iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Charles Beckett

Rishi Dastidar @betarish.bsky.social · 3h

TS Eliot Prize shortlist has landed; some heavyweight work here: tseliot.com/prize/prize-...

tseliot.com

2026 – T. S. Eliot Prize

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 4h

Sánchez about to speak. I think he’ll go for broke - call new elections.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 18h

Sometimes I worry my view of how politics actually works in the UK has been too heavily influenced by watching The Thick of It, and then Kemi just goes and does the Crapestry, and I …

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 19h

Think I’m going to start using this rating scale to express my attitude to everything from now on. (borrowed from Télérama.fr)

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 19h

The Green Party. So fucking depressing.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Mig Catalunya està a sota de les aigües, però torna’m a explicar sisplau com el canvi climàtic és un mite.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I have flown across Denali national park in a light aircraft, and yesterday I used the flight simulator X-Plane 12 (with Map Enhancement running Google Maps) to make roughly the same flight in the simulator. The sensation of actually flying is lacking, but visually, the impression is very similar.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

You might not like it, but you’re going to have to accept it: England are really, really good.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Pedro Sánchez announces that he will take a few days to reflect on today’s legislative defeat for the government and to decide whether he will call a new general election.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

In Spain, Junts per Catalunya (coalition ally of PSOE) will vote against a new measure designed to help renters, leading to speculation that Pedro Sánchez may call an early election.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

BBC now reporting that Man City will argue *in their defence* that it wasn’t ADUG that topped up the sham sponsorship deals, but the government of Abu Dhabi. Sheikh Mansour is the Chairman of ADUG; he is also a senior member of the Abu Dhabi royal family and controls the sovereign wealth funds.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Midterms Senate (forecasts) Electoral Vote has Ds 53 Rs 45 with 2 ties Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball has Ds 48 Rs 47 with 5 toss-ups Decision Desk has Ds 54% vs Rs 47% to win control House (generic ballot) Democrats are +8.9 on the generic ballot. 87 House seats are R+8 or lower on the (C)PVI.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Spain’s housing crisis is an extremely complex issue with many factors: the Constitution guarantees a right to a home, regional tax and property laws vary widely, huge numbers of properties owned by investment funds, (relatively) low salaries, poor distributional metrics …

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Reposted by Charles Beckett

Ian Duhig @ianduhig.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Happy National Poetry Day!

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

#NationalPoetryDay #Wonder 'This day winding down now At God speeded summer's end In the torrent salmon sun, In my seashaken house On a breakneck of rocks Tangled with chirrup and fruit, Froth, flute, fin and quill At a wood's dancing hoof, By scummed, starfish sands ...

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Reposted by Charles Beckett

María de la Ohlala @menchubasquero.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

No sabía q en 2003 Disneyland Paris pidió a la familia de Luis Buñuel poner una calle a su nombre y el hijo les contestó q ok pero q quería 10 millones de € y q la calle se llamara «Boulevard Luis Buñuel-Me cago en Dios y el fascista de Walt Disney». Pero qué puta maravilla es esta. Os dejo la carta

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Oh, Andy, wtf are you talking about?

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Don’t you find the very idea of a breathless ‘behind the curtains’ account of the 2024 shuttle diplomacy between Washington, Jerusalem, Cairo, Tehran and Gaza written entirely in unreflective self-justification by one of the prime authors of those failed negotiations utterly disgusting?

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

If a ‘comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence’ exists to show why Man City are not guilty, why wasn’t it produced for the independent Commission during their deliberations?

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Reposted by Charles Beckett

The Empty City @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

That is about as hard-hitting a ruling as was possible, and at first reading It does not look easily appealable.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I'm trying not to pay attention to developments in Washington at the moment (too painful), but the treatment Jack Smith (former special counsel investigating Trump) is receiving from Senators in this Judiciary Committee hearing would shame a kangaroo court in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Truly despicable.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

If reports are to be believed and Burnham sets out plans for electoral reform, social care reform funded by removing the 'triple lock' on pensions, and reform of energy supply (nationalisation of utilities), that is a galactic level of ambition compared to Starmerism.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The Foreign Secretary's may be correct, in the sense that the proscription of Palestine Action was not (principally) intended to criminalise 'elderly people, vicars and grannies', but the possibility that that would be a result of the proscription was clearly considered by the then Home Secretary.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

'Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned; they therefore do as they like.' - Edward Thurlow (1st Baron Thurlow), Lord Chancellor 1778-1783. Quoted in John Poynder, 'Literary Extracts' (1844), and, as an epigraph, in William Dalrymple, 'The Anarchy' (2019).

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

‘This is the one thing we didn’t want to happen …’

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Some sketches made 'en plein air' in the Dolomites & Südtirol/Alto Adige, and tidied up a bit at home. 1 - view of Cima Conturines looking west from Colfosco

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

‘Little Things’, by Jacob Polley (in ‘Selected Poems’, Picador, 2026):

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Since when has being a Labour Home Secretary automatically implied being somewhere to the right of Dedra Meero on national security? John Reid? Jack Straw? David Blunkett? Earlier?

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The US is at war with Iran, still, despite the lack of Congressional approval, and attempts to pass a War Powers Resolution. Therefore, RAF Fairford and Lakenheath are legitimate targets for Iranian attacks. Keir Starmer’s decision to allow US bombing flights from those bases …

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

‘The quality of mercy is not fucking strained.’

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Didn’t really know much about Sir Francis Drake (except the Armada bit). Listened to The Rest is History excellent 6-parter on Elizabeth I, in which they devote a whole episode (no. 3) to Drake. Wow 🤯

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

In Chambéry (small town near Grenoble) eating a pastry called ‘Le Brexit’ - fried egg and bacon in croissant bread, for the curious.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Three (mostly unsuccessful) days sketching and painting in the mountains, nature reminding me that its beauty is impossible to capture.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Wish AI would hurry up and kill us all, so we never have to read about it again.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Englishness is a state of mind, yeah?

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Reading William Dalrymple’s fascinating history of the East India Company ‘The Anarchy’ and for the first time reading the story of Robert Clive (‘Clive of India’). Utterly bonkers.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

A large party of American guests has arrived in our hotel and I now feel increasingly like a character in a Wodehouse novel.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Staying in an extremely Austro-Germanic hotel in the Sud Tirol and the art/general decor is really something to behold

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Brighton completely outplayed us. They were brilliant. We had no answer to their intensity and they fully deserved their win. Well done, Seagulls.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Houthis gonna Houthi 🤷‍♂️ I mean, ‘problematic’ is probably understating it, but purely as a fighting force, you do indeed have to hand (some of) it to them.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Beautiful opening para in La Gazzetta dello Sport tribute to Sandro Mazzola this morning -

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Not in the habit of praising companies that run motorway concessions, but I have to say that Vinci, the company that operates a network in the south of France, is very good indeed. Not perfect, and the tolls aren’t cheap, but the roads are generally in excellent condition, good signage etc. 👍

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I don’t want people who attack RNLI volunteers for saving people at sea to be part of the same society as me. I want them in prison.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Don’t really know what to call it, but there’s a type of mordant irony that Francophone authors sometimes use that is even more mordant, because they are often more direct about things an Anglophone writer might dance around.

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Charles Beckett @charlesbeckett.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Really good to see @canongate.co.uk bringing this out in the UK in English translation. Everything you might expect - heartbreaking, harrowing, but beautifully written - with a poetic economy - expertly constructed, and surprisingly uplifting. canongate.co.uk/books/5594-t...

canongate.co.uk

The Man Who Read Books by Rachid Benzine - published by Canongate Books.

The Man Who Read Books by Rachid Benzine - published by Canongate Books. A chance encounter on the streets of Gaza tells a magnificent modern tale on the humanising power of books; written by prize-wi...

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