iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I bought a badge like this years ago at a Mark Thomas show, just after the Jean Charles de Menezes killing

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Yes Nigel, you're missing something

A post on X by Nigel Farage:
How is it that Danny Tommo sits in a cell while five suspected terrorists are out on bail?

Is this two-tier Britain, or am I missing something?

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Some days I think "you can't block them all"

Two posts from different bots exactly alike down to the number of exclamation marks

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Does anyone know who these guys are? Or why Che Guevara got into heaven twice?

A close up of some of the debaters from the original picture, none of whom I recognise. Except maybe Che Guevara. Twice.

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

My mother has collected a load of these old newspaper supplements, but this one's certainly a stand out

Cover of a Newcastle Evening Chronicle Remember When supplement, August 20 2011. It's a picture of Rolf Harris with some factory workers. Text: Rolf's Birthday Kiss - The day the Australian entertainer got firm's birthday party off to a flying start.

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Post the first album you ever bought

Cover art for Electric Light Orchestra's Discovery album. It's kind of an Aladdin figure gazing at a glowing multicoloured disc with ELO on it, as if it were a genie's lamp.

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

This is him at the top of this column - there are steps up inside if that helps

Grey's Monument, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

🎶And the devil will drag you under By the sharp lapel of your checkered coat, Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down, Sit down you're rockin' the boat.🎶

Harry Kane performing a post-match motivational speech encircled by his fellow squad members

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

This picture is from George Best's testimonial at Windsor park. Is that Michael O'Neill top right? #nufc

A picture of a team of footballers at George Best's testimonial

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Wrong wrong wrong. But looking up the result made me aware of the magnificently monikered Roberto Dinamite of Brazil who I have no previous recollection of

Some football results from the US Bicentennial football tournament. Team America lost 1-3 to England. But one of the scorers for Brazil in the final match v Italy was Roberto Dinamite.

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Sentient slime you say...? Who you gonna call?

The Ghostbusters advancing through smoke and looking heroic

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

I live in Newcastle and years and years ago our cat went missing in the middle of winter. 6 months later she was found in Carlisle, 60 miles away on the other side of the country. Like most old ladies, she's got some stories to tell

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

This can come in handy when I'm unsure

A what's app poll asking
"War: what is it good for"

With options

"Absolutely nothing
Say it again y'all
Good god"

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

When you can be imprisoned on charges you were neither tried or convicted on, we live in a police state.

A police state is a state whose government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little to no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the executive, and the deployment of internal security and police forces play a heightened role in governance. A police state is a characteristic of authoritarian, totalitarian or illiberal regimes (contrary to a liberal democratic regime). Such governments are not exclusive to simply one-party states or dominant-party states, as they can also arise in a democracy or multi-party system.

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Tony Blair's activities increasingly make me think of Attlee's post war rebuke of Laski

You have no right whatever to speak on behalf of the Government. Foreign affairs are in the capable hands of Ernest Bevin. His task is quite sufficiently difficult without the irresponsible statements of the kind you are making ... I can assure you there is widespread resentment in the Party at your activities and a period of silence on your part would be welcome.

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

You say you don't like the 3 stripes? Well have some more then

Newcastle United home kit 26/27. The entire kit is just continuous Adidas 3 stripes motifs everywhere.

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

The voters of Benwell and Scotswood just didn't believe what Hans Christian Andersen was telling them.

A list of candidate vote counts from Benwell and Scotswood ward in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 2nd bottom is Lib Dem candidate Hans Christian Andersen with only 162 votes.

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

It used to be a matter of course that the media could not be trusted and that viewpoint needs to be pushed hard to ordinary people

A vintage political billboard reading:

Never Mind the Newspaper Millionaires

Vote Labour

Push out those who have brought your country to the verge of ruin

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Your Party's slick electoral machine helpfully sent me a message telling me who their candidates are in my ward in Newham council, 287 miles away

This Is Your Party

Dear Mark,

Today is the day! It’s time to vote in the local elections.

Please vote for Sabir Banglawala, Akm Mahibur Rahman, and Mujeeb-Ur-Rehman in Manor Park ward for Newham Council who are standing as Your Party-backed Newham Independents candidates today!

Google Maps showing it would take 5 hours to drive to the place Your Party's candidates are standing

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

The triangles aren't taking it lying down

A Give Way road sign, an inverted red triangle with text in black on a white background

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Also Tesco branding looked like this in the 1970s

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Everything changes but everything stays the same

Vintage billboard political ad which says: "Never mind the Newspaper Millionaires. Push out those who have brought your country to the VERGE OF RUIN" A section which originally said "Vote Labour" has been removed.

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

"I know many members across this house will find these facts to be incredible"

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Spot the deliberate error Amazon Prime

A picture of the Amazon Prime screen to watch the Kevin Costner movie "Wyatt Earp". Except they've illustrated it with a still from the Kurt Russell Wyatt Earp movie, "Tombstone"

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Labour cabinet policy brainstorming session this morning

Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons surrounded by rakes he can't avoid stepping on

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Nigel Farage hot-footing it last night to his hideaway, far from the morning politics shows

Toad of Toad Hall dressed in"driving clothes": hat, gauntlets and fur-lined overcoat

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

The Triffids are back! But this time they're playing it clever...

A sign on a mesh fence reading "Plant and Pedestrian Interface"

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

Passing this place the other day made me wonder if Trump's supporters try for his look

A hairdressers shop in Whitley Bay called Trumpers Hair Design

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

I wrote this many years ago about MPs laughing uproariously while voting to slash social security but the point is the same wp.me/p2t1Av-4O

The executioner does not relish their subject’s end.
The art is to give dignity, some sorrowful respect.
Tread gently on the killer’s grave while snuffing out that life,
Pierrepoint himself would never crow at his vengeful task.

Why then backslapping and cheering, giddy and triumphal
as if they’d just seen a try scored in the Varsity Match?
This is a sombre occasion for those beneath the noose.
The bell announces division; But it only tolls for some.

The lever is pulled, the trap falls! They file into the lobbies.
Disenfranchised first on the rope, unopposed, they’re dangled:
Free labour, they’ll work for nothing, or lose their little lot.
And if it proves the law’s broken; just change it, make it suit.

Subsistence benefits reduced; the only way to prove
you’re incapacitated is to die while you’re at work.
Will less food do for the hungry? Houses can be colder?
No shirkers, scroungers tale here just poorer, sicker, older.

I suppose they’re all still laughing? Here’s some jokes for jokers:
When is a house not someone’s home? When underoccupied.
What’s black and blue, and kicked all over? You and me, never them.
A man walks into a bar, Ouch! It was a class bar.

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

"I trust my email finds you well"

A black Labrador sitting on a sofa looking at a laptop, its front paws on the keyboard.

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

Is this subconscious racism in the Guardian just a couple of weeks ago? Pointing out how reliant the NHS is on foreign workers? Or is the problem actually the other things Polanski says and thinks, the only person in frontline politics who challenges what now passes for orthodoxy?

Screenshot of guardian article. Text reads:

Under the proposals, migrant workers in every sector of the economy would be hit. However, the most serious impact would be in the health service, which is already buckling under the strain of soaring demand for care amid staff shortages.

A survey conducted by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), seen by the Guardian, found the plans have sparked profound distress among foreign NHS and social care staff.

There are more than 200,000 internationally educated nursing staff, about 25% of the UK’s total workforce of 794,000. The government’s proposed changes to indefinite leave to remain (ILR) have triggered alarm, with many now considering leaving the UK for good, the survey suggests.

Below is a graph of Nurses and Health Visitors working for NHS England by Nationality:

UK: 282365
EU+: 19230
Rest of the World: 101900
Unknown: 4055

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Silent Stars @markbrophy.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

Quite an apposite targeted ad on Lady Penelope's latest, I thought:

A Dutch language ad for "Gaslicht.com" in the midst of Marina Hyde's anti-Polanski Guardian piece

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