Sticking with the poetry-based commentary, it occurs to me that Roger McGough predicted the Starmer premiership: I wanna be the leader I wanna be the leader Can I be the leader? Can I? I can? Promise? Promise? Yippee I'm the leader I'm the leader OK what shall we do?

An amazing opportunity to come and do astrophysics and/or space technology at the University of Auckland! Also the scope of the role is broad so if you like the idea of living in Aotearoa New Zealand, apply! jobs.smartrecruiters.com/TheUniversit...

Lecturer - Te Kura Mātai Ahupūngao | Department of Physics

Company Description: Waipapa Taumata Rau | The University of AucklandTe Whare Pūtaiao | Faculty of Science is the leading science faculty in Aotearoa New Zealand and one of the largest in Australasia....

jobs.smartrecruiters.com

You lovely people have got me up to 190 responses, so I'm going to keep going to 200! If you're an academic in UK HE who's had pastoral responsibility for students in the last 5 years under any title, please take 10 mins to share your thoughts about that work. Please do share to widen the pool.

The Role Of Interpersonal Relationships And Care In Personal Tutoring Within UK HEIS

Take this survey powered by surveymonkey.com. Create your own surveys for free.

surveymonkey.com

Village solar system model shows planets and stars. 🔭 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Otford village solar system model shows planets and stars

How a Kent village created a scale model of the solar system to help people understand space.

bbc.co.uk

When I was a child in the early 1960s there was a childrens tv program showing just such a solar system spread out across an English town. Can anyone recall this or point me at where it was?

Here's what another city is up to, on the water management and biodiversity front lauralaker.substack.com/p/cardiffs-g...

Cardiff's green revolution

Steady, slow progress

lauralaker.substack.com

In a telling demonstration of the thought and care that went into this decision, both NSF spokespeople who responded to my emailed questions with the same prepared word salad misprinted the organization’s name as Woods Hole Oceanographic “Institute.” My latest @thebulletin.org:

Why the National Science Foundation is ripping monitoring instruments out of the ocean

A spokesperson for the National Science Foundation pointed to a National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics report as justification for the 'descoping,' but a co-chair of that group sa...

thebulletin.org

One highlight of this excellent guest post: “Badenoch and Farage want to build a typewriter economy five years after the launch of the PC. They want to turn UK industry into a heritage railway.”

Ian Dunt@iandunt.bsky.social · 2mo ago

In the face of frenzied right-wing attacks, this government has successfully executed one of the most ambitious climate change projects in the world. Time to give credit where it's due iandunt.substack.com/p/guest-post...

GREG DAVIES: seems like a kind of a shit task. Everyone just seems like they're going home normally. ALEX HORNE: well before you say that let's have a look at how Odysseus did. cut to panel of AJAX, MENELAUS, AGAMEMNON, and DIOMEDES who are all staring at ODYSSEUS with his head in his hands

Great thread from @sophiemason.bsky.social 👏 I've written about why the machinery of gov is the cause on LinkedIn. UKRI staff are doing a good job in a silly system - more later on what UKRI can control and should change www.linkedin.com/posts/activi... Gearing up to a substack. Tips welcome.

Sophie Mason@sophiemason.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I worked for UKRI for seven years and in my experience, the short timescales were 100% because of delays in central government. Usually because of delays in sign off by a minister; in the worst cases, due to number 10 comms teams insisting we hold back so the PM could announce it or whatever. 1/3

I worked for UKRI for seven years and in my experience, the short timescales were 100% because of delays in central government. Usually because of delays in sign off by a minister; in the worst cases, due to number 10 comms teams insisting we hold back so the PM could announce it or whatever. 1/3

Kirsty Grainger @kirstygrainger.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A new TOP FIVE has just dropped. The @ukri.org TOP FIVE shortest timescales from call opening to closing. And you won't believe the winner 👀

A new TOP FIVE has just dropped. The @ukri.org TOP FIVE shortest timescales from call opening to closing. And you won't believe the winner 👀

An excellent post by @kirstygrainger.bsky.social These deadlines are ridiculous and just make you think either the funding is already lined up for someone or it produces rushed applications that waste everyone's time. We don't have resource to waste!

Kirsty Grainger @kirstygrainger.bsky.social · 2mo ago

In FIFTH Place with two months to apply for £5M it’s Research England’s Partnership to transform university knowledge exchange metrics www.ukri.org/opportunity/...

Wolf's public engagement also poor, contribution to next REF cycle negligible

Dutch News@dutchnewsnl.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Wolf has little impact on the national economy, say researchers www.dutchnews.nl?p=268424

Do you have a social life? No, I have a social cupboard!

The US government has no idea how science works

BWJones@bwjones.bsky.social · 2mo ago

NIH funded peeps: This is insane and coming for us.

On a similar note, I only recently learned that "prisoner scratching tally marks on the wall to count the days" as a common cartoon gag is a reference to the Count of Monte Cristo

@lastpositivist.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Saw a kids cartoon thing the other day which included a puddle ripple stomp stomp scene homage to Jurassic Park and realised... kids will have legit no idea what that is referencing, like may as well reference a Charlie Chaplin film basically. Real unc hours over here fr fr.

Went to the gym for the first time in decades. Told the instructor I’m a philosopher. He set the walking machine on an upward gradient saying it was a better simulation of real walking. I said ‘so in life we’re always walking uphill?’ he replied ‘I knew we shouldn’t have let a philosopher in here.’

The hidden arrow in the FedEx logo is design perfection. Paris Tennis School: Tiens ma bière.

Loud applause for ‘The Road to Wigan Keir’.

Adam Bienkov@adambienkov.bsky.social · 2mo ago

“British politics is tired,” Andy Burnham told his supporters on Friday, as he launched his campaign to become MP for Makerfield. “It needs a new script.” It’s hard to disagree with this assessment. Unfortunately it’s becoming just as hard to work out exactly what he wants to change about it

This is...breathtakingly xenophobic. "NIH officials are telling grantees...to remove papers that name co-authors affiliated with foreign institutions if NIH had not previously approved a foreign component for the grant." www.science.org/content/arti...

U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

NIH, NASA grantees are confused and concerned amid agencies’ piecemeal communication

science.org

Also (sorry, but honestly) if I had to make a list of places cis men couldn't go to because a cis man had made a women "uncomfortable" there, it would be very long and there would be literally nowhere for men to go.

The curse of performance management. The mistaken belief that you can measure high performance. In both public and private sector I've seen nothing more likely to damage staff morale. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Senior civil servants to get bonuses for first time to reward ‘doers, not talkers’

Highest-ranking staff will get 2.5% pay rise with bonuses for top performers in plan to ‘rewire’ civil service

theguardian.com

🚨 The Code of Practice has been published. It treats Trans+ people as a 'third sex', and creates legal defences to make it more justifiable to exclude Trans+ people from single-sex spaces. A full explainer and digest will be in our newsletter on Saturday. For now, this is what we know 🧵

QueerAF@wearequeeraf.com · 3mo ago

A Code of Practice that will significantly change Trans+ rights in public life is expected today. We'll be cutting through the noise and spin, from right wing media, to bring you (and 10K readers) an explainer in our free newsletter Sat. Skip the doom scrolling 👇 wearequeeraf.com/subscribe

Hey Folks! 👋 Please share that our Department of Glaciology & Climate is hiring a new technician (full time/permanent) to support our ice-sheet monitoring projects. Application deadline 3 June 2026 ⤵️ candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...

Vil du arbejde med klimastationer på Grønlands Indlandsis?

Afdelingen for Glaciologi og Klima ved GEUS søger en ingeniør/AC-TAP/tekniker til glaciologiske undersøgelser. Ansættelsesstart er 1. septem

candidate.hr-manager.net

In 11 years we've dropped from top to middle of the rankings. No, for the last time, I'm not 'making it up'. We really are having our rights taken away. Not over decades. As. We. Watch.

QueerAF@wearequeeraf.com · 3mo ago

The LGBTQIA+ rights organisation @ilgaeurope.bsky.social said the UK lost points following the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of “woman” and “sex”

Weekend success. I have now seen my first rodeo. This gives me legitimacy in all conversational arguments moving forward.

Another aviation post! This one on why New York should have had a major (think O'Hare size) hub in Newark, and why it doesn't . . . .weird political boundary ideology.

Infrastory@infrastory.bsky.social · 3mo ago

We naturally think of infrastructure as being solidly fixed and unchanging, but considering alternative histories allows us to consider the weight of our decisions today. infrastory.substack.com/p/new-yorks-...

“There was once a time when friendship did not require elaborate planning”. Suspect this will resonate with a lot of you.

Laurie Winkless@lauriewinkless.bsky.social · 3mo ago

This is a lovely read timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/civil-...

I once had an account on a system that made account names by taking the first four letters of first and last names I was PHILHOWI, which was reasonable enough My colleague Megan Barford was not as lucky

cait (and adonis)@cait.bsky.social · 3mo ago

jesus christ