Marc Cooper
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ortgard.com
Marc Cooper
@ortgard.com
My life’s an amphicheiral knot
Upon a liquid vortex wrought

Reader, hillwalker, aspirant storyteller, failed scientist, recovering pedant (with occasional relapses), James Clerk Maxwell disciple, old enough to have worked with punched cards.
Reposted by Marc Cooper
It was not a super flu year and why I think government and NHS messaging was wrong and counterproductive - my latest post

christinapagel.substack.com/p/it-was-not...
It was not a super flu year
Update on flu and covid in England
christinapagel.substack.com
January 8, 2026 at 6:12 PM
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London Zoo are doing their annual stock take and it is a thing of joy (pics from Getty Images)

www.gettyimages.co.uk/editorial-im...
January 6, 2026 at 4:46 PM
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So far in 1066:

• Edward the Confessor has died.
• Harold Godwineson has been named king instead of Edgar Ætheling.
• Edward has been buried.
• Harold has been crowned.

It's still only 6 January.
January 6, 2026 at 9:36 AM
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Happy new year! My all sky camera imaged the sky every 15 seconds and this picture shows what happened in the sky in 2025. It shows the length of the night and day with the hourglass shape, the monthly lunar cycle with the diagonal bands, the elevation of the Sun at local noon, and lots of clouds.
January 1, 2026 at 8:54 PM
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View to Wasdale Head
January 5, 2026 at 6:11 PM
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'Moonfall'

946 images by Don Pettit are repaired, remastered & retimed to create this film with music by Chris Zabriskie.

You can watch the 4k UHD real time video here...

youtu.be/_llSxc_08Lo
January 4, 2026 at 3:55 PM
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In Port Ellen this morning.

#Islay #Scotland #snow
January 4, 2026 at 11:08 AM
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Monarch butterfly, Bay of Islands, Aotearoa / New Zealand
January 4, 2026 at 7:48 AM
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Preach. Stop talking about the Moon. Just look at it. Perfection.
The moon seems to have a dedicated PR team, with news outlets hyping Wolf Moons, Super Blood Moons, Cold Moons, and more, Kaitlyn Tiffany writes. She explores what's behind the moon hype:
Stop Talking About the Moon
Just look at it.
bit.ly
January 3, 2026 at 2:50 PM
Reposted by Marc Cooper
An excellent example of how lazy English speakers ignore diacritics at their peril
REMEMBER

Feliz Año Nuevo = Happy New Year

Feliz Ano Nuevo = Happy New Butthole
January 1, 2026 at 5:50 AM
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The em dash—the most vulgar of all punctuation marks.
December 30, 2025 at 8:36 PM
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Frost covered tree in East Yorkshire 3 years ago
December 30, 2025 at 3:27 PM
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A Christmas story in four tree decorations.
December 25, 2025 at 8:50 AM
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The complete Bayeux Tapestry has finally been released and proves that Bishop Odo had absolutely nothing to do with the illegal Norman invasion of England.
December 20, 2025 at 12:38 PM
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Behold: the first-ever list of news outlets that have banned generative AI in their reporting. As of today, this is literally information that you cannot find on Google.

My goal is to fill the starter pack, so please send over suggestions with supporting evidence!

go.bsky.app/8cn1XfT
December 17, 2025 at 7:18 PM
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AI-assisted writing in 1716. #skystorians
December 18, 2025 at 6:56 PM
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December 18, 2025 at 5:59 PM
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Priti Patel has called the UK's return to the Erasmus student exchange scheme a ‘betrayal of Brexit’. Or in translation: ‘a good idea’
December 17, 2025 at 3:36 PM
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Clear Winter Night by Carol Collette.
December 17, 2025 at 10:56 AM
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This is Radley. She asks to "destroy" when she needs to let out extra energy. "She gets plenty of walks and physical activity," her family told us, "but she uses her destroy button when she is craving a little extra chaos." 13/10 (IG: radley_barkley)
December 16, 2025 at 5:30 PM
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not the kind of behavior I expect from the winner of the fifa peace prize
December 15, 2025 at 7:28 PM
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30 yrs ago; Dec 14, 1995 – Monbiot nails it with “it’s happening” article, after release of 2nd IPCC report.

The “data should be enough to throw us all into a muck sweat.”

Atmospheric CO2 was roughly 361ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm,

allouryesterdays.info/2024/12/14/d...
December 14, 1995 - Monbiot nails it with "it's happening" article - All Our Yesterdays
Twenty nine years ago, on this day, December 14th, 1995, George Monbiot wrote in Guardian “It’s Happening” As memories of the scorching summer are soothed away by snow, the 600 water tankers trundling...
allouryesterdays.info
December 13, 2025 at 8:47 PM
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Dick Van Dyke is 100 years old tomorrow.
I hope he's making the most of his finally night of Lego building.
December 12, 2025 at 11:10 PM