John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋

@wjpme

#ceasefire #nevervotetory Outsider | not in the Meursault way | Cymro #AntiTory since 62 | republican ‘…let’s exalt the importance of ideas and information.’ Loves reading & enjoys a pint or two! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🇵🇸 NOT WATCHING WORLD CUP

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John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· 24d

I’m reading albeit very slowly Daniel Immerwahr’s book How to Hide an Empire: A Short History of the Greater United States. #Empire #War #Imperialism #USAEmpire #MilitaryIndustrialComplex

How to Hide an
Empire: A Short History of the Greater United States
by Daniel Immerwahr

#Empire #War #Imperialism #USAEmpire #MilitaryIndustrialComplex

We know America has spread its money, language and culture across the world, but we still think of it as a contained territory, framed by Canada above, Mexico below, and oceans either side.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

This is the story of the United States outside the United States - from nineteenth-century conquests like Alaska and Puerto Rico to the catalogue of islands, archipelagos and military bases dotted around the globe. Full of surprises and previously forgotten episodes, this fascinating book casts America's history, and its present, in a revealing new light.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· 25d

Picked this up on the video.

Image from video with text stating ‘CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp pays huge settlement in sexual assault lawsuit.’ 🤔

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· 25d

Spotted in the @newsfromnowhere.bsky.social bookshop in Liverpool. @the-breakdown.bsky.social @johnmerrick.bsky.social @adriennebuller.bsky.social

Photo of The Break-Down in the News From Nowhere bookshop in Liverpool.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· 25d

Snapped a moth in the shower room this morning. It’s becoming a bit of a thing! I’m finding it fascinating.

A photo of a moth identified as Mesapamea by my phone.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· 25d

For me it was this book. The Butterfly Season: On Beginnings, Endings, and the Life in Between. Started in June but finished in July. Best book so far - for me in 2026.

The Butterfly Season: On Beginnings, Endings, and the Life in Between

By Lea Korsgaard

In the darkness of winter on the first day of the year, a woman in Denmark is making a list. She plans to set out and see all of the country's butterfly species in a single summer. She knows nothing about butterflies. She doesn't even know why she wants to see them. She just knows that something is calling her. The pull is irresistible.

The Butterfly Season tells the story of what happened next. We follow Lea Korsgaard as her list takes her to landscapes she never knew existed, shaped by the wind and by the sea. She discovers secret places and meets strangers who help along the way. And she is led into the past: into the lives of her ancestors and the worlds of philosophy and myth.
Because ever since ancient times, the butterfly has symbolized humanity's hope of rebirth - and confronted us with the biggest questions of existence: why do we live? And what are we living for?

Lea Korsgaard is an award-winning journalist and author. The Butterfly Season was first published in Denmark in 2025, where it became a No.1 bestseller.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· 26d

I took this photo earlier today & my iPhone identified the butterfly. I did the same with a plant & a larva in my garden [a veritable wilderness]. Might be worth seeing if your phone can do similar. Good luck!

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· 26d

‘Back on the Mediterranean coast, the fishermen pulling swarms of fireworms from their nets often carry out the rescue of people in distress at sea. Some have been attacked by militias for doing so.

The BREAK-DOWN

New writing on capitalism, nature and the climate.

BORDERS Issue #2

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· 28d

A wonderful read. Such refined sentences. Such credible characters. Such unusual times! #TFB Elizabeth's three influences are The Stories of William Trevor by William Trevor (1983), Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925), and Middlemarch by George Eliot (1872). #TakeFourBooks

The Things We Never Say
By Elizabeth Strout

Artie Dam is a man with a secret.

He spends his days teaching history to high schoolers, expanding their young minds, correcting their casual cruelties and lending a kind word to those who need it most. He goes to holiday parties with his wife of three decades, makes small talk with neighbours and, on weekends, takes his sailboat out on the beautiful Massachusetts Bay. He is, by all appearances, present and alive. But inside, Artie is plagued by feelings of isolation. He looks out at a world gone mad - at himself and the people around him - and turns a question over and over in his mind: how is it that we know so little about one another, even those closest to us?
And then, one day, Artie learns that life has been keeping a secret from him, one that threatens to upend his entire world. Once he learns it, he is forced to chart a new course, to reconsider the relationships he holds most dear - and to make peace with the mysteries at the heart of our existence.
With exquisite prose and profound insight, Elizabeth Strout captures the way grief reverberates through decades, the comfort found in deep friendships and the freedom that comes when we break free of our secrets. The Things We Never Say is a stunning new novel from one of our most acclaimed observers of the human heart.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jul 9

@the-breakdown.bsky.social Just read an excellent piece in the Airborne edition. ROCK DOVE RECON - A folly, a dove and spaceport in Scotland by ZSUZSANNA IHAR [postdoctoral scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.]

The BREAK-DOWN

AIRBORNE Issue #3
New writing and conversations on capitalism, nature and the climate.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jul 9

I will listen today. I will also tuck into these - they arrived yesterday! #TheBreak-Down #capitalism #nature #climate

Photograph of two copies of The Break-Down journal - New writing and conversations on capitalism, nature and the climate.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jul 9

I meant to add this - apologies! @meteofrance.com @metoffice.gov.uk

Screenshot of a link on the Météo-France Bluesky/website showing heatwave frequency over recent times.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jul 4

The planet is getting its own back on the country that is - in the main - responsible for planetary destruction. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Screenshot of weather report from USA shared on BBC News website.

Brutal heat cancels Fourth of July events, from DC to Philadelphia

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jun 29

Just read about her in this excellent book! #butterflies

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jun 27

Same here Tom although came across this the other day via an @lrb.co.uk review which has an associated & very good quality podcast episode. Can highly recommend. Spoiler alert: It’s not just about the football!

Cover of THE POWER AND THE GLORY: A New History of the World Cup
By Jonathan Wilson

The football World Cup is the most watched sporting event on the planet. It has become a global obsession: 211 nations initially entered the 2022 edition. It has been running for almost a century. Yet there has never been a comprehensive history of the World Cup that has considered not only the matches and goals, the players and coaches, the tales of scandal and genius, the haggling and skulduggery of the bidding process, but has also placed the tournaments within a socio-political framework. The story of the World Cup is also the story of the world; this book tells its definitive history.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jun 26

Reminds me that I need to read this book.

Rule, Nostalgia
by
Hannah Rose Woods

Longing to go back to the 'good old days' is nothing new. For hundreds of years, the British have mourned the loss of tradition and called for a revival of 'simpler', 'better' ways of life, from modern politicians indulging in fantasies of an imperial past, to Victorian artists yearning to retreat into a medieval dream of Merry England. But were the 'good old days' ever quite how we remember them?

Rule, Nostalgia is a surprising, timely new history of Britain that separates the history from the fantasy and traces back to its origins the powerful influence that nostalgia's perpetual backwards glance has had on British history, politics and society.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jun 24

Cash for cash? Is it? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... More Tory Brexit nonsense!

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jun 24

I find this absurd. More air conditioning will only add to global heating surely. Humans have to live differently: fly less, if at all; drive less; not waste food [global North]; buy fewer clothes & other items. Live simpler lives! The UK's summers are getting hotter - but how prepared are we? #heat

Only a minority of homes have air conditioning. Without urgent action, more than 90% of existing homes could overheat during more extreme heatwaves by the middle of the century, the CCC says.

Clipped from BBC News website: The UK's summers are getting hotter - but how prepared are we? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9d2xl3555xo

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jun 23

On the BBC News Website the Donaldson convictions do not appear until the More to Explore section? 🤔

Screenshot of BBC News online - mobile - website

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jun 21

This one? Shouldn’t be anywhere near a political interview!! 😡

Wikipedia entry section on Paul Ovensen
He served as Head of Political Strategy in the Prime Minister's Office under Keir Starmer from July 2024 till September 2025 when he was forced to resign when it came to light that he had made sexually explicit and offensive remarks about Diane Abbott. 3] ITV disclosed the content of the messages with names redacted.
1[4]

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jun 20

@leakorsgaard.bsky.social ‘Endnu en forbløffende kendsgerning i din vidunderlige bog! 'I alt oplever hele 65 procent af planetens kendte dyrearter metamorfose.' #TheButterflySeason #Nature

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jun 15

After hearing Colm Toibín discuss this book on Radio 4’s Take Four Books with @jdcrawf.bsky.social I was keen to buy it. It’s a long short story or a short novella. It’s excellent and goes far deeper and broader than its size suggests. @faberbooks.bsky.social #TheCountryFuneral

The Country Funeral
By John McGahern

'My only concern, John McGahern once said, 'is that I get the sentence right and describe my world clearly and deeply?

‘The Country Funeral' witnesses three brothers, John, Philly and Fonsie Ryan, as they travel west from Dublin to Gloria Bog - the heart of the territory where so many of McGahern's stories take place - to attend the funeral of their uncle. Depicting the customs and rituals of the day, McGahern exquisitely traces how the brothers react to the area in unexpected and tender ways, and face their own feelings about the transience of life.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jun 15

Drop something BLACK & WHITE 🖤🤍

A black and white picture of the iconic and brilliant ska band from the UK The Specials.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jun 15

Delighted to find two tables @waterstoneslpl.bsky.social last week. One full of short story collections & one of relatively modern classics. Picked up these two books. 👏👏👏👏 @waterstones.bsky.social #booksky #IAmReading

Cover of My Oedipus Complex and Other Stories
By Frank O’Connor

This selection of stories by Frank O'Connor displays to the fullest his versatility, humour and insight in tales about childhood and marriage, sex and religion, war and old age. Here, O'Connor depicts young boys convinced of their own genius or locked in hilarious rivalry with their fathers, and IRA soldiers who must make heartbreaking decisions in the midst of a baffling war.

In other tales an old woman threatens to haunt her son if he fails to bury her at her old home, while a scandal threatens to ignite when a floral wreath is sent anonymously to a priest's funeral. In these beautiful evocations of ordinary life - both comic and tragic - O'Connor portrays small moments that take us to the psychological truth at the heart of his characters.

Cover of Fever Dream
By Samanta Schweblin

A young woman named Amanda lies dying in a remote rural hospital.
A boy named David sits beside her. She's not his mother. He's not her child. In a conversation that opens a chest of horrors, together they tell a haunting story of broken souls, toxins, and the power and desperation of family.

Fever Dream is a nightmare come to life, a love story, a cautionary tale, and an unforgettable exercise in literary suspense. One of the most celebrated writers to come out of Argentina, Samanta Schweblin creates an aura of psychological menace and otherworldly reality in this absorbing, unsettling modern classic.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jun 14

Came across this in Julie Otsuka’s enlightening book The Buddha in the Attic. ‘We gave birth to Kamechiyo, who was so ugly we feared we would never be able to find her a mate. She had a face that could stop an earthquake.’ Is it an actual Japanese idiom? #Japanese #Idiom

The Buddha in the Attic
By Juliet Otsuka

After the First World War, a group of young women is brought by boat from Japan to San Francisco. They are picture brides, promised the American Dream, clutching photographs of the husbands they have yet to meet, imagining uncertain futures on unknown shores.

Struggling to master a new language and culture, they experience tremulous first nights as new wives, backbreaking work in the fields and in the homes of white women, and, later, the raising of children who will ultimately reject their heritage and their history.

And then war arrives once more.

Julie Otsuka tells their extraordinary, heartbreaking story in this spellbinding and poetic account of strangers lost and alone in a new and deeply foreign land.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jun 13

Two unnecessary state expenditures here. a) Royals. b) 1400 service folk on ceremonial ‘duty’! Wastes of money.Unnecessary pomp & nostalgia. #RuleNostalgia

Picture from BBC News website of Royal Family watch Red Arrows flypast on Buckingham Palace balcony
The annual event marks the King's official birthday and features more than 1,400 members of the armed forces.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jun 11

‘A very long time ago, Grandmother had wanted to tell about all the things they did, but no one had bothered to ask. And now she had lost the urge.’ [Makes one wish that one had listened more carefully, valued more and written down or recorded grandparents’ and parents stories.]

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

An elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. Gradually, the two learn to adjust to each other's fears, whims and yearnings for independence, and a fierce yet understated love emerges - one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the island itself, with its mossy rocks, windswept firs and unpredictable seas.

Full of brusque humour and wisdom, The Summer Book is a profoundly life-affirming story. Tove Jansson captured much of her own experience and spirit in the book, which was her favourite of the novels she wrote for adults. This new edition sees the return of a European literary gem - fresh, authentic and deeply humane.

The writer and artist TOVE JANSSON (1914 2001) is best known as the creator of the Moomin stories, which have been published in thirty-five languages. The Summer Book was one of ten novels that she wrote for adults. It is regarded as a modern classic throughout Scandinavia.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jun 11

This isn’t so is it? Thought I’d check. 🤔

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jun 11

You should try the Beef Scouse at the Ship and Mitre in Liverpool.

A bowl of Beef Scouse from the Ship and Mitre public house in Liverpool UK.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· Jun 10

I’m with Mary Beard on this one! It is from @fayboundalberti.bsky.social’s excellent The Face: A Cultural History. #face #history #portrait

The historian Mary Beard has been scathing both about the intellectual value of the discovery and subsequent attempts by the University of Leicester, which takes credit for the discovery, to
'oversell' it. This seems to be a clear case of popular interest trumping academic importance - and what could be more popular than a detective story that involves royal celebrity, murder and Shakespearean intrigue? The excavation made history exciting to an audience that generation after generation has been taught about the Tudors and the Princes in the Tower. In my school we had to read the evidence and determine whether Richard III was guilty. Would our minds have been swayed by Caroline Wilkinson's model and a visit to the Richard III Visitor Centre? Undoubtedly.
Today, we exist in an era of 'historical personages, where famous faces matter most. I have wondered, as I have watched tourists queue outside Madame Tussaud's in London to gaze at the waxwork bodies of the Windsors or Amy Winehouse, whether this is a modern-day kind of pilgrimage, in which the representation matters as much emotionally as the original object itself - the same reason people might buy tea towels emblazoned with the Mona Lisa, or postcards, or little prayer cards with pictures of saints on them.
But one thing is clear - even if visitors get a kick out of coming face to face with Richard III, we cannot say whether a king is a killer based on a reconstruction of his face; nor can we claim that a Neanderthal had modern human emotions.
Yes, the face connects us sensorially and emotionally to others, and defines a person's identity, and therefore some faces will always matter more than others. To return to the question I posed earlier: why are we often more concerned with the faces of those we do not know, and can never know, than the faces of missing people?

The Face: A Cultural History
By Fay Bound-Alberti

The face is the only part of the body where all the senses come together and, over the course of human history, has come to represent who we are as individuals. We unlock our phones with facial recognition; we have our faces stamped in our passports; and although our faces may change over the course of our lives - whether through ageing, accident, illness or lifestyle - they remain a foundational marker of identity.

In The Face, cultural historian Fay Bound-Alberti explores the ways humans have interpreted faces and how they have shaped our ideas of morality, social hierarchy, psychology and so much more, revealing some of the biases that inform our everyday lives. She charts how new technologies and cultural innovations have transformed our conception of selfhood over time - from the growth of portraiture in the Renaissance and the mass production of mirrors and photography in the nineteenth century, to twenty-first century developments, such as digital avatars and face transplants.

Bringing together a wealth of fascinating research, interviews and illuminating personal narratives, Bound-Alberti probes beneath the surface to ask what our faces really say about us.

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme· May 31

@fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social I heard Jon Lee Anderson speak @hayfestival.bsky.social with Lyse Doucet [whose book I have read] so I dashed to the bookshop and got this one too. I’m not going to be disappointed. #Afghanistan #SovietUnion #Taliban #USA #Decline #Empire