Mark_fromMK

@cjtudor Did it fall or was it pushed? Either way I'm reading it

Welcome to SERENITY FALLS! My new novel is finally here and available to pre-order: shor.by/CJTudor. I would love you to come visit. But remember, once you’re here, you’re here to stay . . .

@ATRightMovies If you need a threatening villain or a believable hero or have a morally grey part mr @jamessfaulkner ...accept no substitute! From Zulu Dawn, Minder, he's played popes saints robbers knights and is always convincing

Who's your favourite British actor or actress?

@Dene71 A weatherman, 8 small parts and a widow Twanky.

Ronnie Barker in PORRIDGE (1979) w. Dick Clement & Ian La Frenais d. Dick Clement Feature film of the BBC sitcom introduces new prisoners and a new officer in the pre-creds. "What you in for, son?" "Two years" "I didn't mean time--I meant offence" "None taken." 😂 Love that joke.

@terrychristian Tbf I'm not sure the England head coach knows much about rugby union these days.

I only post about stuff I'm well read and informed about . I know nothing about Golf, Rugby Union, F1 .....so i S.T.F.U about them. You should try it. You'd make far less of a c**t of yourself .

Bellissima vittoria per gli azzurri. Che stagione sta vivendo l'Italia. Next week… everything to play for

@MotorsportMark @CalumDouglas1

@CalumDouglas1 If there was a twin-engined aircraft with radial engines, would you say it had a nice pair of Bristols? #ooermissus

Bristol was one of the worlds preminent manufacturers and made tens of thousands of air cooled radials, for civil and military use all over the world. People think Britain had "bias" against radials because most of the big name aircraft used water cooled engines. They preferred water cooled V12s for fighters in the 30`s, but from about 1938 onwards started showing serious interest in them for frontline fighters. Hence the Bristol Centaurus. Musollini was flown about in the 30`s in aircraft with Bristol radials, and probably the most high performance British fighter ever was a Bristol air cooled radial powered aircraft.

@FennellJW After 80 some years finally a use for the Roc.

Fleet Air Arm pilot in an RAF F-35B made the drone shootdown over Iraq.

@dcsandbrook @UniofOxford @WilliamJHague Many congratulations to you

It was a wonderful honour to be awarded an honorary doctorate by my alma mater today - all the more so because my fellow honorands were such lovely and brilliant people. Thank you @UniofOxford and @WilliamJHague. It was an unforgettable day. ox.ac.uk/news/2026-02-2…

@rugby_ap Best comparison i can see is Exeter with Sam Simmonds. Two monsters to carry in tight exchanges to leave Simmonds free to range further out. Tbf NZ often did the same with Read out in the wide channels.

Like to reiterate that Earl, Curry and Pollock *are* good players. It’s not fair criticism that Pollock was ‘just hanging about in the wide channels’ - because that is literally how to use him for best effect. Just that you need a guy to do the maniac work tight too (see: Doris)

Steward off. Mitchell off. No Roebuck. Pepper still on the bench. Plan A isn’t in place for Borthwick. All the key components to their kicking game are out for the count. This second half will be a real test to see if they have a Plan B.

@Whatlike10 @AndyGoode10 Scheduled for March 2033?

@AndyGoode10 Can't wait for england vs france granslam decider

England getting schooled here a load of players playing nowhere near their level, big questions around Borthwick’s abilities as a head coach too

@Caimh I know but that sounds is me clutching at straws. Good day to support Ireland...pity I'm English

@mark_frommk I think you may have missed his accent! 😀

Rugby drinking game: every time someone on ITV says the word Pollock… Sorry, this is the EMT here. We were far too late to save this man. Please drink responsibly. #SixNationsRugby

@MrJamesMay And I loved it in Return of the Saint

The XJ-S is the best Jaaag ever made. Braced and ready.

@KKriegeBlog @BretDevereaux @romanhelmetguy @RadioFreeTom Sorry but I thought it was

Man it's been a big day in Sparta-gate @BretDevereaux, @romanhelmetguy and @RadioFreeTom going at each other with the level of respect you might imagine with folks who disagree on something historical and really dislike each other's politics. This is my effort to square the circle and address some of the claims made today. It's also Ash Wednesday, so I've got "blessed are the peacemakers" on the mind. I'm also not a trained classical historian: so take my opinion for what it is worth. First of all, you don't have to be on the political left to question Sparta's pre-eminence in the years before the Peloponnesian War. One of the few history professors that folks on the right still invoke in reverent tones, Victor Davis Hanson, largely agrees that Athens had displaced Sparta as the leading imperial power in Greece before the war. Your reaction to that may be, "screw him, he's a modern professor, Thucydides says different," but I've followed this guy's career since I was a kid (I wanted to be a classicist before learning German seemed way easier than Attic/Koine). If you've not heard of him, he has significant conservative as well as academic chops. Hanson argues that Athen's wealth, population size, and naval strength, and especially its ability to command it's empire (the Delian League) had supplanted Sparta, which still had a very impressive army, but was "a parochial town of infantrymen." In Hanson's summary: "Yet while the Athenians could scarcely field an army of 10,000 preeminent hoplites of the caliber that had plowed through the Persians sixty years earlier on the beach at Marathon, their aggregate imperial military strength-ships, financial capital, manpower-was greater even than that of all their potential Greek enemies combined. Athens was stronger precisely because it had evolved beyond placing its national security in the sole hands of doughty hoplite farmers. These living anachronisms, after all, were a one-dimensional force, as irrelevant off a small flat battlefield as it was deadly on it." (Hanson, "A War Like No Other," pg. 16) So Hanson is pretty clear that he thinks the Peloponnesian War is a story about the Spartan underdog triumphing over the Athenian Empire (which is cool in it's own way, if that is your thing), but what do the primary sources say? In my mind, the most instructive period in trying to understand the balance of power between the Spartans and the Athenians is not when Thucydides begins his history, but the run up to what historians call the First Peloponnesian War, all the way in back 464 BC. Here, the Spartans, growing concerned with the rising power of the Delian League, considered going to war with Athens (sounds pretty familiar to causes in the run up to 431). But then, an earthquake led to a Helot revolt. We don't have Thucydides or Herodotus to tell us about this so we have to rely on Plutarch's Life of Cimon, an Athenian general and diplomat in this period. Plutarch is pretty clear: the Spartans, facing the most dangerous Helot insurrection in a generation, appealed to Athens for aid, twice. The Athenians sent Cimon with a force to assist them in defeating the Helot insurrection, and the Spartans, worried that the Athenian soldiers might be ideologically sympathetic to the Helots, sent their Athenian allies before the insurrection was brought fully under control. The suspicions and bad blood from this helped cause the 1st Peloponnesian War. If you want to read Plutarch's description of this in translation, you can find (perhaps an old/bad) translation of it here. penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman… All of this to say, when you examine these events all the way back in the 460s, you can start to see where Victor Davis Hanson is coming from. If Athens and Sparta were equally matched, or if Sparta was still pre-eminent, they probably wouldn't need to ask for their main rival's assistance in putting down an internal revolt. It would kinda be like the Soviet Union asking for American assistance in suppressing Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968. Now, Sparta eventually managed to squeak by with a truce in that 1st Peloponnesian War (460-450), the Athenian army defeated the Sparta's allies in the Boeotian League, Sparta defeated them at the Battle of Tanagra, and the defeat of an Athenian expedition in Egypt by the Persians caused a truce that both sides were willing to accept. This is just my take. I'm kinda middling on Sparta. The past is complex and full of contradictions. I genuinely do believe that the Sparta's rulers sought to oppose Athenians to maintain "freedom of the Greeks" even as they ruled (and culled) a large enslaved population at home. Militarily. Sparta had some issues by the 5th century, which makes, at least in my opinion, their victory in the (2nd/Great) Peloponnesian War all the more dramatic: it's a dark horse win (with a lot of luck and assistance) that a lot of historians and strategists might not have immediately predicted at the outset. Again, my best advice is, if you love Sparta, and love this period, read widely. The Spartans are way more interesting and complex than their modern caricatures in movies like 300 suggest.

Guess the object

@rugbyontnt Rassie right now

The 12-game winning streak ends 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Thoughts after that one, England fans? 💭

South Africa will absolutely massacre us if we play with these tactics cos once our kicking game is nullified we look lost.

@michelrouxjr @EnglandRugby First half....

Plan B,C or D @EnglandRugby 😡

@jaggyjumper @ATRightMovies

@ATRightMovies Georgy Zhukov -He won the 2nd world war defeating the Nazis