Oliver Lough

@olough.bsky.social

390 Followers 376 Following

Humanitarian research and M&E; Kyiv, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Erbil, SOAS, Kabul, Beijing; feminist; Londoner. Everything is on fire or worse. All opinions my own. He/him

The boarded up Spaghetti House at the bottom of Argyll Street. Across the window is scrawled (twice) LONDON IS FUCKED. It's not, of course.
A road sign saying Compton, followed by a list of the comparative merits and demerits of Compton vs Newhaven
Laurel and Hardy sprinting away from the Cyclops, probably
"What does it say about Britain in 2014 that we still narrowly remember our own dead and do not mourn the German or French or Russian victims? The crowds come to remember – but we should not be remembering only our own. It’s the inward-looking mood that lets Ukip thrive" it says that we're a nation state with a specific experience and memory of the great war Jonathan, you gigantic twerp.
Three plastic shot glasses with tear-off lids in different colours. They have grooves at the bottom so you can stick them round the lip of your pint, like a completely normal person.
An idiotic, Miami gangster-looking button down shirt. I have very few regrets.
THE BROWN BREAD SOLD HERE IS THE REAL OLD-FASHIONED FARMHOUSE BREAD AS SUPPLIED TO AND RECOMMENDED TO [totally normal, not prominent fascist] SIR OSWALD MODLEY, BART.
FUMES (hand painted, jaunty yellow upside down triangle on a blue square with a 70s-looking dial switch above. Something to do with whisky distilling being an alarmingly explosive process)
Three ships silouhetted against a choppy sea from left to right, the stubby little HMS Repulse, Titanic doing its thing a fair way back, and HMS Powerful to the left doing its damndest to look like what Brunel would've come up with if they'd have just let him do one more liner bro please bro last one I promise bro.
A google satellite map of the coast. A point of interest is labelled "Old Slains Castle (Not Dracula castle)." Sure. Absolutely. Completely believable and not in any way suspicious.
Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove, upon realising that General Ripper is a grade-A fucking lunatic who is going to get us all killed.
Josie and the Pussycats: Music from the Motion Picture
Vehicle owners will be required to have premises with fire risk assessments, record keeping and background checks for staff. (The fire risk element is particularly notable following a fire at a pedicab garage in Southwark which resulted, according to sources who spoke to London Centric, in a number of naked people "being intimate" on the premises having to flee the burning building.)
Above: "this is the one obvious problem about Ed Milliband as PM is that it really would make the opposition's argument that there should be a GE stronger - 'this bloke stood in 2015 and lost, you can't just impose him on the country' - but aside from that? ...............choo choo" Below: a picture of a bald, white bearded man in a tweed suit _extremely enthusiastically_ bestriding a model train running through a garden in spring.
Apartment blocks barely visible at night during a power cut. A few dim lights from their windows cut through the dark
The Russian missile cruiser Moskva, anachronistically afloat.
A group of cyclists in racing kit climbs up a hill
An idyllic view of a European city, surveying a terra cotta roofscape the encircling hills beyond and a perfect early-summer azure sky. At the centre, a black cathedral - no, a cathedral-shaped _absence_ of pure void, punctures the image, making the eyes itch. It can't get you. Probably.
A genuinely horrifying, politically delusional, crudely painted picture of Tony Blair. It referencesthe early Russian communist era propaganda poster "Have you signed up with the volunteers?". Tonty is dressed in red peasant's robes, waving a red flag in front of the Palace of Westminster under a dark sky, with the 2005 election slogan "FORWARD NOT BACK" daubed over the bottom, which is heavily water damaged since the whole thing has been left out in the street. The painting, is meant to be complimentary, I think?
Liz Truss shaking hands with Queen Elizabeth ii shortly before the latter's death in deeply suspicious circumstances. Coincidence? Who can say.
A Finch in 1932 by Lil Bowes-Lyon A finch swung on a twig, that loved Her tender weight and seemed to sing Long after its lodger had removed; Oh commerce brief and dear as spring. I saw the twig lift again, light-embowered, And the bird flitting to the woord With a breast cool as though a cowslip flowered; They had done the year good.
A world war II poster by Abram Grames in dynamic, clean, Festival of Britain style. On the left, run-down Victorian brick terraces against a dark sky. On the right, a more abstract rendering of a white, 5-storey, triple-wide block of flats in a green field with a tree, against a blue background. The legend reads "Your Britain: Fight For it Now"
Keir Starmer, at an eagle-besealed dais, standing in front of twin US and UK flags: "there's a famous slogan in the United Kingdom"
Thank you for partnering with USAID and God Bless America.
A black and white landscape of large black spikes against grey clouds. This is not a place of honour. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here.
A Bluesky user responds to the news that USAID is freezing all funding and issuing stop-work orders with, "Yah boo, sucks to be you", or words to that effect
Worn and cracked paving slabs of different styles and vintages, among which is spelled out an advert for the "Tate Gallery of Modern Art Opening 2000"
The front cover of This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. A slightly fragmented image of a red cardinal bird is mirrored by a blue sparrow beneath it, against a light blue background.
A blacked-out courtyard at night. In the tall building on the right, a single light glows from a 7th floor window. In the distance, the dome of a circus is backlit by an eerie white glow from the city behind.
A vibrant painting in the style of a 1970s/80s pulp sci-fi cover, showing dinosaurs augmented with armour and weapons and fighting against a backdrop of lush forests on the left, rocky crags on the right, and a fire-spewing volcano centre. A T-Rex set up like a battle-mech is firing its lascannons at a Stegosaurus vaguely remeniscent of a WWI era tank. Inexplicably, nobody involved in this firefight will get hurt.
A grid of 12 cartoon journal article pages, only their titles visible. They read as follows: i) MSF calling everyone out, again; ii) We made a devil's deal with the government and this is all they'd let us publish; iii) Cash: still good, actually; iv) I wouldn't do it like that; v) Rethinking the system: Beyond system-rethinking?; vi) Thinly disguised UN agency advertorial; vii) "DIGITIZE ALL THE THINGS" Challenge or opportunity?; viii) Fund local orgaanisations you gutless cowards; ix) Won't somebody please think of the children? x) Hi, we're a bunch of World Bank economists and we've invented this amazing new thing called 'The Wheel'; xi) SOMEBODY isn't upholding their treaty obligations...; and xii) This response made the same mistakes as that response. Again.
Headline reads "Groping, greed and the lust for great power: what Wagner's Ring Cycle tells us about Trump v Harris"
A picture looking down a mountain valley at dusk. A small fortress sits broodingly in the centre.
Text and image from Google, incorrectly identifying a search for "royal navy flag" with the red ensign, which is not, in fact, the royal navy flag.
The Giraffe, the Pelly and Me, by Roald Dahl
James Woods in Videodrome, kneeling down in his book-filled living room, caressing a large, old-fashioned looking TV showing a giant pair of female lips.
A picture of an octagonal domed ceiling with gold byzantine-style mosaic of religious scenes at the baptistery in Florence
A street sign in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. It reads, "COLON".
An image of the Borno State Secretariat complex in Maidiguri, Northeast Nigeria.
Keir Starmer is considering launching a podcast to communicate his politics following his misinterpreted LBC comments on Gaza (from The Times)