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Jonathan Calder

@lordbonkers.bsky.social

2.2K followers 1.6K following 6.9K posts

Blogger at Liberal England. Expect Dickens, politics, Steve Winwood, canals, British films, Richard Jefferies, Shropshire, Englishness, chess, social history, Malcolm Saville, philosophy, Leicestershire and Rutland, comedy, railways... That sort of thing.

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Jonathan Calder @lordbonkers.bsky.social · Jan 14

Self-portrait with unimpressed cat

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Robert Hutton @roberthutton.co.uk · 32m

Just imagine how great they'll be when they get down to 10%!

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Stone Club @stoneclub.bsky.social · 1h

Work begins on hidden Neolithic stone circle dig
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Work begins on hidden Neolithic stone circle dig near Bodmin

More than £40,000 of National Lottery funding was awarded to excavate the site earlier this year.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Susan Kaye Quinn is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱 @susankayequinn.bsky.social · 13d

They've lost the 9yos

JA Westenberg
@Daojoan@mastodon.social

My 9 year old and his classmates have started using “that’s AI” to mean “I don’t believe you.”

Me: we’re having dinosaur meat for dinner

Kiddo: that’s AI
Sep 24, 2025, 07:36 AM

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Jonathan Calder @lordbonkers.bsky.social · 19h

Liberal England: "And Wilson plays a pass of geometric precision"

Clive Wilson, who played on the left side of midfield in the late Eighties, was christened Euclid Aklana Wilson. liberalengland.blogspot.com/2025/10/and-...

English footballer Clive Wilson of Chelsea in action during a First...

English footballer Clive Wilson of Chelsea in action during a First Division match against Spurs, 16th September 1989.

www.gettyimages.com

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Jonathan Calder @lordbonkers.bsky.social · 51m

Great news! I watched Men of Ideas while I was waiting to begin my philosophy degree at York. I later discovered that Bryan Magee had been evacuated to Market Harborough during the war and had lived literally round the corner from our house.

Jonathan Calder @lordbonkers.bsky.social · 56m

Hurrah!

Angie Hobbs @profangiehobbs.bsky.social · 1h

BBC4 is repeating Bryan Magee’s 1987 series, The Great Philosophers, and I introduce it next Monday 13th at 22.30. I remember being very impressed when it went out that my wonderful PhD supervisor, Myles Burnyeat, was in the very first episode!

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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 1h

‘The plot of “The Comforters” sits on that Sparky boundary between madness and conspiracy and religious transcendence and comedy – a zone that Spark was able to make fully her own over the next three decades because she had lived in it herself.’

Colin Burrow: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Colin Burrow · World-Beating Buster-Upper: Muriel Spark’s Wickedness

The characteristic flavour of Spark’s writing was that of a Catholic ironist, for whom the terrible and the laughable...

www.lrb.co.uk

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Victoria Collins MP @victoria-collins.bsky.social · 1h

Visited Wilstone Reservoir today with the Canal and River Trust to see the embankment strengthening works being done & how water is transported from the reservoir to Berkhamsted’s Grand Union Canal

These ecosystems are irreplaceable, we have a responsibility to safeguard them for future generations

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News Eye @newseye.bsky.social · 1h

If you had written this as a fake news headline a year ago, you would be called hysterical.

Reuters today. Fascism.

Reuters story headlines:

Trunp calls for jailing Democratic leaders as troops prepare for Chicago deployment

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Insta Science @instascience.bsky.social · 2h

These cats were put in separate cages because they kept fighting. #cat #catday #bluesky

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Gail Simone @gailsimone.bsky.social · 1h

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Bylines Network @bylinesnetwork.co.uk · 11d

This week Central Bylines turns five years old; to celebrate, Simon Ferrigino, Judy Copage, Mark Cunliffe and Julian Greenbank take a retrospective look at the variety of articles published since our launch, where the publication currently stands, and what the future holds

5 Years On: Central Bylines

Podcast Episode · The Bylines Network Podcast · 09/25/2025 · 35m

podcasts.apple.com

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Dr Fiona Tolan @fionatolan.bsky.social · 1h

You shall not pass!

Tuxedo cat stretched out across top step of brightly carpeted stairs

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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 1h

Reminds me of this excellent sign that I saw at the Tubman African American Museum in Macon, Georgia.

Piano, which once belonged to Little Richard, with a sign on it saying "Do not attempt to play Little Richard's piano. He will know."

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Talking Pictures TV @talkingpicturestv.bsky.social · 1h

Laughs a plenty with #LesliePhillips #StanleyBaxter #WilfridHydeWhite in...

😆 CROOKS ANONYMOUS (1962) 5:05pm comedy #TPTVsubtitles

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John Higgins @johnhiggins777.bsky.social · 18h

Even though it is way too mild at the moment for any decent action, rut wise. I finally got a Stag to play ball in front of the best looking tree in the park. Proper Autumn Vibes. #ukwildlife #mammals #nature #autumn #reddeer #stag #cheshire #photography

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 1d

Jenrick is a potential case study for the hypothesis that quite a few Conservative MPs and Spads whose brains have been marinated in Right wing American social media are increasingly being sucked into a civil war mindset that has embedded itself among many leading MAGA Trump figures.

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Paul Russell @pwrussell.bsky.social · 2h

As far as I can tell (not having wasted a second of life watching any of it for myself, you understand), Kemi Badenoch has spent most of her speech outlining all the many ways that Britain has declined after 14 years of Tory rule.

Best for Britain @bestforbritain.org · 5h

❓NHS waiting list in May 2010 when the Conservatives came to power: 2.60 million.

❓NHS waiting list in July 2024 when the Conservatives left power: 7.62 million.

Who's fault is it Kemi?

Source:https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-workforce/pressures/nhs-backlog-data-analysis

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Jonathan Calder @lordbonkers.bsky.social · 5h

Liberal England Gold...

Blur: Blue Jeans

Blur: Blue Jeans

I liked BritPop. More than that, I understood it: good tunes, harmonies, white boys with guitars. And I preferred Modern Life is Rubbish to ...

liberalengland.blogspot.com

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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 2h

‘None of this is being done in secret – the judgments are public – but the changes have barely registered. Judges, whether serving or retired, tend not to speak out. Barristers know on which side their bread is buttered.’

Conor Gearty on the Human Rights Act: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Conor Gearty · Unwelcome Remnant: Erasing the Human Rights Act

The Supreme Court is quietly editing the Human Rights Act out of existence. In cases where human rights cannot be...

www.lrb.co.uk

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Jonathan Calder @lordbonkers.bsky.social · 2h

As everyone is retweeting this story about Nick Clegg today, here's his recent meeting with Lord Bonkers.

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Jonathan Calder @lordbonkers.bsky.social · 2h

Town criers are one of the things I ought to like but don't - see also Kenneth More and model railways.

Council seeks town crier with 'cheerful manner' for Oakham

The council says the recruit will champion the town and must have a strong, clear, voice.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 3h

If I were the leader of the opposition a year after an election, facing an unpopular government, I would simply focus my energy on criticising the current government's policy record rather than constantly bemoaning the last fifteen years of policymaking, in which I was intimately involved.

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Insta Science @instascience.bsky.social · 1d

The elephant pretends to eat this guy's hat.

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Eto Buziashvili @buziashvili.bsky.social · 2h

Here, again exactly on Putin's birthday yesterday.

Pravda Publisher Dies After Fall From a Window in Putin’s Moscow

Authorities claimed Vyacheslav Leontyev had a “nervous breakdown” and stumbled out of a window.

www.thedailybeast.com

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