John Bull

Author. Historian. Strategy streamer. Tech/Transport Strategist. Editor of @lonrec. Orient fan. Business: [email protected]

On Twitch: https://twitch.tv/gariusthebrit
On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/gariusthebrit
On Medium: https://garius.medium.com/
On Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/garius

Last Notes

2026-08-14 07:59:36 GMT

The biggest selling comic of all time is One Piece. The second biggest is not from the US or UK.
It's French.
DELIGHTED to welcome Julie Kalmnl onto Untitled History Pod to talk origins of Asterix the Gaul and how it made modern France.
Listen below, Youtube or your pod app of choice. #history #france https://open.spotify.com/episode/25728yiLshnWYW7mWS6yQg?si=GSqeKzLfQc23WKqXzmYv3g

2026-07-12 08:45:23 GMT

RE: https://mastodon.me.uk/@garius/116899578476163634
HE'S HOME!!!!
40 posters around the area. Probs 100 or so doors knocked on yesterday.
A young girl had come to the door with her dad at one, when we'd knocked. She spotted him while coming home from a park. She and her friends alerted an adult who got the number off a nearby poster and rang us.
He is now full of chicken and enjoying recovery hugs.
#note1pr5…2jcz

2026-07-11 05:00:09 GMT

With immeasurable sadness I must announce that Napoleon, our best boy, went missing a few nights back.
if you see a small black kitty with two white toes around Boundary/Markhouse roads in #walthamstow do DM me.
if i post no photos of him anymore, this will be why.
he was my very best boy 💔
we don't need tips on searching etc. we're doing what we can. but mostly just trying to process the likely loss now.
i'm devestated, tbh. may be quiet for a bit.
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/116/899/571/473/387/301/original/07ba4710ed22640b.jpg

2026-04-24 17:56:55 GMT

My piece on the Up Front about Lufthansa's uniform partnership with Hugo Boss, and why it's important companies (and PR teams) know their corporate history.
If you don't engage with your corporate history, then it WILL engage with you.
#history #aviation https://theupfront.media/optical-delusions-lufthansas-uniform-fashion-collaboration-creates-unintended-associations-with-its-past/

2026-04-10 08:55:49 GMT

Do you like defenestrations? Weird German ducal families where EVERYONE is called Heinrich? Are you Swedish and like interfering in religious conflicts?
The week on Untitled History Podcast, Jonn Elledge and l and I talk about the Holy Roman Empire. #history https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/the-untitled-history-podcast
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/116/379/569/917/837/023/original/c13d20a8080f0be9.jpg

2026-01-26 19:13:27 GMT

As an older tech person, it's legit heartwarming watching the TikTok generation discover why we all hate Oracle.

2025-03-10 17:47:47 GMT

The latest part of my history of home computing is now available. This one looks at the rise of Commodore and Jack Tramiel.
He was a complex man. A brutal manager, but a holocaust survivor who was determined to build a better future. Computers for the "masses not the classes".
Unpicking his story has meant navigating a lot of established truths and myths.
His fear that the US was complacent about thinking fascism could rise there, hits hard now #history #technology https://every.to/the-crazy-ones/the-first-king-of-home-computing

2025-01-31 14:45:38 GMT

Anyone got any UK/EU Ghost CMS hosting recommendations?
Don't want to be sticking stuff in the US.
To be clear: i have hosting for other services, just interested in companies that specifically cater to Ghost setups

2024-12-14 17:11:21 GMT

Should probably say that I'll be giving a talk on Lore Harp and Vector Graphic for the Computer Conservation Society in May.
I'll be looking at Vector's rise, successful wooing computer dealerships and small businesses and its path to becoming only the second ever female founded business on the NASDAQ.
I'll also be exploring why this pioneering female-founded startup never gets a mention in Silicon Valley #history #technology
https://www.computerconservationsociety.org/lectures/2024-25/20250515.htm
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/113/652/284/802/936/825/original/c88bb2d3aa1eb8e7.jpg

2024-11-06 16:46:27 GMT

In about 1981 Neil Harris was traveling along the autobahn with his boss at Commodore, Jack Tramiel. They were headed to the Hamburg computer expo.
Harris commented on how smooth the road was.
"Thanks." Said Tramiel, who'd been imprisoned as Jewish slave-labour nearby in WW2. "I built this one."

2024-08-24 08:27:05 GMT

This is an extraordinary article.
https://www.ign.com/articles/a-prominent-accessibility-advocate-worked-with-studios-and-inspired-change-but-she-never-actually-existed?utm_source=threads,twitter

2024-08-20 12:11:08 GMT

I see we have Catflap Amnesia today.
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/112/994/278/872/291/280/original/540fd7ebcae9f02a.jpeg

2024-05-21 11:27:54 GMT

Rebranding myself as an eco-friendly alternative to ChatGPT.
Ask me a question and I'll mansplain an answer to you, while consuming much less water and energy.

2023-04-13 09:02:33 GMT

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essentially distrust of ID cards in the UK isn't really distrust of the usefulness of having ID.
It's that ID represent a contract between the state and citizen in which the citizen agrees to be always-identifiable and the state agrees not to abuse that or use it to exclude people.
There is zero trust in a good chunk of the UK citizenry, on either right or left, that the state would hold up its end of that bargain.

2023-04-13 08:56:23 GMT

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a good example of this is about to happen in May, btw.
The UK government has made ID MANDATORY for voting now, citing the need to prevent ballot fraud.
There have been roughly 4 individual cases of ballot fraud. But (by estimates) this is going to disenfranchise about 2,000,000 people. Most of whom are from income groups or backgrounds that don't vote for the current right wing party.
It's hard to sell ID as a positive when they're that transparent about the goal.

2023-04-13 08:50:27 GMT

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passports are a good example by the way. In the UK passport processing application costs are high. It's a cash racket prone to massive delays and failures.
Make that free and better and suddenly ID is an easier sell.
But IDs as an improvement for the CITIZEN has never been the clear goal here. It's always been transparently about a win for the state.

2023-04-13 08:43:26 GMT

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there's definitely a cultural thing about it here in the UK, but there's also the fact that it's purely about disenfranchisement here.
It's never "universal free ID sent automatically at birth/certain age". It's "you will need one of these various third party IDs which you must apply for and will cost you a fee"
Essentially it's hard to look beyond the negatives when that's very clearly the primary intent.