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Louisa

@chiefendoflife.bsky.social
94 followers 268 following 72 posts

Climate and disaster risk. Lover of mountains, suzanis and samovars.

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Reposted by Louisa
Bart⚓️ @bartgonnissen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves.
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Reposted by Louisa
James @gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Excuse me? Mr. Falconer? If you could please get your bird under control, he appears to be getting further away
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Heading back to Kyrgyzstan this summer for the first time since I left in 2019, and surprising myself by how much I'm looking forward to seeing Bishkek again
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Reposted by Louisa
Jeremy Noel-Tod @jntod.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
David Hockney, in 2021, explaining that his love of the poetry of George Herbert began when he noticed how glass is described in ‘The Elixir’ as something that you can look *on* as well as through
Hockney likes to quote a seventeenth-century verse on the
subject of transparency.

'A man that looks on glass
On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass
And then the heav'n espy.'

DH: I've always loved that poem by George Herbert. I know
quite a bit of his poetry because I looked it up when I
found that one. It's very good because you can look on
glass. And if you do look at glass, you can't see through it,
but then your eye can decide to go through it. Especially
if there's dirt on the glass, you can look at that for a while,
and then if you look through the glass you don't see the
dirt. I love paintings of glass.
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Reposted by Louisa
Petit Pied @petitpieddessin.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Broadly agree (and I would question the need for filming a canon where the literary form is so key to their brilliance), but I wonder if the Tiffany Aching books might work well for TV. You'd need a bit of a budget and the right actor for Tiffany, but more filmable than the main series I would say.
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Reposted by Louisa
Nicola @scrapegroat.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
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Tom Roberts @tpgroberts.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
That's the west coast mainline for you
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Reposted by Louisa
Cat Manning @catacalypto.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Auden’s Musée des Beaux Artes
WH Auden’s Musée des Beaux Artes

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Alarmingly Amigaran
Panel from the manga The Enigma of Amigara Fault showing a man climbing into a hole in a rock face that is exactly the shape of his body
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
Baking weather
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Reposted by Louisa
Ken Jennings @kenjennings.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
They’re telling me a great empire will be destroyed if I attack Persia. Even the oracles who don’t like me very much, very nasty, they all said to me, “Sir, it’s one of the great empires, and it’ll be destroyed. And all because you attacked Persia.” That’s what they’re telling me.
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
Loved this photo essay on the SAIS - their blogs are a vital resource for anyone heading to the Scottish Highlands at this time of year www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
theguardian.com
The Scottish avalanche forecasters – photo essay
Photographer Murdo MacLeod patrols the snow with members of the Scottish Avalanche Information Service, which has for several decades published a vital daily avalanche forecast for mountain areas
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
Step aside, Olympics #BM100
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Reposted by Louisa
The Empty City @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
"The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction." ~ Samuel Johnson
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Charles Louis Richter @richterscale.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going— SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti— SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
following the progress of the Georgia-Bulgaria match via the wild shrieks echoing through the open windows of Zemo Vera
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
Fascinating story - great stuff from @edinburghminute.bsky.social and @londoncentric.media , baffling that HMRC aren't more interested.
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
Back in Tbilisi for the first time in six years, and my friend immediately sat me down in front of an enormous khachapuri her mother had prepared and made me eat the whole thing ❤️
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
this is what the Edinburgh pub scene badly needs, bring on the Kyrgyz invasion
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Reposted by Louisa
Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
I’m convinced this is how a bay leaf would talk
Cartoon by Stephen Collins for the Guardian, here's the script:

[Scene is the inside of a SOUP. Some CARROTS and BITS OF BROCCOLI are floating around and a STOCK CUBE and a BAY LEAF have just been dropped in.] 

1
STOCK CUBE:
Alright lads - this is Bay Leaf.
My colleague from the spice rack.

2
BROCCOLI:
Hi Bay Leaf

BAY LEAF:
Yuh yuh hi

3
CARROTS:
You up for getting proper blended with us later, Bay Leaf?

BAY LEAF:
Nuh mate, getting scooped out before soup stage.

4
CARROTS:
Oh! So… you’re not being eaten then?

BAY LEAF:
Eaten! Haha

5
BAY LEAF:
Not allowed mate.

I’m afraid I’m a lil’ bit *toooo intense*...

6
BAY LEAF:
Just here for the flavour hit.
Special forces, y’know.
That’s why there’s just one of me.

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BAY LEAF:
Over-deploy and you’d have this whole soup stiiinking of bay leaf…

8
BAY LEAF:
You might wanna stand back actually.
This place is about to get preeetty bay leafy...

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[Silent pause]

10
CARROTS:
Are you doing something

BAY LEAF:
Sure am mate.

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BAY LEAF:
Suuuuure am.

12
BAY LEAF [Getting scooped out by chef’s spoon]:
You need training to perceive it.

CARROTS:
OK
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Reposted by Louisa
BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
dynastic collapse is often given the final blow by nomadic northern horseman
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Nigella Lawson @nigella.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
And a very special #CookbookCorner shoutout for the wonderful Green Mountains: Walking the Caucasus with Recipes by @edentravels.bsky.social!
Photograph of Caroline Eden’s new book, Green Mountains
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
Very sadly it turns out farmers can make far more money by not smoking their tea until it effectively turns into Laphroaig
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
A stunningly beautiful day in the Dales - normally I love this train journey but oh to be out in the hills today...
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
My parents' barometer has run out of adjectives #StormEowyn
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
can confirm that Gen's treasure hunting is unsurpassed, it's a great and terrible responsibility
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Torta della nonna must qualify as a close pie relative
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
she is here and she is magnificent
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 24/12/2024
Cheese and homemade profiteroles for dinner, absolutely nailing Christmas Eve
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 24/12/2024
Fascinating bit of art historical detective work and a great Christmas Eve cup-of-tea-in-bed read from @londonreview.bsky.social www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
Fara Dabhoiwala · A Man of Parts and Learning: Francis Williams Gets His Due
The only certainty about the picture is that it shows Francis Williams. No one has ever been able to discover who...
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
The cake I have just made has turned out extremely unsatisfactory and I am very put out
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
Inspirational courage and determination from the people of Georgia 🇬🇪
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
My flat may be an ice box, but at least the cactus is having a lovely time
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
This was more or less the first thing that happened to me in Armenia, although I believe we were toasting King Arthur (an Armenian, of course)
me.in
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Reposted by Louisa
Random Restaurant Bot @restaurant-bot.bsky.social · 25/12/2023
Uzbekiskaya Kukhnya; Ulitsa Muravlenko, 16, Muravlenko, Yamalo-Nenetskiy, Russia, 629603 www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&q…
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 03/11/2023
I am in Lisbon and I am eating pasteis de nata (also other things, but one must prioritise). #1, Deguimbra Pastelaria: weighty, good crunch on the (thick) pastry. Very sweet, but the pastry was made with salted butter which cut through it well. A solid start.
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 01/11/2023
Love this - as another lockdown runner I regret never running through the back streets of Tbilisi while I had the chance, but plan to take a crack at the hills of Lisbon this weekend
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 01/11/2023
Out of office email on, passport located - this time tomorrow I intend to be minimum 50% pastel del nata by bodyweight
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 31/10/2023
Busy Lizzies out, pansies in, woodlouse invasion repelled. Never that fussed about gardening but I'm enjoying my window boxes so much, is this a sign of middle age
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 27/10/2023
A day with Georgian food is a good day
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 25/10/2023
New levels of samovar unlocked
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 24/10/2023
John Lewis really capturing the Zeitgeist here with a range of bedbug soft furnishings
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 24/10/2023
Bus drivers flooring it to catch the blink-and-you'll-miss-it green light on the right turn on Picardy Place has become Edinburgh's most white-knuckle experience
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Louisa @chiefendoflife.bsky.social · 22/10/2023
Christening the blue place with a blissful autumn day in the hills, Scotland has its moments
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