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Jonathan Bromley

@bromleyj.bsky.social
175 followers 293 following 2.4K posts

Lapsed physicist, retired nerd, choral music fanboy, drools over wilderness landscapes. Prone to extreme grumpiness in the presence of scientific illiteracy. Husband and fond supporter of a stellar Parkinson's advocate.

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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 16h
I love it when the Daily Mail threatens me with a good time. "Most Left-wing speech by a PM since 1970s" "National Care Service" "Closer ties with EU" "voting reform that could lock Right out of power"
Front page of Daily Mail (UK) 30-Sept 2016. Headline "BURNHAM'S TRIPLE SHOCK". Subheads as described in post.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Happy Marks and Spencer Day to all who celebrate. (Image from M&S archive)
Green logo on cream paper, reading 

St Michael
THE BRAND NAME OF
Marks and Spencer
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
A blast from the past for Oxford folk. Found in the back of a cupboard, presumably from their closing-down sale. Betcha we still have that crêpe de Chine somewhere.
1995 receipt for £20 for a piece of fabric, from long-defunct dress shop Annabelinda in Oxford
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
my evening is now ruined as my horrified brain desperately tries to mimic this
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Bloody hell Royal Mail, why must I install your app to change delivery options? I already have a browser. THAT'S WHAT WEB PAGES ARE FOR. Enough of this everything-needs-a-different-app bullshit.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Well, that serves me right for being a cheapskate and buying supermarket own-brand chopped tomatoes. Far too much time wasted fishing bits of skin out of the soup.
Plastic chopping board with numerous pieces of tomato skin. Foot of a wine bottle at top of picture gives rough scale: the mess of tomato skin is around 7cm across.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
A gossamer-thin excuse to post this again: Q: Why do outdoor workers like to spread golden syrup on their bright yellow jackets in the winter? A: To make high-vis cossetty. Sorry not sorry.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Bloody immigrants, coming over here and taking are A-levels.
Headline and subhead from The Times (UK), 19 Sept: article by Fraser Nelson:

British immigrants are top of Europe's class
While the second generation excel at school, white working-class children are struggling, and this has to change
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
New mint flavour Ferrero Rocher just dropped. This is the airport gift size variant.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
@parkinsons.org.uk @cureparkinsons.org.uk Popcorn and Kleenex order duly placed for 7 Nov delivery.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I'll take that as a good omen for the day. Loconundrum #178 ⬜⬜⬜ 🚂 🟩🟩🟩 h/t @oldenoughtosay.com for the hint about this little game, which is a delight for UK transport nerds and also has an interesting tech nerd story behind it at aaronc.cc/2026/03/29/l...
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Date yourself with a snap of your first ever computer. PDP8-L in the undergraduate physics lab, running multi-user FOCAL (interpreted BASIC-like language) on five Teletype terminals. 8K 12-bit words core, and a drum for something like 250K of semi-fast store for larger arrays.
A PDP8-L with fast (300 bytes/second) paper tape reader. ASR-33 Teletype just visible to the right. Not the machine I first used, but very similar. Thanks to ethandicks.wordpress.com where I found the pic.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
My life has been Docker-free and broadly happy for over seven decades, but I had considered caving in to the demands of innumerable tools that claim to need it. This discussion does nothing to ease my reluctance.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
At our next Parkinson's group meeting, one of our members will talk about his research on Paragalago (small bush babies). Mostly it's about their diverse calls, but he has two slides on IDENTIFICATION BY WILLY SHAPE. I am unsure how this will play with our largely mature and respectable membership.
A selection of willies of small bush babies. Top left image has human fingerprint for scale.
Most of them are disturbingly adorned with thorn-like spikes.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Verily the end times are upon us. It's the first sodding week of sodding September, FFS. @katebevan.com why the hell are you not yet world ruler so you could put a stop to This Kind Of Thing?
Supermarket shelf bearing festively packaged Christmas edibles including Christmas puddings
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Popped into @morethanadodo.bsky.social yesterday to see the 34 Minerals exhibit. It'll be quiet, thinks I, first day of term. Hadn't reckoned with schools' INSET day, so it was busy and jolly. My, that place is such a honeypot for curious youngsters.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Scrooge leans out of window and calls "You boy - which revisionist version are we in?"
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Idly musing on what Pete Hegseth would make of the Edinburgh Tattoo.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
What I REALLY want to know is: who did they find to set the questions for her Mastermind specialist subject?
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Not now, ancient Fenland supervolcano. (BBC news item)
From BBC website.
Picture of an erupting volcano.
Headline "Ancient supervolcano found under English coast".
Caption "Evidence suggests the supervolcano found beneath The Wash would have been far more powerful than Mount Etna (pictured)"
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
For a nasty moment I thought maybe Lozza's been on the rampage again.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
OK, let's do novels now. Make a novel smaller. The Lion, the Witch and the Bedside Table
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Revealed in the beech hedge as leaves begin to shrivel: a stunning wasp nest, about 35cm top to bottom and about 25cm diameter at its widest, supported by being enmeshed in the beech twigs so it's really secure. Still somewhat active. An amazing structure.
Large and impressive wasp nest in a beech hedge Another view of the wasp nest
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
I have finally exorcised my earworm, a remarkably accurate recollection of the Davenport's Beer at Home jingle from fifty-odd years ago. I will find no peace until you all have suffered along with me, so please revel in this short clip. share.google/in7CP0d2FSbP...
Song lyrics "Beer at Home means Davenports" with a beer bottle icon that dances across the text so you can all sing along
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
OMG, Sewing Bee has Spandex and GUSSETS. <shudders in I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again>
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Dinosaur footprints across the arid desert of @morethanadodo.bsky.social front "lawn"
Casts of dinosaur footprints on parched soil
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Well played, Thrupp Canoe and Kayak Hire!
Sign at canoe hire station on Oxford Canal, with hand-written chalk annotation:
Phones @ bottom of canal 2026: 3
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Proposal: for every quote that uses "suicidal empathy", re-post verbatim except replacing that phrase with "not being a selfish dick".
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
I have cheerfully put up with Bluesky's self-satisfied smugness because the good bits outweighed it. Today, though, hot takes on a government alert and an academic tragedy leave me wanting to punch the wall and chuck my phone in the bin. Get outta your own arses, people.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Pond at the NE corner of the University Parks looks like something out of a David Attenborough "year in Africa" documentary.
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Reposted by Jonathan Bromley
Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
With negligible modesty I present to you my boss level eclipse-watching setup. DIY projecting telescope, glass of cold rosé, decent sightline to the west.
- Background: garden shrubbery.
- Foreground: improvised projecting telescope cobbled together from spare lenses, a length of drain pipe, much gaffer tape and a microphone stand.
- Blurred very close foreground: a hand holding a glass of rosé.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Clips in ascending order of coolness: - paper - bulldog - tie - ammo - e
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
With negligible modesty I present to you my boss level eclipse-watching setup. DIY projecting telescope, glass of cold rosé, decent sightline to the west.
- Background: garden shrubbery.
- Foreground: improvised projecting telescope cobbled together from spare lenses, a length of drain pipe, much gaffer tape and a microphone stand.
- Blurred very close foreground: a hand holding a glass of rosé.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
"the shops and roadworks of Jericho" 😂😂😂
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Anyone have any ideas why these suggestions are in single quotes? Are they perhaps excerpts from a press release by Big Compost?
On a box of tea bags, a recycling/composting graphic enclosing some text that is inexplicably wrapped in single-quotes:

'ENJOY YOUR BREW & TAKE YOUR TEABAG OUT OF YOUR CUP'

'POP IT IN YOUR FOOD WASTE BIN READY TO COMPOST BACK TO NATURE'
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Here's someone showing their youth and innocence through their choice of examples of "obsolete technology". C'mon, where is the loom weight? Quern? Semaphore flag?
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Angry Russ is the best Russ.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
The Clarion seems to be fairly angry about this. I think they have a point.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
IT IS RAINING. In the South-East of England. Oh, it's stopped again. As you were. In other news, if anyone sees my big spirit level - half a metre long, bright yellow - could you please let me know as I can't find the damn thing anywhere.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
A few days ago we took in a parcel delivery for some lovely neighbours who were away. Today, in over-generous retaliation, they've given us two really fancy artisan-bakery muffins. We are now in a terrifying arms race of kindness that can only end in mutual bankruptcy.
Two very pretty muffins, each topped with fruit mousse and garnished with a blackberry and a tiny sprig of thyme
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
REFLECTING POOL CASE DROPPED ha ha hah and breathe ha ha hah
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
I wonder whether they reached orca-sm.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Definitely one for @secondmentions.com
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
An un-funny remake of the Shrine to Beauty scene from "Flushed Away".
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Reposted by Jonathan Bromley
Lev Parikian @levparikian.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Walkers should start producing small bags with exactly eight Quavers in them called Semibreve send tweet
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
If the World Cup and the anti-World Cup were ever to collide, would they then vanish in a burst of gamma radiation?
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
whoah, paging @oddthisday.bsky.social so we can celebrate the anniversary each year
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Oof. Frightening and horrible for everyone affected. Like so many others, I have happy memories of summer holidays on those endless Atlantic beaches when our daughters were kids 30+ years ago. The forests are well managed, with proper fire breaks, but you can't defeat dry+wind+fire. Heartbreaking.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Was there a white dove in the sky bearing a blade of green grass to mark the first rain after forty dry days? Was there buggery. It obviously won't last.
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Jonathan Bromley @bromleyj.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Hope for: Jakob Bronowski Deserve: Dr Bunsen Honeydew Will actually get: Alan Partridge
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