Christina Clucas

Business Development Executive

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

Britain has around 236 million farmed animals and roughly 22 million cats and dogs. On the RCVS's own figures, 3.2 percent of British vets work in farm practice. Over half work with pets.

Which is why the vet who drives out to Clarkson's Farm has already retired once.

Dilwyn Evans answers the phone whenever it goes and gets in the car. His line about it, to BBC Radio Cymru, is that farmers take a lot of stick from people who imagine the job is four-wheel drives and shooting, when it is weather, animals and market prices and very little else.

This is the country that made All Creatures Great and Small a national institution twice over. Millions of us watched a young vet with his arm inside a cow in the Dales and found it the most reassuring thing on television.

Almost nobody went and did it.

A Zoetis white paper found 46.5 percent of vets working with farm animals want out of the sector, and three quarters of all UK vets had taken time off in the previous year over work-related problems. Rural practices are hardest to staff, for the obvious reasons. Remote, lower paid, worse hours, heavier work.

In June this year a parliamentary committee reported on it. Rural and large-animal practice, consistently underserved. Employers trapped in a permanent cycle of recruitment, retirement and resignation. The profession leaning on overseas vets while immigration rules tighten. Vet schools themselves on a funding model the committee called unsustainable, with a real risk of courses closing.

Meanwhile corporate ownership of British veterinary practices went from around 10 percent in 2013 to nearly 60 percent by 2023, driven by private equity buying up chains. That money went where the customers are, which is dogs, cats and insurance policies.

A farm vet does TB testing, which decides whether a herd lives or dies. Calvings that go wrong at three in the morning. Lambing. Notifiable disease surveillance, which is the only reason anyone in Whitehall knows what is moving through the national herd.

Lose them and the country loses its early warning system on disease, at the exact moment bluetongue is spreading and TB is still shutting farms for months at a time.

There is a man in Wales who retired years ago and still goes out at night, because there is nobody younger coming.

Britain will happily watch a vet on a Sunday evening. It will not pay for one on a Tuesday.

[Seopeng @MolokoSamuels]

I don't have much followers, if anyone knows a guy by the name of Brendon Brendford Jacobs who happen to be at Cape Town International Airport yesterday, his SA passport fell out on the floor at P1 and i handed it over to Acsa. It has Schengen Visa

[Christina Clucas @ChristinaClucas]

@Microinteracti1 I cannot comprehend that a President of the USA posted this? How?

[Christina Clucas @ChristinaClucas]

@metse_K @NoozBebe_ @tlotlo_katlotlo Way more sugar for Nestle!!! And more protein for Woolies. Why are we allowing these high sugar foods products for babies??!!

[Christina Clucas @ChristinaClucas]

@_stainless0_ Kuk

[kgadi♠️ @Kgadi_yaMoloto]

I think my worst fear is about to become a reality,all this will go to waste because I’m struggling to find larger quantity buyers.😭💔😩

[Christina Clucas @ChristinaClucas]

@RediTlhabi No!! We have lost a brilliant, brave voice! This is shocking news 😢

[Sall Grover @salltweets]

All I can say, on the eve of the Giggle v Tickle appeal, is that in my five & a half years in the issue of “men can be women”, I have never once heard a convincing argument that they are.

Not once.

https://t.co/0vsdBdln4x

[Christina Clucas @ChristinaClucas]

@GuguStatu Love your public profiling, you deserve it, we want @GuguStatu reporting thanks 🤩

[Christina Clucas @ChristinaClucas]

@GuguStatu At least Jozi may have constant water supply? I would love a blanket thanks x

[Christina Clucas @ChristinaClucas]

@GuguStatu 🤣

[Brent Lindeque @BrentLindeque]

To the cynics, the “realists” and everyone convinced that a glass can only be half something… this one’s for you.

I read comments. Not because I’m a glutton for punishment but because I actually enjoy connecting with people. I like the engagement. I love the conversations. Even the spicy ones.

But every now and then, I get a little kak thrown my way. Not always because of what I’ve said but often because people can only meet you as deeply as they’ve met themselves. Most days, I scroll on by. I carry on sharing the good stuff, the hope and the light… because I know what it means to people. I know what it means to me.

But today, I want to pause for a moment.

Because someone out there might need to hear this.

This morning, I published a factual story: South Africa has just been ranked one of the best places in the world for British expats to move to. It’s not fluff. It’s not PR spin. It’s real. It happened. Next to Canada and Australia, we are a destination of choice for people from other countries.

That’s some lekker news (for them… and for our tourism… and for our economy). Go South Africa!!! ❤️🇿🇦

Almost immediately, someone replied: “Talk about rose-coloured glasses…”

Ja, I get it. I know about those other headlines babe.

I’m not oblivious to the loadshedding, the potholes, the politics, the poverty, the crime, the corruption, the people leaving and the general heaviness we carry on a day-to-day basis.

I live here too. I’m not wearing rose-tinted anything. I’m just choosing to see the whole picture.

And that includes the good.

Because here’s what I’ve learnt after more than a decade of reporting on good news… of digging through the noise to find the light:

1. Two things can be true at the same time.

South Africa has its fair share of challenges. But we also have brilliance, kindness, resilience and joy. Both can exist at the same time. One doesn’t cancel out the other.

2. There is more to our story.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said, “There’s a danger in a single story.” And she’s right. If we only ever focus on what’s broken, we forget what’s beautiful. We lose sight of what’s working. We stop believing we can fix what’s not.

3. When the news feels the heaviest, we’re least open to the good.

And that’s when we need it most. Hope doesn’t come knocking with bells and whistles. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes it’s buried. But it’s there. I promise you, it’s there.

4. Good news doesn’t disappear when bad things happen.

It’s not on pause. It doesn’t take a break while the world burns. It keeps unfolding in kindness shared, in lives saved and in small acts of bravery and everyday magic. And some people… the really brave ones, choose to rise even higher when things get hard.

5. There is power in choosing light.

Not ignorance. Not delusion. Choice. To look for the helpers. To notice the good. To hold space for joy, even when the world feels chaotic. That’s not weakness… that’s courage.

One of my FAVOURITE quotes comes from Fred Rogers. I repeat this man’s words on a daily basis. On most Fridays on 702. In every Keynote. And every opportunity I get. It has become my mantra… because it is true.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

I believe that deeply. Because they are always there.

But over time, I’ve added my own little revision.

“And if you can’t find a helper… then it is your responsibility to become one.”

Profound hey?

No… it’s just the truth.

So I won’t stop.

I won’t stop writing about the helpers… the good people doing great things. I won’t stop looking for the light. And I won’t stop dealing in hope.

Because I believe in this country.
I believe in its people.
And I believe that even the smallest good thing can make a big difference.

And maybe, just maybe, if we all started seeing it that way… then glass wouldn’t be half anything.

For more good news, visit @GoodThingsGuy.

Okay. Love you. Bye.

[Democratic Alliance @Our_DA]

🏆 The DA-led City of Cape Town reached an all-time record employment level, with 86 000 jobs added in just one year!

📈 Today, 1.8 million people have the dignity of a job in Cape Town! Where the DA governs, economic growth and jobs follow, that’s the #DAdifference

[Olena Rohoza @OlenaRohoza]

Can we get 5000 people to reply " Fuck you, Russia 🇷🇺"?

Yes or No

[Christina Clucas @ChristinaClucas]

@WomenReadWomen So young having to deal with this, shew!

[Bruce Bowman @boswelltoday]

Carol Potter, CEO of NHS Fife, shouldn’t be given the dignity of resigning—she should be fired by @JohnSwinney today.

Under her leadership, a female nurse with 30 years of service is facing the sack for defending single-sex spaces. NHS Fife has become a disgrace, punishing women for refusing compelled speech.

Swinney, if you actually care about fairness, sack Potter now. If you don’t, you own this.

[Christina Clucas @ChristinaClucas]

@GuguStatu This is enough! Please can I implore you to go see Dr Ganchi at Sunningdale, he saved my ex-husband’s life when all “specialists” could not understand and sent him down many wrong paths,he is gentle, kind and leaves no stone unturned searching for your healing ❤️‍🩹

[Brighton Women's Liberation Collective @SistersSalon2]

As long as 'the boys are having fun'........

........ the girls, less so...

The Afghan women's team is exiled & abandoned by the @ICC whilst the men's team receives their funding...
#ItsJustNotCricket #BoycottEnglandVAfghanistan @Trotty @josbuttler #BoycottTheICC @ECB_cricket

[Christina Clucas @ChristinaClucas]

@GuguStatu I am so sorry for the loss of faithful, beautiful Lola, very painful for you 🥹