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Alison

@finger-post.blog
1.5K followers 376 following 3.6K posts

I write about the Franklin Expedition and the people who searched for them. I also enjoy petting cats in Victorian cemeteries. Humanitarian. Sea lawyer. She/They. #MDANT. #NUJ. #NoTerfs. finger-post.blog

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Alison @finger-post.blog · 8h
Given how multicultural and multilingual my workplace is, I can't tell you how tickled I am that so many of us turn out to have a shared trauma. (Office kitchen whiteboard question on "what's your favourite childhood film" was answered with The Neverending Story.)
Image is of a whiteboard with a list of films on it in different hands. Five people have reacted to the inclusion of The Neverending Story by remembering Artax and sinking into their own personal Swamp of Sadness.
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 10h
It's literally October tomorrow and I feel very strongly that I, a northern European, should not still be having to spend half an hour every morning patiently tending to and redressing mosquito-related wounds. #Woe
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 29/09/2026
Great moments in Scottish medical history. Renowned anatomist John Goodsir announces that he's going into partnership with Thing from The Addams Family.
Image shows a white man with a lugubrious expression, seated, with hands clasped. To his left is an upturned top hat resting on a book. On top of the upturned hat is a strange-looking glove that looks a bit like Thing from The Addams Family.
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Pete @baldiepete.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Great moments in Scottish philosophy history. David Hume uses his iPad to google for the causes of Shiny Toe Syndrome.
The David Hume Statue on the High Street in Edinburgh. It has shiny toes because so many people have been rubbing them.
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New-Cleckit Dominie @ncdominie.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Great moments in Scottish engineering history: James Watt tries to work out how his phone attaches to his selfie stick.
Statue of James Watt. In his right hand he holds a telescopic stick with a frame at the top; in his left he holds a flat object about the size of a large smartphone. He is scowling at the possibly-not-a-smartphone as if he is tempted to yeet it into the sea. On that basis, it probably _is_ a phone.
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 28/09/2026
The mid-19th Century.
Screenshot from the Graun website. There is a photo of three blandly photogenic men, none of whom appear to be wearing sealskin or Welsh wigs, and who probably haven't lost a single extremity to frostbite. The headline reads "The hunk shortage: where are England's handsomest men hiding?".
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 28/09/2026
Yes, but direct democracy probably only works in a country with good education, strong independent public service broadcasting, an informed populace, and a diverse media landscape unfouled by Rupert Murdoch. Such as, y'know, Switzerland. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Switzerland’s love of referendums keeps the far right at bay | Joseph de Weck
Brexit gave direct democracy a bad name. But the Swiss approach could be what Europe needs now, says Guardian Europe contributor Joseph de Weck
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ian.fenrisgames @fenrisgames.com · 28/09/2026
Monday
ghost pirate just about to cutlass a priest into chunks. still from Carpenter's The Fog.
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Martin L Martens @mlmartens.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
A spectacular view in my neighbourhood this evening. Moonrise this evening above Crome Island, in the Salish Sea, 70km north of Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
A bright yellow moon is above distant mountains with a small island in the middle. The island has four white buildings with red roofs. The reflected light from the moon is shining in a strip below the island. The ocean is a medium blue, the mountains a slightly darker blue, and the sky is a lighter blue.
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 25/09/2026
Still on my Annika bullshit: love a show where the lead gets into her boat on Loch Lomond, sails it up the Clyde to the centre of Glasgow and moors it in Greenock before getting out and going to Police HQ, which is my local arts centre. This is a commute designed by MC Escher and I love it madly.
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Katie Parker @kparkerhistorian.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Calling all London #creatives! Come and grab surplus #maps for FREE the week of 5 October from the Foyle Reading Room @rgs.org . All we ask is that you show us your creations later on! #art #geography #skystorians
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Matthew Willis (Naval Air History) @navalairhistory.com · 25/09/2026
When the photography shop assures you that these expired films are unused
Black and white photo. Due to a double exposure, it looks as though a racing car is about to crash through a spectral graduation ceremony
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John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
OBVIOUSLY the underlying issue of radicalisation amd anti-social behaviour needs addressing. but one way to do that is to stop "fash agitator" being a fucking paying job.
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 24/09/2026
Also, and what these rapacious thieves don't or won't understand, it wasn't "content". It was art. Great art, okay art, mediocre art or terrible art. A real person put their heart and soul and lived experience into it.
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 23/09/2026
I thought I was done with innuendo for the day but then I wasn't expecting these two magnificent shags.
Image shows a small-ish black and white 19thC beacon, known as the Perch Light, in the River Clyde. There are two black seabirds using it as a perch.
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 23/09/2026
Working from a library where a group of older men are talking about their lives and it's so hard to focus on anything else. Leaving school too young, rough work, horrific industrial injuries, unemployment as the town starts to die, then the stress of seeing the unemployment become generational.
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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Old ladies immediately arrested and imprisoned for holding up signs to protest the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Far right thug uses what looks like an illegal knife to slash a boat, endangering a life. And here I am many hours later waiting for any kind of police action.
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 23/09/2026
Start your day with a nice Beaver.
Image shows an absolutely gorgeous De Havilland Canada DHC-2 Mk1 sitting on a pontoon at Fort Simpson in the Northwest Territories. The aurora is a shimmering green around her. Photograph: George Fischer.

Image is from a coffee table book on Canadian photography that I picked up for pennies in a local charity shop.
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Torbjörn Björkman @torbjornbjorkman.eurosky.social · 22/09/2026
Shouting you want people in distress to drown at sea when you're from a country of proud seafarers is deeply fucked.
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Lee Hurley @hleehurley.com · 22/09/2026
I don't know what to tell you. This is what happens when the government supports terrorists rather than punishing them.
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 22/09/2026
I'm a very spider-positive person in general but the one currently running around this room would have invalidated my late mother's single occupancy council tax discount and www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUJ_...
youtube.com
Sparks - This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us (Official Video)
YouTube video by S P A R K S
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Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Turned down last week: 2 festivals with no budget for speakers 1 writing course with no budget for teachers 1 film project with no budget to option the book - plus they wanted me to write the screenplay. For free. Don't do it, kids. Don't work for free. Because to them, what's free is worthless.
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J.D. Connor @jdconnor.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
This video has everything: Wet, wet goths Costumes from Mugatu's Derelicte line Hair dye so black it's blue Ominous, abandoned dental equipment Steel affectation-pole www.youtube.com/watch?v=aArk...
youtube.com
Sisters of Mercy - This Corrosion (Official Music Video) [HD]
YouTube video by RHINO
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Dreadnought Holiday @dreadships.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
You can see from the photo that boat's tipped too far right
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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 19/09/2026
The RNLI is the closest you will ever get to actual Batman. When rescue is visibly, viscerally, obviously impossible; when the water is a smothering, thundering black wall and the wind is screaming straight from Hell; when you are absolutely going to die: someone’s hand pulls you out and you don’t.
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 19/09/2026
The weekend.
Image shows a boarded up glass door or window in Cambridge. There is a cringey little sign on it that reads: 

"Sorry I'm not looking my best. 
Someone broke me, sadly :-(
I'll be fixed up real soon!!"
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 18/09/2026
I've been having a truly terrible day and I didn't want to make it even worse by watching back to back #TOTP from 2000.
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 18/09/2026
💀
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Chris Bertram @crookedfootball.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
"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"
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Neil Young @elderpegasus.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
This is an untenable situation to be in as an ISLAND FECKING NATION, and that the government isn't going ballistic on the "protesters"* is inexcusable. This should be treated no differently from a criminal group shutting down a fire station or ambulance hub. *They're not protesters, they're a mob.
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 17/09/2026
So today's big lesson is that if you are suddenly responsible for a huge freezer full of dinosaur steaks and the corpse of Titus Oates this is NOT a problem for "later", because "later" could be after a power failure that happened while you were away for a couple of weeks.
static.klipy.com
Cute Cat Plays Peek-a-Boo
ALT: Cute Cat Plays Peek-a-Boo
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jenny tightpants @jtp.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
"the author of that harry potter story leads an insane cult that's captured much of the media in this country" is a different person if you're in the UK or the US
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 16/09/2026
Starting the day outraged at the temerity of people brazenly phoning me on my phone and expecting me to answer them with my actual voice instead of texting or emailing me like a normal person.
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Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan @warringtonruncorn.com · 16/09/2026
At this rate, Ed Sheeran’s going to have to go into hiding for a few years and then make his return via the cruise ship entertainment sector supporting Jane MacDonald.
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 14/09/2026
This thread is quite the journey.
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 14/09/2026
One major downside of audiobooks is the lack of a physical object to hurl across the room in disgust if the author writes something that is shockingly, maliciously incorrect.
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Tanita Tikaram @tanitatikaram.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
What I love about Western democracy is you can bung a political party £ 36 million earned from criminal activity & most media will continue to point at asylum seekers & migrant care workers with families as the barbarians at the gate we need to defend ourselves from 🙄.
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Fiona McLees @mclees-fiona.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
This is a lovely sketchbook I was assessing yesterday - by Welsh artist Calvert “Richard the Rev” Jones, largely of maritime scenes. He lived in Swansea so many are of the sea there in 1828-1831, elegantly rendered. But there’s a couple of nice bonuses in the book…
A watercolour and ink drawing of boats at sea, full sails billowing, executed in blacks and greys and pale brown and dusky pinkAnother boat scene, this time monochrome in dark blue-grey
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 12/09/2026
[0] days without having the tits irritated off me by a bunch of old dead sailors banging on and on about Wellington Channel.
Image is a terribly weak joke: Boromir out of LotR is saying "One does not simply go up Wellington Channel without a steamer".
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Kate Watson @loreandordure.com · 12/09/2026
This is absolutely an asymmetric warfare operation designed to get stupid, easily influenced old gammons to cause stochastic damage to national infrastructure. Bet you.
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 11/09/2026
Harry McNish, Shackleton's carpenter and a legendary Sea Lawyer, was born in Port Glasgow #OTD in 1874. His old family home is long gone, but he's remembered with pride in the wonderful library. #JusticeForMrsChippy
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 10/09/2026
Genius here is on the move without a charger for her watch. So I guess I call it quits today at 20 stand hours and 163 active minutes*, and maybe wean myself off this stuff? *And they say research is sedentary
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Dreadnought Holiday @dreadships.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
A reminder that Lewis Page's analysis of defence matters sharply divides other experts. Mostly it divides them between those who think he's a fucking idiot and those who quite agree but prefer not to swear.
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Anna H @athenepallas.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Statement from the RNLI Chief Executive, Peter Sparkes, beautifully written, 'Courage is the RNLI’s currency; dependable, loyal, service to others and our nations is our hallmark': rnli.org/news-and-med...
rnli.org
Statement from RNLI Chief Executive Peter Sparkes
Watch a video message from the RNLI's Chief Executive Peter Sparkes on our work in the Channel and our commitment to save lives
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Leonie V. Hicks @lvhicks.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Just in case you've lost the link to donate to the RNLI rnli.org. The sea does not discriminate, neither does the RNLI and nor should we.
rnli.org
RNLI - Royal National Lifeboat Institution - Saving Lives at Sea
The RNLI is the charity that saves lives at sea. We do this through lifeboat search and rescue, lifeguards, water safety education and international interventions.
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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I believe the RNLI are responding to legitimate concerns that people might drown.
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 08/09/2026
Absolutely magical ❤️🐳
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Nick Stone @typejunky.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
This:
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Tom King @tallgeekychap.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
This is not robust. Fascist mobs in balaclavas are not ever related to peaceful protest. The whole, explicit intention is to threaten from a position of anonymous, physical strength. What are the actual consequences of crossing this line? Until the government has shown us, there are none.
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Alison @finger-post.blog · 07/09/2026
Not content with proposing an Ambulance Support System, my sector has now created something that - in acronym - sounds exactly like "rebel scum". #CommsLife
static.klipy.com
You Rebel Scum
ALT: You Rebel Scum
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