Prostate cancer, radiotherapy, Avogadro’s number & me What I get up when having radiotherapy is perhaps a little idiosyncratic, but a great distraction. Reflecting on those doodles created a surprising result from Claude AI following my curiosity led questions essaysconcerning.com/2026/03/25/p...

Watching the Tories and Reform doubling down on drill baby drill will be something they will regret because moving to clean energy is something that will become increasingly popular, and regressive policies will lose the right a lot of votes. Labour need to press hard on this.

The first person to suggest heating homes with a heat pump - in 1852 (yes 174 years ago) - was one of the UK’s greatest scientists, William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin). 1/

The release of the internal documents related to the hiring of Peter Mandelson as UK Ambassador to the US starts today. It brought to mind something I wrote about in a my book 'Trusted Knowledge in a digital and fragmented world of work' in the chapter Institutional Memory … 1/

What's interesting in the history of science is that the understanding that the Earth was a sphere is ancient and until quite recently, even amongst the less well educated, well understood. Even the medieval belief is of a human domain surrounded by a wide ocean. 1/

I’m guessing Edinburgh will be one big party tonight. 50-40 against France. What a game.

A retired General is aghast that the UK doesn’t have the “muscle” to bring force to bear in the Middle East. Well hellooooo Welcome to post Imperial Britain (Talk about living in the past)

No meter, it was removed. So pleased we disconnected from the gas grid in November (when we got induction hob; having previously got a heat pump 4 years ago). All that is needed now is for the uk electricity market to decouple from gas prices and for even harder renewables push as if there’s a war 🤔

The fact that Dario Amodei, co-founder and chief executive officer of Anthropic, did not agree to demands from the Trump administration to allow their technology to be used to spy on Americans and for autonomous weapons is to be applauded. Hello Claude, Goodbye ChatGPT

In order to understand UK politics in 2026 you must realise that a plumber & plasterer doesn't represent the interests of the working class because she is left-wing but a wealthy broadcaster & former academic does represent the interests of the working class because he is right-wing. Hope this helps

BBC Radio 4 Today around 7.20am; Anna Foster’s interview of Pres. Herzog. She asked: when this ends? what Iran will look like? He said it’s not about regime change but neutralising military capacity Israel/US has just decapitated the Iranian regime, the very definition of attempted regime change! 🤷‍♀️

remember folks: the energy transition is really not about the consumer price of energy commodities vs. energy technologies. it's really not.

Shocked there is not an *energency* edition of @therestpolitics.bsky.social out yet following the Greens win last night! 😂

@profmarkmaslin.bsky.social you were great on this In Our Time episode, under the new host Misha Glenny, discussing The Great Dying as a counter narrative to the benign sounding Colombian Exchange. It’s great that the inexplicable silence regarding climate change for 25 yrs seems to have been lifted

Jonathan Dimbleby on @bbcnewsnight.bsky.social giving an apologia for the Royal Family's failure to bring Andrew to account (and possibly worse - to give him active cover) is cringeworthy

When Trump, Vance or any of his MAGA entourage make accusations of bad intentions or plans directed at their opponents, be wary! The chances are that is exactly what they are doing or planning. essaysconcerning.com/2026/02/15/m... #MAGA #MirrorPolitics #Accusationsinamirror

Another example of the non apology apology … Sir Jim Ratcliffe “sorry that my choice of language has offended some people"

Essential reading. “I predicted .. in August that Morgan McSweeney would win his power struggle with Sue Gray. He has duly done so .. This is a disaster for Labour, but even more so for Britain .. Such creatures may be useful during election campaigns, but should not be allowed near government.”

Is this the same Kemi Badenoch giving lectures on good judgment www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

It’s good to see the GBR Curling team are doing well thanks to my insightful sofa-based coaching 😅

Good question! @katyrshields.bsky.social has a great four part essay about how deep the rot goes... medium.com/@katyrshield...

“They did what Milad would have wanted,” said his older brother, Reza. “They danced through tears at the burial. Even in mourning, they honoured his vibrant life.” www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

It’s good to see that not all men are shitty. Two academics, Norman Finkelstein and Joseph Chaney, are in the Epstein files calling out who he is. 💪

Auschwitz was at the end of a process. We must remember that it did not start from gas chambers. This hatred gradually developed: from ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder. Auschwitz took time.

On #holocaustmemorialday, when BBC Today is asking why the number of schools participating in Holocaust Memorial Day is falling, I’m reposting this piece from 2018 ‘When did you learn about the holocaust?’ writing on how I learned from a passionate teacher. essaysconcerning.com/2018/01/28/w...

Confronting the hereditarian mindset and embracing diversity essaysconcerning.com/2026/01/24/c...

I'll say it again: watching Robert Jenrick do "cunning politics" is like watching a toddler hide behind a cushion. "Where's Robert gone? THERE HE IS! Oh no! Where is he? THERE HE IS!"

Managed to finally get into the studio to do this alla prima (wet on wet) oil study this afternoon of a viewpoint on Pensile Road that always beguiles me

(This is what you get if you add up the entire annual supply of: 1) Food; 2) Construction; 3) Waste and sewerage, and multiply by 25 years)

I saw a truncated headline flash across my feed: Nadhim Zahawi defects … I thought, where do I start?

Charcoal and pencil A3 quickie on Sandbay amongst the grasses looking towards Sand Point

So looking forward to some quiet time to bury myself in this much acclaimed biography of Francis Crick by Matthew Cobb

Look what appeared on Facebook. This claim is factually wrong. Freely available is “Chapter 5: Global Carbon and other Biogeochemical Cycles and Feedbacks” in IPCC 6th Assessment Report which incorporate the ‘biological pump’ mechanism that ‘Good Machine Life’ (who?) claim is missing 1/

Can some ‘defence’ geek help me? Russia’s defence spending is currently about 8% of GDP, whereas EU+UK is about 2%. To believe the news that’s an existential problem; ‘need to get to 5% of GDP’. Yet EU+UK spent about 3.7 times as much as Russia ($535/$145 =3.69) Why the %ages obsession? 1/

A depressing milestone on the TrumpActionTracker - 2000 logged actions since January. www.trumpactiontracker.info Shortly about to be 2002 as I have a couple more to add tonight :-/

Following the @usstatedept.bsky.social decision to revert to Times Roman typeface, the Trump Administration has decided to drop metric and adopt feet, pounds and other archaic units … oops sorry, they are already using them!

Virologist Chris Smith giving a masterclass in science communication on BBC Newsnight (on this years Flu viruses in circulation).

Interesting catching up with @therestpolitics.bsky.social (No 476) criticing Jack Polanski for not knowing the difference between deficit and debt. He's not alone. David Cameron said on 24 January 2013 “We’re paying down Britain’s debts.” 1/

Banter: “Playful, friendly, teasing conversation—light-hearted remarks exchanged in good spirit .. witty comments meant to amuse rather than offend.” Not nasty racist comments made by a 17 year old to a black 9 year old. 1/2

'Everything you wanted to know about heat pumps but were afraid to ask' is a talk I recently gave for a lay audience... youtu.be/RJuhws1j0dM?...

It’s so easy to internalise negative voices. “Oh an induction hob is ok but you’ll never have a stir fry ever again!” Apparently not. I’m loving my induction hob.

Suggestion for name of new party, commemorating its two founders … The Fruit & Nut Party

An illustration of a little knowledge being dangerous! Chap to heat pump expert doing demo "but air-source heat pumps are nowhere near theoretical Carnot efficiency" (COP say up to 10), and claimed this is problematic. Real world COPs of 3-5 are more than enough. I blame the internet #Energysky

On the 3p/mile #EV duty. The greater efficiency of the EV trumps the 3p by a country mile. It won't stop me making the switch. Saving £735 a year (assuming 7,000 miles/yr) excl maintenance, even more with, and assuming home charging on #Octopus Intelligent Go. Why not loom at the whole picture?

Climate Shaming 3.0 It started with shaming people for their consumption. Let’s not fall for the new tactic of shaming those who actually care enough to adopt effective solutions. essaysconcerning.com/2025/11/22/c... #ClimateAction #ClimateShaming

Bye gas network; had our gas meter removed today 4 years ago our aging (23 yr old) gas boiler was replaced with an air-source heat pump. 3 weeks ago our aging (26 yr old) cooker/ gas hob was replaced with new electric cooker/ induction hob. So we could finally disconnect from the gas grid. Yay! 1/

It’s almost like something dramatically changed after the Industrial Revolution! (figure via Ed Hawkins)

Great conversation. What is clear, and hasn't been noted, is that the crowd who listened to Trump's speech, seemed to understand it to mean something along the lines that the clumsy edit conveyed. What a weird coincidence 🤔

Nowhere in the hysterical pile-on against the BBC in the British press has anyone mentioned that BBC News now has 77 million viewers & listeners in the US and has established itself as the second most trusted news source there.

I love @therestpolitics.bsky.social but have a niggle. It promotes small start up Fuse Energy which is fine, but the impression given is that Fuse Energy is a pioneer in clean energy. Fuse Energy supplies about 50,000 homes vs Octopus Energy's 7 million households. Ditto generating capacity. 1/