iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

It's a clear sign of decline that this isn't in Latin.

William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Probably the best thing about Strictly is back! "He dances with the urgency of the dribbling tap in a Nando’s toilet" Just perfect.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

If you almost kill a toddler, you shouldn't be back behind the wheel before that kid starts school.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The reactionary local FB group was one of the (many) reasons I left. That combination of smug chortling face and angry face emojis still sets my teeth on edge.

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Draculosity Jones: Ghost Skeleton @brainmage.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Martin, an Orc: Well boys, looks like meat's back on the menu Niles, an Elf: Ooh, has the Altura resumed their delightful venison carpaccio? Frasier, also an Elf: He's talking about eating Hobbits, Niles N: Hobbits? Oh dad, you know they play merry hell with your digestion

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Can't believe after a decade of Tory Brexit nonsense, it's a Labour government that has got me so frustrated I'm writing emails to my MP. First time it was Starmer's vile immigration speech. Now it's me asking them to consider maybe doing something - anything - about the fascist mobs on the streets.

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Magdalen Libraries & Archives @magdlibandarch.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

One of Magdalen's most legendary figures, Martin Routh was born #OnThisDay in 1755. He served as our President for 63 years, between 1791–1854. This daguerreotype of Routh was taken on his 99th birthday on 18 September 1854, making him one of the earliest born people to be photographed.

Black-and-white daguerreotype portrait of an elderly man leaning forward and looking down, displayed behind glass in a distressed yellow mat speckled with blue and a red velvet frame.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Quite agree - but the government's cowardly response to the rise of the far right has encouraged this. Maybe have a word?

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The AI has got confused between tea the drink and the tea the evening meal hasn't it?

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Me and my Swedish wife watching anxiously from the UK. Fingers crossed for us all.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

It's so dispiriting how complacent Labour are being. I had hoped it was a Starmer-McSweeney blind spot, but it seems that none of them even understand the threat, let alone want to do anything about it.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

What's the equivalent for the uncanny valley in graphic design?

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

At some point, it became received wisdom that people click more on thumbnails with expressive human faces on it. I guess there was some research? But now every single video on YouTube looks like this. It's...wearying.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I just genuinely don't understand what he's thinking from a political point of view, let alone a moral one. What is his theory for why Starmer became so unpopular? That he wasn't Andy Burnham? Surely he sees it was cowardly shit like this that helped tank his predecessor's ratings.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

It's above average! (says the 5'9 on a good day chap, who's definitely absolutely fine with it despite somehow having two brothers who are 6 foot plus, because 5'9 is the national average and who wants to any taller anyway thankyouverymuch)

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

In my first year, I had supervisions at a few homes rather than offices, which was a little odd in retrospect, but this sounds more like a cult

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

I liked Mary Beard's point (and she thought the lotus flowers inclusion there was quite clever) about how odd the film's Calypso must have seemed to viewers who didn't know the poem. What did they think she was? Some sort of strange watery PTSD counsellor?

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Utilitarian arguments are silly. Learning Latin is interesting (fun even for some of us)…! That's enough.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

That's how I remember it. I think it's at least trick-adjacent.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Yeah but it's about as close as the film gets.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

I remembered the other day that he did trick his crew to choose Scylla over Charybdis, but other than that (and the wooden horsey of course) he wasn't the cunning figure from the poem at all.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

I heard that, and it slightly put me off picking it up after TSNOTD, which I so enjoyed. I should read it though.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

To Say Nothing of The Dog by Connie Willis. Time-travel/mystery/comedy (it works!) about a future group of University of Oxford historians going back to the Victorian times.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

People's mental image of "old people" just fixes at a certain point I think. When I was a teenager, we lived next to a care home, and they regularly used to play "It's A Long Way to Tipperary", even though the residents would have been young children at most during WW1.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Who the hell is giving their kids a fiver?! Mine get a pound and usually forget about it so quickly, they don't notice it's the same coin that's given to them the next time...

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

And Lucas! Who just does not seem to have aged a day.

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Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

This is a truly remarkable development: A carbonized scroll, sealed since the eruption of #Vesuvius in 79 AD, has been virtually unwrapped and successfully deciphered in its entirety. What informations will the other carbonized scrolls reveal? What an exciting project! scrollprize.org/firstscroll

scrollprize.org

An entire Herculaneum scroll has been read for the first time

PHerc. 1667, sealed since the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, has been virtually unwrapped and read from beginning to end — without ever being opened.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Ah, a case I probably wrote about in my finals, twenty (!) years ago on your "Sexual Ethics in the Ancient World" course!

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Spent far too long looking at the woman on the left, trying to work out what her odd and horrifying face mask was about. Just her hair isn't it.

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CJ Fogler @cjzero.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Rebecca: "Chaps, Alexi left us" Zlatan: "Who? Rebecca: "Alexi will be back, Alexi will be back with us very soon" Thierry: "Your plan worked, Rebecca" Rebecca: "Don't you bring me into this, no chance" Zlatan: "America, you're welcome" lmaooooooooooooooooo

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Nick Martin @banksyshrill.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Great Half-Time analysis, there.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

How many countless families must have histories like that? My dad has traced our family tree, and on his side, it's just generation after generation of farm labourers and tenant farmers - until it became possible for kids of that background to go to university, then off he and his brothers went.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Leaving aside the weirdly selective history, it's a bit weird to boast about serving a tradition...how about serving, I don't know, people?

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

He's right that Labour doesn't really represent those voters anymore. It's because most of them are dead.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Look, if the government is going to try to do something impossible for kids and parents, how about fixing the weather so it doesn't always rain at pick up and drop off time?

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Ash @queerash.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

"well done they're 15 years old" but about the entire country of Curaçao

wikipedia screenshot of Curacao only becoming a country in 2010

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

The signs were all there in that decision, weren't they? Cowardice in the face of an anticipated press criticism. A total unwillingness to make an argument. It really does sum up all their subsequent troubles.

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Alastair Meeks @alastairmeeks.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

What a ridiculous waste of money this would be.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

In fairness, if his fighting a leadership election matched the vigour of his "fight of his life" against Reform, it would amount to one speech and then doing precisely nothing so it's not exactly a huge threat.

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Daniel Radosh @radosh.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

DOCTOR: "So what seems to be the problem?" PATIENT: "Mmhbbhhggr hhruuh engghhuu." DOCTOR: "I'm sorry I can't understand, but don't worry. Great singer Bob Dylan is in town. Go see his show and no matter what ails you, you'll feel better!" PATIENT (sadly): "Ehg ddnghh m'm Bddnnn."

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

There are similar ones with Martin Lewis confronting Bailey instead, accompanied by a fake BBC news page. My parents were almost taken in by it.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Love this sketch. It's become one of those little in-jokes between me and my wife, when we see something ridiculously cluttered or busy one of us will whisper to the other - in *that* voice - "I think another toilet"

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

I took my daughter to that when it came out. I can just remember the lore/plot mechanics being weirdly complex and opaque for a kids' film. It's the same problem that Frozen II had, which was the same creative team I think.

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

This reminds me of a local company called "Bedford Batteries" whose tagline is "Not just batteries!"

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William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

It was a very very poor season - we were lucky to stumble back into the Champions League. Little sign of green shoots in performances, and lots of rumblings of discontent from the dressing room and stands. Usually only ends one way in such circumstances.

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