iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 6h

I've seen the same GP three times now in two months - a rare fortune - and my goodness what a difference that makes. Used to be normal. Could it be again? I'm guessing not - but if not, then we have sacrificed something. To what?

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 13h

The Hayward Gallery consistently has the best exhibitions in London — Chiharu Shiota, Tavares Strachan and Hiroshi Sugimo were all incredible. Not sure “the Southbank centre” can really go under the radar but it should be more remarked how good it is compared to other galleries.

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 12h

An odd country to choose if you wanted to prove to the public that diplomatic measures can help with returns! Although, maybe they feel the initial headline will be enough and most people won't bother to inquire further?

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 12h

Agree with you both. I'd only add that there's a danger of characterising Russia as having only aggressive motivation when there's also a history of defensive paranoia - see Stailn post-WW2 for example. I wonder how far some in the Russian establishment believe their own propaganda about Ukraine.

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 15h

Can't see how this is going to influence the Etitrean government. Hardly any non-protection visas are issued to Eritrean nationals (not surprising since it's virtually illegal there to leave the country) and of those issued most are to Eritreans already in the UK.

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 15h

I think it's because he is measured and articulate and *sounds* like he knows what he's talking about ...

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

This is revolting by the BBC, and seems to reflect their general tabloidesque angle on this trial. It is validly news, but surely did not merit the top billing it received this morning. Dreadful sensationalist stuff and the BBC used to be above such.

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

The BBC should commission a documentary about current issues seen "through the lens of" Coleen Rooney's life, just like they have done with Rowling. That would show a bit of balance, wouldn't it?

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Not a lawyer, but I'd think so, yes. The books themselves are not banned. Unless in some contorted way you were deemed to be funding terrorism by buying them, but I can't see that.

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Praxis, for migrants and refugees @praxisprojects.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Whether it's 20 people or 200, people seeking asylum deserve safe accommodation & shouldn't be warehoused in hotels, camps or remote sites What we actually need: ⏰ Faster & fairer decisions on asylum 👨‍⚕️Allow asylum seekers to work 🏘️ Proper investment in housing for all www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

Could 200 asylum seekers be housed in Cambridgeshire fens?

After protesters marched thorough a village, what are the plans for asylum seekers in Fenland?

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Can relate to this. The more experienced and self-aware I became in my job, the less confident I was in doing it. That was mostly to mine and others' benefit but it comes at a price of some short term anxiety. I'm sure your talk will go well!

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

This, argued with great clarity. Particularly helpful the distinction drawn between saying "the outcome of Zionism has been, or can be, racist" and saying "Zionism is racism".

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Oh no, that's me done for then. Earlier than I hoped.

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

3) seems very unattractive. After the referendum it seemed, briefly, to be a saving the day type option, but it quickly became clear that it wasn't a runner politically. My vote would always go to 4) though I'd vote for 3) as a step towards 4) and not because it was undeniably better than 2)

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

At least it places you *in* the last century. I get the première of The Nutcracker and a General Election won by the Marquess of Salisbury ...

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Trades Union Congress @tuc.org.uk · 13/10/2026

Luton priest Luke Larner responds to Conservative MP Blake Stephenson describing his town as a 'no-go zone' for white people.

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

That's right. There were clear commitments before the vote to abide with it. And no other acceptable way tbh. The answer to not liking narrow margins would have been to set a theshold for a majority, but that option wasn't politically available either. Basically it was just a terrible idea!

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

The 1951 UN Refugee Convention is one of the legacies of the defeat of Nazism, inspired by the knowledge of the countless Jewish and other people who had been unable to escape, so I guess it’s unsurprising that Reform want to reverse it

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

As well as the thing itself, a worry here is that it reinforces the tendency to think "we know the outcome already, all this tiresome process just wastes time and resource"

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

"City pedantry" is nice. Is there also provincial pedantry?

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

That's quite a substantive error since the 1994 change was implementing the abolition of the so-called "right of silence" (which, since we are being pedantic 😀, did not abolish the right of silence but did, importantly, remove the protection against silence being treated as incriminating).

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

I was rained in this morning, but it's sunny now 😀

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Can't say she reshaped my cultural life. That aside, this is certainly not the way to present the issues it says it's going to cover, using the billionaire children's author "as a lens". I mean, if you say "as a lens" you're admitting upfront to a skewed perspective. www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

bbc.co.uk

Two-part documentary on J.K. Rowling announced by BBC Factual and BBC Scotland

The documentary will use her life as a lens through which to explore three decades of profound social, political and technological change

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Make a war film rubbish Apocalypse Shortly, please hold, you are number 73 in the queue

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Thornberry knows this perfectly well; at best she's saying "let's pretend to debate FoM in the hope that reality wins over" which is a doomed strategy imo

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

I switch over to Radio 3 at ever shorter intervals.

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

That's very well put! News borgs with no hinterland, I like that. I got annoyed when Emma Barnett couldn't even be bothered to look up how to pronounce Manuel de Falla's surname (in an item they didn't need to be doing anyway).

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

The links: 1) Petrassi No 5 open.spotify.com/track/0R3neT... 2) Shchedrin No 4 open.spotify.com/track/725lAz... 3) Holloway No 2 open.spotify.com/track/7ATfH4...

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

My final choice is the cycle of five Concertos for Orchestra by the Cambridge based composer Robin Holloway. They are all rewarding, with fascinating interplays of texture and colour, a sense of mystery and theatre held in a taut, meticulously worked out structure. I've linked to No 2 below.

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

>> movement work, it takes the simplest of material - a round dance whose first phrase sounds a bit like Frère Jacques - and weaves some magic out of it. It is an immensely touching work, far more than a jolly suite of folk melodies.

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Rodion Shchedrin is a quirky composer who always seems to be having fun while recasting the folk tunes and dances of his family's heritage (like Petrassi he also ventured into atonality). The 4th of his 5 Concertos for Orchestra begins with what sounds like ocarinas and a solo recorder. A single >>

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Petrassi's cycle is impressive, charting the develpment of his style over 40 years from neoclassical with extra sunshine, to a more complex extended tonality or atonality. Instrumental colour is brilliant throughout, and I especially liked the drama and transparency of his No 5 (links at end of 🧵)

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

So, I've been listening to some of the many Concertos for Orchestra that have been composed since Petrassi, Bartok and others pioneered the form in the 1930s. Here are a few that have grabbed my attention.

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Only about half a dozen TRG members left as MPs now I think. Tom Tugenhadt and Victoria Atkins the best known, maybe. Don't think they have the strength to do anything about the party's Rightward lurch.

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

He's redefined classical music, or something, apparently. You know, like Schoenberg.

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

I do think the balance of content on #Today is wrong these days. I don't understand why there is so much focus on (broadly) the Arts in place of news. If there is a need for an item about Max Richter gaining an award, isn't that for Radio 3? (Or in that particular case, just leave it to Classic FM?)

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

But he just means Muslims, doesn't he? I don't believe he means naturalused Americans or even French people. And what he really means is actually worse, or rather, even worse.

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Ilhan Omar @ilhanmn.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

The countries most often involved would include Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Eritrea. There are plenty of returns agreements - eg India, Bangladesh, Nigera and other Commonwealth countries - where the returns agreement is operable *as long as the asylum claim was heard first*

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

In any case need to account for other demographic variables - age especially - and variations in reporting and prosecution.

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𒃾 @geshtin.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Oh hey, it's Rafe Vaughan Williams's birthday today! What's YOUR fave RVW piece? I think his Oboe Concerto contains some of the prettiest music he ever wrote so my vote on this nanosecond goes to that. www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtZM...

youtube.com

Concerto for oboe and strings in A Minor: I. Rondo Pastorale

YouTube video by Nicholas Daniel - Topic

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

That concerto certainly near the top of my RVW list. But A Pastoral Symphony is right at the top.

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Ruin a book by adding a word Of Mice and Binmen

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

It's been Reform's policy to "suspend" the asylum system for at least a year, and you'd expect, given their puppyish enthusiasm for reporting everything Nigel Farage says, that someone at the BBC would point this out rather than suggesting this is a new "announcement"

bbc.co.uk

Reform pledges to suspend asylum system for up to five years and deport claimants

All asylum applications would be rejected and existing ones voided, with all claimants marked for deportation.

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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

CD. I do have a collection of vinyl records still, and play those sometimes, and of course it's what I grew up witj (well, and cassettes!) but CDs are more convenient. I just think I ought to support the artists who don't benefit enough from the streaming services.

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