Matt Nicholas
@mattnic.bsky.social
#Archaeologist. European. Likes music, non-ferrous metallurgy & left(ish) politics. Personal account not associated with anywhere you think I might work. Also interested in #running, #cycling & #ActiveTravel
Walked past Jon Snow picking up a suit from the dry cleaners.
Right folks. Feeling rather down at the moment so bringing back an oldie
Please Quote this with your most minor celebrity interaction
Please Quote this with your most minor celebrity interaction
December 29, 2025 at 10:20 PM
Walked past Jon Snow picking up a suit from the dry cleaners.
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
You might think that a man who drove into 100 people, using his car as a weapon, would NEVER be allowed to drive again.
It turns out he will be able to, around three years after leaving prison by taking an extended retest.
Why should he ever be able to get behind the wheel again?
It turns out he will be able to, around three years after leaving prison by taking an extended retest.
Why should he ever be able to get behind the wheel again?
December 16, 2025 at 1:25 PM
You might think that a man who drove into 100 people, using his car as a weapon, would NEVER be allowed to drive again.
It turns out he will be able to, around three years after leaving prison by taking an extended retest.
Why should he ever be able to get behind the wheel again?
It turns out he will be able to, around three years after leaving prison by taking an extended retest.
Why should he ever be able to get behind the wheel again?
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
All of these skills built up on the project will be scattered to the winds because we have cancelled a chunk of the project and we're not building any more high speed rail.
Engineers working on the HS2 project have slid a 4,600t viaduct section across the M6 without a full carriageway closure, in what contractors say is a UK first that will reduce disruption for drivers
Full story:
Full story:
HS2 completes final slide of 4,600t viaduct across M6 without closing motorway | New Civil Engineer
The 17‑hour operation carried out over the weekend of 13-14 December completed the three‑stage assembly and installation of the 315m long East deck of the
buff.ly
December 20, 2025 at 11:59 AM
All of these skills built up on the project will be scattered to the winds because we have cancelled a chunk of the project and we're not building any more high speed rail.
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
Remember when HS2 to Leeds was cancelled by the NIC's shitty maths and fundamental lack of expertise, and Leeds was thrown the bone of "you'll get trams" and I said those would never be delivered?
Yeah, as I was saying...
Yeah, as I was saying...
December 18, 2025 at 1:25 AM
Remember when HS2 to Leeds was cancelled by the NIC's shitty maths and fundamental lack of expertise, and Leeds was thrown the bone of "you'll get trams" and I said those would never be delivered?
Yeah, as I was saying...
Yeah, as I was saying...
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
I understand that a lot of folks have been misled by fear-mongering and powerful regressive voices but it’s still astonishing to me that so many have fallen for the idea that oppressively policing other people’s gender identity and expression could in any way be part of an enlightened future.
December 13, 2025 at 5:49 PM
I understand that a lot of folks have been misled by fear-mongering and powerful regressive voices but it’s still astonishing to me that so many have fallen for the idea that oppressively policing other people’s gender identity and expression could in any way be part of an enlightened future.
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.
December 13, 2025 at 12:02 AM
Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
Absolutely no honest self-analysis whatsoever of what will happen when you spend a year solid telling social liberals to fuck off. Surprise surprise! They fuck off! It's nothing to do with them being 'unserious' - this government just spends quite a lot of its time telling them it hates them!
It really does feel like a lot of the people currently in government never really asked themselves why many of their own supporters went for Corbyn in the first place and, similarly, are unwilling to ask the same question of Polanski's success.
It's a self-revealing kind of ignorance.
It's a self-revealing kind of ignorance.
December 8, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Absolutely no honest self-analysis whatsoever of what will happen when you spend a year solid telling social liberals to fuck off. Surprise surprise! They fuck off! It's nothing to do with them being 'unserious' - this government just spends quite a lot of its time telling them it hates them!
#SpotifyWrapped is garbage. Utterly meaningless rubbish that doesn't represent how people actually engage with music.
...Hang on.
It just ranked my listening age as 17.
As a totally secure middle-aged man, I must say, Wrapped is the most accurate, best thing to ever happen to music data
...Hang on.
It just ranked my listening age as 17.
As a totally secure middle-aged man, I must say, Wrapped is the most accurate, best thing to ever happen to music data
My listening age
Spotify
www.spotify.com
December 3, 2025 at 8:38 PM
#SpotifyWrapped is garbage. Utterly meaningless rubbish that doesn't represent how people actually engage with music.
...Hang on.
It just ranked my listening age as 17.
As a totally secure middle-aged man, I must say, Wrapped is the most accurate, best thing to ever happen to music data
...Hang on.
It just ranked my listening age as 17.
As a totally secure middle-aged man, I must say, Wrapped is the most accurate, best thing to ever happen to music data
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
Look, here’s another actually good thing our benighted government has done. Like, really good
December 2, 2025 at 6:44 PM
Look, here’s another actually good thing our benighted government has done. Like, really good
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
PSA: be the joy you want to see in the world, listen to Last Christmas immediately
Listening to Last Christmas because it is an all-time banger and George didn't die on Christmas Day for you to disrespect his memory by participating in Whamageddon
December 1, 2025 at 9:34 AM
PSA: be the joy you want to see in the world, listen to Last Christmas immediately
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
Home Alone could've had a very different ending if it was made more recently.
November 30, 2025 at 11:30 PM
Home Alone could've had a very different ending if it was made more recently.
For the love of god just build HS2 in full!
I don’t know how many ways there are to say “Manchester’s economy is growing, so if we’re not going to do much proactive on infrastructure, can we at least not do stuff that’s actively damaging”
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Soon-to-be-axed 7am Manchester-London train will still run – but without passengers
Exclusive: Rail regulator pulls Avanti service from timetable from mid-December but it is needed for staff travel
www.theguardian.com
November 29, 2025 at 10:12 AM
For the love of god just build HS2 in full!
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
Maybe the most 'I am someone the 20th century didn't happen to' post imaginable, in which you think that 'the far right take power' and the consequence is just that after five years, boom that's over but your preferred political outgroup is out of action.
We have to start thinking about what we want Britain to look like in 2034 after the far right have been in power. There will be no status quo to return to. Centrism will be stone cold dead.
November 27, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Maybe the most 'I am someone the 20th century didn't happen to' post imaginable, in which you think that 'the far right take power' and the consequence is just that after five years, boom that's over but your preferred political outgroup is out of action.
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
Would love some in-depth numbers on what the majority of 20-30 somethings basically paying a 9% higher marginal tax rate has actually done to economic behaviour. Feels very under-discussed bsky.app/profile/igma...
Student loan repayment thresholds frozen for a further three years.
More debt burden falling on graduates.
And even more reason to cut university places by 20-30%.
More debt burden falling on graduates.
And even more reason to cut university places by 20-30%.
November 26, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Would love some in-depth numbers on what the majority of 20-30 somethings basically paying a 9% higher marginal tax rate has actually done to economic behaviour. Feels very under-discussed bsky.app/profile/igma...
Win the euromillions. Use it to open The Wayward Leaf, a bookshop hidden on the Welsh coastal path near Cemaes Head, accessible only on foot.
What's your absolutely unworkable plan to drop out of your current life (or at least work life) and do something completely different?
November 22, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Win the euromillions. Use it to open The Wayward Leaf, a bookshop hidden on the Welsh coastal path near Cemaes Head, accessible only on foot.
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
Compare and contrast the Government language.
£3,750 EV grant on a £35k car: ‘helping families’.
Cycle to Work: ‘subsidising leisure’.
And yet cycling delivers TEN TIMES the impact of electric cars for reaching net zero. It’s almost like narrative, not data, is driving policy.
£3,750 EV grant on a £35k car: ‘helping families’.
Cycle to Work: ‘subsidising leisure’.
And yet cycling delivers TEN TIMES the impact of electric cars for reaching net zero. It’s almost like narrative, not data, is driving policy.
November 21, 2025 at 9:45 AM
Compare and contrast the Government language.
£3,750 EV grant on a £35k car: ‘helping families’.
Cycle to Work: ‘subsidising leisure’.
And yet cycling delivers TEN TIMES the impact of electric cars for reaching net zero. It’s almost like narrative, not data, is driving policy.
£3,750 EV grant on a £35k car: ‘helping families’.
Cycle to Work: ‘subsidising leisure’.
And yet cycling delivers TEN TIMES the impact of electric cars for reaching net zero. It’s almost like narrative, not data, is driving policy.
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
Six weeks since the PM said Britain faced a choice between decency or division and our bad, obviously, for not understanding that he was in fact Team Division
November 17, 2025 at 8:42 AM
Six weeks since the PM said Britain faced a choice between decency or division and our bad, obviously, for not understanding that he was in fact Team Division
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
I don’t think we should steal jewellery of asylum seekers when they arrive in the UK
November 17, 2025 at 9:31 AM
I don’t think we should steal jewellery of asylum seekers when they arrive in the UK
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
![4-panel vertical comic. (1) 100 Years Ago [two people standing next to bicycle with small car nearby] PERSON 1: It’s too dangerous riding a bike with these cars around. I should get a car, too. (2) 50 Years Ago [two people between smaller car and bigger car] PERSON 2 with short hair: Small cars are less safe in collisions with larger vehicles, so I should get a bigger one. (3) Today [two people between big car and even bigger car] PERSON 1: Everyone has huge SUVs now. If I don’t get the biggest one, I’m putting my family at risk. (4) Soon [two people next to large armored car with spiked clubs attached] PERSON 2: If I don’t install more whirling spike clubs, I’ll be destroyed by all the other drivers who...](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreiby6can6k76yzfmv2czxs4pu2l7zie7bqbrpswi7h3ifmiadkuqvu@jpeg)
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
F*** SAKE.
David Cameron's 'cutting the green crap' cost us billions, left people in cold homes, and ended up costing the treasury billions in energy subsidy.
And now they'll do the same bloody thing the absolutle [REDACTED]S
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
David Cameron's 'cutting the green crap' cost us billions, left people in cold homes, and ended up costing the treasury billions in energy subsidy.
And now they'll do the same bloody thing the absolutle [REDACTED]S
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Hundreds of thousands to lose heat pump subsidies in Reeves’s budget plan
Exclusive: Supporters say grants largely going to middle-class households, but experts warn move will slow transition from gas boilers
www.theguardian.com
November 13, 2025 at 5:08 PM
F*** SAKE.
David Cameron's 'cutting the green crap' cost us billions, left people in cold homes, and ended up costing the treasury billions in energy subsidy.
And now they'll do the same bloody thing the absolutle [REDACTED]S
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
David Cameron's 'cutting the green crap' cost us billions, left people in cold homes, and ended up costing the treasury billions in energy subsidy.
And now they'll do the same bloody thing the absolutle [REDACTED]S
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Another round of horrific university cuts. Sign to stop the suspension of undergraduate music courses at The University of Nottingham chng.it/cT77GCTg
Sign the Petition
Stop the suspension of undergraduate music courses at The University of Nottingham
chng.it
November 11, 2025 at 7:58 AM
Another round of horrific university cuts. Sign to stop the suspension of undergraduate music courses at The University of Nottingham chng.it/cT77GCTg
Any home owner ripping out a garden hedge for crappy fencing should be forced to be replace it with a solar fence (but the owner should never see any profit as punishment for destroying said hedge)
Solar’s price drop is astonishing: panels are now 98% cheaper than when I first analyzed them in 2004.
Today, building a fence with solar can be cheaper than using wood.
Today, building a fence with solar can be cheaper than using wood.
November 10, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Any home owner ripping out a garden hedge for crappy fencing should be forced to be replace it with a solar fence (but the owner should never see any profit as punishment for destroying said hedge)
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
It’s not at all clear to me how the BBC can do any kind of serious journalism if its top two bosses can be forced to quit over such an obviously confected scandal. There is no substantive error here. How can the BBC report on Trump, or Farage, or anyone else, in these circumstances?
November 9, 2025 at 7:30 PM
It’s not at all clear to me how the BBC can do any kind of serious journalism if its top two bosses can be forced to quit over such an obviously confected scandal. There is no substantive error here. How can the BBC report on Trump, or Farage, or anyone else, in these circumstances?
Reposted by Matt Nicholas
Donald Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives for inciting an insurrection. Why is the Director General of the BBC resigning?
November 9, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Donald Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives for inciting an insurrection. Why is the Director General of the BBC resigning?