In a world full of much ugly cruelty and injustice, I wish you courage and kindness in 2026. May we never forget that there is love and beauty to be found in this world too. Here are some images for you from a calendar I made for my mum, with photos I've taken over the year, to remind myself.

One of my 'Star of Silver Linings' cards for everyone as exasperated as me by the total inability of Govts to grasp that good indoor air quality & respiratory masks is how to stop the NHS falling apart each Winter. Wishing you festive things & silver linings despite the cloudy forecast for 2026.

Thanks BBC Radio Scotland Breakfast Programme for the opportunity to talk about why following the science, wearing a mask, & cleaning the air to help avoid you & others getting horribly ill with flu is a better idea than not doing that. Starts approx 7.05 minutes in www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Honoured to be featured in the #ThereForME advent calendar! Huge thanks to @murtoz.bsky.social for the nomination🙏. Inspiring to work with people like you, with lived experience of ME & pandemic disability, via @inclusivenew.bsky.social & we're so grateful to those who've listened.

WHO's advice needs to change. Excellent @thewhn.bsky.social letter. Please sign & share by 31 October (anyone can sign) @trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social @chrischirp.bsky.social @martinmckee.bsky.social @kityates.bsky.social @tryangregory.bsky.social @njbbari3.bsky.social @drjoepajak.bsky.social

Interested in ME/CFS research? Want to do a PhD with @aryback.bsky.social, @avakhamseh.bsky.social, @sjoerdvbeentjes.bsky.social & @cgatist.bsky.social? Then apply for a *funded* Future Medicine PhD Fellowship. See: www.findaphd.com/phds/project... Please contact us to discuss before applying.

Delighted to be on the new global Commission for healthy indoor air. Taking action on this alone would greatly improve public health, reduce NHS pressures, labour market inactivity, work/ school sickness absence & disability benefit cost. So why don't they? healthandcare.scot/stories/4307...

If you thought you'd heard it all where it concerns explanations for increased demand for healthcare 'post-Covid' without mentioning the health impacts of ongoing Covid, I refer you to Cabinet Sec Neil Gray's response to the Citizen Participation & Petitions Committee yesterday 😕

Hugely proud that our Founder & Director Dr Sally Witcher is be part of this incredible initiative. Keen to know what your priorities would be for action on healthy indoor air. There's a long way to go to get even health, social care & education settings to take this seriously here in Scotland & UK.

1. As someone at high clinical risk interacting online daily with others locally & globally whose lives are similarly restricted due to unsafe indoor air, I couldn't be more honoured & excited to be part of this landmark initiative to make healthy indoor air a priority for every country & community

1/4 Today global leaders gather in New York to push for action on healthy indoor air, at a high level side event at the UN Assembly. Meanwhile, tomorrow in Scotland Cabinet Secretary Neil Gray @scottishgov.bsky.social takes questions... webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1v...

There's real momentum growing across the world for action to make indoor air safe,World Ventil8 Day on 8 November& lots of local activism too. Looking forward to speaking at this event, to share ideas on what we can do. Mon 8 Sept, 6pm BST. Register at: bit.ly/ccseptsw

Basically a petition calling for @ukhsa.bsky.social to do its actual job. Ridiculous it should be necessary, but here we are. It is. Please support 🙏

😱 Yikes! That's the highest CO2 reading I've ever seen!! I'm told it means approx 15% of the air you're breathing in comes straight from other people's lungs. That's a lot of bodily respiratory fluids to ingest 🤢. And potentially a lot of infectious aerosols. Take care out there. Have #FunNotFlu

A hugely important study confirming what sufferers have always known yet medics have rarely believed - ME/CFS is a real, serious, debilitating physiological illness. And please can everyone stop talking using minimising language like 'brain fog'. It's brain damage. It's cognitive dysfunction.

It's so important to call it out when supposed 'commitment to involve people with lived experience' descends into timewasting farce. Good on @longcovidscot.bsky.social & @longcovidkids.bsky.social Scotland. Scottish Government Ministers - hang your heads in shame 😡 www.scotsman.com/health/chari...

I actually saw the live @BBCNews coverage of this. Couldn't hear a word! Of the many clips online today this is the only one I can find where the sound engineers haven't been busy dialling up the annoying grating babble and dialling down the bagpipes. youtube.com/shorts/awQNH...

Yesterday in Edinburgh... #NaeTrump

Scoland is famous for its poetry

Scotland says no.

Scotland prepares to say 'Get tae f**k'

Noam Chomsky had a word for this. Thirdworldisation. The deliberate transformation of wealthy developed countries to resemble (become?) 'third world' countries where elite wealth coexists with mass poverty, through dismantling public services, labour protections, and democratic institutions.

Looking forward to chairing/ facilitating discussion, Saturday 19 July, 4.00-5.30pm. Covid is still here, there's loads of learning on preventing airborne infections, so much more to do on Long Covid, so much avoidable damage being done to public health, economy, education & so little being done 😠.

📣What do you want to see in the Manifestoes for the Scottish Parliament Election next year, on tackling the ongoing impact of Covid and preparing for the next pandemic? Action to make indoor air safe? Access to vaccines? Research? It would be great to know your priorities. Come along or reply 🙏 👇

They're parcelling up the UK, handing the pieces over to - who exactly? - taking them out of the tax system, eroding democracy and sovereignty. Personally I think this is a very very bad idea.

Following the Government's decision to cut billions from disability benefits, and my blog to my MP on Wednesday begging him (again) to vote against it, I found out how he spent his day 😡 threadreaderapp.com/thread/19436...

Blog - letter to my MP, @chrismurraymp.bsky.social, urging him to vote against the Bill and explaining why he should. medium.com/@sally.witch...

On BBC Radio Scotland earlier, discussing the UK disability benefit reform car crash of an omnishambles, why ‘concessions’ won’t fix it, just make a bigger unfair mess, & why it makes a bad situation even more complex for Scotland. Segment starts approx 11.13 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

www.heraldscotland.com/news/2525580... h/t @salwitcher.bsky.social

Do MPs want an unsafe bill to pass? This isn’t about assisted dying, this is about a really awful bill!

Thanks for the reminder @janemunday.bsky.social. Every summer, I repost this article DROWNING DOES NOT LOOK LIKE DROWNING. To date, I know of FOUR kids who were saved after someone who'd clicked on the link learnt how to spot actual drowning. Take time to read and pass on. slate.com/technology/2...

Last ditch attempt to persuade MPs to vote against the dangerous Assisted Death Bill today, pointing out how in the same week they introduce a Bill removing vital assistance to live and today they vote on a safeguard-free Bill opening the door to assistance to die threadreaderapp.com/thread/19359...

I had a look back at Labour's 2024 Manifesto and found some significant commitments they seem to have forgotten and some rather important omissions. Strangely no mention of slashing essential disability and carers benefits by £5billion. threadreaderapp.com/thread/19356...

I've been trying to work out the true scale of the fall out for Scotland. I really hope I'm wrong. I really wish someone would at least clarify if I am and if so why. Thread I wrote in the bad evil place ('scuse typos - done in haste!): threadreaderapp.com/thread/19353...

Countless people rely on this support to stay in work and just go about their daily lives. To strip that away from them is not only senseless but cruel. Ministers must change course.

And that adds up to more extra costs for clinically vulnerable disabled people, just as the UK Government prepares to slash extra cost benefit for disabled people,

Exactly this. This is what Streeting's doing with the "extra investment" in the NHS. He's giving it straight to the profiteers.

Protest in Glasgow today outside the sham consultation on the UK Governments proposed destruction of disability benefits and disabled people's capacity to survive. Not on whether they want to be thrown over a precipice into appalling destitution, just how they'd prefer to be thrown 😡

This one should be good - how to get mainstream media coverage from a mainstream media that really doesn't seem to want to know, or other people to know, the truth about the ongoing pandemic and its ongoing devastating impact on public health & economy.

The authoritarian, white-supremacist, oligarch coup unfolding in the US, the blatant destruction of any institution, law, evidence, speech, that stands in the way of the destruction of people and planet for profit: it's hard not to reel punch-drunk at the horror. No. Stay calm. Organise.

So taxpayers are supporting a hidden welfare state for the rich as the UK Govt slashes welfare support for people in need. Profiting from misery & destitution 😡https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/29/us-firm-maximus-that-tests-eligibility-for-uk-disability-benefits-pays-out-10m-in-dividends

#WelfareNotWarfare #TaxTheRich Join @peoplesassembly.bsky.social 📢Saturday 7th June 2025 📢12 noon 📢BBC HQ Portland Place London 📢National Demonstration @dis-ppl-protest.bsky.social are supporting the demo and disabled people will be leading the demo under the #WelfareNotWarfare banner

This is not ok.

Our founder @salwitcher.bsky.social speaking at the #MillionsMissing event outside the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday 14 May, to draw attention to the abandonment of people with ME and the need for urgent government action.

Disabled people protesting outside the Scottish Parliament today, against an assisted dying Bill wholly lacking in real safeguards & wide open to coercion. We may have lost the 1st vote today but we're fighting for our lives and the fight isn't over. With campaigner Liz Carr & Pam Duncan-Glancy MSP.

This petition closes at midnight tonight (Sunday 11 May). If the number of signatures gets to 10,000 the Government has to respond. Just a few hours to go. If you think healthcare should be safe care, please please sign and share 🙏

As a clinically vulnerable person I'm terrified of having to go into a healthcare setting as the risk of airborne infection is so great & nothing is done to prevent it. It doesn't have to be this way. Last big push for this crucial petition. Thanks so much 🙏 petition.parliament.uk/petitions/70...

It's utterly absurd that UK hospitals pig-headedly refuse to act to prevent airborne infections even when being overwhelmed by them, causing avoidable deaths & disability. Petition closes 11 May. It needs 10,000 signatures for a Government response. Currently around 7,000. If in the UK PLEASE sign🙏

If you want to know what we're up against, read this. If you don't, I can't honestly blame you. But if we don't understand the reality of end-times Fascism, its goals and strategies, we can never defeat it, and may find ourselves inadvertently facilitating it. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...