iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 21/09/2026

Wow. Today's Burmese class was punishing. As I recover, I'm having to remind myself that learning Burmese has probably never been (directly) responsible for anyone's untimely death.

Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 20/09/2026

It's been nice to have a day off, rambling out and about in the outskirts of Pingtung city.

Railway bridge stretching into the distance, in perspective, with green fields and a distant river and skyscrapers.

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Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 20/09/2026

It was such a pleasure to be interviewed by Su Shin from Bookman / 書林 about our work at @windandbones.com yesterday at the Kaohsiung Reading Festival. I had a total blast. And it was good to catch up with so many old friends. 😍

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Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 18/09/2026

Our local guardian deities here in Pingtung, Taiwan have been given a lick of paint, and now they are all spruced up and ready for the annual Pingtung Park Christmas Spectacular.

Two marionette-like figures in big red boots, next to a sign reading "Pingtung" with trees and a park in the background.

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Reposted by Will Buckingham

Wind&Bones Books @windandbones.com · 16/09/2026

No big deal, it's only the totally lovely, International Booker Prize winning translator of Taiwan Travelogue, Lin King, giving a shout out to our book, Tâigael: Stories from Taiwanese & Gaelic! ❤😍

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Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 16/09/2026

We love the folks at BookSource on account of their wild enthusiasm for getting books into the hands of readers. If you want to get our @windandbones.com books in your bookshop (and you should... they're lovely), BookSource are the people who are here to help you.

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Reposted by Will Buckingham

Dr Hannah Stevens @drhannahstevens.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

No big deal, it's only the totally lovely, International Booker Prize winning translator of Taiwan Travelogue, Lin King, giving a shout out to the book I co-edited with @willbuckingham.com and published at @windandbones.com ❤️

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Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 12/09/2026

Truly, if there is software in hell, it will be almost exactly like Nielsen Title Editor.

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Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 10/09/2026

I feel that it would be hard to parallel park, though.

Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 10/09/2026

Fighting a losing battle trying to persuade my Burmese students not to instinctively type "Kant" (the philosopher) as "Khant" (the popular Burmese name).

Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 10/09/2026

I'm not particularly into motorised road transport, but if I owned a car, I'd like it to be something like this.

Small car in the shape of a fish, blue with a big eye and gaping mouth, and some kind of crown. There are spines on its back, and trees in the background.

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Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 08/09/2026

Today, I asked my philosophy students (who are based in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Kenya, Laos..., and who are all, in their own way, geniuses), to come up with a universal moral principle. After some thought, they suggested the rule: "one should not fart in front of others when they are eating."

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Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 06/09/2026

Damn, Indonesian metal rabble-rousers Voice of Baceprot were on fire in Pingtung yesterday. This concert was on our doorstep, and totally free. Also, it was lovely to see my pal Pacak Palasasav / 巴查克 strut his stuff on the same stage. And so many other amazing performers as well.

youtube.com

VOB (Voice Of Baceprot) - Put The Gun Down Live in Pingtung Mathariri Festival 2026

YouTube video by Voice of Baceprot

Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 03/09/2026

The tolerance for dealing with my nonsense in Taiwan is remarkable. I have done nothing to deserve this. 😆

Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 03/09/2026

Hell: trying to get Taiwan's Ministry of Finance portal to work with a card reader and health insurance card / digital citizens certificate. Heaven: going to the local tax office to ask a cheerful volunteer auntie wearing a tabard to help this sorry, confused foreigner out.

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Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 02/09/2026

A friend I ran into in a Pingtung bookshop the other day recommended the extraordinary documentary Pesta Babi, and its well worth a watch. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpdr... #Indonesia #WestPapua

youtube.com

PESTA BABI: Kolonialisme di Zaman Kita - (Official Full Movie)

YouTube video by Redaksi JubiTV

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Reposted by Will Buckingham

Wind&Bones Books @windandbones.com · 30/08/2026

Who is going to the Kaohsiung Reading Festival? Because WE ARE 👇 #Taiwan #books #reading

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Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 26/08/2026

Back in Taiwan, in a blizzard of admin. Notaries, government offices, police stations, the tax office, immigration.... On the one hand, there's that curious bureaucratic mixture of dull and demanding. On the other, there's a secret pleasure to fluidly navigating esoteric bureaucracies...

Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 25/08/2026

I guess we don't need Starmer's endorsement to get a few turnips in and start experimenting, should we feel moved to do so.

Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 25/08/2026

Important news from Taiwan. Meanwhile, I'm waiting for Keir Starmer to announce that, having stepped down, his top priority is starting an online competition to encourage people to carve mushrooms (or turnips? I feel that that Keir's a turnip guy) in his image.

Picture of Tsai Ing-wen, and a mushroom that looks somewhat like her. The text reads "Tsai Ing-wen loves her mushroom lookalikes so much she's started an online mushroom carving contest."

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Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 24/08/2026

This is lovely. I was brought up in Fakenham, and as studious, nature-obsessed little oddball, I spent hours trudging around Pensthorpe nature reserve. My 10 year-old self would have been eyes-wide in wonder at this (and, tbf, I still am). 🦫🦫 @pensthorpe

theguardian.com

Wild beaver kits born in Norfolk for first time in more than 500 years

Pair are offspring of two beavers who mysteriously arrived in Pensthorpe nature reserve near Fakenham in December

Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 23/08/2026

Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport staff member taking a well-deserved coffee break.

Small robot in uniform, plugged into the wall.

Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 20/08/2026

I've noticed that if language textbooks talk about cats, I find it relatively easy to master the grammar in question. Conversely, if they talk about any of the following — a) football; b) cars; or c) business and marketing — the grammar suddenly becomes utterly opaque to me.

Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 20/08/2026

"Cats that wave their tails at you are delightful." Excellent content here in my textbook of literary #Burmese. This is the way to keep my interest while getting me to build sentences with relative clauses.

Screenshot of textbook. Text reads (in Burmese and English)
၃-က ကြောင်များသည် အလွန် ချစ်စရာကောင်းသည်။
၃-ခ ကြောင်များသည် အမြီး လှုပ်ပြသည်။
3. Cats that wave their tails at you are delightful

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Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 18/08/2026

This statistic looks broadly accurate...

Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 17/08/2026

I love this story, for the over-zealous enthusiasm of the poor bear, and the resulting strange sadness of the outcome.

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Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 13/08/2026

A Taiwanese friend recently told me a ghost story in which a ghost “airdropped” an image into her sister’s mind. And I can think of nothing more adorably Taiwanese than this combination of high tech convenience and traditional folk belief. #Taiwan

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Anyway, now off to Scotland (where everything is better except the weather).

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I was pretty proud of those scones…

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I suppose you’d call it Englandmaxxing.

A pile of scones, with blue tiles in the background

A garden with raggedy plants, outhouses and bean poles

A man in a fancy shirt and tiny hat leaning against a red postbox.

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Practising my #Burmese reading by translating obituaries. Because this, apparently, is how I have fun when I'm on holiday.

Screenshot with text in Burmese of four obituaries, with the names of the deceased and the details of the funerals. Taken from John Okell's textbook Burmese: An Introduction to the Literary Style

Dr Amy Jane Barnes @amyjanebarnes.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Reposted by Will Buckingham

It's 10 years since my brilliant friend, Elee Kirk, died way too soon. If you're interested in museum education research (and dinosaurs!) please have a look at her thesis, which was adapted for publication as a monograph by @willbuckingham.com after her death. www.routledge.com/Snapshots-of...

routledge.com

Snapshots of Museum Experience: Understanding Child Visitors Through Photography

Children are one of the major audiences for museums, but their visits are often seen solely from the point of view of museum learning. In Snapshots of Museum Experience, Will Buckingham draws upon Ele...

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Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 03/08/2026

Elee was so very brilliant. Thanks for sharing this, and I hope all’s good with you.

Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 30/07/2026

Mapping language diversity with students from NSYSU and Parami University.

Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 27/07/2026

Put another way, you can never have too many Tǔdìgōngs knocking around in your life.

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Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 27/07/2026

Ambling round some local temples with friends, I realised that I'm probably best described as a polytheist fictionalist. It's not about belief, but about liking the vibe of imaginatively inhabiting a world where there's a proliferation of gods, and their accompanying stories, rituals & communities.

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Will Buckingham @willbuckingham.com · 24/07/2026

Next time I’m there, I’ll poa̍h-poe and ask the gods (or even the spirit of SpongeBob himself….) That should clear things up.