Latest news with #WendyCooper
BBC News
23-05-2025
- BBC News
'All I want is the safe return of my gorgeous, fun-loving boy'
A mother has appealed for her "gorgeous, fun-loving" son to return home safely, more than two weeks after he went missing near Cooper, 19, was last seen at about 19:30 on Wednesday 7 May on the A803 Glasgow/Kilsyth Road in his home village of had previously been captured on CCTV at about 06:00 on Sunday 4 May in the Longcroft area having been on a night out at the pub with of the local community have been taking part in searches of the surrounding area and police have used a helicopter and drones in a bid to spot him. Cole's mother Wendy said it was completely out of character for him to go missing and not contact friends or said: "My heart is totally broken, all I want is the safe return of my gorgeous, fun -loving boy. I feel so numb not knowing where he is."I'd like to thank the local community and everyone who has helped in searching for Cole so far. Please, if you have any information that can help, report this to police."Cole, if you see this message, please get in contact as we just want to know you are safe."All I want is my son home. We all love and miss him so much." Cole's family have joined local search parties in the weeks since he went missing and will take part in another search on told BBC Scotland's Drivetime programme: "My gut tells me someone out there knows something and I'm just begging for them to come forward with anything to find my boy."His aunt Amy has also been giving regular updates and appeals for information on social told Drivetime that her nephew's disappearance had "turned everyone's life upside down".She said: "It's been horrific - the emotions that we've been going through, the night terrors that I know a lot of us have been having."The frantic feeling that you might see something when you are out on the searches causes so much anxiety."Watching his mum and the pain that she is in is just heartbreaking." Report any sightings Insp Neil Wotherspoon said police officers were continuing to review CCTV footage, as well as conducting door-to-door inquiries and speaking to witnesses in efforts to trace urged anyone with information to contact Police Wotherspoon said: "Cole has now been missing for a significant amount of time and is it out of character for him not to be in contact with family or friends."I'd urge anyone who may have seen Cole, or a man matching his description, to report any sightings to us. Equally, anyone who has any information that can help us trace him should contact police immediately."Cole is described as about 5ft 10in, of medium build with short brown hair. He was last seen wearing a black puffer-style jacket with black jogging has links to the the Denny, Cumbernauld and Paisley areas.
The Guardian
09-03-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Opening our eyes to the science of sleep, in 1971
'Sleep is like love. If you have it, you take it for granted,' reports Wendy Cooper in the Observer Magazine on 24 January 1971. If you don't, it's rhythmic rocking or counting sheep for you, though not for Charles Dickens: he made sure his bed faced north, better to boost his creativity as he slumbered. We spend a third of our lives sleeping, but some feel they still don't get enough, some (narcoleptics) fall asleep when they eat. Some sleepwalk or, in one case, sleepride their motorbike in the middle of the night. Insomnia, one of the most common complaints to doctors, sees pharmaceutical companies researching 'new sleep-inducing drugs'. In special sleep laboratories throughout the world, the 'secrets of the strange phenomenon of sleep are being properly investigated for the first time,' enthuses Cooper. They are armed with a new wonder machine: the electro-encephalograph (EEG), which detects the minute electrical changes taking place in the brain, amplifying and recording them. Researchers in the control room watch their sleeping volunteers, and the charts. The real excitement starts, says Cooper, when 'the eyes make rapid jerky coordinated movements… This indicates a special form of sleep known as rapid eye movement or REM sleep; the brainwaves at these times resemble waking brainwaves and the body parallels this with a storm of activity'. Irregular heart-rate, increased oxygen intake, reduced muscle tone, It's all preparation for action in the sleeper's 'personal world of dreams', dreams that are vivid, 'emotional, self-involved and often bizarre adventures'. This association between REM sleep and active dreaming is 'perhaps the most exciting discovery so far made in sleep research' – for 'it makes possible the scientific study of dreams'. Eyes are already wide open at current findings, such as the fact that dreams don't happen in a flash: 'The time taken for a dream roughly matches the time that would be needed for the same actions in waking life.' Sounds exhausting. REM sleep, it turns out, is the key to wellbeing – the brain gets 'offline' time to revise and classify information. Without it, there is a significant deterioration in judgment, speed and accuracy. Shift workers, take note.
