One of my all-time fave movie-watching memories was being on a 7-hour flight. After an hour or so, some guy gave up on a movie he was watching, and presumably took a punt on a new kids animation. The Lego Movie.

Soon he was chuckling. Then giggling. Then LAUGHING… 1/6🧵 👇

https://twitter.com/chrizmillr/status/1755241799713739125

…the guy next to him leaned over and asked “hey, what are you watching?” 🤨
The dude realised how loud he was, and was a little embarrassed. He apologised, and said quietly: “uh… it’s The Lego Movie? - I didn’t expect this”

So the guy next to him selects it too… 2/5👇

Emotionally I am devastated that Harry Kane has left Spurs. Undoubtedly our greatest player in my lifetime, possibly the finest in our club history. But if I’m brutally honest, he stayed longer than I’d expected and he never once let the transfer gossip affect his professionalism Kane is the ultimate exemplar of model professional, hard working, saying everything on the pitch and nothing off it, and smashing records with machine-like relentlessness. He is a strangely unflashy phenomenon, and the old school lack of glamour was part of the appeal for me…

Love this thread! I explained more about the history of bonkers Christmas cards here artuk.org/discover/stori…

https://twitter.com/LaurynIpsum/status/1471680617452429312

I absolutely love that my undergraduate dissertation research in 2004 trends on Twitter every Christmas - hooray for bizarre Victorian Christmas cards!

Our government has relentlessly betrayed the vulnerable, the poor, the powerless, and the disenfranchised: Refugees, Windrush generation, the Grenfell victims, the kids fed by food banks, and now the A level students. It’s utterly shameful The whole ethos of conservatism is hard work, drive, and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is how social mobility occurs. And yet students who have worked so hard are being thrown under the bus not because of what they couldn’t do, but based on what others couldn’t do

Lovely metaphor, not remotely true history. This photo is from Paris Match/Daily Mail, 1958. The Algerian donkey was starving to death, so a soldier from the 13th brigade of the French Foreign Legion carried it back to base where it became a regimental mascot named “bambi”

https://twitter.com/mhdksafa/status/1246179099695087617

Here’s the story in French

Fellow #historians, the internet is obsessed with Julie d’Aubigny, known as La Maupin - a bisexual, cross dressing, sword fighting opera singer in Louis XIV’s reign.

She seems entirely invented by the romantic writer Théophile Gautier in the 1830s. What do we *actually* know? OK, Twitter! With your help, we've established Julie d'Aubigny, known as La Maupin, was real, did fence, did wear male clothes, and was an opera singer. But now to see if we can historicise her adventures. Interestingly, this shows up in a British newspaper in 1790...

Ok, so this isn’t your classic #BadHistoryGoesViral.

“Mate” is older; it’s from 14th century German for “someone you share food with”. So the matey thing isn’t true

Sure! Some pirates were possibly queer, in both homoerotic & homosexual sense, but we lack evidence

CONT 👇

https://twitter.com/rosiemarx/status/1205930962204286976

Matelotage sounds like a civil union between two men, hence the romantic appeal, but it was part of a wider culture of “Tontine” which was an insurance policy commonly operated in the 17-19th centuries for sailors in which two or more men agreed to divide the kitty all or nothing

In need of some #Christmas cheer? Here’s the Festive Special of #YDTM 🎄

Featuring ace historian @FernRiddell and the hilarious @russell_kane, we talk trees, crackers, Dickens, food, gifts, and why Victorian Xmas cards were BONKERS!! (see thread below)
bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0… Firstly, just look at the lovely bespoke artwork by @ChrisBoothArt. The snowball instead of the arrow is 😍

And scroll down to see the UTTERLY BIZARRE Christmas cards we talk about 👇👇👇

Hi! OK, BIG PERSONAL NEWS...

You may have noticed I’ve had a lot of down days on here. In 2014, I married my wonderful wife, after a decade together, and we began trying to get pregnant. It didn’t go as we’d hoped. First, 2 years of nothing. Then in 2016, 2 miscarriages... Then in early 2017, an ectopic miscarriage. I can’t tell you how devastating it was to feel hope then despair on a loop.

The next step was IVF. NHS criteria at the time, in Surrey, required we wait 3 years, all the while our natural fertility decreased. It’s a catch 22.