iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Freeing myself of both the smart watch, and the sense that I needed a smart watch in the first place, were liberating beyond belief. See also: fitness bands and anything else that made me believe that I needed to be self-surveilling for my own good.

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So, while I don't have much sympathy for anyone involved, I have a lot for the comms team. Every press call, and every headline, and every 'declined to comment' is a punch they'll be feeling viscerally. I know, because I've been there.

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That doesn't make any of it right, and there may come a time that you need to take your own stance on that. But it's easy to be moralistic about it from the outside, much harder when you know that your financial and career stability depend on you doing your job to the best of your ability.

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You know it shouldn't, but every attack line feels personal. Every time someone says 'no sympathy', you think 'this is my job here. My mortgage, my childcare costs, my life'. In cases where there's actual wrongdoing, you'll often be finding out about it live, along with the rest of the world.

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A bulk of staff, though, will be different I think. I've worked through some brutal sport comms moments, some where the organisation I've worked for at that moment is at fault, others where it isn't, but where the nuance of a situation has made it feel like they are. Being caught in it is horrible.

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As for fans, I've more sympathy there, but this post from @lgambrose.bsky.social expressed what I think perfectly. bsky.app/profile/lgam...

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I also feel like the other playing operations - women's team, academy teams etc. are caught up in this. The money that's propelled City's success across all of its operations cannot be solely viewed through the Men's first team lens. As I see it, it's all compromised.

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Clearly, club leadership deserve no sympathy. Nor, in my opinion, do playing staff and men's team coaching units, current or prior. There's, at best, a wilful blindness and, at worst, a complicity there.

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Against League 3 @againstleague3.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Been thinking about this a touch more today, and also one of the things I've seen plenty of people saying; that there's nobody involved with Manchester City for whom we should feel any sympathy. For me, that's true except in one instance - rank and file staff, and particularly those in comms.

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Reposted by Chris

Can City get expelled from the Premier League? What competition would they go into? What role does the independent regulator play? Who knows? Well I do, because I checked. Come, join me on a guided tour through the chaos...

static.klipy.com

Usagyuuun's Fiery Smile

ALT: Usagyuuun's Fiery Smile

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Reposted by Chris

Lewis @lgambrose.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

They should've, but we should also loudly protest our partnership with we never have. We never had a real protest for Visit Rwanda, nor against Thomas Partey. A lot of Arsenal fans wanted Usmanov. It's them but it could've been us or any other club. It's pathetic. It's past time to wake up.

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Daily Cannon @dailycannon.com · 30/09/2026

I just keep coming back to this. This was six months ago.

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As someone who's worked for the last decade+ as a sports comms bod, I keep wondering what would compel you to advise the media strategy that Manchester City have used over the past five days. The only answer I can get to is: you wouldn't. It's absurd.

Chris @cscottaus.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Are they suggesting that they have new, irrefutable evidence that the commission didn’t consider? Or that the panel determining their evidence was very much not irrefutable, that they want to claim it is anyway? All feels a bit desperate.

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Chris @cscottaus.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This is quite something. It wouldn't surprise me if the appeals procedures took an extremely long time from here, but the pressure for serious sanctions (given both volume and scale of findings of guilt) will be enormous.

Chris @cscottaus.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Look, I’m not saying I was aiming for this, but I’m not not saying it either

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Reposted by Chris

David Whitley @mrdavidwhitley.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I would like our Government to be outlawing, vociferously speaking out against and ruthlessly prosecuting members of what is clearly a paramilitary fascist organisation.

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Chris @cscottaus.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Also, as uncomfortable as it is to say it: the thugs are showing up on the streets. I’m staying at home wringing my hands about it on Bluesky. It’s for the government to do more first, but it’s for all of us to stand up in whatever way we can, and show we’re better than this.

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Chris @cscottaus.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This is utterly appalling. Shameful, shaming, damning.

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Reposted by Chris

John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 22/09/2026

What are we becoming?

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Chris @cscottaus.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

In any remotely sane time, this is the sort of thing that would prompt immediate political condemnation. Government inaction is an enabling factor, and they need to recognise it as such.

John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 18/09/2026

Reposted by Chris

What on earth is happening?

This had become the new normal. RNLI crew members had been forced to take their permits off their cars after their tyres have been repeatedly slashed. Most of them have been pilloried at the school gates or turned away from local pubs. One man who worked in search and rescue had been beaten unconscious and hospitalised, recognised for TV interviews he had done.

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Chris @cscottaus.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

There’s a laugh our five year old has when we tickle her under the chin, which I know we’re going to get for the last time someday too soon. Makes me cherish every single one, and breaks my heart knowing it’ll come to an end before too much longer.

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Reposted by Chris

Emma Yeomans @yeomans.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

The RNLI has said the abuse of volunteers in Portsmouth has forced it to close the lifeboat station there and stop operating since September 10. Nearby stations have been providing cover to the area instead. One of the UK's largest coastal cities without a lifeboat because of the far-right.

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Phil McDuff @mcduff.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

We can all mock this guy, but I remind you all that "deficit is a word that sounds like loss and we should avoid deficits" was also the underlying logic - the whole underlying logic - behind austerity, and nobody has yet been willing to come out and call George Osborne a dumbass over it.

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Chris @cscottaus.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I hate, and share, this view. With the associated feeling that the (general) lack of real-world repercussions to online abuse has just made people more likely to engage in it on and offline

Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Reposted by Chris

KAEPERNICK: The part that I hope people take away in this moment is what Robert Kraft and what they’re saying by denying Macklemore is they are openly colluding. They also want people to know that if you take an action that they don’t agree with, they will come for you.

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Chris @cscottaus.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Seriously considering the merits of rapidly accelerating my ”it’d be nice to retire to ultra.rural Japan” idea into a “let’s just do it next year” version…

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Reposted by Chris

Tom Roberts @tpgroberts.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

There is literally no pressure group small or mad enough that the government won't indulge them if they oppose immigration.

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Feels very plausible. Like, screw that guy, but also v much watching for those far-right gateway influence types to put an arm around him, tell him he’s a victim, and watch the indoctrination set in.

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Forgive the fact I’ve not quite sorted this thought in my mind, but it also feels like it undermines the real threat that some men do pose to women and girls. Like, the moment someone leaps to “all men are the problem”, it provides a blanket of deniability that covers for ones who actually are.

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God this stuff makes me furious. It’s not only trans rights - though ffs the assault on those is awful all on its own - but the wider hectoring regressiveness around gender roles. All begging to create a world that I hope desperately my daughters aren’t subjected to as they grow up.

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