I made my annual pilgrimage to the Crucible on Tuesday and was lucky enough to see Ronnie O'Sullivan's match I noted with some amusement that the VIP seats are actually worse than the conventional priced seats because your view of the table is obscured by the camera operators #Snooker

What perfect album came out when you were 16? I think we can all agree I win

Primary school workshops are all different. Today we had Year 5 and 6 in Ormskirk who were bright, knowledgeable and curious, and a surprise Reception class. We had to think on our feet as we've never had to adapt our workshop for 4 and 5 year olds before but we kept the main bits and it was lovely.

High streets need footfall, so employers and service providers need to be using empty units. Workers shop in their breaks or on the way to and from their shifts, customers / patients shop on the way to and from appointments. This is how we save the high street. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

My main context for the name Luigi is as the owner of an Italian restaurant in Royston Vasey I know this places me in a very specific demographic and that's ok by me

Not about current abuser but very worthwhile read: open.substack.com/pub/celestem...

It's breaking my heart every time I pass a mound of unsold Easter eggs at half price in supermarkets and shops. It's not so much the waste, but knowing how hard cocoa farmers work to produce the beans for the chocolate. I hope there's a mechanism for them to be recovered and remixed into new bars.

The Telegraph just gave a convicted criminal a two-page spread to explain why he's pumping £4 million into Reform UK. They tucked his criminal record away in the small print. So as a former financial crime specialist I’ll do their job for them👇

I remember my Mum getting really panicky about this in 2021, so much so that my siblings and I got her a replacement for Christmas that year (which she refused to learn how to use because she just wanted her own Kindle to keep working) The irony is of course she died long before it did.

A feel-good story if you need it. Solar farms, wind turbines and geothermal heat pumps are breathing new life into former collieries bylinetimes.com/2026/04/09/f...

For me it's understanding that "the 1900s" refers to the period between 1900 and 1910 or at a stretch between the death of Queen Victoria and the start of the Great War. My Grandma was born on the last day of that war so I don't remember it. OP seems to be using it to refer to the 20th century.

This is a really common and important question. When it comes to changing industries, there are two ways it happens - what they are doing gets outlawed or market forces make them change. Changing consumer behaviour feeds into the latter part. You need both but customer demand is a quick game changer

Make some noise. Share this post. 🚨 The Israeli government has granted itself another means to dehumanise, suppress, and kill Palestinians. Israel is violating international law.

My English great great grandmother used to claim we were descended from Cromwell. My Grandma swore it was just to annoy her Irish daughter in law.

I find this story particularly upsetting because it happened to me in 2002. Not at a Travelodge but the hotel receptionist gave a man (my boss's boss) a key to my room and he let himself in and assaulted me I didn't report it at the time because he had the power www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Reposted with ALT cos its funny . How using an algorithim to select photos for your news article is going:

Trying to set up a date for a meeting between half a dozen retired people is an exercise in realising how much of civil society depends on the unpaid labour of women over 60

One lovely thing about the George and Esme storyline on #TheArchers is how he keeps assuming she's going to be put off by his brushes with the criminal justice system and she keeps backing him. My experience of social enterprises working in this field backs this up: you're judged on your merits.

"Free trade" as it's currently practised is a bit like those "we all have the same 24 hours" posts. It completely disregards the systemic and historical reasons some countries and businesses are disadvantaged and others are advantaged. The fair trade movement exists because free trade isn't free.

Fair trade has always been political. A deliberate act of resistance against systems that exploit the vulnerable. Not a label. Not a lifestyle choice. Resistance.

The summer 2020 campaign to Keep KitKat Fairtrade happened just at the right point of Twitter being a force for good and me working out how to use it that way. Our Day of Action had reach of over 5 million and I am convinced we would not have reached over 300,000 petition signatories without it.

I wish I could explain to the dozens of people who ring the shop every day how little time I spend thinking about our energy contract. Like I know it's your whole thing but I have volunteers to manage, orders to make up and chocolate to restock. "I'm happy with my current contract" means "Go away"

I watched Small Prophets last night and my husband came in from the gym just as the final episode was starting and asked me what it was about. Despite it being one of the most unusual and distinctive programmes of recent times it was super easy for him to pick up.

Woolton created the Tea Division within the Ministry of Food dedicated to managing this critical resource. Their motto was: "We not only cope, we care." To begin with, the hope was to avoid rationing tea at all. As the U-Boat net tightened, this became impossible. Tea rationing was introduced. /5

If people don't change their minds, why campaign? Why complain?

I met with AI data labelers in Kenya who are organizing their colleagues to fight the brutal working conditions and horrible pay given to the workers at the "bottom of the AI supply chain." They believe the NDAs they've signed are unenforceable so are speaking out: www.404media.co/ai-is-africa...

I treated myself to a watch of this earlier and it's as much of a delight as you expect

I was half listening to this today and it took me a while to work out they weren't talking about IKEA

Both my Grandmas worked - I remember them both retiring. The biggest difference is they didn't have careers. They worked to provide but their main focus was meant to be their husband and children so the job was just a means to an end rather than something fulfilling you could build your identity on

Cocoa prices were ridiculously high for a couple of years and the farmers didn't benefit because they were given the government price. Now prices have dropped below the government price and the companies won't pay it Any way you slice it the farmers are screwed. Awful. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This morning I did a scary thing I have never done before. I made chocolate with 58 ten year olds. I have done this before a few times, always with another more experienced person but nobody was available so I had to do it on my own. It's important to challenge yourself into your 50s.

Russian and Belarussian athletes weren't banned from competing at the Olympics and Paralympics because of the invasion of Ukraine, but because of the institutional drug cheating at the Sochi games. #WinterParalympicsOpeningCeremony

This is one of the best things I have ever read I hope this 8 year old continues to rage against the dying of the light

I cannot stress how much you need to stop buying from this company At this point there's no excuse. You know what you're buying is actively harmful to your fellow human beings. If you must go to a multinational use eBay and choose a UK based small business Workers' health trumps your convenience

Fundamentally misogyny underpins everything for these awful people so marrying a woman from a group they despise is not a hypocritical position. They think it's normal to hate their wives, and that marriage is about exercising power over them.

My friend Susan told me she was doing a fair trade stall at the weekend and someone from another church said to her "I thought they'd moved Fairtrade to September". Remember kids, fair trade is for life, not just for Fortnight #FairtradeFortnight

Today’s poem is called ‘How Much I Dislike the Daily Mail’.

I have adored Desiree Burch for years and tonight finally got to see her live. It's always nerve wracking when you see a comedian live when you've only experienced them on radio and TV but it was a complete joy. Highly recommended particularly if you're a woman from your late 30s to early 50s

I've done five talks this week - two primary school workshops, a primary school assembly, and two talks to groups of about 25 adults in Rochdale and Preston. When I was 13 my school forced us all to take English Speaking Board exams which I passed "But only just" I came 29th out of 30.

Of course Reform didn't think Muslim women would have voted Reform if their husbands hadn't strong armed them into voting Green. It's that they think Muslim women shouldn't have been allowed to vote at all

Reform's complaint about the Greens seems to boil down to "S'not fair. They've got more than one policy and they explain their policies to people they think might agree with them.That's cheating!" I know politics has changed but isn't that what political parties are supposed to do?

In the end it wasn't even that close. A victory of Hope over Hate. I used to drive through both Gorton and Denton every day when I worked in Manchester city centre and lived in Hadfield. These people desperately need hope. Congratulations Hannah and well done on a positive, energetic campaign.

As fair trade campaigners we regularly tackle the "Why is it so expensive?" question. That's easy - because we pay people properly for their skills and experience and don't take advantage of the relative power imbalance between someone in the majority world and someone in the global north

In my experience most people who start a #socialenterprise do it because of a burning desire to make a difference but there is still a need for it to function as a sustainable business. The wonderful people at Junction Point have developed a course to help hub.junctionpoint.co.uk/level-2-star...

Today I received the best compliment I think I have ever had. I was doing a talk to a group in Rochdale and one of the gentlemen said my presentation style reminded him of Victoria Wood. High praise indeed

Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown as President of Ghana in a military coup d’etat backed by the US and the UK on 24 February 1966.

So instead of stirring up hate, why not work out how to share hope? Why use aid for military hardware when it could be paying for toilets or books or seed? Britain has a responsibility second only to Belgium to African ppl. Britain enslaved & shipped countless ppl & sent them to other colonies etc

Sometimes primary school kids are way too smart. In our Fair trade workshop I ask the children to guess how much chocolate the children of cocoa farmers get to eat and usually some kid says. "none' which is broadly correct. But this morning the kid said "None because their parents won't let them

We need to get over the idea that everything child related can only be dealt with at school. The reason the SEND system is collapsing is because it's expected to take on the burden of CAMHS. The education system should be free to deliver education. Leave healthcare, mental & physical, to the NHS

This clip is all over the other place and has made its way onto GB News and Talk TV so I’ll do a bit of an explainer here too! The clip doing the rounds is of a fantastic police officer telling a group of Muslim men that a Christian preacher nearby is entitled to freedom of expression. 🧵 1/19