Nazis ban comedians shock.. NYT, 4 Feb 1939
Writer, broadcaster, optimist. FRHistS. Books: Blood Legacy - slavery & my family's part in it. Stiff Upper Lip - abuse in Britain's elite schools. BBC Radio 4's In Dark Corners. alexrenton.com
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Nazis ban comedians shock.. NYT, 4 Feb 1939
'Trump is the enemy.' Max Hastings shines on BBC R4 Today this morning, saying what the real lessons of the Trump visit are: every cavilling, cowardly, appeasing politician take note. From 2hrs 52. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
1st October, St Pancras New Church, Euston, London at 7pm - free, but register below. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-rivers...
I haven't tried it yet... Thinking maybe I should do it on TikTok with music so it becomes a 'challenge' and goes mega-viral. Statement of opposition to sell-by dates and ageism. Am consulting younger people...
President Trump - why stop with Department of War? Department of Ill-Health. Failed State Department. Department of Homeland Insecurity. I've got more ideas. Sir.
Seal intact, sell-by date 2017. A dark mahogany... Lethal, or delicious? Alcoholic? Will report, if I survive.
"Do I have hope? I've been asked that for 10 years. No. But if I knew that the world was going to shit, it was all going to burn, I would still fight."
'We are in a season of cowardice now.' On international reaction to the genocide in Gaza.
'Why do white people need us? Because they are not white without us.' Ta-Nehisi Coates on white supremacy and African-American identity at Edinburgh Book Festival just now @edbookfest.bsky.social
Well done - it's hard work getting a complaint through IPSO, and positioning of correction is rarely satisfactory. I got a correction of a malicious untruth in a J Clarkson Sunday Times column. But it was buried - should have appeared in or under his next column.
Well done - but agree with you about
@anitaanand.bsky.social... A mention to your and Sam Dalrymple's Edinburgh book fest audience today? 6pm in Princes St, by Waverley Station.
Edinburgh, Waverley end of Princes St, 6pm tonight
Another violent brute from Edinburgh Academy goes down. Well done the brave survivors, and credit to BBC Radio 4 for backing the initial exposé of the abuse and cover-ups at Edinburgh Academy & Fettes College. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
This is very good indeed ... out early next month. Brilliant work by @drmirandakaufmann.bsky.social
Israel bombed and killed 5 Al Jaxeera journalists and camera operators They were in a tent outside al-Shifa hospital Israel has killed 237 journalists since 2023 and won't allow international journalists into Gaza
More tips please Lyn!
I went out to challenge the law used to ban Palestine Action. Would I be arrested too? | George Monbiot
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/comm...
The greatest sexual threat to any child comes not from strangers or “grooming gangs” but the males they know and trust.
Wondering if all those waving “Save are children” banners outside asylum seeker hostels are aware that statistically the greatest threat is the men in their own homes. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
Yes. I read it - it's all based on the maximum possible fine under planning law for putting a flag pole on your house and flying a flag bigger than a double bed.
Switch on my phone and the first thing on screen is this bollocks
Novel about Lionel’s journey coming up… Elizabeth Taylor would have done it nicely.
No es excepcional, es una mierda. I like genuine Spanish pilsner so Madri, ubiquitous now in UK, is annoying. It's not 'the soul of Madrid' - Spain has never seen it, it's an invention, brewed in England by Molson-Coors. I know *you* knew this, but I keep meeting people who don't. Y sabe a meada.
Probably Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Medical Aid for Palestinians.
Interesting upswing in people asking ‘how do I best support Palestine and oppose the violence’. Any ideas for the faint-hearted who wont demonstrate or fly a flag?
The grammar police have started arrested people for signs like the one I held on our last demo. It'll be an interesting test of the law, because "I support Palestine. Action is needed now" is an expression of opinion. It would make no sense without the full stop. www.instagram.com/reel/DMTrNXu...
Vandalism is not terrorism.
“16 years ago woman wore expensive dress at party, now she opposes genocide…” really very feeble, this, even for The Times.
Marina Hyde on top form: ‘Trump is furious with the WSJ owner, Rupert Murdoch, and threatening to “sue his ass off”. Oh please don’t, Mr President! His ass is 94 years old and incredibly wrinkled. Also, half of Britain’s political class still lives up it.’
Not often the Daily Express gets it right … @mandatenow.bsky.social
The police (wrongly) inform a peaceful protestor that holding a Palestinian flag and signs deploring genocide is an offence under the Terrorism Act. This is the deranged policing environment the government has created.
#cfc
We don't really do sports on BlueSky but...
At our demonstration today, I'm holding a placard stating "I support Palestine. Action must be taken." My aim is to highlight the absurdity of the government dictating what can and cannot be said by peace-seeking people
Interesting posters gone up round Leith
Another day, another revelation…
For pity’s sake, don’t give any money or even your email address to Paul Marshall and Michael Gove’s Speccie - maybe just send it straight to Sam? PS: @chloehadj.bsky.social - what a great piece of work.
please stop posting all this lifestyle bollocks - how about some news?
Great work.
It would be fun if Yvette Cooper banned Rod…
My blurb: “… a brave, brilliant, and essential book, telling truths that many will not want to hear. I hope *The Crown's Silence* will inspire investigations of other maritime monarchies as we reckon with the still-deadly legacies of human bondage.” www.harpercollins.com/products/the...
How brilliant. Congratulations, Dr Grimwood.
Iain Wares, Scotland's most prolific school-based sex offender, was 86 yesterday. Still awaiting extradition in his luxury retirement home in Cape Town.
From X… Ben Thomson is a Canadian medic who has worked in Gaza.
Handy list of things Israeli politicians have said about Gaza and the people who live there.
UPDATE: Can we reach 70,000 now? Add your name here: palestinecampaign.eaction.org.uk/NoProscription
And on it goes. Israeli politicians using UK media to stoke up outrage around Bob Vylan & Kneecap must be laughing their heads off at how easy it all is. I think this brings the Palestinian death toll *since the Glastonbury performance* in to triple figures. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
My opinion on the Bob Vylan / Kneecap controversy is that the IDF just bombed a seafront café
what is a ‘blood libel’?
You mean 'entirely white'
Love Ezra Collective and what they do. Sad truth that many young black people can't possibly afford to get to Glastonbury - except as performers. @ezracollective.bsky.social
4. Why is Britain still arming and training these people? IDF soldier: “No one cares about Gaza anymore. It’s a place that follows our own rules now. Killing people there doesn’t even count as an ‘unfortunate incident’ anymore, it’s nothing.”
3. Bibi Netanyahu called the Haaretz story a ‘blood libel’, as the BBC reported, without context, all yesterday, while. I don’t know what the phrase means now, either. Anyone?
2. This story notably absent yesterday from my and others’ feeds in Meta outlets like this one and Instagram. Algorithmic muffling?
Questions… 1. Shall we start at least giving Palestinian journalists at least the credence we’ve given Israeli govt spokespeople? (Independent journalists not allowed into Gaza for 629 days, so far, in case you had forgotten, as BBC radio bulletin writers have.)
Israeli newspaper Haaretz confirms what Palestinian journalists said for weeks. IDF soldier: “No one cares about Gaza anymore. It’s a place that follows our own rules now. Killing people there doesn’t even count as an ‘unfortunate incident’ anymore, it’s nothing.” www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
who cares?
Sample... But Loyle Carner was lovely!
Some people went to Glastonbury. I went to the Edinburgh Corn Exchange for The Brian Jonestown Massacre, literally and quite comically the worst ageing guitar rock band I've ever seen... But I got home in time for @loylecarner.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
I stand with #PalestineAction. Lock me up as a terrorist, Yvette Cooper. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
Otro mundo debería ser posible. Soñad con ello.
I post my "Bluesky is dying" article on Twitter and sit back smugly as it's shown to 274 of my 80,000 followers, receiving two likes, on retweet, and an anime avatar called lolitas1488 telling me my inferior skullshape means I belong in the camps.
You can't help but think yeah, that's fair.
It's all quite old school militaristic, isn't it? I'm not sure the place is quite as cutting edge as it was...
'Enormous', eh? The fundraiser promises that all this fighty sports stuff will help with resilience and teamwork: very good reasons *not* to donate, given the mayhem Team Eton tends to cause whenever it gets near the controls...
I left Eton College 'under a cloud' at 16, but Britain's richest school (over £1 billion in assets and reserves) still sends me begging letters. Today for the new gym, with "a fencing salle, martial arts, rifle range, climbing wall, golf simulator, and an enormous indoor football and cricket hall."
Drax Hall - The Poet Laureate of Barbados Esther Phillips will be at the Frontline Club on Tuesday 24 June reading from her poetry and speaking about the Drax Hall Plantation - she was born and grew up next to the former slave plantation. eventbrite.co.uk/.../poetry-b....
There is a failure to remember that Jerusalem is only partially Israeli territory. Friends in East Jerusalem and nearby W Bank villages reporting missile debris endangering them, too. But little access to emergency services. Will Britain protect them? www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...
brilliant! never seen that before (so tf for BlueSky, right?)
Few months, '96-'97
‘Intellectual giant’, sure, but also one of the kindest, funniest, wisest people I’ve known - a friend and an inspiration and guide in my life and work. So long, Geoff. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
no suit, Mr Pope?
What to expect next: – Escalation framed as “restoring order” – Mass arrests under vague pretexts – Targeting of protest organisers and journalists – Expansion of emergency powers – Demonisation of dissent as “terrorism”
Telling you guys this because, who else can you tell?
I googled the ‘relationship between David Hume and Sir Adam Fergusson’. The AI response at the top of the results gave me three paragraphs in which Sir Adam (politician, landowner) and Adam Ferguson (philosopher) had become the same person…
Always savoured @questingvole.bsky.social’s journalism (I remember a particularly sage non-fiction review back in 2017) - now gone full fan-boy and downloaded his novel The Coincidence Engine.
Loved this, and now have a reading list for the summer. Thank you, @questingvole.bsky.social
The ‘chemical castration’ drug lowers libido… and that’s all.
Emeritus Professor Robert Tombs has been a dishonest ideologue for a long time - retirement does terrible things to grand academics.
What’s ’Twitter’?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Be wary of romanticising our industrialised fishing - like salmon farming, a lot of it is foreign-owned and foreign-staffed. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Hmm… Scottish scallop dredgers employ largely foreign workers- I’ve seen this firsthand - and they do not employ them well. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Lots of new followers here - sone bots but many interesting and real people. But why not use actual names? Anonymity was a key flaw of the other site, a license to troll…
When people say you should hear both sides of the argument, well these are both sides:
Shameless from the Washington Post - @anntelnaes.bsky.social quit because the paper censored her to please the Trump tyranny.
She quit because WP censored her to please Trump.
How many have quit in protest at the suck-up to tyranny since?
but not for the op-eds?
We know and talk to people in the West Bank daily.This sober FT piece on Israel’s under-reported war against civilians there rings true. #palestine #idf (Free to read, I think) ftedit.ft.com/Ju3k/r5wfus82 Inside Israel’s ‘Gazafication’ of the West Bank
the *uncompleted* national monument… always loved that bit
For nearly 60 days, no food, fuel, medicine or other items has entered the Gaza Strip, blocked by Israel. Aid groups are running out of food to distribute. Markets are nearly bare. Palestinian families are left struggling to feed their children.
Teaser from Paul Marshall’s Unherd … It and his Spectator run ‘the next British civil war’ pieces so often, you suspect they rather fancy the prospect…
I’ve got a sub to The Times at the moment to research something I’m writing. It is shit. A pile of old, white, right doo-doo. Snobbish, stupid, dull.
We're holding another series of free online workshops for 'heirs' to discuss the legacies of transatlantic enslavement and ideas for repair with activists and experts. Email via the website for more info. www.heirsofslavery.org
Martin Wolf is not messing around here www.ft.com/content/d96d...
Genuine must-read: analysis from my historian cousin @davidkr.bsky.social - for hope at the moment we need to look to the radical left. shorturl.at/1xy7G