iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 5h

Maybe more accurate to say transition rather than obsolescent.

000

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 5h

It's managed trade for an obsolescent technology.

120

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 6h

Today's Trade Secrets: another fine Merz EU've got Xi into.* The EU's quota deal on cars with China and the Franco-German paper on trade instruments don't add up to an industrial strategy. Show us the detail: show us the teeth. *this headline doesn't 100% make sense but I am very proud of it.

as.ft.com

The EU has more bark but lacks bite towards China

Germany’s apparent shift towards trade belligerence is unfocused and unproven

1152

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 8h

He mixes a mean Malthouse Compromise. Scotch (hence the name) with cognac and schnapps, and of course some bitters.

050

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 10h

Oh yes also the "former international trade negotiator" all over the media during the Brexit talks who had worked for some big companies but was not anyone in the trade world would call a trade negotiator.

140

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 10h

Have you been to one of these EU speakeasies? There are a few in London. You sneak in and you can illicitly enjoy a very slightly different FTA with Australia and tweak your financial regulatory leverage ratio requirements. Until the Feds do a raid obvs.

3140

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 11h

Just nipped to Twitter for a look. He/she (probably he) has it as his/her pinned tweet. Ten-year anniversary comes up next month.

020

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 20h

Oh there was some young Scottish bloke called Finn. That's all I remember about him. Did funny tweets and amassed a large following. Had a bio which was something about converting gobshite into likes.

120

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 20h

Yep. Dug up a gem of shitposting genius from Ashington Woods.

000

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 20h

He once did an absolutely magnificent spoof thread on the UK Supreme Court hearing on the Miller case. Shame he turned out to be a giant creep.

160

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 20h

IIRC it was econhedge who uncovered the fact that cerebral, mild-mannered @duncanweldon.bsky.social was in fact an arboreal serial killer.

330

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 21h

Somehow I doubt anyone from No. 10 is briefing TASS but who knows? In any case, as I say, Russia intervening in an election or referendum doesn't have to be in cahoots with one side - they might just be stirring shit.

080

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 21h

ISTR something about that, the Russians briefing it I think. I mean, who knows? Putin has no loyalty and no ideology, he just likes to disrupt. On the whole I suspect he would have thought a Yes vote more disruptive though.

110

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 22h

Stick a load of pro-Yes bots on Twitter? I have zero idea whether they did or not, and ofc even if they did it doesn't mean they coordinated with anyone in the campaigns, but they certainly had the means, motive and opportunity.

180

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 22h

What, his Russia sympathies? He hosted a show on Russia Today...

2121

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 23h

In green ink, no less, though I don't think that has the same connotations in US idiom.

2130

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 23h

A missive for which the adjective "petulant" was precision-designed.

1201

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Engine performance not up to much but it's very reliable.

000

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Vauxhall must have been well satisfied with the brand recognition they got from a sponsorship that ended in 1998.

220

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I wonder why a nation aching to regain its long-lost first-world status and with a aggressively nationalist political culture would be so obsessed with annexing islands it has never owned from an economically much more successful former imperial country. I guess we'll never know.

060

Reposted by Alan Beattie

Dave Andress @davidandress.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Because nothing says “sensible thinking” better than appeasing irredentist nationalism against the frequently expressed wishes of all the actual inhabitants of a place…

310613

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

What a tangled web we weave...I'm in stitches, etc

110

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Have you checked it was a tapestry and not an embroidery?

120

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

If courage is genetically inherited they might not be much use though.

140

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Honestly thought you said "inlaws" then, better than sending his blood relatives anyway.

230

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

It was easy then! Everyone was supporting Ukraine and Biden was in the WH. Can’t bring himself to mention Trump in the second one I note. Still a coward.

1190

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Are you haunted by the spectres of Bluesky exchanges past? BTW my favourite explanation for ghosts as usually pictured: they're the unquiet spirits of people who died trying to fit duvet covers, and are destined to roam the bedrooms of the world perpetually trying to find the corners.

1100

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I mean so do gods, which have much higher % scores. Re ghosts btw, totally guessing here but I suspect the fact that the word is used a lot metaphorically means some people are thinking of eg very intense memories of deceased friends they might not even consider supernatural.

490

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

That theme tune tho. And the episode where Peter pushes Clara's wheelchair down the mountain. Incredible scenes.

170

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

S&A was also a 6-episode (but only 25 minutes each) TV series. Apparently Ransome hated it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swallow...

en.wikipedia.org

Swallows and Amazons (TV series) - Wikipedia

120

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

The Accidental Landlord - quirky comedy from the 1980s starring Steve Martin.

0180

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Philosophically it's just Co-Ops all the way down.

000

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Surprised to see a former shipping correspondent take such risks with a JIT lunch production service.

190

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

For a second I thought you meant there was a Co-Op inside another Co-Op. In case you're shopping at Co-Op and have to nip to the Co-Op.

4110

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

- So what's the kid like? - Yorkshire accent. Strong views.

020

Reposted by Alan Beattie

Sathnam Sanghera @sathnam.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Dear tv and radio producers. Thankyou for the invitation. But, no, I do not want to appear on your show to defend the idea that I am English, after 50 years of living and working here, because the increasingly feral right want to turn this into a "debate" and you cannot see how you're being played

11051751144

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Indeed. The whole thing is just ghastly.

110

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

BTW the wartime practice of selecting firing squad members and giving them no choice is particularly brutal. I think in US states it's from a pool of volunteers.

100

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

True though I don't think I'd rely on that paper to be unbiased. The UK commission is more objective I guess but even there, the chance they would have recommended anything other than hanging was small.

100

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Really sorry, that's terrible news. It will leave a big hole.

0130

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I must say though that that paper's cheery view of lethal injection does look a bit off.

120

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Was this the old chestnut about multi-member STV with a floating quota vs the d'Hondt system again?

260

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Lizard Geckos.

081

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

They are. People who deal in empirics rather than generalising off a single case are more constructive. Get back to me when you've done some reading.

010