James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers

YouTuber of the Month January 2023. Mardite. Programmer, visionary, dreamweaver. Plus actor! I work for a cyberpunk corporation. #blamelukestaddon

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

This is my only Twitter account. I am WhatHoSnorkers on Twitch and YouTube, but JAMOGRAD on here.

And I don't know Morse Code so I'm not on Telegram.

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

This is a great movie! It's got the guy from the Time Machine in it!

[TPTV Encore @TPTVEncore]

FINAL CALL for 1968 drama Nobody Runs Forever, starring Christopher Plummer, on @TalkingPicsTV's online cinema. It leaves the service tomorrow (Tuesday) night. If you missed on the channel visit https://t.co/eSnIf6XrQA, 🔴Freeview82 or download the Encore app to watch.

[Toddington @HXValley]

Espionage with an Australian flavour in Swinging London - what's not to love?

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

@Strangeland_Elf They take a bit longer than the British ones, I think they're half the power, if you have an electric one at all.

I believe.

Then again I thought Americans drove cars with the gearstick on the steering column, so I might be out of date...

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

@HiddenYorkshire I did my part!

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

@NicholasOShaug1 I wouldn't have thought rote learning had been a thing since before I was born, to be honest. It smacks of the Victorian Era.

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

@JohnGale45 It's a lovely little place!

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

Stokesay Castle, as seen in the Look and Learn Book 1979!

I've been there too, it's lovely.

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

One of the best preserved medieval castles in England was built not by a lord who won it in battle but by a man who bought and sold fleeces, and he built it to show the lords what their sheep had made him.

Laurence of Ludlow was a Shropshire wool dealer in the 1280s. He rode the Welsh marches buying the clip from monasteries, manors and hill farmers, collected it into great consignments, and sold it to the Flemish and Italian buyers who turned it into the finest cloth in Europe. English wool was the oil of the age, and Laurence was one of the men who moved it. He lent money to the Crown. He was consulted on the wool tax. When Edward I needed an export duty negotiated, it was the merchant from Ludlow in the room.

With the money he bought the manor at Stokesay and in 1291 got the King's licence to fortify it. The result is still standing: a great hall with its original timber roof, a tower, a moat, and glass in the windows at a time when a baron's hall had shutters. It was built to look like a castle and live like a palace, and it was paid for by the backs of sheep.

He drowned in 1294, on a ship carrying wool to Flanders, with a cargo of the stuff that had made him. The hall he built has not needed a new roof.

Every grand house in the Cotswolds, every wool church, every market town between Hereford and Lincoln tells a version of this story. The wealth of medieval England was not gold or grain. It was grazing. A sheep on a hill was a bond that paid out every spring, and a man who understood that could build a castle without ever lifting a sword.

The hill farmer who now gets a few pence a fleece is standing on the ground that built Stokesay.

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

@EllenFWalker Also my old telly, which looked that this for everything apart from the Simpsons.

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

@EllenFWalker To be fair, there were still chlorine gas attacks happening because of German soldiers who refused to admit that the First World War was over.

Fortunately we'd all toughened up over the decades so no longer needed gasmasks.

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

@MysteriosoX We're going head to head....
with the Undead
You can fill 'em full of lead
But they won't stay dead.

Chas and Dave triumph once more!

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

@Strangeland_Elf Also makes chroma keying easier.

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

@asianmomriot And shrugged a lot.

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

@Strangeland_Elf I think American electric kettles are weaker so they take ages to boil.

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

@asianmomriot Apparently Louis XVI's version of the "Hokey Cokey" was "Put your whole self in, remain motionless for 5 minutes, then light a cigarette and call it a job well done"

[Damien Lewis @authordlewis]

More breaking news on scandalous hounding of SAS. SAS witch hunts threaten national security, says regimental association:
https://t.co/kb5WRof5HF

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

@HiddenYorkshire I had a dream last night where I was discussing this sort of thing with Michael Gove, in relation to Scottish politicians who seemed to turn their Scottish accents on and off.

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

@404Lewis @J4zzKane @_hyNilah We do learn about America in schools, just not THAT bit. I remember stuff about wagon trains and that!

[Catherine Warr @HiddenYorkshire]

Even monsters need coffee

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

@AlexeyGorboot I don't fancy yours much.

[James O'Grady also on Twitch as WhatHoSnorkers @JAMOGRAD]

@DaddyWarpig In my version of Call of Cthulhu, there's an adventure where they go "it's set in the 20s, and there is actual racism in this one, because it was the 20s. It's bad, OK?" And assumed the Keeper and players weren't idiots.