Martin Polley

Seven people, some sitting and some standing, wearing h-vis and work gear are looking to camera. They are in a room that is under repair. The text above the people reads 'Historic England / The Professional Edit / Expert updates for heritage professionals. / Sign up today'.

Historic England has launched The Professional Edit, a newsletter for people working in the #heritage sector. You can sign up here #HistoricEngland: webmail.historicenglandservices.org.uk/k/Historic-E...

Urban Truth Collective: Straight Talk About The Joy Of Cities In An Age Of Disinformation — Streetsblog USA The Three Tenors of Urbanism explain their latest effort: The Urban Truth Collective.

PLEASE HELP US SHARE THIS: “We’ve let the lies be far too successful, and that’s significantly hurt our cities. No more.”

It’s our blunt NEW @usa.streetsblog.org op-ed sharing why we’ve created @urbantruth.bsky.social. SPOILER: We need to call out the lies and tell the truth much more persuasively!

Last shout out for Into the Fold, the 3rd edition of Winchester School of Art's annual artists' book and zine fair. Displays, talsk, events, and 40+ exhibitors, Fri 6 and Sat 7 March, #artistsbooks Free - book ahead or drop-in @unisouthampton.bsky.social library.soton.ac.uk/library-exhi...

This genai shit just gets creepier and more sinister. I would absolutely never consent to shit like this.

States of Play A better place to buy your books. Support independent journalism with everything you buy. Free UK P&P on online orders over £25

I think the best starting place is Miguel Delaney's own book, States of Play States of Play - The Guardian Bookshop share.google/LZ9H9DcHK5gT...

Yes, that theme came up in the Q&A.

Trump's U.S. must not host the World Cup

You might be interested in footballagainstfascism.org !

I'm not sure. @unisouthampton.bsky.social can you advise on this question?

The view from the back of a crowded lecture theatre, showing the backs of audience members' heads. The screen is displaying an introductory slide in blue and white, showing a portrait of the speaker.

A view of the speaker at the front of a lecture theatre, with the backs of audience members' heads in the foreground. The speaker is a white man wearing a brown jacket.

Excellent lecture on sportswashing, the geopolitics of the football World Cup, and models of club ownership by @migueldelaney.bsky.social for the @unisouthampton.bsky.social and @amnestyuk.bsky.social annual Human Rights lecture last night.

🚨 It looks like the UK government is gearing up to upend copyright law in favour of AI companies, legalising the theft of their work.

This is despite creatives' huge protests, and despite previous proposals being roundly rejected by the public.

Please spread the word.

🧵 1/4

I knew that I’d lost it when I quoted Prince - “if you really want to impress me” - in a chat on essay technique to a class of undergrads in about 2010 and they all looked blank.

Like when the artists who you think of as contemporary to the point you have your finger on the pulse in knowing their music are actually not recent enough for your kids to know, then what hope is there.

For the culmination of #LGBT History Month, #NationalRailwayMuseum Curator Ashlynn Hudson-Welburn introduces People Pride Progress, an oral history project rail workers can join in with! www.railwaymuseum.org.uk/research-and... Listen here: www.vectisradio.com/on-air/prese...

A reminder, one day ahead of a by-election in which the Greens are favourites to defeat Reform, that the Daily Mail owner's wife recently donated £50,000 to Nigel Farage's party

The Great Olympic lie: untold story of Winter Games’ huge environmental impact Rivers drained dry to create artificial snow, a forest cut down for the bobsleigh track – IOC’s claims to prioritise sustainability at Milano Cortina exposed

The Winter Olympics:
the not-so-sustainable games
www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/f...

Author copies of ‘Fairies: A History’ have arrived! Publication date in the UK is 20 March www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b... 📚🧚

The English have disinherited and now arrested a literal blood royal over Epstein and America can’t even get a public hearing.

#skystorians A rare permanent job at Warwick - Assistant Prof in Early Modern British History
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQO295/a...

Edward McKnight Kauffer, Winter Sales, 1924 (detail) © TFL FROM THE LONDON TRANSPORT MUSEUM COLLECTION

An exhibition at the London Transport Museum is celebrating 100 years of the Underground’s Art Deco design heritage.
www.artfund.org/explore/get-...

👀 Invoking Orwell, a federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore panels and historical acknowledgments of the history of slavery that the National Park Service removed in Philadelphia. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Screenshot of text from University of Edinburgh library services: Like many academic libraries, we have been experiencing slowness and outages on some of our open access platforms over the last few months. We have identified that this is the result of poorly behaved Gen AI crawling activity. As such we have had to try to disable the ability for AI -harvesters to access content from our repositories, via IP range blocking, geographical blacklisting, implementing limits to throttle bots and using robots.txt files to limit access. We acknowledge that this approach is not consistent with our open access policy which should require us to permit machine access to our content. Our limiting activity is not 100% fool-proof, and is a temporary measure to give services breathing space to perform while a longer termn solution is worked out by software providers and the community. This approach also has the added benefit of helping to assuage authors fear of losing control of their works.

The "AI revolution" in science is going so smoothly that my instititutional library is having to deploy multiple technical protection measures against "poorly behaved Gen AI crawling" just to maintain its timely service library.ed.ac.uk/research-sup...

Applications for the BSSH annual conference in Edinburgh this summer are now open. Abstracts of 200 words on any aspect of sport are welcome; the deadline for submissions is 31st March 2026.

Our new Queer and Trans Histories series creates a home for cutting‑edge work on past and present LGBTQ+ lives.

We’re looking for proposals grounded in rich empirical work and innovative approaches to intimacy, emotion, silence, and subjectivity.

manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/series/queer...

screenshot of a website for the Olympic Shop selling a t-shirt commemorating the 1936 Olympics. At the top is information about the shop and below is a t-shirt with images from Berlin 1936 on it. To the right there are sizes for the t-shirt and a tab to click to add to cart.

The IOC has banned the courageous & principled Ukrainian Olympian Vladyslav Heraskevych for his “helmet of memory” commemorating Ukraine’s war dead.

Meanwhile the IOC is selling a $42 "Heritage T-shirt" commemorating the 1936 Olympics, known as the Nazi Games. shop3.olympics.com/en/olympic-g...

My new blog post: The Living Olympic Legacy of an Oak Tree #sportshistory #legacy #wenlockoplympiangames #coubertin martinpolley.co.uk/2026/02/13/t...

18TH CENTURY BRITISH HISTORY PHD LIGHTNING TALKS CFP

Are you at the start of your PhD? Want to tell an eager and engaged audience about it in 5 mins? We want to hear the best PGR research about 18th Britain at our #LightningTalks event 29 April 2026.

Please see the poster for further information!

CAS appeal filed:
Heraskevych argues “exclusion is disproportionate, unsupported by any technical or safety violation & causes irreparable sporting harm to him.” He “requests the annulment of the IBSF Jury decision” & CAS reinstate him immediately or he performs CAS-supervised official runs

(Re)fashioning women's leisure: image, material and place, 1850-present 25 June 2026 at De Montfort University, Leicester.

Call For Papers: '(Re)fashioning women's leisure: image, material and place, 1850-present' at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, 25 June. Sessions on textiles, archives, leisure, work & home. #skystorians #sportshistory @emmyailish.bsky.social padlet.com/EmmySale/re-...

The 2026 edition of Into The Fold will take place at Winchester School of Art on 6 & 7 March. Artists' books, zines, exhibition, talks, and more. #artists'books #zines #winchester. library.soton.ac.uk/library-exhi...

The Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Lambeth – London County Council (LCC) and Greater London Council (GLC) Architect’s Department, 1963-68 Image © Morley von Sternberg

BREAKING NEWS: We’re absolutely thrilled to announce that the Southbank Centre - the Hayward Gallery, Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall and skaters undercroft - has finally been Grade II listed by DCMS after a 35 year long campaign.

➡️ c20society.org.uk/news/southba...