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Dan Hancox

@danhancox.bsky.social

1.9K followers 1.5K following 180 posts

Journalist and author from south London. Latest book: MULTITUDES: How Crowds Made the Modern World (Verso 2024). https://cursedobjects.podbean.com/ https://danhancox.substack.com/

cursedobjects.podbean.com

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Dan Hancox @danhancox.bsky.social · Feb 24

A heads-up: I will be on Thinking Allowed tmw at 3.30pm talking about crowds and my new book, Multitudes @versobooks.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

BBC Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed, Crowds

The rich and diverse history of crowds in entertainment, sports and politics.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Dan Hancox @danhancox.bsky.social · 5d

Came here to say the same thing. There are good robust media studies which show disproportionality in various types of reporting, and Islamophobia is absolutely not taken seriously enough by the UK media - but pls get the facts right first

Dan Hancox @danhancox.bsky.social · 9d

Starmer's almost directly quoted The Day Today's mock campaign ad: "we know that all conflict will perish in the brotherhood of flags" www.youtube.com/watch?v=T72T...

The Day Today - It's Alright

YouTube video by Paloopah

www.youtube.com

Dan Hancox @danhancox.bsky.social · 11d

It's had 16,000 views since Thursday, which I'm not overly surprised by, because people *really* love Burial - and Burial speaks about music with the same mesmerising passion he applies to making it danhancox.substack.com/p/burials-la...

Dan Hancox @danhancox.bsky.social · 11d

Last week I published the full transcript from Burial's last ever interview on my Substack. The conversation took place the month before Untrue came out in October 2007, in my living room in Tooting. Suffice it to say people have gone a bit nuts over it 💗 danhancox.substack.com/p/burials-la...

Burial's last interview

A little exclusive, because why not

danhancox.substack.com

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Dan Hancox @danhancox.bsky.social · 11d

por eso que prefiero viajar en tren espanol, jaja.. el servicio aqui es tan malo!

Reposted by Dan Hancox

James Vincent @jjvincent.bsky.social · 22d

missed this: the Met promising to put its facial recognition tech onto officers' phones to be used on the spot. how long until every conversation with the police involves getting your face scanned? www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/t...

"Mark Rowley, the head of the Metropolitan Police in London, wants to go further. At a conference in Westminster this month, he said facial recognition would be integrated into officers’ phones so they could switch it on to “confirm suspects’ identities on the street more efficiently.” Authorities are also testing affixing permanent facial recognition cameras in certain areas of London."

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Dan Hancox @danhancox.bsky.social · 28d

Ah thanks so much Charlotte!

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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 29d

- you clean up that banksy?
- sure did, your honour, leaving a perfect, permanent outline, imbuing the work with real fuckin gravitas while making its point better than the artist did himself just like you asked

Adrian+Shane @adrianandshane.bsky.social · Sep 10

They erased the new Banksy mural in London. But the stain remains.

Side-by-side images of Banksy’s mural on the Royal Courts of Justice in London. On the left, the artwork appears faded and scrubbed, leaving only a ghostly outline of a judge raising a gavel over a protester holding a placard. On the right, the mural is fully visible in sharp black and white stencil, showing a judge in a traditional white wig and robes striking down at a protester who defends himself with a bloodied sign.

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Dan Hancox @danhancox.bsky.social · Sep 9

Also my favourite dish in the world... made them using YouTube tutorials once, was so much fun - you should ask if you can join in!

Dan Hancox @danhancox.bsky.social · Sep 9

I have a name, Jim! ;) open.substack.com/pub/danhanco...

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Charlie Phillips @charliechar.bsky.social · Sep 1

Don’t ignore that the bbc asked a racist question here

Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · Sep 1

Asked by the BBC how he would feel if "your daughter was having to walk past one of these [asylum] hotels every day?" Keir Starmer replies that "I completely get it".

"I understand why people want the hotels closed. I want them closed".

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Dan Hancox @danhancox.bsky.social · Aug 26

It has been an astonishing realisation / waste of my valuable time to learn that Lucy Mangan's review was if anything too kind to Destination X - aka GeoGuessr for people who have never ever thought about the outside world - hallucinatory is bang on though www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Destination X review – the BBC’s big new reality competition will make you feel like you’re hallucinating

It’s like The Traitors meets Race Across the World, with contestants sent on a deliberately disorientating 175-mile helicopter ride – and then put onto a bus with no windows. And that’s before you con...

www.theguardian.com

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dr emer mchugh @emer.bsky.social · Aug 25

me on @cmatbaby.bsky.social’s EURO-COUNTRY and why it gives voice to a distressingly normalised post-recession malaise. i hope you read!

The emblem of modern Ireland? Not fiddles and Guinness but a soulless shopping plaza | Emer McHugh

The singer CMAT dances around a retail centre in a video for her new album. It is the elegy those of us who grew up in the post-Celtic tiger recession have been craving, says Irish writer Emer McHugh

www.theguardian.com

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Dan Hancox @danhancox.bsky.social · Aug 6

Loool. We should get you a badge with that on 🧡🩵 thanks as ever Charlotte - excited to get the new ep up! (Probably early September when everyone is back from holidays)

Reposted by Dan Hancox

Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · Aug 6

Can’t remember if I shared this already, but I recently did a live episode of @cursedobjectsuk.bsky.social with @luketurner.bsky.social, fab curator Kate Clements and of course @kasiatee.bsky.social and @danhancox.bsky.social. You can listen here:

War, Memory and Tat, LIVE - with Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley, Luke Turner and Kate Clements

Podcast Episode · Cursed Objects · 23/06/2025 · 59m

podcasts.apple.com

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Dan Hancox @danhancox.bsky.social · Aug 6

Thanks so much John for your reading and commentary, it's such an honour and a pleasure to read! So glad it chimed with you

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John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ @wjpme.bsky.social · Aug 6

A great read this book by @danhancox.bsky.social. Thank you Dan. An excellent closing paragraph too: ‘One of the greatest mistakes we have made in recent decades is to accept the idea that freedom is a quality that can be found and enjoyed only by the individual acting alone. #Booksky 💙📚 #AmRrading

Cover of Multitudes: How Crowds Made the Modern World by Dan Hancox

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John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ @wjpme.bsky.social · Aug 5

Just learned a new expression which is fascinating but does resonate a bit with the first time I went to London alone as a callow 17 year old in 1980! ‘One was now in the urban danger zone where visitors from the country were thrown to the wolves,' the Swedish academic Orvar Löfgren #Crowds

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Robin Allender @robinallender.bsky.social · Jul 30

More love for Cameron Winter/Geese here from @danhancox.bsky.social

open.substack.com/pub/danhanco...

You better come over with a crucifix...

The song of the year, two new Guardian features, an Essex music zine, and Cursed Objects

open.substack.com

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John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ @wjpme.bsky.social · Aug 1

‘‘Totalitarian movements are mass organisations of atomised, isolated individuals, Arendt wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism.’’ From @danhancox.bsky.social’s Multitudes. Are we here now too? Reference is made to this in Adam Curtis’s #Shifty - did neoliberal capitalism create this too?

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Daniel Trilling @trillingual.bsky.social · Jul 29

Good morning, I've written a piece about the prime minister. I spoke to several dozen sources, including government insiders, former legal colleagues and campaigners to ask: what happened to Keir Starmer the heroic human rights lawyer? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Starmer v Starmer: why is the former human rights lawyer so cautious about defending human rights?

The long read: Given his career as a human rights barrister, it was hoped Keir Starmer would be the PM to restore the UK’s commitment to international law. The reality tells a different story

www.theguardian.com

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Dan Hancox @danhancox.bsky.social · Jul 24

Great piece by @cianginty.bsky.social about the fascinating history of the bicycle as a liberating invention in Ireland (as it was in so many places!) www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The bicycle played a rich role in Ireland’s past. Now it is key to our future | Cian Ginty

Cycling was once a mass participation activity. Ben Healy’s dazzling Tour de France performances can help catalyse a revival, says editor Cian Ginty

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Dan Hancox

Helen Day @lbflyawayhome.bsky.social · Jul 22

Ladybird book in the Spotlight

‘Public Services: Water Supply’ 1969
[Deep sigh]

Artist: John Berry

The cover illustration and title of the book, showing a dam at the head of a large reservoir, edged by trees and surrounded by hills

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Dan Hancox @danhancox.bsky.social · Jul 22

sure, but details of which of his identities? www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Man found guilty over sharing Grant Shapps’s details with ‘Russian spies’

Howard Phillips, 65, gave Shapps’s home address and private plane location to undercover officers

www.theguardian.com

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Dan Hancox @danhancox.bsky.social · Jul 22

You're Foreign Secretary of a G7 nation (one which went to court to fight to continue supplying fighter jet parts to Israel), but go on, write another sternly worded letter www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I’m witnessing the deliberate starvation of Gaza’s children – why is the world letting it happen? | Nick Maynard

A permanent ceasefire, the free and safe flow of aid, and the lifting of the blockade are needed now – all could be achieved with political will, says UK surgeon Nick Maynard