A mystery, invisible chimneys, and traffic lights.
6th April 2026
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Hello!
It feels odd to already be releasing the third episode of
the England series -- after so long in production, it seems to be skipping by so fast. But nevertheless, we countinue! This week on Nebula: I missed the evidence. Can you spot it? This is one of the most fun videos of the entire trip: I travel to the Crime Scene House at the University of Lincoln, and you can see if
you're a better detective than I was.
If you're not a Nebula subscriber, then this week's YouTube release takes me up into the skies above the tiny county of Rutland, because: they can
fly 200 miles without fuel. Here's how.
A few people emailed to ask for a map of the counties at the start of each video. Now, I did consider doing that during production -- it just didn't work well in practice. But I've added an official map of the counties and videos on my web site, for those who want to keep track!
And then there's this week's Lateral! It's the return of quiz experts James Smales, Jonny Robins and John Cantrell from 'Here's What You Do', to face questions about forgotten figures, speedy systems and peculiar parliaments.
Right. What good stuff is there on YouTube?
I'll admit that, with the rush of video releases and a lot of other work, I've not had much time to watch stuff this week -- so if you see a video that might fit here, do hit reply and let me know about it! But I have spotted these:
- "Riding the Cat Subway to Cat School" baffled me. It's really impressive! It starts with "Last year, we made a subway station for pets", and shows that off. The subway works! But it's only a two-minute video: who is this person? Why are they doing this? How? Fortunately, the first half of this Singaporean
channel's video on miniature model makers gives all the context.
- Fredo Rockwell tells the story of how the United Nations lost its first flag. This starts out as a standard vexillological video, but turns into one of those
great big deep-dive research holes, and ends as an attempt to explain a minor historical mystery. (Thanks to Murray for the suggestion!)
- Julian Hawkins explains how traffic lights actually work, and it is an extremely strong move to start your video on traffic lights by holding up an actual plugged-in and shining traffic light. This is worth your time.
And for links away from the world of video:
- Inside Nepal's fake rescue racket is a surprising article from the Kathmandu Post, talking about scammers at Everest Base Camp and similar locations who are billing insurance companies for unnecessary evacuations. Sometimes, the climbers are in on it... and occasionally, they're being
poisoned.
- I played the video game Crazy Taxi a lot in arcades in the early 2000s -- to the point where I was proud of being able to get all the way around the map on one credit. Seeing that entire map presented as a free-flying live render
in the browser would have astounded me as a kid. (Here's the details of how it was extracted.) If the Offspring's "All I Want" is not currently going round your head, though, it might be worth browsing through that site's menus: you might well find the levels of a similarly nostalgic game ready to fly through.
- There's a capybara on the run in England.
And finally, over on Instagram: the towns of Baarle-Nassau
and Baarle-Hertog, famous for their ridiculously complicated borders and exclaves, have installed a swing over one of the border lines. (Thanks Michael for the suggestion!)
All the best,
— Tom
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