iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

"For Brutus is a f-ing honourable man."

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Adam Roberts @adamroberts.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

" ... please make yourself aware of your nearest chance for redemption, which may be behind you ..."

A photograph of Pope Leo, standing inside a plane, addressing a number of seated passengers

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

(I don't watch a lot of TV.) Chernobyl would be my n.1 and I would add The Terror & The Last Kingdom. Non-English language shows: Gomorrah, The Killing, the Bureau, Spiral.

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Professional news! My book Environmental Neo-Victorianism is coming out in early 2027.

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Professional news! My book Environmental Neo-Victorianism is coming out in early 2027.

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Laura Gordon @lauragordon.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

This government reminds me of Joe Biden. Biden didn't want to be the prosecute Trump president, he wanted to pass an infrastructure bill. Burnham doesn't want to be the take on the hard right PM, he wants to do social care reform and devo. But you have to do the task you're set or face disaster.

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Uncle Duke @uncleduke1969.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

they’ll figure it out if they get hungry enough

Supermarket aisle sign with items listed top to bottom: Can Fish, Microwave, Soup.

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

We are entering my favourite period of the year: Sep-March, when you can snuggle down with a book in the evening's darkness and appreciate the sunshine as light reflects on recently wet ground.

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Not a TV series, but I had the same problem with R.F. Kuang's Katabasis. Everything about doing a PhD at Cambridge was wrong (and just modelled on US doctoral programmes). Having had direct experience, the mistakes were so jarring that they spoilt the book for me.

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

My PL prediction to my son (Man U are going to win the league) off to a great start, I see.

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

@beijingpalmer.bsky.social Thank you for recommending A Scandal in Belgravia. I really enjoyed it! I didn't work out the murderer but guessed the twist on the final page. Very satisfying too. If I may reciprocate: Cyril Hare's An English Murder and Sarah Caudwell's Thus Was Adonis Murdered.

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Letterboxd @letterboxd.social · 18/08/2026

happy birthday ethan hunt 🤫

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

My mum once called the police to report that her car had been stolen from a supermarket carpark, then had to call again to explain that actually, she was just looking for it in the wrong place. For once police slowness to respond was useful to save her from in-person embarrassment.

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

And the Culture Secretary is still MIA (though inaction would be more accurate). And we still have the same all-too-active Home Secretary. And Andy Burnham thought it would be a good idea to keep both in post.

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Plus ça change, et plus c'est la même chose. That's what happens when you leave Mahmood in post.

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Lewis Baston @lewisbaston.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

We’re sourcing our reshuffle news from an alternate timeline of the 1980s…

To summarise yesterday evening, Mr Benn is out of the Cabinet, Mr Healey has returned to the Cabinet and Mr Kinnock has joined the Cabinet for the first time.

Quoted as an image because it’s a friend’s joke from Facebook and I can’t take credit for it.

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Dominic Dean @drdominicdean.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Yes, absolutely, most of the solutions needed are not bailouts and incur little-to-no direct cost to the budget; and the only reason bailouts likely will be needed is because government has been unwilling to take those steps (out of inertia, ideological incoherence, political prejudice etc etc).

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Someone explain to me Spurs' defence this season and Djed Spence here.

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Kazuo Ishiguro Ian McEwan Sarah Waters Alan Hollinghurst Amitav Ghosh

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

I am no longer alone! (Now for someone correcting "on behalf of" when it should be "on the part of", please)

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Dr Andrew McInnes @drbeard79.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Labour increasingly opting for barbarism over civilisation

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Alas, this is unlikely to happen but I just wish Burnham got rid of her and Smith, both philistines who should be shamed for their attitude to culture + education generally and the arts specifically. They have been worse for universities than the Tories.

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

I despair of this ongoing idiocy. I know people rate her, but for me Phillipson is the worst cabinet minister: the philistinism is off the scale and when coupled with defending the indefensible as Equalities Minister I wonder what exactly is good about her.

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Obligatory "I feel so old!" comment while watching football: I remember watching Deschamps play for Juve.

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

So, online quizzes results so far: the Jesuit (early-modern Europe); the Church (Vae Victis) and now the Pope. Not subtle!

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Vae Victis - I am The Church. It is at least consistent with being "the Jesuit" in early modern Europe.

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Nicholas Whithorn @nickwhithorn.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Current state of US-Italy relations.

An Egyptian airliner on the tarmac at Sigonella Air Base in October 1985. The airliner is surrounded by two rings of troops facing off. The outer ring is made up of US Delta Force troops, commanded by Oliver North, attempting to capture PLO members on board the plane who had hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and murdered an American citizen on board. The inner circle is composed of Italian Carabinieri and Airmen ordered by Italian PM Craxi not to allow the Americans to take the Palestinians into custody because Italy had jurisdiction over the matter.

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

This is interesting, in that it shows that it *is* possible to hit back at Trump when he insults you (she's done it twice in 2 days now). Meloni is v conscious of how this plays in Italy, i.e. well for her. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

Meloni tells Trump to 'focus on your own popularity' as row escalates

The US president earlier questioned Meloni's popularity after suggesting she "begged" for a photo at G7 summit

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Onions. (Any variety, any cooking method.)

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martha shearer @marthashearer.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

okay but what if a 10-year-old thinks moby dick is better than middlemarch, what then. where are they supposed to go

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Five favourite books that didn't make the Guardian 100 in no particular order: The Ambassadors (Henry James) Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbon) The Shooting Party (Isabel Colgate) Voss (Patrick White) Les Mémoirs d'Hadrien (Marguerite Yourcenar)

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Cuts include access programmes, because of course God forbid anyone who can't take a straightforward path to HE should aspire to go to university. Class gatekeeping *from a Labour government* and yet more reasons to despise it, if the cowardice in the face of the far right was not enough.

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

We don't usually see each other's header images. Here's mine.

Simone Martini, Guidoriccio da Fogliano all'Assedio di Monte Massi (1328). Palazzo Pubblico, Siena.

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Yair Wallach @yairwallach.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Among the West Bank atrocities, the Hebron killing of 9m old baby hits me most. Broad day light. Soldiers wave for car to stop. Car slows down and stops. Then the soldiers shoot live bullets at the car. Middle class family. The dad is a university professor. This could be me or you.

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Mariadele Boccardi @mariadele.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

From a Christie obsessive: WHAT early cases in London? Poirot arrives from Belgium as a refugee during WWI and at that point he is already retired from the Belgian police. (And even in the 1920s short stories he is consulted because he has a reputation as a detective.) www.bbc.com/mediacentre/...

bbc.com

BBC announces Hercule, starring Edward Bluemel as Agatha Christie’s legendary detective Hercule Poirot

The series follows Hercule Poirot’s first cases in London before he becomes the world’s most famous sleuth

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Dominic Dean @drdominicdean.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

If this government has taught us anything, it’s that we need to bring back shame for philistines in public life. No more votes from leftists and liberals for the ignorant, anti-intellectual and anti-culture - it turns out these attitudes ruin everything including the ability to run an economy.

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