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Alex Andreou

Follow @sturdyAlex

14 Oct, 24 tweets, 2 min read

Momofuku Ando invented pot noodles, aged 61.

J.R.R. Tolkien published the first volume of Lord of The Rings, aged 61.

James Parkinson identified Parkinson’s disease, aged 62.

Rosa Branicka helped to develop pioneering surgical techniques for breast cancer by operating – on herself, aged 63.

Noah Webster completed his dictionary, aged 70.

Benjamin Franklin signed the Declaration of Independence, aged 70.

Charles Darwin was breaking new ground with The Power of Movement in Plants, aged 71.

Mary Wesley wrote The Camomile Lawn, aged 72.

Nelson Mandela was elected President of South Africa, aged 75.

Grandma Moses started painting aged 76.

John Glenn flew a space mission, aged 77.

Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff premiered when he was 80.

Christopher Plummer won an Oscar, aged 82. Jessica Tandy, aged 80. Clint Eastwood, aged 74.

Mommsen received the literature Nobel, aged 85. Leonid Hurwicz for economics, aged 90.

Michelangelo designed the Santa Maria degli Angeli, aged 88.

Arthur Rubinstein, performed one of his most seminal recitals at Carnegie Hall, aged 89.

Chagall was exhibited at the Louvre, aged 90 - the first living artist to be so.

Priscilla Sitienei, a great-great-grandmother and former midwife in Kenya, started primary school, aged 91.

George Burns brought down the house in Schenectady, NY, 63 years after his debut there, aged 94.

Johanna Quaas has been training and competing in gymnastics since 1934. She is 95 and has been married to her coach for 57 years.

Vera Lynn was in the charts, aged 97.

Dr Leila Denmark was working as a paediatrician, aged 103.

Dagny Carlsson went to a computing class at the age of 99. She is one of Sweden's most prominent bloggers, aged 108.

These are the people you are being encouraged to think of as expendable. Nobody should decide when someone else's life's work is done.

Be respectful to older people. They are the keepers of a society's identity.

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More from @sturdyAlex

Alex Andreou

@sturdyAlex

19 Sep

Ponder this Times exclusive: thetimes.co.uk/article/overbu…

Once you're over the HOW-DARE-HE hump of "many people live on 1/20th of that" - a perfectly legitimate reaction, to be clear - a more interesting question emerges: Who would brief this story to the Times? 1/3

Seems too detailed to be fabricated; more likely it comes from a source genuinely close to the PM. It's definitely not succession planning. That ground is covered by the honourable discharge narrative "his health has not recovered" stories. This shows him in an awful light. 2/3

It's also not a "dead cat". Much of the media corps is already focused on his poor performance (full of 'insider' briefing). This story adds fuel to that fire rather than distracts from it. It's intended to wound him, to tip him over as he teeters.

Someone is on manoeuvres. 3/3

Read 4 tweets

Alex Andreou

@sturdyAlex

17 Aug

The other dimension to the A-Levels fiasco is that it shows astoundingly poor political judgment. Even to the most casual observer it's been blindingly obvious for days that the gov't position was untenable. But - Classic Dom - his dislike of teachers made it a blind spot. 1/4

Choosing to grind it out has done the Johnson administration significant and lasting damage. Not only do they have every newspaper, usually cheer-leading for them, calling them "dunces", but they have managed to incite a backbench MP's rebellion, during recess - not easy! 2/4

Voting records show backbench rebellions are habit-forming. Once an MP has gone against the front bench, especially successfully, they're much more likely to do so again. Incidents like this, take the shine off No.10; they damage the gov't's glamour spell over their new MPs. 3/4

Read 4 tweets

Alex Andreou

@sturdyAlex

21 Jul

Key part of the report, esp. re Twitter:

"Equally, the spreading of disinformation is not necessarily aimed at influencing any individual outcome; it can simply have broad objectives around creating an atmosphere of distrust or otherwise fracturing society."

#RussiaReport 1/4

"Russia’s promotion of disinformation and its attempts at broader political influence overseas have been widely reported.

Examples include ‘bots’ and ‘trolls’: open source studies have identified significant activity on social media;"

#RussiaReport 2/4

This can result in a "general poisoning of the political narrative in the West by fomenting political extremism and ‘wedge issues’, and by the ‘astroturfing’ of Western public opinion; and general discrediting of the West."

#RussiaReport 3/4

Read 4 tweets

Alex Andreou

@sturdyAlex

21 Jul

#RussiaReport

The government have not seen OR SOUGHT evidence of interference. #RussiaReport

They are asking for a full intelligence report into the EU Referendum. #RussiaReport

Read 4 tweets

Alex Andreou

@sturdyAlex

16 Jul

@KayBurley

If you're outside the UK and wondering why it has had such a horrific pandemic, here are two ministers explaining the rules on face masks.

Attempt 1, @KayBurley

@KayBurley

Attempt 2 @KayBurley.

If you're now wondering why such a simple rule should be so hopelessly confused, well, someone high up in the gov't was caught breaking it. So, just as with handshakes, lockdown, travel, and now masks, they'd rather reinvent the rule than admit a mistake.