Recently updated blogs

Two airplanes have just collided on the runway at Tenerife Airport. While no one on the Amsterdam-bound KLM plane survives the resulting fireball, 71 Pan-Am passengers and crew make it off their plane. But could it have been more? Why did so many Pan-Am passengers die, even though they weren’t injured by the initial collision and their plane was still on the ground? This episode was previously released on Pushkin+ …

In my post Brief Note on Figure and Figcaption Support I demonstrate how, when encountering a figure with a screen reader, you won’t hear everything announced at once: No screen reader combo treats the caption as the accessible name nor accessible description, not even for an image that lacks one. Brief Note on Figure and Figcaption Support All Is Well This is a good thing. Users don’t want to hear …

What connects a rear-engine sports car and a manual rangefinder camera? A bold approach to design that turned limitations into legends.

Unstoppable is a mashup of an underdog sports movie and a domestic drama about a family terrorized by an abusive father. The worst thing I can say about it is that it is conventional, but since when is that a crime? A true-life story told in linear fashion with a superior cast still resonates in 2025, especially with this one’s provenance and cast. Jharrel Jerome plays high school wrestler Anthony …

Mornings at camp can be chaotic, and breakfast often takes a backseat to the excitement of the day ahead. But skipping a good breakfast? That’s a recipe for low energy and a cranky start. On a recent camping trip, we found ourselves in this exact situation. With limited options and no time to cook, we gave cold-soaked muesli a try (we found it on Pinterest)—and it was awesome. Easy to …

While I was in Brazil, it occurred to me to ask, what if we all lived like Brazil? Above: View of Florianópolis, from my niece’s balcony. Fifty years ago, the trendy worry was about overpopulation: those poor countries were too damn teeming. This now looks both naïve and racist. Growth rates are stabilizing or declining. The problem is too much carbon and oil use, too much waste, too much beef, …

Katherine Rundell’s five audio essays on the power and politics of children’s fiction. So far I’ve listened to the first two and have loved them. Worth your time. Erin Kissane says the big platforms like Facebook are dead on their feet. “The evidence of the past decade and a half argues strongly that platform corporations are structurally incapable of good governance, primarily because most of their central aims (continuous growth, …

Let’s talk about this.Back in 2000, Nathalie Lorson and Alain Astori dropped Paul Smith Men, the British designer’s signature masculine fragrance in an EDT concentration. The bottle? Square, green-tinted glass, and about as unremarkable as they come. The name isn’t even on the front; it’s slapped on the side, which feels oddly self-effacing. The atomizer’s Kelly green, paired with a clear plastic

Vernacular nostalgiaSanding by the river at Snape Maltings and looking across at this house I was suddenly transported back decades to the time when, as a small boy, I began to realise that houses varied in their appearance according to whereabouts in England they were. It must have been on one of our family trips from Gloucestershire to visit my grandparents in rural Lincolnshire. It had been pointed out to …

Today marks the tenth anniversary of this blog. Exactly a decade ago on the 16th January 2015 we decided to try something slightly different and share the news from within Carriage & Wagon online to all enthusiasts rather than those within the railway's membership and volunteer base. Needless to say it was successful and still keeps the same format ten years on with only a few minor tweaks. Looking back …

Introducing the Seattle Building Emissions Performance Standard (BEPS) Policy is one of the most effective tools in creating a greener planet, and yet it is meaningless without action. The Seattle Building Emissions Performance Standard (BEPS) is a policy aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from buildings in Seattle. It is part of the city’s broader effort to meet climate goals and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Depending on building type, …

Wagon kits coming thick and fast through the post. This was an interesting build that caused quite a bit of research and more than the usual amount of checking and trial fitting. Extra handrails were a bonus and generated questions as to why (as this is a re-tooled kit) they weren't either included nor mentioned in the instructions being that they jump out of the prototype photos. Notwithstanding, it goes …

Both from albums of electronicized versions of Holst's The Planets released the same year - 1976.Wonder which came out first and who was the more pissed off?Tomita's has the edge I think for its frolicking stereophony and shimmery reverbGleeson's sound palette is a bit flatter and duller Tomita's flickers are that much more scintillating and well, mercurial, darting hither and thither .... tickling your ears in an almost ASMR-y wayStrange …

You may have seen the rather breathless statements about the up coming planetary lineup (or planet parade) often illustrated with telescope images of the planets all rather close together and claiming 6-7 planets will be present in the evening sky. While this is (mostly) true, you won't see anything like the illustrations. The hype distracts from what is a beautiful phenomenon.The planets, only 4 of which are bright dots, are …