John Grayson

[John Grayson @johnlentil1]

I am a small business owner who trades with EU countries. Trading after a No Deal exit from the EU will be literally impossible. Income down, jobs lost....

[Craig Smith @Craig011011]

If I was a small business owner who trades with the EU, I would just read this as 'okay, we're screwed!'. There is no other way to describe it, a #NoDealBrexit is plain and simply stupid!

[Damian Low @DamianLow3]

A slightly painful reminder of why the NHS matters

I ended up in A&E at the Whittington for much more of my Thursday night than I planned after dislocating my thumb playing football. There was a long wait, an X-ray and eventually someone popping it back into place.

Having time to sit there and think, once I was past my initial frustration of waiting, was a reminder of why, despite the challenges it faces, we should still feel incredibly proud of the NHS. You walk in because something has gone wrong and people are there to help you. Doctors, nurses and staff working through the night and dealing with people with far more patience than I fear I have!

We hear a lot about what is wrong with the NHS. That means we risk forgetting how extraordinary the basic idea still is and how incredible the people who keep it going are. When you need medical help, it is there for you, regardless of what you earn. That is something pretty amazing and worth protecting, improving and being proud of.

A massive thank you to everyone at the Whittington who looked after me last night. P.S. I’ll spare you the photo. Nobody needs that.

[John Grayson @johnlentil1]

@GoreGahan1 Procol Harum
The McGarrigle Sisters
The Rolling Stones
The Band
Khruangbin
Television
Caravan
Bob Marley and the Wailers
Love
Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes

[Phil @primarily_prog]

A Procol Harum evening …

[Fietser @AmericanFietser]

A weeks worth of groceries, including two boxes of formula by bike? No, you don't need a car for that, just some enabling infrastructure and a bike designed for the task.

We don't expect everyone to live this way, but we do expect cities to enable the decision if people make it.

[Ian L Richardson @ianrich15813274]

Another terrible tragedy in the Channel & none of the 3 dead are 'fighting age men.' Two 30 year old women and a 10 year old child, gone because they sought a better life in a wealthy country that is incapable of managing a humane system of asylum applications & effectively forces desperate people onto unsafe vessels run by crooks. Rather than outrage about migrants, we should feel deep shame about our handling of this. Of course, such comments set me up for vile abuse, no matter, I'm guided by good people like Pope Leo, not ill-informed hate.

[Fietser @AmericanFietser]

One of these is an oversized, elitist mobility vehicle. The other is an e-cargo bike. One tears up our local infrastructure and is a threat to people outside of it. The other weaves into the urban fabric, accomplishing a lot and asks for very little.

[John Grayson @johnlentil1]

@dgriffinpix @DerbyshireCCC @WorcsCCC Please keep it up, David. County cricket is a marvellous and underrated thing

[⚒️ 🫧 Edgware Hammer 🫧 ⚒️ @NWLondonHammer]

With the international break now firmly here, can I make a plea (especially those with children) to visit to your local non-league club.

They will be playing this weekend & deserve all the support you can give them. Tickets are cheap, venue local, football will have lots of goals, & no VAR. What's not to like?

https://t.co/yiqgyEr3S1

[Front Foot Cricket @FrontFootCric]

Absolutley loved the One Day Cup this year. Not in spite of anything, not in contrast to anything, not in comparison to anything.

It was just a brilliant tournament in its own right. Just a joyous love of cricket.

Well done to Middlesex for winning it!

[Florence Lox 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @floboflo]

The decent patriotic silent majority has to stand up against the furlough frauding, tax avoiding, race baiting, women hating, cocaine using, domestic abusing, twats with bum bags, Nazi scumbags.

[Paddy Briggs 🇪🇺 🇵🇸 🏳️‍🌈🇬🇱 🇪🇸 🇨🇦 @PaddyBriggs]

To call the characters and behaviour of the “Royals” a Soap Opera is a bit of a cliché. But the series “The Crown” worked perfectly as a sort of posh “Eastenders”. The overwhelming learning was of a shallow family whose only claim to fame was that they were born into (or married into) privilege. The only one of them that successfully competed on a level playing field with normal people was Anne on her horse (good for her).

This is where the obligation for deference becomes unsupportable. The sight of an elected Prime Minister kowtowing to one of them was particularly repellent. But there was a symbolism here. To be impressed by genuine achievement is healthy and commendable. To show admiration for someone solely because of the accident of their birth is not.

When countries become republics, however shaky the democracy may be, they abandon the absurd contention of birthright. Some monarchists argue that to have a non-political Royal head of state is preferable because oh his/her neutrality. But if that Head of State comes randomly from a very narrow cohort it’s very risky. To cite the late Queen to prove that Monarchy works is specious. Edward VIII was a horror , and we could have had a King Andrew if there’d been a fatal virus to carry of the Queen and her elder son during the 22 years when Andrew was second in line to the throne!

The amount of media coverage the current spat between the Windsors and the Spencers is getting makes us look ridiculous. The revelations about Andrew should make us question the whole idea of inherited wealth and power. And in public the Royals’ behaviour often makes it look as if we’re stuck in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Then there’s the institutionalised lies and cover ups. We don’t hear about gay members of the Royals, but they’ve been some of course. Or how the late Queen’s consort lived much of the time with his mistress. But he did.

There are encouraging signs that the public is becoming weary of the Soap Opera, but don’t hold your breath. They hang on.

[Matthias Oomen 🏳️‍🌈💚🇪🇺 @OomenBerlin]

Ich glaube, ein Steinzeitmensch würde uns weder um Handys noch um Strom, Verkehrsmittel oder Nahrung im Überfluss beneiden. Am meisten würde ihn wohl etwas anderes beeindrucken: dass unsere Kinder im Regelfall das Erwachsenenalter erreichen.

Welch ein Glück das doch ist.

[The Extreme Football Enthusiast @ExtremeFootbal4]

I was against VAR from the start. The game wasn’t broken. There were howlers, yeah, and everyone remembers the bad ones, but there weren’t enough of them to justify turning every match into a ten-minute argument with a telly in Stockley Park. Football had always had mistakes. That was part of it. You moaned on the way home and then you got on with it. Instead we decided the odd injustice was so unbearable we had to invent a whole new way of ruining the night.
Let the referee be God. That’s the bit people don’t like saying out loud anymore. Give him the decision, live with it, and show him a bit of respect instead of treating him like a clerk waiting for a phone call. The more we tried to sand every error out of the game, the smaller the ref became. Now he’s standing there like a spare part while someone miles away tells him whether a toe was offside. That’s not progress. That’s just fear of being wrong.
And it still doesn’t even work cleanly. We still argue, we still get daft decisions, we just wait longer for them. The joy’s gone out of a goal because nobody celebrates properly until three blokes have drawn lines on a screen. If we’d just backed the ref a bit more and accepted that sport is messy, we wouldn’t be here. The game was never perfect. It didn’t need this.

[Dave Rice @ricey63]

Why the hell are fans, players, coach's, manager's and club officials putting up with this shit?
It's time for all of is to make a stand and cut out the disease that is VAR.
#VARout

[WHU_EastEndPride @WHUEastEndPride]

Football belongs to the fans.
If there was a genuine fan referendum on whether VAR should be removed from football, I honestly believe the result would be unanimous: YES.
The game is ours. Maybe it’s time the fans had a say. ⚽️
@premierleague @SkySportsPL @FA @footballontnt

[Annemarie Dray @AnnemarieDray]

VAR has ruined football. Sorry.

[Chris Lennon @christofflennon]

How is it possible for VAR to get things so wrong week after week after week?

Ruining football. Just get rid.

[Uber West Ham @UberWestHam]

One month in the Championship makes you realise how little football needs VAR.

You can celebrate a goal and no ridiculous wait time for lines to be drawn.

Bin it, @premierleague.

[Sam @SamCKx]

When Reform eventually collapse under the weight of corruption, lawlessness and infighting, it’ll be even more satisfying to know they did so after 2 guys spent £72 million trying to buy our democracy.