Andrew Ayton

@davidgrummitt.bsky.social is on here. And, just now, @seanc1509.bsky.social

Form for the government evacuations scheme filled out by Sir Hubert Gough

You can almost hear the crotchety voice of this retired WWI general in his volunteer form to help with evacuating London in 1939.

"Previous experience: ??? - see books of reference

Available now for voluntary social work if required? I don't know what social work means"

Check out this new 12-episode film series that follows biologist & Darwin/Wallace scholar Andrew Berry as he explores, with history lessons, research in evolutionary #biology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology (@mczharvard.bsky.social): www.thecloseryoulook.com

#evolution #museums #histsci #HPS

A hugely heartening piece of #GoodGreenNews for butterfly lovers! Fluttering tentatively off the extinct list, the Large Tort is the image for the GGN feed, after my socks were knocked right off in 2024 when I spotted one near here. Must check again, locally! #insects 🐙🦋 #conservation 🌍 #ecology

Statue of Antonin Dvorak with a chap in a linen shirt, beige trousers and panama leaning against the base. Sunny day, blue sky; building behind.

Photos thrown up by your ‘phone. This from a few years ago: me and Dvořák in Prague.

Great to see Margaret Beaufort getting a long overdue episode of BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time this week. If you’d like to learn more about my research on Margaret’s palace at Collyweston and her links to Stamford, mentioned in the episode, I explore both topics in articles for @tudorplaces.bsky.social

Fascinating new article by Nick Karn, focusing on the material aspects of charters to identify forgeries— including upside-down seals! Open access here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Names of Athenian Triremes: Investigating Group Cohesiveness and Social Identity in the Athenian Navy of the 4th Century BC - Journal of Maritime Archaeology The set of inscriptions known as the Naval Inventories of Athens (IG II2 1604–IG II2 1632) provide a wealth of information regarding the state of the Athenian navy in the fourth century BC. The inscri...

I guess I didn’t wake up thinking I needed to know the names of the 279 named triremes ⛵️in the 4th century BCE Athenian navy, but it appears we all do. link.springer.com/article/10.1... I do like that 3.58% had animal names like Λεοντῆ (lion skin) and Λέαινα (lioness). Greek epigraphy is fun! 🪦

Call for papers for the Centre for Port and Maritime History's 30th Anniversary Conference, Liverpool, 10-11 September 2026

CALL FOR PAPERS: Share your research at the Centre for Port and Maritime History's 30th Anniversary Conference, Liverpool, 10-11 September 2026. CPMH includes @ljmuofficial.bsky.social , @liverpooluni.bsky.social & Liverpool's Maritime Museum. Submit abstract to n.j.white@ljmu.ac.uk by 15 May.

Screen grab of a call for papers at Leeds IMC. The text reads: TIME FOR CHANGE: TEMPORALITIES & CASTLES Call for Papers - Leeds IMC 6-9 July 2026 - 'Temporalities' What is a castle in time? Is there a time of castles, for castles? Can castles be atemporal? What does a castle studies engaging with questions of temporality look like? Whose castle temporalities matter? Can we call time on the castle studies of yesterday, yesteryear? Can the lens of temporality challenge castle knowledges and interpretations? This panel welcomes proposals which examine temporalities and temporalities in castle studies as a field of inquiry at the intersection of (among others) medieval studies, architecture, archaeology, history, heritage and medievalism. Papers of between 15-20 minutes, by researchers at all career stages, discussing any aspects of castle studies research including but not limited to the following, are welcome: • Temporality in castle studies; • Remembering and memorializing in castle Obscured history, identities and heritages in spaces, communities, themes: past and castles past and present present; • Medieval temporalities and the heritage • Temporally situated antiquity, novelty and innovation in castles; • Planning, timing, scheduling, recording in • castle communities, lives, societies; • Ruined, lost and fictional castles in time Parallel and contradictory times; • Time and temporality in the reception of castles; Please send proposals (a title and abstract of no more than 200 words; short biography of 50 words or less), or any questions, to Dr William Wyeth (william.wyeth@english-heritage.org.uk) by 15 September 2025. This session is organised by Emma Fearon (Nottingham Trent University) and William Wyeth (English Heritage)

Please share: due to withdrawal I have a space on my castles panel for #LeedsIMC.

If you’ve an idea needs airing on time and temporalities in castles, give me a shout/submit via link! imc-leeds.confex.com/imc/2026/pre... @imc-leeds.bsky.social @castlestudies.bsky.social

Original CfP below ⬇️

In Our Time - Margaret Beaufort - BBC Sounds How one woman helped her son survive the Wars of the Roses to become the first Tudor king.

Coincidentally, rather good ‘In Our Time’ today on Margaret Beaufort
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Great good news: Sean Cunningham has joined BlueSky. Follow him @seanc1509.bsky.social and read his books.

Publication of my short #PenguinMonarchs book on Henry VII on #WorldBookDay is wonderful. Enjoy the early #Tudor conspiracies, tragedies & @jodyhewgill.bsky.social‘s amazing cover painting. Thanks to the team @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social

A little snatch of Chiffchaff from garden today. The bird is just visible, moving slightly, on the right margin of the video.

Here in Blighty, we seem to be reporting our first Chiffchaff song of the year, so let me add Shugborough, Staffs to the list. A bit earlier than usual for this area.

In other news … more news like this, important in its way (but let’s face it, worthy of a chuckle) would be a welcome relief.

Your apt description reminds me, of course, of Compans, who never rose above divisional level (thank goodness, so avoided the Hundred Days); but superb at that level and an excellent chief of staff, incl in 1805 under Lannes. He was associated with Moreau, so that forever blighted his prospects.

Cold War (2018 film) - Wikipedia

Cold War (Pawlikowski, 2018)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Wa....

I have sampled Dorset (real social history here) & Norfolk - Dan Cruickshank on tremendous form: by challenging & correcting Pevsner at times he really underscores P’s remarkable achievement. Susie Harries’s bio of Pevsner was one of the books that I read last year that has really stayed with me.

Thanks for posting this Mathew. I don’t recall it from the time of broadcast, but what a delight: the episodes sampled so far were most enjoyable: my beloved Dorset, and - very different - Dan Cruickshank on Norfolk. Having read Susie Harries’s biography of Pevsner last year, I felt well-prepared.

Hautala, Roman. Masters of the Earth: A History of the Golden Horde, 1219–1502. London: Reaktion Books, 2026.
reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/masters...

#mongolsky
#tengri
#medievalsky

That’s wonderful, Richard. And somewhere in the deep recesses I think I now recall reading that somewhere. Yes, we’re working our way through the box set again; my wife read Conan Doyle in Hungarian as a child.

Yes, I think you are right.

Oh, and arithmetic in £ s d. Though, as I became a medieval historian that was not such a disadvantage. Only today I did a bit of £ s d multiplication. Forget the calculator!

Cover image of the DVD of the 1980s UK Granada TV series ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ and ‘The Return of Sherlock Holmes’: Jeremy Brett, as Holmes, in top hat; in the background the Reichenbach Falls with Holmes and Moriarty falling - except that Holmes didn’t.

Rewatching Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes. Definitive, of course, and hugely enjoyable. We reach ‘The Musgrave Ritual’, and … trigonometry. Prompted to ask how many of my followers, after school, have ever employed this knowledge? I haven’t. And don’t get me started on log tables and slide rules.

This sounds excellent! J'espère que je trouve le temps d'assister à l'une ou l'autre des séances... 👇

My Biographical Memoir of Jinty Nelson for the British Academy is now available on their website, open access on this link www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publishing/m...

Cover of book with text in yellow reading: The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empires, overlaid on an image of an angel in seventeenth-century dress with wings and a long gun.

Hello Bluesky! My new book, THE FIREARM REVOLUTION, is out on 14 April. It’s about how a new technology changed society, and how hard it was to control. Here’s a little thread of what’s inside:

Let me repeat my affection for Hungary and the Hungarians: I dearly hope they can (are allowed to) rid themselves of this pernicious blot on their recent history. If so, it’ll be quite a revolution.

Jupiter and its four large Gallilean Moons tonight. Have a great week all!
#astronomy #astrophotography @stormhour.com @photohour.bsky.social