Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦
@ianford.bsky.social
Recent emigrant from the Other Place.
Welcome. Ardmore Studios did a lot of big-name films back in the day. Including Sean Connery's most memorable movie.👇
November 13, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Welcome. Ardmore Studios did a lot of big-name films back in the day. Including Sean Connery's most memorable movie.👇
Makes the fleg parade on Belfast's Shankill Road look remarkably discreet and classy by comparison.
November 13, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Makes the fleg parade on Belfast's Shankill Road look remarkably discreet and classy by comparison.
Ryanair website right now: Dublin - Paris return for 30 euros ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
November 11, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Ryanair website right now: Dublin - Paris return for 30 euros ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
November 11, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Charismatic middle-aged Mr Grey, Erich Hoenecker, as head of the East German Free German Youth vibes...
November 10, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Charismatic middle-aged Mr Grey, Erich Hoenecker, as head of the East German Free German Youth vibes...
Whisky Galore as Star Wars - a freighter full of Revnog crashes on Bespin and the inhabitants of Cloud City go to great lengths to hide it from the Imperial Revenue and Customs Inspectors
November 8, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Whisky Galore as Star Wars - a freighter full of Revnog crashes on Bespin and the inhabitants of Cloud City go to great lengths to hide it from the Imperial Revenue and Customs Inspectors
Ealing Comedies as Star Wars
Passport to Pimlico - where people on Tatooine discover an ancient charter that says they're not part of the Empire and everything is off-ration.
Passport to Pimlico - where people on Tatooine discover an ancient charter that says they're not part of the Empire and everything is off-ration.
November 8, 2025 at 8:38 PM
Ealing Comedies as Star Wars
Passport to Pimlico - where people on Tatooine discover an ancient charter that says they're not part of the Empire and everything is off-ration.
Passport to Pimlico - where people on Tatooine discover an ancient charter that says they're not part of the Empire and everything is off-ration.
Basically the plot of the Guardians which was made in the early 1970s. I think a lot of ex-military people struggled with the end of empire and the advent of youth/pop culture which threatened the value systems they had grown up with.
November 7, 2025 at 10:41 PM
Basically the plot of the Guardians which was made in the early 1970s. I think a lot of ex-military people struggled with the end of empire and the advent of youth/pop culture which threatened the value systems they had grown up with.
This is a very disturbing development. Far-right racists adopting Troubles-style terrorist tactics and caught planning to blow up a mosque and asylum centres.
Thought we'd seen the end of this crap.
www.rte.ie/news/courts/...
Thought we'd seen the end of this crap.
www.rte.ie/news/courts/...
November 7, 2025 at 6:09 PM
This is a very disturbing development. Far-right racists adopting Troubles-style terrorist tactics and caught planning to blow up a mosque and asylum centres.
Thought we'd seen the end of this crap.
www.rte.ie/news/courts/...
Thought we'd seen the end of this crap.
www.rte.ie/news/courts/...
It really is just 3 pieces of A4 paper (or whatever weird size the Yanks use) stuck to the wall with Blu Tack. Classy.
November 5, 2025 at 10:08 PM
It really is just 3 pieces of A4 paper (or whatever weird size the Yanks use) stuck to the wall with Blu Tack. Classy.
October 26, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Ok - that seems to be an excessive valuation (damn internet!!) Bank of England website puts it at about £616 today. A diet of beans on toast during your trip to Norway...
October 22, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Ok - that seems to be an excessive valuation (damn internet!!) Bank of England website puts it at about £616 today. A diet of beans on toast during your trip to Norway...
But when you calculate the value of 10 quid in 1936 in today's terms it works out at about 9 grand!!!
www.in2013dollars.com/uk/inflation...
www.in2013dollars.com/uk/inflation...
October 22, 2025 at 1:33 PM
But when you calculate the value of 10 quid in 1936 in today's terms it works out at about 9 grand!!!
www.in2013dollars.com/uk/inflation...
www.in2013dollars.com/uk/inflation...
One aspect that needs more discussion in this excellent article is that the feedback loops that kept the Chinese leadership tethered to reality are breaking down. The achilles heel in personalist regimes - and can/will lead to poorly managed crises spiraling into existential threats to the regime.
October 21, 2025 at 9:35 PM
One aspect that needs more discussion in this excellent article is that the feedback loops that kept the Chinese leadership tethered to reality are breaking down. The achilles heel in personalist regimes - and can/will lead to poorly managed crises spiraling into existential threats to the regime.
Nobody ever explained to me how the paranoid everybody-wants-to-assassinate-me Putin was ever going to manage to travel to landlocked Budapest without flying over either Poland or Romania.
October 21, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Nobody ever explained to me how the paranoid everybody-wants-to-assassinate-me Putin was ever going to manage to travel to landlocked Budapest without flying over either Poland or Romania.
Nobody has explained how the terrified-of-being-assassinated ever paranoid Putin will get to landlocked Hungary.
He'll have to fly over either Poland or Romania, both NATO members. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
He'll have to fly over either Poland or Romania, both NATO members. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
October 16, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Nobody has explained how the terrified-of-being-assassinated ever paranoid Putin will get to landlocked Hungary.
He'll have to fly over either Poland or Romania, both NATO members. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
He'll have to fly over either Poland or Romania, both NATO members. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
October 15, 2025 at 2:21 PM
![In recent years declassified documents have shown that Sweden was much closer to possessing the nuclear bomb than previously thought. By 1965 most of the bomb was already built and another 6 months would have been needed to arm it, had the project been given the green light. Another two bombs would have been built shortly thereafter.[2]
The option to continue development of weapons was abandoned in 1966, and Sweden's subsequent signing of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968 began the wind-down of the program, which finally concluded in 1972. Sweden was strongly influenced to abandon its nuclear weapons program by the United States.[2]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:hvyjlvmwdl7lf46svq6wpci3/bafkreib3aovpxxshqgrpttbcoqdsx6qhi6mcmq3bjixauygaaw5hl5lq4q@jpeg)
October 15, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Worth reading the small print on these adverts. 👇
October 12, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Worth reading the small print on these adverts. 👇
This is a very good article about how US political communication works in Trump 2.0. 👇
Similar in many ways to what @jenmercieca.bsky.social talked about in terms of weirdifying fascism.
www.theverge.com/policy/79849...
Similar in many ways to what @jenmercieca.bsky.social talked about in terms of weirdifying fascism.
www.theverge.com/policy/79849...
October 11, 2025 at 6:29 PM
This is a very good article about how US political communication works in Trump 2.0. 👇
Similar in many ways to what @jenmercieca.bsky.social talked about in terms of weirdifying fascism.
www.theverge.com/policy/79849...
Similar in many ways to what @jenmercieca.bsky.social talked about in terms of weirdifying fascism.
www.theverge.com/policy/79849...
A personality cult? Megalomania? No! Surely not...
October 11, 2025 at 12:21 PM
A personality cult? Megalomania? No! Surely not...
One aspect of Stalinist propaganda was representing the psychotic dictator as the dedicated father of the nation who worked all night, keeping the USSR safe as others slept.
It was a lie.
It was a lie.
October 3, 2025 at 5:44 PM
One aspect of Stalinist propaganda was representing the psychotic dictator as the dedicated father of the nation who worked all night, keeping the USSR safe as others slept.
It was a lie.
It was a lie.
It's called a pathocracy - basically once a psychopathic lunatic takes charge all the normal people either quit or are pushed out and are replaced by enablers and mini-psychos. And the regime gets more and more extreme because there's no pushback.
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-...
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-...
October 2, 2025 at 5:56 PM
It's called a pathocracy - basically once a psychopathic lunatic takes charge all the normal people either quit or are pushed out and are replaced by enablers and mini-psychos. And the regime gets more and more extreme because there's no pushback.
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-...
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-...
The intractable Azeri-Albanian War has gone on far for too long. Nobody even remembers when it started. Or what it was all about. I blame King Zog. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
October 2, 2025 at 5:28 PM
The intractable Azeri-Albanian War has gone on far for too long. Nobody even remembers when it started. Or what it was all about. I blame King Zog. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯