What the papers said in the week ending 11 February 2023
A film based on Alan Bennett’s play ‘Allelujah’ will be released in March. It explores matters most relevant to older people in this country and beyond: relating to health care, social care, the impact of Covid-19 and lockdowns, and attitudes toward ageing and older people. In preparing us for this, Catherine Shoard begins her article with a sensitive appreciation of a part-closed mental hospital in North London – a telling study in itself. Heartfelt quotes from well-known older actors make this compulsive reading ‘We fetishised being young – it’s just stupid!’: Judi Dench and Richard Eyre on ageing, Covid and saving the NHS | Film | The Guardian
- Other older people enjoy digging up the past and add to their personal fitness: Metal heads: the thriving detectorist scene digging up Britain’s past | Archaeology | The Guardian
- Thirty may not be ‘old’ – but when you started a project at 9 – 30 must seem to be a landmark: Man, 30, completes encyclopedia of animals he started at nine | Zoology | The Guardian
- More looking back means we value items which talk of history Museum launches campaign to acquire Florence Nightingale’s customised wheelchair | East London and West Essex Guardian Series (guardian-series.co.uk)
- Not every venture would claim dignity – but enthusiasm and shared values are not just for the young: ‘Loud, dirty and simple’: Leicester’s punk collective for older women | Women | The Guardian
Not a time for sissies or the fainthearted Retirement is not a rest, nor a choice, for many | Work & careers | The Guardian
- But frustration is not confined to ‘the elderly’ I want to work, but employers can’t cope with my disability | Work & careers | The Guardian
Science offers the possibility of extending the natural life span – at least for rodents: Anti-ageing scientists extend lifespan of oldest living lab rat | Medical research | The Guardian
Returns to the census encourage the belief that people over 55 are now less disabled than was the case 10 years ago. Younger age groups report higher prevalence of disability: Surge in young people declaring disability in England and Wales | Census | The Guardian
Cohabiting adults have lower blood sugar levels, study finds | Diabetes | The Guardian
Disaster:
While the conflict and killing between Ukraine and Russia, continues, a natural disaster has wiped out towns and people in tens of thousands from Turkey and Syria. Help is being offered: Thousands killed in major quakes – as it happened | Turkey | The Guardian
- Turkey and Syria earthquake: what we know so far on day five | Turkey-Syria earthquake 2023 | The Guardian
- No room for the dead as cemeteries in earthquake-hit Turkey and Syria fill up | Turkey-Syria earthquake 2023 | The Guardian
- UK’s Turkish and Syrian communities rush to aid earthquake victims | Turkey-Syria earthquake 2023 | The Guardian
The Church:
The church’s main claim to headlines remains with its views on same sex relations: Church of England votes in favour of blessings for same-sex unions | Anglicanism | The Guardian
- Anglicans angry at same-sex blessings question Justin Welby’s ‘fitness to lead’ | Anglicanism | The Guardian
- Parliament’s part in the C of E’s rifts on equality for women and gay people | Anglicanism | The Guardian
But ideas of how to respect the body after death, are also of interest: not wanting to take up space, not wanting to pollute the atmosphere – is there a better alternative? Church of England to consider greener alternatives to burial | Anglicanism | The Guardian
- Not every attempt at being green, works as we had thought: Rise in UK wood-burners likely to be creating ‘pollution hotspots’ in affluent areas | Air pollution | The Guardian
Times changing:
Thought is being given to helping families with children: Treasury considering huge expansion of free childcare in England | Politics | The Guardian
- There is certainly much to be done: Children in mental health crisis spent more than 900,000 hours in A&E in England | Children’s health | The Guardian
Fawlty Towers is coming back: An anti-woke nightmare! Why the Fawlty Towers remake is a truly nauseating idea | Television | The Guardian
Cold-case studies unlock secrets from the jail: Mary, Queen of Scots prison letters finally decoded | UK news | The Guardian
Climate change is reflected in landscapes and flora and fauna: Half the wetlands in Europe lost in past 300 years, researchers calculate | Biodiversity | The Guardian
- Climate breakdown could cause British apples to die out, warn experts | Climate crisis | The Guardian
- People are being trained to work with the new nature: ‘We create changemakers’: the new UK college dedicated to climate crisis | Climate crisis | The Guardian
Women authors have a new award to raise their profile: ‘Big books by blokes about battles’: why we need the Women’s prize for nonfiction | Books | The Guardian
Covid has increased awareness of the reservoir of potential pathogens in other creatures not very closely related to Homo Sapiens. Time to be careful, but kind: Be warned: the next deadly pandemic is not inevitable, but all the elements are in place | George Monbiot | The Guardian
India urges citizens to ‘hug a cow’ on Valentine’s Day | India | The Guardian
And respectful: Goffin’s cockatoos able to use toolset to complete tasks | Animal behaviour | The Guardian
Covid has also brought a change in young people’s commitment to educational routines and authority: Third of 15-year-olds persistently absent from school in England since September | Truancy | The Guardian
Its differential effects on people who are ‘different’, are being recognised – those most cruelly affects have been in receipt of secondary suffering of shaming and stigma: Covid ‘shaming’ shifted focus from UK government failures, study says | Coronavirus | The Guardian
Current pressures have caused some to consider a return to wartime policies: German politicians and military chiefs suggest return of conscription | Germany | The Guardian. A path we should hesitate to follow
Warmer and welcome, is a move to give rights to people who have been excluded from citizenship for too long: Czechs urged to repeal law denying rights to Kindertransport descendants | Czechoslovakia | The Guardian
We are sad to lose the mysterious pleasures of tobacconists (still to be found in France, I understand) The last tobacconist: contraband and cost of living close Ipswich institution | Retail industry | The Guardian
There are alternative mysteries in new games: ‘Going up and up’: UK padel and pickleball boom drives sales bounce | Retail industry | The Guardian
We are warned to limit our reliance on machines: The Guardian view on ChatGPT search: exploiting wishful thinking | Editorial | The Guardian. Very much in line with our thinking
We can end again with The Beano and The Bash Street Kids: celebrating the life of their creator: David Sutherland obituary | The Beano | The Guardian
David Jolley. Chair of Christians on Ageing, in a personal capacity.
