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newimprovedtom.bsky.social
@newimprovedtom.bsky.social
310 followers 77 following 1.5K posts
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newimprovedtom.bsky.social
A bit of a roll cloud going on.
Ominous roll cloud over Tangi te Keo.
November 10, 2025 at 8:04 PM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
Imminent.
View to the south, showing threatening clouds.
November 10, 2025 at 7:58 PM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
Wellington, I hope you’re all indoors by 9. Here comes the southerly.
A radar image for 8:42 am, showing a rain band just south of Wellington.
November 10, 2025 at 7:51 PM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
This says more about Hipkins than it does about the NZ Institute.
Screenshot from the RNZ article, quoting Michael Johnston about the NZ Institute. ‘He challenges suggestions that he represents a right wing think tank. "I would say what we are is a classical liberal think tank. We give policy advice to any political party who wants to talk to us. You know, [Labour leader] Chris Hipkins spoke at our members' retreat earlier this year so it's not true that we only talk to the right wing parties.”’
November 5, 2025 at 7:42 PM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
“A sort-of ratepayer lobby group” is a very polite way to describe a PR hack for whalers and tobacco companies; a notoriously cooked pub owner; and a wealthy, viciously homophobic property developer.
Screenshot from the article linked to in the previous post: This time his bid for the top job was different. He had the financial backing of Better Wellington - a sort-of ratepayer lobby group that has publicly criticised council spending and decision-making, led by political PR operative Glenn Inwood and with well-known publican Alistair Boyce as spokesperson. Prominent property developer Vlad Barbalich emerged as one of the main financial backers.
November 1, 2025 at 11:47 PM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
Some of that rain is quite hard and bouncy.
October 28, 2025 at 2:31 AM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
On top of all the other things David Seymour is wrong about, he seems to be very confused about botany.
Quote from David Seymour in a RNZ article about CGT: "It's not that New Zealand lacks government revenue. It seems to be about that old chestnut, the tall poppy."
October 27, 2025 at 7:38 PM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
Horrors! A tragic jet plane accident in Wellington.
Several jet plane sweets scattered across red bricks.
October 26, 2025 at 11:42 PM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
Which slightly obscure historical figure was I dressed as last night? Bonus arcane nerd points for deciphering the highly serious message inscribed with esoteric glyphs on the cape.
Me with a pointy beard, black skull cap, cape, and shirt with esoteric symbols. Side view of me in the same outfit, showing symbols on the back and side of the cape. Close up of the back of the black cape, with several arcane symbols in white.
October 26, 2025 at 6:08 AM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
In one of those weird synchronicities of reading journeys, I’ve started reading Junji Ito’s infamous Uzumaki just as I reached this spiral-obsessed section of @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social’s Is A River Alive.
The cover of Junji Ito’s manga Uzumaki, with the tagline “spiral into horror”. The text is white and grey on a dark grey background with ghostly outlines of blank-faced people, with a red spiralling swirl around the title. Photo of text: “The river runs flow and counterflow in my brain. I see spirals forming everywhere: on the eddy-lines, under the pull of our paddles, in the grain of the driftwood, the licks of fire, the sky-gyres of a watchful osprey. Far upstream, gold-dust pollen swirls atop a dark deceleration of water at a bend of the river, like a star map. Far above, the ongoing helical collision of the Andromeda and the Milky Way galaxies, which began 4.5 billion years ago, spreads across the dark sky like pollen on water.”
October 23, 2025 at 4:20 AM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
This is a little more specific, but the general idea hits home: the desire to encounter (in fiction (mostly)) the weird, eerie or uncanny. No matter how much one finds wonder and magic in the explicable physical world, we crave the frisson of the inexplicable.
When I was a kid, I enthusiastically believed in ghosts and UFOs and all of that. Even when I was in high school and the story about kuchisake-onna (the slit-mouthed woman) was sweeping through Japan, I would walk to school thinking about how if she really did exist, I wanted to catch at least a glimpse of her. A lingering trace of my youthful belief is the contradictory desire to experience some kind of unnatural event even though I no longer believe in that sort of thing.
October 21, 2025 at 7:37 AM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
I’m reading “Uncanny” by Junji Ito, and while many of the headings could constitute an Oblique Strategies for speculative/horror fiction (“Drawing on animal abilities”; “Developed from a single imagined landscape”; “Geometric patterns from ancient times”), this one really stopped me in my tracks.
Photo of a heading: “The origin of ideas is discomfort”.
October 21, 2025 at 7:10 AM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
Homer and Bart “the worst day of your life so far!” meme, but with the text: THAT WAS THE MOST MILQUETOAST POLICY ANNOUNCEMENT FROM LABOUR THE MOST MILQUETOAST POLICY ANNOUNCEMENT FROM LABOUR SO FAR!
October 20, 2025 at 5:21 AM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
“Violator! Homogenic! Leave poor Dummy alone! If you don’t behave I’ll have to send you to your room, like I did with Selected Ambient Works 85-92.”
Screenshot of a tweet by hamza (@Ifchamy) “normalise naming your child after a 10/10 album” (stolen from FB)
October 19, 2025 at 12:13 AM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
While the local election in Wellington was particularly awful, this piece about the outgoing mayor of Selwyn shows that the discourse was A Bit Shit everywhere.
Excerpt from a newspaper article: "Too woke” Part of this story is also Broughton's support for Te Tiriti o Waitangi, te reo Mãori, and his pink Converse sneakers. Broughton was in support of the addition of Megen McKay, a Te Taumutu Runanga representative at the council table. While she had no voting rights, Broughton ensured her voice was heard. His history of voting against the majority of submitters during consultation included voting in favour of the addition of reo Mãori names for wards during the representation review last year. And the tipping point for some in the community were his shoes, which became a target for criticism, with some claiming he was "too woke"
October 18, 2025 at 7:34 AM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
Christchurch has its new cathedral, an imposing monument wherein the faithful will worship the true religion of Canterbury.
A distant view of the eastern part of the Christchurch CBD, its skyline dominated by the dome of the new stadium.
October 18, 2025 at 2:25 AM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
I’d arranged a meeting with a very dear friend, and wasn’t entirely sure which bar to meet at. As soon as I saw this I knew it was the perfect place.
White art deco lettering on black sign: “LAST WORD: WHISKY & COCK LOUNGE” (the “tail” from “cocktail” has been erased).
October 17, 2025 at 4:25 AM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
An image of Jerry Seinfeld opening his door to Gary Numan, with the text “Hello, Numan”.
October 13, 2025 at 8:49 PM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
October 10, 2025 at 1:46 AM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
Shh! No-one tell Winston about this window display in Cuba St right now!
A fake cardboard brick hanging in a window, with a yellow sticky note saying “40 years of windows”. A wider view of the window display, showing the brick hanging in a window surrounded by a wall made of matching paper bricks. A ladder leads to the window.
October 10, 2025 at 1:12 AM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
Post-thunderstorm mammatus clouds.
A high-contrast photo of grey, threatening mammatus clouds over the ridgeline of Tangi te Keo, with the buildings of Te Aro in the foreground.
October 7, 2025 at 3:28 AM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
It’s okay, I know when I’m not wanted.
Hand-painted sign below a letterbox saying “NO JUNK MALE [sic]”
October 6, 2025 at 9:42 PM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
For some reason I have developed a sudden nostalgia for the MadBad parties of yore.
Excerpt from Venus and Tannhäuser by Aubrey Beardsley: Clitor and Sodon had a violent struggle over the beautiful Pella, and nearly upset a chandelier. Sophie became very intimate with an empty champagne bottle, swore it had made her enciente, and ended by having a mock accouchment on the top of the table; and Belamour pretended to be a dog, and pranced from couch to couch on all fours, biting and barking and licking. Mellefont crept about dropping love philtres into glasses. Juventus and Ruella stripped and put on each other's things, Spelto offered a prize for whoever should come first, and Spelto won it! Tannhäuser, just a little grisé, lay down on the cushions and let Julia do whatever she liked.
October 2, 2025 at 7:12 AM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
I was thinking to myself that Aubrey Beardsley writes exactly the way you would expect, but I was thoroughly unprepared for the end of the second excerpt, which nearly made me do a spit-take with my Chianti.
The Chevalier Tannhäuser, having lighted off his horse, stood doubtfully for a moment beneath the ombre gateway of the Venusberg, troubled with an exquisite fear lest a day's travel should have too cruelly undone the laboured niceness of his dress. His hand, slim and gracious as La Marquise du Deffand's in the drawing by Carmontelle, played nervously about the gold hair that fell upon his shoulders like a finely curled peruke, and from point to point of a precise toilet, the fingers wandered, quelling the little mutinies of cravat and ruffle. Priapusa's voice was full of salacious unction; she had terrible little gestures with the hands, strange movements with the shoulders, a short respiration that made surprising wrinkles in her bodice, a corrupt skin, large horny eyes, a parrot's nose, a small loose mouth, great flaccid cheeks, and chin after chin. She was a wise person, and Venus loved her more than any of her other servants, and had a hundred pet names for her, such as, Dear Toad, Pretty Pol, Cock-robin, Dearest Lip, Touchstone, Little Cough-drop, Bijou, Buttons, Dear Heart, Dick-dock, Mrs Manly, Little Nipper, Cochon-de-lait, Naughty-naughty, Blessèd Thing, and Trump.
October 2, 2025 at 6:36 AM
newimprovedtom.bsky.social
@bewarethefish.bsky.social Bon voyage!
A bear standing upright on a railway platform, wearing a backpack and a wistful expression. Hopefully not AI-generated: it was originally from an Amtrak ad.
September 29, 2025 at 8:14 PM