iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Alex Harvey @alexharvv.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I was never blind to this stuff happening before and long-time followers will know my hatred towards AI knows no bounds - I talk about it often and have an AI-focused review due out in December - but it happening to one of my own books just takes the fucking cake

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Alex Harvey @alexharvv.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

This is not a real person! There are THIRTY TWO books here that 'Andrew V. Smith' has shat out in the last year alone, all of which have AI-generated covers and most borrow or straight up rip off titles from other more popular (and more importantly: human) works like my own

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Martin Polley @historymartin.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Book Launch: David Dee, Migrants, Minorities, and the History of British Boxing. @icshc.bsky.social is hosting the launch for Dave Dee's new book as one of @dmu.ac.uk @blackhistorymonth.org.uk - 21 October, 17.00-19.00. All welcome - booking details here: tinyurl.com/5n6jx5er

tinyurl.com

Book Launch - Migrants, Minorities, and the History of British Boxing

Join us in person to celebrate the launch of a book exploring migrants, minorities, and British boxing history!

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Martin Polley @historymartin.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I've added pics of two sport-related beer bottles to the @kthabitproject.bsky.social @wellcometrust.bsky.social map of addictive sport sponsorship: a Shin Kicker from the Cotswold Olimpicks, and Sheffield Celebration Ale from the 1993 FA Cup semi-final. Visit now and add your own kickingthehabit.uk

kickingthehabit.uk

Home - Kicking The Habit

Kicking the Habit explores ‘addictive’ sports sponsorship from the 1960s to today.

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Oxford Clarion @oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

And if you're heading in to Oxford city centre soon, here is our useful, but somewhat tongue-in-cheek article on how to avoid the filters. (Are we doing listicles right?) oxfordclarion.uk/twelve-easy-...

oxfordclarion.uk

Twelve easy hacks to beat Oxford’s Traffic Filters

Want to travel in Oxford, but worried about the traffic filters from Monday, 28 September 2026? We got you. Here's the tea on how you can avoid the traffic filters entirely, and still visit all your f...

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Jonathan Wilson @jonawils.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

What happened last time Manchester City were convicted of serious financial charge - the 1905 illegal payments scandal… podcasts.apple.com/ee/podcast/m...

podcasts.apple.com

Manchester City Guilty! The 1904/05 Scandal

Podcast Episode · It Was What It Was : The Football History Podcast · 24 September 2024 · 56min

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Martin Polley @historymartin.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Huge thanks to the staff of the Western Art Print Room @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social for hosting me for an archival research trip today. Fantastic service with interesting chats thrown in.

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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Ditto 30,000 roles in universities in the past three years.

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Martin Polley @historymartin.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The programme for this term's public webinars from @parkesinstitute.bsky.social is now live, starting with @brunssen.bsky.social on 'The Making of “Jew Clubs”: Performing Jewishness and Antisemitism in European Football and Fan Cultures', 29 Sept, 18.00 UK time www.southampton.ac.uk/parkes/news/...

southampton.ac.uk

Performing Jewishness and Antisemitism in European Football and Fan Cultures

Join The Parkes Institute for an online talk from Dr Pavel Brunssen titled ‘The Making of “Jew Clubs”: Performing Jewishness and Antisemitism in European Football and Fan Cultures’.

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Martin Polley @historymartin.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Call for chapter proposals for a book on Sport and Politics in Twenty-First Century Britain, edited by Adam Burns & Adam Dickson. Full details: adb.webador.co.uk/chapter-prop...

adb.webador.co.uk

Chapter Proposals | ADB History & Politics

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Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Superb exposition from William Pettigrew of how slave trading (let alone the whole plantation complex that depended on it) was “enmeshed in the processes that produced the nation we know today”. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/comm...

theguardian.com

Freedom-loving Britain was at the heart of the 18th century slave trade – and this register proves it | William Pettigrew

Register of British Slave Traders reveals how deeply the trafficking of Africans was embedded in the country’s politics, economy, institutions and culture

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

'A “larger, fewer grants” model that concentrates research on established UK institutions would be a “huge mistake” and could risk hampering Andy Burnham’s ambition to drive prosperity across the nation, academics have warned.' Not to mention its impact of researchers who are female and/or black.

timeshighereducation.com

‘Larger, fewer grants’ could harm Burnham’s regional agenda

Changes to grant system suggested by Chris McDonald could ‘mistakenly’ further concentrate funding in the golden triangle, academics warn

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Martin Polley @historymartin.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Congratulations to @bbc5live.bsky.social commentator John Murray for his well-deserved honorary degree from @dmu.ac.uk @icshc.bsky.social www.dmu.ac.uk/about-dmu/ne...

dmu.ac.uk

BBC

One of the country

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Martin Polley @historymartin.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

New book alert: Football and Fascism in the Iberian Peninsula by Daniele Serapiglia & Juan Martin Simon, published by Peter Lang in their Sport, Culture & Society series: football and ideology, propaganda, national promotion, and resistance in Franco's Spain and Salazar's Portugal.

The front cover of a book. The top half shows a monochrome photograph of two football teams lining up before kick-off. The team nearest the camera are wearing stripes, and the team furthers away are in plain white. The players from both teams have their right arms raised in fascist salutes. Beneath the photograph, against a black background, is the book's title in red - Football and Fascism in the Iberian Peninsula - and the authors' names in white - Daniele Serapiglia and Juan Antonio Simon. At the bottom the cover, in a red box, appears the publisher's name in white, Peter Lang.

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Brooke Harrington @ebharrington.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

This whole thread, but especially this part. "We're going to steal the intellectual property of your faculty, then demand those faculty find use cases for our lying theft machine."

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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

This iconic Fabian Todorovic cartoon is still one of the best I’ve seen at illustrating the remarkable amount of space we surrender to cars, leaving little space left for everyone and everything else. The text added later makes the bonus point that many drivers still manage to complain about it.

Cartoon image of a street with much of the space taken up by a car with a single driver, while the rest of the street has people tightly packed in a bus, a bus shelter and riding bikes in a bike lane. Adding insult to injury, the driver says “damn those bike paths and bike lanes taking all the space.”

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Richard Jean So @richardjeanso.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Hey I'm teaching a course "AI, Creativity & Slop" to first-year students this fall which includes readings in lit/philosophy, history + cog sci/comp sci. Does anyone have recs - essays they love in any of these areas - to help me finalize the syllabus? Would really appreciate any suggestions, thx!

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Martin Polley @historymartin.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

New blog post: my speech from the July unveiling of the new Historic England Blue Plaque for Frank Soo at 11 Lightwood Road, Buxton, Derbyshire. martinpolley.co.uk/2026/08/14/f...

martinpolley.co.uk

Frank Soo: A Blue Plaque in Buxton – Martin Polley, Sports Historian

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Martin Polley @historymartin.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

New book alert: Rulebreakers & Ghost Runners by @runyoung50.bsky.social , out now with @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social. Holmes explores the long history of women who 'broke the rules, broke records and broke barriers' when the athletics establishment barred them from distance events.

The front cover of a book. The book's title, in white block capitals, is 'Rulebreakers & Ghost Runners', with the subtitle in black, 'The British women who asserted their right to run'. The author's name, Katie Holmes, and the publisher, Bloomsbury, appear at the bottom. The cover image is a monochrome photograph of five white women in late 1960s/early 1970s clothing running a race towards the camera. The background of the cover is dark pink for the top half, and white for the bottom half.

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Raider @iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Greece is burning. Spain is burning. Sicily, Wales, Türkiye, Canada, the US— the entire planet is engulfed in flames. Decades of warnings ignored. Decades of corporate denial exposed. The science was right all along: our home is on fire. We need immediate, radical climate action.

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Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

So it's farewell to the History subject area at the University of Hertfordshire, not the first nor the last to go. One of the best departments in the country, just extinguished like a snap of the fingers. Think of the waste. (1/2)

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Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Given that we are all upset today about Anthropic-shredding-books, I’ll add that I address this here, and it’s part of the same infrastructure threatening the preservation and profession of history but people don’t want to talk about that if the same industry is paying for their research.

It may be tempting to see value in projects
such as the Schmidt Foundation - that's
Eric Schmidt of Google - funding a fellowship in Al at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or the Musk Foundation's support of the Scroll Prize to use Al in reconstructing ancient texts in the burnt scrolls of
Herculaneum. But these projects are simply two among countless others that have been seeding Al into museums and historical research for well over a decade. Even more egregious is the case of Al companies buying and destroying rare books en masse in the process of scanning them for data. In the context of the dire austerity we are witnessing, the juggernaut of tech money seems impossible to resist. But the public should know the dangers of ceding the
precious work of peering into the past to those whose chief aims are to exploit it for data and build visions of our collective history
to their own liking.

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Martin Polley @historymartin.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

July's blog post is now up: ‘Popular “football music” of our time’, inspired by a chance discovery in the loft, the FIFA men's World Cup, and the sad news of Kevin Keegan's death #football #music #nostalgia #worldcup #thistime martinpolley.co.uk/2026/07/27/2...

martinpolley.co.uk

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Adam Schwarz @adamjschwarz.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

When the story of why humanity didn't stop climate change is written, it will feature front pages like this. Even as the skies blacken with climate change-induced wildfires, right wing media continue their relentless crusade against measures to tackle it.

The Times: Net zero risks blackouts. Below a photo of French wildfires.

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Martin Polley @historymartin.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Gridiron Invasion by @drkatietaylor.bsky.social @utpress.bsky.social. I was honoured to serve as 1st supervisor on Katie's @icshc.bsky.social PhD on women in American football on which the book is based - it's great to see her work reach a wider audience #sportshistory utpress.org/979889527097...

utpress.org

Gridiron Invasion

Women have long participated in the game of American football. From informal, secret games, to educators’ use of touch football for female students, to att...

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International Centre for Sports History and Culture @icshc.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

'England's first Asian player honoured with blue plaque at his family home'. @icshc.bsky.social Emeritus Prof. and Historic England Blue Plaque Panel Member Martin Polley @historymartin.bsky.social speaks to ITV News following recognition for England player, Frank Soo - www.itv.com/watch/news/e...

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Martin Polley @historymartin.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Historic England's listing of @stokecityfc.bsky.social & England footballer Frank Soo (1914-1991) to mark the unveiling of the Blue Plaque at his birthplace in Buxton, Derbyshire, UK last week. #blueplaques #commemoration #sportsherirtage #franksoo historicengland.org.uk/listing/nati...

historicengland.org.uk

Frank Soo | Historic England

Frank Soo (1914-1991), the first footballer of East Asian descent to play for the England men’s team.

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Rich @pibasedlifeform.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Dead? No Mr Tice, we want you to be irrelevant aresholes again who 90% ignore It really is that simple

Tice being a prick, by pretending that there is some sort of nationwide fatwa against reform politicians, rather than just some bigot getting killed by accident by a scum bag burglar

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Gregk Foley @gregk.co.uk · 13/07/2026

Let's see if the hard left continue to hand Farage the keys to No. 10 by refusing to get behind the radical left-wing leader they couped Starmer for just because they can't compromise on the idea that foreigners aren't full human beings deserving of dignity and rights 🙄

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Esther @elhopkins.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Over 2,700 people have died from heat related causes in the past two months. 1 in 20 deaths in Luton are caused by air pollution and still Labour ignored environmental reports and steamed ahead with the Luton expansion. Time they realised we are in an enormous climate emergency.

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Prem Sikka @premnsikka.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

2700+ people in England & Wales died from heat-related causes during May and June. Most likely to be the poor, old. Yet there are climate change deniers who relentlessly push fossil fuels. Earth will be cinders by the time last drop of oil/gas is burnt.

news.sky.com

More than 2,700 deaths linked to May and June heatwaves, study suggests

The analysis found that 42% died as a result of the extra heat caused by human activity - mostly burning fossil fuels.

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History Workshop @historyworkshop.org.uk · 13/07/2026

OTD in 1930, the first FIFA World Cup began in Uruguay. In this article from the archives, Richard Mills explores how football fixtures created meaningful ties between Yugoslavia and its African and Asian allies.

historyworkshop.org.uk

Scoring for the Non-Aligned Movement: Yugoslavia, Football and the Third World

Continuing our History Workshop World Cup series, Richard Mills explores the role football played in establishing diplomatic ties between Tito’s […]

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Zack Polanski @zackpolanski.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

As wildfires rage, Andy Burnham still won't rule out airport expansion. He still hasn't commited to ending new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea. The incoming Prime Minister can't say the climate crisis is an emergency whilst backing policies that make it worse.

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The Bear @bearlypolitics.co.uk · 13/07/2026

And yet there are still politicians that will go on about “Net Zero Madness.” This year, from the look of things, will likely be the worst on record for heat related deaths since records began. We are in serious trouble.

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Anti-Reform @antireform.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

"So that's Theft, Fraud, Financial Misconduct, Political Misconduct and Misconduct in a public office. That's just the EU. In the UK, all of the above plus Treason, Money Laundering and Tax Evasion. The list probably goes on but that's enough of a start. Criminal Filth." via Timothy O'sullivan

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Martin Polley @historymartin.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

New #sportshistory book alert: Migrants, Minorities, and the History of British Boxing: Insiders, Outsiders, and Ringsiders by David Dee of @icshibas25.bsky.social @dmuhistory.bsky.social @dmu.ac.uk global.oup.com/academic/pro...

global.oup.com

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Zack Polanski @zackpolanski.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

I'm so proud of Yassin. He made Bristol and Britain his home. He has contributed so much as a Green Party Cllr to his city and to the community in Lawrence Hill. Solidarity in the face of this Reform fuelled racist hate. Hope always wins!

Matt Goodwin complaining about Yassun Mohamad - the law mayor of Bristol. Saying that we shouldn't have former refugees running our cities.

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Karen Gregory @karengregory.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Can someone please take a look at the massive red flags waving in the air over the crisis in UK HE.

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Oisín McGann @oisinmcgann.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Brexit and Trump being elected the first time shocked me into accepting how many people could be openly motivated by racist populism. GenAI has opened my eyes to how many people are ready and willing to surrender their thinking and agency to an app. I’m so disappointed with human beings these days.

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Martin Polley @historymartin.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Historic England photo exhibition 'Football Grounds of England' now open at Swindon Central Library’s Courtyard Gallery until 24 July, using photos from 1880 to 2019 by architectural historian and sports heritage pioneer Simon Inglis @swindoncouncil.bsky.social stfcmuseum.org/football-gro...

stfcmuseum.org

FOOTBALL GROUNDS OF ENGLAND EXHIBITION | STFC Museum

Photographs from the Historic England Archive’s ‘Football Grounds of England’ Collection will be on display at Swindon Central Library’s Courtyard Gallery, from 29 June to 24 July. Selected by footbal...

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Martin Polley @historymartin.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

New @bssh.bsky.social sports history podcast: Lisa Jenkel of @unibas.ch on 'The Discourse and Depiction regarding Jewish Athletes and Jewish Sports in the English Press, 1890-1945' #sportshistory #podcast www.sportinhistory.com/pages/bssh-p...

sportinhistory.com

The Sport in History Podcast | British Society of Sports History

The Sport in History Podcast helps publicise your research with the public and wider academic community.

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Kevin Kretsch (DrKev) @kevinkretsch.com · 28/06/2026

I’ve said this so many times and I know I will say so many times more but here we go again… There is no ethical use of AI. Ever. Whether it’s the blatant theft of training data, or the environmental and resource costs, there is no ethical justification. None.

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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

I know I’m a broken record but to see universities abandon critical thinking and completely chuck out their own policies around sustainability, research ethics, academic integrity, etc in the pursuit of shiny new tech has been quite something

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Martin Polley @historymartin.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

New blog post: A Trace of Rustic Play, based on the Nine Mens' Morris board at St John the Baptist church, Inglesham - with a bit of Joseph Strutt and T S Eliot thrown in. #boardgames #sportshistory #gamehistory #churchhistory martinpolley.co.uk/2026/06/24/a...

martinpolley.co.uk

A Trace of Rustic Play – Martin Polley, Sports Historian

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

“The pure air of sovereignty” Allowing foreign-based billionaires to whip up racist riots on our streets and fund fascism in our politics. Peachy. Thanks again Brexit. And every single complicit politician and media ‘patriot’. app.independent.co.uk/2026/06/13/2...

Promoting and amplifying dangerous rhetoric about migrants has moved back into the mainstream over the past decade, writes Alan Rusbridger. The violent impact is now being played out on the streets
Alan Rusbridger
2 hours ago - Saturday 13 June 2026 06:00

Belfast riots see refugees who sought safety in UK under fresh attack

So here we are, 10 years after Brexit.
The pure air of sovereignty. Taking back control from the unelected Brussels bureaucrats and handing it to Elon Musk, JD Vance, Nigel Farage, Tommy.
Robinson and a handful of faceless crypto-billionaires and hedge fund managers, some of whom choose not to live in Britain.

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