Ollie Douglas

@olliedouglas

Farm boy at @themerl.bsky.social (at Uni of Reading). Looks after old rural stuff in a big shed. On committee of British Agricultural History Society. Active in AIMA, RMN, and Folklore Society. Views own. “Iconic”.

2.181 Folgt1.708 Follower862 Posts

YouTube Bluesky

Ist das dein Profil?Übernimm es — dann gehört dir olliedouglas.dirty.social.Profil übernehmen

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Jun 30

I see JK Rowling has been hobnobbing with royalty in Edinburgh. Here’s a poem I wrote in another old University with links to her. It’s about Praxe hazings.

Poem in black text on grey:

Trans National Praxis or The Gray Areas of Coimbra

Did JK Rowling see these robes
And think them quite amazing?
That perfect blend of ancient garb
And cruel and twisted hazing.
Seduced by soap white-coloured T’s
Offset by gowns of black
Freshers resting on their knees
A wooden spoon to track
The way to mark decisively
What she and bigots thought
Should happen to the marginal
And any souls found caught.
Betwixt, between or somewhere
Else beyond the author’s hand.
Where binaries and norms dissolve
In this Van Gennep’s land.
I pity these initiates
And pity poor JK
For she will never know the joy
Of areas of gray.

Ollie Douglas. Written after seeing praxe initiations and hazings in the streets of Coimbra, Portugal, September 2025.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Jun 25

I see your Mambo No. 5 and I raise you…

Pipes and wiring on a wall with a label beside it reading ‘SUMP PUMP No. 5’.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Jun 23

It was a joy and a privilege to visit the amazing @annadillon.bsky.social today, to see her studio, and wander in her beautiful garden.

Artist Anna Dillon beside her paint trolley, in her studio.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Jun 21

I got an Absolute Unit of a Father’s Day card and it was bang ‘on brand’.

Card titled ‘If Dad was a cow / Best in Show’. Featuring a hand drawn image of a cow in the style of a butcher’s diagram. In place of the names if different cuts of meat it has different positive attributes including: very chatty; loving; kind; funny, etc.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Jun 18

Spotted this on a bookshelf at home. There are quite a few cultural and racial stereotypes at play inside. But the Morris Dancer looks very animated. Happy Thursday folks.

Cover of a book called ‘Dolls in National Costume’ by Iola Barlow. Blue dust jacket with white writing and featuring photographic images of a Cowboy doll and an Italian Girl doll.

White verso book page with the words ‘Morris Dancer’ and a black and white photograph of a prancing doll figure in a fair approximation of a Cotswold Morris outfit.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Jun 15

You should send him to Coventry.

An interior shot of Coventry Cathedral. Showing stunning modernist architecture and stained glass windows.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Jun 12

Today I had the privilege of talking with Neil MacGregor about @cprecountryside.bsky.social, Festival of Britain, and other early-mid-C20th rural narratives. Really enjoyable conversations.

Preparatory design for a panel of The Country Year display at the 1951 Festival of Britain, by Barry Evans and William Kempster. Bold and colourful image of a man on a yellow tractor ploughing a field with seagulls flocking round the plough. Another tractor and a windmill appear in the distance.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· May 17

A poem from this weekend. Written following a dermatology appointment to get a mole checked.

Poetry in black text on a grey background, which reads:

Tumour Clinic

She checks a mole
On my ridged back
Marked in sun
By life’s labour.

“It’s probably nothing
But we’ll book you in”
Coulter to skin.
Earth to earth.

I leave the clinic
In sunshine and rain
Whiff of petrichor
In the fresh air.

This solid ground
Was made long ago
Molten scorched.
Ashes to ashes.

Cut by mouldboard
Moldwarped anew
By workers now
Laid under tumuli.

In time, toil and soil
Always mark and return
Us to earth.
Dust to dust.

Ollie Douglas, May 2026

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Apr 8

Good morning world. The mountain was on fire last night. Glad to see the only fire is in the sky today.

A combination of mist and particulates from wildfire, hanging in a valley in the Picos de Europa, Spain.

Sunrise over the silhouette of mountains in the Picos de Europa.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Mar 20

This is going to be great.

Projection screen with Gentle Angry Women title image and production info.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Feb 23

Great to be here @durham.ac.uk Institute for Advanced Study, with colleagues from @durhamhistory.bsky.social and @durhamanthropology.bsky.social who share an ‘interest in cattle’. We love chatting about cattle @themerl.bsky.social (and we love going elsewhere to chat about them too).

Detail of a presentation title slide onscreen reading: ‘Interest in cattle // IAS Seminar / 23 February 2026’

View from the river from a bridge in Durham.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Feb 18

You can tell that an exhibition @themerl.bsky.social is finally done when the posters appear above the urinals. There are some other indicators too. Stuff on display in cases. Text panels. That sort of thing.

Two posters mounted on the wall above and either side of some chrome piping. There is white ceramic beneath. The posters read ‘Voices of the Countryside’ and ‘Radical Rural’.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Feb 14

‘Love is Love’

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Jan 19

To all folks in the north of England, check out these April dates for. @threeacresacow.bsky.social. Brilliant show!

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Jan 8

The farmers are out and about on the streets of Oxford, attending the Oxford Real Farming Conference, and the the Oxford Farming Conference. And the farm protests are here too!

A tractor and trailer on Oxford High Street, with a sign on the front of the tractor reading ‘Keir Starmer, Farmer Harmer.’

A queue of tractors on Oxford High Street and one tractor parked up on the pavement.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Jan 8

ORFC 2026 is here and I’m there representing @themerl.bsky.social. I’m running a workshop on agroecology and heritage, with @jcniala.bsky.social, @tallehatenchong.bsky.social + other brilliant folks! Come and join us, 9.00-10.20 tomorrow, in the Museum Maker’s Space at the Museum of Oxford.

Image of branded text that reads:

“I'M SPEAKING AT OXFORD REAL FARMING CONFERENCE 2026
Join in-person or online for two full days of cultivating connections, community, and food and farming systems change
BOOK NOW: ORFC.ORG.UK
8 - 9 JANUARY 2026”

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Jan 6

Here's a quacker. A family of ducks on a Frilands Museet poster. This is in @themerl.bsky.social collection (MERL 85/73)

Poster for the Frilands Museet, Denmark. The image shows an old water pump with a family of ducks sitting around a stone trough, waiting for water. The poster was designed by Sikker Hansen. MERL 85/73

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Jan 5

It’s a cracker inside too.

The inside of St David’s Cathedral. Wooden pews and ceiling with stone arches and windows above.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Dec 21

Amazing fun stomping with the Fobney Marshians today!

Ollie Douglas, warmly dressed, wearing wellies, and holding a stick, standing in a marsh with lots of people stomping vegetation in the background.

My son, Salvador, wearing wellies and stomping the marsh, surrounded by water and vegetation.

Marsh stompers stomping boggy ground with a dramatic wintery sky and trees on the horizon.

A big group of marshians stomping the marsh with water and vegetation all around them.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Dec 20

Here’s a poem that I wrote earlier in the year. Jazz.

Image of the first part of a poem, which reads as follows:

‘Jazz

They lean over the edge,
And I look where they look,
Messrs ‘Hi Viz’ and ‘Check Shirt’,
Into the large rusting skip.

Hi Viz has improvised
A long makeshift tool,
Which he wields deftly,
As an instrument to help
Check Shirt to rescue
An accidental deposit.

The tip of the bow dances
Round the skip’s floor,
Chasing with precision
One of a loose scatter
Of old cassette tapes,
Each with distant writing,
Offering track listings,
Unreadable, but enticing.

The tape’s evasive moves
Concentrate the mindful,
Skilful efforts of Hi Viz
Whose transcendental state
Ignores a watchful audience,
Tuning into the solitary
Rhythm and ambience
Of well-practised gestures…’

Image of second part of a poem, which reads as follows:

‘…I see Check Shirt later,
Clutching his precious tape
Walking to his car, smiling.
And I can’t help but ask what
Vital sounds and notes
Had he accidentally skipped.

‘I prepared a course once
On the history of jazz’
‘And this’ he says joyfully
As he waves the plastic prize
Like a conductor’s baton
‘Has all the tracks.’

I head to my own car
And can’t help but wonder
If Hi Viz knows his jazz
And whether the same tunes
Played out in his mind
To the ebb and flow
Of his makeshift bow,
As he rescued the tape
With the tight discordance
Of an improvised player.

Friday 19 September 2025, after an early morning visit to the recycling centre.’

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Dec 15

Streetwise @themerl.bsky.social style.

The cover of Farmer’s Glory by the agricultural journalist, writer, and farmer A. G. Street. Title of the book and author’s name superimposed on a romantic painting of farm workers pitching hay onto a wagon, and chickens in the foreground.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Dec 15

Roadman @themerl.bsky.social style!

This is ‘Smithfield Drover’ by William Pyne, one of a series of illustrations of British costume published in 1804. It shows drovers herding sheep and cattle towards a rustically-dressed, rakish-looking man with a driver’s stick and a black and white dog.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Dec 1

In these trying times we all need to show a bit more grit than this fragile grit container. It’s a total snowflake. Nothing ironic about that.

Detail of faded yellow plastic grit container lid with access flap that reads ‘GRIT’ and featuring extra sign above with image of stick man sitting on a surface in a red circle with a red line through it and text that reads ‘Do not sit here // This container is fragile’

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Nov 24

Catherine - one of our brilliant volunteers @themerl.bsky.social - holding a small sample of the variety of grass that she researched for her PhD. She was quite emotional.

A woman wearing purple gloves holding a small glass vial containing a sample of grass. In front of her is a box of similar vials.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Nov 23

Very low priority request for government. We regulate food labels and phone chargers. Please make sure cupcake and muffin trays align in a standard and stackable way.

Detail showing a corner of four cup cake or muffin tins. The tins are stacked but the cup shapes only align on two identical trays from the four, so they do not stack neatly or minimally.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Nov 20

I write a poem at work the week he died. Here it is:

The Pyecomb Crook

A cardinal sinner died this week
And I was minded of the hillside fold
Of his gilt vestments
And the whiff of incense
As he confirmed
My ill-fated Catholicism.

I was minded of the day he blessed
My father’s flock with
His Father’s words,
Twisted in the wind,
Tups trapped and turned
By red cassock against mud.

I was minded of the guilty pride
Of him in Conclave,
Eating in communion
An undeserved taste of history
Picking a new pope
With a puff of white smoke.

He didn’t need gunmetal
Wrought by a smith
Forced onto a greenwood shaft
Into a Pyecomb Crook,
Favoured tool of Bishops,
To perform these empty gestures.

His fall from grace came later,
After my own failed faith
My unfulfilled shepherding
Memory, story, history, symbol,
All tainted by the stains
Of his redundancy.

Like a leg cleek in a museum store,
Faded from memory
Marked by association
A cardinal sinner died this week.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Nov 20

I was confirmed by this dubious man so I’m not sure the act holds water, holy or otherwise!

The later disgraced (and now the late) Cardinal Keith O’Brien blessing some tups/rams.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Nov 6

The robot vacuum cleaner decided to fashion itself some fancy dress.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Sep 8

In Coimbra for #RuralHistory2025 and the place I’m staying is stuffed full of rural material culture. Seems about right. It’s a bit like having a sleepover @themerl.bsky.social, but warmer.

An ox yoke leaning against a skirting board in a guest house corridor.

Ollie Douglas@olliedouglas· Aug 18

We are just down valley from the edge of a massive 64,000-acre wildfire. It burned over the pass yesterday and crept into Cantabria. We think it has stopped, for now. Thankful for emergency alerts, brave first responders, and amazing neighbours.