Happy Friday!

It’s not a great Friday for the people of Afghanistan or the south of Haiti or lots of other places. I wrote a little about Afghanistan on Monday and since then the picture has just gotten worse. There is plenty of blame to go around but I can’t do anything about the actions of the US or now ex Afghan President’s. What I can do (and what I expect the MP’s, journalists and electorate of the United Kingdom) to do is hold Boris Johnson and his Cabinet of lazy, workshy shysters to account for their complete and utter failure to plan or just listen to their officials while they decided to swan off on holiday as our citizens and the Afghans that helped us at considerable risk to their lives and the lives of their families were stranded in Kabul. It’s not good enough, to just announce things you actually have to make things happen. I saw something this week that said that what brought David Cameron down was his sense of entitlement, for May it was her rigidity and for Johnson it’ll be that he just can’t be bothered. I don’t think it’s wrong.

Anyway, here are this week’s links:

Can someone fill in Dominic Raab about the news? He only watches it on catchup. 

The Afghanistan debate showed that Boris Johnson’s flaws lead directly to tragedy

Once you understand the terrible cost of doing nothing, climate action is a bargain

The incel movement is a form of extremism and it cannot be ignored any longer

The pandemic property boom is pricing locals out of the British countryside. This makes me die, in the 90’s when people like me, urban working class, were being pushed out of where we grew up due to the sky high rents and lack of social housing, there were crickets. No-one was lamenting the way that inner city children were being pushed out of their communities or couldn’t get on the property ladder. Ok yeah I moved all the way out to Ealing and I can (just) pay my rent but I couldn’t in a million years afford to buy there. And the only people I know from school who still live there are in social housing. This has been a problem in London for over 20 years and honestly I’m sick of articles blaming Londoners for having to move out and upsetting property markets elsewhere because most of those Londoners weren’t from London in the first place. This is was capitalism does, they’re doing to the regions what they did to us.

A community in the heart of Tottenham has shown how to fight the developers – and win

‘My bosses were happy to destroy me’ – the women forced out of work by menopause. I’m not quiet about it but it can be really difficult to approach my male boss about this. I’m very lucky that work/life balance is important to my company and that the company are so flexible about working from home especially post pandemic. My issue has been getting my GP to take me seriously, I still can’t get HRT and given the difficulties of getting an appointment, it’ll probably be 2022 before I can get that sorted.

Spanish village tells tourists to suck up roosters and braying donkeys

Meat-rich diet of 14th-century monks caused digestive issues, research finds

Three, two, win? How to adapt to hybrid home and office working

The Polo Lounge at the Dorchester Hotcel: ‘Dismal food at inexplicable prices’ – restaurant review. Jay Rayner has been only publishing positive reviews recently, but he’s clearly built up a head of steam for this one

Changing Rooms review – design so dreadful you’ll be scarred for life. Apparently, it’s a week of great reviews of terrible things.