James and the giant peach
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studiousbadger.bsky.social
James and the giant peach
@studiousbadger.bsky.social
720 followers 2.1K following 1.8K posts
Stargazing vet from the dark satanic North. Once hit the stumps from the boundary aged 11, all down hill since then. #OneHealth 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺
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studiousbadger.bsky.social
"Our friends had been suggesting for a long time that we visit the famous Congress"
Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov (names assumed to be aliases), both implicated in the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, interviewed on Russian state TV.
November 11, 2025 at 12:07 PM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
Bond needs Brigadier Sir Bernard Proudfoot-Smith.
Brigadier Sir Bernard Proudfoot-Smith, who picked up a "teensy veensy bit" of an accent while working undercover in Germany, played by Bill Wallis in the Blackadder Goes Forth episode 'General Hospital'.
November 11, 2025 at 11:56 AM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
Macclesfield?
Excerpt: "I do see faces that I haven't seen before," says Robert Stordy, standing by the town's market on a Tuesday lunchtime, although he admits he does not know where those new faces are from.
October 28, 2025 at 9:12 AM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
I thought you were talking about Duncan for a moment and then I scrolled down...
"Keeping the British End up" scene from The Spy Who Loved Me
October 23, 2025 at 11:43 AM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
There’s always the cricket instead.
David Mitchell dressed in cricket whites and a parka jacket, holding a cricket bat, from the Mitchell & Webb “can Pisswiddle win the Ashes?” sketch.
October 20, 2025 at 12:52 PM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
Asimov wrote ‘The Feeling of Power’ in the 50s. The future humans in the short story can’t even count because they’ve depended on AI for so long. A technician re-discovers how to do pencil-and-paper maths, a technique which they refer to as ‘graphitics’ and use to wage war. The tech kills himself.
Cover of the short story ‘A feeling of power’ by Isaac Asimov. A suited astronaut looks towards a rocket. There is a nuclear mushroom cloud in the distance.
October 15, 2025 at 7:52 AM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
What they lined up was, compared to an actual pie, roughly what this is to cheese.
A can of… I don’t know. Industrial sealant? Expanding loft insulation? It says cheese whizz, anyway.
October 12, 2025 at 3:41 PM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
I may be misremembering the tail number but I *think* I flew in the jumpseat of that one as a cadet jolly for some touch-and-gos into LBA from Finningley. Nice to see some airframes preserved. The last time I thought about that flight was when I spotted a couple of Vipers on the back of a flatbed!
Two RR Vipers mounted on the back of a DAF truck - photo & insane engineering from jetpower.co.uk
September 19, 2025 at 11:45 AM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
I disagree with Jonathan Sumption on a lot of things, but on this he was absolutely spot on.
"Prophets are usually wrong, but one thing I will prophesy; we will not recognise the end of democracy when it comes, if it does. Advanced democracies are not overthrown, there are no tanks on the street, no sudden catastrophes, no brash dictators or braying mobs, instead, their institutions are imperceptibly drained of everything that once made them democratic. The labels will still be there, but they will no longer describe the contents, the facade will still stand, but there will be nothing behind it, the rhetoric of democracy will be unchanged, but it will be meaningless - and the fault will be ours." Lord Jonathan Sumption Law & the decline of politics Reith Lectures 2019
September 13, 2025 at 9:58 PM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
It's always painful on FB when you care about pretty much any subject and catch other people talking about it. Take heart.
XKCD Single-panel cartoon, two person exchange: "Silicate Chemistry is second nature to us geochemists, so it's easy to forget that the average person probably only knows the formulas for olivine and one or two feldspars" / "and quartz, of course" / "of course". Text below: Even when they're trying to compensate for it, experts in anything wildly overestimate the average person's familiarity with their field.
September 5, 2025 at 9:04 AM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
And then after the bin bath…
A man with a baby in a papoose arrangement strapped to his chest. The baby carrier and matching nappy bag are in military desert camouflage colours, complete with low profile ‘tactical’ stars & stripes flags.
August 19, 2025 at 8:51 AM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
That depends, Robert. Are were talking yer classic anthropomorphic personification or more yer genius loci?
A book pictured in a bookshop window. "Is a river alive?" by Robert Macfarlane.
August 13, 2025 at 5:44 PM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
Love location-spotting things like this. Cruachan dam (near Oban in Scotland) appears as the Empire garrison base in Andor and the McLaren technology centre near Woking in England is Coruscant spaceport 😂
Empire garrison troops run across the Nasma Klein river dam in Andor season one. Actually the Cruachan Dam near Oban in Scotland. A Tie fighter over Cruachan Dam in Argyll & Bute, Scotland. Coruscant Spaceport in Andor, in reality the McLaren technology centre near Woking, England
August 2, 2025 at 10:45 AM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
I realise it wasn’t your intention, but I always find it creates a misleading mental image of the numbers involved to quote by country like that and it’s mainly used by people who want to distract from the importance of the EU bloc.
UK export markets for goods and services in the 4 quarters to the end of December 2024. US £196.3bn, 22.5%. EU £358.1bn, 41%.
July 19, 2025 at 11:32 AM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
Drop someone bespectacled
Michael Caine as Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File.
July 2, 2025 at 1:15 PM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
Fantastic evening watching Tim Minchin live last night in Liverpool, along with the youngest person in the auditorium, who was over the moon to have a shout out from Tim himself. Thanks @timminchin.bsky.social ! The 9yo will love you for life.
Tim Minchin and band on stage at the Liverpool Empire, part of the ‘songs the world will never hear’ tour.
June 29, 2025 at 7:41 AM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
Will the ECB remember how captivating test cricket can be and why it deserves support? There’s a first time for everything.
Yorkshire CCC website ticket queue page. People are clearly interested in tickets for day 5.
June 23, 2025 at 5:14 PM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
This ridiculous animal will only take hers dipped in blue cheese spread.
A black lab lounges on a sofa
June 18, 2025 at 10:23 PM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
I was touched to receive this a few moments ago.
A father’s day card envelope, addressed to ‘legal guardian’.
June 15, 2025 at 8:29 AM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
Close, but no Phil McCann.
BBC Breakfast news reporter Phil McCann reports on fuel shortages from a BP petrol station forecourt in Stockport, 2021.
June 11, 2025 at 12:38 PM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
Sossidges you say ?
Black lab sits patiently to attention, eyes on the camera.
June 11, 2025 at 12:24 PM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
My favourite 7-up fact is the genius behind the Arabic version of the branding:
Tweet by @renolunio “whoever designed the arabic 7 up logo is the smartest person alive. the red circle is just the english word for seven spelled phonetically and the 7 is [a stylised version of] the [arabic word for] ‘up’ they managed to keep the logo's silhouette while making it read right to left”
June 9, 2025 at 4:46 PM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
I thought that was Tim Vine?
A large billboard at the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe. Tim Vine’s name appears in huge letters as if lit by theatre bulbs, framing the man himself, who appears happy, arms raised in welcoming joy. The text beneath reads “IS NOT APPEARING AT THIS YEAR’S EDINBURGH FRINGE“
June 6, 2025 at 9:06 AM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
What’s occurin’ Nancy? Dug any good holes recently?
Black lab with her nose against the camera.
June 5, 2025 at 11:48 AM
studiousbadger.bsky.social
Halfway through @benaaronovitch.bsky.social’s Amongst Our Weapons. Nice to have a thread set up here in t’North, often find myself daydreaming #RiversOfLondon style on the dog walk. Maggoty Johnson, England’s last Jester, would surely have been on Martin Chorley’s radar.
The grave of Maggoty Johnson, England’s last Jester, who died at Gawsworth New Hall on 5 May 1773 aged 82, pictured in the nearby wood that still bears his name and is reputed to be haunted by his ghost. A further stone added 1851 by someone considerably less jolly, inscribed: “If chance hath brought thee here, or curious eyes, To see the spot where this poor jester lies, A thoughtless jester even in his death, Uttering his jibes beyond his latest breath, O stranger pause a moment, pause and say; Tomorrow should'st thou quit thy house of clay, “Where wilt thou be my soul? In paradise? Or where the rich man lifted up his eyes". Immortal spirit would'st thou then be blest, Waiting thy perfect bliss on Abraham's breast, Boast not of silly art or wit or fame, Be thou ambitious of a Christian's name, Seek not thy body's rest in peaceful grove, Pray that thy soul may rest in Jesus love, O speak not lightly of that dreadful day, When all must rise in joy or dismay. When spirits pure in body glorified, With Christ in heavenly mansions shall abide, While wicked soles shall hear the judges boom, “Go ye accursed into endless gloom,” Look on that stone and this and ponder well, Then choose ‘twixt Life and Death, Heaven and Hell.” The original 1773 inscription: Under this stone rests the remains of SAMUEL JOHNSON Afterwards enobled with the grander title of LORD FLAME “Stay, thou whom Chance directs or case persuades, To seek the quiet of these Sylvan shades, Here, undisturbed and hid from Vulgar Eyes; A Wit, Musician, Poet, Player, lies A Dancing master too in Grace he shone, And all the arts of Opera were his own, In Comedy well skilled he drew Lord Flame, Acted the Part and gain’d himself the Name, Averse to Strife, how oft he'd gravely say, These peaceful Groves should shade his breathless Clay, That, when he rose again, laid here alone, No friend and he should quarrel for a Bone, Thinking that were some old lame Gossip nigh, She possibly might take his Leg or Thigh.” National Trust sign at the entrance to Maggoty Wood
June 5, 2025 at 10:11 AM