Watching the BBC News just now. Expediting discharges from prison is as fraught with problems as expediting discharges from hospital.

Interesting thread and comments. I suspect people in Treasury are unaware of what a f….-up MTD is.

Marie Le Conte@youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · last mo.

going to try and figure out how to deal with fucking Make Tax Digital this morning so do please picture me as a bear you have just encountered in the forest for the time being, expect it'll make me so cranky I'll attack at the slightest provocation, apologies in advance

About this time yesterday I was marvelling about how uplifting the World Cup has been, even though it’s taking place in Trump’s America. Incredible that’s he’s found a way to spoil it. An incredible achievement.

Pochettino could just not include him in the matchday squad #balogun

Median war expectancy data.

Peter Ellis@freerangestats.info · 3mo ago

Of wars that get to the 74 day mark, the median total duration is 261 days. Which is grim news those who have noted that the Iran war will cause major economic problems if it lasts even another month. #rstats blog post, with @correlatesofwar.bsky.social data, at freerangestats.info/blog/2026/05...

Data conversations need to take place between managers and data analysts. But managers don't initiate them because they have an antipathy towards data. And data analysts don't initiate them because they have an antipathy towards conversations.

When we want to describe how an AMU affects its patients' prior length of stay in the ED, 'heaviness' explains it better than fullness. But 'stickiness' explains it even better.

Yesterday it was cows using tools, today its penguins using satellite imagery.

"All of these three measurement failings – the wrong doors, the wrong time zone, the wrong connotations – conspire to prevent the rigorous examination of cause-&-effect relationships in the health & care system that’s needed" @kurtstat.bsky.social for #NHS2048 www.enlighten.scot/nhs2048/thre...

Well, it's a little clearer now why billionaires are so invested in technology that produces better written emails.

Guys this is the ONE client you really need to double check

Jessica Elgot@jessicaelgot.bsky.social · 10mo ago

New - Harvey & Wheeler, the estate agents used by Rachel Reeves to rent out her property have apologised for an "oversight" after they did not apply for a licence on her behalf, having offered to do so.

My AMU 'heaviness' metric came about after I tried showing AMU lengths of stay so far (ALoSSF) as horizontal timelines on top of each other. On the left: a snapshot that captured 60 patients with an ALoSSF of 24.6 hours. On the right: 58 patients with an ALoSSF of 37.8 hours. #rstats #ggplot2

I want to have a go at adapting Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model so that it works for how healthcare data messages are communicated. I think the key to this is how I flesh out the meaning structures on each side of the diagram.

I'm hoping that - eventually - *everyone* involved in acute hospital patient flow will be talking about AMU 'heaviness'! (Meanwhile I can't work out if this chart is a volcano metaphor or a Pandora's Box metaphor...) #rstats #ggplot2

Acute Medical Unit (AMU) 'heaviness' scores are calculated by multiplying each day's AMU mean lengths of stay by the same day's AMU fullness snapshots. The scores are closely correlated with Emergency Department (ED) performance, so I thought a scatterplot would be the way to go. #rstats #ggplot2

Error in gg_point() : could not find function "gg_point". Please tell me I'm not the only person who's made this mistake! #rstats #ggplot2

Tried to sneak a photo of a cute doggo and accidentally had long exposure on and I believe I have created man’s greatest expression of art

I'm working on a diagram that shows how we might incorporate emotion into data visualizations. I'm trying to mash together some ideas from Gavin McMahon's new book (www.story-business.com) with Don Norman's three layers of design (www.interaction-design.org/literature/a...).

This is a fascinating - and excellent - post by @samfr.bsky.social on his recent experience of being an NHS hospital patient. My heart jumped when I saw bed occupancy mentioned in the article: I have “views” on bed occupancy, so I thought I’d say something about it. substack.com/inbox/post/1... 1/6

On the edge

My week in the NHS

substack.com

Man walking into the Post Office earlier: You look like a person who knows about things. Person behind the til: I do? Well I know about some things I suppose. Man (showing him his phone): Good. What do I press to answer this thing?

I still think of pivot_wider() as magic, basically.

Indicators of patient flow dysfunction mainly focus on either the hospital front door (e.g. breaches of the four-hour target) or the hospital back door (e.g. delayed transfers of care). But patient flow dysfunction manifests itself *everywhere* in a general hospital. 1/6

I've been using open access data to explore the relationship between Emergency Department 12-hour performance and ambulance turnaround times. Each blue dot is a week between mid-November last year and early September this year. It's a pretty close relationship for this hospital.

Just had an email from Microsoft telling me that my 365 subscription is increasing in price by 31%.

Please enjoy today, 25/9/2025, the last square date until 2116 (5^2/3^2/45^2).

There’s a great talk by Marc Farr (“I wish I was macho instead of just deep”) that you can view on the Midlands Analyst Network website. It's very thought-provoking. Here are some of my thoughts… 1/18

American fascist: your going to the camps, American Liberal, chuckling: ‘you’re’. "You don’t fight the politics of violence by quibbling with the details! You stamp it into a million pieces!" Fantastic piece by @jonnelledge.bsky.social substack.com/inbox/post/1...

What Do We Have To Lose

If Keir Starmer won’t even make a moral case against deporting our friends and neighbours, then what is the point of him? Plus: some natural borders; and the non-existence of grey, and other letters.

substack.com

Is there a difference between upper case emphasis and bold-and-underlined emphasis?

This graffiti on Restalrig Road made me remember that fantastic article by Nicholas Carr ("The Tyranny of Now") in which he wrote about Harold Innis's distinction between 'time-biased' media and 'space-biased' media! www.thenewatlantis.com/publications...

You don't have to be old to be right wing, but it helps. Great graph by @owenwntr.bsky.social in @samfr.bsky.social's latest newsletter.