Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 01/10/2026So it turns out the atrocities of 2017 never actually stopped, just continued under new management. This is unremittingly awful. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...theguardian.com‘They showed no mercy’: mapping the Rohingya villages being erased by rebel forcesNearly a decade after the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya people by Myanmar forces, satellite images show the insurgent Arakan Army is now emulating the killings and land grabs 000
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Every time someone complains about an annoying sound, I must not blurt out "AH, but do you know what kind of noise annoys an oyster? / A NOISY NOISE ANNOYS AN OYSTER" 050
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 30/09/2026(to be clear I entirely agree with the OP, but we could just...not relitigate it this month, for once?) 000
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Congratulations everyone we've now graduated to having the most annoying food debate possible with The Americans, only this time we've preempted their participation entirely! Much more efficient that way 200
Reposted by Oliver Loughgamera obscura october edition @ohrobin.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Google earth has updated its satellite images of Gaza. The destruction is almost incomprehensible. 4622241313
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 28/09/2026No, it was a fiction writer talking about dogs dying in fiction and how odd people were being were being about it, and people responded by *continuing to be real fucking odd about it* minniesfictionaddiction.com/2025/05/13/w...minniesfictionaddiction.comWhen a Fictional Dog Dies: The Threads Controversy That Sparked a Bookish FirestormThe book world is no stranger to drama, but this week, Threads lit up over something seemingly simple: a fictional dog dying in a novel. What started as a casual behind-the-scenes post from an auth… 270
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 28/09/2026see also the "All Dogs Are Good Dogs" supremacy. People are so fucking weird about this! Remember that poor author who became the main character of the internet for a few days for complaining about how weird people were about her killing off dogs in her work? 2160
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Someone needs to get @kyliu99.bsky.social to do a treatment of this. 010
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Phantasmagoric Joycean shennanigans stumbling down Guijie at 2am. 110
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Yeah, and we've gone from "Denzel Curry brings an entirely new energy to Bulls on Parade" to, "oh huh yeah I guess it's funny to do a lounge version of Karma Police", to "this is...just a different random woman singing I'm Every Woman for like, no reason." 030
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Completely agree, just flummoxed how "not the real thing" became the easiest option. 110
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Conversely, also intrigued by the complete ubiquity of anonymous, possibly ai-generated straight covers of famous songs in restaurants, bars, hotels etc. Presumably you have a Spotify account somewhere so could just play the original? Just very odd to have a shit simulacrum for no discernible reason 220
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Cursed like Cassandra with the gift of prophecy, but doomed to be forever ignored on account of their music being godawful. 010
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Worth reading this piece in conjunction with Owen Hatherley's one about similar dynamics on Walthamstow in terms of how much of this is about 'failing' high streets and how much is about class and messy urban environments www.dezeen.com/2017/11/07/o...dezeen.com"London streets don't need to look like a 1940s that never happened"The sanitisation of shop signs in Walthamstow, northeast London, is a mistake that mustn't be repeated anywhere else in the capital, argues Owen Hatherley 000
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 27/09/2026What it looks like is a reasonably thriving set of businesses serving a very diverse, mainly working class community. But it's messy and not conventionally "sightly" and probably quite a lot of semi legal informal stuff going on, so needs to be cleaned up I guess. 010
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Which includes, off the top of my head, one of London's best small theatres, a music rooms, a great Syrian deli/restaurant, a great Polish deli, multiple pharmacies, multiple textile shops, a bike shop, a florist, and yeah a bunch of not v fancy restaurants, many of which have been there for years 000
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 27/09/2026I get the stuff about gambling but this is a *very* selective look at what this section of the Uxbridge Road actually contains... giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... via @financialtimes.comgiftarticle.ft.comThe west London high street fighting against bookies and chicken shopsResidents’ campaign to diversify Uxbridge Road comes as prime minister pledges to tackle UK’s ‘hollowed out’ neighbourhoods 200
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Goodness these new Enid Blighton adaptations are getting dark 051
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Interesting thread this in that my parents live there and the social dynamics are a bit more, ah, nuanced than some of the replies might suggest. Useful reminder (to me anyway) that the places we discuss like this are actual places rather than caricatures. 010
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Better local cuisine within a 20 mile radius than these cunts have in their (our) entire country. Not as good as Wuhan, mind 010
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Ok but seriously a former colleague in Myanmar tried to convince me that his Buddhist Nazi neighbours (and I use that term advisedly) were nice people because they helped fix his water pump that one time 000
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Sort of similar to Han Chinese not really being an "ethnic" identity in its own right compared to all of China's various (legally prescribed) minorities. Famous eg of the children's book where every other ethnicity is there in its national dress and the Han family are just in trousers/shirt collars 000
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 23/09/2026The more I think about it the more I wonder whether Alex Nieven was onto something about Englishness being a negative space of an identity. A lot of the stuff people seem to want to associate with it is either regional or capital B British in the sense of fragments of the old imperial project. 110
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Meanwhile, in Nanjing on Christmas day 2008 the principal of our graduate programme gave what was meant to be a rousing speech that ended with him almost tearfully explaining "there...there just are no jobs" 010
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Yes I'm sure the famously monoethnic Dual Monarchy would be happy to have them onboard. Obviously the garrison would be manned by a querulous mix of Czechs, Slovenians and Ruthenes but that's just life, in't it lads. 020
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Well I guess if they secede from the UK they can't have its monarchy so, if they want to be a principality, they're going to need to make one up pronto. 100
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Reminds me of a Moscow babushka explaining in a vox-pop that Ukraine needed to be conquered "so there could be peace and laughter, so the children can play" and I have never wanted to punch anyone more in my entire lift 100
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Yeah, the answer to the (depressingly common) response of "What's it to you?" when someone is asked to obey a basic social norm is not so much "it's annoying" as, "we live in a society" 040
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Indeed. Want to go to the theatre in Oxford? That'll be a grand for the visa application, 3 months' wait for the appointment, and a rejection with no appeal because we're not satisfied that you've given sufficient evidence to prove you're a 'genuine' fan of Brecht. 010
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 15/09/2026I've had 3 near misses with dangerous drivers in the past 2 rides and am therefore *well aware* of the main danger on the roads, but the number of ppl on here minimising or diverting good faith comments on dangerous cycling is baffling. Come on guys, we can walk and chew gum at the same time here. 000
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 15/09/2026It just isn't. A fast chain gang or even a strong solo rider will hit that on a flat or downhill drag no problem. Might not be able to sustain it for long but still. 50mph sure, not happening but 30 is well within the realms of possibility. 120
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 14/09/2026I mean his main point was "I nearly got run over by a cyclist on the pavement and I did not care for it" and everything beyond that is Bsky being Bsky. 150
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 14/09/2026As a cyclist I'm still most at risk from careless driving but I am now *also* at risk from idiots riding 30kg ebikes at some speed through red lights and junctions, which simply was not the case 5 years ago. 020
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 14/09/2026I think there's a context collapse happening here. Cycling behaviour in *London specifically* has got *way* worse in the past few years I think largely due to dockless ebikes. This is (imho as a cyclist) also driving worse driver behaviour toward cyclists and the doom loop needs breaking. 270
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 11/09/2026It's funny looking back and seeing what lands and what doesn't years later. The stuff on collaboration, guilt, ends justifying means etc is all pretty fresh (Ties of Blood and Water, damn) but it's remarkably crude/cavalier on religion, ai consciousness, torturing Miles O'Brien for fun... 131
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 11/09/2026I guess if we had to choose the healthier response to AI, it might be closer to the latter? 050
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Just rewatching DS9 and am, in hindsight, floored by the *wildly* inconsistent treatment of Data vs Vic Fontaine. Former: very special boy, focus of multiple arcs on What It Is To Be Human; latter: eh he's just a sentient little guy who lives in the holosuite, don't worry about him. 260
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 09/09/2026Never really clicked with any other river. Enjoyed feeding the Isis ducks at the end of my street after a night out but always felt small. Kabul river was a ditch, Kaladan was all silt and plastic bags, and the Dnipro was eerie, haunted by the ghosts of grounded pleasure boats. 020
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 09/09/2026Thames at Hammersmith. Stink of wellies and tide and the ammonia of unwashed kit. Waves breaking through riggers and sodding wet t-shirts. Then suddenly you're 18, the boat's perfectly sat, and there's no sound but bubbles on the hull and speed and sunlight on water as you glide under the bridge. 330
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 05/09/2026Tell me again how *not dying or being seriously injured in a traffic accident* is regressive 000
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 05/09/2026My god Americans are *so weird* about speed cameras. Pretty much the whole of inner London is now a camera-enforced 20mph speed limit zone, and the outcome is, you guessed it, that people drive at or under the speed limit and deaths/injuries are reduced tfl.gov.uk/info-for/med...tfl.gov.uk 100
Reposted by Oliver LoughGaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 05/09/2026I’ve been a bit quiet on here lately, and this was why www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...theguardian.comLosing a parent is a bewildering, lonely experience. Here are the things I wish I had known before | Gaby HinsliffThere’ll be exhaustion, love tinged with occasional rage, even moments of black humour. But my mum would want me to tell you: don’t be afraid, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff 13467591
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 05/09/2026Also: 798 is pretty overrun with tourists and charlatans these days, think the art scene has moved on at least a couple of times since it was established. YMMV. Whoever on here said eat Jianbing is spot on. Also, baijiu is excluded from the category of 'try anything once' 000
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 04/09/2026Ok, if you eat one place (and admittedly it's been a while), make it here. maps.app.goo.gl/Q4fEUxgPR5uk... Also: Confucius temple and surrounding area are fun, the Niujie mosque is extremely cool, Panjiayuan second hand/book market also cool (more for people watching than antiques).maps.app.goo.gl 100
Oliver Lough @olough.bsky.social · 31/08/2026Always nice to have an opportunity to re-share this collection of thoroughly pissed-up drivers arguing their judgment isn't the slightest bit impaired on the eve of the 1967 drink driving ban youtu.be/bCd-suRKZOI?...youtu.bePub goers of 1967 discussing the absolute audacity of drink-driving laws in the UK. YouTube video by Britain's Lost & Living Pubs 010