Paul Bivand

An archaeological trench showing various gullys and ditches. Some of these contain runs of short orange ceramic water pipes that fit together not unlike lego to create continuous lengths of pipe.

We're sure all you can think about today is that it's World Plumbing Day. 👨‍🔧💦

So here's the Palace plumbing - ceramic pipes that carried water around the formal gardens and fed fountains and ornamental basins and the like.

(1960s excavation photo)

🧵👇

The old people who remembered Churchill as a Liberal Home Secretary doing beastly Home Secretary things have all passed on. Not all their children though.

📕 NEW from @anacostaramon.bsky.social, Michaela Slotwinski, @ursina.bsky.social and Anne Ardila Brenøe:

'Do Mothers Respond to Information About the Long-Term Consequences of Part-Time Work?'

Isn't it a jacobite tree, historically?

It's UC as Hotel California. Most of the words.

Looking back at JSA, claim terminations for failing to attend interviews were often people getting a job and not telling jobcentre, just not signing on. Small £ incentives to tell them. Not much sign of changing jobcentre culture.

Some of this driven by moves from old benefits to UC. Relatedly, David Webster's latest update is on the CPAG page. Including a call for someone to take over the work.

Alfred the Great’s Indian Embassy

How likely is it that Alfred the Great sent two emissaries to India in the ninth century?

⌛️ Last chance to read this recent History Matters for free

www.historytoday.com/archive/hist...

Remember that contractors in building repair likely to be self-employed. Which means people find out about earnings by word of mouth. Not very efficient.

End of year food bank stats | Trussell View the latest annual stats about the number of emergency food parcels distributed by our community of food banks in the past 12 months.

New @trusselluk.bsky.social stats out today: 2.6 million emergency food parcels in 2025 - 1 every 12 seconds.

We're seeing really deep and prolonged hardship, especially for families. As well as for disabled people and fast growing numbers of pensioners.

www.trussell.org.uk/news-and-res...

Sadly, North Yorkshire has a terrible reputation for raptor persecution - and it seems that North Yorkshire Police don’t particularly care. Thank you for continuing to shine a spotlight on this.

Change speed limits to kph from mph, leave the signs as they are. Very cheap.

Recent weeks show our reliance on cars, but cycling can help. Most 2024 journeys were under 5 miles, ideal for cycling. Swapping short car trips saves £, pollution & fossil fuel use. Safer roads matter, which is why backing #MyRideOurRight helps everyone.

cyclinguk.org/my-ride-our-right

Net replacement rates in unemployment for a single homeowner on average wage without children (%, 2024) - pink dot is at month one of unemployment and blue dot at month 60. UK rates are low by international standards

Even if AI doesn’t hit jobs in a big way, unemployment is starting to re-emerge as a policy issue. So it’s good that @sarahoconnorft.ft.com reminds us how low our unemployment benefits are, and how this can lead to people taking jobs below their skill level
www.ft.com/content/771a...

May be fair that some API documentation looks remarkably like the legendary 'in the locked filing cabinet in the basement, but beware of the leopard'. Thinking of DWP Stat-xplore.

Parliamentlive.tv Justice and Home Affairs Committee

At 11.55 here Claude Moraes correctly points out that care workers/dependants are fiscally *positive* every year until about 2045.

In response, the Home Office official misstates the facts & clearly doesn't understand either the point or the actual data/analysis

parliamentlive.tv/event/index/...

Likely a better camera than my russian-made Lubitel twin-lens reflex.

From memory, the Tories criticised the Labour test for being about who has the right to vote, and how to get it, and about benefits and processes to claim them, rather than national myths and legends, plus random hoop-jumps.

A Brothers Mehteh bicycle.

Worried about wild fluctuations from $90/barrel crude to $110/barrel? I recommend you invest in an oil price spike nonchalance machine for your personal transport needs:

Russia forged new cyber weapons to attack Ukraine. Now they're going international At the end of December, the person manning the digital boards at PSE, Poland's national electricity operator, noticed a flurry of solar stations suddenly flicker off grid. Poland in the dead of winte...

Poland’s electricity operator detected a suspicious disruption in late December when several solar power stations suddenly disconnected from the grid despite continuing to generate power.

An unexpected benefit of London's cycle lanes...our would-be Dalek overlords are able to take an afternoon stroll with their human minders, unimpeded

Almost Friday lunchtime. Looking for something to read? How about a blog? The traditional U-shape in wellbeing…?

The most notable leftish policies have been repainting trains, and 2 acts that haven't taken effect yet, renters rights and employment rights.

It is a problem that Labour voters in 2024 are perceived as Labour supporters, rather than tactical voters who chose Labour as the best local option for beating Tories (or Farage). Reverting to DK or others in the space would be likely.

This is why I write so much about pavement parking

Though the OBR's tendency for their forecasts to revert to long-term trend beyond the point when City forecasters stop their forecasts remains evident. More positively, despite the DWP attempts to hide economic relevance to their stats (no seasonally adjusted JSA starts), no sign of job loss rise.

Data centres for financial trading likely physically close to markets, others could be elsewhere. Think pennine valleys, where former water powered mills, could be used.

2026 Radical Statistics Conference This year's conference will be held in London on Saturday,14 March at St Luke’s Community Centre, London, EC1V 8AJ.

RadStats annual conference 2025 is being held on 14 March at St Luke's community centre. The theme is using data to promote progressive change and there is a wide range of talks and workshops which is still being added to! Sign up now, students go free. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/2026-radic...

Splitting those NEET numbers by disability (small sample numbers, so wide confidence intervals) shows rises with age for both disabled and not disabled young NEETs.

Having now got the data for the latest quarter from the UK data service, here are the percentages NEET and not NEET by individual year of age. The percentages go up by age, and are low (by comparison with 22-24s) for 16-17s. N.B. ONS stats distribute missings to the other groups.