iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

I'm not very active here now* but am briefly logging on to note that to-day is the third anniversary of my successful transplant. *Partly because I'm busy at the moment, but also because this place, in my view anyway, has become tedious and unhealthy.

1280

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

He understood that great artists need (usually!) a hinterland, and his was immense. Listen to his Beethoven (no, seriously, listen to his Beethoven), but also read The Lady from Arezzo, his delightful and beautifully written book about Dada and kitsch.

120

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

Trying to explain why the now sadly late Alfred Brendel was one of the very greatest of pianists is a lot harder than simply linking to a recording, but he was good with words as well so it is owed. He had a style that was precise and intelligent, but so very human. There was life and humour there.

160

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Someone has to say it. And I don't live in Northern Ireland. I will note that no one has firebombed Jeffrey Donaldson's house. That's all. (Yes, Mr Donaldson has not been convicted of anything, but neither have the two young men accused in this case. In neither case do I make comment on guilt).

0226

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

I would combine this with tighter ballot access restrictions. They're far too lax at the moment.

110

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

I hate* to be that guy, but it's often the way over housing that you have to quietly note that a lot of this crowd have various vested interests in the issue. *A lie and I was never any good at lying.

050

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

I mean, I'm biased. I have a huge affection for Edgbaston: Tolkien, Joseph Southall, my successful transplant, etc.

120

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

And is easy to get to! The trouble with having anything in Inner West London is that... uh... (fine with having a tournament there - that's not the issue - but I don't like how it has been done)

200

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Yeah. The internet is a cesspit, but one can use manure to grow roses, right? That's the only way to look at things.

030

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

(Edgbaston also has better courts...)

110

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

I'm just interested as to how, exactly, this helps the development of the game in this country at a grassroots level, as we are assured it does? I understand why it is preferable for our country's sports journalists and broadcast teams, of course.

110

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

I've tried others over the years. Wordpress was good but then got awful and fiddly, Substack has some positive elements but feels like an MLM scam.

100

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

For all the triumphalism in certain quarters about there being a women's tournament at Queens this year, I will rather sourly note that this has mostly come at the expense of the Edgbaston tournament, which moved to the last week of RG and was further downgraded. Is this actually progress?

130

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

How is medium to use, in practical terms?

100

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

The DE Greens (who have a very specific history in any case, quite unusual) are basically a left liberal party. Given the present absolute state of whatever is left of the FDP, you could argue that they are the liberal party of record full stop.

030

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

I have come to the view (which I did not used to hold) that we are, as a People, probably petty enough to make proper STV work.

160

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

He was a notoriously cruel martinet on his estate, harsher than usual. Any points he gains for not being a Fire Eater, he loses for that.

030

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Are we quite sure that Mel Stride is not actually a semi-disgraced National Party MP for somewhere in rural Victoria?

150

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

He wasn't an active local MP by current standards, but e.g. Dick Crossman lived near his Coventry constituency, visited pretty often and kept in close touch with CLP figures. This grounded him somewhat, and he was a man who always needed that.

010

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

I support PR, but am adamant for this reason that it needs to be a version that maintains some form of that, as it leads to better policy.

370

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

That's as his budget has been slashed *so hard* that departmental spending projections have actually increased substantially, due to complex laws of physics understood only by breathless political gossipmongers and beyond the ken of mere mortals.

010

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Peter Bowles was a wonderful actor. Especially recommend his turn as a prosecuting barrister in Pennies From Heaven if you ever get a chance to see it. Really, really, outstandingly hilarious performance.

010

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

We all know how this film ends* the question is the runtime and what happens in between. *Well, all right, actuarial stats mean it's more a case of 'we all know of a range of possible endings'.

030

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

(Plus o/c really good things that have been on there for a while, inc. The Singing Detective, Citizen Kane and so on).

140

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Some things presently available on the BBC iPlayer: the peerless 1995 adaptation of Persuasion, Britten conducting his own War Requiem, every episode of 'The Ascent of Man' and 'Civilisation', a lot of Schama art docs, John Freeman interviewing Jung and MLK, and the Agincourt episode of War Walks.

4152

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

In another life I was a regular bus commuter, and I'd have happily paid quite a bit more for nicer and more reliable journeys.

010

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

*Metropolitan Boroughs. But they had the same powers as Municipal Boroughs elsewhere (i.e. very few).

010

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

And the boroughs had more clout even on other issues than the old Municipal Boroughs, which were basically glorified parish councils. The old system needed updating but it worked. What followed...

110

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

Absolutely agree: Le Carre's best work is high end literature, full stop. Forsyth never hit that, but his books are nonetheless better written than quite a few attempts (often highly praised) at high end literary fiction...

050

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

I note that he made an absolute tit of himself over blast furnaces as well today and that while the reporting of that isn't quite where it would be with literally anyone else yet, it's closer in tone than it would have been a month ago. We shall see.

010

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

The former yes, the latter... actually no. Anyone who thinks that way already has a party to vote for and it's a minority view. Finding out ways to get more money of them for localities would be different (and potentially very popular).

120

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

I will quietly note wrt the Senedd elections (still basically a year away journalists, please do note this!) that while the trial of Nathan Gill starts shortly afterwards, it's not going to not be... uh... *there*, so to speak.

030

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

Doing this would actually be very unpopular: open pit developments (which are the only theoretically commercially viable ones outside the small Anthracite region) are widely hated in South Wales.

320

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

Think the problem with the latter is residual (genuinely: everyone has probably forgotten why they think like this, but they do anyway) mistrust of a more powerful form of London Government because of how much of a fiasco the GLC turned out to be.

271

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Things like this are what convinces me that STV is probably the 'natural' voting system for Great Britain every bit as much as it is for Ireland.

160

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

You know, I have genuinely no idea what the picture refers to in any way whatever and rather like this fact, I think.

0100

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

I understand that the Pope has met the victorious Napoli team and has publicly denied earlier reports that he is a Roma fan.

Cardinal Voiello from 'The Young Pope' and 'The New Pope' wearing a replica Napoli kit.

020

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Right. A century ago I'd be dead several times over. And at least once over forty years ago. I'm dubious about the concept of Progress in most fields, but it is absolutely a real thing in medicine.

130

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

As far as actual governing is concerned there have been some recent shifts that are suggestive of coming to terms with that (or starting to etc), but the wider discursive landscape...

170

Reposted by Alun Ephraim

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

To take my tongue out of my cheek, the joy of having worked on a daily newsletter for the best part of 12 years now is having a physical reminder that I am not being nostalgic - the dominant question from 2013 to 2021 really wasn’t “how will this play electorally” EVERY DAY.

726030

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

A useful sobering statistic to use if you want to throw it at anyone over this and as I'm always happy to be a rhetorical arms dealer: four years is roughly five per cent of the average British adult's projected lifespan. It really isn't 'practically tomorrow' at all.

5311

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

'Pickle mayonnaise?' well why not I thought to myself and have not looked back.

120

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

I have of late acquired a taste for Scandinavian 'Remoulade', a fact that many find to be disturbing.

400

Alun Ephraim @alunephraim.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

The tendency is not to understand the importance of structure. Or to be even aware of it as an issue.

110