Feeling very depressed about the local election results. Seriously how can people want Reform and Farage in power?! 🤯

@sarramanning.bsky.social I’ve got the lurgy & your lovely book was exactly what the doctor ordered! Finished in one sitting with several cups of tea. It’s great! Thank you!

When you watch Beast Games (watching with my teenage son) you really realise how culturally different we are to Americans

The elephant in the room. #SpringStatement

'Lives are more important than money!' So proud it was one of our volunteers who shouted that out. ❤️ #LoveAndLoss

On the difficulty with processing loss from Orpheus to Princess Diana and Covid19, via Jesus, Monteverdi, Hitchcock, Mariachi, Moreau, and Disney. This has been a joy and a wretch to pull together (I do the editing, too 😱), for which you repaid me handsomely with your own tender stories of grief. x

Five years on from the first national lockdown, I looked at some of the less obvious ways society has changed, for @theipaper.com. One that jumped out: nightclubs are in free fall. Full piece: inews.co.uk/inews-lifest...

Today was the 1st day of lockdown for all of us. As a nation we have a collective shared trauma of Covid. If you lost a loved one you are part of an awful club where today is the start of an unimagined grief . Pls watch this doc tomorrow @mrjamesob.bsky.social @thejeremyvine.bsky.social

'Grief, long Covid, PTSD - my life five years since lockdown'

This is an incredibly difficult weekend for the millions of people in the UK who are bereaved by covid. ❤️

It really feels this week that we’ve slowly crawled out of a long, dark cold winter. It’s so good for the soul to feel the warm sunshine & see spring flowers blooming. You know you’re Middle Aged when your obsessed with lasagna bulb results

@naomialderman.bsky.social it would be great, after your wonderful thread #FiveYearsLater, if you could share this COVID doc which is screening on BBC1 on Monday 🙏🙏. It’s so important to the bereaved that people watch & remember

This month marks the fifth anniversary of the pandemic. We asked students how their lives changed because of it. "Even now, five years later, I am still nervous about germs — I don’t want to get sick. Covid was a very scary experience for me," said one teenager.

We hope to see as many of you as we can at the wall anniversary event on March 29th! ❤️

These are epic

Brexit has cost UK musicians £914M+ and counting. See the toll in streams, tickets, and vinyl. Sign the petition to act now:

The episode of 'New Storytellers' featuring the volunteers of the National Covid Memorial Wall airs again tonight on BBC Radio 4 at 21.45 - or you can listen now on BBC Sounds. ❤️ www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

This! And finally some sustained press coverage that we are #FiveYearsOn www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Ian writes so well. And we need way more good writing about the pandemic. It sometimes feels as if we’ve barely started processing those years. open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

After watching the amazing Adolescence last night (Stephen Graham and Ashley Walter’s deserve all of the awards), I’ve woken up to frantically google “How to talk to your son about Andrew Tate”. 😬😳

Today is #longcovidawarenessday If you’re not aware, LC, like ME/CFS, devastates lives. And the medical profession has almost entirely abandoned sufferers. And now in the U.K., it sounds as if most will now lose their PIP. 💔

As a Classics student (state school educated blah blah blah), few things make me more satisfied than seeing Classics coming into the mainstream I.e Matt Damon as Odysseus. @rickriordan.bsky.social deserves a shrine for bringing Classics to our times

Few things more depressing than getting letters from both your kids schools about measles. One the planets most contagious diseases that we had eradicated with vaccines 😡😡😡

You don't want to read this. And I don't want to write it. iandunt.substack.com/p/you-dont-w...

The coronavirus pandemic has had a lasting impact on schools and students, with many still feeling the effects of virtual learning and social isolation.

Just been reminded that I took a picture of the front page of the Metro on the fateful day of the first front page death of Covid on the 6th March at 07:19 in the morning 2020.

Volunteer Lynn spoke powerfully about the memorial wall at our #DayOfReflection event: “It is a message to those across the water that this is what happens when you get it wrong. It should stay as a constant reminder of the impact of government decisions. It’s a refuge for the bereaved.” ❤️

With over 200 cases of measles now reported across 13 states, Amelia Mavis Christnot provides a deep dive into this escalating outbreak and explains why vaccines are more important now than ever.

I feel really sorry for all the Americans who didn’t vote for Trump. Having to watch this utter shit show, knowing you didn’t want any part of it

Terrible. Vaccines are one of the most studied and biggest success stories of the last century. Here's a study of 99 million people across eight countries, confirming the covid vaccine is safe. Will this evidence convince people like in the story? Sadly not. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This is heartbreaking. How can we be moving to a none vaccinated society . A society which had eradicated so many of these childhood diseases. We are living in an age of rank disinformation.

I have won the squirrel vs the me/the bulbs battle! It’s been hard fought. The squirrel is devious, taunts my dog on a daily basis with its crafty ways. This year it messed with the wrong gardener. Deployed netting all winter over bulbs & have defeated the squirrel (for now)with spring flowers. 🥇🥇🌸🌷

Five years on and we’re still going round and round with whether Covid is airborne. There’s no scientific doubt. Denial broke us. healthydebate.ca/2025/03/topi...

The Kier Group construction company, who are working on Lambeth Bridge, have been the MOST amazing help to us, from manning barriers to throwing our 2000 carnations into the Thames from the bridge. But what made ALL the volunteers cry was when they presented us with this glorious flower heart. ❤️

TW: Covid, trauma Today is the #CovidDayOfReflection in the UK. #FiveYearsOn from the start of the first lockdown this month. Many have moved on. Many cannot. We are in danger of forgetting, when we need to remember even the worst moments.

Toady is the National Day of Covid reflection . An incredible beautiful, sad & poignant event held & organised by @covidmemorialwall.bsky.social . It’s a very odd & strange thing to be part of a group of collective grief & share trauma. #FiveYearsOn

You know you’re middle aged when you get excited about using the Merlin app for the first time since Autumn and are looking forward to a spot of Spring weeding in the garden.

ULEZ works. It’s that simple. Expanding the Ultra Low Emission Zone wasn’t a decision I took lightly, but the latest figures show that it was the right one for the health of millions of Londoners.

Totally spot on www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

“In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. Those affected receive a small apartment & counselling with no preconditions. 4 out of 5 people affected make their way back into a stable life. And all this is CHEAPER than accepting homelessness.”

Vile tube journey today sandwiched between 2 middle aged men extolling, loudly, the virtues of Tate & Trump as “they’re real men”. One of them even used the term “bitch slapping Zelensky”. I haven’t felt so angry for so long. But did I say anything? No. Now just angry at myself

(1/3) It needs repeating: in 1994, Ukraine was persuaded to give up its nuclear weapons to Russia in return for the US, the UK, and Russia guaranteeing Ukraine’s sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity.

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau: "Today, the United States launched a trade war against Canada - their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they're talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin - a lying murderous dictator. Make that makes sense."

Well I'd like to thank JD Vance and Donald Trump for making perhaps the strongest case for rejoining the EU that I've seen in 9 years.

I have this feeling that over the next few weeks I might like to note and mark what I was doing five years ago. Because it is big and real and still feels incredibly present in our lives. I'll use the hashtag #fiveyearson which as far as I can tell is only used about Covid. Do mute if you need.

For #fiveyearson its a chance for me to plug one of my favourite pieces I ever wrote - the inside story about how No10 was a “plague pit” as everyone working in Whitehall got sick at the time of the first lockdown www.theguardian.com/politics/202...