Proofreader/copy editor. Ex-bookseller, voracious reader, music fan, talker, amateur photographer, amateur drinker. The Doctor calls me 'Local Knowledge'.
Aberdare, Wales
Joined October 2013
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Going to be retweeting this regularly, don't worry. – at Aberdare, Wales
The Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre was built using public money. Now the government plans to sell it off during a pandemic.
This has to be stopped. Sign this petition to tell @KwasiKwarteng to stop the Vaccine Manufacturing Centre sell off👉 weownit.org.uk/act-now/stop-…
Julia Thorne 🏴 retweeted
⚠️ An 82 year old Grandma from Leeds has declared WAR on corporate greed by setting up a stall outside her local Morrisons selling her collection of second hand carrier bags, after being enraged at the supermarket charging an extortionate 60p per bag! 😲
"I've been hoarding these bloody things for 30 years!" she explained. "I've got hundreds under the kitchen sink, cupboards full of them and thousands piled up in the garden shed!"
The pensioner pocketed a whopping £13.40 on her first day and insists she'll be back tomorrow, claiming she's got enough bags at home to keep her in business until 2029.
Julia Thorne 🏴 retweeted
The simplest solution is a new law so that if conscription is introduced, the children of MPs have to be among the first wave of recruits.
Army chief says politicians to start 'frank conversation' with public to prepare for war trib.al/tnbIX0Q
Julia Thorne 🏴 retweeted
Well after today’s announcement from the Bank of England, there is something very, very, very wrong in the system.
So … let me get this straight:
* British Gas made a profit of £1.3bn between January & June
* BP announced profits of £6.95 billion between April and June alone
* Shell has profited by £9.4bn in a year
The MEN at the top:
* John Pettigrew, boss of National Grid received £6.5m bonus on top of his salary
* Chris O’Shea, chief executive of British Gas owner Centrica was paid almost £2m last year in salary and benefits
* Centrica's non-executive directors were paid almost £1m
* Scottish Power's CEO Keith Anderson is on £1.15m.
* E.On boss Michael Lewis is on £1m
* EDF's Simone Rossi is also on £1m
* And their top execs enjoyed a share of £4.65m
* Peter Simpson of Anglian Water earned a £1.3m pay package
* Welsh Water bosses awarded themselves bonuses of over £930,000
* Severn Trent bosses awarded themselves bonuses of £5.56m
* Thames Water's Sarah Bentley, received a £727,000 bonus on top of her £2m annual salary
Meanwhile there are...
* People who haven't had breakfast and/or lunch TODAY, because they can't afford it.
* People using FoodBanks because food is becoming more of a luxury than a necessity.
* Children celebrating a birthday without presents.
* Parents worrying about new school uniforms - and some schools enforcing rules which are not cost-effective.
* People who can't get to work because they can't afford to put petrol in their cars/pay for public transport anymore.
* People who are working so much they're making themselves ill, and they STILL CAN'T AFFORD to pay their bills.
* People who have been given fines by these same energy/water companies because they couldn't afford to pay their bills in the first place - increasing their debt.
* Customers being told to do STAR JUMPS TO KEEP WARM for crying out loud!
* Hose pipe bans when gallons of water leak away everyday.
* Elderly people NOT DRINKING because they're worried about running out of water!!!
All this and energy prices are set to rise up to 75% in October...
THIS IS MADNESS!.. I'm all for supporting profits … I'm not for supporting greed at the cost of lives of others.
Something needs to change.
Why is customers' money being used to make life more comfortable for those who are making life more intolerable for the rest of us?
I actually don't understand how the energy companies are allowed to get away with this and why the government aren't stopping them instead of handing out money.....
Julia Thorne 🏴 retweeted
Tony: I hate Sunday's. It’s not like this on the continent, it’s their big day over there. All the cafes open, football matches, race meetings, everybody’s gay. Not over here though. Everything’s shut up.
Sid: I wish you would!
Julia Thorne 🏴 retweeted
"My great grandmother lived to 98 without vaccines."
Lovely.
Her six siblings who died before the age of five were unavailable for comment.
What was I just saying about dangerous places? – at Cwmbach, Wales
Catching the last northbound bus of the day from Aberdare. Leaving the bus station to the feral teenagers who take over the place every single night. On Friday, four @swpolice PCSOs were heading here at 5pm. Later at night or at weekends, it's a scene from a dystopia SF movie.
Julia Thorne 🏴 retweeted
At the Nordhausen concentration camp, an American soldier named Lee Davis found a prisoner so thin that he could not lift his head. The man blinked, barely alive. Davis knelt down, broke off a piece of his chocolate ration, and gently stuffed it into his mouth.
The man burst into tears, unable to chew, but holding the chocolate as if it were gold. "He hadn't spoken in weeks," another soldier said, "but he whispered 'thank you,' in English." Private Davis remained by his side all night. The man survived. For years, he wrote to Davis, calling him "the man who brought flavor back to the world."
It's always good to be good.
Julia Thorne 🏴 retweeted
In 2015, a flight from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur had to be diverted after the 2,186 sheep on board farted so much that the plane’s smoke sensors went off.
I had this series of books when I was a young teenager. Weirdly, the Forensic Science module at university was far less interesting. – at Cefn-Coed-y-Cymmer, Wales
Julia Thorne 🏴 retweeted
%$&*!!! whoa.
This reads that Meta is looking to grant itself the rights to scrape websites across the open web - and train Meta's AI - once a company uses Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or other Meta services after October 30, 2026. So every biz.
Read that again. Outrageous. 1/5
Julia Thorne 🏴 retweeted
No ISBNs in Canada for AI writing.
This is a fantastic policy, and every country should do the same.
canada.ca/en/library-archive…
h/t @max_spero_
Julia Thorne 🏴 retweeted
Neither Cartier-Bresson, Banksy nor Cold War Steve could have come up with such an image. Absolutely perfect composition and lighting (even the road signs are perfect)! 😍
Julia Thorne 🏴 retweeted
Right now the £180 licence is only needed for live TV or BBC iPlayer - if you only watch Netflix, Disney+ or YouTube on-demand you can legally opt out, and 3.7m homes do. As the BBC's Charter expires in Dec 2027, MPs want that loophole closed from Jan 2028 so all on-demand counts too.
The government isn't "modernising" the licence fee, it's turning it into a straight-up BBC poll tax on Netflix and YouTube because it knows the BBC can't survive if people are actually given a choice not to pay for it.
independent.co.uk/news/uk/po…
