Vanilla’s top spot doesn’t surprise me but I am quite shocked to see mint choc chip in second place. The sensation is one of eating a piece of low quality milk chocolate and brushing your teeth immediately afterwards. Not pleasant.

YouGov@yougov.co.uk · 5d ago

YouGov's latest scoop: vanilla is Britain's favourite ice cream flavour Vanilla: 18% Mint choc chip: 14% Chocolate: 13% Strawberry: 5% Salted caramel: 5% Rum and raisin: 5% Pistachio: 4% Coffee: 3% Raspberry ripple: 3% yougov.com/en-gb/articl...

The view from outside

Quinn Slobodian@quinnslobodian.com · 6d ago

The UK is torching one of the few sectors in which they still have a global edge, horrifying to watch.

What does it mean to age successfully? In latest CAM Alumni Magazine, historian Helen McCarthy joins colleagues in the Precarious Ageing research network to explore how history and cultures worldwide shape our ideas of ageing, care, retirement and later life. 🔗 www.alumni.cam.ac.uk/magazine/iss...

On age

I want to live for ever. I want to retire at 50. Paying for care is a lottery. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to retire. The tropes of ageing are simultaneously contradictory and limiting, so what ...

alumni.cam.ac.uk

Chuffed to see my article on feminist responses to the unemployment crisis of the 1980s out in JBS:

“Women, Where Are Your Jobs Going?”: Feminism and the Problem of Unemployment in Thatcher’s Britain | Journal of British Studies | Cambridge Core

“Women, Where Are Your Jobs Going?”: Feminism and the Problem of Unemployment in Thatcher’s Britain - Volume 65

cambridge.org

Please share! A rare PhD studentship @kingshistory.bsky.social *fully* funded by @slaveryinwar.bsky.social to work with myself and Maeve Ryan, supported by a broader community of experts in Caribbean history, transatlantic slavery, and the history of war. www.kcl.ac.uk/study/fundin... 🗃️

AHRC Studentship: Slavery and the Seven Years’ War within and across the Caribbean Archipelago | King's College London

The Leverhulme Centre for Research on Slavery in War (CRSW) is pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded AHRC doctoral studentship, to be jointly supervised across History and War Studies

kcl.ac.uk

Saw The Odyssey & was blown away but I do agree with points made here about the female characters. Circe's feminist rage feels more like paranoia given how O's men are depicted as basically solid bros whilst Calypso channels White Company summer catalogue vibes. www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ju...

Chastity, nodding and enormous pores: will women also love Nolan’s Odyssey?

Christopher Nolan’s epic adaptation has been met with almost universal acclaim – from mostly male film critics. Might women find the journey less comfortable?

theguardian.com

Bruno Mars put on a phenomenal show at Wembley last night, but the rose logo for his Romantic tour gave me the occasional impression of being at a very cool and well-attended Labour Party conference.

The social agony of explaining to the Pret barista who innocently asks 'eat-in or take away?' that my sandwich I will eat elsewhere but I plan to sit here for a while drinking my coffee & thus I am both eating in AND taking away & know not how to categorise my status for your corporate tax purposes.

Delighted and honoured to be elected a Fellow. I am also thinking of earlier generations of women in my field without comparable recognition. Not even Susan Strange was elected an FBA. Their scholarship deserves to be remembered, read and honoured, and I receive this recognition with them in mind.

The British Academy@britishacademy.bsky.social · 3w ago

The British Academy has elected 92 new Fellows in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the humanities and social sciences. Congratulations to all those elected today. Read the full announcement: https://bit.ly/4f64C4x

Researching sex discrimination in mortgage-lending and found this eye-opening piece in The Observer from 1971 by Frances Cairncross: ‘A mortgage broker with a leading firm of accountants confirms that building societies tend to be suspicious of young single women...

It was lovely to talk to Ros about the history (and future) of retirement as part of this excellent podcast series. Do have a listen!

Ros Taylor@rostaylor.bsky.social · 3w ago

New MORE JAM TOMORROW It’s better than the alternative, right? From the pensioners who fled to Spain to the prospect of retiring at 68 … @historianhelen.bsky.social and I talk about how getting old ain’t what it used to be. morejamtomorrow.com/episode/old-...

Am always on lookout for fictional depictions of retirement and retirees and an MPhil student kindly gave me this to read. Which is about a retired policeman in 1990s Ireland, yes, but jaysus (as the protagonist would say) this book! Finished it an hour ago & am still trembling.

Oh hooray for the gentle, thoughtful voice of Andre Agassi filling my afternoon. Truly the sweet prince of tennis commentators.

This was a really moving interview. We're enormously proud of Peter at Queen Mary. He's been a lone voice for a particular kind of virtue in public life: not as something we admire in ourselves, but as something we practice towards others - and especially our opponents. And he really embodies that.

Rory Cellan-Jones @rorycj.bsky.social · 3w ago

What a moving interview on R4 BH with Peter Hennessey - says he’s retiring because his Parkinson’s means he can longer think clearly, but he sounded far clearer and made more sense than most people you hear on the radio

Academics and their cats are going to be very throughly archived for the future historian.

Bodleian Libraries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk · 4w ago

Why does the Bodleian have pictures of people and their pets? And why do we want your photos?

The research papers produced by the House of Commons Library are a wondrous thing.

I fear that 1. will end up being pushed from the 'essential' into the 'desirable' column on the job spec.

David Higham@oldtrotter.bsky.social · last mo.

The checklist for Burnham’s choice of Chancellor

Morning all! Did I miss something? 😉

For a brief moment in the 1990s, the Telecottage and Televillage offered new pathways for home-based work & rural regeneration, powered by cutting-edge technology. Read Rose Dryzek's new article on what the failure of that vision reveals about late 20thC Britain. academic.oup.com/tcbh/article...

Communities of the future? Telecottages and the televillage in 1990s Britain

Abstract. In the early 1990s, it seemed that new technologies were opening up new possibilities for the organization of work and community life. This artic

academic.oup.com

I would quite like this Arts & Crafts lectern, I cannot lie.

What are the words and phrases that irrationally make you wince as a reader? The literary equivalent of nails scratching the blackboard? For me, it's 'likes of' 'replete with' 'relatable' and extraneous uses of 'then' (most of the time you really don't need it).

Being at Chalke History Festival reminds me yet again how interconnected university-based history and other forms of history-making are. The thing we do in one place explicitly supports the thing we do in another. University cuts, closures and job losses harm the entire history eco-system.

Advocating for History by Doing History - On History

This blog was written by Claire Langhamer, Director of the IHR Historians are very good at crafting arguments and in recent times very many people have advanced very many arguments about why history m...

blog.history.ac.uk

Just returned from The Misanthrope & endorse this mixed review. Oh is terrific but the play is firing in too many directions despite delivering a powerful takeaway: if writing is truth-telling, what does a writer do when the world isn’t interested in her truth? www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/j...

The Misanthrope review – Sandra Oh brings riveting heart and fire to over-stuffed Molière update

Martin Crimp’s heroic but imperfect modern-day version of the 17th-century classic is crammed full of debates about how we might live differently

theguardian.com

Reading this for the first time. What a book.

We are now on Instagram! Follow our account for history insights, reading recommendations, and highlights from past winners, as we look ahead to the 2026 shortlist announcement on 17 September. www.instagram.com/wolfsonhisto...

Instagram

Create an account or log in to Instagram - Share what you're into with the people who get you.

instagram.com

Ever dreamed of a sun-soaked retirement overseas? Plenty of older Britons chased that fantasy in the late 20th century as my new article in @conteurohistory.bsky.social reveals. But retirement migration was also a space of racialisation and postcolonial anxieties. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

A fascinating episode in the making of postcolonial Britain

Chris Campbell@chriscampbell1.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Delighted to have an article in this month's @historytoday.com The article explores the 1951 Hans Crescent Strike, the post-war history of colonial students in the UK, and the British Council's attempt to use them for imperial soft power. www.historytoday.com/archive/feat...

Update: now going to different restaurant where I am at liberty to dress in an entirely impersonal, generic and purposeless way. Phew.

Helen McCarthy@historianhelen.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Will shortly be visiting a restaurant which requires patrons to dress with ‘personality, purpose and originality.’ Send help please.

Will shortly be visiting a restaurant which requires patrons to dress with ‘personality, purpose and originality.’ Send help please.

Lots of scepticism on here but parents on my daughter’s Y8 WhatsApp chat are notably positive about the proposed social media ban.