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Roland Bates @rolandbates.bsky.social · 5h

Much of the year I have spent reading Proust. I have yet to warm to the project, though I may still change my mind.

Roland Bates @rolandbates.bsky.social · 5h

Very possibly. For complicated reasons my daughter was on her own in the audience so I couldn't relax for a second, it was really nerve-wracking but a good evening.

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Roland Bates @rolandbates.bsky.social · 5h

Release the Epstein Files

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Roland Bates @rolandbates.bsky.social · 5h

Yes I did. He showed his watch to my daughter, then aged about five. A different South American bird squawked on each successive hour.

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Roland Bates @rolandbates.bsky.social · 5h

A pastiche of noir which yet manages slyly to be about now.

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Roland Bates @rolandbates.bsky.social · 5h

My reasons might be inadequate, BUT Shadow Ticket is my book of the year. It's the right combination of idiocy and seriousness, with individual sentences which honestly ring like a bell. The work of a real master.

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Reposted by Roland Bates

Darren Hayman @darrenhayman.bsky.social · 12h

A Bittern painted onto a Jubilee beer mat from the 1960s.

This idea/pun was from @rolandbates.bsky.social

darrenhaymanart.com

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Roland Bates @rolandbates.bsky.social · 12h

Steely Naan

Neil @neilclasper.bsky.social · 12h

#FridayVibes

James @zemblamatic.bsky.social · 12h

Order a biriani, loosen your sweat pants and tell sad stories of the death of kings

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Roland Bates @rolandbates.bsky.social · 13h

Zauberberg

Hell Iween @derbren.bsky.social · 13h

my hairdresser always gives me this ott blowdry and I love it

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Reposted by Roland Bates

Richard Burton @burtondiaries.bsky.social · 13h

10 Oct 75 Got shamefully sloshed and despite all my idiocies - nasty too - we are as happy as children. We catch our breaths every so often and say with a kind of smiling wonder and delight. 'Hey!' Do you realize we are actually married?

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Roland Bates @rolandbates.bsky.social · 13h

Aw the Pynchon is genius level. May he never stop.

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Reposted by Roland Bates

Moose Allain @mooseallain.bsky.social · 14h

"Neutral" is the ne plus ultra of anagrams.

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Reposted by Roland Bates

Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 14h

Berris Conolly’s Goods Way, 1982

street scene with gas holders or gasholders, also known as a gasometer
cars parked on a quiet street.

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Reposted by Roland Bates

Grise l’Indécis @wildobliquities.bsky.social · 1d

yeah ok but what nobody knows is that the very last episode unfortunately now lost reveals the whole situation was a figment of the fevered imagination of a battery chicken

Andrew Male @andrewmale.bsky.social · 1d

Received opinion on The Good Life is that Tom has a nervous breakdown, behaves like a shit to Barbara and that the real heroes are Jerry and Margo. Might be worth rewatching the first two episodes now they’re up on iPlayer. 1/2

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Reposted by Roland Bates

Pete Fraser @petefrasermusic.bsky.social · 1d

A whole cabinet of people mainlining AI slop and being so confident in the conclusions they draw from it that they’ll actually admit it on TV.

When you realise how decisions are getting made here, and will be for years to come, you realise the depth of the danger the USA is in.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

RFK Jr: "Somebody showed me a TikTok video of a pregnant woman at 8 months pregnant -- she's an associate professor at the Columbia Medical School -- and she is saying 'F Trump' and gobbling Tylenol with her baby in her placenta. The level of Trump Derangement Syndrome is now a pathology."

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Roland Bates @rolandbates.bsky.social · 1d

Once again I am listening to Tubular Bells. Side 2 interests me less, but Side 1 remains absolutely amazing. It's the 70s encapsulated

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Roland Bates @rolandbates.bsky.social · 1d

Nonsense on stilts. Morons

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 1d

Besides linking Tylenol in pregnant women to autism, RFK Jr. now says circumcision is part of the reason why kids are autistic.

"Children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, and it's highly likely because they're given Tylenol. None of this is positive..."

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Reposted by Roland Bates

David Waywell @davidwaywell.bsky.social · 1d

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Roland Bates @rolandbates.bsky.social · 1d

Old Selected Zbigniew Herbert from 1968. Penguin. Translations by Czesław Miłosz and Peter Dale Scott. Excellent.

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Reposted by Roland Bates

Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 1d

Nigel Farage accuses teachers of "poisoning our kids" on race issues.

Here's a reminder of what teachers and fellow pupils at Farage's own school remember of his own views on that subject.

www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/nigel-fara...

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Reposted by Roland Bates

Grise l’Indécis @wildobliquities.bsky.social · 1d

you'll need to hear the music

Amy @lolennui.bsky.social · 2d

oh hell yeah youtu.be/nGZOFyLrCwk?...

Slug Eating Spaghetti Time Lapse (With Stopwatch Timer)

YouTube video by Nature's Fantastic

youtu.be

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Roland Bates @rolandbates.bsky.social · 1d

Really pleased Krasznahorkai hit paydirt today. A very interesting bloke who I "met" once at an event. My dad would have been delighted too.

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Roland Bates @rolandbates.bsky.social · 1d

@josephoneill.bsky.social Thank you for featuring Z Herbert in Godwin. I might not have read him otherwise! What is he doing in the novel?

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Roland Bates @rolandbates.bsky.social · 2d

I guess this was his attempt to maintain A SUNNI DISPOSITION

Roland Bates @rolandbates.bsky.social · 2d

His family escaped a totalitarian theocracy in fear for their lives... he did jokes for another totalitarian theocracy where people fear for their lives. What a funny fellow!

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