Bits and bobs
by mercuriuspoliticus
Early Modern Post is a very good new blog by Lizzy Williamson of Queen Mary, University of London. Its focus is on how information and intelligence was gathered, spread and consumed during the early modern period.
This piece on tweeting as oral marginalia at the SHARP 2011 conference is definitely required reading.
I have a review of Jonathon Green’s Crooked Talk: Five Hundred Years of the Language of Crime in this month’s History Today.
Mercurius Politicus 
Thanks for the recommendation! Very kind of you. I was going to reply to your previous handwriting challenge post, but I’m a bit late – still, for what it’s worth, I read it as Uphold^r^ or Upholdo^r^ where the ‘r’ is superscript, and find the mis-transcribed upholsterer explanation highly plausible. Upfield still looks possible, and I wondered if it could be a name of a house/location rather than a village name. Still, not an exact science!
Lizzy