iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

This is possibly the greatest-ever answer in a newspaper questionnaire. In this case, The Guardian's "honest playlist". Oddly enough, I heard 6Music playing back to back Tricky the other day and immediately feared the worst.

Extract from The Guardian honest playlist feature, interviewing the musician Tricky.

Question - The song I’d like played at my funeral
Answer - I’m never going to die, so there’s no need to think about that.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the Trieste-Belgrade railway revival actually happened? The governments of Italy and Serbia affirmed their commitment last week. And other EU and regional bodies are on board. Hopefully the rest of us will be as well, come 2029. Here's what I told Monocle Radio.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

That's "Kushner's island" over there. Properly known as Sazan. I'm on the Albania coast near Vlorë, talking to people about the pros and cons of tourist developments - and the impact on wildlife. Watch this space.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Kosovo's PM Albin Kurti looking a little bit lonely in the National Assembly. Fewer than 10 hours remain to select a president. Otherwise, elections. Again. For the 3rd time since last February.

Kosovo's PM Albin Kurti all alone in the National Assembly

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

This billboard in Ljubljana threatens an €80 fine for cyclists who don't look out for pedestrians. Which is fair enough. But as a pedestrian (and cyclist), the biggest threat comes from motorists. Where's the billboard warning them to be on their best behaviour?

Billboard warning careless cyclists in Ljubljana that they face an €80 fine.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

It's first time I have received a message from Slovenia's emergency system. It seems I'd better take in the garden furniture.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

On the other hand, this is from Slovenia's main opposition party, the SDS. The slogan says "Vote SDS, so your grandson will still sing Slovenian songs".

Campaign poster for Slovenia's SDS party, reading "Vote SDS, so your grandson will still sing Slovenian songs".

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Broke my usual "no posed photos with interviewees" rule when I spoke to Croatia's defence minister, Ivan Anušić. Well, the official photographer was there, and it seemed rude to refuse. The topic was the resumption of conscription after almost two decades. The first recruits joined up today.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

My local park has a ski jump. Wondering whether it is too late for me to learn...

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

My Bluesky followers have finally ticked over to the 5.9k mark. This took many months, in comparison to the first 5.8k, who came very quickly. Of course I would like to have more followers and engagement. Any thoughts on why the slowdown, and what I could do about it? And is it me, or Bluesky?

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

At Novi Sad railway station, ahead of the commemoration for the 16 people who died in last year's canopy collapse in Serbia's second city. With camera crew Bata.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

Boing, boom tschak! Looks like the new, expanded lineup is heading on tour. @notpodium.bsky.social should approve.

Med9 leaders standing at lecterns, a la Kraftwerk

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

Screen grab, with the campionissimo on the left and me in the middle. I appear to be smiling. Which, believe me, was some achievement given the gradients.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

Wish me luck - I'm about to take on Tadej Pogačar up one of Slovenia's toughest climbs. It will be an unequal contest.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

The mountain was living in my head. So I just had to climb it. The leg test ahead of Sunday's Pogi Challenge proved positive. The world's greatest male cyclist will be chasing me and hundreds of other hopefuls up Slovenia's toughest climb, Krvavec. Stand by for stories, if I survive.

Guy posing with bicycle on top of mount Krvavec, Slovenia.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

Three years ago today, I saw De La Soul in Liverpool, ticking off a very large entry on my gig bucket list. Look at that set-up - a nine-piece band. Other hip hop acts take note - you can do better than a backing track and an empty stage (Tyler and Travis, I'm looking at you). Vale Dave/Trugoy.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

It's the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica Massacre. In neighbouring Bratunac, which is majority-Serb, photos of Serbs who died between 1992-95 have been placed at the side of the road. A Serb politician asked me why Bosniaks only talk about Bosniak victims, never Serbs. Genocide denial spreading.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

Just a regular morning at Paris Gare de l'Est.

Teenage girls performing acrobatics on a railway station concourse.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

Final Monocle Daily of the week! Tom and Elliot have got that Friday feeling...

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

Another Monocle Daily coming up! Stand by...

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Brace yourselves! About to go live on the Monocle Daily, with Elliot at the controls and Tom in the producer's chair.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Odd that there is a qualifier in front of "popular music". For an artist who had 3 US number one pop hits, plenty of top 10s, was a proper multimedia phenomenon and resolutely refused to have his music put in any one "bag". Sly and the Family Stone's influence was much broader than implied here.

Copy of Guardian obituary of Sly Stone, highlighting the segment which says he "changed the direction of African-American pop music".

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

Brian Wilson (of The Beach Boys) used to have a health food shop called The Radiant Radish. You could nick that.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Would help, wouldn't it? Between universities, BBC World Service and the cultural sector, that's a *massive* amount of income and influence for the UK. But they always seem to get overlooked amid culture war nonsense about fishing. Perhaps they're just too big - like Yoshitomo Nara's puppy.

Picture of Yoshitomo Nara's gigantic "lonesome puppy"

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

To mark VE Day, here's my Dad. Talking to a younger relative back in 2015 on his 90th birthday in Trieste, where he served during WW2. During minesweeping operations in the Adriatic, his boat, the HMS Aries, came a cropper. There's a reason they got double tots of rum on minesweepers.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

Yeah, I always call it "kecks" (as in the Liverpudlian for trousers), but recall that the official pronunciation is potentially problematic.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Another ice cream van. Filmed where I'm from.

Bill Nighy and an ice cream van in Sometimes, Always, Never. Directed by Carl Hunter. The latter's bandmate in The Farm, Peter Hooton, plays the ice cream man. Filmed on Crosby beach, Merseyside.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

And then there's this, which I got on CD when it first came out. I was living in Japan, where it was released as "Young Ideas". Turns out it sounds fabulous through a half-decent hifi, rather than the boom box I had at the time. Who'da thunk it, eh? Bologna souvenirs & enduring listening pleasure. 👇

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

So much good stuff, but you have to choose. I flicked through the racks of new vinyl, but ended up in the back room with the used LPs and bargains. And let serendipity take its course. I'd lost track of Richard Hawley for a while. But for €19, I'm back in. This is a total cracker. 👇

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Found myself staying round the corner from this enticing establishment in Bologna the other week. Inside, it's everything you'd want from a record shop. New releases, plenty of catogue, used section and some bargain bins. And here's why physical media beats streaming (for me, anyway)... A short🧵 👇

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

And did I make the coffee? Eh, figure the water's hot enough.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Dropped ground coffee on the kitchen floor. Scraped most of it up. All went a bit Keith Haring.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Although the headline I'm looking at is subtly different (and the piece does not appear to have my byline).

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

About to go live on Monocle Radio - presenting The Daily. Elliot at the controls, Tom in charge.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

A Rickenbacker, you say? Coming right up (330, not 325). Tokai's Rick copy was called (wait for it) a Rockinbetter. I saw one once at one of Phnom Penh's amazing Japanese guitar salvage shops. Greco also did a 325 clone.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

On the right, my 1976 USA Fender Stratocaster. On the left, my 1981 Tokai Silver Star, a Japanese copy. The quality is so high that players like Nile Rodgers and Stevie Ray Vaughan used them. Eventually Fender contracted Tokai to make guitars for them. No tarrifs on funk'n'roll.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

I found a story from the local paper in Chester about this, appealing for info about Astrid. Contacting the local primary schools would be an idea. There can't have been too many Astrids growing up in the area...

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

Limited appetite for meat-munching manosphere mumbo jumbo in Ljubljana, it would seem.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

Just what the doctor ordered after a very intense week. The peerless @lalahhathaway.bsky.social dispensing musical balm at Ljubljana's Kino Šiška. Come again, Lalah. Just tell 'em to get rid of the seats next time; some of us want to groove...

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

This picture sums up the grief being felt in Kocani, North Maceonia. Photo by Slobodan Djuric in Sloboden Pecat. www.slobodenpecat.mk/kochani-bara...

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Protest at Kočani, North Macedonia, following the deaths of 59 people in a fire at a deathtrap nightclub in the town. After this gathering, they marched around the town, chanting "justice" and "killers".

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

Journalists in front of the road leading to the Pulse nightclub in Kočani, North Macedonia. 59 confirmed deaths following a fire during a gig in the early hours of the morning. Police have sealed off the scene. Reporting there for BBC News.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

The view from Nikola Pašić Square in Belgrade. Huge crowd stretching past the National Assembly.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

An explainer that we did live on BBC News Channel earlier today. We being camera crew Bata and producer Jovana. That location in front of the National Assembly is filling up rapidly ahead of the main part of the rally.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

This does not do justice to the size of the crowd. This is Trg Republike, one of the 4 main gathering points for the protest. It's totally overflowing.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

Latest arrivals: army veterans' association. They say they'll perform citizens' arrests on anyone who attacks the student protesters.

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Guy De Launey @guydelauney.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

Bikers of a different kind arriving on Belgrade for today's protest.

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