Colin Sturrock

Still going strong since '73. Cricket tragic, long time Palace fan & family man

[Vinnie Sullivan @VinnieSull1van]

Ronnie, the smiling, polite rag-and-bone discussing the poverty and difficulties of his job during an interview in 1966. Despite his hardships, his charming cockney accent and polite manner still outweigh the majority of those in today's world. ⏳️

[Surrey Cricket @surreycricket]

Sir Garfield Sobers, one of the greatest to grace our wonderful game.

Sobers scored 249 runs and took 12 wickets in four Test matches at the Oval, and was a regular visitor at the ground after retiring.

We send our best wishes to his friends and family.

[Widmerpool Appreciation Society @AtticumFloreat]

Well, sir, on scoring the first goal, I naturally ordered the team to park the bus and then lost 2-1; that's my style, sir!

[Joe Wicks @thebodycoach]

Come on @England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🙌

(Sound on 📣) #England @FIFAWorldCup @FA

[Rod Emmerson @rodemmerson]

In today’s NZ Herald

[Intellectual Embargo @IntellectEmbarg]

And this isn't new either, people in the 80s and 90s knew this, it was even in the Simpsons. But rather than portraying Apu as a foreigner taking advantage of intellectually vulnerable people, his blatant disregard for his new community's wellbeing is just sort of a fun curiosity. And Homer is the real idiot for having allowed himself to be taken advantage of.

After Apu loses his job, the Simpsons let him stay with them and they fight for him to get rehired at the Kwik-E-Mart.

[Hidden History @HiddenHistoryYT]

There was a Royal Navy captain in WW2 whose real name was Johnnie Walker.

In 1939 the Navy had given up on him. Passed over for promotion, marked down by his own superiors, quietly being pushed toward early retirement. His career was a dead end.

Then the Atlantic turned into a graveyard. German U-boats were sinking Allied ships faster than they could be built, sailors were drowning in the thousands, and Britain was months from being starved into surrender. Suddenly the Navy remembered the one man who had spent years obsessing over exactly how to kill a submarine.

They finally gave him a ship. He became the deadliest U-boat hunter who has ever lived.

He didn't wait for U-boats to attack. He invented tactics to go get them. His "creeping attack" had one ship silently guide another over the target so the submarine crew couldn't hear death coming until the depth charges were already sinking toward them.

When he charged into battle he blasted "A-Hunting We Will Go" over the loudspeakers. He revived "General Chase," an attack signal so old it hadn't been flown since Nelson's day. And when depth charges weren't enough, he simply drove his ship straight over a surfaced U-boat and rammed it under.

His group once sank 6 U-boats in a single patrol. He helped clear the English Channel so the entire D-Day invasion fleet could cross safely. He was decorated four times, one of the most honored officers in the Royal Navy.

And he carried all of it while broken with grief. In 1943 his own son, a young submariner, was killed when his sub was lost in the Mediterranean. Walker got the news and went straight back to sea to keep hunting.

In the end the war didn't kill him. The work did. Years of standing on that bridge in every storm, refusing to rest, burned him out completely. He collapsed from a stroke and died at 48. The doctors called it exhaustion.

They carried his coffin through the streets of Liverpool while a thousand people stood in silence. Then a warship took him out past the harbor and buried him in the same Atlantic he had spent his life defending.

Uncounted thousands of sailors made it home because of him. His statue still stands on the Liverpool waterfront today, facing the sea, watching for submarines that will never come again.

His name was Johnnie Walker. Don't ever forget it.

[Homer’s Best Bits @HomersBestBits]

Season 6 Episode 11

[No Context World Cup @NoContextEPL]

This is absolutely brilliant. 😂

Couldn’t stop laughing when Pickford appeared. 😭

[The Free Speech Union @SpeechUnion]

Lisa Nandy and Lucy Powell are leading Labour’s tinpot free speech crackdown.

The two senior Labour figures — Lucy Powell and Lisa Nandy — are working in lockstep to bring social media companies to heel and muzzle people who wish to point out the Government’s failures.

Last week, Lisa Nandy flounced off X, taking her department with her. The Secretary of State responsible for media called the spread of misinformation and disinformation a threat to democracy and free speech, then vacated the stage. If Nandy really did care about misinformation, surely she should have stayed on the platform and engaged in debate?

This dramatic move came just a week after she announced plans in the House of Commons, as part of the Government’s Green Paper, to force social media companies to prioritise and promote what they deem to be “trustworthy” news sources.

Now, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party Lucy Powell is pushing for greater restrictions on social media during election periods. Her proposals would see private citizens treated like broadcasters and could result in the censorship of those who wish to engage in political debate online. Will we see private citizens — both domestic and foreign — hauled before Ofcom to answer for their tweets?

Gareth Roberts writes that “these plans feel like the activities of a failing, flailing kleptocracy of the last century”. He adds: “It turns out that the hard-won freedoms of the British people – achieved by reformers and free thinkers long dead – are to be ended not by legions of brutes rolling down Regent Street in tanks, but by a gaggle of gormless supply teachers. Where Goebbels failed, Miss Hoolie from Balamory has triumphed.

“The nerve of the Labour Party trying to muzzle its political opponents – under an obviously spurious claim of public safety – is disorienting. Nobody can quite believe their audacity, the absence of a scintilla of self-awareness.”

This is a full-fledged assault on our right to free speech and open political debate. Gareth writes: “A propagandist of communism or fascism at least states openly that they are manufacturing a narrative for ideological control. The truly terrifying thought about Labour is that Nandy and Powell genuinely think that their worldview, such as it is, is the only correct one.

“We are, then, to have our public square adjudicated by the very same people who thought that rapists should be housed in women’s prisons (Nandy), and that mere mention of the unshiftable moral stain of the Pakistani rape gangs was ‘getting a little dog whistle out’ (Powell).”

Read more below 👇

[Mr. T @MrT]

Hey Rocky Balboa, I mean, Sly @TheSlyStallone I hear today is your Birthday! Well, Happy Birthday Brother, God bless you and thanks for everything!

[J&L Historical @Jason_R_Burt]

In late 1944 on Saipan, the crew of B-29 Superfortress “Waddy’s Wagon” stripped to the waist and posed for a now-iconic photo — duplicating the wild, irreverent nose art on their bomber.

The cartoon showed caricatures of the men crammed into a wagon, pulled along by their pilot, Captain Walter “Waddy” Young, a former All-American football star & College Football Hall of Famer from Ponca City, Oklahoma.

It captured the spirit of these young airmen: tough, funny, and ready for whatever came next.

On January 9, 1945, during a mission to bomb the Nakajima Musashino aircraft factory near Tokyo, “Waddy’s Wagon” never made it home.

While returning from the target, the crew spotted a badly damaged B-29, “Miss Behavin’,” flown by a friend & hit hard by Japanese fighters.

Instead of continuing on to safety, Captain Waddy Young & his men turned back. They flew close to protect the crippled bomber & help guide it out of the danger zone amid ongoing fighter attacks.

Their plane was hit. Accounts describe them descending near Choshi Point off the Japanese coast, possibly after a collision or battle damage.

The last radio transmission from “Waddy’s Wagon” was simple and steady: “We are okay.”

All eleven crew members were lost at sea. No trace of the plane or the men was ever found.

Waddy Young & his crew paid the ultimate price while trying to save their fellow airmen.

Young was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his courage that day.

These were the men behind the famous photo. Ordinary men with extraordinary courage who never got to go home.

[BBC Breakfast @BBCBreakfast]

While millions of football fans watched England beat Mexico 3-2 in the World Cup, one school in Wiltshire is watching the whole match this morning with 400 children who don't know the result.

On #BBCBreakfast this was the moment England were leading 2-1, and then Harry Kane took a penalty

https://t.co/I0SUmvWh90

[James Owen @owensweden]

Folk feeding the trout today in a crystal clear chalkstream (a side stream of the River Test) in Stockbridge, England

[Andrew Gold @AndrewGold_ok]

The government is introducing plans that could force social media to prioritise ‘legacy channels’ in their algorithms. I’m actually staggered they’re being this brazen. This is disgusting.

More than ever, we need @elonmusk to put his foot down. Social media companies must tell the UK they refuse to be part of its increasingly authoritarian rule.

That would work: The prospect of a China-like block on X, Meta and YouTube is the only thing that might stop these Orwellian illiberals.

Read the proposed legislation in the reply and reply to the email there with feedback. Don’t send abuse - they’ll ignore that. Make reasoned impassioned arguments about the importance of independent media.

Just imagine how they’d react if Trump were doing this! I’m going to put some of the most enraging parts in the replies. Share this far and wide, we need a lot of help to save this country from a very real totalitarian dystopia.

[Dr Helen Ingram @drhingram]

This is why the UK is pushing to heavily regulate or ban X. Without it, many of us would remain unaware of what’s really happening on the streets. But one viral post and the authorities are shamed into taking action. How inconvenient for them.

[Katharine Birbalsingh @Miss_Snuffy]

This ‘Proud of Us’ video on slavery is well worth your time.

They have many other videos telling historical truths that are often kept from us

This is not just for kids!

All of us should watch them! 👍

[All The Right Movies @ATRightMovies]

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY on finding out SAM SHEPARD had left us. A class act as usual.

[Jim Moir @JamesMoir10]

55 years later, me and my late great Dad and me are still looking for Patterdale

[Cricketopia @CricketopiaCom]

Happy Birthday Sir Richard Hadlee, New Zealand's Greatest All Rounder

He was the first bowler to take 400 test wickets

In 1985-86, he took 33 wickets against Australia at an average of 12.15 which helped New Zealand to win their first test series in Australia.

All 33 wickets👇🏼