Tarquin 'Howling Mad' Holmes
LightNews LightNews
banner
tarquinhh.bsky.social
Tarquin 'Howling Mad' Holmes
@tarquinhh.bsky.social
2.6K followers 5.9K following 2.4K posts
Oxford Law Research Admin, dabbler in history, philosophy & sociology of the life sciences & medicine.
Posts Replies Media Videos
tarquinhh.bsky.social
Clip from the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror III King Kong segment (in bkack & white as style of the time) where Burns is asking Smithers view of women on boats, but instead the quote is edited to: - What do you think, Adams? - I think women and seminars [original: 'seamen'] don't mix.
November 23, 2025 at 8:01 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
Separated at birth:
The pilot alien from Farscape.
November 19, 2025 at 11:35 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
"I am the God of Hellgorithms!"
Black and white photo of Arthur Brown in skeletal face paint wearing a burning horned helmet.
November 19, 2025 at 4:37 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
Simpsons clip of three vicious deer savaging a downed Lisa lying in snow
November 17, 2025 at 11:04 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
Commander Adams, Dr Morbius and Robbie the robot from the "my poor Krell" scene of Forbidden Planet (1956)
November 15, 2025 at 6:02 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
So, checking, the 'Paradigm Shift' was introduced by the Frederiksen government in 2021, & the next election in 2022 saw them rise from a lowly 25.9% to the heights of *checks notes* 27.5%. Clearly a grand success worth mortgaging your soul to the far right for.
Polling results for the Danish Social Democrats in recent general elections: 2007 - 26.5%; 2011 - 24.8%; 2015 - 26.3%; 2019 - 25.9%; 2022 - 27.5%. Note that the party's results in the 1990s and in 2001 were substantially higher (37.4% in 1990, and still 29.1% in 2001).
November 15, 2025 at 10:51 AM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
Certainly 'revolt of the loser men' is a fair summary of some of the analyses of fascism round 1 (text is close of Lancelot Hogben's 'Havelock Ellis' (1939), as collected in his Dangerous Thoughts (1940: pp. 192-193)).
The social reformers of the nineteenth century complacently reflected that human beings are better and safer when there is less cruelty, less dirt, and more privacy for those who want it. They believed, and rightly believed, that cruelty, disease, and superstition are eradicable nuisances. Their weakness was that they completely failed to understand that, if eradicable, the need for cruelty, dirt, and superstition is deeply rooted in human nature fashioned by present social institutions and current methods of education. During a century which saw an extraordinary limitation of cruelty in public life, nobody asked, and few have yet asked seriously, what kind of education makes people less likely to be cruel. During a period of vast improvement in public health nobody except doctors troubled themselves with the prevalence of sexual neurosis. While mankind had been forced to be less cruel and less pugnacious it had not fully learned to enjoy alternative forms of excitement. While it had made great strides in the conquest of bodily disease it was becoming afraid of the uses of the body. While the individual had gained the freedom to be alone, he had lost the means of escaping from his own loneliness. So with a growing sense of frustration civilized mankind becomes more aware of its losses than of its gains. Civilization itself becomes the enemy. Anticipating public sentiment, such writers as D. H. Lawrence enlist adolescence in the exaltation of barbarism. An Austrian house painter celebrates his rise to power by reviving mediaeval pageantry with orgies of sadism and coprophilia. The retreat to barbarism has begun and for years to come the life of Western civilization will inevitably be less gentle. There will be less reasonableness, less tolerance, more violence. We shall not harmonize the public needs of a progressive society with the private needs of individual human nature till we have a science of man’s behaviour. Therein lies the social importance of pioneer labo…
November 13, 2025 at 2:33 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
Frame from Simpsons of Mr Burns, shelf of books in background, saying "So, come crawling back, eh" to a Homer Simpson looking up from his knees, except I've stuck a Union Jack over Homer's face and Ed Miliband's face over Mr Burns' (plus he's now wearing a red tie).
November 13, 2025 at 1:52 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
Model Labour minister when asked their view on a pressing issue within their portfolio:
The Neutral Planet representative from Futurama (bald, grey-skinned humanoid) stating "I have no strong feelings one way or the other"
November 13, 2025 at 12:55 AM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
More efficient and inexpensive ways of surreptitiously harvesting the public's DNA these days I guess.
Simpsons clip, head and shoulders shot of white coated light brown haired 'white' (well, yellow) scientist, speaking, with yellow-skinned, blue haired pig-nosed cop Chief Wiggum., listening, looking mildly dumbfounded. Text: "Why else do you think they keep 'em in circulation?"
November 12, 2025 at 8:27 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
Reminded here of the Futurama skit where Dr Zoidberg complains about another medic being inexperienced:
Futurama screen shot, Philip J Fry (orange haired human) on left, Dr Zoidberg (pink shelled lobster person) on right), the latter extending clawed hands in remonstration, with the text "I don't like the looks of this doctor. I bet I've lost more patients than he's even treated".
November 11, 2025 at 12:41 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
Same vibes:
Dr Evil from Austin Powers, ringed right pinkie finger pressed to lip with text 'One billion dollars'
November 10, 2025 at 4:08 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
Far Side cartoon of a bespectacled orange haired middle aged white woman, speaking while head turned from looking out the window, leaning on a upright missile set on end in the middle of the living room, while her vest wearing balding white husband(?), sitting in the foreground, looks at her over his newspaper. Both look somewhat displeased. Outside, a neighbour's house has a missile mounted at a 45* angle. Text below: "Wouldn't you know it! Now the Hendersons have the bomb."
November 8, 2025 at 3:21 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
This, but make it British:
Screenshot from The Simpsons, 'Bart Gets an Elephant' of a US Democratic Party convention, distant depressed looking speaker on stage before foreground of angry sign-bearing, fist shaking attendees, festooned above with the banners "We hate life and ourselves" and "We can't govern".
November 8, 2025 at 9:16 AM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
"Can't make undeliverable promises that will let the public down if you only either promise only things the public doesn't actually want or nothing at all"
'Roll Safe' meme, AKA 'black guy tapping head' meme (actor is Kayode Ewumi)
November 8, 2025 at 8:50 AM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
Thicc-head
Portrait of a whistler, AKA thickhead
November 7, 2025 at 8:17 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
Borges' Fauna of Mirrors from his Book of Imaginary Beings
November 6, 2025 at 11:30 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
Lisa and Bart Simpson standing in front of a globe, with Lisa, eyes narrowed, stating "In fact, in Zohran Mamdaniland, they'll force you to wear hats on your feet, and hamburgers will eat people"
November 5, 2025 at 5:55 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
If you see this, quote with a vampire that isn't Dracula
Kain, sometime protagonist, sometime antagonist of the late '90s & early 2000s Legacy of Kain video game series.
October 29, 2025 at 1:07 AM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
Ralph Wiggum, clutching plate of tripe, with text: "When I grow up, I want to be taken away in a big yellow taxi"
October 26, 2025 at 1:33 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
"We are blind to the worlds within us waiting to be born" (RIP Tompa)
At the Gates - Slaughter of the Soul cover (a menacing Christ icon stares from the walls of what looks like an industrial workshop full of chains, anvils and artillery shells)
October 23, 2025 at 10:36 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
The main cast of Astrid et Raphaëlle
October 20, 2025 at 10:13 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
V-Levels, eh?
Screenshot from 1980s TV series V of a female visitor have pulled off part of her human skin on the right side of her fave to partly reveal her reptilian nature.
October 19, 2025 at 10:04 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
Seymour Skinner (Simpsons) 'pathetic' meme.
October 18, 2025 at 6:12 PM
tarquinhh.bsky.social
"It burns! It burns!"
Scene from Quatermass 2 of the character Broadhead dying after being covered in dark goo.
October 18, 2025 at 9:22 AM