Brendan Nash

The Director and a new reprint of The Landlady are both available in our new online shop. Signed/dedicated copies too! Go on, treat yourself! baxterjardine.com

Can politics still work? My new book, Braver New World, looks at places where it can and does, and what we can learn from them. More about the book and my upcoming events here: jkampfner.net/books #BraverNewWorld #Politics #PoliticalBravery

Living room display in the DDR Museum in Berlin.

New Cross music history walk going ahead tomorrow, though weather doesn't look great. Won't make it too long, will start at Goldsmiths and focus on central New Cross area. The outer limits of Hatcham and Lewisham Way can wait for another day!

And we go 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 #VoteSNP

Sky‘s on Fire 🔥 Mittelstraße corner Friedrichstraße, Berlin-Mitte

Once upon a time in East Berlin

Delighted to share the first line up of events in the UK and Ireland for my new book, Braver New World, starting next month. #BraverNewWorld #BookEvents #PoliticalCourage

@Transpontine Sum Up is easy and efficient. I use it every week for walking tours and book sales. You don’t need the card reader anymore. Straight phone to phone. The amount appears within an hour or so and costs maybe 10 cents (pence) per transaction. Transfer it out or let it build up

I want to be able to sell some books face to face and take payments via phone (uk). Talking small quantities rather than setting up a business. Any suggestions how? I've seen sumup mentioned, is that easy to use? Or any other suggestions?

Amazon are partnering with Comic Relief to sell their red noses. Last year Comic Relief raised £34 million which is how much Jeff Bezos makes in six hours. Dig deep everyone.

UK public should know William, doing Comic Relief is for PR, over the last 19yrs the Duchy has received £10.3 million in rent from Comic Relief. Claiming William has supported the charity for years is disingenuous as he is their Landlord, he never makes donations only takes rent

View over Fischerinsel, East Berlin, 1980s.

From the German magazine Lustige Blätter published in 1932.

Berliner Fernsehturm, constructed in the late 1960s.

Booze! Drugs! Sweary lawyers! Egg in the buff! Ricky Gervais' big break! It's 30 years today since #ThisLife arrived on our TV screens and BBC4 are rerunning it tonight at 10pm. I wrote about how it discovered a generation of talent and changed TV drama theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2…

Germany has tried monarchy and republicanism. It's had fascism and socialism. German history is complex and fascinating. So I've teamed up with Chris Dillon from King's College London to launch a brand new podcast: REICHS AND REPUBLICS is out now. Find us on any platform 🧐

In case you need me, I'll be circling Berlin's Tiergarten, being paraded in that fancy coach while smoking the "Assims", and generally acting as if it's 1903 and I am too wealthy and influential for anyone to dare tell me that's not how a lady should act. Beause I don't care. Light, plz! ("Assims" were produced by a Dresden tobacco company Georg A Jasmatzi. In 1905 Jasmatzi took over #Berlin's Josetti Zigarettenfabrik in Rungestraße in Mitte. Photo: "Berliner Leben", 1903 H.12 via ZLB.)

6am, Dingle - Ireland's earliest St Patrick's Day parade. The pre-dawn tradition dates back to the Land War of the 1870s when British authorities outlawed public gatherings between sunrise and sunset. The people of Dingle found a way...

You couldnt buy a pint on Paddys Day in Ireland from 1903 until 1970! During those dark decades licensing law required pubs to close on 17th March because St Patrick’s Day was classed as a holy day of obligation. The Catholic state treated public drinking as incompatible with proper observance. This placed it in the same category as Good Friday, Christmas Day, and certain election days. While Irish emigrant communities abroad were turning St Patrick’s Day into a boozy celebration of identity, the holiday at home was meant to be sober and vaguely penitential affair. And thats grand if you choose it, not so much when the theocracy chooses it for you. Until the late 1960s, parades were more modest affairs, lots of marching bands and scouts and shite like that. And trust me, more effeminate men in skirts and funny hats than any Pride Parade I've marched in. But heres the gas part, the once infamous Royal Dublin Dog Show loophole! The RDS had its annual Dog Show in Ballsbridge that day and because the event was classified as a private members’ function connected to agriculture and breeding, gargle could legally be sold on the premises. This made it, effectively, the only place in Dublin where one could lawfully get gee-eyed on Paddys Day! Predictably for anyone with a goo on them, despite little interest in canine pedigree lines went walkies to Ballsbrigde in the hundreds. Contemporary newspapers describe packed bars, roaring trade, and a carnival atmosphere. And most of these lads never saw as much as a jack russel during that 24 hour period. And "Irish solution for an Irish problem" type of cognitive dissonance which makes me love us all the more. Crucially you didnt need a dog to attend like, but I love that some chancers brought leads or muzzels with them. Now as it was a Royal Dublin Society event, there was a dress code or a kind of assumption of a certain vibe. Working-class Dubs arrived in their Sunday best, ironically only to see the landed Anglo-Irish and professional breeders in comparitive rag order. This mixing created an unintentionally inclusive atmosphere were people who never normally wouldve drank together shared the craic and theres accounts of lads meeting up again annually for years renewing their friendships. Obviously elsewhere illicit purchasing of alcohol did happen, but this was on the level. Private gaffs hosted “tea parties” where the teapot was doing a lot of work. Some pubs quietly served “bottles for the back room” to trusted regulars. Hotels could often obtain special dispensations and there were a suspicious amount of wakes without any "body". By the late 1960s, the ban had become increasingly embarrassing with Ireland opening up economically, courting tourism, and watching foreign visitors arrive expecting celebration only to find locked pub doors. Can you image the dissapointment? The ban was lifted in 1970, and by 1973 St Patrick’s Day became a massive civic and commercial festival and for better or worse its grown into our flagship for soft power world domination every since. Buy the Dublin Time Machine a pint and support the DTM Book ko-fi.com/buchanandublin…

There's another Emerald Isle in the Caribbean, which celebrates St. Patrick’s Day with enough craic and culture to make any Irish person proud. Monserrat became home to Irish indentured servants displaced and persecuted by Cromwell in the 17th century. Originally making up more than half the population, they integrated and intermarried with their neighbours. This resulted in some beautiful accents, arts, and culture (as well as people!) The island people now share and celebrate a rich common Afro-Irish heritage. Saint Patrick's Day is a week-long festival of craic and ceol in the Caribbean. Shamrocks are everywhere (including the green passport stamp), green is the national colour, Guinness is a popular gargle, and there's an Irish lady playing the harp on the flag. Place names like Kinsale and Cork Hill and surnames like Reilly and Ryan are more intangible artefacts of Irishness. But St. Patrick’s Day is also an important reminder of the horrific role of British colonialism in Monserrat's history. An unsuccessful slave rebellion was brutally put down on the 17th of March 1768. This brave act of resistance against the evil exploitation and enslavement of the British overlords is commemorated every year amid the celebrations. 🇮🇪☘🇲🇸