Snow falling outside my UCL window

I’ve been scanning the November and December file releases at the National Archives Some quick notes: November 2025: 9853 files, a quarter of which are regular Treasury files Oldest has documents from 1896 on India and stamp duty

#reading Dan Davies, The Unaccountabilty Machine Sarah Wynn-Williams, Careless People Matt Houlbrook, Songs of Seven Dials Sherri Tepper, Beauty Charlotte Lydia Riley, Imperial Island Guy Ortolano, Thatcher’s Progress Augustine, Confessions John Crowley, Little, Big

On a botany walk around the city of London, but came across this, which is also kinda botanical: a plaque to The Triffids, where they recorded Born Sandy Devotional

Delighted to have an article published in The British Journal for the History of Science, on Charles Darwin's chromatic vocabulary on the Beagle voyage. With enormous thanks to @sgsah.bsky.social, @edincollegeofart.bsky.social, @sochistnathist.bsky.social

London Natural History Society New Year Plant Hunt (1 Jan) underway. Already got a hood list going @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Metropolis (1927) is set in 2026.

“urban re-gingeration”

Second-hand book find of the week is this 1895 biography of the Russian mathematician (and author and nihilist), Sophie Kowalevski by friend, fellow author and Swedish feminist activist Carlotta Leffler. It’s a curious and significant book…

Field pansy (Viola arvensis), a field near St Just-in-Roseland, Cornwall #wildflowerhour

Xmas present was a UV torch, so I peered into some rock pools. Natural light (L), UV (R) Reveals mysterious glowing things

Spot the Woodcock

You’ve heard of the MC5? Here are the DSM IV

Dinosaur outside office

Fearing the worst when - alarm failure! - I had rush to lecture on Heidegger's The Question Concerning Technology at 9am on the last day of the last week of term I needn't have worried: the students engaged, the lecture flowed, the discussion lively. I love this course (Thinking about Technology)

Where am I?

“alpha-plus boffin drama”

Planting a green wall (UCL Chemistry building)

sodden gorse Berkhamsted #wildflowerhour

In the RANG (Royal Arsenal Narrow Gauge) workshop there is the most fantastically detailed map of the Royal Arsenal. It’s about 3x1m. All structures and buildings named. c1907? This area from Woolwich to Erith was the largest technical engineering site in London. On published maps it was blank

On an Exciting Day Out to “Steaming Day” at the Crossness Pumping Station Starts with being picked up at Abbey Wood by a vintage Routemaster …

#histSTM #histsci and adjacent #bookprize Please share widely!

Snow sleet and rain in London

Can confirm

Shown to me, swept from chalk grassland on Box Hill a week or so ago: purseweb spiderlings (Atypus affinis): the UK’s only wild tarantula close relative

Thank you brain for waking me up and shouting ‘Toyah Willcox is German for Expensive Wants Cook’s’

Moral guidance needed. My son was in Brick Lane and assembled this: The Doner Bagel Says it was delicious But is this right? Should I intervene?

The deprivation results for my little slice of Hackney are quite stark. The one outlier (education and skills, near the least deprived) is making me reflect

It’s raining. Should I take my 9am Thinking about Technology class out of the classroom to inspect the revealed infrastructure of Euston Road/Gordon Street?

Going to a lecture about Denisovans. Quite excited. Topic has been a minor obsession

Nettle-leaved Bellflower (under the box woods) and Clustered Bellflower (in the chalk grassland at the top), still flowering, on Box Hill. Interesting bellflower seed heads too #wildflowerhour

With 56,000 others to watch Arsenal Women robbed of a win against Chelsea

I’ve been catching up working through all the titles of files released at the National Archives, August-October 2025 Here are the overviews followed by a vote for what might be interesting to look at and report…

Any suggestions of good STS scholarship (journal articles, book chapters, other) on disability and technology? never been quite satisfied with ones I've used before in teaching...

🎉 Exciting news from @UCLSTS! We’re thrilled to welcome Professor Andy Stirling as an Honorary Professor in our department. Andy, is a emeritus professor at Sussex, and has been a valued friend to the department for decades. For more info 👉https://bit.ly/4hFlY7K

I’m at the British Textile Biennial, with exhibits and events in Burnley, Accrington, Blackburn etc. Theme this time is invention and innovation, so plenty of #histsci and #histech among the new fibres and Lancashire looms. Some of the things I’ve seen…

Stack of Jacquard loom cards, about two meters in length at Queen’s Street Mill, near Burnley By my calculation about 120kb of data

Visiting Accrington at the weekend. Any tips?

STS is proud that Helen Pearson, Honorary Professor of Practice with us, and who teaches on our SciCom MSc, has been awarded the European Science Journalist of the Year Award from the European Federation for Science Journalism. #ScienceJournalism #ScienceCommunication

This was good. Gutted to have missed The Doors though

Seen Comet Lemmon (it has a bit of tail, good through binoculars)

I tried a little pedagogical innovation in teaching #HistTech today The students had read Ruth Schwartz Cowan’s classic More Work for Mother: the Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave I wanted them to remember 1) the hard work, and 2) how some work disappeared 1/n

Why wait for retirement? For many years I have been trying to visit: 1) all the SSSIs in the country (all ones within M25 ticked, but in total a ridiculous fools’ errand) 2) all Cold War defence research establishments Remarkably I am still married and occasionally am invited to parties

Footage has just been found of a band I was in, Trotsky's Dog. We played gigs in Hitchin, Stevenage and Cambridge in the late 1980s. Some of our own material, but mostly covers of Stooges, Spacemen 3 and so on. A racket. I'm the moody guitarist (r) - with hair! Faster. Louder. More feedback

With Michael Heseltine in the news, saying the right things, I thought I'd share this. Sarah Hogg, head of John Major's Number 10 Policy Unit, pens a rather charming portrait of what it was like to work with the man (I'm working on a chapter on science/environment under Major and Blair at the mo)

The @stsucl.bsky.social History of Science Reading Group is back. Yesterday we discussed Helen M. Rozwadowski @oceanhistories.bsky.social , ‘Ocean literacy and public humanities’, Parks Stewardship Forum (2020) 36(3) escholarship.org/uc/item/11w5... (suggested by Janet Browne & Jordan Goodman)

"The Met Police investigation discovered street thieves were being paid up to £300 per handset - and the force said stolen devices are being sold in China for up to £4,000 each, given they are internet-enabled and more attractive for those trying to bypass censorship". www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Turkmenistan Shrike, Dunwich Heath, Suffolk, being admired by lots of birders

Happy Sputnik Launch Day to those who celebrate

The @stsucl.bsky.social department on TV #2