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Dr Rob

@robheighton.bsky.social

5.7K followers 5.9K following 1.6K posts

he/him • Doctor of Physics • Worldbuilder & Conlanger • Fan of Fantasy • Whovian • Amateur Enthusiast of Linguistics, Archaeology, Classics, and many other things 📍 UK • 📖 Bag End • 📺 The Brownstone

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Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · Nov 12

Folks with any reach on Bluesky, please consider reposting so I can find friends old and new:

I'm Rob; I like fantasy books, maths and physics, ancient stuff and mythology, linguistics and music, British wildlife, and a whole bunch of other stuff. And I might occasionally mention Doctor Who

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Reposted by Dr Rob

HolBolDoArt🏳️‍🌈 @holboldoart.bsky.social · 12d

Autumn and the Relics Of A Dead Summer

Within a gothic style arched frame with spandrels decorated with oak-leaves is a painted scene in which a woman with pale skin and flowing red hair and wearing a long blue silk dress holds a small but intricately decorated gilded box in her hands. She looks at the viewer with a reserved expression.
To either side of her stands a humanoid crow figure, with the heads of jackdaws and long flowing black robes. The left holds a simple chalice, the right holds a small dagger in open hands.

At their feat is a carpet of brown oak leaves fallen from branches above them (some leaves are caught in the dress and robes). In these leaves stand two ring-necked pheasants, a male in red and blue on the left, and a female in light speckled brown on the right.

Behind the figures stands a tall gothic church tower with castellated parapet and corner pinnacles shrouded in mist against a sunset sky streaked with fine clouds.

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Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 34m

Have yet to see a single instance of social media discourse comparing Tolkien's LotR and Martin's ASOIAF that doesn't heinously mischaracterise one or (more usually) both of the works in question

Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 2d

Oh wow, literal boy dinner! I approve of it tbf, but fear I'd regret trying it

Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 2d

Momentarily thought those were bits of mozzarella, but realising they were raw garlic escalated the levels of "boy dinner" being reached

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Dr Kate Farrant Shaw @katefarrantshaw.bsky.social · 23d

A magnificient medieval treasure for a medieval Monday- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: (Cotton MS Nero A X/2, ff. 94v–95r)

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Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 2d

How I leave the social gathering

Suave Morbida @maitre-poulard.bsky.social · 4d

J'adore l'expression "bon, s'agirait de pas trainer" de Mélusine sur cette gravure sur bois du XVe siècle

Mélusine s'enfuit par la fenêtre
Jean d'Arras (14e siècle), auteur
Adam Steinschaber, éditeur scientifique et imprimeur
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Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 3d

From me, 'cup of tea' almost always means the general stuff they call 'English breakfast tea' with milk, but in this case it was indeed something ever so slightly more exotic: a red berry tea!

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Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 3d

I have often enjoyed this strange parallel

Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · Jan 16

Weirdly, I was just talking about fig newtons earlier this afternoon, when we were having some Choco Leibniz biscuits with a cup of tea and I was musing about sweet snacks sharing their names with the rival pioneers of calculus—and now it turns out to be National Fig Newton Day

Sheila Friend @slfriend79.bsky.social · Jan 16

😋 Happy #NationalFigNewtonDay! 😋

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Reposted by Dr Rob

D.D.B.Torres @ddbtorres.bsky.social · Aug 6

I heard y'all like dragons in august so have two for the price of one

#art #illustration

a two-headed dragon, each head menacingly grinning in opposite directions while the dragon itself descends from a tempestuous sky

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Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 3d

The best days are those of broken clouds sailing through broad blue skies, throwing short-lived shadows upon the ground between bursts of warming sunshine, while blustery winds fluster the treetops and the willow-branches dance

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Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 3d

Only in the last few years have I realised that my favourite weather—like the weather here today—is a combination of sunshine and high winds

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Brian Groom @groomb.bsky.social · 5d

Regeneration, etching by Janis Goodman, Leeds-based printmaker. #WomensArt #NorthernArt

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Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 4d

Saw someone (not a mutual) posting that fig newtons are a lot of work, and I had to refrain from replying "actually, fig newtons are a lot of force; if they're a lot of work, then they're fig joules"

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John McCafferty @jdmccafferty.bsky.social · 5d

"The Olde, Old, very Olde Man or Thomas Par" Looking good for his alleged 152 years of age here in 1635. (British Museum)

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Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 4d

Choosing to spend the latter part of this evening in an armchair with a blanket, a cup of tea, and this old friend

My family copy of The Fellowship of the Ring

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Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 4d

This is indeed the important question

Reposted by Dr Rob

John McCafferty @jdmccafferty.bsky.social · 5d

Star-shaped tile with a phoenix and stylized flower spray

Kashan, c. 1250 - c. 1324

(Rijksmuseum)

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Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 4d

Blimey, some of these are stunning. Worth a look for anyone who enjoys such beautiful intersections between astronomy, history, and art

From the link shared in the quoted post:

Illustration from a 1587 treatise on comets and meteors, created anonymously in Flanders (now northern France) and known as the Kometenbuch.

It's a beautifully colourful piece of early modern art showing a comet or meteor in the sky over a scene of trees, mountains, and a rowing boat on an estuary

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Andy Arthur💃🏰⚓🦌 Threadinburgh 🧵 @threadinburgh.scot · 14d

Look what we have here then.

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Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 4d

Today's walk was rather wet and windy

Reposted by Dr Rob

Jon Hawke @archaeohawke.bsky.social · 6d

#FindsFriday
Depictions of Gaulish mercenaries from Ptolemaic Egypt, 220-180 BCE,
📷 British Museum, London

#Archaeology #History #Artwork

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Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 4d

Exquisite!

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Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 5d

Not completely random; I was going through and seeing who had liked this tweet of mine from the other day (at least I think that's where I came across you?)

And interesting, I haven't heard of those books; I'll have to look into them, thanks!

Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 20d

Enjoying the two guys on this year's Bake Off who look like they could be rival chieftains in Iron Age Gaul

Toby from Bake Off; he has a distinctive moustache with slight handlebars

Iain from Bake Off; he has a light mustache and a mullet without the curls

Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 5d

Mine's lower on the page and it looks like the right-hand page there is quite different, so I think it's a different edition but definitely looks similar

Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · 5d

Love how The Hobbit ends with the literary equivalent of a post-credits scene

Text from the end of my copy of the Hobbit:

If you are interested in Hobbits you will learn a lot more about them in The Lord of the Rings:
1. The Fellowship of the Ring
2. The Two Towers
3. The Return of the King

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