@simonvarwell@mastodon.scot
@simonvarwell@mastodon.scot avatar

simonvarwell

@simonvarwell@mastodon.scot

Loves trains, the outdoors, travel, Esperanto, ambient and post-rock music, good food and scrontous beer. Hates car-centric societies, late stage capitalism and courgette. Slow reader, infrequent writer. Day job in education but I never talk about it here. He/him. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Avatar: white 40ish man with black woolly hat and backpack, standing in front of old red phone box and ruined church.
Banner: text saying “Geesperantistoj el la tuta mondo agu energie kontraŭ la internacia faŝismo!"

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

simonvarwell, to random Esperanto
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People don’t make Glasgow… https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz9lqv270w2o

simonvarwell, to random Esperanto
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Overheard from a passer-by just now:

“There’s one in Dornoch. There was one in Tain, but it got vandalised.”

You can now join me in wondering what they were talking about.

simonvarwell,
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@chrisgerhard a very good guess.

simonvarwell,
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@Delphi could be. Would this be widespread knowledge across towns though?

simonvarwell,
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@HighlandLawyer thanks, didn’t know that, not a bad theory.

simonvarwell,
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@bazzargh the youth of today. Is nothing sacred?

simonvarwell,
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Toilets seems to be a good early theory. Not convinced there’s many folk on the button of this situation in both towns however. Though I don’t yet have a better guess.

acf, to random
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I have a lot of time for John Swinney, but I think its a little sad we're back to boring grey men across the board with Sunak, Starmer and Swinney.

simonvarwell,
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@acf same. I think the move to ethnic diversity had been fabulous but intrigued we’ve not (with a surprising and welcome outlier of Northern Ireland) seen a continuing gender diversity.

simonvarwell,
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@acf well I see why I might not have been quite clear enough! Yes we had a good gender spell. Shame it’s swung back, but then perhaps these things are never really going to be consistent when you’re talking about a small number of roles. Nice that gender balanced cabinets seem to be the norm now though.

CloudyMrs, to random
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They were giving this alcohol free lager away at the end of the Loch Ness Etape on Sunday. Much to my surprise, it's really good. Erdinger AlkoholFree.

simonvarwell,
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@CloudyMrs congratulations on doing it! Very impressive. And yes one of the best no-alcohol beers I think!

simonvarwell,
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@CloudyMrs getting around at all in any order is enormously impressive!

thecommongreen, to random
@thecommongreen@mastodon.scot avatar

The Vote of No Confidence in the Scottish Government
Yes - 58
No - 70
No Abstentions

The vote fails. Parliament retains confidence in the Government. The SNP shall continue a minority administration.

SNP and Greens voted against.
Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems and Alba voted for. There were no rebels.

simonvarwell,
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@thecommongreen “There were no rebels” could be a story of our meek age…

simonvarwell, to random Esperanto
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This is lovely: the radio DJs crossing language barriers. Shame the list is rather short tbh! https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/may/01/european-djs-radio-cian-o-ciobhain

simonvarwell, to random Esperanto
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Why’s it called the Titanic Quarter, and not the Belfast Sink?

simonvarwell, to random Esperanto
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An inspiring if sobering read. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/30/stuart-potts-man-who-turned-his-home-into-a-homeless-shelter

simonvarwell, to random Esperanto
@simonvarwell@mastodon.scot avatar

Tre interesa afiŝo pri la unta afikso “esk". Mi ŝatas ĝin sed ne tiel ke mi ne plejparte uzus la enjenajn alternativojn. Sed ĝi povus esti ludema fojfojaĵo.
https://www.adventures-in-esperanto.com/badgeresque-squirrelseeming/

simonvarwell,
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@AltlandaJuristo Ĉu en Esperanto? Mi neniam aŭdis ĝin - nur en la angla.

simonvarwell,
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@AltlandaJuristo aha. Dankon. Do esk estas iom oideca.

simonvarwell, to random Esperanto
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The country has come under single-handed attack by a mid-twentieth century English novelist.

The Prime Minister has convened a meeting of his Waugh cabinet.

seachanger, to random
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thinking about rebuilding our public squares in a hybrid digital age

  1. encourage public entities to share public info on public channels, not private platforms

  2. embrace sharing in real life, use email, snail mail, private messenger, radio, newspaper, public forum, neighborhood scale gathering

  3. create and use nonprofit and publicly owned social sharing platforms, but prioritize real life sharing when possible

simonvarwell,
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@seachanger I wish I knew but I suspect that active travel and liveable communities are a part of it. As is a radical transformation of the economy to put more time and money in people’s pockets so they can have time for “community”.

simonvarwell,
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@seachanger @geographile indeed.

simonvarwell,
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@andytiedye @seachanger no it doesn’t.

KeithKahnHarris, to random
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Well this is fairly astounding. 'What does a Jew look like?', my collaboration with the photographer RobStothard published by Five Leaves Books was planned as a modest educational project - and here it is discussed in the New York Review of Books.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/05/09/whats-in-a-face-what-does-a-jew-look-like/

simonvarwell,
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@KeithKahnHarris fabulous!

simonvarwell, to random Esperanto
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A long time ago on a social media platform far, far away (well, October 2020 on Twitter) I began a chronological watch-through of the Star Wars canon. I am barely on Birdville now, so have moved the thread here.

Below is a link to a pdf with a very crude copy & paste job of my entire thread so far, so you can go back to the beginning and read the whole story. I will pick up the thread again below this tweet.

Happy reading, and may the force live long and shiny.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/9nmjj0sd7jth1kq4e94q9/Star-Wars-tweets.pdf?rlkey=vyndd40d23y05ph7ng83dwpa3&dl=0

simonvarwell,
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13 and 14 are a good couple of episodes. Despite the cliches (daring operation, monster of the week), there’s the best bits of Bad Batch in terms of tension and great animation, and a good converging alternation between the batch’s quest to liberate Omega and Omega’s quest to do the same from the inside.

Two episodes left, in which they need to resolve this immediate storyline, write the entirety of the Clone Wars and Bad Batch out of consciousness, and prepare for the rest of the canon.

rowenamonde, to random
@rowenamonde@mastodon.scot avatar

My favourite street art in Glasgow. Warms my heart every time I see it🥰

simonvarwell,
@simonvarwell@mastodon.scot avatar

@rowenamonde hope you’re having a good trip!

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