"You are helping by cycling when you can" British WWII propaganda poster ca. 1940 🧵

*Sighs once again*. Consultations are not referendums. We have a system of representative democracy. Those elected enact policy and consult on *how* it is enacted, not if. There are many, many good reasons why this is the case.

Please do not tell them who played female characters in Shakespeares play.

Me: "My apartment is too small for my grand piano. I'm going to store it on the sidewalk." City: "Citation issued for illegal dumping" Me: "My garage is too small for my SUV. I'm going to store it in the street." City: "Sounds great, no worries, just move it once a month, ok?"

Just imagine - you’re a cat, with presumably a house, but you ignore that house and come instead to *my* house, and you walk in like you own the place, and come and go as you please and do whatever you like whenever you like. Just imagine how smug you’d be. Pretty smug? Not as smug as this bastard.

Do you trust car manufacturers to tell the truth about the #Health & environmental impacts of their cars? 63% of British adults don't. Where illegal activity is shown by the #Dieselgate trial, the Government needs to enforce recalls, paid for by manufacturers. @clientearth.bsky.social

Been thinking a lot about how we are talking about health and society so I wrote down some thoughts about what happens when self-care replaces collective care, and why joy, connection, and shared spaces are as essential to a nation’s wellbeing as any diet zoegrunewald.substack.com/p/when-whats...

Unwisely read the comments on an article about banning pavement parking & there's loads of people saying "I never see disabled people being impeded by pavement parking!" 1. Are you paying attention? 2. People avoid routes they know will be impeded. 3. Inaccessibility discourages mobility aid use.

When anyone tries to use the “costs a lot” argument to scare you off decarbonizarion you have to ask “compared to what”. Continuing to be fossil fuel reliant will cost drastically more than the net zero transition, so the only valid financial argument is: get on with it.

🧵A political/media guide to the "truth" about net-zero 1) Add up costs to install & run a net-zero energy system 2) Pretend fossil-fuelled alternatives wld be free 3) Do say "eco zealots are bankrupting us" 4) Don't say "free cars if we scrap net-zero" cos it sounds ridiculous 5) That's it! 1/10

Let alone their future driving permissions… Why is road crime treated differently to other crime? IMO complacency and acceptance of road danger as inevitable have dulled accountability. Strategy isn’t enough — we need a fundamental root & branch cultural reset. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

So smart

It's great to see action starting against dangerous pavement parking. Now we need: A clear definition of what "unreasonable obstruction" means; Effective ways to enforce against obstructive and dangerous parking; Enforcement against pavements being broken by heavy vehicles. Read more: bit.ly/4jsWbRa

This finding of "hidden" public support for green policies strongly echoes our work on pluralistic ignorance when it comes to non-car travel: most people support non-car travel more than car travel, but at the same time they believe this is a minority view

Elegant

Our proposals to make Oxford Street car-free are already making waves in the West End. The businesses moving in know how great the capital’s high street can be. www.thetimes.com/business/com...

Read my 2025 New Infrastructure Review, where I look at the last year of cycleway and healthy streets delivery in London: safecycleldn.com/2026/01/02/2...

But more importantly; govts are more easily derailed by other people’s agendas *when they don’t have a clear & well communicated sense of their own agenda + robust policy to achieve it*. Fix that instead of whinging to the Times.

Happy New Year to all our pro European friends - wishing you a joyous and united 2026 🇪🇺

I once saw a fella trying to get his glasses back from a swan. This was by the concrete shores of the UCD lake. Now I can't be 100% certain of this next part because I wasn't close enough to hear clearly, but I think he said "oh, dither!" when he gave up. He was an Englishman.

Wolf-whistled at my wife when I rounded a corner and spotted her up ahead walking our dog. Turns out it wasn't her which should have been obvious because I was walking our dog at the time.

Heroic Dog Saves Family Of 5 From Herb-Roasted Chicken https://theonion.com/heroic-dog-saves-family-of-5-from-herb-roasted-chicken/

the recurrent line that has always stuck out to me, "name any issue and i'll tell you how cars make the problem worse", is extremely true because once you See cars you cannot unsee them.

Unbelievably, #DuvetKnowItsChristmas generates such good will on social media that over the years we've raised somewhere approaching a quarter of a million quid for homeless charities. If you can spare a bob or two, sling some to Centrepoint, and here's the link: www.gofundme.com/f/duvet-know...

“Several years later, my wife rides everywhere: to physio, to shopping, to restaurants, to doctor appointments, to the park — everywhere. She tucks her cane into her panniers. That’s important, because walking far still hurts. And cycling keeps us active and moving, which is important as one ages.”

When Nyunmiti Burtom & other female Australian Indigenous artists heard of the Christchurch Mosque attack, 2019, they showed solidarity by creating a canvas for NZ Muslim community depicting people separated by sea, culture, but united in humanity #WomensArt

Merry Christmas Everyone:-)

Happy Christmas to all our followers and friends.

I think it was @gregpak.net who recently said something like "action alleviates anxiety." Take that to heart. You will feel less alone, less helpless, less defenseless if you become involved in local progressive action. It's already happening all around you; go outside and find it.

OK so It’s Christmas Eve & petitioning Govt might not be front of mind today - but *please* take just 20 secs to sign this, calling for a funded national #climate resilience plan to help protect us all. Just 1700 more needed to get a Govt response! 🤞🙏https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/730062

I've been aware for a while of the work by faith and other community groups to support people seeking asylum. So I asked the @refugeecouncil.bsky.social where there was really vigorous community support. They said Northallerton. Here's what I found when I went there: as.ft.com/r/b3449fbd-3...

Year 1 data on congestion pricing in Manhattan… * Vehicle traffic: -11% * Foot traffic: +3.4% * Storefront vacancy: -0.9% * Pollution: -22% * Revenue for mass transit: $548M So YES this has been a huge success.

It is again time to post the real tree my dad put up in the late 80s

Major update to our map of Anglo-Saxon London... we've now added etymologies for each place name, so you can find out what your bit of London used to be called.... and why londonist.substack.com/p/mapping-an...

I know it's too much to read the words that many of us write, but what we are actually mad about are systems that force people into car dependency and policy choices that mean living somewhere walkable and bikeable with robust public transit is ridiculously expensive. We want to fix this!

OK. I'll just go and wash my hands somewhere else, shall I?

Relaxing

The onus should not rest on individuals with reduced mobility to keep pace in a fast-moving world. We urge cities to prioritise urban design that puts pedestrians first – creating environments that enable physical activity, especially among vulnerable groups. theconversation.com/cities-arent...

This is a couple of years ago (this year used @pedalme.bsky.social). But I raise you… A Christmas tree & 2 kids!

Deeply disappointed to hear that the BBC has pushed out one of the most brilliant presenters in all of science communication for speaking with integrity and honor in support of human rights and dignity.

Amazing, the @dailymail.co.uk manages to publish an entire lengthy feature bewailing (!!!!) the exodus of Poles from Britain without once mentioning Brexit. Apparently this outcome (which is surely exactly what they campaigned for in 2016) is all the fault of Keir Starmer. mol.im/a/15379789

Christmas is a sign of how well integrated Britain is: widely seen as a festival that everybody gets to take part in, regardless of religion.

His cheeks are so wide

The Nobel Prize committee should announce the World Cup winner tomorrow

For four years my neighbour and I exchanged "hellos" and nothing else. A few days ago he asked if he could have a recycling bag because he's out, and now we're texting each other because we've both requested more bags from the council and haven't received any. British bin day culture is UNMATCHED.

trying to think of good UK-Based Nature Phenomena. so far I got: - starling murmurations in Somerset - bluefin tuna jumping in Cornwall - salmon jumping in NE England what else. more ideas pls. ideally ones which aren't jumping fish

The kind of serendipitous encounter which is facilitated by the multi-disciplinary collegiate culture of Oxbridge, often leading to groundbreaking research. OrganOx (recently sold for £1.5 bn) originated in just such a meeting between an engineer and a surgeon. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

🔴 Nigel Farage’s Reform is more reliant on super-rich backers than any major party in modern British political history 75% of *all* Reform donations *ever* have come from just three rich men Is this what democracy looks like? New on Democracy for Sale democracyforsale.substack.com/p/75-of-refo...

grease floats. when it flows in sewage and into our plants, it thickens as temps fall, separating in our settling tanks. the churning water forms grease globs that build like snowballs, and operators remove them so they don’t clog the process. listen. don’t pour grease down your drains.

what we don’t have in turkey fryer explosion videos, we make up for with 10-pound grease ball pics.