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mariafarrell.bsky.social
Maria Farrell
@mariafarrell.bsky.social
11K followers 1.4K following 4.8K posts
Irish writer and speaker: let's rewild the internet!
Dog lady. Forest bather. She/her
http://www.mariafarrell.com
Rep: https://greeneheaton.co.uk/agents/antony-topping/
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mariafarrell.bsky.social
This past week brought a lightning trip to lovely Brussels where I brought my dog-nephew, Bam Bam, for a lovely, damp - ok actively rainy - walk, and he had feelings when we got home. I love and miss this emo-hound and his outsize feelings about weather.
Colour photo of a lurcher, Bran, who's grey-ish, and white and black, standing on sandy-coloured wood in a doorway indoors, with his fur spikey from rain, looking into the middle distance (toward a balcony out of shot) somewhat forelorn.
November 22, 2025 at 5:59 PM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
anyway, thinking about ocean currents and gyres is another opportunity to big up Blue Machine: How the Ocean Shapes Our World, by @helenczerski.bsky.social

A book as rich, layered (very layered! IYKYK), surprising and complex as the magnificent global ocean machine it describes.
Colour photo of the cover of a book; Blue Machine, How the Ocean Shapes Our World, being held in front of a white railing by the sea at a pale pinkish sunset. Rocky promontories in the background. The book's cover is a Hokusai-esque blue-ish green and white wave on a pale salmon-pink background.
November 19, 2025 at 7:14 PM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
Well, it's happened. Burning Men is a physical artefact, out in the world.

On Saturday I went to John Sandoe Books in Chelsea to see it and get my author copies. Was not prepared for all the FEELINGS

If you're in London, pop in and get a free copy with your Christmas haul. It's ... smoking..!
Colour photo of books on a bookshop display table with a grey chapbook on top. It is titled "Burning Men", by Maria Farrell, and has a picture of a hand with smoke coming from it. Beneath it are copies of Thomas Pynchon's Shadow Ticket and other assorted books, including A People's History of Afghanistan, and Kiran Desais's current novel.
November 10, 2025 at 8:20 AM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
And here's a photo of Bug where you can see his sweet, smiling face. He really is a special little guy and just wants some humans who can give him walks and love and lots of sofa time. He is a lovely little chap and I wish I could have him myself.
Photo of a medium sized terrier-type dog with a fair, reddish coat and friendly smiling face. He's sitting on grass and looking into the camera.
November 6, 2025 at 3:11 PM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
And here's a photo of Bud where you can see his sweet, smiling face. He really is a special little guy and just wants some humans who can give him walks and love and lots of sofa time. He is a lovely little chap and I wish I could have him myself.
Photo of a medium sized terrier-type dog with a fair, reddish coat and friendly smiling face. He's sitting on grass and looking into the camera.
November 6, 2025 at 3:09 PM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
fireworks unbelievably loud and persistent around ours. even the normally implacable Milo is terrified.

the only consolation of Mol's loss is that she would have been shaking unconsolably, night after night. at least she was spared another firework season cowering behind her favourite chair.
Colour photo of a patterned armchair covered with colourful cushions and a red tweed blanket, in front of a book case, piano and green painted wall marked by the shadow of a sash window in evening light.
November 5, 2025 at 6:08 PM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
"Blue Machine" UK paperback has a breathtakingly beautiful and evocative (Hokusai, fluid dynamics, chaos) cover. It just begs to be photographed by the sea

Here it is in Beirut, the eastern limit of the Med; a very salty sea as the rivers running into it bring less water than evaporates each day.
Colour photo of the book "Blue Machine; how the ocean shapes our world" by Helen Czerski. The book is being held by unseen hands in front of a white railing with rocks, blue-grey sea, rocky outcrops and the edge of a small cove in the distance, and in the far distance a warm, yellow-grey sky in the moments after sundown.
November 5, 2025 at 7:33 AM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
Beirut is a cracking town. Street art ten storeys tall and smart semi-feral pussy cats who hang out by the pet food shop. Don't start me on the food..
Colour photo of building art in Beirut. On a ten-storey building a colourful painting of awoman carrying a pot plant and pink shopping bag with a plant in it, and a man in check shirt and dark blue robe carrying a plant also, and gesturing to her. Clear blue sky beyond. Colour photo of two white and tabby cats sitting on the pavement outside a shop window with green and red sacks of pet food inside.
November 1, 2025 at 3:29 PM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
best little rainbow-dog, Bran, doing his cheesiest grins this morning to wish me goodbye. such an excellent furry ally.
Colour photo of a brindled grey and light grey Lurcher dog, Bran, lying upside down on a grey sofa with a rainbow (reflected from a window out of shot) shining on the sofa arm he's leaning against.His paws are up in the air and he is grinning a cheesy upbside-down grin.
October 30, 2025 at 3:29 PM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
I'm in Brussels so #MorningWalk was with my 'nephew', Bran, who's v. worried by buses and lorries, and jumped like he'd been cartoon-electrified when he saw a cat in a window, and LOVED his chewbie treat in the café but lodged a complaint with management (me) when there was only one.
Colour photo of a greyish brown Lurcher-type dog, Bran, lying on the floro of a café looking gravely at the picture-taker whose denim-jeaned leg is in the foreground. Bran is in the classic Lurcher squat, with his back legs sprung behind him like wheels.
October 28, 2025 at 1:35 PM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
The rather pleased face of a Very Good Dog who got up early, read the fun bits of the paper himself, and is now propping the rest up so his human man can read the serious important bits
Colour photo of a white fluffy samoyed dog, Milo, sitting/lying on a bed while a person's hands hold a newspaper propped against him. Milo is looking at the photo taker with a sweet but also slightly crafty expression on his face, and with his tongue slightly out.
October 26, 2025 at 12:27 PM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
Today is publication day for The Best American Science and Nature Writing!

@robin.berjon.com and my internet rewilding is there, 1st published by @noemamag.com

Guess who's also in it? @davidnaimon.bsky.social's heart-opening, genre-busting piece Eleven Stills, about organic and geological time.
Cover of 2025 edition of Best American Science and Nature Writing, edited by Susan Orlean. The cover illustration is an organic looking pattern of pine green and aquamarine with pink dots - it could be a maze or a William Morris wallpaper design.
October 21, 2025 at 4:40 PM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
TBF the old old internet was not All That either.

Been skimming this zine from 1993 for users of Major BBS's and it's ... bringing back memories

(not technical ones. I have none. but the hairdo! the prices! the tone! just very special and unique)

And hey, in some ways BBSs are now coming back.
Screengrab of the editor's letter from "The Major News", a BBS software provider's periodical of Fall 1993. The article is called "President's Corner", by Scott j. Brinker. It starts "You've probably heard about the "information superhighway ... Well, surprise! It's already on your desk. By operating a BBS, you are making it actually happen - today." Photo of a delightfully dorky looking whtie man in a brown suit, with square glasses, a sweet smile, and impossibly blow dried fair brown hair that's at least 1.5 inches tall.
October 20, 2025 at 2:55 PM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
Photo from 5 years ago. Mol had such a happy life. 3 months on and mine just ain't the same without her.

(you would not BELIEVE the amount of border collie content there is on the internet and I've probably watched most of it)
Three dogs chasing on a beach with mountains in the background and a cloudy blue sky. On the left is a black and white collie dog, Molly, in full gallop, her thick tail stretched out behind, and on the right are two samoyed dogs - her mother, Sweetie, and Milo - trotting towards her while yapping happily.
October 16, 2025 at 8:49 AM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
this very arthritic but delighted-with-himself-and-with-life-in-general little chap greeted Monday as happily as he carried on with it

and licked my memory-impaired neighbour who asks after Molly every day, and is newly sad each time I say she's died, and who I love for just remembering her.
Colour photo indoors on a bed with a newspaper in the foreground and a smiling Samoyed dog, Mily, lying beside it and looking into the camera in a friendly and alert way.
September 29, 2025 at 3:05 PM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
Milo's quiet sense of slightly stunned pride is palpable here.
Colour photo of a white fluffy samoyed dog, Milo, in an untidy garden with yellow flowers behind him and a green shed and brown and red brick wall in the background. He's lying down looking pleased, with his eyes half shut, as a copy of The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2025, edited by Susan Orlean, is held beside him.
September 26, 2025 at 3:07 PM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
Here's what the new co-owner of TikTok US and existing co-owner of the Tony Blair Institute (the 'let's do digital ID' guys) had to say this time last year.

This is who's dictating and planning to profit from mandatory government digital ID, starting with immigrants and expanding to everyone else.
Photo of Oracle owner Larry Ellison smiling under a headline from Business Insider that reads "Billionaire Larry Ellison says a vast AI-fueled surveillance system can ensure that 'citizens will be on their best behavior'. Dated Sept 15, 2024.
September 26, 2025 at 9:14 AM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
So, THIS is happening

"Rewild the Internet: How to Resist Big Tech" will be published by Simon & Schuster in NY and Bloomsbury in London.

Every bit of power we take from Big Tech takes it away from autocrats like Trump. Showing how is what I'm doing to meet this moment.

(tk u @robin.berjon.com)
A Publishers Marketplace Deal Report for a new book deal. The text of the Dear Report reads: "REWILD THE INTERNET By Maria Farrell Imprint: One Signal, Continuum Irish tech writer and speaker Maria Farrell's REWILD THE INTERNET: HOW TO RESIST BIG TECH showing how to resist today’s toxic tech monoculture and grow a flourishing, competitive internet ecosystem where we can live better, freer lives, to Alessandra Bastagli at One Signal at auction by Zoe Pagnamenta at Calligraph (NA) on behalf of Antony Topping at Greene & Heaton. UK & Comm rights to Octavia Stocker and Tomasz Hoskins at Bloomsbury Continuum by Antony Topping. Translation: krizzo@greeneheaton.co.uk
September 19, 2025 at 4:32 PM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
while I'm away my urban garden is flourishing. it is RAMPANT. apples, clematis, climbing rose, lavendar, daisies; all flourishing. god those japanese anemones wrap their blush pink petals around my heart and squeeze it
Colour photo of a packed urban garden. Left of frame a metal arch with a blush pink climbing rose, dark green shed in the background backed onto another terraced house, and an apple tree dotted with ripe red appples. Then in centre foreground; pot with a small shrub, low wall packed with lavendar, and a rampant small white flowered clematis running the length of the garden. Detail colour shot of an urban garden: daisies ('mexican fleabane') in teh foreground, a one metre+ tall pink japanese anemone on n odding acquaintance with some white/pink-ish climbing roses; behind the anemone is a tall, deep purple salvia about 2 metres high, and behind it more clematis and a high grey railing.
September 2, 2025 at 9:06 AM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
oh my dude we've had autumn for 10 days already in the south west of Ireland (I'm so bummed! I was counting on 2 more weeks of post-work swims). herewith today's 'beach walk' pic.
colour photo taken from inside a car of a car's dashboard in the foreground, with a pair of glasses on it, and a rain-spattered windscreen showing the vague outlines of rocky beach, stormy, wind-tosssed sea, and a huge grey sky.
August 30, 2025 at 12:44 PM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
floofmeister in receipt of his love
Colour photo outdoors of a white fluffy samoye dog, milo, lying on a lawn with his head up, looking very pleased and loving as a white woman in a purple tshirt and jeans, kneeling on the ground, burrows her face into his neck. behind them is a large rhododendron tree, more lawns, and a house in the distance.
August 29, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
My neighbour, Glen, waits for his quad-driver to get going again and finish their rounds of the fields.
Colour photo taken in a green grassy field against a clear blue sky of a sheepdog, Glen, standing proudly on the side panel of a stationary quad vehicle. Glen is a brown, black and white sheepdog with a black collar and is looking very handsome and proud as he waits for his driver to come back and get the quad going again.
August 13, 2025 at 8:26 AM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
Milo is solo dog, now. He's not hating it.
Colour photo taken outdoors in a grassy field of a hand holding a book open (Nina Allan's The Silver Wind) on a deep orange corduroy skirt, with lines of scrubby trees, bog, distant mountains and evening sky in the distance. Colour photo of a white dog in a field near sunset: Milo the white fluffy samoyed dog is walking towards the photo-taker who's low on the grass so he's at eye level, with a friendly expression on his face. Behind him stretches a green grassy field, recently topped for silage, lines of scrubby holly and willow trees down the hill, and beyond more fields the large setting sun sits wide and low in a hazy sky.
August 12, 2025 at 8:48 AM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
I just read Bruce Scheier's 2023 account of reviewing the Snowden revelations in Brazil back in 2013. He gets at what we all felt strongly back then.

We weren't surprised by USG surveillance, but were shocked by it. Like with death, there's knowing and .

datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc9446/
Screengrab of text from an IETF draft, RFC 9446: " | I wasn't sleeping well, either. A lot of it was the sheer | magnitude of what I saw. It's not that any of it was a real | surprise. Those of us in the information security community had | long assumed that the NSA was doing things like this. But we | never really sat down and figured out the details, and to have the | details confirmed made a big difference. Maybe I can make it | clearer with an analogy. Everyone knows that death is inevitable; | there's absolutely no surprise about that. Yet it arrives as a | surprise, because we spend most of our lives refusing to think | about it. The NSA documents were a bit like that. Knowing that | it is surely true that the NSA is eavesdropping on the world, and | doing it in such a methodical and robust manner, is very different | from coming face-to-face with the reality that it is and the | details of how it is doing it."
July 31, 2025 at 11:22 AM
mariafarrell.bsky.social
Yesterday, to Foyles in London to buy brain-soothing SF novels. Lurking in the foyer thumbing ecology books only to find ...

A new James C. Scott (RIP) book, about rivers and specifically the Irrawaddy River of Burma. Right beside MacFarlane's 'Is a river alive?' and answering firmly 'Yes'.
Colour photo of a hardback book with an abstract patterns in blue, black, grey and white of water and droplets. The book is titled In Praise of Floods; The Untamed River and the Life it Brings, by James C. Scott, author of Against the Grain
July 25, 2025 at 3:23 PM