iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 8h

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekNForNeon The neon signage for restaurant Sushi Samba, Heron Tower, London. A very large, red neon circle, across the middle “SUSHI SAMBA” with smaller font “HERON TOWER” below.

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

If it was done with enough style, they might claim to be Cat-elan. Or would that involve Barca-ing up the wrong tree?

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I found this out, listening to the most recent @backlisted.bsky.social (originally issued a few years ago). I first read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek as a teenager in the 1970’s. I wish had known then how to try to talk with other people about the book then. And I did not. Och, well!

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Annie Dillard’s dead…holy crap!

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

A flock of sheep dodging the light rain under the cover trees. 15 of them, mostly white and a couple of black ones. Some standing, most of them laying on the ground. The trees are birch, on the whole. #SundayPixAnimals #SundayPix

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

A still from a 10 seconds video of a pair of miniature Shetland ponies mutually grooming. There’s a local prize winning stud that keeps numerous miniature Shetlands in paddocks up the brae. This year’s foals were remarkably cute tiny wee things. #SundayPixAnimals #SundayPix #MiniatureShetlandPonies

Slightly off centre to the right in the foreground, stand two miniature Shetland ponies. They coats are dark chocolate brown. Shaped like a yin yang symbol, they are grooming each other, simultaneously. One pony has its rump to us, the other its head. The grooming is licking / cleaning the top of the others rump / bottom of the back.
Five sheep can be seen on the upward slope of the field behind the ponies. There is dried out, browned bracken in the foreground, between the viewer and the ponies. A wire-strands fence separates the ponies from the sheep. One of the fence posts is visible on the left edge of the image.
I can post the video later, if anyone wants me to.

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

A sneak peak of the cover artwork for the new Pet Shop Boys album, scheduled for release next week. Inspired by a post yesterday by @rufustsuperfly.bsky.social

A colour photograph from the Dead Parrot sketch by the Monty Python mob. It features Michael Palin (on the left) and John Cleese (on the right) with a Norwegian Blue pining for the fjords (centre stage). The comedy sketch is played in the interior of a shop set with virtually empty shelving. Is that a symptom of a lack of money available to the Flying Circus crew in the 1970’s?
Some of these facts may be correct.

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekMForMachinery Overexposed square (originally my IG post?) image of a yellow combine harvester, probably gathering barley. The big crop around here, for the distillery industry. The sky is burnt out white. Working on a slope, it looks like it might tip over at any moment.

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Och, I’m supposed to give them a title each! 1. Spores in Space! 2. Shark Attacks 3. Moby Dick 4. Trawling For Likes

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Pardon my ignorance, but is there a species of bee called Ivy Bees? I’m genuinely curious, not being sarky. Last week, I was pruning ivy (full of buds) and telling a young helper about the bees that feed from ivy flowers. I remember (at first) hearing an ivy bush full of bees. This was last winter.

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Who read “Thinking cat flap on!”?

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

8 seconds of explosive goldfinch joy.

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

It’s a braw, bricht, moonlicht nicht the nicht.

A dark photo that looks black and white, because it is an interior shot illuminated by the moon (just past being full).
There’s a small spot of light off to the left. The window frame is visible due to the moon light coming through. Reflected light shows where the cutting board and guillotine (used by my photographer OH) lay on a desk. Outside the moonshine lights up a wedge of clear sky bordered by a dark frame of trees.

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

“Tickets £8.61”, because that’s the year it was published?

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Robert Thank you for including my shot. Have a great day!

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Reposted by @calumsmac.bsky.social

Edward Philips Art @edwardphilips.co.uk · 26/09/2026

It’s world maritime day. BBC Radio 3 are celebrating by broadcasting from various lighthouses. So, here are some lighthouses just for you. xx

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Might this cause a rebirth of ads in physical print media, applying for tickets via the Royal Mail and buying and sending postal orders? Oh, the anticipation!

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The pricing issue is a problem, for sure.

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

From Inverness, the obvious hub airport (to the world) is Amsterdam, as KLM operates an Inverness service.

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Absolutely. I would love if I could get something akin to a proper Japanese breakfast, with pickled cucumber, seaweed, trout roe and such like.

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

It’s Gaulling! Asterix the Gaul…no?

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

A local photography collective have an exhibition on, part of an arts festival in Moray, at Logie Steadings near Forres. I mention as it includes 8 photographs by my better half. Her website www.mairimacaulayphotography.co.uk

A pair of Mairi’s photographs. The pictures are partially obscured by window reflections on the glass in the frames of the mounted prints.
Each is of rock weathered and worn by the waters of the river at a location called ‘Randolph’s Leap’ close to Logie. The sharpness of detail in the rocks are set against the (long exposure) smoothed flow of the river.

This shows the eight prints as they are hung on the wall. They are configured in an approximate diamond shape thus:
a landscape oriented set on the horizontal middle line to the left, mirroring a similar image on the right;
inset on both sides there are above and below the mid-line a pair of landscape oriented prints, and
in the vertical mid-line there are two prints, a portrait oriented image above and a landscape oriented below.
They are all of rocks and river water.
My powers of description fail the beauty of Mairi’s photography.

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I forgot to mention the old fashioned keyhole towards the right hand side (in the middle line) and lever point hole close by at the right edge.

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Thanks to last week’s #FireHydrantFriday I now know where to find the nearest hydrant to my home. I really appreciate being brought to notice this by you lot.

Landscape orientation photograph of a cast iron fire hydrant cover plate. It sits in a tarmac pavement. The cover was once painted yellow, although only fragments of colour remain. It is otherwise rust coloured, with a yellowing birch (probably) leaf laying just off centre, across the left leg of the capital H.
Cast into the design it says ‘BRICKHOUSE’ at the top, ‘FH’ centred in the middle. Below that a British Standards Kitemark and ‘8050 R’, with ‘DUCTILE’ on the foot of the plate.
The pattern is (mostly) 4 or 5 offset rows of the letter ‘G’ in (to my mind) a very rigid font. Also, there are deformed ‘S’ in a font similar to the typical two-headed Allen Key shape. And I have just realised that the G’s and S’s are in diagonal lines, rising left to right.
Anyway, if there’s a fire nearby I can now direct the Fire Service to the nearest hydrant. Bluesky saves the day!

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Cole Hopper in “Fuelling the Fire”

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Include tax breaks for businesses, entrepreneurs, investors and the like, too.

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Reposted by @calumsmac.bsky.social

Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Is it time to post that paragraph from The Road To Wigan Pier? The one about how the desperate, pleasureless poor will always refuse to just spend their pennies on cabbage no matter how much you try and insist. This isn’t a thing you can make people do. It’s not how humans work.

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Quote post this with a picture of the aircraft you’ll accept as a bribe.

A painting of a sky blue RAF jet fighter zooming against an orange backdrop. Done in such a way as to give the impression of hugely high speed, ya bam!
It was painted by my brother, Campbell, over 25 years ago. I think it is supposed to be a Harrier VTOL jet, but he was the expert and I am not.

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

#FireHydrantFriday Shortly after feeding my apple to a pony (with the owner’s consent) I spotted this. It’s on the single track hill road between Beauly and Muir of Ord.

A black large H printed on a yellow oblong sign. The sign is screwed on to a cement frame (for want of a better word). The frame is damaged around the upper left corner, and the reinforcing metal bars are exposed and rusting.
This sign is planted in the grass covered banking at the side of the road. It overlooks whin bushes in the foreground, and views towards the Black Isle and the Beauly Firth.

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calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

#FireHydrantFriday A pressed metal plate attached to a cement frame, somewhat obscured by vegetation. This is my third and final post on this # today. Have I flooded the market?

I spotted this hydrant marker by the side of the road. It is located in a scrubby, woodland setting, with trees and bushes behind, weeds growing around it, dried up leaves and twigs. There’s two strands of fence wire running across the base and grey, corrugated paper sitting in the bottom left corner.
There cement frame has been painted yellow, although it is weathered and fairly patchy. Moss covers the top right corner of the frame.
Screwed or bolted in place is the sign itself, dominated by a large black H. Within the top half of the H is the number 4, and in the bottom half again the number 4 but this is on a (presumably) replaceable metal insert.

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