Aliki Chapple
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commonmugwort.bsky.social
Aliki Chapple
@commonmugwort.bsky.social
1.3K followers 1.1K following 4.1K posts
Literary translator, actor, early modern drama enthusiast.
Luddite geek. Greek. Truth, justice, and the comics. Mostly in Athens.
(@amaenad from Twitter but more chill)

All photos licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
More on: https://pixelfed.social/CommonMugwort
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commonmugwort.bsky.social
Aliki Chapple @commonmugwort.bsky.social · Nov 15
Hello theatre pals, and everyone. It’s nice to see you here.
I live in Athens now, and I’ve been taking a lot of pictures, relearning my way around the old place.
pixelfed.social/i/web/profil...
An old fashioned metal door with bars and a later metal panel added, with an ancient air con unit or filter in the upper left corner and an even more ancient sheet of corrugated metal, probably once a security measure rolled up above it. The door is set in a stone wall next to a plainer wall, either concrete or plastered. The whole thing is painted exactly the same colour, a sort of pale ochre.
Reposted by Aliki Chapple
daphnenews.bsky.social
Some alleged members of a criminal gang dismantled by police went on to submit farm subsidy claims containing false information to Greece’s disgraced state agency responsible for paying EU aid, OPEKEPE, even after the major corruption scandal had erupted. www.ekathimerini.com/news/1289816...
Police probe finds false farm subsidy claims filed in 2025 amid OPEKEPE scandal | eKathimerini.com
Several alleged members of a criminal organization dismantled by Greek police over the weekend went on to submit agricultural subsidy applications containing false information to Greece’s state paymen...
www.ekathimerini.com
December 15, 2025 at 8:48 AM
Reposted by Aliki Chapple
annaherrington.bsky.social
One of Scrub jay's favorite spots, the Red twig dogwood. 🌱
Love how the red comes out in winter ~
#birds #BirdOfTheDay #inthegarden #photography
Bird with vibrant medium-blue head and back, wings, with white eyebrows, neck, and pale grey chest amidst many red 'twigs' of the tall shrub. Red twig dogwood branches are bright red in winter, especially if you prune out the older trunks each year, fading to more dull tone in summer when in leaf.
December 15, 2025 at 6:29 AM
commonmugwort.bsky.social
Layers: Mets
#Athens #UrbanPhotography
Colour photo though everything is concrete pale and rust and shadow. There’s a gate, with spiral decorative scrolls in the uppermost corners of the image, and a diamond pattern over most of the rest. Through it, a concrete staircase curves up right to left, supported by pillars. The stair has a railing on both sides, a doubled scroll. The whole image is about the layers of these patterns.
December 15, 2025 at 6:26 AM
Reposted by Aliki Chapple
emilyzfeng.bsky.social
“An increasing number of “crazy rich” clients are commissioning dozens, or even hundreds, of U.S.-born babies with the goal of “forging an unstoppable family dynasty,” he said.” www.wsj.com/us-news/chin...
The Chinese Billionaires Having Dozens of U.S.-Born Babies Via Surrogate
Videogame executive Xu Bo, said to have more than 100 children, and other elites are building mega-families—testing citizenship laws and drawing on nannies, IVF and legal firms set up to help them.
www.wsj.com
December 14, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Aliki Chapple
akmckeever.bsky.social
"A Syrian defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the government had not decided whether minorities would be allowed to enlist [in the military]."

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/11/w...
Syria, Rebuilding Its Military, Relies on Loyalists and Religious Teaching
www.nytimes.com
December 14, 2025 at 3:31 PM
Reposted by Aliki Chapple
mattleys.bsky.social
VERA DRIVE
oitappin.bsky.social Dan Tappin @oitappin.bsky.social · 1d
So I was checking out an address for friends who have moved to a newish estate... and all the names of the streets are tv detectives.
A set of streets named after tv detectives - Bergerac Road Wycliffe Close Holmes Road Alleyn Gardens A set of streets named after tv detectives - Lewis Close Taggert Grove Barnaby Way A set of streets named after tv detectives - Fletcher Crescent Vera Drive Dalgliesh Road
December 14, 2025 at 10:03 AM
commonmugwort.bsky.social
Prosfygika Alexandras
#Athens #UrbanPhotography
Colour photo: Social housing, Athens style. This is the fenced yard and front door of a unit in the refugee housing blocks put up by the Greek state in the 1930s for those who’d fled the ethnic cleansing around the birth of the Turkish state, more than a decade before. The housing is blocky and simple, but not unappealingly designed - dilapidated now, squatted, I think, with signs of community organisation. Athenian ochre yellow plaster, faded and peeled, flower pots in the yard, a tree.
December 14, 2025 at 7:44 AM
Reposted by Aliki Chapple
rozesall.bsky.social
Trying to get a nice portrait of Tara the horse, who has to put her nose into everything. Best I could do for now.
Very much a closeup of a horses eye as I was attempting to take a photo of her. Top right corner shows her pointed left ear. Managed to get some of the right ear. Left corner shows a part of a mountain, a European spruce, and bare winter branches.
December 14, 2025 at 7:19 AM
Reposted by Aliki Chapple
alisonkilling.bsky.social
In late 2020 a Chinese man called Guan Heng travelled to Xinjiang with our BuzzFeed map of detention facilities to provide ground truth for our work - he provided the first corroborating evidence for many sites.

He escaped to the US - then ICE detained him.

www.wsj.com/world/china/...
ICE Holding Chinese Man Who Documented Uyghur Camps
Heng Guan is awaiting an immigration hearing on Monday that could lead to his removal from the U.S. and ultimately land him back in China, according to his lawyer and a New York-based activist group.
www.wsj.com
December 13, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Reposted by Aliki Chapple
sethcotlar.bsky.social
Woke up this morning with an image of Pete Hegseth astride a nuclear missile, Slim Pickens style, hooting and hollering as he brings humanity to an end, waving this commemorative, semisesquentennial foam cowboy party hat over his head.
AMERICA < 20 America250 ₫ Sponsored • © Add a bold and patriotic touch to any celebration with the America250 Cowboy Foam Party Hat. Lightweight, fun, and full of spirit, it's the perfect accessory for parades, festivals, events, or photo-worthy moments during the America 250 celebration. V High Quality Foam V One size fit most v Comfortable fit V As Seen on Shark Tank Great for parties, group events, and showing off your America250 pride! Limited quantities available, order now! AMERICA Slim Pickens riding a nuclear missile while waving a cowboy hat
December 13, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by Aliki Chapple
dickensyousay.bsky.social
The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and wagons;
December 13, 2025 at 2:17 PM
commonmugwort.bsky.social
It’s been a really good week for street cat portraits, so have another one:
#CatsOfAthens #Caturday #cat
A Allen, plump, friendly female grey tabby with green eye posing on a park bench in the Pedion Tou Areos.
December 13, 2025 at 12:23 PM
Reposted by Aliki Chapple
malichudis.bsky.social
Γεια σας!

Μετά από 5 χρόνια που το σκέφτομαι (και το πληρώνω), ξεκινάω ένα νιουζλετερ.

Θα είναι δωρεάν. Και θα έχει:

- έρευνα
- ανάλυση
- ιστορίες
- behind the scenes

γύρω από όλες τις θεματικές που καλύπτω τα τελευταία 10 χρόνια.

Σύντομα το πρώτο στο stavrosmalichudis.com. Ελάτε!
December 12, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Reposted by Aliki Chapple
commonmugwort.bsky.social
(are we still doing this?)

You will be visited by three spirits, Caturday edition:
#Caturday #cats #Athens
Colour photo: Plaka, the sun behind clouds, the slope of the Acropolis of Athens, a narrow street of dilapidated neoclassical houses. On the roof of a car, three cats on their haunches, glaring. Front left, a tortoiseshell is furious. Rear centre, looking over his shoulder, a reproachful grey and white. Front left, a deeply disappointed grey tabby.
December 13, 2025 at 6:14 AM
Reposted by Aliki Chapple
kvjohansen.bsky.social
"He can see the sound, livid, dark [...] He picks out notes and they ring clean, they gather and leap, his foot tapping the rhythm of the dragon-kin drum, but he changes it, makes it his own. Now fingers can dance it..." The Wolf and the Wild King #SolsticeAdventCalendar Day 13
www.kvj.ca/wolf.html
K.V. Johansen | The Wolf and the Wild King
About The Wolf and the Wild King, book one of The Forest high fantasy duology, by K.V. Johansen
www.kvj.ca
December 13, 2025 at 10:36 AM
commonmugwort.bsky.social
(are we still doing this?)

You will be visited by three spirits, Caturday edition:
#Caturday #cats #Athens
Colour photo: Plaka, the sun behind clouds, the slope of the Acropolis of Athens, a narrow street of dilapidated neoclassical houses. On the roof of a car, three cats on their haunches, glaring. Front left, a tortoiseshell is furious. Rear centre, looking over his shoulder, a reproachful grey and white. Front left, a deeply disappointed grey tabby.
December 13, 2025 at 6:14 AM
commonmugwort.bsky.social
Something delightful about being pretty sure the pope was watching Wake Up Dead Man last night as soon as he could, just as I was.
December 13, 2025 at 5:45 AM
Reposted by Aliki Chapple
baddestmamajama.bsky.social
Early call but I *think* O’Connor is the Millennial DDL. I think we’re going to see him take role after role that’s like “that doesn’t seem like he can…HOLY SHIT THAT WAS AMAZING”
rachelalison.bsky.social Death Cab for Cunty @rachelalison.bsky.social · 2d
My only Wake Up Dead Man take is that Josh O'Connor is really good at this
December 13, 2025 at 5:19 AM
commonmugwort.bsky.social
Give Josh O’Connor all the awards. All of them.
December 12, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Reposted by Aliki Chapple
mariadahvana.bsky.social
The history of the written contains a lot of stuff, and it is not to your benefit to end up with a gelatinous average version. That isn't as good as a human voice. An average is inherently non-human, because what we are, as humans, is weird, unpredictable, & driven by voice, whatever our voice is.
December 12, 2025 at 3:25 PM
commonmugwort.bsky.social
Set in a dig in Greece, is it?
Will it be filmed here?
Asking because a lot of places that aren’t anything like Athens play Athens and Athens plays Tehran.
December 12, 2025 at 10:25 AM
commonmugwort.bsky.social
Apple: we will make your phone icons transparent. This is very cool.

Will we redesign the Health app for people who don’t wear smartwatches, make the kind of exercise you do the default when you log in, or make it customisable in any way? Hell no, that would be silly.
December 12, 2025 at 9:47 AM
commonmugwort.bsky.social
Ruins of Athens: Yellow
#Athens #UrbanPhotography
Colour photo. A yellow digging machine stands in the rubble where an abandoned house once was, its roofline and one painted room still discernible on the wall beside it. On the other side of that wall, another small house, in the mid 20th Century vernacular style, still stands, painted yellow, the ironwork teal blue. Only the courtyard is really in frame. Behind all this, a row of three-four storey apartments buildings, late 20th Century. We are in upper Pagrati, or Gouva.
December 12, 2025 at 7:08 AM
Reposted by Aliki Chapple
commonmugwort.bsky.social
Ruins of Athens: Gkyzi
#Athens #UrbanPhotography
Colour photo. A courtyard beside a one-storey house is covered by a wooden trellis on which grapevine grows. Except for the rubble piled to one side of the crazy-tiled path, the whole might be a tourist brochure photo from a village, woodwork and doors painted light blue, whitewashed little buildings, grapevine. There’s barely a hint of the taller buildings around. This is in Gkyzi, towards Ambelokipi.
December 11, 2025 at 6:39 AM
Reposted by Aliki Chapple
beyondshakes.bsky.social
🚨Dropping this week on the Exploring sessions - it's a Second Look at Respublica, added to the playlist with previous looks. One of the greatest moral interludes created, where the complex comedy business of the Vices rock. Subscribe to the Tubes for more. #drama #vice youtube.com/playlist?lis...
December 11, 2025 at 10:14 AM