Christopher Hervez

8.15am 🤯

A Breton family had gifted the land to a nearby abbey much, much earlier. Turned out to be my family.

I live in a priory. It sounds grand but it's just a little house. When I bought it, the estate agent didn't know it was a priory. The guy thought it might have been build around 1900. I later found it was was built in the fifteenth century.

That's interesting. I've often had a sensation about places. Feeling like a welcome guest is a good analogy. Then years later I've discovered I have deep roots in that place.

Grrrr Guinness.

They ran out of Guiness?

From Steel City to Cottonopolis: a new walking trail through a post-industrial Peak District The nostalgic Steel Cotton Rail Trail between Sheffield and Manchester has 14 day-length sections, with walks for urban explorers and summit-bagging hikers alike

"The nostalgic Steel Cotton Rail Trail between Sheffield and Manchester has 14 day-length sections, with walks for urban explorers and summit-bagging hikers alike". I'm curious about why people are nostalgic for industries that killed so many people.

www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/...

Rendez-vous mercredi matin pour parler superstition sous la Révolution et l'Empire avec Marie-Paule Raffaelli.

I can't imagine a better way to spend a Friday evening. Other than you, Philip Pullman and I talking about my new book.

Exceptional! It's already, unsurprisingly, sold out.

Interesting article (an understatement). I'm hugely curious to know how Farage is perceived by the German state. He has campaigned on behalf of AfD and has shared a stage with representatives of far right groups. I've wondered if he is a person of interest to the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz.

As a child I spent a lot of time speaking into a biro.

Animal Magic?

A unicorn watermark in one of the oldest European paper sheets. Source: https://memoryofpaper.eu/apccv/apccv.php?Signatura=1475.1

Just a 1399 unicorn watermark from a paper manufacturer from Valencia to make your day. Friends of #paperhistory know that these paper sheets of around 1400 are among the first sheets of European paper to appear on the market. European #bookhistory was a different game afterwards. #skystorians

[/s] I didn't see this coming.[/s] It's one reason the super rich don't care about the human consequences of the climate emergency. They're going to minimise the human workforce. Who'll be left to buy their products? By that stage it won't matter. They inherit the earth.

Standing stone in a pub

Oxenham Arms - Standing Stone

Survey results seem to indicate that the majority of MPs are totally ignorant of the dire situation. The headline that the vast majority support net zero is used but in reality this would be distorted by party lines. It would help if more MPs thought less about power and more about survival.

Standing stone in a pub

Within the Oxenham Arms in the village of South Zeal, Devon is
The ‘Roman Pillar' propping up the roof in the restaurant at the rear of the pub.
In the next room is an enormous Menhir built into the fabric of the wall too. One pub - two standing stones.

Another of these mystery items has just washed up. What are they and where are they coming from? #oceanplastic

I sailed on a reconstruction of this ship from Paris to Honfleur in August and it was such an adventure!
See #Saga25 for my posts from the trip.

The first computer at CERN 🖥️

#ThrowbackThursday to 1967, featuring the Control Data 6600 (CDC6600), the first computer at CERN and the most powerful of its era.

If you promote your new book with an ‘AI trailer’, the only thing guaranteed to happen is that a lot of folk will think: ‘AI equals arseholes involved, I’ll never read this book’. That and the fact I will block you.

MSF reprend ses activités dans la ville de Gaza Le 24 septembre 2025, les équipes de Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) avaient été contraintes de suspendre leurs activités dans la ville de Gaza en raison de l'intensification de l'offensive militaire i...

La clinique de #MSF située dans la ville de #Gaza a été rouverte le 15 octobre, après l'entrée en vigueur du cessez-le-feu. Depuis, les équipes ont pris en charge plus de 640 patients, dont la majorité souffrait de blessures. www.msf.fr/actualites/m...

Derrygonnelly : 'Mind-blowing' discovery of 8,000-year-old settlement A QUB team was hoping to find the ruins of a castle, but they discovered artefacts dating back to the Mesolithic period.

📰 Whilst searching for the remains of a 400-year-old castle at Derrygonnelly, Northern Ireland, archaeologists have discovered a "mind-blowing" 8,000-year-old Mesolithic settlement!

🏺 #ArchaeologyNews via the BBC

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A glass vessel with a vibrant cobalt blue body and opaque white handles, neck, and base. The amphora-shaped container has a narrow spout and stands elegantly against a dark background, highlighting its translucent colour.

Fascinating world of ancient #glass!
This marvellous blue #Roman glass vessel with a white base and white handles dates back to the 3rd/4th century AD. It was found in an early medieval burial from the 6th century AD. in Hüfingen - already an antique piece at the time.

📷 @almbawue.bsky.social

🏺

Broch of Ages?

«Astérix en Lusitanie» : bon crux, mais machine à frix Le duo gaulois revient ce jeudi dans un 41e tome réjouissant à travers la Lusitanie. L’écrasante franchise éditoriale évite les clichés et assume son esprit franchouille.

«Astérix en Lusitanie» : bon crux, mais machine à frix

L’écrasante franchise éditoriale évite les clichés et assume son esprit franchouille. Notre critique ⤵️

‘The health situation in #Gaza is a crisis for generations to come’

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in his latest interview with Anna Foster and BBC Radio 4's Today news programme

‘It would be wonderful’: the team hoping to unearth ‘Cornwall’s Stonehenge’ Experts and volunteers working at Castilly Henge have been trying determine if it is the county’s lost great stone circle

'Experts and almost 100 volunteers have been on the site near Bodmin over the last month to attempt to work out if Castilly Henge is Cornwall’s lost great stone circle.'

O. M. G.