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.