Here's a mediocre idea for a webapp or twitter bot: "Is It Just Me Or Are The Trains Crap". You tell it the train you're on, and how late it is; you get, in return, contextual information about how unusual that is.

COME TO OUR CONFERENCE! Lots of people work on medicines data: researchers; but also "medicines optimisation" teams, using data to directly improve NHS care; and teams who build data tools. These clans rarely meet... Until now! Join us, Dec 10th, in Oxford. www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/events/2025-...

This is great to see. I want my government to do all it can to stop our allies, the Israeli government, killing more Palestinian civilians. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Any christmas cake sightings in UK supermarkets? Ocado / M&S has pudding but no cake so far.

Just ordered some fence posts and trellis for same-day delivery. I have no DIY skills and it's raining heavily. With huge respect to my great grandfather - who did a better day's work there than I ever will - this is going to be like Paschendale.

Seating is social and public transport infrastructure and yes, removing the Kirkgate benches was a crime.

I agree with this praise of humans curating things you might like, and I'm surprised there's never been a popular platform facilitating it as a central foreground activity, where you can follow people for their curated links, music, or other stuff.

Lots of these problems are better solved with an annual property value tax, like US states do, ~1-2% per year. We could let people defer it against their house if they wish, taken at death. Can't be dodged: the house is there. And progressive: the rich pay more www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

During all future DIY rages let it be known that on this day, August 10th 2025, I actually was able to quickly find the specific screws I needed in the house.

This is a really interesting public health move. Ban cigarettes with filters, on the basis that they were fraudulent, polluting, and lead to compensatory risk behaviours that do harm. Force smokers to go full filterless cough cough Woodbine, or stop.

Happy to share that (from August 1st) I'll be spending the next 6 months working at the University of Oxford as a visiting researcher! I'll be working with @ndevito1.bsky.social and @bengoldacre.bsky.social on developing and extending features of RegCheck (regcheck.app).

The streaming rights for South Park just sold at... $1.5 BILLION? I genuinely feel more optimistic for humanity after hearing this. Long may we all combine stupid with clever.

CAR GAME FOR HOLIDAYS WITH SLIGHTLY BIGGER KIDS>> "I can't spy with my little eye anything beginning with... a/b/c/etc" Take turns; if you have nothing, you're out. It's good cos it gets paradoxically harder as the stretch of motorway becomes more featureless. Also adult entries get very baroque.

We thought the future would be flying cars. Actually it's ebikes and tiny escooters. But they're banned. We're burning carbon and eradicating copyright to subsidise AI, surely we can find a way to thoughtfully regulate small efficient green transport? www.engadget.com/transportati...

Podcasts on current affairs are the audio version of doom scrolling. They feel like you're attached to What's Happening; the net effect over a year is... brain energy wasted on circumstantial, temporary things. Audiobooks feel detached from the relevant world. This is insidious, and must be fought.

Oxford's councils have made a painted bike lane on Woodstock Rd (by my office). It specifically tells cyclists to ride in the Car Door Zone, the MOST DANGEROUS part of the road. Last month, they added little lights to it. Please, remove it @oxfordshirecc.bsky.social @oxfordcitycouncil.bsky.social

Hot weather is like very loud drum and bass. I love it. But not for five days in a row, without any prospect of escaping.

Oxford's councils have made a painted bike lane on Woodstock Rd (by my office). It specifically tells cyclists to ride in the Car Door Zone, the MOST DANGEROUS part of the road. Last month, they added little lights to it. Please, remove it @oxfordshirecc.bsky.social @oxfordcitycouncil.bsky.social

Every episode of this podcast is magnificent, especially the ones where they get cross at NIMBYs and the legislators who empower them.

This is excellent, as ever.

Just noticed that cat years also work for cars. Ours is 76. It had some scares in its late 60s but recovered well.

I'm listening to this and it is marvelous

These huge cars are vastly more dangerous, kill far more children, as they're higher at the front. They should have their own much lower speed limit in towns; and higher tax. Parking should be charged as for vans, they're larger than normal spaces. It's bizarre that they're treated as cars.

Our next conference is on MEDICINES DATA, fire up your proposals and come! www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/events/2025-...

Which medicines are being used the most, in which hospitals? We made OpenPrescribing.net for GP data... And now you can also use... hospitals.openprescribing.net too! Here's a blog about our first public outing www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/blog/2025/06...

We are fascinated by adoption curves for new treatments in the NHS. Here is a very, very fast one. From our new OpenPrescribing-Hospitals tool, online now!

Should we all publish our FAILED funding proposals? And what's the deal with every small patch in the NHS having its own bespoke prescribing guidelines? www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/blog/2025/06...

Should we all publish our FAILED funding proposals? And what's the deal with every small patch in the NHS having its own bespoke prescribing guidelines? www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/blog/2025/06...

Kids are you ready for the summertime love? www.youtube.com/watch?v=frrO... (Also your armpits all smell).

Which medicines are being used the most, in which hospitals? We made OpenPrescribing.net for GP data... And now you can also use... hospitals.openprescribing.net too! Here's a blog about our first public outing www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/blog/2025/06...

"Have you thought about applying the @opensafely model, for data privacy and efficiency, to non-health data?" YES WE HAVE Behold the new... OpenSAFELY-Schools!! schools.opensafely.org

And in other news

ooh this would actually enable the sort of work on school exclusions that is really hard to do otherwise - ie to look at internal school disciplinary processes prior to suspension or perm exclusion. (and to run trials on stuff)

"Have you thought about applying the @opensafely model, for data privacy and efficiency, to non-health data?" YES WE HAVE Behold the new... OpenSAFELY-Schools!! schools.opensafely.org

Please can we fund the NHS and care by taxing the housing wealth of the over 60s? At time of death, if you like. This is huge, unearned money, and going to drive damaging inequality at inheritance. Taxing workers and businesses is much worse for the economy. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

How do you count medicines? - A tablet of paracetamol. - A spoonful of Calpol. - A box of Panadol. Sounds simple, but across the entire NHS dm+d? tricky! We’ve written about our incredibly technical and nerdy work behind the scenes to make this possible: www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/blog/2025/05...

It's kind of remarkable that this is possible in 2025. Hospital electronic health record systems are... hundreds of siloes. Hospitals have... between zero and a dozen EHR systems running at once. It's still an amazing tangle. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

We shall not grow old, in honour of those who couldn't grow old.

Painful middle aged skateboarding injuries are the opposite of a quiet death and should be celebrated. Just slammed full body weight through my shoulder onto concrete, while creeping - incredibly slowly - backwards on a mini ramp. Can't move my right arm but delighted by summer evenings.

MRC threatening to pull funding sparked a massive shift in clinical trial registrations Before the policy, 56% of trials were registered within 12-months, but 98% afterwards @bengoldacre.bsky.social said it's “brilliant they’ve delivered such good performance on transparency"

It was huge fun hosting the great and the good of the medicines data world in Oxford. Only those who are truly committed to the better use of data go so far as to wear our logos as tattoos. We are legion! (Note: they are removable, and we'll happily give you a tattoo at any of our events...).

My mum released multiple disco bangers over the years but this - which weirdly never got anywhere - is absolutely magnificent. www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZe9...

We've just been playing the dooph game (shout "dooph" at the precise moment of the "dooph" 3 minutes into "I Will Always Love You"). It is _literally impossible_. youtu.be/3JWTaaS7LdU?...

The amount of single use plastic passing through my house is insane. It's mostly food. I don't know how we all got used to this, and fighting it alone seems pointless. We fritter the years away, in politics world, on just getting by. I'd love to see big energetic policy moves to fix big things well.

Me and @bengoldacre.bsky.social think a lot about this in our day-to-day and will have some more news soon about a cool project we're about to start up on code sharing!

Through OpenSAFELY Ben and friends are revolutionising medical research. Join them

Good beans doing important and virtuous work.

HIRING! SENIOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS! OpenSAFELY is our huge productive platform for secure efficient management of sensitive personal data. We're doing things right: everything open source; developers and researchers pooling skills (64 of us); and... we ship! www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/blog/2025/04...

This looks like a brilliant job. I think this is one of the most important data services in the UK right now - in its own right, but also as a live example of how you can use data without disclosing data. 🙌