Martyn Atkins

Current mood: Kenneth Clarke, West Bridgford, 2 May 1997.

@RhonddaBryant chapeau!

Actually the Duke of Wellington is also Marquess of Wellington, Marquess of Douro and Marquess of Torres Vedras

The British Ambassador to Ireland, Kara Owen and a delegation from the UK Parliament’s Business and Trade Committee met with Irish BIPA Members in Leinster House, Dublin to discuss matters of mutual interest. #BIPA 🇬🇧🤝🇮🇪

@Masrur_Ahmed95 Results over 38 games decide the season. Swings, roundabouts, etc. Focus on taking 6 points off Toon and Leeds and rely on Chelsea, Leeds and Everton to do you a favour....

VAR deciding who wins the the league and who gets relegated. After 10 repeats and slow motions, it’s a “clear and obvious error”. Game’s gone.

@EOver384 Aren't you lovely?

Meanwhile the rest of us work to support you

Today would have been the 90th birthday of my mother, Anthea Bell. She translated hundreds of great books. But the one at top left remains my favourite.

@TonyKhan @DarbyAllin @BASTARDPAC @TBSNetwork @AEWonTV Were you paying any attention to the @FulhamFC game yesterday?

#AEWCollision Fairway to Hell 8/7c, TBS + HBO Max TONIGHT! AEW World Title No Countout @DarbyAllin vs @BASTARDPAC With a 2-1 record vs Darby & back-to-back tv wins, PAC has earned a title shot TONIGHT! For the Fairway to Hell main event, there will be NO COUNTOUT rule, TONIGHT!

Email of the day…

No, this is no joke. And immensely uplifting for Ukrainian people.

@FulhamishPod Captain Andersen? Nah.

European dream over? What is your three word review?

@LordNorth @kejamieson_ CITY!

@kejamieson_ Lovely town.

Haven't been to Wells since the days of skiving off from my A-Levels 🤫 Brought the dog for his Hot Fuzz education 😂

@kejamieson_ @SonnyLBennett The Crown, innit.

@fugitiveink I don't think anyone who is serious about the study of history would think of nicheness and specificity as unwelcome qualities in historical research. The interest is in the detail (to coin a phrase).

I am trying not to mind that someone dear to me always laughingly dismisses my attempts at historical research as "niche" and "very specific", as if this somehow rendered them automatically ridiculous and without merit — but it's not really working. Onward and upward, eh?

This piece began as a small grant from @legalscholars over three years ago. So happy that it's found a good home. Many thanks to all the interviewees for giving up their time and also to all those that looked over drafts!

Our Embassy in Canberra is expanding. We’ve welcomed a new batch of cockatoos to the team — highly vocal, well connected, and never shy to make a statement. Natural diplomats 🇺🇦🇦🇺

@BarbaraRich_law @Fontybits1 Since you are both practising barristers, you cannot by definition be a "random stranger" to him. Isn't it the convention that all members of the Bar are understood to have a form of acquaintance (I have a vague memory that barristers never shake hands on introduction...)

@Fontybits1 A distinctive personal lexicon in which a famous author who signs off a private message on social media with the commonplace cordial salutation ‘x’ is a friend, but a person in the same profession with more than one mutual acquaintance is a “random stranger”

He so fantasised about walking with her in the shrubbery and reading her one of his apricot poems. 😂

@gilescoren Had the landlady approached you with the story, would you have run it?

All the old skinflints are out as usual, cobwebs in their wallets, pockets just slightly longer than their arms, telling me how it isn’t ‘compulsory’ to tip so they never do… “Tell me you’ve never worked in a restaurant without telling me you’ve never worked in a restaurant.”

@mellison22 @tompeck Indeed there was: Thomas Hart of Warwick.

@tompeck I'm sure there was a guy last year who had a very similar style.

Once in a generation, everything changes and nothing is ever the same. Manchester Madgwick’s over arm button action is University Challenge’s Fosbury Flop moment. A terrible beauty is born.

@kejamieson_ You must have been to the Vasamuseet....

The War Museum in Copenhagen 🇩🇰 One of the best museums I've visited in a very long time. Exceptionally well curated and ofc lots of guns & ships ⚓️👀 Goes all the way through to the modern day & is housed in the old Arsenal - the longest vaulted hall in northern Europe.

@Russ_Goldman The last match I went to, I took one of my best friends and his son. Didn't even cross my mind that their religion/ethnicity would be an issue at the Cottage, and it wasn't. (The less said about their delight in the West Ham win, the better...)

This is sad for me to write. I loved visiting London twice in my life but I will never return. It is not safe being Jewish in England. I will never see my first match at Craven Cottage. To all of my Jewish friends in England, stay safe and you are a very strong community!