Richard Carter, FCD
@friendsofdarwin
Writer • #HebdenBridge offcumden • #CharlesDarwin fanboy • European Interested in where #science, #histsci and #nature intersect. Writing book about looking at the world through #Darwin ’s eyes.
David Byrne at the Piece Hall, Halifax this evening. An astonishing show. Sell your puppy to buy tickets.
26 weeks into 2026, the 26 books I’ve read so far this year. (Follow the link below, then click the cover of any book to read my short review.) richardcarter.com/books-2026/
Very smug this evening… Despite the ridiculous heat, managed to write the second drafts of THREE CHAPTERS of my Darwin book today… OK, they were relatively short chapters, but they needed doing—and they’re definitely improved as a result. #HistSci
A September 2021 photo of Yours Truly sitting on his favourite rock, which recently took a hike. I eventually managed to track it down. Here’s the full story: richardcarter.com/sidelines/wh...
Beat that, Galápagos Islands! In yer face, Serengeti! Bluebells: a British nature spectacle.
Spring back; Fall forwards… Let official British Summertime commence! 🇬🇧 🌧️ ☔️
Currently working on a chapter about pollination—of primroses, orchids and foxgloves, rather than daffs, but daffs were closest to hand for the photo.
I’ve been reading at random a few of my old letters to a friend. A weird experience: stuff I’d forgotten; stuff I have no recollection of; stuff that made me cringe. Identity is weird: I was the person who wrote all those letters, but the person who wrote them isn’t me.
After an unexpectedly traumatic morning, I managed to slip into the garden for a couple of minutes and take a few photos of passing birds. It really helped.
Happy 17th planting day to the Darwin Bicentennial Oak, planted in our garden on this day in 2009 to mark Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday. (Follow the link to see a series of photos taken of this one-day mighty tree as it grew from a tiny sapling.) friendsofdarwin.com/darwin-bicen... #HistSci
Tomorrow (12 Feb) is the biggest day in the Darwin Calendar, so of course I’ll be sending out the latest FREE Friends of Charles Darwin Newsletter. If you haven’t subscribed yet, now would seem the perfect opportunity… SEIZE IT! richardcarter.substack.com/welcome/ #HistSci
Ladies, gentlemen, boys, girls, or whatever label rocks your boat… I HAVE FINISHED A CHAPTER!! Duelling pheasants were involved. #AmWriting #ThroughDarwinsEyes
The sanctuary church of San Luca, high in the Bologna hills, which can be reached on foot from the city centre via the world’s longest continuous portico (666 arches, 2.3 miles)… We took a bus masquerading as a train! 🇮🇹
Bologna’s Archaeology Museum. My kind of museum: no interactive display boards; no captions encouraging us to ‘imagine how it must have felt…’; just thousands and thousands of exhibits in old-fashioned glass cases.
#HistSci on display in Bologna: the Anatomical Theatre of the Archiginnasio (1637). The theatre was destroyed in an air-raid in 1944, but reconstructed using all the original pieces recovered from the rubble.
#HistSci on display at the San Petronio Basilica, Bologna… A meridian line designed by Cassini to measure local noon, when sunlight entering through a hole in the church roof crosses the line. Cassini concluded observations made with this instrument were consistent with Kepler’s heliocentric theory.
Kind of wish I’d cashed in my retirement fund investment sooner… But I guess that’s the end of that for the nonce. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
24-Oct: Out later today, the latest rip-roaring roller-coaster edition of my 100%-free eponymous Rich Text science • history • nature newsletter. Look out for it in your inbox. richardcarter.substack.com/welcome/
Second-hand bookshop haul. Tiny shop; excellent photography section.
I’m currently visiting Shropshire, the county of Darwin’s birth. There’s a good choice of local beers available, but this one was the natural selection.
TFW you think, ‘I know, I’ll just bash out a quick blog post!’ and, two hours later, you find yourself deep down the old Research Rabbit Hole, annotating a PDF from Nature journal about the population genomics of post-glacial western Eurasia.
After the reading, the obligatory note-making, transcribing and cross-linking from my index-card bookmark. I find the friction/hassle of making hand-written notes then having to re-type them into my system is a useful way of determining which notes are actually important to me. #Zettelkasten
The covers of all the books I’ve read (so far) this year. Follow the link below to my website then click the individual covers to read my review: richardcarter.com/books-2025/