I’ve just spent the past few hours messing around with an AI music generation tool called Suno. Because I’m a massive nerd, I asked it to create some songs based on real historical events – and the results were both spectacular and terrifying. A thread 🧵

I see that people are using wheelbarrows to attract publicity. Let it be known that this is not a new tactic. I made a 6-part podcast series on Britain's first wheelbarrow celebrity for @historyextra

Look, I know people have legitimate concerns about the terrifying pace at which generative AI is evolving. But I just created a Europop song about a Welsh town with a famously long name, and IT'S A BANGER. Genuinely better than 99% of Eurovision entries 🔥🔥🔥

Ellie Cawthorne, presenter of new podcast series Deeds Not Words, explores how some some suffragettes fought back against police brutality – by mastering an ancient Japanese martial art… Find out more at spr.ly/6013gtqWN

The new Geordie Greep single sounds like Steely Dan smoking spice with Jamiroquai while attempting to cover Earth, Wind & Fire’s ‘Let’s Groove’. And that’s absolutely *not* a bad thing #TBE youtu.be/A4EU_0vFzuU?fe…

Enjoyed chatting to Matt Chorley on BBC 5 Live Sport yesterday on the history of toilets ref @historyextra toilets through time podcast. Are Victorian earth closets the future of toilets, I pondered. bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…

I have a deeply, deeply unhealthy obsession with this LP – and it’s only been out a week. The Greep has made the album of the year.

I recently had the privilege of chatting to No Such Thing As A Fish hosts James Harkin and Anna Ptaszynski about the history of sport, and I'm *delighted* to say that the full HistoryExtra interview is now available wherever you get your podcasts. Warning: contains LOTS of balls ⚽🏀🎾

It’s actually gunna happen isn’t it 😭😭😭

If anyone cares, here’s my top 9 albums of 2024 in alphabetical order (The Greep’s The New Sound is still my no 1, obvs)

1066 and all that? Here in the North West it's 1092 that matters - when the Kingdom of Cumbria south of Hadrian's Wall fell to the Normans. Fiona Edmonds VCH_Cumbria & I LancasterUniHistory discuss for HistoryExtra - including new work on the important Norman site Lowther Castle & Gardens!

Listening to Squid’s brilliant new single inspired me to read Ryū Murakami’s ‘In the Miso Soup’ – and now I feel profoundly disturbed 😦 youtu.be/oFlgMauJO9o?fe…