iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

In 2004 I interned in New Orleans working on death row cases by day, by night I socialised with debutantes. This is an introductory essay to a short series of excerpts from my diary of that time: counselofperfection.substack.com/p/death-row-...

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I keep on seeing these posts about things being 'a sign of respect in toddler culture'. Are these people for real? Toddlers have no culture, they are the original Barbarians.

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Reposted by Max Hardy

Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

When I first read about the death penalty as a child, I thought it was barbaric. Still do. A state that gives itself the judicial power to kill debases itself and everyone it involves in that repulsive business.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

If America was so confident in the justice and dignity of the death penalty it would not take 30 years to execute an offender then fail in the task by dressing up death as a medical procedure. Killers brutalise their victims, killing them brutalises everybody.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

How could anyone with a mind or a soul favour Artificial Intelligence over Actual Intelligence? The only AI worth a damn.

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Reposted by Max Hardy

SwelterTheChef @swelterthechef.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Assume it will go left to right. Will there be a special one for Chinese visitors that goes right to left?

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Something the British Museum urgently needs to do is instal a slow moving travelator next to the Bayeux Tapestry, as per the Crown Jewels. Universal grumbling about the queue definitely takes the gilt off the gingerbread.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

You have to take an ethics exam before becoming a barrister. Increasingly seems a good idea for young men to take an ethics exam before joining society.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The Bayeux Tapestry is a work of wonder. Bring a good book about it for the queue. Longing for someone to film a drama about its embroidering, that would go some small way to balancing the 600 men to 6 women depicted. Also piquant that Prince William calls his brother Harold!

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Swifties will be hoping this quartet of tracks is not a Richard Strauss Easter Egg.

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Reposted by Max Hardy

John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 24/09/2026

Everyone, stop what you are doing. I've discovered there is a politician called Teresa May running for city council in British Columbia. And this is from one of her campaign videos. Never have two people with the same name had such different vibes.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Let your actions do the talking and leave the words to others: counselofperfection.substack.com/p/bring-back...

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

A masterclass here in how to cross-examine your children.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Given the extent to which AI hallucinates case law I think we can safely assume that when it executes Armageddon we can expect Pluto to go up in flames.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

If you’re Gen Z and getting into ‘vintage’ 90s fashion and music know that you’re about to be getting a lot of 90s ‘news’ too.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

The Duke of Wellington said publish and be damned. He wasn’t wrong.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

If you’re a barrister and you run into a judge at the weekend the correct etiquette is to address them as ‘Judge’. Conventionally they call you ‘Mr’ in return. This feels very Jane Austen though and no doubt prompted a judge recently to greet me with ‘Hey Man’ instead.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

AI can’t be that bloody intelligent if it’s going to kill us all. Who’s going to pay the electricity bill when we’re gone?

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Parenting is getting into bed after a long day and being spiked by a plastic Tyrannosaurus Rex that your son left there and feeling equal parts livid and amused.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Here’s a piece I wrote for The Spectator about school to parent communication: spectator.com/article/spar...

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Has anyone ever tried to calculate the number of lives cost, the money spent and the time devoted to the USA treating the USSR as its enemy only for Trump to capitulate, almost completely, to Putin’s wishes?

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I know we’ve subsided into semi-literacy thanks to the Internet and AI but I’m reading ‘Watership Down’ to the Hardy Boys and wondering whether 1970s kids could seriously read French epigraphs?

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

9yo asks to put 2yo in car seat. Fine, I say, delighted. 5 minutes of anguished wrestling later he looks at me, appalled. Welcome to childcare, kid.

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Reposted by Max Hardy

Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

You know you’re living in strange times when Last Night of the Proms feels like the least jingoistic thing happening in Britain at the moment.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Unfathomably rich men are buying Reform for them not for you. If you vote for Reform you are voting for them not for you.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Long week, evening with the family, 2 year old screaming the house down. Who needs Whisky Sour when you’re having a Cortisol Cosmopolitan?

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Explain it like I'm 5 but why can't we stop the AI apocalypse by just unplugging the machine?

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Back in January I had a chat with Petra Khashoggi about what Eton gives and what it takes away, if that’s of interest you can have a listen here: petrakhashoggi.substack.com/p/in-convers...

petrakhashoggi.substack.com

In conversation with Maximilian Hardy: 'Eton Inside: Prejudice & Pride'

A recording of our live video

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Treat protestors reasonably win the respect of the reasonable. Treat them with thuggery win the respect of thugs. What happened at that Conference is beyond toleration.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Extremely difficult to take seriously the threats of a man who looks like he would struggle to occupy a lavatory.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Repeated on Radio 4 today being scolded by Joanna Hardy-Susskind (no relation) for the state of my wig but canvassing more serious criminal justice topics too. A really excellent series: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

bbc.co.uk

You Do Not Have to Say Anything - Episode 5: My Learned Friends - BBC Sounds

Come inside the barristers’ robing room.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

If you’re called Gloria you’d better Stun’em, and she did.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

It would have been très drôle if King Charles had pressed a button at the British Museum and this happened to the Bayeux Tapestry.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Grab its ring. Keep your bag up. Outvibe him. Hey, listen, show no fear! Just run at it. Well that can't be sensible can it? The bastard's about to run at me. Well he's randy! Yeah, yeah. I know he is. Wants to get down there and have sex with those cows. Shut up Withnail!

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

A man’s man. A woman’s man. Everybody’s man: counselofperfection.substack.com/p/peak-mascu...

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Patrick did a splendid job in Ireland. David, not so much in Wales. My cousin confidently told the kids not to worry, it’s only a grass snake. Google said that didn’t adder up.

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Reposted by Max Hardy

Matthew Hurst @stubsackfiction.substack.com · 26/08/2026

I for one would pay to see the massed Coldstream guards doing the Time Warp.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Will they play Sweet Transvestite at Changing the Guard tomorrow?

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Henry Cecil, 1972. ‘Comparatively easy’ & ‘substantial income’ have not stood the test of time.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Dolly put a rocket under under kids’ futures. Musk burns them in his.

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I thought they were supposed to make you more intelligent?

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

9yo: Daddy how tall were you in your prime? Me: I’m 46 not 86!

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Max Hardy @maxjlhardy.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

You might be indifferent to ‘Mingress’ or ‘Harrival’ or whatever ghastly portmanteau best describes the Sussex return but you best believe Shakespeare would be in clover at the news.

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