Ghost signs of Sheffield.

St Mary Magdalene Church, Boveney.

Ghost signs of Henley.

One of my highlights of 2025 was working on Meridien’s story about the Ramesses II statue — and then getting to talk it through with Susanna Thomas. Her book Ramesses, Loved by Ptah was one of my main sources while writing. I can’t recommend it enough! mrdn.world/susanna-thom...

Don't watch "A Merry Little Ex-Mas" for the cheesy romance. Watch it for the sustainability messages, which shine as bright as LED Christmas lights. grist.org/culture/netf...

Have you played my Brookmill Park Birds game? Try it here: deptford.org/birds/ It’s supposed to be fun and educational (and it’s free!).

Next year, white storks will return to London for the first time since 1416. They’ll be released in Barking and Dagenham in east London on a landscape that’s been steadily restored from old gravel pits into wetlands. hypertextual.substack.com/p/little-wil...

Oxfordshire’s rural vibes.

Rename this, motherfucker.

Waiting for High Noon at The Harold Pinter Theatre

Ghost signs of London, Lewisham edition.

After years of procrastination, I finally did what I should have done a long time ago. I’ve started a series of interviews with fellow science communicators and journalists about their careers and the challenges facing our field. Read the first issue: hypertextual.substack.com/p/on-jargon-...

My little Deptford game made it into the London Minute newsletter ! 🦆 Play it here: deptford.org/birds/

Red squirrels are quietly reclaiming the Scottish Highlands. A decade-long reintroduction effort has shifted hundreds of animals into carefully chosen forests, and their range has grown by more than a quarter since 2016. hypertextual.substack.com/p/little-wil...

How many glaciers will disappear by 2100: 79% on our current trajectory (2.7°C) 91% if countries don't meet their emissions targets (4°C) 63% if we meet the Paris goal (2°C) www.newscientist.com/article/2508...

Ghost signs of London, Deptford edition.

At 42, I made my first video game. One morning, I saw two mallards trailing a moorhen in a neat little row and realised it looked like a sliding-tile puzzle. A few hours later, the first version of a Brookmill Park bird game was online. Play here: deptford.org/birds/

So glad Deptford High Street got a starring role in the new Netflix Christmas flick Jingle Bell Heist.

Why Deptford continues to stand out in south east London: www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/2566366...

Ghost signs of Sheffield.

Waiting for End at the National Theatre.

Love this 1987 poster for the Deptford High Street party by Gill Day. collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O127593...

Good news for future astronauts: researchers in Kent have shown that tea can grow in lunar soil. Mars is still a lost cause — plants in simulated Martian soil didn’t sprout at all. hypertextual.substack.com/p/7-things-i...

Cherwell rubbish dump has made it to the front page of The New York Times.

Yesterday, I found myself listening to John Major talk at the LSE. The former prime minister is now at the venerable-elder stage of his career, but he looks sharp, speaks clearly and still lands jokes. 1/2

Ghost cars of Brockley.

How did the Egyptians move an 83-tonne statue? Workers once hauled Ramesses II’s 11-metre colossus 800 km down the Nile using sledges, wet sand, and sheer willpower. Three millennia later, archaeologists found it lying face down in the desert: mrdn.world/ramesses-the...

My granddad would’ve turned 90 today. I still wonder what he’d be doing now if he hadn’t died in 2006. He’d definitely be shouting at whoever runs the country — that was his speciality. I seem to have inherited that, though I wish I’d got his talent for fixing anything.

Fuck no indeed. www.ft.com/content/6ad5...

I’ve always wanted to sneak an advice column into my newsletter, and a question from my friend Julia finally gave me the chance. She asked what cleaning products really do to the environment. The science is far more dramatic than the labels suggest! hypertextual.substack.com/p/want-a-cle...

English swimming spots are in murky waters. In 2024, only 64% were rated excellent, well below the EU’s 85%. And with 8.4% classed as poor, England now leads Europe in the number of polluted bathing sites. hypertextual.substack.com/p/9-facts-ab...

Net-zero measures could prevent 207,000 premature deaths and save $2.2 trillion in air-pollution costs by 2030, according to new modelling. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Pharaohs were the original micromanagers. Ramesses II personally picked the quarry for his 83-tonne statue. Imagine being the sculptor when your boss is a god. The whole saga — including 3,000 years of travel, collapse, and rediscovery — is wild: mrdn.world/ramesses-the...

Billionaires and multimillionaires — the wealthiest 0.1% of the US population — burn carbon like there’s no tomorrow: 4,000 times more than the world’s poorest. Each releases 2.2 tonnes of CO₂ a day, about the weight of a rhinoceros. hypertextual.substack.com/p/9-facts-ab...

Another river clean-up with Friends of Brookmill Park and @lawrencebc.bsky.social.

I love how Michael McFaul once overheard a bit of Russian in Barcelona and has spent the last three years treating it as a universal law of geopolitics.

Waiting for Hamlet at the National Theatre.

Shared my thoughts on British nature with The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

If you live in a major city, chances are your local museum holds one of the artefacts, “borrowed” from Egypt. There are about 2 million Egyptian objects in public collections worldwide. We’ve mapped 50 museums that hold the largest number of artefacts: mrdn.world/artefacts-map/

After months of work, here’s our inaugural feature on Ramesses II. Explore our maps, 3D models, and data visualisations to see how one pharaoh became Egypt’s timeless icon. mrdn.world/ramesses-the...

“After the Berlin Wall fell, they found 35 microphones hidden in the walls of our flat and office.” hypertextual.substack.com/p/inside-the...

Russian “Ministry of Justice” just labelled the International Center for Journalists as an “undesirable organisation.” Undesirable? Look in the mirror, you clowns. My fellowship at ICFJ in 2019 was one of the milestones of my career. I wish every journalist had a chance like that.

The world’s largest capitals now face 25% more extremely hot days than in the 1990s. In Rome and Beijing, the number of days with temperatures above 35°C has doubled; in Manila, it has tripled. Even in cooler cities like London, days above 30°C have doubled. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

At this rate, by the next UK general election, there won’t be a single cabinet member left untainted by a property scandal.

“The chancellor is meant to be delivering growth but the only thing she appears to be growing is the government’s list of scandals.” www.ft.com/content/0780...

Ukraine is increasingly a country held together, behind the military lines, by women. They are fundraising for the army, or sometimes serving in it. They are running civil society organisations, advocating for their country abroad and becoming activists. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

Ghost signs of Kent, Walmer edition.

In the 19th century, long-distance walking was a popular sport known as pedestrianism. In 1879, 10,000 people packed Madison Square Garden to watch 13 athletes walk 450 miles. The winner kept going, covering 530 miles in six days. www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

In 20 years, SUVs in English cities jumped from 3% to 30% of all cars. In London, they take up as much space as Kensington and Chelsea. Nationwide, they’d cover Manchester. www.standard.co.uk/news/london/...