Gorgeous Gordon @Jayney54

Love Matt's observation for today.

22nd July, 2009 Guardsman Christopher King, aged 20, born in Birkenhead, lived in West Buckland, Devon, and of 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, was killed by an IED blast whilst on operations in Nad e-Ali, Helmand Province, Afghanistan Lest we Forget this brave young man🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧

22nd July, 2008 Corporal Jason Barnes, aged 25 from Exeter, of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, was killed by an IED blast near Kajaki, Helmand Province, after returning from a mission to successfully evacuate a wounded comrade Lest we Forget this brave hero🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧

I am no fan of Refom but every time the @timespolitics @guardian mentions Geroge Cottrell the prefix it with “convicted criminal.”. They must prefix Louie Haigh then with “convicted fraudster.” Not to do so is to show disdain for professional journalism.

21st July, 2010 Corporal Matthew Stenton MC, aged 23, and Lance Corporal Stephen Monkhouse MC, aged 28, were both killed by enemy small arms fire, whilst trying to rescue an injured comrade in Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan Lest we Forget these brave men 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇬🇧

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Since 1833, a red ball has dropped from the roof of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich at precisely 1pm. It was introduced to solve a vital problem for ships on the Thames. Before setting sail, navigators needed to set their marine chronometers, as accurate time was essential for calculating their position at sea. By watching the Greenwich Time Ball fall, ships could set the correct time before beginning their voyages. First used in 1833, it became one of the world's earliest public time signals and helped distribute accurate time to ships and Londoners alike. The idea was so useful that time balls were eventually established at ports around the world. And remarkably, the Greenwich Time Ball still operates today. At 12:55pm it rises halfway up its mast. At 12:58pm it reaches the top. At exactly 1pm, it falls. A daily signal from the age of sail, still marking time nearly two centuries later. Have you ever seen the Greenwich Time Ball drop? Follow @oaksandlions for your daily dose of England's hidden gems.

France when you speak French: Please don't. France when you speak English: We speak French here.

Such a blatant fucking lie.

Does this mean - under the John Simpson formula - that Calais is ours again?

This kind of disinformation is precisely why the Guardian retreated from 𝕏. It was being community noted too often for its lies. See @toadmeister’s post for details: x.com/toadmeister/st…

Michael Savage @michaelsavage

5 days ago

NEW: Donald Trump’s administration planning to hand $12m to UK organisations founded by Jacob Rees-Mogg & Toby Young. This is US tax dollars going to funding UK orgs on the right - a Trump public fund to boost right politics in Europe. Important story: theguardian.com/us-news/2026/j…

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Every. Single.Time. @MattCartoonist

When his beloved wife died in 1290, King Edward I built 12 magnificent crosses to mark her final journey across England. Eleanor of Castile had been at Edward's side for 36 years when she died near Lincoln. The king was devastated. Her body was carried south to Westminster Abbey in a solemn procession, stopping overnight at towns along the route. At each of the 12 stops, Edward ordered an elaborate stone cross in Eleanor's memory, decorated with intricate carvings and statues of the queen. The 12 crosses were built at Lincoln, Grantham, Stamford, Geddington, Hardingstone near Northampton, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, St Albans, Waltham, Westcheap in London, and Charing. The last stood at Charing, near today's Trafalgar Square, and gave Charing Cross its name. More than seven centuries later, three of the original medieval crosses still survive, at Geddington, Hardingstone and Waltham Cross. A king's grief, carved into stone across England over 700 years ago. 📷: Original cross at Hardingstone, Northampton. Follow @oaksandlions for more on England’s history and heritage.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧 One man drew a map of things no eye had ever seen. The buried country beneath England itself. William Smith was a blacksmith's son from a small Oxfordshire village. His father died when he was 8. The village school taught him little, so he bought his own books and taught himself the surveyor's trade. By 18 the work was sending him down the coal pits of Somerset. And down in the dark, the ground showed him its secret. ⛏️ The rock lay in layers, stacked like the pages of a book. Always the same layers, always in the same order. And each layer held its own fossils, like a signature in the stone. Read the signature and you knew exactly which page of England you stood on. So he set out to map the whole buried country. No patron. No academy. By coach, on horseback and on foot, for the best part of 15 years. In 1815 he unrolled the answer: a map 8 and a half feet by 6, every buried layer of England and Wales tinted by his own hand. The first detailed geological map of any country on Earth. 📜 It barely sold. A failed quarry venture ate what the travel had not. He sold his life's fossil collection to the British Museum for £700 and it still was not enough. In 1819 the King's Bench debtors' prison closed its gates on the man who had mapped a country. He walked out that summer to bailiffs seizing his home, and left London with his tools on his back. London's Geological Society, a club of gentlemen, had never asked him to join. In 1820 its president, George Greenough, published a grand map of his own. Smith's hard-won lines ran through it. His name appeared nowhere on it. 🔥 But younger geologists knew exactly whose lines they were walking. In 1831 the same Society struck its first Wollaston Medal, its highest honour, and the first name called was William Smith. Its president, Adam Sedgwick, named him the Father of English Geology. The King granted him a pension of £100 a year. 🏛️ His map hangs today in the Society's own hall in London. And every geological map on Earth is built on what he drew. 🇬🇧 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Somewhere in Britain today, a child pulls a fossil from a hillside. Because of a blacksmith's son, we can tell them exactly what they hold. We hand his story to them free, so they grow up knowing it. We are the home of British heroes. There is a place for you in it. 👉 proudofus.co.uk/support 👈 Be part of us. ☝️🇬🇧 Be Proud Of Us. 🙏🇬🇧

Most dogs in Japan are bought from a pet shop or from neighbours. Those that don’t get picked get terminated I’ve just become the Dad of a disabled beagle who had 8 hours left on the clock. He gave me one of those looks and I couldn’t leave him to die. So hello Sapper

Blatant misinformation. See this exchange I had yesterday with the @guardian journalist that wrote this story. x.com/toadmeister/st…

Michael Savage @michaelsavage

5 days ago

NEW: Donald Trump’s administration planning to hand $12m to UK organisations founded by Jacob Rees-Mogg & Toby Young. This is US tax dollars going to funding UK orgs on the right - a Trump public fund to boost right politics in Europe. Important story: theguardian.com/us-news/2026/j…

239 443 692 404K 88

'Sorry your granny has been lying on the floor with a broken hip for 20 hours, but there's a Bolivian sanctuary for transvestite guinea pigs that needed the money'

Politics UK @PolitlcsUK

4 days ago

🚨 NEW: Andy Burnham is set to increase international aid spending to 0.7% of GDP [@Independent]

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July 18th 1982: HMS Hermes and her escort HMS Broadsword are now level with the Bay of Biscay, with everyone on board now more than eager to be in home waters after a long tour of duty... so nearly there.

July 18th 1982: The NYT reports on Ascension Island, a once forgotten outpost whose single runway went from supporting four sorties a week to being the busiest airport in the world. An absolutely fascinating article from the aftermath of the war. nytimes.com/1982/07/28/wor…