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Liverpool, UK
Joined October 2010
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Went for a Saturday morning bike ride on #WorldBicycleDay
I went along this road which is part of Cyle Route 56
It's one way for motor vehicles but there is a painted cycle lane taking a cyclist 'safely' past the oncoming traffic
Clearly sign posted at both ends
🧵
Peter retweeted
On a beach in West Africa the fishermen now haul in more clothes than fish, and the clothes have your charity shop's label on them.
The beach is in Accra, the capital of Ghana. A mile inland is Kantamanto, the biggest second-hand clothes market on earth. Every week about 15 million garments arrive there in bales, from Britain, Canada, China and America. Most of what you drop in a clothing bank ends up on its way to a place like this.
The locals have a name for the trade. Obroni Wawu. It means dead white man's clothes, because nobody could imagine a living person giving away so much.
The traders open the bales and sort them. 40 years ago nearly everything sold. Now about 40% of every bale is rubbish before it leaves the market, because the garments were built to be worn 5 times. That is 6 million pieces of clothing a week with nowhere to go.
The city collects what it can. The rest goes into the gutters, the lagoon and the sea.
Then it comes back. The waves roll the clothes together into ropes of knotted polyester as long as a boat, and the beach monitors who count them have a word for those too. Tentacles. They logged 2,344 of them along 4 miles of shore in one year. Fishermen's nets come up full of trousers. Propellers foul on them. Men have had their canoes capsized by somebody's old leggings.
A fishing community cannot fish, because of what the rest of the world was too virtuous to throw in its own bin.
When those clothes were wool and cotton they would have rotted on that beach in a season. Instead they are becoming the coastline.
Peter retweeted
There is no other material on earth that can do what a fleece does, and it grows on an animal that eats grass.
It keeps a sheep alive on a Welsh hill in February, in sleet, with no shelter.
It keeps a Bedouin cool in the Sahara in August.
It keeps a person warm when it is soaked through, which is why mountaineers wore it to the top of Everest.
It will not burn. Put a match to it and it chars and goes out, which is why it lines aircraft seats and theatre curtains.
It absorbs a third of its weight in sweat and gives off heat while it does it.
It blocks the sun. A wool shirt has the ultraviolet rating of a decent sunscreen.
It does not smell. The surface stays too dry for the bacteria that make a shirt stink.
It stretches a third of its length and springs back, so a sock holds its shape for years.
It stops sound. Recording studios and classrooms line the walls with it.
It stops cold in a loft as well as fibreglass does, without the itch.
It soaks up oil, which is why the mats laid on spills are made of it.
It dyes deeper than anything, which is why a Persian rug is still red after 300 years.
It felts into a tent that a Mongolian family lives in through a minus 40 winter.
And when it finally wears out, it rots into fertiliser, and the next sheep eats the grass it grew.
Every one of those jobs now has a synthetic doing it worse.
The sheep had all of them covered before the chemist was born, and it does it again every spring for nothing.
Peter retweeted
There is a mountain of unworn clothes in the driest desert on earth, large enough to be photographed from space. It grows by 39,000 tons a year and almost none of it will ever rot.
The Atacama, in northern Chile, is a place where it may not rain for a decade. On its edge is a duty-free port called Iquique. Every year about 59,000 tons of clothing arrives there from Europe, America and Asia. It is last season's stock that never sold, and the bags people leave at charity shops.
Dealers pick through it for anything they can resell across South America. Two thirds of it is worthless. Nobody will pay to ship it back out, so lorries drive it into the desert at night and tip it.
The local landfill refuses to take it. The reason given is that the clothing does not biodegrade and is full of chemicals. Most of it is polyester, which is plastic, and in a place with no rain and no soil life it will lie there for centuries. Some of it is set alight, and the smoke drifts over a town of 100,000 people.
In 2025 a Chilean court ruled that the dumps had done serious damage to the land.
For most of history this could not have happened. Clothes were wool, linen and leather. They were worn out, handed down and patched, and at the very end a rag merchant paid for the scraps. In Yorkshire, from 1813, old woollens were shredded and spun into new cloth. Anything left went on the fields, where wool breaks down in months and feeds the grass.
Nobody ever had to find a desert for worn-out wool. We invented a fabric that cannot die, and then we started making it to be thrown away.
Peter retweeted
At sixty-five, Harland Sanders sat in his car outside a closed restaurant with a $105 Social Security check in his pocket.
That was everything he had left. He had spent nearly half a century moving from one failed job to another. He learned to cook at six, after his father died and his mother worked long shifts in a factory. He left school at twelve.
In the decades that followed he was fired from the railroad after a fight, lost his law practice after brawling with a client in open court, failed as an insurance and tire salesman, and went broke on a lamp factory.
At forty he began frying chicken for travelers at a small Kentucky gas station. Over the next twenty years he refined a blend of eleven herbs and spices cooked under pressure, earned the honorary title of Kentucky Colonel, and built a successful roadside restaurant.
Then, in 1956, a new interstate highway bypassed the town. Business disappeared overnight. Forced to auction the restaurant at sixty-six to settle his debts, he was left with nothing but the monthly check.
Most people would have stopped. Instead he put a pressure cooker and a bag of his spice blend in the car and started driving. He slept in the back seat to save money, walked into restaurants unannounced, cooked his chicken on the spot, and offered a simple handshake deal: four cents for every piece sold. Owners laughed.
They called the recipe too complicated, the method too odd, the idea too risky. He was turned down ten times, a hundred times, five hundred times.
He washed his white suit in laundromats, slept in gas-station lots, and kept going. It took 1,009 rejections before one owner finally said yes.
By the time he was seventy-three, the network had grown to more than six hundred locations across North America. He later sold the company for millions while remaining its public face, becoming one of the most recognized people in the world.
Even into his eighties he showed up unannounced in franchise kitchens, insisting the chicken taste exactly as it should and dismissing cheap copies as wallpaper paste, until he died at ninety.
People often measure what is still possible by age, by past failures, or by the number of doors already closed. Sanders began the work that defined him at sixty-five, after more than a thousand no’s, and kept driving until the answer changed.
🤖 Made with AI
Peter retweeted
Happy 86th birthday, John. ❤️
On John Lennon’s birthday each year, one illuminated bedroom window at Mendips serves as a quiet reminder of the boy from Liverpool whose music reached the world.
Peter retweeted
In 1967 Britain had more electric vehicles on its roads than every other country on earth put together, and they were all delivering milk.
There were tens of thousands of them. The milk float: open sided, battery under the floor, top speed of about 15 miles an hour, and a whine you could pick out in your sleep. It was charged overnight at the depot and was back there by lunchtime.
It carried glass bottles. Each one was collected from your step the next morning, washed and refilled. A bottle went round like that 20 or 30 times before it broke. The foil cap went for scrap. There was no other packaging.
The milk had come from farms within a few miles, through a local dairy, and was on the step before 7.
So here is what the country had. A zero-emission delivery fleet. Reusable containers with a return rate any modern scheme would kill for. No plastic. A supply chain you could cycle the length of. A man who noticed if an old lady's bottles were piling up, and knocked.
It was dismantled in about 15 years, because a supermarket could sell milk a few pence cheaper in a plastic jug as a way of getting you through the door.
Every piece of that system is now the subject of a government target for 2040.
It was running in 1967, silently, in the dark, and nobody thought it was worth a mention.
Peter retweeted
"No one leaves here alive. So please stop treating yourself as an afterthought. Eat delicious food. Walk in the sun. Jump into the sea. Speak the truth that you carry in your heart like a hidden treasure. Be silly. Be good. Be weird. There is no time for anything else. - Anthony Hopkins
Peter retweeted
The best gift you can give your parents is time.
Be patient. Be present. Be grateful. Be kind and interested. Be loving. Be proud.
Peter retweeted
𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐇𝐨𝐩𝐞: 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐚’𝐬 𝐉𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞
They brought her back to the shelter after only thirteen minutes of happiness. For entire days, she sat in silence at the back of her cage, her gaze lost in space, wondering what she had done wrong. The narrator, having worked in this animal shelter for eight years, had seen it all, but nothing remained more heartbreaking than the return of an animal everyone thought was finally saved. That day, it was Maya's turn.
Maya had been abandoned by her former owners. She was a beautiful, medium sized, golden Labrador cross, easily recognizable by her soft, slightly asymmetrical ears. In the beginning, she would sit right against the gate, desperately waiting for them to come back for her. Then, as the months passed, the hope in her honey colored eyes slowly extinguished. She laid down at the back of her kennel, completely resigned to her fate.
One morning, after three hundred and sixty five days of waiting, a young couple arrived. They were looking for a calm companion for their apartment. The worker explained Maya's past, specifying that she would need patience, and they assured they understood. When Maya got into their car at 10:15 AM, a fragile glimmer reappeared in her eyes. The worker's heart filled with immense relief.
At 10:27 AM, the phone rang. The young woman's voice was tense: "She is too lively. She is running everywhere, sniffing everything, and she jumped on our sofa. We are not ready." By 10:40 AM, their car was parking in front of the shelter once again. Maya's new life had lasted precisely thirteen minutes.
When the car door opened, the dog stepped out without any resistance. The adopters left quickly, avoiding her eyes. Maya turned toward the shelter worker, her tail wagging hesitantly, carrying that silent, devastating question in her eyes: "What did I do wrong?"
Rather than putting her back in a kennel, the worker settled her in the office on a soft armchair. "You did nothing wrong," they whispered to her. "You ran because you were happy. You jumped on the couch because you wanted to feel at home. That is just being a dog."
Weeks passed. The worker labored every single day with her to slowly restore her shattered confidence. And then, one afternoon, a silver-haired woman named Claire arrived. She said softly: "I am looking for a dog that nobody wants. An animal that needs time, because I, too, am learning to live alone in a large, empty house."
The worker told her Maya's story, her asymmetrical ears, the endless waiting, and those thirteen minutes of broken hope. Claire asked to meet her. When they arrived in front of the kennel, Maya stood up cautiously. She approached the bars, sniffed Claire's extended fingers, and then gently licked them. The emotional connection was immediate, sincere, and absolute.
Three days after their departure, Claire called, her voice trembling with emotion: "Maya is sleeping at the foot of my bed. The first night, she ran everywhere and jumped on the couch. It actually amused me, because I understood she was celebrating her freedom."
Today, two months later, the shelter receives regular pictures of Maya peacefully asleep in a warm sunbeam. Her eyes no longer ask what she did wrong. They simply declare that she is finally, truly home.
𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: True love does not demand immediate perfection; it embraces the joy of freedom. Maya’s story beautifully demonstrates that an animal's vibrant spirit is never a fault, but a celebration of life that only requires the right, patient heart to understand it.
Got to love #Liverpool Waterfront and #Otterspool Promenade, part of the #TranspennineTrail and National Cycle #Route56
But why create hazards for cyclists, prams and wheelchair users @lpoolcouncil?
#cobblestones
📷 @thepeterlunt
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Peter retweeted
The #bicycle is the most efficient form of human transportation. It can combat climatechange, ease urban congestion and build human fitness 🚲
#HappyFriday fellow #BikeFriends 🙌🏽 🚴♀️🚴♂️🚴🏻 💚
"Bank of England holds interest rates at 3.75%"
Policymakers await 'further evidence' before taking action on #interestrates
Keep watching, keep waiting
ft.com/content/44bc4245-f235… via @FT
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"UK inflation rose to 3.1% in August" | FT
So what can we expect from BoE on #interestrates tomorrow?
More #WaitandSee?
ft.com/content/57c085c9-741e… via @FT
38
The #RedMen playing Goalie Wed Ness?
#footywhenwewerekids
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Peter retweeted
🚨WOW!!!
A Bronx pizzeria owner saw a woman eating out of his GARBAGE.
He walked outside, took her by the hand, led her in, and pulled a hot slice straight from the oven for her.
She sat down and cried. He said: "Don't cry. Eat. I don't want you eating out of a garbage." ❤️
His name is Daniel Romano.
He owns D'Romano's Pizza in the Throggs Neck section of the Bronx.
He didn't shoo her away.
"I grabbed her by the hand and I led her to the pizzeria and I went in the oven and I got her a fresh slice and gave it to her. Sat down and she started crying. I said, 'don't cry, eat. This is not a problem.'"
In that moment, he decided he'd never let it happen to anyone again.
So he grabbed a marker, wrote a sign by hand, and taped it in his window for the whole neighborhood to see:
"To the people eating out of my garbage, I have more love for you than you think. Please come in and tell me you're hungry. I will forever give you a slice and fresh water to drink."
When they asked him why, his answer was simple.
"Right now, I think this world is shot. There's too much hate. Too much negativity. Why not put a smile on someone's face?"
And it turns out this runs deep for Daniel.
It goes all the way back to his mother, Carmella.
"She had a saying in Italian. She used to say, 'a desperate person will always make a better decision on a full stomach than on an empty.'
"It always stuck with me. So I feed people."
A desperate person makes a better decision on a full stomach.
That handwritten sign has traveled way past the Bronx now.
Daniel says people are calling him from Texas, Arkansas, Hawaii, even Alaska, all wanting to chip in and buy slices for hungry strangers they'll NEVER MEET.
"Don't ask me, I didn't even know Alaska had a phone."
It all started with one slice.
One woman.
One man who did something kind.
GOD BLESS Daniel Romano. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Peter retweeted
Pepe Reina: “It’s difficult to say no to Barcelona.”
Luis Suárez: “It would be very difficult to say no to Real Madrid.”
Philippe Coutinho: “It’s a dream come true” after finally joining Barcelona.
Daniel Agger: “I can say NO to just about any club in the world as long as Liverpool Football Club want me to stay.”
Agger had opportunities to leave Liverpool during his eight years at Anfield, but his attachment to the club was different.
He eventually left in 2014, not for another European giant, but to return to his boyhood club Brøndby.
And when he retired, he had YNWA tattooed across his knuckles.
Daniel Agger. Proper Liverpool cult hero. 👊🔴
Peter retweeted
It is nearly an impossible task to convey just how amazing kids are to someone who doesn’t have any.
The best way I can describe it is this:
You spend your whole life thinking you understand love.
Then one night, you’ll find yourself standing in a room at 2 a.m., just watching your newborn baby breathe, just to make sure they are still alive.
And you realize in that moment that you would burn the entire world to the ground for the slow rise and fall of that tiny chest.
You become braver and absolutely terrified at the same time.
You start looking for exits in restaurants and worrying about that weird stranger in the parking lot.
You discover a capacity for anger and violence you never knew lived in you until you think you might need it because someone might hurt your kid.
The first time you see your kid, the entire world changes.
You realize you are meant to live for them… not for you.
And it feels good. It feels right.
Like a key to a door you have always been looking at but could never open.
And one ordinary afternoon probably while you’re folding socks or something dumb, it will hit you…
This is how your parents loved you.
This is what she felt watching you sleep.
This is what your dad felt every time he watched you walk out the door.
And you had no idea.
You spent your entire childhood with no idea.
It’s so beautiful, words fail to describe it.
It’s just right, it was always meant to be this way. ❤️
