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Natasha Simonova

@philistella.bsky.social
1.8K followers 246 following 2.8K posts

Bougie London Literary Woman, cat concierge, occasional academic. Book on 18th-century women's letters forthcoming from Chatto & Windus. natashasimonova.com

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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 16h
Me: Yes I'd really like to win the Nobel Prize so that places that failed to give me secure employment are shamed forever about it. Him: I meant sexual fantasies?
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Hope they weren't flying to Edinburgh
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I remember hiding behind the sofa for Jurassic Park, but it was the Earthsea trilogy (as it was then) that really gave me nightmares from existential horror.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
You really can't underestimate the effects of incompetence and basic disregard for human life though
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Giant couscous!! Which, turns out, is NOT what you want daal.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
HEY, James Orr will not see this but all your Forthcoming 2022 friends will
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I've definitely seen 'tl;dr' advanced as the actual explanation!
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Oh we've really made it now
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Reposted by Natasha Simonova
dan mentos @danmentos.com · 22/09/2026
[job interview] interviewer: so god killed all your kids? job: that's right
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Sometimes I like to set myself a little trap, like a Wet Bandit.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Who would like to guess what this container I made a giant pot of daal from actually contained.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
If anyone does actually want to have their evidence gathered, you can just sign up for YouGov, this was today's poll!
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Ancient Rome is underground now, it's not because the Ancient Romans were mole people!
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
On the other hand, I learned how to read music in the US and when I moved over here I simply Stopped after two orchestra rehearsals, this is madness and no one should be expected to cope with it
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
He has clearly fainted away with hunger and should be given some luxury fish-based cat food to sustain him?
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I'm just saying, it's always 'following a link that someone describes as a trainwreck' and never 'I wonder what insightful piece they're publishing this week, in The Cut'.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Tbh every piece I've ever been told to read in The Cut is a middle-class woman having a self-pathologising emotion no sane human would ever admit out loud and making it everyone else's problem, I think that's their beat.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Heard you were having some buttered toast and that seems like something I should be involved in
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Things are really going quite badly around here at the moment and I'm not sure how to snap out of it. Maybe big pile of leaves would fix me.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
How to find big pile of leaves and crawl into it and slowly delay.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The Amazon strapline for Midsomer Murders is currently 'Witty detective's stable marriage charms viewers.' Three people have died, one of them crushed by a tank!
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
One cup of coffee (my limit), two of tea.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Who would believe I'd ever look back on series 11 of Midsomer Murders as a golden age of realistic setups and rational behaviour.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I've started series 19 of Midsomer Murders, Natashas only do that when they're VERY distressed.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The Donmar Cherry Orchard basically started like this and I think the technique could be extended to other plays!
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I recommend Sienna if you like very early Renaissance art and stripes!
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
'Sorry I am currently away from my desk, I will reply as soon as I've finished pushing this rock up a hill.'
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
♥️ it's just a conspiracy of cartographers
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Maybe the oil rig workers should try freelance indexing, or start a podcast!
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Asking the question, but in a plaintive way.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
There is a certain strand of popular writing that depends on Academics Hiding the Truth From Us, but I never realised that truth was Frances Burney! We bang on about Burney ALL THE TIME.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Surely 'we need to create a library of British novels' is a problem that began to be solved a mere 216 years ago.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I was a tiny bit sad at not getting to review this but I could not have done better than @bobeaglestone.bsky.social, as I would simply have reached the bit about Austen scholars not knowing Frances Burney and permanently died.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
youtu.be/ryH5cga0yUI?...
youtu.be
Kate Nash - Foundations
YouTube video by KateNashVEVO
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I was talking to a friend recently about how I wouldn't have wanted to buy in my old neighbourhood, lovely as it was, because it's all Victorian houses built on a former watercress field with no foundations, and she (having only lived in modern flats) didn't know what subsidence *was*. New terror!
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
'semi-detached from itself' is making me slightly hysterical
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
also a weird little guy! but still baby
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
My cat is definitely not my child but she is, a little baby
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Oh NO I'm so heartbroken for you, he was such a beautiful fluffy void 💔
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
All men too, of course. The only woman I can think of to go that way is the Bad Naomi, in slightly different circumstances.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Oh no, all fingers crossed for you!!!
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Reposted by Natasha Simonova
Stephanie 🍉 @ageofoddish.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
mmygod
the slut gnomes of false berlin jeopardy bluesky posttoday's jeopardy categories. the last 2 are "false berlin" and "bizarre little men"
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Desperately wanted to return to work/live there for years; that didn't work out, for various reasons. Don't know if I'd recognise it now.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The fact that I was able to take courses from other subject areas - specifically things like Classical Literature in Translation and The Bible and Literature - was absolutely formative for the scholar I turned out to be, and also for being able to do Odyssey Discourse.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Too sad to talk about the management vandalism happening at the University of Edinburgh, a place I was associated with for a decade of great joys and lingering trauma. My PhD supervisor took the voluntary severance this summer.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I was trying to explain Bsky to a friend this week and somehow 'we like cats and papal schisms and we're all 42’ wasn't really selling it?
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Landmarking (because we've been going to Landmark Trust properties for the past 20+ years)
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I have seen 100 posts on a row about the tiny new cat, Bluesky is never beating the allegations.
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
SO judgily disappointed, which coming from someone with that hair is frankly out of order.
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