Sorry to say #OnlyConnect will return 13th July, with a twist - it's a longer series! Contestants will need an extra step to get to the endgame. That would be my fourth series as a setter - very pleasing 😌

I'm pretty sure I once gave a talk (at a group meeting, not a conference) which ended with me saying something like "and the analysis has been running while I'm talking, let's see what results I got!"

An exciting moment. The LSST will be a deluge of data that will be fascinating to explore

Attention has been drawn to the difference in earnings for different degree types in the new IFS study, but I think the more egregious and obvious gap is still the gender pay gap!

And so ends the premiership of the dog that chased the car, caught up with it, then had no idea what to do www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-...

🔭 I'm giving a webinar at 4:30pm today. Sign up here! 🔭

Football. Bloody hell.

hill I will die on: the world became worse when "staycation" was co-opted to mean "holiday in your home country" not "holiday where you stay at home, with day trips" www.theguardian.com/travel/2026/...

🔭 Congratulations to three brilliant astronomers who have won this year's Kavli Prize "for uncovering the fossil evidence of past mergers proving that the Milky Way galaxy was built through hierarchical accretion" www.kavliprize.org/prizes/astro... 🔭

Buffy: Lie to me. Giles: Yes. It’s terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true. The bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies and… everybody lives happily ever after.

For an investigation into what changes depending on your definition of thin & thick discs, I would point people to Simon Alinder's recent, very thorough, study ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025arXi...

This is all true and important. In a move that is not at all shocking, the current government has made a terrible choice that it has not thought through. 🧪🔭

Some part of me needs one of these. Any chance I can claim it's for teaching?

I'm giving a public webinar on "10 things you might not know about the Milky Way", on 22nd June. Sign up below! It will be of interest to anyone who's interested in space. Particularly, schoolchildren who might apply to University of Leicester (or their parents)! 🔭🎢

I don't think 'definitive' is quite right, maybe 'standard', but if you want an estimate of the Milky Way's gravitational field, then I've got you covered: ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017MNRA...

I'm on the downslope towards 50, and am not looking forward to becoming racist.

A thoroughly enjoyable piece about the excessive reaction to any minor 'controversy' in professional football by @maxrushden.bsky.social, with a possible explanation for why I've never gotten too annoyed about them. 🔭 #everythingisshowbiz #everythingisshorterthanaHubbletime

In fairness the spectral type naming sequence makes about as much sense as the real one! ✨ (I'll concede that the repeated 'M' is worse)

🌌 🔭 2nd December 2026 will be a huge day for astronomy: Gaia DR4 is coming out! 5 years of data bringing better measurements and allowing new science 🔭🌌 www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/news

When I first read this I was sad I hadn't heard about it and will miss it. Now I've found an invitation deeply hidden in my spam email folder and I'm just furious at our filter!! 🤬🤬🤬 Sorry to miss it Matthias! I hope it's a great meeting

Sanity prevails for once.

I've seen where this leads. We're a few steps away from this guy:

Covid + 14 years of Conservative underfunding of the NHS = www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

🔭 Paper day x2! What would #GaiaNIR tell us about the Milky Way's bar? Óscar Jiménez-Arranz's paper sets out how much it will improve our picture of the Milky Way's central kiloparsecs 🔭 arxiv.org/abs/2604.18329

🔭 Paper day! Love ESA's Gaia mission, but hungry for more? #GaiaNIR is the future, taking astrometry into the hidden dusty regions of the Galaxy. Isabella Henum's paper looks at what it will allow us to learn about globular clusters, including any dark matter haloes! arxiv.org/abs/2604.18265 🔭

The team captain had an amazing semi-final and final. Interesting to see what happens when you put astrophysicists on a TV quiz team! #AdAstra

My week has been almost entirely full of reading scientic write-ups, from student reports to papers I'm refereeing, and I've realized there is one hill I will die on: We should ban the use of the word "exhibits" except when referring to multiple items in a museum.

I don't think I know anyone who's entertained by it. I can think of lots of other descriptions first.

🔭 Others who understand the process better than me will give a clearer account, but I've listened to a little of Patrick Vallance being questioned by the MPs about the threatened cuts to Astronomy & Particle Physics (among other things) parliamentlive.tv/event/index/...

🔭 Reposting for the morning people. A damning indictment of the decision making that has threatened astronomy and particle physics funding in the UK. 🔭 committees.parliament.uk/publications...

Parents overreact to something that to kids is just a joke. 'Twas ever thus www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This is tragic news. Carl Grillmair is a legend in the field. He discovered streams of stars around the Milky Way that no one else could with the data available

🔭 Reposting for the feed 🔭

1000 citations for something I made a decade ago. I'm going to allow myself a little moment of pride that my work has been useful to so many people

A rather grim read from the head of UKRI. Basically, the facilities run by STFC that support research across the UKRI's remit have become too expensive. Rather than cut those costs or spread the pain across research areas, the astro and particle physics unlucky enough to be in STFC gets slashed

How is it possible that North East Somerset and Hanham managed to elect an MP even worse that the previous incumbant, Jacob Rees-Mogg? www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Lost a little in the last paragraphs of articles about the cuts to astronomy and particle physics: UKRI are trying to shift the blame on to STFC itself for commiting too much money back in 2022: www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

These cuts are a disastrously bad idea, that surrender the notion of the UK being among the world leaders in fundamental physics

Unless the training is mainly "DO NOT TRUST IT" over and over again, it won't be doing much good. It can be a useful tool, but only if you're prepared to check everything that comes out of it very carefully.

It's one of those occasional days where I learn more about Swindon Town Football Club than I need to, as I look to see if anyone is sharing info on STFC grant results www.ukri.org/councils/stfc/

Space science has been saved, by a large margin, from the dire state that the original proposal would have created.

Genuinely delighted by this news. Mock had become one of my favourite places to discover new comedians in its later years

I have to agree with this. Astro twitter was a great resource for keeping up with the field and making connections. It's a shame we didn't all congregate in one new space but instead went into different silos.

Since my eyes were opened to how common harassment is at universities, I have become hard to shock. "he propositioned a junior academic when she went to him for support having reported being raped" managed it though. Fucking hell.

Movie you’ve watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Stars (Wars nor Trek), LOTR, or Marvel, Disney Animated or Pixar.

🔭 Catching up on arXiv in a quiet moment, I enjoyed this from the abstract of Balser & Burton (arxiv.org/abs/2511.00720). The inner Milky Way is a disorganised shambles, I've always thought that. Not the most disorganized shambles I've ever seen in a bar, but that's a different matter. 🔭

Interesting journal club with the Exoplanets group at @physicsuol.bsky.social, looking at the transition from giant planets to brown dwarfs (arxiv.org/abs/2511.11818). They don't mention it, but is the gap at 2-3 MJ & [Fe/H]~0.2 called anything? If not, I'm calling it the Leicester doughnut hole 🔭

Alternative possibility: YouTube prank show of some kind

This is going to turn out to be an incredibly brilliant performance art satire about left wing politics

And if you too want to do a PhD with me, then there's an opportunity at the University of Leicester!