iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Bowie’s musical trajectory might have been rather different had Asher chosen otherwise…

15th July 1968.

Kenneth Pitt Management Ltd., 35, Curzon Street, London W.1.

Dear Sir,

As we told you on the phone, Apple Records is not interested in signing David Bowie. The reason is that we don't feel he is what we're looking for at the moment.

Thank you for your time.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Asher

Head of A&R for Apple Records.

john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

insane finish to the showdown final match in the National League. Rochdale needed to beat York to take the title and sole promotion place. York needed a draw for the same. Rochdale went 1-0 up deep into added time. York equalised eight minutes later, with barely a minute remaining. Crazy.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Here’s another, with one game to go - which happens to be Rochdale v York

National League table as at 22 April, showing York City top with 107 points, Rochdale second with 105, and Carlisle United a distant third with 92.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Still hanging around waiting for his expenses.

photo of Jeremy Bentham’s auto-icon at UCL

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

sadly the prize draw at nigelcutmybills.com is now closed. But the policy commitments are still there. And they’ve had the terrific and novel idea of funding them by, er, “cutting government quangos and making them more efficient”

screenshot from the website nigelcutmybills.com showing policy commitments to reduce energy bills by scrapping VAT and other levies.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

some admirable topicality in the clues for today’s Guardian cryptic, set by @boatmancryptics.co.uk

photo of a set of cryptic crossword clues, many of which make oblique reference to the current conflict in and around the Persian Gulf.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

and shaping up to be next year playing Bromley, who in 2016 finished mid table in the (Vanarama) National League, 109 places below Leicester.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

How it looked in my day. Interior was a bit spartan. Toilets labelled ‘Pearl’ and ‘Dean’ as I recall. Didn’t know it was owned by Oriel.

Facade of a small cinema, with an old-fashioned street-facing box office window at the entrance. The facade is largely black, with the name ‘Penultimate Picture Palace’ in white above the entrance. Above that is a caricature representation of Al Jolson, comprising a painted face and shirt front, flanked by pair of sculpted white gloved hands projecting into the street.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Courtesy of stirring-fox-7e1fab.netlify.app

Courtesy of the Allister Heath Headline Generator: “Britain’s cowardly capitulation to my tax-dodging friends will haunt us for a century”

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Courtesy of stirring-fox-7e1fab.netlify.app

From the Allister Heath Headline Generator: “The Left’s unhinged hatred of the Boat Race is driving us towards a terrifying abyss”

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Today years old when I learned about this 2000 Czech postage stamp celebrating the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem by Andrew Wiles. Classy or what? (Fun vaguely-related fact: Royal Mail, responsible for issuing UK stamps, is currently owned by a Czech billionaire.)

image of a Česká Republika stamp with face value 7 Koruna, the central design feature of which is an algebraic inequality representing Fermat’s Last Theorem. On the diagonal bar through the equals sign, signifying the inequality, is written ‘Andrew Wiles 1995’.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

Does it being from 1997 makes this any less jaw-dropping? Dan Cruickshank parks his drop-top not only on double-yellows but also over most of the narrow pavement, to visit a c18th merchant’s house in King’s Lynn. First episode of BBC’s Travels with Pevsner, currently being re-run on BBC4.

screenshot from TV programme, showing a man getting out of his car, which he has just parked on double-yellow lines and occupying almost all of a narrow pavement.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Misconduct in Public Office. First Andy. Then Mandy. Next Sandy?

photo of a dishevelled Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, when Foreign Secretary, apparently dozing at Perugia Airport

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

staring Gormleyly out to sea

photo showing a sculpted human figure on a beach, facing out to sea

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

includes a nice account of c8th precursor of Clarkson-style ‘farming’

THE ANGLO-SAXONS: A HISTORY OF THE BEGINNI...

Interesting as this is as a character note for Æthelbald, the letter's arguably more intriguing criticism comes towards its conclusion, when Boniface says he had also heard that the king had stolen revenues from churches and monasteries, and violated their privileges. Mercian noblemen are accused of doing the same, afflicting monks and priests with unprecedented violence and oppression.

What was going on? One possibility is that the king and his companions were cracking down on 'fake monasteries', a problem that had evidently become rife in recent decades. 'There are innumerable places, as we all know, allowed the name of "mon- asteries" by a foolish manner of speaking, but have nothing at all of a monastic way of life.' So wrote Bede towards the end of his life in a letter to the bishop of York. The root cause was that, since the introduction of charters, the Church had enjoyed security of landownership in a way that the laity had not. Once a religious institution acquired a charter (or boc) from the king, its estates became 'book-land', free of royal demands forever. By the early eighth century, certainly in Northumbria, envious laymen had come up with the ruse of claiming their households were monasteries in order to enjoy the same privileges. Apart from perpetual tenure of land, being a monastic community meant never having to provide the king with military service. Bede regarded this as outrageous on two scores. First, it meant there were countless so-called minsters where men were leading wanton and gluttonous lives, cohabiting openly with women and fathering children. Second, it meant that there were not enough estates left for the king's military followers, leaving the kingdom undefended against its enemies.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

would be a nice touch in this instance

photo of (as was) Prince Andrew, in his flying suit, standing in front of a helicopter.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Disappointment for fans of Bargain Hunt and the like. BBC News has colonised #bbc2 for the whole morning, despite there being no actual news beyond the fact of the arrest. Still, nice to watch footage of some royal front gates, with the sound turned down.

screenshot from BBC2 showing some driveway gates and the rolling headline ‘Police arrest Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Right on cue, from this morning’s Farage presser announcing his ‘senior team’

screenshot from BBC TV news coverage of Reform UK press conference, showing Zia Yusuf speaking about immigration and the so-called Boris Wave.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Great crack by Ayoub Khan at #PMQs, asking a question about the Birmingham bin strike. "Mr Speaker, rubbish is building up right beneath my very nose" In the chamber, he sits immediately behind the Reform bunch.

Screenshot from TV coverage of PMQs, showing Ayoub Khan MP asking a question. Sitting immediately in front of him are Richard Tice and Nigel Farage.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

“A communications professional is only as good as the communications that they are communicating.” Thanks Chris.

screenshot of Chris Mason on BBC News, commenting on the resignation of Tim Allan.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Your spellchecker is dead right, if this dismal performance today was anything to go by.

screenshot from TV coverage of today’s PMQs, with Andrew Griffith leading from the opposition front bench.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 17/01/2026

Could it be that Kemi also doesn’t quite understand how tariffs work?

screenshot of a post on X from Kemi Badenoch, in response to Trump’s announcement imposing tariffs on the UK and other countries. In it she says
“A terrible idea … People in both UK and US will face higher costs.”

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

Embassy, Petts Wood. My first cinema.

A monochrome photo of an art deco brick built cinema, taken in the early 1970’s judging by the cars in the car park.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

A new ‘Memories for You’ collection as curated (and named) for me automatically by Google Photos.

A photo taken inside Headingley cricket ground, at a County Championship match in April 2022, sparsely attended by mostly solitary middle-aged men, in warm clothing, sitting quietly before the start of play.
The photo is captioned ‘The roar of the crowd’.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

View (SW, across the Vale of York) this morning from Crayke, North Yorkshire's own little Tuscan hill town.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

Good excuse for another sight of this one

interviewer: What’s your greatest weakness?
interviewee: Honesty.
interviewer: I don’t think that honesty is a weakness.
interviewee: I don’t give a shit what you think.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

I’m unlikely to be climbing every mountain. But a few of my favourite things would be nice.

Tik Tok says the #1 movie when you were 10 years old is how your 2026 will go.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

sudden rise in anxiety levels

screenshot of Evri app with notification ‘we’ve got it’ (my parcel, that is).

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

Today's Guardian cryptic crossword. Set, with admirable tenacity, by Tramp.

Photo of a set of crossword clues, almost all of which refer explicitly or implicitly to Michelle Mone and her supplying useless PPE for huge profit.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Post a favourite work of art from the year exactly 50 years before you were born.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

You will be visited by three spirits

2012 photo of Nick Clegg, George Osborne and David Cameron sitting on the government front bench in the House of Commons

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Who let him into Yorkshire?

screenshot from BBC iPlayer linking to an episode of ‘Winter Walks’ featuring Alastair Campbell walking in the Yorkshire Dales

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

Curious as to what kind of historian would (qua historian) confidently assert this. Not sure I even know what it means.

screenshot from the BBC programme ‘Civilisations: Rise and Fall’, showing talking head Dominic Sandbrook asserting (as subtitled) “No civilisation ever thinks it’s going to fall.”

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

The facade as (mostly) incorporated into a new hospitality centre, opened 2013.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

simpler times indeed. On the 1979 bbc results show Butler et al made their first call after just 22 seats declared. All holds, but markedly uneven swings. No exit polls of course. Final outcome 269/339/11

screenshot from bbc 1979 general election results coverage, showing a graphic predicting Lab 271 seats, Con 337 and Lib 9.

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john bone @johnbone.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

Post a movie where you’re from

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