iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

This isn't even today's destination, it's just a stopping point en route, after we've already been through a rainforest, what a country

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Firth of Thames feels perverted, James Cook you can't just mash Scottish geographic terms onto English river names Also somehow we just went past a baby alpaca and a very angry bison, presumably like a wee exotic wildlife park or something

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On an excursion to the Coromandel today and it feels somewhat on the nose that in a tour van with a Scot, English, Chilean, Fillipino and Emirati that the American is clearly doing work on her laptop, world's least chill country, let the lady have a holiday!

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Downside to travelling alone is being a bit lonely Upside to being gay is we're good at making connections (both euphemistically and not) Downside is agreeing to go for a drink is much easier to commit to than actually do This man was in his 40s! Wilbur, that is simply too many years old to ghost

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A very excellent 4 hours on Rangitoto island. Included a tight squeeze through some lava tunnels and so, so many stunning views of Auckland and the Hauraki Gulf. Very cool how much of the lower parts of the island are still bare lava fields just beginning to develop growth.

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Kiwis, what kind of birds are these? They are very sweet and came right up to investigate, A+ birds

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This morning I am on an island that literally did not exist when the Battle of Bannockburn was fought, what a wild notion, a whole island, more recent than a defining moment in my country's history

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Also glad to see that "ferries not quite departing on time" and, not unrelatedly, "people thinking because the ferry is at 9.30 they can show up for it at 9.29" are international experiences

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Looks like I'm not coming back from this holiday, they've got a quota to make and not enough people to hit it

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Good evening I have managed to conclude my first day here by burning the roof of my mouth on the largest, most generously stuffed empenadas of my life, woe is me, my holiday too enjoyable, my dinner too generously sized and delicious

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20 more days of holiday posting and there are two groups of people this post is addressed to: People who followed for some reason and regret it after all the Politics, to know when respite ends People who followed for Politics and somehow don't regret it, to know when normal service will resume

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Kiwis doing incredible things with their cuisine (to be clear I had a lovely batch of eggs benedict, rostis, bacon and spinach for brunch, this is just a wild combo)

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Kia ora from Maungawhau - it's wet and windy today so not the best possible views but still very impressive and a lovely way to actually start the sightseeing!

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So nice to start my day in a city that for all its differences is reassuringly familiar: cars drive on the correct side of the road, you don't have to wait for the green man to cross, and it's generally damp

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Little did I fuckin know that Auckland is ultimately and circuitously named after Dumbarton Rock, are you KIDDING ME

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Good evening I am officially in New Zealand, I am delirious from the journey because it was hard to sleep on the plane, but had a lovely chat with the mother and daughter on a campervan trip sat next to me, and I am close to tears from EXCITEMENT AHHHHHHH

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Allan Faulds @afaulds.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I am in Asia for the first time in my life! Barely. Singapore being an island feels like a points deduction, as does spending one hour in an airport between flights. Anyway halfway there now! First leg really benefitted from lucking into an empty middle seat and thus extra legroom

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On the one hand of course it is good for media to show close male friendships but also if you're telling me Pegg and Frost's characters in Hot Fuzz didn't end up together I refuse to believe you (I have so many film options but also so long to fly so of course I have went with my favourite film)

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Allan Faulds @afaulds.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Eeeeeeek not long until takeoff

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Allan Faulds @afaulds.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Imagine not embarking on a once in a lifetime trip to New Zealand today, couldn't be me xoxo Unfortunately spending £9 on a bacon roll and small bottle of apple juice can be me Also we'll see if I'm still this chipper 12 hours in to a flight and I'm still not even at Singapore

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Whatever your position on the issues, the frequency with which people whose job it is to make laws in a country with parliamentary supremecy default to "sorry but the law says... nothing we can do about it" is infuriating Yes you can! So do it or make an active case for why you won't, cowards!

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The last time I had to go to Manchester for a flight there were train strikes on so we had to get the bus and therefore I had forgotten how nice the train journey is, okay sure the train doesn't have the Tebay Services but it does offer some lovely vistas you just don't get on the road

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Obligatory "*this* is the bad place!" post You know I don't mean it it's just a little fun xoxo

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Scunnered for whoever didnae show up for their booked airport train but not really because I now have their window seat and extra legroom, how auspicious, may the rest of my... 30 hours of travel be as lovely

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I have walked fifteen (15) mins to my local train station as the very first step in my holiday and I have already had an overpowering urge to ride my large wheeled suitcase downhill because it feels like it would be fun

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About to go on it but thank you

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Allan Faulds @afaulds.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Good very early morning, I have just slept in my own bed in Scotland for the last time for over three weeks, apologies but this is going to become an increasingly unhinged "man who has never flown further than Malta does long haul flights" feed and then "solo traveller shares many photos" one

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Call me Colum Eastwood, because I've just realised that I have the first very obvious white patches in my beard hair, I've been greying slightly round the temples for the better part of a decade already but this is very jarring

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Allan Faulds @afaulds.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

An absolute beauty of an afternoon for my last longer-than-average cycle of 2026 (it'll be too dark and miserable when back from holiday), opted for the foot of Dumbarton Castle today rather than my usual vantage point opposite it from Levengrove Park, when Scotland is good it's so good

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Allan Faulds @afaulds.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I just find today's BBC News so utterly maddening, I am not by instinct an anti-BBC person, but between having ChatGPT for a Political Editor and just really failing on reporting on the far right I am increasingly willing to just see the whole thing die

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Ballot Box Scotland @ballotbox.scot · 22/09/2026

Extremely irresponsible and in my view frankly offensive to the very many people killed and injured in those conflicts, which were fundamentally ethno-religious in nature, and involved a significant amount of othering and dehumanisation of people because of their ethnicity and/or religion.

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Reposted by Allan Faulds

New article: Local Government reform done for the wrong reasons will be a disaster There is a kernel of positivity in the Scottish Government's plans, but let's be frank: if they fully get their way, they will destroy local democracy entirely. Yes, it's that bad.

ballotbox.scot

Local Government reform done for the wrong reasons will be a disaster

There is a kernel of positivity in the Scottish Government's plans, but let's be frank: if they fully get their way, they will destroy local democracy entirely. Yes, it's that bad.

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Sorry I'm actually finding myself extremely angry about the Scottish Government's local government plans after an initial "maybe this is fine", either the Ministers and Officials involved have not thought this through or they have and they've decided that ending local democracy and PR is fine.

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I have made shockingly little use of the Bayne's that opened near me thus far, but I have rectified this via a caramel yumyum which is obscenely decadent, cannae beat a good Scottish bakery treat

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Two constants of polling: "how would you react if..." hypotheticals are useless because people are bad at predicting how they will react if..., and asking Scots when they want another Independence referendum the answer is always "oh aye in a few years, just not now"

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It is fundamentally Anti-Me for the Scottish Government to be firing up a bunch of activity in an area in which I'm basically the nation's Number One Obsessive just before I fuck off to the opposite side of the globe for weeks, rude

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I am going to be shouting about this until either the Scottish Government wise up or, more likely, I die. You cannot have effective two-tier government based on the same group of people wearing two hats. Indirect apportionment is most workable but still just *bad*. Can you not be moroms about this?

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Scottish Government do NOT give in to the Leithers' delusion that they are not simply Edinburgh, do not do it, there is no reason any city in Scotland given their size should not be a single municipal unit, they are too small for borough-isation!

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One of the curses of being an English speaker (and worse, a monoglot) is the exposure to Yank Discourse, and the weird ranting and raving about "transplants" (by which they mean "people who moved to a big city from elsewhere) is absolutely peak Yank Discourse, especially the faux-leftism of it all

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