iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Goodbye Ozzy. Very glad you got to experience the best of send-offs. Here you are, singing from on high, courtesy of the very wonderful @coldwarsteve.bsky.social

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Goodbye Brian. You lit up the world.

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

Quite unusual to see a civil servant explicitly blaming the last government: “This data breach was made possible by the long years of neglect and mismanagement of the justice system under the last government….” www.theguardian.com/law/2025/may...

theguardian.com

Legal aid hack: data from hundreds of thousands of people accessed, says MoJ

Data including criminal records downloaded in ‘significant’ cyber-attack at Legal Aid Agency in April, ministry confirms

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Emma McClure @emma-mcclure.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

Had an excellent morning running laps at HMP Brixton for @prtuk.bsky.social with @sperls.bsky.social and residents. There is still time to leave our fundraising on a nice satisfying round number... justgiving.com/page/thebrix...

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Emma McClure @emma-mcclure.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

#medalmonday Two fifty milers down for 2025. Three to go! Next up though is half marathon at HMP Brixton for @prtuk.bsky.social This will be @sperls.bsky.social first half and we are only £55 away from our target. Can you help? ☺️ justgiving.com/page/thebrix...

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Sean Jones KC @seanjones.org · 19/04/2025

The state alleging that someone is a criminal is not a justification for denying them due process, it’s what creates the need for it.

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

I am less keen on the endless loops. This will be further than I have ever run before (unlike Emma who basically runs the earth most weeks). Any donation, however small (or large) will be very welcome. Please also suggest a suitably themed song for our combined running playlist…

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Congratulations to @laurajanes.bsky.social for her appointment as the new Chair of @prisonlawyersapl.bsky.social. Pretty disgraceful that it has taken over 15 years to get the first female Chair of APL but Laura always has been a trailblazer.

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

Interesting to see Mr Yaxley-Lennon aka Tommy Robinson is a recent convert to the idea of human rights. The article 3 claim was quite ambitious. If anyone wants an enjoyable lunchtime read and can tell me how I attach a file on here I’ll happily post the judgment

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

There is much more to this story than the ‘alarm’ angle and the perspective of the unidentified probation officer. This new policy is actually delaying Parole Board reviews because there is now a backlog of cases awaiting review by MOJ officials. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

theguardian.com

Alarm over early re-release of recalled prisoners as jail overcrowding crisis deepens

Whistleblower says over 1,000 inmates in England and Wales considered for the scheme which bypasses Parole Board

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

Absolutely gutted about Rick Buckler. His drumming on Funeral Pyre is utterly magnificent. Check this out m.youtube.com/watch?v=Endq...

m.youtube.com

The Jam - Funeral Pyre

YouTube video by TheJamVEVO

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

The ultimate narcissist has succeeded in having everyone talk about, write about, read about and listen about him day in and day out. His ratings are GREAT.

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Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

For those who continue to deny that Trump and the MAGA GOP's objection to asylum-seekers and refugees isn't racist, check out which group, out of all the conflicts on earth, Trump has made a very special refugee resettlement for. Yep. White South Africans. Beyond parody.

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

This week marks an important milestone for a few hundred people serving IPP sentences. A change in the law implemented by the Victims and Prisoners Act reduces the period that IPP prisoners have to wait before they can apply for their licences to be terminated. A brief explainer thread…

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

This is essential reading and viewing for anyone who has wilfully or otherwise airbrushed the events of January 6th 2021 and thinks that Trump pardoning the rioters is normal. Recommended listening also - the excellent podcast series by @restispoliticsus.bsky.social on January 6th.

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Dr. Jessie Christiansen @aussiastronomer.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Oh come ON now. This new JWST image is just ASTOUNDING. I feel like I’m falling looking into it, and that I would fall forever, and that I would enjoy it. NASA, ESA, CSA, K. McQuinn (STScI), J. DePasquale (STScI)

False colour JWST NIRCam image of a nearby star forming region in front of a deep back ground of colorful galaxies. NASA, ESA, CSA, K. McQuinn (STScI), J. DePasquale (STScI)

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Anton Gerashchenko @antongerashchenko.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock left the government meeting, refusing to be photographed with Chancellor Olaf Scholz after his decision to block the allocation of a new aid package for Ukraine, - Bild. Instead of a thousand words.

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Hoping that I manage to have a fine Lynch tribute dream tonight. But nothing too terrifying. I’m not up for a visit from Frank or Bob.

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david ehrlich @davidehrlich.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

David Lynch gave us the language we needed to better articulate the indescribable strangeness of our shared reality. “Lynchian” is so overused because it’s a viscerally understandable word without any known synonyms. I can’t imagine a more beautiful artistic legacy than that.

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Mare Pan @paarsec.com · 16/01/2025

One of my favourite things anyone has ever said about art. You'll be missed, David. 🌹

“Right here people might bring up Vincent van Gogh as an example of a painter who did great work in spite of—or because of—his suffering. I like to think that van Gogh would have been even more prolific and even greater if he wasn’t so restricted by the things tormenting him. I don’t think it was pain that made him so great—I think his painting brought him whatever happiness he had.” ― David Lynch

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

I absolutely loved David Lynch. He changed the way I look at life. And made me laugh a lot. It’s hard to believe that there won’t be any more of his wonderful imagination and creativity in the world.

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Frances Ryan @francesryan.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Throughout 2024, the Guardian aimed to report on every woman allegedly killed by a man. Here are the 80 women whose deaths have led to a man being charged. Let us say their names. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-i...

theguardian.com

Killed women count: 80 women allegedly killed by men in UK in 2024

Throughout the year the Guardian aimed to report on every woman whose death has led to a man being charged

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

This is such a distressing read. Yet another IPP prisoner losing their life in prison. It’s an important finding that the delays to his parole hearing contributed to his mental distress. Parole delays have had a devastating impact on many people. www.theguardian.com/society/2024...

theguardian.com

Delays and neglect led to death of prisoner serving IPP sentence, jury finds

Inquest concludes that Haydar Jefferies took his own life after Surrey prison’s ‘serious failure’ to put him in place of safety

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Guardian NUJ @gonuj.org · 11/12/2024

We strike again tomorrow and Friday. Please support us SHARE our posts WRITE to guardian.readers@theguardian.com JOIN US - the picketline was packed last week. Will be the same tomorrow. The strength of feeling is undimmed 💪⬇️

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

I see The Daily Mail refuses to take any responsibility at all for this entirely predictable result of their reporting. Patel, Johnson, Braverman all queued up to whip people up against lawyers doing their jobs. ‘Activist’ lawyers could well have been dead lawyers.

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

“Prisons are still expected to reach critical capacity again by July, with fresh prison population projections due to be published by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) on Thursday.” www.bbc.com/news/article...

bbc.com

Prisons plan will fall short by 2027, watchdog warns

Boris Johnson's pledge to create an extra 20,000 cells spaces is now not expected to be met until 2031.

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

This is my advent calendar for 2024. I just discovered it so I’m a week behind.

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Niche but nice. Some of these books bored me. Bowie never did. (actually, to be truthful, I was a bit bored by the cover of Dancing in the Street with Mick Jagger, perhaps the equivalent of Megarry & Wade’s Law of Real Property).

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

This is a thread about the IPP and DPP sentence (imprisonment or detention for public protection). DPP was given to under 18s. People began to receive these sentences in 2005. Before 2005 life sentences were reserved for murder & the most serious cases of manslaughter, GBH, armed robbery & rape.

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

One of the knock-on effects of the Louise Haigh “resignation” is that Heidi Alexander has been moved from Minister of State with responsibility for legal aid. The timing of this is dreadful. Alexander has spent months working on the government’s response to the legal aid crisis. 1/3

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

‘more "Scooby-Doo" than "007”’ is an interesting line. Does that suggest he would have got away with it were it not for those meddling kids?

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

I really enjoyed this piece. Finding healthy ways to shut out the bleakness of the outside world. I have started climbing which I am rubbish at but which is really good at clearing the mind.

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Is anyone up for raising a few quid for Free Speech Warrior and All Round Superhero Elon to go visit a real police state?

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Rule of law alive and well in the USA www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024...

theguardian.com

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

My very first post on here was about cherishing good news like a priceless diamond. So here is a thread about some good news. It has a happy ending but it is bittersweet, I’m afraid. This is a long read but worth sticking with, I hope. THREAD

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Emma McClure @emma-mcclure.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

I am privileged to have such 'particularly persistent' colleagues.

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Microplastics Sommelier @leastactionhero.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

nobody does more brutal fashion reviews than the irish

lady of sophistication @janky_jane
Props to anyone who tries to be fashionable in ireland i wore a red beret once in waterford and someone called me super mario
Andrew Beatty V @AndrewBeatty
Replying to @janky_jane
I once ordered a taxi in Belfast for a night out. The driver pulls up to my house and just says "yer not going out like that. Go back in and change, I'll turn off the metre." | swear I was wearing normal jeans and a normal jacket.

Matthew @MrWeir
Replying to @janky jane
I once wore a silver jacket to college, turned up late for class, said 'sorry I'm late', lecturer said, 'that's ok' then waited til I was halfway across the front of the full class before following up with 'trouble with the spaceship again was it?'.
Replying to @janky _jane
My sister was in France sporting a new trench coat, thought was so stylish, but went into an Irish bar and got called Inspector Gadget by the first guy that saw her
15:53 • 8/16/21 • Twitter Web App

was wearing my super-fashionable short trench coat. My friend took one look at me wearing the jacket and said,
"Where are we off to now. Columbo?"

Eoin O Neill
@eoinjoneill
Replying to @janky_jane
Was wearing a vintage nike jacket in a very long que for drinks at a boxing match when a Belfast lad goes "furk me this is taking forever, your man has been here since the 80's"

Loic Wright
@dufflest
Replying to @janky jane
I wore a suit with a matching tie and pocket square to my first day of work at an advertising company (I thought I was going to be in Mad Men I guess) and the staff sent around and signed a communion card for me with a fiver in it.

Eóin O Coileáin
@L20_MTN
Replying to @janky_jane
I wore a white, wool turtle-neck jumper to the match once and a fella in the pub said 'Where have you parked the U-boat?'.

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Do you think Noel Gallagher is watching Match of the Day?

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

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Andrew Sperling @sperls.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

This is a very welcome and timely debate. Tomorrow we have a case in the High Court in which we are seeking to challenge the very stringent application of the Secretary of State’s exercise of compassionate release powers. Our client is terminally ill, with a few weeks to live.

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David Shipley @shipleywrites.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

I experienced it first hand. It look 6 months and multiple letters + emails from my lawyer to get Wandsworth to acknowledge they'd given me someone else's OASYS on arrival.

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Lucy Pearson @lrpearson.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Always going to share stuff like this because people have NO IDEA that our legal system is basically hanging by a thread. No politicians of any party seem interested in addressing this.

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Cassia Rowland @cassiarowland.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

This is a great thread on prison lawyers and legal aid funding - a particularly serious part of the general lack of criminal lawyers, which is now a major blocking point for the whole criminal justice system.

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griboyedov.bsky.social @griboyedov.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

This is an alarming read about the drastic austerity-era cuts to Government funding for lawyers who work with prisoners, which in turn affects the number of people who get parole.

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Kate Vasey @katevasey.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

I wish there was an emoji for "astonished and aghast intake of breath", but there isn't so I had to write it out.

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