Internet (Wikimedia)
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2 – News and events
This is a monthly roundup of news and events in the world as well as in my life. So expect to find thoughts and comment on international and local events as well as links to anything I’ve seen or read that seems either relevant or interesting to me. I’ll republish every time I add a new item, so check back often.
Loss of internet
24th March – Our internet failed mid morning, I could connect over our local Wi-Fi to the router just fine, but the router was receiving little or no data over our broadband connection. I spent three hours on a call with an engineer, sent them a packet dump, and they will call back tomorrow.
Climate change
23rd March – Nature’s news section points out that we’ve just lived through the eleven hottest years on record, 2025 was the second or third warmest since records began. More than 91% of the extra heat goes into the oceans, so our perceptions and measurements of atmospheric warming are just the tip of the heatberg, so to speak. (You can sign up free for the Nature Briefing.)
See also: https://jhm.scilla.org.uk/2022/01/09/climate-change-what-can-i-do/
RFK Jrs. Vaccine plans blocked
19th March – Nature reports that A US judge has blocked Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s changes to the USA’s childhood vaccination programme. The judge reversed the vaccine-advisory panel’s decisions as well. Legal wheels turn slowly, but I’m glad to hear that some irresponsible choices by the Trump administration are being blocked.
Russia is struggling
17th March – Russia is really struggling now in its war in Ukraine. Anna’s latest video describes the major strikes on Moscow; while Times Radio’s Frontline covers Putin’s current difficulties (the second part of the video is about Trump and Iran). It all seems pretty bleak (which is, of course, a good thing).
War in Iran
14th March – The US war in Iran continues. Europe, including the UK, is not having anything to do with this war, neither is Canada or Australia. So the USA is alone in their decision to attack Iran, and it seems there was no planning in depth, no analysis of what might go well and what not; just an assumption that the Iranian government would give up, the people would rise up, and that would all be accomplished in just a few days. Basically, Trump has no idea and never listens to people who do know. The USA is going downhill fast, not just in the war but economically, technologically and in many other ways. There’s only one person to blame for all this. For some good analysis, watch this video.
Yet, surprisingly Ukraine is providing thousands of drones and experienced military advisors to train American and local Arab troops how to use them to bring down the Iranian Shahed drones that are hitting shipping in the Straights of Hormuz. Has Donald Trump said, ‘Thank you’? Not a chance!
Microplastics
12th March – Microplastics are everywhere, they form part of the everyday dust around us, indoors and out. We breathe them in (every breath we take), they are present in every part of every living organism on the planet, in the deepest ocean, on top of the highest mountain, in everything we eat and drink, in your muscles, on your skin, they’ve even been found in brain tissue. Few people are even aware of microplastics.
It’s fair to assume they may be harmful, but we have little idea of the degree of that harm or the mechanisms behind any damage they may cause. You can read about detecting them in the environment (scroll to page 28 for the article). There are some videos worth watching on the topic too, here are a couple to get you started from CBS 8 San Diego and from Anton Petrov.
Blast from the past
9th March – I’ve had to slow down with these posts, but I’m also getting deeper into the past now. For the first time what began as a family history now goes back to the year 1500. Nothing is known about the family that far back, but a good deal is still known about the history of the local area. Here’s the full index.
Spaceflight news from Marcus
7th March – Marcus House publishes regular video news reports about rockets and spaceflight. His videos are shorter than those from some of his rivals, a bit more… erm… dare I say – down to Earth! There’s no clutter, no bulking up, just straightforward information presented neatly and in good humour. Like listening to an old friend chatting factually and enthusiastically.
He posts on Saturdays from Tasmania. Today’s post covers the coming testing of SpaceX’s Starship version 3 and some much-needed rethinking by NASA on their Artemis programme, and much more. Watch it for yourself (less than 23 minutes).
The Raisina Dialogue
6th March – Alexander Stubb addressed the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi where he suggested we need to look forward to the future rather than back to the past, in our international thinking and discussions. He suggested reviewing and reforming the UN Security Council, in particular adding India as a new permanent member.
Watch and listen to Stubb’s speech.
The war in Ukraine
5th March – Ukraine is still defending itself more than five years after the Russian invasion on 24th February 2022. It’s sometimes difficult to know how things stand, as the war is rarely mentioned on national news channels here in the UK and the same is true elsewhere as well. There are good sources of news out there but there’s a lot of nonsense and AI slop too.
Times Radio has several good YouTube channels where knowledgeable people are interviewed. As an example, here’s Philip Ingram interviewing Matthew Savill today, on Times Radio’s Frontline channel. Savill is Director of Military Sciences at RUSI. We’ll look at some other information sources from time to time.
Images from Nature
4th March – I enjoyed these amazing photos from the journal Nature’s email newsletter. Click the link and scroll down to see them all. Which is your favourite, I wonder? Anyone can sign up for Nature Briefing.
Green Earth
4th March – I’ve been reading Green Earth for a few weeks now, it’s a condensed version of three earlier novels called Forty Signs of Rain, Fifty degrees below, and Sixty days and counting, all by the author Kim Stanley Robinson. All three are fiction about global warming and its effects. I read all three when they were published and as Robinson is one of my favourite authors, and he also published the compressed version (in 2015), I wanted to read that as well.
I’m a good chunk of the way through now and would like to recommend it to anyone who is interested in having a hint of where our climate is heading. Everyone on the planet should be interested! Like all of Robinson’s books, this one is another page turner with complex, believable characters.
Brain bleed
1st Mar 2026 – Following six days in Hospital in October 2025, I’ve been seizure-free for four months now. My consultant wrote ‘You’ve made a remarkable recovery’. (See also A time in hospital, October 2025)
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See also:
February 2026 events – Wikipedia
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