Simone Sharpe

After I received this message about my book from Stephen Fry, I told my mate Matt from Notts about it. Matt was the only person I knew who was as obsessed with A Bit of Fry & Laurie as I was in 1992.

"Make sure you tell him from me that he's standing in my children," said Matt.

So naturally I did.

Dandy the Brave Conquers the Giant | OneNerdyOpinion Get more from OneNerdyOpinion on Patreon

www.patreon.com/posts/141936...

In case you missed it, I recently posted the children’s book version of this meeting on my Patreon. Read it for free at the link below.

Image of book cover. Blank cover with the text: "On Freedom. Timothy Snyder."

The paperback edition of #OnFreedom is out today. It preserves a positive argument about how to build a better country and has been updated to account for what has happened in 2025.
timothysnyder.org/on-freedom

Down the Barrel of a Vin Despite appearances, I am not much given to writing about my personal life. Acres of print about my family, my moods, my eternal and meandering self-reflections have been produced. There is also the ...

On my newsletter: it’s harder to steal My heart than jewels from the Louvre but people have tried during my weakest moments, such as during a John Farnham song at karaoke. rick-morton.ghost.io/down-the-bar...

Feel like I've been writing about new BoM website for 3 years now (because I have, and it is even later than that) but covering the go-live of the new site for this weekend's paper. I've learned some stuff. If you know more, internally or as a user I'm: rickjamesmorton@protonmail.com

Home - Dr Mike Jones professional historian and archivist Connect with the past I am an accredited professional historian and archivist with eighteen years experience working on public history, archives, collections, and ...

My new website is live! It's a work in progress, with lots I still want to do, but after many years my last site became completely non-functional so this is the first step: mikejonesonline.com #archives #history #historian #consultant #GLAM #academia #website

Critical research practice with GenAI: A resource packet — Colourful Histories This section contains a selection of introductory resources for historians to better understand GenAI. Intended for academic and professional historians, especially those with an inclination towards p...

When the curious get together, you get an information packet, & you get an information packet!

I mentioned being happy to share resources about history practice & GenAI at the recent PHA conference.

Then I thought: why not keep adding to it? Check out this evolving doc at colourfulhistories.com.au

The Australian Cartoonists Association welcomes the decision of the federal Attorney-General, Michelle aRowland, to reject the Productivity Commission’s proposal to exempt tech companies from copyright laws, which would have handed them free rein to mine creative content to train their Artificial Intelligence models, without recognition or recompense for artists. We are glad the Albanese Government recognises the value and precarious of the creative industries and encourage their ongoing support of artists in all fields. Cathy Wilcox President ACA

A statement from me, on behalf of the Australian Cartoonists Association:

There is a silver bullet for childhood happiness: a love of reading Bestselling children’s author Katherine Rundell says to reverse the reading crisis we must let young people rediscover the enjoyment of books — whatever they may be

It's sunday so I am finally reading the links I opened during the week. Or possibly last week. Anyway, this one is worth your time (should be a free link, it was for me at least). Katherine Rundell on reading for pleasure. #UKKidLit #KidLitUK www.thetimes.com/uk/get-brita...

I tweet: "people who see 50% of their monthly paycheck go to rent don't care if a candidate eats with their hands. they want to hear what your candidate is going to do about housing." John Galt 2025 replies: "Move if the cost of living is too high."

who creates the lively art and music scenes if the rent is too high? who makes cultural life? who serves you food or washes your dishes? who creates the fancy little restaurants that draw you to urban living? affordable housing is at the heart of what makes city life worthwhile.

A full line-up today, the first of two, at the Professional Historians Association conference.

A fabulous, provocative & essential opening from Richard Feja, Larrakia & Warramungu Elder, and Samantha Wells, PHA NT PHA, about the history acknowledgement, borders & welcomes to Country.

#History

Text of quote from Amy Remeikis: The sin of progressive politics is being on the right side of history too early. What is so radical in working towards something better?"

New @amyremeikis.bsky.social op-ed up now on the new website The Point. #auspol #politics #democracy #accountability #journalism thepoint.com.au/opinions/250...

Who should pay the debts of slavery? | The Observer The Tory historian Nigel Biggar mounts a contradictory defence of empire, while in The Big Payback Lenny Henry and Marcus Ryder make the case for reparat...

Superb review of Lenny Henry & Marcus Ryder's reasoned explanation of reparations & Nigel Biggar's malevolent rebuttal. @bizk.bsky.social far quicker than my plodding pace but writing something along similar lines that delves more into the histories of slavery now. observer.co.uk/culture/book...

WEIL: “.. Circularity can be virtuous on the upside, and vicious on the downside. The deals can work fine, until they don’t.”

@wsj.com $NVDA $ORCL
@justinhendrix.bsky.social
www.wsj.com/tech/ai/is-t...

Major Academic Press Calls for “Publish or Perish” Reform Just one-third of researchers, publishers, funders and librarians believe academic reward and recognition systems are working well, according to a survey from Cambridge University Press.

“W/o urgent, sector-wide reform, the global academic publishing ecosystem is at risk of collapse.
We urge academic institutions to weaken the link b/n academic reward & journal article output, & to adopt holistic approaches to evaluating academic performance.” www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

Hypothetically, if a child's teacher uses AI to provide feedback on assessments, and to change a child's submitted speech, can a parent send a reading packet back to school full of literature they may like to consider about the demise of their creativity and mind?

Asking for a fuming parent.

And here are a few more, from "Big crowds protest Trump across U.S." in the Washington Post to "REIGN CHECK" in the Chicago Sun-Times

Always a pleasure to donate to Wikipedia

The Culture Wars Came for Wikipedia. Jimmy Wales Is Staying the Course.

Jimmy Wales on Elon Musk’s attacks on Wikipedia:

“I don’t think he has the power he thinks he has, or that a lot of people think he has, to damage Wikipedia. We’ll be here in a hundred years and he won’t. As long as we stay Wikipedia, people will still love us.” 🎁 www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/m...

How to be a good explorer on the lifelong expedition to yourself, Nick Cave on how to use your suffering, Humboldt on how to read the poetry of nature Hello <<Name>>! This is the weekly email digest of The Marginalian by Maria Popova. If you missed last week's special edition — the 3 elements of the good life, Rudyard Kipling on writing, instructions...

This week's oasis of small sanities, in a single place – how to be a good explorer on the lifelong expedition to yourself, Nick Cave on how to use your suffering, Humboldt on how to read the poetry of nature: mailchi.mp/themarginali...

Defending the WAC: All the things I haven’t (yet) written by Helen Wheatley People following the last few weeks of the Critical Studies in Television blog will have seen my brilliant colleagues discussing the essential work that they have been able to do thanks to the…

"The BBC has clanged their doors shut on those histories, those stories, those lives and ways of working that are revealed through the joint industry of the historian and the archivist." @helenwheatley.bsky.social on the devastating decision to limit access to BBC archives. tinyurl.com/y4tnyw9a

John Cusack says Trump should ‘go to hell!’ at ‘No Kings’ protest in Chicago ‘No, you can’t put troops on our streets,’ added the ‘High Fidelity’ star

www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...

An orange kitten sits atop her scratching/climbing post, her head tilted over to the side.

She really just thinks she can look at me with her head tilted and she’ll just get anything she wants.

She’s right. But she doesn’t have to make a big deal about it.

the difference between a wonderful audiobook performance by a gifted voice actor and this "digital voice" horseshit masquerading as legit audiobooks makes me steaming mad. good narration is important and deserves to be paid for!!!!!!

Green and red poster with History Workshop Journal printed in the corner, black and white illustrations in the corner, and the title ‘Can you help us?’. The main text reads: This year our partner History Workshop Journal is celebrating the publication of its 100th issue. If you have ever used any HWJ articles in your teaching practice we would love to hear from you! Please let us know by emailing hwoeditors@historyworkshop.org.

📣 Call for participants 📣

Have you ever used any History Workshop Journal articles in your teaching practice?

We’d love to hear from you for the 100th issue of HWJ!

Please let us know by sending an email or feel free to DM.

Sands & McDougall's directories of Victoria - GLAM Workbench A collection of tools and examples to help you work with data from galleries, libraries, archives, and museums

Still a work-in-progress, but if you want to try searching all of the Sands & MacDougall directories digitised by the State Library of Victoria, go here: https://glam-workbench.net/state-library-victoria/sands-macdougall-directories/ It's part of my #SLVResidency... #histodons #familyHistory

Also just for the record, if we are friends and you write a book, I will buy a copy and make you sign it. it’s like my favourite thing

a fun thing about achieving the holy grail of a surgical endo diagnosis is that you will still occasionally come across doctors who call you stupid for asking if a mysterious abdominal pain might possibly be related to endo

A 3-000-Pound Ice Sculpture By The Capitol Sends A Stark Message To Trump “It's time for all of us to resist, speak up and save our democracy before it's too late,” artist Marshall Reese said of his 17-by-5-foot installation.

www.huffpost.com/entry/democr...