Kevin Lockyer

@CapelLofft It's a fantastic book. I've been using it to inform my thinking about how Britain's defence planning in the 1860s and 70s was influenced by the nature of the governing class

I am currently reading this terrific book, and Cannadine argues that as the old landed classes rapidly lost their economic and political grip from the 1880s, what took its place was the rule of the middle class through bureaucracy. This seems to me highly relevant to now...

@OliverBates188 @kenopsiarae No - he wrote it

@kenopsiarae Wait he didn’t even get to choose the song he sang? The BBC told him to sing this?

The performance was so much fun too. If only the BBC let him do what he wanted instead of forcing a song onto him and making him FIGHT TO HAVE HIS SYNTHS?? Insanity

@kenopsiarae Forced the song on him? What are you talking about, he wrote it

@JeremyTate41 This is a Shakira concert in Brazil, you bumbling half-wit

@Jan_Leeming Three words. That's all. Three words. And you're losing your shit over it. Unbelievable.

Then we must agree to differ - think it’s dreadful. We are English so why sing in German🤪

@re_keogh @pinstripedline Presumably it's a note from the Private Secretary to the Minister. I used to do the same job - my handwriting then was obviously much better than it is now!!

@pinstripedline Beautiful ink pen handwriting. I used to write similar to that. Today still with ink pen, I reread and go : what the fsck did I just write!!

The archives are full of gems like this - written advice to Ministers recommending that an RMP close protection team be awarded medals for their bravery. Full PSL thread to follow about an event, now forgotten, that demonstrates the raw courage of the Redcaps.

@stellacreasy @Mark_Whitcutt I think it’s shocking that the UK entry was an actual artist who writes and performs his own material, on synthesisers that he builds himself. Whoever thoughtful such an outrageous idea?

@Mark_Whitcutt have you watched Eurovision tonight? did you see our entry?

Words fail me. Why do we think we're going to ever get anywhere in Europe when we behave like this? #eurovision2026

@benmoores2 That's a neat summary of about half of my PhD thesis (work in progress....)

2/Palmerston's Follies. The UK's worst ever procurement programme. Wildly expensive, never needed, now a coastal maintenance nightmare. It will take you weeks to visit but one has a brilliant artillery museum in Portsmouth. Victorian defence req setting gone spectacularly wrong

7/Nakhal Fort, Oman: I've been to nearly all of Oman's forts. Bahla is UNESCO. Al Mirani is grand. Nakhal wins, — perfect for enthusiastic exploration, just grab an old musket and man the walls. Go for a swim after in the wadi outside in a picture book setting.

@RoughTrade Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden

What’s one album you wish you could hear again for the first time?

@samhfinance @Smallism_org Although it does assume that NI pays for nothing other than the state pension.

@Smallism_org the maths doesnt lie, just need common sense somewhere :D

@precisionfires1 @QueenMab87 @DanFKent

@precisionfires1 @QueenMab87 @DanFKent I do loads. It does it regularly.

I’ve never quite understood how I’ll get “left behind” if I don’t use AI. I’m perfectly capable of writing, researching, and thinking all on my own. What does it do that will leave me behind?

@precisionfires1 @QueenMab87 @DanFKent And it still makes mistakes....

@KevinLockyer3 @QueenMab87 @DanFKent And you’ve enable web browsing and research mode?

@arthurliverpool @burngold @NickBryantNY Douglas-Home did serve in the territorial army

@burngold @NickBryantNY Not sure about that, Harold Wilson, Neville Chamberlain, David Lloyd George, Alec Douglas Home for a few and then tons after Thatcher, Cameron, Sunak, Johnson, Truss. Blair, Brown, May…

Britain would benefit from a law stating that no one who had ever served as the president of the Oxford or Cambridge Union should be allowed within a 100 meters radius of Downing Street and, ideally, the Houses of Parliament. A ban of PPE graduates would help too.

@burngold @NickBryantNY and Harold Wilson...

@burngold @NickBryantNY That's wrong. Neville Chamberlain, Stanley Baldwin, Ramsay MacDonald and others...

@precisionfires1 @QueenMab87 @DanFKent I use Claude Pro - whatever the latest version of that is

@KevinLockyer3 @QueenMab87 @DanFKent Are you using web research tools? Or just the base model?

@precisionfires1 @QueenMab87 @DanFKent Claude regularly hallucinates (in my experience). It generates references that don't actually exist and makes provable factual errors

@QueenMab87 @DanFKent Not as relevant these days with tool use. When was the last time you used a paid frontier model?

@RepJackKimble This is a parody account, right?

I for one am getting pretty tired of Britain trampling all over the first amendment.

@MerryOlEngland It is taught in schools, so there is that

It is safe to teach the American Revolution in American schools and safe to teach the French Revolution in French schools. It is not safe to teach the English Civil War in English schools. Meditate on why that is.