iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by John Self

LF Lightning-Barugh @cheeseford.bsky.social · 8h

Back when he had the best show on radio, @lordshortcake.bsky.social used to have a regular phone-in topic of 'irrational turn-ons'. Popping the seal on a jar of coffee, etc. Today, I'd be ringing in about J-Cloths on a roll. J-Cloths are great. Come on, who doesn't love a J-Cloth? On a roll? Yes.

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trouteyes @trouteyes.bsky.social · 9h

Hi, I'm @trouteyes You may rember me from such tweets such as I'm a thin bald wizard, cndnsd mlk, and I'm Simon & Garth's Uncle.

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Theo Priestley @theopriestley.net · 10h

Every AI CEO sounds like this.

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Luke O'Neil @lukeoneil47.bsky.social · 16h

The byline left up there like a head on a spike outside a castle

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Min Jin Lee's new novel can do succinct scene-setting, and closes in on the detail without losing the bigger picture... but it might be too much of a good thing: secondary characters take over at the expense of the central family. Me on American Hagwon:

thetimes.com

Should you read a ginormous new family saga from the Pachinko writer?

American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee follows an ambitious Korean-American family from Seoul to Sydney to California and back again. It’s accomplished but overstuffed

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Lance Parkin @lanceparkin.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

New word: CLICKWALL. (n) The opposite of clickbait. A headline so unappealing, promising so little reward even by the standards of these things, that it is physically impossible to tap the link to the article.

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

thetimes.com

Should you read a ginormous new family saga from the Pachinko writer?

American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee follows an ambitious Korean-American family from Seoul to Sydney to California and back again. It’s accomplished but overstuffed

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Saw a product in Tesco today that didn’t have added protein?! Boy, I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder.

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Grace @gracekind.net · 27/09/2026

Slowly picking off the last straggling bits of human interaction

This phone call feature from @Muse is just
ridiculous. Muse: Hi, I'm Hailey, calling on Peter Yang's behalf. I'm transcribing our call for notes. I'd like to
place a cake order for pickup today.
Recipient: Hello?
Muse: Yes, hi, still
Recipient: Hi.
Muse: here. I'd like to place a cake order for pickup today.
Recipient: Yeah. What what kind of cake?
Muse: An eight-inch chestnut cake, please.

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John Wiswell @wiswell.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Sorry, I saw your message, but I also saw nineteen other phone alerts that same minute. My brain evolved to evade predators. I will not improve.

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Sir Michael @sirmichael.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

If I had been asked to edit "She Loves You" by The Beatles

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

“No one has the faintest idea as to why we exist…” From The Pornogapher by John McGahern:

I can see how you've fallen between two schools. You should have written it as plain biography, with copious, boring footnotes. That way no one would doubt you. No one has the faintest idea as to why we exist but everybody is mad for every sort of info about other existences. That way they can enjoy their own - safely. You can't beat life for that sort of thing.

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

U ok hun? You haven’t touched your Jaffaween Cake Bars

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Richard Ford will publish a (short: 128pp) memoir, How I Got On, in April next year, with Open Borders Press.

NON-FICTION

RICHARD FORD
How I Got On
A Memoir

With irony and a light touch, Ford explores what it means to be a writer and what the novel can - and must - continue to be today: a form of truth and an exploration of life, in which the personal and the political are inextricably intertwined.

This book is far more than a mere essay; it is a story of a life, of the writing process, and of a love for words. Through memories, literary influences, and personal encounters, Richard Ford recounts his journey into literature and the texts and ideas that inspired him - from his debut, A Piece of My Heart, to The Sportswriter, which introduced Frank Bascombe, the protagonist of the five books that have been hailed as having "changed American literature." Moving beyond a youthful wariness of politics, Ford comes to recognise that every narrative, however private, inevitably possesses a political dimension, as it examines the fraught relationship between the individual and the community.

How I Got On represents a concise and compelling statement on the making of a novelist in the contemporary American tradition.

RICHARD FORD is author of the novels
The Sportswriter; Independence Day, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award;
The Lay of the Land; and the New York Times bestseller Canada, winner of the Prix Femina in France. His short story collections include the bestseller Let Me Be Frank with You, Sorry for Your Trouble, Rock Springs, and A Multitude of Sins, which contain many widely anthologised stories.
He is also winner of the Princess of Asturias Prize for Literature.

RICHARD FORD
HOW I GOT ON
A Memoir

Pb with flaps, B-format • 128pp • £11.99 - 978-1-0666351-7-7 - 1.iv.2027

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Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 25/09/2026

Horror movie idea: An endless line of Trump sources calling and screaming at you "MARK HALPERIN"

My Trump sources say the president's worst nightmare imaginable has arrived... panicked texts and emails from GOP insiders are blowing up my phone. They're all saying the same thing: MARK HALPERIN

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Andrew R @excelpope.net · 24/09/2026

I'm going to bump this, because I spent two hours this morning, using specialist tools*, to be able to write it. *Excel and a 40-year-old maths O-level** **Grade C

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Thomas Jerome @thomasjerome.com · 24/09/2026

Naming the "Ableism" list so that a screen reader pronounces it "Four bee ell three one ess em", 10/10 bit

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Anne Billson @annebillson.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Up until recently I wasn't impressed by Piet Mondrian's early pictures, but now I think they're spectacular, as well as a key staging post on the way to his more famous abstracts. I need to go back to Den Haag's Gemeentemuseum.

Evening: Red Tree (1908) a red tree against a blue background. Touches of Impressionism and Pointillism, but entirely its own thing, in which the effects of light and colour are favoured over realism.

View from the Dunes with Beach and Piers (1909): a sort of flat effect in pastel shades of blue, beige and green, very light and airy. It feels like a beach - and it is! You can almost feel the sea breeze.

Woods near Oele (1908): spindly, dark purple trees lit from behind by low but bright sunlight; swirls of colour and shadow. Kind of midway between Impressionism and Expressionism, but again, very much its own thing.

Study for Blue Apple Tree series (1908); painted sketch of a dark green tree with a spreading umbrella of branches against roughly applied dashes of blue and turquoise.

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Reminds me of Martin Amis’s line re gym jargon, that "the brain cells traditionally used for words have been contextually reallocated to the building of muscle".

Among his gym friends, the rising prices have even been given a nickname - "proteinflation"

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Richard Smyth @rsmythfreelance.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I've been struggling for a while to read for pleasure. It's becoming clear to me that I have been reading the wrong books. It's true that you have to love the sound of your own voice to write a book like this. But the thing is you have to love the sound of everyone else's voices too.

Philip Roth's American Pastoral in paperback. My copy got caught in the rain.

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Exactly. Time to unfollow anyone on here who’s still using Twitter.

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Roger @rogerwithnod.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I'll tell you exactly what it is. Back in the 80s at School me and a few pals would regularly walk into town on our lunchbreaks. Yet on v hot summer days, on the way back in particular, a phrase was invented that we all shared to our amusement: "Do you have SBSBBS?" Sweaty Bum Strikes Back Bad Style

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Hwaet @cog1.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I have seen Americans talking about “swamp ass” which appears to be caused by having a sweaty, overweight bottom and poor personal hygiene.

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Wtf is “3pm swamp crotch”?

Instagram ad for Family Jewels, which appears to be some sort of cream to stop you getting ‘swamp crotch’?? AI pics show a man holding his crotch with flames coming out of it, and another man cool and collected with a huge tube of Family Jewels beside him

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Neil Norman And His Cosmic Orchestra @fubsyshabaroon.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Talk about nominative determinism.

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Not slop but real (and very funny imo)👇 bsky.app/profile/samg...

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Jason @nickmotown.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

You can take a transcript of literally anything Trump says, and it doesn't seem out of place if you imagine it scrawled in excrement on the wall of a cell in a secure unit.

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sammacauslan.bsky.social @sammacauslan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Italy - it's an Olivetti Studio 42

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Two new titles in the Penguin Modern Classics crime and espionage series, coming next month. The Bodelsen was of course made into a BBC TV series starring Johnny Ball. Also, anyone know what country that keyboard layout on the cover of Rear Window is from?

Cornell Woodrich’s Rear Window and other stories. Cover shows a typewriter with layout

QZERTYUIOP
ASDFGHJKLM
WXCVBN

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Am I missing something or is the nickname referred to here the opposite of mawkish? Surely it's a slightly mean joke about 'bagging' (shooting) his dad?

Earl Spencer emphasises its country house happiness, with dens, dogs and horses, but it's also dotted with cruelty, with violent nannies and the "mindless and often destructive" tradition of boarding schools.

A boy who accidentally shot and killed his father gets the mawkish nickname "Baghdad".

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Angry People in Local Newspapers @apiln.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Pop Bands in the News, day two: The time actual OMD took a detour in their tour bus just to pick up a copy of this headline. Elite level snacking.

Andy McCluskey out off of OMD in a convenience store holding up a packet of Mini Eggs, a multipack of Tunnock’s wafers and the Cumberland News and Star with a story about an overnight robbery at a music store in November 2017, while on their way to a gig in Sheffield. The headline is ORCHESTRAL REMOVERS IN THE DARK.

They had seen a post on this very account and made the detour off the M6 specially, and that makes us smug.

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Eamonn-Forde @eamonn-forde.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Another @vizcomic.bsky.social banger from four years ago.

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I’m normally acknowledgements-sceptic when it comes to fiction, but I can only offer a nod of respect for Louise Kennedy’s in her new novel Stations. Real ‘without whom’ stuff.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to my oncologist, Professor Paul Donnellan, and the staff of University Hospital Galway who continue to look after me. And to those who work in medical research - in particular the legend who figured out how to use Chinese hamster ovary cells against melanoma - I owe you my life.

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Smooth Dunk @smoothdunk2.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

when ai leaves u behind

7 panel comic.

Panel 1:
A Red Guy with AI across his chest looks like he’s about to run away. A Yellow Guy stands next to him. Red Guy says “I’m the future, buddy. You comin’?”
Yellow Guy replies “Nah”

Panel 2:
Red Guy is almost out of the panel. He leans in and says “Enjoy getting left behind, pal”
Yellow Guy replies “ok”

Panel 3:
Yellow Guy stands alone.

Panel 4:
Close up on Yellow Guy, there is a quiet “huff-huff-huff” noise coming from behind him

Panel 5:
Yellow Guy turns to look behind him

Panel 6:
Close up on Yellow Guy’s face as if from the point of view of an attacker.
Yellow Guy yells “Jesus Christ”

Panel 7:
AI Red Guy is now chasing the Yellow Guy.
Red Guy: “Use me”
Yellow Guy “No”
Red Guy “USE ME”

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Remember the Penguin Classics edition of Lolita that stripped out the intro by ‘John Ray, Jr.’ (which is part of the novel)? Louise Willder, in her new book The Book Was Better, discloses that the same edition of Pale Fire was almost published without Charles Kinbote’s intro and notes…

Metafiction can wrongfoot publishers too. There was once a move at Penguin to free the classics from scholarly introduc-tions, so somebody decided it would be a good idea to reissue Nabokov's Pale Fire without its foreword or footnotes.* The only problem was that they were part of the novel's metafictional joke: the creation of an invented writer called Charles Kinbote, who we soon realise is a lunatic, believing himself to be king of a country called Zembla. The mistake was caught before the book went to press - but not the misspelling Nabkov' on the spine. Ouch.

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~daniel_barker~ @daniel-barker.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

There's a SECOND Batman movie??

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

A fun secondary game in Catfishing is, when you've finished, to guess which answer inspired the most clickthroughs to its Wikipedia article. (It tells you on the results page.) Today's was a no-brainer. catfishing.net #819 - 7/10 🐈🐟🐈🐟🐈 🐈🐈🐈🐟🐈

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Steven (with a PH) @sjksalisbury.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Christening a baby is nothing like christening a ship. I know that now. Once again I can only apologise.

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

“The Lucky Ones was her first book that isn’t funny. One day, all Cusk novels would be like this.”* I ranked Rachel Cusk’s books for The Guardian. *this line cut for space, so don’t go looking for it

Newspaper page from The Guardian of my ranking of Cusk’s books. Too much text to ALT, but ranking is

10 Life of M
9 The Lucky Ones
8 Saving Agnes
7 The Temporary
6 Second Place
5 A Life’s Work
4 Arlington Park
3 In the Fold
2 The Country Life
1 Outline trilogy

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Naomi Alderman’s The Strangers should - if there’s justice - supplant The Power as the book she is most famous for. It goes straight into my book of the year contenders. My excitable review:

thetimes.com

Naomi Alderman’s The Strangers is not just a good book, it’s a special one

Naomi Alderman is best known for The Power, which won the Women’s Prize. Her new novel is even better

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

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Odd This Day @oddthisday.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

It’s 24 years since the sheriff’s department in Coldwater, Michigan heard that Al-Qaeda was carrying out telemarketing fraud, and issued a statement warning people—only later discovering that their source was... perhaps not to be relied upon

Onion story: Al-Qaeda Allegedly Engaging In Telemarketing. It is illustrated with a photo of (apparently) Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s second in command, wearing a headset while sitting in a work cubicle. The story reads: WASHINGTON, DC—In a chilling development, the CIA announced Monday that it has acquired a videotape showing suspected al-Qaeda operatives engaging in what appears to be telemarketing. "This video, obtained from a credible third-party source, features grainy footage of a group of men strongly believed to be al-Qaeda members making phone solicitations for vacation-home rentals, long-distance phone service, magazine subscriptions, and a vast array of other products and services," CIA Director George Tenet said at a press conference. "Many of these calls have occurred, unthinkably, during the dinner hour." Added Tenet: "We had known about al-Qaeda's practice of raising money through drug trafficking and money laundering, but it seems the full scope of their depravity had barely been imagined." The video is not the only evidence of telemarketing activity within al-Qaeda. According to Tenet, CIA agents tracking the terrorist organization over the past 12 months made steady progress infiltrating its communications network, eventually gaining access to transmissions to and from al-Qaeda operatives. These transmissions included a number of telemarketing "cold calls" to randomly chosen U.S. citizens.

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

"HarperCollins would not comment when asked by The Bookseller, but confirmed it was accurate." What did they do, nod over the phone?

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Jane Hill @janehill.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

This came up on my Facebook ads and I was struggling to think of a context in which I’d want to celebrate my illness in this way. Turns out it’s part of an astrological series of prints.

A psychedelic experience wall print that says CANCER BABY in pink bubble writing.

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