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After more than two years of research in archives across Europe:
The malicious plots and international intrigues surrounding the most strategically important invention you’ve never heard of
ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-…
I distinctly remember lots of people saying this wouldn’t happen, because it wasn’t the intention. That’s not how laws work!
Dr Anton Howes retweeted
The Welsh economy is roughly 25x bigger than in 1846 when Robert Stephenson built the Britannia Bridge.
It took him 4 years. We're saying there's simply no way a new one can be done in under 8-10 years. Can't be done.
What if Rhun ap Iorwerth had insisted that a bridge be built to open in 2030, to show that Wales can still build? Maybe taking inspiration from 🇫🇷 and Notre Dame, appoint a General to get it done at all costs. Override any process objections with a Menai Bridge bill if needed. No doubt many obstacles, but laws of physics isn’t one, so what or who exactly would prevent it? Just imagine the national and international shot in the arm this would be to show that stagnation and decline are not inevitable. And if anyone thinks this isn’t a serious suggestion, what does that in itself say about our psyche and state of the nation/West?
Dr Anton Howes retweeted
The BBC has a fascinating, broken relationship with commercial media - constantly taking its cues from an industry where most of the business models are in a long-term death spiral, and replicating their shoddy content, despite facing none of those constraints itself.
Dr Anton Howes retweeted
Latest issue of @WorksInProgMag is stunning, I felt goosebumps just flicking through. The deep care and passion that went into this is evident.
As Anna Wintour has said - when a group of passionate people put something out into the world, that passion finds an audience.
I’m very biased, but the new @WorksInProgMag is IMO a masterpiece in both design and content.
worksinprogress.co/print/
Dr Anton Howes retweeted
So many of you have asked about the archival image on the cover. The full watercolor will also be reproduced in the book. It depicts discussions about the plague between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans on the borders.
Visual representations of Ottomans and Europeans engaged in dialogue are rare in the early modern period, which makes this image particularly fascinating to me. I especially love the little inset that seems like an early modern zoom-in!
Dr Anton Howes retweeted
TIL that Birmingham businessmen built a 56 ft tall iron statue of Vulcan for the 1904 World’s Fair to boost local industry
back in Alabama, the freight was unpaid, so the railroad dumped it in the weeds
after a 32 year journey, locals finally placed it prominently in the city
Britain barely builds anything because it inexplicably costs a million times more than it ought, while in the Netherlands one town will apparently build 7 bridges to look like the ones on Euro notes just for a joke!
Replying to @s8mb
At least the fictional bridges ended up with a Dutch town building all of them to claim them as their own. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurobr…
Dr Anton Howes retweeted
Get yourself a lovely warm mug of the caffeine of your choice, and settle down to a long read of Tudor and Habsburg intrigue
After more than two years of research in archives across Europe:
The malicious plots and international intrigues surrounding the most strategically important invention you’ve never heard of
ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-…
Dr Anton Howes retweeted
Replying to @montie
That’s funny. The party you claim to support had this exact same (perfectly reasonable) policy in its manifesto for Scotland just a few months ago:
My ambition for Scotland is to restore the fundamental incentive to work, allowing people to earn higher incomes, and to build wealth for themselves, their families, and communities. That’s why we plan to cut Scottish income taxes below England's, making it the best place in the UK to live and work.
But just as important is removing the complex cliff edges in the system, which are stifling all incentive to work and so are harming public services too.
For example, someone looking after a loved one at home and receiving both the Carer Support Payment and Scottish Carer Supplement while doing a part-time job, if their wages rise above £10,608 per year will suddenly lose £5,100 in benefits withdrawn.
Or take a police sergeant with children. If they or their partner earns above £60k, they start seeing their child benefit clawed back, and when working overtime end up keeping less than half of every extra pound they earn.
Or take a doctor who still has a student maintenance loan to repay, who gets a raise above £100k. Suddenly, for every extra £1 they earn they get to take home less than 22p – before even taking into account their pension contributions. If they have a working partner and nursery-age children, then taking the raise actually makes them worse off by thousands of pounds, because tax-free childcare is suddenly withdrawn.
With punishing cliff edges like these, is it any wonder that GP practices close their lists, experienced doctors retire early, dentists reduce NHS work, schools struggle to hire, and hospitals struggle to fill shifts, leaving wards understaffed and theatres empty despite long waiting lists?
Fundamental to any workforce plan for fixing our public sector is getting the incentives right, and ensuring that workers have more money in their pockets at the end of a shift. Making sure that workers are rewarded is the most important lever we can pull to improve hiring, retention, and morale.
Otherwise we’d be stuck with the same old story we've seen for years: throwing more funding at public sector raises, raising taxes to pay for it, and so taxing it back off those very same workers again while failing to fix the underlying problem. In the meantime, the private sector bears the burden, and faces many of the same productivity problems.
A Reform government in Scotland will do everything it can with devolved powers to smooth away these damaging cliff edges as quickly as possible, so that earning an extra £1 always means keeping at least 50p of it. We will do everything we can to ensure that work always pays, and that you’re always rewarded for working an extra shift.
For a Scotland that respects and rewards work, the only choice is Reform UK.
Get yourself a lovely warm mug of the caffeine of your choice, and settle down to a long read of Tudor and Habsburg intrigue
After more than two years of research in archives across Europe:
The malicious plots and international intrigues surrounding the most strategically important invention you’ve never heard of
ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-…
Dr Anton Howes retweeted
An interesting read on the history of coal use by Anton Howes. Includes this excellent illustration of Newcastle in 1545 where every house has a chimney, which he says was a function of coal being used instead of wood
@northumbriana @neheritagelib
ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-…
Dr Anton Howes retweeted
🧂Instant bookmark👇
After more than two years of research in archives across Europe:
The malicious plots and international intrigues surrounding the most strategically important invention you’ve never heard of
ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-…
Featuring: was Elizabeth I herself behind rumours she wasn’t actually a virgin?
After more than two years of research in archives across Europe:
The malicious plots and international intrigues surrounding the most strategically important invention you’ve never heard of
ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-…
Dr Anton Howes retweeted
After more than two years of research in archives across Europe:
The malicious plots and international intrigues surrounding the most strategically important invention you’ve never heard of
ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-…
Dr Anton Howes retweeted
1/4 Everyone agrees that the Fingleton Review needs to be implemented to get our nuclear costs down. Yet progress towards implementing these recommendations is stalling – more and more of them are off track.
Hey @britishlibrary the search function for the manuscripts catalogue is not working.
Deep in sixteenth-century history these past few years, and lately reading about the Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, it’s astonishing that a matter of such horror then, of life and death and the preservation of souls, will today for the vast majority of people barely elicit a shrug.
Dr Anton Howes retweeted
Elizabeth I is depicted in a ship on this gold ryal that was minted at the Tower of London sometime between 1582 & 1584. English monarchs had been portrayed in this style on their coinage since the 1340s. This coin is from the Hunterian collection.
So nice to occasionally come across beautiful imagery to interrupt the thousands of pages of sixteenth-century manuscripts I read through every day.
The arms of a prominent investor in inventions and voyages of exploration, Sir Lionell Duckett:







































