If you're into sheepdogs, then Im giving a talk in Germany about New Zealand Huntaways, canine distemper and Empire later this month. Details in the poster.

Amazing how @metoffice.gov.uk gets this wrong. It continues to get darker in the morning until January, and its been getting lighter in the evenings since last week.

New Zealand's first (?) cycling magazine - The New Zealand Wheelman - launched in 1892. Its opening lines, complaining about the treatment of cyclists by drivers of horse & carts, asking them to 'concede a foot to the cycler', remain familiar today.

Top work from Sion Morgan winning the English National Sheepdog Trial in Cumbria over the weekend. This means the English Team at the forthcoming International in Wales will be captained by a Welshman!

Somewhat ironic after years of searching NZ academic books on farming for anything about sheepdogs to finally come across this picture in Rollo Arnold's 'Farthest Promised Land', not least because its a picture an English sheepdog held by the @themerl.bsky.social

How to engage students: use a badger www.wgtn.ac.nz/news/2025/04...

Championship - completed it 🤝 League 1 next…

Lili Chin’s new book “Dogs of the World” has some great pictures of the best dogs

@inrng.com I think a while back you were looking for some research on the link between big cycling events and cycling commuting. This might be of interest: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Brilliant - one of the best.

Snow in the valleys until September. One for @ceritheviking.bsky.social

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of our field study visit to Copenhagen, sadly killed off by covid 5 years ago. What an awesome trip that was for everyone. Happier times!

Went to Copenhagen on the weekend. Here are 4 cool things I saw & did: 1. FCK ultras bouncing

Great to be in Prague this week talking about Border Collies and Huntaways, but going to have to get this into my next presentation 🤣 www.instagram.com/reel/DGv7q9V...

Just 10500+ cyclists over Queens Louise’s Bridge in Copenhagen today

Off to Prague next week to give some talks on sheepdogs, as well as biosecurity and animal disease. Details on my talk on sheepdogs below.

If Cardiff want to attract better students, they might want to attract better managers too who according to ChatGPT are 2:2 & not first class

Slight change in approach today

Chat GPT's analysis of a recent Q&A between academics under threat of redundancy, and their university's executive board...

This one should look good on the new CV…

Thinking a lot lately about the New Zealand approach to fixing problems 😉 youtu.be/ZUNJd06iyWU

Another picture of Alec Millar and Spot.

He makes himself big

Today's picture of an old farming magazine - just for @fliskmillan.com!

This is Alec Millar relaxing after winning the International Sheepdog Trial at Criccieth in 1925. His dog, Spot, pictured below, came from the Telfer family in Northumberland, who bred 'Old Hemp' - the 'original' border collie, from whom Spot was descended.

Feels ironic that 'Cynefin', Welsh for sense of place, is a key part of the strategy to reorganise the University, yet its first act is to get rid of the very subject - Geography - that cynefin refers to, and that the VC is a geographer herself.

My great grandfather, William Ceinfryn Thomas, served on the board of governors of what was to become Cardiff University in the early C20th. He must have rolled so hard in his grave on hearing the news today his headstone has toppled over...

Future intentions...

Context: today Cardiff University announce proposals for 400 redundancies, including 15 in School of Geography, which will also be merged with school of social sciences...

Back to practicing pouring latté art, just in case…

Time to update my presentation slides on limbs & fancams... #ccfc

New paper about biosecurity and TB in which we look for and assess the evidence base for the role of biosecurity interventions to prevent TB in cattle bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Returning to the other place 😉

Doing this today, now at 1-2pm. Last time I was in Swansea I had a police escort…hoping for a more relaxed day this time!

Nice thread about the Ettrick Shepherd, who has a fantastic statue on the banks of St Mary's Loch & Loch of the Lowes

Interested in doing a PhD on farm dogs and zoonotic disease? Gwen Rees @aberuni.bsky.social and I have got funding for that starting in October 2025. More details below or see onezoo.uk, or contact us directly for more info

NZ Government “de-funding the mind” newsroom.co.nz/2024/12/05/a...

Some comments from me, @nicgaston.bsky.social, @troybaisden.bsky.social & @nicrawlencenz.bsky.social on the gutting of funding for humanities and social sciences in Aotearoa New Zealand… www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2024/12/04/g...

Basically like UKRI defunding the ESRC…

Still trying to work this out 🤷‍♂️

Q: What to do when your presentation is in the ‘death slot’ - last of the entire conference on a Friday afternoon? A: Quote Dylan Thomas and show Cardiff City scoring against Swansea as a way of introducing the paper…

Great to catch up with Abigail Woods and Karen Sayer at the Producing Animals conference. Their paper on the use of computers a highlight for me, for the conversations it led to later and also the surprising revelation that a ZX Spectrum (or ZX81) played a role in those early days!

The sort of long pig liked by @themerl.bsky.social (North British Agriculturist, 1920)

Off to Paris to give a talk at this conference on industrial agriculture. I’m linking disease eradication and global policy mobility to Berlant’s idea of cruel optimism…

Thanks to @jw132.bsky.social for putting up with me at Cambridge Vet school last week and showing me what real vets do.

How the chicken has overtaken the sheep in Wales. Some clucking interesting farming facts out today public.flourish.studio/visualisatio... Annual #farming survey www.gov.wales/survey-agric...

Pleased to announce that from January I’ll be an Honourary Research Associate at @waikatouniversity.bsky.social. Looking forward to getting back there next year and seeing this Corgi on campus again.

Review of former Defra CSA Ian Boyd's new book 'Science and Politics' www.nature.com/articles/d41... - looks interesting (ht @jw132.bsky.social)

Today’s fieldwork

Would be worried for these sheep’s legs if they came anywhere near @absoluteunits.bsky.social