Anna Batchelor

@CRoseveare 8 for us too. Team effort

🧠 Quiz of the Day - May 25 🟩 🟩 🟩 ⬜ ⬜ 🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩 Score: 8/10 Think you can do better? quizoftheday.co.uk

Inflation “unexpectedly” fell by 0.5% to 2.8% Growth was an “unexpected” 0.7% - the highest in the G7 Net immigration “unexpectedly” fell by 82% NHS “unexpectedly” met it’s interim 18 week target Our media have so deceived the public that all positive news is now “unexpected”

Connections Puzzle #1079 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦

nerdlegame 1587 4/6 🟩⬛🟪🟪🟪⬛🟩⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛🟪🟪🟪⬛ 🟩🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟩🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Strands #813 “Thank you” 🟡🔵🔵🔵 🔵🔵

Wordle 1,801 4/6 ⬛⬛🟨🟨⬛ ⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛ 🟨🟩⬛⬛🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Thatcher called bin Laden a 'freedom fighter', Mandela a 'terrorist', Pinochet a 'good friend' and trade unions 'the enemy within'. And Jimmy Savile 'Sir'.

Our ash trees not looking perfect but a good deal leafier than many. Hope they fight on for a few years yet 🤞

This is the kind of analysis we need. Now if we could merge Starmer and Burnham….

Strands #812 “Turn, turn, turn” 🔵🔵🔵🔵 🔵🟡🔵🔵

Wordle 1,800 4/6 ⬛⬛🟨⬛🟩 ⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩 ⬛🟩🟨⬛🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

“We are the first generation to feel the effect of climate change and the last generation who can do something about it.” - Barack Obama

Jeff Bezos thinks people are ‘vilifying the rich.’ Bro, you’re one of the richest people on earth and 1/3 of your warehouse workers rely on government assistance for basic needs like food and rent. You ARE the villain.

At the General Election we pledged to bring down net migration. Following reforms in our Immigration White Paper last Spring, it has now fallen 82% from the peak under the Tories. We promised a fair, controlled and managed migration system, and that is what we are delivering.

"A ten-year-old started screaming about a wave no one could see—and 100 people lived because her parents believed her. December 26, 2004. Mai Khao Beach, Phuket, Thailand. Christmas holiday. Perfect weather. The Smith family walked along the sand on their first overseas vacation together. Then Tilly noticed something wrong. The water wasn't behaving normally. ""It wasn't calm and it wasn't going in and then out,"" she later recalled. ""It was just coming in and in and in."" The sea had turned frothy—""like you get on a beer,"" she said. ""It was sort of sizzling."" Any other ten-year-old might have thought it strange. Tilly knew exactly what it meant. Two weeks earlier, her geography teacher Andrew Kearney had shown the class footage of the 1946 tsunami that devastated Hawaii. He taught them the warning signs: sea receding unusually far, frothy bubbling water, ocean behaving strangely. Tilly was watching those exact warning signs unfold in front of her. She started screaming at her parents. ""There's going to be a tsunami!"" They didn't believe her. They couldn't see any wave. The sky was clear. The beach was calm. But Tilly wouldn't stop. She became more insistent, more frantic. ""I'm going,"" she finally said. ""I'm definitely going. There is definitely going to be a tsunami."" Her father Colin heard the urgency in her voice. He decided to trust his daughter. By coincidence, a Japanese man nearby overheard Tilly use the word ""tsunami."" He'd just heard news of an earthquake in Sumatra. ""I think your daughter's right,"" he said. Colin alerted hotel staff. They began evacuating immediately. Tilly's mother Penny was one of the last to leave. She had to sprint as the water began rushing in behind her. ""I ran,"" she recalled, ""and then I thought I was going to die."" They made it to the second floor with seconds to spare. Then the wave hit. Thirty feet tall. Everything on the beach—beds, palm trees, debris—was swept into the pool and beyond. ""Even if you hadn't drowned,"" Penny later said, ""you would have been hit by something."" The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed over 230,000 people across 14 countries. Entire beaches in Phuket were wiped out. But at Mai Khao Beach, not a single person died. Because a ten-year-old girl paid attention in geography class. Tilly was hailed as the ""Angel of the Beach."" She received awards, spoke at the United Nations, met Bill Clinton. Her story is now taught in schools worldwide. Her father Colin still thinks about what could have happened. ""If she hadn't told us, we would have just kept on walking,"" he said. ""I'm convinced we would have died."" Tilly still credits her teacher. ""If it wasn't for Mr. Kearney,"" she told the UN, ""I'd probably be dead and so would my family."" Two weeks. One lesson. One hundred lives. That's the power of education.

"Nous basculons dans l'inconnu". OUI ! C'est ça qu'il faut dire au bulletin météo. Il y en a marre de la banalisation du changement climatique avec les marchands de glace et les surfeurs. Cette épisode climatique est INEDIT dans l'Histoire de la météorologie française. Et si on emploie des termes puissants, ce n'est pas pour faire du "sensationnalisme" et vendre des panneaux solaires : c'est juste factuel. Il y en a marre de devoir vous caresser dans le sens du poil pour ne froisser personne. OUI, il y a maintenant de très fortes probabilités d'atteindre le seuil "vague de chaleur" en MAI. On devrait vivre l'écart à la norme le plus haut jamais observé. Dans AUCUNE archive. Que ça déchaîne vos passions sur le terme que j'emploie ? Je m'en fou. Parce que l'humain n'est pas le centre du monde. Ces températures sont dévastatrices pour les écosystèmes : ➡️les oiseaux qui nichent sous les toits (comme le martinet) vont énormément souffrir. Sous certaines toitures exposées au soleil, les températures peuvent dépasser 40 à 50°C, provoquant déshydratation, abandon du nid ou mortalité des oisillons. ➡️les jeunes plantations maraîchères et les potagers récemment mis en terre sont extrêmement vulnérables. Leurs systèmes racinaires encore superficiels ne permettent pas d’aller chercher l’eau en profondeur : en quelques heures, certaines cultures peuvent littéralement brûler sous le rayonnement et l’évapotranspiration intense. ➡️les céréales d’hiver, notamment les orges et les blés précoces actuellement en épiaison ou en remplissage du grain, vont subir des phénomènes d’échaudage massifs. Quelques jours à plus de 35-37°C pendant cette phase critique peuvent fortement dégrader le poids des grains, les rendements et parfois même la qualité technologique. Et cela de la Bretagne jusqu’au Sud-Ouest… en plein mois de mai. ➡️les arbres et les haies, déjà très avancés phénologiquement après un printemps doux, vont augmenter brutalement leur transpiration. Certaines essences pourraient fermer leurs stomates pour survivre, stoppant temporairement leur croissance et accentuant le stress hydrique très précocement dans la saison. ➡️ les sols vont se dessécher à une vitesse spectaculaire. Une végétation encore en croissance maximale, combinée à des journées longues et un soleil très haut, entraîne une évapotranspiration énorme, parfois comparable à celle du cœur de l’été. ➡️ la faune sauvage va devoir arbitrer entre alimentation, reproduction et survie thermique. En pleine période de reproduction pour énormément d’espèces, cette chaleur arrive au pire moment biologique possible. ➡️ les animaux d'élevage vont subir un stress modéré à fort avec deux facteurs aggravants : la durée qui augmente la fatigue corporelle et le caractère soudain et précoce qui n'a pas habitué les corps). Et il faut bien comprendre un point : ce type d’épisode n’est pas seulement historique par son intensité. Il l’est aussi par sa précocité. Fin mai, les organismes vivants ne sont pas censés affronter durablement des températures dignes d’un cœur d’été caniculaire.

I've spent a lot of the last week speaking to people across government, media, and other actors involved in the Ebola response. Some reflections:

@KendalPeters11 @LikeOldTat Cardboard for my mum. We covered it in drawings and photos

Putin didn't invade Ukraine because of NATO. He invaded because Ukrainians were proving democracy works. Historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum puts it plainly: Putin looked at Ukraine's democratic movement and thought, "If they can do it in Ukraine, then people could do it in Russia. So I need to crush this." That's the real threat Ukraine posed. Not missiles. Not borders. A working democracy next door. Applebaum frames the war as a fault line between the democratic and autocratic worlds. Russia isn't just trying to take territory. It's trying to erase Ukraine as a nation, reduce it to a colony, and send a message to every country that the post-1945 rules of Europe no longer apply. Those rules were simple: no invasions, no wars, borders don't change by force. Russia understood exactly what it was breaking when it crossed into Ukraine.

Connections Puzzle #1077 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟦