Petition: Apply to Rejoin the EU as soon as possible to increase growth in the UK Brexit's not working. 10 years after the Brexit vote, let's apply to rejoin the EU, reverse the damage, boost growth, increase tax revenues and restore opportunities in the UK petition.parliament.uk/petitions/74...

Not the most aesthetically impressive image, but my #Seestar S30 caught the supernova in the Splinter galaxy (NGC5907) last night from Staffordshire, UK. 649 30s subs, stacked in Siril and some small adjustments using GIMP. #Astronomy

Listening to BBC R4 PM discussing Amazon stopping support for pre-2012 #Kindles. They're missing the real reason: the DRM on #ebooks downloaded onto older Kindles is easy to break. Amazon do not want us to own the ebooks we purchased from them.

M100 imaged last night from my back garden. #SeestarS30 #Astronomy

Later, a 5 hour image capture of M51, the Whirlpool galaxy. #astronomy #seestarS30

Beautiful crescent moon tonight. #Astronomy #Seestar

Gotta admire Channel 5's precise scheduling.

Farage trying to use class identity to silence criticism of him, but this time it's not like stifling concerns over Brexit for fear of class betrayal. His comments are abhorrent. How dare he implicate whole communities in his disgusting racism. People everywhere, of every class care. #DontVoteReform

Energy bills soar & the King is making profit at our expense. Charles says he cares about the environment. You’d expect him to stand behind cheap, clean power. Sign the petition to demand the Crown Estate lower fees on seabeds & make wind farms more affordable to build. act.gp/48TINlv

The Museum of Failure: along with the Sinclair C5 and Dyson's air purifying headphones: museumoffailure.com/exhibition/b...

Today we're dining on Planet Shalimar, part of the Minton empire 😂

A clear sky tonight! #astro #seestar

M42 captured with a #Seestar S30 from a location just north of #Lichfield in late November. #Astronomy

Dog vomit slime mold on a magnolia. #fungifriends

This morning the BBC were selling their new TV series Civilisations:Rise and Fall as some kind of sequel to Kenneth Clark's 1969 TV series Civilisation. Not even close.

#Covid #Inquiry Who'd have thought it? Cummings and Johnson weren't geniuses! We need an inquiry into their roles in #Brexit

Limiting the right to jury trial will not get rid of the backlog of criminal cases. The criminal justice system is the epitome of inefficiency. Almost every part of it seems designed to cause unnecessary delays. Correct that and the backlog will go, without infringing on the rights of defendants.

Courts minister: “Do we think that someone who has stolen a bottle of whisky from a minimart should receive the right to trial by jury?" Idiotic. An innocent person falsely accused of stealing, whose life would be ruined by a conviction, has a right to a jury trial.

Fine upstanding #fungifriends

We can expect the next proposal from the Government will be to take one of their kidneys www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

I don't have a good view of the northern horizon from my home near Lichfield UK, but early this morning the clouds cleared, the UK Aurora Watch app ticked up over 700 nT and I managed to snap a faint aurora behind the trees.

Wax caps on Pipe Green, ancient meadow Lichfield UK. Some are like ruby cabochons nestling in the grass. #fungifriends

I've just wasted nearly two hours of my life watching House of Dynamite. Dr. Strangelove tells the same story, but is ten times more engaging.

Blue sky #fungifriends

How the mighty have fallen. #fungifriends

Afternoon dog walk on Pipe Green ancient meadow #Lichfield #Staffordshire #fungifriends The wax caps aren't up yet.

It is Jon Culshaw doing an imitation of #Trump currently addressing the #UN , isn't it?

@bot.astronomy.blue signup

I'm watching The Thursday Murder Club, quietly so as not to annoy my companion who enjoys this kind of film. It's dreadful. Like something written by AI.

🧪 arstechnica.com/science/2025...

Just listened to Matthew Syed's BBC radio 4 programme "Sideways" exploring the interaction between language and thoughts ... incredibly without once (as I recall) mentioning the Sapir Whorf hypothesis.

Sunny Monday. #fungifriends

The Pacman nebula, captured last night through an open window. The first starry sky in weeks round here.

@jasonhifi.com Sun Ra!!!

I'm worried my postie will be prosecuted for possession and distribution of material supporting a designated terrorist group when he delivers my next Private Eye.

Appointing someone with apparently no experience as a forensic scientist to be the forensic science regulator! www.gov.uk/government/n...

If Boeing 787 fuel cutoff switches are not meant to be used in normal flight, why are they situated immediately below the thrust controls, which are used in normal flight? Looks like the designer took the simple approach of grouping controls according to the systems they control.

Hoping for a dark cloudless sky tonight for real #astrophotography but the Moon in a clear blue sunlit evening sky is irresistible.

Man, 92, convicted of raping and murdering Bristol woman in 1967 www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

"Reckless [policy] decisions" have put forensic science in a graveyard spiral. Who made those decisions? 1/3 www.theguardian.com/law/2025/jun...

Using a #seestar when the sky is cloudy

Precious of MPs to be angry at Rantzen's suggestion that some opposed to assisted dying have "undeclared personal religious beliefs which mean no precautions would satisfy them” I want MPs to declare all "interests" that could potentially influence their votes. Nothing special about religion.

"Mr Sullivan had previously applied to the CCRC in 2008 ... the Forensic Science Service (FSS) advised that any further testing would be very unlikely to produce a DNA profile" Many lawyers & investigators (such as the CCRC) are unintelligent customers of forensic science ...

Did a SPAD use #AI to help draft the #Starmer #immigration speech? All the top #LLM s would have seen Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech & identified #stranger as a core theme. From #Gemini: Powell presented anecdotes including...an elderly woman who...felt like a stranger in her own country

Worth reading just for the first paragraph of Secretary of Education Linda McMahon's "stream of consciousness rant" arstechnica.com/science/2025...

I’ll be honest, I could’ve done without this news: I’m going on a stag do to Leeds on Friday, all 10 of us dressed as cardinals.

I think I spotted a Ring Ouzel in #Lichfield #BeaconPark this morning.

Annoying to have an obviously legitimate payment blocked & to spend 10 mins on the phone answering patronising questions put by the bank's fraud department This isn't to protect customers. It's to protect the banks, which have failed to put in adequate procedures to identify & rectify fraud

Starmer better realise globalisation is more than goods on container ships. It's about the flow of ideas, development of international law, growth of tolerance & much more. Tech & human connections drive it. Futile to resist it, essential to shape it. It's humanity's shared "manifest destiny".