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Ben Blench

@benblench.bsky.social
205 followers 199 following 206 posts

Magical person. Actual published poet. Freelance copywriter.

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 1h
“Tante Miele” looks like she’s about to drop this year’s most hotly anticipated analogue rhythms
A totally sick 1920s print advert for Miele washing machines
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Dr. Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Love, cast all thought aside. I cast aside all thought. Wendell Berry
A POEM OF THANKS

I have been spared another day 
to come into this night
as though there is a mercy in things 
mindful of me. Love, cast all 
thought aside. I cast aside 
all thought. Our bodies enter 
their brief precedence, 
surrounded by their sleep.
Through you I rise, and you 
through me, into the joy 
we make, but may not keep.
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Daniel Sugarman @danielsugarman.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
The world's most notorious custard-pie thrower is dead. What an obituary. He got Bernard-Henri Lévy seven times.
​Known to his army of fans as L’Entarteur or Georges le Gloupier, Godin launched his career as a serial deflator of egos in 1969, when he planted a tarte à la crème on the face of the French novelist Marguerite Duras (“She has a kind of intelligence and cleverness that serves only her own vanity,” he complained), and he went on to “pie” a cast list of celebrities for sins ranging from pomposity to “choosing to function in the service of the capitalist status quo”.The same could not be said of Bernard-Henri Lévy, one of France’s “new philosophers,” whose provocative views on sex, frequent appearances on television and penchant for white silk shirts unbuttoned practically to the navel, had made him a cult figure – and one of Godin’s most satisfying victims.

Levy once declared: “I am the most gifted writer of my generation,” and often boasted of his reasonableness and tolerance, but he was forced to endure footage being repeatedly shown on French television of himself, covered in cream, during a visit to the Belgian city of Liège, trying to strangle Godin and shouting: “Get up, or I’ll kick your head in.”Noël Godin was born on September 13 1945 and came to pie-throwing after a rebellious youth in which he scandalised the priests in the confessional by speaking of his “horrible sexual life”, and was thrown out of Liège University after emptying a pot of glue over the head of a law lecturer who had helped write the constitution for the Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar.

He found work at Friends of Film, an obscure magazine published by the Belgian Catholic League. It had a tiny readership, which was just as well, as Godin made up most of his articles. In one he claimed that Louis Armstrong had once been a cannibal and had invested in a film called The Vegetables of Good Will in which Claudia Cardinale played a giant endive.

In another he conjured up a fictional blind Thai filmmaker named Vivian Pei, describing her film, The Lotus Flower Will Never Again Grow on the Edge of Your Island, in such convincing terms that an Asian film specialist travelled to Thailand in an effort to track her down.“We’re very careful not to hurt people,’’ he explained. “Well, they are hurt, but always in their amour-propre.”

In 1995 Godin published an autobiography, Cream and Punishment. His other targets over the years included the New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard (who charmed his assailant by hailing the attack as a homage to silent film), the French politician Nicolas Sarkozy, the choreographer Maurice Béjart and the Ryanair chairman Michael O​’Leary. He tended not to pick Belgian victims, he explained, because few would notice if he did.
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Mia You @miayou.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Deadline moved to 7 September!
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
New #micropoem by me inspired by... something.
Text of a micropoem by Ben Blench, it reads: 
The sun
The dread sun
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Instant impulse buy!
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
I picked up a paperback from a street library. I didn’t like it, so I turned it into erasure poems. Here’s one! #poem #poetry #erasure
Photo of a page of a book with selected words and word fragments circled in pencil to create an erasure poem:

Everything is terrible
We watch loops
Allow ourselves our certainties
A dour life
The arrival of hell.
Text of a poem by Ben Blench:

Everything is terrible
We watch loops
Allow ourselves our certainties
A dour life
The arrival of hell.
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Donna Rees @donnarees.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Oh my...
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Still buzzing from last night’s extraordinary, transcendent gig by Sunn O))) at @paradisoadam.bsky.social Many thanks to the EHBO lady who tweezed the earplug from my left ear afterwards LOL
Photo of the stage in the main room of the Paradiso, Amsterdam l, set up for a performance by Sunn O))) Thirty amplifiers stacked and arranged like an amp-henge. Red stage lights.
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Idea for a sitcom called "Aloo Aloo", set in a Balti House in Birmingham. Owner Mudit deals with problems from a dishonest Reform UK councillor, local foodies, a stolen Instagram account and a pair of trapped asylum seekers, all while concealing the affairs he's having with his waitresses...
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Director Michael Cumming's Brass Eye Hidden Secrets Ep. 1, featuring Chris Morris in the guise of a variety of different Davids: David Sanction, David Voffov, David Unesco, David Waving, David Enthusiap, David Compression, David Bovvinge, David Qunt, and David Jatt. youtu.be/ml6AJARRVno?...
youtu.be
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Fun :) Now do Sometimes, by Sheenagh Pugh LOL
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Here's Willie Thorne (RIP to a real one) having his lunch with a budgie on his shoulder. Plate of selected biscuits. Bottle of salad cream. Massive bowl of sugar. And what's going on with that tiny, glass fronted cabinet on the wall above the kettle?
Photo of snooker player Willie Thorne having his lunch with a budgie perched on his shoulder.
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
“I had never seen poets before, one poet yes but not poets.” From The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
Photo of a page from the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein. 

The text reads: I can so well remember the first time Gertrude Stein took me to see Guillaume Apollinaire. It was a tiny bachelor’s apartment on the rue des Martyrs. The room was crowded with a great many small young gentlemen. Who, I asked Fernande, are all these little men. They are poets, answered Fernande. I was overcome. I had never seen poets before, one poet yes but not poets.
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Some reflections on frequently unasked questions about stochastic parrots (the phrase and the paper): medium.com/@emilymenonb...
medium.com
Stochastic Parrots 🦜: Frequently Unasked Questions
It’s been a bit over five years since the Stochastic Parrots paper (Bender, Gebru et al 2021) was published (and somewhat longer since…
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
I like this poem a lot!
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Correction! My zombie binge poem is in the Featured Creator section, not the issue itself. Anyway: I got published BOOYAH! www.fullhouseliterary.com/poetry/how-t...
fullhouseliterary.com
How to survive the apocalypse by Ben Blench — Full House Literary
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
I visited the British Library the other day. Of all the books and all the pages in the place, this one presented itself to me.
Photograph of an art book featuring a quote from Anselm Kiefer. The text reads “Art is longing. You never arrive, but you keep going in the hope that you will.”
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
I'm super happy to be able to share this link to one of my poems, just published in the "Featured Creators" section of the @fullhouselitmag.bsky.social website. Go there! Read it! Or listen to me reading it to you, if that's the kind of thing you're into. www.fullhouseliterary.com/poetry/how-t...
Screenshot of a page on the Full House Literary website featuring a poem by Ben Blench, entitled "How to survive the apocalypse"
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Photo of the first page of a book by Jeanette Winterson. The text reads: “You have navigated with raging soul far from the paternal home, passing beyond the seas' double rocks and now you inhabit a foreign land.
Medea”
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Edward @edwardodell.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Incredible sequel. Edge of my seat!
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Atrium @atriumpoetry.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Rules of nomenclature – Alexandra Citron atriumpoetry.com/2026/04/07/r...
atriumpoetry.com
Rules of nomenclature – Alexandra Citron
Rules of nomenclature . . Alexandra Citron was born in the US but has lived in the UK since her teens. Her poems have appeared in various places including Propel, iamb, And Other Poems, Ink Sweat &…
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ONLY POEMS @onlypoemsmag.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
the grief the grief the grief the grief
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
Now playing: Johnny Cash - Man in Black open.spotify.com/track/7wL9EV...
open.spotify.com
Spotify – Web Player
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Having a great time getting stomped into a pulp by the monsters in DEVASTATION SONGS, the @brokensleepbooks.bsky.social anthology of Kaiju writing. Too many good ones to highlight so here's an especially stomach-turning monstrosity by @poetbex.bsky.social
Cover of DEVASTATION SONGS, an Anthology of Kaiju Writing on Broken Sleep BooksText of a poem by Bex Hainsworth, entitled Globster:

Something has washed up on the shore.
A mass of greying flesh, a lumpy silhouette,

with one string of carcass that could be a tentacle, 
or embedded kelp, or a plesiosaur neck.

With the gravity of the uncategorisable, 
saltwater is drawn around its chthonic body,

retreats, then returns for cyclical scrutiny.
Barnacle stars scattered across a sky of black skin

lead to a translucent flap, like the bulb of a jellyfish.
It could be an eye, or some other bloated organ,

slumping above a clump of jagged shells, 
maybe teeth, maybe swallowed bones.

A curved tool, like a beak or a claw, 
jabs two briny points into oozing sand.

The stink of death keeps the gulls wary.
There is a net, orange, obscene, wrapped

around its slender end. Blubber bursts 
through tight diamonds of woven chains

stretching back into the sea, like Genesis.
One flabby island bears scars, perhaps a predator,

perhaps a propeller, and another is frothy 
with plastic loops, squeezed by canless ripples.

Its dark, sleek hide shines like a mirror.
We should recognise monstrosity.Text of a poem by Bex Hainsworth, entitled Globster:

Something has washed up on the shore.
A mass of greying flesh, a lumpy silhouette,

with one string of carcass that could be a tentacle, 
or embedded kelp, or a plesiosaur neck.

With the gravity of the uncategorisable, 
saltwater is drawn around its chthonic body,

retreats, then returns for cyclical scrutiny.
Barnacle stars scattered across a sky of black skin

lead to a translucent flap, like the bulb of a jellyfish.
It could be an eye, or some other bloated organ,

slumping above a clump of jagged shells, 
maybe teeth, maybe swallowed bones.

A curved tool, like a beak or a claw, 
jabs two briny points into oozing sand.

The stink of death keeps the gulls wary.
There is a net, orange, obscene, wrapped

around its slender end. Blubber bursts 
through tight diamonds of woven chains

stretching back into the sea, like Genesis.
One flabby island bears scars, perhaps a predator,

perhaps a propeller, and another is frothy 
with plastic loops, squeezed by canless ripples.

Its dark, sleek hide shines like a mirror.
We should recognise monstrosity.
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Now playing: Baltimora - Tarzan Boy, because oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh! open.spotify.com/track/6FwMGM...
open.spotify.com
Tarzan Boy
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John Holland @johnholland.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
Great interview with the creator of Andor, Tony Gilroy.
hollywoodreporter.com
‘Andor’ Creator Tony Gilroy Gives the Interview He Couldn’t During Its Release
While promoting his cautionary tale about fascism, Disney asked Gilroy to refrain from using the word. Nine months after it aired its finale, the 'Star Wars' series feels scarily prescient.
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Jenny Cromwell / Papyrus Stories @jennycromwell.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
Interested in poetry in games / games in poetry - including in historical games? Check out the call for papers for our annual conference (Multiplatform) below, which will take place in Manchester in mid-June. manchestergamecentre.org/events/2026/...
manchestergamecentre.org
Multiplatform 2026: Poetry in Games/ Games in Poetry — Manchester Game Centre
Multiplatform is the annual Manchester Game Centre symposium dedicated to analogue and digital game studies and practice. In 2026, we turn to the lively, uneasy, and productive overlaps between poetr...
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
Rewatching Maarva’s “Fight the Empire” speech. All of #Andor is great, but this bit is especially powerful. youtu.be/TaKrm5txGCQ?...
youtu.be
Andor | Maarva Andor’s Monologue | Disney+
YouTube video by Star Wars
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
I have just been made aware of the Swan Car: louwmanmuseum.nl/en/car/brook... It's got electric bulbs in the swan’s eyes that glow eerily in the dark! It has an eight-tone, keyboard-operated Gabriel horn! You can shoot steam out of the swan’s beak!
louwmanmuseum.nl
Brooke 25/30-HP Swan Car - Louwman Museum
Matthewson wanted to shock the local elite with his car, and he certainly succeeded in doing so. The bodywork represents a swan gliding through water. The rear is decorated with a lotus flower design ...
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Granta @grantamag.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
Last summer, on behalf of Granta, Sheila Heti underwent ketamine, DMT, and LSD/MDMA treatments. Her essay about these drug therapies is free to read online until Monday, along with the rest of Granta 174: Therapy.
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
In case you missed it earlier in the week — maybe other things are occupying your attention these days? — anyway, I had a sweet little poem published by the lovely people @atriumpoetry.bsky.social. It's about the terrible love and fear of being a dad. atriumpoetry.com/2026/02/03/b...
atriumpoetry.com
Bedtime stories – Ben Blench
Bedtime stories . . Ben Blench writes poems, hymns, and incantations about life and love. He has been published by Broken Sleep, Full House, Iamb, and Visual Verse. He lives in Amsterdam and mostly…
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Now playing: Gnonnas Pedro et ses Dadjes - Dadje Von O Von Non open.spotify.com/track/4bkIej...
open.spotify.com
Spotify – Web Player
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
I don’t get published much, so it’s extra exciting when I do. Thanks very much to Atrium!
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
I, too, recommend this awesome anthology featuring incredible work by some astonishingly talented poets, hem hem
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Atrium @atriumpoetry.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Downsizing – Lisa Kelly @lisadmkelly.bsky.social atriumpoetry.com/2026/01/27/d...
atriumpoetry.com
Downsizing – Lisa Kelly
Downsizing . . Lisa Kelly’s second collection, The House of the Interpreter (Carcanet), was a PBS Summer 2023 Recommendation. She was shortlisted for the 2024 Forward Prizes for Poetry for Best Sin…
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
I'm super stoked that the next issue will feature my poem, inspired by watching far too many episodes of Fear the Walking Dead after my daughter and her friend made me sign up for Amazon Prime so they could watch White Chicks, which they then gave up on half way through.
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Rose Ruane @regretteruane.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Celebrate Ivor Cutler’s birthday by watching one of the most divine pieces of television ever made. Dave Allen *and* Ivor Cutler, how could you possibly resist? youtu.be/6RX1fMWkims?...
youtu.be
Dave Allen - In Search of the Great English Eccentric
YouTube video by Radio & TV memories
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Found poem in an English language transcript of a Dutch voicemail
Garbled English transcript of a Dutch voicemail. The text reads: The heaven is a belt in for bumpness..,...•.
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"...... Still to it,
nit tango, price of the fear, telephone contact, if you can, Duncan Jahir, achheif, not that you need me, telephone is
more.....
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So, it's ain un feder to hand.. The heaven is a belt infGarbled English transcript of a Dutch language voicemail. The text reads: hand.. The heaven is a belt in for abundance, you'll be talking about.
Some a meton, spray for a muyer virodna, and it's spray for name, incident, yo, contact, and of maniram, from stone, and onsimisi.. Spelt to it, need long ago, priced of a fear, telephone contact message, you can..! going here you need me telephone
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Atrium @atriumpoetry.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
Thank you for reading and sharing today's poem - My Sister Went to Live on the Moon by @suefinch.bsky.social
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
Is there a more perfect last line than this? #books #writing #gatsby #fitzgerald #lastline
Image of the last line of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The text reads: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
Now playing: Alienbaby Collective - Breakage open.spotify.com/track/0eLwro...
open.spotify.com
Breakage
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
No reason, just LOL. Prints of this @daveyjones.bsky.social banger are available from philiplarkin.com/product/lark... #poetry #philiplarkin #viz #space #doom
A cartoon by Davey Jones for Viz Comic.
The title is "The Collected Poems of Philip Larkin in Space"
We see a starship pilot warning: "Captain Larkin, our ship is caught in the gravitational pull of Doom Planet... moment by moment, we are inching inexorably towards oblivion!"
Larking replies: "Tell me about it."
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Longbarrow Press @longbarrowpress.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
No Xmas For John Quays in the style of a Zohran Mamdani campaign poster
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 06/12/2025
"A hedgehog in a thicket" 🦔 Really lovely poem, this. From Jo Matthews' debut chapbook, Sunlight Later: www.cathexisnorthwestpress.com/product-page...
Text of a poem by Jo Matthews, entitled "Birds":

The branches above are breaking into the sky —
as birds like ink on air swirl from trees to flight
great black lungfuls of them freewheeling across
the white winter sky, humming the secret rhythm
of fragment to solid, then loosening into dance.
Look up.

I wonder what it is in me that still fears my light
turning instead to the sharp inhale of darkness —
and I keep thinking: don’t let me mess this up
me, with my gaze skewed down to tangled ground
missing this quiet kindness, this wild mess, this show.
Be still.

The sky is still mine if I want it
the ground doesn’t care if I’m a poet or a mother
the birds don’t care if the words fly out of me
or fester on vein branches in my mind
waiting for the perfect moment to be set free.
Let go.

Fear comes when you have something to lose.
Once, I was a puffin on a cliff-face, a hedgehog in a thicket,
a terrapin watching shadows blur on faces in the morning sun.
Once, I was the white on the wave and the notes on a piano
playing until the dark in my heart became a song taking flight.

Under the light of a single star, I waited blindly
for the call, for the hair-breath moment of arriving
looking at the light for the first time shining —
and a mother not sure if her child had survived.
Once, I squeezed through a star-hole to be here,

once, I hopscotched across the dark glass sky
to claim my name, once I was the wind and the light
riding hidden eddies to a freedom I didn’t know was mine.
Once, I counted tears until they became stars in the sky —
or poems: blossoming, or birds: laughing.
Take flight.
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
New side quest unlocked: keep the numbers in sync FOREVER
Screenshot of Ben Blench’s Bluesky profile page showing 144 followers, 144 following, and 144 posts
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
A masterpiece.
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Radiophrenia @radiophrenia.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
Radiophrenia 2026 Open Call – now open for submissions. We are pleased to announce that Radiophrenia will be returning to the airwaves in September 2026. You can find details of our new open call for radio works and how to submit in the link below. submissions.radiophrenia.scot
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
Happy birthday to me! I just heard I got a poem accepted by a cute poetry site. Gonna be published next year :) No it's not the one about frangipane (bsky.app/profile/benb...)
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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
Now playing: The Velvet Underground - Beginning To See The Light open.spotify.com/track/7nDdOt...
open.spotify.com
Beginning To See The Light
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