WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Big Kev]

Lovely

[Stanley]

Thanks Kev. I think she is going to break a lot of hearts!
Later in the next ten days I hope to meet another GGchild....

[Cathy]

Good one Stanley, Lily looks to be the confident type.

[Gloria]

Lovely picture Stanley.

[Stanley]

Thanks to both of you. Confident is one word for it!

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on the failure to agree on a Plastics Treaty.....
Global talks to develop a landmark treaty to end plastic pollution have once again failed. The UN negotiations, the sixth round of talks in just under three years, were due to end on Thursday but countries continued to negotiate into the night in the hopes of breaking a deadlock. There remained a split between a group of about 100 nations calling for curbs on production of plastic, and oil states pushing for a focus on recycling. Speaking in the early hours, Cuban delegates said that countries had "missed a historic opportunity but we have to keep going". "I'm hugely disappointed that an agreement wasn't reached," said the UK's Marine Minister Emma Hardy. "Plastic pollution is a global crisis that no country can solve alone, and the UK is committed to working with others at home and abroad to protect the environment and pave the way to a circular economy," she added.
The bare bones are that the countries that rely on oil production want to concentrate on better waste control rather than reducing the size of the problem. Profit is more important than the future of all living things.......
We aren't fit to have a planet.......

[Stanley]

THIS BBC report makes me sad....
Organised crimes gangs including sheep rustlers and burglars are targeting farmers who have described "living in fear" of a new rural crime wave. James Jackson said he had suffered repeated break-ins at his farm in Trawden, Lancashire, with burglars trying to steal quad bikes worth £12,000 as well as his sheep - which can fetch £200 each on the black market. Other farmers have told the BBC about joyriders high on drugs driving off in their tractors and pigs being killed with crossbows. One Lancashire Police officer described how organised crime gangs "scope out" farms before stealing from them while sheep have been "slaughtered" at the side of the road. Trawden recently made headlines around the world for its kindness - thanks to its residents taking volunteering to the next level - but farmers on its outskirts have said there is a darker side to the area. Mr Jackson said: "It's a beautiful place but some farmers now live in fear of criminals. "We know organised crime is behind it. "We've had to increase security with CCTV cameras as we've had several attempted break-ins as they tried to get to the quad bikes."
It's more like the Wild West than the world I knew. The police are so badly underfunded that they haven't the resources to stop it. We live in a wealthy country and our politicians can't even keep us safe in our own homes.

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report.
3 hours ago
It is quite possible that Monday's meeting in the White House could prove even more crucial to the future of Ukraine - and for all of Europe's security - than last Friday's US-Russia summit in Alaska. On the surface, that Putin-Trump reunion seemed to live down to every expectation. There was no ceasefire, no sanctions, no grand announcements. Were Ukraine and Europe about to get cut out of a deal cooked up behind closed doors by the world's two foremost nuclear powers? Not, apparently, if Ukraine and its partners can prevent it. The presence of Sir Keir Starmer, President Macron, Chancellor Merz and other leaders alongside President Zelensky in Washington is about more than making sure he does not get ambushed in the Oval Office again, in the way he did on 28 February. They are determined to impress upon Donald Trump two things: firstly, that there can be no peace deal for Ukraine without Ukraine's direct involvement and secondly, that it must be backed by 'cast-iron' security guarantees. Above all, Europe's leaders want the US President to see that Ukraine and Europe present a united front and they are eager to ensure he is not being swayed by his obvious personal rapport with Vladimir Putin into giving in to the Russian leaders' demands.

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC weather report....
With the August Bank Holiday fast approaching in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, there are reports that Hurricane Erin could bring large amounts of rain to the UK into next week. Hurricane Erin is currently a major storm which is forecast to bring considerable amounts of rain to the eastern coast of the United States. Although at this stage Erin is not expected to make a direct hit to land, the rains caused by the storm are already beginning to hit the south-eastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, where a tropical storm warning is in effect. Some media outlets are suggesting a '600-mile wall of rain' will hit the UK as a result of Erin. BBC lead weather presenter and meteorologist Simon King explains that this is physically impossible. He said: "These reports are simply suggesting that the low pressure containing the remnants of hurricane Erin would be 600 miles wide as it moves to the west of the UK, a size very typical for this type of weather system that affects the UK. "Rain doesn't fall in a continuous sheet stretching for hundreds of miles so there'll be no 'wall of rain' to come with it either."

Susan and I visited the Barritts at Kayfield Farm yesterday and when we came away we continued on up the old road to Long Ing..... We saw the work on the housing at Barnsey..... It is completely altering the area and it isn't for the better..... Perhaps I am just an out of date old man.....

[Big Kev]

Susan and I visited the Barritts at Kayfield Farm yesterday and when we came away we continued on up the old road to Long Ing..... We saw the work on the housing at Barnsey..... It is completely altering the area and it isn't for the better..... Perhaps I am just an out of date old man.....

I've not seen it 'in the flesh' yet, all I can say is that at least it's on a brownfield site (at least most of it). Hopefully the finished houses will blend in with the area. The new builds, at the old Croft Mill site here in Foulridge, look as though they 'belong'.

[Stanley]

For most of it read part of it Kev....
I can report at least one loss. Where the old road enters Long Ing Lane just above the site, there used to be an old milk stand.... Not now there isn't! The base of the concrete lamp post is there but smashed up.

[Stanley]

I saw THIS in the news and it didn't come as any big surprise!
The Kremlin has played down talk of an imminent summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky, as Donald Trump renewed his call for the two leaders to meet to discuss ending the war in Ukraine. The push for a bilateral meeting comes after the US president met Putin in Alaska last week, and welcomed seven European leaders and Zelensky to the White House on Monday. Trump admitted the conflict was "a tough one" to solve and conceded it was possible the Russian president was not interested in ending hostilities. "We're going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks," he said on Tuesday. "It's possible that he doesn't want to make a deal." Putin faced a "rough situation" if that were the case, Trump added, without offering any details. The Russian president on Monday told Trump he was "open" to the idea of direct talks with Ukraine, but the next day Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov watered down that already vague commitment. Any meeting would have to be prepared "gradually... starting with the expert level and thereafter going through all the required steps", he said, repeating a frequent Kremlin line. Dmitry Polyanskiy, a Russian deputy representative to the UN, told the BBC "nobody [had] rejected" the opportunity for direct talks, "but it shouldn't be a meeting for the sake of a meeting". On Tuesday, it was reported that Putin had suggested to Trump that Zelensky could travel to Moscow for talks, something Ukraine was never likely to accept. The proposal may have been Russia's way of putting forward an option so far-fetched Kyiv could not possibly have agreed to it.
No surprise there as, like Netanyahu, Putin is quite satisfied with things as they are because he is quietly working forward to his ultimate aim. Absorbtion of the whole of Ukraine back into Russia. It serves him best to stonewall.