Nick Pepper

Book cover for "Atlantic Isles: Travel and Identity in the British and Irish West, 1880–1940", by Gareth Roddy

Published today: 'Atlantic Isles: Travel and Identity in the British and Irish West, 1880–1940', by Gareth Roddy bit.ly/4nwj9Y2

Gareth's book is the latest title in the Society's New Historical Perspectives series @uolpress.bsky.social. Available Open Access and in paperback print #Skystorians 1/2

Congratulations to new Dr Nick Pepper (@thenickpepper.bsky.social) who successfully defended his PhD thesis, "Preserving Thirlwall Castle: Policy, Practice, and the History of Northumberland National Park, 1956-2002" on Friday!

This is what happens when you rely on Matthew Goodwin and other bad faith Twitter actors for your information

Tastes like chicken that has a personal stylist and speaks fluent French.

Cows on a hazy autumn evening in the Allen Valleys

Mushrooms

Vivid red leaves against a blue sky

The Blackett Level on the East Allen

Allendale today... glorious afternoon

The (dirty) Birdy Song and Misery.

When everyone has gone home, and I've turned out the lights, after the last gig on a Saturday night... what a day @allenvalleysfolk.bsky.social

Staging for Allen Valleys Folk Festival

Our Allen Valleys Folk Festival decorations team have done us proud with their Land of Lead and Silver themed stage and auditorium dressing... brilliant.

Still Punk graffiti with gulls

Gulls and graffiti

ITV 9.50am Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind... within 10 years it was Anne Diamond and Rustie Lee.

YouTube video by janfischermusic DR. FEELGOOD - Damn Right I Do (official live)

Yup -- Gong is still massively good value and Kavus Torabi is a top notch front man. This is the iteration of Feelgood that came to Allendale: youtu.be/C_4bcZHeNKc?...

We had Dr Feelgood play our village hall (the Trigger's Broom version, much like the iteration of Gong that played last month). But still blisteringly good and "riffs" were definitely the order of the day. (Also, we are spoilt with our little Northumberland village's ability to host amazing gigs).

YouTube video by Gong - Topic Master Builder - Original

youtu.be/yelK7E81slM?...

“Every last one of them [vaccine mandate] is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” Dr. Ladapo said.

... and *slavery*!

Remarkable and disingenuous comment from the Dr... Should travel restrictions for unvaccinated US citizens to UK eventually follow to protect vulnerable people?

Hope you're ok... it does all sound very stressful.

Pub?

I don't think you've read the English (in particular) political landscape terribly well. Your mystifying assertion now that Starmer is "far-right" is just nonsense. I'm not going to argue that you aren't educated... but even educated people have gaps...

Is there a problem with his title? What I'm smelling here is the standard leftwing line on social mobility: "I know my place"

The comms are bad, but the leftwing tendency to not see actions within the context of real world decision-making is a failing.

He's made mistakes, but he isn't "rightwing"

I don't wholly accept that characterisation. Starmer is not by many measures (looking at his history) a right wing clone. The problem is Labour seems unable to navigate the new landscape of political comms, and we can blame McSweeney for his simplistic and mystifying approach to date.

I imagine he thinks he's been terribly witty, too. But it is just a cheap hate-filled shot by a political chancer and second-rate opportunist.

I have never wanted to visit America less. Seems like you aren't even guaranteed to avoid being apprehended for weeks and deported if you've said something horrid about Trump on social media. I'll pass...

Go @marina-purkiss.bsky.social! Excellent challenging of the Ferrari obsession with Angela Rayner. He doesn't like it up him!

He is needed to lead the Tories imho. No one is benefiting from a weak and ever-weakening Tory party.

Yeah... fair comment. Now you've got me thinking that the funniest thing she did was announce the creation of the new party before JC had had his breakfast. Is that being good at something? And now she's practising at getting good at populism. Future is bright for English politics 🙄

Well if you're going to be a founder member of a populist party of the left, you'd better get a few more facile populist comments under your belt pronto. Expected this kind of low-grade commentary from Corbyn, but you as well? How disappointing.

Weirdly I was having a conversation with my other half about her earlier saying that she seemed to be more interesting and possibly more intelligent than Corbyn. And here she is leaning into the kind of low-grade, stupid, facile, populist nonsense that we all knew would be the bedrock of Your Party.

Urge anyone to read Danny Finkelstein's Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad for an evocation of elements of this. Utterly compelling

Definitely prog.

They never thought the toughened sentencing guidelines, lobbied for so assiduously via the RW press over decades would be used against one of their own. It is always about their own victimhood, about how hard done by they are, and the unfairness of it all. Tedious whingers to the end.

Three thoughts.

1 - Should be "claimed" not "says"
2 - BBC online puts anything remotely tendentious in inverted commas. So should be "political prisoner" in inverted commas.
3 - The prisons are full of nasty, deluded criminals with bullshit reasons why the court was wrong. Treat her like them.