Ian Waites
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ianwaites.bsky.social
Ian Waites
@ianwaites.bsky.social
Historian and writer of the dreams and memories of postwar England: council estates, Radburn layouts, rural modernism, pop music. I've also written a book about the Summer of 76. Trainee A&R man for Asylum Records in my dreams.
Pinned
'Housing as if people mattered.'

My book, 'Middlefield: A postwar council estate in time', available here: colinsackett.co.uk/middlefield....
Reposted by Ian Waites
Wednesday
November 19, 2025 at 7:11 AM
A stranger in paradise.
BBC Radio 3
Essential Classics

Now Playing
Alexander Borodin, New York Philharmonic & Leonard Bernstein
Polovtsian dances (Prince Igor)
November 18, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Reposted by Ian Waites
"I thought of how, as a child, I’d used pylons to calculate distance & time, and how they seemed to anchor space. I thought of how the turbines resisted this, how unmeasurable they seemed, in a nightscape with few visual referents."

'Landscapes of Power'
longbarrowpress.substack.com/p/landscapes...
November 17, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Empire of Light
November 17, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Thankfully, the universe is indifferent.
The Wolf's Cave Nebula (VdB152) is around 1,400 light years away in the constellation of Cepheus.
This is 6.25 hours of data from 2023 re-processed in HaRGB.
Esprit 100ED, ASI2924 MC Pro, L-ultimate and UV/IR cut filters.

#astronomy #astrophotography
November 17, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Reposted by Ian Waites
Robespierre appears, chipper as all fuck
November 16, 2025 at 3:31 PM
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16th November 2025. 16.43
November 16, 2025 at 3:51 PM
The 70s.
November 14, 2025 at 1:50 PM
The 70s.
November 14, 2025 at 1:14 PM
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Friday
November 14, 2025 at 9:04 AM
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🚨 NEW POST: the scheme that inspired our postwar 'streets in the sky' - the Justus van Effen Estate in Rotterdam, Michiel Brinkman's masterpiece of the early 1920s. (New photos by @matthew-cook.bsky.social added.)

municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2025/11/11/h...
November 14, 2025 at 9:33 AM
Pocket Jesus.
November 13, 2025 at 6:36 PM
13c tithe barn at Bradford-on-Avon.
November 13, 2025 at 12:29 PM
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13/11/25
November 13, 2025 at 9:21 AM
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12/11/25 - nocturn
November 12, 2025 at 6:41 PM
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Apollodoro from the portfolio Six Latin Writers and Poets http://www.moma.org/collection/works/72324
November 12, 2025 at 12:43 PM
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Robert Ballagh — Woman and a Bridget Riley, 1974.
(The Faust Tapes)
November 12, 2025 at 9:52 AM
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the seven stages of a letter, GPO, 1966 designed by Negus & Sharland
www.designreviewed.com/artefacts/th... #gpo #negussharland #britishdesign
November 12, 2025 at 9:36 AM
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I will need £1 for the socks.
November 12, 2025 at 7:54 AM
Near the Eye.,
Alexander Cozens, 7. A High Foreground, That Is to Say, a Large Kind of Object, or More than One. Near the Eye.,
https://botfrens.com/collections/14375/contents/1132934
November 11, 2025 at 1:29 PM
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October 3, 2025 at 3:40 AM
Blossom Dearie
What do you like now that 16 year old you would hate you for?
November 10, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Reposted by Ian Waites
From an article in today's Financial Times. Such an obvious statement of fact. It's hard to understand why direct public investment in social rent housing - so successful for decades - is now unthinkable.
November 10, 2025 at 7:43 AM
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Concrete bus shelter design by architect Clem Cummings, Canberra, Australia (1974)
November 9, 2025 at 2:06 AM
My top 3 band names:
1. Drop Nineteens
2. Fairport Convention
3. Paperclip People
November 8, 2025 at 1:43 PM