John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 19hpressumably there's a pressure gauge somewhere? You can hear the rush of water and watch the gauge needle change once you open both valves - which will prove you're right. I think you know to ensure they're both shut afterwards. Bon chance. 010
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Are we really debating whether *this* could ever mean 'sure lets carry on riding straight ahead' 130
Reposted by John HartleyAnthony Floyd @anthonyfloyd.ca · 01/10/2026Lighthouses of the BC South Coast. Cool. mapped.earth/lighthouses/... 938792
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 17/09/2026an interesting read www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onli...ejumpcut.org"Close Encounters of the Third Kind" by Entman and Seymour 120
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Mon Oncle is a conservative delight (!) Other falvours of conservative from eg Dirty Harry (a Maga rule breaker) and the insane Close Encounters. A very interesting 1978 essay available online argues it to be fascist, so up for discussion. 120
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 07/09/2026Any political agenda and concern has to be separated from the protest methods. Anonymised, uniformed and sudden arrival in large numbers is intended to threaten, and implies organised force. Bullying is not legitimate. That should be the rejoinder. 000
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 04/08/2026I think they're styled to look like a special forces death squad movie prop. They have fake petrol cans on the side that are in actual fact luggage boxes. I imagine everything inside makes an overdesigned 'kerchunkk' sound a bit like a machine gun being reloaded. 010
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 23/07/2026'£50 doesn't eave buy a meal': What *some* people think of Burnham's electricity VAT cut 000
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 22/07/2026'that's the reality, but what's the anecdotal impression?' 0171
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 16/07/2026I have two (as we all do): It's a face off between Jimmy Codfish and Frank Potatoes. Sheeesh! 120
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 15/07/2026it won't be interesting I think, just depressingly predictable. They're less intersted in the rule of law or coherent policy positions, than partisan advantage - whatever contractions that requires. 070
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 14/07/2026'anit-woke' is not directed at the world as is (eg immigrants), it is against the change (those that support or help them). Ie other parties were responding to the questions, but Reform were responding to the bubble distribution. Hence febrile. 100
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 14/07/2026just re-read this. Interesting work and I wonder how your subtitle could be investigated more (anit-woke). The social questions are about what should or shouldn't be in the world, but it seems that Reform is more than that - a reaction to change others are making/made 100
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 09/07/2026How does £25m compare in military hardware terms? Does a UK election cost the same as, what, a couple of battle tanks? 000
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 08/07/2026Getting rid of him with positive ideas (rather than electing Nero's horse to the senate) seems the only way to stop a Farage mkII cropping up somewhere down the line 210
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 08/07/2026Farage and binface are the same thing. They offer an unserious rejection of politics in favour of fantasy and mockery. That binface could beat Farage is well earned mockery, but also tragic. Feels very last days of Rome. 120
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 07/07/2026knowledge is dead. There are only power plays clothed in various flavours of moralising. 090
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 02/07/2026let's play... Football or fascist! Is it celebratory, carnivalesque and inclusive? or is it exclusionary, territorial and shot tthrough with desperate aggression? 030
Reposted by John HartleyEmma Monk @monkemma.bsky.social · 24/06/202635°C is normal, we used to just call that summer! Here's how many summers topped 32°C 70s 4 80s 2 90s 8 2000s 6 2010s all of them 2020s all of them And here's how many summers topped 35°C 70s 1 80s 0 90s 2 2000s 2 2010s 3 2020s 4 (out of 6 so far) 71232430
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 24/06/2026'My candidates lost. I need to choose your candidates now' 000
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 23/06/2026maybe they can read their briefing docs under the tree. 020
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 09/06/2026we are backwards, brutish animals that do not know how to dine, without getting stuck in ideas of class and performative one up man ship. 010
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 06/06/2026May have been a dead drop in a high stakes spy mission. 010
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 18/05/2026Food culture is complex. It varies across class and cultural background within any country and keeps changing. Industrialised highly marketed foodstuffs are bad though. That should be a big part of UK US (and EU) food culture comparisons. 010
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 13/05/2026Eat American freedom burgers you foreign serfs - be flabby and dumb like me! 010
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 11/05/2026I'm not going to watch it again, but didn't she say sthlike 'wow, I struck a chord'. No. That would have been an explosion of sympathetic understanding. No, she dropped a turd clanger. 000
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 11/05/2026Also Local Authority management, competence, available levers for change, and judgable outputs are so poorly understood and hidden from view... Last week was very far from an informed exercise in democracy. 011
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 04/05/2026For Star Wars day, give us your top 10 sci-fi films: Star wars La jetee Alphaville Planet of the apes Terminator 2 Cool runnings Repo man Blade runner Quatermass and the Pit Forbidden planet 000
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 02/05/2026Name your top 15 TV shows, no overthinking The wire The assembly Living in the past 7 up The young ones That Attenborough show about the poles Ren and stimpy Smell of reeves and mortimer Top o' pops Ambulance Sewing bee Singing detective Ski Sunday Detectorists A year in the life of oak tree 020
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 26/04/2026And as others point out, that individual's interests are suspiciously aligned with preferences of predatory corporations 000
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 26/04/2026Dumb asrse confuses 'smoking ban' with 'ban on smoking in public places'. Polluting other people is hideous. You can still catch cancer in private. Extreme 'liberalism' that denies any protection for society over whims of an individual is not credible position. 100
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 21/04/20262 ham? I Always thought ham was a 'non-count' noun. Unless they mean two complete hams. Which is one way to start the day. 010
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 21/04/2026Fascinating reference. It's also hard not to wonder what the Roman Inquisition - which burned this hapless miller at the stake for mixing low and high cultural references to express religious belief - would have made of JD Vance's recent 'pontifications' 000
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 17/04/2026But this is not an argument in good faith. It's a tricksy power play to put upstarts in their place 040
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 17/04/2026yes, I this is what I hear in creative industries too. Workaday illustration and photography collapsing, but visionary and gamechanging work more necessary than ever. Only the top of the pyramid goes forward. 091
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 17/04/2026My question is how is he evading the coersive power of his religion? Doesn't he have a priest? Those guys are not inexperienced at hierarchical control. (Hierarchy, lit: power of priests) 000
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 14/04/2026exactly: bad faith arguments to win a point, because there's no such thing as consistent conviction, it's all just power plays. 091
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 14/04/2026see a Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovic: 'The spoon that Shukhov hides in his boot after every meal represents his individuality...a useful tool, but it also makes Shukhov feel unique because it is something that the other prisoners do not have. The camp tries to destroy this sense of uniqueness' 010
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 14/04/2026Reform's Overton window is all about how out loud they can state what they actually think. 010
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 27/03/2026sorry, I've really enjoyed this account till now, but this is going too far. Is that just bread? and a Glace Cherry!? A mothers pride cocktail cherry sandwich? with spray cream...! Aim higher my friend. 110
John Hartley @johntonta.bsky.social · 27/03/2026it's a bounty! it's a glut! just use a shovel and load it in the back of your van! 000