Author | Lightnews

Ryan Shirlow

@ryanshirlow.bsky.social

5.4K followers 4.4K following 8.5K posts

Irish 🇮🇪 in Yorkshire 🏵️ Fortean Times writer & PhD student, study folk music 🪕 & folklore 🧚 Also ❤️old 🚙 cars & homebrew 🍺 Dad to 2 wee girls Music on Woodford Halse and Fenny Compton https://ryanshirlow.bandcamp.com/

ryanshirlow.bandcamp.com

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Ryan Shirlow @ryanshirlow.bsky.social · 17d

The shitter it all gets, the more I’m going to post about mandolins and fairies.

That’s it, that’s the plan.

Two old Irishmen, one with a flute and one with a banjo mandolin. “John McKenna and Michael Gaffney”

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Reposted by Ryan Shirlow

Hell Ray-ser @sireviscerate.myatproto.social · Feb 10

It's impossible to play the hurdy gurdy without making it your whole personality. No one is a casual hurdy gurdy player.

Hurdy gurdy guy dressed like some kind of dingus cowboy

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Ryan Shirlow @ryanshirlow.bsky.social · 20h

There was mention on the BBC of a longer route via Turkey, Greece and Serbia.

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Andrew CH @nibus.bsky.social · 2d

this is what happens when everything is in the cloud

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Ryan Shirlow @ryanshirlow.bsky.social · 2d

Perfect timing

Article about 6-7 on my timeline at 6.07pm

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oli @olil.bsky.social · 2d

Edinburgh castle failing to render, likely thanks to the AWS outage

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Ryan Shirlow @ryanshirlow.bsky.social · 2d

Lee Wrangler still make some 100% cotton jeans but you have to doublecheck every cut and colour on their website.

Ryan Shirlow @ryanshirlow.bsky.social · 2d

Wasted so much money on stretchy jeans - they never soften, they always feel stiff and sweaty. Finally found a 100% cotton pair from Lee Wrangler - miles better.

Ryan Shirlow @ryanshirlow.bsky.social · 2d

Twice this last month I’ve returned products that were advertised as 100% cotton online but which were labelled as 95% or less upon arrival.

I wouldn’t care but they look and feel shit - stretchy shapeless and scratchy / sweaty. Infuriating.

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Ryan Shirlow @ryanshirlow.bsky.social · 2d

A lot of generic cheap clothes on the high street have stayed the same price but the quality has become appalling.

In particular 100% cotton is now very rare to find.

Growing percentage of cheap and scratchy plastic “elastane” in everything. And not always advertised clearly either.

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Ryan Shirlow @ryanshirlow.bsky.social · 2d

special FX looked so much better when your mate videoed it off TV

Reposted by Ryan Shirlow

Ian Simmons @iansimmons1960.bsky.social · 3d

I am doing this again at Bard Books in London on the 28th and Read on Sea in Leigh on Sea on Halloween if you want to catch me

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Ian Simmons @iansimmons1960.bsky.social · 3d

Thank you Ryan! It is available from the usual outlets, but I recommend getting it from the Hoxton Mini Press shop, particularly as it comes beautifully wrapped in London themed paper that way
www.hoxtonminipress.com/products/an-...

An Opinionated Guide to Haunted London

Haunted London is your opinionated guide to the capital’s most chilling sites — from plague pits to cursed pubs. Discover centuries of eerie tales and haunted places, perfect for ghost hunters and cur...

www.hoxtonminipress.com

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Reposted by Ryan Shirlow

Horace Dorrington @mrtrellis.bsky.social · 3d

Fourteen half hour episodes per year. Stop trying to chase the Game of Thrones audience. Make it all rather jolly and scary and lacking in laboured attempts at significance. Ditch the American style showrunner nonsense.

And get Shearsmith and Pemberton in as lead writers.

Sean Carroll @seanedmund.bsky.social · 3d

It needs a team that got into Who with Eccleston/Tennant/Smith - someone under 30 who will appeal to all the fans who aren't middle aged men moaning about it on the apps. Get an experienced showrunner to shepherd them, but let it be a crazy hyperpop explosion or whatever that makes no sense to me.

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Ryan Shirlow @ryanshirlow.bsky.social · 3d

If you do get the chance I thoroughly recommend hearing Ian read from the book’s notes, as he did at the London Fortean Society on Thursday.

He also covers some of the cases that were too gruesome to make print!

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Ryan Shirlow @ryanshirlow.bsky.social · 3d

I got my lovely copy of Ian Simmon’s new book from the man himself this week.

Perfectly sized to slip into a jacket pocket, or between two rolls in the downstairs “library.”

@iansimmons1960.bsky.social - where can the good people order one online?

#hauntedlondon

Plain midnight blue cover: An Opinionated Guide to Haunted London - Hoxton Mini Press

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Reposted by Ryan Shirlow

cow tools daily @cowtoolsdaily.bsky.social · 12d

it's not FOR us

edited comic panel. Batman is breaking a lump-with-handle cow tool over his knee and saying "this is the tool of the cow. we do not understand it. we will not use it."

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 4d

This morning my ChatGPT quota was inexplicably exhausted.

It took a while but I pieced it together. Voice mode somehow got activated when I went to bed.

The bot then engaged in a 10 hour conversation with my snoring dog, answering questions the pup wasn’t asking and praising him for his insight.

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Ryan Shirlow @ryanshirlow.bsky.social · 4d

I used to really love Easter eggs, looked forward to them every year - then one year they all tuned utterly tasteless, like joyless brown cardboard. I thought it was covid but no the cocoa mass was like 18%

Reposted by Ryan Shirlow

☠️deadward niedermurder☠️ @niedermeyer.online · 5d

when was the last time you heard someone mention NFTs?

gotta remember to savor these little things

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Ryan Shirlow @ryanshirlow.bsky.social · 4d

You know you are under no obligation, legal or moral, to refer to another man as “Prince.”

a close up of prince making a funny face .

Alt: a close up of Prince the rock star

media.tenor.com

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Ryan Shirlow @ryanshirlow.bsky.social · 5d

THIS also with allergens or the dreaded “may contain”

Ryan Shirlow @ryanshirlow.bsky.social · 6d

it used to have a really famous goth shop

Ryan Shirlow @ryanshirlow.bsky.social · 6d

Oh Spitalfields has really changed in twenty years, not sure for the best. Bit “up market” now.

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Ryan Shirlow @ryanshirlow.bsky.social · 6d

first episode throws you off the scent - you think it’s gonna be one thing, but it really isn’t - worth sticking with it

Ryan Shirlow @ryanshirlow.bsky.social · 6d

I read he was trying to crowdfund a concluding movie, but I guess there was insufficient interest to get it off the ground.