Darren Smith

@Samfahh What a tune

Released 245 years ago today. The Boulevard Clydebank memories. 🙌youtube.com/watch?v=2rW8dg…

OXFAM SENT AID WORKERS TO HAITI. SOME OF THEM TURNED IT INTO A BROTHEL. Haiti, 2010. One of the worst earthquakes in living memory. Around 300,000 people dead. The world sends money. Oxfam sends staff. Some of those staff rent a villa, bring in prostitutes wearing Oxfam t-shirts, and carry on. Helen Evans was Oxfam GB's Global Head of Safeguarding. From 2012 she was flagging systemic sexual exploitation and abuse across multiple country programmes. Her internal survey found 1 in 10 staff had witnessed or experienced sexual assault. In South Sudan, 7% reported witnessing or experiencing rape by Oxfam staff. She raised it with Oxfam leadership. Ignored. She compiled a report and was due to present it to the senior leadership team in 2014. An hour before she was due to speak, she was told she was no longer needed. She went to the Charity Commission in 2015. They sent emails. Eventually stopped replying. Three years of warnings. Zero action. The Times (@thetimes) broke the story in February 2018. Helen went on Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) and confirmed everything. The backlash was so severe her family had to relocate. She developed PTSD. Oxfam (@oxfam) said it regretted not acting faster. The Charity Commission (@ChtyCommission) opened an inquiry. MPs launched two separate investigations. Sector-wide safeguarding reforms followed. Helen won the UK Whistleblower Award 2018. The organisation that was supposed to protect vulnerable people in a disaster zone spent years protecting itself instead. She paid for telling the truth with her health, her home, and her peace of mind. The people who ignored her kept their jobs long enough to say sorry on a press release. Sources: @thetimes, @Channel4News, @BBCNews, @guardian

Ruth Hansom and her husband Mark tried to do a beautiful thing, to make a wonderful restaurant in Bedale, to help people get there, to create joy. But North Yorkshire Council shat on it because they hate innovation, they hate hard work and they hate love. thetimes.com/article/fe3c14…

BBC BROKE EQUALITY LAW AND GOT CAUGHT Carrie Gracie spent 30 years at the @BBC. She spoke fluent Mandarin. She ran the Beijing bureau. She was one of four international editors, two men and two women. Then in 2017 the BBC was forced to publish salary data. Gracie looked at what her male equivalent, the North America editor, was earning. He was on nearly double her salary. She had explicitly said equal pay was a condition of taking the China role. The BBC agreed. Then quietly paid her far less anyway. She asked for equal pay. The BBC offered her a raise that still left her below the men. She turned it down. She resigned from the China post in January 2018 and published an open letter telling the licence fee public exactly what their broadcaster was doing. The BBC then put her through nearly a year of an internal grievance process that went nowhere. It took three meetings with the Director-General and the threat of an employment tribunal before she got a public apology and the backdated pay owed to her. The total came to £361,000. She donated every penny to the Fawcett Society (@fawcettsociety), the gender equality charity. She said the fight was about principle, not the payout. A publicly funded institution, legally obligated to follow equality law, paid women less than men in identical roles, got caught, dragged it out for a year, and only coughed up under threat of a tribunal. That is not a pay oversight. That is a policy. Gracie did not ask for a favour. She asked for what she was owed. The BBC made her fight for it like it was a privilege. Sources: @BBCNews, @guardian, @thetimes, @Independent.

What's the best PUB QUIZ TEAM NAME you've ever heard?

Paul Tierney and John Brooks. Not fit to referee at the highest standard. Called out in 2023 against Spurs and with Tierney many other times previously. The normal one called it. Life comes at you fast.

If ever there were proof that every fan thinks their club is the one treated unfairly...

@MichaelAArouet Brilliant, thank you.

@Smicer999 Check out Bodeguita Romero for lunch, but need to be there few minutes before 13:00 otherwise you will wait one hour for a table. Best local place. Cinco Jotas has great grilled pork for dinner.

I go to Sevilla each winter. It's a magical place, the best in Spain. The only issue is that I always gain weight. The pork is simply delicious there, much better than the best beef in other places.

@AndrewDowson Oh wow, fabulous. Where is this? Been looking for an outdoor lido.

Happy Easter 🐣 Nothing like an exhilarating swim on a Sunday morning 😎🤪

@miss_anthrop75 @scottespana10 Yes, even the female skinhead haircut!

@scottespana10 Haha, do you think it’d suit me? 😂

@miss_anthrop75 Cool, try and hang out in that area. More laid back and it’s where the locals go.

@miss_anthrop75 Stay , dine and drink in Trastevere if you can.

Queued on the FIFA website for 8.5 hours last night in hope rather than expectation for last minute tickets. Tried for the Netherlands and Scotland whilst I’m there. When I finally entered the booking system I was met with these ridiculous prices. FIFA are so corrupt.

@MeatOneVegBlog Thank you 🙏

@Smicer999 Easiest route is bilbao and taxi/coach. We went via Paris TGV this time and found it far less stressful

A lot of people talk about the amazing food, beautiful beach, and cultured lifestyle when discussing San Sebastián, and not enough people talk about the big Zara

Barceloneta. Cracking night.

To anyone who still thinks the #NHS is a U.K. national treasure. Take it from many of us old school British trained Doctors and Nurses it’s certainly NOT. In fact what it has become imo is dangerous. Totally unrecognisable from when I trained. Patient safety gone. The term ‘nursing’ is disappearing to be replaced with ‘care’ and ‘carers’ 🤔😏😥 What I, as an old school nurse is observing & hearing from other’s is a TICK box ✅ industry and a grossly UNDERskilled and often UNDERqualified workforce attempting complex and life changing procedures. Basic nursing care appears to have vanished 😥 DO YOU KNOW WHO IS LOOKING AFTER YOU OR YOUR LOVED ONES IN NHS OR CARE SECTOR, what they’re trained in? Where they’ve trained! 🤔🤷‍♀️ Ask the question

Saturday night free for a change. Sadly, in Leicester.

@Tartan_GHopper @TheSecretScout_ Agreed. I watched a Valencia youth match and the opposing team were 1-0 down in the final minutes. Their final attack took 5 minutes of intricate, possession passing. Fascinating to watch. No long balls and the centre backs pushed into midfield rather than going up front.

@TheSecretScout_ I went to a tier 5 game in Spain. The solution is simple..keep the ball on the ground..no lobs up the field from defence. Go and watch a tier 5 game in England, and for the majority that’s what you see.

Can someone go to Spain and get the recipe for Spanish midfielders and bring it to England Hugo of Barcelona! Wonderful to watch