iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I know it’s not exactly a forgotten novel. But it baffles me this isn’t more widely read.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Well, that was an unexpected twist to me reading the four-year-old her bedtime story

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

This is a much more important group of disgruntled MPs than the hardcore group of (four? five?) Starmer loyalist MPs that some people have said could be a problem.

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Steven Sheil @scsheil.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Taking the opportunity to repost this story (from John Boorman’s book) about how shooting the last shot of Zardoz caused Sean Connery to fall into so fierce a rage it led to a man changing his identity

Zed eventually destroys the Vortex, giving the Immortals the gift of death. He survives with Charlotte Rampling and they have a child together. The final sequence is done in a single shot with a fixed camera.
Sean and Charlotte are sitting side by side in a cave with the baby. The baby becomes a child, the child becomes a youth, gets up and leaves them without looking back; they get older, then become ancient, and finally just their skeletons remain, which eventually crumble to dust.
Only then does the camera move. It tracks in to a handprint on the wall of the empty cave, like the cave painting of primitive man in Lescaux, suggesting that this future world could have been in the past, and that as that civilisation ended, ours began.
This shot took an entire day to shoot. The actors had to be removed and make-up applied incrementally to add the years. Sean has a delicate skin and hates make-up. He had to endure it all day. He became more and more irascible. This was the last day of shooting. We had the wrap party that night. Sean had a golf tournament to go to the next day. I had to hold him until the morning for the laboratory report. The call came at 6 a.m. There was a fault in the film stock. It would have to be redone. Sean was apoplectic. He stormed and raged, but it had to be done.
We reassembled with our hangovers and started again. A long day, hours of make-up, Sean smarting from his suffering skin. Finally it was done. The clapper-loader took the magazine from the camera to prepare

1973: ZARDOZ
it for the lab. A few minutes later he came to me, trembling and ashen-faced. He looked so devastated, I thought someone had been killed or that the Third World War had started. I was almost relieved when he admitted that he had opened the can by mistake and exposed the film to daylight.
Sean would not believe me. "Is this your idea of a joke?' he fumed.
Finally convinced he would have to do it for a third time, he erupted. It was a terrifying sight. He roared, he ran amok. He went after the clapper-loader. He tried to kill him. It took four strong men to subdue him.
Twenty years later I was drinking coffee in Starbucks in Venice, California, when I was approached by a man with a familiar face. I couldn't place it. He reminded me that he was the clapper-loader who had exposed the film. He had fled the country immediately after this catastrophe, changed his identity, and was now a cameraman shooting commercials in LA. As we parted, he said, with an ironic smile, but also with a trace of fear, "Sean's not in town, is he?'

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

That whole 'calling the by-election means Farage can dominate the news agenda when Burnham thought it would be him' take is not aging well so far.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

From the latest story in The Times about Mahmood to the Treasury. Minor point, but I’d say if you’re giving the press quotes like this then you’re not actually an ‘ally’ of Andy Burnham

A senior ally of Burnham said: "Shabana has no sense of the economics. It's just not something she's ever spoken about. She's not collaborative. It's not clear how she would drive the machine."

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

As a public affairs consultant myself I get the frustration. There have been Burnham policies floated, including in the FT, that affect specific sectors with no way for companies to engage or understand. But realistically his team can’t be doing much business engagement when he’s not even PM

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Gee W @geewalsh.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

There are many things Matterface would like to say.... And he's written them all down the night before and will spend the whole match ham-fistedly trying to insert his shitty puns and quips into his commentary.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

I think Farage wins a second by-election whatever the commission says. But I don’t think it’s daft that the Tories might feel their best chance is to duck this first one in the hope that a longer period of scrutiny/trying to make him look thin-skinned and a bit silly chips away at him a bit

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Right, so do the other parties do the hilarious David Davis thing and not stand?

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Cannot believe people are sharing this as if it's actually true. He has not only touched the ball eight times in this tournament. he touched it eight times in the match

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Worst thing about this red card thing is I now have to hope that rubbish Belgium team wins.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

‘Preparation matters’ he says in the interview, before ordering a pizza intended for a family of four because the pub’s chef has a day off.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

This quote from the Morgan McSweeney interview is nuts. Labour had been miles ahead for years by this point. Every public affairs consultancy in the UK was preparing for an inevitable Labour Government. But Labour wasn't? Really?

Quote is "He said that there had been a widespread expectation that Labour would require at least two elections to return to power after its crushing defeat in 2019, and "quite a lot of people" thought it needed a plan for defeat rather than victory in 2024.

He recalled that during planning meetings early that year, he "did start to realise that we hadn't done enough to prepare for government".

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👻 Jack Djinn Wail 🧞 @jacktindale.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

And so, Penelope Keith goes to her grave having never faced justice.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

With this and Al Carns, I’m starting to feel like serving in the military should actually disqualify you from being an MP

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Jim Waterson @jim.londoncentric.media · 23/06/2026

A decade+ since I was inadvertently invited to a Downing Street room with Facebook/Google/etc and Cameron walked in and asked everyone what they'd do to boost youth referendum turnout and a grand woman shouted "WE NEED GRIME ARTISTES, DOES ANYONE KNOW ANY GRIME ARTISTES" and I began to doubt Remain.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Al Carns reminds me of Owen Smith, in the way he gives strong vibes of someone who’s basing his whole style on some kind of ‘100 habits of successful politicians’ self-improvement book, and always manages to get it just a bit wrong.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

I can understand the argument on not abandoning X. What I don’t understand is actively boosting X by prioritising it over other social media

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☠️𝔖𝔭𝔬𝔬𝔨𝔶 𝔎𝔯𝔦𝔰🦇 @freydalpishti.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Amusing how the people claiming they hate AI because they prefer reading real human texts are often sub-sapient illiterate mobs living in their own hallucinations. Tokarczuk had to come out with the exact same statement, but somehow dumb it down even more (this won't stop "AI writer" comments).

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

One of the other things about this is that the negatives of Arsenal - perceived lack of atmosphere, self-entitlement of fans - only really matter to people who already support other clubs

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

People have gone mad expecting the Greens to stand aside. They’re going to have to criticise him if he’s PM, they can’t do that if they just basically decided to hand him the job. (Plus whether or not they stand will probably be of no relevance)

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Robert Hutton @roberthutton.co.uk · 17/05/2026

A change of prime minister would be a big opportunity for Nandy, a high-flier who for some reason hasn't had a government job for the last two years.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

That Guardian book list is fine. Bit more traditional than I expect they hoped and some I don’t like. But some of the comments along the lines of ‘people don’t actually enjoy these books’ - fuck off!. Yes they do. If you don’t that’s fine, but it’s not a plot to pretend they’re good.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

I don't think the Greens will campaign aggressively. It would be money spent in a race where they have no chance and in all likelihood wouldn't get many votes at all. Most by-elctions are instantly about two parties, with the rest being irrelevant - this feels like one of those

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Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

I'm afraid this is what a summer of sex looks like when Labour runs it

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Al Carns is the best type of leadership contender in that he doesn't realise that everyone thinks he's a punchline

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Feels to me like there needs to be a better answer than this to the question of 'how does Badenoch beat Farage?' before we start bigging up her chances of being PM too much. www.ft.com/content/d0f2...

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Catherine West on the steps of No10 in six weeks

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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 09/05/2026

Political nerds, I made a thing! How well do you know the UK electoral map? Could you find ten constituencies, picked at random? Test yourself! play.jmoxley.co.uk

play.jmoxley.co.uk

ConstituencyClick

Can you find ten UK parliamentary constituencies on a map? Click inside for full marks.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

Rough thoughts on the Lib Dems: people going on about them needing to do something about the Greens taking their old position as a protest party of the left really need to have the decency to at least do some entry-level thinking about the party’s seats and current voter base. But…

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

I think this piece is good, and fair. But it also highlights the difficulty of the position the party is in that the sugested answers always end up being shout louder and somehow get noticed. The party isn't more strident on the EU because it believes it would lose it votes and seats by doing so.

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Philippe Auclair @philippeauclair.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

“In his view, the medal is not a forgery. A forgery implies that there is a genuine medal. As the genuine philology medal does not exist, his medal cannot be a forgery,” Lallois said. Alors là, chapeau. Bravo.This is impeccable logic.

theguardian.com

French professor accused of ‘gigantic hoax’ after inventing Nobel-style prize

Authorities investigate Florent Montaclair over award given to himself and others including Noam Chomsky

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

It’s not as iconic as some of the others because it was a DVD extra, but this is my favourite Peter O’Hanraha-hanrahan bit.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Polanski is speedrunning Corbyn and has now hit the Salisbury poisonings reaction

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Emily Thornberry just reading out every single anonymous claim in the press about Morgan McSweeney and Peter Mandelson is not really the grilling we were being led to expect

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Odd This Day @oddthisday.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Well, happy thrremony at tremony at the liremony at the libraremony at the library day to all who celebrate

PETERBOROUGH STANDARD - Friday, April 18th, 1980
The memories live on
CROWLAND'S Silver Jubilee committee was finally wound up on Thursday evening with a presentation ceremony at the library..
The Jubilee fund, described by chairman Frank Parnell as 'one of the finest efforts in Lincolnshire', fremony at the library.
The Jubilee fund,. described by chairman Frank Parnet s 'one remony atremony are sony at the library.
The jubremony at the library.
Tremony at remony at the library.
Thrremony at tremony at the liremony at the libraremony at the library.
Theremony at the library.
The Jubilee fund, described by chairman, Frank Premony rremony at the remony aremony at the libremony atremony at tremony at the library.
Tremorremony at the library.remony at the library. The Jubilee fund, described by chairman Frank Parnell as 'one of the finest efforts in Lincolnshire', fn he latched onto a through ball. Although be was hauled down by the keeper he still managed to stroke the ball home.
But for the second week running Durant had to leave the field injured, this time suffering eye trouble.
The winning goal was another 25-yard shot - again from Blackstones' central defender - coming from their second chance of the game.
Gary Cooper, recently signed from Old Boys, had a good debut.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

God. I worked the night shift here when I was a student. Every night I had to spend eight hours listening to a bloke whose only judgment on music was whether it was 'psychedelic': "What bands do you Like? Blur? Yeah, they're quite psychedelic. Wu Tang Clan? No, not psychadelic at all" etc.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

I loved both living and working in Canary Wharf. Know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I think that was my favourite place to live in London

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

The fact it’s basically taken a week to come up with this really does suggest they thought nobody would care.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Looking forward to this so much. My Phantoms was the best new fiction I’ve read in years.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

I cannot see any way that Kanye West Wireless thing does not end up being canned. It is insane.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

Very excited about this. When I first heard the idea I was irritated at how good it was

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

From Politico this morning. Because before the Lobby briefing was axed, these events were just made up of respectful policy questions on whatever the supposed topic was

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

Trying to work out the thought process of an MP deciding to take part in a Strictly Come Dancing event in Portcullis House today.

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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

It's sad to see people who had never heard of Democracy Volunteers yesterday all over social media trashing them. They've been around for a decade & are partly funded by the (left-leaning) Joseph Rowntree Foundation. We protest when the right trashes these groups. The left shouldn't do it either.

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Sean Kemp @seankemp.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Matt Goodwin, once a professor of politics, now a man surprised at how elections work.

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