Annette Cochrane

[ᗰᗩƳᖇᗩ @LePapillonBlu2]

It’s like poetic justice how there’s a double rainbow outside the John Kennedy Center as Trump’s name is being removed.

[Christopher Hale @ChristopherHale]

“If you think the world is selfish and rotten, go to the cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer overlooking Omaha Beach. See what one group of men did for another on D-Day, June 6th, 1944.” — Andy Rooney

[Maxi @AllForProgress_]

In a workshop in Ulverston, on the edge of the Lake District, a few dozen people are the last in Britain who can do a thing this country once did better than anywhere on earth: take molten glass, blow it by lung and hand, and cut it until it throws light like nothing else made by man.

The company is called Cumbria Crystal. Its craftsmen were brought up from Stourbridge in 1976, out of the old heartland of English glass - and then, one by one between 1990 and 2007, every great Stourbridge house shut its doors, until a skill that once had its capital across the West Midlands had its last redoubt in a single building in Cumbria.

This year, Heritage Crafts placed hand-cut crystal on its Red List of Critically Endangered Crafts. One more workshop gone, one more retirement that goes unreplaced, and three centuries of mastery simply end - it goes the way of stonemasonry or, you probably wouldn't believe is increasingly the case, metalwork.

There is a detail here on which the picture revolves. The crystal on the tables of British embassies, the glass set before presidents and kings when this country wishes to show the world what it is, comes in good part from that same endangered workshop in Ulverston. We use the craft to impress the world and cannot trouble ourselves to keep it alive at home. The glass that says "look what Britain can do" is being quietly permitted to become the glass that says "look what Britain used to be able to do."

There is no villain in this, not exactly. No minister set out to kill English crystal. It is dying the way most things die here now - by inattention, by an energy bill the kiln can barely meet, by a culture that spent two generations teaching the young that working with your hands was a lesser destiny, by the lazy faith that someone, somewhere, would always keep the old skills going so the rest of us needn't think about it.

Progress takes the opposite view of a thing like this. A skill is capital - the most patiently accumulated capital a country owns - and a nation that lets its mastery lapse is poorer in a way no quarterly figure will ever record. And a nation that barrels its energies into skill capital is rich.

Our Hallmark system exists to stamp such skills, to honour them, and to pay the people who hold them to teach the next hands, because the distance between a living craft and a glass case in a museum is exactly one generation that could not afford to pass it on.

The men and women in Ulverston still know how it is done. For now. The only question is whether a country that can fill an embassy, an office, a home, with their work can be bothered to ensure that, fifty years from now, there is still anyone left who can make the next set.

[Cat @catdeans]

This is awful. The last ever Denby Pottery going to the kiln. Why is there not uproar? Where’s the government in this?? We all have Denby in our homes, in family heirlooms, as our history and now it’s closing through lack of support, such a sad sad day. #SaveDenby @denbypottery

[Protect Kamala Harris ✊ @DisavowTrump20]

🚨NEW: Kerry Kennedy has announced Late Show Host Stephen Colbert is the recipient of the 2025 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for his advocacy for free speech and speaking truth to power.

RETWEET to congratulate Colbert on this honor!

[Governor's Office - St Helena, Ascension & Tristan @GO_ASHT]

Dear David Attenborough,

Congratulations on reaching your 100th lap around the sun, young man!

Thank you for sharing the wonders of our world with such care and curiosity.

Here’s to many more years, slow and steady wins the race!

With admiration,
Jonathan the Tortoise

[Andrew Lloyd Webber @OfficialALW]

I am absolutely delighted that the sale of my wine cellar has raised over a half a million pounds for my music in schools programme. To date over 30,000 children have taken part in the project and the sale means that 4,000 additional kids will be able to join.

[Annette Cochrane @Annette20213959]

@HWarlow Sending sincerest condolences 💞

[Annette Cochrane @Annette20213959]

@CarlBovisNature Well done Carl you were in the right place & right time as ever 😍

[Andy Marshall 📸 @fotofacade]

My latest digest is about when I came across a remarkable Saxon survival - a circular stair turret and part tower - read on for the location and more pics 👉 https://t.co/ZlMlNxzDP5

[Annette Cochrane @Annette20213959]

@LBFlyawayhome London

[James Treadwell @James_Treadwell]

Please everyone help. I am trying to do a Christmas miracle and make someone happy. Yesterday (21/12/25) in @Bullring we found this lost platinum wedding band. It is name and date engraved, and has more detail. I want to reunite it with its rightful owner. Retweets might help.

[Annette Cochrane @Annette20213959]

@KinsellaSophie Sending deepest condolences 💝📚

[FAITH 🌊🥷 @JeSuis_Faith]

This is Melissa Hortman, on June 14, 2025 she & her husband John were murdered in a politically motived attack. She stood for environment rights, abortion rights & sensible gun control policies.

No lowered flags!

Can we take a moment to remember her good works.
Please RT.

[Seán Ono Lennon @seanonolennon]

I am against violence. I am against celebrating violence. I’m praying for peace. I’m praying for healing. I’m praying for the family, especially the children. I know what they’re going through. I’ve been through it.

I’m deeply scared for this country. The way some people are reacting on both sides is dangerous. If I had one wish right now it would be for everyone to please just step back and take a breath and remember we are all just sophisticated apes trying to coexist on a rock hurtling through space.

If we cannot tolerate polite and reasoned disagreement then there is no hope for our society.

There is a famous quote falsely attributed to Voltaire that however does sum up a principle of enlightenment philosophy, ‘I disagree with what you say, but I would die to defend your right to say it.’

The ideas of people like John Locke and Voltaire and Thomas Paine are what lead to the American Revolution which then inspired the French Revolution. They introduced the World to the idea that individual rights were important and should be protected from Monarchs (tyrants and dictators), and ultimately led to the idea that a country should be governed by its people NOT by the Church and NOT by a King.

If citizens don’t protect and respect each other’s right to disagree, then we cannot have a democracy. If we do not protect our right to disagree then we’ll get violence.

We do NOT want a society where violence is the way we win arguments, because then nobody wins. Everyone loses.

We are ALL losing right now. The whole society is losing together. Losing to violence. It’s unbelievably sad. It took so much work to get us here. We can’t throw it all away like spoilt children.

I did NOT agree with Charlie Kirk’s views on MANY important topics. I know he helped get Trump elected and people hate him for that. But he was a conservative Christian. What do you expect a conservative Christian to believe? How can those views surprise you? He argued those views calmly, reasonably, and considerately as far as I’ve seen.

But no matter what he did not deserve this. His wife did not deserve this. His kids did NOT deserve to have their world torn apart!

The way some people are being so cold and uncaring and even celebrating is disturbing and repugnant to me. It is making me physically ill. If you are celebrating the murder of a non-violent man for his opinions then you are NOT the better person. Look in the mirror. Imagine telling his kids how you feel. Step back. Take a breath. Remember we are all humans. We are all just flickers of consciousness in an endless eternity. Love IS the answer. I really mean it.

We are quite literally ALL in this together. If this ship sinks we ALL drown. Look around you. Everyone you see is a shipmate. We have to figure this out. We have no other choice.

[Paul Powlesland @paulpowlesland]

On Thursday night I looked out of my boat & knew immediately that something was wrong on the River Roding. The moon was glimmering off the water in a strange way I hadn’t seen before. I went outside to discover an oil slick streaked across the river & the smell of engine oil in the air.

Here’s what I did about it & what it says about regulatory failure & the role of river guardians 🧵

[Paul Powlesland @paulpowlesland]

As the rain started to chuck down, I cycled back to my moorings, my slicked ski suit making me look like some kind of colourful but oiled seabird.

I have yet again rung the incident in to @EnvAgency & they have said they are hoping to attend tomorrow.

What lessons can we draw here?

First, an oil spill on this scale is likely a deliberate criminal act, rather than an accident. The delay by the EA in investigating makes it likely that whoever did it will have gotten away with it.

Second, the eyes & ears of river guardians on the ground is vital. If I hadn’t noticed or investigated, it is likely the spill would never have even been picked up by the EA.

Third, the EA needs to work better with local river guardians: we should be given a specific person or team to call in incidents to, rather than getting ‘lost in the system’ calling the generic national helpline. They need our local knowledge & we need their accountable, professional help.

Fourth, the EA needs to be funded properly to give support to local river guardians (eg a supply of booms we can have on hand to quickly deploy) & to actually act quickly when we alert them to an incident.

Finally, as challenging as it might be, & as a difficult as it is to care for a river with inadequate support from the authorities, it is an honour to be able to do whatever is within my my ability to protect my river.

[John O’Brennan @JohnOBrennan2]

Jess Philips is worth a hundred thousand Elon Musks. 👏👏

[Susie Dent @susie_dent]

Word of the Day is one I keep posting at the end of the year, hoping its time will come.

‘Respair’, from the 16th century, is fresh hope, and a recovery from despair.

Here’s to a few drops of respair in 2025.

[Jay Gray @Jamie_Gray4]

1/2 My dad unfortunately collapsed and passed away at the Wolves game last Monday night, he had to be carried up stairs from his seat in block 123 to be able to have CPR performed on him, his watch went missing when he was moved and we desperately want it back..