Widdershins
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widdershins.bsky.social
Widdershins
@widdershins.bsky.social
380 followers 450 following 1.2K posts
Autistic Gen Xer working in a Scottish public library.
Culture, Art History, books, politics, rugby & whatever my special interest is this month ( Claude Rains films FYI)
Curses Cher for popularising Auto-Tune.
Loves cheese. Cat has me. Own opinions.
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widdershins.bsky.social
Don’t know if it’s the colour that’s adding to the perception… but this soap at work really has a more than a whiff of The Calpol.
(Back when it tasted lovely because it was full of sugar)
Lurid dark purple hand soap in pump dispenser called ‘Driving Gnome For Christmas’ and alleges that the scent is cotton candy and winter berries. Illustration on the bottle features a very snowy, gently rolling landscape with snow laden fir trees, a gonk (gnome creature) with its head out the window of a small red ‘proper’ Fiat 500 style car (that would never be able to traverse that landscape) with a small fir tree poking out the other car window.
October 22, 2024 at 7:44 AM
widdershins.bsky.social
Bit of a drive-by posting.
(Sorry.
Life is being… difficult, but I’m getting there.)

The versatility of cardboard comes though for me again.
A Birthday Cake box for Harry Potter’s Birthday Party (which will contain wee, ickle fairy cakes on the day) #LibraryLife
Just finished it yesterday.
A trompe l’oeil Birthday Cake box. The bottom, inner, portion is crudely painted to look like a Victoria sponge, dribbled bits of jam included. The top part (which slides down over the bottom/inner) is covered in lots of layers pink, wrinkled and PVA glued tissue paper. The top/outside of the pink Birthday Cake box has green ‘icing’ (string liberally coated in green tinted PVA glue) that reads - HAPPEE BIRTHDAE HARRY.
July 28, 2024 at 11:40 AM
widdershins.bsky.social
Visiting an old haunt today. Very surprised (& pleased) to see this tiny addition I made to the notice board yonks ago still there ☺️😇🤭 #publibs #LibraryHumour #ForThoseOfACertainAge
A teeny tiny bit of paper doodled up to look old and featuring a few fake bullet holes at the bottom right. (Read in the style of The A Team into) "In 1972, a crack North Lanarkshire Library unit was sent to prison by a Dewey Decimal Court for a shelving crime they didn't commit. These bibliophiles promptly escaped from a maximum security repository to the literary underground. Today, still wanted by the Head of Libraries they survive as shelvers of fortune. If you have a problem bookshelf, if no one else can help, and if you can find them.... maybe you can hire THE A TO Z TEAM." 🎶 Nah na nah. Duh duh duuh. Da dada da d’ daa. Nah nanana nah! 🎶
June 7, 2024 at 12:29 PM
widdershins.bsky.social
Well! The library is ready for #TowelDay
Still undecided as to whether or not I’ll fully Arthur Dent cosplay it on the day. 🤔
#DouglasAdams
A tall library display shelf filled with Douglas Adams books, a sign proclaiming Towel Day 25th May Don’t Panic, with a very retro pit towel draped onto the first shelf. There are another two shelves below these ones, but the books are a wee bitty more well-loved so the ones in the photo are the prettiest.
May 22, 2024 at 12:40 PM
widdershins.bsky.social
I don’t know why this happens, but eventually the back pain books always end up on the bottom shelf.
#ironic #publibs
Photo of a library bookshelf - the bottom shelf which is maybe 15cm from the floor - that is currently where you will find the bad back/back pain books.
May 20, 2024 at 3:58 PM
widdershins.bsky.social
If I’m going to be here for 12 hours ( @damianbarr.bsky.social is doing an author talk this evening which is fully booked 👍) I WILL be properly caffeinated with a high roast Cuban Altura Lavado. #publibs
May 1, 2024 at 7:49 AM
widdershins.bsky.social
While I am now kinda inured to the lack of bounds/morality/sense the terminally greedy have…
April 24, 2024 at 7:28 PM
widdershins.bsky.social
Now THAT is some impressive problem solving… 👏👏👏👏#RedneckEngineeringScottishStyle
Interior: supermarket A large piece of plastic sheeting is attached to the ceiling forming a funnel of sorts. A length of clear plastic tubing is fixed through the bottom of the makeshift water catcher/funnel. This runs directly into a bucket on the floor below.
April 22, 2024 at 8:36 PM
widdershins.bsky.social
Think it’s safe to put the summer wheels on the motor.

(Watch this space… it’ll snow in the next few weeks because I’ve done this early 😒)
Mint green car with Baby Moon wheel trims which are basically mirror chromed convex discs on the wheels.
April 20, 2024 at 8:07 AM
widdershins.bsky.social
If you see this, post a monster…

I was tempted to make this a skosh political, but went with childhood nightmare fodder instead.
Evil Edna from Willo the Wisp (an early 1980’s children’s cartoon) Edna is basically a TV (the 1980’s kind of massive box with buttons and dials) with four chrome legs and feet who used her aerial antenna to zap the other characters with zigzag witchy energy of some kind. Her face takes up the entire 4:3 olde TV ratio screen. She has only two random teeth and evil ochre eyes. She’s always scowling and has very heavy, grumpy eyebrows. Inexplicably (& horrifically for 5 year old me) she has a few random wisps of hair in a fringe that disappears into the casing of her telly body.
April 17, 2024 at 7:01 PM
widdershins.bsky.social
I’m so excited! And it’s such a cliche that I’m excited about a new book, but…

… it’s finally here!

Kirsten Bakis’ ( @kirstenbakis.bsky.social ) second novel.

I’m going to be good and keep it until the weekend.

I am.

Yes.
Close up of the front cover of Kirsten Bakis’ novel ‘King Nyx’ which features the silhouetted profile of a raven about to land. The background is predominantly a stormy, grey sky (the kind you see before heavy snow) while the bottom 1/5 of the image depicts a rough sea, jagged mountains and an out of place red roofed mansion house. Snow in the distance.
April 9, 2024 at 3:16 PM
widdershins.bsky.social
Och… Sod it!
It’s my day off tomorrow so I declare this Vodka Gimlet o’clock.

Cheers! 🍸
A stemmed Gimlet glass filled with 1 part Rose’s Lime Cordial and 1 parts Reyka vodka (in front of bottles of the same), rendered in a very bad comic book filter which makes everything look kind of watery and wiggly and reddish. Don’t know why I used it. Never mind it’s Gimlet o’clock! Huzzah! Short excerpt from The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler: "We sat in a corner of the bar at Victor's and drank gimlets. 'They don't know how to make them here, he said. 'What they call a gimlet is just some lime or lemon juice and gin with a dash of sugar and bitters. A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose's Lime Juice and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow!"
April 4, 2024 at 7:01 PM
widdershins.bsky.social
Since it’s World #Autism Acceptance Week…

I thought I’d do a thing in the #library & help spread the word on behalf of my people. ✊😊

#publibs 📚
A display of books in a narrow section of library display shelving has a colourful spectrum header Autism Acceptance Week 2-8 April with oodles of fiction and non-fiction books about, by and for Autistic and Neurodiverse folk.
April 3, 2024 at 12:22 PM
widdershins.bsky.social
Reminds me of Top Trumps Horror’s Hangman.

Loved those cards.
April 3, 2024 at 7:43 AM
widdershins.bsky.social
What a fine figure of a cat!

You know, I don’t know if it’s the angle, the mien or just where my head is today, but your lovely cat seems to me to strongly resemble the late, great Frank Muir.
Think it might be the cheekbones…
#giveusaclue
March 31, 2024 at 5:33 PM
widdershins.bsky.social
If you see this, I invite you to post a picture from whatever device you were using without explanation
A student is seen from behind, seated at an individual study booth which is claret in colour. He has short red hair, is wearing a grey top and has his black jacket slung over the back of his chair, black backpack beside him. He rest his chin on one elbow. He is wearing large white ear protectors.
March 29, 2024 at 8:38 PM
widdershins.bsky.social
What’s your best cinematic experience? 📽️

Fri 4th Jan 2001 11am UGC Glasgow
Mulholland Drive 1st showing
I go alone
By the end I feel… off balance & enervated
Nobody leaves
Lights go up post credits & I see there were only 8 of us at that early showing: me & 7 completely bald men
All of us alone
A 22 year old cinema ticket for the first showing of the latest David Lynch film - Mullholland Drive. information on the ticket: Screen 18, 11:00, 04/01/02 UGC Cinemas UGC Glasgow MULHOLLAN EARLY B £3.00 GA GA 04/01/02 10:44 0000002 PG 6 Cash
March 29, 2024 at 8:19 PM
widdershins.bsky.social
Try Primark. A few colleagues got theirs there after I scared them about their reusable (but never washed) rigid plastic bottles with straws & pop-up bits &c.
IKEA has a simple bottle if you’re near one.
I splurged on mine - has one of those kind of finger loop caps that I loved on my old Sigg.
March 26, 2024 at 8:30 PM
widdershins.bsky.social
You’re not allowed to go on with your day without showing off your lock screen.
My phone lock screen is of ma kitteh Ruaridh (a small orange and white cat with but one eye) Here he reclines beatifically on his special Ikea kiddo quilt.
March 25, 2024 at 11:10 AM
widdershins.bsky.social
4 years ago today. #Covid
March 24, 2024 at 5:13 PM
widdershins.bsky.social
The hedge is in!

Started at 10am & just finished 20mins ago.

#gardening
A large L shaped garden bed is planted with a double row of young hedge whips. All U.K. native trees. Before planting. A prepared L shaped garden bed freshly cut out of the turf.
March 24, 2024 at 1:48 PM
widdershins.bsky.social
You have been murdered.
Who do you want on the case?
March 23, 2024 at 10:49 AM
widdershins.bsky.social
#caturday
Small orange and white cat names Ruaridh, reclining on a grey blanket while cleaning himself. The photo captures him mid-lick - his tongue touching his wee little pink nose.
March 23, 2024 at 7:30 AM
widdershins.bsky.social
I tell a lie. Changed search engine.

Company who produced the fabric: Forstmann (out of New Jersey)

history.textiles.ncsu.edu/textile-comp...

vintagefashionguild.org/resources/it...
March 22, 2024 at 3:01 PM
widdershins.bsky.social
Website header for a local driving school called Starsky & Clutch featuring their contact details and a small hatchback car that is painted to mimic Starsky’s Ford Gran Torino - red with white stripe/swoosh. www.starskyandclutch.co.uk The Starsky and Clutch driving instructor car in a three quarter view. Red with white stripe and instructor sign on the roof. On the odd occasion I see people passing, learning to drive, in this wee car always makes me smile.
March 21, 2024 at 4:55 PM