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Owen Massey

@oweninoxford.bsky.social
1.4K followers 774 following 1.3K posts

/'əʊɪn 'mæsiː/ librarian・pedestrian・own views・they/them・Net Zero・Vision Zero・pro-trans・pro-trains・not my king・no gods・no masters・no borders・no statues・no heroes・❄️

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Reposted by Owen Massey
Cheesecloth Ghost & Jam @cheeseandjam.bsky.social · 18h
Paint my own skull … do I have to peel my skin off first? #Halloween
A screenshot from the Iceland website. The item for sale is described as Halloween Paint Your Own Skull. It's a pack containing 5npots of paint and a brush, there also is a 2D skull to paint.
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Oxford Clarion @oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 19h
Free admission to the Museum of Oxford is set to be reinstated for city residents next spring, after the introduction of admission charges saw a significant drop in visitor numbers. An average of 28 paid entry tickets were sold each day in June this year, rising to 60 per day in August.
The Museum of Oxford (photo by Roger Close)
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Danny Yee @dannyyee.bsky.social · 20h
I am very disappointed that the City council is calling for measures that will endanger thousands of children trying to get too and from school, or make other trips around their neighbourhood. Please read wanderingdanny.com/oxford/2023/...
wanderingdanny.com
LTNs and inclusive mobility
No inclusive transport system for Oxford is possible without low traffic neighbourhoods. A genuinely inclusive transport system has to work for everyone. For eight year olds walking or cycling to sc...
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Louie Stowell @louiestowell.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
The only shocker about a book being on sale in a supermarket is that it's NOT Peppa Pig or Lee Child
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Jennifer @bibliojenni.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
What do you do with the chains when reading a chained book?, I hear you ask. As of today, we'll put them into these little calico bags made by the broderers! Inspired by a conservator who told us she put it in a sock while working on one of our books.
Chain in a bag.Chain in a bag; loop in staple visible.
Pile of 6 calico bags.Chained book with bag containing Chained lying next to it.
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C20 Society @c20society.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
🗓️ For October’s Building of the Month, Clare St George explores Herbert Shepherd’s Paddington Library (1923-29), and the importance of saving those buildings that play a secondary role to the activity taking place within them. ➡️ Read more: c20society.org.uk/building-of-...
Paddington Library, Westminster - Herbert Shepherd (1923-29), Grade II
Image (c) The Blowup, UnsplashPaddington Library, Westminster - Herbert Shepherd (1923-29), Grade II
Image (c) Murray ClarkeIllustration of Central Baths, Westminster - Herbert Shepherd (1923-29), Grade II
Image (c) Westminster Archives
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ChinnyVision @chinnyvision.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Absolute bollocks. As any fool knows, London got UHF 625 TV in 1964 and before that it was 405 line VHF. So why is there a UHF aerial on the rooftop on the right? Idiots. Rest is fine obvs.
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Phil M 🦻🏼💚 🍉 🏳️‍⚧️ 🇵🇸 @phillm.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
When they talk about reducing red tape, remember this image.
Grenfell Tower, a black smouldering carcass of the building shorty after the fire, in 2017.
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Owen Massey @oweninoxford.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The optimism of the sign suggesting you might walk from Oxfordshire to the south coast of France reminds me of this sign I saw last month suggesting you might walk from central Italy to Canterbury. To be fair, it is a modern revival of a pilgrimage route. And it doesn't give an estimated time ...
Three red-and-white signs on a post pointing to, among other destinations, CANTERBURY and ROMA
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Oxford Clarion @oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
At a public launch yesterday, university Pro-Vice Chancellor Mark E Smith said that the Greenways were crucial to retaining Oxford’s competitiveness as a research institution. In a long read, we look at the reasoning behind the network – and the challenges it faces. oxfordclarion.uk/oxford-green...
Oxford Greenways public launch event (photo via Oxfordshire County Council)
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Oxford Clarion @oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
16 routes would connect Oxford with towns including Abingdon, Eynsham, Woodstock and Kidlington. In addition, a new route would cross the city on the Thames floodplain, following the existing informal Electric Road path. The Greenways could be funded by developers or by Government.
Schematic map of the Oxford Greenways network
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Oxford Clarion @oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Plans have been unveiled for a network of cycle routes linking nearby towns and villages to Oxford, backed by county and city councils – and unusually, the University of Oxford. The Oxford Greenways would connect 200,000 residents to the city on traffic-free paths. oxfordclarion.uk/oxford-green...
oxfordclarion.uk
Oxford Greenways: a cure for congestion?
How far would you be prepared to cycle to work? Research suggests that, for most people, 2 to 5 miles is the sweet spot. That's 10 to 30 minutes each way. Enough for health benefits, but not too tiri...
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Cllr Emily Kerr 💚 @emilykerr36.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
📢 Oxford Greenways launch 📢 We launched the Greenways project today! Masterplan of connecting safe cycle routes. It was just great to be standing on a stage with City, County, and Uni ALL behind the project, and Councillors from 3 different parties speaking in support. Also I got a mug! 😍☕ (1/4)
Leaders from City, County & Uni all standing up on the stage supporting Greenways. & me :). The MUG!! I just love it.
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Tom Flood @tomflood.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Person sipping wine 

reckless pedestrian written at top

I’ll wear back whenever the fuck I want
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Oxford Clarion @oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Oxford University has retained its first place in the Times Higher Education rankings for a record 11th year. It won subject firsts in medical & health and computer science, and was ranked 2nd for social sciences and engineering. www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-09...
ox.ac.uk
Oxford named best university in the world for record 11 years in a row
The Stephen A Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities at Oxford.
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Matthew Holford @matthewholford.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Semi-regular reminder that if you have published on one of the Bodleian's medieval manuscripts, we'd love to know about it via this form forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/Respon... Items will be added to our Zotero bibliography, which is linked to our online manuscript catalogue.
forms.cloud.microsoft
Microsoft Forms
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Oxford Clarion @oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Women Against The Far Right & Oxfordshire Stand Up To Racism (OSUTR) will hold a vigil on 3 October to counter a planned demonstration of the Oxfordshire Patriots. The groups condemn what they say is a far right group hijacking suffering of victims of child sexual exploitation in the name of racism.
image from previous vigil large pink sign 'Oxford Women against the far right refugees are welcome here' (Roger Close)
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Hannah Vardit @hannahvardit.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
you will encounter more opportunities in life to change the batteries on a smoke alarm than you will to run into a burning building and no one gives a shit you changed those batteries but it is still very important and why are you waiting on a burning building, know what i’m saying, it’s a metaphor
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Caspar Henderson @casparhenderson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
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Cowleyforniadreaming @holybollards.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This is going to make cycling to Rectory Farm so much safer, and so much more pleasant. 💚
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Simon @simonxix.com · 28/09/2026
Historic England outsourced their digital image provision to a third-party company. Then the company went bust and now all their images are inaccessible. Tell me again how outsourcing to the private sector is sustainable?
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Jacob Gifford Head @giffordhead.co.uk · 28/09/2026
Your regular reminder that the Corporation of London founded a charity in 1282 (!) to look after London Bridge. It now has assets of £1.5B (!) generating an income of £42M (!) most of which is, unsurprisingly, not needed for looking after the 5 bridges it is formally responsible for...
register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk
BRIDGE HOUSE ESTATES - Charity 1035628
Charity details for BRIDGE HOUSE ESTATES - Charity 1035628
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Oxford Clarion @oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Oxford's traffic filters switch on today. Oxford Liveable Streets' Siobhann Mansel-Pleydell looks at which one will be better for Oxford and commuters, the congestion charge or the traffic filters? oxfordclarion.uk/traffic-filt...
oxfordclarion.uk
Traffic Filters vs Congestion Charge : Contest or Evolution?
The Oxford Traffic Filters switch on this morning, and we've just got used to the congestion charge. Oxfordshire Liveable Streets are a not-for-profit organisation working alongside residents across O...
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Defend Our Juries @defendourjuries.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
BREAKING: 94 year old Jewish human rights barrister, Margaret Owen arrested under the Terrorism Act outside Andy Burnham’s Labour Party conference. UK taxpayers are funding these arrests while masked men terrorise the streets in coastal towns. Lift The Ban on Palestine Action.
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Owen Massey @oweninoxford.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This is a lovely story from the Clarion. I visited the old Jesus College barge last summer for a meal - it’s now the floating restaurant Peggy Jean at Richmond Green in London.
Peggy Jean barge painted in cream and green, moored in front of Richmond Bridge, a long low stone bridge
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Just helping with editing here. These bots aren’t sentient. They’re doing what they’re programmed to do. OpenAI, a private company supposedly bound by laws, committed federal crimes.
Screenshot of BBC article: OpenAI bots (struck through) meddled with multiple US government agency sites
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Nathan Ley @nathanley.com · 26/09/2026
cllrdrnathanley.substack.com/p/the-roofs-...
cllrdrnathanley.substack.com
The roofs won’t be enough
“Just put them on roofs instead” is the most comfortable argument in British politics. It is also the one that quietly hands the bill to our children.
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Christian Algar @ceebarnacles.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
“Sir Archy Mac Sarcasm is a pseudonym.” Cataloguers, huh?! 😀
Screenshot of a catalogue record for an 18th-century English printed book.
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Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
after consideration, I have produced this necessary reference guide, perhaps @sundersays.bsky.social may be interested. If someone wants to provide funding after the fact, I can promise it won't constitute a donation in kind to Reform.
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Jacob Gifford Head @giffordhead.co.uk · 23/09/2026
I have no real understanding of the dynamics of film funding but £3.5K to close off a picturesque street in Oxford for a day seems, well, quite cheap?
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Louise, Prof/Dr @louiselocock.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This actually reminds me quite a lot of how long it took to get Raise the Colours thugs arrested and banned from Oxford. Eventually they were, but it took a lot of complaints and repeated collection of evidence of law-breaking.
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Charles West @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Great news, and looking forward to a book historian becoming Chief Exec of the UK Space Agency sometime soon in this brave new world!
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 18/09/2026
An effective ban on disabled people leaving Britain? You read that right, and we will not settle for it | Frances Ryan
theguardian.com
An effective ban on disabled people leaving Britain? You read that right, and we will not settle for it | Frances Ryan
This scandal shows there are many who don’t expect us to live rich lives – and that paternalism lives on in disability services, says Guardian columnist Frances Ryan
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👻madeline bOoOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 18/09/2026
if you EVER get called for a meeting and they say “don’t bring a union rep” bring a union rep
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Spookably UnAwake @lamentablyawake.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
It's all on you, members of the British public, to solve the climate crisis, and I'm giving you 43p each to do so.
Headline: British people understand the climate crisis threat. Today I’m empowering them to tackle it - Andy Burnham

[Photo of Andy Burnham, a middle aged white man with brown hair wearing a black shirt]

Subhead: With nearly £30m of funding, I’m giving communities power over local energy. They know the gravity of global heating, and they want to be part of the solution
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Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing.org.uk · 16/09/2026
I'm going to write an article with the headline: "Is Betteridge's Law Valid?"
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Sexy Plato's Cave @andrewblair.co.uk · 16/09/2026
The arts industry in the UK: we contribute so much money to the economy but we are dying, please help Lisa Nandy: Village Parish Council: we held a pretend referendum Lisa Nandy: I'm listening
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Real Gaz on a proper bike: gazza_d@toot.bike @gazza-d.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
This is a really grim thread from Paul. Good work. Whilst people are wringing hands about bikes and ebikes, it is a sobering reminder what the real danger on UK roads is.
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Flight Free UK @flightfreeuk.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
📢Oxfordshire Residents📢 We are hosting our flagship event, ‘Travel, Flying and the Climate Crisis’ in Oxford next month. Our panel will discuss airport expansion, human influence on climate change and flight-free travel inspiration! Free tickets: tickettailor.com/events/fligh...
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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 14/09/2026
Occasionally DJT’s ramblings get so weird they sound like the 18th century: imagine these in descending size & ostentatiousness of font: A Report on Weapons Most Exquisite & Elite Delivered Daily to The American Forces In the Middle East & Beyond from Defense Company Factories Working Day & Night
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GraveDigger @colinwmd.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Who called it the "Hair & Barber Council" when THE STYLE COUNCIL was right there?
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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Betteridge’s Second Law.
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👻 Jack Djinn Wail 🧞 @jacktindale.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
"England's schools consistently outperform Finland's ones" is another one of those public policy things where people's priors are massively out of date, isn't it?
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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 07/09/2026
If every statement about Extinction Rebellion had opened with "Climate change is the single biggest issue facing humanity, and we understand why people have legitimate concerns the world isn't doing enough to tackle it…" this approach might be *faintly* defensible. But they didn't, and it isn't.
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Ben Wood @cosmichope.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
'[Those] who man the lifeboat do not ask credentials from the crew of a sinking ship; they launch their boats, risk their lives in the raging waves, and sometimes perish, all to save men whom they do not even know. And what need to know them? 'They are human beings" (Peter Kropotkin). 🌻
lifeboatmagazinearchive.rnli.org
Life-Boats and Anarchy
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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 27/08/2026
Ok I can share—today MSLIS student Nadja Robot donated a teletype machine to @skeuomorphpress.org’s Undead Media Lab But this is not just any teletype—it’s the one Michael S. Hart used to digitize the Declaration of Independence & Alice in Wonderland—the 1st texts in what became Project Gutenberg
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Owen Massey @oweninoxford.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
‘Tobacco and raw milk sidelined in plans for healthy living’
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c.c. o'hanlon @ccohanlon.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
“People are discovering that, as everything is already decided for you by a computer or algorithm, being able to make or own something physically is good. And it is very satisfying to repeat a task to perfection. It is meditative as a job...” – Eryn Lawley, bookbinder apprentice
theguardian.com
AI-proof? Younger workers desert the digital world for traditional crafts
In a disrupted job market people are turning to heritage crafts such as bookbinding, metalwork and boatbuilding
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Owen Massey @oweninoxford.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Defund Thames Valley Police
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Oxford Clarion @oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Finance workers at Oxford University Press are to strike over a plan to offshore work to India. Sharon Graham, secretary of the Unite union, called it “a classic case of an employer prioritising greed over its hardworking staff”. www.unitetheunion.org/news-events/...
unitetheunion.org
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