Medieval Historian. PhD. Teacher. Player of Games and Consumer of Media. Beach aficionado and martial arts instructor. Mediterranean + global history C1150-1400
Shameless self promotion time! It's been a long time since I wrote anything, but I've got a new piece out in the @PublicMedieval that's (probably) worth a read (there's no account for taste, after all)!
https://t.co/m5GPDQ61k8
Okay, so here are my comments on the new paper in @Nature announcing palaeogenetic identification of the origin of the Black Death. Since this will be a long thread, a few general pointers. 1/n
If you're wondering how #PMQs went today, the SNP guy asked how Scots with low incomes can possibly afford to heat their homes during the current cold snap and, in response, the Prime Minister called him a fatty.
“This is from someone that voted for you. What a disappointment you are.”
Tonight on Question Time, this #bbcqt audience member says the Government “know the cost of everything and the value of nothing”. Watch on @BBCOne after the news, or live via the iPlayer.
Instead of National Insurance hikes for millions of people, we could raise the same amount of money with a 1.5% tax on any wealth over £5 million.
Remember that when the Tories say there is no alternative!
Last week, P&O Ferries sacked 800 workers without warning and replaced them with people paid just £1.80 an hour.
Labour forced a vote just now in Parliament to outlaw fire and rehire - the Tories didn’t bother turning up so it fell.
@g2mcc @TrotTaBoston @Dee007007@thiccgenius In case you actually don't know: https://t.co/18wNjadzzg
In case you do know but you're being disingenuous: why?
I don’t think the people who have cheerleaded this man, who have repeated his talking points & helped his political objectives should have a way back from this.
He’s just called for a ‘self-purification’ of Russia. We know where we’ve heard that before.
So, students, so you know, I’m working my full contractual hours, with Covid, but @UniversityLeeds tells me they might dock my pay if I don’t find extra hours, hours that even timetabling staff can’t find, to do work I haven’t been paid for during strike days.
Boris Johnson is begging Saudi for green investment in the UK. This is absurd. There's £8.4 trillion of financial wealth in the UK and with changes to pension and ISA rules I reckon more than £100 billion of this could be used for green energy a year. He should give me a call.
Another Met Police scandal: a black girl was stripped and searched at school. The search, which involved the exposure of her intimate body parts, took place without an appropriate adult present and with the knowledge that she was menstruating. Case review:
https://t.co/mVZgCBwJCD
NEW: I’m not sure people appreciate quite how bad the Covid situation is in Hong Kong, nor what might be around the corner.
First, an astonishing chart.
After keeping Covid at bay for two years, Omicron has hit HK and New Zealand, but the outcomes could not be more different.
Astonishingly bold move: Prime ministers of Poland, Czech Republic and Slovenia go to Kyiv, which is under Russian shelling, to meet @ZelenskyyUa and show solidarity with Ukraine https://t.co/2zDP2fAgfg