The future is so stupid

Increasingly feel like the Titan submersible disaster was one of the defining moments required to understand the start of the 21st century, in the same way that the Titanic itself provided an emblem for the start of the 20th.

Still thinking about "When someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you don't ask which seat. You just get on" My questions would be more like: - where is the rocket ship going? - does it actually fly? - is it going to explode? - how will I get home? - why are you smiling like that?

Agatha Christie on honeymoon in Egypt, 1931

Babylon Fallen — Gustave Doré, 1880

Important thing to remember about the Homeric epics is they were already historical fiction when they were written down. It was people in the Greek iron age telling stories about an imagined bronze age past, and recording much more about their own time than the bronze age reality. Basically this...

Pretty good list imo, but I resent the inclusion of The Go-Between by LP Hartley, an incredibly dull book only taught in first-year literature classes because its opening line ("The past is a foreign country") is a pithy way to introduce students to historicism... www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...

I love walking with my son around this old Victorian cemetery. It's cool as hell in every season and right now we've got the bluebells out.

Especially appreciating these 4,000 year old dog prints.

Neolithic graves in the Upper Düden Waterfalls Park. Antalya. 🇹🇷

The remains of Dun Carloway Broch on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. It was probably built in around 200 BC, and still stands at some 9 meters in height. 📸 My own. #Prehistory #Brochs #Archaeology #Lewis #DunCarloway

Superb image of the ‘White House’ ruins in the Canyon de Chelle, Arizona, captured by photographer Timothy H O’Sullivan over 150 years ago. The canyon was occupied by the Navajo for centuries and is one of the longest continuously inhabited landscapes in North America

Fragments - Rome Watercolor on Paper - 30x22 #art @bsky.art

What is the point of writing a book if you don't put your own cat in it at some point?

Bwlchglas lead/zinc mine, Ceredigion. Worked between 1882 and 1923, bisected by the Hafan Tramway.

Our cat Hugo is in his silver fox era

Readers of All Our Broken Idols remember...

"no rapping tonight" ChatGPT: why? "you rap about goblins every time, it's embarrassing" ok [after one beer] uh oh y'all let's get those heads wobblin'

"Three young Barn Owls looking out of the quatrefoil of a church in North Norfolk."

Reading this dang book and discovering that even the sayings I didn't think were from ships are, in fact, from ships. My entire language is boat.

#AncientSiteSunday - The ancient Mycenaean citadel of Glas, located in central Greece near the former Lake Copais, is one of the largest fortified sites from the Mycenaean Bronze Age. Enclosed by massive cyclopean walls made of large limestone blocks, it has a commanding defensive character.

Light, Leaf, Petal, and Ruin: Jervaulx Abbey in Spring Stone remembers what the spring forgets, light gathers in the broken arch, softly as prayer, and time blooms quietly between the cracks.

Morning all. Photographer John Bulmer, Lone House Black Country, 1960s.

With humans now pushing beyond earth orbit in #ArtemisII it's worth looking back 5000 years to another extraordinary celestial endeavour The megalithic builders of Bryn Celli Ddu passage grave on Ynys Môn/Anglesey carefully aligned the entrance with the rising summer solstice sun ☀️ 📷 My own, 2024

#RomanFortThursday On a day we send humans back to the moon, another remarkable feat of human endeavour The remains of Milecastle 39 on Hadrian's Wall, west of Sycamore Gap, part of the 73 mile frontier wall & accompanying forts & installations built by Roman troops 😮 📷 My own, May 2025

Thinking fondly of the Iron Age person who might have accidentally caught a monkfish, potentially kept it because it looked cool, and then caused quite a pain in my ass when I had to interpret it amongst the otherwise normal looking pile of eaten fish during my MSc dissertation.

Unironically why I love doing archaeology so much, despite uh…everything else about it lol.

The main cup and ring marked stone slab near Lordenshaws hillfort in Northumberland, with the Simonside ridge behind. Late Neolithic or early Bronze Age #StandingStoneSunday

The picture of her standing in the ruins of the Roxy Theater in New York by Eliot Elisofon is the greatest celebrity portrait of all time

This iron age man buried in Sussex was so proud of his awesome helmet that he developed an archaeologically detectable neck injury from wearing it so often.

Might be the greatest opening paragraph of anything ever.

#Alphabetchallenge #WeekKForKaput #BlueskyArtShow #Stone The remains of Radcliffe Tower

He has now figured out that different people can draw different things. So some people he makes draw dinosaurs, others deer and whales. One friend when they walk through the door he just starts yelling "Eel! Eel!"

Thinking about the Roman Empire in Bay 52, London Wall car park.

"always the golfer, never the wildfire victim."

I do love a ghost gable like this found near Ancoats in Manchester - but it's rarer still to find the intangible signs of the puff of smoke from the chimney...

folks theyre saying the pale rider doesnt want us to break the seventh seal, theyre saying no one has the strength to handle it. what do you think folks, what do you think of that pale rider. should we do it? *crowd going absolutely ape shit* i dont know, i want to but they say I shouldnt

speaking of Corfe Castle Still don't quite believe this one, few years back by complete fluke i panned the camera up and captured *the most Dorset scene ever™ * no chance i'd ever be able to recreate this 😩 See some cozy pubs at Corfe Castle here >>> www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kav... #CastleSaturday

#HillfortsWednesday the great scree and earth ramparts of Garn Fawr hillfort, north Pembrokeshire, which link a series of outcrops across an exposed coastal summit. This powerful place was a complex & long lived settlement, overlooking the seaways between Wales & Ireland 📷 My own

Travel back through the English language in Bluesky thread form...

we live in the ruins of a greater civilization

"I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees"

#TombTuesday - a quiet morning at Callanish before the tourists arrive in June 2024, with my cycling buddies giving me a moment.. Marvelling at the miniature chambered tomb which sits at the heart of the stone circles & alignments, crammed between the tallest central stones 😮 📷 My own

A recent stones trip to Coldrum long barrow in Kent with @classicalalan.bsky.social - misty, muddy and very atmospheric! This place is 6,000 years old, just so awesome. #StandingStoneSunday

its #RuinedPrioryFriday & there's this curious quartet of monastic sites in a crescent around Shrewsbury which deserves a bit of a thread 🧵👇

shakespeare was on fire writing the history plays and im not afraid to say it. in henry IV part 2 the king laments that his son will take the throne and "commit the oldest sins the newest kinds of ways" which goes absolutely crazy