iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Missed that! Heroine of the revolution: staked her life to cut the terror short, ended up as one of its many female victims.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Thanks but try blowing it up - it's tightly cropped from a picture taken from too far away with a wide angle lens, and has poor resolution. I should have brought the regular lens and zoomed in. Maybe tomorrow. These cold bright mornings are ideal.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

At last: Autumn. Dunham Massey, Cheshire, this morning.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Russell Square again: good to see that a group of primary school children can safely scoot and cycle in central London. SOAS seems to have been declared a school zone for the occasion.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I remember his sensational debut on TV. Is that one of Patrick Eagar’s?

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Russell Square is my favourite place because, I think, everyone has *chosen* to be here - is that true anywhere else? The wobbly paths impel a slight detour, rewarding in all seasons. It’s better still in light rain, from the shelter of the ever-glorious Cafe Tropea. Bring me here to die happy.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

That pussycat may be death, but that horse is a pussycat.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Fans of the 2026 Cloud House (on 'Grand Designs' last week) might appreciate the house in 'Mon Oncle', Jacques Tati's 1958 satire on modernist pretence (cultural advisory: JOKE). The link to the architects' website says 'there has been a critical error'. You can say that again.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

You need one of these: a pre-smart age bookcase from a charity shop. A nearby Oxfam bookshop can be helpful with boxes.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

It’s not just English lit that requires clear communication - it is everything that has to be expressed in prose (as opposed to figures, symbols or art) and that is intended to be widely understood. Clear prose is not an argot, elite or otherwise.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

A shelf of classic labour history at Manchester Central Library yesterday (albeit a little weighed down by Bolshevik ideology). Independent scholars need real books as e-book access at university libraries is barred to guest readers, while the British Library lost most of theirs in the hack.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The hush of anticipation: History section, Manchester University Library, ship-shape and awaiting students. Lets hope they keep coming. Good wishes for 2026-7 to all historian friends and colleagues - past, present, and future.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I find this kind of social media pile-on disturbing. What made Walliams a writer was his empathetic first book The Boy in the Dress. Would any trans allies like to comment?

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Thanks. That’s reassuring, but it doesn’t explain why Lancs lost to Gloucs in 3 days….

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Reform getting 10x the Tory vote is a concern. I wonder which way the Liberals all went? And would the Greens have won but for Champagne George Galloway and his retinue?

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Thinking primates. The evolution gallery at the Musée des Confluences, Lyon, has a chimpanzee posing as Rodin's thinker. Meanwhile, at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, homo sapiens is represented among the primates by the skull of Descartes.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

The Acme company which made the mangles used to have a prominent sign in the metal-bashing zone along the Wolverhampton- Birmingham railway. They didn’t make it up ..,

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

In an age when nearly everyone uses AI, the historian is the one who doesn’t.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

I spend my career teaching that history is not an information retrieval exercise, and along comes AI and turns history into an information retrieval exercise. You wouldn’t go to a gym and get a machine to lift your weights, and you don’t outsource your thinking to AI.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

One day you watch De Gaulle part 1 (recommended!), the next day this turns up in the street. It’s Liberation Day in Lyon (a couple of weeks after Paris) and this is a wartime vehicle, beautifully restored, with De Gaulle’s Free French symbol added in magnetic tape.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Yes agreed. I’ve come across the same thing occasionally, of course much less than you. But such inspiring students are a limited sample. The decline in male literacy is widespread and real. I should have said such tests are a reasonable initial move - but not diagnostic.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

This is about literacy, not just mispronunciation. People may (or may not) have heard the words but they don’t recognise the written form. The trend tracks declining male reading habits. If you want to spend your life with someone who reads, this is a fair test.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

'There must be a way to save Jodrell Bank, and I give a commitment today, we will find it.... Jodrell Bank is a heritage asset for the country, as well as a research asset.' Well said, Prime Minister.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

'How do you ask for asylum in this crazy world?' Old quarter, Lyon, today. More on the art of asking the right question from La Dactylo here: ladactylo.com

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I never thought of Thunderbirds, Stingray etc from the 1960s as environmental, but there are a lot of big tech disasters, and this issue of TV21 was prophetic. The 54321Fab! exhibition about the magnificent Andersons is at Worcester Museum until 6 Sept. www.museumsworcestershire.org.uk

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

London does the same but I call it marketing, not nationalism.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

I find this a bit rich. Scots nationalism has defined itself mainly against English domination. Much of the rest is a romantic rehash of highland culture, misapplied to the whole country. Walter Scott who started all that was an ultra Tory.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

As Caligula's Complex rises on the ruins of the east wing, no-one can say we weren't warned: here's Doonesbury contemplating a Trump candidacy as long ago as 1987.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Heavens, people have been cancelled for less. I've an idea they did this on TOTP too - the song, probably not the full act. Tom Jones did it as an OTT love song and got away with it, which may be more scary.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

The Odyssey 3: this inspired observation about cricket demonstrates once again that Homer - like History - is never not relevant.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

A deeper assumption to kick is that improvement = moving forwards in time. Just because things are getting worse doesn't mean we are going 'backwards'. Things look different to environmental historians.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Wonderful! Where can it be seen? There's a Dutch perspective box in the Fabritius room at the National Gallery London, but not a patch on this.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

The Odyssey: viewing notes. 1. Uproar bearable with noise-cancelling headphones, but they don’t work for earthquakes (frequent). 2. IMAX 70mm is not widescreen but a 70mm square neckache: too many blurry close-ups. 3. Finale: superb tension, ending in a confused wild west brawl.

static.klipy.com

Odyssey

ALT: Odyssey

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I wrote a draft of another message but can't find it. Where are drafts on Bluesky?

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

At the Printworks, booked 2 weeks in advance. Viewing notes to be posted shortly. It's worth it, but there's a tax. I wouldn't bother with the IMAX ubless you like Earthquakes

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

So where ARE my drafts? You save them, they disappear. You have to save another to make them reappear.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

The Odyssey in 240 characters. ‘We are the sea peoples’ (the aliens are us). Helen was a pretext: ‘the war was about trade routes’. What’s gone wrong with the gods? ‘We have broken the sacred laws’ - our civilization will fall. When the dark ages are over, we will become a terrible myth.

static.klipy.com

Turning And Facing You Agamemnon

ALT: Turning And Facing You Agamemnon

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

'Lets all just be normal': seen recently on a converted warehouse in Copenhagen. I suppose you can take this either way, but personally I read it as an assertion of diversity. 'We are normal and we want our freedom' sang the Bonzos, avant-garde as ever.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Surveillance built into software? What a shocking thought! I’m sure those nice people at Google and Facebook don’t use my data for anything without telling me. It’s only governments we have to be frightened of.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

But not much compensation for a likely TV audience of less than 9,455.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Exactly: when fed the right stuff. But who created the material and who decided what to feed and what not to feed? AI can’t tell the difference between a well-structured database and a pile of old stuff on the web. AI’s blunders then become ‘information’ for the next AI to come along.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Check the email address and the station site. If that checks out start a fresh message to ask ‘why me?’ & for more details.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

The bell curve was notoriously mis-used 100 years ago to represent the supposed distribution of intelligence among selected groups. Are you suggesting that, left to itself, income distribution would map onto intelligence or ability? If so, it's not free-market economics.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

A bell curve is an odd choice to represent income distribution, which is more typically a long tail with a sharp uptick at the rich end. Choosing bell curves to represent human data is usually a sign of pseudoscientific claims.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I see no motorway. Is that for cattle? Actually quite nice (for once…)

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Warning: bell curves! They look natural and scientific but the data they represent rarely are. The distribution of income will of course be a long tail of low incomes and a short sharp curve of very high ones. There’s nothing natural about income distribution. The rest is hokum.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

The 2026 Peterloo event also commemorates the Tiananmen Square massacre. Sean Cooney will also be there, with a song from his excellent St Peter's Field musical drama. Gather at the Peterloo memorial behind the Midland Hotel, Manchester, from 12:30 for a 13:00 start on Sunday 16 August.

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Robert Poole @robertjrp.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Golfers = badger-starvers. Putt them all down.

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