Herripedia

Fresh herrings at Lindsay’s @graingermarket, Thursday, great @Opera_North production of Britten’s Peter Grimes @TheatreRoyalNew last night… Could’ve built a Newcastle herring festival round that - Kipperfest: The Toon’s Greatest Gift to Mankind! How about it @NewcastleCC?

@Goudriaan2 And whose shore would that have been?

Fishermen displaying their catch on a rocky coast Philips Wouwerman, 17th century

Hurrah! Get yourselves down to Lindsay’s in Newcastle’s Grainger Market while stocks last!

The Herring Era Museum in Siglufjördur is opening a Herring Café… selling herring dishes! Hurrah! May it be an inspiration to others! Worth an Icelandic pilgrimage!

@tonyriches @emswifthook @AmyMc_Books He didn’t like fish, mind.

Book Launch Guest Post: Desiderius Erasmus: The Folly or Far Sightedness of Renaissance Europe's Greatest Mind, by Amy McElroy tonyriches.blogspot.com/2026/03/book-l… @AmyMc_Books #Medieval #History

Our Autumn/Winter 2026 catalogue is here 🎉 📚 Discover original and impactful new titles ranging from a chilling investigation into modern surveillance states to a history of the kola nut, and more. Browse ➡️ tinyurl.com/mvkkycsw See the thread below for some highlights ⬇️

Great poem about Graham Thorpe - well worth a read.

@alexrunchman @ianduhig Great poem. It was really painful to hear of his suicide. You just don’t know what some people are going through. It’s good to read a poem that does justice to his memory.

I won second prize in The Cannon’s Mouth ‘Sonnet or Not’ competition for an elegy to the England cricketer Graham Thorpe. Here it is, along with judge Ian Duhig’s generous comments. @ianduhig

@Stonefishweirs @PMonty18 Ah! An extinct freshwater herring!

@herripedia @PMonty18 Sadly no, it was fresh water site!

Oldest engravings of fishing discovered in Ice Age art durham.ac.uk/departments/ac…

In the service of sustainability @waitrose now sells both hot smoked and hot smoked peppered herring instead of mackerel. Unknowingly perhaps, but you’d also have to say, in the service of tastier products. Happy to discuss other potential herring lines… johnlewispartnership.co.uk/media-centre/l…

@ianduhig @GroomB To be fair, have you actually tried poetry readings in pastures?

Thanks to @GroomB for alerting me to the fact that today is the anniversary of John Wesley's death. These extracts from his journal are remarkably like one of my book tours apart from the afternoon of June 2nd

@northumbriana Was this not one of the oriental-style roofs designed to impress Armstrong’s Asian naval buyers as they came up the Tyne?

Newcastle Board of Education in 1893: “so Mr Rich what are your plans for this school we’re building in Byker?” “I was thinking a cross between a Dutch golden age town house and a Burmese temple.” “Fine! Crack on.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Wes…

Good to hear @CRHClover of @Bluemarinef (oundation) on the radio this morning advocating the eating of more herring. He’s right, you know. I’ve said the same myself once or twice (plenty of recipes in Rigby’s Encyclopaedia of the Herring, @HurstPublishers)

@Trawler1x1 Maybe the best song about herons ever!

I wish that I'd sail the darkened seas, On a great big clipper ship.

@ianduhig Good choice!

@herripedia I normally change into a selkie when I research the herring lasses

My handwriting was never good but now when I write things on my calendar they quickly become enigmatic koans commenting obliquely on my existence. This one for example on my calendar: Fish battery? Sisha bubbling? Too late, I realise it says 'Irish Embassy' . . .

@Goudriaan2 They definitely do!

@Goudriaan2 Joseph de Bray’s Praise of Pickled Herring (1657) with his uncle’s poem. Salt herring from the vat,
so full and long and fat,
that head dispatched so neatly, the backbone and the gut - that deftness in the cut - the skin removed discreetly…

@Goudriaan2 Salt herring was standard, cheap or even free in alehouses - it encouraged drinking.

@herripedia Funny that they used to eat it before going to bed

@Goudriaan2 The poem gets a bit more low life as you go along…

@herripedia Very Nice painting and poem, thanks!