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John Bull

14 Jul, 19 tweets, 2 min read

Someone on this street is blasting out Bryan Adam's "Everything I Do" on continuous repeat.

I'm as yet unsure as to whether this is the best or worst thing ever.

Oh wait. It's that one he did with Sting and Rod Stewart from the Musketeer film now.

Also on repeat it seems.

I'm honestly not sure how to read this, emotionally.

CHANGE UP.

It's now Bon Jovi, "Dead or Alive"

Which, to be fair, is a belter.

This is a longer song than I remember it as being.

I legit don't mind listening to the opening of Dead or Alive for another *checks notes* three repeats at least. The second half of the song less so.

That fucking opening guitar riff though. Chefs kiss.

BREAKING: We only got two repeats of that. Shocking Twist.

Bon Jovi: Blaze of Glory now.

Fucksake. Put some rubbish out, and next door's kid was coming home.

Looked at me then politely said:

"Um. That's okay old people cowboy music I guess"

Caught me off guard. Didn't realise what he was implying. I just shouted: "WAIT THIS ISN'T FUCKING MINE" At a closed door.

Is there a Moonpig card for "that wasn't my music, kid."?

I don't have the hair for hair rock these days. Surely that should have been obvious to him.

MORE BON JOVI: Livin on a Prayer

Still Prayer.

BONNIE TYLER.

WE HAVE BONNIE TYLER.

Holding out for a Hero.

Second play for Bonnie.

DANGER ZONE!

Danger Zone, unsurprisingly, gets a repeat.

mumbling from over the fence (other neighbour):

"Fuckin hell what is this. I just want to smoke a joint in peace."

Sadly I actually have a meeting in about 5mins, so will have to stop the updates (and shut the patio door).

Should at least have time to discover if Danger Zone is deemed worthy of a third play.

BREAKING: Danger Zone did not get a repeat.

So what's next.

Well.

[big sigh]

[guitar strumming begins]

"We both lie silently still in the dead of the night.
"Although we both lie close together we feel miles apart inside..."

Right. Meeting. Soz.

But I'll leave you with one final nugget. Every Rose has its Thorn DID NOT get a repeat. Instead, as I closed the door, the beginning of a story drifted across the gardens.

A story about a small town girl

Living in a lonely world...

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More from @garius

John Bull

@garius

16 Jul

Sod it. Have a Friday history thread.

Let's talk about Simon. Ship's cat for HMS Amethyst. Survivor of the 1949 Yangtse Incident and the only cat ever to be awarded the Dickin Medal, the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross.

Simon was born on the streets of Hong Kong, most likely sometime in 1947. His early life was spent scavenging for food in the dockyards.

This was how he met 17 year old Ordinary Seaman George Hickinbottom of HMS Amethyst, when the ship stopped there to resupply in early 1948.

Hickinbottom was rather taken with the young malnourished tuxedo kitty, and decided that Amethyst's lack of a ship's cat needed addressing.

To avoid the possibility of disagreement with this plan, Simon was smuggled aboard under his tunic, past the watch.

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John Bull

@garius

15 Jul

Boris Johnson's press conferences/committee appearances make a lot more sense once you accept that he will literally say whatever he thinks will get him out of the room quick enough.

There's no grand plan to the shite he spouts in front of a camera or committee.

His staff's sole goal with their briefing notes is to try and channel him into making as few promises, and spouting as little bollocks as possible, before he makes his hasty exit.

It's why he visibly reverts to grumpy eton schoolboy mode the moment a follow up question is asked.

He gave you his hopefully distracting answer already. HOW VERY DARE YOU make him have to try and think of another one, delaying his exit even longer.

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John Bull

@garius

15 Jul

Me whenever I find someone has added a picture of their dog, instead of themselves, to their university staff profile.

Students don't pay £9k a year to be taught by your dog, and companies looking to invest in your research want to invest in you, not your dog.

Perfectly fine to have no photo at all. Lot's of valid reasons not to.

But no dogs, cats, fish, hamsters, funny doodles by your kid etc

Corollary: ALL Faculties should provide access to a drop-in photography session, once a year to get a nice headshot done.

It's not fair to make your staff do it at home/their office, in front of a plain wall.

ANY human photographed this way inevitably looks like a sex offender.

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John Bull

@garius

14 Jul

Okay, a question for electronics Twitter.

My new library shelves will overlap my light switch. Now I COULD just fix the switch to the back of the shelves instead and leave a gap.

ORRR

Can someone think of a way I could make a "secret" switch that worked by tipping a fake book?

I should also say that I'm perfectly happy to pay CASH MONEY for someone with the right skills who wanted to make such a switch for me.

Acceptable fallback alternative: fake book where you flip open the spine to see the Switch.

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John Bull

@garius

13 Jul

Since I seem to be in a tunnels Twitter mood today, here's a picture I grabbed of the Tunnelers' Memorial in France.

It's relatively hard to find, but is near Bethune. /1

It's somewhat obscurely located, because it sits above the place where William Hackett of the 254th Tunnelling Company died, earning a posthumous Victoria Cross.

Hackett was part of a mixed team that were working on a tunnel gallery when a German counter-mine exploded, bringing the tunnel down on the men inside.

After 20 hours of frantic digging, those outside the blast range managed to dig a tiny tunnel through to the trapped survivors.

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John Bull

@garius

13 Jul

I took this picture in the (mostly) unexplored tunnel network beneath the Western Front back in 2019.

I love it, because it really highlights that there is very little difference between the average teenager in 1915 and a teenager today.

Not all Tommies were sad dreamy poets 😆

You would also not believe the amount of scribbled cocks and hairy balls you find scrawled on the walls down there. They're everywhere.

They tend not to the shine the lights on those bits in the tours you can do of open tunnel sections, or in museums mockups.

Can't imagine why!

You find more poignant stuff down there as well. These are places soldiers paused, sometimes just for a moment, before attacking German trenches.

They knew they might die. So they just wanted to leave a sign they were there. Like this kid, from 14 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh.