Philip Ruff

#OtD 9 Feb 2007 Alejandro Finisterre, anarchist poet and inventor of the Spanish table football (foosball) died in Zamora, Spain. He invented the game following injury during the Spanish Civil War so injured children could still play football workingclasshistory.com/2018/07/29/s...

"The Queens", Crouch End Broadway, London N8 - I often used to have a liquid lunch there during the 1970s (I worked around the corner); also a popular watering hole of Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer (photo, 1968).

Hitler's pet Otto Skorzeny always kept an ace up his sleeve - The Strange Case of a Nazi Who Became an Israeli Hitman www.motl.org/the-strange-...

So, Fiadh - what is it like to be three years old today?

Fiadh: Well, as Dolly Parton teaches us, "It's hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world.” But I'm doing my best! 🥳

Sometimes even the weather has a sense of humour.

The 1953 North Sea flood. 🌧️

Latvian skiffle group, 1925. I'm digging the drum in a suitcase gizmo! 🧐 #Latvia #Baltics

Still searching for the lost chord.

Ferdinand Porsche presents Adolf Hitler with a Volkswagen convertible for his 50th birthday.

All Adolf really wanted was the Nobel Peace Prize. 🧐

Who set fire to the Cat House?

And how was the murder of a Latvian anarchist connected to a dark secret that stretches back to the Kremlin?

Fact and fiction collide in my next book, The Cat House - nothing is real and everything is possible.

eng.lsm.lv/article/soci...

So, pitched the idea of Fish n' Chip flavoured chocolates to business adviser Fiadh, but she reckoned it was too much of a niche market. Ah well, back to the drawing board! 🧐

YouTube video by luvthe1950s Andy Pandy (Episode 1)

I loved Andy Pandy and his pals, Teddy and Looby Loo, when I was a kid in the 1950s. The 13 episodes for "Watch With Mother" on the BBC opened the door to a raft of shows: The Flowerpot Men, The Woodentops and Rag, Tag and Bobtail. The greatest puppet shows ever! www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEfn...

New header photo:

Jāņu svinēšana, 1910.gadā
Celebrating the midsummer solstice in traditional pagan style, 1910. #Latvia #Baltics

Yikes! 🤣

YouTube video by DJZÉPERES Yazoo - Situation (Official Video Club Remix)

I've always treated the 1980s as a sort of "what did the Romans ever do for us" era. But I'm revising my opinion that 80s music is rubbish. "Situation" by Yazoo (Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet, 1982), live in Berlin, February 2015, is now my favourite tune of the week. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEBJ...

Laying flowers at the Lenin monument, Riga, 1960. (Lenin was taken away in 1991).

Divas mazas meitenes ziedošā dārzā (1902.gads). Fotogrāfs Fricis Cielavs. #Latvia #Baltics 🌼🥀

John, I'm only dancing". Elizabeth Taylor and David Bowie (Terry O’Neill, 1974).

Latvia's finest cartoonist @karikaturalv.bsky.social

Growing Arctic military presence worries Finland's reindeer herders 'Military activity has increased massively here since Finland joined NATO,' one herder said.

"Looks like rain, dear"

Growing Arctic military presence worries Finland's reindeer herders www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/05...

Joined the army in 2024, sorry.

Ukrainian anarchist Lana "Sati" Chornogorska (25) died fighting against Russian occupiers on 1 January, 2026. A former journalist on "Luk" magazine, "Sati" volunteered for the army in 2004 and served in the "Udashniki" unit as a drone operator. #StandWithUkraine 🏴RIP

Happy birthday to my dear amigo, Albert Meltzer.

Born on this day in 1920 - champion of class struggle anarchism, fondly remembered by all those whose lives he touched. 🏴

Ļoti interesanta grāmata (Riga, 2017) - iesaku.

Russia moans because Latvia didn't let its 'neutral' luge team in A World Cup event in luge sport took place at the track in Sigulda, Latvia over the weekend, but without the participation of Russian sliders, although a recent decision of the International...

Russia moans because Latvia didn't let its 'neutral' luge team in eng.lsm.lv/article/cult... #Sigulda #Latvia #Baltics 🐧

Start the year as you mean to go on... 🥂

Cobblers on Torņa ielā, Riga 1927. #Latvia #Baltics

3 January, 1911: wanted Latvian anarchist Fricis Svars and William Sokolov died resisting arrest in the Siege of Sidney Street, directed by Liberal Home Secretary Winston Churchill. He dismissed his critics as "Sour grapes - they only wish they had been there to see the fun!"

The Cat House (Kaķu nams).

"Harijs Klints was a Latvian fighter pilot in the German Luftwaffe - but fact & fiction can be hard to untangle when the Stasi, West German anarchists & the KGB get involved in the story. And everything harks back to The Cat House."

Forced myself to get stuck into this by Charles Cumming - but two-thirds in, I'm finding it rather tedious. And it won't help me finish my own work of spy "faction" (The Cat House), which is a much better book! 😉