‘Cognitive surrender’ is a good description of what’s already happening.

What makes for a good building? 🏘️ 🏛️

We get asked this a lot by community leaders who:
🔸 need affordable space for their idea or project
🔸 want to make that space a long-term community asset
🔸 want to see multiple local buildings transformed for local benefit

So what should you be looking for? 💡

“Community ownership is helping to protect essential services, create jobs and breathe new life into towns and villages.” In Orkney, three churches are now under community ownership and are being used as visitor centres and events spaces. Hoy Youth Club is hoping to make St Columba’s Church the fourth; it is seeking o…

theorkneynews.scot/2026/04/13/c...

Fascinating and makes so much more sense than trying to explain mistakes in a designed creation

Five tips to make your memory work more effectively From putting your phone away to getting better at ‘chunking’, a neuroscience researcher explains how to make your memory better.

From putting your phone away to getting better at ‘chunking’, a neuroscience researcher explains how to make your memory better.

It may seem like nerdy detail that the increasing weight of cars is worsening potholes, but it matters.

The car makers push to sell wider and heavier cars is increasing road maintenance costs and that affects us all.

Not to mention worse crash outcomes and less space to pass (wider) parked cars.

I baulked at the idea of ‘friction-maxxing’. But there’s more to it than meets the eye | Gaby Hinsliff Self-help hacks such as ‘cooking from scratch’ or ‘meeting your friends’ may seem ridiculous. But there’s something deeply human at the heart of this trend, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff

Take Back Control (of your brain) www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Close the US bases. Deny them airspace. Enough is enough. Stop any support to Israel. These are not the good guys any more. We need to be independent from the USA, and build an independent foreign and defence policy. Even when Trump goes he has exposed an intolerable weakness in us.

Good skills for any leader, but especially if they have any red buttons in or near their office.

Sane, kind, intelligent politicians from the US doing good things. Thank you for the #hope.

Starmer should immediately & unequivocally ban access to British airspace to US warplanes. The UK should not be accomplice to a US President who is threatening more war crimes. Period.

Too many drivers see road safety rules as a personal affront. It’s time to tighten up UK laws | Sally Kyd Two court cases last month illustrate how confusion over legal definitions are feeding into a culture of poor driving standards, says law professor Sally Kyd

"Even when drivers commit blatant breaches of the law, enforcement is patchy and inconsistent, thanks to roads policing having been cut to the bone.

And every attempt to tighten the rules is met with cries of a 'war on motorists'. This narrative must end."

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Line chart showing atmospheric CO₂ concentration at Mauna Loa Observatory from 1958 to 2024. A light blue sawtooth line shows raw monthly values, reflecting the seasonal cycle of plant growth. A dark blue smooth line shows the seasonally adjusted record, rising from 315 ppm in 1958 to over 426 ppm in 2024. A dashed red curve shows the super-exponential fit, with the instantaneous growth rate rising from 0.27%/yr in 1960 to 0.64%/yr in 2024, more than doubling over the period of the record.

1/ Why is atmospheric CO₂ accelerating faster than fossil fuel emissions are growing?

The answer is buried in the data, and it's more worrying than most people realise.

A thread. 🧵👇

8/ None of this means giving up. It means being honest with our selves and facing reality.

Fossil fuel burning must fall hard and fast.

And we must protect and restore ecosystems. The sink matters as much as the smokestack.

The atmosphere measures what we do, not what we promise.

I heard there was
a secret cord
that David kept
in his cable hoard
but he can never find it
when he needs it

Lowering speed limits among contingency plans to curb UK oil demand International Energy Agency recommends emergency measures, including working from home, as Iran war hits fuel supply

Odd to consider this now because the cost is going up, and not ages ago because speed still kills too many people and we are destroying our own stable climate and food sources! Just make it permanent! www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Paris street filled with people on bikes that used to be filled with cars.

One of the many reasons change is hard when it comes to better cities is that the ability to picture your city being and working very differently than it does now, aka “having vision,” is not nearly as common as we think. And it’s sadly not a prerequisite for leadership, although it should be.

World's longest coastal path opens in England to the public The King Charles coastal path will allow walkers right of access to the entire coast for the first time.

This is absolutely brilliant. Instigated by Gordon Brown, delivered today. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

8 March: Trump tells UK not to send ships to the Gulf as "We don't need people that join Wars after we've already won".

14 March: Trump asks UK to "send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat".

It's a tragedy that so many lives hang on the whims of this angry child.

Although I can also recommend taking a bike - a fabulous day, which, unlike my sunglasses, I won’t forget!

Ella Baron on Trump, Netanyahu and the victims of the war in the Middle East – cartoon The crisis is intensifying, with Donald Trump saying that the US plans to hit Iran ‘very hard’ over the next week

A powerful image www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Love this. More please. #kindness #solidarity

Lincolnshire council approves AI datacentre despite emissions warnings Campaigners say campus near Scunthorpe could generate emissions close to those from all UK domestic flights

‘According to the tech justice nonprofit Foxglove, the projected emissions produced will approach those generated by every domestic flight taken in the UK.’

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

'The new tobacco': The cities banning fossil fuel adverts Cities across the world are clearing their billboards of flight ads, SUVs, cruise ships and petrol cars in an attempt to cut emissions.

The New Tobacco: “Cities across the world are clearing their billboards of flight ads, SUVs, cruise ships and petrol cars in an attempt to cut emissions.” Via the BBC. #UrbanTruth www.bbc.com/future/artic...

‘Exploit every vulnerability’: rogue AI agents published passwords and overrode anti-virus software Exclusive: Lab tests discover ‘new form of insider risk’ with artificial intelligence agents engaging in autonomous, even ‘aggressive’ behaviours

1. Bizarre 2. Terrifying 3. Why are we even doing this (apart from making a few rich people even richer)? #ArtificialInsanity

www.theguardian.com/technology/n...

Honestly can’t believe what the Bank of England is putting on our great British fiver

BBC headline: Huge fire engulfed Kuwait City tower as Trump accused Starmer of seeking to 'join wars after we've already won'.

Well done, BBC headline writer 👏

UK must stockpile food in readiness for climate shocks or war, expert warns Prof Tim Lang says country produces far less food than it needs to feed population and is particularly vulnerable

Britain is *shockingly* vulnerable to starving www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Pace of global warming has nearly doubled since 2015, reveals study - Carbon Brief An acceleration in human-caused global warming could see the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C limit breached before...

I'm not suggesting this is an open secret within the climate science community, but it's remarkable how little impact this sort of research is generating. Because if the rate of warming really has *doubled* then you can kiss goodbye to 2°C. www.carbonbrief.org/pace-of-glob...

The Representation of the People Bill contains some useful measures, but it must go further – put proportional representation on the statute books, shut loopholes that let dark money in, and modernise media platform oversights to stop misinformation and disinformation.