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John Davies

@jrsdavies.bsky.social

520 followers 690 following 430 posts

Old bloke. Now back living in NE London after sojourns in Oxford, Liverpool, Bloomsbury, Boston MA, Cardiff and N Ireland. Reads, sings in choirs, worries about Leyton Orient. Occasionally blogging at https://oldgeezerrereadingblog.wordpress.com/

oldgeezerrereadingblog.wordpress.com

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John Davies @jrsdavies.bsky.social · 2h

For one day only, I could say I was the man in @seatsixtyone.bsky.social (and the Eurostar was on time, too)

John Davies @jrsdavies.bsky.social · 5d

I think you'll find that in fact it's your flabber that has been ghasted

John Davies @jrsdavies.bsky.social · 8d

Hivemind! Suggestions please on what to do / where to eat in or near Antibes in October (yes, that's #Antibes in France)

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John Davies @jrsdavies.bsky.social · 11d

I think that was the opposite of 0-0 #lofc

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Adrian Short @adrianshort.uk · 18d

Want to kill the BritCard digital ID scheme dead in a day?

Insist that Keir Starmer spends a day volunteering in a public library to deal with all the tech support requests.

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John Davies @jrsdavies.bsky.social · 19d

Let's assume a digital ID system is 'rolled out'. So like any big project, there'll be what its defenders will call 'glitches'. And there'll be headlines such as 'OAP denied treatment because his/her ID doesn't work'. Ready for that? #digitalID

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Zoe Gardner @zoejardiniere.bsky.social · 19d

Ok. They’ve pissed me off.

I’m back to tell you 3 things about ID cards:

1. Migrants ALREADY HAVE biometric ID cards & govts have been trying to digitise them for years w repeated fuckups & failures causing complete chaos - they don’t work, you do not want that system for you.

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John Davies @jrsdavies.bsky.social · 19d

A great list - not only because it includes Epping Forest, riding on top of a bus and the Wallace Collection. Mentions must-visit places I'd never heard of ...

Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 20d

subsequent to the orange man shooting his mouth off about London, I did the second part of my 100 things I love in London. because I mean, really:

open.substack.com/pub/naomiald...

43 more things I love in London

still just filled to the brim with wonder

open.substack.com

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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 22d

Why are the American president's claims about autism the first item on British news bulletins?

He's not our president, the advice doesn't apply here and he's not presented any evidence to support his assertions.

So why spread these claims? What make this the biggest story in the UK?

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John Davies @jrsdavies.bsky.social · 25d

No Porridge? Or Whatever Happened TTLL? I despair

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Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 28d

Yes, in case you missed it, the U.K. does have a big problem with free speech.

No, it’s not the problem Vance et al are talking about.

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 28d

I love London so much. So much.

Did you know that London has the lowest level of ethnic violence of any city of comparable size in the world?

Multiculturalism has in fact worked here. They just don’t want it to be true because we happen to have a Muslim mayor.

Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan @london.gov.uk · 28d

In London, hate will never win.

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Jane Winters @jfwinters.bsky.social · Sep 15

This is the 2025 experience

Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · Sep 15

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com

p.s. this week I am on a USA/Canada tour with my new book. Details and preorder links at tomgauld.com

Panel 1. image of a huge nuclear plant.
“Reactor Overheating”

2. A worker in a hazmat suit works at a computer. The screen reads:
“Press cancel to avoid critical overload”

3 - 9. The worker continues to type at the computer. The screen changes in each panel and reads:
“Enter password to confirm”
“Incorrect password”
“Incorrect password”
“Do you want to reset your password?”
“Reset link has been sent to your email”
“Please choose a new password”
“New password can't be the same as old password”
The colour gets hotter in each panel. Starting blue in 1 and ending in red in 9.

Panel 10. Wide view. The entire earth is blown up.

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Voice4Justice @voices4justice.bsky.social · Sep 12

Ilan Volkov, an Israeli orchestral conductor, who has been chief conductor and guest conductor of a number of orchestras.

His moving words at the BBC Proms (the full text below). 🧵👇
Another saint in Sodom. 🙏👏

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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · Sep 10

This article is utterly horrific, as the quote here indicates, and I’m glad it brings up the urgent and necessary question of investigating war crimes.

Julianna 💎 @batariangal.bsky.social · Sep 10

This fucking psychopath

An excerpt from the quoted article that reads:
Raab, a former varsity basketball player from a Chicago suburb who became an Israeli sniper, concedes he knew that. He says he shot Salem simply because he tried to retrieve the body of his beloved older brother Mohammed.

"It's hard for me to understand why he [did that] and it also doesn't really interest me" Raab says in a video interview posted on X. "I mean, what was so important about that corpse?"

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John Davies @jrsdavies.bsky.social · Sep 9

alternatively: delivery with growth at its heart; delivery with a growing heart; a heart that delivers growth; a heart growing with delivery; a heart with a growth ...

John Davies @jrsdavies.bsky.social · Sep 7

In Hyde Park this afternoon. People don't seem to have got the message about London being a crime-ridden hellhole

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Tom Davies @tomdaviese17.bsky.social · Sep 7

Did the Reform conference decide anything democratically? Any policy motions? Elected party posts? You'd think one of the many Very Serious Journalists sent to cover it might tell us

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John Davies @jrsdavies.bsky.social · Sep 6

Who was the other one? (I mean the one not called Wellens)

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Jane @localnotail.bsky.social · Sep 5

On the same day in the Telegraph:

The Telegraph

Rayner tax scandal - £40k tax dodge - Statement

Angela Rayner dodges £40,000 stamp duty

Deputy Prime Minister reduces tax bill for Hove flat by declaring it as her main residence

[Photo: Angela Rayner pictured at the weekend in Hove, where she has just bought a flat Credit: Dan Charity/The Sun on Sunday]

Robert Mendick Chief Reporter. Amy Gibbons Political Correspondent

29 August 2025 8:57am BST

The Telegraph

Money > Property > Second homes

How to avoid tax on your second home

From stamp duty to council tax, shield your wealth from Labour's tightening net

[Photo of houses around a bay - Areas such as Cornwall have added a premium to council tax bills for second homes Credit: iStockphoto]

Fran Ivens Senior Money Writer

29 August 2025 1:21pm BST

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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · Sep 3

Melvyn Bragg has been one of the last standard-bearers for a really important, and unfashionable, idea: that good conversation, between people who really know their stuff, on complex or difficult subjects, can be fantastic radio - and that the national broadcaster should do this.

I hope it endures.

Scott Bryan @scottygb.bsky.social · Sep 3

Melvyn Bragg has decided to stand down as host of In Our Time, the BBC says.

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victoria1921.bsky.social @victoria1921.bsky.social · Sep 3

Credit due to Sir Sadiq Khan and please stfu Farage, Musk and all the other fascists.

John Simpson @johnsimpsonnews.bsky.social · Sep 3

Amid all the stuff about ‘dangerous London’ and ‘broken Britain’, new figures show the homicide rate in London is at a 10-year low. Killings dropped by 26% over the last year, from 78 to 58. No one under 25 was murdered during the school summer holidays.

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John Davies @jrsdavies.bsky.social · Aug 27

Also they have Jayden Sweeney, cruelly cast off by #lofc. And his penalty went in

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moron-watch.bsky.social @moron-watch.bsky.social · Aug 27

The BBC are the worst for this, especially over Brexit.

Maitliss gave a glimpse of the terrible cowardice of BBC journalists incl. her. She stated the BBC were "offering a platform to the very people trying to tell the public to distrust our news" and she and her colleagues did nothing to stop it.

Gavin Esler @gavinesler.bsky.social · Aug 27

I’ve often wondered why Nigel Farage, who as godfather of the Brexit fiasco engineered the biggest British foreign policy disaster since Suez is continually offered so much space in some newspapers and broadcast media. Serious question. Thoughts welcome.

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Simon Cox @simonfrcox.bsky.social · Aug 26

The Labour response to Farage policy of leaving the Refugee & Humam Rights Convention should not be “he won’t deliver”.

It should be “this is not morally right” (not “British values” even).

Voters want to see authentic consistent leadership. Not debate the workability of cruelty.

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