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Poppy Atkinson Gibson

Trainee reporter at The Daily Mail 

mirror •

Chicken and eagle battle it out at scaring seagulls away from Blackpool Zoo

The Mirror Chicken flew up to Blackpool to face their arch nemesis and battle it out for the crown of chief seagull deterrent.

I spread my wings and flew to Blackpool, home of the Pleasure Beach, ballroom dancing, beaches and now... An eagle that’s trying to muscle in on my game.

I’d heard clucks through the grapevine that Blackpool Zoo has been battling flocks of pesky gulls and in an attempt to rid themselves of these creatures had advertised for a seagull deterrent in the form of an eagle.
WalesOnline •

Teen making hundreds of pounds a week selling sweets from a shed

A young businessman who started selling homemade cookies aged 15 before setting up his own sweet shop is now turning over hundreds of pounds a week and has just hired his first employee. Callum Baker, 17, started his online sweet shop The Sweet Shack a week before his 16th birthday after seeing the TikTok account of sweet seller Greedy Gwin.

“I was really bored and I watched a lot of TikTok and I was watching these sweet business videos. I bought some sweets online with £50 of my own money and
mirror •

Abandoned nuclear bunker once found by one of UK's busiest roundabouts

A busy roundabout hides a forgotten underground bunker which would have been used to defend the UK had the Russians attacked with nuclear weapons at the height of the Cold War.

Coryton, in Cardiff, was chosen to host one of the 13 war rooms across the country in 1952.

They were built in case a nuclear attack destroyed Parliament and left the government in disarray.

The bunker remained operational until 1958 when it became a training centre for Regional Seats of Government staff - the system w
WalesOnline •

Cardiff corner shop closes after more than 20 years

A Cardiff corner shop has announced its closure after 20 years. Shopkeepers Neil and Rachel Robjohn have closed their corner shop after 23 years serving the local community of Penylan. The married couple started the business in Waterloo Gardens in November 2000 after Neil was encouraged to become his own boss by a friend.

“I was always born to be a shopkeeper, I have the right attitude; being fair and having good customer service,” he said. But after more than two decades the couple are looking
The Cardiffian •

Inside Cardiff's only furry club: 'Furries come out of their shell when they put a fur-suit on'

The Cardiffian visits Fur The Moment and asks its members – who call themselves furries – how they got into one of today’s most fascinating subcultures

ON the first weekend of March, Martin boarded a train from The Valleys into Cardiff armed with just the essentials; his phone, wallet, keys, and a black bin bag containing a fluffy wolf costume.

The civil servant made his way across the city to Morgan Arcade, where he descended into the basement of gaming shop Geek Retreat.

After ordering a ch
The Cardiffian •

Rugby fans dump 8.5 tonnes of rubbish on Cardiff streets after one Six Nations match

Council workers spent five hours cleaning up Chippy Lane and The Cardiffian went out with them to see what it was like

AT 5am the day after the Wales v England match Cardiff city centre was full of stragglers stumbling home from pubs and clubs, discarded kebabs and chip shop rubbish.

My guide on this night-time tour was cleaning supervisor Samantha Thomas who was leading a council team ridding the streets of more than 8.5 tonnes of rubbish left behind by rugby fans.

I watched the crews as the
The Cardiffian •

Pensioner covers his house in signs to protest against next-door's wall

The Grangetown man has even drilled holes to draw attention to the neighbour dispute

RETIRED bricklayer Ewen Taylor has put signs outside his home to publicise a building row with his neighbours that started in February 2020.

Mr Taylor, who bought 161 Clare Road, Grangetown, in 1956, is in a dispute with his next-door neighbours over the building of a wall that he claims encroaches on his land by two inches.

The 87-year-old said he began his protest after going out one morning to find a build
The Cardiffian •

LGBTQ+ community unites in memory of Brianna Ghey

Hundreds gather outside the National Museum to pay their respects to the schoolgirl stabbed to death in a park

A CROWD of between 200 and 400 met near Cardiff’s National Museum for a candlelit vigil to remember Brianna Ghey.

The 16-year-old trans schoolgirl was stabbed to death in a park in Cheshire on Saturday, February 11. Two 15-year-olds have been charged with her murder.

The crowd gathered round The Tree of Life in the Gorsedd Gardens holding candles and signs and wearing trans flags to
The Cardiffian •

Meet the baker selling real bread to the community from his family kitchen

The Tongwynlais man switched careers and now serves more than 100 customers a week

MICRO-BAKER Liam Nash quit his job of 20 years in procurement to open a bakery from his Tongwynlais home and now serves more than 100 regular customers a week.

Mr Nash said he had money coming in when he worked for the rail industry but no free time.

So he started The Grumpy Baker a year ago from his family kitchen with a mission to “bring real bread to local community”.

“Baking frees up time to spend with the
The Cardiffian •

Woman sentenced to at least 20 years in prison for murdering her mother’s best friend

A WOMAN who murdered her mother’s best friend and neighbour has been sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison after she changed her plea to guilty on the fifth day of her trial.

Rebecca Press, 32, from Caerphilly, stabbed Marc Ash on July 17, 2021, following a row in her mother’s home. She had gone there to stay following a split from her boyfriend Ashley Allen who she believed had been unfaithful, Prosecutor Jonathan Rees KC told the court.

The Recorder of Cardiff, Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clar
The Cardiffian •

"Merthyr is used to having the fag end of everything": Couple spend 20 years fighting the UK’s largest open-cast coal mine

Alyson and Chris Austin campaign against the expansion of Merthyr’s Ffos-y-Fran but also need to counter a local culture of disillusionment

BEFORE I’ve even sat down in Alyson and Chris Austin’s home on a little estate in Merthyr, Chris has started explaining the couple’s latest frustration and distress.

A recent planning application, submitted in September, seeks to extend the mining operations of the UK’s largest open cast coal mine, Ffos-y-Fran, for another nine months.

The couple plans to
The Cardiffian •

10,000 people fed by Cardiff Foodbank in six months - and plenty more predicted

Army of 200 volunteers gearing up to help those affected by the cost-of-living crisis this winter

CARDIFF Foodbank is expecting a steep increase in customers coming in for help this year.

Project manager Emma Shepherd says 10,000 people have been fed since April compared with 13,000 for the whole previous financial year.

This is an increase of 42% in those using Cardiff foodbanks from April to September 2022 compared with the same period in 2021. Parcels given to children rose by 51%.

Ms She
The Cardiffian •

All the help with the cost-of-living crisis in Cardiff mapped - from free food to warm banks

The Cardiffian has mapped out all the amazing people providing free and heavily discounted food and heat for poeple in Wales’ Capital city this Winter

AS the winter cold begins to bite, volunteers from around Cardiff have come together to provide support for people who are struggling.

Here, The Cardiffian has put into one place everything you need to know about accessing support this winter. Included are places to stay warm, find free meals and get discounted groceries.

The eight Cardiff food
The Cardiffian •

Free food market sees 300% increase in users 'due to cost of living crisis'

St Mark’s Church has seen the number of people using the service rise from 50 per week to 200 per week, since it opened in March 2020.

A FREE food market in Gabalfa has seen an increase in numbers from 50 families per week when it was first set up in March 2020, to 200 per week more recently.

Organiser Della Nelson attributed the rise in numbers coming to the St Mark’s Church food market to the cost of living crisis.

She described new customers as people who “look more affluent but they might
The Oxford Student •

Dates of Our Lives: A break in and a broken heart –

Before I begin I must stress that no one was harmed in the making of this story. Well, no one that I’m connected to. Really, this is a story that you have to laugh about and tell the grandkids. Such a story begins on a cold and stormy night in the darkness that was my dissertation term. For those poor souls who have been subjected to such torturous treatment you know the feeling of waking up panic stricken, soaked in a sheen of sweat and panting heavily in the lower Glink where you have just bee
The Times •

Anger over Rio Tinto donations to the University of Oxford

Students have accused the University of Oxford of “laundering the reputation” of the Rio Tinto mining company after it emerged that the university had received at least £70,000 in donations from the company.

In 2013 the Foundation Rio Tinto gave at least £25,000 to the Oxford Blavnatik School of Government, whose offers includes a course on oil, gas and mining governance.

Between 2014 and 2016 Rio Tinto also made two donations of £20,000 to the Saïd Business School Centre for Business Taxation
The Oxford Student •

Oxford University received at least £45,000 from multinational mining company facing anti-mining protests in Serbia –

Image description: A close up of the Radcliffe Camera dome

According to Oxford Climate Justice Campaign, Oxford University has received at least £45,000 in funding from the multinational mining company Rio Tinto since 2013.

The £45,000 includes two donations of £20,000 each to the Said Business School Centre for Business Taxation in 2014-15 and 2017-16 respectively, and a further £5,000 in 2019.

Rio Tinto is an Anglo-Australian multinational company and the second largest metals and mining co
The Oxford Student •

St Benet's Hall to cease undergrad admissions amid dire financial straits

18th December 2021 to include the joint statement from Oxford University and St Benet’s Hall, as well as additional information.

The Oxford Student can exclusively reveal that St Benet’s Hall will no longer be permitted to accept undergraduates due to its precarious financial situation following its separation from Ampleforth Abbey, the current owners of the buildings that comprise the Hall’s facilities.

A joint statement from the University and St Benet’s Hall, received on the 18th December,
Cherwell •

Clubbing in Culture: Rituals of Community-Finding

Clubbing is more than just sweatily gyrating to a heavy bass on a Park End Wednesday or smoking and socialising in Bridge on a Thursday; clubbing is an act of community-finding. There are distinct communities, especially in Oxford, divided by club and then sub-divided again by floor. While people’s tastes are never so clear-cut between music types as the floors themselves, some group differentiation occurs as partiers cluster in different floors: the Cheese Floor devotees, the R&B fans, the heav
The Oxford Student •

Christ Church Dean compares investigation into sexual harassment to Nazi persecution – The Oxford Student

The Oxford Student has exclusively obtained a copy of an essay written by the Dean, the Very Reverend Martyn Percy, and uploaded to a website, in which he compares his experiences during the investigations of welfare mishandling and sexual harassment to the treatment of victims of Nazi persecution. The essay has now been taken down.

The Very Rev Martyn Percy was suspended on full pay as Dean of Christ Church in November of 2018, a position he had held since 2014 following a protracted conflict
The Oxford Student •

The pill without a prescription – The Oxford Student

Image description: a sheet of contraceptive pills on a pink and blue background

It was announced at the end of July that the contraceptive pill, specifically the progesterone-only pill (HRA Pharma’s Hana and Maxwellia’s product Lovimacan) can now be sold over the counter at pharmacies without a prescription due to a change in classification. Yet I question the decision to make more freely available contraception that is potentially so life changing and harmful to those who take it. It is not th
The Oxford Student •

Womb Issues – The Oxford Student

Around one in ten women and those assigned female at birth in the UK have polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and one in ten women or those assigned female at birth in the UK have endometriosis. PCOS can be summarised as having irregular periods, higher levels of ‘male’ hormones which produce more body hair, and having enlarged ovaries, filled with follicles around the eggs which prevent release. Endometriosis is characterised as the growth of womb lining tissue in the ovaries and fallopian tubes
The Oxford Student •

COVID-19 has no parallel in war. Our language should reflect this –

It has become something of a trend to compare the COVID-19 crisis to war, with Donald Trump labelling himself “a wartime president”, Emmanuel Macron telling the French people: “nous sommes en guerre”, and New York governor Andrew Cuomo referring to health workers as “troops”.

President Trump recently tweeted: “The world is at war with a hidden enemy. WE WILL WIN!” Governments are now war cabinets, politicians are generals and the general public the infantry, the men on the ground, those on the
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