The New Bond is obvious.

New York billionaires flying past UK billionaires over the Atlantic

And it’s all just about the BBC.

This ramping up of missile production is more important than any of the hyperbolic coverage Chinese hypersonic glide missiles, AI, and quantum innovations. We are still living in an industrial world no matter what people tell you about the ‘information age’.

At this rate everyone will be driving electric cars before UK Gov has electrified the rail network.

Definitely worth paying for a flu jab this year, about £15 at pharmacies! www.bbc.com/news/article...

I've been talking about this on here for a while. We just assume it will always rain enough, so the management of water in the UK is totally disastrous. Now, after a relatively few dry months, we are approaching a calamity. We have done it to ourselves. Yet again. We are a deeply unserious country.

Canada will have to spend a lot more than $60m CAD a year if it wants a domestic space launch capability. arstechnica.com/space/2025/1...

As the situation in Pokrovsk becomes critical, and AFU reinforces the pocket to stabilize the flanks, there's considerable attention now to how this battle is unfolding. A few thoughts on the situation. 1/ (DeepStateMap)

What if I told you some of Napoleon’s most lasting legacies in strategy and military force was in the bureaucracy?

Orban's effects will wear off the moment Macron, Merz, Starmer and Meloni call Trump. Trump's brain is mush. All that sways him is the last person he's talked to.

People will still watch TV if they make good TV.

“Before you leave the castle, please reveal whether you are an Orthodox, or a Critical.”

Even if they had a very cunning CEO and if we ignore Musk’s toxicity to the brand, I’m not sure how Tesla would compete effectively with the scaled benefits Chinese industry has in the entire, global EV supply chain.

One day, the people who hyped "AI" in education will pretend it never happened, and will suffer no consequences for this, just as the people who hyped MOOCs, and franchising, and unregulated recruitment, and every other rolling disaster, have suffered no consequences.

Oh, Alan!

What a photo for the album

Dear Santa...

This is really excellent data journalism... Elon Musk has declared war on the British government, it just doesn't realise it.

Note the ‘British soil’ bit. My uni has plans to open a campus in China. The VC scoffed at me when I expressed concern that staff and students wouldn’t be able to speak freely, and that - as he said - the curriculum would be censored. It’s the price of doing business.

Finally getting round to reading @weinersmith.bsky.social @zachweinersmith.bsky.social City On Mars book. It’s very good but it turns out I’m also what they call a Space Bastard. I prefer Astrobastard, personally. Might change my job title.

Not today, Beelzebub!

“This organisation does not tolerate failure.”

Thanks so much to @lordsukspacecom.parliament.uk for inviting me to share my expertise in person on UK space policy and strategy - their report "The Space Economy: Act Now or Lose Out" is now available: publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5901/ld... @sgiadurham.bsky.social Some thoughts below:

I searched Companies House for the address listed for London Journal Press. There are 27,452 companies associated with it, many dissolved! 1828 have been incorporated there from Jan-Mar this year alone. Somehow, I don’t think there are tens of thousands of businesses working out of this building!

Thanks so much to @lordsukspacecom.parliament.uk for inviting me to share my expertise in person on UK space policy and strategy - their report "The Space Economy: Act Now or Lose Out" is now available: publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5901/ld... @sgiadurham.bsky.social Some thoughts below:

Look at the size of those History and Politics lines. *slaps desk*

A newly appointed Head of Department thanked me for this old Guardian column last week. So I feel duty bound to share it. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Just a bite? What about a good part of the bar? Asking for a friend…

Enjoyed my visit to Boon and thr Beethoven-haus. New goal is to have his work pattern almost every work day…

Of course, one of the reasons UK universities are vulnerable to blackmail and intimidation from foreign governments is that they tend not to be properly supported by the British one.

Or: general salaries are fast devaluing themselves towards the minimum wage.

Looking at new PCs to play Europa Universalis V

Ah

Another nice example of centre and left votes lining up behind the best candidate to beat Reform.

How about putting people on the luggage carousels instead.

*stares in 40°C summer highs in UK*

Hour 5: still no pets. A travesty.

33 years ago today, Homer Simpson killed the Zombie Flanders. “Treehouse of Horror III” first aired October 29, 1992.

It’s the Cosmic Coastline™️!

Thanks very much to Bertelsmann for publishing my very short piece on Golden Dome, space-based interceptors, and Trump’s fantasies if a nuclear missile shield. @sgiadurham.bsky.social

Interested or puzzled by the academic journal publishing process? Want to hear from journal editors working @risjnl.bsky.social and the chairs of the @mybisa.bsky.social Africa & Int'l Studies Working Group? Join us next month online! (Reg free but required) www.bisa.ac.uk/members/work...

Ah yes the ‘hard men of Gondor’.

And yet other parts of the HE system is screaming ‘do more research, get more citations, get more research grants’ in order to max out various UK and international university league tables. 🤷🏻‍♂️