Our look at some of the significant happenings 100 years ago this month.
1. Birth. Marilyn Monroe, American actress (d.1962)
3. Birth. Allen Ginsberg, American poet (d.1997)
4. Death. Fred Spofforth, Australian cricketer (b.1853)
5. Birth. Paul Soros, Hungarian-born American mechanical engineer, inventor, businessman and philanthropist (d.2013)
10. Death. Antoni Gaudí, Spanish architect (b.1852)
28. Birth. Mel Brooks, American actor, comedian, and screenwriter
Big some account of things what I done, but didn’t write about, during the merry month of May.
Saturday 2
So after a lovely dry week or so, this evening it has decided to turn on a deluge. Well of course it did; the gardener put the watering system in yesterday.
Sunday 3
So what happened to the rain we were being promised for today?
Monday 4
Well so much for a holiday weekend. One way and another I’ve spent the whole of the last four days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday and today) working – mostly a combination of literary society stuff and doctors’ patient group stuff, with an added flavouring of household finances and legal thrown in. The literary society people are doing my head in; they cannot follow simple instructions in an email, and cannot think it out for themselves – heaven knows how much time I’ve wasted explaining the obvious to them this weekend.
Wednesday 6
So suddenly the garden is full of roses.
Saturday 9
As usual, according to my brain, yesterday (Friday) was Saturday. When I got up this morning I was convinced it was Monday! And this evening I think it’s Sunday. So now I haven’t a clue. Please send a new brain.
Sunday 10
A report today says that there will be legislation to make GPs and hospitals share their data to create a single patient record, so all the patient’s information is available to every clinician. Well good luck with that. The government tried to make it happen about 30 years ago and failed: it was too difficult and the government wouldn’t listen to advice from the shortlisted IT suppliers. Will it be different this time? I wouldn’t bet on it!
Monday 11
So passenger numbers using Heathrow have fallen 5% in April. And the decrease could be more when the shortage of jet fuel and higher ticket prices really start biting. This is good. We have to stop people (and freight) flying, as it’s the only way to significantly reduce the environmental effects of the airline industry.
Tuesday 12
Over the weekend I completed the next board of 50 Postcrossing cards: here are numbers 551 to 600.
You can find all my boards on my website.
Wednesday 13
What a strange day. Off to the solicitors early, but not too bright, for a document signing session. Coffee afterwards and then caught in the first of several torrential hail storms. Back at home, one hail storm at lunchtime covered a surface outside in a complete layer of ice, and the hailstones were bouncing off the leaves of the trees – all the while several tits were in continual procession to and from a feeder. Ended the day hosting another brilliant literary society online talk.
Thursday 14
Looking out of the window this afternoon at the bright sunshine between the showers, and there are small birds flitting everywhere. Great tits, blue tits, coal tits, house sparrows, greenfinches, robin, that I saw; doubtless others too. Including a few young tits, still demanding to be fed. They must all be nesting very close by: from where they were going the coal tits are nesting 3 or 4 gardens to the north and the great tits 3 or 4 gardens to the south.
Friday 15
Why can political parties not stop in-fighting, get their act together, and keep it together? Too many wannabe prima donnas!
Saturday 16
Eurovision. Is this not the most obscene, fatuous waste of money and resources? What purpose does it serve? Oh, OK! It keeps the lower orders amused and therefore away from creating unrest – remember all those medieval peasant revolts: too many slaves with too little to occupy them. Cake and circuses, dear boy, cake and circuses.
Sunday 17
There are days when the Tilly cat seems to alternate her time between ensuring work is suspended and wedging herself on thee windowsill.
Monday 18
More really pretty tulips from the supermarket …
… and a gorgeous rambler rose from the garden …
Tuesday 19
Depressed. Anxious. Feeling yeuch. No idea why.
Thursday 21
Still the same as Tuesday, and everything is achy. Bah! Humbug!
Saturday 23
Blimey it’s hot.
Sunday 24
It’s even hotter today than yesterday; one local weather station says it’s been 31.9°C, 2°C hotter than yesterday. And the forecast is even hotter tomorrow and Tuesday; then cooling a bit. I slept most of last night with no bedclothes, and it was so hot today that even a cool shower and pints of cold squash and beer didn’t make any difference. I like it warm but this is too much, especially with the humidity is going up.
Monday 25
The large white phalaenopsis orchid I bought in full bloom on 28 November has finally dropped the last of its flowers. I’ve cut off the flower stems and am trying to propagate them, but never having done this before I’m not hopeful. We’ll see.
Tuesday 26
What is it in the Universe that causes us to have “one of those days” – where everything that can conspire to be difficult, or worse, does?
Wednesday 27
Visit this afternoon from two of the literary society officers to understand the size of the society’s archive etc. as they want to develop a plan for moving it away from us. I think they were somewhat surprised at the amount. But blimey it was unbearably hot in the loft.
Thursday 28
Well it might have been a couple of degrees cooler today, but it feels worse because the humidity must be higher. At least the breeze has got up again this evening; the middle of the day was really still after a good refreshing breeze most of last night. We’re promised another couple of fine, but slightly cooler days, but then atheist 10 days of cooler temperatures, rain and possible thunderstorms – which the gardens certainly need. So you just watch everyone complain because it is cold and wet.
Sunday 31
Here endeth the Merry Month of May, so definitely Sumer is icumen in / Lhude sing cuccu. Not that I’ve heard a cuckoo in years, possibly even since I left Norwich in 1976, which is incredibly sad. But cuckoos are still around in rural areas. Every year BTO catch a few cuckoos and put tiny trackers on them in order to better understand their migration to sub-Saharan Africa.
I’ll leave you with another gorgeous rose from our garden this afternoon.
Is there any good use for AI? Yes, of course there is.
For example, this is what we should be using AI for …
… not writing stupid stories, making fake videos, or doing kids homework for them.
There are an increasing number of medical and scientific applications from assisted note-taking to analysing complex CT scans. And then, of course, there are applications like industrial & medical robotics.
There are many ways in which AI can be useful, but sadly most of what it appears to be being used for (or at least that which is getting the most media attention) is at best pointless and at worst dangerous. Please let’s concentrate on the useful applications.
This is what we should be using AI for!
So the London Borough of Enfield – just a couple of boroughs away from me, and close to my home town – has withdrawn from the government’s “new town” programme. Basically the council, which has recently changed from Labour to Conservative run, has told the government there will be no “new town” building on the proposed sites at Crews Hill and Chase Park.
I know the Crews Hill area (although not recently) and it is an open, relatively unbuilt area which is a nationally important horticultural centre, including garden centres and plant nurseries; plus pet shops with reptile and bird specialists; and a popular equestrian centre. Consequently there has been significant local opposition to the government’s plans.
Most of the two areas is designated Green Belt land, and should therefore be protected from development to ensure a green, environmentally friendly, area around the capital.
The Enfield council now says that the commitment to increase housing (required by the government, and the London Plan) will now concentrate on using brownfield sites and redevelopment of existing facilities.
I strongly believe this is something which needs to be exhausted before there is ever consideration of building on Green Belt or Metropolitan Open Land – which councils are overly prone to chip away at; this little bit won’t matter; and then this bit; and this bit; until the whole is gone, which I’m seeing locally. There seems too little concern for the environment; just more and more development – because it brings in money for the council.
[Aside: I also believe that any building which is less than 50% occupied for, say, three months should be required to be converted into housing. This would not only increase housing but also clamp down on speculative build.]
Enfield’s stance is not (just) a question of NIMBY-ism or party politics, but a strike for common sense, respect for existing communities, and the law.
More power to a council – any council regardless of political persuasion – with the guts to stand up to, and call out, the government. We need more of this if we are to keep the place pleasantly inhabitable and environmentally sound.
There are a number of media reports on the decision, including this from The Guardian.
So now we bring you this month’s selection of links to items you wish you hadn’t missed. And it’s a well packed edition …
Science, Technology, Natural World
Apart from traumatic, what it would have been like to experience the dinosaur‑killing asteroid? [LONG READ]
There’s a huge amount of “space junk” above our heads: almost half of what’s in earth orbit is junk – and that’s only what we know about. [££££]
And while we’re talking of things going round … Astronomers have just found over ten thousand new exoplanet candidates.
Meanwhile there are some pieces of the cosmos being ignored by astronomers. [££££]
It seems that the universe could be any one of 18 possible shapes. [££££]
Let’s come back down to Earth … Researchers are beginning to understand how Egypt’s Great Pyramid has withstood earthquakes etc. for over 4500 years. [££££]
There are new insights into whether plants can hear.
[Illustrations NSFW] “Slow Blink” communication with your cat.
Scientists are developing tiny robots that can learn to navigate like honeybees. [££££]
On birds’ eyes and why their visual perception is almost second to none. [LONG READ]
At the other end of life on earth scientists have found a tiny fish that looks like Mr Snuffleupagus (below). [££££]
And finally in this section New Scientist had a piece on the renowned mathematician who doesn’t exist. [££££]
Health, Medicine
An interview with two scientists who have been working flat out to develop a test for hantavirus. [££££]
An American look at what the response to the hantavirus “scare” has brought to the surface – and a brilliant example of how to do public health leadership. [LONG READ]
So did the Ancient Egyptians invent the pregnancy test?
Along with that women have been using cannabis medicinally for thousands of years.
Twins. Born within minutes of each other. But they have different fathers!
Sexuality & Relationships
Sexual health after 60: aging, hormones & intimacy.
Sex after 35: apparently the female body was not designed for the sex most women are having. [LONG READ]
So what really does happen to a woman’s body during orgasm?
One man’s experience of vasectomy leads him to wonder why the procedure isn’t more common.
History, Archaeology, Anthropology
Were the Neanderthals the first dentists? One article from Scientific American, and a second from The Guardian.
A research team have published a new, online, map of Roman roads across their empire.
It’s long been supposed that after the Romans left Britain the Anglo-Saxons took over and totally replace the indigenous population. But DNA analysis tells us otherwise. [LONG READ]
It seems strange, but early medieval Ireland had laws protecting bees.
So who invented the corridor? [LONG READ]
There are tunnels under Bloxham, Oxfordshire. But what are they for? [LONG READ]
There’s a forgotten cock pit under Whitehall. [Now, now. That’s enough of that!]
London
And finally … Matt Brown has released the latest coloured section of John Rocque’s 1746 map of London. This time it’s Limehouse and Rotherhithe.
Each month I offer you something to think about to get the brain working. This month …
If anything is possible, then is it possible that nothing is possible?
Unisex toilets? I’m not sure that shouldn’t be uni-gender toilets!
The powers in this country are getting their collective knickers well tangled over the Equality & Human rights Commission (EHRC) guidance on the use of single sex toilets, changing areas, hospital wards etc. which is now before Parliament. This follows on from the April 2025 ruling by the UK Supreme Court that sex in the Equality Act means only biological sex (as defined at birth). This means ipso facto that single-sex toilets etc. end up excluding transgender people. (That in itself seems daft in the extreme, but that’s the law as presently laid down.)
I’m not going to spell out the details, partly because it looks a mess largely created by conflicting self-interest groups. If you want more background then there are countless media reports including from The Guardian and BBC News.
FFS guys, get a life! And grasp the nettle! There’s a very simple solution which I’ve been advocating for years, and which we know works. (See for example the last paragraph of my post from February 2013 and this longer post from May 2018.) What is this solution? …
Make every facility unisex. Yes, toilets, changing rooms, student accommodation etc. At the end of the day, as I’ve said before, where’s the problem: we all know what’s under each other’s t-shirt and jeans. But no, it doesn’t have to be quite that open – and yes, I do understand why some people feel the need for privacy.
My local swimming pool has had one single sex changing room for over 15 years to my knowledge. It is a single space used by men, women and children. For privacy there are lockable cubicles (of varying sizes to accommodate single people, parents with kids etc.) to change in, and lockers (in the open area) for your belongings. That way no-one should be blocking a cubicle for more than a few minutes while changing. So anyone can arrive dressed, choose any free cubicle, get changed and put their stuff in a locker; on return pick any free cubicle etc. etc. There are more lockers than cubicles, and cubicles can’t be locked from the outside, so you can’t block the cubicles.
It works. No-one in my experience even considers walking around the open area clad in anything less than a towel or swimsuit. There’s a choice of showers, either “open” or in cubicles – but all cubicles would be easy. And toilets can be easily arranged with just cubicles. Everything can have floor to ceiling partitioning if felt necessary.
Oh, and by the way, most accessible toilets are already unisex. So you can do it!
The one place it might be difficult is hospital wards; but then there’s a question of medical privacy to consider as well. A mix of alcoves with two to four beds and single rooms would seem doable – and if properly designed probably no less space efficient.
So, guys (of all sexes and genders), stop having conniptions and get a life. The solution is easy and it could/should have been universal decades ago.
I’m deeply sick of the vanity project called HS2. And today Simon Jenkins has a piece in The Guardian also decrying the project.
I’ve been saying this, or something like it, since the outset. This money could have been (and still could be) much better spent on upgrading the existing rail infrastructure across the whole country and likely at half the cost. Instead we have a Tory party (from recollection it was George Osborne) vanity project, which has conned every successive government, and for which IMO there was never a business case. It’s not too late to pull the plug and avoid an even greater waste of money and environmental destruction for something we don’t need.
Moreover we must be the laughing stock of the world when it takes us 30+ years to build a railway line.
I despair of this country!
So here’s your collection of recently encountered quotes for this merry month of May. And a long, and somewhat cynical (ie. realistic) list it is!
Poverty is the mother of crime.
[Marcus Aurelius]
Hearing people say they are going to vote Reform because they have tried the others and it is worth giving Reform a chance. This is rather like saying we’ve tried cats, dogs and rabbits, let’s try a rattlesnake as a house pet.
[Dave Middleton]
These folk are hewers of trees and hunters of beasts; therefore we are their unfriends, and if they will not depart we shall afflict them in all ways that we can.
[JRR Tolkien, The Silmarillion]
I’m not telling you to make the world better, I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it.
[Joan Didion]
The ones who send you to die will never stand where the bullets land.
[Ernset Hemingway]
War is not fought for nations – it is fought so a few men can turn blood into profit.
[Major-General Smedley Butler]
Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?
[Terry Pratchett]
Smart people learn from everything and everyone, average people from their experiences, stupid people already have all the answers.
[Socrates]
I hate math tests because all through the chapter it’s like really easy and then you think you’ve got it and then the test is like:
If I throw a triangle out of the car and the car is going 20km/h and wind resistance is a thing that exists, how many cupcakes can Pedro buy with one human soul?
[unknown]
We cannot have sustainable energy because it threatens the oil industry. We cannot have healthcare because it threatens insurance. We cannot have peace because it threatens the weapons industry. Capitalism built a system where doing the right thing is treated like bad business.
[Brian Tyler Cohen]
We live on a planet where whales sing songs that travel for miles. Where trees can recognize their own offspring and protect them underground. Where dolphins give each other names and where lightning can create glass in the sand. Where horses can read human emotions. Where rain has a smell before it even arrives and where the ocean can glow in the dark. A planet where the stars we see might not even exist anymore.
[unknown]
Shalimar, the trumpets chorused, angels wholly all shall take.
Those alive will meet the prophets, those at peace shall see their wake.
[Keith Reid, Whaling Stories, 1970]
When objects need accounts, ownership becomes cosplay.
[Kamil Murkowska; https://blog.kamilamurko.cc/the-subscription-of-everything/]
You will be told that you are empowered because you can customize your plan. You will be told that the system is flexible because you can cancel anytime. You will be told that everything is designed around you, which is true only in the sense that a maze is designed around a mouse.
[Kamil Murkowska; https://blog.kamilamurko.cc/the-subscription-of-everything/]
I like software that updates without requiring me to understand anything about drivers, patches, or the dark emotional life of printers.
[Kamil Murkowska; https://blog.kamilamurko.cc/the-subscription-of-everything/]
The major western democracies are moving towards corporatism. Democracy has become a business plan with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope. The main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies – socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor – and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. This is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to food.
[John Pilger (1939 to 2023)]
The rich do not feed society; workers do. Farmers grow food, drivers move it, nurses heal, teachers teach, builders build, coders code, and labor keeps the world alive. Billionaires mostly own, extract, and profit from what others produce. If the rich vanished, work would continue. If workers vanished, the rich would have nothing to exploit.
[unknown]
Here are the answers to this month’s six quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.
People
Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2025.