Tuesday 24 March: Precisely how can we keep our distance while needing to shop for food?

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/03/24/lettersprecisely-can-keep-distance-needing-shop-food/

886 thoughts on “Tuesday 24 March: Precisely how can we keep our distance while needing to shop for food?”

    2. ‘Morning, Citroen. The division of the double bed raised a chuckle here…well done, Blower.

      Incidentally, a few minutes ago I could see all of the letters, but when I went in again just now they were Premium once again.

      1. It’s the new government rules, Hugh. The Telegraph are only allowed two paragraphs/letters together, then the rest have to be at least six feet away. Maybe you could try setting up a second laptop six feet away to read the rest of the letters!

        :-))

          1. Definite as well as indefinite, Herr Oberst? I note that both you and I are keeping to new lockdown laws.

            :-))

  5. The Guardian view on lockdown for Britain: necessary hardship. Editorial. 23 Mar 2020

    During the critical days to come, in the very different Britain of 2020, the present government must trust in exactly the same kind of popular resilience. The public desperately needed clear leadership, as the trajectory of the coronavirus epidemic in this country continues to track that of stricken Italy. On Saturday 793 people there died from the disease in one day – a global record. It was imperative that Boris Johnson abandoned the register of exhortation and issued clear instructions that will be enforced, thereby instituting a lockdown. A laissez-faire approach to fighting a pandemic did not work.

    Morning everyone. One of the oddities of the Guardian is that in the normal course of events it publishes left wing twaddle with might and main but when there is some disturbance in the Force its editorials always sounds like some manic right wing dictator. I feel no “desperate” need for “clear leadership” which in my lifetime has meant the destruction of the UK and its people along with the erosion of its Democracy and Freedoms. The truth is that the “clear instructions” are not clear in that they contain their own get out clauses and are unenforceable unless people are willing to die of starvation in their own homes.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/23/the-guardian-view-on-lockdown-for-britain-true-leadership-is-required

    1. At least we cannot be forced to buy the Guardian directly. It is, of course, forced indirectly via the BBC licence-fee.

    2. Morning Minty, a £30 fine is pointless, a £1000 fine is more appropriate to encourage compliance.
      As I wrote yesterday I believe a 24 hr visit to an ICU would make the argument that a lockdown is necessary. I can fight to restore democracy and personal freedoms, we can rebuild the economy, it has been done before. You don’t get a comeback from dying.
      People starving in their homes, you are starting to sound like the MSM.

      1. “You don’t get a comeback from dying.”

        Morning VVOF. No you don’t but the cruel truth is that they are almost certainly going to die anyway! Democracy and Personal Freedom in the UK is, as is regularly pointed out on this forum, largely a myth. It’s implementation in the Post CV world is not simply out of our hands but actively blocked by a political elite that seeks only its own wellbeing. As to sounding like the MSM, they I would point out support your own view of the CV crisis being paramount.

        1. “ No you don’t but the cruel truth is that they are almost certainly going to die anyway”
          Unfortunately without measures to lessen the demand on the NHS, others who for example suffer accidents but are otherwise without underlying health problems are going to die waiting for an ambulance or medical care with the NHS at stretching point.
          I beg to differ regarding my view agreeing with the MSM, I believe a lockdown strictly enforced is necessary, a cool calm approach is what we are capable of. I do not believe publishing articles reporting scare stories, such as a shortage of eggs, “whoa is us”, how will we cope attitude is doing any good for the country.
          Here is such an example. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/22/forget-loo-roll-eggs-becoming-rare-hens-teeth/

    3. “its editorials always sound like some manic rightleft wing dictator”
      Fixed it for you – don’t fall for the propaganda!
      Because that is what they are.

  6. “Where the market works, I’m for that. Where the government is necessary, I’m for that. I’m deeply suspicious of somebody who says, ‘I’m in favour of privatisation’, or, ‘I’m deeply in favour of public ownership.’ I’m in favour of whatever works in the particular case.”

    Who said that?

          3. Not the arhchetypal Thatcherite, our Ken – thought ther was a lot to be said for the Soviet system of economics. Did the Reith Lectures in 1968 – “The New Industrial State”.

    3. Was it George Soros? (No, I am not Polly the Parrot, so don’t bother asking for a five bob postal order.) :-))

  7. How does this quote fit in with lock down…

    “I am basically there to make money. I cannot and do not look at the social consequences of what I do” ?

    Just by random coincidence, the individual is very influential at the UN and World Health Organization.

  8. Three horrors we have avoided:

    The Covid19 virus did not arrive during the Premierships of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, or Theresa May.

    2. Four, Lewis. You forgot David Cameron, the Babbling Poltroon (© Bill Thomas).

    1. Or “No Time To Die”.

      Incidentally, there was an actual newspaper ad when that film came out telling the public that in the 2-screen Odeon Cardiff (I think) that the two film showing were Disney’s “ONE OF OUR DINOSAURS IS MISSING” and “ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST”.

  11. Interesting BTL comment on the Alex Salmond case:

    Bardirect

    62 comments2 votes0 followers
    Bardirect
    Cuddie Headrigg
    15h

    but how many “rape victims” seek to work with their assailant only months later – there were significant problems with the credibility of each complainant even if on paper the allegations stood up

    the fact is that one again with weak cases the prosecution overloaded the indictment with cases which were neither similar nor corroborative in the hope that a gullible jury might nevertheless treat them as persuasive of guilt on each other

    10
    Share
    Reply

    https://order-order.com/2020/03/23/watch-alex-salmonds-acquittal-statement/#comments

    Really seems to be something fishy about this prosecution. Rekon the Cod Wars will look mild when compared to the likely forthcoming blood-letting in the SNP.

    1. Many moons ago, in a short course on the art of negotiation, they said that the more points you make, the weaker your case – as you try to shore up a weak argument with lots of supposed supporting arguments that, at best, distract and confuse.
      Seems to be the same in the legal circles as well.

  12. We went into local town yesterday for drugs and bank transfers.
    Hardware store was piled high with industrial toilet rolls.
    Most open premises no more than two shoppers.

      1. Fine. Let them mingle and take the lurgy home to all 4 Fatimas and offspring.
        Schools are closed, so the Mo loving rugrats can infect each other.
        There is something to be said for ghettos.

      2. ‘Morning, Mags,

        When may we expect to see the police arrive to break up and disperse gatherings of 10 or more people?

      3. That’s fine as long as they don’t then expect to be first in the queue at the hospital when their irresponsible behaviour leads to them getting the virus.

  14. They had had their sperm mixed together and a surrogate mother was artificially inseminated.

    When the baby was born Elton and David were ushered into a ward where a dozen babies were lying in their cots, eleven of them crying and screaming.

    In the corner, one baby was lying serenely. A nurse came over to both of them and indicated that the happy child was theirs.

    “Isn’t it wonderful?” Elton asked David. “All these crying babies…and yet our baby is so content. This just proves the superiority of gay love!

    The nurse said, “Oh sure, he’s happy now, but just watch what happens when I pull the dummy out of his arse.”

  16. Morning all

    SIR – I’m eager to follow the Prime Minister’s guidance and keep two metres away from others. Tell me how this can be done in a supermarket.

    Pamela R Goldsack

    Banstead, Surrey

    SIR – Now that bars and nightclubs have closed, thousands of capable, experienced doormen have no job.

    They are skilled at handling badly behaved and anti-social customers, so could they not be employed by supermarkets to keep the panic-buying hordes at bay to allow controlled access for health workers, police and other frontline staff, and separately the old and vulnerable?

    Nick Farmer

    Leicester

      1. Indeed. Maybe they could try their hand at stopping looters armed with machetes?

    2. They ARE being employed at supermarkets in Germany! Every supermarket has one to regulate the queues, and tell customers when they can move forward to the till.

          1. Talking of which; my dressing was changed yesterday.
            In couple of days time, I can remove it and …… Have A Bath!!!!!!!
            Zippedy Do Dah!

          2. Morning Anne. You are not going to start flaunting your scars like some Roman running for Consul?

          3. Coriolanus?
            Also something that German upper crusts did; they showed off their duelling scars it because meant they had gone to a top university.

          4. You’re lucky, Annie. Some years ago I had my bath ripped out and replaced with a shower. It was a careful choice, but I’d love to have a bath just now and again.

        2. One (fairly fast moving) queue for all the checkouts stopping 2 metres in front of them, and the guard stands in front of the checkouts and beckons you to the next free one, once the last shopper has moved away. Self service tills closed.

          edit: I hope that wasn’t an n reference. I know a German family that had a disabled baby during the war; they had to keep the child hidden completely until 1945. Mocking their descendants would not be funny.

    3. OH did a visit to Waitrose this morning at 8am – he had to queue outside in the carpark (keeping two metres apart) and the doorman let people in three at a time. Inside it was deserted and he was free to pick up what he wanted – only one wholemeal loaf available though. He said the atmosphere in the carpark queue was jovial and friendly. Good job it wasn’t raining!

  17. Morning again

    SIR – The virtual looting of shops will not stop until the Government brings in rationing of essential food and heavy fines and prison sentences for black marketeers.

    David Thompson

    Capel St Mary, Suffolk

    SIR – To demonise householders emptying the supermarkets is to ignore what the Government is instructing. My family is part of the 2.2 million told to self-isolate. We have to provision for four adults for three months without leaving the house.

    We are not in the 8 per cent of the population who buy their food online. Doing so now is impossible for new customers.

    It is mathematically clear that supermarkets require at least double their stock in order to meet the demand created by Government edict.

    Simon Henson

    Witney, Oxfordshire

    SIR – I stock up. You panic-buy. He is a looter.

    Chris Ebeling

    Ware, Hertfordshire

    SIR – We were repatriated to Heathrow on Thursday March 18 from MS Braemar in Cuba.

    There were no checks on passengers on disembarking the ship, on boarding the plane, or on arrival at Heathrow. We were bussed to Manchester airport, another three-and-a-half-hour journey, in close contact with fellow coughing passengers, and then allowed to travel home with the advice that we did not need to self-isolate.

    Social distancing was to be followed but many passengers on the Braemar seemed not to think this applied to them.

    No wonder the virus is spreading, when 600 passengers simply got off a ship with five confirmed cases.

    Dr John Davies

    Morpeth, Northumberland

    SIR – If the Queen and I are not at home, she could be walking the dogs or enjoying a ride in Windsor Great Park (which I trust hasn’t closed).

    I could be walking my dog over the Yorkshire Moors, with no telephone reception for sure.

    I am 73, and walking in Yorkshire is still self-isolating if you go off the grid.

    Bridget Garvin

    Preston-under-Scar, North Yorkshire

    1. The virtual looting of shops will not stop until the Government brings in rationing of essential food and heavy fines and prison sentences for black marketeers.

      The irony of this is that during WWII where such conditions existed and considerable vilification of Black Marketeers took place in the then media, there was never a single prosecution let alone conviction for the offence during the entire period. This because they were seen as essential to maintaining the morale and lifestyle of the upper classes!

  18. Danger to hospitals

    SIR – In former times, it would have been unthinkable to admit a patient with an infectious disease as serious as coronavirus into a general hospital (let alone intensive care), where they pose an enormous risk to both staff and other patients.

    This is akin to deliberately lighting a fire in the hold of a ship.

    Instead, although we no longer have isolation hospitals, there are numerous sufficiently isolated disused airfields and military facilities that could now serve the purpose.

    Dr Andrew Norman

    Poole, Dorset

    SIR – The banking crisis provoked panic and the rescue of failed institutions, which resulted in more than 10 years of austerity from which we have still not fully recovered.

    Today, politicians have agreed to draconian limits on our freedoms, the spending of vast sums of money and the cessation of businesses that might generate the money to pay for it all.

    Those left after this episode will be paupers, facing austerity and unimaginable tax bills. This “lockdown” is designed not for our protection but for the protection of an NHS that cannot cope.

    Dr Steven R Hopkins

    Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire

    1. Dr Hopkins has a good point there. We may be thinking of saving our loved ones’ lives by not overwhelming the NHS, but there will be plenty of Labour activists and administrators whose primary goal will be to keep the current dysfunctional, inadequate system going. It has served Labour extremely well as a political weapon since its founding, namely always keeping healthcare at the forefront of every election.
      Healthcare simply should not be the political football that it is in the UK.
      It should just work! and the NHS doesn’t.

  19. SIR – If we are to get our economy back on track as fast as possible, as well as testing for the virus, we need to test for antibodies, so that people who have recovered can get back to work.

    Eric Harpham

    Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire

    SIR – There are calls for RFA Argus, the Royal Navy’s only hospital ship, to be used in the fight against coronavirus. The ship has previously been used for disaster relief in the Caribbean and to fight Ebola in East Africa, as well as for other emergencies.

    RFA Argus will reach the end of its useful life in just a few years, yet there are no plans to replace it. In the light of current events, and the obvious need for such a ship in times of both peace and war, I hope this decision will be reversed with all possible speed.

    Peter Stockwell

    Wilburton, Cambridgeshire

  21. SIR – To help eradicate the coronavirus, we need to use two very important senses: the British sense of humour and common sense.

    David S Weaver

    Carnon Downs, Cornwall

    SIR – Though lauded by politicians in search of votes, the Great British Public has shown a very depressing side of itself in the last two weeks.

    There have been many instances of courtesy and patience, but the characteristics mostly on display have been selfishness and irresponsibility. The shoppers sweeping clean supermarket shelves are also stupid: they have failed to recognise that they are actually creating the shortages.

    Lewis Smith

    Southampton

    SIR – On Friday my colleagues and I held a video conference to discuss the Chancellor’s statement, and the impact for our business and our clients.

    Once we had finished, one of our number closed the call with a story from A A Milne’s House at Pooh Corner.

    Pooh and Piglet were walking through a wood on a stormy night. The wind was howling, the trees were swaying and the branches were creaking. Piglet was scared and turned to Pooh: “Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were underneath it?” “Supposing it didn’t!” said Pooh after careful thought. Piglet was comforted by this.

    Jeremy Robson

    Hingham, Norfolk

  22. Your morning briefing. MSN UK. 24 March 2020.

    On this day in 1603.

    Elizabeth I, queen of England for 45 years, dies without leaving an heir. She’d been the fifth monarch of the House of Tudor, which for over a century had extended its power beyond England to Wales and Ireland. Elizabeth had never named a successor, but James VI will assume the crown later this very day.

    Come back Lizzie! We need you!

    1. She’d been the fifth sixth monarch of the House of Tudor,

      Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Jane (Grey), Mary, Elizabeth.

      1. Many historians will say that Jane Grey, although proclaimed Queen, was never the rightful monarch. I agree.

          1. No. Although never crowned, he was proclaimed and acclaimed as the rightful monarch. Jane Grey was a usurper, but unlike Henry VII, she did not obtain enough support (even if by force) to maintain her position.

          1. There is an excellent miniseries on the JG business running on BBC4 at the moment at 22.00 on Mondays. Last night was part 2 of 3.
            I recommend it highly.

        1. Hi Rastus

          Does Lady Jane Grey count if she were as she was not officially crowned?

          One could debate all day about that one.

          I just spotted a handy banana skin for Minty. 😉

          Btw, was Edward V officially crowned?

          1. Good point. I don’t think he was. He and his brother were taken to the Tower for protection.
            The rest is conjecture.

  23. Good morning, everyone. Last Friday the dental surgery phoned to confirm that I would keep my 10.30 appointment yesterday. At 9.45 yesterday they phoned to cancel the appointment.

    2. Good morning D.
      My dental surgery phoned yesterday evening to cancel my appointment due tomorrow.

      1. Morning, issy. The recommendations from the govt experts have been rather confusing and constantly changing.

      2. Years ago my eldest brother turned up for his dental appointment and was told it was now cancelled as the dentist wasn’t working that day. My brother said that will be £50 please. The receptionist was taken aback and asked why. He said when he booked the appointment he was told that if he didn’t turn up there would be a charge of £50 for not keeping the appointment. He was applying the same rules.
        After some hurried discussion behind the scenes my brother was seen by another dentist.

  24. If the lockdown is as effective as the authorities wish, I wonder how many elderly people, living in their own homes alone, are going to die and not be discovered for days, whether death is as a result of the Covid-19 or other unrelated causes, such as falls?

    Will these deaths be put down as “avoidable” when the statistics come to be collated?

    Judging by my own experience, if I had been alone I doubt I would have had the strength to get down the stairs to call the emergency services.

    1. As long as a body doesn’t have more than 6 bullet holes or 3 knives protruding from it then it will be added to the Covid19 death toll, just to keep us cowed. OK, I’m exaggerating a bit.

      3. Remember that the official Government figures for deaths caused by ‘flu in winter 2017/2018 is 26,804.

        Coronavirus has got a long way to go to equal that number.

      4. Remember that the official Government figures for deaths caused by ‘flu in winter 2017/2018 is 26,804.

        Coronavirus has got a long way to go to equal that number.

    2. A correspondent recently said that last year 644 people died because of falls.

      Anybody have the link?

    3. I keep my mobile with me at all times. At night it goes under a pillow. It also serves as a timepiece, because I don’t wear a watch.

      1. Good policy.

        We keep ours upstairs too, but alone it would be difficult to operate when one is having convulsions, and passing in and out of consciousness, as I was.
        A fall in an elderly person, eg going to the loo at night, could easily leave it out of reach.

        I suspect that some alone elderly have one of the automatic emergency beacons, but many won’t.

        1. My mother had one of those emergency systems in her last years. We tried to get her using a mobile phone but she never got used to carrying it even after several falls in the garden, and once falling in the fish pond to be rescued by a passing neighbour. Nor could we get her used to wearing her expensive hearing aids or even wearing the emergency button … it would usually reside hanging on the back of a chair in her bedroom…..

          I recall when i discovered our neighbour had had a fall…. coming down stairs…I was fortunate to find her early on but it could have been so much worse, she was halfway down the stairs, head down and unable to move…. any longer and she would have died most probably. I don’t think she could have even operated the emergency button had she had one.

          1. My M-i-L is similar. She’s the same age as the Queen , fit as a flea, but refuses point blank to even consider a panic alarm, let alone a mobile phone.

            She can’t handle the hearing aid batteries, too small; and insists on walking the mile to the shops even now.

            She’s had a few falls, but still won’t change her habits.

            Now we can’t get back to help her, so it’s down to her son and helpful neighbours. We’d have had her here, except she cancelled her passport a few years ago.

      2. Not under the pillow (engineer here).
        It is a transmitter, and it transmits all the time to stay in contact with the base station.
        The exact power level at which mobile network frequencies are dangerous is the subject of fierce debate, but I wouldn’t sleep with a phone under my head.
        Keep it on a table by the bed (not plugged in!) if you must have it close to you. The extra distance is important, because the power of the transmitted radiation diminishes in proportion to r squared, where r is the distance to your head.

          2. To be on the safe side, it is recommended to wear a pudding basin which is connected to the house earth system via an appropriately high value resistor.
            (Consult a qualified technician before trying this.)

          4. Ah, now you are entering the reciprocal aspect of resistance. Thus 2 Ohms is equal to…er, half a Mho…..

          5. Intensity inversely proportional to the area over which it is experienced – so, the surface area of a sphere.
            The formula for the surface area of a sphere of radius R is 4*Pi*R^2

        2. I appreciate your concern, but I said it goes under a pillow, not the one I’m sleeping on.

          There is a similar formula for lighting, which as a dentist I’m more familiar with:

          Illumination is inversely proportional to the distance from the light source.

          2. Under the pillow is good if you somehow have the emergency alert function active…… it usually is only used to inform of Tsunamis etc (rare in the Med…. perhaps when Santorini last blew its top or Atlantis was lost to the sea) so we were stunned when both mine and sig other’s went berserk together…. never heard the volume so loud and then the message about house arrest……. in Greek and English…..I really didn’t know the volume could go that high…… fixed it now though, started with sig others because she had a real wobbly about it.

        3. Mine goes on the bedside table on a nice little Qi wireless charging stand from China…

    4. A correspondent recently said that last year 644 people died because of falls.

      Anybody have the link?

    5. Cholera and civil unrest, those are my real fears.
      Hint: bottle some tap water while it is still safe to drink.

  26. Back from shopping. M&S fully stocked but we had to wait outside until 9.30 while the store coped with the non existent flood of one or two NHS workers. Tesco also quiet but clearly awaiting stocks of many things, presumably due to southern panic buying. Back normal time, for a coffee.

    1. Someone is referring to the schemes based on insurance and social security contributions as used in many member states of the EU, eg Germany, France, Spain. But that would be terrible news for sickness tourists.

      1. I’ve BUPA through work. It’s great. Tried to get it personally. The first £500 of excess is painful. OK, you get seen quicker, but then you get a bill after a specific amount. And some things just aren’t covered.

        The NHS is bad in many ways. It is inherently inefficient for a start. That’s easy to change. Yet a different model would require significant reworking of the tax system to allow people to fund their own heathcare far more effectively.

      2. All those poor Nigerian women flying in First Class to have their poor wee wide-eyed babies on the NHS before spending a night in the Ritz then flying home the next day (after doing urgent shopping in Harrods).

        1. I’ve long proposed that any health tourism suffered by the NHS should either come out of the foreign aid budget for the countries the tourists hail from, or they get sent a bill.

          1. ‘Afternoon, The bill you send them will be paid out of those millions waiting for you to collect by just sending them you bank details…

            Oh, wait a minute…

          2. Actually, we should not treat any foreigners within the NHS. Opportunity cost is always ignored.

      3. The Left-leaning NHS workers wouldn’t like it. Some months ago they refused point blank to ask patients if they were entitled to free NHS treatment. I have no problem with that, but they really want to treat unentitled people they shouldn’t do it in NHS time and with NHS resources.

    2. I truly despair of people like Francis Forbes. You have to hope they’re being sarcastic as otherwise, to consider that they’re truly, monnumentally gormlessly stupid makes you despair for the planet.

  28. Just been to Waitrose, they are only letting in 36 people at a time and not in pairs., it wasn’t busy but people were queuing at least 15 feet apart and the queue was about 400 yards long, the ironic thing is that it was freezing cold in the shade with a cold wind, I thought people will catch their death of cold standing here and end up in hospital, walked up the high street went in the bakers, butchers and greengrocers, a bit of a queue at the greengrocers but not much, they were even giving away fresh milk from the shut down Costa next door. Might have cost a bit more I suppose but the produce seemed better quality.

    1. In any organised country, supermarkets would have a ticket based queue in place. Should be easy to organise a SMS alert system, then people could disperse and rejoin the queue as their moment approaches.

      1. Your ticket number 26437. The tannoy announcement, “Welcome to GUM stores UK. Now serving ticket number 45.”

        1. I’ve shopped in Moscow. You have to queue up to choose your item, queue again to pay for it and then queue a third time to present your receipt so you can actually get the item.

          1. A bit like Italian cafes. Choose your pastry, pay at till, and then collect and eat at counter. Although the table system is different. All in Italian, of course. The Caffe Pasjkowski in Florence is nice, and is, I think, a National Monument.

    2. I got a text message from UK_Gov just before I went out saying ‘you must stay at home’…It does give a link to the exemptions.

      1. How come I didn’t get a similar message?

        Oh, wait though, maybe they want me to die …… the bastards!
        :¬(

        1. It is baffling. I have never given a government site my mobile numbers. Though I have given the GP them…

          1. Your GP obviously considers that you need a visit from government.

            Perhaps you’d like to tell us why?

      2. I got that while I was sitting on a bench up the river while taking a break from my government-approved exercise

  29. Oooh, I say, this was not very diplomatic (shame nobody video-ed the kerfuffle):

    The son of the shadow home secretary Diane Abbott has admitted spitting at a police officer and biting his colleague outside the Foreign Office after being refused entry.

    James Abbott-Thompson, 28, was working as a diplomat for the government department after graduating from Cambridge University.

    He went to the building on November 29, asking to see a member of staff he knew, and became angry when told they were not there.

    Police were called to the Foreign and Commonwealth Offices in King Charles Street, Westminster, where Mr Abbott-Thompson attacked them when they asked him to leave. He also admitted wrecking a glass plaque and assaulting a third man in the incident.

    Misba Majid, prosecuting, had earlier said: “It is an assault on two police officers after an incident taking place at the Commonwealth Offices. The Commonwealth Offices called the police.

    “He was there because he wanted to speak to a member of staff who was not present. When the police arrived, they politely asked him to leave. He refused to do so.

    “He has gone on to whisper and the officer could not hear him, so has come closer to him and he has gone on to spit in their face. He has spat in the face of the officer PC Stefan Aqua. He has then managed to break one arm free and punch PC Aqua in the face.

    “He then tried to punch PC May, and then grabbed PC May’s left thumb and bit him.’

    Ms Abbott, the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, was not in court to support her son, who appeared via video link and was wearing an orange vest with a grey jumper and glasses.

    Mr Abbott-Thompson spoke only to confirm his name and date of birth and admit the charges before thanking the judge at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

    At the age of 27, he was working alongside the British Ambassador in Italy advising the British Consul and the British community in Italy about their rights after leaving the European Union.

    After two-and-a-half years in London, he was stationed at the British Embassy in Rome and appointed as First Secretary for Exiting the EU.

    Abbott-Thompson, of Tottenham, north London, admitted threatening behaviour, criminal damage, assault by beating and two counts of assaulting a police officer.

    He will return for sentencing on April 8.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/23/diane-abbotts-son-admits-spitting-police-officer-biting-colleague/

    1. How did they know what colour vest he was wearing? Did they mean “jacket”?

      1. I presumed that his orange “vest” was in fact a T-shirt and that the grey “jumper” was a V-necked pullover. Incredible choice of clothing when appearing before a magistrate. But what amazed me most was the convoluted speech of the prosecutor, one Misba Majid, e.g. “He refused to do so [i.e. leave]… He has gone on to whisper… He has spat in the face of… He has then managed to break one arm free… He then tried to punch… and then grabbed PC May’s left thumb and bit him.”

    4. Is he mentally unstable? If somebody’s not it, then they aren’t in. Finito. Why throw a major paddy, attack the police, and assault folk? Is he so up his own arse with importance that he cannot conceive of anyone ever saying “no” to him? What an onanist.

      1. Maybe Hilary Mantel wrote the script.
        Historic Present is her irritating writing style.

        1. I can’t listen to any historian these days for more than thirty seconds before I hit the off switch.

          The inventor of the ubiquitous historic present should be sentenced to a spell in an iron maiden. They’d soon wish it was in the simple past.

    6. At the age of 27, he was working alongside the British Ambassador in Italy advising the British Consul and the British community in Italy about their rights after leaving the European Union.

      After two-and-a-half years in London, he was stationed at the British Embassy in Rome and appointed as First Secretary for Exiting the EU..

      Nepotism is alive and well in the Labour Party with, it might be pointed out, the approval of the Tory Party!

      1. ‘Morning, Minty, he doesn’t sound quite the candidate for ‘First Secretary for Exiting the EU’.

        After the outburst at the Commonwealth Office, he sounds more like one of the feral Antifa thugs.

        1. Morning Nan. I suspect with his ancestry that it is probably the onset of schizophrenia.

        2. Oh, I don’t know. The idea of him snacking down on Barnier is quite a pleasing one.

      1. I’m not sure it works that way.
        Now, if his name was Peregrine Blinkington-Smythe-Smythe-Plunkett-Featherstonehaugh ….

        1. Oi, I have three Featherstonehaughs in my family tree. The first Sir Timothy (Unknown – 1651) died as a result of having his head forcibly removed from his body by the Parliamentarians in Chester.

          Nothing wrong with a cavalier Featherstonehaugh.

  32. Israeli Joke

    There was a young man from kiryat shmona , who developed deadly
    corona ;so he said ” That’s Life ” and left his wife , he refuses to
    even telephone her.

  33. Trump vows to reopen US economy even as deaths from coronavirus rise. Tue 24 Mar 2020.

    Donald Trump has said he was eager to reopen the US economy in weeks, not months, even as the death toll from the virus continued to rise.

    The president, who has been anxious about the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the US economy, made the remarks at a White House press briefing Monday in which he repeatedly refused to confirm that he would listen to public health authorities if they advised him to keep restrictive public health measures in place, even at a cost to the economy.

    Trump has seen the truth here. The CV crisis will, for good or ill, pass and then the real trouble will begin. It will be a new world and everything will be up for grabs. Those who are first off the blocks and having the means, which in the real world means military/ industrial power, will seize control of resources and influence on a scale hitherto undreamed of. This will leave the UK, that has divested itself of both, as an impoverished spectator.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/trump-vows-to-open-up-our-country-even-as-deaths-from-coronavirus-rise

      2. ‘Morning, Bob, it has been mooted that China, by its irresponsible culinary habits, is a prime candidate for social and commercial ostracising, until it shews itself willing to change those habits.

          2. ‘Morning, Anne, I think that there’s an ‘oops’ somewhere in there – unless they have the Milky Bar Kid in a cage (What a good idea).

    3. Every crisis is an opportunity. Fortune favours the brave. Who dares, wins.
      My management are in a quivering heap, the economy is in tatters, yet my colleague & I see lots of opportunity to make business happen – just management aren’t brave enough to do anything about it.

    4. That’s the guardian’s version.
      What he actually said was “the cure must not be worse than the disease”

  34. Latest News Just breaking – With demand now so high the Harry Potter Inadvisability cloak manufacture is running out of raw materials like Scotch Mist, they are asking climate scientists to break open their stocks to ease demand as they won’t be needing theirs for quite some time

  35. Ontario has just deemed pot shops essential services.

    At least we know what our leaders are smoking!

    3. No different from liquor stores being deemed essential. Closing places that offer some escape from reality is not a good idea in these fraught times, given the the tendency of the deprived to break into such places to get what they want.

      1. Because the conservatives elected the most uncharismatic leader going.

        Actually the pot shop openings are a provincial thing so that is down to Premier Ford.

        Why, oh why are so many bad uns elected into government?

  36. Hi everyone. Been out for an after lunch stroll down by the river. It is a beautiful day. I’ve seen three butterflies, seven dogs and eleven humans. The road over the bridge at the head of the meadow was surprisingly busy. I thought the traffic would be more reduced in volume. There was about the whole experience something reminiscent of long past Sunday Mornings where the only noise was the Church Bells.

    1. DEAR lanes of Cornwall! With a one-inch map,

      A bicycle and well-worn “Little Guide”,

      Those were the years I used to ride for miles

      To far-off churches. One of them that year

      So worked on me that, if my life was changed,

      I owe it to St. Ervan and his priest

      In their small hollow deep in sycamores.

      The time was tea-time, calm free-wheeling time,

      When from slashed tree-tops in the combe below

      I heard a bell-note floating to the sun;

      It gave significance to lichened stone

      And large red admirals with outspread wings

      Basking on buddleia. So, casting down

      In the cool shade of interlacing boughs,

      I found St. Ervan’s partly ruined church.

      Its bearded Rector, holding in one hand

      A gong-stick, in the other hand a book,

      Struck, while he read, a heavy-sounding bell,

      Hung from an elm bough by the churchyard gate.

      “Better come in. It’s time for Evensong.

      Sir John Betjeman

    1. Homeschooling you say…………………….
      The internet’s having fun
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2b58e45a484142d880df2d17c08c16fb6bbe2ad00da7a9217508c94cb347ea82.jpg
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c3f75f095b2a93cd06a030f45f5cc5f083b898a96daca2e444be6540f67cd0af.jpg
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/95d6e65aea6b78beeedeab6ff3b5efeadec1de5eba6654bbaa234eb8641d989b.jpg
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5ec4f88c29b25e96b94ad94d13b213ebf340aadfdf6a60feade250889ade2ec9.jpg
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/05b3f143140f3be0bbf22fc873781364a431fb6a31bc47cc367f5061057c9cdc.jpg
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/39b8a502f195b25d78daec53b83a468d43c2f9a6bd5a015b8a367c6aa858ec07.jpg
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8a670d0c6ab0ac3574840324c80fb75d63f26efb613ec4ef6f4a4565fe663068.jpg
      Edit fill in the set

    3. I had a butterfly like that land on my book yesterday – I didn’t have time to notice if it had commas before it flew off.

  40. 317391+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    Now we will witness the strengths & weaknesses of submissive, PCism,
    & Appeasement in action or inaction as the case may be.
    The mosque attendance is pointing this out quite clearly even to those of an appeasing nature.

    Maybe now peoples who have been warning of islamic ideology dangers rhetorically & in book form since 2005 will be given a hearing, and not castigated by many as a far right, racist.
    A parallel society within these Isles with one segment
    killing/raping & abusing as tools for domination of a nation, is never,ever, going to work even with the peoples help at the ballot booth.
    We are fast approaching the crunch time of Shape up or Ship out.

    1. I think the opposite will happen – the politically correct tyranny will redouble its efforts to try and persuade people that black is white and not to believe the evidence of their lying eyes.

      Look at the coverage of the US – Trump says “we must make sure the cure is not worse than the disease” – headlines round the world “Trump wants to lift virus protection measures”.

      1. 317391+ up ticks,
        Morning BB2,
        I do see it as many by their voting pattern find it easier & more comforting to take the PCism, Appeasement route & as for submitting just look at the result of the referendum 48/52.
        The political rubber stampers of old have got to be outed lock, stock, & barrel from the Hoc & take a lord with them under each arm.

    2. I won’t miss the Olympics at all. Just purely irrelevant to my life, they represent nothing but an opportunity for the BBC to lecture me on how much I am supposed to love some “hero” who wasn’t born in the UK.

  43. All the ‘woke’ people and the snowflakes ought to be fed this news. It’s very clear that some moslems do not have any law except the law of their deity (they often tell us that fact but the PTB do not listen: when the PTB hear the truth, as they must do, they ignore it). Therefore their residential status here is incompatible with both the indigenous people and those from many cultures who have integrated successfully while still holding to some of their cultural tenets that do not conflict with the laws of the land. How will Johnson react? Roll over and give way or crack down hard?

    https://twitter.com/Chappyonthemove/status/1242172847000354817

    1. Time to start sending them all home unless they are prepared to respect and abide by the laws of this land and not those of their shit-encrusted Prophet, buggered be his arsehole.

      As I said earlier, when Mags posted this, are we going to see the police raid them and disperse gatherings of 10 or more?

        1. Thank you, vouvray, I thought so too; you don’t really want to hear me, once I get into my stride!

    2. Arrest TR, he is obviously to blame for radicalising them. But then, are we really bothered. So long as death is the will of the great one, and they dont bother the NHS.

    3. I’ve always thought it racist to condescend to Islam in a manner that would be impossible were the subject the concern of white men. It’s known as the ” soft bigotry of low expectations”. The neglect of study of this threatening faith is disgraceful. There are still people who imagine that the peace of Islam has any resemblance to the gentle comfort we imagine. It’s not extremism that is the problem, it’s everyday piety and conformity to an absurd belief system more suited to isolated primitive society.

    4. 317391+ up ticks,
      Afternoon KtK,
      The peoples that want to know do know the dangers of the islamic ideology, yet still support& vote for parties riddled through with submissive,PCism,Appeasement
      political users.
      The likes of johnson know that due to the voting pattern
      they are safe.
      Their theme song should really be ” roll me over I’m in clover roll me over lay me down I’m in again”

    5. What!! You mean Moslem males are going to ignore the law,congregate in close quarters,infect each other and return to their ghettos and infect their extended family??
      Oh Dear
      How Sad
      Inshallah

      1. The downside of that, Rik, is that if what you predict happens these people will get fast tracked into beds that could have been available to those law abiding people who through no fault of their own caught the bug. My DiL is a nurse and in the front line, she may need a bed and it wouldn’t be just for her to go short of a bed so that a law breaker has one, would it?

    6. Couldn’t they just fine them for anti social distancing behaviour every time that they show up?
      Soon solve the debt that way.

      1. Couldn’t they just lock the doors and leave them in there? They can pray all they like and not infect anyone else.

  44. Caught a bit of Gove on Ferrari’s programme. Insisting on self isolation and maintaining social distance but wouldn’t/couldn’t commit to stopping the daily arrival of hundreds of people via our open airports without any checks. A not very convincing claim that more detectors are coming.

      1. One of the upsides of the current malarkey. Neither sight nor sound of the Doom Goblin.

      1. Pat Condell gives us far too much truth to be acceptable to either the political class or the MSM.

        1. Outstanding comments from a great orator.

          To add to his comments:

          1. Chancellor Merkel was invited for a private visit to China last November by President Xi . Neither the Chinese government or the German government gave a Press release on what was discussed.
          Recently the Guardian has pointed out how well prepared the German government has been.

          2. The British government banned the export of Chloroquinine on 26th February.
          It has now been revealed that there is research about the prophylactic properties of Chloroquinine going on in various countries.

          3. Chloroquinine, an over the counter drug, miraculously sold out in chemists and on line pharmacies in early March. Perhaps someone knew?

      1. 317391+ up ticks,
        Appreciate the acknowledgement, you must be a Chatham rating, them Pompey baskets would have left me in the air. ( old joke)

    3. Should the world attempt to disinfect China? If so, how?

      (That’ll get ’em going!)

      1. Yesterday, one of our acquaintances was all for the nuclear option.
        And I don’t mean a New Clear China; more like a smoking ruin.

    4. Yep, the link now displays, “404 Not Found”.

      I don’t know how to search on it but It might have been transferred to ‘Bitchute’. I hope so.

      2. 317391+ up ticks,
        Morning NtN,
        Hash tag inserted instead of space was
        seemingly the fault, try now.

      1. Colchester was the first place to produce that defence for murder.
        The woman concerned was the mother of one of our elder son’s class mates.

  47. When will the looting start? When will the feral gangs of scum who should never, ever, have been allowed in this country take to the streets? When will the gangs start to raid private homes?
    Maybe the betting companies who are still advertising their services in respect of horse racing all of which has been cancelled, allow betting on rioting and looting which is much more likely?

    1. HP, see my earlier post re Gosfield School. It is happening.
      How will the PTB react if our mosque attendees continue to disobey the social gathering advice/instructions? Will we see total defiance and maybe mass prayers in the streets as they display their belief in the almost untouchable status they’ve been given?

      1. Have we already left it too late to deal effectively with the things that caused people to become islamophobic in the first place?

        1. 317391+ up ticks,
          Morning R,
          You know it has been left to late when having to ask “have we left it to late”
          Far,far to late, the warning was clearly given via rhetoric & book form back in 2005 by Gerard Batten that earned him the title far right racist.
          It has had 15 years to foment at least,
          aided & abetted via the polling booth.
          The peoples knowingly watched it grow
          and still nurtured it through the ballot box.
          It is now well & truly on the menu.

        2. Probably. Allowing an alien political/religious culture to grow alongside the indigenous one and for the PTB to either excuse or turn a blind eye to that culture’s excesses is a recipe for disaster. It’s not only in the UK that islam is becoming a problem, it’s across the whole World where it settles and then strives for domination. That is what is does, that is its raison d’être.

      1. When they’ve topped up their rainbow nail varnish and made sure it matches their stilettos.

    3. It’s already begun Horace. It will get worse just as soon as these people realise their true power!

      1. …these people realise their true power!

        And realise the weakness of the PTB to control the Country.

        1. The PTB still have the powers they need to control the problem – the trouble is that they lack both the will and the strength of commitment and resolution to act decisively.

          1. A perfect example of their lack of will is watching Johnson fluff around regarding the virus.
            “Please stay in and do the right thing” as if the scum of society will take any notice.
            You and I both know what’s required.

  48. Result!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Car problem sorted.

    While I was out this morning for my government-approved exercise I got a call from my wife.

    The car body repair centre had called to say that if I got myself and my car there for 12.30 they would take my car under their wing and give me a courtesy car. I scurried back home and got to the garage with 15 minutes to spare.

    They have been ordered to close because they are owned by a car dealership and dealerships aren’t included in the exceptions. While I was out I got a call from the Honda dealership to say that they were putting my booked service back to the middle of May for the same reason.

    The manager had been giving my situation some thought this morning and realising that he had a car to spare decided to take mine in ‘for repair’ even though they can’t touch it until they reopen.

    Top bloke. Good service.

    1. I sent a copy of the Government rules on premises which had to close, – indicating garages could continue – , to our tyre garage. They put our new tyres on the van at lunch time.
      So big Thank You for posting the stuff. I went to the source and saved it.

    1. In the days when I managed a cinema, my horoscope in the Sunday papers one day said: “You will go to the cinema this week”!

  50. I’m off out into the sunny garden to re-run the wire supports for my raspberries. The centre pole blew over in the first storm and yesterday I dug out the rotten wood from the concrete support, painted the bottom of the pole with bitumen and re-seated the pole about 9″ down in the concrete. After the wires are secure I have to tie in the canes and then wait until June for the benefit. In the meantime this puss says it all – Nottlers exempted, of course.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/693d9b1df2a1ba1e1f05d13a373679d3e656cfb197a0c6381de9a8146c2a9320.png

    1. Bitumen? The local custom is used engine oil, which can in some mysterious way be mixed with creosote.

      1. I understood that creosote had been banned as a wood preservative, certainly for the general public.

        1. Really? My dad used to give us kids a good coating of creosote every November. Did away with having a bath for months, stopped us getting colds, and kept us pretty dry as well.

          1. One of my father’s standard punishments at home, when we misbehaved badly, was to make us creosote the fence.

            Six feet high and two hundred yards long. It took absolutely ages to complete.

            I’ve always liked the smell of creosote, but I can’t imagine it did us much good.

          2. It helped us with social distancing.
            The painting of fences always puts me in mind of Tom Sawyer who was given the chore of whitewashing a fence. He persuaded his chums that it was difficult and needed skill, and was moreover a great privilege to be allowed to do it. He then charged them for that privilege.

      2. I used your concoction some years ago on my fence, it worked well. For wooden posts in the ground I’ve always painted the area in touch with the soil with some form of bitumen waterproofing.

  51. From the DT, which has taken fright and not allowed comments.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/self-pitying-woke-generation-needed-war-coronavirus-got-one/

    “The self-pitying ‘woke’ generation needed a war – and in coronavirus they’ve got one

    In the first of a poignant three-part Instagram video detailing Sam Smith’s “quarantine meltdown” last week, the multi-platinum award-winning singer reassured fans that they were self-isolating and suffering from “a bit of a headache and allergies”.

    For those who missed it, last year Smith announced “I am not male or female. I think I float somewhere in between”, and asked to be referred to with the pronouns “they/them”. not “he/him”. So you might need to bear with me on this next bit…

    By part three of Smith’s video, they seemed to have deteriorated quite considerably, and was pictured sitting on the doorstep of their £12 million Hampstead home in floral pyjama bottoms, sobbing into their hands.

    Just a month ago, this would have been a masterful post, perfectly choreographed for Smith’s ‘woke’ followers and entirely in keeping with the victimhood culture he has become a figurehead for. When “body issues” were the celebrity sympathy tool du jour, the 27-year-old Brit “bravely” spoke out about “battling” those, and was later hailed “a hero” for coming out either as non-binary or genderqueer (at the time, they weren’t really clear which).

    So it stood to reason that Smith would be one of the first to whinge about being incarcerated in a five-bedroom Grade II-listed mansion. However, last week the self-pitying post fell flat, with many not only refusing to indulge Smith in the way they always had, but either criticising them for being “narcissistic” at a time when people were losing loved ones, or ignoring them altogether.

    Then, over the next few days something strange started happening. Stranger even than apocalyptic streets, empty supermarket shelves, and telling your mum you love her on Mothering Sunday by staying as far away from her as possible. Every time a piece of woke nonsense fought its way into the news or social media, it got slapped down or ignored. As Covid-19 spread, so too did a new condition: Rapid Onset Woke Intolerance. Was this fast-acting, fatal superbug going to kill off ‘woke’?

    When Hollywood – led by Wonder Woman actress Gal Godot – tried to do what it has always done best and make it all about their own virtue by releasing an execrable rendition of John Lennon’s Imagine, people across the world rose up to decry it as “a clusterclump of hyperfamous people with five seconds’ too much time on their hands” and “proof that even if no one meets up in person, horribleness can spread”.

    When people tried to raise a sexist stink about the new BBC adaptation of Malory Towers that premièred on iPlayer last night (and might single-handedly safeguard the mental health of many a parent over the next few weeks), it didn’t get any traction. Neither did preposterous accusations of “racism” against the British novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford, who revealed at the weekend that the working title to her A Woman Of Substance sequel had to be scrapped by publishers after fears “Blackie and Emma” might be misinterpreted.

    And on Sunday, when actress Jameela Jamil, one of the most widely-recognised faces of woke culture and an online social justice warrior, blasted Great Britain for its shameful lack of diversity, adding that US chat show queen Oprah Winfrey would “never have made it in the UK”, everyone just rolled their eyes and moved right along.

    It’s not just celebrities who have been tone deaf to real life for too long, but millennials and everyone else who has bought into “the cult of me”. In the letters and emails I receive after criticising PC or ‘woke’ culture, one phrase is repeated constantly: “That generation needs a war.”

    Nobody would wish this war on anyone, but it is a war and that means that all the grievances we’ve taken to stoking since the advent of political correctness in the late 1970s should be recalibrated with the numbers of ill, dying and dead in mind; every pathetic attempt at victimhood juxtaposed with the harrowing images of overflowing NHS wards we’re seeing every day on the news.

    We needed to cultivate those false “offences” and micro-aggressions before now because we were spoilt and bored and had nothing bigger to think about than how we were portrayed on a bathroom door sign, or whether or not we should report a male co-worker for calling us “love”.

    But the coronavirus has shown all that up for the bilge that it is, even robbing the woke brigade of some of their favourite language. Because when people talk of “self-identification” now, it’s not about whimsical notions of whether you’ll be going into work tomorrow as Alex or Alexandra, but whether or not you believe you’re infected with a disease virulent enough to necessitate the erecting of makeshift morgues.

    And if anyone in hospital today tries to tell one of our heroic health workers that “actually, I identify as pansexual, because more than anything I tend to fall in love with a person’s energy, so these are the pronouns to use…”, I’d love to hear how they get on.

    It’s a curious fact that after 9/11, the misuse of the word “like” stopped in New York overnight. Curious, yet understandable. Punctuating your sentences with the meaningless preposition had become a way of distancing oneself from reality, and nothing could have been more real than the assassination of 2,977 people. Ultimately, “like” survived, of course, just as “woke” may do.

    But for now I hope Rapid Onset Woke Intolerance continues to spread.”

    1. Yes, that is the content to the link, I posted below. It’s beyond all belief that the MSM got behind these snowflakes. However, it is clearly an attempt to turn humanity into infants, and it appears there has been quite a measure of success. When one thinks of the hardships that previous generations endured to make a world where these snowflakes can retreat into entitled self-absorption, it makes my blood boil.

      1. Now reading Orwell’s ‘Down and out in Paris & London’, and ‘Road to Wigan Pier’ The contrast with today’s ‘sufferers’ is eye opening.

        1. I can believe it. I know what my own family went through. I never knew, until recently, for example that I lost a cousin to hypothermia in the winter of 1944/45- it was never mentioned. I had no idea my aunt had a child, that she lost. That’s just one example of how people just carried on despite terrible privations and loss. The reality is, she was one of many millions- it was just tough and life went on…

          2. My Mother had a tiny brother, called Trevor. One picture remains. He was lost before he made 1 year old.
            Poor little bugger, completely erased from family history.

          3. It’s a sobering thought that all of us commenting here have forebears who struggled and survived probably awful privations and suffering to give us our very existence. Many alive in the world today are patently unaware of this.

          4. ‘Afternoon, Fortescue, researching my family tree and in each generation, until these fairly recent years, there are many who have a one year birth date followed by Ob.Inf (Died in infancy).

            It was a common occurrence then and still is, in the diverse third world, where they don’t try to force their leaders to improve the country but just produce hordes of children to support them in their old age. Or they illegally enter the UK and suck on us.

          5. When my younger aunt died, my cousin started sending over photos she was discovering that had been my grandfather’s and her mother’s. One showed my eldest aunt at her wedding in 1943- I did not know she had been married to a man killed in WW2 before the child was born. My father was always very enigmatic. He said: “He was a very good man, far too good for her.” That’s about as much as he would say.

          7. The Uncle John I never knew because he died of pneumonia aged 2, i think, and my mother spoke of him only rarely…..oh and a few other family secrets that emerged only in the fullness of time……

          8. I lost an uncle I never knew to Tb during the war.
            One of those evacuated from Dunkirk, he was diagnosed shortly afterwards and died in 1943.

          9. Yes, having lost two uncles- unknown grave deaths, it is all very sad how war consumes so many lives. I used to hope as a kid that one might show up as there was no formal news on his end. My dad would tell me that if he was alive he would have tracked us down- and he never did, so he did not survive. He could have died in captivity- probably a worse fate then being killed in action although he was technically a non-combatant but there are times- the bitter end, when they are instructed to take up arms- and then it is all over.

          10. War has been rather kind to our family….. we have not found any who died in war, not in the US Civil war, WWI or WWII …. and not for want of duty….. one in the 42nd Georgia regiment, Grandpa and his brothers in the treches, father and his brothers in WWII and my father was in the 500th PIB so took part in Operation Torch, Anzio and Salernio, the Ardennes (frostbite – the one instance where it qualified as a war wound), wounded in a parachute drop in France, but that’s it. His brothers were in the Pacific war. And as for my mother, I suspect the war was the biggest thrill of her life, apart from losing her shrapnel collection…. London was a hive of activity…. she worked in the Admiralty and still found time to do a little bit of land girl work in vacations and help at the Stage Door Canteen and so much more…..

      2. I posted the whole item because it is premium, which means most NOTTLrs can’t read it.

        1. Yes, it needs to be read by all, as it’s a reminder of how far down the toilet we’ve been flushed as a once sane society.

    2. Yes, that is the content to the link, I posted below. It’s beyond all belief that the MSM got behind these snowflakes. However, it is clearly an attempt to turn humanity into infants, and it appears there has been quite a measure of success. When one thinks of the hardships that previous generations endured to make a world where these snowflakes can retreat into entitled self-absorption, it makes my blood boil.

      1. Knowing our luck, Alf, that tiny light will be the headlight of a fast-approaching train.

      2. One of the upsides of this business.
        Society – or, rather the media and its hangers-on – needed a bloody good shake out.
        Never again must universities, opinion formers or anyone of that ilk be allowed to exert such social pressure again.

        1. Totally agree. That’s why I think we’re on a ‘social’ media platform which separates us from the antisocial lot.

    4. I had to laugh on Sunday last. When I was out walking the dog, I crossed paths (at the regulation distance) with a woman carrying a large pack of loo rolls. “I see you’ve scored some booty,” I teased her. “It’s a present for my mother,” she replied with a smile. “Much more useful than flowers.”

  52. When Boris made his announcement last night I had a bit of worry on the car repair front.

    My car is booked in for some minor repairs after a low-speed car park shunt a fortnight ago, due to go in this Friday for three days work. The delay was because of parts being ordered, but the car is driveable, so I’m using it. No problem. The insurance company chose the repairer, so I’ve no choice in this and any other repairer wouldn’t have the parts in any case.

    My worry was removed this morning when I found out that car repairers are excluded from the shut-down. All sweetness and light.

    Gloom quickly returned when the repair company phoned me to say they were having to postpone, because they were closing for three weeks for the lock-down. I pointed out that they were an exclusion according to new information, but the bloke on the other end said it was a ‘head office decision’. Head office presumably made this decision last night based on the wafer-thin information in Boris’s speech, which more or less said that if you weren’t selling food or medicine, you were shut.

    Normally it wouldn’t be a problem, and life would go on, but my car is due its first MOT a week on Friday and it’s got a crack in the headlight glass. Living many miles from the shops, it’s needed for the rations.

    The insurance company is uncontactable because of lines and chat being snowed under. Even if I got through to them it wouldn’t change anything.

    All I can hope is that they impose a moratorium on car MOTs, as I believe they have with HGVs and buses. Alternatively the ‘head office’ might see sense and re-open, but in these risk-averse days its much easier to close something than it is to open it again.

    Bastards.

    I’m sick of this lock-down already. I feel some exercise coming on. With any luck I might find something to kick.

    1. I think some people are confused, but that might be because of the reporting. I could be wrong, so please correct me if I am. The diktat from Boris says you should only go in to work if you can’t work from home, which covers all sorts of work. The media are reporting it as only essential workers should go to work ( I am excluding the shops from that as I think that is pretty clear to everyone apart from Mike Ashley).

    2. We had arranged to have new tyres fitted today to our van. I phoned the garage this morning to check that they were open and the tyre fitters say that they are not sure if they are allowed to do that and they will get back to me. This is annoying as the tyres were paid for yesterday over the phone to avoid messing about with card machine and human contact today.

    3. Two weeks ago, I needed an emergency repair, and my garage booked me in the very next day and that was a huge relief as the car would have been dangerous to drive in no time. Now, it’s a different story, it is anyone’s guess how this will affect our lives if we have problems that need immediate attention. I can imagine your frustration and concerns over your situation. Let’s hope some commonsense seeps into the head office in this case.

    4. I drive a recovery vehicle – the way we work is under review and it may be that I can recover the vehicle but not the passengers as I would be in close proximity with them in my cab. The breakdown agency may well have to organise a taxi to transport the passengers to their destination. I can however allow any dogs to stay in the vehicle being transported as they are not allowed in my cab anyway.

    5. yes, I have the car problem too. Battery is a bit low, and I don’t have a charger. Was going to get the battery replaced, rather than faff around with a charger under normal circumstances.
      A week sitting at home without being started, and freezing cold nights, is probably the best way to ensure it won’t start…and even if it does, all I’ve got is a couple of miles to the supermarket, stop engine, start engine again, go to next supermarket, stop, start again … best way to run the battery right down I would have thought.

      1. Buy a battery pack, I have a small Lithium Ion pack which I keep under my seat. It will start a lorry and it’s kept permanently charged – it will fit in the glove compartment. Got it on Amazon for less than £40.

    6. I wouldn’t worry about being stopped by the police for not having an MOT – they will be too busy arresting people who have been out for their second daily exercise.

  53. Received this from id out mobile provider. We normally have 500 mins and never use the but thought this a great gesture considering we only pay £5 a month. Hi, we’ve just added free unlimited UK minutes to your account until midnight on 20th April. This means you won’t be charged anything extra to call a UK landline or mobile number (even if you use up your existing minutes allowance). We want to do our bit to help you keep in contact with friends and family during this difficult time. Please note, you might still receive an SMS that says you’ve used 100% of your minutes allowance you can disregard this until 20th April.

  54. Because of the corona virus we have had to change the nature of our Easter holiday French courses in France for Sixth Formers.

    As soon as we realised that it would not be possible to run our courses as normal we notified all our students and their parents that we would improve our internet connection and we organised a technician to come and do this for us. We also sent our new 100 page 2020 Course Book which Caroline has specially written for the courses and devised a programme of five hours tuition a day and immediate correction of the students’ daily home work. We said that we would reduce the cost of the course by 75% as we would no longer be able to offer the board and lodging and external projects we usually provide. There would be nothing more to pay as our clients pay a 25% deposit when they book.

    Most people have been very appreciative, supportive and grateful for what we are trying to do and we hope our Skype courses will fully justify their confidence in us..

    Only one person has demanded the return of her deposit and cancelled her son’s involvement in our revised (NOT cancelled) course. We probably are not legally obliged to return her deposit according to the terms we outline but people like this have a sort of sticky nastiness about them which attaches itself to the people who have dealings with them and so the cleanest option was to return her deposit forthwith and have nothing more to do with her..

    You don’t need to guess what this person’s profession is! She is a solicitor who specialises in divorce cases and she is doubtless feeling optimistic that domestic confinement will bring her a lot of lucrative new business.

    .

    1. Just look out for the name in the applications next year. I’m sure you can fathom a suitable response!

    2. When trying to sell my deceased uncle’s flat, a woman made an offer which my brother and I (Executors) accepted. To cut a long story short, we bent over backwards to help this woman when matters dragged on. Eventually we had to withdraw our offer of temporarily renting the flat to her while the sale was being finalised. The next thing I knew, we were being threatened with a law suit by Slater and Gordon. Needless to say, it turns out that the prospective buyer was a solicitor working for that company.

      Two things I took from that experience:-
      1. I now understand the meaning of the term ‘No good deed goes unpunished’.
      2. Never sell your house to a solicitor.

      1. “The first thing we must do is kill all the lawyers,”

        [Shakespeare: Henry VI]

        The evil done by solicitors defies belief.

        To be fair though I do know some very decent solicitors who do their best to help people.

        However, a friend of ours who was married to a woman who was a solicitor as well as a barrister was cheated out of everything by his cunning and most disagreeable wife. A year or two before ditching our friend she sent a news letter with their Christmas card saying that she was specialising in divorce and that she would be grateful if we could encourage any people whose marriages looked shaky to contact her,

        Touting for this sort of business with you Christmas card is pretty low.

        1. Whaaaat? Did she even have anyone left on her Christmas card list the following year?

    3. …..
      people like this have a sort of sticky nastiness about them…..
      The correct term for people like this is Karen for a woman or Kevin for a man…..

    4. “She is a solicitor who specialises in divorce cases and she is doubtless feeling optimistic that domestic confinement will bring her a lot of lucrative new business.” Damn right, what’s her number?

    5. What wonderful creative thinking by you both. I hope it works out and that it may help you adjust, if you want to do courses incorporating skype etc. in the future.

      By the way, solicitors are not the only people who are belligerent, nor are the majority of solicitors belligerent. In this particular case, it is this person’s son who has suffered through her attitude.

      That said, the solicitors I have met who specialised in divorce have been a rather hard-nosed (and often not very bright) lot. I actually used two during my own divorce (I couldn’t deal with the admin and timescales involved, although I actually drafted much of what the later solicitor’s secretary mangled). This is because I also had to do my own fairly demanding work and travel into London, look after my twin children (who went to different schools) on my own, and prepare for Special Needs Tribunal hearings in respect of my daughter who has Asperger’s Syndrome.

      The first solicitor was incompetent.

      The second (who was local) was not only incompetent, but a rogue. No only did her secretary completely mangle what I had written (and even put on disk for them), the solicitor charged like the Light Brigade. Even for things which I had said I did not want done. Now, I know how charging works, and I was appalled. At the end, when I dismissed her services (and refused to pay her final bill) , this solicitor had the gall to say to me “you can’t expect a City service” (knowing that my work was in the City). I replied “I don’t expect a City service, but I do rightly expect a minimum level of competence, which you have come nowhere near reaching”.

      Grrrr.

  55. Ordered my next Kerry Wilkinson from Amazon at lunchtime. Prime delivery usually takes about 2 days. Projected delivery date for this order: 1st May.

      1. No, they are probably giving priority to food orders – rightly so. I have a few novels in English & German which I have yet to read to tide me over.

    2. Do you have a kindle, or the app on your laptop? I can “lend” you books for 14 days.

  56. Good morning all.

    I read that some Covid-19 mortality is due to sepsis (septicaemia in old money).
    If hospitals are able to work according to the Code Sepsis, that might save some lives. Some of you nottlers with medical knowledge might be able to expand.

  57. Apologies if this has already been posted:
    “Ensure a distance of two meters between customers and shop assistants…”

    2. Morrison’s staff were doing that until one of them came over to give me two small bunches of flowers for free, just as I’d finished paying.

      Morrison’s were well stocked up with plenty of fresh produce, though I didn’t see any loo rolls (wasn’t really looking for them) or bleach (which I did want). Plenty of fruit and veg and salad stuff. Few customers who were keeping a very wary distance from one another.

      1. Persevered with a virtual queue of 12,000 shoppers on the Ocado site today – it said there were a very limited number of delivery slots available. Astonishingly, there were a few slots tomorrow, but nothing after that. As I have a delivery coming next Monday, I didn’t bother, but merely added a few items to that order. No bread flour in stock yet, but loo rolls appeared to be plentiful.

      2. I was trying to do that, but it meant dodging about a lot as other shoppers were only intent on filling their trolleys.

  58. Sports Direct has
    said it will close its stores after a consumer and political backlash
    against its plans to stay open through the coronavirus outbreak.

    Last night, half an hour after the prime minister told the nation that all but the most essential stores must shut to help save lives, the sportswear retailer told staff that its 670 stores would continue to operate.

    2. It looks like business as usual out there. I looked at the Air Canada web site and there are three flights a day from Toronto to London. I don’t think that you can get into Canada so it must be a lot of Canadian and Americans flying that route.

      3. How did you get such an important job JS ? And are you able to claim expenses to and from your trips to Westminster ?

    2. Someone had the temerity to question the sacred cow called the NHS and the system went into lockdown?

    5. Probably just GCHQ practicing, in case the site is judged have become subversive at some point…

  64. Wonderful driving over The Downs with no one on the road. Just as it used to be.

      1. Really?
        All i remember, well, of the early 60s, is that we didn’t have motorways, barely any dual carriage ways and the queues for the coast were unbelievable…… back then when a new car would have a sign saying “Running in, please pass” and a starting handle under the seat,…. and once at the coast, whatever the weather, that was the day booked and you went, first get the windbreak hammered into the shingle, deckchairs arranged and old folk wrapped up warm in them, kids sent into the sea to get blue followed by a rub down with a sand encrusted towel guaranteed to remove a couple of layers of skin. Then the grind of getting the primus going for a nice cup of tea, cucumber and egg and sand (lovely crunchy feel on the teeth) sandwiches….. but open roads? No. Can’t say I remember those.

          1. Ah, my bad…. egg and cress or egg salad. Donm’t know where I got cucumbers from.

  65. Boris Johnson has tried to make a sort of God of the NHS.

    Here are a few statistics from the WHO which might be of interest as the ratio between intensive care facilities and deaths from the virus seem to be important. Indeed, the percentage of people dying from the virus in Italy is the highest in the world and very many times greater than those dying of it in Germany.

    Germany…..500,680 intensive care beds
    France……..274,462 intensive care beds
    Italy…………165,384 intensive care beds
    UK …………146,543 intensive care beds

    But of course statistics are unreliable but I do think that it is possible thast the health care system in Britain is not quite the best in the world and we are deluding ourselves if we think it is.

    1. I’m surprised if you’ve been deluding yourself Rastus. Strange that nobody else has copied our way of doing it. Not! I think our emergency services are very very good but as for the rest of it – well, the NHS has been a sacred cow for a long time yet look at what’s happened over the years. Sheffield springs to mind, Hatold Shipman (and other scandals that I can’t quite remember, blast!).

      2. Ah, is Shipman one of those called back to the NHS to help out in the crisis? If so the Critical Death Rate will rise exponentially…. especially if they also bring back those from the death pathway hospitals…..

    2. Here are a few figures on beds lost to the NHS since Cameron was elected in 2010 i.e. the Tory decade to today.
      Bear in mind the number of new British that have been squeezed in over that time – never mind the illegals – and the policy of continually reducing the number of beds, while at the same time increasing the population by a city the size of Leicester in many of those years, doesn’t make a lot of sense to the layman.
      I’ve underlined the usual cynical response from the politicians: this approach is common to politicians of every colour and hue, of course. Not just the Tories.

      Reality Check verdict: There are 17,000 fewer NHS England beds since 2010. About half of these are general hospital beds – there has also been a significant reduction in mental health beds. This, though, is part of a long-term trend which has seen a decline in the numbers of beds since the 1980s.

      According to NHS England figures, there were 144,455 overnight NHS beds available between April-June 2010, falling to 127,225 in July-September 2019.

      In other words, a drop of about 17,000.

      The Conservatives say that the number of beds increased by 2,000 last month. However, it’s usual practice for the NHS to make more beds available during the winter, so you would expect a small increase at this time of year anyway.

      If you just focus on an April-to-April comparison, the drop is about 16,000. More than half (about 9,000 beds) are general hospital beds caring for patients with physical needs and problems. The other 7,000 are maternity centres and units specialising in the care of patients with mental health problems and learning disabilities.

      NHS Bed Losses

      2. Under all governments in the last thirty years the total number of hospital beds has been cut – or slashed depending on your viewpoint. These figures come from the King’s Fund. Click on THIS LINK and you can see the exact numbers by running your mouse over the graph. It’s very telling.

        The total number of beds in the NHS has declined by more than half, from around 300,000 in 1987 to around 148,000 now. In 1987 the UK population was 56.8 million. The population now is around 66.2 million. The population has increased by 17%, yet the number of hospital beds has declined by more than 50%. Medical advances have certainly been made, but surely not to that extent.

        If we look at the number of General & Acute beds, which is the biggest category, the numbers are startling…

        1987-88 180,889
        1997-98 138,047
        2010-11 108,958
        2016-17 102,369

        The average decline in beds per year during the Blair/Brown government was 2,909. During the Coalition/Conservative years the figure is 1,098

        Full article: https://www.iaindale.com/articles/its-time-to-reverse-the-decline-in-nhs-bed-numbers-updated

    3. What you will always have thust down your throat is that we don’t spend as much in terms of GDP as these places.

      ie throw more money at it.

      1. 317391+ up ticks,
        Morning J,
        The whole bloody mess going back decades until the mid 70s is the creative orchestrated work of the pro eu lab/lib/con coalition party & their politico’s, plus repetitive supporter / voters.

    5. Germany has so many hospital beds availabe they use wings as paying hotels when not needd that is if you do not mind an on suite operating theatre.

    6. Do you dimension the service against the need and let the budget follow, or dimension the service against the budget and let the needs go unfulfilled?

      1. I have great admiration for the doctors and nurses who work so tirelessly and indeed I am proud of the fact that many members of the Tracey family have been doctors and nurses.

        It is the pompous arrogance of the politicians and administrators which is more troubling. Of course we all delude ourselves into thinking that what we have is the best. For example my lovely wife thinks I am the best husband in the world but any objective assessment might indicate that I am not!

        1. Absolutely right Richard, I have been in the care of doctors and nurses over the past 12 years and I have always praise the front line NHS staff, they are so dedicated to their tasks. I’ve just had a telephone conversation with one of my old childhood friends his wife recently was diagnosed with breast cancer. He spoke of how wonderful the staff were during her consultation and subsequent treatment. And now a month after the operation she will fully recover.

      2. Parkinson’s law suggests that the services offered, transgenderism etc. will expand to exceed the available budget…..no one ever spends within their budget lest it be cut for the next year…..

        1. How true. I’ve worked in finance departments in local council and in NHS. They budget by taking last year’s budget (all spent) and dd the inflation factor to get the new budget. Far from starting with a blank page as I was used to each year in business, they fraudulently pretend to ahem spent all the budget. They do this by raising fake invoices against each other at the end of the financial year. So council invoice the NHS and NHS invoices the council. The invoices are accrued as expenditure so budget is spent. At the start of the new year they send each other credit notes. Simple and easy and illegal .

    7. BUT UK apart, I wonder how much the other three hand out in foreign aide each year ?
      We give away around 13.5 billion it’s utter madness.

      1. Caroline here. In 2018, for France the figure for foreign aid was 10.75 billion euros, three quarters of which went to sub Saharan Africa.

  66. Very quiet outside, like a bank holiday. Saw people out walking, but only in pairs or alone.
    Roads nice and quiet, and so was Morrison’s supermarket, which was well stocked with fresh produce. Everyone was keeping a good distance away from each other.

  67. Much as I sympathise with self-employed people who have lost their source of income, I am not really happy with the sense of entitlement.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52005581

    I have no recollection of any help from the government during and after the 1990’s recession, or the 2008 financial smash. And the banks did not offer free loans, They just said ” You do not have a viable business. Get lost “.

    1. ‘How is £94 a week going to pay anyone’s bills?’

      Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

      Did it not occur to the self-employed to salt some away during the good times to carry one over the bad times? ‘Twas always my motto.

    1. I thoroughly enjoyed that film, I didn’t think I was going to, but once I had seen it I was pleased I had been dragged along by HG.

    2. There is no requirement to worship in a Mosque. Just put the mat down anywhere you please. I have seen people do it in an airport terminal.

      Best place of course is the middle of the M25 in rush hour.

      1. The M25 in rush hour is like a car park. Better to find a motorway that has fast moving traffic 🙂

          1. Phizz, at the moment I am about as far as can be (well beyond 2m!) from joking. It’s only day one of my incarceration and I’m already ready to tear people’s heads off. I do not cope well with being cooped up.

  70. Afternoon all.
    I’ve just discovered that I am on Sainsbury’s at risk list … have got a delivery slot for tomorrow. Better than the dentist, for sure.

    1. My relative who is nearly 80 with lung problems is also on the list. She has booked a home delivery due Thursday and has been told a weekly slot will be available for her.
      I tried to book an Asda slot, nothing available up to 14th April and the calendar does not go any further in the future than that.
      I am going to have to start visiting supermarkets again.

      1. Could you ask a neighbour or relative to do the shopping for you? I’ve promised to do that for all my neighbours and local friends. People want to help!

        1. I had a call from a friend who is going shopping tomorrow offering to get me some supplies. I accepted gratefully, but whether they will be able to acquire what I need is another matter.

        2. Thank you for your kind suggestion but we are fit enough with no underlying health conditions so with appropriate precautions plan to shop for essentials only.
          If things become desperate, as you suggested, family and friends will step up to help us out.

    2. Well done, issy. I’m not, and the phone number they give to be added to that list isn’t receiving calls. However, I managed to edit an Ocado order for next Monday, and they had a small number of available slots tomorrow (I didn’t bother). As long as one is prepared to wait in the ‘virtual queue’, it might not be necessary to order weeks ahead. Hopefully.

      2. I went out (briefly) with a girl who was an understudy.

        She was unbelieveably good looking, so much so that the only reason I got a look in was that nobody else had dared to approach this vision of pulchritude at a party we both attended.

        She was a wallflower! I offered to get her a drink and we got talking and had quite a fair bit in common, sport and the like.

        She moved on, probably for the best as I doubt I could have coped with every bloke letching at her all the time.

  73. I wonder if the Countryfile team has read this or similar pieces.

    Coronavirus could have been prevented, scientists say

    Covid-19 could have been stopped if officials had not ignored past research, top animal disease experts have warned. Prof Andrew Cunningham, the deputy director of science at the Zoological Society of London says Covid-19 was “not only predictable, but predicted” as he declared it fortunate that the virus is not as deadly as other known zoonotic diseases.

    He told the Telegraph that experts have been warning for years that zoonotic spillover – when a disease transfers from wildlife to humans – is a growing threat to human life and society. In a stark warning, he also said the world will be faced with more deadly viruses like Covid-19 if there is not a drastic change in human behaviours and research. He added that a better understanding of these diseases would have denied the coronavirus the conditions that have allowed it to kill more than 10,000 people so far and said governments must not return to “business as usual” once the pandemic has ended.

    Prof Cunningham cited increased contact with wildlife, heightened exposure to different species such as bats, the speed of global travel and the growing human population as key reasons for the increased “zoonotic spillover” in recent decades. The coronavirus is understood to have originated in a “wet market” in the Chinese city of Wuhan, with the original host believed to be bats.

    “We have seen this happen before,” Prof Cunningham told The Telegraph. “Unless human behaviours and activities change, we are going to see it happen again. The frequency of occurrence of zoonotic spillover is increasing in recent decades. That is because of the way we interact with wildlife now. All these things have happened in the last 50 or 60 years. We are living in an entirely different world. We have created an entirely unnatural ecosystem for ourselves and that is leading to the increased chance of novel pathogen spillover from wildlife into people. It is surprising in some ways that it does not happen more frequently given the way we treat and commoditise animals.”

    Other zoonotic diseases, such as the Nipah virus, can be far more deadly than Covid-19. The virus, which also originates in bats, was first identified in Malaysia in 1998 and has been found in other parts of Asia since. Its fatality rate is estimated to be as high as 75 per cent.

    “Can you imagine what it would be like if Covid-19 had a case fatality rate of 75 per cent? That is the doomsday scenario,” said Prof Cunningham. “In some ways we have lucked out with Covid-19.”

    Prof Cunningham said he believed the Sars outbreak in 2003 would be a “watershed moment” but that governments soon lost focus once the pandemic had ended.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/21/coronavirus-could-have-prevented-scientists-say/

    1. The human behaviour that really needs to change is the Chinese and Vietnamese propensity to eat or use wildlife for bushmeat or quack remedies. Also all wildlife trade in body parts such as lion bones. Most of these pathogens originate in bushmeat, which also sparked the Ebola crisis.

        1. Disgusting isn’t it – and pangolins are the most trafficked mammal, and heading for extinction if they don’t stop.

    2. I’ll take bets that once this is over, things go back to where they were – including China lifting its ban on wet markets.

      As a related aside, why have bats become so protected in Europe (and to a much lesser extent) in the US? Since they are apparently major nasty disease carriers, maybe this whole thing needs to be rethought?

      1. Oi!!
        Leave my bats alone.

        Our house is largely dry-stone walling and “open” tiling in the roof, and we are home to literally hundreds of bats of several species in the summer. There are far fewer that over-winter here, alhough we sometimes see some on warmer winter nights.

        They eat all sorts of flying nasties and are very entertaining to watch as they swoop around at dusk.

        I don’t eat them, they don’t bite me. They do eat the mosquitoes, moths and flies that I don’t like.

        They sometimes get into the house at night and fly around, which can be quite disconcerting as the “breeze” from their wings passes over one’s face in bed but apart from that, I love them. And that only happens every few years when one of the creatures gets disorientated.

        1. Nothing a quick visit from Bob the Builder could not fix. New roof, stucco the walls and you’re done…

          We found one in the house a couple of years back. No idea how it got in, must have been an open door somewhere as all the windows have insect screens. Anyway it finally landed and I threw a piece of cloth over it, and took it outside, whereupon it zoomed off quite happily.

          Bats are less protected here than in the EU – licensed pest controllers can remove bats if they get into buildings, housing, etc., as they are a defined rabies carrier.

          2. The last thing I want to do is change/seal the walls and roof.

            It’s always amusing to us when the cottage guests during the summer realise that the chirping sounds that they hear are fledgelings living in the crevices of the cottage and the shrieks of delight/horror when they open shutters and discover three bats roosting are amusing too.

            I have all sorts of birds nesting in the walls, form black and red redstarts to nuthatches to sparrows and tits, as well as the bats.
            We’ve even had an eagle owl perching on the “dormer” window wooden outcrop.
            It’s a rare night indeed when we don’t hear things landing on the rooves, mainly owls, and chewing during the summer, and the birds of prey regard us as the local takeaway.

        3. They are harmless if we leave them alone. No need to eat them or use them for anything.

  75. Afternoon, everyone. Day one in the gulag. I could cheerfully commit homicide (exacerbated by having to cancel my riding lesson) and there are another 20 days to go! Now I know why some people were determined to escape from Stalaglufts.

      1. I have dressage training. My instructress trains Lee Pearson the gold-medal winning Paralympian. 🙂

    2. I envisage a remake of ‘The Great Escape’ with Conway on his Connemara pony …

      Eat yer heart out, Steve McQueen!

  76. Two large cards have just been pushed through my letterbox and I’ve been requested to display one at all times in my front window. Green for I’m OK or red for I need help.

    1. And where’s the Blue for “I’m really Pi55ed off”?

      [Removal company rang at 08:10 this morning to say move off…….]

        2. What if you’re so stuffed you can’t put the card up?

          Do a bunch of burly chaps in a HAZMAT suit bash in, spray everything with acid and drag you out by your ankles to be made into Soylent Green?

          1. Oh gosh, if you’re so stuffed that you can’t put the card up or phone reception then I guess you’re going to be noticed when you start to smell. London life.

    3. The snag with that if I had them is that nobody would be able to see them unless they came right up to the house!

  77. Off Topic
    Good day for wildlife. I hadn’t seen the red squirrels for a few months and spotted one this morning, chewing pine cones and then this afternoon spotted a hare, which I haven’t seen for several days.
    I was moving fallen branches and nearly stepped on it.
    It shot off, from 0-40 in a few strides, and startled the daylights out of me. They are incredibly difficul to spot when they hunker down.

      1. Indeed, and I think this one might be one of the offspring. It was certainly a lot smaller than the patriarch.

        Oddly enough, I had been pruning and sawing within ten feet of it for several minutes and it paid little attention so perhaps it recognised me. It was only when I almost stepped on it that it moved, and it didn’t leave the garden, so I hope we’ll see leverets again this year.

        1. Hares don’t go very far; they will normally circle round & back to their favourite location.

    1. I don’t bloody believe her. And if it’s true, she’s young and will hopefully survive it.
      But she’s done enough damage and I don’t want to see her face again.

    6. There certain people who you just KNOW will develop/suffer symptoms of the cherryade virus.

  79. Listening to all the updates on the BBC, the Government and everyone else seem to be doing a pretty fine job.
    I have yet to hear mention of anything or anywhere outside London, though.

    1. You didn’t really expect them to tell you that disaster was unfolding did you?

      1. Precisely. The supposedly expert advice of the medicos and the life scientist has proven to be reckless and false. They advised obtaining ‘herd immunity’ by stopping testing and the tracing of contacts and letting contagion spread in the population whereas the virus is nothing like flu but instead leaves folk with pneumonia and permanent lung tissue damage if they survive.

        It is obvious to me that Matt Hancock is out of his depth. I would reassign the job and bring back Jeremy Hunt who has a better grasp of the seriousness of this pandemic and infinitely more experience of the NHS.

        Edit: Flights still arriving from Milan, Tehran, USA and other infected countries. All arrivals unchecked and none quarantined. You really could not make this up.

        2. I do agree about Jeremy Hunt.
          During the leadership campaign he showed an unwelcome snarky side, but he was a steady Health Secretary.

        3. None of that is correct. Here immunity alone was never the strategy nor was testing ever stopped.

          1. You have clearly not followed the various pronouncements of the experts flanking Boris Johnson at those daily press briefings; that or you are simply being argumentative and contrarian.

            Either way I have no wish to engage in a conversation with you on this subject. Let us agree to disagree.

          1. Pah…London. My area was rated by the Halifax survey to be second out of 100 towns for wellness and contentment. Probably down to high employment and a Tory council that refuses to raise council tax. Unlike the next borough which is run by a Labour council and is a complete dump with council tax nearly double what mine is.

        1. We need MolaMola to add in exotic sea creatures (we’ve already got Mermen in London so I understand…)

  81. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/my-father-s-fight-with-coronavirus
    “My father Robin Hanbury-Tenison had a podcast interview with The Spectator on Monday.
    He has a new book out
    – on pandemics, rather well timed – about which Sam Leith of this
    parish was keen to interview him. But in the end he had to postpone it.
    On Monday, he couldn’t get a sentence out without uncontrollably
    coughing. He had just come back from skiing in France, and the
    government advice still said that the Alps were safe.
    He
    and my mother had considered cancelling, but their insurance wouldn’t
    have given them a refund. So they were careful to always wash their
    hands thoroughly and didn’t go to any large gatherings. Besides, though
    he is 83 years old, he’s the fittest man I know. We ran the London
    Marathon together for his 80th birthday, we ride horses across Bodmin
    Moor whenever the weather allows and he still beats me at tennis. He
    doesn’t take any medication and has no existing health conditions.

    But when he got back he developed a slight temperature and a dry persistent
    cough. After a day in bed spent grumbling, he got up the next day to
    deal with some emails. But still, he was short of breath and feeling
    rather frustrated. I persuaded him to come outside. It’s a beautiful
    time of year in our garden. The primroses are out, the snake’s head
    fritillaries are just starting to bloom and bees are busily racing from
    each new blossom to the next. Normally my father rushes around,
    excitedly pointing out each new change and looking for some of his
    favourite flowers. He’s rather embarrassed about our montbretia, which
    he says is looked down upon in horticultural circles, but is very proud
    of the purple loosestrife that we have in abundance.

    But even a walk was taxing. He wheezed and coughed, and got angry with
    himself for being so slow. He reminded me of a mountaineer at the top of
    a high mountain where oxygen is scarce. I got him back to the house,

    where he slumped onto a sofa, and we phoned 111. The good people there
    were very efficient and sent an ambulance. The crew arrived, took one
    look at him and immediately donned hazmat suits and face masks. He
    thought it was hilarious.
    The last five days have been hellish. The ambulance took him to Derriford
    Hospital in Plymouth. He was put in an isolation ward, with a number of
    tubes feeding in and out of him. He’s now been diagnosed with the
    dreaded. At the beginning, he WhatsApped the family and kept us up to
    date, even though he was clearly exhausted, nervous, and scared. I asked
    one of the doctors to take him some pears, his favourite fruit.
    But even then fluid continued to fill his lungs and at 4am on Wednesday, he
    was sedated and put on a ventilator. He is still under sedation now
    as we hope that his lungs drain over the weekend.
    A doctor cheerily told him that, for someone of his age and in his current condition, he has a 20 per cent chance of survival.

    I write this because there are a lot of people still scoffing at the
    government’s advice. But a British stiff upper lip isn’t enough. My
    father is healthier than most 60 year olds and still, his decline was
    rapid – over a matter of a few days. My pregnant wife and I will be
    self-isolating for the next 12 weeks.
    Alongside this, it is a time for kindness. Call any elderly relatives or
    neighbours that you have, donate to a foodbank if you can and show
    support to anyone in your community who might need it. This is likely to
    last longer than most of us predict. I also want to thank the emergency
    care providers who were kind, professional and extremely efficient.
    Where would we be without them?

    Written by Merlin Hanbury-Tenison

    2. So many people going on ski holidays come down with CV or infect others on their return. Is it all that après-ski activity or that the virus thrives in the cold?

      1. central heating in the accomodation.
        Plus air conditioning in most forms of public transport. Kaypea should have a few thoughts about recycled air.

      2. I think it was the unfortunate coincidence that so many Lombardians were also in the Italian and Austrian resorts.

    4. “He doesn’t take any medication and has no existing health conditions.”
      No known existing (or rather pre-existing) health conditions perhaps might be more accurate.

    5. He is a very old man he should not be doing things like that. I do hope he recovers.

  82. Our president said on TV that we should all be taking Chloroquine. Someone believed him and did just that. And is now dead.

    He really needs to leave medicine to the professionals. And stop passing on advice from conspiracy theorists and other medical “experts”.

    1. Maybe they should have read the note on the bottle that said it was to clean fish tanks. We will have people drinking bleach next.

    2. Ah yes, the couple who ingested fish tank cleaner, just because it contains Chloroquine Phosphate.

        1. True. For the same reason refrigerator (icebox) manufacturers have to put labels: ‘Not for use as a climbing aid” on them, after some idiot used the open door to stand on to reach a high shelf in their kitchen – and successfully sued for their injuries when it toppled over.

          1. When we first moved to the US, we could not believe that it was necessary that tumble dryers should have warning labels telling buyers not to put their pets in the dryer.

            Lawyers, you gotta love ’em.

          3. Which shows that preconceptions can be wrong.

            I should have known, I know a Democrat who lives in Texas.

          5. 34% registered Republicans, 32% registered Democrats.
            With the change in voter demographics in recent years, Arizona and Texas will turn Democrat in the next few years. Permanently. Then they’ll more closely resemble California..

        3. Ah, the basket of deplorables: The idiots, the racists, the bigots, the xenophobes. I cannot think why more people didn’t vote for Hillary….

        1. Undoubtedly, but so far he’s making the “experts” question themselves a little more than I supect might otherwise be the case.

          A good thing in my view.

    6. He dis not say that did he. Why do you make out things like that. You are just a trouble maker.

        1. He did not say that you cannot provide a link as he did not say that.Can you. your nicked.

    7. Have you been reading the Guardian?
      Lots of people have been taking Chloroquine. Most of them recovered. This patient didn’t recover, despite taking it (and apparently took something that anyone with 2 brain cells would have realised wasn’t medicine). Trials are still underway, and I saw the footage where Trump said that.
      The Guardian twisted it disgracefully into a piece of anti-Trump fake news.

  83. government can’t solve everything. Spiked 24 March 2020.

    The willingness with which sections of society have called for giving up freedoms for the sake of a higher good is underpinned by an unrealistic and immature fantasy of the possibility of a certain world. Trading in freedom for security leads only to the illusion of certainty. And it also leads to the loss of a precious resource that is essential for dealing with a major threat to human life. Communities and individuals cannot deal effectively with a pandemic or any other disaster if they are relegated to the role of a passive audience. Even with the best will in the world, central government does not have the answer to everything, and even public-health professionals are not able to deal with the specific problems facing communities.

    The problem with Furedi’s analysis here is that it is addressed to the wrong people. The political and bureaucratic elites in the UK for the last thirty years have said the exact opposite. “We know Everything. We know Best. We know it is good for you.” They have both Left and Right ignored the people and actively undermined their beliefs and now having created this modern Eloi they can hardly complain that they are lacking in self-sufficiency. Even while it was happening sensible people knew that it was in the nature of things that eventually a challenge would arise that would require the commitment of the people. Well it’s here and there’s no commitment. It is difficult to see how we are going to get out of this mess unscathed, not just the virus, which will pass, but what comes afterwards which will be even worse!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/03/24/covid-19-government-cant-solve-everything/

    1. PWS, a disease most common in the the ‘reforming’ Left.

      (Someone on here should be able to work it out…)

  84. Greta says she thinks she had the virus and self isolates. Probably worried her copyrighted name hasn’t been all over the shop.

    1. This has all rather taken the wind out of the sails of XR don’t you think.

      2. Not at all. They are waiting until it is safe to crawl out of their bolt holes then they will be out demanding that we don’t go back to civilization.

  85. More off topic:

    Even more good news on the château sosraboc front.

    The owls are going absolutely crazy tonight, for some reason, probably mating or possibly the recent equinox?

    There is loud hooting on all four sides of the property, different cries so I’m assuming different species. The mice, voles and moles had better have their wits about them because I’ve cut roughly an acre of grass this afternoon and I know the owls patrol the area.

    1. Male and female tawny owls have different calls. We had a male on the roof of the house opposite ours on Sunday, with a female somewhere in the gardens responding to his calls.

      Eagle owl also a possibility where you are. For a large bird, they have a very soft call.

      Also long-eared owls, barn owls, little owls (daylight) and Scops owls, which should be arriving now. The Scops sounds like the sonar transmitter on a ship and it goes on all night.

      For comparisons of calls look up Xeno-canto. It’s got everything.

      https://www.xeno-canto.org/collection/species/all?area=europe

      1. Thank you for the link.

        We get most, if not all, of those in the area. I don’t think I’ve spotted a long-eared owl here, but they’re all the Devil’s own job to identify (apart fom the barn owls) when they coast past.

        How such large birds can be so silent is a wonder.

        I think Chris Packham did a documentary a while back, comparing the sound profiles of various birds, and owls were so far off the scale it was hard to believe.

        The eagle owl that perched outside on the “dormer” scared HG, for some reason she woke up and there it was. She’s not keen on creatures getting too close (the two meter distance isn’t a problem for us };-)) .

        It completely filled the window and when she shrieked it turned it’s head and just stared at her. The ear tufts twitched slightly, then it decided that we probably weren’t worth hunting and glided away.

        The little owls around here are comparatively tame and will perch on the benches during the day. We even had a baby that I had to put out of harms way, as it had arrived completely disorienetated. It didn’t mind being picked up (probably illegal on my part) and placed in a prickly bush where the parents eventually enticed it out and they all moved off.

  86. I took the big lens out for a walk during my government-sanctioned exercise period this morning.

    I saw very few people, maybe 6 in the hour I was out. The air was quiet and it was a pleasure to be out. A male goosander made its way downstream, unconcerned about anything other than the constant fear that if it didn’t watch what it was doing for every second of the day, it might finish up eaten. Such is the daily life of birds everywhere.

    On the way back along the river I sat and had a spell on a bench by the path and a neighbour who lives just over the road, but whom I hadn’t seen for some time came walking his terrier on a leash. He stopped, standing at the opposite side of the path, about 3m away and we spent a while discussing government reactions to something that if what that same government is saying is true seems more than a bit excessive. Maybe it’s not excessive, maybe they aren’t telling us everything in case they worry us more than they already have. Who knows.

    Right on cue another bloke in his 60s came along the path with his off the leash pack of three docile dogs. One of them reached me and gave my hand a lick. He passed between us, then from a range of about 10 yards he started educating us with hand movements to illustrate his point on the fact that as we chatted we could be infecting one another with the unspeakable plague with droplets, which he notified us came out of our mouths and noses and that we could be infectious even before symptoms show. I was in a restrained mood, so I confined myself to saying that government advice of spacing was 2 metres and that three metres is further than 2. He ranted on for a minute longer before heading on his way to entertain anyone else he encountered.

    My neighbour watched his departure and muttered ‘stupid tw@t’.

    I replied that his dog had licked my hand, so if I had it, so did his dog. We smiled.

    Just then my phone rang with the message that I had an hour to get my car in to exchange it for a courtesy car, so that was the end of our brief encounter and social spacing. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f8419474131630cfa3e1180ac50aee3dbe32de8c46bdacd602145f5c28f91ace.jpg

      1. Got a few on the river at the moment. They’ll be heading inland soon. (EDIT. One or two stay here and breed.)

        Also eiders, goldeneye, teal, wigeon and of course, mallards.

  87. Goodnight, folks. I’m away to cook something so I can open a bottle of wine 🙂 Be nice to each other, but keep your distance.

  88. So why doesn’t Boris act according to The Lancet report ?

    Especially as it changes everything.

    1. I guess he had to look at the bigger political picture, but eventually acknowledged that the economy had to be sacrificed.

    2. I’m sorry Polly but the chances of you having spotted the solution ahead of the world’s best scientists is zero.

  90. Latest bit of good news:
    Reports of NHS staff being mugged for their ID badges.

    Such fun.

    1. The site has gone to pre moderation.

      Did any moderator have a reason for doing that?

  93. Making good use of my time during ‘the lock down’ I’ve brought together left over assorted bits and pieces of decent wood found in my two sheds and workshop.
    I am now making a parlour (a smaller model of a full size acoustic) guitar for a grandchild. I have spare rosewood finger board and other bits from previous guitar and ukulele projects.
    The last of my parents old Honduras mahogany coffee table will supply the body parts. I cut down some of it ages ago, I had enough thin mahogany for the back. But it took me nearly two hours of hard graft to saw down by (the only way) hand the left over part of the 25mm table top into two 10 mm hand planed to about 4 mm, sections to make the front (top). A piece of cherry wood left over from a kitchen worktop I made for some one years ago, will be the neck and the bridge. All by hand, on and off it’ll probably take a month to 6 weeks.

      1. I have a good friend who’s great grand father use to play and sing for his children before WW1. The old classical style guitar must be around 120-130 years old, he asked me if I could repair it, but its been bodged up with too much glue too many times to repair it. But it still holds its tune.
        I have and old Spanish guitar I brought home from Spain in 1967 it’s been around quite a bit and had split in places i’ve repaired it and re-polished it.
        I also made two concert size ukuleles out of the old coffee table.

    2. Took the day off thought i wasn’t allowed to work, cut the lawn did a bit of cutting back.
      Phoned my suppliers to see what was occurring, they said it was the busiest day they had all all year, people were coming in for materials so they could do jobs themselves while they are at home, most probably my former customers.

      1. My wife was sorting out many other jobs that she told me need doing………..i’m too busy now :-)))

  94. I find it very surprising that a “let’s-get-Brexit-dome” Johnson-Cummings government keeps imploring us to keep TWO METRES social distance. Speak in Imperial measure – 6 and a half FEET – you clowns,

    Speaking of clowns, whatever happened to that clown “Herd Immunity”?

    3. When it comes to dispersal of something as small as a virus and its pals on something as random as an air current I don’t think the half a foot makes much difference.

      Just call it six feet and you won’t be wrong.

    5. Herd immunity is a perfectly sensible medium term strategy. It won’t stop the surge in cases we’re facing but it will reduce the impact of future waves until a vaccine is available. That is why herd immunity was never the whole strategy.

      1. Yes, I was all for herd immunity and I think in the UK context – few living as extended families – it would make sense, backed up by additional caution in relation to vulnerable individuals/groups. It would, of course, have helped not to have such a hopelessly underbedded and equipped NHS, even if they are superb on equality/diversity officers ….

    1. Saw one of those at Leuchars in 1991 supporting the Russian Knights Su27 display team.

      They’re big.

  97. GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) – Notice of Annual General Meeting
    2020 and Annual Report 2019

    “Our Annual General Meeting (AGM) will be held at 2.30pm
    on Wednesday 6 May 2020 at the Sofitel London Heathrow, Terminal 5,
    London Heathrow Airport, TW6 2GD.”

    I wonder…!

    1. Good night, Peddy. Don’t forget to wash your hands and wish yourself a Happy Birthday (twice) before you get into bed.

  102. Message for Rik.

    Just watched my last available episode of Picard.

    Series slow to start which is diff. From the usual format.

    Last half made me cry. More than my financial losses.

  103. Just had a Facebook friend request from the vicar. Couldn’t really not accept. Will need to be careful what I post though!

    Night night all!

        1. Oi! You stay out of this! How can you make assumptions about by sheltered vocabulary?

    1. Peter F Hamilton had an end of the world party featured in one of his Reality Dysfunction novels.

      People need to make their own choices. We are seeing the embryonic Totalitarian Police State. We have lost all our freedoms.

      This crisis is being used to introduce powers that never would have happened in a freedom loving democracy.

      Have you noticed the styling of the uniforms.

      1. I really enjoy Peter F Hamilton’s books but “The Reality Dysfunction” was quite disturbing in parts, I have to say. SF never used to be that gory.

        1. I agree. It has broken down into genre. Not always easy to figure out what is what. I am reading ‘Honorverse’ on my kindle at the mo’ and thousands die. Quite technical, but it depends what you enjoy.

          2. Rik recommended it to me. There are loads of them. I found a site that has them all for free. Mail me and i will give you the site.

          3. Hi – I can’t seem to find your email address (I thought I had it). Do you want to give me the site details here?

  105. Government launches urgent appeal for 250,000 NHS volunteers. 15 Minutes ago.

    The government has launched an urgent appeal for 250,000 volunteers to help the NHS in the battle against coronavirus.

    Mr Hancock said: “I know how worried people are and while this is a great time of turbulence, it is a moment too that the country can come together in that national effort.

    I know this sounds like carping but is this practical? Pretty much every job in existence and that goes down to street sweeping requires some foreknowledge, even if it’s only the street names and where the bins are. What are a quarter of a million people going to do in an environment in which they have no experience whatsoever? I am reminded of one personal instance where a project was required to be completed in a hurry to avoid penalty clauses. All the management could suggest was that we draft in more people. That only one person could do one thing at a time and in sequence was beyond their understanding. They simply could not understand the simple concept that one cannot get six men down a one man hole.
    It is no use to say these people can help out because anyone who has ever been sent unwanted hands knows that what actually happens is a downturn in activity since more time is spent explaining something that would be more easily done by yourself! What this sounds like is panic by people who actually have no experience whatsoever of the world and how things are done!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-nhs-volunteers-hospitals-cases-deaths-matt-hancock-a9422251.html

    1. Lots of jobs require only modest training and standards, paperwork etc will be dropped.

      2. I would have thought that even cleaning floors or delivering meals would require knowledge of procedures that must be followed to ensure safety.

        Don’t feed or water a patient where the records say Nil by mouth – that sort of thing.

        Maybe I could take revenge on the vampires and do the 5AM blood sample run, all I would need is a blunt needle.

      1. I loathe to ‘diss’ my country, but a DBS check (criminal record check) in Spain takes about 5 minutes and used to cost approximately 6 euro. A bit longer if you include paying in advance via an ATM or online, and of course you have to appear at a government office in the local city or large town to show your ID etc. Then they print you a certificate, done & dusted.

      1. You have to know where the morgue is. There is documentation. A hundred things you have not dreamed of. Every person thinks everyone elses job, however simple, is a doddle. It isn’t!.

      2. Morgue? Morgue?
        Nasty septic lingo creeping into NOTTL.

        We Brits say mortuary.

        1. At a local hospital, to avoid distressing other patients by using the M word, staff phoned the Porters for transport to St Peter’s….

      3. Done that during one of my summer jobs. We got an extra 2/6d for every bod.

        Only partly qualified, all of the paperwork was already doe so we just did the physical move.

      4. You have to know where the morgue is. There is documentation. A hundred things you have not dreamed of. Every person thinks everyone elses job, however simple, is a doddle. It isn’t!.

  106. HAPPY HOUR – so how was it for you?

    After a brief visit to the shops for milk and a paper I returned home ….safely!
    Tidying the bedroom I found some socks which required darning….and came over all ‘make do and mend’.
    My mother would have called it cobbling together…however it did the job.

    I was about to prepare lunch after a large sherry….or was it two….when a friend called by.
    We discussed the present Lockdown situation which turned into a heated argument regarding COVID19 . Practically in tears my friend was in favour of the restrictions on daily life however it was making her depressed and fearful. I told her not to worry as she would make herself ill.She felt we would be better off had we remained in the EU and pulled through this world catastrophe together.
    After picking herself up off the floor, I gave her a hanky for her bloody nose and showed her the door….

    .

    1. Did you ask her why Macron felt it necessary to commandeer santiser fluids and face masks that were on lorries bound for the UK?

      1. It’s called Agincourt syndrome Sos.
        They have never been able to get over that one.

        1. It’s the old year 15 syndrome, like Waterloo.

          Abba reminded them and they went into meltdown and have never voted for us in Eurovision since

    2. I guess she was jealous of the help given to Italy and other countries by the EU… Oh!

      1. Look on the bright side, Silly Allen, Bob Goboff, Gary Waniker and so many more all faded away into insignificance.

  107. Israel-based Teva Pharmaceuticals has announced it’s donating 10

    million tablets of hydroxychloroquine sulfate to U.S. hospitals within

    weeks. The drug, which is offered under brand names like Plaquenil and

    Quineprox, is commonly used to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid

    arthritis. But some scientists believe it could also help patients with

    the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19. Six million tablets are expected to arrive by the end of the month, with another 4 million arriving in mid-April.

    “We are committed to helping to supply as many tablets as

    possible … at no cost,” said Teva’s Brendan O’Grady. “Immediately upon

    learning of the potential benefit of hyroxychloroquine, Teva began to

    assess supply and to urgently acquire additional ingredients to make

    more product while arranging for all of what we had to be distributed

    immediately.”

    https://www.fromthegrapevine.com/health/teva-pharmaceutical-hydroxychloroquine-sulfateisrael-donate-million-tablets-coronavirus-covid-drug
    Yet we hear fuck all about this treatment being used here

    1. It would be terrible if there were an easy cure like having a large Gin & Tonic daily to ward it off. How on earth would any of these parasites make any money?

      Answers on a microdot.

        1. Depends on Phizzee’s definition of “large”…. you may need to up your dose….my Mum’s definition of “just one, then” would put an alcoholic to shame…..

      2. The traditional remedy here in Greece is either Ouzo, which can be applied externally in the case of arthritis, for example, or internally…. far more popular….. or suma which is more potent than raki…..the batch we just hauled back from the mountains is around 52proof…… just a splash of fruit juice (the five a day variety is fine) and a good few will cure pretty much anything…. or make you not give a damn if it cures nothing. The great thing about triple distilled suma is that you never ever get a hangover. A queasy stomach, maybe, but head as clear as a bell….. provided you don’t mix with other alcoholic beverages….

        Shame is that the virus has seen the mountain music festival cancelled….. a free three day event you camp on the mountain for the music, the camp fires, the campfire cooking and the socialising. Last year when we went (must get a bigger tent) our friend brought about 5 gallons of suma. We started with little shot glasses for sipping but after a few of these we moved on to water glass doses. neat.
        Did it do me any harm?
        Well, yes, I have to admit. I did manage to rig SWMBO her hammock OK and I even managed to blow up the air mattress for myself (I don’t know why i bother because drunk or sober however you lie the air moves away from some body parts which end up in contact with the ground and halfway through the night most of the air has gone anyway). But it wasn’t the mattress that was my undoing it was falling into a fire pit and colliding with the cauldron used to cook up enough spag bog to feed thousands… and thankfully empty, but hard on the bones…..by this time most of us who shared the suma were pretty much finding standing up or moving a bit of a challenge…..

    2. I still have some old chloroquine and proguanil malaria tablets from trips. They are not recommended these days and we take doxycycline. But they might come in handy if we’re ill.

  108. BBC show crowded underground stations and tube trains on 10pm News – but NO mention of fact that number of trains and stations much reduced. Rubbish news service and rubbish unjoined up government?

  110. DON’T COME TO CORNWALL

    @CornwallCouncil
    Cornwall prides itself on being an open and welcoming place, but during these unprecedented times we ask that anyone planning a trip to Cornwall consider deferring their visit and avoid all but essential travel 👉 http://bit.ly/2QxvNtj
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/21/cornwall-fears-influx-of-out-of-towners-coronavirus-will-overwhelm-nhs-services

    ………and post an enticing picture of a Cornish cove!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f03b68a1a9a06b08bca255f36220598334acf1dacad59a1b8a8f770fe3fa53ff.jpg

    2. Very Scary isn’t it ? is this another massive devastating cock up by our political elite ?
      He wouldn’t have been able to get a word in edgeways with the British media.
      Around 1600 people die in the UK every day already from other causes.

  112. Here’s a thought – why doesn’t every billionaire throw open the doors of their mansions and private islands and house in luxury the 1% of people who are actually at risk of dying from this disease? Let the elderly and frail wait it out, and let the rest of us get on with our lives.

      1. I suspect most billionaires are quite happy to see the little people locked in their homes whilst they relax in gilded seclusion.

    2. ‘cos dey’s selfish bastards and keeping de powder dry to make a financial killing at de taxpayer’s expense?

      1. You don’t get to be a billionaire by being nice to people and giving your money away when you could be using it to make more.

        1. True for the most part but it does not explain the philanthropy of the likes of previous century figures such as Andrew Carnegie and the Gettys. Philanthropy is a great thing in America, the most successful economy in history.

          Admittedly their recent philanthropists such as Bill and Melinda Gates have lost the plot, squandering billions on hopeless causes and those who have now infected the world, a bit like his Windows viruses.

          1. Those philanthropists were ruthless businessmen who did not hesitate to throw whole towns out of work until they decided to give their loot away – as long as their names were on the buildings of course.

            And today we have Google – company motto “don’t be evil”, while becoming a combination advertising monopoly/thought police.

          2. Well they gave something of inestimable value back.

            Success in business inevitably involves a certain desire and ruthlessness. I applaud all those who give their accumulated wealth to worthy causes.

            As I intimated, I do not consider the present supposed billionaire philanthropists to have the same good intentions as their predecessors.

    1. Bit much our national press attacking Boris, don’t they know we are on a war footing,
      Boris is fully entitled to line them all up against a wall and give the country a break from all the loony left wing claptrap.

  118. Why do I see the hand of Soros hovering over the World Health Organization ?

    ”Rich governments must help poorer nations about to be hit by the coronavirus TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS
    DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/rich-governments-must-help-poorer-nations-hit-coronavirus/

    Oh….. it must be because of this………..

    ”Billionaire investor George Soros has unveiled a proposal to provide up to $150bn of cash for poor countries to get clean technology”.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8405577.stm

    Particularly as the WHO provides the guidance which leads to lock down…. and therefore an opportunity for Uncle George to clean up shorting markets.

    What an unconnected random coincidence !

    ”I am there basically to make money. I cannot and do not look at the social consequences of what I do”……….

    https://twitter.com/leaveeuofficial/status/962392017186754562?lang=en

  120. Oh I see how this works now…….

    ”Billionaire investor George Soros has unveiled a proposal to provide up to $150bn of cash for poor countries to get clean technology”

    As George has invested heavily in green tech, it maybe means a huge slice of the $150 bil of international aid ends up with him !

      1. The WHO wants a program of massive international aid to poorer countries for C-19.

        In the same way as the Soros influenced IPCC wants massive international aid for poorer countries for climate change.

        Further research into the WHO shows the guy wot runs it. unlike the other candidates, had very substantial financial backing to secure the position he now holds.

        Consequently I think it’s very likely Soros has “leveraged” the WHO and it’s policies.

        International aid once granted is like pouring a big bag of rice. It always goes all over the place !

        1. Don’t forget the role of the now dead Maurice Strong, one of georgie’s pals, who was the real driver of the IPCC….. and another who wanted to destroy the US 9and western?) Culture……

    2. I wonder at Georgie….. he has a deep involvement with the Chinese pharmaceutical companies….. China was the stomping ground of his old pal Maurice Strong, the man who set up the IPCC and then went on to try and move auto manufacturing to China……

      https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/25/george-soros-89-still-quest-destroy-america/ er, this is the Washington Times….. normally not your reliable source…. and normally behind all things neo-marxist, PC and woke….

      And while the woke media are doing their best to debunk conspiracy theories that claim he was in cahoots with the Chinese to develop and release the virus, there is not much they can do to debunk the idea that he will profit from it immensely:

      https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiRtNvI0LXoAhVDfZoKHWKqAtQQFjAGegQIARAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcivilianintelligencenetwork.ca%2F2020%2F02%2F12%2Fgeorge-soros-bill-gates-partner-with-china-on-coronavirus-drug%2F&usg=AOvVaw3C4nKYTtAXrAWfG5T2h7zI
      Of course, debunking claims he started the virus running is not the same as debunking the idea that he is well positioned to exploit it. It is this positioning, of course, that feeds the conspiracy theories.
      And it couldn’t be targetted on a nicer man…..

  121. Hope Geoff is OK.

    Yesterday started removing non-essential items from next shopping list.
    The dishwasher rinse aid was first to go.
    Spent most of morning going through instructions to set rinse aid dosage to zero.
    That will stop the machine halting and telling me to put more fluid in.
    We’re using tabs that say you don’t need rinse aid anyway.

    Got message on payg phone to top up at url in text message to save going to local shop.
    Couldn’t make it work on mobile because it’s only an old Nokia.
    Couldn’t make url work on desktop either.
    Eventually found a landline topup number for ee on Google.
    Topped up £10 using credit card.

    A good day’s work.

  123. Oh dear, the Greta Thunberg post in Breitbart has had to have its comments closed…… I did wonder why till I read them and didn’t find the least bit of sympathy for her…. so probably the humane thing to do especially as it isn’t her but her manipulators who are using her as a screen….

  124. The biggest danger of the virus, or of becoming infected?
    Smart phone zombies…….. they are so invested in their phones that they can’t see anything around them except their feet, perhaps, and thus are incapable of maintaining a safe distance from anyone or anything. No wonder that between testing, updating face book and taking selfies so many fall off cliffs etc. but now they become a danger to others like that bimbo yesterday who bumped into me in the car park. Me,an at risk oldie.

  125. The biggest danger of the virus, or of becoming infected?
    Smart phone zombies…….. they are so invested in their phones that they can’t see anything around them except their feet, perhaps, and thus are incapable of maintaining a safe distance from anyone or anything. No wonder that between testing, updating face book and taking selfies so many fall off cliffs etc. but now they become a danger to others like that bimbo yesterday who bumped into me in the car park. Me,an at risk oldie.

  126. Interesting.
    I am in what is called the “at risk” age group as are a lot of the people we know including back home.

    Am I panicking? Are they?
    Do we all think the government has done the right thing? or do we suspect a massive over-reaction to what appears to have a lower CDR than previous flu epidemics?
    Actually most seem annoyed at the the interruption to normal life, seem quite prepared for the risks of business as usual….. part, of course, from my woke sister in California (been there too long; thinks Trump is the devil, Biden would make a great president, neo marxism is the best system etc etc….. and for whom logic and reason have no place in the modern world and has “infected” my other sister in GA…… .,

    So how many here in the “at risk” group would be prepared to take their chances in a business as usual life style and “ignorance is bliss” approach (Ignorance of the 27,000 deaths due to flu a year or so back in the UK) and trusting, of course, in the questionable effectiveness of the “flu jabs” offered by GPs which must be making someone rich if not immune to flu….?

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