iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 01/10/2026

The whole thing is jaw-dropping, but the game of free association he plays with himself here is a particular highlight.

Because it's much more accurate. It's going to be a group of very smart people that understand it, who will be advising me. But I will tell you right now, I'm not going to be easy because I'm not going to kill a thing based on phony threats. They said that our country was going to burn down because of global warming. Then they changed the name to climate change because global warming wasn't going. They said that we are going to have some of the most difficult times ever. Global warming turned out to be a hoax. Russia, Russia, Russia was a hoax. Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 28/09/2026

Given the space available they really ought to be more ambitious.

Satellite photo of the fields surrounding Kingham station, of which there are a great many.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 24/09/2026

Yes, quite. It’s not clear how the ban will help. I went on the first day, took many photos and kept up with the people in front of me. The people behind me - who were not taking any photos - were…more relaxed. It felt like they needed a very slow travolator.

Some people sitting round a table feasting.

Odo giving Bill the benefit of his wisdom.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 24/09/2026

Saw this on a septic tank emptier last month.

A vacuum tanker (apparently) belonging to a septic tank-emptying firm with the number plate GOO4 POO.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 09/09/2026

Sometimes even spelling is a struggle.

向前一小步
文明一大步
A small step farward, one step civilizatian (sic)

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 09/09/2026

It continues to amuse me that English translation always seems to be given to someone new, with the consequence that every translation - even of the same thing - is novel. A particular highlight is to be found in many men’s loos, an obvious nod to Neil Armstrong but the English never quite makes it.

向前一小步
文明一大步
Step forward, be a civil man

向前一小步
文明一大步
A small step forward, a giant leap toward civilisation

向前一小步
文明一大步
We aim to please, you aim too please

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 08/09/2026

“Legions in the roots”, eh. I appreciate words are hard, but I do expect better from the BBC.

A screenshot from the BBC, with a caption under a photo claiming that heatwaves created “legions” in the roots of bell pepper plants.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 04/09/2026

I am yet to do Suzhou. Will get there eventually. Just did a rather epic three week tour in June: started in Chengdu, went up through Gansu to Dunhuang (to see the caves we, er, robbed) then drove round a decent part of Qinghai. Chinese motorways are deserted because the tolls are so expensive.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 03/09/2026

Frankly shocking what British Rail did to it. I remember going in the restaurant, where they had butchered the beautiful original ceiling to suspend a false ceiling beneath. Can’t see that I have any photos of that, but, well, at least one here of some scraped-away paint.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 03/09/2026

It took them a lot longer to actually start doing it up! I went on a tour of it (shortly before the renovations did begin) in 2005.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 03/09/2026

(from “St Pancras” by Kenneth Powell, the coffee table book of the restored building)

Buying a Piece of History: The principal interiors of the reopened hotel are, inevitably, the most sensational feature of the restored Chambers and, for most people, the only parts of the building they will ever see. Hotel guests will have the special pleasure of living for a time in this extraordinary place.
But another - unique - experience of the building is enjoyed by the residents of the apartments, which were a vital element of the restoration project. The impracticality of restoring the Chambers purely as a hotel had been established in the 198os and had been accepted as an ingredient of the MLC project, which provided for apartments occupying most of the second floor and all of the third, fourth and fifth floors, with some of the upper-level duplexes extending into the sixth-floor root space. A basic requirement of the planning and listed building consents was minimal change to the external envelope of the building, and passers-by may not be aware that the building is, in effect, a vertical village. The balcony railings on the front of the Chambers could not be raised due to current health and safety regulations and so residents cannot use the balconies. Internally, however, there were, in line with the rules laid down in the conservation plan and adopted by English Heritage, relatively few constraints on the treatment of the apartments, beyond retention of the basic volume of the spaces they occupied. Bold interventions were possible and obviously the choice of decoration and furnishings would be left to the buyers. The programme for the project provided for the apartments to be completed in advance of the hotel and all were sold, largely off-plan, during 2006 - there was no brochure, no marketing campaign.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 15/08/2026

The article sympathetically quotes a whinger from the hamlet of Horton, where it is planned to build 1,250 houses. Nowhere is it mentioned that Horton is a stone’s throw from Cheddington station on the WCML. This is exactly where we should be building new homes! Indeed, why only 1,250? 2/2

Just down the road from Slapton is a community that is even smaller and is facing an increase in houses that, in percentage terms, dwarfs that of the larger village.
Helen Collins says: "I live in the hamlet, Horton - there's about 30 houses there and they want to park 1,250, which is ridiculous.
"We're sacrificing lots of beautiful wildlife for the sake of more houses."

A segment of an OS map showing Cheddington station and the surrounding area.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 08/08/2026

So weird. And, yes, wonderful.

A gold-coloured Sanxingdui bust with what looks like a skullcap and very big ears.

A gold-coloured Sanxingdui bust with a buzz cut.

A grey-green Sanxingdui bust wearing what looks like a fez.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 03/12/2025

It’s very sad but I was so pleased when I saw my first Tibetan one I took a photo.

A Mercedes with a Chinese number plate indicating the car was registered in Lhasa, Tibet.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 22/11/2025

It is at once familiar and yet very foreign. I first visited in 2009 and found the British relics fascinating. There were still coins with the Queen’s head on circulating. But the scaffolding is all made of bamboo and you turn a corner and find a beautiful Chinese temple next to a skyscraper.

A British-style pedestrian crossing button at the departures drop off area of Hong Kong International Airport.

British-style road signs on a hill in Hong Kong.
Low Gear Now 低波行車
End 終止

An enormous amount of bamboo scaffolding around a building in Hong Kong.

Man Mo Temple in Hong Kong. The name board above the entrance gate reads 列聖宮.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 13/11/2025

Was with it up until this point. This seems…optimistic.

Common sense has its place, and every now and then the elaborate elite consensus is wrong and the simple knee-jerk answer is right.
Usually not, though. The question is: is there a way to encourage voters to calm down, slow down and think twice, in an information environment that pushes us all to hurry op and feel? Nothing easy or certain, to be sure. But any solution has to start with getting voters to take a genuine, curious interest in policy.
Everyone has the capacity to stop and think, if they want to.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 03/11/2025

You can see the shadow of the camera unit mounted on top of the car at various points. But the council clearly have added a new “Unsuitable for motor vehicles” sign *and* post at some point after 2011 at the Wendover end.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 29/10/2025

Presumably they were trying to drive down this.

A sign in Harlech warning of a particularly steep hill.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 19/10/2025

As an alternative to American negging, may I suggest Chinese social media posts glorying in our fine food. “M&S Rice Pudding: overseas students must try this masterful product.”

Screenshot from Xiaohongshu.
British Tasty Foods No. 17 of 100. M&S Rice Pudding.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 18/10/2025

It’s very smart, isn’t it. I went on the day it opened; I assume the area around the eastern exit has changed quite a bit now.

Looking westwards from the overbridge at Brent Cross West station. The small Wing Yip pagoda is on the right.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 06/10/2025

Was wondering what the fuck was wrong with Nottingham for a moment.

“Nottingham attacks victim awarded George Medal for protecting friend from killer”

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 28/09/2025

Social media is ruining tourism for the rest of us, part 94. China now takes this to another level: in Yunnan, you can’t move for the number of people in costume posing for semi-pro photographers.

A common scene in Lijiang: a woman posing on a bridge for a photo; behind, another photographer is taking a photo of someone else.

No feeer than for photographers apparently taking photos of the same people.

A woman receives artistic direction from her photographer.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 23/09/2025

People even seem to go up it when there can’t be much to see at the top. I’m also wondering how they take photos. If I were to go up - which I wouldn’t - I would not be letting go to take a photo.

A screenshot from Xiaohongshu of one of many accounts with photos from the Zhangjiajie sky staircase.

Various photos of the Zhangjiajie sky staircase on Xiaohongshu.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 17/09/2025

As if the cultural imperialism warning signs weren’t flashing brightly enough, this piece is - of course - illustrated with a photo of an American toilet sign.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 19/08/2025

Denning’s Due Process of Law in simplified Chinese translation an unlikely find in the Oriental Bookshop in Kunming.

Cover of a book with the title「法律的正当程序」(The Due Process of Law) by Lord Denning.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 03/08/2025

Probably shouldn’t have waited almost 30 years to see Oasis for the first time.

Liam in his bucket hat, arms behind his back.

Wide, blue, smoky view of the standing crowd and the stage.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 17/07/2025

At work I mostly use a Turkish F-layout Apple USB keyboard, an excellent aid to touch typing. Don’t look down, etc.

An Apple USB keyboard (the aluminium-with-white-keys kind) with a Turkish F-layout. Behind it is an IBM Model M from 1994.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 17/07/2025

Current keyboard at home, connected via an adapter to an M1 MacBook Pro.

Part of an Apple Extended Keyboard II, a proper keyboard, now rather yellow with age.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 12/07/2025

Mostly fair. But in his defence…

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 07/07/2025

When I got back to Kings Cross that evening I went out and took some photos. It was so strange to see it so empty. It is good to see it now, busy, lively, recovered. 7/7

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 07/07/2025

Twenty years on. I was lucky that day, but I often reflect how easily it could have been me on that Piccadilly Line train. The mind is funny, especially so two decades after the fact, but maybe I dawdled on the way to the station. 1/

A Travelcard, purchased at Kings Cross just as the bomb was going off on the Piccadilly Line train.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 04/07/2025

Pleasing to see at least one of the newer Imperial units being adopted in the US customary system.

The environmental impact of that crash has been an oil spill stretching 10 square kilometers, according to Pakistan’s National Hydrographic Office, the equivalent of about 1,400 soccer fields.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 27/06/2025

Yes, it’s just hagiography all the way down, isn’t it.

The bigger puzzle, however, is why a prime minister so clearly aware of how shallow the water in politics can be has allowed his government to spend so much of the past year face down in it.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 27/06/2025

I fucking told you so, you fools.

One plausible theory is that the debate surrounding the medical treatment of trans children, and the widespread opposition to the participation of trans girls in girls’ sports, has complicated the public’s attitudes towards gay rights. Some progressives yoked a popular cause to which many Americans have only recently converted (gay rights) to an unpopular one. And some conservatives have exploited that to attack the argument for same-sex marriage.

Fully 70% of Americans believe that in sports people should compete against rivals who share their biological sex, even if that differs from their gender identification. It is hard to find that level of support for anything in a 50:50 nation. It should have no implications for people’s feelings about marriage equality but it seems to. In a YouGov/The Economist survey two-thirds of respondents who say they believe trans rights have gone too far also oppose gay marriage.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 09/06/2025

This is where Japanese and Chinese are great, of course: the word is also “rock oil”, but it is understandable by anyone with basic literacy (for a Sinitic definition of basic), not just those who studied Latin or Greek.

A few frames from 阿斯特克斯奧德賽之旅, where they find the rock oil they have been searching for.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 30/05/2025

I reckon this is broadly accurate for me, using stayed to mean a week or more and visited a day or two.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 27/05/2025

My practical experience over there is a bit rusty now, but traditionally it’s one of the reasons name cards are quite important, as they will give the pronunciation. The iPhone contacts app has a field for the reading of the name (and company name), presumably based on something in the VCard spec.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 18/05/2025

Wondering whether the presence of footage of the Baltimore bridge incident in March last year in the BBC News trending videos is a result of stupidity or manipulation.

The most watched videos on the BBC News site. The top video is of the Mexican training ship hitting the Brooklyn Bridge; two others in the top 5 are from a different ship hitting a bridge in Baltimore in March 2024.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 10/05/2025

Yucatán Jay, Parque Nacional Tulum. 3 May 2025. #photography #birding #mexico

A Yucatán jay facing away from the camera, looking to its left with its beak open amidst the foliage.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 05/05/2025

How is Pelosi still going? And - not to defend the orange buffoon - how is reopening a prison an attack on the rule of law? www.bbc.com/news/article...

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat whose district includes Alcatraz, said the proposal was "not a serious one," while the Democratic state senator for San Francisco, Scott Wiener, called the idea "deeply unhinged" in post on Instagram and "an attack on the rule of law."

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 03/05/2025

🎼 Master of puppets, I'm pulling your strings Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams Blinded by me, you can't see a thing Just call my name 'cause I'll hear you scream Master, master Just call my name 'cause I'll hear you scream Master, master 🎶

Julie Andrews in full song in a scene from the Sound of Music.

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Gareth Potter @garethpotter.com · 03/05/2025

Isn’t it wonderful when it feels like the glory days of the old place over here?

A screenshot of an incredibly tedious person incorrecting Tom Freeman, who posted a screenshot (with alt-text) of a headline regarding the May bank holiday weekend weather.

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