iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by James Barr

Nice chart. Also odd to think that there's been a wave of very popular breeds in the UK from the low countries (texel, beltex, Dutch spotted sheep) given how few there seem to be there.

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Reposted by James Barr

Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600.bsky.social · 2h

How sheepish is Europe? This map shows the distribution of sheep across Europe. Source: buff.ly/dSfHDOe

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 3h

Their profit model is based on a shortage of supply.

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 4h

I think it’s the fact it is Israeli that appealed. But she is unable to talk about it in any detail.

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 11h

Why would you voluntarily do this?

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 15h

I think the FT’s lunch interview last weekend missed a trick in not examining this.

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I thought she was an engineer

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Reposted by James Barr

Samira Shackle @samirashackle.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Every year UK bomb disposal teams respond to an average of 2500 call outs. 2000 of those are related to unexploded munitions from WW2. My latest piece tells the story of two sizeable bombs found in a single day in Devon earlier this year www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

theguardian.com

‘It could knock a whole street down’: the art of defusing a second world war bomb

The long read: On 14 January this year, army and navy squads faced an unprecedented challenge: one bomb on a Plymouth building site, another floating on a dredger in Exmouth. That afternoon, the clock...

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Reposted by James Barr

Peter Walker @peterwalker99.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Davidson says polling done for Prosper said there are about 7m centre right UK voters who currently feel politically homeless - which, as she points out, is more votes than the Conservatives won in total in 2024.

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

In which case (and it feels plausible) we'll see significantly lower turnout than in 2016.

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

In the sense that France has been overspending for decades? Yes.

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

This is a very good article. I can't see French politics improving the situation: it feels like another euro crisis is on its way.

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

From memory the Tories relied on his services as an auctioneer as well. He had a rat-like grasp of human instinct.

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

...My recollection has always been that I found it deeply unsettling at the time given his reputation, but looking today at the chronology I just wonder if there's some hindsight there, given the scandal that finally sent him to prison only broke a month later...

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Remember seeing Jeffrey Archer speak to a packed house at the Tory Conference in 1999. I had never seen - I don't think I have seen since - anyone command an audience like that...

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Reposted by James Barr

James Cameron @jjjcameron.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Absolute scenes. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

Badenoch claims 'we haven't called it Iron Dome' - despite Tories using phrase in their press release

Q: You say your Iron Dome will protect the whole of the UK, and bases abroad. But Sir Richard Barrons, the former general, has said that a proper air defence like this would cost up to £100bn.

Badenoch says Barrons is referring to an Israel-style Iron Dome.

She says she is referring to something different. She says the UK should be able to defend itself from, for example, someone on a boat firing a drone at the system.

Q: But it is nothing like Israel’s Iron Dome. It is a gimmick, isn’t it?

Badenoch replied:

It’s not going to be exactly like the Irone Dome. We haven’t called it an Iron Dome.

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I reckon it's designed to trigger French people.

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Principled to the last, I only clicked on the croissant and failed to make it through to the website.

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Reposted by James Barr

James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The hill I am ready to die on is that a donut is not for breakfast.

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The hill I am ready to die on is that a donut is not for breakfast.

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Fascinating insight into the prediction markets

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Not the internal search engine, that goes through your files: that's what I mean (rather than internet search).

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

With this particular example, the link it makes between AQ and Baghdad is worthy of Dick Cheney in early 2001.

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Microsoft search used to be very good. Now it's like that person who doesn't wait for the end of your sentence before cutting in with the wrong answer.

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Just searched for "Qaeda" on my computer. It throws up, top, a Sunday Times article about Saddam Hussein and anthrax from 1995, which makes no mention of AQ, and, a little further down, my draft chapter on Baghdad in the C16th and C17th, which, oddly enough, doesn't mention it either.

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Those woodcut illustrations!!

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Reposted by James Barr

David Anderson @bricksilk.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Letter printed in The Times today

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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Call me cynical but it is quite clever to open your political credo by quoting a man whose recent death means that he cannot be asked what he thinks of the Conservative Party.

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