Brian Eversham

Minority representation on TV causes outrage There has been widespread support for prominent Reform MP Sarah Pochin after she complained about the over-representation of minorities on television. Said one angry viewer, "She's right. Every time you turn on the telly there's another Reform MP being interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg." She added, "I respect their way of life and their strange customs, but Reform MPs comprise only 0.7 percent of the House of Commons. Yet Nigel Farage is on Question Time more than Fiona Bruce." "I'm not prejudiced. Some of my best friends are swivel-eyed loons, but enough is enough. There are too many people with angry red faces on television.”

Gotta love Private Eye.
Always cuts through the crap.

Here are some miniatures seen during a foray that I led for Doncaster Nats today. The Physarum and the Didymium are slime moulds and the Mollisia and the Orbilia are ascomycete fungi.

My book has got a great endorsement from Chris Packham: "This clever and immensely resourceful book is an overdue gem". There's also a few pages up on the website too! It's up for pre-order here with publication set for January pelagicpublishing.com/products/pan...

Thinking of patenting my favorite method for ranking researchers: reading their papers and deciding whether they are good.

Thanks for the link, Philip. I have the 1970 reprint of his 7-volume Trees of Great Britain and Ireland. It's a remarkable compendium, and written at sufficient length for anecdote and speculation too.

It’s like a Douglas Adams story. Billions of dollars spent on a machine that consumes incredible resources. Earth has blown past 4C. Fresh water is gone. But at last it’s done. The makers ask, “How do we solve climate change?” The machine whirs and responds, “You can switch to solar 100 years ago.”

Yay. Priceless. The right column at the right time. And a gleefully English two fingers to the haters.

A small rectangle of light in the distance in between a row of tall pine trees.

The door inside the forest.
#Inside #BlueskyArtShow 📷 #photography

Let’s rename A.I.
Artificial is another word for fake.
Fake Intelligence is not appealing.
F.I.
F*** It.

Soldierfly ID Workshop (YWT Member's Exclusive Event) | Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Learn how to ID specimens of soldierflies with expert Yorkshire naturalist Derek Whiteley.

Calling all @sorbynathissoc.bsky.social @ynuorg.bsky.social @yorkswildlife.bsky.social members, there is a great indoor workshop on soliderflies coming up soon. I'll be there, and hope to see you too!

www.ywt.org.uk/events/2025-...

Or DM me for details

@uk-soldierflies.bsky.social

All the small things - Nathan Nelson For want of a nail the shoe was lost;for want of a shoe the horse was lost;and for want of a horse the rider was lost,being overtaken and slain by the enemy,all for want of care about a horse-shoe nai...

I blogged, maybe ranted a bit, about small things and people with small minds. #ecology nathannelson.co.uk/2025/10/all-...

A Gary Larson cartoon called Trouble Brewing. It shows Ed’s Dingo Farm next to a nursery

Delighted to hear that Gary Larson is drawing again. Digitally this time but you wouldn’t know it to look at them. www.thefarside.com/new-stuff

If you've heard about but not bought a copy, now's your chance. If you've not heard about it.. now's time to find out!

Hey Mark, Lovely to see you this evening, and sorry you'd left by the time I'd finished chatting with the regulars... hope all is well with you. Do let me know if ever you feel like getting to know the local elms...

Thanks, New Yorker

You also can’t see bacteria or viruses with the naked eye, but they still exist and can have massive social and economic impacts. Why on earth does an organism being small mean it’s worthless??

Joseph Barranco posted on social media: Go Bears! Nobel Prize in Physics goes to 3 physicists studying mesoscopic quantum phenomena... Work was done in the 1980s in UC Berkeley Professor John Clarke's lab with his graduate student John Martinis and postdoctoral fellow Michel Devoret... all 3 share the Nobel Prize. Must also point out that both Clarke and Devoret are immigrants from the UK and France, respectively. All 3 are pioneers in the race to build the most powerful quantum supercomputers. California *public* education made this happen. Immigration made this happen.

Valuable info about the Physics Nobel Prize today from Prof. Joseph Barranco at SFSU on Martinis and Devoret being a grad student and postdoc in Clarke's lab at UC Berkeley & Clark and Devoret being immigrants. "California *public* education made this happen. Immigration made this happen." ⚛️

Craig Bennett, CEO of the Wildlife Trusts: “It is... shocking to hear the chancellor boast allowing people with privileged access to try & circumvent some of the processes that have been put in place by parliament, & to hear how she just dismisses ecological science as if it somehow doesn’t matter.”

It is with great sadness that the University shares the news of the death of Professor Sir John Gurdon, founder of the @gurdoninstitute.bsky.social

Read our tribute to the visionary Nobel Laureate and watch an interview from 2012, just after he won: https://bit.ly/4mM8o3r

"The work I was involved in had no obvious therapeutic benefit. It was purely of scientific interest. I hope the country will continue to support basic research even though it may have no obvious practical value."
- John Gurdon

Rachel Reeves clears planning blockage amid ‘good relationship’ with developer Exclusive: Chancellor says 20,000 homes were being held up due to ‘some snails that are a protected species or something’

Leaked video from speech to Tech bosses at JP Morgan Tech Stars event appears to show Chancellor Rachel Reeves boasting of a "good relationship with the developer" as one of the rarest creatures in Britain "some snails on the site that are a protected species or something" could pay the price.

WOW. Posting also to the 🧪 feed

Talk time at our Wicken Fen field meeting, with Richard Gallon on how to look for spiders in the variety of GB habitats and the one and only Graeme Lyons on the how and why of #PanSpeciesListing

Picked up our copy of the excellent new Bedfordshire avifauna at the launch event today. It is 31 years since the last was published and this is so much more. 500 pages and a superb job with all monies going to 2 reserves in the county. Get it now via the Bedfordshire Bird Club website.

Shame! but it may be just too late, not sure I've ever found them in October

UK fifth-worst country in Europe for loss of green space to development Exclusive: 1,680 football pitches of protected natural land in England, Wales and Northern Ireland lost in five years

In case you missed this, natural areas equivalent in size to Cyprus have been lost across Europe in just 5 years (2018-2023). www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Just in time! I've seen them in September a couple of times, so they may still be around. Good luck!

More info here: influentialpoints.com/Gallery/Myzo...

Wow! Was that as deliberate photo of the rather lovely Bog Myrtle Aphid, Agrioaphis (=Myzocallis) myricae?! It turns up in most large populations of bog myrtle, but is not often recorded.