Kitty
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kittyfisher.bsky.social
Kitty
@kittyfisher.bsky.social
liking stuff since 1741. arctic expeditions, medical history, marine life, flouncy mantuas, the sea, perfume. Edward Forbes fan account.
On or around today in 1810: Theodore Hook bets he can make any house the most talked-about place in London. He does this by scheduling hundreds of deliveries to 54 Berners Street and invites a load of dignitaries to call.
Chaos ensues, objective achieved, bet won handily

hoaxes.org/archive/perm...
November 27, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Reposted by Kitty
Having been mistakenly included on an electoral roll, Manchester shopkeeper Lily Maxwell voted in a by-election on this day 1867, more than 50 years before (some) women were enfranchised by the Representation of the People Act. Suffragists seized on it as a test case.
November 26, 2025 at 8:42 AM
Reposted by Kitty
new favourite New York Times term for a British thing just dropped
November 26, 2025 at 10:05 AM
Red soles eh? Beating Christian Louboutin by several millennia

(also, read the whole thread, it’s fascinating)
The 4,000-year-old shoe archive from Puzrish-Dagan tells us about the different parts of sandals and boots, and what they were made of.

Soles were made of leather and dyed red, heels were attached to sandals but not boots, boots had an inner lining of wool, etc. It’s actually fascinating.
November 26, 2025 at 9:41 AM
Reposted by Kitty
Take a minute.
this is mesmerizing
November 25, 2025 at 3:02 PM


I could start up an actual aquarium for that money!

www.lego.com/en-gb/produc...
Tropical Aquarium 10366 | LEGO® Icons | Buy online at the Official LEGO® Shop GB
Aquarium home decor building set for adults
www.lego.com
November 25, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Me with crisps, minus the cuteness
I finally managed to get him to eat✨️

Around the 50 second mark he’s especially cute, so please watch it.🐚🦀
November 25, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by Kitty
My study day on 19th-Century Mental Health History is now booking: hlsi.org.uk/courses/hist...

It’s at Highgate Lit & Sci on Sat 13 Dec, and among the contested diagnoses we’ll explore are: ‘moral insanity’, monomania, hysteria, melancholia, post-natal psychosis, ‘general paralysis of the insane’
November 24, 2025 at 4:30 PM
Drop some HEADWEAR

(cheating; this is my husband)
November 24, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Not me asking my friend in Richmond if we can have lunch on the riverbank next weekend. Yes, even if it’s raining #molluscmonday

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Conservationists unite to save London’s rare 'German' hairy snail
A team is hunting for the finger-sized snail along the River Thames to help recover their numbers.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 24, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Today is the anniversary of the day On the Origin of Species was published, and the first arrival of Europeans in Tasmania. Born on this day, years apart: Archie Goodsir, Frances Hodgson Burnett and, most importantly to me, my dad.
November 24, 2025 at 2:27 PM
Reposted by Kitty
Good news- a 4th print of'Map', Worple Press,the anthology celebrating William Smith, pioneering geologist. Editor @michaelmckimm.bsky.social showed poets Smith's map at the Geological Society. Here's the start of my poem 'Strata', reprinted in my own book 'Skies',still with Smith's mysterious wife!
November 24, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Reposted by Kitty
#OTD in 1859 'On the Origin of Species' was published. We have a few different editions in the library @thembauk.bsky.social but we are privileged to be custodians of an early edition gifted to (a mystery) someone by Charles #Darwin himself

📖BS.15/D
November 24, 2025 at 9:59 AM
Reposted by Kitty
please look at tubercle burrowing crayfish with me. photo by Jo Khan
November 24, 2025 at 3:05 AM
Today I am mostly pissed off that Imperial College won’t let anyone near its archives unless they’re credentialled to the hilt and already have a research project underway. Why do institutions do this?!
November 23, 2025 at 10:25 PM
I am going to need to know more about this.
Met officers often received a reward for gaining control of runaway horses (and the occasional "infuriated cow") in the streets of Victorian London, but these escaped elephants in 1884 Kentish Town were an altogether rarer occurrence ... #Museum30 #animal
November 23, 2025 at 9:05 PM
Reposted by Kitty
A couple of pics of a pair from a blackwater dive in Balayan Bay, Anilao. I think this is a phyllosoma (the larval stage of a lobster) riding a purple-striped jelly which is really too small for it... ID very tentative in both cases though!

#MarineLife #Invertebrates 🦀🌿
November 23, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by Kitty
I'm doing "No Context November" posts for a while. I just made it up, but someone else may have thought of it before, too. Ever wonder how those bowls get painted so neatly? Here you go... BLOOP! TA DA!

#nocontext #November #nocontextnovember #context #bowl #painting #printing #bloop #Monday
November 10, 2025 at 6:35 PM
I really hate the suffix ‘-pilled’. I’m so crap at internetting
November 22, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Reposted by Kitty
Preparing to talk about about the traditions of the wells of Ynys Cybi / Holy Island in Holyhead next month
November 19, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Architects need to start dressing like this again. Lose the black polo necks and ‘interesting’ glasses and get into frills and brocade, you cowards!!!!
A stunning portrait of the Scottish classical architect Sir William Bruce (c. 1630-1710) & his sexy cravat, painted in the 1660s by John Michael Wright. Bruce remodelled parts of the Palace of Holyroodhouse & designed Hopetoun House. Portrait spotted at the National Gallery of Scotland last weekend.
November 22, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Wow, like the entire company?! That’s exceedingly generous but I think I’d have to decline; I don’t want the stress.
November 22, 2025 at 10:43 AM
Reposted by Kitty
BIG news about vampire squid! I just learned their Japanese name "koumori-dako" means "bat-octopus," which is objectively better* and I'll be using it from now on. 🦇🐙

That's not the news though, the news is that scientists sequenced their genome and it's ENORMOUS 🧪🧵
www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
Giant genome of the vampire squid reveals the derived state of modern octopod karyotypes
Marine organism; Genetics; Evolutionary mechanisms; Phylogenetics; Genomic analysis
www.cell.com
November 21, 2025 at 11:43 PM