Really enjoyed presenting my research paper, 'Anti-Apartheid in Britain: From Classical Anti-Colonialism to the New Anti-Imperialism, 1960-1975', at Friday's 'Investigating Anti-Apartheid Networks' workshop. Thanks so much to Connal Parr & @padraigdurnin.bsky.social for the invitation!

Glasgow City Council: You finish that mural of Mary Barbour? Artist: Sure did boss, real fuckin sexy just like you asked. Glasgow City Council: What.

An afternoon of English non-league football (the Southern Counties East Division One Cup final no less).

Great trip down to Bristol to speak about the Dunnes anti-apartheid strike and the Irish labour movement in the 1980s at the Radical History Festival over the weekend – never having been down here at all before it I wasn't sure what to expect but it's a great place to visit!

Will miss him! Came to Tannadice with plenty clubs under his belt when neither us nor his career were at a high point yet managed to radiate the demeanour of a boyhood fan living the dream. Probably time to move on but would love to see him back in a coaching role down the line.

If anyone has a copy of Ben Turok's Nothing But the Truth they're willing to lend/part with for a bit less than the forty-odd quid it's going for online give me a shout – happy to pay for it and/or cover the postage.

SSP showing that a small left party with no press visibility can still register when it runs a serious campaign with a local candidate that starts more than two weeks before polling day – wouldn't have been miles off a seat in the four-seater ward here if this was a full election.

‘They each would wear the other one’s shoes’ I’m imagining Neil Gow as an old Presbyterian minister with him and Dougie Maclean. Neil is the ghost from the Michael Marra song. He’s got a bit missing. I rather fancy that’s true of ghosts, they’re like us in that way, bits missing, broken.

With Nujoma passes the era of Africa's liberation generation of leaders – his name came up in a document I was reading this week for work and thought crossed my head that he was possibly the last living person anywhere to largely undisputedly hold the title of "father of the nation".

Interested on literature on the South African intelligence services activities in Europe and North America during the 1970s and 80s: infiltration/sabotage of anti-apartheid activism, links to the transnational far-right, collaboration/conflict with US/British/European intelligence services etc.

Interested on literature on the South African intelligence services activities in Europe and North America during the 1970s and 80s: infiltration/sabotage of anti-apartheid activism, links to the transnational far-right, collaboration/conflict with US/British/European intelligence services etc.

Happy publication week! Delighted (& slightly terrified) my first book is out in the wild for everyone to read 😂 Had so much fun going down the rabbit hole researching these families and hope that’s evident on the page #histfam

Nothing quite like the high Paisleyite world view expanded from Ulster to global affairs at large.

Abdul-Hakim Wadi from Qusra village, near Nablus, was kidnapped from his home in a dawn raid by Zionist occupation forces. Rafat Taha and Abdullah Az-Zein were also kidnapped in Hebron. imemc.org/article/sold...

Upcoming event Online talk: Life in Balata refugee camp (details attached). ⏰ Tuesday 21 January at 6pm GMT. Please register here: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi... (free to members and non members)

The Dundee Nablus Twinning Association is now on Bsky! We'll share Dundee and Nablus news here so please follow us and share 🇵🇸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Membership is available to all: dundee-nablus.org.uk/join-us/

My first piece on the new volume of @difp-ria.bsky.social (&first Bluesky post!), and it’s all about Irish diplomacy during Bernadette Devlin McAliskey’s 1969 US tour: www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2... @rtebrainstorm.bsky.social

Have been going through a difficult end to a relationship recently and I don't think I've ever seen anything as noxious if not dangerous as the sort of thing the Instagram algorithm has served up since it figured it out (presumably from harvesting data from DMs?).

Two very old milestones in the Howe o' Strathmartine (at Balluderon and Bridgefoot). Anyone know anything about dating them?

Sky Sports defying the cynics who say they don’t take the Dundee derby seriously by not confusing the two teams once during the entire three-minute pre-match build-up

Unexpectedly transported back to 2014 this afternoon while running up a back-road in the Carse of Gowrie.

Dundee United captain Paul Hegarty shakes hands with his Manchester United counterpart Bryan Robson before a UEFA Cup third round match at Old Trafford, with both Hegarty and Robson on the scoresheet. (1984)

As much as I'll always take a Celtic win over Rangers (and unlike a lot of non-OF fans I'll happily say that publicly as well as privately), that headline really sums up the great curse of the Scottish game for most of the last 130 years.

Walking along the Tay at sunset on Tuesday.

Betty Battenberg was clearly one of these old folk you occasionally meet on Palestine solidarity stalls who deliver you an unbidden ten minute rant about the bombing of the King David Hotel.

There's nae toon like meh hame toon.

Now Éamon Ó Cuív has retired, is this the first time neither De Valera nor one of his children or grandchildren has held elected office since 1919?

Wonderful watching the great Andy Irvine last night, a man whose career is going into its seventh decade in fine fettle. Probably been listening to his Planxty/Sweeney's Men material since I was about 12 or 13!

Ask and ye shall etc.

Reading a Ralph Glasser's memoir of his childhood in the Gorbals at the moment and I'm losing it at the section where he describes walking lost around a wasteland after everything he knew had been raised to the ground.

There's a team, team, the finest that we've seen... in Cardonald?

Unlikely to happen given I'm not a minor Victorian industrialist but I'd enjoy if after I passed my friends would club together to pay for a public drinking fountain, even if it ended up sitting rather forelornly plugged up in a bit of dead space outside an Asda a century later.

'When U.S. Grant paid a visit to my home town They spruced it up with a lick of paint and they showed him round Two bands played in fierce competition as the rain fell down And the General said: "What a mighty long bridge for such a mighty little old town."'

Wee bit of belated news for BSky-only folk: started working (remotely) as a Research Assistant on the 'Investigating Anti-Apartheid Networks Past and Present' project under Connal Parr at Northumbria Uni last week. Hopefully some interesting work going to come out of this – excited to get started!

Some corporate outreach to the southside of Glasgow's large Welsh-speaking community.

Still feels a wee bittie quiet on here but I've had enough of a tide of follows from Twitter mutuals over the past few weeks that I should perhaps make an effort to at least double-post onto BlueSky?

Keeping this mostly as a placeholder account for the time being given most people I interact with are still on Twitter/X more, but I thought it was prudent to be ready to move over.