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Ben K

@benjk.bsky.social
602 followers 1.2K following 72 posts

#BookSky, interested in aspiring authors and supporting libraries. Politics, Football Manager, science, archaeology and UK comedians feature heavily!

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Reposted by Ben K
Jonas Holm Jæger @jonasholmjaeger.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Check it, nerds. Recent find of late stage Maglemosian (8400 BP) antler axe with preserved wooden handle from Egholm, Northern Jutland. Fantastic to see that we still have conditions in Denmark for such fantastic organic preservation. Because it probably won’t be long before we don’t.
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Music in the Round @musicintheround.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Music, stories & the people within Beethoven’s world 🎻 Dr Katy Hamilton joins the Consone Quartet for Beethoven & Friends, bringing together an evening of music, stories & discoveries – exploring Beethoven’s connections with the people around him. musicintheround.co.uk/events/beeth... #Barnsley
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Henry Morris @mrhenrymorris.substack.com · 06/10/2026
My latest for the PNG Courier... mrhenrymorris.substack.com/p/the-png-co...
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The Fake History Hunter @fakehistoryhunter.net · 03/10/2026
Found a little gem on youtube. Story set in Viking age Iceland, the actors speak Old Norse and the clothes and props look very impressive, the scenery even more so. Short independent film but more accurate looking than quite a few big budget films. youtu.be/8Sm5itntHV0?...
youtu.be
HAMRAMMR - Icelandic Historical Short Film | Full Film
YouTube video by Northern Storm Pictures
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Henry Morris @mrhenrymorris.substack.com · 30/09/2026
UK: 2036 "Below ground, the black market in kimchi thrives. After dark, we move in tunnels from safe house to safe house, to visit underground Wordle syndicates, oat milk speakeasies and covert reformer pilates classes." www.thenewworld.co.uk/henry-morris...
thenewworld.co.uk
Welcome to Britain in 2036: Lee Anderson is PM, and he’s outlawed avocados
The Channel Tunnel has been bricked up, only speakeasies sell oat milk… but there’s still a glimmer of hope
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Katie Tightpussy, Editor-In-Chief @katie.bzky.team · 29/09/2026
absolutely fucking incredible news for public health in canada that a safer supply organization successfully fought the constitutionality of drug possession trafficking laws for not providing any legal way to operate. selfless life-saving work that is actually being identified and respected as such.
But in her judgment on their constitutional challenge on Tuesday, Murray concluded that a non-medicalized safer supply program is urgently needed to save lives.

And with no legal source of drugs available for such a program, and no legal "safety valves" in the CDSA that would support setting one up, she found such a program "is legally and practically incapable of being exempted."

She said part of the CDSA "unjustifiably infringes" on two parts of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and deprives DULF members the "right to life and security of the person."

She gave Parliament six months to find a way to allow for a "pathway to non-medicalized safer supply."
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Days Out Yorkshire @yorkshiredays.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Two more days to see the Flower Carpet in Centenary Square, Bradford www.daysoutyorkshire.com/yorkshire-ev... #floralart #ukpremiere #bradford #flowerarranegement
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TW @twesq.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
this is fantastic and I learned something new
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Martin Calladine @uglygame.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Giving Jim Ratcliffe a platform to discuss government policy is like inviting a toddler to address the British Medical Association conference on the amount of sweets he should be allowed to eat before dinner.
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Glennyrodge @glennyrodge.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
New Ed Sheeran support confirmed
Andrea Jenkyns singing
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Thom Scott-Phillips @thomscottphillips.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The “Math & AI” declaration has been doing the rounds. It has been written in reaction to the recent dramatic advances achieved in mathematics by AI tools. I’ve endorsed it. You should too. mathandai.org
mathandai.org
Declaration — Math and AI
Read the declaration and add your name.
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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 03/08/2026
> systemic harms can arise when AI is uncritically embraced as a revolution for women’s health. [Concerns involve] (1) impoverished understandings of gender and sex, which are (2) fed uncritically into AI models surrounded by hype, leading to (3) harms rather than improvements in health. 1/n
nature.com
Beyond the hype of AI as a panacea for women’s health - npj Women's Health
npj Women's Health - Beyond the hype of AI as a panacea for women’s health
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Days Out Yorkshire @yorkshiredays.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Planning a Halloween or Christmas event in Yorkshire? We can help you promote it! 🎃🎄 List your pumpkin patch, scare maze, Santa’s grotto, or festive market on Days Out Yorkshire & reach thousands of local families planning their season! 🚀 Get listed 👇 www.daysoutyorkshire.com/work-with-us
daysoutyorkshire.com
Work With Us & Media Kit - Days Out Yorkshire
Partner with Yorkshire's go-to leisure platform. Over 40 million annual Facebook views, 1.3M+ web visits, and 110,000+ local followers.
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Daniel Sugarman @danielsugarman.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
The world's most notorious custard-pie thrower is dead. What an obituary. He got Bernard-Henri Lévy seven times.
​Known to his army of fans as L’Entarteur or Georges le Gloupier, Godin launched his career as a serial deflator of egos in 1969, when he planted a tarte à la crème on the face of the French novelist Marguerite Duras (“She has a kind of intelligence and cleverness that serves only her own vanity,” he complained), and he went on to “pie” a cast list of celebrities for sins ranging from pomposity to “choosing to function in the service of the capitalist status quo”.The same could not be said of Bernard-Henri Lévy, one of France’s “new philosophers,” whose provocative views on sex, frequent appearances on television and penchant for white silk shirts unbuttoned practically to the navel, had made him a cult figure – and one of Godin’s most satisfying victims.

Levy once declared: “I am the most gifted writer of my generation,” and often boasted of his reasonableness and tolerance, but he was forced to endure footage being repeatedly shown on French television of himself, covered in cream, during a visit to the Belgian city of Liège, trying to strangle Godin and shouting: “Get up, or I’ll kick your head in.”Noël Godin was born on September 13 1945 and came to pie-throwing after a rebellious youth in which he scandalised the priests in the confessional by speaking of his “horrible sexual life”, and was thrown out of Liège University after emptying a pot of glue over the head of a law lecturer who had helped write the constitution for the Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar.

He found work at Friends of Film, an obscure magazine published by the Belgian Catholic League. It had a tiny readership, which was just as well, as Godin made up most of his articles. In one he claimed that Louis Armstrong had once been a cannibal and had invested in a film called The Vegetables of Good Will in which Claudia Cardinale played a giant endive.

In another he conjured up a fictional blind Thai filmmaker named Vivian Pei, describing her film, The Lotus Flower Will Never Again Grow on the Edge of Your Island, in such convincing terms that an Asian film specialist travelled to Thailand in an effort to track her down.“We’re very careful not to hurt people,’’ he explained. “Well, they are hurt, but always in their amour-propre.”

In 1995 Godin published an autobiography, Cream and Punishment. His other targets over the years included the New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard (who charmed his assailant by hailing the attack as a homage to silent film), the French politician Nicolas Sarkozy, the choreographer Maurice Béjart and the Ryanair chairman Michael O​’Leary. He tended not to pick Belgian victims, he explained, because few would notice if he did.
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Plenty to reflect about re: the Arday affair, but I'm going to repeat this one thing. The playbook the right used here is effective even though it's not especially sophisticated, as it relies on the audience to do the dirty work. I've been calling it "Trojan horse propaganda", let's go with that. 1/
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Athena Kugblenu @athenakugblenu.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Nigel Farage straight up lied about why he didn't go to the declaration and not one publication I read called him a liar. Not one. 'Essex Police said, he said' bullshit. No enquiry about E and D putting him in the position that he's in. No race theorists saying this is typical behaviour of his race
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Sheffield Tribune @sheffieldtribune.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
When a grandfather jailed for his part in the 2024 Rotherham riot died in prison, he briefly became a far-right cause célèbre - yet attention quickly moved on. We spent two weeks attending his inquest to try to understand: why did Peter end his life?
sheffieldtribune.co.uk
Why did Rotherham rioter Peter Lynch end his life in prison?
'It’s getting harder as I’m on my own, defending myself with words that can be changed'
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Joshi Herrmann @joshih.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Why did Rotherham rioter Peter Lynch end his life in prison? Fantastic reporting by my @sheffieldtribune.bsky.social colleague Vicky Munro. Some of the tiny details in this piece really capture how someone gets stuck in a conspiratorial, far-right mindset. www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/why-did-roth...
sheffieldtribune.co.uk
Why did Rotherham rioter Peter Lynch end his life in prison?
'It’s getting harder as I’m on my own, defending myself with words that can be changed'
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Parody Nigel Farage @parodypm.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
"I said it's a bold move by Reform to use the Navy to return migrants. What did I say Roy?" "You said it's an unworkable load of bollocks designed to win back some racist numbskulls from Rupert Lowe and distract attention from Farage's £5m bung"
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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
The headlines are still covering the cyclosporiasis outbreak from lettuce, but let's talk about a different summer, long ago. The headlines in Bavaria would have called it "summer diarrhea" & it was killing babies. Enter our hero, Professor Theodor Escherich of the Julius Hospital, Würzburg.
Signed portrait of Theodor Escherich, MD (1857-1911). Dr. Escherich was a German-Austrian pediatrician, best known for his discovery of the Escherichia coli bacterium
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We Are Opus @weareopus.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
This video highlights some of the amazing work happening across #Sheffield to make culture available to everybody. If you want to have your say on what goes into Sheffield's bid to become UK City of Culture 2029, you have until close-of-play Thursday. Fill out the survey 👉 lnkd.in/eeJf6qrm
youtube.com
Culture without barriers - Sheffield City of Culture bid series
YouTube video by Welcome to Sheffield
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Sacrifice! At the Harvest Festival @theharvestmaid.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Why is everything so transparently evil now?
"Print books from the pre-LLM era are structurally guaranteed to be free of this contamination. That alone is a significant advantage," it explains in an article on its website, as quoted by
404. "Physical books published before this date [pre-2022] are structurally clean of modern poisoning tools."
Once focused on helping libraries, distributors, and book shops find and sell books, ISBNdb now helps Al companies bulk-buy anywhere between 1,000 to one million books per order, according to 404.
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National Trust @nationaltrust.org.uk · 18/07/2026
It’s that time of year we shine a spotlight on the stories often hidden beneath our feet: buff.ly/ARbB1jt The Festival of Archaeology, organised by @archaeologyuk.bsky.social, is here! If you’re curious about finds from your garden or have a desire to dig, you're sure to find an event near you.
An archaeologist helps a child test geophysics equipment on a patch of grass at a National Trust site on a sunny day
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Space Telescope Science Institute @stsci.edu · 01/07/2026
What did Hubble see on your birthday? 🎂 Select your date and check out the images this great observatory has taken over the last 36 years: go.nasa.gov/4eHwD2g ⭐ Share your favorite birthday image in the comments! 🔭
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Glennyrodge @glennyrodge.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
The England football team is rooted in immigration. Whether it succeeds or fails at this World Cup, it’s a great example of the brilliance of multiculturalism in the UK.
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Tyler, from the Internet (Haunted) @tylerfromtheinternet.com · 27/06/2026
do you wanna tell math-based ghost-stories, or is the poor little baby 2²
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Seth Chagi (World of Paleoanthropology🏺) @sethchagi.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
New protein testing reveals all 20 tested Homo naledi fossils in the Dinaledi Chamber are female. For my work on symbolic behavior, this is an incredible, strange turning point that shatters old dogmas. Read "The Daughters of Dinaledi": open.substack.com/pub/deephist...
open.substack.com
The Daughters of Dinaledi: Ancient Paleoproteomics, Gendered Mortuary Space, and the Collapse of the Cognitive Rubicon
Introduction
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Days Out Yorkshire @yorkshiredays.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
A UK Exclusive Exhibition is opening at the Royal Armouries in Leeds tomorrow This Ghengis Khan: How The Mongols Ruled The World - brings together over 250 rare ancient treasures from Mongolia alongside cutting-edge CGI displays. It's a must-do. #RoyalArmouries #GenghisKhan #YorkshireEvents
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ellie_ancient @elenaessel.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
So happy and proud to see this paper out in @natcomms.nature.com today! We show that traces of human DNA can persist on cave walls for thousands of years. Absolutely fantastic work by the wonderful Alba Bossoms Mesa at @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social and a great team! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Investigating ancient human DNA preservation on cave walls and in rock art - Nature Communications
Ancient DNA can be preserved on materials from archaeological floor deposits such as bones, sediments and artifacts. Here, the authors investigate whether Palaeolithic wall art can preserve human DNA ...
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Ben K @benjk.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
"Addictive, frictionless thinking" is about as good a description of AI I've seen, and captures the danger it represents so succinctly.
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Jay @kakapojay.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
New pinned post! Hello friends - I'm Jay and I'm a TV producer (Evolution, Walking with Dinosaurs 2025, & Earth), a science communicator, and a paleoartist. My current ongoing projects include short animated films, 3D sculpts, illustrations, a book proposal, and more! #sciart #paleoart
A megaraptorThree Spinosaurus chitter at duskAnimals of the Kem Kem formationMe!
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Sheffield Tribune @sheffieldtribune.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Would you look at that... 900. We’re close now. Very close. But this is the hardest bit - the final 100 people who decide whether we hit 1,000 and deliver all five pledges for Sheffield.
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Sheffield Tribune @sheffieldtribune.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Sheffield is full of people with great stories to tell. Not all of them get the chance. If we reach 1,000 members, we’ll launch a new writers’ programme - inviting pitches every two months, selecting the best idea and working with the writer each time to get it published.
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MU-Peter Shimon 🀄 @mu-peter.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
How The Death Of The Dinosaurs Is Why We Sleep At Night The theory that supports this is known as the “nocturnal bottleneck hypothesis” Temporal niche expansion in mammals from a nocturnal ancestor after dinosaur extinction🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41... (👉For image Treemble from treemble.org.)
Distribution of night and day species of mammals on two versions of the evolutionary tree. 
Treemble is a native desktop application for macOS and Windows and is freely available, with documentation, at treemble.org.
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Ben K @benjk.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Somehow the description of today looks even better in French. La masterclass delivered. #Notts
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Trish Greenhalgh @trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
Every summer I repost this article on how to spot drowning. Please read it and pass on. In the last few years I’ve had SIX messages from people who saved a kid’s life after clicking on the link from my feed. slate.com/technology/2...
slate.com
Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning
Drowning is not the violent, splashing call for help that most people expect.
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Joshi Herrmann @joshih.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
I’ve been writing about Andy Burnham in Manchester for a while. We’ve had a few run-ins but I think he has qualities that people don’t appreciate and weaknesses that spell trouble. I wrote this for @manchestermill.bsky.social I hope it’s insightful and fair. manchestermill.co.uk/stop-looking...
manchestermill.co.uk
Stop looking for Burnhamism - in six years, I’ve never found it
Watching the mayor up close in Manchester, I’ve seen his unusual gifts and glaring weaknesses. Would he make a good prime minister?
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swirlOsquirrel @swirlosquirrel.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
The Danish gov’t has installed floating platforms planted with wildflowers and native vegetation in the harbors and canals of Copenhagen, to create urban habitat sanctuaries for birds, bees, pollinators, insects, and even some aquatic life. #FlowersOfBluesky #InnovativeSolutions💡
Goose chilling among the flowers
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Nanjala @nanjala.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Subscribe to the Continent. It’s free, and it’s so good.
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Days Out Yorkshire @yorkshiredays.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
🛡️ The Melsonby Hoard exhibition officially opens at the Yorkshire Museum tomorrow. It’s the largest Iron Age metalwork hoard ever found in the UK—over 800 objects including chariot wheels, cauldrons and weapons 🏺 shorturl.at/6EYNA #MelsonbyHoard #YorkshireMuseum #IronAge #BritishHistory
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Modern Toss @moderntoss.bsky.social · 29/09/2025
Our exhibition is coming to Sheffield 24 Oct - 9 Nov, book here yeah! 👉 bit.ly/ModernTossSh...
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Angry People in Local Newspapers @apiln.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
Happy 13th anniversary to that terrible misunderstanding at a WI meeting.
PARKHAM WI: The speaker at the April meeting was Captain Colin Darch, who talked about piracy embarrassingly the WI all dressed as pirates for the evening not real-ising that Captain Darch was going to be talking about his experience of being held hostage by Somall pirates rather than piracy in general.Captain Darcy with a group of WI ladies who are dressed as pirates. He’s quite chipper despite everything.
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Dr Alan Montgomery @classicalalan.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
I am excited to announce that I will be talking about my adventures in search of Roman Scotland at the Boswell Book Festival @bozzybookfest.bsky.social at Dumfries House on Sunday 10th May. In person or online tickets available here: shorturl.at/qjcGm #RomanFortThursday
A poster for my talk at the Boswell Book Festival on 10 May, which features a photo of me and the cover of my book The Road to Mons Graupius
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Rupert Read @rupertread.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
"He just thought he had some kind of duty, as a senior figure in the environmental establishment, to keep the morale of his young audience up." Read about my meeting with the former boss of the Environment Agency, Sir James Bevan. rupertsreads.substack.com/p/how-those-...
rupertsreads.substack.com
HOW THOSE AT THE TOP LAND US IN THE SH*T:
My day in the shade with Sir James Bevan, former Head of the Environment Agency
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David Blanchflower BSc @davidbflower.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Huge hidden cave under castle with prehistoric hippo bones 'once in a lifetime' find. 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
'Enormous' cave under Pembroke Castle could rewrite history, researchers say
Archaeologists have so far uncovered
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Kit Yates @kityates.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
If you're sick of water companies being allowed to pump s**t into our rivers with no accountability: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/76...
petition.parliament.uk
Petition: Hold a referendum to bring the water industry into public ownership
Hold a binding national referendum on whether the water industry should be returned to public ownership. Water is a basic human necessity; we believe our privatised system has failed, so the public sh...
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Adrian Tchaikovsky @aptshadow.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
@locusmag.bsky.social have a fundraiser on at the moment. They are an absolute mainstay of SF so please do take a look. www.indiegogo.com/en/projects/...
indiegogo.com
Locus Mag: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror 2026 by Locus Publications - Indiegogo
Celebrating and uplifting authors, artists, and story -- the guide to the world's imagination.
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Ben K @benjk.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... This is great news, and an amazing turnaround to achieve within 2 years #sheffield
bbc.co.uk
Two-year Shire Brook nature recovery project completed
A council project at Shire Brook Valley Nature Reserve is boosting wildlife populations.
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Henry Morris @mrhenrymorris.substack.com · 03/04/2026
NEW - I got to interview Dominic Cummings earlier this week. Britain's 16-bit Shaman. open.substack.com/pub/mrhenrym...
open.substack.com
Dominic Cummings - Britain’s 16-bit Shaman
A Profile
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Sheffield Tribune @sheffieldtribune.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
BREAKING: Andrew Milne has been arrested. A spokesperson for South Yorkshire Police told The Tribune: "Detectives investigating allegations linked to the purchase and sale of freeholds in Sheffield have arrested a man on suspicion of fraud and blackmail."
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