Ian Watt
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watty62.bsky.social
Ian Watt
@watty62.bsky.social
Open Data advocate. Wikimedia Board Member. Data scientist. Tinkerer with Python, LLMs etc. Enthusiastic reader. Wikimedia UK trainer. #Jazz lover. Drawer, painter, photographer. Whisky afficionado. #FRSA #FIoL Burgess of Guild of #Aberdeen, OSS Taisho.
Having been gifted a printing press for Christmas, and tried using it for intaglio prints, I'm back to #linocut printing to test it. This is Buddy our rescue with a wonky ear.

Just a quick bit of carving, but happy with the results.

#reliefprinting #reliefprints, #linocutprinting
February 5, 2026 at 2:48 PM
Reposted by Ian Watt
INBOX: Robert McCartney, who worked for 39 years at The Washington Post, including as a Metro columnist and editor, before retiring in 2021, claims on X that he has heard the Post has laid off *all* its photojournalists.
February 4, 2026 at 9:05 PM
Reposted by Ian Watt
Etta James, John Lee Hooker and Carlos Santana team up for a live version of the classic James tune "Tell Mama" live in San Francisco in 1986. The driving title tune of Etta's 1968 Chess album. m.youtube.com/watch?v=b34y...
John Lee Hooker, Carlos Santana and Etta James - Tell Mama | Live at Fillmore Auditorium 1986
YouTube video by Live Legends
m.youtube.com
February 4, 2026 at 4:15 AM
Reposted by Ian Watt
I don't mean to seem alarmed, but it appears Google's book search function is, just...gone.

In a sane country it would be a huge deal, front page news, that a privately owned utility that millions researches, from journalists to scholars, rely on every day to advance knowledge can just disappear.
February 3, 2026 at 6:17 PM
I just finished this new #Wikipedia article on Sir William Noble who discovered last week.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...?

Another remarkable native of #Fraserburgh, he was a key figure in the early history of the #BBC.
William Noble (BBC Founder) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
February 3, 2026 at 7:37 PM
Reposted by Ian Watt
WHAT THE F--K!!!

The DOJ has JUST DELETED these Epstein Files again, after a NYT's article from 2016 was shown to corroborate much of it!

Share Everywhere: We Screen-Grabbed what they just deleted:

krassencast.com/p/urgent-doj...
URGENT: DOJ Deletes Epstein Files Again — And They Directly Implicate Trump
For the second time in just three days, the U.S.
krassencast.com
February 2, 2026 at 4:35 PM
Reposted by Ian Watt
Private equity owns lion’s share of children’s foster services in England, ‘bleeding the sector of money’.

Profits margins of 19%. Money extracted in interest payments, intragroup charges. Children suffer.

Ban profit-taking entities from foster services.
Private equity owns lion’s share of children’s foster ser...
Three London firms are now the biggest players in the provision of foster carers in England
observer.co.uk
February 2, 2026 at 8:05 AM
Reposted by Ian Watt
Translation I & II. Linocut print, 115cm-82cm, Diptych. 2024.

#linocutprint #print #adeadesina #linocut #printmaking
February 1, 2026 at 8:01 PM
This thread! 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️
I think I might take one of these "under 20 minutes" AI skills courses the UK Govt. seems very keen on everyone doing and live-post it here... Maybe we can all learn something together! The press release sends me to aiskillshub.org.uk/aiskillsboost/ - let's go and see!
AI Skills Boost - AI Skills Hub
aiskillshub.org.uk
January 29, 2026 at 8:35 AM
Reposted by Ian Watt
I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Stay free
Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)
YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen
youtu.be
January 28, 2026 at 5:02 PM
Reposted by Ian Watt
Just 45 more Tory MPs joining Reform and Ed Davey becomes leader of the opposition
January 26, 2026 at 12:54 PM
Reposted by Ian Watt
In 2016 7% of biographies on #Wikipedia about classicists were about women. Now @richardnevell.bsky.social's wonderful analysis shows that 10 years later, that number is now almost 20%. That's a huge achievement! #WCCWiki
January 23, 2026 at 11:23 AM
Reposted by Ian Watt
Yeah it’s 50k now. Have you signed yet? Even Nigel Farage agrees.

Petition: By-elections to be called automatically when MPs defect to another party

t.co/GhzzDCOB3T
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/737660
t.co
January 21, 2026 at 12:39 PM
Reposted by Ian Watt
The government is living in an alternate reality. During WW2, Michael Foot and others wrote Guilty Men about the disastrous failure of the British elite’s appeasement policy: their inability to grasp the world they were living in. He’d have a field day with this lot.
January 21, 2026 at 11:51 AM
Reposted by Ian Watt
January 21, 2026 at 4:57 PM
Reposted by Ian Watt
NEW: NEW: Standards commissioner finds Nigel Farage committed seventeen breaches of MPs code of conduct.

He failed to declare £333,000 in outside interests (more than 3x MPs annual salary)…
January 21, 2026 at 8:48 AM
Reposted by Ian Watt
🇨🇦PM Carney just schooled our cowardly European leaders at #Davos. This speech was clearly aimed at them:

"We must actively take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be."

"What does it mean for middle powers to live the truth? First it means naming reality..." (🧵1/6)
January 20, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Ian Watt
Not the sort of letter committed to paper by a well man. "Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace"
January 19, 2026 at 7:04 AM
Reposted by Ian Watt
Deutsche Bank here with the good stuff.
Game on.
January 18, 2026 at 6:59 PM
Currently listening to the audio book of Sinclair Lewis' 1935 novel, "It Can't Happen Here" - about an imagined rise to power of Fascist President Buzz Windrip.

1/2
January 14, 2026 at 3:45 PM
Reposted by Ian Watt
It's wildly overvalued, politically extreme and puts Trump first – but somehow has £1bn of deals to run Britain's tech infrastructure

✏️ @jamesrball.com
Can MAGA tech firm Palantir be trusted to run Britain's data?
It's wildly overvalued, politically extreme and puts Trump first – but somehow has £1bn of deals to run Britain's tech infrastructure
www.thenewworld.co.uk
January 14, 2026 at 12:30 PM
Reposted by Ian Watt
Kristi Noem’s podium at DHS is just a straight up Nazi slogan

"One of ours, all of yours" was a Nazi policy made when an SS officer was killed in a Czech Village and then the Nazis killed every single resident of that village in response…..but don’t you dare call them Nazis….not even hiding it
January 13, 2026 at 2:27 AM
Reposted by Ian Watt
Three Minnesota federal prosecutors resigned over the Justice Department’s push to investigate the widow of a woman killed by an ICE agent and its reluctance to investigate the shooter. @londonoe.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/u...
3 Prosecutors Quit After Push to Investigate ICE Shooting Victim’s Widow
www.nytimes.com
January 13, 2026 at 5:37 PM
Call me purile if you must, but this thread! 🤣🤣🤣
In "celebration" of thr Pepto Bismol ad now being on the radio, I took some popular radio-friendly songs and added the "Diarrhea" guy.
January 11, 2026 at 6:46 PM
Reposted by Ian Watt
Trump is clearly not well.

At a meeting with oil industry CEO’s Trump suddenly interrupts his introductory remarks, gets up and looks out the window and starts talking about his ballroom. Trump then realizes his mistake and says “unusual time to look”, and sits back down to continue.
January 10, 2026 at 8:57 AM