Brexit disaster

Boris Johnson and his party have abandoned the compromises to the Brexit bill.

Gone are the assurances on workers rights and gone are the provisions for refugees.

They truly are the nasty party, but for some unfathomable reason they’ve been voted in again.

If you voted Tory I think you need to take a long hard look at yourself.

You’re screwing yourself over if nothing else, the Tories cater to billionaires, not to the average man or woman.

The next five years are going to be terrible and with no Europe to balance the injustice.

Boris to be PM

Boris Johnson has been voted leader of the Conservative party, so he is set to replace Theresa May as PM.

He was congratulated in his win by none other than Donald Trump, proving all buffoons flock together.

He has promised Brexit by October and is willing to have no deal.

I for one hope Brexit never comes and I’m not looking forward to years under Boris.

Andy Murray’s gold post box hit by car

The gold post box that commemorates Andy Murray's Olympic medal win has been knocked down by a car.

A silver Mercedes knocked into the post box after narrowly missing a group of teenagers.

The post box, in Dunblane, was painted after the Olympic tennis champion's singles win over Roger Federer in 2012.

Thankfully it was not an intentional hit and hopefully the post box will be restored to its former glory soon.

Hopefully this is not an omen for Andy Murray’s future performances.

Hong Kong armed mob violence

The Hong Kong protesters were set upon by a masked armed mob wearing white t-shirts.

The masked men stormed Yuen Long train station.

Footage posted on social media showed dozens of men attacking people with wooden rods and metal sticks inside the station.

Forty-five people were injured, with one person in a critical condition.

The protesters were travelling back from a rally where they had already been attacked with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Many criticised how slow the police were to respond to the attacks on protesters.

Video footage also surfaced of pro-Beijing lawmaker Junius Ho, shaking hands with men in white and giving them the thumbs-up signal.

He said he did not know the men and was just responding to their greeting.

The men in the white t-shirts were suspected of being in organised crime syndicates.

This is a sinister turn in the pro-democracy protests.

Zara to switch to sustainable clothes

Zara - and other brands like Pull & Bear and Bershka - have promised to only sell sustainable clothes by 2025.

The company that owns these shops says all cotton, linen and polyester they sell will be organic, sustainable or recycled.

From next year, containers will appear in Zara stores to collect your old clothes so they can be reused or recycled into new items.

This is great news in the fight against the fast fashion industry, which sees the UK send 235 million items of clothing to landfill each year, according to the most recent figures.

Zara will also eliminate its use of plastic bags.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in psychiatric hospital

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is being held in psychiatric hospital

Her transfer follows her hunger strike last month in protest at her "unfair imprisonment".

In January, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, from London, went on a three-day hunger strike in protest against being denied specialist medical care. 

Mr Ratcliffe said he had felt "euphoric" when he first heard his wife had been moved to a hospital, thinking it could be a prelude to getting treatment or even her release.

However, after her father was refused access to visit her in hospital or even allowed a phone call, the family has grown increasingly concerned.

Nazanin is still being held in Iran and now more than ever the campaign is in full swing to free her.

Ebola in Goma

There has been an Ebola outbreak in Goma, reported by the BBC’s World Service.

Some people don’t believe that the outbreak was not a political move and are not washing their hands.

The outbreak does not at present seem to be that severe.

Sudan livestream massacre

There has been a live-streamed massacre In Sudan.

They are just fighting for democracy and they are being killed.

Murray preparing for singles return

After losing the mixed doubles Murray is already raring to go and return to singles tennis.

Murray lost his mixed doubles match yesterday and fell out of Wimbledon.

But he is already training to get back to singles tennis, like the champion he is.

He is doing weight training to strengthen the muscles in his hip.

I can’t wait for him to return to the fray.

Billionaire activist enters Democratic presidential race

Billionaire Tom Steyer has announced his intention to join the Democrat presidential race.

Tom Steyer is an environmentalist and advocate to get Donald Trump impeached.

He had previously said that he would not run for office, but he has clearly changed his mind.

Forbes lists Mr Steyer's net worth at $1.6bn (£1.2bn).

Despite being a financier he blames a lot of America’s problems on corporations.

But with his worth it is hard to see what new energy he will add to America.

After all he is one of the very wealthy interests he is warning Americans against.

America is destined it seems to be ruled by the wealthy, Obama is a long way away.

Trump criticises US ambassador

Downing Street has reaffirmed its "full support" for the UK's ambassador to the US after Donald Trump said he will no longer work with him.

Leaked e-mails revealed that Sir Kim Darroch had called the administration inept.

Donald Trump’s declaration that he would no longer work with him was in answer to these leaked e-mails.

Number 10 called the leak "unfortunate" and said the UK and US still shared a "special and enduring" relationship.

This is yet further evidence that the special relationship isn’t so special.

Trump also criticised Theresa May’s handling of Brexit, saying it was a “mess”.

The US win again

The USA comfortably won against the Netherlands in the final of the women’s World Cup.

So it’s all over.

No more football for me until the men’s Euros next year.

Nile Wilson’s Mental Health struggle

Nile Wilson has been suffering from depression and anxiety after injuring his neck.

Nile used his vlog to announce his struggles.

The Olympic gymnast has been keeping a vlog of his gymnastics training and family life.

Nile had used his vlog to inspire so-called Wilsonators to pursue gymnastics and achieve their goals.

So it is a shock that such a positive young man has been suffering from depression.

He is going back to blogging and can be inspiration to mental health sufferers.

Bomb squad called over glitter

Straight Pride are no fun.

They called in the bomb squad and FBI after receiving envelops filled with that terrifying substance, glitter.

Three members of Super Happy Fun America called the authorities over envelopes filled with a "granular substance".

The letters prompted a response from the FBI, three fire departments and the bomb squad.

Not only is this a massive waste of resources in a world where real terrorism exists, it gives the impression that straight people are no fun.

This group, based in Boston, should have it’s name changed to grouchy miserable America.

They should have no right to call themselves straight pride.

Glitter bombing is a peaceful protest against those who oppose the LGBT community and it’s fun too.

These guys need to lighten up.

The lionesses roared out

The lionesses are out of the World Cup after a sterling performance against the USA.

The US got the first goal and put the England team on the back foot.

But Ellen White kept England in the game with an equaliser.

Unfortunately the US scored again to bring them to a 2-1 lead.

Ellen White went and scored again, much to my excitement only to have the goal disallowed on VAR because it was off side.

There was a chance right near the end with an England penalty, but it was saved.

So the lionesses are going home.

They’ve made me a better feminist and I’m sad to see them go.

BBC tackles equal pay with star salaries

The top 12 earners were all male last year, but Claudia Winkleman is now eighth, Zoe Ball is ninth and Vanessa Feltz is joint 10th.

Match of the Day's Gary Lineker is still at the top of the list, on an unchanged £1.75m per year.

Despite her placing in eighth Claudia Winkleman still earned just over half Graham Norton’s salary, who came in third and there are all men above her.

Graham Norton earns £610,000 to Winkleman’s £370,000.

But it must be said these staggering sums do not tackle issues of equal pay amongst more average earners at the BBC.

This story still speaks of monetary misogyny at the BBC.

Hong Kong protesters breach government building

After a long siege the protesters in Hong Kong have breached a government building.

The police did not move against them despite threats.

The protesters are mostly peaceful.

The extradition bill they are protesting against has been indefinitely suspended.

Hottest day of the year

The UK is set to have its hottest day of the year today.

Temperatures could climb to 34C.

Temperatures in France saw lucky school kids being sent home.

Glastonbury revellers will have to be worrying about heat stroke instead of trench foot for the first time in ages.

I for one am going out and bringing some loose trousers with me.

The lionesses beat Norway

England stormed to victory last night against Norway.

England scored in the second minute to secure a 1-0 lead against Norway.

They went on to get two other goals and dominate the match with a 3-0 lead.

Norway played well, but not well enough to worry the lionesses, who were in fine form.

It’s the first match I’ve watched all the way through and it was well worth it.

I could get into the women’s World Cup.

Transgender hate crime goes up

The number of transgender hate crimes recorded by police forces in England, Scotland and Wales has risen by 81%, latest figures suggest.

Whatever progress the LGBT community has made is always marred by hate crime.

It proves it is still very hard to be transgender in today’s society.

There is no evident reason for the rise, people are just becoming more hateful.

There is a separate Pride for the transgender community, let’s hope it goes off without a hitch.

Children returned to horrific border station

About 250 migrant children were moved from the overcrowded Texas border station after lawyers granted access by a judge said the children were "severely neglected".

The New York Times reports the 100 children were transported back to the facility after it made changes to alleviate its overcrowding. They had been held there for weeks.

The children do not have a toilet or soap to wash with.

The top US border official meanwhile has said he is stepping down.

Though he’s not stepping down in protest, he has defended the organisation he has worked with.

Donald Trump is posting a new US border official and is not contrite about the conditions of these children.

The border stations are not designed to house children and are suffering from the surge in migrants.

Something needs to be done to end this, but nothing is forthcoming.

Royals raid public purse

The Prince Harry and Meghan’s home was renovated with £2.4m of taxpayers' money, as reported by the BBC.

It is easy to forget that these immensely wealthy people take money from the public purse.

I want to know why I can’t get a couple of hundred thousand to buy a house if they get so much for renovations.

The Royals are not on benefits, they can afford to renovate the house themselves it is a travesty.

We’re in austerity Britain, yet this austerity obviously doesn’t extend to our ruling masters, just to extremely poor benefits claimants.

Andy Murray wins at Queens

Andy Murray has won at Queen’s with a metal hip.

“This is very different for me and it's more special than a lot of the singles tournaments that I have won for a lot of different reasons," Andy Murray said to the BBC.

"It's a cool thing to be able to have done, because of where I was a few months ago.”

Murray is not ruling out playing singles.

This is a wonderful victory for Murray after his hip operation.

Andy Murray hip health restored

Andy Murray has played and won a match with his new hip.

Andy Murray made a successful return to action after six months out following hip surgery as he partnered Feliciano Lopez to a first-round doubles win at the Queen's Club championships on Thursday. 

He is readying to play at Wimbledon, but has been turned down, quite politely, by Ashleigh Barty.

He says in his BBC blog “she said no because she is already playing in singles and doubles, so didn't want to play in three competitions.”

He also says of his injury: “Because of how professional sport is, you end up telling everyone you're OK and you're feeling a bit better. But you're not.

You say things like that to try to sound optimistic and not tell everyone how much you're struggling.

I might have had to play against those people asking me how I was, so I wasn't going to tell them that my hip was killing me and then play them the following day.”

I for one am delighted he is returning to Wimbledon as I am a massive Murray fan, so I will be watching the doubles and cheering him on.

It’s sad that I’m unlikely to see him as Wimbledon champion once more.

England: women’s football

I’m a moderately better feminist, I watched the beginning of the England v Japan game and saw them go 1-0 up.

They were later to go 2-0 up and win the game.

Scotland were to be heartbroken.

They were 1-0 up against Argentina when I left proceedings.

They then stormed to 3-0 up in the second half of the game.

Only they lost their lead, Argentina equalised with their massive advantage, leaving the Scots heartbroken.

I’m surely missing some awe inspiring football.

Royal crash

An 83 year old woman is in hospital after a crash with a Royal convoy.

The police were to blame, with a police motorbike in the convoy causing the crash.

The Royal couple William and Kate have been in touch with the woman, Irene, to convey their sadness at having crashed into her indirectly.

I think the policeman should have phoned as well to express his apologises.

This time it was not a Royal driving the car, but the second crash in a matter of months you begin to wonder whether the Royals are a menace to the roads.

It remains to be seen whether a call from the Royals made up for Irene being involved in a crash.

Stella Creasy’s maternity struggles

Stella Creasy has spoken out about her maternity rights.

She said she is having to beg for extra staff funding.

“For all the talk of being family friendly, Westminster is still struggling to offer deeds instead of words," she wrote.

"And if we can't get this right for MPs, how can we get this right for parents elsewhere?"

If Stella Creasy can’t get the maternity cover she wants what chance do the rest of us have?

Hong Kong frees student activist

Hong Kong's most prominent student activist Joshua Wong has been freed from prison.

Joshua Wong was the face of the pro-democracy protests.

He has called for the Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam to resign.

The Hong Kong protesters are still looking for the repeal of the extradition bill.

Protesters are still on the streets in lower numbers.

Extradition paused

The Hong Kong government has suspended its highly controversial plan to allow extraditions to mainland China, Chief Executive Carrie Lam has announced.

The protests have had an effect.

This is not the end of the bill, just a pause to think, but it might be the pause the protesters need to get their case heard.

Hong Kong protests

There have been huge protests in Hong Kong against extradition.

A new law that is going to pass would allow extradition to China of Hong Kong criminals and even foreign nationals travelling through there.

This is yet more in the fight for Hong Kong to retain its independence from China.

Their protests have born fruit in the past, let’s hope they do again.

This law would be a terrible thing for Hong Kong.

Chris Froome crash

Chris Froome is in intensive care after a crash into a wall.

The Tour de France champion has suffered a fractured right femur, a broken hip, a fractured elbow and fractured ribs.

Despite losing consciousness after the crash, there is no sign of concussion.

Hopefully he will recover well to delight us on the tracks once more but for now he is in bad shape.

The women’s World Cup

We are in the middle of the women’s World Cup and I am watching none of it.

I am a very bad feminist.

I watch all the male internationals, though I don’t watch club football.

But the women are showcased on the terrestrial channels and I don’t watch.

So I missed the USA trouncing Thailand last night.

The men’s matches sometimes muster only one goal, while the US women get 13 in the net and I am not there to witness it.

Maybe I should reassess my priorities.

Gene Wilder has died

Gene Wilder star of Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory has died.

He had a sparkling career, including a star turn in The Producers.

It feels like he’s been in so many more films than he actually has.

I was sad to hear of the passing of this great actor, he will be sorely missed.

Tory leadership race

Theresa May has stepped down, now it is certain we’ll be getting a new prime minister.

I for one am dreading her replacement.

It seems to me it can only get worse, with the likes of Michael Gove and Boris Johnson in contention.

As if to prove my fear correct Boris Johnson is offering a higher rate tax cut if he gets in.

Yes, that’s exactly what we need in Austerity Britain, more wealthy people getting away from paying tax into services like the NHS.

The Nest Collective

I went for an entrancing evening with The Nest Collective round the campfire.

Every year the Nest Collective hosts artists round the campfire in a variety of London venues.

I was privileged to see Seckou Keita at Glengall Wharf Gardens.

He plays the Kora, a very delicate string instrument and indeed it was hard to hear it at times above the passing planes.

Keita played a selection of his solo work and got us to join in with some of the songs, which was really fun.

All in all it was a magical evening and The Nest Collective will be hosting more over the summer.

The Queen’s favourite

Olivia Colman has been awarded a CBE in the queen’s honours list along with a host of others.

Colman is a truly talented actress and definitely deserves the award.

I look forward to watching her play the Queen in The Crown.

MPs and historians were also honoured, in total there were 1, 073 Birthday honours.

Mohamed Melehi

I went to see Mohamed Melehi in conversation at The Mosaic Rooms last night.

His work pops with modernist energy and looks like it could have been created last week, though most of it was created in the 1960s.

Melehi treated the gathered crowd to a quick sweep of his life working in New York and Morocco.

He has used his work to protest the government, he says politics is like Oxygen it can’t be avoided.

The exhibition of his work and the rest of the Casablanca school will be on at The Mosaic Rooms till the end of the month.

There is an art class coming up wheee you can learn to paint like Melehi.

D-Day

So we are marking D-Day with Trump.

I can not think of a less worthy individual to mark such a historic event with.

We didn’t bomb away the nazis to invite a closet one over.

Anti-Trump demo

At 11 o’clock today a diverse group of people amassed in Trafalgar Square to protest against Donald Trump’s state visit.

By 12 o’clock around 1,000 people were ready to march down Whitehall.

Stopping at Horse Guards parade for speeches by the likes of Owen Jones.

The atmosphere was brighter than the weather as the assembled throng said no to Trump.

Donald Trump

Donald Trump has already insulted Sadiq Khan and he’s barely touched the runway.

Labour has thankfully boycotted the official visit from Donald Trump and Donald Trump has illustrated why by insulting Sadiq Khan.

There will be another protest against President Trump’s visit.

We are stuck with Trump, but we do not have to roll out the red carpet.

Watch Sadiq condemning the idiot.

Writer’s block

I have been writing this blog for years now and recently I have been suffering from quite considerable writer’s block.

Because I want to blog every day, I thought the only way to get anything down today was to write about the writer’s block.

I just don’t feel inspired to write, I can’t find an interesting topic to write about and so my blog languishes un tended.

There are lots of places claiming to eradicate writer’s block but it has had no effect.

I don’t know what I am going to write about tomorrow because there is not much else I can write about writer’s block, but at least you’ll know why I’m being quiet.

Dancing with the black dog

You can now buy a black dog logo to show those around you that suffer from anxiety and depression that it’s ok to say they’re not ok.

The dancing with the black dog blog was tweeted by Stephen Fry and you can show your support by buying a badge.

This is a great initiative to get mental health out in the open and discussed.

Feel free to leave a comment on this blog post if you’re down.

Recovering from Mental trauma

It’s mental health awareness week and there have been some very good documentaries on TV, including Louis Theroux’s Mum’s on the edge and Nadiya Hussain’s piece on anxiety.

It was shocking to learn that Nadiya didn’t have any friends, as she is such a well known and likeable TV personality.

She was seeking treatment for her anxiety, because she wants to recover.

I have written a book on mental health recovery called Mental Health Recovery Heroes Past and Present exploring how much mental health sufferers can achieve even while taking medication.

It is nice to see Nadiya Hussain showing how it can affect a very successful person and the effect it has on her life.