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Stonehenge in the early morning mist
Photographer Nick Bull
#StandingStoneSunday #Stonehenge #England
Remote
Wen
@Wen@mastodon.scot
mastodon 4.7.2I am a climber, runner (with a Collie), cyclist and swimmer. I was running a small (but perfectly formed) analytics company now employee owned to mark my retirement. Commute between the Highlands and The Borders, campaign for Scottish independence, bake bread and occasionally dabble in bad art.
I winge about a lot - the environment, bad governance and stupidity but do try to provide a wee bit of evidence and highlight good news.
Languages : English, German, Gaelic, Pashtu, Spanish, Italian
1963 Followers
1420 Following
50 Posts
Joined November 10, 2022
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Banning journalists from reporting on parties in the UK seeking election seems to be all the rage - Reform, now the Tories. When will Labour catch up?
https://bylinetimes.com/2026/09/30/kemi-badenochs-conservatives-ban-byline-times-from-conference-after-condemning-reform-for-journalist-ban/
#Journalism #Tories #Ban #BylineTimes #UK #Media #PressFreedom
Lunchtime run and animal encounters
First #trail #run for a couple of weeks. We are going to do the Pentlands ’Skyline’ (old route) tomorrow. All well if not fast alongside the Teviot and then back on the old railway. #Sheep have been moved onto the old railway, but they know Chai and just watched as we passed. On the way back we passed two Pointers who normally bark. The gate was open, what to do? Sensibly they moved behind the fence and a barking contest was held.
#DogsOfMastodon #BorderCollie
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Oh the irony
I am sure that they will blame ‘Deep State’ sabotage for this, but at least it went down at its mooring rather than relying on rescue from, say the RNLI… The very organisation being threatened by these sub moronic terrorists. Frankly given their competence it is best that they are not allowed out on the water.
#Tommo #PatrioticPlatform #UK #Terrorism #Thugs #RNLI #AltTxt
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A little cheery news for this wet Tuesday morning.
Whether it be War and Peace or The Very Hungry Caterpillar, according to a study from the University of Cambridge, regardless of “what or how we read”, sitting down with a book is linked to improved health and problem solving. Benefits include lowering stress and reducing the risk of dementia, and span all types of reading, from comic books to classic novels or hefty non-fiction tomes.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/reading-and-associations-with-brain-health-cognition-wellbeing-and-mental-health/1A3565FA61831A975813113DE1AB2B09
#Reading #Bookstodon #GoodNews
Scotland imposes mandatory environmental assessments on new datacentres
The next issue will be making sure those assessments are themselves considered in the context of water, power and the general environment.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/sep/16/datacentres-scotland-environmental-assessments-ai-boom
#AI #DataCentre #SlopSheds #IT #Scotland Environment #Water #Power #Waste
The increasing Americanisation of British politics
If you think it is a bad idea then please write to your MP and threaten (and mean it) to vote for a party that will correct this corruption of British politics.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/sep/19/uk-politics-increasingly-funded-by-billionaires-as-mega-donations-surge
#UkPol #Corruption #Labour #Reform #Conserevatives #LibDems #ForSale
Replying to
There is a petition to the UK parliament asking for them to be banned.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/769206
#Meta #GlassHoles
The lambs are at it again - although we were not sure we had disturbed a game of Poker or Blackjack
RIP Mu
Hit by a ‘driver’, he has been buried to the sound of pipes and with a small libation. (1/4)
Dugs in the Mist
Morning walk and the dugs emerge through the heavy morning mist when I took the balls out of my pack.
#DogWalking #ScottishBorders #DogsOfMastodon
Attenborough at 100
That’s what our pair of striplings, 25 and 26 think too
Replying to
It turned out someone saw the incident and took the number, reporting the car as driving erratically. Close on, three cyclist were forced off the road by the same driver and reported it as well. The Polis ‘attended’ an address in Hawick and have charged someone, driving offences, DUI and assault. He might get away with the latter two charges (but probably not, one of the people driven into a ditch is an advocate) certainly not the DUI. Bastard
#Obituary #CatsOfMastodon (4/4)
Downing Street Brutality
Larry The Cat attempts to disable a police sniffer dog’s essential equipment. The dog probably told him a bad joke about revolving PMs.
#CatsOfMastodon #Umbrage #DowningStreet
The headline writer is trying… I remember hearing a ditty about Henry VIII wives (to help kids remember their fates and the order - bizarre as it was, he was never a Scottish King) ‘divorced, beheaded, died, dibbled beheaded survived’ . I am sure that collectively a similar rhyme can be constructed to ‘remember’ the last 6 PMs or Reform’s crooks. Entries welcome.
#Reform #Crooks #Unfortunate #Carelessness #Wilde #UKPol
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A decent 35k this afternoon, crossing from Minto to Ruberslaw and then back over the river Teviot (sans bridge but the river is low and I took my shoes off and paddled over).
Very quiet bar the odd cyclist, although Chai got very excited when we met a couple walking. One was carrying a white stick with what looked like a tennis ball on the bottom. The dug could not take his eye off it much to their amusement. No ball was harmed.
Replying to
How 24 hours change things. Yesterday Mu was trying to steal the dugs treats. Today he is buried, some ned has been charged with DUI as well as reckless endangerment and assault. (3/4)
Will the English government ever learn or is Blairism deep in their souls?
Private Equity and the NHS.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jul/27/nhs-patients-records-us-private-equity-firm-optum-uk-tpg
#PrivateEquity #NHS #England #Health #Security #Privacy #Exploitation #ProfitTaking #ShortSighted #NoLessonsLearnt
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@JDGeoShack@social.vivaldi.net Ég get lesið vel og talað það vel að ég þarf ekki á ensku að halda þegar við heimsækjum landið. Skrifleg íslenska hjá mér er hins vegar hræðileg.
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@tmcfarlane@toot.community I quite agree - they can have a purpose. I am not visually disabled but I can imagine the difference audio interpreted vision would be a massive advantage for some (and I am sure some people who are might be able to comment). But as you say that does not require their use as a free for all image capture system to be used covertly and linked to the undressing shite that Meta and X are playing (amongst other things) with should be lawful.
I really do not understand these people. If you want to shoot a large animal, surely a camera will do, and if you want a little more risk, a close up with a wide angle lens should suffice.
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@scattershot@merveilles.town I thought so, but apparently it is by a group calling itself ‘We hate Elon’
Centrepoint - a good news story
For those who do not know them, #Centrepoint does a sterling job in these times. More information about them is provided in the linked article.
NIce aspirations, will anyone do anything?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/30/europe-burning-trump-war-climate-sanctions-white-house
#ClimateChange #Environment #Action #RoadToRuin
Another warning of the combination of AI enshitification with unthinking reliance on what ‘computer says’
- in this case training and dietary regimes.
#running #AI #diet #training #enshitification #nutrition #chatGPT #Runna
Looks as though it might be a good week for sky watching. We are expecting the Lyrid meteor shower. The moon is in crescent which should help, despite the increasing amount of unnecessary space junk being launched by Must et al. So up at midnight.
Here’s Lyrid hoping for clear skies, we won’t make it up to Galloway or Highlands but the sky is fairly dark here where we are in The Borders so fingers crossed and the forecast is promising anyway.
Replying to
@wdlindsy@toad.social Heva you asked the moderator/admin? I had some posts removed likewise (different server) which were reinstated when I asked why? It seems that some oenwas not keen on reposts of reported news about foreign influence on the UK government and one assumes made up a claim of anti-something in order to suppress them.
Iran is claiming that the US used backdoors into networking kit to disturb their communications. The Chinese press are just loving it, after all they are the ones (the US says) who are putting all of those backdoors in.
https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/21/iran_claims_us_used_backdoors
#IT #Networking #Backdoors #Security #USA #China
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@kim_harding@mastodon.scot @Christo_459@mastodon.me.uk @thisismyglasgow@mastodon.scot Yes, I remember talking to a friend who was an archivist in Edinburgh some years ago. She said that people would not believe what was planned - and indeed some of it was mind boggling.
That does not excuse the destruction of fine Glasgow architecture though.
And as a southern aside, the muppets who took apart Bradford need a good doing too.
Replying to
@BellaCaledonia@mastodon.scot An excellent summary
The Party is lurching further to the right, high on its own success and propelled by dark and crypto money - and the soft compliance of the mainstream media.
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@beemoh@mastodonapp.uk @junesim63@mstdn.social @BashStKid@mastodon.online I am sure there will be plenty of people who will be delighted to inform voters, no matter any positives she might have (other than as a nepo baby)
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@junesim63@mstdn.social @BashStKid@mastodon.online I wonder how ‘safe’ that seat will be? I don’t know anything about the woman but a combination of family name, apparent nepotism, and the Labour label will not help.
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@RabBrucesSpider1@mastodon.scot The BEEB are just reporting what Whitehall wants them to.
‘Renewables’ - Russia is implicated in attempts to prevent the adoption of renewable energy sources across Europe. First Trump (although his actions on behalf of the fossil fuel industry seem to have backfired across the US and the world) and now Putin.
#Renewables #Sabotage #KillThePlanet #GreenEnergy #Russia #Putin #Trump #CleanEnergy
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@tompearce49@mastodon.scot In my defence, I have donated small (by the standards of donations to parties such as Reform, the Tories and Labour) to both the Scottish Greens (the real ones) and the SNP. But that is just a small effort to level the playing field. In any decent political system this would not be necessary or even permissible.
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@ruthpozuelo I suspect in part it is metabolism, although I normally run 20k+ a day, having said that running (or climbing or swimming) always set me off 😋🤣
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@ruthpozuelo I have to say I am always ravenous straight after a long run - I always have bananas ready at the finish.
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@JDGeoShack@social.vivaldi.net I am halfway through White as the Snow by Lillja Sigurdardóttir. In part because I enjoy the sorties, and in part because I have it in both Icelandic and English translation so I can bolster my feeble grasp of the written language (Icelandic that is). What are you perusing?
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@kauer@aus.social In Scotland we use the word dug to refer to what people in England call a dog.