hateful anonymous letters

This is old-fashioned 'cyberbullying'. It uses post mail. It has ruined a tranquil village.

Mysterious hate letters turn quiet village to 'poison'
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62gl6en2g5o

<words>
reminiscent
Wicked Little Letters
rip up (British)
pasture
roam
community-spirted - this must be typo of community-spirited

<unpleasant words>
vulgar
blight
vile
cloud [Collins] something that darkens, threatens, or carries gloom
vitriol
devilish

[quote]Despite destroying the letter, the hurtful accusations have stuck with Sophie.[unquote]

quintessentially English

This article reminds me of the Alice in Wonderland. It's a bit silly way of cricketing.

Cricket match in the sea celebrates 40th year
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1jd047rzyro

[quote]The annual match is played on Bramble Bank, a triangular sandbar in the middle of the Solent, which is only revealed at low tides.[unquote]
[quote]The match ends when the tide starts to come in and the pitch disappears under the sea.[unquote]

<words>
sandbar
the Solent - strait
powerboat
waterlogged
vessel
ocean liner QE2 - Queen Elizabeth 2

I don't understand the terms and the rule of cricket, but this cricket game sounds fun.

[Wikipedia]The Brambles cricket match has been described as "quintessentially English" and has even drawn the attention of a House of Commons Standing Committee, when it was mentioned as a light-hearted example of an event which falls geographically between the boundaries of two different licensing authorities.

quintessentially [Cambridge]in a way that is the most typical example or most important part of something:
quintessential [Cambridge]being the most typical example or most important part of something
quintessence [Collins] The quintessence of something is the most perfect or typical example of it.

light-hearted [Collins] (British)Someone who is light-hearted is cheerful and happy.

a bridge too far - market 2

Another article of OMG anniversary.

King marks 80th anniversary of Second World War’s Operation Market Garden
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/netherlands-king-germany-princess-royal-british-b1183346.html

<words>
bold = daring
Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence
Airborne Museum Hartenstein in Oosterbeek
very [quote] Eighty years ago, on this very weekend,
a matter of month [Collins] You use matter in expressions such as 'a matter of weeks' when you are emphasizing how small an amount is or how short a period of time is.
liberator < liberate > liberation
retreat
thwart
renown - pronunciation
gallant
wreath - Christmas wreath

This is the explanation of OMG
[quote]An ambitious joint airborne and ground forces operation designed to seize crucial bridges to enable the advance into Germany, its ultimate aim was to end the war within a matter of months.[unquote]

75th ceremony was at larger scale with more survivors. Not so many can attend it in 80 years.

The Airborne Museum Hartenstein in Oosterbeek
I've been there. I felt as an outsider. I was too Axis there.

a bridge too far - market

Celebrate OMG week! It's 80th anniversary!

Paratroopers mark 80 years since Operation Market Garden
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78d649vzlqo

<words>
daring - a daring World War Two offensive
setback - logistical setbacks
lie - lay - lain
ferocious
tranquil
incongruously < incongruous
refuge - take refuge
swarm
liberate - one of the last places to be liberated from the Nazis
heartland
shorts
goosebumps / goose bumps
shrapnel - wounded by a piece of shrapnel

<OMG words>
Ginkel Heath
Ede
British Red Devils
Oosterbeek
Union Flag
Airborne Pegasus Flag
Wandeltocht - 34,000 Dutch gathered for the walking! Allied!

TfL cyber attack

Was the hacker a teenager?? Bank account details!? It's refund data.. TfL email alerts.. All online services.
Walsall - West Midlands. the area which Asians population is increasing...

TfL cyber attack: Thousands of passengers feared to have bank details exposed as teenager arrested
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/tfl-cyber-attack-person-data-hacked-oyster-contactless-passengers-sadiq-khan-b1181688.html

<words> words in workplaces
[quote]TfL has been fitting Contactless ticket barriers to about 100 stations across the Home Counties, with the latest tranche due to be switched on September 22. This roll-out has now been paused.[unquote]
tranche [Collins]A tranche of something is a piece, section, or part of it. A tranche of things is a group of them.
[quote]Last week TfL commissioner Andy Lord admitted that the cyber attack was “still in play” but there is “no evidence at the moment to suggest that any customer data has been compromised”.[unquote]
compromise [Collins]to prejudice unfavourably; weaken
as ever [Collins]You say as ever in order to indicate that something or someone's behaviour is not unusual because it is like that all the time or very often.
bandwidth [Collins]If you have the bandwidth to deal with a situation, you have the necessary physical, mental, and emotional resources.
ramifications Collins]The ramifications of a decision, plan, or event are all its consequences and effects, especially ones which are not obvious at first.

[quote]other hackers are still active and the wider incident is said to be ongoing[unquote]

Police could not help

It's impossible not to use phone in the street in London. I check the route to meet friends on maps, search time tables of public transport, ask a Uber or Bolt and make a call.
Current hotspot is Westminster, Lambeth and Newham. The victim had been stolen in Holborn. Not so big difference the article which I read one or two years before.

Thieves snatched his phone in London - it was in China a month later
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3rdy132q3lo

<words>
ping [quote]the phone was pinging in different locations around north London
hindsight, with hindsight [Collins] Hindsight is the ability to understand and realize something about an event after it has happened, although you did not understand or realize it at the time.
[quote]In a move says he "wouldn't recommend" with hindsight [unquote]
says he...is it inversion?
handset
screw that - screw [Collins] [rude, feelings] Some people use screw in expressions such as screw you or screw that to show that they are not concerned about someone or something or that they feel contempt for them.
prized possession - prized [Collins]highly valued
disassembled for parts
Shenzhen - big tech hub, sometimes referred to as China's Silicon Valley
plain clothes officers
Cex
offload [Collins] [mainly British] If you offload something that you do not want, you get rid of it by giving it or selling it to someone else.
fence [Collins] [informal]A fence is a person who receives stolen property and then sells it.
[quote]Phones will be offloaded to known fences within a couple of hours[unquote]
against the clock [Collins]If you are doing something against the clock, you are doing it in a great hurry, because there is very little time.
[quote]It's always a battle against the clock immediately following any of these crimes [unquote]
tank [Cambridge](informal) to quickly go down in price, value, etc., or to suddenly become less successful
swathe - I remember this but I'm not sure how to use it
prolific - I posted this on blog recently
tinfoil - aluminium!!
magic bullet [Collins] [informal]A magic bullet is an easy solution to a difficult problem.
at this moment in time [Cambridge]now
Total Recall - I think the officer mentioned 1990 film. PC Evans looks late 40's or early 50's. It took time to recall the film. I want to watch it again.
sprint
bleep
a big ask [Collins] [British informal]a task which is difficult to fulfil

One of the victims had stolen iPhone13. The thieves steal even old phones.

I need to prepare. Phone is indispensable now.
My solution is to carry two phones when I'm abroad. I need to hide one of the phones in public.
The problem is weak signals. I always see E on the phone when I'm in countryside. In busy area, on the contrary, it's also not good access sometimes.
I shouldn't forget my password, to set the lost mode. I will be panicked, if my phone is stolen.

once you are exposed to that harmful content, it becomes unavoidable

Instagram and TikTok can easily amplify racism among children.

'It stains your brain': How social media algorithms show violence to boys
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gdqzxypdzo

<words>
out of nowhere
moderator
turn a blind eye
end up [Collins] you do that thing or get into that state even though you did not originally intend to
integral (pronunciation)
out and about [quote]navigating when he is out and about

[quote] while harmful content that predominantly affects young women have rightly been in the spotlight, the algorithmic pathways driving hate and violence to mainly teenage boys and young men have received less attention[unquote]
[quote]We are asking a private company whose interest is to promote their products to moderate themselves, which is like asking a tiger not to eat you[unquote]

The controversial influencer who draw a friend of the teenager into its content must be Andrew Tate.

Once I watched a Liam Gallagher video, YouTube recommends his interviews.
Instagram thought I was a man who liked luxury watches and worried about his hair at first, but now I've got many advertisements of English online services.
AI consists of incomplete and simple algorithms. It hasn't become smart enough yet.

This is England

I recalled This is England, a 2006 film. The suspects were a boy and a girl, both 14 years old, and one boy and two girls, all 12.
When I saw the braking news which didn't mention the detail of the victim, I speculated that the victim might be a non-white person. I was right.

Boy, 14, held on suspicion of murdering 80-year-old man in Leicestershire
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/sep/03/five-children-arrested-over-murder-80-year-old-man-in-leicestershire

This is new to me. The victim had been suffered by a children's group before the assault.
[quote]The Guardian understands that in July an incident was reported to police after Kohli was allegedly verbally abused by a group of youths near his home.[unquote]
[quote]Leicestershire police said it had voluntarily referred itself to the police watchdog, the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC), about the previous incident involving Kohli which was reported to them in July. During that incident it is alleged some of the comments made by the young people were racist.[unquote]

If the first incident occurred just right after the Southport stabbing on 29th July, they might be influenced by the misinformation.

not so many new words
<words>
barrow [quote]he was always pushing a barrow[unquote]

[quote]We’ve lived here for 40 years and just recently there’s been a lot of antisocial behaviour, which has been reported to the police.[unquote]
It's really sad. The world is changing.

We Japanese are not safe when we are out of Japan because we look like Chinese.
Most of racists don't know Japan. They are not knowledgable. That's why they are racists.

Litter on beaches

The people who had interviewed have different impressions on the litters on the beach. It's anecdotal.
One man makes periodical reports on the data of litters and he doesn't say the amount of them have been decreasing. He just says changing.
I can say that the beaches have been cleaned because of the effort of locals.

Litter on beaches has improved, islanders say
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq5d7g8njzqo

<words>
islander (accent)
no two ways about it [Collins] [spoken, emphasis] you are emphasizing that there is no doubt at all about a particular situation or about how it should be interpreted.
breathe down someone's neck [Collins]to stay close to someone, esp to oversee what they are doing [quote]without breathing down people's necks all the time you're never going to solve the problem
wind up (pronunciation) [Collins]When you wind up an activity, you finish it or stop doing it.
in the main [Collins]If you say that something is true in the main, you mean that it is generally true, although there may be exceptions.
a fair bit of {Wikitionary](informal, UK) a little bit, somewhat, kind of; a good amount

dispersal

I was misled to be under the impression that the article is about a famous pub to be re-open, but it's a bit complicated.

West London pub frequented by The Clash and Blur approved to re-open
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/pub-latimer-road-the-volunteer-kirsty-allsopp-ariadnes-wentworth-andersen-b1179331.html

It's confusing because too many parties have been involved.
This article is a copy of an article of the Mail. It's a sort of gossip mentions names of celebrities, but it's also referring a meeting minutes.

[quote](summary) A West London pub [..]has been granted permission to open, though only once further key documentation is submitted[unquote]
[quote]In its application for the site, approved by Kensington and Chelsea Council earlier this month[unquote]
[quote]The submission however received three objections raising concerns about the proposal[unquote]
[quote]The Licensing Sub-Committee resolved to grant the requested opening hours[unquote]
[quote]A series of conditions were imposed, including that the pub cannot open until an acoustic report has been submitted[..]as well as a dispersal and external management plan[unquote]
[quote]meetings must be held at a minimum once a year between the premises licence holder, local ward councillors and the SQWNF[unquote]
[quote]Chair of SQWNF, told the committee that while there was just one representation from the group calling for the proposal to either be refused or deferred, this was backed by 51 of its members.[unquote]
[quote]LDRS also reported how the only person to support the recent proposal appeared to be a Wentworth Andersen employee[unquote]

<words>
raft [Collins]A raft of people or things is a lot of them [quote]launched a campaign to keep it open following a raft of noise complaints
revoke [quote]The pub had its licence revoked in 2020
take effect [Collins]You can say that something takes effect when it starts to produce the results that are intended.
submission
grant
both on and off the premises
impose
acoustic [Collins]If you refer to the acoustics or the acoustic of a space, you are referring to the structural features which determine how well you can hear music or speech in it.
dispersal [Collins]The dispersal of a crowd involves splitting it up and making the people leave in different directions.
call for

celebrities:
Kirstie Allsopp
Rachel Johnson
Amber Anderson

I realise that pubs are hubs of communities.

high-functioning

I rest my lever today. I've been declining invitations for drinking.

'Alcohol is part and parcel of working culture'
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr7rjmzlznvo

<words>
part and parcel
high-functioning [quote]she works with high-functioning people
functional [quote]I was functional.
function [quote]they’re still functioning pretty well
crutch
de-stress
hold down [Collins] If you hold down a job or a place in a team, you manage to keep it
hit rock bottom [Collins]to be at an extremely low level and be unable go any lower / to be in a hopeless or difficult situation which makes you feel very depressed

These are true.
[quote]people become more senior in an organisation, the more social events they are expected to attend[unquote]
[quote]one in five higher earners drinks alcohol at least five days a week.[unquote]
[quote]There was very much a work hard, play hard culture. You would work with people and then you would go and drink with them as well [quote]
[quote]drinking is often the default position for workplace social events.[unquote]
[quote]34% of employees actively avoid work socials due to alcohol [unquote]

Alcohol is still essential for socialising, especially business relations and local community. It's a social manner, etiquette.
Tasty non-alcoholic drinks are absolutely required as an option.

fume

Quick reading. No words, but basic words.

Eleven people taken to hospital after reports of chlorine leak at London pool
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/29/eleven-people-taken-to-hospital-after-reports-of-chlorine-leak-at-london-pool-wembley

<basic words>
chlorine (pronunciation)
hazardous < hazard
learner pool
fume
elevated readings
reading [Cambridge]the number or amount that a piece of measuring equipment shows
[quote]Firefighters ventilated the area and monitored the levels of fumes until there were no elevated readings.

Because the article doesn't mention the cause of the incident has not been reported, I researched it. I searched in Japanese...It's much quicker...
プール施設における塩素ガス発生事故に注意！
https://www.tfd.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/lfe/topics/201505/poolensogas.html.

unscrupulous

BBC has updated the interview with the shoplifter as an article.

'I stole to order' says prolific ex-shoplifter
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czdpvd41z7mo

<words>
unscrupulous
[quote]increasing trend of unscrupulous businesses taking on local product that has been stolen to order

I've surprised that:
- other local shops buy stolen wares
- middle man who order to steal
- shoplifters are not able to send to prison
- vinyl records of Urban Outfitters
- average 133 GBP per year are added as shoplifting cost onto the price of the retail goods
- increasing the number of shoplifting offences
- 70% of shoplifters are drug/opioid addicts
- mental illness, ADHD, experience of abuse in their childhood may affect to shoplifters
- a methadone prescription and voluntarily attending Narcotic Anonymous meeting are standard treatment for addicts

There is a shoplifting market. There are buyers of stolen goods and drug sellers to shoplifters. That is a social cost for all.

nutrient

Easy two minutes reading, not even A2 level, but very good story.

Super rare ghost orchid rediscovered in UK
https://www.bbc.com/newsround/articles/cvg3pv27vnro

No words, but basic words for speaking.

<basic words>
chlorophyll
nutrient
squash
flower tourists
secretive flower
woodland
extinct - hasn't gone extinct
handful - spotted a handful of times
holy grail
referee - normally sports, but a flower
specimen
knowingly - no bad meaning in the article

[quote] Knowing that the ghost orchid is still here and hasn’t gone extinct in Britain fills me with hope for the future of this species.
This discovery reminds us that even in the darkest woods, there is always hope. [quote]

turminus

New open news in London always pump me up!

Wetherspoon invests £2.8m to open new Waterloo station pub
https://www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/wetherspoon-waterloo-station-lion-unicorn-new-pub-b1178500.html

<words>
terminus [Collins]On a bus or train route, the terminus is the last stop, where the bus or train turns round or starts a journey in the opposite direction.
termini - plural - I think Rome Termini has a same meaning, but different pronunciation
[quote]The Lion & The Unicorn will open in The Sidings, within the former Eurostar terminus, on Tuesday September 3, the pub group said.[unquote]

surrender [quote]Wetherspoons has trimmed the size of its pub estate in recent years, selling or surrendering the lease on 26 of its outlets since November.

[quote]It added that the new pub’s interior design was inspired by the historic architecture that made The Lion And Unicorn Pavilion a fan favourite at the Festival of Britain in 1951.[unquote]

The Sidings
https://thesidingswaterloo.co.uk

The Lion and Unicorn Pavilion
https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/the-lion-and-unicorn-pavilion-legacies-of-the-1951-festival-of-britain/