123 Followers
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66 Posts
West Country lawyer, registered nurse, veteran and nanny to the best boy, a bit of a secret gardener and a creative when I am not nose deep in the law. Love being near the moors and sea.
Brexit forced my political hand, am deeply sad at the mess and division it created, but am determined nonetheless, to remain a #European and hopeful we can still change things for the better. 
#Peace #love #happiness
#COVID Poll - Have you had COVID?
Please boost to get a bigger response.
Not had it (as far as I know)
46.7%
Had it once
42.4%
Had it twice
8.9%
Had it 3 or more times
2.1%
Poll ended at .

Many of the journalists Elon suspended today on Twitter are here on #Mastodon. Please follow and boost:

Drew Harwell, Washington Post
@drewharwell

Donie O’Sullivan, CNN
@donieosullivan

Steve Herman, VOA
@w7voa

Micah Lee, Intercept
@micahflee

Tony Webster
@tony

Matt Binder, Mashable
@MattBinder

#freepress #journalism #journalists #news

Morning from the bottom of my street

Beautiful. Lots of black ice around.

Marie Curie's notebooks, which are radioactive and must be stored in a lead-lined box in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Curie’s corpse is also radioactive. Her coffin is lined in an inch of lead. Both will remain radioactive for 1,500+ years.

More info: https://www.sciencealert.com/these-personal-effects-of-marie-curie-will-be-radioactive-for-another-1-500-years

#HistSci #ScienceMastodon #MedMastodon #science #scientist #HistoryOfScience #HistMed #WomenInStem #TIL #TheMoreYouKnow #WeirdHistory

Marie Curie's Belongings Will Be Radioactive For Another 1,500 Years

Marie Curie, known as the 'mother of modern physics', died from aplastic anaemia, a rare condition linked to high levels of exposure to her famed discoveries, the radioactive elements polonium and radium.

ScienceAlert
To be honest, this seems worse than having the road blocked by #climate #activists for a few minutes.

🌧️ An impressive rain dump from a powerful cloud structure. Taken in Hekelingen, NL on 7 January 2021. I did not make it dry to my car 😅

Love it? Boost it📣

#photography #photomonday #Fotomontag #weather #cloud #netherlands #potd

This is absolutely wild: a Nepali student who flew to the UK to take up a university scholarship with a valid visa and proof of his uni place was detained at the border and held in custody for 12 days, leading to him losing his place.

Adding insult to injury, while a spelling mistake in his bank letter was part of the reason for disbelieving him, the Border Force's letter to him made several spelling mistakes https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/26/treated-like-a-criminal-nepali-student-wrongly-detained-at-uk-border-loses-uni-place

‘Treated like a criminal’: Nepali student wrongly detained at UK border loses uni place

Sulav Khadka was interrogated and held in custody despite providing proof of his place and finances

The Guardian

So just in case you lovely tooters can help me along…I’ve been campaigning for a ban on disposable bbqs over the last year or so.
Just a bit of clarity about what started this campaign and my own circumstances. 
I don’t represent any other group or institution. I’m not funded. 
I’m a dad, a teacher. And my little 9 yo boy got badly injured by a disposable bbq in 2020 
Will received his injuries by running through sand where a disposable bbq had been used several hours before. The bbq had cooled and the owners had removed it to dispose of properly.
The surface of the sand was cool but the thermal nature of dry sand meant that the heat had retained deep down.
Wills accident could happen to anyone. The nature of these items (no legs etc) means that they are usually used straight on the ground causing a range of issues (see parks and moorlands also). 
When they are used on sand like in this instance and then cleared away/taken home, an invisible danger remains on the site for those arriving. 
They have prohibition restrictions in some localities but the problems with environmental damage, waste and injury persists…simply because restrictions are incredibly hard to enforce/police. As long as these are available they will be used and will cause problems often to people or environments that had nothing to do with its original purchase and use. 
And I’m not in any way anti BBQ. I just think it should be done safely. And banning these items would go a long way to helping.
I suppose I think of this like fireworks. 
All fireworks have safety instructions, disposal instructions etc etc. They’re obviously dangerous in some circumstances so you assume people will be sensible.
But in spite of this and in spite of the control measures that are put in place - some types of firework are still just too risky to have available. Sometimes because ‘people’ can’t be trusted to be sensible with them.
And sometimes simply because they’re just inherently dangerous (eg the good old ‘jumping jacks’ back in the 70’s). Eventually you have to draw a line somewhere and say that the cost/benefit balance isn’t quite right with some items…
So we don’t have to ban everything and all fireworks by any means - just the jumping jacks that we watch every year and say “Nah…this ain’t right” 
Not all - but some aren’t worth it.
We’re not raising this just because of our experience… it’s because it’s so many peoples experience. These injuries are frighteningly common (4 that have been similar in nature in the last 10 days).
So these problems alongside the huge amounts of litter they cause, the vast amounts of single use waste the produce and the catastrophic wildfires they cause. 
We simply want to help stop this happening to be anyone else - because it happens very regularly unfortunately 
I hope that clarifies things 
Please do take a minute to sign our petition

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/618664
#environment #waste #bbq #BanDisposableBBQs #firedanger #litter

Petition: Place a complete ban on the sale and use of disposable BBQ’s in the UK

We support moves to ban disposable BBQ’s in environmentally vulnerable areas. Limited restrictions will not stop them being used or brought into these spaces. This also does nothing to counter the damage they do outside these areas. We are calling for an outright ban on their use and sale in the UK

Petitions - UK Government and Parliament
Tiny punk rock flowers pushing up through the cracks in the sidewalk remind you that dominant culture can be broken down with simple acts of beauty.