Stephen JC

@stephenjcol.bsky.social

344 Followers 474 Following

I got a PhD and somehow I ended up live streaming Dark Souls. Living the dream in west London. He/him and Welsh. (Profile pic is my black cat.)

An old-fashioned wooden signpost, the sort that has several directional arrows pointing different ways. The picture centres on one which reads: “Hooker’s Pits & Visitor Centre.” It is from the RSPB bird sanctuary in Dungeness, Kent. If there was a hooker in or near the visitor centre, we did not see her, nor her armpits. As we were there in July it’s possible she was on holiday. It is also possible that I have deliberately misunderstood the sign, for comic effect.
King Arthur (Graham Chapman) and his faithful servant Patsy (Terry Gilliam) from ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ (1974). In a woodland setting we see a bearded man wearing a shining crown. He is dressed in a suit of chainmail, covered by a white tabard with a sun emblem on it. He looks concerned, confused or possibly just silly. Behind his left shoulder stands a shorter man with a dirty face. His head is covered by a tight-fitting cap; we cannot see the rest of his clothing. On his back is a huge set of paraphernalia, like the sort of ridiculous oversized backpacks worn by teenagers going round Europe. I’m not sure what all the items are, I’d have to watch the film again. He definitely does look concerned, albeit in a silly way.
Streaks of pink-tinted cloud sprawl against a grey-blue sky, hovering above a darkened mass of wavering long grasses.
Six men, two white, four black, holding their instruments, line up on a stage with their arms round each other. They look relaxed and full of joy. The stage is bathed in pink and purple light. Before them the audience is clapping wildly. You had to be there, but this captures the mood pretty well.
Long range weather forecast for my part of London (redacted), showing a remorseless long string of sunny days with temperatures ranging from 27° to 33°
Your Results: 78% Woke, 22% Chud 25% Techbro, 75% Neo-Luddite 55% Hopepilled, 45% Doomer 78% Davos, 22% Dubai Your Closest Match: Zohran Mamdani
A carved wooden misericord of a bird with its wings spread. However it has the head of a human, not a bird. The head is of a man with strong features and receding hair, who somewhat resembles Julius Caesar. Assuming Julius Caesar looked like he looks in the Asterix books.
Weather forecast for next weekend onwards shows temperatures once again exceeding 30°C
Weather forecast for next weekend shows temperatures climbing into the high 20s Celsius again.
Sonny Rollins. B&W pic of a man wearing a dinner suit playing the tenor saxophone with his eyes closed.
The Frenzied Flame ending of Elden Ring. A middle-aged woman with dark hair and a severe expression. She wears a brown robe with some kind of lacy cape over the top. She is staring at her right hand which has caught fire. Soon she will be engulfed (willingly) in fierce golden flame, but that’s not in this photo. I called this character Fiamma, which is the Italian word for flame.
A baby fox, looking a bit startled. It stuck around to eat the unwanted cat food, though.
Former Welsh rugby captain Alun Wyn Jones, may God bless him. A man with thinning hair and stubble stands with his massive arms akimbo. He wears a red rugby shirt stained with dirt and toil. On his face is an expression of fatigue and indefatigability. If that’s not a contradiction. It is, isn’t it? Never mind, that’s how he was - never give up.
Forecast for the week ahead shows temperatures approaching 30°C every day
Your result: social democrat Centre-left on economics, cosmopolitan anc pro-European, with a belief in strong public services and a broadly Atlanticist foreign policy.
FindMyPolitics result: social democrat. Economic: strongly left-wing Social: moderately libertarian Civil liberties: slightly pro-liberty Governance: moderately globalist System trust: slightly high trust
Me with a jacket, sensible shirt and lanyard on
WHY ACCOUNTANTS NEED TO PUT BITCOIN ON THEIR BALANCE SHEETS 14.20-15.00 | Theatre 3 - Practice Excellence
Tweet (14 Dec 2017) by @FlipChartRick It’s not the people who lived through the war who gave us Brexit. It’s the ones who grew up on the war films afterwards.
‘The Mission’. Jeremy Irons, dressed as a Catholic priest, holding an enormous gold cross, stands in front of a large group of indigenous South American children. In the background, their village is on fire
How I Fucked Everything Up and Fucked Off by David Fucking Cameron A mocked-up book cover showing Cameron’s face staring arrogantly at the reader, set against a painting of London on fire
A series of pictures showing increasingly complex puns in Welsh. A loaf of bread (bara in Welsh) is featured with a capybara (also capybara in Welsh) in ever more bizarre combinations; the last of which is pâr o gapybara’n byta pâr o fara capybara’n ara’ (a pair of capybaras eating a pair of bite-sized capybara loaves)
Poster for The Night of the Hunter (1955), the only film directed by Charles Laughton (it’s a shame he didn’t make more). Robert Mitchum glares at Shelley Winters, who is clinging to his arm
One of Alex Norris’s ‘Oh No’ cartoons (webcomic name.com). In the first frame, a magenta-coloured blob person stands in the middle of a room, declaring “I want things to be different.” In the second frame, all the objects in the room fly up in the air to find new places to lie. In the third frame, the whole room has now become an unsightly mess. The person stands dejectedly in the middle and says: “Oh no.”
Your Result AUTISTIC Not necessarily German about it. GERMAN 20% AUTISTIC 73%
A bowl of muttar paneer: chunks of paneer with peas in curry sauce. I love this stuff
BBC News website: Built in the "straight talking" image of Nigel Farage, Reform has always been a party comfortable with saying things that others might hesitate to voice. If that causes controversy - as it frequently does - then it gets people talking about the issues they want to discuss. Other parties know this, but are quite happy to play along by piling in with criticism - because they like the idea of Reform as a sort of bogeyman to encourage their supporters out to vote.
Two sleeping cats, side by side. On the left, a male brown tabby. On the right, a female all-black. They lie on a yellow and blue patchwork bedspread.
Former Governor of Idaho, Clement Leroy “Butch” Otter. Supposedly named Butch because he got into a lot of fights as a kid, not because he’s especially tough. Although, as a Republican, he probably thinks he is.
BBC News website item. A smug-looking Laura Kuenssberg stands in front of a black and white picture of Farage and Polanski. Accompanying caption: “Polanski and Farage don’t agree. But they have more in common than you might think.”
Barack Obama looking straight into camera makes a strong forward gesture with his left hand. Behind him are two American flags. Caption: “everyone chill the fuck out” (top); “I got this!” (bottom)
Darth Vader. A man completely covered in a black futuristic suit of armour with a black cloak, black gauntlets and a massive black helmet and mask holds his right hand out. Behind him is a vast wall of lights which fill the entire background
Windows launch page. Against a (rather impressive) background photo of a mountain range is the message: “Beat writer’s block and let AI do all the heavy lifting.”
A cartoon of a frog and a toad, both wearing jackets and looking anthropomorphic. The frog is holding a white box. The text reads: Frog put the cookies in a box. “There,” he said. “Now we will not eat any more cookies.” “But we can open the box,” said Toad. “That is true,” said Frog.
“Don’t trust this bellend, he’s just part of the system trying to control every respect [sic] of your life. He claims to be helping whilst at the same time being paid by those in control. Listen carefully to what he is advising you do!!! Then make it to the wider agenda [sic]. It’s the same story, spread Fear [sic] then advise ways to protect yourself by using their system of control.”
Extract from BBC News website article. “He was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, winning three, including an honorary award in 1980 for his film career and an earlier honorary award in 1948 for bringing Henry V to the stage.”
Front cover of the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players* Handbook. A group of men in medieval style outfits forge weapons and discuss maps at the foot of a huge furnace topped by an enormous statue of a gaping red demon. I still have this book
A naked man with green skin sits on a wooden throne staring forward sternly.
The wonderful OH NO character. Against a blank blue background, a blobby, vaguely humanoid pink figure with dots for eyes is saying “oh no”.
‘The Compendium of (Not Quite) Everything’. A book by Jonn Elledge. Swirly patterns on the cover draw the eye. My thumb is holding the book in the corner
A tart consisting of broccoli, Stilton and savoury custard with a pastry base and edge
A ‘sprout tree’. Brussels sprouts protrude from a long, very thick stalk
The interior of a church. Along the side of the image are Gothic stone arches. Ahead is a rood screen bearing the words HOLY HOLY HOLY. The screen, the pews and the base of the pillars are painted in a vibrant bottle green. In front of the screen is the altar, draped in a cream coloured cloth. Beyond the screen we can make out the high altar, a grand tableau of bronze figures. Various worshippers are seated in the pews while members of the choir in red cassocks mill about (the service hasn’t started yet or I wouldn’t be writing this, I’m not a heathen).
Overnight weather forecast chart shows temperatures of 4°C from 11pm to 2am
Bluesky post (anonymised of course). It simply reads “Shut up cunt”. There’s a little Bluesky content label above it which just says “Rude”. Both the post and the label are making me ROFL
Jack Nance in Eraserhead (1977). A black and white image of a man staring into space. Behind him is a swirl of white-grey particles. His hair stands up stiffly from the crown of his head so that he resembles a toilet brush. He is seen only from the shoulders up, but we can see he is wearing a shirt, tie and jacket. From his expression it’s impossible to tell if he is scared, amazed or just stunned
Ian Richardson as Prime Minister Francis Urquhart from the original and superior House of Cards. He is standing outside the entrance to No 10 Downing Street, looking both smug and evil
Francis Bacon’s ‘Three Studies for the Base of a Crucifixion’. Three portraits appear side by side in a separate frame. Each depicts a weird and rather scary figure against a red background. On the left, some kind of half-humanoid bird with hair covering its face. In the middle a figure resembling a goose but with a human’s face and bare teeth. A bandage is wrapped around its eyes. On the right an eyeless figure with a gaping mouth and a body suggesting a horse. Honestly this is all pretty difficult to describe.
A cup of coffee. In a small black cup on top of a black saucer is what appears to be an espresso. There is a small amount of foam on the surface of the liquid.
A black and white cat curled up asleep on a blue blanket by a window
An English church built Gothic-style in grey brick is in the background. Opening out before it is a graveyard. Old but not crumbling stone tombstones are arranged spaced out in not quite perfect order. The grass is green and there are daffodils growing in front of some of the headstones. The graveyard is dotted with leafless trees. No people can be seen in the picture, and the scene has a peaceful air
A dollop of delicious scrambled eggs sits proudly on a stack of (presumably) sourdough toast. The egg is surrounded by a garnish which looks like kale but is probably parsley
The leafless branch of a small tree. It is covered in thick frost which could easily be mistaken for snow. Behind it are more white trees, similarly frozen. Everything is a stark, brilliant white
A bowl of porridge. Beside it, a spoon with a green handle. Above it, a banana waiting to be peeled and sliced
A small coffee shop. On the ground floor of a delightful mock-Tudor building is Heisenberg Coffee Co. The window is decorated with cartoons of Breaking Bad characters. A set of yellow chairs and tables stand outside
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Corfe Castle in Dorset, England. Against the backdrop of a green hill stands a ruined castle. To the left is a pair of stone turrets. Behind them a slope rises to the right, flanked by stone walls. At the top of the slope stand more ruined walls, a couple of which are extremely tall. The whole building is crumbly, the stone patchy in colour (different shades of grey - no, not in that sense). Behind the entire scene is a dramatic sunrise or sunset, with clouds glowing orange in the light. I suspect the sky has been enhance in post, but it looks great anyway
A beautiful red-brick Victorian church with Romanesque windows and a gabled roof
A huge, stunningly beautiful cathedral, lit from below by a vast bank of lights. I used to live right by here
A thick white candle stands on a small glass dish. The candle has numbers from 1 to 24 descending in a straight line down its middle. The numbers are flanked by wreaths. In this picture the candle stands on a wooden side table against a window. It’s not my photo so I have no idea where this was taken