Heather Dougherty
@heathwine.bsky.social
UK-based freelance wine educator and writer
In the Guardian Blind Date this week: 'I said I don't like Clapham Gays… guess where he lives?' My review:
Dec and David
Linda Evangelista wouldn’t get out of bed for less than £10,000 and I won’t fire up my ailing MacBook on a Saturday for two town mice saying ‘no, you, please, I want you to have i…
theguyliner.com
I second Matthew's recommendation, this is a great (and now award-winning) read from Katie Mather in @pelliclemag.com
Matthew Curtis@totalcurtis.bsky.social · 4w agoIf you haven't read Katie's award-winning piece before now I highly encourage you to do so: pelliclemag.com/home/2025/6/24/con-altura-making-wine-and-preserving-culture-in-tenerife
This German comedy sketch (with English subtitles) perfectly captures so much of what is going on right now in the UK, the US, and across Europe. "Playing the 'Nazi Card' in the Third Reich", by Browser Ballett.
Well, happy 29th anniversary to the greatest ‘reverse ferret’ ever issued by a media outlet
For those who prefer their hair to be nasty, brutish and short
@andrewhunterm.bsky.social will be delighted!
Josiah Mortimer@josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 6mo agoLots of good green announcements from Miliband's department at the moment. "Motorists will be able to have a “gully” to run an electric cable [for EVs] as a permitted development, which can cost £1,000 under current rules." www.thetimes.com/uk/environme...
I’m sure many have drawn attention to the advice given by the Oracle of Delphi to King Croesus of Lydia, that if he should send an army against the Persians, he would destroy a mighty empire. Just not in the way he hoped
Maybe these need to be put on a few menus/supermarket walls. These are from the UK National Food Strategy, showing the proportion of UK land used for different things (huge for beef/lamb, tiny for crops), & where we get our calories and protein (68% & 52% from plants). The difference is staggering.
If you're doomscrolling, guess what? So far there are 51 kākāpō chicks hatched and thriving this season, the same number of birds as we had in TOTAL in the 90s! Only one chick has died and there are still fertile eggs waiting to hatch!
Well done, Duchy of Cornwall, Natural England, Moor Trees, Woodland Trust. Dartmoor needs more rainforest! duchyofcornwall.org/article/volu...
Volunteers plant 800 trees at Wistman’s Wood in Dartmoor as restoration work continues
duchyofcornwall.org
At risk of getting tedious, once more, can we not use the phrase "child porn"? The accurate phrase is "child sex abuse material", which I know is two words longer, but it's what the NSPCC begs us to use, for many good reasons.
It's ridiculous that the Government *still* haven't banned the sale of peat. Peat bogs are still getting dug up and used for compost and in horticulture. Ministers say they'll ban it 'when time allows'. Get on with it already! Sign the petition: actnow.peatfreepartnership.org.uk/end-peat-sal...
Sign the petition to end peat sales!
No more delays: Let's get peat out of gardens once and for all. The time for uncertainty has ended.
actnow.peatfreepartnership.org.uk
I’m sure Andreas Whittam Smith would have wanted people to struggle to read his obituary in The Independent using a smartphone
Every year we make a free-to-download-and-print-off-yourself colouring-in Advent Calendar. This year’s heavily features Bigfoots. Please share! Download it for free here… www.worldofmoose.com/pages/2025-b...
Sultana and Corbyn act like they were put together in a competition by Simon Cowell and now they're contractually obliged to go on tour
I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
As it’s international man day, let’s have a quick look at the Man top ten. Bat Rocket Isle of John In Mr Spider Neanderthal Manfred Gary Old Gary Nu
Andrew, you have been evicted. It's time to leave your big brother's house
The Guardian has gone TOO FAR this time. It's a British paper; we say "half-arsed", not "half-assed". FFS.
For those that have followed me from Twitter you will recall I put out many threads on the lunacy of the plan by Rishi Sunak to make the excise tax system for Alc be based on the strength rather than volume. This subtle change was devastating for the wine industry with yet more UK Brexit red tape.
What a weird name for a dog. But sorry for their loss.
Astonishing piece about #Putin’s huge vanity #wine project, Krinitsa, just down the road from his vast and staggeringly vulgar Black Sea palace, Gelendzhik. The fruits of kleptocracy in a mafia state, on a grand scale theins.ru/en/inv/28560...
War and wine: While Russia bleeds money and battles drones, Putin's wine business is booming
The Krinitsa winery, just down the road from Putin's Gelendzhik palace, is estimated to be worth over 27 billion rubles ($330 million), making it Russia's most valuable winemaking operation. Plans are...
theins.ru
Yes, this is pub culture! We must stamp out this single file queuing nonsense.
Kate Bevan@katebevan.com · last yr.But real Brits know that what looks like a bar scrum is in fact a queue, and the person behind the bar is absolutely clear on who is where in that queue
