Outstanding football.

Said this a few times but despite the doom and gloom we really are living through a golden age of science. Unprecedented energy transition hopefully solving climate change, cancer potentially cured within my lifetime and now behold the universal vaccine:

Potential concept for newly nationalised UK railways - offer an option of paying money for trains turning up on time. While it was nice getting a free trip to Glasgow this week, I probably would've been willing to pay some money for the option of getting home before midnight.

Really good interview with the head of UK's clean power 2030 mission. No turning back!

Two interesting facts here: Labour have contracted more renewables in a year and a half than the Tories and Lib Dems did in 14 years and; The amount contracted this year should reduce LNG imports (eg from the middle east and US) by three quarters.

This is absolutely the number one issue that needs a reset. The vast majority of the Labour Party and wider left of centre voters can support or live with most of the rest of Labour's program but the position on immigration is toxic.

More good UK clean energy news - record breaking offshore wind and solar auctions, big restart for onshore wind after the previous government banned it, solar continues to fall in price, onshore wind price stable. Still on track for 95% clean energy by 2030.

Post a banger not in English

Another study showing cycling is good for your mental health and cognitive function. Interesting in this one though that e-bike users do even better on some metrics than users of unassisted bikes.

People say it's the greatest sporting event in the world, but is that just superbole? #superbowl

I think the winter Olympics are my favourite Olympics just because at least half the sports are completely crazy. Extreme cold must do something to the human brain to make them invent competitive ice hurtling games.

Good evidence that Starmer and Reeves' plan for the economy is starting to work:

It's good that they're doing this because his name was in danger of being lost to time. There are 3 year olds who can barely remember his name. Now parents from all round the world will be able to take their toddlers to Washington to teach them about Columbus with the aid of a giant gold statue.

An estimate from one London borough found that one ZipCar can replace twenty private cars. Shared cars > Overview and benefits share.google/qoeDV5JvTOhx...

Good article on car clubs. I ditched my car because of Zipcar as I'm sure did many other people so boroughs need to get a grip on this otherwise they're going to end up with more traffic and more pollution.

Good summary of probably the strongest part of the Labour government's program so far, the progress on decarbonisation and clean energy really is excellent:

Some actual bona fide good news. The domestic clean tech market is absolutely booming and is poised to keep growing. www.businessgreen.com/news/4525218...

I think the attitude expressed in here, basically "The people who are most concerned about climate change are also mean about us" is very telling. Musk also has this. You can't rely on billionaires to solve important issues because it's too contingent on them personally feeling sufficient gratitude.

I've been wondering when people were going to start asking the wives given that half the emails go "Yeah, I'll send you a helicopter to paedo island, don't bring your wife though, she won't like it." I know my OH would be absolutely livid with that so I imagine some of them have things to say.

0.2% of GDP is the cost of almost complete decarbonisation. Total no-brainer, especially when it'll almost certainly be even cheaper than that in the end.

Review of the first half:

Never forget that Labour are the government accelerating wind power deployment and electrified heating while the Tories and Reform want to increase our vulnerability to increasingly volatile natural gas prices.

From my timeline it seems like the far right were correct that the cyclists are their enemies.

It's not only wealth & power that attract a certain kind of academic, politician or journalist to the wealthy. It's a shared belief in irrepressible individual genius being the key driver for human progress. It's a boringly common irrationality over millennia, and a key driver for human suffering

"Every day on the streets of London there are people edging past pensioners being mugged on the pavement". What an absolute menace this man is. We need to protect pensioners from the torrent of brainrot propaganda constantly being pumped into their brains, not imaginary muggings.

Interesting paper on steel decarbonisation. Obviously I was most interested in this bit and definitely agree that this is what will happen 😉

As a scientist who has fairly often got down a line of reasoning where you're adding more facts that are bending your hypothesis way beyond what it can stand, at some point you have to step back and say "are my facts wrong, or my hypothesis, because none of this makes any sense?"

I think this kind of thing is great, working with everyone to work out what's blocking things and getting it sorted, not just bulldozing things through. Ideally this would be done at a lower level than national government but hopefully the government's devolution agenda will help with that.

Beautiful chart.

Some people are saying we're the 4th best team in Europe.

Solanke hasn't lost any pace then.

It must be strange being a tourist in London, watching these mysterious creatures called Londoners cross the road on a red light without looking, because they have an encyclopedic knowledge of every traffic light phasing in the entire city.

To weigh in on this, there's a bit of a sampling issue here. "First person in your family to go to university" may be the most common thing in the population as a whole, but not necessarily among people who went to university, and definitely not when you get into postgrad and beyond...

Lots of people laughing at this, but this is an idiot in the middle of nowhere in China *who has a drone that is powerful enough to carry a pig down a mountain*. "Legal experts stated agricultural drones have load and operating environment restrictions." Have we even started thinking about this?

Hi everyone - it seems there’s been a targeted campaign against this plan for protected cycle lanes on Bayswater Road. If you look back through the consultation it had 400 negative responses in 24 hours 😨 Londoners on bikes, we’d love to hear from you in this. Please take a moment … 1/2

"What if Starmer and Reeves are right?" is quite underpriced in the commentariat.

I'm a British 49ers fan who just found out the Seahawks defensive coordinator is British and now I'm feeling very conflicted... #NFL

RIP Alex Pretti November 9, 1988 - January 24, 2026 A nurse who exhibited bravery and kindness. Murdered by U.S. government thugs.

Obviously my entire timeline is a massive downer right now but I just watched Happy Gilmore and Dodgeball with my kids for the first time and haven't laughed so much in a long while. Can definitely recommend any film featuring idiots knowingly being idiots for laughs right now.

People are down about trains in the UK but I just booked 4 tickets from London to Glasgow (during half term!) for £167 which seems like incredibly good value. It's not even that far in advance.

Surprised it hasn't been talked about more but the issue with ICE and tariffs aren't just that they're disgusting it's also that they're obviously illegal and show that the rule of law in the US is non-existent. As a democracy you can deal with countries like that but you can't be allied to them.

#FridayFive Literature. 1. Scentless Apprentice. Nirvana. 2. Wuthering Heights. Kate Bush. 3. Dignity. Deacon Blue. 4. Romeo and Juliet. Dire Straights (The Killers version is gorgeous too). 5. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Elton John.

Hello @solveschoolrun.bsky.social If Islington bans Lime e-bikes it’ll blow a hole in active travel across north / central London. Please spread the word among active parents & call on councillors for pan-London cycle hire access. www.islingtontribune.co.uk/article/lime...

Not much focus on India and other Asian countries that aren't China but increasing evidence that they're fossil fuel-driven development and going straight for renewables and electrification.

This just popped up on my job alerts, it's not for me but thought it might be of interest to some of the people who follow me here given jobs in this field come along relatively infrequently:

Wow, this is quite something. Makes it very clear that this is an explicit project to undermine the rule of law for the benefit of the far right (in which I include Reform UK).

This looks *so* much like the back gardens of my old street, even down to the church spire in the background.

Crazy that less than a week ago there were a bunch of clever people on my timeline saying the offshore wind we signed up for was too expensive and we should wait to see if we can get it cheaper in a year or two. No. The best time to build it was 10 years ago. The 2nd best time is now.

Commentator on the Patriots - Texans game: "You're not going to see a more stupid game than this" Senegal - Morocco in the Afcon final: "Can I just Panenka my beer to you?"

We're lucky the word "Quisling" is so appropriate. It's impossible to contain the disgust as the sounds emerge from your mouth. A word that you can physically feel as you are saying or thinking it.