Doug Hook

Likes healthy food, decent coffee & Radio 4. Blogging about life since retiring in mid 50s. Christian, hopeful & optimistic. Blogs at

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

Could this telegram from 1923 could be the start of a novel? @sallyjenkinsuk
https://t.co/J0Ppc8a8kt

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

@EuanDuncan4 are you available for meeting / phone call sometime? Could be worth you looking at a Cllr who is consistently absent and ignores residents, yet claims allowance. This is Central Beds issue, I have some FOI info..

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

@HistoricEngland So good to know these modest houses are protected. Even now in 2025 we have a housing crisis. Food for thought….

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

@sallyjenkinsuk I’ve tried as well and you’re right - it’s not easy to begin with!

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

@bedspolice anti social parking High Street North in Dunstable right now. BMW reg S30MEO

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

@sallyjenkinsuk And a happy bank holiday to you too! I had a blog reader come to visit me, this is only the second time I’ve met one of my readers (other than friends of course).

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

Are sentences getting longer?
https://t.co/xgxLtQm28M

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

Why July has now become my favourite month and how, unexplainably, I feel so healthy. Plus our ferns are also doing especially well these days https://t.co/stvVTnlkQS

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

@sallyjenkinsuk Not at all! We have some raspberries coming on and I’m looking forward to scoffing them.

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

@Blake_MidBeds As an ordinary member of the public, I don’t have the info to make much of a decision. However we probably need both. Besides, how are the 30 new hospitals coming on, as promised by Boris?

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

@sallyjenkinsuk @RNAtweets That must have been a fortune at the time - wow!

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

@DunstableCAB I overstayed at a Forestry Commission carpark and got fined. The letter from the parking company had the wrong info, plus all kinds of fees for paying. I complained to the Forestry Commission and they instructed the company to give me a refund. Good result!

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

@SteveFlemingM9 @fred_whitton I remember that bend very well, even after 11 years! Fabulous photo by the way.

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

@sallyjenkinsuk You are definitely not alone. Chocolate Hobnobs also help.

[Dunstable Citizens Advice @DunstableCAB]

If you’re struggling with the cost of living, you should check if you can claim benefits or increase your current benefits.

You might be able to claim certain benefits even if you work, have savings or own a home.

Our advice can help ⤵️
https://t.co/auhqFrvkCc

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

@BBC3CR What a lovely story for you to post. We need a few more like this.

[Lew Anno Support#USA#NATO#Ukraine 24/2-22 @anno1540]

Wałęsa condemns Trump treatment of Zelensky, likening it to communist interrogation

Former Polish president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Wałęsa has written a letter, co-signed by 38 other former political prisoners of Poland’s communist regime, to Donald Trump, condemning the US president’s treatment of Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine.
Mar 3, 2025
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Former President of Poland Lech Wałęsa wrote the following letter to Donald Trump:

"Your Excellency, Mr. President,

We watched your conversation with President Zelensky with fear and distaste. It is insulting that you expect Ukraine to show gratitude for U.S. material aid in its fight against russia.

Gratitude is owed to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who have been shedding their blood for over 11 years to defend the free world’s values and their homeland, attacked by Putin’s russia.

How can the leader of a country symbolizing the free world fail to recognize this?

The Oval Office atmosphere during your conversation reminded us of interrogations by the Security Services and Communist courts. Back then, prosecutors told us they held all the power while we had none.

They stripped us of our freedoms for refusing to cooperate or express gratitude for our oppression. We are shocked that President Zelensky was treated in a similar manner.

History shows that when the U.S. distanced itself from democratic values and its European allies, it ultimately endangered itself.

Wilson understood this in 1917 when the U.S. joined WWI. Roosevelt knew it after Pearl Harbor in 1941—realizing that defending America meant fighting in both the Pacific & Europe.

Without President Reagan and U.S. financial support, the Soviet empire’s collapse would not have been possible. Reagan called the USSR an “Empire of Evil” and confronted it decisively.

We won, and today, his statue stands in Warsaw, facing the U.S. Embassy.

Mr. President, military and financial aid cannot be equated with the blood shed for Ukraine’s independence and the freedom of Europe and the world.

Human life is priceless. Gratitude is due to those who sacrifice their blood and freedom—something self-evident to us, former political prisoners of the communist regime under Soviet russia.

We urge the U.S. to uphold the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which established a direct obligation to defend Ukraine’s borders in exchange for giving up nuclear weapons.

These guarantees are unconditional—nowhere do they suggest such aid is a mere economic transaction."

Signed,
Lech Wałęsa, former political prisoner, Solidarity leader, President of Poland
https://t.co/x6YPcAV2ZA

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

@sallyjenkinsuk @Uber Whenever I need a taxi I use the Uber app - it’s so easy, fixed price even if the journey takes longer. Have used it in several countries too!

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

@Halfords_uk It was Dunstable in Bedfordshire

[Doug Hook @TheCycleHub_net]

Yet again @Halfords_uk Dunstable disappoints. I went to buy @autoglym products ‘buy one get one half price’. At the till I queried why I was being over charged. The offer had expired, staff didn’t care but did take the sign down. You don’t deserve customers with that attitude.