Lady’s Smock, aka Cuckoo Flower (Cardamine pratensis), St Pancras cemetery

Same week as first cuckoos heard in London

#wildflowerhour

And close by, the grave of “Sir Collins”, pioneer of sound systems and co-founder of the famous, fondly remembered Four Aces club in Dalston

The enormous Mond mausoleum, St Pancras cemetery.

Built for Ludwig Mond, industrial chemist, of Brunner Mond Ltd that became through merger ICI

#histsci #BraveNewWorld

@jonturney.bsky.social could you email me your postal address? We have some mail for you here at STS

4) Launching the Information Age, 1997

3) Withstanding strikes in the electricity supply industry, 1982-1985

2) Public Understanding of Science and the new white paper, 1999

1) Patenting human genes, 1991-1992

Finally, here are four possibly interesting new files released at the National Archives between January and March this year

“Like” (❤️) to vote, and I’ll tell you what is in the winner …

… plus some incentive ways to avoid tax (titles of Inland Revenue files)

… including:

12,080 nuclear veterans documents, across each month

996 Northern Ireland Office docs from peace process, in February

lots on PPPs and Transport, February

533 documents from the Dawn Sturgess (Salisbury chemical weapon) inquiry, in March

…

Catching up with files released at the National Archives so far this year: 111,321 in January, 57,307 in February, and 66,986 in March

Most of those are army and Air Force personnel records from WW2 (still)

But there’s some others of interest…

On the way to the derelict telegraph factory we passed the massive East India Dock data centres that feed the City

Side of modern factory building. Black door with graffiti ghost)

haunted

(old Siemens telegraph works, Woolwich)

Hoarding. Says in red letters ‘A future for the curious’. Plenty of graffiti tags

“A future for the curious”

Siemens Brothers Telegraph Works, buildings from 1870s. Long white building with a hoarding that says “Faraday Works”. Large aerial above

Siemens L-shaped building, 1911. Five storey modern factory building, with a car park in front. Some windows boarded up

Hoarding, with drawing from above of factory site by the Thames. Plus a photograph of the main building with the company name

Part of the L-shaped building. With a fire escape

The old Siemens Brothers Telegraph Works, Woolwich.

Made early transatlantic cables, amongst other electrical and communications tech, 1860s-1968

Silvertown Tunnel Cycle Shuttle. Thank you for travelling with us today

Excitingly, going on the cyclists-only, under-Thames bus

The more I think about the 17th century Tulip Mania, the more I suspect that the peak price of 1637 was an undervaluation

F A Mitchell- Hedges holding a pangolin

Who was Mr Mitchell-Hedges?

Here he is

Holding a pangolin

The winner of the vote among new National Archives files released in Nov-Dec 2026 was this one: COAL 30/568: British Coal Art and Artefacts 1986-1995

This one is interesting!

Buckle up for coal mining, an unexpected Indiana Jones reference, and a big METAPHOR for privatisation

1/n

Today at @stsucl.bsky.social History of Science Reading Group we discussed Georgi Georgiev's "Deafening Data: Sound Measurement and Knowledge Making in the Cold War." Technology and Culture (2026) dx.doi.org/10.1353/tech..., plus his essay on the cover art

I hope you like history of jamming too

Square green flowerheads, like a town clock

Small red round flower under a twig with green leaves

Moschatel and Bilberry, on the greensand in Kent, for #wildflowerhour

Shout if you want something looking up

Yes. It’s not fair

A woman with very long hair in a B/W photograph

“Soffia Sofoniasdottir was the first woman in Iceland to establish a nursery and build a greenhouse”

Today at @stsucl.bsky.social History of Science Reading Group we discussed Alexandre M. Roberts's "Thinking about Chemistry in Byzantium and the Islamic World." Journal of the History of Ideas (2023) dx.doi.org/10.1353/jhi.... (Suggested by Sarah Marks @sarahvmarks.bsky.social)

accidental Bacon

Confusing picture of half cows, lights and me, in a hall of mirrors effect room

… it’s cows all the way down

Milky Way galaxy above and a cow below

The Skyr museum is unexpectedly cosmic …