Alan Matthews #ClimateCrisis #FBPE

Hands off our allotments | We Own It Recent media reports have pointed out that Angela Rayner has permitted the sell-off of eight allotment sites since taking office. We believe that one allotment sold is one too many.

It doesn't matter if it's the Conservatives or Labour allowing 8 sites to be sold off every year. Even if a few might be replaced, some won't.

One allotment sold, and lost from community use forever, is one too many.

Briefing: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” All roads to peace go through Washington

Economically, politically, geopolitically, culturally it is a week in which all roads lead to Trump.

Like it or not he is at the centre of a lot right now.

Read this week's newsletter on Substack:

How England’s outdated water tracking system leaves regulators in the dark Experts warn accurately monitoring consumption by bulk users such as farmers, datacentres and businesses can be all but impossible

Watershed's @rachelsalvidge.bsky.social has written exposing the utterly chaotic system of business licenses for water abstraction shrinking great river basins to mere rivulets:

8/12
share.google/Z4LzLT9m0I5H...

Southern Water applies for permission to draw water from rare chalk stream Environment secretary urged to stop drought order that could damage the ecology of River Test in Hampshire

"The...UK population of wild salmon is now on the endangered list...This river has a flow limit and Southern Water wants to reduce that by a third. If you do this, you have now effectively banished an endangered species to oblivion" says Feargal Sharkey:

3/12
www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Report: Coordinated Social Media Campaigns From Oil-rich Arabic States Spread Climate Denial Driven by accounts based in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, the climate change denial and disinformation campaign seeks to manufacture false public sentiment and push climate denial hashtags to the to...

Coordinated Social Media Campaigns From Users in Oil-rich Arabic States Spread Climate Denial

Report by @occrp.org
#climatecrisis
www.occrp.org/en/news/repo...

Five England players nominated for women’s Ballon d’Or after Euro 2025 triumph * Alessia Russo and Leah Williamson among nominees * Scott McTominay on men’s list after winning Serie A Five of England’s European Championship-winning squad have been nominated for this year’s women’s Ballon d’Or, including three Arsenal players who claimed a club and country double of European titles this summer. Leah Williamson, Alessia Russo and Chloe Kelly all shared Champions League and Euros triumphs, and are joined on the nominees list by Lucy Bronze and Hannah Hampton, who both won domestic trebles with Chelsea and clinched back-to-back European titles with victory over Spain in Basel last month. Continue reading...

Five England players nominated for women’s Ballon d’Or after Euro 2025 triumph

Avocet feeding using its slim upturned bill to sift through silt in the wetlands

Recurvirostra avosetta - The Avocet
A great conservation story and the emblem of the RSPB. These gorgeous, elegant waders were reintroduced in 1947 and are now approaching just shy of 2000 breeding pairs in the UK
#Birds

😄

The high summer of Donald Trump In all likelihood, it is downhill for the US president from here

📈 Inflation is going to rise, the Jeffrey Epstein fuss of recent weeks, the signs of age in a president nearing 80...

"In all likelihood, this summer is Trump’s peak. Life for the US president goes downhill from here." 📉

www.ft.com/content/59ad...

GREENPEACE DELEGATION AT THE UN: We would like to see a UN Tax Convention that sends a clear message: those who pollute and profit from climate and nature destruction must contribute the most.

🚨BREAKING: Greenpeace delegation delivered an intervention at the UN.

Fredrick Njehu, political lead at Greenpeace International addressed the committee and chair at the ongoing UN Tax Convention in New York City.

The #UNTaxConvention can flip the script for fair taxes and a fair green future.
🧵⤵️

76% is frankly obscene

Defend our juries website has been taken down. Get important legal info here: bsky.app/profile/defe...

@bbcnewsnight.bsky.social are you reporting on this crack down on civil liberties?

To anyone who ever cared about freedom of expression, now is your time to show it

BREAKING

Defend Our Juries website taken down as attack on freedom of speech worsens - blocking access to important legal info for protestors.

This is what happens when the Government uses anti-terror law to silence dissent.

www.wedonotcomply.org <— legal info here instead!

Chemical pollution a threat comparable to climate change, scientists warn More than 100 million ‘novel entity’ chemicals are in circulation, with health impact not widely recognised

'Chemical pollution a threat comparable to climate change', scientists warn
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Horizon victim Lee Castleton sues Post Office and Fujitsu for £4m This is the first time full details of a complex claim for compensation have been made public.

Horizon victim sues Post Office & Fujitsu for £4m.

Good on him.

Unimaginable pain from a scandal that has gone on for 30 yrs.

Govt pressuring victims to accept lower compensation.

Fujitsu central to false prosecutions; hasn't contributed anything.

No perpetrator of injustice charged.

Ban asylum seekers who work illegally from gaining refugee status, Tories say The Conservatives say the UK's informal working market is acting as a "pull factor" for small boat crossings in the Channel.

Once more for those at the back. Working as an undocumented delivery drive is not a "pull factor". People are not risking their lives crossing the channel to work for Deliveroo.
Doing so is an outcome of the system once people are here.
1/2 #r4today

news.sky.com/story/ban-as...

Labour is making Britain a more European country On tax, spending and workers’ rights, Keir Starmer has accelerated a post-Brexit trend.

Labour is making Britain a more European country www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

This is Saddam-level

HHS winds down mRNA vaccine development funded by BARDA The Department of Health and Human Services has announced a plan to end mRNA vaccine work funded by the | The Department of Health and Human Services has announced a plan to end all mRNA vaccine work ...

RFK Jr.'s war on vaccines (and mRNA) continues. mRNA naturally occurs in all of our cells, and vaccines have been used safely for hundreds of years. We've never seen a US health official completely reject fundamental science this much before. My story:

Why Trump’s secondary tariffs on Russia could bite the US, its allies too China and India would be hit hardest. But Europe would be affected, and the US would face risks as well.

"The US also buys chemicals, including uranium hexafluoride – used in uranium enrichment – from Russia."

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/...

#r4today

Microplastics are everywhere, even in human testicles. So will the patriarchy finally step in? | Van Badham It’s not the sisterhood busting your balls, fellas – it’s the fossil fuel interests making money from the tonnes of synthetic garbage spewed on to the planet every day There is plastic in your balls! Surely this should be headline news every day until the news breaks that “there is no longer plastic in your balls”, accompanied by photographs of celebration parades and ecstatic couples kissing in the streets. Continue reading...

Microplastics are everywhere, even in human testicles. So will the patriarchy finally step in? | Van Badham

Ukraine war: Twisted wreckage shows sanctions haven't yet stopped Russia In Kharkiv, investigators gather evidence of Russian attacks - and how it has dodged sanctions.

#BBCNews - On Ukraine's front line, twisted wreckage shows sanctions haven't yet stopped Russia
www.bbc.com/news/article...
#UkraineWar

My photo shows a Roman ornamental fountain spout in the shape of a frog excavated from the vesuvian area. Made of glazed terracotta, the frog is viewed from the side. It is sitting with its head to the right and raised upwards with mouth slightly ajar for water to pass through. In colour it is creamy-beige with darker greeny-brown bumps. The glaze is missing from the throat and mouth area. The glaze on the surface of the body appears bumpy like that of a toad although the museum describe it as a ‘rana’ / frog.

Roman fountain spout in the shape of a frog. Glazed terracotta. From Pompeii, 1st century AD.

Great to see ornamental froggie fountain spouts have been popular for 2,000 years! 🐸❤️

MAN Napoli 📷 by me

#Archaeology

A horned god with spear and shield - a local god from Roman Maryport in Cumbria. The relief is now part of the collections at Senhouse Roman Museum at Maryport. 📸 My own. #ReliefWednesday #RomanBritain #SenhouseRomanMuseum

Mary Magdalen wears a tightly laced dress & cloak. She holds her jar. Her long hair is braided & is wrapped around a bonnet.

“Mary Magdalen” - Jan Borman I

Carved in oak with traces of polychromy.
#Brussels 1480-90

Amazing to see the #medieval costume & hairstyle of the late 15th Century. But such skill in rendering it in wood.

Now @museecluny.bsky.social #Paris

#Woodensday
#WoodcarvingWednesday

A Roman mosaic featuring two figures. One person is playing a hydraulis (water organ), while the other stands beside it holding a curved horn. The mosaic is framed by a decorative geometric border with interwoven patterns in red, black, and white.

...amphitheatres and theatres. Depictions can be found on mosaics, e. g. on the gladiator mosaic at Nennig. Parts of a hydraulis were discovered in Aquincum/Budapest. 🧵2/2

📷 Landesmuseum Trier and me

Clay relief showing an ancient hydraulis (water organ) at the center, flanked by two gladiators, each raising an arm as if in a gesture or salute. The figures are dressed in typical gladiatorial attire, and the organ features several upright pipes.

For #ReliefWednesday a depiction of a hydraulis – a water organ with a keyboard and pipes, the supply of air was created by water pressure. The instrument on the terracotta relief found in Trier is flanked by gladiators, a retiarius and a secutor. Water organs were used in... 🧵1/2

🏺 #archaeology