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Hellebore @helleborezine.bsky.social · 9h

British folk horror and occult characters to be on Halloween, a thread.

1. Mr Fisher from Robin Redbreast (1970).
Catchphrase: “The study of religions is one of my many interests.”
You’ll need:
- Tweed trilby
- Mutton chops
- Cracked spectacles
- A copy of The Golden Bough

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Amanda Mason @amandajanemason.bsky.social · 22h

Probably a generational thing too? I suspect the pie and pea supper is no longer on offer in pubs.

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Amanda Mason @amandajanemason.bsky.social · 23h

Yes. Is this possibly just a northern thing? Pie and pea supper and all that.

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Reuters @reuters.com · 1d

'When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist,' the Norwegian Nobel Committee said as it announced Maria Corina Machado as the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize

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Richard Smyth @rsmythfreelance.bsky.social · 1d

I wrote this quite a few years ago now. CW: what you'd expect. richarddsmyth.com/2020/11/03/o...

Sarah Owen MP @sarahowen.org.uk · 2d

Today marks the start of Baby Loss Awareness Week.

This year, it comes as the UK is about to pass a law guaranteeing the right to bereavement leave for miscarriage, making us one of only 4 countries in the world to offer it.

My heart is with everyone who experiences the heartbreak of baby loss.

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 2d

repost this if an editor has ever saved you from yourself

violent alien @blipstress.bsky.social · 2d

An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.

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Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social · 3d

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

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Paul Kane @paulkane.bsky.social · 4d

As it’s the #spookyseason🎃 why not pre-order our anthology #BeyondandWithinWitchcraft - already a #1 in new releases! 🧙

www.amazon.co.uk/Witchcraft-S...

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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 4d

Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy:
www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...

Post from Threads user rodneyowl: "Ireland has declared the Basic Income for Artists scheme permanent. This will be officially announced in tomorrow’s budget. Details to follow. Congratulations to all who fought for it and the present and future artists of all sorts in Ireland. That includes me 👌We’re just comin to the end of a 3 year pilot scheme. It’s been a roaring success. For every €1 paid out to the 2000 participants, the government got €1.46 back. Can’t argue with that. Other countries are already taking note."

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Amanda Mason @amandajanemason.bsky.social · 4d

"AI is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be re-consumed. You are taking in the Human Centipede of content, and from the very very end of the line, all while the folks at the front laugh and laugh, consume and consume.”
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...

Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda hits out at AI-generated videos of her dead father: ‘stop doing this to him’

Film-maker tells the public to stop sending her videos, saying: ‘You’re not making art, you’re making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings’

www.theguardian.com

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Amanda Mason @amandajanemason.bsky.social · 5d

I saw him play Falstaff, so many years ago, when it was exciting to see actors off the telly onstage. And I always loved his voice which sounded and felt so familiar.

Hilary Fawcett @hboomer.bsky.social · 5d

RIP, John Woodvine. A very fine actor, and son of South Shields

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waltydunlop @waltydunlop.bsky.social · 5d

Farewell, John Woodvine. An obsession of mine for years. Up there with Michael Ripper in terms of "oh, if he's in this, I'll watch it". I think I chose well. He was superb.

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Amanda Mason @amandajanemason.bsky.social · 5d

I just watched (for entirely legitimate research purposes) a kids' drama from 1983. Alan Garner's The Keeper. Basically, The Blair Witch Project for 10 year-olds.

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Lee Hurley @hleehurley.com · 5d

Jilly Cooper has died

news.sky.com/story/author...

Author Dame Jilly Cooper has died

Author Dame Jilly Cooper has died, her publisher has said.

news.sky.com

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Dr Amara Thornton @amalexathorn.bsky.social · 6d

Definitely one for @gabemoshenska.bsky.social @kjsoar.bsky.social @mjpcuervo.bsky.social

Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 6d

I couldn't resist. #pleasingterror

A bingo card for the ghost stories of M.R. James. Boxes read:
"Spiders
Terrible hotel stay
Narrator makes fun of golf
Latin passages
Eerie disembodied voices
Confirmed bachelor main character
Vengeful spirit
Evil magician
Working-class character as comic relief
Bleak East Anglian coast
Visit to an archive
Narrator in guidebook mode
FREE SPACE
Unholy doings in a church
Frogs or toads
Queen Anne style house
Cursed artifact
Don't buy that rare book!
Something hairy and horrible
Someone gets too curious
Tentacles
Story told via old manuscript
Research trip gone horribly wrong
Beds are scary
Tactile horror

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Miller on the Threshold @iammilliam.bsky.social · 7d

This is superb. Yuval Taylor's in-depth account of the early career of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, including the truth about joining Fleetwood Mac, is an exemplary piece of music writing: insightful, clean prose reflecting wide knowledge and primary research.

www.gq.com/story/the-ba...?

The Ballad of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham

Before they helped turn Fleetwood Mac into one of the biggest bands in history—and became iconic characters in one of rock's longest-running soap operas—they battled an indifferent industry, poverty, ...

www.gq.com

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@geoffmcgivern.bsky.social @gmcgiv.bsky.social · 6d

Favourite line reading of Ms Carroll's: 'you big bulleh.' Google Madeleine Carroll later life. Extraordinary pivot: from highest paid actress in the world in 1938 to her sister killed in London Blitz 1940 and what she did then.

@geoffmcgivern.bsky.social @gmcgiv.bsky.social · 6d

7 shy of a Donat/Carroll/Hitchcock masterpiece.

Postcard From The Past @pastpostcard.bsky.social · 6d

We are getting fed up with the 32 steps.

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 6d

Goodnight from the HQ of WOMB – Women Opposing Male Bullshit – in a squat on Vinegar Street, where their fundraising party is so loud it threatens to wake the plague pit dead. Goodnight from Cass Farley, reading fox-scattered bones as a map to tomorrow. Goodnight from Hookland.

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Amanda Mason @amandajanemason.bsky.social · 8d

Morality Play by Barry Unsworth? If you count performance as literature.

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Richard Smyth @rsmythfreelance.bsky.social · 11d

I am to be let out, and poked until I speak. My first talk in AGES - please do come along, if you're in the north-east. Books, birds, all that sort of thing. www.nhsn.org.uk/events/richa...

Richard Smyth: A Nature Writer at Large

An evening with nature writer Richard Smyth in the NHSN Council RoomRichard Smyth is one of the UK's busiest nature writers. His most recent book, The Jay, the Beech and the Limpetshell: Finding Wild ...

www.nhsn.org.uk

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Amanda Mason @amandajanemason.bsky.social · 11d

What's your sign?

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Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 11d

The basic infrastructures that allow women to be participants in public life—birth control & abortion access, no fault divorce, childcare access & affordability, civil rights law in employment and public accommodations, the minimal efforts to mitigate sexual and domestic violence—are all crumbling.

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Benjamin Dreyer @bcdreyer.social · 11d

Happy Deborah Kerr's and Michael Powell's birthdays!

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Surgeons' Hall Museums @surgeonshall.bsky.social · 12d

This silver rattle from 1803 has a red coral stick to promote easier dentition. Belief in the potency of red coral to ensure good luck has existed for thousands of years. In Italy & some parts of Scotland it is still used to avert the "evil eye".

A silver rattle. At one end there is a whistle. There are some bells hanging from the middle of the rattle. The other end has a red coral stick.

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Amanda Mason @amandajanemason.bsky.social · 12d

Oh God it is so terrible.

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