iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

French people: wait HERE, you shall not pass Basque people: thanks a million Spanish & English people: stop with your fancy payment methods

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

A Gen Z couple asked me to take a photo of them, then watched in confusion and horror as I instinctively rotated the phone into landscape format. I am approximately one million years old.

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Finally, Westbahn are acknowledging that first class Interrail passes exist @seatsixtyone.bsky.social westbahn.at/en/news/inte...

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Just Nigel Farage, the man who wants to be your Prime Minister, laughing with glee in full support of racism. This woman was speaking eloquently and emotionally about the fear she and her mixed-race family are experiencing at the hands of the far right. Fuck them all

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Damn. That’s my plans for the evening in tatters.

Sign in a shop window proclaiming “Il est interdit de parler flamand et d’uriner sur les murs"

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I’m used to being ignored, begrudged, and on one occasion threatened, when politely asking someone if they’d mind using headphones. But I experienced a new, horrifying development today: some arse FaceTiming on speaker in a pub actually had the neck to ask us (having a conversation) to be quiet. 🤯

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Reposted by Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺

Terence Eden @edent.tel · 14/08/2026

I know you all hate the emergency alert about disposable barbeques. But yesterday I watched a man at our hotel breakfast set fire to a toaster by trying to toast a croissant - despite multiple signs telling him not to. Today he tried again. So, you know, calibrate for the average person.

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

My heart bleeds for publishers who are now going to have to ‘divert valuable resources’ towards finding new ways to trap customers in unwanted subscriptions.

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Ah, banking. "This payment process usually happens overnight" "Call it 3 days" "Absolutely. 3-4 business days" "That's a week really" "At least!" "Let's say 'allow up to 10 days', just to cover ourselves" "Good idea. 10 working days it is. Mind you, it's coming up to Christmas..."

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Reform’s vote share just might have peaked in January. Let’s hope so. A good start for Andy Burnham and a couple more bad months for Nigel Farage could see them fade even more. Back over the tipping point where a hundred seats could disappear in the blink of an eye. 🤞

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

I can’t promise that Binface will beat Farage. He probably won’t. I can’t even promise that this is a good idea. But I can promise that the bad guy has the money to buy this election, and the good guy doesn’t… yet. Donate here. Vote Bin. countbinface.com/help-binface

A sketch of Count Binface, with the word HOPE.

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Reposted by Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺

Katalin Halmai @eublogo.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

A better solution than staying up. Switch your telly to BBC2 tonight, and put your phone in airplane mode.

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

I can’t imagine what a horrible experience this will have been to go through. How angry and scared it would make them. The effect on their kids. This is MAGA’s doing. Punishment for having the temerity to exist. Punishment for Pride Month.

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

London is forecast to hit 40C this week, breaking the June record by a scarcely-believable 4 or 5 degrees. But sure, let’s shit some CO2 into the atmosphere to make wallpaper for a TV report.

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Happy to help, @seatsixtyone.bsky.social . I was there again a few days ago, and there are posters up advertising redevelopment plans, so you’ll just have to make another research trip when it’s done.

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

This is beautiful. If we’re all going to be inundated with AI spam, it might as well be in the style of ecclesiastical correspondence.

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Videos on Facebook are really clever, because when you click on one to watch, it starts playing on mute, pauses when you try to unmute, and then restarts and won't reload. But when you're just idly scrolling past, every video plays automatically at full volume and interrupts your podcast.

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Then they came for the journalists. (We don’t know what happened after that.)

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Reposted by Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺

Billy Bragg @billybragg.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

I wrote this yesterday about the hero city of Minneapolis www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKOW...

youtube.com

BILLY BRAGG - CITY OF HEROES

YouTube video by Billy Bragg

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

I’m wandering round Valencia, having a delightful discussion with ChatGPT about how to tell Rococo from Art Nouveau. ‘This building is extremely powdered wig-coded’ is perhaps my favourite comment. 😂

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

Maths is weird sometimes. ‘We want 10% more nurses ASAP’ sounds innocuous. ‘Ok. You have to double training capacity overnight, but only temporarily’ is the logical, difficult, and surprising solution. Great piece by @timharford.ft.com

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

I think Westbahn is taking the piss now @seatsixtyone.bsky.social 😂 €65 upgrade fee, when you already have a first class rail pass, to sit in first class. I think that might be a record.

Screenshot of Westbahn's reservations website, showing a first class reservation from Munich to Vienna costs €64.90.

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

(At the bird design committee meeting) “What colour should we make this bird?” “Yes”

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Reposted by Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺

The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 06/10/2025

Today’s Daily Cartoon, by Adam Douglas Thompson. #NewYorkerCartoons Sign up for our humor newsletter to get Daily Cartoons delivered to your inbox: nyer.cm/0EivDaD

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Reposted by Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺

Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 19/09/2025

who called them "the Huns" and not "H from Steppes"

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

I can't wait for the 3rd of January, when Crystal Palace make the trip to play at St James Park #supportpalacetyneaction

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

Did you know that most prescriptions are ready for collection the next day? But if you make two phone calls to the GP, two visits to the pharmacy, and beg hard enough, this can be reduced to as little as a week.

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

I've just asked how much the nail clippers were in this shop, and got a look that mixed pity with disdain. How's your day going?

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

Looks like this has slipped from 'in mid summer' to 'by the end of the year'.

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Today something amazing happened. I asked a man if he would please turn down the music on his phone and he did! No arguments, no getting defensive, no sneakily inching the volume back up five minutes later. He turned it off and we all got on with our day. 😮 I might but a lottery ticket.

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Reposted by Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺

Steve Tallantyre @tallantyre.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

THIS IS THE FUTURE LIBERALS WANT

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Reposted by Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺

Richard Herring @herring1967.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

But I don’t want to live in interesting times.

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

You can leave as much time as you like for delays, but sometimes even the most generous connection time gets eaten by disruption. I had nearly 5 hours between arriving in Hamburg and talking my sleeper to Stockholm, now down to 90 minutes, and my train is still stationary 😮. Friday 13th strikes…

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

@seatsixtyone.bsky.social There doesn't seem to have been any official announcement, but it looks like the Frecciarossa to Paris is going to be accepting Interrail from this summer. Spotted by a friend of mine.

Screenshot from the Interrail app, showing the Frecciarossa from Paris to Milan

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and of course Hungary chose homophobia. They chose to side with Viktor Orban and his ban on Pride marches. Shameful.

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

2.30am, trying to sleep. Brain: OK, but how about first we try to transcribe the name Peter, as spoken in Standard English, Tyneside English, and American English, into IPA? That would be fun and worthwhile, wouldn't it?

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

@seatsixtyone.bsky.social FYI, it seems Eurostar have bumped up the cost of Interrail reservations. London to FR or BE is now €35/ €40 London to NL unchanged at €35/ €43 I don't know if they've changed the ex-Thalys costs.

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Reposted by Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺

Arthur Webber 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 @bernietranders.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

A friend who was out as a gay man during Section 28 was telling me the advice he used to give to straight allies asking how they could help back then: stand in solidarity with us so that some of the shit they’re throwing at us sticks to you. If you’re clean, you’re not standing close enough.

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

'I never thought tariffs would eat my face!', says man who implemented face-eating tariffs.

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Reposted by Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺

The Empty City @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Corn now exempt from corn law tariff.

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Who needs a TGV for €10 or €20 reservation fee, when (some) Intercités are completely reservation-free on Interrail? @seatsixtyone.bsky.social 1+1 staggered seating in first class Bordeaux-Nantes. Optional reservation €1.70.

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