From the FT, with no intended irony: ‘It’s like playing on concrete’: drought leaves sports pitches across England unplayable. - Rugby and football matches postponed as dry weather affects grassroots and amateur sports ...

A news item that tells us that next year is going to be the hottest ever because of El Niño without mentioning CO2 induced heating has got to be funded by fossil fuel companies - yeah? Well it’s BBC News, in every radio bulletin today.

The life of Eliza Ogilvy opens up rabbit holes I sometimes run down gratefully. This is a deep one, concerning the granddaughters of the Congress leader Dadabhai Naoroji and their leading role in the Indian liberation movement in Mumbai in the 1920s and ‘30s. eaho.substack.com/p/the-captai...

The Captain sisters in Bombay, organising women's resistance to British rule in India

Dadabhai Naoroji paid for his granddaughters to have the very best education at Oxford & the Sorbonne; they used it wisely, to lead the women's Satyagraha movement and the boycott campaign in Bombay.

eaho.substack.com

@eicathomefinn.bsky.social @alanlester.bsky.social Thank you for your kind words! The kernel of the book (so far) is here eaho.substack.com/s/the-book/a... but yet to cover 2H19C. The explanation of how it fits together, and how one things leads to another, is here: eaho.substack.com/p/introducin...

Introducing Eliza Ogilvy (the long edition)

A literary life in Scotland, India, Italy and London; a network of artists, writers and scientists; a microhistory of the East India Company and its influence on British culture in the 19th Century.

eaho.substack.com

Louise Adler sits down in a wide-ranging interview that covers the Holocaust, Zionism, the Royal Commission and her time as Edward Said's teaching assistant www.deepcutnews.com/p/louise-adl...

Louise Adler - the Royal Commission is a propaganda project to silence critics of Israel

The former Adelaide Writers' Week director sits down in a wide-ranging interview that covers the Holocaust, Zionism, the Royal Commission and her time as Edward Said's teaching assistant

deepcutnews.com

I’m standing in the rain. It’s not the monsoon but it’s gorgeous!

We need to show rightwing newspapers that actions have consequences. Add your name: goodlawproject.org/s/abb8a1

Jason Arday: Demand a public inquiry now | Good Law Project

Commission an immediate public inquiry into how to ensure a responsible press given its contribution to Dr Arday’s tragic death.

goodlawproject.org

Thanks Margot. Adding in part 3 on diverse mechanisms by which Indian and Chinese wealth was transferred to capital formation in Britain, inc. Macnaghten & Prinsep connections with GWR, Lushington & Harris with London Chatham & Kent, and P&O with opium transit eaho.substack.com/p/163-old-in...

16.3 Old Indians, new money

David Ogilvy was a cog in the machine that directed wealth gained in China and India into British capital formation during the railway boom and bust of 1843-50. The consequences were transformative.

eaho.substack.com

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 2w ago

Great blog. Another major way that EIC fortunes flowed into British railways was through the Russell Family. Sir Henry Sr was CJ of Calcutta Supreme Court; the 2nd Sir H, as Henry Russell EIC civil servant was Resident at Hyderabad and his brother Charles (later Chairman of GWR) in EIC army. 1/2

And here is Part 1, Railway mania eaho.substack.com/p/161-railwa...

16.1 Railway mania

How profits extracted from India fuelled Britain's railway bubble; how William Aytoun played a small part in its bursting; and how Eliza Dick found herself in an East India Company marriage.

eaho.substack.com

Alan Lester@alanlester.bsky.social · 2w ago

2/2 In this blog and those before and after, Owen reveals fascinating connections between capital extracted from India, especially from opium, and Britain's 1840s railway boom, which helped to cement the eraly gains of the Industrial Revolution: eaho.substack.com/p/162-opiums...

And here is Part 1, Railway mania eaho.substack.com/p/161-railwa...

16.1 Railway mania

How profits extracted from India fuelled Britain's railway bubble; how William Aytoun played a small part in its bursting; and how Eliza Dick found herself in an East India Company marriage.

eaho.substack.com

Alan Lester@alanlester.bsky.social · 2w ago

2/2 In this blog and those before and after, Owen reveals fascinating connections between capital extracted from India, especially from opium, and Britain's 1840s railway boom, which helped to cement the eraly gains of the Industrial Revolution: eaho.substack.com/p/162-opiums...

1/2 Following on from @eicathomefinn.bsky.social & others (link), William Owen has been researching the East India Company's influence on British society & economy. This eastern influence merged with that of the Atlantic slavery complex to help transform the nation. uclpress.co.uk/book/the-eas...

Something to watch giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

The Bayeux Tapestry loan is a model for the Parthenon Marbles

Burnham has a chance to create a legislative carve-out that speeds the process of returning the artefacts to Greece

giftarticle.ft.com

Bristol University's failed appeal to overturn David Miller's tribunal victory confirms legal protections for anti-Zionism as a philosophical belief - and is ignored by all m/s media except the BBC and Al Jazeera. Times, Telegraph and Guardian are much too busy hounding Jason Arday to cover it.

As the great opium smuggler James Matheson once remarked, it is “opium revenue on which [the East India Company] chiefly rely for the means of paying the dividends on their Stock”. And yes, a guaranteed annual dividend of £630,000 was divided between some 4500 individual shareholders.

So why the scare quotes? The article says “Two of the most frequently used chemicals in pet flea and tick treatments – imidacloprid and fipronil – are banned for use in pesticides in the EU and UK due to their severe toxicity to fish, invertebrates, bees.” www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Calls to ban ‘toxic’ pet flea treatments that harm UK wildlife and environment

Over-the-counter treatments for cats and dogs contain chemicals that are banned in pesticides and pollute waterways

theguardian.com

As the great opium smuggler James Matheson once remarked, it is “opium revenue on which [the East India Company] chiefly rely for the means of paying the dividends on their Stock”. And yes, a guaranteed annual dividend of £630,000 was divided between some 4500 individual shareholders.

As the great opium smuggler James Matheson once remarked, it is “opium revenue on which [the East India Company] chiefly rely for the means of paying the dividends on their Stock”. And yes, a guaranteed annual dividend of £630,000 was divided between some 4500 individual shareholders.

Thinking through the unedifying, un-evidence-based rush to an undefined, apparently unmodelled paradigm of 'specialisation, what's being lost/threatened? Herts History was an excellent example of performing to a top standard in REF, but also much more than that. Questions to think with include: 1/4

Glen O'Hara@gsoh31.bsky.social · 4w ago

So it's farewell to the History subject area at the University of Hertfordshire, not the first nor the last to go. One of the best departments in the country, just extinguished like a snap of the fingers. Think of the waste. (1/2)

Just published in Eliza Ogilvy’s Commonplace Book is Missing: On East India Company family alliances reforming as business networks in London, and their influence on the railway boom and bust of 1843-50, in three parts:

Just published in Eliza Ogilvy’s Commonplace Book is Missing: On East India Company family alliances reforming as business networks in London Company, and their influence on the railway boom and bust of 1843-50, in three parts:

Tragic yes, but for @telegraph.co.uk and Allister Heath it's simply time for the people of Leiston and the birds of Dunwich to embrace the Mediterranean lifestyle

Robert Shrimsley@robertshrimsley.bsky.social · last mo.

Dunwich Heath is so beautiful. This fire is tragic.

Today’s cloud. To be helpful it’s in the centre of the picture, in the sky. In the foreground you can see the desertification of Green Park.

Could anyone with the necessary expertise translate this for me? “The [Ziwiye hoard] earrings belong to Barron London a … dealer whose website states: “With a reputation for discretion, the gallery works privately with collectors, estates and institutions to uncover and place pieces of significance”

‘Fairness you can feel’. Neil Kinnock is selling Andy Burnham like soap. Is he just a lot of lather?

Historian of science Margaret Rossiter (b #OTD in 1944) coined the term #MatildaEffect (1993). Named after suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage, the Matilda Effect describes a systemic bias where women's scientific achievements are ignored, minimized, or directly attributed to their male colleagues. 1/3

Long piece on institutional collusion in the erasure of a people and their past. Well researched, worth a read, exposing reprehensible behaviour. www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/ex...

Exclusive: British Museum made false claims about its removal of ‘Palestine’ from displays

Internal emails reveal changes resulted directly from complaints by pro-Israel activists, with the museum and its director subsequently misleading prominent critics

middleeasteye.net

'Lunch with the FT' is a lightweight regular feature and sometimes disappointingly so, as in today's with Morgan McSweeney, by George Parker [he's over at X] who offers a soft mouthpiece for myth-making and nothing resembling journalism. I'll save the world the link. @financialtimes.com

This loss is significant. Another database, the Colonial Film Project, exists still as a database but no films are viewable as the original project ran on flash (!).

Luke McKernan @lukemckernan.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A sad tale of disappearing databases lukemckernan.com/2026/06/28/l...

“As a technology, AI has pros and cons; as a rushed project of rapacious elites, it is transparently obscene … rolled out in the most reckless, self-serving way one could imagine, by the worst people, for the worst reasons. It’s not the machines you should be angry with.”

The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI by Cory Doctorow review – the real price of artificial intelligence

A vivid and entertaining polemnic on the economics of the tech revolution, filled with righteous ire

theguardian.com

I’ve just seen James Parnell - Josh Simons axis described as “Continuity neo-liberal Zionism”. That just about sums it up.