Pete Scarborough
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petescarbs.bsky.social
Pete Scarborough
@petescarbs.bsky.social
6K followers 860 following 1.2K posts
Professor of Population Health | University of Oxford | Sustainable Healthy Diets & Transformers
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petescarbs.bsky.social
"Ray, when somebody asks you 'Would you like to do a genetic analysis of a sample of Hitler's blood for a TV show' you say NO!"
An image from Ghostbusters. Near the end of the film. The four Ghostbusters are on the top of a building in New York in their ghostbusting gear. Ray, Egon and Peter are stood, and Winston is lying on a pedestal on the right. A night time skyline of New York is in the background
November 13, 2025 at 7:57 AM
petescarbs.bsky.social
A checkerboard axis cube looks like a mean little robot
An axis cube (a weird type of rubik's cube where the rotational axes are on the cube diagonals) turned into the checkerboard position. On a traditional 3x3x3 that would look like a completed cube but where each side has alternating colours like a chess board. But on the axis cube it looks really weird. Very symmetrical and loads of colours and shapes. It is sat on a wood table, which is brown
November 8, 2025 at 8:23 PM
petescarbs.bsky.social
OMG the pressure. I don't even know which way is 'off'
A switch in the Gibson Building, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Oxford. On a white wall (background) is a silver metal switch. The switch is very old fashioned - a bevelled metal lever on a circular metal backing. Above the switch is a red sign with white letters that says "SWITCH OFF AND SAVE IT". Underneath is a white label which says "FBA/F7"
November 7, 2025 at 9:27 AM
petescarbs.bsky.social
Found this at the bottom of some conference note paper. Think it might work as my email signature
A white lined notepad on a black background. At the foot of the page is the message "Your Warm Cookie Awaits"
November 6, 2025 at 10:59 AM
petescarbs.bsky.social
I have a new favourite Finnish football team that has no patience with turbo-revving young punks.
Football club crest of Kuopion Palloseura, a Finnish football team. The badge has a football in the middle which is half yellow half white and has 1923 at the bottom. The bottom half of the lozenge shaped crest is white and has the name of the team in black. The top half is black and has the letters KuPS in yellow
October 23, 2025 at 9:25 PM
petescarbs.bsky.social
Wolf Songs For Lambs by Jonathan Fire*Eater. Love this album. Saw them in a dingy little room above a pub in Oxford in the late 90s and it was mint
Album cover for Wolf Songs For Lambs by Jonathan Fire*Eater. It shows a black and white photo of the group set around a circular table with a lot of fake snow on their hair and on the table. One of the band is stood up with his hands in the air. The others are sat around the table. The band name and title is shown in the centre towards the bottom.
October 16, 2025 at 10:17 AM
petescarbs.bsky.social
Cancelled train into London. The next one is half an hour away and will be totally rammed, so I'm getting some work done resting on a fucking piano
A laptop resting on a piano in a train station. The piano is a brown wood, the laptop is grey and boring and has a picture of Totoro on the save screen. The floor is checkered, grey and white
October 14, 2025 at 6:29 AM
petescarbs.bsky.social
Who knew that Manchester has a park called Vimto Park with a statue of a huge bottle of Vimto?
A park. There is green grass and a tree in the foreground, and more in the background. There is also a lamp post in the foreground and in the bottom left corner There is a short wall surrounding the park. In the centre of the picture is a large statue of a bottle containing purple liquid with a red label. It is surrounded by fruit
October 6, 2025 at 2:46 PM
petescarbs.bsky.social
#NonLeagueFootball where Oxford City's white and blue kit is easily distinguishable from Curzon Ashton's blue and white kit
Kick off between Oxford City and Curzon Ashton. A green football pitch. On the left is Oxford city in blue socks, blue shorts and white and blue shirts. On the right is Curzon Ashton in white socks, white shorts and blue and white shirts
October 4, 2025 at 2:25 PM
petescarbs.bsky.social
It deserves to sit alongside other masterpieces of the whiteboard genre, like Sesshu Toyo's finest work
An achingly beautiful landscape by Sesshu Toyo (1495). Black ink on a white background. A mountain emerges from the mist in the background. In the foreground some trees, rocks, a structure with a fishing rod. The sea. Look, I'm not doing this justice but it is too amazing to capture in alt text
October 2, 2025 at 11:30 AM
petescarbs.bsky.social
I'm obsessed with this beta on my whiteboard. It's perfect. I keep staring at it when I should be working. I'll never do a better one and yet whiteboards are so ephemeral. It cannot endure
Black ink on a whiteboard. It says + beta one T. The beta is just lovely
October 2, 2025 at 11:26 AM
petescarbs.bsky.social
Imagine in 2015 a rift in the space-time continuum opened up as you were walking down the street (I've read comics - it happens), and you caught a glimpse of these headlines from ten years in the future.
Screengrab from The Guardian website, 18th September 2025. On the left is an image of Jimmy Kimmel associated with the headline "Jimmy Kimmel Live! suspended over Charlie Kirk comments after US government pressure". On the right is a picture of Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron associated with the headline "Macrons to submit scientific evidence to US court to prove Brigitte was not born a man"
September 18, 2025 at 12:45 PM
petescarbs.bsky.social
A tortoise shell cat asleep on a blue and white duvet with a calculator next to her.
September 18, 2025 at 9:29 AM
petescarbs.bsky.social
All the mathsing wore me out
A tortoise shell cat asleep on a blue and white duvet with a calculator beside her.
September 18, 2025 at 8:44 AM
petescarbs.bsky.social
An image of Boris Grishenko (played by Alan Cumming) at the end of GoldenEye. A man raises his hands in victory but is frozen solid by liquid nitrogen from a canister that has burst in the background. Fairly sure this wouldn't happen if a liquid nitrogen canister burst behind you, but I wouldn't want to test that theory myself.
September 14, 2025 at 1:18 PM
petescarbs.bsky.social
Undeniably awkward. George Eliot's account of man's capacity for evil without premeditated intention.
Extract from Felix Holt: The Radical by George Eliot. "A German poet was entrusted with a particularly fine sausage, which he was to convey to the donor's friend in Paris. In the course of a long journey he smelt the sausage; he got hungry, and decided to taste it; he pared a morsel off, then another, and another, in successive moments of temptation, till at last the sausage was, humanly speaking, at an end. The offence had not been premeditated. The poet had never loved meanness, but he loved sausage, and the result was undeniably awkward."
August 28, 2025 at 6:42 AM
petescarbs.bsky.social
Profitable use of time
A still from a game of Sensible Soccer on Sega Mega Drive. The pitch is green with players in green and yellow lined up for a kick off. It says 78 mins in the top left. The score is in the bottom of the screen. It is AAAAAAAAAA 11 - 14 DON'T LIKE SPAM
August 20, 2025 at 5:39 PM
petescarbs.bsky.social
Here's my favourite road sign on the M40 between London and Oxford. All the distances are square numbers!
A photo taken from the front seat of a car. There is a motorway ahead with cars on it. On the left there is a blue motorway sign. The sign says: "M40. Beaconsfield 4. Oxford 36. Birmingham 100". Photo taken from a Facebook group called Dull Men's Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/dullmensclub/posts/1821630085160191/)
August 19, 2025 at 2:03 PM
petescarbs.bsky.social
My favourite Doctor and Companion
Jake the dog and Finn the human from Adventure Time. On the left is Finn - a boy in blue shorts, light blue T-shirt and weird white hood thing. I think it's a snood with ears. He's got a green back pack. On the right is Jake - a small yellowish-brown dog with spaced out eyes and a face attached to the top half of his body. They are giving each other what Fox News would describe as a "terrorist fist bump"
August 9, 2025 at 9:03 AM
petescarbs.bsky.social
Maybe I can suggest some summer reading for Mike Huckabee
Front cover of Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Vintage Classics edition. The main image on the bike is three bombs dropping through the sky. The bombs are shaped like human hands with a single eye in the palm. The title and author are shown in capitals in the bottom right. There is a pink stripe on the left which contains the words Vintage Classics in capitals
August 9, 2025 at 7:22 AM
petescarbs.bsky.social
And here's the notebook with all the match reports. Starting with the intro: Luxembourg welcomes the elite of the 2025 Fifa World Cup. 64 teams, 14 venues, 128 matches, 1 winner!
July 20, 2025 at 8:37 PM
petescarbs.bsky.social
Here's an example of a match report he made to record the result of Luxembourg v Poland in the Quarter Finals. So much detail, right down to identifying Siedeger as the unlucky player to miss in the shoot out.
Match report for Luxembourg v Poland. On an A4 notepad there is details of the match, showing the complete line up for both sides, plus scorers, cards, penalty shoot out (right at the bottom) and details of when and where the match took place at the top
July 20, 2025 at 8:33 PM
petescarbs.bsky.social
"Four Transformers mugs Tarn? Look at yourself"
Four beautiful transformers mugs in a row. From left to right: Ultra Magnus on a blue mug, Springer on a green mug, Kup on a teal mug, Arcee on a pink mug. All sat on a marble effect work surface with multi-coloured wall tiles and a pestle and mortar in the background.
July 16, 2025 at 4:55 PM
petescarbs.bsky.social
The quarter finals include the stand out game of hosts (Luxembourg) versus holders (Poland). What will happen when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object?
A hand written list of the quarter finals in the fictional 2025 World Cup. On a white A4 paper. It says QUARTER FINALS at the top. Underneath are four ties, the date and time of the game, the stadium, and the TV station that will show the match. The games are Luxembourg v Poland; Hungary v Germany; Argentina v Italy; Brazil v England
July 14, 2025 at 7:48 PM
petescarbs.bsky.social
At some point the non-winged goombas must have lost their wings, presumably to save energy in an environment where flying was not necessary. If you dissect a goomba's head, I expect you would find two tiny vestigial limbs.
A paragoomba (a goomba with wings). This is a character from the Mario series of games. It is mainly brown and looks like a mushroom with a grumpy face and big face and wings. A goomba from the Mario series of games. Looks like a brown mushroom with big feet and a grumpy face
July 13, 2025 at 3:25 PM