I wish that Spotify or similar would let people make radio shows, where they play music and talk in between. Since you've paid to access the music, it would be nice to have people share and curate, but with rambling humanity in the chat, not just playlists. This is the narrowcasting of my dreams.
28.02.2026 22:47 — 👍 74 🔁 7 💬 8 📌 0
OpenSAFELY is open from today! Huge thanks to all who supported this vast collaboration: whole population GP data; in a productive platform; innovative privacy protections; unprecedented support from professions, privacy campaigners; &c
Now it's over to users!
www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/blog/2026/02...
Wonderful to see something good that is not just in the lab or proof of concept
24.02.2026 02:39 — 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0What a huge achievement! A major milestone for science in general and a significant world exemplar. I hope many more similar things follow.
24.02.2026 16:27 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0I started my career as a Körner implementation clerk in 1987. Since then I have spent most of my career in jobs with data, information or analyst in the title, all working with NHS data to try and improve public health. I retired last year. This is one of the most exciting developments I’ve seen.
24.02.2026 18:23 — 👍 1 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0BIG NEWS!
24.02.2026 08:25 — 👍 30 🔁 9 💬 1 📌 0
This is excellent news and a huge deal!
(Here's my explainer on OpenSafely and why it is incredibly cool.)
takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/how-to-use...
Brilliant, geeky, healthy news... well done to @bengoldacre.bsky.social et al.
23.02.2026 16:19 — 👍 12 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
OpenSAFELY is open from today! Huge thanks to all who supported this vast collaboration: whole population GP data; in a productive platform; innovative privacy protections; unprecedented support from professions, privacy campaigners; &c
Now it's over to users!
www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/blog/2026/02...
Oh, yes! Tho her earlier stuff... like Tom Waits, she started out normal and went weird... which probably isn't the most common trajectory...
20.01.2026 20:42 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
The world has its problems, yes. But I've just bought Brigitte Fontaine's 1969 album with the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Don't look on Spotify: you won't find it there.
(But YouTube link below...)
youtu.be/XgTdI4S3hns?...
I once met a man at hotel breakfast who was in the Potters Bar rail crash. He told a very harrowing story. Then his wife said "ask him what he did after he got out". He looked embarrassed, shrugged, and said "I walked to work". He didn't call. Disasters are incredibly disorienting. Sorrow for Spain.
19.01.2026 23:47 — 👍 45 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 1
How you pop to the shops, if it's minus 64° Celsius in your town. This is what I want from the internet: other people's fascinating lives. Not lies about crime in London invented by boring racists.
youtube.com/watch?v=uPGI...
Three Yorkshiremen drive their Ford Transits overland from Bradford to Pakistan in time for Eid in the 1990s. Ultimate cosy retro TV. The voiceover is funny, candid, and incredibly warm in its frustrations (eg minute 7, but watch the whole thing). Highly recommend!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dfbe...
I'm too cheap to buy one - and too lazy to learn the skillz - but this guy's polyphonic ceramic bass whistles are the goat. youtube.com/shorts/X57nT...
15.01.2026 19:40 — 👍 22 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
Really enjoying the new series of Gone Fishing, tho it was a fierce choice to replace Bob Mortimer with Tom Waits and that guy from the Jim Jarmusch movies
youtu.be/sF4OkZ0B-q8?...
I think we forget sometimes that barometers are miracle machines. It’s not windy yet at home; it is raining but nothing exceptional. Without the barometer, if you were just relying on local observations (like most mariners for most of history) you would have no idea it was time to run for your life.
08.01.2026 13:32 — 👍 102 🔁 25 💬 12 📌 3
Fuel poverty is more than twice as common among people aged 16-24 than it is for older people.
This is a cold country right now.
trustforlondon.org.uk/data/fuel-po...
My old friend Patrick Matthews slogged for years to build up a few small struggling cafes in London parks. Now they're a success, so the parks are rewarding him by giving the cafes to someone who offered them more money.
www.change.org/p/require-th...
veganconfidential.substack.com/p/the-park-c...
This is a tenuous mistletoe joke and I salute you
19.12.2025 20:12 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0At this time of year (a) I want a notarised statement from 1991 to say that I loved port and cheese as a teenager before I became an ancient Oxford prof; and (b) I'm annoyed that delicious port obligatorily contains the drug alcohol. It's like if all hobknobs were laced with ketamine.
19.12.2025 19:30 — 👍 45 🔁 2 💬 5 📌 1
In lovely science news, it is now official: I am the inaugural Writer in Residence at the Royal Institution to mark 200 years of the Christmas Lectures: www.rigb.org/explore-scie...
30.10.2025 21:50 — 👍 114 🔁 21 💬 29 📌 1ACCIDENTALLY BOUGHT CHRISTMAS WRAITH. EVERYONE DEAD.
19.12.2025 18:33 — 👍 210 🔁 45 💬 9 📌 2How do we get better dental data? A huge opportunity for the UK! Our editorial in @bmj.com
17.12.2025 13:03 — 👍 12 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
21 year sentence for using a car as a weapon. Good
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
But YouTube is full of examples, with 1000s of approving comments. Every driver doing it should be banned, for life. We can discuss how to manage protesters blocking roads: it's not this.
youtu.be/u-8qd_5_sAo?...
I'd love it if there was a music subscription service where anyone who wanted to could make a radio show with them talking to introduce the music, and then the actual copyrighted music. Not just a playlist. Not just a podcast with no music. Have I missed this, and it actually exists?
06.12.2025 20:58 — 👍 15 🔁 3 💬 4 📌 0Random colleagues in other disciplines now commonly say "the code's on OSF". It's just so great to see an academic org like COS, that goes beyond advocating for change, and actually builds the tools and services that make science work better. More!
02.12.2025 20:28 — 👍 37 🔁 9 💬 0 📌 0I'm so sorry
02.12.2025 20:18 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
I bought a £150 thing from France. I'm truly delighted to pay £40 tax on import: that's for schools and hospitals. The £11 handling fee for DHL, on the other hand, is purely to cover the expensive slow additional bureaucratic admin needlessly created for us all by Brexit voters. Merry Xmas!
02.12.2025 20:14 — 👍 75 🔁 17 💬 8 📌 0Pluribus - in case you've not - is absolutely brilliant theory-driven sci fi. The central concept is a gloriously versatile projection screen for Big Thoughts About Life. Is it better to be efficient and happy, or a messy human schlong? Etc. Also: every frame a photograph!
28.11.2025 19:00 — 👍 31 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
