One of the saddest things was a blog by a nanny to a little girl who was born without a face. She had eyes and a mouth, but that was about it other than random folds of skin. The nanny was so sweet, talking about all the operations the girl had had to slowly, over time, build her something resembling a face. The girl herself was apparently really sweet and loving too, but everyone who saw her would react as you might expect.

It just struck me how cruel nature can be sometimes. At least she was born to very wealthy parents, but that was the only perk.

I wonder how she’s getting on now. Must be 18 or so I imagine.

“we would like to thank the Doctors and contributors and survivors, and to apologise for not believing them when they said the BBC would never run a film like this.”

It’s nothing. 1.2m divided by 50 councils is 24000 each, i.e. will buy one high pressure hose and 1 near minimum-wage job per council. Comparably, I think the NHS costs £25m per day or something

I swear, the amount of government swindles over the last decade are at a level we haven’t seen since the 18th century. So many billions lost to dodgy covid kit, nhs contracts, school and prison services…

Mr Prestege; History, P.E. and for one year, form tutor. Mainly he was funny, watched all the same comedy shows as me so we had little references and in-jokes nobody else got.

His history fact sheets were great too - he drew little comic strips and characters with speech bubbles. Made revising entertaining, a bit like the Horrible Histories books.

Dunno if this counts, but once upon a time loyalty cards were a thing - buy a product, get a stamp, and get a free product on your 10th stamp. Nowadays it’s all apps, and they all say they’ll provide data to third parties. Consequently I haven’t had a free coffee/bagel/beer or whatever since lockdown. Anyway, I’m off to yell at a cloud, ttfn

Ok that is really useful context, thank you

What’s Ukraine got to do with the UK though?

Obvs I’m against war in principle, but why are we even involved in something several thousand miles away that doesn’t border us or even the Commonwealth?

Couldn’t we, the UK, just like… stop interfering with Russia? Call a truce of some sort? FWIW I admit I’m completely ignorant as to what’s going on, other than we’re supplying arms to Ukraine. Is it all about that?

Clever way to get a free advert on the beeb