Martin I remember the piece you wrote when Covid hit and for my partner and I it made us feel 'heard'. I have followed you ever since and appreciate your warts and all updates. Wishing you luck and strength as you fight battles on all fronts.

Big Oil and offshore Britain How Big Oil reaps in the profits while avoiding contributions to the public good by using Britain's network of offshore tax havens.

Big Oil companies, including shell and BP, making mega profits from Iran war but abusing tax system by using UK's network of secretive offshore tax havens.

HMRC does special deals but does not disclose

Staff from oil companies, tax dodge industry seconded to HMRC.

Govts squeeze normal people.

Rachel Reeves warns other budgets may be cut to lift defence spending Chancellor says she is ‘working through a range of options’ to boost the armed forces but does not want to put up taxes

Rachel Reeves warns other budgets may be cut to lift defence spending.

Hitting the old, sick, disabled, public services doesn't produce a resilient society. How many will die?

Govt created £895bn QE to rescue banks, why not the same to rebuild society?

2010-2025: HMRC didn't collect £500bn tax.

I hope you get a treat each time it is done

Oh no. I hope things go well for you

🙏 Just a new dressing for you

Please get well soon Martin and arrive at the best solution for you all 🙏

"The Vale dropped 'Burslem' and headed for Hanley"

'The Lost Football Ground' #TheHighClearing

@ianrpearsall.bsky.social @philshallcross.bsky.social @minxyowlwriter.bsky.social @barewall.bsky.social

📸 Steven Wallace

Ranyard nurses” established by Ellen Ranyard were very active on the Home Front during #WW1 particularly with poorer families. Duties included referrals to doctors and hospitals, inspecting infants in mother’s meetings, and encouraging medical self-help among the poor
#NursingHistory

Community Drop-In Event (Worcester 1) - Birth Stories — Worcester Medical Museums COMMUNITY DROP-IN EVENT SHARE YOUR BIRTH STORIES Events are being held across Worcestershire to hear mothers’ memories of pregnancy and birth through the decades! Drop in at one of the following ...

Do you have a birth story? Free Friday 20 March 10:30am to 12:30pm? We'll be at Forge Mill Needle Museum to collect more of the county's birth stories. We look forward to seeing you there to play some games and have a cuppa while we listen. medicalmuseum.org.uk/whats-on/202...

Aw my Dad was the tank expert

Four activities from the ‘what to make’ books including a cotton reel snake, puppet, tractor and tank

Wooden cotton reels and what to do with them. Some Ladybird suggestions.

Artists: G Robinson, Robert Ayton

March sees the return of bumblebee queens as they emerge from hibernation – here are some of the common species you can spot this month 👀

Have you spotted your first bumblebee of 2026?

🔎 Brush up on your bumblebee identification skills: https://ow.ly/af3U50Yi2iq

#SmallpoxSunday @LadyWortleyMontagu promoted #Vaccination in Britain saving millions of lives and eventually the elimination of #smallpox. Her #memorial in entrance to @LichfieldCathedral

My latest blog on a TFNS medal recipient is way more interesting than my title sounds!Violet left a comfortable life in the NE for decades of nursing service in the war and later among the poor in East London - awarded 3 medals
#WW1 #NursingHistory #WomensHistory

historicalclues.blogspot.com/2026/

Donor suspended from Tories pays £50,000 for dinner with Kemi Badenoch Exclusive: Rami Ranger, who was suspended temporarily in 2023, makes successful bid at party fundraising event

Donor suspended from Tories pays £50,000 for dinner with Kemi Badenoch.

That is 2+ years of minimum wage.

Monies at this scale are paid to buy influence and favours.

Criminalizing purchase/sale of political parties and legislators is a necessary step for ending political corruption.

A beautifully vivid, realistic illustration of a WPC standing directing traffic

The modern world in old Ladybird books.
“Nowadays there are police women as well as policemen. Every force has at least one or two” (1962)
Artist: John Berry

We need to get serious about tackling corruption through political donations The government's reforms are welcome but they won't end political corruption

Political donations ensure that interests of the super-rich are writ large in govt policies.

Capital gains & dividends are taxed at lower marginal rates than wages. No NIC is levied.

Income of private equity bosses taxed as capital gains.

Bribery pays but normal people can't play the game.

So many examples of living heritage at the seaside!
All the things in this image and much, much more.
Please do show your support via the quick and easy form
Thank you 😊

DWP permanent secretary to step down after carer’s allowance scandal Peter Schofield tells staff he will leave the department for personal reasons

Presided over a system that drove vulnerable people to feeling suicidal

www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Walter Amphlett - Outside the Asylum — Worcester Medical Museums

For those of you eager for our next instalment of family history of patients at the asylum in Worcestershire, Maddie has recently sent us this research about Walter Amphlett, one of the few patients who had their photograph taken while in the asylum.

medicalmuseum.org.uk/outside-the-...

It has a large marble bowl on a central shaft supported by four further shafts. The figures/angels represent the rivers of Paradise. Tall openwork cover of wrought iron was added in 1881.

St Mary Abbots Church, Kensington, #London

The #Victorian font is by Farmer & Brindley.
It has a large marble bowl on a central shaft supported by four further shafts. The figures/angels represent the rivers of Paradise.
Tall openwork cover of wrought iron was added in 1881.

#FontsOnFriday

Ellen Cull - Outside the Asylum — Worcester Medical Museums

Volunteer Sandra has been trying to find out more about Ellen Cull, admitted to the asylum in July 1906. This one was tricky, as it was hard to find the right Ellen in the records. Sandra has written it all up for us and it's shared on the usual page:

medicalmuseum.org.uk/outside-the-...

Royal Mail delivered Christmas letters and parcels late to about 16m people ‘No light at the end of the tunnel for consumers’ as 2025 figure is 50% higher than previous year, says Citizens Advice

Privatisation Curse.

Royal Mail delivered Xmas letters/parcels late to 16m people.

2025 figure is 50% higher than previous year.

RM doesn't meet targets.

Price Now: Ist class stamp £1.70; 2nd class 87p.
When privatised in 2013: 1st class 60p; 2nd class 50p.

‘Lots of people don’t want to do it’: Paul Nurse on his controversial second term as Royal Society president The Nobel prize winner discusses claims of a ‘boys’ club’, Elon Musk’s fellowship and rightwing attacks on science

Sir Paul Nurse is an impressive scientist but what the Royal Society needs is Dorothy Bishop to take the helm and clean the place out. Fellows who bring the Society into disrepute need tougher action than himpathy.

www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

In the foreground is a cluster of Winter plants, fruit and foliage, including Holly, Ivy and thistles. These are set before a simple snow scene background with a distant village

‘January’ (Shell Guide, Flowers of the Countryside, 1955)

Artists: Edith and Rowland Hilder

DD Mum's favourite tipple

@annaische.bsky.social

‘It’s an open invasion’: how millions of quagga mussels changed Lake Geneva for ever The molluscs are decimating food chains in Switzerland, have devastated the Great Lakes in the US, and this week were spotted in Northern Ireland for the first time

I didn't realise quagga mussels were so utterly devastating.

Sounds like Lough Erne may be changed forever, and presumably, all Irish lakes within a couple of years.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

We’re Witnessing the Fall of Public Health… and Your Best Tool is a Mask Measles in Texas, bird flu in Louisiana, tuberculosis in Kansas and Covid everywhere. Public health has been dying a slow death for years, we can’t count on it anymore. What can we count on? A mask!

A lot of people are sick right now.

Flu and Covid are raging, but the good news is a well fitted respirator can prevent both!

A good mask like an N95 is very effective at stopping flu and Covid.

My article looks at how to choose one, how to fit test, where to buy & more.

Mask up & save lives!