iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Okay. Wikipedia says no public executions since 2022. This obviously reflects a much more liberal policy. There were only 356 executions in 2025, up from 158 in 2015.

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Has Saudi Arabia stopped public executions in Chop-Chop Square?

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Spelling correction - present, not preset

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Does anyone know why pickelhaubes were still preset in frontline trenches several years after the introduction of the steel helmet? Surely they won't have kept ceremonial items in the front line.

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Don't knock him - he writes these columns for free. He does, doesn't he? Surely he doesn't get paid!

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I hope she doesn't forget the sheep's head bubbling away on the stove - the svið will be ruined unless she turns it down.

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I'd start on something simpler, like the Schleswig-Holstein Question.

Ta, I’ll look at the first one. I saw the second but it’s much to large for me - I won’t be wearing it over a uniform.

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I'd better look harder, but I haven't seen them. Just this morning some authentic looking ones are on sale for £500 or more - bonkers!

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Great thread, thanks. Good explanation of its history. I had a duffel coat as a kid in the 1960s and I'd like one now to emulate The Cruel Sea, etc. But they're either very expensive (£350) or inauthentic with silly fastenings and fancy details. Thanks again.

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Who's the weirdo on his left? In fact, who are all those weirdos?

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Only 24% of the population are citizens of Monaco, so I'm surprised these rich people want to live amongst so many immigrants.

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Wasn’t this guy in The Sopranos?

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"An internal investigation at the West Family in Gloucester has found Fred and Rosemary broke no laws"

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Or, as General Buck Turgidson described acceptable casualties in Dr Strangelove "I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops!"

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Mike Foster @swanmore.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Haven't heard from Crawfie lately

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"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no" - that's the best thing I've ever heard Kemi Badenoch say.

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Mike Foster @swanmore.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I think he was a member of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band

Mike Foster @swanmore.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Reaching the 3% of GDP defence spending target by blowing the budget on a system that defends only Britain is not of any bloody use to NATO. It'd be like Chamberlain spending money on radar to defend only Britain, and not having money left for bombers, landing craft, destroyers, tanks, etc.

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Mike Foster @swanmore.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Might as well add the RSPCA, National Trust, RNLI and Radio 4

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Mike Foster @swanmore.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Elon Musk desperately needs surgery to give him some humanity

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Mike Foster @swanmore.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

So how many drunken sex orgies has Heather Mac Donald enjoyed in order to generalise like this?

Mike Foster @swanmore.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It was inspiring to hear Isaac Herzog, President of Israel, on the Today programme saying Britain's decision to impose sanctions on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank would increase tensions in the Middle East. Israel has been working so hard to reduce tensions over the last few years.

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Mike Foster @swanmore.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Ah well, that's tonight's viewing sorted.

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Mike Foster @swanmore.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Damn! I spent an enormous amount of time - probably three minutes - researching this on Wikipedia, and still got it wrong!

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Mike Foster @swanmore.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Nein! The daughter of Robert Whitehead married von Trapp in 1911. they had 7 children. She died in 1922. He then married Julie Andrews in 1927 (I may have got it a bit wrong here).

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Mike Foster @swanmore.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Here in Budleigh Salterton, pensioners are already sharpening their walking sticks and drilling in terrifying Zimmer-Framed phalanxes, ready for the (very slow) march on Westminster. There will be blood (although it's always difficult finding a vein at our age).

I do hope that Nigel Farage supplies the same type of high quality intelligence to his main client and friend, Vladimir Putin.

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Sangharakshita - Wikipedia

And here's your occasional reminder that Suella Braverman is a member of a Buddhist sect founded by Dennis Lingwood, accused of being a sexual predator on young male members of the Triratna Buddhist Community... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanghar...

en.wikipedia.org

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How can you sit and listen to this rubbish? I switched on LBC at 12:35 and I think it was the Chancellor speaking. After every sentence, the audience clapped for 10 seconds or so. It was like the Chinese Communist Party annual conference - pathetic (and I'm mildly supportive of the Labour Party).

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BBC ON THIS DAY | 21 | 2001: Terror alert as police seize cargo ship

Sorry, December 2001. The ship was the MV Nisha, and its suspicious cargo was sugar from Mauritus, destined for a Tate & Lyle refinery. For most of the day, the broadcast news went on and on about the huge threat if the ship contained explosives... news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi...

news.bbc.co.uk

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Reminds me of the suspicious cargo ship in the Channel in the run-up to the Gulf War in 2002. Did it have a huge bomb on board? If it came up the Thames Estuary it could destroy half of London! SAS or Royal Marines landed on it from helicopters and - shockingly - there was no bomb, no danger at all!

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