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Neil Tester

@neiltester.bsky.social
2.6K followers 1.4K following 734 posts

Interested in most things but especially health, social care and the voluntary sector. Freelance consultant: neiltesterconsulting.co.uk. Chair, Healthwatch Hertfordshire: www.healthwatchhertfordshire.co.uk. My own views, naturally.

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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I assume Maya’s having Sugar Puffs #CelebrityTraitors
Maya Jama at the Traitors breakfast table, wearing an enormous fluffy garment that looks like a honey monster costume.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
#CelebrityTraitors: Romesh Ranganathan asks Julie Hesmondhalgh: “Is there anyone here you don’t like?” Julie: “Yes.” Romesh: “Me too.” Cut to Mr Kemp walking in. I think I’m going to enjoy how this series is edited.
Ross Kemp in a Traitors armchair.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Greatly enjoying the Guardian innocently discovering how election manifestos work. www.theguardian.com/money/2026/s...
By not introducing it until after the next general election, they argue that the public will be given a say - though Burnham made clear Labour's next manifesto is likely to include a range of other major policies.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Crazy name, crazy guy.
A circular grey slate plaque on a wall. The plaque is decorated with gilding and gilded letters say: 
“WYNKYN de WORDE
Father of Fleet Street first set up his Press by Shoe Lane near this Hall circa 1500.”
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Wonder how long the arguments over the typo lasted?
A stone memorial plaque, on which is engraved:
IN MEMORY OF MR HENRY PARRY
WHO DIED FEBUARY 16TH, 1822.
AGED 43 YEARS.

CENTRE OE GRAVE 37 FEET SOUTH OF
THIS MONUMENT.

The word “February” has been carved without its middle letter r.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Far too many older people who spoke to Healthwatch Hertfordshire said they weren’t getting proper medication reviews. We’ve made sorting this out one of our recommendations to the NHS. www.healthwatchhertfordshire.co.uk/news/2026-02...
Respondents were asked whether they have medication reviews on a regular basis and their responses were mixed. Where people had more contact with healthcare services, such as hospital visits, they appeared to be reviewed more regularly. However for others, their medication reviews were sporadic, with some not having had a review in years. One woman, aged 100, was concerned about the quality of medication reviews and was not certain what her medication does.
"They tell you to have it reviewed before you have more tablets but then all they do is ask you 'how are you feeling' and 'do you really need that' well I don't know if I need it or not because I don't always know what they're for!" [Aged 100]
"I've had them checked by the pharmacist who dispenses them. The one at the surgery has checked them. And / will say because | go to the hospital, they're checked all the time." [Age 68]
"I've had all my medications for years now, I think I need them all. I haven't spoken to a GP or someone else about them though." [Aged 98]
Other respondents reflected the same sentiments, sharing they are not certain which each of their medications are or what they are for. However, some respondents felt confident taking and managing their medication independently, and knew which each tablet was for.
"Yes 11! I need to take them when I get back home, I shall take about five, I have them in little containers." [age not disclosed]
"l've got loads, all sorts of stuff. All different colours and shapes and stuff. Got no idea what half of them are. " [age not disclosed]
"They're changing all the time and I do have to look them up and check them, they tend to be just given to you and you expect, well, you just expect to take them. I like to know what they're for and what they might do." [Aged 68]
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
And to make matters worse they’ve spontaneously gone for this look.
Oswald Mosley surrounded by saluting Blackshirts.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Little gem in Peter Snape’s Times obituary. Would that our current crop of politicians exhibited such innate curiosity… www.thetimes.com/article/3e5a...
Sometimes his transport interests caused him problems. He once got locked in the boot of his beloved Jaguar after climbing inside it to see if the interior light went off when it was closed.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Facebook served me this uninvited post and my first question was how Russell Brand had slipped through a time vortex.
Screenshot of Facebook post from a group called I Grew Up In The 70s & 80s. The post is reminiscing about the TV play Abigail’s party, with photos of cast members and one of a Demis Roussos LP cover, with a close-up of his long hair, beard and hat.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Walking up Great Portland Street and feeling a strange compulsion to apply for a job in here.
A large, stone office building. Above the door a sign reads: The Smiths Building.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
This just in from our watching-Channel-Four-News-cover-the-BBC-Director-General-at-today’s-committee-hearing-and-noticing-someone corespondent. Clearly too hot for the cravat.
Photo of a TV screen with the Channel Four station ident logo. Andrew Edwards, the Cravat Man referred to in the quoted post, sits behind the BBC Director-General as he gives select committee evidence. He is wearing an open-necked shirt with no cravat. His face has been circled in the photo.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
This @privateeyenews.bsky.social Lookalike is going to take a lot of beating.
Private Eye cutting.
Lookalike.
Image of David Sullivan with the caption: “Porn.” Next to it is an image of Violet Carson, wearing her famous hairnet as Ena Sharples, with the caption: “Scorn.”     
Sir,
Veteran enabler of young models David
"Slug" Sullivan and veteran actress Violet Carson portraying Coronation St moralist Ena Sharples.
JOHN FINN.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Verdad.
Screenshot from the Duolingo app. Above a cartoon of a man with dark hair and a moustache, wearing a pink shirt and green trousers, the text says: “Repeat after Oscar. Todo esto es consecuencia del cambio climático!”
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Half-time.
Four quarters of an orange on a white plate.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
I walk about *a lot* so I thought I’d stumbled across most of the older blue plaques. But I just found this one on Great Ormond Street. #BluePlaque
Round blue plaque on a wall. John Howard, 1726-1790, prison reformer, lived here.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Well, thanks for the earworm.
A bronze statue of a winged goddess and a horse, on top of a tall stone plinth. Each facet of the plinth carries a single word of a Latin motto, surrounded by laurel leaves. Close-up of the word “Gloria”.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
1/2 Watching the Moldovan Eurovision entry just gave me a flashback to my brief stint running comms at the National Audit Office about 20 years ago, when I had to brief visiting Moldovan public auditors on our comms operation. The delegation lead, sporting an impressive beehive, wanted…
16. Moldova: Satoshi - Viva, Moldova!
A very warm welcome back to Moldova, absent from Eurovision since 2024 and clearly determined to make up for lost time. Please strap in for three minutes of a multi-language football chant...about Moldova. Yes, really. I acknowledge that sounds like the sort of concept that has no business outside a national final, but stick with it because it's absurdly fun.
Satoshi arrives armed with enough joy and gusto to power a small nation (his own, conveniently), and even if your personal levels of Moldovan pride are hovering near zero, or you're a bit hazy on Moldova's exact whereabouts on the European map, it's hard not to get swept along.
PS If you suffer from motion sickness, consider this a warning. The camerawork is WILD.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Far be it from me to doubt the accuracy of the Guardian, but I suspect it’s more likely he said this to Progress rather than a ‘leftwing police conference’. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
In a speech at a leftwing police conference, Streeting said the party had not had a true debate
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Excellent new unit of measurement. www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/a...
Sawe's team had insisted their man was in shape, and that he would be helped by wearing the latest pair of Adidas Adios Pro 3 supershoes, which weigh in at just 97 grams - lighter than a baby kitten - and will retail for about £450. But no one expected this.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
“Aliiive, alive-o…”
A chip shop menu board advertising cockles and muscles (sic).
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
Just read a comment on my local newspaper’s website decrying “Neigh Sayers” and that’s set me up nicely for the day.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
Hang on, Sunday Times - maybe make your mind up?
Screenshot from the Sunday Times. Two stories next to each other.
Photo of Malta. Headline: Forget Dubai - Britons are moving here to cut tax bills instead.
Photo of Zohran Mamdani. Headline: Rich New Yorkers eye London as Mamdani plots wealth tax.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
Love this note at the end of the Guardian’s review of the J**n L***s Christmas ad.
This article was amended on 4 November 2025 to remove a suggestion that print journalism is
"obsolete". Newspapers and magazines are still available.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
While it would make Barry Gardiner MP’s life easier if he represented a one-man constituency, Brett North isn’t going to be pleased with BBC London.
Screenshot of BBC London news. A man with grey hair, wearing a white shirt and dark suit, is being interviewed in a city street. The on-screen caption identifies him as Brent North, Gatwick Diamond Initiative.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 21/09/2025
I’ve moved house and I’m still stowing away a whole load of things that I know why I kept but that don’t have obvious places to go. One is this notebook in which I started to note down some of my 7-year-old’s questions. If anyone can answer them, it would help me stop being such a deadbeat dad 🤣
A page in a lined notebook. Handwritten text as follows.
4/5/09
Why are my cheeks and earlobes soft?
4/5/09
Why is everything in space?
6/5/09
Why do train signals have four lights?
21/5/09
Are pandas dangerous?
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
Animated BSL station platform warning message 👍
A railway platform indicator board displays the following message: “Stand back from the platform edge. The fast train now approaching does not stop here.” Next to the text is a computer-animated woman relating the message in British Sign Language.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
I checked what i have to do with the nine empty spray cans of red paint I used to do up this tin trunk and established that as they’re aerosol cans containing paint I need to hand them to the staff at the council recycling centre. But I just realised they’re also in charge of roundabouts. #Awkward
Red spray paint cans.A large trunk, painted red, on a plastic sheet covered in spray paint.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
Not convinced this press officer understands how the Tardis is supposed to work.
It has been attacked for running "woke" storylines and criticised for falling ratings. Its leading actor made a surprise departure at the end of the last series. Yet the BBC has now issued a reassurance to Doctor Who fans worried about the future of the show: "the Tardis is going nowhere".
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
Thanks @privateeyenews.bsky.social for this addition to my “Maybe the people selling us AI ought to learn a bit about how AI works” file…
Vision of the future. 
Users of Google's Lens tool, which searches for information on an image or still from a video, are finding that thanks to AI
"upgrades" it is now returning inaccurate or misleading information across a range of topics.
These include the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the India-Pakistan conflict, the recent Air India plane crash and small boat arrivals in the UK. As an investigation by FullFact discovered, the AI repeatedly failed to identify faked content and misattributed footage.
The result? A viral video purporting to show asylum seekers arriving in Dover, which was in fact of crowds of people on a beach in Goa, India.
The Al overview claimed it "depicts a group of people gathered on Dover Beach, a pebble beach on the coast of England". Further, it misidentified a video of people waving Palestinian flags as being from, er, the funeral of Pope Francis.
Why is the Al making these mistakes?
Because it's getting the answers to the queries from social media - where the likes of ex-Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe have been busy labelling charity rowers at sea as illegal small boat migrants.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
Well played, Let’s-Play-Sleeping-Lions Train Dad 👏
Screenshot from phone home screeen showing date of Sunday 10 August and time of 08:48.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
BBC 1 o’clock news sending subliminal branding messages ahead of a future Streeting leadership campaign?
BBC political correspondent Joe Pike on screen beneath a graphic reading: “Live - Wesminster.”
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
#MotivationalPhoneChargerCablePackaging #YesIAm
Cardboard packaging bearing the text: “You’re in charge.”
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
Someone should tell all those “adulting is really hard” people that apparently all you have to do is stare into your phone camera.
You have been verified as an adult for Bluesky Social.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 19/07/2025
What kind of wine do these people drink???
Printed onto the side of a box.

Know your limits.
The glasses in this pack are approximately 225 ml.
Filling this glass to the rim with a 37.5% ABV wine would give you 8.5 units.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
This point about trauma, alongside some other themes in this new #Healthwatch Hertfordshire report (buff.ly/gjdirhB), has made me think about what people said during this project I worked on at The Richmond Group of Charities a few years back: www.richmondgroupofcharities.org.uk/publications...
“I had to leave because of conflict in my home country. I feel very depressed. I have some trauma from what I have seen. I was told I would be waiting a very long time for help.”

Healthwatch Hertfordshire logo
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
New Spinal Tap corporate HQ’s opened near Watford Junction.
A new office building with an illuminated sign, in capital letters, reading: “Eleven.”
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
Sorting hats off to The Times.
Newspaper headline.
12 points to Gryffindor: Emma Watson banned for speeding
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
My natural air of authority and erudition was clearly evident in B&Q, where a young father with a toddler asked me plaintively how I was going about choosing a strimmer. I was pleased to provide an evidence-based answer within the bounds of my competence. No, I was *not* wearing an orange apron.
Yoda using the Force.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
This is just one of the stories in the latest Healthwatch Hertfordshire annual report that shows how our information and signposting service helps individuals but also drives change in the system: buff.ly/OlC8ShO
Our Signposting service helped a resident access specialised dentures to reduce their risk of choking during epileptic seizures.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Wow, whole new section just for political policy documents…
Foyle’s bookshop placard.
Romantasy fiction.
New, bestselling and recommended fiction that blends romance and fantasy.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
The new #Healthwatch Hertfordshire annual report is full of quotes from people explaining how we help their organisations make better decisions. Here’s Herts and West Essex Integrated Care Board CEO Dr Jane Halpin:
“Healthwatch Hertfordshire's work with us is deeply valued. Their outreach into the wider community gives us vital insight into our population. This helps ensure we understand how care and services are working-and where we can improve-to better meet the needs of local people.”

Dr Jane Halpin, CEO, Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Board
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
Today’s 10-Year Health Plan confirms that Healthwatch functions will move to the NHS and councils. Here’s a short statement from Healthwatch Hertfordshire. We’re getting on with the job and celebrating our impact while we find out what happens next.
You may have seen the recent news reports of the Government's intention to transfer the statutory functions of local Healthwatch to the NHS and councils. This will require legislative change and is expected to take place during 2026.
When details of the plan are announced, we'll be able to think and talk about our own longer-term plans as an independent charity. But we can say with certainty that our amazing team will continue delivering the work we're already committed to for 2025-26.
Our latest Annual Report shows just how much our staff and volunteers did to help the thousands of people who spoke to us last year so we could make a difference to health and care.
Thanks to all of them, and to everyone who's heard the news and told us how important they think Healthwatch Hertfordshire's role is.
Neil Tester
Chair, Healthwatch Hertfordshire
Ivana Chalmers
CEO, Healthwatch Hertfordshire
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
Looking forward to reading all 150 pages of the NHS plan (plus references)…
Aemon Targaryen speaking to Samwell Tarly in Game of Thrones: “Wasting candles to read in the middle of the night!”
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
I thought Cilla had come back! Surprise, surprise! #Eurovision
Former Eurovision entrant Paula, performing 45 years after coming 4th.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
Are you still eligible for the “most la-la-las” competition if it’s an actual word? Asking for a Dutch friend. #Eurovision
Dutch Eurovision contestant Claude singing.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
The recruitment company offices above which I’m staying have bongos next to the printer and I have questions.
An office seen through a large window. Nearest to the window is a unit on which is standing a printer, several staples, and some bongos.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
Interesting to see yet another country demonstrating how perfectly possible it is to deliver live sign language interpreting for national announcements.
Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez making a statement on the recent power outage. A sign language interpreter appears in the corner of the screen.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 13/04/2025
❤️ April
A sea of bluebells amongst trees in a wood.Close-up shot of bluebells.
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Neil Tester @neiltester.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
I shall be displeased if I see anyone dissing Pan’s People’s blunderbuss-infused interpretation of Hank Mizell’s ‘Jungle Rock’ on #TOTP. I’ve got the 45. As a child I asked the DJ who did our family weddings and parties to play it so often that in the end he gave it to me. The B-side is astounding.
A female dancer from Pan’s People dances in a jungle setting, holding an enormous prop gun.
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