Notes and links from Fri 5 June

Noticed the deposits in the rabbits’ litter tray from their calcium-rich piss was looking quite beautiful. Status: Yup, as predicted I felt much better today. Still a little antsy but that passed. Had a visit from a friend who was also feeling antsy and I think we de-ants each other. (That feels like it should be a word, or am I thinking of lousy and delouse…) It was nice to listen to someone else have a good old moan for a change — my friends have been a bit reticent to unload on me this last year (and rightly so) but I can take it now, as long as they don’t want advice or nothing. I’ve been tweaking the layout of these posts a bit. They look slightly different on the website (the bullet points are gone) and I’m experimenting with what we might call “secondary links”, indented further reading, if you like. Hogwatching: Hedgehog Cam 25-29 May 2026 — More footage from our back garden. See also, Hogs on Film, a portal to upload your hedgehog videos for academic and conservational research, which I will spend an afternoon doing soon. Reading: How should we remember Ozzy Osbourne? — As someone with no skin the game but who’s been on the periphery of the slow and torturous acceptance of Birmingham’s heavy metal heritage (thanks to friends and acquaintances at Home of Metal) it’s been really strange to see the sanctification of Ozzy take place this last few years. Twenty years ago no-one, and I mean no-one, in this city gave a shit about it, and yet here we are. Utterly bemusing Would love someone to do a sit-down interview with Lisa Meyer of Capsule about the last couple of decades and how much credit she thinks her lot can take. Fascism is a scavenger, not a hunter: we can and must defend the UK’s Sikhs — Last week I linked to a piece by Toby Buckle about trans exclusion where he posited a “what-if the far right turned on the Sikh community”, something that seemed outlandish given their position as “model” immigrants. Within days it was happening. An abysmal week of racism, cynicism and extremism — Ian Dunt: “We are no longer witnessing the radicalisation of the British right. It has already taken place. What we are witnessing now is how a radicalised British right behaves.” They were asked not to. They did it anyway. — Collating how the radicalised British right behaved. The teenagers enlisted as agents of mayhem by Russia and Iran 🪜 — Fascinating report on kids recruited on gaming sites to do scavenger hunt style quests which turn out to be spying or full-on terrorism. via ARG/pervasive games guru Adrian Hon who has many thoughts (I expect a blog post to land soon after I publish this). RIP Anthony Head — So long, Ripper. Watching: Building an owl nesting box out of a hollow log ‌(1:16:44) Cassette Deck Vader - Episode 1 — Auranauts are back, baby! Listening: In Our Time: The Evolution of Trees — Really fascinating episode which I reckon could have gone on much longer. I have so many more questions.