanagan.bsky.social - Uncle Pete & the Undersea Adventure @quantick.bsky.social - And Other Stories @drfernriddell.bsky.social - Victoria's Secret: The Private Passion of a Queen Jill Calder/Justin Davies - Scribble & Scrawl Crawl cont..

Today at #WigtownBookFestival 📚 @gavinesler.bsky.social & Chris Turpin - Dead Cats & Truth Decay @gillianshirreffs.bsky.social - Elephant @vivianji.bsky.social & @mellingart.bsky.social - Story Consequences cont... #DumfriesAndGalloway tickets.wigtownbookfestival.com

An update on the nuns on the run.

I have rarely seen such unadulterated bollocks. I loved Twitter, it was so important for my job. Then a mad megalomaniac took it over and made it so no one would see my posts unless I paid him money - and even if I did that I would be submerged in nazi hate. But yeah this is our fault.

Ppl keep saying he’s functionally a King now but listen my country has an actual literal monarchy and no constitutionally mandated freedom of speech and they still let a prince ruin himself live on the state run television channel

well, they’ve done it. they’ve forced us to all dress up as a sexy Jimmy Kimmel for Halloween in protest

*waits for all the men to rush in and defend Corbyn as they do every. single. time.*

Vomiting my way thru the PM’s speech. www.gov.uk/government/s...

Look who came with

What’s the opposite of anti-fascism?

Thank God we don’t have the cancellation of satirical comedy in this country. I can’t wait to see how they deal with the Trump visit on The Mash Report, Mock The Week and Frankie Boyle’s New World Order!

“I don’t think the government can afford to bury our heads in the sand about the fact that trans people in our country today feel less safe than they did 10 years ago.” Do you think he practiced that in the mirror?

HACK. THE. PLANET.

Surely the most shocking news to be reported today was that Number 10 had a Director of Strategy.

‘I’m not far right but I went to a rally organised by Tommy Robinson’ is a pretty unconvincing position.

Another cis woman harmed by #LaboursTransBan and the Prime Minister’s weaponised transphobia Told to use the men's toilets bcos strangers refuse to believe she's a woman - she’s just tall A direct result of the government legitimising narrow, sexist beauty standards and giving cover to harassment

for some Sunday reading (I didn't write the headline obvs, because... YES, IT DOES) here's a throwback from me in 2019 www.theguardian.com/books/booksb...

Absolute legends: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...