John Roscoe
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johnroscoe.bsky.social
John Roscoe
@johnroscoe.bsky.social
"It's not easy having a good time...
even smiling makes my face ache."
I take photographs and crack jokes; a meditative creative obsessed with dialogue. I was @JohnCRoscoe on Twitter.
johnroscoe.wordpress.com
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It's been a long week and you've all been very good, so I'm going to share — for the first time here on BlueSky — the ultimate Mrs. Peel #Caturday video.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...
🔥CHARIOTS OF TREATS (sound up!)🔥
Uh-huh. If we round out that metaphor a little, it *was* time to take the keys away from grandpa *before* he drove through the red lights, ran over the toddlers in front of the daycare, rammed the doors to the mall and flattened the Orange Julius kiosk before parking his Buick on a couple of nuns.
January 21, 2026 at 9:28 PM
Sorry you're under the weather, Alan. Here's a song sparrow I met last summer in SW Ontario, Canada to cheer you up.

It's true what the The Be Good Tanyas say: the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs!

#BirdOfTheDay #Singing #Birds #Photography #EastCoastKin #Birders #Birding #NaturePhotography
January 21, 2026 at 5:23 PM
Newly sharpened stakes, insults and threats of impaling by Vlad the Impaler have triggered a backlash in Transylvania.
January 21, 2026 at 4:55 PM
And so Pierre Poilievre finds himself leaping from riding to riding, striving to steal power from those who won it fairly, and hoping each time that his next leap... will be the leap home.
January 21, 2026 at 2:47 PM
"I don't want to tell you that. Sort of. I must say. Sort of. That's sort of on the table."

You're living in a Edgrimlocracy, America.
January 20, 2026 at 8:49 PM
Reposted by John Roscoe
Since 1947, the Canadian Rangers have provided a military presence in the Canadian North.
Experts in wilderness survival, they cover areas of Canada that are not practical for conventional Army units.
Considered to be "always on duty", this is their legendary story.

🧵1/10
January 20, 2026 at 6:01 PM
#FeedingTime is the theme for today's #BirdOfTheDay, so please enjoy these black-capped chickadees getting take out.
#EastCoastKin #Bird #Photography
Their movements seemed so brave yet furtive — like they thought they were getting away with something — so I set it to some classic 70's heist music.
January 20, 2026 at 7:50 PM
One in five Americans? That's about what I'd expect. However....

Y'know those blue signs that went up in your neighbours' front yards in April of last year?

Turns out, less than half of those people are on our side.

That I find a kind of surprising and very disappointing.
January 20, 2026 at 5:33 PM
Some army guy is yammering at him in the bunker situation room, something about radiation, millions of what-the-hell who cares — he drifts in and out in a fugue-like daze. He wants the soldier to get lost, but how?
"Fine whatevs do it launch 'em."
"Are you sure Mr. Pres-"
"Can I get a cheeseburger?"
January 20, 2026 at 2:20 AM
BERLIN 1938

"And why not? Why *shouldn't* I name my line of designer ladies' apparel Adolf's Gowns? It is my name, after all. Yes, I am sure: paint that sign and I shall proudly set it high above my shop window."

LATER

"Oh shit."
After we are past Trump, one of the things I want to see besides prison—for him and everyone who enabled him—is going nuclear on his name itself. No trademark protection for the Trump name. No ability for anyone in his family to be even a part owner in any corporation. Liquidate all Trump companies.
January 19, 2026 at 8:01 PM
Hot tip for Ontario opposition parties:

If you're on Doug Ford's side and the issue is anything other than how best to line your pockets with real estate developers' bribes or bake a gooey cheesecake...

...you're *probably* on the wrong side.

(And I was being charitable about the cheesecake.)
January 19, 2026 at 7:37 PM
Honestly, if doctors who skipped over reasonable doubt and their Hippocratic oath to pooh-pooh effective infection control had done so because they wanted to snort coke and wave yoo-hoo at their buddies? That I could understand.

But their *actual* motivations are less whimsical and more sinister.
This wasn't a reasonable screwup, or even just a group whose egos outgrew their scientific competence. Even if they'd been *right*, it would have been unreasonable to insist they *knew* COVID wasn't airborne in 2020.

Francesco Schettino should get a job in infection control.

He'd fit right in.
January 19, 2026 at 7:02 PM
"The townspeople have surrendered."
"No, they haven't. They're out there with pitchforks and-"
"The local milkmaids have bared their rosy throats and await my embrace with bated breath."
"That's not even remotely-"
"The dawn will never come."
"You seem... pooped out. Wanna suck a rat or something?"
January 19, 2026 at 6:41 PM
I'mma dust off my bell bottoms and grow out my lambchop sideburns again.
January 19, 2026 at 4:03 PM
"AI models are actually copying copyrighted data, not 'learning' from it."

Pah! I suppose next you're going to tell me that calculators don't do math, submarines are not excellent swimmers and my thermostat's love for me isn't the real thing — there there, Thermy. Shhh. Don't listen to the bad man.
January 19, 2026 at 3:43 PM
Here's a male #DownyWoodpecker for today's #BirdOfTheDay theme, #Winterlight.

BONUS! You get a #MacroPhotography close up of the lichen he's pecking AT NO EXTRA COST. (Well, yes, it *was* free to start with, but still.)
#BOTD #EastCoastKin #Bird #Birds #Birding #BirdWatching #Photography #Birders
January 19, 2026 at 3:32 PM
"I will run this province like a company!" is a very popular way to paper over and hide the gaping void at the heart of a candidate's ineptitude for public office.

• Run your government like a business.
• Serve your citizens like a racquet ball.
• Fix your healthcare like a randy Doberman.
Thanks for nothing, François Legault

"The slick-talking businessman who wanted to run Quebec like a company ended up blaming immigrants and minorities for all our problems — like every other conservative politician who’s run out of ideas."

#polqc
January 18, 2026 at 8:30 PM
Navigate the scylla and charybdis of crankery and scolditude to explain the accumulated immune damage resulting from repeated COVID infection, eh?

Sure! I'll have a go:

Hoovering up strangers' hot aspirated spit carrying a new bat virus is bad for you. Don't do that. Wear an n95 mask.

How'd I do?
You forgot begging, pleading, showing lots of studies, making muffins cos none of the above or below is working…

I’m a bit cranky cos world leaders decided to infect every last human with a virus I don’t think most of them even understand at the most basic level…
January 18, 2026 at 7:04 PM
Startled, Narcissus gazed longingly into the pond; who was this handsome fellow staring back at him?

Please enjoy these two downy woodpeckers — my contribution for today's #BirdOfTheDay, the theme being #TwoOfAKind. #birds #photography #EastCoastKin #naturephotography #birding #BirdLife #wildlife
January 18, 2026 at 6:50 PM
Remember the cross-over episode with Swiss Family Robinson (CTV) when a plucky group of unlucky settlers find themselves marooned in the hard-scrabble streets of Riverdale with nothing but their wits to help them fend off marauding gangs of shiftless youths with strange hair?

Maybe I imagined it.
January 18, 2026 at 4:26 PM
"Well, how 'bout that poll, Mr. Macdonald? Your party is now-"

"I am drunk, long dead, and utterly disgusted by you. Leave me be, you insufferable quince."
January 18, 2026 at 4:45 AM
In politics, you get a pile of bricks and you can use them any way you please. Some build bridges to attract new members; others build walls to keep their existing members safe and isolated.

Mr. Poilievre is walling himself into a corner of the cellar beneath Stornoway so he never has to leave.
PP knows that as long as the US is under the Republican Reign of Terror that his party has no chance of winning an election, so he's just trying to stoke up his base.
January 18, 2026 at 2:13 AM
"Gimme your wallet."
"No."
"Sell me your wallet?"
"It's not for sale."
"Look, one way or another — I'm taking your wallet."
"No, you are not."
"Uh... I'll make everything you *do* sell more expensive for-"
"I think we're done here."
"Wait! Spare some change?"
January 18, 2026 at 1:29 AM
[drone of bomber aircraft, sporadic explosions, screaming]
"Look, I'm no fan of these blasted Huns and their death-raining Luftwaffe, but by Jingo I shan't be denied my Holunder Plätzchen!"
January 17, 2026 at 8:36 PM
What, are you posing for a postage stamp or something?

This #RedTailedHawk is probably just scanning the horizon for her next meal, but she strikes a majestic #PerfectPerch just the same [SW Ontario, Canada].

#Birds #Photography #EastCoastKin #Birding #BirdWatching #Hawk #BOTD #Bird #BirdWatchers
January 17, 2026 at 5:09 PM