Robert Rotifer
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robertrotifer.bsky.social
Robert Rotifer
@robertrotifer.bsky.social
2.1K followers 300 following 1.5K posts
Still the same one I was over there and there and there. (It’s not my bike!)
Posting mainly from Canterbury.
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robertrotifer.bsky.social
This is happening in Vienna in January. Going to speak to Andy McCluskey about ISOTYPE at Wien Museum. Free tickets available now.
www.wienmuseum.at/event/2526
December 1, 2025 at 4:55 PM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
Though to be fair:
Office for National Statistics Search Backup.ONS Menu Backup.ONS The fact that you are here means we are currently experiencing problems with our regular website and are working to resolve the issues as soon as possible.
November 18, 2025 at 12:09 PM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
What happens when you click on the link to check…
Office for National Statistics Sorry, there's a problem with the service Try again later.
November 18, 2025 at 12:07 PM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
Tonight's @fm4.orf.at Heartbeat from 22:00 CET/9pm GMT is another multinational mess of my liking. Some call them loons, some call them divers, some call them Seetaucher, all the same bird in the end.
Link to the list:
www.instagram.com/p/DRKFEyoDOJ...

(found a very good excuse to play the Roches)
November 17, 2025 at 12:47 PM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
Incredibly happy to reveal this year’s two Popfest Wien curators Sofie Royer and Wolfgang Lehmann, two people I hugely respect as musicians and producers. Can’t wait to see what they’re going to come up with.
November 12, 2025 at 11:19 AM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
I also interviewed Andy McCluskey from OMD on the obvious influence of Isotype on the imagery of pop for the catalogue, which has turned out beautiful.
Catalogue: Wissen für alle, Isotype, die Bildsprache aus Wien
November 8, 2025 at 11:27 AM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
Nipped over to Vienna this week, went to the opening of the Isotype/Otto Neurath exhibition at Wien Museum, highly recommend for a dose of socialist optimism (even if it’s from 100 years ago). One thing to see reprints of those pictorial statistics, quite another to see the originals in the flesh.
Otto Neurath: Verfechter des Glücks pictorial stats: polizeiliche einschreitungen in wien im februar 1925 magazine Kulturwille: Statistik und Klassenkampf
November 8, 2025 at 11:23 AM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
Bought the cut & paste Wings book for light relief from the state of the world, and before you know it 63 pages in Sean Ono Lennon drops the pub bore’s Never-heard-of-Oskar-Schlemmer bomb…
PAUL McCARTNEY: I did get depressed. I was getting slagged off by everyone and that does make you question if you've still got it. It makes you think, 'Can I still do this? Can I make a decent record?' I did seriously consider packing it all in on a number of occasions. SEAN ONO LENNON: I always return to [that quote]: Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.
November 7, 2025 at 1:13 PM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
Tonight’s @fm4.orf.at Heartbeat, on air & stream from 22:00CET/9pmGMT will pay tribute to the late great Dave Ball (pictured) and join up all sorts of musical universes.

Playlist link below, hope you'll enjoy:

www.instagram.com/p/DQmL0n7DKw...
November 3, 2025 at 1:55 PM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
And now just by coincidence walked past this shop in Stansted where you can buy shirts satirising Western involvement in two of the bloodiest on-going atrocities of our time.
November 3, 2025 at 1:13 PM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
See what @nesrinemalik.bsky.social did there…

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
That arsenal, and therefore the calamity in El Fasher and the wider Darfur region, is sponsored by the United Arab Emirates.
November 3, 2025 at 12:54 PM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
Seeing the dubious stuff being posted about Gaza (here too, mostly elsewhere), I’ve long told myself not to join in, but this seems crucial news to me:
Fancy not allowing in DNA testing equipment while at the same time calling the handing over of the wrong bodies a breach of the ceasefire agreement
The few remaining hospitals in the territory lack the equipment for DNA testing, which is desperately needed to help identify thousands of missing or deceased peope. Israel does not allow DNA testing materials to enter Gaza. For that reason, as well as the advanced state of decomposition of many of the bodies, forensic doctors often struggle to identify victims. As part of the US-brokered ceasefire, Israel - in exchange for the remains of 15 hostages returned by Hamas - handed over 195 bodies of Palestinians to Gaza. Several of them were blindfolded, bound at the hands and feet, or bore gunshot wounds. Dozens of bodies have since been identified, but at least 54 unidentified Palestinians returned from Israel were buried this month.
November 3, 2025 at 6:14 AM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
Almost making it sound like the one follows from the other.
November 2, 2025 at 11:24 AM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
Now here’s a rare good thing: New global-minded online medium @equatormag.bsky.social
just launched, looking extremely promising.

www.equator.org/
October 29, 2025 at 3:42 PM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
Essential book that should be translated into English.
Debunks most of what you thought you knew about German post-war atonement or whether it actually happened at all.
October 24, 2025 at 11:22 AM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
Recording tonight’s @fm4.orf.at Heartbeat, on air & stream from 22:00CET/9pmGMT, brought tears of middle age to the DJ's eyes, one of those where my job was mostly to get out of the way of the tunes.

Pic: Stuart Moxham back in July at the Water Rats.
Playlist link:
www.instagram.com/p/DQCeJihjEC...
October 20, 2025 at 5:07 PM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
I haven’t been, and don’t think I could go, but what Ben Ratskoff says about the immersive Nova exhibition rings true to me.

thediasporist.de/schlock-and-...
In this context, it works perfectly for a certain part of German society, for whom the so-called “new Nazis" are Palestinian Muslims. Despite the histrionics about "Holocaust relativization" in Germany, the projection of the memory of Nazism onto Palestinian Muslims is permissible because it converges with widespread anti-migrant xenophobia and policy. White Germans can rehabilitate an exclusionary nationalism while aligning themselves with Jewish victimhood - a remarkable, if grotesque, achievement. When I was in Berlin this past May, I saw a poster for a party/fundraiser at About:Blank that had the Nova logo and was called "We Will Dance Again." Who is this we in Germany? It's an imagined collectivity under threat from antisemitic barbarians. And it's incredible to include the German public inside of it. In May of 2024, Platz der Hamas Geiseln was set up in Bebelplatz in Berlin, which had a reconstruction of what they called a "Hamas tunnel." Visitors could walk through imagining they were simulating the suffering of Israeli hostages. Of course, again, it's essential to emphasize that visitors would not in fact experience what the hostages were and are experiencing, but that they would think they were approximating it. When it opened, I heard that students at Jewish schools were specifically invited to visit. What does it mean for non-Jewish Germans to invite Jewish children to a simulation of what the former thinks of as antisemitic terror? This goes beyond voyeurism — there's a certain kind of sadism there.
October 7, 2025 at 2:45 PM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
More than half of tonight’s @fm4.orf.at Heartbeat from 22:00 CET/9pm GMT is dedicated to the session work of Danny Thompson who we lost the other week.
And I couldn’t even fit in Talk Talk.
A joy to put together this show. What a sound that man made.
Playlist here:
www.instagram.com/p/DPekpARDOL...
October 6, 2025 at 6:30 PM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
When predicting what this government will do next just ask: What might be the absolute worst option?

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
October 5, 2025 at 11:31 AM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
Well it’s only a very blurred image of Dennis Bovell, James Kirk, Steven Daly, Vic Godard and Paul Cook at RFH on stage with the fantastic Edwyn Collins for the very last time.
October 4, 2025 at 10:22 PM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
Well it’s only a very blurred image of Dennis Bovell, James Kirk, Steven Daly, Vic Godard and Paul Cook at RFH on stage with the fantastic Edwyn Collins for the very last time.
October 4, 2025 at 10:21 PM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
I tried to explain to the waiter why I found it funny, and it quickly became awkward.
October 4, 2025 at 7:23 PM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
In beautiful Swansea! Playing at The Bunkhouse tonight on a bill with Pete Astor.
September 27, 2025 at 9:22 AM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
Tonight’s @fm4.orf.at Heartbeat from 22:00 CET / 9pm GMT,
paying tribute to Sonny Curtis fighting the law and following the thread of existential angst laid down by our songwriting friends, but who can blame them?

Playlist found here:

www.instagram.com/p/DO6jQqDjM8...
September 22, 2025 at 6:42 PM
robertrotifer.bsky.social
Farage has said Reform will scrap indefinite leave to remain, which is open to people who have worked and lived in the UK legally for five continuous years, and their dependants. After a minimum of a year on that status, they can apply for naturalisation and gain a British passport, though each stage comes with considerable fees. Reform UK would scrap that settled status and would make non-citizens continue to apply for visas with new high salary thresholds of about £60,000, according to the Times. That would be a considerable increase on the current skilled worker visa, which requires people to earn £41,700 a year. Those visas would not allow the people who have them to access NHS services or benefits and would require advanced English, with strict new limits on whether spouses or family members could join.
September 22, 2025 at 8:24 AM