iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 26/08/2026

This was quite the wake-up call at early o’clock

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 12/08/2026

19:04, Birmingham, just an iPhone

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 06/08/2026

It pooped on the washing before it flew off

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 28/07/2026

Dammit, another crappy day

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 11/05/2026

A dawning realisation of the thing with social media, esp. with reading on a small screen device, is that for each instant just one topic consumes all your focus, no sense of significance vs. other topics … and it’s easy to get sucked down a hyperfocus special interest tunnel. Cf. random screenshot:

Screengrab of a random story from the Financial Times on Bluesky, illustrating the singular focus of just one topic on the screen, and no sense of contextual significance vs other topics

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 04/05/2026

The English countryside in May is really something special to behold.

A dusty footpath through a field of yellow rapeseed flowers, under a bright but cloudy sky. A few green trees punctuate the landscape.

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 26/03/2026

Yeah, sure, new books are great, but do you ever read old books? Have you ever read ‘American Pastoral’ by Philip Roth? It's his brilliant disembowelling of America in the 20th Century, and all its hopes of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss. drbslibrary.com/americanpast...

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 17/03/2026

Yeah, sure, new books are great, but do you ever read old books? Have you ever read ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’, by John le Carré? It’s his classic spy novel of betrayal and living double lives. drbslibrary.com/tinkertailor

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 08/03/2026

I absolutely love Komoot, the walking, hiking, cycling, whatever route app. I’ve lived in Birmingham for 30+ years, and with Komoot we keep discovering new and wonderful parts of the area that I’ve never known about, beautiful and breathtaking countryside all around. Fantastic.

A muddy path in a pine wood in rural Warwickshire

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 06/03/2026

Yeah, sure, new books are great, but do you ever read old books? Have you ever read 'The Third Policeman' by Flann O’Brien? It's a brilliantly absurd story of a village police force and a brief, unrequited love affair between a man and his bicycle. drbslibrary.com/thirdpoliceman

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 22/02/2026

I presume British farmers are pivoting to growing rice this year …?

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 24/01/2026

A canal bridge on the Tardebigge flight.

An old bridge over a canal. The bridge has a number 54 plaque on it. There is an ominous cloudy winter sky above with a patch of blue.

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 12/01/2026

Have been reading Varoufakis's 'Technofeudlism' recently, which points to QE as a distinctive driver of massive alteration in tech stock valuation, when money was made available to bank to loan so biz's motive to create profit was taken away. Screenshot from finance.yahoo.com/news/buffett...

2021-2022: Stock prices took off following the 2020 COVID-19 bear market as zero interest rates and trillions of stimulus dollars were used to get the economy going again. By 2021, the economy started to feel the fallout of all that liquidity in the system. The inflation rate jumped to 9% and the S&P 500 declined roughly 25% by the latter half of 2022.

Screenshot from https://finance.yahoo.com/news/buffett-indicator-hitting-level-seen-182400883.html

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 01/01/2026

My reading year for 2025, via the @thestorygraph.com summary graphic. A pretty good year of great books. Looking forward to an interesting year ahead.

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 30/12/2025

I’ve really enjoyed some good reading this month

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 07/12/2025

Aah, such memories — my mother, calling up the stairs to us children: ‘Come and stir the Christmas Pudding and make a wish!’

The mixture for a Christmas Pudding, with a wooden spoon, in a ceramic bowl

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 11/08/2025

My manly identity may be nearing completion at last, with this external validation arriving, unrequested, in the post

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 25/07/2025

I finished reading 'Days Without End' by Sebastian Barry. One of my favourite authors, and here he goes back in time with the McNulty family to the US Indian War and Civil War, to their brutal realities made tender through the families we choose, and the love that chooses us. Great story.

Cover image for 'Days Without End' by Sebastian Barry

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 15/07/2025

I just finished reading ‘Playground’ by Richard Powers. An enjoyable read. So many interesting ideas and people … but I felt like there were so many of them that they were all crowding in to have their moment all the time and I never quite got to understand any of them well. Maybe that’s a me thing.

Cover image for ‘Playground’, a novel by Richard Powers

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 15/07/2025

Covers over half the screen and doesn’t disappear when clicking either button

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 26/06/2025

One of my ancestors won a Nobel peace prize. I find it incredibly offensive that a man who bragged about selling arms to Saudi Arabia (www.npr.org/2019/07/25/7...) then did it again (www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...) now wants one coz he bombed something then shouted at people to stop bombing.

President Trump, shown here during a 2018 meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman where they discussed arms deals, has blocked an effort to stem the sale of weapons to the Gulf country.
Evan Vucci/AP

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 21/06/2025

I’m at a funeral today. Here’s a beautiful Wendell Berry poem, The Peace of Wild Things.

The Peace of Wild Things

By Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 12/05/2025

I heard you talking about 'The Queue' earlier today @mrjamesob.bsky.social (www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hri...) and it made me wonder whether you'd read Michael Sandel's 'The Tyranny of Merit', one of the most helpful books on this area of modern life that I've read, maybe ever. Taken from the blurb:

These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favour of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give the lie to the promise that "you can make it if you try". And the consequence is a brew of anger and frustration that has fuelled populist protest, with the triumph of Brexit and election of Donald Trump.

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 08/05/2025

Really unconvinced by the latest update to the @theguardian.com iOS app — the promoted articles are half the screen, *so big*, so prominent, that the even first news headline is truncated. Seems kinda odd to make news subsidiary to opinion pieces. And can’t final any options for this layout. Sigh.

Screencap of the Guardian app on iOS, illustrating the dominance of opinion articles over news headlines, and showing how even the first headline is truncated

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 27/03/2025

Magnolia blossom season is the most urgent, riotous burst of hope

A close-up of blossom on a dwarf stellar magnolia tree

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 22/03/2025

I’m in Norwich for the day, ambling around and taking in the vibe and stuff while Mrs B does some actual work, examining music grades. Found a wonderful Middle Eastern café to relax in for a while.

A black coffee with a perfect crema in a teal coloured handmade mug on a wooden table.

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 14/03/2025

My lovely brother bought me breakfast today. They call this ‘The Full French’.

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 02/03/2025

On a walk today in the Warwickshire countryside, 100 miles or more from the nearest sea. The boat is called ‘High Tide’ but I don’t recall any quite that big in the 30ish years I’ve lived up here.

A blue boat abandoned at the side of a grassy field. The boat is ‘High Tide’. It’s a sunny day with a cloudless blue sky above.

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 28/02/2025

Mmm. Espresso while reading the latest draft and considering how far it’s improved

An espresso in a grey cup on a wooden table, and some reading matter on a tablet

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 03/02/2025

A delightful afternoon walk yesterday on Candlemas, the day for marking the returning light. Our walk finished at sunset, at just the perfect moment.

Sunset over a small grassy hill, with the trees in near silhouette. A cart track is rising up the hill to the exact point where the sun is setting on top of the hill in fiery oranges and reds.

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 26/01/2025

Morning world. Mrs B is out all day today adjudicating at a music competition, so I have the whole day to stare into the abyss and listen to the screaming

Cup of black coffee in a white cup on a wooden table, seen from above

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 25/01/2025

A delightful winter’s walk in the Warwickshire countryside this morning

Silhouette of the trunk and branches of a winter tree without leaves against a blue sky with the Sun low behind

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 29/12/2024

Cold, foggy, lovely walk with the family in the Worcestershire countryside yesterday

A lone sheep grazing in a field in the fog with bare winter trees blurred by the fog in the background

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 16/12/2024

And 5th spot in 2024: 'How They Broke Britain,' by James O'Brien. It's too easy for things in society, culture, politics and current affairs to become atomised, and in that fog we have the wool pulled over our eyes. We know this stuff has happened, but O'Brien pulls 'em all together and says … look!

Cover art for 'How They Broke Britain,' by James O'Brien

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 16/12/2024

No. 4 in ’24: ‘Another England,’ by Caroline Lucas — like Lucas, I feel strongly that the idea of Englishness has been hijacked. In this book she explores whether and how it can be reclaimed, taking profound stories from English literature to show us the first steps in a journey full of challenges.

Cover art for ‘Another England,’ by Caroline Lucas

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 16/12/2024

3rd in 2024: 'The Outrun,' by Amy Liptrot. An autobiography like I've never read before, beautiful poetic prose and powerful honesty on Liptrot's experience of alcohol addiction and how a wild place, Orkney, and the wildest places within it where the place where she found some sort of healing.

Cover art for 'The Outrun' by Amy Liptrot

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 16/12/2024

2nd place: 'Supercommunicators,' by Charles Duhigg. Good conversation is a gift, something I've always enjoyed deeply and believed I was good company in conversation. But I've often felt I was missing something. This was a sublime read, a powerful moment to consider and reflect on talking better-er.

Cover art for 'Supercommunicators' by Charles Duhigg

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Dr Joe Baker @jsbaker.co.uk · 15/12/2024

And number 5: 'Karla's Choice,' by Nick Harkaway. George Smiley was the first fictional character who really moved me. John le Carré was the first novelist I truly admired, whose work I properly esteemed. This is a great addition to Smiley's post-WW2 world of espionage, loyalty and betrayal. Ace.

Cover art for Karla's Choice by Nick Harkaway

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