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Fraser MacDonald

@frasermacdonald.bsky.social

2.7K followers 490 following 360 posts

Geographer, historian.

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Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · Apr 10

I got to write a short piece – On Compost – for the LRB.

(If you know me irl, you’ll understand that this is a happy thing)

Fraser MacDonald · On Compost

I sometimes wonder whether my love of compost is a response to the dispiriting cleanness of modern life – the spray’...

www.lrb.co.uk

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Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 27m

Happily for my internal organs, this is the output of our local cafe.

Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 11h

If university marketing had any guts they’d use this as a recruitment tool and watch their applications soar.

Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 11h

Studying the language and literature that has helped to define our nation at home and around the world for centuries is a "rip-off" apparently

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Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 13h

If you’re not making cold brew with a garden fork, what are you even doing?

20 litre bucket of spent coffee grounds being mixed with a garden fork.

Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 13h

The heat also kills weed seeds, but there are downsides. Cooler, more fungal compost is more bioactive. This heap will be eventually be left unturned so that worms (and fungi) can get to it – not now tho, they’d be cooked.

Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 13h

Not at all stupid, the bacterial pop and temp would crash if I didn’t turn it daily. As long I keep aerating & adding new material it stays hot which is my aim as I compost food waste & I need it too hot for mice.

Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 23h

😬

Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 23h

well, or foolhardy!… but it seems to stay hot as long as I keep adding and turning.

Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 1d

och I would *love* to get an infrared thermograph of the garden ... 'mon the Polis, make it happen!

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Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 1d

I know no one cares, nor should they, but this is my microbial Roman Empire.

Nothings happens and yet *everything* happens.

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Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 1d

by mid-semester, I sometimes look like I drink this much coffee, though in fact I just pick it up from our local cafe

Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 1d

I’ve started a new method of composting, and it’s … quite hot. Consistently over 70° and today over 80°C (176F). I have to fork it over daily + adding ~15kg of coffee grounds every week.

A photo of two soil thermometers in a compost heap, each reading at or around 80°C.

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Reposted by Fraser MacDonald

flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 1d

What should happen: National revulsion, hounded out of public life

What will happen: New set design for Sky News as three very, very right wing parties fight out The Deportation Election

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Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 2d

She could have had such a cushy, respectable, upholstered life ... think tanks and visiting professorships and she chose ... this.

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Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 2d

The improvised response at 2:08 is remarkable.

No one in the political life of the UK is anywhere near as impressive as this … or as threatening.

Drop Site @dropsitenews.com · 2d

She called out world leaders for sitting by and watching a live-streamed genocide without taking action.

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Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 3d

Hard not to sound like a Prevent referral but … it seems important that Labour are not allowed to go down this road.

Peter Walker @peterwalker99.bsky.social · 3d

NEW: Home Office announces planned new anti-protest powers, mainly aimed at pro-Gaza protests like those for Palestine Action. Police will be able to consider the "cumulative impact" of repeated protests and potentially order that they be relocated.

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Reposted by Fraser MacDonald

Phil Dodds @phildodds.bsky.social · 7d

Israeli forces have intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla so now would be a good time to pressure your government to hold Israel to account and ensure everybody's safe return. Kieran Andrieu is one of my oldest friends and I'm worried about him. youtube.com/shorts/HiiJn...

If You're Watching This Video, Israel Has Kidnapped Me in International Waters

YouTube video by Novara Media

youtube.com

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Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 9d

The foreman mason for the old PO was my grandfather’s cousin, James MacDonald of Abriachan. (He tried contracting on his own but went bust over a school in Harris; in 1900 he went to Egypt as masonry overseer on the Aswan Dam, where he died of typhoid age 42). Must pass on some archives to you!

Black and white studio portrait, late 19th c, of James MacDonald.

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Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 10d

Sad to discover a new writer through their passing.

It’s only a 3 minute read but Kaleb Horton’s last blog says a lot.

kalebhorton.ghost.io/2025-so-far/

2025, So Far

I wish I had a time machine so I could go back in time and talk to my dad in 1988, just before I was born, and tell him what it’s like to live in the future. I’d tell him all the amazing things that a...

kalebhorton.ghost.io

Reposted by Fraser MacDonald

dr. hazel 🐝 @hazelmonforton.com · 16d

joining the war on autism on the side of autism

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Reposted by Fraser MacDonald

Daniel Trilling @trillingual.bsky.social · 16d

Just to illustrate how much worse it's got, I have received more abuse over the past year and a bit - including death threats and a large volume of antisemitism - for what I write than in the previous 15 years of covering migration and the far right put together.

Phil Cole @phillcole40.bsky.social · 16d

More than 150 lawyers and refugee NGOs report being ‘pressured into silence’ by far-right protesters.
At least two groups supporting UK asylum seekers have closed their offices after credible threats to their safety
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

More than 150 lawyers and refugee NGOs report being ‘pressured into silence’ by far-right protesters

At least two groups supporting UK asylum seekers have closed their offices after credible threats to their safety

www.theguardian.com

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Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 18d

Solidarity to these colleagues.

Will professional bodies like AAG or RGS speak up, even if universities bend the knee?

Rosaleen Duffy @rosaleenduffy.bsky.social · 18d

Dreadful to see this - Farhana Sultana is a stellar academic, with a commitment to social justice. She repeatedly said she was being targeted on this platform & on others. I note her account is deleted. Shame on Syracuse for not standing up for colleagues ⬇️ solidarity to her & Jenn Jackson

Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they) @doctorvive.bsky.social · 18d

Hey, people who work on climate especially, you should know this is happening.

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Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 19d

How wonderful!

Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 19d

lol

Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 19d

There should be a name for days when you can hear both house martins and pink-footed geese.

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Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 21d

Wow, that Ta-Nehisi Coates essay:

“If you would look away from the words of Charlie Kirk, from what else would you look away?”

Charlie Kirk, Redeemed: A Political Class Finds Its Lost Cause

By ignoring the rhetoric and actions of the Turning Point USA founder, pundits and politicians are sanitizing his legacy.