Gillian Grafton

The letter the BBC could send back to Trump A proposal for a reply to his $1bn claim

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The letter the BBC could send back to Trump

A proposal for a reply to his $1bn claim

By me. Enjoy.

emptycity.substack.com/p/the-letter...

Do we as licence payers get much return from the huge investment in US correspondents? Some rebalancing away from breathless reporting of the nonsense over there would be welcomed by many of us.

The BBC isn't perfect, but it belongs to Britain not Trump.

Political leaders across the UK must unite in defending its independence from the White House.

Absolutely thrilled for John. Reflects a lifetime’s commitment to ethical and human centred research.

A small primer on the #NobelPrize awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi today. This prize was for combining two separate fields of immunology research - genetic research on IPEX and immunology research of regulatory T cells (#Tregs), with enormous impact on biology/medicine

Article reads: Woman named as Archbishop of Canterbury in historic first The 63-year-old archbishop-designate is married to Eamonn Mullally, with whom she has two children. Originally from Woking in Surrey, she was the UK's chief nursing officer from 1999 to 2004.

This article manages to name her husband before it names… her.

I’m sad to hear the news that the wonderful Jane Goodall is no longer in the world. Her work with chimpanzees at Gombe in Tanzania taught us to look at other apes - and ourselves - differently. I was privileged to meet her later in life and tell her what an inspiration she was to me.

News headline from the Mirror reads “UK experts slam paracetamol ‘fearmongering’ from Donald Trump officials,”

First Trump slashed funding for vaccines research now he's peddling dangerous nonsense about paracetamol.

The UK should take on Trump’s anti-science agenda and open our doors to US researchers.

LIMERICK

It was the Medical Council’s belief,
That as a form of effective relief,
Paracetamol would
Be next to no good
From the pain of the Satsuma-in-Chief.

Elon Musk is no friend of our United Kingdom. He should be held to account for allowing truly vile and illegal child abuse content on his platform.

Right wing activist is shot - who’s to blame?

This is the leadership we desperately need.

Our democracy is too precious to be a plaything for foreign tech barons.

Elon Musk doesn’t care about the British people or our rights. He only cares about himself and his ego.

Wish it was the case here in Brum. They are everywhere. I appear to be at the epicentre of the “Weoley Warriers” activity and it feels oppressive. Ignoring them allows this to be normalised. My MP issues weasel words about patriotism which are a cowardly excuse for lack of leadership.

A secretive legal rabbit live tweeting a lesson on English law through the medium of an American movie. It’s absolute genius and hilariously British 😁 You owe it to yourself to read the whole thread!

In an entertaining development other flags have appeared: the Scots and Welsh flags and several Irish tricolours now adorn the lampposts of Birmingham. The mischievousness appeals to me.

How Much I Dislike the Daily Mail    I would rather  eat Quavers that are six weeks stale,  blow dry the man bun of Gareth Bale,  listen to the songs of Jimmy Nail,  than read one page of the Daily Mail.    If I was bored  in a waiting room in Perivale,  on a twelve-hour trip on Network Rail,  halfway through a circumnavigational sail,  I would not read the Daily Mail.    I would happily read  the autobiography of Dan Quayle,  1001 Things You Can Do With Kale,  selected scripts from Emmerdale, if it meant I didn’t have to read the Daily Mail.    Far better to  stand outside in a storm of hail,  scratch a blackboard with a fingernail,  be swallowed by a humpback whale,  than have to read the Daily Mail.    If I was blind   and it was the only thing in Braille,  I still would not read the Daily Mail.    Brian Bilston 

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

Birmingham today: Alternating England and Union flags suddenly appeared all down my road. No-one was asked. Many locals don’t want them but are afraid to speak out. FB pages appeal for funding for the “flag warriors” while shouting down dissent and spreading fake stories.

If we don’t make a stand now about the over platforming of Reform and the lack of coverage of our other parties, we’ll regret it for decades. The damage will be done and it will be too late. Sign now and please pass on. We have 6 weeks to get to 10k petition.parliament.uk/petitions/71...

"Current patterns of plastic production, use, and disposal cause disease, disability, and death at every stage of the plastic lifecycle." @thelancet.com
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

On the road with logistics Blood donation in its simplest form is a beautiful thing: people take time out of their day to give blood for patients who need it. In reality, though, it’s far more complex.

Blood bikes are not a blue light service. The blood service delivers most deliveries itself and rarely uses blue lights www.blood.co.uk/news-and-cam...

That’s sad news and very sudden. Condolences to all his family and friends.

The blood service does in fact deliver blood to hospitals through regular deliveries and couriers. Blood bikes deliver approximately 2% of the total, usually in emergency situations or in community sites. They are wonderful volunteers supporting an essential service.

Sheffield consultant awarded fellowship to study ‘unheard voices’ in end-of-life care Dr Catriona Mayland wins NIHR fellowship to improve end-of-life care and amplify unheard voices in palliative medicine

✍️ Sheffield consultant awarded fellowship to study ‘unheard voices’ in end-of-life care

Dr Catriona Mayland wins NIHR fellowship to improve end-of-life care and amplify unheard voices in palliative medicine

Every parent’s worst nightmare! Could your child be neurotypical? Autistic parents have been warned to be vigilant for signs that their child could be afflicted with Neurotypical Spectrum Disorder, or NSD. Speaking in front of a parliamentary group, paediatrician Li...

“The causes of NSD are not yet fully understood. Some people blame environmental factors, or a lack of vaccines, but we do know that genetics play an important part. This means that if you have neurotypical family members, that does place your child at increased risk.”

It’s Sleapkosh this weekend!

The Telegraph today carries a news story about someone paying £7.4 million for a handbag (Hello, Lady Bracknell!). And an opinion piece describing a wealth tax as a ‘moral abomination’. What a time to be alive.

The T cell subsetting challenge Exploiting specific T cell subset properties bears potential for T cell therapies but is complicated by inconsistencies in T cell subset definitions and markers. Here, we discuss causes for the defini...

For my #immunology friends: What is a cell population or subset? What is the specific contribution of a cell marker to cell identity? A short and great read about T cell ontology www.cell.com/trends/immun...

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A work conversation this morning reminded me yet again of how quickly people think you should “move on” from grief and bereavement.

2 months is not sufficient. A whole lifetime wouldn’t be enough. We don’t move on, we just survive.

Silence erases those we lost.