Alix Mortimer
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alixmortimer.bsky.social
Alix Mortimer
@alixmortimer.bsky.social
1.2K followers 1.3K following 1.4K posts
I(i)mpact and engagement for my brilliant colleagues in politics, economics, social sciences @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social. Often I dream of islands.
🚢 ships
🏺archaeology
🏰 medieval history
🇭🇷 učim Hrvatski

Can’t see DMs, sorry!
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alixmortimer.bsky.social
Hrvatska Pošta version of these is even closer to the platonic ideal!
Tiny little yellow vans with smiley faces with the bugle logo of the Croatian postal service on the side
November 13, 2025 at 1:25 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Jesus, let none of these people know peace, if they’re still alive. Let them fear the knock on the door.

This also shows what you can achieve as a private citizen, and maybe what we must, if authorities won’t do work like this:
The investigation originated from a legal complaint submitted by Ezio Gavazzeni, a Milan-based writer who gathered evidence on the allegations, as well as a report sent to the prosecutors by the former mayor of Sarajevo, Benjamina Karic.
November 12, 2025 at 8:03 AM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
I have read, I don’t know, five great ideas in the last ten minutes about how to write the new Bond film which makes me think either something is terribly wrong with these writers or this is a sly crowdsource.
@sirosenbaum.bsky.social
https://bsky.app/profile/crownedwithlaurels.bsky.social/post/3m5dwaymct226
November 11, 2025 at 1:33 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Incredibly insightful and interesting. By this account Watson became so convinced of his own genius that he didn’t want to listen to equivalent experts in other fields, and upsetting them became a marker of being right.

A groundbreaking genius in being a tedious ex-academic contrarian basically.
When the friend proposed that Watson debate the genes/IQ/race hypothesis with a leading scientist in that field, for a documentary, Watson wouldn't hear of it: "No, he's not good enough" to be in the same camera frame as me, Watson replied, the friend recalled. "He saw himself as smarter than anyone who ever actually studied this" - which Watson had not. Friends traced Watson's smartest-guy-in-the-room attitude, and his disdain for experts, to 1953. When he joined Crick at England's Cavendish laboratory, Watson knew virtually nothing about molecular structures or "the
November 9, 2025 at 7:57 AM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Oh, honey, no.
Shark CryoGlow Under-Eye Cooling & LED Anti-Ageing & Blemish Repair Mask FW312UKPL - Lilac Chill £ 269.99 [highlighted!] 4.6 Stars. Write a review few days it made me break out so I started using it once every 2-3 days for a week and a bit. Since then I use it about 5-6 times a week and [begin highlight] wash my face before and after and it has genuinely cleared my acne. [end highlight] The only other
November 6, 2025 at 7:38 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
However, add Edith Wharton to the same search string and there are still no Google results and AI is suddenly not so sure
Al Overview FD+7 : The phrase "full of books and maps and easy chairs and sofas to sit by those one likes" is not a direct quote from Edith Wharton, but rather a paraphrase or interpretation of the kind of room and atmosphere she advocated for in her writing on interior design. It captures the essence of her ideas on creating a home that is personal, comfortable, and conducive to good conversation and connection, as detailed in her 1897 book, The Decoration of Houses, coauthored with Ogden Codman Jr.. Wharton criticized the overly ornate, cluttered, and impersonal Victorian interiors of her time. Instead, she championed spaces that were functional, simple, and reflected the personality and intellectual interests of their inhabitants. The idealized room described in your query embodies this philosophy:
November 1, 2025 at 5:54 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
So here’s a thing, I just googled the latter part of this again - and for the first time ever with an AI result. Still no normal results, but AI was unequivocal that it was Edith Wharton (who I’ve never read, though not impossible I’ve seen a quote and mixed it up with Canning somehow)
Al Overview aD. : The phrase "full of books and maps and easy chairs and sofas to sit by those one likes" is a description of a comfortable and inviting room or house. This exact phrasing appears in the novel The House of Mirth by American author Edith Wharton, published in 1905. The full quote describes a vision of an ideal home: "A house full of books and maps and easy chairs and sofas to sit by those one likes-interspersed with a few good pictures, and a good cook" This vision is expressed by the character Lawrence Selden, offering a simple, comfortable ideal of domesticity in contrast to the extravagant and often empty social climbing of the Gilded Age society depicted in the novel.
November 1, 2025 at 5:53 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Oh yes these two truths @beijingpalmer.bsky.social
Two posts @beijingpalmer.bluesky.social: after careful study, I believe only people born between 1975 and 1995 should be allowed to use the internet however even they will only be allowed to use it in the Internet Room
October 9, 2025 at 8:11 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Fittingly for the wild weather, my veg box parsnips this week are funny little spindly ghosts @hookland.bsky.social
Five thin curly parsnips on a marble surface. The wind howls outside (not visible in picture but implied.)
October 3, 2025 at 6:54 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Ha, well well. Keep on this line then.
In a section of the speech likely to annoy Farage, this included the prediction that a Reform government would dismantle the NHS, enable racism and misogyny, and roll back gun laws so British schools would have to teach children what to do in a mass shooting. The latter element comes from comments Farage made in 2014, when he was the UKip leader and called for a ban on handguns to be relaxed. A Reform source denied it was party policy, calling the Lib Dems "an irrelevant laughing stock"
September 23, 2025 at 3:24 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
At the end of the summer the beach bar here once heaving with stressed families and stressed bikinis and German lad groups (these are obviously distinct entities) suddenly turns into an old man’s bar and I love it. No pictures of the patrons but i believe i have heard them discussing the Jugo wind.
A small draft beer on little a table by the sea, which is grey and a little ruffled, under a similar sky.
September 23, 2025 at 1:55 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Twice a year, for as long as the fragile peace of our age holds, I get to live inside my screensavers ❤️ #hrvatska
September 22, 2025 at 7:35 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Compromise leader unveiled
Ea-Nasir statue
September 19, 2025 at 4:16 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Adam Smith on p182: “AND NOW WE COME ON TO THE LIARS”
Book page: “IV Of the nature of self-deceit, and of the origin and use of general rules”
September 11, 2025 at 5:26 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
I love summer *and* autumn, will have no truck with haters, but there is also something very special about this liminal Lammas space, not quite either season, you can still sit on the grass if you bring a jumper, the glass is rising and falling, shadows are long, colours are saturated
A London park at 6pm, a green expanse with evening sun slanting across it from the right, dark trees across the middle distance and one rich green tree with a long shadow, close to on the left
September 8, 2025 at 5:08 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Are we all clear on that?? #stayalert
Ronnie Barker as a Covid PM behind the wooden lectern: “Stale yurt, cajole the walrus, and shave wives.” Still no idea who made this meme.
September 7, 2025 at 2:08 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Probably the most read marketing email in the UK today omg
M&S Food email, they have made Colin the Caterpillar into an ice cream!! “Introducing Arctic Colin Hi Alix, Introducing Arctic Colin. For the first time ever (and just in time for the O.G Colin's 35th birthday) our iconic Colin the Caterpillar has transformed into a chocolatey frozen dessert. Crafted with rich Belgian chocolate, silky semifreddo and a gooey chocolate sauce centre, he's finished with silky ganache, and the same cheeky Colin face you know and love. Be the first to try our newest viral Colin now.”
August 29, 2025 at 6:21 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
We were too early, it takes the right role model to show the way
August 5, 2025 at 6:08 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
This is him (left, with two friends) outside Cafe Bar Lloyd, one of my favourite coffee spots in Zadar, courtesy of instagram account Nas Zadar (Our Zadar) who had this suitably dramatic tribute for Oliver Day www.instagram.com/reel/DMroZNS...
Three old men at a cafe table outside a cathedral. It is very Jugoslavian.
August 3, 2025 at 5:54 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Do not really know what happened to my brain here tbh
Badge on a grey lapel, white text and TfL rondel on a blue background: Please offer me a seat White badge on a leather jacket, blue text and a red and blue TfL rondel: Baby on board! Rondel in red and blue with blue and white chequers in the centre: Bayern München!
July 31, 2025 at 10:13 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
See compare British lower case r (messy double stroke, tails off into nothing, easily mistaken for being distracted by a noise while writing) with French lower case r (curvy, decisive, ends in upward flourish, maybe you are a mysterious French spy?)
Lined notepad page with two iterations of lowercase “er”, one with a straight down line and curve r and the other with a French style one like the pi symbol!
July 30, 2025 at 5:54 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Also tagging myself here and all of you
Agenda-setters (6.9 per cent): High-follower accounts that set narrative direction and provoke engagement. Analytical core (16.6 per cent): Thoughtful commentators offering political reflection, often aligned with opposition views. Amplifiers and content warriors (27.1 per cent): Highly active users engaged in sarcasm, irony, and emotional debate - including trolls. Reputation guardians and selective antagonists (8.2 per cent): Accounts defending political figures and attacking critics, often via reactive comments. Synthetic participants (41.2 per cent): Low-profile, often anonymous accounts that flood threads with repeated slogans, insults, or contentless noise.
July 23, 2025 at 2:45 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Something I sorted out in Zadar’s archaeology museum: northern Dalmatia was not populated by Illyrians pre-Rome but Liburnians, of galley fame, known to Roman writers as pirates/mercenaries, and now preserved in the name of Zadar’s bus co. How fun if eg Oxfordshire buses were called the Atrebates.
Bus interior, digital screen at the front showing the company name Liburnija
July 19, 2025 at 4:48 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Unexpectedly reached peak noise nuisance on a Croatian island. Just had to ask the guy at the next table (with his wife and child) to stop watching a cartoon on his phone during dinner. This is the view.
Table with kindle and glass of wine directly next to the sea
July 13, 2025 at 5:23 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Slight timeslip here reading an early 90s gratitude practice article while sitting in the former Yugoslavia having a beer
“with you and to have your concerns and dilemmas. It's important to remember that we are very lucky to be here, with all our concerns, and not in Bosnia or another war-torn country, or in any of the other places where people”
July 13, 2025 at 12:37 PM