ast night I experienced the eclipse or partial eclipse. Here in the UK there were only moments of darkening, so at around 6 or 7 it felt like the daylight had come to an end. Not too long afterwards the sky was bright and it looked nice again. Maybe by pure chance this was a very good day to watch an eclipse, at least here in Manchester.

There’s some coverage and photos nearer to the ‘epicentre’:

• Parts of Spain plunged into darkness as eclipse moves across Europe

  Parts of Spain were briefly plunged into darkness on Wednesday as a solar eclipse that began in Iceland and the Arctic progressed across the continent. It was the first total eclipse to be seen from mainland Europe in two decades. Read our blog to see how the event unfolded.

• What can we learn from eclipses?

  A total solar eclipse will sweep across northern Spain on August 12 in one of Europe’s most anticipated astronomical events of the decade. From the Sun’s corona to animal behaviour and human emotions, these rare celestial events continue to provide scientists with valuable insights more than two millennia after they were first observed. Head of Space Science at the Centre National d’Études Spatiales, Olivier Joie-La Marle, shares further insights.

• A Special U.S. Navy Squadron Photographed the Last Total Solar Eclipse in Spain in 1905

  Three American warships were sent to Valencia to capture pictures of the sun’s corona with a high-definition camera that would cost over $34,000 in today’s money.

still remember finishing my thesis about two decades ago and working on experiments that compared my algorithms to those of Bill Crum. We used different approaches and compared them.

Bill was always nice to me and today I discovered that he has medical problems and he wrote a book about it. In a way, we sort of coauthored works (or collaborated with his division down in London). I hope he will find a way to cope with health perils.

want to explain my position as expressed (or politely, amicably explained) to local authorities.

Animals need water and food, more so in summertime. Especially the water. Water is life, life is water. We bought several stainless steel bowls to nourish the local cats, dogs, birds, and occasionally other animals. We change the water at least once a day to ensure it’s never stagnant. The government and the media actively encourage doing so, more so when there are heatwaves.

In dry places, animals tend to hang out not far from water. It’s an instinctive tendency.

For over a year we had birds in our back yard. This year, to appease thin-skinned people, we moved them to the front, to a public space, an open space with lots of grass and trees.

The queens and kings of Britain have protected wild birds, which they saw as almost equal to humans. The government encouraged people to offer food to birds, e.g. in their back gardens. And because as a society we are governed by rules, not by men, what matters is policy. What it boils down to is the universal rule, so I checked the official .gov sites, just to ensure we feed the birds correctly while complying with whatever it says there.

Over time we reduced the frequency of the feeding (we try to buy them the best seeds available), but not the quantity (once day in large quantities instead of 10-20 times a day in smaller doses), which is fine as long as more people do this. Our neighbours feed them and like them, but there is a resistance from one very malicious couple that does drugs in the back yard, forcing other people to inhale bad stuff for over a decade already. Apparently the birds are “dirty”, but drugs being smoked is not. I recently saw articles about bans on bird-feeding in India (specifically in Mumbai), despite such bans being highly immoral, resulting in actual hunger strikes, albeit mostly by Jains.

We need to resist people who hate and antagonise wild animals, more so knowing that the animals cannot speak to humans (for themselves) and they have feelings too. An act of resistance, wherein you protect the lives of non-human creatures, is nothing to be ashamed of or afraid of.

The pretext that bird-feeding will attract vermin is not supported by any evidence and it also discriminates against some particular animals, who do no harm. If policy changes are to be made, then evidence is needed. While policies remain unchanged it’s not OK to apply any on an ad hoc, improvised basis. When council workers issue contradictory instructions, it then necessarily means somebody is lying.

T may seem repetitive, but this is still important. It’s also more relevant than ever, even if the media chooses to brush it under the rug.

New ONS data came out this morning (in Microsoft’s proprietary format, as usual). 9,867 England and Wales deaths in Week 13 of 2019 compared to 11,241 in the same week this year.

It’s like this almost every week, including the prior week (12). I check this every Wednesday (for years already).

Is it OK to ask my government what has caused this very sharp increase?

Does it make one a “crank” for asking?

KEPT refreshing this page and a minute ago the data was finally released, at 9:30, as usual for Wednesdays. Before COVID-19 the average number of deaths in Week 7 was 11,301 (England and Wales). Now it’s 12,366. That’s an increase of more than 1,000 (deaths) for this week alone.

Last week: In First 5 Weeks of 2025 67,630 People Died in England and Wales Compared to 58,461 in the Same Period in 2019

HIS morning’s new numbers look like this:

It may not seem like that says very much until one checks pre-COVID-19 numbers for the same timespan. It was 11,660 in 2019 and about the same for prior years (average of 2014-2019).

New data out today.

2019

2025

Almost 10,000 more deaths in about a month.