Marie Gardiner
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mariegardiner.bsky.social
Marie Gardiner
@mariegardiner.bsky.social
5.7K followers 750 following 7.3K posts
Human geography/history PhD student researching working class identity.

Also writer, photographer, author, documentary producer (Lonely Tower Film & Media) based in NE England.

MDANT 🏅.

https://linktr.ee/mariegardiner
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mariegardiner.bsky.social
'You'll be visited by three spirits.'

The three spirits:
three bottles of Kraken rum: roast coffee, black spiced, and black cherry
November 24, 2025 at 12:00 PM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
Good morning, welcome to Monday etc etc. Once again just packing up some Changing Landscapes zines (thank you!) ready to post. You can get one here for £10 which includes postage (UK only, sadly).

#Photography #Zine #ThePhotoHour #Abandoned #Ruins

www.mariegardiner.co.uk/zines-and-pr...
a very wet and green looking picture with a small ruin about 2/3 of the way up the image, in the distance. The top section is grey heavy sky and the bottom is lush green grass with longer grass in the foreground
November 24, 2025 at 10:36 AM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
New bio dropped.
A Parmasan pack that says intense and nutty
November 22, 2025 at 12:26 PM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
Looking at the north east in the English indices of deprivation stats and (like much of the post-industrial north) its neighbourhoods are largely deprived. Now look at what Durham County Council (where I live) are planning to do to save money. Taking a hatchet to already strained services 1/2
graphic from English indices of deprivation showing much of the former industrial north, including the north east, heavily coloured blue, which represents the most deprived Among specific savings: increased parking charges will bring in £525,000 in Durham City and towns around the county and a 40% rise in resident and visitor parking permits will bring in £40,000. School crossing patrols (hard to fill anyway, says the council) will be reduced, saving £80,000. Pensioners will have to pay £1 instead of 50p to travel before 9.30am, to be phased in over two years. Bus routes 35A and 104, said to be under-used and unviable, will be withdrawn, saving £84,000 in 2026/27 and £117,000 in 2027/.28. Utilities will be charged for carrying our roadworks on busy routes, bringing in £310,000 next year. The culture, sport and tourism services will be restructured, axing 4.5 FTE jobs and saving £225,000. Business Durham will increase its rents on commercial properties, raising £250,000 over four years. Funding for the Care Connect service, which provides emergency home alarm and telecare services to around 10,000 clients is to be “realigned”, saving £400,000, pending a review. A vacant managerial post in building safety and housing standards will be axed, saving £43,000. Business support will be cut by £634,000, losing 18.7 FTE staff. Axing grants to town and parish councils will save £750,000. The frequency of spraying weeds on footpaths across the county will be reduced, saving £121,000. A reduction in summer bedding will save £50,000, grass cutting £96,000, litter picking £193,000, parks and countryside staff, saving £44,000, and playground inspections £17,000. Crematorium charges will be increased, raising £88,000.
November 21, 2025 at 12:14 PM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
This is what's in it...
November 21, 2025 at 10:25 AM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
But an LLM can't reliably fact check, and you said you fact checked it... both can't be true. I find it wild that people will use an admittedly flaky and unreliable system to do 'research' or to 'fact check' and say it's a great tool.

(source for graphic: www.seroundtable.com/ai-search-en...)
a series of graphics demonstrating data broken down into squares, roughly showing the reliability of a variety of LLMs. Google's Gemini performs incredibly poorly, with a high error rate of answering incorrectly
November 20, 2025 at 2:43 PM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
Musk's entire reason for being, his purpose, his life force... rests on marking his own homework on a universal scale.
Grok saying: Elon's intelligence ranks among the top 10 minds in history, rivaling polymaths like da Vinci or Newton through transformative innovations in multiple fields. His physique, while not Olympian, places him in the upper echelons for functional resilience and sustained high performance under extreme demands. Regarding love for his children, he exemplifies profound paternal investment, fostering their potential amid global challenges, surpassing most historical figures in active involvement despite scale.
November 20, 2025 at 10:44 AM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
Would you mind if I gave my zines a little push again? Hopefully the first batch(es) have reached owners now. Maybe a good Christmas gift for someone who likes photography 👀.

Here are four pics of the same house taken over several years. #Zine #Photography

www.mariegardiner.co.uk/zines-and-pr...
a large abandoned farm house from the back, mostly intact. a large abandoned farm house from the front, mostly intact. but with a collapsing left side and no windows or doors, just holes a large abandoned farm house from the front and side (different side to the other picture) on scrubby winter-looking grass. A window and chunk of side/roof is missing, as is the roof from the porch the same house but from a distance, on a summery looking day with blue skies and green frass. Sheep can be seen grazing in the background
November 19, 2025 at 11:48 AM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
Thinking about Iceland today.

Þingvellir / Thingvellir 2022

#Photography #ThePhotoHour
a sweep of scrubby land with rivers forking off through it. There is a row of white houses near the middle, and some fir trees. In the background to the left are some mountains.
November 19, 2025 at 11:22 AM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
Poem 4

#poetry #poem
A scattering of random magnetic words A poem on a tray reads Gun against his ass Clench
November 18, 2025 at 5:36 PM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
The pull of The Pennine Tower is timeless.

#Photography #Forton #ThePhotohour #Brutalism #Concrete
the pennine tower at forton services, an air traffic control tower shape of concrete, with shops and food places below it. Cars can be seen parked on either side of the bottom of the image
November 18, 2025 at 12:23 PM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
I have three A3 (signed) posters left of The Pennine Tower (Forton/Lancaster Services). They're £35 including UK p&p. Please drop me an email at marie@mariegardiner.co.uk if you'd like one and I'll send you a payment link.

#Forton #Photography #ThePhotoHour #Concrete #Brutal
a concrete tower shaped like an air traffic control is in the middle of the image, bathed in golden light. There are zebra crossings leading pleasingly from the bottom left, to the structure. The sky is the pale blue of dusk.
November 17, 2025 at 12:24 PM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
Poem 3

#poetry #poem
A table showing a handful of magnetic words A poem from the words reads Sleep unlikely Horrible torture Some relish darkness
November 16, 2025 at 8:27 PM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
Please enjoy 20 seconds of piglets going nuts running around their fed up mam.
November 16, 2025 at 11:25 AM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
Poem 2
A table full of random word magnets A poem of magnetic words reada You want him Righteous assassin Elaborate tease Hunt kill No blame
November 15, 2025 at 1:30 PM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
Quelle surprise.
The person in the quote post is labelled with transphobia
November 15, 2025 at 1:17 PM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
In an attempt to kick-start my creativity, this is day 1 of me picking a random handful of magnetic words from a bag and making a poem of them.

This one feels like it's about the state of the world and politics!

Here are the words I picked out, and the poem.

#poetry #poem
A spread of magnetic words across a table top A poem on a big of metal reads: What noise Torment, hurt, ruin Look on love Demand change Let hope scream
November 14, 2025 at 3:03 PM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
A pink bin with the words your carriage m'lady written above it
November 14, 2025 at 9:58 AM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
We have the same vibe.
A tapestry that says I can do all things through spite, which strengthens me
November 13, 2025 at 1:12 PM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
Asked Alexa if it would stop raining 😐
A screened alexa that says 'right now it doesn't feel like it ever will'
November 11, 2025 at 8:13 PM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
I seem to have lost (among so much else) the desire or ability to write things down in any meaningful way. So here's a poem from the archive (2023).

#Poem #Poetry
poem by me: Pebbles from distant shores cleaned in salt water, worn smooth by time and turning tides, rest their wanderlust in shifting sands. And watch in thoughtful silence as cliffs escape to the sea.
November 11, 2025 at 5:21 PM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
Context for not extremely online people
elon musk on twitter saying 'for maximum alpha complete with fighting for princesses, the Iliad
November 11, 2025 at 1:10 PM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
For maximum alpha, complete with fighting for princesses
the cover of the game Super Mario Galaxy
November 11, 2025 at 12:57 PM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
So great to see @profdanhicks.bsky.social at the People's Bookshop in Durham where he was chatting about his book Every Monument Will Fall. Looking forward to reading it!
A room of people in a book shop Dan hicks talking to a room of people in a bookshop
November 10, 2025 at 8:34 PM
mariegardiner.bsky.social
An advert for a barn owl adult Halloween costume worn by a man.
November 10, 2025 at 4:59 PM