Building for the Atomic Age. An exploration of the industrial archaeology of Britain’s ‘atomic age’: the physical traces of what remains and what has been lost of this endeavour.
🧪 🏺💙📚
Sorry for your loss 🖤
Three were given to the Elves; immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven, to the Dwarf Lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls.
... teaspoons, tinfoil, syringes and skag?
"Air raids are not only wrong. They are loathsome and disgusting. If you had ever seen a child smashed by a bomb into something like a mixture of dirty rags and cat’s meat you would realize this fact as intensely as I do." - J.B.S. Haldane, 1938.
Five minutes later: yes, even bigger than the hotel at Disneyland.
“Daddy is infinity a number?” Ffs I’m not prepared for this.
I am quite tired of being subjected to the worthless, imbecilic and mealy-mouthed statements of the day drunks, coke heads, racists, islamophobes, bigots, cowards and empty suits who have been elevated to our halls of power. What a massive waste of time and human life
It’s usually mummy wheat that brings out the real crazies
Excellent summary of Moscati's life of failures, falsehoods and fantasies here: victorianresearch.org/Obscure_cont...
Today’s research rabbit-hole is the life of the Marquess Moscati, who assisted at a mummy-unrolling in London in 1833. Good lord.
Extract from The Lancet, 22 June 1833: April il 15th - Mr. BURKE this evening brought no casts or skulls, nor indeed did he bring any written essays, as he had led the Society to expect, and confessed that he had not written on the subject, and so I proceeded, greatly to the astonishment of the Society, extemporaneously to " prove" his discoveries. The first of his new facilities was perfectiveness, or the love of perfecting all undertakings. The organ of this new faculty he placed between benevolence and comparison; but he had no casts, or knlls, or drawings, to prove his assertions, and the only examples he could adduce were Fuseli and himself. In Fuseli, he said, that part of the head was small, and Fuseli finished nothing. In himself (Mr. B.) it was very large, and beloved to perfect everything. One member declared, that in all the representations of Fuseli, that part was actually large ; and the! PRESIDENT remarked, that as Mr. Burke had not finished the essay he promised to write, hut had come down to the Society at the last meeting with an unfinished paper, and to-night with no paper at all, i and had, moreover, no proofs prepared, but presumed to lay such undigested thoughts i before the Society, it was a sufficient proof against Mr. B.’s possessing the organ. The ! President observed in continuation, that he felt it to he his duty to inform Mr. Burke, that the Society did not expect, I when it consented to hear his papers, that i it would he thus treated; that any one would suppose Mr. B. to be an enemy in disguise, who wished, after the manner of the Jesuits, to excite contempt and ridicule against the science ; that phrenology was founded only on the most rigorous observation of facts, and that all crude speculation was rejected by true phrenologists. It was then understood that the Society had been sufficiently patient with Mr. Burke, and that he should read no more papers at the meetings.
Shenanigans and shade-throwing at the London Phrenological Society, 1833.
Building a prison out of prisoners' own hair demonstrates either a terrifying knowledge of magic, or an equally terrifying ignorance of magic.
I'd always assumed the US military had a bunch of folks wargaming every conceivable conflict scenario in mind-boggling detail. Turns out they were all just whacking off to Book of Revelations fanfic.
To be fair to Nesta Webster, she produced a very convincing organisational chart of the global socialist/jewish/nudist conspiracy.
everyone enjoying the unhinged genocidal Islamophobia going around? good times.
In verrrry broad terms: professional archaeologists conduct fieldwork in advance of construction work, to mitigate its impacts on archaeological heritage. Academic archaeologists conduct teaching and research in universities.
The destruction of short courses and continuing education departments in UK universities did enormous harm to the ability of these three realms of archaeology - amateur, academic, professional - to overlap and interact, and destroyed longstanding alternative career paths.
Only a small and comparatively recent element of UK archaeological research is purely academic. Today, the overwhelming majority is conducted within professional archaeology. Meanwhile UK avocational archaeology has 200+ years of national and regional associations, publications, and collections.
people dying
people torn apart
people in utter terror
Maybe it’s because I’m a colonial historian but so many of these white nation states seem to behave exactly like they did in the 19th century: ‘your leaders aren’t right for you,’ ‘we’re only killing you/colonizing you/installing puppet leaders for your own good’
Hilux: the evolution of revolution. Spoof advertisement for Toyota hilux technicals.
Onion article “peace activist has to admit Barrett .50 calibre sniper rifle is pretty cool”
There’s even an EM-2 rifle to appeal to the niche “hate empire, enjoy rare guns” audience, aka me.
Inspired decision by IWM to include a Churchill quote from c.1898 that makes him sound like an opponent of colonial brutality, and one from local Southwark resident Reg who “feels positively about the British Empire”. Lots of spiffing uniforms and shiny guns too.
Content warning: this exhibition explores themes of violence, racism, indentured labour, and sexual violence.
Emergency Exits: The Fight for Independence in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus is at the Imperial War Museum until 29 March.
IWM bookshop table covered in Churchill books.
… other side of the table is dedicated to Churchill fandom bollocks. IWM literally both-sidesing colonial brutality. Ffs
Book display with multiple copies of book Emergency Exits.
IWM bookshop has a table half full of the exhibition book and related stuff, but…
Two guys standing outside front of Imperial War Museum looking adorable as hell, and smiling.
Including the amazing Anthony Maina who has worked for decades to preserve and communicate the heritage of the Mau Mau Rebellion.
Sign at entrance of exhibition Emergency Exits: The Fight for Independence in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus. Black text on white and blue grey background.
Imperial War Museum living up to their name with exhibition Emergency Exits: The Fight for Independence in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus. Contributors include some of my lovely @museumofbc.bsky.social mates.
