iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

#tinyjoys Nothing quite beats a vase with home grown flowers. We’ve been trying to grow sweet peas for a couple of years without success (my fault for not watering enough) so, although there aren’t many, we’re taking this as a win.

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

A painted 16th century house. Uncovered quite by chance the wall painting have been beautifully preserved and the quality and detail are just astounding – AND IT’S FREE. If you haven’t been, thoroughly recommended with lovely countryside and other historic towns and cities within easy reach.

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

A beautiful Red-headed Cardinal Beetle enjoying the morning

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Just arrived, my first green one. All I have to do now is learn some Greek 🤔

A green Loeb translation of Euripides Helen, Phoenician Women and Orestes

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Look what arrived today, I love a bit of women’s history - oh yes 😎

Mythica book, the story of women in the Iliad and Odyssey by Emily Hauser

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

Apologies to vegetarians but home made gravy made in the beef roasting tray, crispy roasties on a beef Sunday roast is hard to beat. 😋😋😋😋😋

Home made gravy made in the roast beef tray

Roast potatoes crispy on the outside and fluffy in the middle

Sunday roast: beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, broccoli, green beans, peas and carrots with gravy

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

Apart from the party names, what changes?

Old. Cartoon showing two political parties wringing out the electorate

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

I love nature, although red sky in the morning….. #tinyjoys

Beautiful dawn with red tinged clouds and orange and yellow skies

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

Today is the festival Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, birthday of Sol Invictus or the 'Invincible Sun' or Yule if you prefer Germanic. It is the winter solstice and at 3:03 pm the earth’s north pole will be maximum tilt away from the sun It means that from today the days will be getting longer - yayyy

Limestone relief of the Roam god Sol
File: Naiskos with relief of Sol (Lyon, Mus Gal-Rom 2001.0.326)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Naiskos_with_relief_of_Sol_(Lyon,_Mus_Gal-Rom_2001.0.32

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

Don’t you just love it when you think the tea towel is covering the edge of the pan when you’re taking it out of the oven 🙄🙄

My thumb with a big blister after picking a hot tray out of the oven

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

Say you’ve been chain sawing wood for winter without saying you’ve been chain sawing wood for winter

Socks covered in wood shavings from chain sawing logs for winter

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

I hate the passing of summer and the darker mornings and nights BUT BUT BUT then I think of knocking the salads on the head to be replaced with Mac and Cheese (with chilli flakes). Oh yum and that didn’t last long 😋😋😋 #tinyjoys

Dish with hot Mac and Cheese, yum. Extra melted cheese on top.

Half empty dish of Mac and Cheese with serving spoon

Empty dish with serving spoon that had Mac and Cheese in it only 10 minutes ago, yum yum

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

Say you had a midlife crisis without saying you had a midlife crisis (actually the pink one is daughter's) only to find you were neither Jimi Hendrix nor Dave Gilmour.

Three electric guitars: Daisy Rock Candy Rock Atomic Pink, Tokai Love Rock and Squier Stratocaster

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

The ‘Knife Angel’ in Welwyn Garden City today. Impressive.

A statue created from knives that have been handed in to keep crime off the streets

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

A long time coming but for the first time we’re having a concerted effort to grow patio clematis and sweet peas in pots, and they’re just beautiful. Why did we wait so long? #tinyjoys

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Next door have got a couple of bee hives so we thought we’d grow some wild flowers for them. There seems to be quite a lot if the same except in the middle there’s this one red flower, no idea what it is but I think the colour is beautiful. Does anyone know? #tinyjoys #flowers

Wild flowers, yellow and cornflowers for next door’s bee hives

In the middle of the wild flowers there’s a beautiful, small red flower.

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

Our Sage is flowering in the herb garden and so many busy bees #tinyjoys

A bee busily feeding on a purple Sage flower in our herb garden

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Apparently very common and the hairs can irritate but it’s so pretty. Brown-tailed moth caterpillar (I think)

Pretty caterpillar of the Brown-tailed moth showing the orange spots on its back

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

I love the sound of a cuckoo, this is from five years ago but I heard one this morning - the sound feels so English countryside #tinyjoys

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Finding a new plant that wasn’t there last year bravely jostling with the other foliage under the weeping cherry tree, don’t know what it is (although I’m sure someone does) or how it got there #tinyjoys

Tiny white flower under our weeping cherry tree that wasn’t there last year

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

If only you could hear the noise of the bees from next door’s hive enjoying one of their first feeds of spring on our flowering Cherry, amazing and I thought I’d just throw in a pic of the Magnolia as well. #tinyjoys

Flowering weeping cherry tree in or front garden which is alive with bees from next door’s hive enjoying first feed of spring

Magnolia tree in full bloom in the spring sunshine

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

It was posted on my timeline today and never more needed. #tinyjoys

A poem about finding mental peace and relaxation in nature and an escape from today’s world

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

My latest effort published in out local paper "The Grafham Gossip". I'll convert the locals into Classicists yet.

My myth article in the local village paper about the marriage of Peleus and Thetis and the events leading to the Trojan War

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

There’s the post and already getting likes and comments

Screenshot of a facebook posting of the huge, reconstruction of the Colossus of Constantine statue in the Capitoline Museums gardens in Rome.

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

A little while ago we had some work done and on the side of his van there was a logo which featured a man - this is her barking at it for over half a hour

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

Get a dog for protection they said… 🙄

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

Nothing like a Christmas morning Raki - as they say in Albania 🇦🇱 gëzuar

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

A year today we said goodbye after 11.5 years to the biggest hearted, soft, kind and loving dog you could possibly meet. Chloe, our hearts are still broken 💔💔💔

Chloe (with her sister Sadie behind) the best rottweiler, we miss you

Chloe as a puppy the best rottweiler, we miss you

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

There’s nothing like the feeling that, no matter how many toys the grandkids get, with 40 AAA AND 40 AA batteries we’re Christmas ready. #tinyjoys

40 AAA and 40 AA batteries ready for Christmas

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Oooooo look, our new bug hotel has just arrived, maybe a bit late for this year but worth a go. Pretty 5* if you ask me and what bug wouldn’t want to check in. #tinyjoys

Wooden bug hotel with a huge variety of different habitats

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Thank you again and I just thought I’d add this response

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

I'VE BEEN PUBLISHED!! Spreading classical culture to the frozen wastes and dark satanic mills - that is the 598 people in Grafham village Cambridgeshire. OK it is not in JStor or a peer reviewed publication but it is the Graham Gossip. Should I start charging for copy?

Article on Saturnalia in the Grafham village local paper

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Out in the garden on a frosty morning, the sun is just coming up with the dogs and breaking the ice on the bird bath so the birds can have their morning drink #tinyjoys

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Today's delve into my photos is of a few panels on the Ara Pacis. Beautifully detailed the site was surprisingly quiet, perhaps everyone was sweating in the Forum that day. #classicalbluesky #archaeology #Romebluesky

A procession relief on the Ara Pacis in Rome

The Imperial family relief on the Ara Pacis in Rome

The so called Tellu panel on the Ara Pacis in Rome

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

On world Universal Children's Day my thoughts go to the haunting funerary monument of the 4 (possibly 9) year old Quartulus (possibly Quintus Artulus), a child of the Iberian mines holding a pick and basket. #classicsbluesky #ancientbluesky

A child's funerary monument from the Roman Iberian mines

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

It is world toilet day today so a good opportunity to think about the social, not to mention functional, toilets near the Forum baths in Ostia #ancientbluesky

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Here's our three a couple of years ago although we lost one Rottie just before Christmas and I cannot believe how emotional I am still. They were sisters and reached 12 so a good age. The little one is a pain. Research not so much, I write an amateur blog but enjoy writing it classicalstudiesman.com

Our pet dogs, two Rottweilers and a minature dachshund: Sadie, Chloe and Boo.

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

On the day of the farmer's protests in London I give you farmers sowing and ploughing. Athenian black figure kylix (drinking cup), attributed to the Burgon Painter, about 550 BCE in the British Museum. #ancientbluesky

Black figure kylix (drinking cup) of farmers ploughing and sowing

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

It's dark at 4.30 in the afternoon, the temperature is dropping and it's raining outside so I thought I would warm everyine up with a picture of a Triumphal Arch in Orange, South of France. It was September in the middle of a drought and you can feel the heat by the beautiful blue sky.

The Triumphal Arch in Orange, South of France. It was September in the middle of a drought and you can feel the heat by the beautiful blue sky.

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Further to the two books yesterday, this arrived today. I have had it on preorder so it is nice and shiney and new. I am really looking forward to this, it's a reinterpretation of evidence and I do like women's history. I have included the inside of the coversheet for detail.

Cover and inside cover of a new interpretation of JulioClaudian women from a feminist perspective

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

I would like to thank @sarahmay1.bsky.social for posting recommending alt text on images. I was not aware that it makes it more accessible and I think it is a lovely way to remember the stroy behind an image. I havejust switched on the setting so trying it out on the amphitheatre at Nimes

The Amphitheatre in Nimes, South of France virtually deserted on a hot September afternoon

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

Look what arrived today. The Seneca Tragedies because I like drama (although Greek) I like reception I don't really know Seneca although I did a passage comparison of the Tojan Women as part of an essay This translation is by Emily Wilson and I like her style after reading her Odyssey.

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 25/10/2024

So there we go - a big shout out to Harrods Champagne Bar in Milton Keynes. Excellent service, great food (we shared every Crostini on the menu plus a glass of Prosecco and three coffees for less than the last pub lunch. Worth the agony of shopping.

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 19/10/2024

Memory came up on facebook from 5 years ago Oedipus at Colonus. As always an amazing play which means two years ago it was The Persians and the Satyr play Cyclops which means this time next year they’ll be another one. Love the Cambridge Greek Play. www.cambridgegreekplay.com

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 12/10/2024

Day 12 - Homer is instrumental in my swapping a History for a Classical Studies degree after hearing the opening lines of the Odyssey in Greek at a tutorial. Magical and it had a lasting effect on me. I hope he existed. #ClassicsTober24 #ClassicsTober

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 11/10/2024

Day 11 Julia Felix My name means happy, lucky, fortunate and successful. I’ve worked hard building my estate, praedia, to include public baths, gardens and apartments plus my on sumptuous accommodation. Pompeii’s Center Parcs? #classicstober24 #classicstober

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Colin Gough @classicalman.bsky.social · 10/10/2024

Day 10 Vitruvius - architect, designer and engineer influences another engineer, designer, architect and scientist 500 years later producing one of the world’s most iconic images Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man #classicstober #classicstober24

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