This isn’t really surprising. 25 years after planting the trees are still young. Some won’t have even had their first seeding season. Few if any will have fallen to rot and contribute to soil quality. Come back in another 75 years and I suspect they’ll still be a measurable difference.

Unexpected LOTR.

Weird. One moment (only this weekend) I’m reading about Pine Marten reintroductions and how that’s helping red squirrels reestablish themselves, and what a success that’s being. And the next I’m reading about the demise of the ref squirrel and how something needs to be done about it.

Wild fires above the Elan Valley. I drove over there on Sunday evening and it was quite spectacular.

I’ve still got some 😅 stocked up in Aldi as they were selling them off at under half price on the Tuesday after Easter. Tbh I think I’ll be sick of them before I’ve finished them 😯

Yes, he does. 69.35%, with just 1.06% left to be counted.

https://vtr.valasztas.hu/ogy2026/orszaggyules-osszetetele

I feel I should be reading something into that picture. Is it code for something? /s

" An estimated 700 people die or are injured each year in the UK due to colliding with the animals" - which is slightly more believable. The summary above is probably AI.

Yes that makes a lot of sense. Make it increasingly difficult not to go green, through the tax system, rather than directly paying them to go green.

Watership Down.

Bright Eyes, shining like fire… Art Garfunkel will now be in your head for the rest of the day 😂

On which subject, I (here in Cymru, not part of the Palantir NHS England problem) received a letter in the post this week asking if I wanted to take part in a large survey for the NHS, which would involve giving a blood sample for analysis. The address given was in England, and so I’m guessing it’s a joint project with NHS Cymru and England.

I have to say that I am not intending to reply to the letter because of Palantir; it feels horribly like a data gathering exercise funded by them.

Does anyone else know about this?

Beavers? They’ve only just been reintroduced! Don’t tell me they’re already in trouble? 😯

Great. But there’s still something fundamentally wrong with public money going to support private companies in this way. I fear this sends the message “don’t go green until the government throws you a load of money to incentivise it”. By all means, support the infrastructure (and take the income from it for the public purse), but make the shareholders pay for going green. Or just nationalise if they don’t want to.

Data are plural, as my PhD supervisor always used to say.

It still feels wrong to me when it’s used in the singular, especially in formal communication.

If only we’d thought of doing something like that before 🤔

That’s exactly my criteria too. Bonus for the app being available natively on platforms such as Sailfish or Ubuntu phone.

They’re still owned by PepsiCo, so that’ll be a no from me for Walkers.

Whilst this particular article is new, the story has been out now from other sources for a while. And it looks like the US has shot itself in the foot here, because that’s been cited as at least part of the motivation for the EU looking to become independent in banking and technology from the US.

Well, good. It should have happened a long time ago; better still the situation should never have been allowed to arise.

Shame about all the tracking cookies on that site, and turning them off involves going down a very long list. That’s not compliant with European cookie laws as I understand it - opting out is supposed to be a simple “I don’t want cookies”. (And their “legitimate interest” to track me is of no interest to me).

Mais … le chat! 😺