A car? In this heat? 🔥 Cargobike is much cooler ❄️

the cargo bike

We need to encourage dudes to buy cargo bikes if they're having a midlife crisis.

And so the birthday celebrations begin. And Papa has a post-Pride headache 😜 (Also lucky to live in a community that’s really lovely about squealing kids at 0815 on a Sunday.)

Someone on Birmingham Live's Facebook story about Pride said we must "keep the kids away" So if anyone can help me sort a babysitter at short notice I'd be grateful.

Amazing.

Wheeeeeee! #cargobike

If @bhamcitycouncil.bsky.social can tow cars for a parade, they can tow them when they are left in places that endanger wheelchair users, people pushing prams, children walking to school, cyclists, etc. It's a choice. And a statement about official priorities.

BBC journalism is always about impartiality but sometimes you get a hint of the reporters true feelings. If you really look.

Love it!

- Subsidising consumption in the face of a supply shock - reducing incentives to drive less/switch to EVs - using up limited fiscal space to help better-off drivers rather than the most vulnerable. Hard to think of a worse policy right now.

The onigiri from Lidl are pretty good! 🍙

Also if you want to cap the cost of food ( around 10%) of family budget maybe look at cars ( at 15%)? Delaying fuel duty rise doesn't give people new money (they never started paying it) but investing in active travel/public transport would help bring that 15% down.

Fascinating supermarkets saying its madness to keep the price of staple foods artificially low. I think there's quite a few dairy farmers who want to hear more about that.

I hit part of Birmingham’s excitingly obstructive cycling infrastructure today. Had to suddenly yank cargo bike to stay upright and so have really pulled some muscle in my side. Ouch. Also argh.

I don't want AI to write anything for me. I want it to deal with SAP Concur for me.

Greater love have no man than to make two replica guns from his favourite video game; Bayonetta. There are 4 in total in this set but frankly I need a lie down first.

Look I’m a physicist so I always take a dim view of economics as a science. But in the last two days alone we’ve had “unexpected” falls in inflation and “surprise” rises in unemployment and growth. At this point we need to think again about how we interpret data at the end of a line on a graph. 📈

This could be Birmingham.

We’ve written to Birmingham’s group leaders as they form a new administration, calling on them to simplify the transport cabinet brief into a Cabinet Member for Healthy Streets. It’s clear that ‘Environment and Transport’ doesn’t allow for the attention that transforming our streets requires.

Can’t keep up with high gas prices? I’ve saved thousands with this one weird trick It’s a bicycle, I ride a bicycle, I don’t drive a car at all, I can do everything I need to do on a bicycle or on foot including grocery shopping.

Fireworks?

It’s a fascinating listen. But my I had a bit of an epiphany listening. Birmingham talks big on infrastructure, cycling and active travel and then… little or nothing happens. I can’t think of a bigger gap between rhetoric and reality. Is fascinating.

Simply heartbroken… Just found out that earlier this week, two men chainsawed down some of the beautiful trees on Digbeth High Street Sometimes there are no words 😢

I am once again begging for anyone involved in buying or installing bike parking to at least speak to someone who uses a bike. Staples: good. Extra short staples: uhhh? What are these, bike racks for ants? Why are these even made? For elementary schools, probably.

This is the former Birmingham Labour Transport Cabinet member, responsible for declaring a “road safety emergency” and reducing 40mph urban main roads to 30mph, now immediately calling for his *own* policy to be reviewed. Deeply unserious and, worse, actually dangerous.

Oh hai bluesky! Would you like recent family photos? Enjoy please!

Williamina was the housekeeper of Edward Pickering, head of Harvard College Observatory. At the time the clerical staff were unpaid relatives of astronomers. After remarking one time too often “Even my housekeeper could do a better job”, Pickering's bluff was called obliging him to appoint Willamina

When Bluesky doesn’t like my posts.

Ms Hyde can you outline your position on BBC funding? “Did you know Octopus Energy play hold music from the year you were 14? And their flexible energy plan mean no more bill shocks?”

This is a point of view I’ve had forcefully put to me several times now (it’s certainly not just a bbc thing)

Stop driving to the gym!!!!

I’m in Stirchvegas! The lovely people at Bicycle Foundary are fitting a SNUBBER to the #cargobike What on earth is a snubber you ask? Let’s find out together….

I don't really use AI but it did a nice job on a simple party invite last week so this week I asked it if it could turn a still image into a parallax video with layers? YES INDEED what a wonderful idea!!! it said. It produced this. A still black image with non functional buttons. Amazing.

Strange how so many will shame people on bikes for not wearing helmets yet don’t have much to say about bike lanes without protection. Via @thebikinglawyer.bsky.social

I bumped into a brand new Green Councillor riding a @betterstreetsforbirmingham.org cargo bike while I was on my cargo bike! All the cargo bikes! (Also why didn’t Broad St get a bike lane when they did all the tram works?!)

I bought a pair of £40 “smart” sunglasses from a well known Chinese website and blow me pretty good for just recording in case a car happens. 🚲

Things I want to do today. 1. Play Soros Things I have to do today. 1. Kids stuff 2. Work stuff 3. Shop stuff 4. Gym stuff. 5. Sleep stuff.

I do wonder if the government is currently as focused on active travel policy as you might like?

Ow there’s an idea! (Also of COURSE it’s a Trojan Horse move 😜)

This has become an expected experience for children walking to school in Birmingham, which leads more parents to want to drive their kids and also pavement park, and quickens the downward spiral that makes our city more unequal and more unpleasant. Time to eliminate this symbol of urban decline.

I could murder a flapjack

Are you a political party looking to form a coalition and need some practical transport policies to get people moving and address the road safety emergency? 👀 Well look no further, we've got a starter for 10 here!

The best thing about being a gay dad is the overlap in taste and clothes with your daughter 😆

😍

Quelle surprise. Drivers 'chucking stuff out of windows' blamed as litter on 99% of main roads - BBC News share.google/hVyfc9M2umq7...

After all this I do wonder if we might get a concerted effort to fix potholes, high streets and social care. Maybe not in that order.

One of the twins is at the “drawing papa” stage and if I’m honest we’re getting close to the point where I want to get the result as a tattoo.

Civilisation and Ascent are on iPlayer

“While Mayor, I was often asked ‘how have you been able to afford this in Copenhagen🇩🇰?’ I’d reply, ‘how have you been able to NOT afford it?’ 25 years ago we were a few days away from going bankrupt. So the city invested in the cheapest infrastructure..bicycling.”~ Morten Kabell