Earlier this week I sat down with Adrian Goldberg to discuss my book - Fake History, the truth about Winston Churchill and how great myths of exceptionalism have forged the politics of modern Britain. Listen here.. if you like shows.acast.com/byline-times-p…
Two weeks since the book came out and so far I've had just one small clarification from a University history department... obviously if you write a book called Fake History you're kind of drawing a massive target on your head... and asking for trouble
If you want to avail yourselves of a copy - grab it while you can. On all good websites now including:
I've just been sent this... supposedly a "sleeping lady" mountain... thousands of likes on Instagram. But it's a fake. It's extraordinary what people take on face value. This applies to photoshopped photos... the lies of politicians.. and falsified history.
All sounds very serious doesn't it... there's curry and laughs along the way. My twin Achilles heels I'm afraid
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This from 2017 is excellent on the fictional Brexit Neverland conjured up in Enid Blyton's books and how it moulded our present out of a view of our imagined past. prospectmagazine.co.uk/arts-and-books…
I've covered much the same in the Ladybird and HE Marshall chapter in my book. Children's books and magazines created an idealised vision of Britain in the 20th century - a place of order where everyone knew their place. And where all of history was a destiny narrative for the UK
The Ladybird book of The Fisherman and The Policeman are particularly fascinating and I'll wager they both occupied space on the childhood shelves of Messrs Farage and Hannan. (As they did mine)
Unpopular opinion - companies should be allowed to advertise with whomsoever they wish. I don't think policing advertising is a particularly good look.
You know if you don't like it simply don't buy from that company.
Goes without saying of course that people have a right to criticise them for it too. Life is complicated!
I can't believe how bad this is. I've seen one person Youtube operations about flat earthery that look slicker. It's unequiovocally awful. How much did this disaster cost?
I've seen more charisma in a civic bin
It's the news equivalent of it's a royal knockout.
I too am a coal miner's grandson. Does this make me special? Does every Labour MP have to read my book? Am I no longer metropolitan? Are the grandchildren of coal miners now better, more authorative individuals than everyone else?
Great news if so
I suspect there's millions of people who are coal miners grandchildren. Are we all special suddenly? Have we inherited some sacred gene?
I'm truly terrible at maths but given there were at least a million miners in the UK in the 1940s I reckon a good percentage of us are probably the children, grandchildren or great grandchildren of miners...