iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Stephen Byrne

Pete Orford @peteorford.bsky.social · 16h

Last night I played the Charles Dickens game I helped design (out in shops at the end of this month) - move through Dickens’s life, collecting story elements to make your chapter and score points. I’m proud of getting a mix of familiar faces and niche references on the cards. And my kids liked it!

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Caught by the River @caughtbytheriver.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

'I knew that I wanted to earn my living using my hands.' In an extract from ‘Green Shoes: Forty years of a radical women’s craft collective’ Alison Hastie recalls how she first pursued a career in shoemaking in the 1970s www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/10/gree...

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Stephen Byrne @stephengbyrne.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Common Darter dragonfly, and some strips of common plywood

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 03/10/2026

Miss Instone said, “Children, you were all at the Fair yesterday, I’m sure. Out slates! Out slate pencils! Write a composition on the following – My Day at the Fair…” —George Mackay Brown, “The Horse Fair” from THE WRECK OF THE ARCHANGEL (1989) #BookWormSat #poem www.hachette.co.uk/titles/georg...

He gave me sixpence!
We went home in the cart, Daffodil
Danced all the way!
She struck many stars from a stone.
The fiddler! – I nearly forgot the fiddler.
The whole Fair
Seemed to go round his fiddle. I saw
A coal-black man stretched on a board of nails.
Three farmers,
Quoys and Grayarth and Longbreck,
Seemed like they had red patches sewn on their faces, coming out of
the whisky tent.
Daffodil
Whinnied at the stars, ‘What are you,
Nails or mayflowers?’
The moon was a skull.
Then the moon was bees and honey.
I woke up.
Old Da carried me out of the cart to our fire.

“Spelling and punctuation need special attention,” said Miss Instone. “Few of you, it seems, had a really enjoyable day.”

Sprinkling of water on eleven slates, rag rubbings, sighs.

Willie spat on his slate and wiped out that day with the sleeve of his gray jersey.

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The Dickens Fellowship @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Our stall is set for the inaugural Alliance of Literary Societies Fair at The Birmingham & Midland Institute today. Doors open 10am.

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Philip Pullen @philippullen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Looking forward to talking about Philip Larkin’s connections with Beverley and East Yorkshire at St Mary’s Church, Beverley at 7.30. Friday 2nd October @plsoc.bsky.social

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Ian McMillan @imcmillan.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/.... Evening stroll soundtrack: this excellent edition of In Our Time on Casablanca. @bbcsounds.bsky.social

bbc.co.uk

In Our Time - Casablanca - BBC Sounds

The classic 1942 movie that convinced Americans the Second World War was worth fighting.

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Stephen Byrne @stephengbyrne.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

@saskiadanielceramics.com psst! Gilbert! It's a female (brown innit). Emzee will be shaking her head.

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Philip Larkin Society @plsoc.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

There are 2 fully funded places available for this event. Please message us if you are a full time student and would like to take up one of the places.

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Philip Larkin Society @plsoc.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

National Poetry Day seems like a good excuse to share one of Larkin's most loved poems, a deceptively complex and resonant piece of writing.

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Stephen Byrne @stephengbyrne.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Asway. And splosh. 'It has continued to rain all the week and the trees are asway with their drenchings. Harvest dust has been washed from hedges, birds, roofs and flints. Falls shine in the orchard grass, bedraggled creatures splosh around.' Ronald Blythe, Borderland (2005)

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Stephen Byrne @stephengbyrne.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This is a great list of moving pictures, entertainingly curated, with the happiest of endings.

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Richard Morris @ahistoryinart.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Dora Carrington's painting 'Cedar Tree at Tidmarsh,' depicts the gardens at Tidmarsh Mill in Berkshire, where Carrington lived with the writer and critic Lytton Strachey from 1917 to 1924.

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Stephen Byrne @stephengbyrne.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Trapped in Jan's outbuilding. A bit lethargic. Enough to let me pick it up.

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John Walters @johnwalterswildife.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I am looking forward to giving a talk on Westcountry Wildlife at Tiverton, Devon this evening 7.30 pm (24 September 2026). All welcome more information www.mdw.org.uk

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Natee (they/them) @himmapaan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

It's still too early and too warm here for the leaves to have changed much, but as it's the #AutumnalEquinox...

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Philip Larkin Society @plsoc.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Happy Birthday to our fantastic Honorary Vice President, writer, musician and artist, Nick Cave. In his Red Hand Files blog in 2019 Nick listed Philip Larkin as one of his most loved poets, alongside Stevie Smith, WH Auden and Thomas Hardy.

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Tim Holt-Wilson @timholtwilson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Osmia rufa have taken over my work zone: neatly blocking electric plug socket holes in two cable reels in the garden shed. Power tools fall silent. Grubs pupate. Time ticks Spring-wards ... www.inaturalist.org/taxa/124164-... #insects #suffolk #bees #hymenoptera @suffolk-nats1929.bsky.social

The black centre of a blue plastic cable reel equipped with four electric plug sockets. There are 12 holes for the plugs' teeth of which two have been blocked with pale brown mud by Red Mason Bee nesting activity. There will be hibernating pupae inside. Only two plug sockets remains usable without destroying bee nests.

The black centre of a red plastic cable reel equipped with four electric plug sockets. There are 12 holes for the plugs' teeth of which three have been blocked with pale brown mud by Red Mason Bee nesting activity. There will be hibernating pupae inside. Only one plug socket remains usable without destroying bee nests.

Close-up view of two plug socket holes filled with pale yellow mud by Red Mason Bees.

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Richard K Broughton @richardkbroughton.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Finally caught & colour-ringed the female mate of our 11 yr old Marsh Tit. She's only 16 months old and arrived in the wood in April at last minute to breed, having dispersed from elsewhere - itself a major feat. Her life expectancy now is maybe another 1-2 yrs, if she's careful/lucky.

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Stephen Byrne @stephengbyrne.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

When I first met her, she would run a mile. Now, I'm her cushion.

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Stephen Byrne @stephengbyrne.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

A lively Speckled Wood butterfly. Would only let me within ten feet of it. And who can blame it?

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Stephen Byrne @stephengbyrne.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Came back from our hols to a tomato & pepper fest. Planted some spare sweet peppers outside, even they've done well. Ideal day to sort out the veg garden, overcast, warm enough & none of that Fenland wind that battered us. Final week of the season for @bluebellcottage.bsky.social coming up, Wed-Sat.

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Richard K Broughton @richardkbroughton.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Quite emotional to report that we've just found our amazing survivor Marsh Tit, still here in his ancient woodland kingdom. He's now 11 yrs 4 months old, survived the 2026 heatwaves/drought and smelt the wildfires of nearby Holme Fen. I ringed him in my 30s and I'm now in my 50s.

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Sue Beesley @suebeesley.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The stained glass museum at Ely Cathedral. Just... wow...

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Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) @rgs.org · 14/09/2026

'Austerity, Brexit, devolution - all manner of economic changes are never lived in the moment. They always have afterlives.' During Annual Conference last week, we asked economic geographer Sarah Marie Hall what one policy priority should be for Andy Burnham’s government. 💬

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Stephen Byrne @stephengbyrne.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

First Pinkfooted geese of the season here.

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Brian Groom @groomb.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Holmewood mining village, Derbyshire, 1973, photo by Don McPhee. After the colliery closed, many houses were boarded up.

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James McCallum @jamesrmccallum1.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Extended dates for my Cley Centenary Exhibition. Nice to see the show so well attended, so much so that NWT have extended the finish date to the 12th September

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Stephen Byrne @stephengbyrne.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Is he crowdfunding for legal fees yet?

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Cezary Jan Strusiewicz @ostrichson.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

That's why I triple-layer shrink-wrap my entire toilet in industrial grade plastic sheet before I flush it. Each poop is costing me $49.80. It's financially ruining my family. Please advise.

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Stephen Byrne @stephengbyrne.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Topnotch visual gag in Shaft (1971)

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Nick Stone @typejunky.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

If anyone would like a poster of any local brutalist majesty, I’ve started doing collection or ‘hand delivery’* to NR1, NR2 or NR3 postcodes. Postage also still works for anywhere else. *matron. www.invisibleworks.co.uk/posters/

invisibleworks.co.uk

Posters | Invisible Works | Nick Stone | Norwich

A2 art posters of Norwich stuff, designed by Nick Stone using his own photos and stuff.

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Stephen Byrne @stephengbyrne.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

She was very interested in the gathering swallows. The gruesome threesome magpie family moved her on eventually. #Sprawk

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Alexander Lees @alexanderlees.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

And an autumn record to boot; previous European records were largely in spring/summer although both recent records from Georgia were in early autumn.

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Damon Young @damonyoung.com.au · 04/09/2026

This Finnish guy has been teaching himself Sumerian, and sent a cuneiform tablet to the British Museum to check his progress. They just emailed him that they've sent him something in the post. I'm now thrilled and excited for a total stranger! Clay tablet mail! www.reddit.com/r/Cuneiform/...

a photo of a hand holding a cuneiform tablet

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Stephen Byrne @stephengbyrne.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Bit of September reading finds Ronald Blythe at the village Flower and Vegetable Show: "I am allowed to judge the Children's Section. Real judges come from afar with clean hands and fastidious requirements. I shall not forget their dismissal of my potatoes." >

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Miranda Keeling @mirandakeeling.com · 02/09/2026

For many years I have been posting little observations online. What you may not know is that for many years, artists have been illustrating them - for no reason other than they wanted to respond. Below is a thread of some of these beautiful drawings because they should be seen 🧵

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Daniel Sugarman @danielsugarman.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

CREAM AND PUNISHMENT, I'm crying

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Daniel Sugarman @danielsugarman.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Didn't have room for the rest of the stuff on Bernard-Henri Lévy in the original post, but LOOK at that picture. The eyes say "he's going to do this again and again, isn't he. And I'll never know when it's coming".

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Daniel Sugarman @danielsugarman.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

The world's most notorious custard-pie thrower is dead. What an obituary. He got Bernard-Henri Lévy seven times.

Known to his army of fans as L’Entarteur or Georges le Gloupier, Godin launched his career as a serial deflator of egos in 1969, when he planted a tarte à la crème on the face of the French novelist Marguerite Duras (“She has a kind of intelligence and cleverness that serves only her own vanity,” he complained), and he went on to “pie” a cast list of celebrities for sins ranging from pomposity to “choosing to function in the service of the capitalist status quo”.

The same could not be said of Bernard-Henri Lévy, one of France’s “new philosophers,” whose provocative views on sex, frequent appearances on television and penchant for white silk shirts unbuttoned practically to the navel, had made him a cult figure – and one of Godin’s most satisfying victims.

Levy once declared: “I am the most gifted writer of my generation,” and often boasted of his reasonableness and tolerance, but he was forced to endure footage being repeatedly shown on French television of himself, covered in cream, during a visit to the Belgian city of Liège, trying to strangle Godin and shouting: “Get up, or I’ll kick your head in.”

Noël Godin was born on September 13 1945 and came to pie-throwing after a rebellious youth in which he scandalised the priests in the confessional by speaking of his “horrible sexual life”, and was thrown out of Liège University after emptying a pot of glue over the head of a law lecturer who had helped write the constitution for the Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar.

He found work at Friends of Film, an obscure magazine published by the Belgian Catholic League. It had a tiny readership, which was just as well, as Godin made up most of his articles. In one he claimed that Louis Armstrong had once been a cannibal and had invested in a film called The Vegetables of Good Will in which Claudia Cardinale played a giant endive.

In another he conjured up a fictional blind Thai filmmaker named Vivian Pei, describing her film, The Lotus Flower Will Never Again Grow on the Edge of Your Island, in such convincing terms that an Asian film specialist travelled to Thailand in an effort to track her down.

“We’re very careful not to hurt people,’’ he explained. “Well, they are hurt, but always in their amour-propre.”

In 1995 Godin published an autobiography, Cream and Punishment. His other targets over the years included the New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard (who charmed his assailant by hailing the attack as a homage to silent film), the French politician Nicolas Sarkozy, the choreographer Maurice Béjart and the Ryanair chairman Michael O’Leary. He tended not to pick Belgian victims, he explained, because few would notice if he did.

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Nick Stone @typejunky.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

A really rather beautiful ghost sign just popped up on Magdalen Street, thus confirming its position as the best street in the city again for yet another year. Early c20th painted and gold foiled glass. Seems it was covered over in the 1960s. It’s been a Chinese chemist for years.

The ladies & gents hairdressers sign on the Golden Dog Lane exposure, which is pretty much intact.

The frontage, the glass is cracked in the middle, but still readable and in decent condition. It reads 32 - Hairdressers - George Clapham - Perfumers, in gold leaf on green.

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Stephen Byrne @stephengbyrne.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Iron Man and a flurry Knot at the water's edge. Crosby.

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Stephen Byrne @stephengbyrne.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Old jetty at Crosby beach. A few Oystercatchers too.

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