I finally got it. I've found getting into these Cladonia "pixie cups" with red apothecia/pycnidia super tough because they all look so similar.
But after many, many, frustrating aborted attempts and many, many repetitions of book flicking through Cladonia, the photos and their fine details are starting to embed themselves in my head and I am starting to see differences more clearly.
It is now clear to me that this is Cladonia diversa.
The name (and difficulty in ID'ing it) comes from the fact it presents itself in all kinds of shapes and deformation.
Part of an aggregate (the Cladonia coccifera agg.), it is separated from its colleagues (and the similar C.chlorophaea agg) by a tendency towards deformed cups and weird, irregular shapes, large squamules and corticate granules covering much of its surface and a tendency for the red apothecia to become confluent, sometimes covering the whole cup (again in an irregular and unpredictable way).
The name of the game is variability and weird deformations.
This is the Chernobyl cladonia 😆😆😆😆😆
It contains usnic acid which has antibiotic properties!
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