So far today I have mostly been plumbing. Adjusted the thermostatic valve on the shower – it was too lukewarm – and (hopefully) got black ink flowing again in the printer.

I have a few thoughts on the Stakeholder State and the piece by Paul Ovenden. I disagree with the extent of emphasis on stakeholders, but the more dismissive engagement on this app misses that a Strong Stakeholderism does exist, and has placed particular constraints on a govt that lacks direction 🧵

Saturday 3rd January 2026 – a day that will live in infamy. Trump has just made the world a far more dangerous place. www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

Neatly put

And so the faint hopes for 2026 evaporate.

Another interesting tidbit for the @royalsociety.org to add to its biography of their honoured fellow. How long before they realise he’s going to keep on bringing shame on the Society like this?

Enjoyed the Wright of Derby exhibition at the National Gallery more than these two.

Bargain of the year so far!

Think about this a lot. Editing takes time. Costs money. Most podcasts don’t earn any money. So most podcasts don’t edit. And so leaving all the irrelevant stuff in has been normalised in a way it never has been on radio, which is funded and for that money expects concision in return.

Snow in London this morning. I expect the capital has ground to a halt.

A final punt for this before getting down to the serious business of 2026…

A very, very short blogpost about my favourite photos of the year occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2025/...

Happy Thursday everyone! Always nice to see another Thursday roll around.

2026 won’t be better than 2025 unless we try to make it so. Over to us now.

Even if these Ukrainian drones existed, they were obviously just visiting the famous cathedral near Putin's residence

don’t forget tonight to set your calendars ahead a year

Here's a toast to alcohol dehydrogenase, our primary defense against alcohol, a toxic molecule that compromises the function of our nervous system #HappyNewYear

Heavens, another blogpost! My round-up of the books I read in 2025. Some crackers in there. And a couple of turkeys. occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2025/...

Heavens, another blogpost! My round-up of the books I read in 2025. Some crackers in there. And a couple of turkeys. occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2025/...

Morning reading.

Watched the movie ‘Elvis’ and found it wanting. Over-stuffed and over-cooked, I’d say. With a strangely empty performance by Tom Hanks. Butler did a good impersonation, but the film never quite hit the emotional high notes it was trying so hard for.

Either Trump is incredibly stupid or he thinks we are all incredibly stupid.

Good indeed. I still have my first edition copy of 'The Mismeasure of Man' which, as a young, Black kid in the hostile US context, I studied and wielded like Thor's hammer against 'IQ' fetishists.

A very, very short blogpost about my favourite photos of the year occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2025/...

Just watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for the first time in a very long time. So damn good. You can’t take your eyes off Newman. #iPlayer

Photos of 2025 - a selection of my favourites from the past year occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2025/...

Including my selection for 2025 (reproduced below without permission but hopefully with forgiveness)

More sad than glad that everyone’s gone, though very much in need of a quiet day.

Yeah so in my 20s I was on a jury. A retired doctor had drunk a glass of wine which (in his 80s) put him *just* over the limit. Two teenagers ran across the road. He hit them. Killed one, put the other in a wheelchair for life. You never want to be asking yourself “cd I have prevented it?”

What is the *funniest* Trump misread? To me, it is Ian Leslie writing that he has an "almost physical horror of violence". He wrote that this year!

Happy St Stephen’s Day, the most important day of the year for Stephens all over the world.

Merry Christmas - get stuck in!

I am not sure it is harsh. The bottom line is Brexit was always going to require a huge amount of time, effort and money from government and industry, effort that could otherwise be put into growth. When the benefits are a fantasy - the rest of the world seeing access to the EU as a negative… /1

Why is there so much paranormal crap on radio4?

This is hands down my favourite #SolarFlare in recent years, an event from September 2024. The flare persisted for several hours, giving us a jaw-dropping view of ‘coronal rain’ (seen in the yellow structure) and ‘supra-arcade downflows’ (seen in the cyan structure). A beauty!

Well past time for Europe to stand up for itself - and work to create a liberal and democratic vision for our collective future.

This is a great and welcome acknowledgment that we need more publishing venues explicitly dedicated to limiting publication bias journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

“At LSA, we explicitly welcome negative data and null results, & we include it online in the journal’s policy about submitting. This was baked into the founding of our journal; we think it’s a matter of scientific integrity, of reducing wasted research efforts, & of lowering barriers to publication”

My best Christmas present so far is finding out that “Why Don’t Things Fall Up?” is on the official reading list for a science teacher training course at the University of Brighton.

Yet another failure of 'good faith' reporting that quotes John Ioannidis as a 'longtime colleague and friend' without mentioning that Ioannidis & Bhattacharya co-led a flawed Santa Clara serological survey that falsely claimed COVID was 85x less dangerous than estimated. very brief 🧵

“a numbing, unengaging, tiring, repetitive, repetitive, very repetitive cinematic experience.” Well, there’s the pull quote for the poster!

At some point maybe moderate Republicans have to say... something? Around the time the president is renaming buildings after himself, or when he accuses the New York Times of being THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE?

I’m old enough to remember when CBS News would never have surrendered to a demagogic president or any other politician. Remember Edward R. Murrow?

Robin (on our patio this morning).

It’s great that 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi is coming right out swinging. Not having a second of this bullshit! I think coddled hacks like Bari Weiss have no idea what to do with righteous fury like this except, if anything, somehow play victim. Let’s see!

And now for something completely different: making butternut squash soup

Since the very dawn of humanity, from the time we stopped being apes and started being humans, we imagine that people have looked at the heavens, seen the regular progression of the stars across the night sky, observed the movements of the planets, and asked themselves, "When is bins?"

Can’t be sure of the details, but looks like Bristol’s efforts were frustrated by protesters determined to prevent the talk going ahead. Universities *have* to be places where people can disagree productively. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Censorship in Trump’s America. Chilling.

Wrapped all the presents. Jeebus. Now preparing dinner aided and abetted by a martini.