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Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 1h

Ha! It also reminded me of a thing by (it’s either Bulgakov or Erofeev) talking about Soviet trains, where the scheduled train never arrives on the platform, so he goes to the ticket desk to ask about it, only to be told it must have, look on the timetable, it says a train departs at that time.

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Reposted by Matt Potter

David M Rubin @six18sfoundry.bsky.social · 1h

George Orwell loves this post! Gotta check the quality of the data coming from Animal Farm HQ

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Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 1h

I think you only get that in 1st class now?

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Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 1h

Ah the golden days of British Rail 🔥

Ian Hughes @ilhughes.bsky.social · 1h

Please. Dot matrix. Two words. I read that as “dominatrix” and wondered what kind of town you’ve moved to 🤣

Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 1h

He shook my hand, like I had made it through to the final level of an online game, and congratulated me for noticing. I half expected a certificate or for a special door to open and reveal a studio audience applauding.

But honestly?

I am so relieved. But nobody else knows.

Except now they do.

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Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 1h

And he explained. Long story short (too late): There is a sort of trip switch at a station 7 minutes up the track. When the train leaves that platform, it is 7 mins away. But that is the last contact it has with control, until it comes to my station platform - a minute before it departs.

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Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 1h

So today I’d had enough. I went to the station & knocked on the Staff Only door. A man answered. I said, I’m sorry, you’ll think I am a nutter. But please. This board.

And he smiled. ‘Yes?’

Am I going mad or does it keep telling me everything is 7 minutes away?

He nodded. ‘Ah. You noticed too.’

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Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 1h

Yesterday I went to the station just for this. There it was. 7 minutes. I stood & took photos as time ticked by & it stayed on 7. Proof!

Nope. The figures on dot matrix displays like this do not show up in photos. (WHAT?!) They were all scrambled & illegible

Now I feel like I’m going properly mad.

A scrambled dotmatrix display, which should say 7 minutes

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Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 1h

I tell people about this info board - people who live near me and use the same station. They all reacted like I was going mad.

It was nonsense: They were sure *they* had seen it count down. They must have. That’s what it is there for. I had just not looked, by some fluke, except when it said 7.

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Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 1h

This has bothered me passively for ages. I kept thinking it was absurd and I was just not paying attention at all the other minutes.

It MUST say 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 - I was only seeing the 7 because that was when I had happened to look. And I can’t have been checking back as often as I thought.

Right?

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Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 2h

Weird thing happened.

My local train station has a dotmatrix display to tell us when the next train is due.

But this one always says the next train is 7 minutes away.

Every train. Always. Never any other number of minutes away. 7.

Until the train is coming in, when it flicks from 7 to, ‘1 min.’

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Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 2h

There is no cooler camaraderie than when a thing happens and you look at someone and go, ‘That was weird right?’

And they say, ‘Yup. That was SO weird.’

Aliya Zaidi @aliyazaidi.bsky.social · 7h

Just to add another insane thought to this thread this morning - when you're an insightful, thoughtful person, there is also absolute joy in sharing the analysis of pure loathing - that in itself is a super fun experience 😀 🫠

Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 2d

I have just been to the most toe-curlingly mediocre and electrifyingly trite exhibition I have seen in decades.

It was at a London gallery. The artist was there. He held forth in terms that if I repeated them, you would think I was quoting David Brent.

The reviews have been glowing.

VERY weird.

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Reposted by Matt Potter

Dr Mand @mandapen.bsky.social · 22h

For those who don’t read French - the cat burglar (literally) has stolen 7 pairs of swimming goggles. Mon dieu!!!!

Romenzo Mallas @rommallet.bsky.social · 1d

EXPLOSION DE LA CRIMINOULITÉ EN FRANCE

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Reposted by Matt Potter

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 5d

in 2011, the president of antifa hired me to give fashion consultancy to the organization. i recommended everyone wear navy suits with tan shoes, dress sneakers, and golf polos with slim chinos. if you arrested everyone today wearing these things, you'd destroy antifa

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Owen Barcala @obarcala.bsky.social · 18h

The "don't call us Nazis" crowd sure has a lot of swastikas

Santiago Mayer @santiagomayer.com · 19h

Holy shit. This is Angelo Elia, a legislative correspondent for Congressman Dave Taylor.

According to @rooster.info, during a Zoom meeting today, he had an American nazi flag displayed in the background.

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Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 18h

Fast forward to 2025, and the leaders of Essex Council arguing in court that a hotel that shelters asylum seekers is a “feeding ground for unrest'” among racist members of the local population… and the hotel should therefore be shut down.

How far we have come.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Epping asylum hotel is a 'feeding ground for unrest' - court

Lawyers for a council are trying to stop The Bell Hotel in Epping from housing asylum seekers.

www.bbc.co.uk

Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 18h

In 1590, Marlowe wrote his tragedy The Jew Of Malta. In it (among much else) he nailed the bigotry & hypocrisy of Maltese Christian leaders who sought to scapegoat their own evils on the Jews there.

One key couplet comes as the Governor is extorting the main character. He justifies it like this:

A screenshot of the script of Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta, with the following couplet (spoken by Ferneze, governor of Malta, to the Jewish merchant of the title while he is extorting the Jew, outlined:

“Excess of wealth is cause of covetousness;
And covetousness, O, 'tis a monstrous sin!

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Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 23h

Some experiences will live on forever - for all the wrong reasons. 😬

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Reposted by Matt Potter

Aliya Zaidi @aliyazaidi.bsky.social · 1d

Loved sharing this experience with @mattpotteruk.bsky.social 🤣

Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 2d

I have just been to the most toe-curlingly mediocre and electrifyingly trite exhibition I have seen in decades.

It was at a London gallery. The artist was there. He held forth in terms that if I repeated them, you would think I was quoting David Brent.

The reviews have been glowing.

VERY weird.

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Reposted by Matt Potter

Will Jennings 🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · Jul 3

Neither Labour nor the Conservatives have made Farage bear any of the political costs of Brexit that they themselves have endured in terms of intra-party divisions and wider public discontent.

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Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 1d

Right?!

I was half-waiting for the Big Reveal of hidden cameras and the announcement this is the filming of some Great Art Swindle documentary for Netflix. That the reviewers are all in on it. That the audience contained stooges.

(At the Q&A, every last one was ‘more a comment than a question’)

Sir Adam @muellermanfred.bsky.social · 1d

Are you sure, that this wasn’t live performance art, an act of profound criticism of modern society you just aren’t educated enough to recognise?

(What a story though …)

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Reposted by Matt Potter

Gavin Whenman @gavinwhenman.bsky.social · 1d

[citation needed]

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Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 1d

Like, there are probably more holes in this statement than there are letters in the words of the statement.

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Matt Potter @mattpotteruk.bsky.social · 1d

Oh haha WAIT. Someone else at the Gallery just reminded me of this peach from the artist:

“All the cultures from the ancient past that we genocided lived in harmony with each other. They had no idea of ethnic, neurodivergence or gender diversity because all were in welcomed and all were one.”

🤡

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Reposted by Matt Potter

Tim Squirrell @tmsqrll.bsky.social · 1d

NOW THAT WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO MITIGATE THE SERIOUS MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES

i am going to lose my entire fucking mind

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