iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I'm at a lecture at Ally Pally on the pre-war years of television.

Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I tried to explain the basic premise of Wes Anderson's 'The French Dispatch' to two friends from Paris. They remain none the wiser.

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Names for an architectural comedy-song double-act? I'll start: Spandrel & Mullion

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Reposted by Hugh Pearman

Duille @duille.com · 28/08/2026

On this day in 1833 The British Slavery Abolition Act was passed freeing more than 800,000 enslaved people across the British Empire. Abolition Teapot. Josiah Wedgewood. c.1770. Image: BMAG. Wedgwood was a lifelong anti-slavery activist.

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

We Brits call the seaway between England and France The English Channel. The French call it La Manche ('The Sleeve'). Nobody's bothered.

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Smart new train from mid Derbyshire to London St Pancras this evening, 140 miles in 100 minutes. Getting home from St Pancras by troubled tube and bus and finally on foot, 4.3 miles in 60 mins.

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

'It costs a lot of money to look this cheap,' said the late Dolly Parton. I'm sure a ringing tribute to her will be delivered by the U.S President.

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Banister Fletcher and his son wrote what is effectively the architects' Bible, A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method, now in its 21st edition. I came across this stone on a gatepost of Wren's St. Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe in the City of London, recording something else they did.

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Third in the Clacton by-election after Toadface and Binface was, interestingly enough, the Rejoin EU party. Only a few hundred votes, but comfortably more than Laurence Fox's Reclaim effort, limping in sixth behind a couple of independents.

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Our Sunday afternoon: a 60s Mod version of The Barber of Seville by Opera Kipling in the theatre above the Gatehouse pub in Highgate. Complete with psychedelic drug scene and a burst of Kinks amid the Rossini. And why not? They're on tour operakipling.co.uk/performances/

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

It's not this, it's that. No (....) No (.....) Just (.....), doing (.....). Sometimes, it's enough to (.....) And then (.....)

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

I would much rather not have heatwaves and droughts but on the plus side our London fig tree, which normally produces a lot of leaves but little else, is fruiting like heck this year and they are SO delicious

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

The iguanodon was once v. popular, now seemingly forgotten. O tempora o mores etc

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

'Oldster, what's the difference between this heatwave and the 1976 one?' I am never asked. WELL: (1) I am not working on a farm in my university vacation (2) No sign of an invasion of biting ladybirds (3) The sun is generating around a third of our electricity at the peaks, as opposed to none.

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Cold beer time in the Place Perret, Le Havre. Named for August Perret, the architect who masterplanned the postwar reconstruction of the city. One of his superb blocks on the left. Yes, I have seen his magnificent church.

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Went to see Napoleon's tomb at Les Invalides in Paris today. Preposterously grand of course, also looks as if it's moulded from chocolate

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

If data centres were REALLY clever they wouldn't need vast amounts of energy and water, would they? They'd run on recirculating ions or something.

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

All these people with important or interesting messages to convey on video now do so while walking along busily. I can't pay attention because I'm waiting for them to trip over something or walk into a lamp post.

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Early evening, bit of a breeze so I went to sit down in the garden with a cold drink. Mistake. The house behind me is a giant radiant storage heater, the breeze like a hairdryer. Retreated inside again. #heatwave

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

The James Dyson techno-strawb season has begun. Not bad flavour-wise but a bit watery

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

A party worker who was definitely not canvassing on polling day called to ask if I had voted yet. Yes, I said. So she asked who I had voted for. I replied that this was meant to be a secret ballot. She took this to mean I hadn't voted for her lot. Correct.

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

'Escorting commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz' is proving quite the tongue-twister this morning, eh newsreaders?

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Joining us for coffee in the garden this morning are:

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

There's a product in a plastic tub for everything

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Our garden now seems to be owned by fox cubs

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

A very sweetly singing Blackcap in the garden. Just about holding its own against the cacophony unleashed from the clutch of house extensions being built up and down the street.

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

The BBC live reporting on the Artemis moon mission is being edited by Jenna Moon. Good morning.

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Author I've never heard of was apparently using a pseudonym shock

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Reposted by Hugh Pearman

Samira Ahmed @samiraahmeduk.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I made a whole BBC TV series (2020) about the remarkable resilience of the people of Iran and their culture over centuries of threat and callous rule. You can watch it right here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

bbc.co.uk

BBC Four - Art of Persia

Broadcaster and journalist Samira Ahmed reveals the remarkable story of Iran.

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

If you need to ask this question, The Times, then you've not been paying attention

Photo of article link in The Times newspaper asking 'Why are tourists turning away from America?'

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

That moon rocket needs to be white. But it's piebald, majority rusty brown. Looks like something from Scrapheap Challenge

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

Simplistic article with usual cliches (plazas have to be 'windswept', and the word 'dystopian' must be deployed, right?) but it's fun to see the writer grappling with the fact that Brutalist architecture can actually be (gasp!) POPULAR. But only in London yeah? www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

bloomberg.com

Britain Says It Hates Brutalism. London Can’t Get Enough of Southbank Centre.

Once dubbed Britain’s ugliest building, the Brutalist arts complex known as the Southbank Centre is now a protected site drawing throngs of Londoners.

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

I shudder to think how many invaluable contacts and yacht parties I must have missed out on in my 36 years of not going to the annual property-market splurgefest of MIPIM in Cannes

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Spencer's a lovely guy who has been a key figure in the Foster office for decades. But is what the Foster office designs 'high tech'? Do come this Thursday evening March 12, physically or virtually, to hear us chat and to ask him questions!

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

So good to see the MacEwen Award flourishing. The tenth year since we at the RIBA Journal set up this annual hat-tip to 'architecture for the common good' and they kindly invited me back to be a judge. And what a great winner in York by Tonkin Liu! www.ribaj.com/buildings/he...

ribaj.com

Heritage Quad and Tech Hub, York Minster

The buildings form a centre of excellence for stoneworkers involved in restoring the cathedral, aiming to inspire generations of craftspeople and accelerate the restoration of heritage buildings over ...

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

Historic re-enactment: I dig out a book from 2008 which has a dvd inside its back cover, a fad of the time. My middle-aged PC even has a retro cd/dvd drive, hardly used. Gingerly I insert the disk. Much whirring and clonking. It works! Photos, movies! But my, weren't the graphics crude back then?

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

So it begins. We're not even slightly Scottish so this is cultural appropriation #burnsnight

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

In Belper, Derbyshire (Eas Midlands) they are 'channels', so presumably related to the gennel/ginnel type identified further north.

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Reposted by Hugh Pearman

C20 Society @c20society.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

NEWS: C20 has helped to safeguard a frieze of fifteen exquisite terracotta mural panels by artists Philippa Threlfall and Kennedy Collings from the 1980s Broad Quay House office building in Bristol, featuring Concorde, the Co-op movement and SS Great Britain. ➡️ c20society.org.uk/news/frieze-...

Terracotta mural of the jet intake from the engine of Concorde, Broad Quay House, Bristol – Philippa Threlfall and Kennedy Collings, 1982
Image credit: Tiles & Architectural Ceramics Society

Terracotta mural of the Co-operative movement corn shef, Broad Quay House, Bristol – Philippa Threlfall and Kennedy Collings, 1982
Image credit: Tiles & Architectural Ceramics Society

Terracotta mural of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s famed SS Great Britain ship, Broad Quay House, Bristol – Philippa Threlfall and Kennedy Collings, 1982
Image credit: Tiles & Architectural Ceramics Society

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

This little hillside chapel suddenly hoved into view as we descended a lane from the Alpine heights of Matlock Bath/Dale in Derbyshire. Architect Guy Dawber, built 1897, clinging to a forested cliff above a trickling spring. In the care of the excellent @friendlesschurches.bsky.social

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

'Jazz and blues infused' renditions of classical music: just stop it, please.

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

It's a splendidly varied collection

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Hugh Pearman @hughpearman.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

So John Carey has died at 91. The king of readable lit crit, Oxford all his life but no whiff of High Table about him, recruited by Harry Evans to the Sunday Times and still writing there in 2023. And he could rock a leather jacket in his 80s.

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