Will Clement

Lecturer (Education) in Modern European History at Queen's University Belfast Apply now for the Lecturer (Education) in Modern European History role on jobs.ac.uk - the leading job board for higher education jobs. View details.

A proper 12-month replacement post with decent salary (for UKHE, at least) in modern European history. Belfast is a decent place to live - relatively affordable apart from extortionate pint prices - and I can personally vouch for what a great & friendly School we have.
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOE451/l...

Finally, the Paradox-produced games (especially Crusader Kings for medieval, Europa Universalis for early-modern to early C19) are sprawling grand strategy games. A bit like Civilisation, but dives into micromanaging minutiae a lot more.

Though it is less RPG than you might like

I've heard nothing but good things about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. It's an update on the classic turn-based (again, combatty) RPG but with modern graphics, great voice cast, and a dark Belle Epoque vibe. It'll be my treat to myself when the MS is in.

Okay, so combat is in it & there are some queasy historical inaccuracies (the tricolour at Versailles in May 1789?! Mirabeau died how?!) but Assassins Creed Unity is pretty awesome for Revolution-era Paris. Lots of witchy side quests to do once you open the city or just spend hours climbing churches

And it will produce the most valuable tulip bulbs ever seen in all of these South Seas

Also, seeing your mention of Cotswolds elsewhere — Ue coffee roasters in Witney is the best coffee in Oxfordshire if any of the family are into that, and it can be a good stopping point between Oxford and the Cotswolds proper

Another bump for the covered market! If Missing Bean is too busy, strongly recommend Colombia Coffee Roasters in the market. Branca deli in Jericho is also good for coffee and light lunch (salads, pizza slices etc — the full restaurant next door is also good, but medium-priced)

Explicit support for trans rights please your silence is deafening

Allan Ahlberg, beloved children's author, dies aged 87 Working first with his wife Jane, and later with illustrators including Raymond Briggs and Bruce Ingman, he wrote more than 150 books

This makes me so sad. I read Peepo to Travers, my oldest son, every night for two years. He had other stories, but the last one before a kiss goodnight always had to be Peepo.
I loved his books…Each Peach, Pear, Plum…oh don’t get me started I’ll cry.

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

24. “I believe this is about socialist organizing rather than about the charismatic leader figures known as ‘men on horseback’, in other words more of the Comintern than equestrians”

Thanks! A big part of draft 1 written during the writing group last year! I promise I’ll try and get to one this summer, once the boy stops breaking bones

A nineteenth century illustrated newspaper image showing a large woman trying to take her belt off. She represents Paris and has numerous Parisian landmarks on her body. Hundreds of small men with pickaxes run up her dress

Watch this space for:

"‘In her corset, she is suffocating’: the female body metaphor and urban hygiene in nineteenth-century France"

In 2012 I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on Haussmann’s Paris

After over a decade of stubbornly focusing on other French cities instead, today I found out that my first Haussmannization-focused article has been accepted for publication in @enghistrev.bsky.social

Even more worrying than its conclusions are its authorship/funding coming directly in-house from
Microsoft. So historians are not just passively at risk here: there is a targeted dimension to what they want their product to do/replace

Thanks both - really helpful!

Joris, the context is in the quoted post here. So I am interested in the contemporary c19 French (which @brionyneilson.bsky.social has helpfully suggested écrivain public) but also the best translation for me to use for anglophone readers

bsky.app/profile/hist...

One of my chapter's "main characters" is an extremely sassy doctor-turned-housing inspector, Dr Philippe Passot. I have been enjoying his unrelenting sass towards tenants, landlords, prefects, floorboards, ceilings, windows, and generally the city of Lyon that I just typoed his name as Sassot.

Thanks Karen, this looks really helpful too!

Thanks Henry! Good to know my initial thought tallies. I may be overthinking this…

I could use it, but I would prefer not to. ;-)

(Thanks both! I think I have the double prejudice both of Bartleby as well as the word processing app which shares the name in my mind when I think scrivener, but this is perfect)

I've made a note of it, thanks!
Context is mid c19 France where working-class tenants complained to state bureaucrats re: landlords, using <blanks>. In one archival outlier, a bourgeois journalist wrote his own complaint, with the lack of use of a <blank> giving a distinct look/tone to his complaint

Ahh this might be what I use, thank you!

@markhailwood.bsky.social @brodiewaddell.bsky.social

Help: what's the historical (C19) profession of someone who writes on behalf of low or non-literate people? i.e. someone who wrote letters or petitions for someone or a group.

My mind went to "scribe" but that feels wrong re: class/power/era. "Amanuensis" feels too fancy. "Clerk"? Any ideas?

Set mine up when I was an undergraduate; let it go dormant and forgot about it; had to redo it in recent years when applying for jobs to make it more academic focused and less student journalism focused!

I have noticed that since X’s demise it seems to have really picked up in academic activity

In 2022, the UK government literally made it a CRIMINAL OFFENCE for a human being to be paid to write university coursework.

Just 3 years later, we are at least 75% of the way to it being OBLIGATORY to pay a machine to do it...

educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2022/04/essa...

Very jealous of all at #GCFHSResist — hope it’s as excellent a conference as it looks

Don't forget to register for #UHG2025! 👇

Congratulations! Your research sounds brilliant

Have just pinged over some recent pics on WhatsApp!

Haha yes, I mean he had an absolutely great time ambulance-spotting at the JR A&E the other day while waiting for x-rays