Philip Smith 💚🧡

Floral embroidery 🌸🧵

Pause. Breathe. Taste the food of the wetland. Video by Li Dongming

@MadsDavies I hope before he popped it he threw a pretend thing in the air and caught it in the bag 🤣

Passed a grandfather in the park teaching his grandkids what happens if you blow up a paper bag and pop it. Four-year-old: "That was COOL." Can't beat the classics.

"To call a decent person anti-Semitic because he dares to criticise Israel is shameful, because it will make antisemitism respectable and shame upon those people who make these false accusations against us as journalists..." —English Journalist Robert Fisk

The Man Who Went Shopping For Dining Chairs and Accidentally Bought Stonehenge. On September 21, 1915, a British barrister named Cecil Chubb was given a very simple task by his wife, Mary. She sent him to a local auction in Salisbury with strict instructions: buy a nice set of dining chairs for their home. But as Chubb sat in the auction house, he got distracted. "Lot 15" came up for sale, a 30-acre plot of land featuring a crumbling, dilapidated ring of ancient rocks. The bidding was incredibly sluggish, and on a complete whim, Chubb raised his hand. When the gavel fell, he had just purchased Stonehenge for £6,600 (roughly $800,000 today). He proudly presented the 5,000-year-old megalithic wonder to his wife as a surprise "birthday present." Mary was absolutely furious. She didn't want a pile of ancient rocks; she wanted her dining chairs. Three years later, tired of his wife’s complaints and realizing the immense historical weight of his impulse purchase, Chubb donated the entire monument to the British government. He attached one strict condition: the public must always have access to it. Today, it stands protected forever, all because a husband couldn't stick to a shopping list.

@SnowMartyn @danny__kruger @danny_kruger Thank you Martyn

@danny__kruger The problem is @danny_kruger I don’t share your mistrust of my neighbours. Because I live alongside many Muslims, I don’t see this as a competitive show - I see sincere people expressing their faith. So while I share your view that our country should hold on to our Christian ½

Nick Timothy and Nigel Farage are right, and Sadiq Khan and Keir Starmer are wrong. Small groups of people, of whatever religion, praying in public places is fine. And as a Christian country we should allow a special privilege for churches to lead services in our national spaces, like the Palm Sunday celebration that happens in Trafalgar Square. What we don't want is mass ritual observances intended to claim the civic realm for another religion, or assert the domination of another culture over our own Christian traditions. What happens in our national spaces is not neutral. People use Trafalgar Square, for celebrations and demonstrations, to make a point about the kind of country they want us to be. The Palm Sunday pageant reminds us of who we are - not as individuals (many or most of us don't identify as Christians at all) but as a national community, with the roots of our institutions in the ground of the Bible and our most solemn communal moments, from coronations to funerals, mediated through the liturgies of the Church. A mass Adhan held there, or in any town square, is making a different point: that Britain is not a Christian country, and that - inshallah - one day it shall be Muslim. This is unacceptable to the British public and indeed incompatible with our constitution. As ever with these debates, the issue is partly one of kind and partly one of degree. There is an issue with Islam itself as a religion which in most interpretations does not admit of pluralism or freedom of conscience, and therefore is inherently aggrandising, including over territory. But with a bit of confidence and a bit of toleration we could handle that - if it were not for the issue of degree. It is the scale of Islam in Britain, and the ambition of its leaders for greater scale, that makes the problem. The numbers of people who assembled for the adhan in Trafalgar Square, clearly and openly claiming the territory for a faith with no connection (indeed, with strong doctrinal disagreement) with the model of Western liberal democracy that Britain has developed and exported to the world - that is the problem. The numbers, whether everyone there understood it this way or not (and I suspect many did), convey an explicit threat to the foundations of our country. Being relaxed about other people's religion is a good thing, a very British thing. I don't mind modern druids dancing around Stonehenge in my constituency (arguably, though the historicity is tenuous, they have a claim to the place). I don't mind small groups of Hindus or Buddhists or Muslims demonstrating the reality of Britain's religious toleration by worshiping in Trafalgar Square. But let's not kid ourselves about this adhan, or pretend that we're just seeing another harmless expression of Britain's religious diversity. We are seeing an abuse of liberalism, led by people who are not themselves liberal; or - let us imagine they are acting in good faith - who are themselves deceived about what they are doing. It should not happen again. And it would be good to hear the Church of England say so.

🇫🇷☀️ We are on our way through the blazing midday sunshine 🌞 to our first gig in France this year! Tonight @lapenichechalon Chalon-Sur-Saoône can’t wait to meet you all there! 🇫🇷 here comes the sun ☀️ 📸 @laluubain

An amazing episode x bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/li…

My Nanna Daisy born #OTD She made a record with my dad & Dave. I love to put it on, sit at the piano and play along to it. #ChasnDave #ThrowbackThursday

Killing or injuring healthcare workers, bombing hospitals, targeting ambulances, isn’t just a "war consequence"; it’s a collapse of humanity. Under international humanitarian law, patients and humanitarian workers are protected along with the hospitals they work in and the ambulances they rely on.

Across every corner of the UK, food banks in our community are seeing severe hardship. ❗️ 2.6 MILLION food parcels were provided last year alone. But which areas are facing the highest levels of need? Let us explain…

This book was written from inside my tent… under the sound of shelling, between fear, cold, and hunger. Every day, I wrote to tell what we are living here in Gaza. These are not just words, but a whole life written between pain and hope. I hope you read it… maybe my words will reach your hearts, and maybe you will understand what we are going through. Title: Diary from Gaza: Pages from a Tent in the Gaza War Written by me Mohammed Hussein 💔 📖 Get the book here: beaconbooks.net/products/diary…

I'm proud to live in a country where a Hindu PM can worship outside Downing Street and a Muslim Mayor can worship in Trafalgar Square. @NJ_Timothy and Tommy Robinson - why do you hate it so much?

When our Christianity begins to look like vengeance, animosity, and hostility towards the world, rather than love, humility, and compassion, that is when we know we are following someone other than Jesus.

Increased fuel bills won't make a diddly squat to the rich but the burden will fall on those who can least afford it, all because of the war games of billionaires & megalomaniacs

People who have a problem with people praying often don't x

20/03 @lapenichechalon - Chalon-Sur-Saone 21/03 @atelier_des_moles - Montbeliard 22/03 @bigstarrecords @couleurcafe_arras 24/03 @lechinoismontreuil - Montreuil 25/03 @ledariusclub Lons-Le-Saunier 26/03 @rockneat - Lyon 27/03 @le_fil_smac - St Etienne 28/03 @sortie_13 - Pessac

The President of the United States said I insulted Jesus. You want to know what insults Jesus? Kicking the sick off their healthcare. Bombing schoolchildren in Iran. Deporting moms and babies. Covering up the Epstein files.

I told my therapist: “I feel like I’m running out of time to build the life I want.” She didn’t even ask why. She just looked at me gently and said:

Somebody born in ‘33 was 45 in ‘78. That's gotta be some sort of record.