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Andy Northcott

@andynorthcott.bsky.social
660 followers 980 following 743 posts

Mild mannered professor by day, slightly grumpier professor by night Dementia research, politics, music, films, wrestling, moaning

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Andy Northcott @andynorthcott.bsky.social · 1h
I'm on a thing of buying short novels I can read in bed in a single Sunday morning or a couple of tube trips. Highly recommend The Devil Book to anyone wanting to try the same
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M Meerkat @kackbro.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Naomi Klein Is Spot On.......
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Priyamvada Gopal @priyamvadagopal.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I promise you if I tried this even once I'd be hauled up into a disciplinary. But Dr Orr? Little research, no teaching, no problem. www.varsity.co.uk/news/32175
varsity.co.uk
Orr’s lectures covered by a postgrad
James Orr had a postgrad cover approximately seven lectures, allegedly without the Divinity Faculty’s knowledge
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Andy Northcott @andynorthcott.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Idea for BBC iPlayer: an alternative version of the new season of the Traitors that is just the morning and the evening so I don't have to skip the pointless afternoon task every time
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Jordan @jordanpfot.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I accidentally spent £17,700 on 400 subscriptions to the LRB for Home Office staff and now the Life in the UK test is asking applicants to rank Derek Jarman films from most to least emotionally resonant?
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gravewalker @grovewalker.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
photo of werner herzog with a speech bubble added so that it looks like he is saying the quoted post
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Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 28/09/2026
truly my most "I am very basic and I don't care if things seem complicated I think they can also just be simple" opinion is that you should buy a house or a flat if you want a place to live in and I just don't really care if price goes up or price goes down, you have a roof! that was the whole point
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Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 27/09/2026
oh we've got a classic one today
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Andy Northcott @andynorthcott.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Having one of those 'why weren't the Lemonheads huge?' kind of mornings www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZQn...
youtube.com
Bit Part (2022 Remastered Edition)
YouTube video by The Lemonheads - Topic
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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 25/09/2026
I have blamed The agents That hacked Your website And which You probably Reasonably thought I controlled Forgive me I am rich And unaccustomed To taking responsibility
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
DoorDash spent $1.4M trying to stop Zohran Mamdani from becoming mayor. This week's historic $131.5M enforcement action against DoorDash for underpaying NYC delivery workers shows why. Yet another reminder that the only thing that can beat organized money is organized people.
theintercept.com
DoorDash Spent $1.4 Million Trying to Stop Mamdani From Becoming Mayor. Now We Know Why.
In a wage-theft settlement, DoorDash now has to pay its workers around 100 times what it spent trying to beat Zohran Mam
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rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
there are only three narratives in fiction: 1) the hero's journey 2) a stranger comes to town 3) a greedy developer is going to tear down our beloved community center...UNLESS we put on the greatest breakdance show this town's ever seen
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Richard Littler @richardlittler.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Britain doesn't change. I'm rereading Holmes. It's 1887 and the Daily Telegraph speculates that a murder must have been perpetrated by refugees or socialists, and advocates a closer watch over foreigners, while the Standard blames such outrages on a liberal government. A Study in Red, White & Blue?
1st edition of A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
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Andy Northcott @andynorthcott.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
So now AI knows what is and isn't a knife???
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Andy Northcott @andynorthcott.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Takes over a bit of Coney Island but it is OK because it is in self defence www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...
theguardian.com
Netanyahu expected to attack Mamdani in UN general assembly speech – latest updates
New York mayor has been a vocal critic of the Israeli PM who is addressing the UN later today
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Rob McManus @rfpmcmanus.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Orwell had the last word on this
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Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
#TBT to this from 2012 in honour of Michael Gove starring as an invasion-battling leader in Sky's new show The Wargame. If you don't know what or who this comic is about... just count yourself lucky and scroll on, no worries.
[Opening scene is WESTMINSTER, LONDON. Over Downing Street a huge ALIEN SPACECRAFT hovers, silent, still, filling the whole sky a la Independence Day]. 

[Cut to INSIDE 10 DOWNING STREET. The (then) prime Minister DAVID CAMERON is looking out of his office window at the ship.]

VOICE FROM OFF-SCENE, BEHIND CAMERON:
Prime Minister…

CAMERON [addressing the person behind him, still keeping his eyes fixed ahead in dread at the spaceship]:
Yes?

[We see the speaker is MICHAEL GOVE, then Education Secretary]:

GOVE:
Let me do it.

CAMERON:
For God's sake, Michael, you're the Education Secretary! You've never flown a fighter plane in your life!

GOVE:
But I know I could do it, David. I could fly a fighter plane into the big space- ship...

...and shoot all the aliens.

CAMERON:
But you have no military training!

GOVE:
David

I haven't told you this, but...

I used to be a journalist. For The Times.

[Cameron reacts, turning to look at Gove with awe and respect, as if only now truly seeing him for the first time]. 

GOVE:
I wrote two articles about planes, David.

I've got strong opinions about aliens.

I know I can do this job.

[Cut to a title card panel]:

AND SO:

[Then cut again to Cameron on the roof of Number 10, watching a Michael Gove pilot a fighter jet up towards the spacecraft, and then completely miss it, careering towards Earth, as Cameron buries his face in his hands].

[Ends]
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 23/09/2026
this is an incredible historical moment
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Andy Northcott @andynorthcott.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Aren't you meant to do the PhD before becoming VC and running the University or did I miss a meeting?
timeshighereducation.com
V-cs hit by ‘shift shock’ when they take on top job, leader says
Vice-chancellor turned PhD student says university executives can feel ‘isolated’ and are seen as having gone to the ‘dark side’
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Tom Roberts @tpgroberts.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Not to harp on this, but one man has now coordinated the disruption of a port, two separate attacks on the RNLI, and interference with the border force and the police have no further questions? And the Home Secretary has not noticed?
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Andy Northcott @andynorthcott.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Nineteen Eighty-Four is not a very long book. It would take all of an hour or to two to know there is no Ministry Of Information in it, and that Orwell would probably not get on at all well with Nigel Farage
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This week on Origin Story: The life & ideas of John Rawls, the most celebrated liberal philosopher of the post-war period. These are some of the most beautiful arguments in progressive thought. We do it as a one hour crash course. Everything you need to know. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/j...
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MoMA Paintings and Sculpture @moma.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Kenneth Noland, Turnsole, 1961 botfrens.com/collections/14377/cont…
Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund
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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
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Adam Becker @adambecker.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Nice to see this getting some attention. It's completely true, and I dearly wish more journalists understood where these common narratives about AI actually come from.
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Andy Northcott @andynorthcott.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I woke up this morning not knowing Aella existed. Several podcasts and Bluesky later and might just go analogue for the rest of the day
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Andy Northcott @andynorthcott.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Reasons I don't understand economics #206: inflation is up because of the price of oil driven entirely by the US war in Iran, so the solution is to make mortgages more expensive for UK borrowers?
theguardian.com
UK inflation rises to 3.1% as motor fuel prices jump by almost a quarter
Annual increase in August comes as Bank of England prepares for decision on interest rates
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Naomi Klein @naomiaklein.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
But is it fascism? Do they really yearn for apocalypse? Isn't that polarizing? Shouldn't we be nice to them? We made a short video so folks can hear the end timers in their own words and judge for themselves: www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK2n...
youtube.com
How modern fascism works | End Times Fascism | Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
YouTube video by Naomi Klein
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Jay Hulme @jayhulmepoet.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Found a gravestone that definitely contains a trapped soul, and which comes to life at midnight in order to dispense grave warnings to anyone foolish enough to pass by at such a late hour.
A roughly carved face at the apex of an old gravestone.
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David Henig @davidheniguk.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Clearly what the James Bond films got wrong was that there are in fact many tech utopian fascists simultaneously trying to take over the world.
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It's Pipes, Mum! Pipes is here! @scriblit.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband; son of a man who had to flee the Nazis: I'm Jewish BBC News: 😠 are you, though? You're doing it wrong Fascist Daniel Thomas, in between attacking teenage cricketers and rnli volunteers: I'm Christian BBC News: 😊
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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Normal people would be trying to come up with a TV show. Not too hard. The corporates however will be trying to come up with something that you rent that makes them infinitely wealthy, able to fly, and live forever, while harvesting data. (Any show would be a byproduct.) Which is harder.
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👻 Jack Djinn Wail 🧞 @jacktindale.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
FUN FACT: The reason we sell petrol by the litre but measure performance by mpg is because in the 1970s oil shock, British pumps had exactly the same issue and it was easier to put stickers over the word "gallon" rather than retrofitting all the dials.
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MꙬse Allain @mooseallain.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
A man in a face covering talks to another man who is looking disappointedly at a small box he is holding. Man 1 “What's that?”. Man 2 “Baklava. I misread the WhatsApp”
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Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I think the worst part of Labour's response to the fascist mobilisation is Andy Burnham's absence. He's the most popular politician in the country, with social media reach and actual powers of persuasion, and he's saying nothing in public. He can actually be of use here but he's choosing not to
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Andy Northcott @andynorthcott.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
'doing the right thing' here is the same as Reform insisting on 'common sense'. This PMB ignores pretty much all the evidence gathered for the potential white paper into assisted dying (I contributed). There may or may not be a case for it, but it can not just be based on vibes as it is now
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Andy Northcott @andynorthcott.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
If AI will eventually cure cancer it could surely already tell this guy that he cant pull off Sting's haircut anymore
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Andy Northcott @andynorthcott.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
The Today program today asked every interviewee about Chris Rokos moving house without ever asking itself 'is a man with a very Greek name moving to Greece that big a deal?'
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Andy Northcott @andynorthcott.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I Remember a decade or so ago when standing outside Manchester University having a bit of a moan about tuition fees was seen as fair grounds to be charged at by horses and batons
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Danielle Blake @abradacabla.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
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Andy Northcott @andynorthcott.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
With regards to Orr, how did that work? I know Oxbridge is different to the rest, but I'm a Prof and if I told work I wouldn't be in that much this semester as I had accpeted another job HR would probably have questions
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Robert Simmon @rsimmon.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I am having a particularly frustrating week, so here’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. The eruption of Sarychev Peak in the Aleutian Islands, seen by the crew of the space station. www.nasa.gov/image-articl...
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Andy Northcott @andynorthcott.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
This is absolutely outstanding
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Judith Green @judegreen.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
The waste in HE of person hours, energy, and hope that goes into unfunded grants across the board is madness. I do wonder if other sectors would countenance this level of sunk time.
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Sachin Nakrani @sachinnakrani.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
We’ve seen some mad transfer sagas in this country but the one involving Malick Fofana, Sunderland and Crystal Palace may well top the lot.
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 01/09/2026
Prolific UK graffiti artist Helch dies
theguardian.com
Prolific UK graffiti artist Helch dies
Artist rose to prominence in 2018 by painting his eponymous tag in public spots across southern England The street artist Helch, known for murals and tags across England, has died, his gallery has said. He rose to prominence in 2018 by painting his eponymous tag in capital letters across a string of public spots in London as well as bridges on the M4, M1 and M25. Continue reading...
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Cethan Leahy @cethanleahy.com · 29/08/2026
Wait, Bert was there for the magazine cover too? This changes everything!
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Dorian Lynskey @dorianlynskey.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Saw Mia Goth in Pearl, Inde Navarrette in Obsession and Naomi Scott in Smile 2 recently and really think there should be more awards recognition for horror actresses. They have to do so much - often they’re carrying the whole film. None of Goth’s mainstream roles is as impressive as Pearl for eg
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Andy Northcott @andynorthcott.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Really not a fan of the 'beloved cult personality dying one a day' groove that this week has settled into
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Tyson @lscpunk.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
If Dolly was our constant reminder that it was Good to be Good, Tim Curry was our reminder that it was Good to be Weird. Embrace your strangeness, sing with Muppets, wear your lingerie with a leather jacket, and fuck with uptight people who hate anything that makes them remotely uncomfortable.
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