Assumpta Fardy

Also good to see the mentions of Odd Man Out. A film that gets being stuck in the rain in Belfast, in the dark, spot on. A horror film for cats.

James Mason in a cave with a cat The story behind a tiny, peculiar London pub landmark

James Mason In A Cave With A Cat, everybody.

An answer, at last.

open.substack.com/pub/joelmorr...

As Tories attack Starmer for the state of the military let’s have a look at David Cameron’s 2010 Strategic Defence Review. The Tories wanted a 10-20% cut in the defence budget and it ended up with a 8% reduction.

Pedestrian road deaths in West Midlands 'unacceptably high' Road safety commissioner Mat MacDonald reveals data showing that pedestrian deaths have increased.

Brilliant work here from the West Midlands Road Safety Commissioner.

The sad part is how likely it'll be met with indifference by those with the power to do something about it.

Can anyone explain to me what the Blue Labour justification for this is? Who out there will vote Labour because Mahmood prevented a Sudanese Chevening Scholar? And to be honest, why won’t the PM simply overrule her?

Mental health rights-based treatment guidelines

As a carer who is deeply familiar with the current system, I strongly support the ‘Give 5’ approach to rights-based reform of mental health services

Find out more here: www.nlb.ie/campaigns/me...

#mentalhealth #northernireland

San Antonio archbishop: Profit, politics play roles in inhumane migrant treatment "These detention centers … cannot have empty beds, because otherwise they don't make money," said Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller. "It's business, business, business, business, business."

Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller of San Antonio: ICE concentration camps are an exercise in profiteering off human misery.

Honestly fair fucks to Vittorio Angelone for calling out Penny Mordaunt on Last Leg

Saying 'bombing schools is wrong' should be the easiest thing to say in the world.

Hello Bluesky! I am looking for anyone who cares about/writes about/thinks about Rebecca West.

I've been on a 10 year mission to get her a blue plaque in London and am finally allowed to re-apply after it was last turned down.

I'd welcome help building a strong application.

Thank you 💙🙏

In Richard II the Bishop of Carlisle makes an eloquent & correct speech warning of the effects of toppling Richard, to which Northumberland replies: "Well have you argued, sir, and, for your pains/Of capital treason we arrest you here." Shakey knew that truth doesn't much matter in politics.

Large stones arranged in a circle in a field. Within the circle of larger stones, there are many smaller stones.

The Dragon's Teeth • Beaghmore • Tyrone

The foothills of the Sperrin Mountains has a wealth of prehistoric monuments.

This Bronze Age stone circle at Beaghmore is filled with hundreds of small upright stones, earning it the name ‘the Dragon’s Teeth’.

#SpéirGhorm #Archaeology 🏺

7 March 1583: The Privy Council at Richmond is dealing with threats to the state, i.e. Catholics; it’s been a while since we’ve had any executions. In York, one Bartlet has confessed ‘detestable actes’ and ‘traiterous speaches concerninge her Majestie and ... 1/
#earlymodern

Gordon Parks photo

Bernd and Hilla Becher photo

Richard Avedon photos

There are currently FOUR very good photographic shows on in London’s Swanky Mayfair™️:
- Gordon Parks at Alison Jacques
- Bernd and Hilla Becher at Spruth & Magers
- Richard Avedon at Gagosian
- Nan Goldin at Gagosian, Davies St.
All for free. These are, relatively speaking, good times, photo-wise.

Due to intense Kalinago raids against smaller islands in Caribbean, settlers were hard to find even at height of sugar boom. After raid on Anguilla in 1656 which wiped the English out, land grants were offered to decommissioned soldiers: 35 acres for privates, 160 for ensigns, and 400 for captains.

📢OUT NOW📚 The March issue of 𝘓𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘭 𝘈𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 is here!

"My manifesto: Towards ending removal of babies at birth"

@oliverconway.bsky.social sets out a list of #WelfareReforms he says would keep more newborns with their mothers & (he hopes) put childcare lawyers like him out of a job➡️ hi.switchy.io/s9u_

A very fancy tomb in westminster abbey. The alabaster effigies of Giles and Elizabeth Daubeney lie on a stone plinth which has heraldry all around it. The whole things is encased in high black iron railings.

David also engaged in a bit of tomb one-upmanship:

'I will that the Iron worke that shalbe set aboute yt be ordered facioned and formed after the forme and facion of my lord Daubeneys tombe at westminster where he lyeth / but I will yt be more of substance.'

Sir Giles Daubeney's tomb:

David Owen had some specific ideas about how the ceiling of this church should look. From his will, proven 1542.

'I will that myn Executours do gilte the sealing of the sayd priory churche and to fynishe the Rose and to gilt the Angelles and knottes and paynt the paynes with redd and blewe'.

😇🌹😇🌹

... 'so bitter to your mortall enemyes' and 'wilbe such a surfet to the boilling stomackes of your enemies as will kepe them waking at night for this vij yeares'. How romantic! I'm not completely clear why, however. Paget also talks about making sure that the queen 'shold have light gevin her ... 2/

4 March 1583: Rather a lot of conspiracies around today. Lord Paget writes to the earl of Northumberland, whose son is vying with Lord Darcy for the hand of this lady, Mary Kitson; Paget has lots of advice on courting. More importantly, he thinks that securing the match will be ... 1/
#earlymodern

3 March 1583: Edward Herbert, the future Lord Herbert of Cherbury, is born, probably/possibly today, in Shropshire. He will become a politician, courtier, soldier, diplomat, traveller, philosopher, historian, lutenist and regular early modern man of parts. My main memory of ... 1/
#earlymodern

People trying to end the world because the Bible says that Jesus will come when the world ends are going to be mightily surprised if they turn out, against all odds, to be right and Jesus returns and looks them in the eye and is like "yo, what is the ONE THING I asked of you?"

“What fools we are to live in a generation for which war is a computer game for our children and just an interesting little Channel Four news item."

As I wrote yesterday, "the Labour right is behaving as if its incentives are not to win the next election but to get cushy jobs outside politics after it." chrisdillow.substack.com/p/bad-incent...

This is terrible news and absolutely entirely 100% as predicted. And given most post offices relocated into WH Smith stores, this will have an even greater impact.

Thinking of the expat I spoke to the other day who told me he had moved from London to Dubai "to feel safe".

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:

Written Worlds: Non-Elite Writers in Early Modern England Who wrote in early modern England? What did they write and why did they write it? How did their writing fit into the wider worlds that they inhabited? In this talk, Sue Wiseman, Brodie Waddell and Michael Powell Davies – all from Birkbeck University of London – will address these questions by introducing their ongoing Leverhulme-funded collaborative project on non-elite writers in England from c.1570 to 1730. Our research explores the writing practices of people below the level of the gentry and clergy, considering their biographical contexts, their motivations and their contributions to written culture. In addition to giving a bird’s eye view of the sorts of writers and texts we are studying, each of the three speakers will discuss a couple of specific examples of particular writers, including the notebooks of a midland villager, the spiritual diary a London wigmaker, and the confessions of a condemned widow.

'Written Worlds: Non-Elite Writers in Early Modern England'

Sue Wiseman, Michael Powell-Davies and I will be introducing our five-year collaborative project at the @ihr.bsky.social on Thursday, March 5th. Hope to see you there!

Register here: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Maybe its own mini series? With a companion graphic novel treatment? To capture all the fingerprints.

Moral Injury Or: Why We Need The Prophets Now, More Than Ever

I wrote you a piece about the concept of moral injury and why we need the voices of the prophets during times when concepts like "ethical compass" and "basic decency" elude us as a collective.

Among other things, it explains moral injury and how to heal from it, which, you know, might be useful.