Hugh Aldersey-Williams
@hoooaw.bsky.social
Dutch Light: Christiaan Huygens and the Making of Science in Europe, Tide, The Adventures of Sir Thomas Browne in the 21st Century, Periodic Tales and other things.
Reposted by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
I’m an Ambassador for this brilliant charity, Bookbanks, giving away books with food parcels at food banks. There are two part-time jobs going for Regional Leads in London and East Anglia.
Link below.
Please share far and wide :)
Link below.
Please share far and wide :)
Get Involved — Bookbanks
www.bookbanks.co.uk
February 7, 2026 at 11:10 AM
I’m an Ambassador for this brilliant charity, Bookbanks, giving away books with food parcels at food banks. There are two part-time jobs going for Regional Leads in London and East Anglia.
Link below.
Please share far and wide :)
Link below.
Please share far and wide :)
Woordle 1691 1/6
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
February 4, 2026 at 8:58 AM
Woordle 1691 1/6
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Astonishing and moving on the vital power of art.
Tom Service interviewing Joyce DiDonato about the Emily Dickinson cycle she’s shortly to take across America: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... (listen from 1:12:10)
No Prisoner be—
Where Liberty—
Herself—Abide with Thee—
Tom Service interviewing Joyce DiDonato about the Emily Dickinson cycle she’s shortly to take across America: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... (listen from 1:12:10)
No Prisoner be—
Where Liberty—
Herself—Abide with Thee—
BBC Sounds - Music. Radio. Podcasts
Listen without limits, with BBC Sounds. Catch the latest music tracks, discover binge-worthy podcasts, or listen to radio shows - all whenever you want.
www.bbc.co.uk
February 2, 2026 at 10:19 AM
Astonishing and moving on the vital power of art.
Tom Service interviewing Joyce DiDonato about the Emily Dickinson cycle she’s shortly to take across America: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... (listen from 1:12:10)
No Prisoner be—
Where Liberty—
Herself—Abide with Thee—
Tom Service interviewing Joyce DiDonato about the Emily Dickinson cycle she’s shortly to take across America: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... (listen from 1:12:10)
No Prisoner be—
Where Liberty—
Herself—Abide with Thee—
Reposted by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Tom Service, BBC Radio 3, Saturday Morning, Interview with American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. Possibly the interview of the year.
Tom doing what BBC news and current affairs woefully fail to do.
Tom doing what BBC news and current affairs woefully fail to do.
January 31, 2026 at 11:12 AM
Tom Service, BBC Radio 3, Saturday Morning, Interview with American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. Possibly the interview of the year.
Tom doing what BBC news and current affairs woefully fail to do.
Tom doing what BBC news and current affairs woefully fail to do.
Reposted by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
the Dutch are about to get a new government which is centrist, liberal, non-populist, respectful of minorities, fiscally sensible, anti climate change, pro-EU, anti Putin.
In the current climate that is not a small thing. People should be glad and stop complaining!
www.politico.eu/article/dutc...
In the current climate that is not a small thing. People should be glad and stop complaining!
www.politico.eu/article/dutc...
Dutch parties agree on minority government with Rob Jetten as prime minister
Centrist D66 to team up with center-right and liberal parties, leaders say.
www.politico.eu
January 30, 2026 at 7:40 AM
the Dutch are about to get a new government which is centrist, liberal, non-populist, respectful of minorities, fiscally sensible, anti climate change, pro-EU, anti Putin.
In the current climate that is not a small thing. People should be glad and stop complaining!
www.politico.eu/article/dutc...
In the current climate that is not a small thing. People should be glad and stop complaining!
www.politico.eu/article/dutc...
Snowdrops are out and the skylarks are up: it can’t be too soon to repost this: publicdomainreview.org/essay/from-s...
From Snowdrop to Nightjar: Robert Marsham’s “Indications of Spring” (1789)
What can we learn from observing the progression of spring — a hawthorn’s first flowering, the return of birdsong on a particular day? Hugh Aldersey-Williams explores the lifelong calendrical project ...
publicdomainreview.org
January 26, 2026 at 10:11 AM
Snowdrops are out and the skylarks are up: it can’t be too soon to repost this: publicdomainreview.org/essay/from-s...
Nice to see Periodic Tales still flying off the shelves.
Is everyone reading up about rare earth elements?
Is everyone reading up about rare earth elements?
January 22, 2026 at 10:28 AM
Nice to see Periodic Tales still flying off the shelves.
Is everyone reading up about rare earth elements?
Is everyone reading up about rare earth elements?
Reposted by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
This will get massively overshadowed today and as ever the devil is in the detail, but is should be one of the best things Labour has done. It has the potential to improve the lives and finances of millions of people.
www.businessgreen.com/news/4524489...
www.businessgreen.com/news/4524489...
'A national project to turn the tide': Government unveils £15bn Warm Homes Plan
Long-awaited plan aims to help millions of families to cut energy bills by installing solar panels, batteries, heat pumps, and insulation
www.businessgreen.com
January 21, 2026 at 7:17 AM
This will get massively overshadowed today and as ever the devil is in the detail, but is should be one of the best things Labour has done. It has the potential to improve the lives and finances of millions of people.
www.businessgreen.com/news/4524489...
www.businessgreen.com/news/4524489...
Reposted by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
"Every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse"
FFS
The fact that the Labour front bench suppressed this expert analysis rather than being transparent and stepping up a gear in doing something about it doesn't just make them unserious. In my view it makes them criminally negligent.
FFS
The fact that the Labour front bench suppressed this expert analysis rather than being transparent and stepping up a gear in doing something about it doesn't just make them unserious. In my view it makes them criminally negligent.
🚨 BREAKING 🚨
The UK Govt has quietly published - without announcement - the Joint Intelligence Committee/DEFRA report it suppressed last October. They tried to sneak it out in the midst of crisis. Read and share:
“Global Biodiversity Loss, Ecosystem Collapse & National Security.”
(link below)
The UK Govt has quietly published - without announcement - the Joint Intelligence Committee/DEFRA report it suppressed last October. They tried to sneak it out in the midst of crisis. Read and share:
“Global Biodiversity Loss, Ecosystem Collapse & National Security.”
(link below)
January 20, 2026 at 6:37 PM
"Every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse"
FFS
The fact that the Labour front bench suppressed this expert analysis rather than being transparent and stepping up a gear in doing something about it doesn't just make them unserious. In my view it makes them criminally negligent.
FFS
The fact that the Labour front bench suppressed this expert analysis rather than being transparent and stepping up a gear in doing something about it doesn't just make them unserious. In my view it makes them criminally negligent.
Round here it’s a loke
January 18, 2026 at 10:39 AM
Round here it’s a loke
Reposted by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Brilliant to see the BBC picking up Ranald Lawrence and Dean Hawkes' fabulously interesting and important #environmentalhumanities work on #HardwickHall. They measured solar gain to understand Elizabethan comfort tech.
The original articles are hugely worth reading too.
www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...
The original articles are hugely worth reading too.
www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...
'The past is an underused tool': An Elizabethan mansion's secrets for staying warm
In a deadly cold period known as the Little Ice Age, clever Elizabethan designs kept a magnificent stately home unusually warm – with lessons for how we can heat our own homes better.
www.bbc.co.uk
January 18, 2026 at 8:59 AM
Brilliant to see the BBC picking up Ranald Lawrence and Dean Hawkes' fabulously interesting and important #environmentalhumanities work on #HardwickHall. They measured solar gain to understand Elizabethan comfort tech.
The original articles are hugely worth reading too.
www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...
The original articles are hugely worth reading too.
www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...
Reposted by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
The total protected area licensed to fossil fuel companies all over the world covers an area bigger than France
And when it comes to production, the UK is the worst of the lot
#FuelingEcocide with EIF and @eicnetwork.bsky.social
And when it comes to production, the UK is the worst of the lot
#FuelingEcocide with EIF and @eicnetwork.bsky.social
UK world’s worst for letting fossil fuel companies drill in nature…
New investigation reveals vast global overlap between drilling permits and cherished sites crucial for nature
www.thebureauinvestigates.com
January 14, 2026 at 9:58 AM
The total protected area licensed to fossil fuel companies all over the world covers an area bigger than France
And when it comes to production, the UK is the worst of the lot
#FuelingEcocide with EIF and @eicnetwork.bsky.social
And when it comes to production, the UK is the worst of the lot
#FuelingEcocide with EIF and @eicnetwork.bsky.social
Reposted by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Some potential good news here. Maybe there isnt a plastic spoon's worth of microplastic in the average human brain. Science at its best when claims are checked by independent scientists. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘A bombshell’: doubt cast on discovery of microplastics throughout human body
Exclusive: Some scientists say many detections are most likely error, with one high-profile study called a ‘joke’
www.theguardian.com
January 14, 2026 at 9:35 AM
Some potential good news here. Maybe there isnt a plastic spoon's worth of microplastic in the average human brain. Science at its best when claims are checked by independent scientists. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Karel Čapek takes a wry look at the English in my piece
@publicdomainrev.bsky.social. Others about forts, alchemy, modernism in Brazil, the Perrault brothers, imaginary chemical elements, the ‘Dutch Minerva‘, the blue of the sea, and an early modern bestiary. publicdomainreview.org/collection/k...
@publicdomainrev.bsky.social. Others about forts, alchemy, modernism in Brazil, the Perrault brothers, imaginary chemical elements, the ‘Dutch Minerva‘, the blue of the sea, and an early modern bestiary. publicdomainreview.org/collection/k...
Karel Čapek’s *Letters from England* (1925)
Account of a trip round England by the Czech writer who introduced the word “robot” to the world.
publicdomainreview.org
January 12, 2026 at 9:25 AM
Karel Čapek takes a wry look at the English in my piece
@publicdomainrev.bsky.social. Others about forts, alchemy, modernism in Brazil, the Perrault brothers, imaginary chemical elements, the ‘Dutch Minerva‘, the blue of the sea, and an early modern bestiary. publicdomainreview.org/collection/k...
@publicdomainrev.bsky.social. Others about forts, alchemy, modernism in Brazil, the Perrault brothers, imaginary chemical elements, the ‘Dutch Minerva‘, the blue of the sea, and an early modern bestiary. publicdomainreview.org/collection/k...
Christiaan Huygens in Paris #otd 1664 to his brother Constantijn in Holland: ‘This wigmaker makes me furious, for I have been more than 3 times in vain to get [the wigs being made for them both] and he doesn’t take the trouble to pay me a visit.’
January 11, 2026 at 3:40 PM
Christiaan Huygens in Paris #otd 1664 to his brother Constantijn in Holland: ‘This wigmaker makes me furious, for I have been more than 3 times in vain to get [the wigs being made for them both] and he doesn’t take the trouble to pay me a visit.’
Reposted by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Feeling a little guilty that I’m not making better use of the time I don’t spend watching Traitors.
January 9, 2026 at 8:40 AM
Feeling a little guilty that I’m not making better use of the time I don’t spend watching Traitors.
Reposted by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Jacob van Campen Double Portrait of Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687) and Suzanna van Baerle (1599-1637) 1635
(Mauritshuis, The Hague)
(Mauritshuis, The Hague)
January 4, 2026 at 6:24 PM
Jacob van Campen Double Portrait of Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687) and Suzanna van Baerle (1599-1637) 1635
(Mauritshuis, The Hague)
(Mauritshuis, The Hague)
Greatly enjoying Jenny Uglow’s A Year with Gilbert White. I want to read it at all speeds: I have already skimmed it to compare data for 1781 with our climate-changed present; now I am tempted to read it with the year it tracks, but I know I will consume it much faster than that.
January 2, 2026 at 10:06 AM
Greatly enjoying Jenny Uglow’s A Year with Gilbert White. I want to read it at all speeds: I have already skimmed it to compare data for 1781 with our climate-changed present; now I am tempted to read it with the year it tracks, but I know I will consume it much faster than that.
Some of my favourite reading and rereading from 2025
December 31, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Some of my favourite reading and rereading from 2025
Reposted by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Over the next few days we'll be posting the Top 10 most read of this year's pieces. In at no.10, Hugh Aldersey-Williams's essay “Designing the Sublime: Boullée and Ledoux’s Architectural Revolution”: publicdomainreview.org/essay/design...
(Full Top 10 here: publicdomainreview.org/blog/2025/12...)
(Full Top 10 here: publicdomainreview.org/blog/2025/12...)
December 28, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Over the next few days we'll be posting the Top 10 most read of this year's pieces. In at no.10, Hugh Aldersey-Williams's essay “Designing the Sublime: Boullée and Ledoux’s Architectural Revolution”: publicdomainreview.org/essay/design...
(Full Top 10 here: publicdomainreview.org/blog/2025/12...)
(Full Top 10 here: publicdomainreview.org/blog/2025/12...)
Reposted by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
This is the fossil fuel industry spraypainting the lens on the security cameras while they carry off the heist
www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...
www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...
Trump moves to dismantle major US climate research center in Colorado
The Trump administration is breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.
www.usatoday.com
December 17, 2025 at 3:16 AM
This is the fossil fuel industry spraypainting the lens on the security cameras while they carry off the heist
www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...
www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...
Reposted by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
NCAR is quite literally our global mothership.
Everyone who works in climate and weather has passed through its doors and benefited from its incredible resources.
Dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet.
Unbelievable.
Everyone who works in climate and weather has passed through its doors and benefited from its incredible resources.
Dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet.
Unbelievable.
Trump moves to dismantle major US climate research center in Colorado
The Trump administration is breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.
www.usatoday.com
December 17, 2025 at 2:59 AM
NCAR is quite literally our global mothership.
Everyone who works in climate and weather has passed through its doors and benefited from its incredible resources.
Dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet.
Unbelievable.
Everyone who works in climate and weather has passed through its doors and benefited from its incredible resources.
Dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet.
Unbelievable.
🎄There’s still time to spruce up your knowledge of the elements . . . 🎁
December 16, 2025 at 7:21 PM
🎄There’s still time to spruce up your knowledge of the elements . . . 🎁
Reposted by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
#OnThisDay in 2001, at the age of 57, the German writer W. G. Sebald died while driving his car. In a special post we feature the many public domain books of which, and through which, Sebald speaks in his masterpiece The Rings of Saturn (1995) — publicdomainreview.org/collection/t... #otd
December 14, 2025 at 12:47 PM
#OnThisDay in 2001, at the age of 57, the German writer W. G. Sebald died while driving his car. In a special post we feature the many public domain books of which, and through which, Sebald speaks in his masterpiece The Rings of Saturn (1995) — publicdomainreview.org/collection/t... #otd