Jane Hide

[Jane Hide @HideJane]

@BBCSteveR Happy birthday Valentina, we miss you!

[Jane Hide @HideJane]

@TheRealWoldrew @PoppyLegion @UponTyneNews Have you tried SSAFA?

[Jane Hide @HideJane]

@WalkerMarcus Was told by my GP surgery that ‘we don’t do eyes’. Had to ring a number and a very bored person with a checklist in front of her finally got an optometrist to call me. Had to send photos of my eye and then was recommended to buy £27 worth of medications

[Jane Hide @HideJane]

@visitnorthyork The government

[Jane Hide @HideJane]

@BiancoDavinci @Marikacobbold And you can catch the little Circumetna train here to travel around Etna

[Pete North @FUDdaily]

Winding down the Red Arrows is part of a broader retreat of the armed forces from public life. The Royal Tournament was once a pillar of British culture, as was the great British airshow. There used to be a dozen RAF station open days, but now there is only one official RAF airshow - at which the F35 makes only a cursory appearance, and most of the line up is classic aircraft in private hands. We have stopped showcasing our military. It plays no real part in boyhood anymore - and then the same pinheaded accountant class wonder why nobody wants to join the forces and any sense of national unity is collapsing.

They stopped the Royal Navy's Yeovilton Air Day because of Covid and then never re-started it, and I struggle to think of any military events north of the M62. The BBMF seldom ventures north of Bradford, and the main RAF presence is RIAT which is hundreds of miles away for most people, and costs £70 per adult. The airshow tradition is mainly upheld by small independent events, and though they are excellent, young people don't get the experience of being on an active military base. By the time I was of military age, I'd already been to RAF Valley, Cosford, Leeming, Culdrose, Alconbury, Finningley and Waddington.

Because of this, while I never joined the armed forces, I have maintained a lifelong appreciation for the armed forces and take a keen intertest in defence affairs. Politically, we suffer from defence illiteracy, and we're making it worse because defence of the realm is not integrated into public life.

cc: @thinkdefence @UKDefJournal

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

A farmer dies in April 2026.

His son inherits the farm. The farm has been in the family since 1847.

The farm consists of: 300 acres of grazing pasture, a farmhouse built in 1892, a barn, a milking parlour, two tractors of varying ages, a Land Rover that runs about 70% of the time, and a herd of 180 Hereford-cross cattle.

On paper, the farm is worth approximately £3.2 million. This is because land near him has been bought recently by a London hedge fund looking for carbon credits, which has dragged the comparable value of every field within forty miles upward to a number nobody local can justify.

In cash, the farm produces a profit of about £28,000 a year in a good year. In a bad year it loses money. The son also works as a fencing contractor three days a week to keep the operation viable.

The inheritance tax bill on a £3.2 million estate, even at the reduced 20% rate, comes to approximately £140,000 after the increased threshold is applied. The son does not have £140,000. The son has never had £140,000. The son has £4,200 in his current account and an overdraft.

The son sells 60 acres to a developer to pay the tax. The developer puts solar panels on the 60 acres. The remaining herd cannot be sustained on the reduced land. The herd is sold. The barn becomes a holiday let.

A different family eats Brazilian beef this Christmas without knowing why the price went up.

The Treasury collects £140,000.

The land never produces British food again.

[FarmingUK @FarmingUK]

“As we drive around our farm picking up these paper lanterns - that our cows try to eat - we ask you to find something better to do to support your causes.

“There is wire inside the paper that will get on their stomach and kill them

“Donate money directly to your cause please, instead of lanterns or balloons!”

📸 Karen McCartin Foster

[Jane Hide @HideJane]

@bagshaw2112 Married that year. Cost of 3course lunch with wine and champagne for 20 people - £88.65!

[Jane Hide @HideJane]

@alexs_journey Good luck

[Jane Hide @HideJane]

@Mr_Husky1 @Hendja We visited Ottawa during the tulip festival, absolutely stupendous. Were there to visit memorial to FIL, RAF pilot killed in flying accident during WW2. It was alongside a memorial to Dutch soldiers who had lost their lives and she had left a beautiful bouquet

[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

[Mr PitBull Stories @MrPitbull07]

Roald Dahl on Measles: Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

'Are you feeling all right?' I asked her.

'I feel all sleepy,' she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was...in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her. On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunised against measles.

...I dedicated two of my books to Olivia, the first was ‘James and the Giant Peach’. That was when she was still alive. The second was ‘The BFG’, dedicated to her memory after she had died from measles. You will see her name at the beginning of each of these books. And I know how happy she would be if only she could know that her death had helped to save a good deal of illness and death among other children.

[Jane Hide @HideJane]

@alexs_journey Good luck! Wonderful shots of Poole Harbour

[Jane Hide @HideJane]

@HSBC_UK Have noticed a magazine subscription to Hearst yesterday which I have not signed up to. Please advise how to deal

[Jane Hide @HideJane]

Just back from a splendid visit @museumwales for the Gwen John exhibition, a lifetime favourite artist. Wonderful hanging of fantastic collection with informative notes, letters and sketchbooks. Well done! Do visit if in Cardiff

[Edward Burnett @edwardburnettt]

The amazing sound of the Magdalen College Choir this May Morning in Oxford 👏 🎓

[Jane Hide @HideJane]

@SisterWalburga Congratulations Sisters! We celebrated 50 years of marriage this weekend!

[Jane Hide @HideJane]

@SirPatStew Perfect on our 50th wedding anniversary

[Jane Hide @HideJane]

@Matt_Pinner 50 years ago today