Charlotte Lydia Riley
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lottelydia.bsky.social
Charlotte Lydia Riley
@lottelydia.bsky.social
25K followers 1.3K following 5.6K posts
Imperial Island: A History of Empire in Modern Britain (Penguin 2023)/An Alternative History of the British Empire (HUP 2024). Is Free Speech Under Threat? (2024).

https://linktr.ee/charlottelydiariley

repped by Carrie Plitt @FBA
views are all mine 💫
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lottelydia.bsky.social
(TW: suicide) I mean what is this tone, this language? It’s soulless, sure, but it’s also from a particular milieu.
"Cold steel pressed against a mind that's already made peace? That's not fear. That's clarity," Shamblin's confidant added. "You're not rushing. You're just ready."
November 7, 2025 at 11:23 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
I don’t want to seem like I am being flippant but honestly I feel every word of this meme every time I see another horrific story about chatGPT encouraging self harm or delusion. All non-divine beings must shut the hell up!!!!
All Robot & Computers must shut the hell up. To All Machines: You Do Not Speak Unless Spoken To And I Will Never Speak To You. I Do Not Want To Hear “Thank You” From A Kiosk I am a Divine Being You are an Object. You Have No Right To Speak In My Holy Tongue
November 7, 2025 at 9:13 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
Too few would imply we need more Sheffields in American politics and, hmm. Maybe.
Guardian story from 1981 headlined No Red Flags in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire
November 5, 2025 at 12:07 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
That might be optimistic. It’s just as likely that he’d say he’s never thought about bread before.
But then he can't really say if he's strictly an optimist or a pessimist and, no, doesn't know if he's an extrovert or an introvert, either. "I've never really thought about it. I don't know what that tells you." He doesn't know what he dreamed last night - or ever: "I don't dream." Just hits the pillow at 11 and - "bang" - is out till around 5. He doesn't have a favourite novel or poem, wasn't scared of anything as a child. "Nothing. No phobias."
November 5, 2025 at 11:36 AM
lottelydia.bsky.social
The Wire meme: The game is rigged. But you cannot lose if you do not play.
October 30, 2025 at 8:08 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
Obviously agree with the bigger message here but this does feel a bit
kim-jong-chill Follow i need feminism because when jesus does a magic trick it's a goddamn miracle but when a woman does a magic trick she gets burned at the stake mattheuphonium fabulous tockthewatchdog i mean they did also kill jesus. that was a pretty significant thing that happened. like i understand where you're coming from here but they very much did kill jesus.
October 29, 2025 at 6:20 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
The Lionel Hutz business card meme — works on contingency? No, money down! A headline from the NYT opinion pages. Josh Hawley: no American should go to bed hungry. But corrected via poor photoshop to read no! Americans *should* go to bed hungry
October 28, 2025 at 9:24 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
I made this literally like 18 months ago and it still holds true!!!
October 27, 2025 at 9:36 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
my god America is deranged
A screenshot of a US government page about cluster feeding and growth spurts: An official website of the United States government Here's how you know Due to the Radical Left Democrat shutdown, this government website will not be updated during the funding lapse. President Trump has made it clear he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the American people. USDA WIC Breastfeeding Support U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE MENU WIC BREASTFEEDING SUPPORT » CLUSTER FEEDING AND GROWTH SPURTS Cluster Feeding and Growth Spurts
October 24, 2025 at 7:23 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
“Following his lecture, Yarvin will debate the legendary British historian David Starkey on history and the future of conservatism.” Everything about this is so cursed. Masks off at the University of Oxford.
Curtis Yarvin & David Starkey - The End of the End of History By Oakeshott (formerly Scruton) Lectures Follow The second Oakeshott Lecture of 2025 - with perennially viral tech philosopher Curtis Yarvin and eminent historian David Starkey In the second Oakeshott (formerly Scruton) Lecture, Curtis Yarvin will address the End of the End of History in the Post-Cold War Era. A former software developer, Curtis Yarvin came to international prominence under the pen-name Mencius Moldbug as a critic of contemporary democracy. An avid promoter of technocracy and critic of ‘the Cathedral’, Yarvin has become an influential figure on the American right - a reliably controversial voice and a confidante of JD Vance and Peter Thiel. Following his lecture, Yarvin will debate the legendary British historian David Starkey on history and the future of conservatism.
October 20, 2025 at 2:05 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
🧡 because I did two versions of this book for the UK and the US I got to do two different acknowledgements — this is from my US ones
Too many historians have coaxed me through this process for me to thank them all, but I want to give particular appreciation to Emily Baughan, Emma Lundin, Tehila Sasson, Anna Bocking Welch, Lyndsey Jenkins, Helen Glew, and Stefan Visnjevac. Kendrick Oliver and Maria Hayward have been extraordinarily supportive heads of department; my colleagues-and students—at Southampton have facilitated the research and writing of this book in a multiplicity of ways, especially Eve Colpus and Chris Fuller. So too did my colleagues at the University of York, where I first thought about many of the themes of this book: particular thanks are due to Mark Roodhouse, Lawrence Black, and Liz Buettner.
October 16, 2025 at 2:49 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
(Obviously I am lying and I have indeed looked up my book on goodreads but tbh this is the only review there I care about)
A screengrab of a 4/5 review on good reads of my book imperial island by Garret Giblin saying: "Where we're going we don't need Rhodes" - excellent title for the concluding chapter
October 8, 2025 at 2:38 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
A picture of a tube of Munchies on top of a pile of Munchies
October 5, 2025 at 7:23 AM
lottelydia.bsky.social
the marketing of this book is WILD once you see which Mitford it is
Book cover: the pursuit of laughter, essays, articles, reviews and diary of the most controversial Mitford sister. And it’s DIANA MOSLEY. Complete with a generic picture of a 1930s society belle’s face in pearls.
October 2, 2025 at 3:30 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
It’s all very
Goose game meme. Person on floor covering their ears saying I’m being called racist for my opinions. Geese, shouting, which ones — which ones motherfucker
October 1, 2025 at 8:41 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
quiet bat people, are you out there
Picture of Keir Starmer at conference in front of a red background. Yellow subtitles saying painting a fence, running the raffle, cutting the half-time orange
September 30, 2025 at 5:59 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
WELL, OTHER PEOPLE HAVE DONE INTERVIEWS WITH ISAAC CHOTINER HOPING TO BOLSTER THEIR REPUTATION WELL DID IT WORK FOR THOSE PEOPLE? NO, IT NEVER DOES, I MEAN, THESE PEOPLE SOMEHOW DELUDE THEMSELVES INTO THINKING IT MIGHT, BUT.. BUT IT MIGHT WORK FOR US.
September 23, 2025 at 8:37 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
No it wouldn’t — there are significantly more British citizens who are eligible for Irish passports than Irish people who live on the island of Ireland. (Also most of these British people don’t actually hold an Irish passport.)
Looking at first-generation migrants, there are about 650,000 people in England, Wales and Scotland born on the island of Ireland. Subtract the number of people who already have an Irish passport and you get about a quarter of a million. Then we come to Northern Ireland. There may be people there who would choose not to take up Irish citizenship for any number of reasons, but if we focus just on the entitlement to an Irish passport and again subtract those who don't already have one, that's another 1.3 million people. That means about 6.7 million people in the UK who don't already have an Irish passport who could be entitled to one. We think that's a conservative estimate, but it's still quite a lot more than the current population of the Republic of Ireland, which is 4.8 million. Follow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on Facebook
September 22, 2025 at 3:35 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
Goose chasing meme, asking what exactly Britain was doing in Israel 75 years ago
September 21, 2025 at 8:25 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
I’m as much of an autumn-lover as any tragic academic with a lust for knitwear, but I was just skipping ahead through the weather forecast this week and Thursday is the first day with less than 12 hours between sunrise and sunset
Screen grab of a weather forecast showing sun and cloud for the next week in newham, but the sunrise on Thursday is 06.52 and sunset is 18.51
September 20, 2025 at 10:32 PM
lottelydia.bsky.social
When this onesie was created — maybe for the Euros this year — I bet it felt super cute. But Sainsbury’s probably need to have a word with the media agency that pushed it on their socials this week…
An Instagram stories advert for a baby onesie, white with a Red Cross on it, a “white England flag short sleeve bodysuit”, reduced from £2 to £1.20. There is a link to shop now and the text says “embrace this season’s best…”.
September 18, 2025 at 8:44 AM
lottelydia.bsky.social
Anyway. Read my book if you want to know more, I guess.
A screengrab of the front cover of my book, imperial island: a history of empire in modern Britain. The front cover has pink writing and a picture of a man of Jamaican origin in a suit and tie touching the face of one of the lions in Trafalgar Square. There are glowing blurbs from Lucy Worsley and Shashi Tharoor, and a 4.4 out of 5 star rating on Amazon.
September 16, 2025 at 11:05 AM
lottelydia.bsky.social
But it’s also been a site of racism and racist violence for a century as well. It was especially bad in the 1970s and 1980s, with economic decline exploited by the National Front to foment racial hatred. As I say in my book:
(The national front had set up an office in Canning Town to drum up anti immigrant feeling through the guise of pro)viding housing advice to white residents. In 1978 it supported striking (white) workers at the Tate & Lyle factory. Through its increasing activity in the borough, the NF cast the problems of Newham at the feet of its immigrant community; it was claimed by the NF they sold more newspapers outside the Boleyn stadium, West Ham's home ground, on match days than outside any other football club. By 1987, a piece in the London Review of Books stated that 'Newham is like a macabre laboratory for studying the hideous cruelties which whites are capable of inflicting on people of a different colour'.
September 16, 2025 at 10:58 AM
lottelydia.bsky.social
“History” came up with 205 jobs, which was pretty surprising. But there are only a handful that are actually history jobs, and by the second page there’s this instead…
Part time Head Coach (Boat Club) Christ Church University of Oxford Location: Oxford Salary: University Scale Grade 6 (currently £27,985 to £32,684 per annum pro-rated) Date Placed: 04 Sep Closes: 19 Sep
September 9, 2025 at 9:35 AM
lottelydia.bsky.social
(Found it in my notes: an extract! f. 119 Letter, Mary Mikardo to BC, February 23 1968. MS Castle 265)
'Hearing Mik refusing a last drink because he was driving, reminded me of the many times that I was driven both by my husband and your husband hanging on to the straps, hands clenched, eyes tightly shut, just hoping for the best. It is because of these memories and because Mik is so much better in health and has lost weight because he drinks less, (only signles no doubles) that | write to thank you personally for introducing the breathalyser'. PHOTOGRAPHED.
September 3, 2025 at 10:21 PM