Saturday 4 April: A bad outcome of the crisis would be to think the NHS untouchable

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/04/03/lettersa-bad-outcome-crisis-would-think-nhs-untouchable/

974 thoughts on “Saturday 4 April: A bad outcome of the crisis would be to think the NHS untouchable”

  1. Unemployment in US and UK ‘may be worse than in Great Depression’ 3 April 2020.

    Unemployment in Britain and the US could surpass the levels reached during the 1930s Great Depression within months as the coronavirus crisis crushes the global economy, a former Bank of England official has warned.

    In a stark forecast as job losses mount around the world, David Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth College in the US and a member of the Bank’s interest rate-setting monetary policy committee during the 2008 financial crisis, said unemployment was rising at the fastest rate in living memory.

    Morning everyone. We are going to the Toilet here! I doubt that even my pension is going to survive this!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/03/coronavirus-uk-business-activity-plunges-to-lowest-ebb-since-records-began

    1. Cheer up Minty. Here’s something we can all do: Just heard there will be a round of applause tomorrow for couriers and delivery drivers. It’ll be sometime between 9am and 5pm.

      2. Well it can’t be at 8pm because that delivery slot has already been taken.

  3. A bad outcome of the crisis would be to think the NHS untouchable

    Not sure about that but it’s very likely, thanks to our wise and pragmatic immigration policies, that many NHS staff are untouchables.

  5. I think Matt Radley is being too diplomatic, too kind

    WHO has good intentions but it must answer serious questions before it is trusted with leading a Covid-19 inquiry
    MATT RIDLEY – 3 APRIL 2020 • 9:00PM

    When the pandemic passes, which it will, there will be a reckoning to determine who could have stopped it early and did not. Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, has suggested that it would have to be carried out by the World Health Organisation: “Obviously, after the crisis has abated I think the time will be right to conduct a kind of ‘lessons learned’ [inquiry] and I’m sure the World Health Organisation will be at the forefront of that.”

    This is a terrible idea. WHO is full of good people with good intentions, but as a body it has very serious questions to answer about its own conduct before we trust it with looking at that of others.

    There are three charges against WHO. First, it failed to prepare the world for a pandemic, spending the years since the Sars and ebola alarms talking more about climate change, obesity and tobacco, while others, including the Wellcome Trust and the Gates foundation, actually set up a coalition for epidemic preparedness innovation, and countries like Singapore and South Korea put in place measures to cope with an outbreak like SARS in the future.

    Second, once the epidemic began in China, WHO downplayed its significance, tweeting as late as January 14 that “preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus”, when it had already been warned by the Taiwanese health authorities among others of strong evidence for medical staff in Wuhan becoming ill.

    The Chinese government at this stage had known for weeks that the virus was spreading, probably person to person, yet WHO then sycophantically praised the Chinese government. “China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response,” said WHO’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a former foreign minister of Ethiopia, a country run by a repressive regime heavily dependent on China. “China is really good at keeping people alive,” echoed the assistant director-general, Bruce Aylward, on 3 March.

    On 29 March, a Hong Kong-based journalist asked Aylward to comment on Taiwan’s highly-successful efforts to defeat the virus. At first Aylward ignored the question, claiming not to have heard it. When the journalist offered to repeat it, strangely he said no, he would rather move on to another question. When she pressed, the call was mysteriously cut off. When the journalist called back and asked the question again, he answered a different question, talking about China, rather than Taiwan. The background here is that China is a big funder of WHO and insists that Taiwan be excluded from the organisation since it does not recognise Taiwan’s existence as a separate country. Taiwan banned travel from China very early in the pandemic.

    The third charge against WHO is that it has failed before. When the ebola outbreak in West Africa that was to kill 11,000 people began in late 2013, on its own admission WHO hindered the fight against the virus, obsessed with not letting others find out what was happening. In April 2014, the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres announced that the outbreak was out of control. They were promptly slapped down by a WHO spokesman. Others tried again in June to alert WHO. It was not until August that WHO admitted the gravity of the situation.

    Later WHO admitted its “initial response was slow and insufficient, we were not aggressive in alerting the world, our surge capacity was limited, we did not work effectively in coordination with other partners, there were shortcomings in risk communication.” All of which is true again today.

    In September 2014 at the height of the ebola epidemic, Margaret Chan, the then director-general wrote an article in which she called climate change the “defining issue of the 21st century [which] cannot be contained by doctors in hazmat suits, patients in isolation wards, or hopes that a vaccine or cure is somewhere on the horizon,” implicitly downplaying ebola yet again. In October she gave her apologies to an ebola conference to attend one in Moscow on tobacco.

    WHO gives the impression it would rather reprimand rich countries for climate change or bad eating habits than worry about epidemics. It’s also a bit obsessed with celebrities. In 2018, Tedros and the singer Lady Gaga jointly wrote an article in the Guardian about suicide. On 28 March this year, Tedros found time to tweet about having had “a very good call with @ladygaga.” He added: “And happy birthday @ladygaga! I am so touched that you’re spending this moment on finding ways to support the world during #COVID19. I send you my best wishes! Thank you for spreading kindness at such an important moment for all of us! Together!”

    It is an open secret among international diplomats and public health experts that WHO is “not fit for mission” (as one of them put it to me), riddled with politics and bureaucracy. Given its previous failures and the warning that was Sars, its leadership has no excuse for reacting so oddly, and so tardily, to the current crisis.

    2. I read something in passing that said that WO was controlled by the Chinese.

    4. WHO is a supranational political organisation. Why is the above behaviour a surprise?

    5. WHO gives the impression it would rather reprimand rich countries for climate change or bad eating habits than worry about epidemics.

      Not unlike PHE telling us to wear hats, drink water and draw the blinds during hot weather.

  6. Now colour me cynical I don’t see mealworm burgers and locust fricasee replacing filet mignon on the menus of the slebs and the fonctionnaires…………….

    “It is being billed as the long-awaited breakthrough moment in

    European gastronomy for mealworm burgers, locust aperitifs and cricket

    granola.

    Within weeks the EU’s European Food Safety Authority is expected by the insect industry to endorse whole or ground mealworms, lesser mealworms, locusts, crickets and grasshoppers as being safe for human consumption.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/03/insects-likely-approved-human-consumption-by-eu?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_b-gdnnews&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1585913439

    I better get busy and register” Chocoroach ” as a trademark

    Someone’s keen,mind

    https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/636/794/0f8.jpg

    1. Is she just about to burst into song? A chorus of “Cricket, lovely cricket”?

    3. Cadbury Ant Eggs.

      Extra Strong Moths.

      Humbugs.

      Millipede Short Cake.

      Daddy Long Legs Sauce.

      Crosse & Blackbeetle Branston Pickle.

      Termite. (Love it or hate it)

      Choc Lice.

      NitKat. (Have a break)

      Midge Gems.

      Flea Cake (toasted)

      Weevilbix.

      1. You’ve got a vivid imagination C.
        It was bad enough watching Wick Stien making out he was enjoying eating live black sea urchins on his French adventures on last night’s TV.
        He’s not the best actor in the world.

    4. Any mention of grass? Will we be allowed to dry and stockpile it for the winter?
      Our few remaining meadows will look like Sainsbury’s bog roll shelves.

    5. Back in the day, when I was with a friend driving towards the Kariba dam along the Zambesie in Zambia. We stopped to pick up a local standing at the side of the road with a flat tyre. We dropped him off at his village and were offered some refreshments and a freshly cooked snack. A beer each and a plate of fried crickets. Not as repulsive as expected. I mean one had to show willing and take part eh 😊

        2. What I’d like to know is, ‘how did Eddy and his friend manage to pick up that local using a flat tyre’? Maybe it was a local of a lighter hue.

  8. AfD is not far right. Greta looks like a scary Birthday cake.

    Germany has an unholy new alliance: climate denial and the far right
    Bernhard Pötter
    The AfD are using the climate crisis strategically to distance themselves from the established parties
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f78844362ecdc93d54b1be66e7cc0330f02b03f8/0_443_6720_4032/master/6720.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=e9f71a9d7b379b53c713e071be0caaeb
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2020/mar/18/climate-change-denial-germany-far-right-afd

    1. I’m surprised the Guardian Newspaper still prints on its right hand pages given its delusional view of those who are right.

      Morning Michael et al…

    2. I’m surprised the Guardian Newspaper still prints on its right hand pages given its delusional view of those who are right.

      Morning Michael et al…

    3. Boo hoo, people are not getting scared enough of the far right, or the climate emergency.

  9. Good Morning from a Saxon Queen.

    It’s bright and sunny but only 1c here.

    What this virus points out is the fact that the NHS cannot cope with too many sick at the
    same time. So therefore unlimited immigration was a very bad idea and more pressure on
    the NHS. It’s not the the NHS.

    1. Th hospitals in Edinburgh and the Borders signalled that they had reached capacity in November. That is, before we had heard of Covid-19.

  10. Morning all 😕
    According to the Mail Matt Hancock is predicting 1,000 victims a day by Easter. Now that is really scary.

    1. Boris Johnson looked very unwell in that video clip a day or two ago, it’s
      not just a mild case and his temperature is still very high , he has sores around his mouth
      and has lost lots of weight and his lungs are causing issues as can be heard within the voice.
      Get better soon Prime Minister, we don’t want Matt Hancock running loose.

    3. Boris Johnson looked very unwell in that video clip a day or two ago, it’s
      not just a mild case and his temperature is still very high , he has sores around his mouth
      and has lost lots of weight and his lungs are causing issues as can be heard within the voice.
      Get better soon Prime Minister, we don’t want Matt Hancock running loose.

        2. Brutus even. Gove would love to be stand in Prime Minister .

          Good Morning btw.

  11. Open the garden centres Boris for goodness sake.

    SIR – Ian Kelman (Letters, March 31) is right. Garden centres should be kept open.

    At first glance, they might seem non-essential. But as the weeks go by, the benefit of a few flower pots would be enormous, not only to those who rely on their plants, such as the retired and those with mental health problems, but to everyone affected by increasing isolation.

    Mary Gibson

    Heysham, Lancashire

    SIR – Further to two letters on April 2, why cannot garden centres offer a timed entrance system, allowing selected customers in within a certain period?

    Timed tickets would need to be booked online. Admission would be granted on presenting evidence of a timed ticket in one’s name. Payment would be by card only.

    Susan Tomlinson

    Sevenoaks Weald, Kent

    SIR – Perhaps staff could tell customers to stay in their car. The staff could take a list, do up the order, load the goods, take payment and move on to the next customer.

    Peter Howard

    Kingsbridge, Devon

    1. I couldn’t agree more click and collect. What’s wrong with this.
      Meanwhile back on the crazy farm…..
      In South Africa, western and eastern Cape, more than 17,000 people have been arrested for transgression of social isolating regulations. And only 50 people are allowed to attend each funeral. That might need some adjustments.
      Yesterday most of our family attended a Facebook funeral for a dear departed. Only close family were allowed to attend. A total of 9 excluding the service director. Sadly watching on an ipad and raising a glass to the departed was the best we could do.
      Not a virus death, but cancer.

    2. A local icon, Sam Turners, which is allowed to continue supplying the public is applying such a protocol. Cars are stopped at the gate and asked what they have come for. I suspect the car registration is written down. The gatekeeper directs cars to the car park and tells them to wait in their cars until someone comes out to deal with them. The staff members write down what they want, The staff member goes in and gathers the required articles and bring them back to be put in the car. The client then is asked to go in to the till to pay by card. A hand wash is available on entrance. They also do on-line ordering and delivery. Yesterday I bought Items from Sam Turners and was impressed by their service.The transaction was completed in about 20 minutes.

      1. This is eminently sensible. I’m pretty sure a whole series of measures could be introduced that would allow trading and businesses to operate but unfortunately Government in the UK is both Stupid and Dictatorial!

    3. All reasonable suggestions. The last one re operating a “counter service” was discussed chez nous yesterday. At this time of year garden centres are at least as important as newsagents. Adding garden centres and horticultural nurseries would be to admit they got it wrong. They won’t want to admit it. (Especially in the midst of the testing omnishambles where none can tell the difference between antigens and antibodies. For any MPs reading this, please see link. It explains testing for the infection and for having had the infection.)

      https://mbio.asm.org/content/11/2/e00722-20

  12. Police to put on extra patrols amid fears of coronavirus lockdown getaway. 3 April 2020 • 8:00pm.

    Police forces are putting on extra patrols this weekend amid fears that people will break the coronavirus lockdown to go on pre-Easter breaks.

    With a sunny weekend forecast for much of the country, police have warned people to stay indoors whatever the weather – and some have recruited extra officers to carry out checks on the roads and in green spaces.

    No comments allowed needless to say. I don’t think even Stalinist Russia attempted this level of control!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/03/police-put-extra-patrols-amid-fears-coronavirus-lockdown-getaway/

    1. Sunny weather, no riots expected (Riot gear not necessary) lots of overtime – luvvly jubbly….

    2. When this palavar started a month ago , day trippers and holiday home bods descended on this rural area and virtually stripped our little local shops dry , the roads were so busy .. it was like mid summer .

      Local garages are now closed .. we cannot even test our tyre pressures , nor get fuel for the lawn mower.

      If trippers descend this week end , there will be chaos , because all local beauty spot carparks are closed , and there is no fuel apart from in the larger towns!

  14. Possibly I’m being stupid but if the banks are open, could people who can’t take card payment for their services not accept a personal cheque?

      1. I still use cheques. Not in shops admittedly but my hairdresser takes them and the Wigmore Hall accepts them.

    4. I still take cheques but a lot of small businesses and most of my customers do not like taking or giving them.
      It means running down the bank, it is not instantaneous and the bank charges for handling them.
      Some customers no longer have cheque books and do not know how to even write one.

      2. Some customers no longer have cheque books and do not know how to even write one.

        I know. I sometimes have problems remembering my signature…..

      1. My mother sends cheques out. She’s got internet banking set up, but doesn’t use it.

        Every attempt for her to transfer monies has her asking how to send it through the post. It’s potty.

    6. Starling bank have recently informed me that you can pay in a cheque by simply taking a photo and uploading it. For my Intelligent Finance account I have to post them to them. Monzo have a similar service. In any case there is no need to visit a physical branch.

      1. When I was having problem with my drains I paid the chap with the camera by check. His PA photographed it and the money was taken out of my account almost instantly.

      1. I was going to write, given he makes historical references then hunting and bear baiting should be completely acceptable to him….

  16. Hooray for Valley Grocery in Dinas Powys!
    Ordered weekly shop for Mother, delivery tomorrow, payment by bank transfer.
    6 o’clock clap for small grocers!
    What a effing relief… Now to sort her phone :-((

    1. Does she have one of those emergency alarms around her neck/ wrist .

      Could you not contact the company that deals with thats sort of thing to pay her a visit ?

      1. TB – without wishing to cast a downer ….
        1. The patient has to wear it.
        2. The patient has to remember to use it.

        We’ve just been through all this with elderly chum.

        1. Not forgetting that the alarm has to be the right style and colour to match other jewellery.

        2. Indeed. My elderly father assures me that he is perfectly safe because he has various numbers programmed into his mobile phone….
          Both of my parents were always world class experts at ignoring the things they didn’t want to see!

        3. …and the phone line has to work… :-((
          Problem priority #2: fix the goddam phone!

    2. Well done.
      Everyone – please remember and support your local suppliers from now on.

    1. There is no confusion whatsoever, Mr Ali.

      You and your fellow travellers were
      1. certain that you would all get away with it.
      2. think that the rules don’t apply to you or your religion.

      You’re just surprised by the on-line backlash.

    2. “Clear the message is not getting through” especially to shit-for-brains mps.

    3. What a disgusting hypocritical statement from Ali. There was no confusion at all.

    5. Tahir Ali missed out the phase “when it suits me”. Is he a Jesuit?

  19. Just a thought, we all remember the story of Hansel and Gretel,
    Are we all being fattened up?
    On a normal Saturday i would be will into my third hour of old farts tennis by now,
    what is this going to do to our health?, it could be six months, oldish people lose their muscle power and strength very quickly and it takes a long time to get it back.

    1. I know I’ve lost condition – I’m happy to sit here chatting, or reading, or sorting out my holiday pics. I need something to make me get up and go out – table tennis did that, also working all day on the hedgehog stall doing a fundraiser – but there’s nothing to make me go out now. OH, with his bad shoulder that restricted his activities, lost quite a lot of muscle.

    2. I know I’ve lost condition – I’m happy to sit here chatting, or reading, or sorting out my holiday pics. I need something to make me get up and go out – table tennis did that, also working all day on the hedgehog stall doing a fundraiser – but there’s nothing to make me go out now. OH, with his bad shoulder that restricted his activities, lost quite a lot of muscle.

    3. I thought that this morning as I ran up the hill when I was walking my dog. I need the exercise now I’m no longer riding.

  21. What fun!

    John Keiger
    Could coronavirus lead to Frexit?<
    4 April 2020, 9:01am

    Is France flirting with the idea of Frexit again? Coronavirus is currently provoking a chorus of ‘reprendre le contrôle’ (take back control) across the political spectrum. The epidemic is laying bare France’s dependence on outside states for essentials such as masks, medicines, test kits and ventilators. Even arch-Europhile Emmanuel Macron visiting a French mask manufacturer declared this week: ‘We have to produce more in France, on our territory, from now on to reduce our dependency… we must rebuild our national and European sovereignty’. His reference to Europe is not unusual, but highlighting national sovereignty is.

    The second ‘take back control’ stimulant comes from growing irritation with the European Union. Images of Chinese aircraft flying in masks and equipment to stricken Italy, after Germany and France initially placed embargos on the export of protective medical equipment, has provoked embarrassment and anger in France.

    The treatment of the ‘Latin countries’ (Italy, Spain and France) by certain ‘northern states’ like Germany and Holland, who are disparaging of the Club Med’s high spending, has riled French politicians such as the Eurosceptic left-wing party leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

    The European Council’s recent refusal to sanction European debt mutualisation, as proposed by Emmanuel Macron and eight other members states, is widely seen in France as ‘Euro-egoism’. ‘Lack of European solidarity’, warned the 94-year-old former president of the European Commission Jacques Delors last week, ‘is putting the European Union in mortal danger.’ Delors, who rarely speaks publicly, was head of the Commission from 1985 to 1995, and famously clashed with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, as Sun readers will recall.

    This context is reviving the idea of Frexit. The Frexit debate, like a sea serpent, surfaces and submerges. It rose during France’s 1992 Maastricht referendum campaign then submerged. It rose again in the 2005 referendum, when 55 per cent of the electorate rejected a European constitution. Frexit was particularly prominent in the 2017 French presidential election campaign when nearly half of voters cast a ballot for candidates seeking either much greater national sovereignty or withdrawal from the EU. Various forms of Frexit were mooted, from a total exit to reforming the EU around a hard-central core composed principally of the six founding states.

    The principal obstacle to Frexit since 2001, other than the ideological, is the practicality of leaving the euro. It was on this issue in particular that Emmanuel Macron was able to humiliate Marine Le Pen in the television debate preceding the second-round run-off, when she could not explain coherently how France would go about leaving the currency. She lost the debate and the election and Frexit slipped beneath the waves once again.

    Macron’s point was valid. Frexit would be much harder than Brexit because of the tighter constraints the euro has imposed on its 19 member states. Much like the dire predictions about Brexit, leaving the euro was painted as suicidal for France. But Brexit has not turned out so bad. And some are beginning to think that Frexit might not be as bad either.

    Coronavirus has further altered the stakes. With little European solidarity in a major financial crisis the cost-benefit analysis of euro membership is less favourable. Successive French governments have claimed that the euro was over-valued, a source of high unemployment and led to uncompetitive exports for France and the southern states. On 25 March, France’s economics and finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, warned that a European attitude of ‘every man for himself will lead to the disappearance of the eurozone’. Some have seen this as a veiled threat. If so, it would have been unthinkable from a senior French government minister in the past, even at the height of the 2012/13 Greek crisis.

    France is playing a high stakes game with Germany and the northern states to obtain debt mutualisation. But with Frexit floating in the background like Banquo’s ghost, the outcome could be even more scary.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/could-coronavirus-bring-back-frexit

    2. If the EU was really about looking after Europe’s interests rather than selling out the continent to the UN’s invasion plans, they would get together and take back control. I wonder if that will happen.

    1. it won’t be. If we are sensible. If we do learn lessons then we will cease to trade with China. We will bring manufacturing back to the UK. We will accept higher prices in shops. We will take UK control of strategic assets such as utilities.

      1. Might be difficult if businesses have gone bankrupt and people aren’t buying stuff because they have no jobs.

        1. It is going to be difficult. It is better to face a little extra difficulty in a time of trouble than try to get people to face trouble when everything is going well.

          1. I can see a time when the only people with any reliable income (apart from the usual suspects) will be pensioners like us.

          2. But the companies who pay dividends to the pension providers who pay our annuities are not working and so not earning and cannot pay dividends.
            The whole country will impoverished, evicted, and anything that has any value will be in one gigantic fire sale.

          4. I recall reading that on retirement, my main pension provider USS moved one’s pot into long dated government bonds and away from companies. I have always assumed other providers do the same. But how long is ‘long dated’…

          7. I recall reading that on retirement, my main pension provider USS moved one’s pot into long dated government bonds and away from companies. I have always assumed other providers do the same. But how long is ‘long dated’…

        2. The correct phrase is “Lessons will be identified” – they are never learned!

      3. If “we” means Parliament, then forget any lessons: they never learn anything.

    2. I imagine that from the waist down he’s wearing a pair of silk boxers and socks.

  23. Well, as predicted below, the BBC now has a headline, “US President to defy”voluntary” advice for Americans to wear coverings.”

  24. People who have had the coronavirus and recovered will have antibodies. Could their blood not be used, via the Blood Transfusion Service, to inoculate those who have not yet been infected?

    1. I think I saw a passing mention of that idea a couple of days ago.
      Might have been the DT, but I couldn’t swear to it.

      1. “I used to smoke, drink and use bad language for no reason at all. Thanks to my job, I now have a reason.” (Old office motto.)

    3. Last time a blood test was taken the lab lost it.

      Last time in Switzerland a blood test was taken if the lab lost it, they were fined several thousand francs.

  26. A total of 144 fixed penalties have been issued to people breaking new coronavirus restrictions in Scotland in the last week, according to Police Scotland.
    That’s just the start. The £30 fine doubles up if not paid, and again to a maximum of £960. I wonder if they will then send you to one of the prisons that are empty as the convicts have been released and all the staff are off sick? Will there be a new term for this, “enhanced self isolation”?
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52150516

  28. Latest missive from Hoxton Mini-Press:

    Good morning from a small dark enclosed corner of East London. How is your cough?

    Cheer up, it’s the weekend!

    Remember, you can pretend it’s a normal spring weekend by having a small picnic in your front room. Simply boil one of those 42 bags of white rice, lay out some toilet paper on the floor and enjoy the sun through the windows with a loved one. To bring nature into the moment attach some leaves to a fan, play an old lassie movie and rub grass on your bare soles. If you run out of things to say cut each others hair. Or failing that have an argument. We are all in this together. Literally stuffed together.

    In the coming weeks, I will be shining an iphone-light of compassion on the crisis that is gripping the nation.

    Due to my slightly elevated moral position I have the advantage of seeing further across the bleak horizon than you do so I will be guiding the way with tips and uplifting stories. I’ll also be talking about independent publishing and loudly broadcasting my own woes including the slightly compressed arches of my feet.

    On a positive note I received an Ocado delivery this morning. I know you will be cheered by this. It included the organic green-tea-infused hand cream I’ve been waiting for for so long. My hands were so bad I emailed Jeff directly with a picture of two old broken tree stumps and said ‘look, my hands are really bad!!!’. Good ol’ jeff. You can reach him here.

    jeffyb@amazon.com

    On a negative note, the order was delivered by George Clooney. I don’t say this because I’m saddened to see so many people slipping down the career ladder (or up the ladder, you may say: keep thumping those tubs for delivery drivers!!!) but because he gave me three substitutions.

    1) Instead of bottled water I got 5 litres of his own-brand Tequila

    2) Instead of the ‘re-grow’ cream for my itching bald spot, he gave me Nespresso coffee.

    2) Instead of the 32 pairs of tight-fitting track shorts that I need for government-approved exercise he gave me a DVD of old ER episodes

    ‘George, I can’t even play this shit anymore’

    In the back of the van I noticed a man unpacking the boxes. It was Prince Charles wearing a tiny paper crown.

    ‘Hi Charles, glad to see you’re back!’

    ‘Good day to you sir!’ he said. He was wearing a specially made double-breasted neon Ocado apron. Both Clooney and Charlie had ER sewn on their lapels. Charlie came over to give me a big royal hug.

    I stepped back. ‘You may be immune but I just don’t believe in royalty’.

    ‘Ooh, eer, indeed, I see,’ he said, ‘you should speak to my son about that,’ and then he tried to slip a box of Duchy Original Orange Infused Organic Chocolate Biscuits into my pocket.

    ‘Both of you. Get back! You may have fallen on hard times but so have I! I run a small business and in my own way I’ve fallen off a miniature throne and now, Clooney, I fear I too will lose my endless good looks. IT”S HARD FOR ALL OF US’

    Thankfully they both left speedily. Mick Hucknall was driving.

    But in all seriousness, it’s pissing me off that people aren’t observing the two metre rule. The little patch of green outside our house is simply full of people coughing in each others faces. Being slightly kinder than most I’ve been observing a strict 2.5 metre policy, but I don’t suggest you try that yourselves. 2 metre is fine.

    It will save lives.

    Here is one trick that’s worked well for me and my family.

    After wrapping your face entirely with a thick scarf, hold your arms out horizontally. Then have a loved one, (or someone who is recently immune) hang a metre-long string from each thumb. A dog lead will do. At the bottom of this attach whatever you may have to hand – a toilet roll, an empty wallet or perhaps a metal pot you’ve been thumping for the NHS. The heavier the better. (Obviously the wallet is not ideal) Now slowly start to spin. It’s best to do this after you leave your house.

    You can then spin down the street going for your essential supplies. With time you can build up to a rather furious movement, somewhat like those delightful Sufi Whirling Dirvishes, but being careful to avoid lampposts. Not only will this keep you safe it will exercise your core muscles which is a part of the government official recommendations. If you knock anyone out on the way, perhaps an old person who is shuffling past, then IT’S FOR THEIR GOOD. YOU MAY BE ASYMPTOMATIC, AFTER ALL.

    And by the way, I used to be in a synth-rock band called Asymptomatic. I have a few spare t-shirts. I find wearing one helps keep people away from me in the grocery store when I’m buying organic celeriac (desperately short of this in East London). I’m happy to send one to the first person to donate £10,000 to my company. The other option, of course, is simply to cough.

    Remember, there is nothing wrong with looking after yourself. Indeed love yourself. This morning I did an hour long silent meditation but because I’m good at it I managed to complete it in five minutes.

    Love yourselves and each other.

    More tips for surviving the zombie apocalypse coming soon.

    X

    Ah – perhaps you could do us a small favour? If any of you know any one that might be interested in our books (or this newsletter) – maybe a neighbour you’ve never spoken to or perhaps someone you genuinely dislike – then please pass it on. Social links below.

    1. The mass immigration figure for the current six months period will make interesting reading. If the figures are anything like the year ending September 30th 2019 figures – around 1038 non-British/non-EU per day, then the Government must face some very difficult questions. That is if anyone can be found to ask those questions.

      1. 317795+ up ticks,
        Afternoon KtK,
        These very same questions have been asked since b liar triggered the open house treachery,
        only one party called for controlled immigration and it certainly was not the lab/lib/con coalition.

      1. 317795+ up ticks,
        Afternoon HL,
        It’s all above my head methinks, but in saying that it could very well be, as in circling in space
        part of overseas aid regarding the Indian space program.

        1. Evening ogga,

          Indeed, or being prevented from getting to us, in French-style.

          1. 317795+ up ticks,
            Evening HL,
            I always keep in mind that up until the 24/6/2016 lab/lib/con were a pro eu coalition
            so brussels was appeased as was the UK neglected.
            Me still thinks a great deal has not changed in so far as the governance parties running a
            limited damage to brussels campaign.

    2. Great pic. A broad sweep of Daleks!

      First resembles a late 1960s model, then a grey early 70s type (the best colour scheme I think) the gold one is the new 2005 type but still well within the spirit. The one at the back is the ghastly rebooted design (like the 4wd BMW Mini pretending to be a real Mini because it vaguely resembles it). Ghastly. Total stylistic failure foreshadowing the later disasters to befall the series.

      I’m not sure if these are genuine props or fan built efforts? There is something ‘off’ about the shape of the dark grey one, which should just be a repaint of the one in front.

  31. Update on shops and companies in these troubled times:

    It is with great sadness that I have to mention the loss of a few further
    local businesses around our Town. The bra manufacturer has gone bust,
    the specialist in submersibles has gone under, the manufacturer of food
    blenders has gone into liquidation, a dog kennel has had to call in the
    retrievers, the suppliers of paper for origami enthusiasts has folded,
    the Heinz factory has been canned as they couldn’t ketchup with orders,
    the tarmac laying company has reached the end of the road, the bread
    company has run out of dough, the clock manufacturer has had to wind
    down and gone cuckoo, the Chinese has been taken away, the shoe shop has
    had to put his foot down and given his staff the boot and finally the
    laundrette has been taken to the cleaners!

    1. I will go to Hull. Two weeks running I’ve refused to indulge in virtue signalling.

      3. Me too, Anne. Whilst we give plenty of encouragement to our nurse daughter, I refuse to applaud our wasteful, bureaucratic and unprepared NHS, by standing on my front doorstep and clapping like a happy circus seal after a trick went well. I just cannot do it.

  36. It appears the Danes are considering opening Churches for Easter Sunday as a one off.

    I can just see what would happen in the UK if that happened, particularly with Ramadan coming up.

    2. There’s a sizable population of muslims in Denmark – but they are not pandered to in quite the same way as here.

    3. A friend posted a video on FB of John Sentamu playing on a set of animal skin African drums in Bishopthorpe Palace last Sunday. Hiding in his palace polishing his ego. “Whatsoever ye do unto the least of my brethren ye do unto me”. If this were a Christian country he would be with the medics, ministering to the sick.

      1. I’ve got a lot of time for Sentamu.

        I’m not of the view that “top” leaders in any capacity should be getting themselves killed for the sake of a bit of virtue signalling. We need “wise heads” and anyone who puts themselves at unnecessary risk isn’t a wise head.

        1. Ah, there we’ll have to disagree. Broadcasting videos from the palace is virtue signalling. Praying with the sick is saving souls.

          1. I haven’t seen the video nor have knowledge of its context.

            I was commenting on your assertion he should be with the medics ministering to the sick.

          2. Perhaps he’s praying for the sick – say but the word and my soul shall be healed?

  37. My Waitrose delivery has arrived ( containing most things )

    Close your eyes men

    No monthly pads for ladies , none in stock for home delivery or in any supermarket-
    Must we go outside of the villages and sit on haystacks as they did in medieval times ?
    this is a nonsense. No loo rolls is one thing, but for those pads not to be in stock
    Is ludicrous.

    1. Ladies used to sit on haystacks for sanitary reasons?

      I would rather not have known that, Ethel. I shall never again be able to look at those paintings of idyllic rural landscapes in quite the same way.
      :¬(

      2. A very long time in the medieval age. Fear not I am sure beyond the dark ages that wasn’t
        the case but for the sake of decency it’s best not to speak of.
        Fear not Duncan, you can look at those Constable paintings without going yuk !

  38. China was once the cradle of the coronavirus pandemic but it has bounced back with astonishing speed, writes EDWARD LUCAS as he reveals the country may have won the war for global supremacy as well. 4 April 2020.

    But the image of a confident, capable and generous China, a true superpower, contrasts all too sharply with the flailing response of Donald Trump in America. Or indeed the increasingly hapless efforts of our own government.

    But for all our frustration at our own leaders, we cannot ignore how this pandemic has highlighted China’s long-term strategy and motivation. Be in no doubt: the People’s Republic of China aims by 2049 to dominate the world.

    Oddly enough I have never doubted this but Lucas who writes here is a long time intelligence shill who has spent the last 20 years writing about the threat that Russia, a declining power, poses to the West!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8186173/China-cradle-coronavirus-pandemic-bounced-astonishing-speed.html

  40. SIR – The College of Policing has provided a four-step approach to ensuring compliance with perceived lockdown regulations, such as the right to exercise once a day. Engage, explain, encourage, then enforce, it says. Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu (Commentary, March 31) added a fifth: educate. Both are off the mark.

    The Health Regulations 2020 give a non-exhaustive list of when a person may leave their home with reasonable excuse. This includes exercise, but does not limit it to once a day.

    Rather than educating the public, the police should study the letter of the law themselves. They might then apply the spirit appropriately.

    Martin Peel

    London SE1

    1. Now, why Neil Basu?  Where is the need for counter-terrorism in a matter of public health?  Once again he is making pronouncements on matters well outside his remit.  This is the same Neil Basu who threatened to prosecute newspaper editors for disclosing some stuff about Trump that he didn’t like.

      Call me an old cynic, but is this less than competent police officer being touted for the top job?  Diversity rules again?  It hasn’t worked well this time and the signs are that it won’t next time.  Here’s a truly radical idea – just pick the best person for the job. There, how hard can it be?

      ‘Morning, Epi.

  41. A long, chewy read, but I found this article forwarded to me by a chum very interesting.

    ITALY’S COMMUNIST RECIPE FOR DISASTER

    Published March 24, 2020 | By Giacomino Nicolazzo

    commie-recipe-for-disaster

    Montecalvo, Lombardy, Italy.

    “As I sit here in my involuntary isolation, it was just reported that overnight 743 more people died and 5.249 new cases have been reported. This brings the total cases of infection to 69,176 and the body count to 6,820. We take relief in knowing that 8,326 people have recovered so far. (Numbers as of 3/24, 8:30pm in Italy.)

    Most towns here in Italy, from the upper reaches of the Alps to the ancient shores of Sicilia and Sardenia, while not deserted, are closer to being ghost towns than the bustling centers of tourism, business and daily life they were just a few weeks ago.

    Stores and shops have been shuttered. Restaurants and coffee shops no longer serve customers. Schools, universities, sporting arenas…even our museums and theaters…all closed. Even the Vatican City has closed its gates and armed patrols monitor the 20 foot tall walls that protect it!

    Streets and roads are now empty for as far as the eye can see. Normally they would be filled with crazed Italian drivers in tiny cars and scooters (the ones that sound like demonic insects) darting here and there, reaching the limits of centrifugal force on our roundabouts. In the piazze of our towns and cities, there are now officially more pigeons than people.

    Many of us know someone who has been infected and recovered. Some of us know someone who did not recover…now they are dead. But everyone knows someone who has been affected by this microscopic monster in one way or another.

    Sixty million of us are in lockdown…it is like a war zone here. We are being held prisoner in our own homes by an unseen enemy that sneaked in unnoticed…by most of us. As you will read in just a few more minutes, there were those who knew something like this was coming…or at least they should have.

    So who is to blame? With all this craziness swirling like a whirlpool at our feet, I just had to find the blame answer. And so I have spent my free time (of which I have a lot in these days) digging and researching. I was literally shocked to discover how this has come to be.

    I am not going to bore you with talk of Patient ‘0’ who spread it to Patient ‘1’ and how mathematics efficiently explains the rapid expansion of infection. No…I am going to tell you how (as I see it) the virus came to Italy.

    It has everything to do with communists. Allow me to explain.

    Beginning in about 2014, Matteo Renzi, the imbecile ex-mayor of Firenze (Florence) acting as the leader of the Partito Democratico (synonymous with the Italian Communist party), somehow managed to get himself elected as Italy’s Prime Minister. To give you a proper frame of reference, Matteo Renzi was so far left, he would make Barack Obama look like Barry Goldwater!

    At the same time that Renzi was leading Italy into oblivion, strange things were happening in Italy’s economy. Banks were failing…but not closing. Retirement ages were being extended…for some reason the pension funds were dwindling or disappearing. The national sales tax we call IVA (Value Added Tax) rose from 18% to 20%, then to 21% and again to 22%.

    And in the midst of all this financial chicanery, the Chinese began furiously buying up Italian real estate and businesses in the North.

    Now the reason I mention Renzi and the Chinese together is that strange things were also going on between the governments of Italy and China. A blind eye was being turned to the way the Chinese were buying businesses in the financial, telecommunication, industrial and fashion sectors of Italy’s economy, all of which take place in Milano.

    To be brief…China was getting away with purchases and acquisitions in violation of Italian law and EU Trade Agreements with the US and the UK…and no one in either of those countries (not Obama in the US or Cameron in the UK) said a thing in their country’s defense. As a matter of fact, much of it was hidden from the public in all three countries.

    In 2014, China infused the Italian economy with €5 billion through purchases of companies costing less than €100 million each. By the time Renzi left office (in disgrace) in 2016, Chinese acquisitions had exceeded €52 billion. When the dust settled, China owned more than 300 companies…representing 27% of the major Italian corporations.

    The Bank of China now owns five major banks in Italy…all of which had been secretly (and illegally) propped up by Renzi using pilfered pension funds! Soon after, the China Milano Equity Exchange was opened and much of Italy’s wealth was being funneled back to the Chinese mainland.

    Chinese state entities own Italy’s major telecommunication corporation (Telecom) as well as its major utilities (ENI and ENEL). Upon entry into the telecommunication market, Huawei established a facility in Segrate, a suburb of Milano. It launched is first research center there and worked on the study of microwaves which has resulted in the possibly-dangerous technology we call 5G.

    China also now owns controlling interest in Fiat-Chrysler, Prysmian and Terna. You will be surprised to know that when you put a set of Pirelli tires on your car, the profits are going to China. Yep…the Chinese colossus of ChemChina, a chemical industry titan, bought that company too!

    Last but not least is Ferretti yachts…the most prestigious yacht builder in Europe. Incredibly, it is no longer owned by the Ferretti family.

    But the sector in which Chinese companies invested most was Italy’s profitable fashion industry. The Pinco Pallino, Miss Sixty, Sergio Tacchini, Roberta di Camerino and Mariella Burani brands have been acquired by 100%.

    Designer Salvatore Ferragamo sold 16% and Caruso sold 35%. The most famous case is Krizia, purchased in 2014 by Shenzhen Marisfrolg Fashion Company, one of the leaders of high-priced, ready-to-wear fashions in Asia.

    Throughout all of these purchases and acquisitions, Renzi’s government afforded the Chinese unrestricted and unfettered access to Italy and its financial markets, many coming through without customs inspections.

    Quite literally, tens of thousands of Chinese came in through Milano (illegally) and went back out carrying money, technology and corporate secrets.

    Thousands more were allowed to enter and disappeared into shadows of Milano and other manufacturing cities of Lombardy, only to surface in illegal sewing shops, producing knock-off designer clothes and slapping ‘Made In Italy’ labels on them. All with the tacit approval of the Renzi government.

    It was not until there was a change in the governing party in Italy that the sweatshops and the illegal entry and departure of Chinese nationals was stopped. Matteo Salvini, representing the Lega Nord party, closed Italy’s ports to immigrants and systematically began disassembling the sweatshops and deporting those in Italy illegally.

    But his rise to power was short-lived. Italy is a communist country…socialism is in the national DNA. Ways were found to remove Salvini, after which the communist party, under the direction of Giuseppe Conte, reopened the ports. Immediately, thousands of unvetted, undocumented refugees from the Middle East and East Africa began pouring in again.

    Access was again provided to the Chinese, under the old terms, and as a consequence thousands of Chinese, the majority from Wuhan, began arriving in Milano.

    In December of last year, the first inklings of a coronavirus were noticed in Lombardy…in the Chinese neighborhoods. There is no doubt amongst senior medical officials that the virus was brought here from China.

    By the end of January 2020 cases were being reported left and right. By mid-February the virus was beginning to seriously overload the Lombardy hospitals and medical clinics. They are now in a state of collapse.

    The Far-Left politicians sold out and betrayed the Italian people with open border policies and social justice programs. One of the reasons the health care system collapsed so quickly is because the Renzi government (and now continued under the Conte government) redirected funds meant to sustain the medical system, to pay for the tens of thousands of immigrants brought in to Italy against the will of the Italian people.

    If you remember the horrible earthquake that decimated the villages around Amatricia, in the mountains east of Rome in 2015, you would also remember how the world responded by sending millions of dollars to help those affected.

    But there is a law in Italy that prevents private donations to charitable Italian organizations. All money and donations received must be turned over to a government agency, who in turn is to appropriate the funds as needed. But that agency is corrupt just as are all the others.

    Most of the money never reached a single victim in the mountains. The Renzi government redirected the vast majority of those funds to pay for the growing immigrant and refugee costs.

    As the economy worsened under the burden of illegal immigration, compounded by gross government spending and incompetence, unemployment rose quickly…especially among young people. The unemployment rate for men and women under age 35 is close to 40%.

    So more money was diverted from the health care system and used to pay what is known here as guaranteed income. Whether you work or not you are paid here, especially if you belong to the PD! The government simply raises taxes on those who do work.

    Let me give you a quick example of the height of insanity to which Italian taxation has risen. If you live in a building that has a balcony or balconies…and any of those balconies cast a shadow on the ground, you must pay a public shadow tax! I will say no more!

    The point I am trying to make here is that not only did the Chinese bring the virus to Italy (and the rest of the world) it was far-Left politics and policies that facilitated it.

    This should hopefully be a warning to Americans that while they work to rid themselves of the China Virus, they should just as vehemently endeavour to rid their government of any politician that circumvents the Constitution and ignores the laws of the land…plain and simple.”

    1. Morning Anne – interesting points but no mention of it on Giacomino Nicolazzo’s official website & blog……..

    2. 317795+ up ticks,
      Morning Anne,
      “They ( we) should rid the governance parties of any
      politician that circumvents the constitution & ignores the laws of the land”
      How very bloody true this should apply to the
      UK / GB / Blighty with strident alarm bells.

    3. Morning Anne

      It was reported weeks ago tht it was the Italian leather industry .. posh handbags, shoes, sofas etc brought in thousands of workers from China to manufacture all those designer items.

      The Chinese cleared off for Chinese New Year then returned back to their jobs in Italy , thus incubating the virus .. the rest is history .

      1. Good morning, Belle.

        Also clothing, the raw materials were
        imported from China, made into items
        and the labels stated ‘Made in Italy’
        which they were!!…but at what cost!

        1. Now the scales are off my eyes, I won’t be buying any more of these “Made in Italy” goods unless I know they are Italian owned! I will ask my Italian friend if she can help with this – she is very anti-globalist.

          1. It can be hard work. For years we have avoided buying anything made in China. We do not buy stuff from ALDI and Lidl except food item. All the hardware, clothing etc is made in China. It is the same in most supermarkets and cheap stores. TKMaxx does sell some stuff made elsewhere. Buying online is fraught with difficulty. I bought some items of underwear from a French flash sales company. The underwear is a well known French brand of long standing. (I’ve been buying it for 50 years.) The size label on them shows the name of the French brand and their address in Paris. The reverse of the label amongst other information shows “Made in China” in very small print.
            The only solution would be to have sales and advertising regulations that required all adverts to declare where an item had been made. Additional regulations would be needed to define what “Made in…” means.
            While I have no doubt this the people may wish this, I am pretty sure that the Government would oppose it.

          2. I haven’t been avoiding Made in China stuff particularly, but I might start looking more closely now. I don’t buy a lot of consumer goods anyway, but one cannot avoid clothing and shoes, of course.

            Headphones, bought last week to facilitate working from home, because of the WuFlu – Made in China.

            The last big item I bought was a hoover (goodness, it’s about three years ago now!)
            From a Quora question:
            “Dyson vacuum cleaners are assembled in Malaysia, and more recently the Phillipines (google Dyson Electronics Pte Ltd Phillipines),
            The Dyson Digital Motor (which powers the vacuum cleaners) is made in Singapore.”

            Before that, it was a Samsung printer – I’ve just checked, and it is Made in China.

            OK a new challenge now, to avoid Made in China!

          3. I always remember meeting a buyer for Next who bluntly said that they buy the same t shirts from the same place as George, stick their name on it and charge £50 while ASDA sell it for £5.

            Labels are a con. The wife thinks otherwise. She buys expensive get up, I buy £6 t shirts and wear them until they fall apart – literally to pieces. Then I use them as dusters or, more usually socks for Mongo.

          4. Some of the names are made up. For example, Daniel Hechter has been around for a while. There is no “Daniel Hechter” and there never was. It was invented by clothes manufacturers in NW England to give their socks an air of Parisian chic.
            I don’t wear branded stuff usually. My day to day knockabout clothes are bought in charity shops or are my good clothes cascaded downwards as a result of age and being worn out.

    4. A government/politicians supporting Chinese involvement in a country’s business, including major infrastructure projects: where have I seen that before? Time for some real investigative journalism?

        1. Morning, Belle.

          As this article exposes, more was going on under the counter, so to speak, than what was visible to the Italian people. Political betrayal on a massive scale and we must be concerned with just how wrapped up into the Chinese dragon’s grasp is this Country? How deeply involved is the EU with the encroachment into its member states of Chinese ‘investment’?

          1. When you also consider that Africa sold out to China , which has asset stripped minerals, animals , land , and everything else .

            Funny how when I was a child at school decades ago that everyone assumed that China would take over the world ..

            Was that the beginnings of early xenophobia, heaven only knows , but everyone was terrified of the Communists then, weren’t they?

    5. Morning Anne – interesting points but no mention of it on Giacomino Nicolazzo’s official website & blog……..

      1. I was forwarded it by a chum. Knowing her, I realised it was pointless to ask for links. I merely posted it as a discussion document.

    6. The virus has brought home to us that being bought out by China has worse consequences than the transfer of wealth.

      I note (from Wikipedia) that the estimated Chinese population in the UK rose from about 51 000 in 2001 to about 182 000 in 2015.

      1. That’s a lot of new takeaway businesses, if you get my drift.
        My reply to Belle below poses the question about this Country’s involvement with China, courtesy of our politicians. I notice that Cameron’s name cropped up in the article and May endorsed the Chinese involvement in Hinckley.

    7. If a trade dispute occured why must Cameron say something? Why did Italy look to the Eurocrats who keep feeding it?

    8. None dead nor dying, bought and souled actors crocodile tears crying: Considering that the ‘virus’ is a hoax, a non-existent disease scamdemic-by-the-numbers creation of the hidden hand folks, ’tis then best to just focus on the effects, Soylent Green’s market scene, 2022, the proles nightmare scene, predictive programming, and take note of the masks worn by the (crisis) actors, but then Tuesday is now every day, orange (33, Masonic encoded for those who see) prole pick-up trucks ramming, the economies wrecked, all that now remains is for Bill and Melinda’s enforced vaccines to take effect!

      https://www. youtube. com/watch?v=geol8k3rsLM Heston takes a bullet, the rest take it green

  42. SIR – I am 84 and last October I was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Three weeks ago I began self-isolating, as I knew I was an extremely vulnerable person.

    I tried to book an online delivery from Sainsbury’s and Tesco but was unable to register as I had not received a letter from the Government. I awaited the letter and a food hamper.

    Last Monday I phoned my GP and the receptionist told me I was not on the list sent to the Government. I phoned the Royal Marsden Hospital, where I am being treated, and they said that I should have been on the list, and that they would ring my surgery.

    On Wednesday I had a call from the surgery to say that they cannot add my name to the list, although they agreed that I should have been on it.

    I need to book an online delivery but am unable to do so. There is a local group of volunteers who will bring me essential supplies but need me to pay in cash, which I do not have.

    Dorothy Bowen

    Leatherhead, Surrey

    1. Dorothy might well be my mother, if you replace cancer with age & some dementia.

  43. ‘Afternoon, all.
    From the Telegraph letters page. I am not able to give Mr Isherwood 1000 upticks there, but I can say 1000 upticks here:

    Paul Isherwood
    4 Apr 2020 9:24AM
    Exclusive: ‘Game-changer’ coronavirus tests could be delayed until June, causing prolonged UK lockdown

    Once again we cannot comment.

    Spain has revealed that the antibody tests purchased from China are only 30% accurate

    When is the government going to get the message about China?

    When is the public going to get the message about China?

    When are manufacturers going to get the message about China?

    When are universities going to get the message about China!

    P.S. When are we going to get the message about the French, who apparently snaffle the few deliveries we are supposed to get?

  44. SIR – I am happy to applaud my colleagues in the NHS, but I cannot support politicians who have decided to stop cancer treatments. Who decided that it is better to die certainly of a malignancy, rather than risk the small chance of dying of coronavirus?

    David Nunn FRCS

    West Malling, Kent

    1. Nunn writes in total agreement with me.
      But then, corona is new, dramatic, exciting, offering the opportunity for unparallelled grandstanding.

    2. What is the position of someone going down with a non-Corona condition that is denied any direct investigation by a doctor?

      I have painful chest lumps under the skin that are increasing in size, number and painfulness and are not responding to antibiotics. I am also getting very tired. An examination and a biopsy would find out what it is, but instead I have to rely on telephone advice, or smart diagnosis online.

      I keep being told that such lumps should be investigated early, but that option is not open to us, so what do I do?

      1. You should ignore all the rules and regulations Jeremy and go to the nearest emergency hospital!

        1. Where I live, that would guarantee little likelihood of surviving a week! Better at home than on a trolley awaiting death.

          If I make it past the weekend, I’ll have another go at my local surgery, which at least is in a small village. I do know that the new doctor that started this year is a specialist in skin complaints, although it’s pot luck who I end up with.

          It’s always worse at night, when I either must listen to demons inside my head and my body, or turn on the World Service and be lectured about the evils of my gender by BBC feminists.

          1. Even if you are put in with another doctor at your practice, he/she might call in the skin wallah for an additional opinion.

            Good luck!

          2. Thanks. Although one of the non-painful blotches looks just like a melanoma, the painful ones look and feel more like an insect bite. Prime suspect is that mouse that’s been munching on the out-of-date bags of rice and pasta in the larder I’ve been clearing out to do a siege inventory. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least if that damned mouse had fleas!

          3. I did once have a full technicolour psychosomatic rash Jeremy that was indistinguishable from a real ailment!

          4. You get those by banging your head against brick walls. They start black, then go blue and purple. Only worry if they go green and bits start dropping off.

  45. Morning all

    SIR – A catastrophe from this outbreak is that when it is all over, the NHS will be thought untouchable.

    Public Health England has proved spectacularly unfit for purpose and the bureaucracy of the NHS has proved inadequate to the distribution of PPE.

    There is a lesson there for those with the wit to see it. If supermarkets have managed in so short a time to up their game, and are crying out for the lists of the vulnerable to be released so they can be prioritised, why cannot government bodies act similarly?

    Charles Penfold

    Ulverston, Cumbria

    SIR – Will politicians never learn the basics?

    1. We are not stupid.

    2. We know when we’re being lied to, and we don’t like it.

    James Farrington

    Hartfield, East Sussex

    SIR – As a person whose working life has taken me into molecular biology laboratories since the Seventies, I am distressed by our Government’s response to the Covid-19 crisis.

    Advertisement

    It appears the Cabinet relied on Public Health England to drive the response to testing, PPE and isolation. I have been perplexed that major laboratories that routinely work with viruses have not been recruited to provide a screening service.

    We surely need a crisis manager to be brought in to take control of Public Health England and make it fit for purpose. We need testing and tracking of individuals to identify infected personnel together with antibody screening to get previously infected NHS staff back to work.

    Dr Jeff Slater

    Kelso, Roxburghshire

    SIR – Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, has raised the possibility of so-called “immunity passports” being issued for those who have recovered from coronavirus.

    A young person in uncertain circumstances but robust health could be forgiven for concluding that their best option would be to contract the illness now while there are few opportunities for work.

    D J Rostron

    London N13

    SIR – A few days ago, my 51-year-old daughter died of pneumonia (not through coronavirus) after 10 weeks of intensive respiratory care. Had she survived, she faced many more months in hospital. I know what it involves.

    Therefore please allow me to support the sentiments expressed by Darryl Davies (Letters, March 21) about the folly of the Government’s current policy. Wrecking the economy to prolong the lives of those who must anyway die in the next few years, often in much discomfort, is a total waste of money and may well have wider disastrous consequences. If I should succumb to coronavirus infection, do not put me on a ventilator, but let me go the old-fashioned way.

    Dr Alan Richardson

    Penrith, Cumbria

    1. I agree with DJ Rostron and his suggested advice to the young person in robust health. I am sorry to hear of Dr Alan Richardson’s sad loss of his daughter. I suspect Alan is a former acquaintance and Veterinary Investigation Officer in the world renowned State Veterinary Service [ now an agency of Defra]. I would, if afflicted by Corona virus, fight it up until death was inevitable

    2. I agree with DJ Rostron and his suggested advice to the young person in robust health. I am sorry to hear of Dr Alan Richardson’s sad loss of his daughter. I suspect Alan is a former acquaintance and Veterinary Investigation Officer in the world renowned State Veterinary Service [ now an agency of Defra]. I would, if afflicted by Corona virus, fight it up until death was inevitable

      1. Young people are more likely to be hospitalised than the elderly or children though. But they are more likely to recover, if hospitalised. And they could end up with scarring on their lungs that would carry them off twenty years in the future.

    3. Apologies sir, but this:
      ” …

      1. We are not stupid.

      2. We know when we’re being lied to, and we don’t like it.
      …”

      Simply isn’t true. Many, many people *are* stupid.

  47. The newspaper review on Radio 4’s ‘Today’ led with the Guardian giving HMG a kicking. Normally, I’d think “Typical!” but unfortunately much of the criticism is valid. Notwithstanding the obvious failings of the NHS over half a century, the buck will stop with Johnson & Co.

    Only when the NHS loses its ‘iconic’ [sic] status will it serve the nation properly.

    1. Caroline and I settled in France over 30 years ago. When we arrived I was worried that the health service would not be a patch of the NHS but my fears were groundless – the French system is infinitely superior although it is beginning to creak at the seams.

      What politicians will never admit is that the mass uncontrolled immigration of unproductive people has swelled the population to such an extent that the infrastructure can no longer cope. Would anyone be allowed even to suggest such a thing on the BBC or Channel 4 when questioned by the four gauchiste harpies Maitlis, Kuenssberg, Wark and Newman?

      .

      1. Why single out those four Ras? What about Robinson, Murthy, Marr, Snow?

        Oh, I’ve just realised what your four have in common.

        2. Because the lefty annoying factor increases exponentially when delivered in a screechy voice.
          I am female, but I can’t stand listening to any of the BBC’s female cohort. They clearly are chosen for their globalist politics rather than for their radio voices.

          1. Screechy voices? I think they have the opposite, in fact rather deeper voices than the normal female voice and expect they have had to deliberately cultivate this to be accepted on tv.
            I don’t like their questioning style either, but then neither do I like many lefty interviewers, male or female, esp the Ch 4 pair, Guru Murthy and Snow

    2. The NHS is just yet another victim of a culture where society rewards those who can negotiate for themselves huge payouts while providing nothing of value in return. All too often, we pay, they do not do the job, and then we must learn how to do it ourselves if we are to get it done, often in the teeth of official obstruction, carefully lobbied by the professional charlatans. Such fraud is bailed out and made legally watertight and binding on anyone with access to borrowed money.

      Meanwhile, it is the diligent and the honest who get taken to task and punished for doing their best with little reward.

    3. I don’t think the criticism is fair though. It seems to me that there are many left wing, globalists sucking permanently on the taxpayer teat in organisations like Public Health England, safe in the knowledge that when their lack of preparation and effort is exposed, all they have to do is point the finger at the elected government who has been there for 5 minutes, and say it’s all their fault.

      1. I agree about PHE (I’ve made a reference to it elsewhere). Unfortunately, Johnson changed tack early on when he was spooked by Ferguson’s doomsday forecast and throughout it all he and other ministers have been evasive and have engaged in PR. Had they been straight and pointed out the failings in the system (long-standing and deep-rooted), they might have deflected much of the criticism.

        1. They probably had an eye on the headlines. The Tories have been in power for ten years, and everyone would leap on them for not having fixed the problem already.
          Of course, we all know that Cammay was just Blue Labour and conserved nothing but Blair’s legacy, but that is a message that would be lost in the tide of contemptuous tweets and headlines.

    4. The first BBC Radio 4 news which I I heard this morning before 6 or just after had a report on Donald Trump’s comments on the advice given to USA citizens to wear fac at a later date.e masks.[ I paraphrase]He said it was advice and not a command. He, himself, would not wear a mask as he considered it was not appropriate for the President to greet world leaders in the Oval Office wearing a face mask. He added that he might have to change his mind. The later news items left out this addition to his comments thus leaving the BBC free to announce another U-Turn by POTUS at a later date if he had to wear a mask.

    1. No, it does not apply to Scotland. Sainsburys stores in Scotland are only delivering to those registered by NHS England as vulnerable or whatever.
      ScotGov website is no help. I sent emails to my MSP and the CEO of Sainsbury’s over a week ago. Neither have replied.

      1. Meals on Wheels, too.
        Yes, thanks, Belle, they can. The extra hassle is that her phone is out again, so I can’t warn her of a meal delivery… Believe the local grocer will deliver, just gotta sort the issue of cash or cheque…

    3. I was going to try to organise click & collect, as Healthy at Home will shop for my mother – if she can pay cash that she cannot get because she cannot go out. Nearest Waitrose c&c is Newport or Llanelli. Sigh…

        1. That’s very kind of you, Kaypea!
          😘
          I might take you up on that if the current planned solutions don’t come off.

    1. Like the Top Gear Morris Marina that lurks ready for when one of the trio fails in a challenge, I have this tin of Kwik Save tinned budget spaghetti with a 2002 sell-by date waiting for when the beans run out.

    1. Another nobody to join the nobody new leader who replaced the last nobody leader.

      2. Yes, they do indeed need the very best in the top jobs. Better luck next time perhaps?

      1. And to think – if the present government makes a complete horlicks of the Covid/economy, at the next election Starmer elected PM, does a John Smith and Angela is our PM!

    4. She was Shadow Education spokesperson, without a single exam to her name. She is unlikely to be troubling Mastermind or Brain of Britain in the forseeable…

      1. How on earth can someone of her generation manage to fail all her exams? Alleged pass rates are given out to all and sundry including to several ‘intellectually challenged’ pupils I have worked with in the past.

        2. I read your post as….’Shallow Education’
          which just about sums up the current English
          Education system!

          Good afternoon, Alf.

      1. ‘ere….who are you calling mate?

        Don’t be so genderist!!…..:-))

        Good afternoon, J.

        1. I know two things about the horse
          And one of them is rather coarse.

          [Ogden Nash]

    1. 23 April to 23 May. Roughly, it varies very slightly with moon phases. A bit like werewolves, I suppose.

    3. Day after St George’s Day according to my calendar – I crossed out the reference to it, as I do to all muzzy festivals, but I knew what was under the scribbling 🙂

  52. I’m not sure we will have time to go out tomorrow in the sunshine. The family are going to pop round. There are quite few of them and they live all over the country. But this is essential travel. None of them want to miss our traditional annual Blow Football competition.

    1. 317795+ up ticks,
      Morning R,
      Do a study of long term real, shop floor UKIP members,
      omitting the current ersatz NEc.

      1. Common sense must be kept at least 2m apart to avoid questioning what is going on.

        1. Talking of 2 metres.
          We didn’t have all this hysteria when we used Imperial measures.

      2. 317795+ up ticks,
        Morning Rik,
        A multitude of the electorate said ” whats that then” ?

  54. Typical. The first beautifully crisp spring day and the garden cremation ceremonies have begun…

    1. Bonfires or barbies?

      I love the smell of a proper garden bonfire. Not so keen on Wall’s sausages or cheap burgers on a garden grill. What’s the point?

        1. It beats me. They light the bloody things, wait an hour for it to warm up then sling some burgers and sausages from the bargain counter on to burn. They could have cooked the same stuff in the house in ten minutes without all the faff and they could still have a sausage sandwich in the garden.

          1. It is also a lot safer to eat stuff cooked in a kitchen. Barbecues traditionally end up with items like sausages being half charred black and half raw. Not to mention the fire risks of adding liquid jet propellant to charcoal lumps and sticking a match in it.

        2. The only bottled components in my barbie sauce are Tabasco & Worcestershire Sauce (L&P)

        3. I don’t use any of that rubbish.

          Miso paste mixed with oyster sauce painted on the ribs and chicken wings just as they are finishing cooking. Umami heaven.

      2. When I got back from work yesterday evening, there was smoke across our road, and a smell like burned tyres. I dashed inside, convinced that our stove was to blame. Of course, the house was stone cold and the children had not lit it.
        Finally tracked the smoke down to a garden two streets away. I couldn’t see what they were burning, but I suspect barbecue, as I can’t believe anyone would be burning what it smelled like!

      3. From the land of the barbecue. Mostly people barbecue more as a social event with friends and family than any culinary delight. However, tender juicy steaks barbecued over hickory chips and proper charcoal are a delight.

      4. When I was young, innocent and carefree we used to have barbecues on the beaches around St Mawes. We collected firewood from the high tide mark in the afternoon and prepared the site for the evening. We brought several gallons of beer and buns and sausages and a guitar or two and deluded ourselves into thinking that we liked eating undercooked sausages smeared in mustard, sand and ketchup.

        I do wonder if today’s young people had as much unsophisticated fun as we did?

        Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
        But to be young was very heaven.

        [William Wordsworth]

        1. When I was young, innocent and carefree…

          We spent many weekends in Salcombe and barbeques on the beach were compulsory by order of the
          officers from Dartmouth Naval College. You didn’t argue withe them…I nearly married one ….lucky escape!
          Happy days!

      5. I love both bonfires and barbecues! Good meat and vegetables, for which I make my own marinade, expertly cooked – delicious!! And now I am yearning for a barbecue party!

    2. On the rare occasions we eat hot food outside we would cook it in the house and take it outside. Why would you do it any other way.?

      1. Because they’ve paid several thousand pounds for the gas fired barbecue range and want to show it off to their neighbours of course. Why else?!

  56. D.J. Rostron has a point. (DT Letters today)

    SIR – Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, has raised the possibility of so-called “immunity passports” being issued for those who have recovered from coronavirus.

    A young person in uncertain circumstances but robust health could be forgiven for concluding that their best option would be to contract the illness now while there are few opportunities for work.

    D J Rostron
    London N13

    1. Before appendicitis could be treated with antibiotics certain people whose jobs required them to travel away from proper medical facilities were told to have their appendix out.

      In 1984-85 I took a sabbatical year and sailed my small boat across the Atlantic and back. My crew were Jeremy, a former pupil in my English class and my former Head of House, and Nick, a young GP who had just qualified and completed his statuary time as a hospital intern and was about to enter general practice.

      Of course the one who had not had his appendix out was Nick. Nick trusted the steadiness of Jeremy’s hand rather than his skipper’s and packed various antibiotics, anaesthetics and surgical instruments in his medical bag. Fortunately he had no trouble with his appendix or any other bits that might have needed extracting.

      1. Thankfully I had my appendix removed when they opened me up to deal with an intestinal cyst. I was a baby at the time but bear the scars on my stomach and dents to my ankle and thigh from the blood transfusion.

      2. In the 80s I worked with someone who had done his 6 month stint in Antarctica with the British Geological Society. A condition of him being allowed to go was that he had to have his appendix removed beforehand.

  58. A good outcome would be an absolute shredding of the system! Quite evidently the BBC is biased against the government. Blaming Matt Hancock for not having enough testing kits was just pathetic. He doens’t make them, that’s the responsibility of NHS authorities.

    Speaking of those, hang ’em high. Let’s really ask why local councils failed their districts and start getting rid of those placemen. There was a big argument that a nurse isn’t as repsected or as valued as a stock broker.

    This is bonkers, as the nurse chose her job, the broker hers. Neither can do the others job. If the state wants to properly fund healthcare then we need to brutally reveal just where the money given to the NHS goes. Let’s ask if a hospital administrator is really worth 300,000 a year.

    Then move the BBC to subscription. Let’s end this nonsense. It’s reporting has spun bad news with a sort of desperation that makes the head spin. Facts are light, there’s no unbiased reporting, nothing.

    Once the dust has settled we can start looking at the NHS critically.

    2. Don’t worry, get over this crisis and things will go back to normal.
      Manual jobs will be denigrated, managers overpaid because that is what we need to pay for talent.

      Oh loom the latest phone, must have must have,

    3. Don’t worry, get over this crisis and things will go back to normal.
      Manual jobs will be denigrated, managers overpaid because that is what we need to pay for talent.

      Oh loom the latest phone, must have must have,

    4. Our local news reported last night that the QEII hospital in Gateshead was now able to carry out 10,000 tests a week. So we would only need another 9 testing centres in the country to do the same and we will hit Hancock’s target. However, I can not find any written report of this. I have checked the BBC website, and Mr Google and drawn a complete blank.

        1. Yesterday in a radio interview, a spokesman for our local hospital group let slip the fact that they are allocated eight test kits a day. That helps explain the low number of confirmed cases around here.

    5. Did you see the video that someone posted yesterday of the Hungarian minister being verbally assaulted by the Horrid Harpy Maitlis?

      Gosh, that woman is foul. She directed a look of venomous hatred at the poor chap, interrupted everything he said and refused to accept that anybody has a right to an opinion other than her own.

      There is no future for he BBC if it does not rid itself of evil witches like this foul gorgon.

      1. I saw only a very short excerpt from the interview but he seemed so much more capable and assured than most of our ministers.

      2. I don’t understand why the BBC’s code of conduct (if they have one, which seems unclear) does not call for interviewers to encourage those they interview to share their views – and let the viewers/listeners judge, rather than in effect arguing with them.

        They might even learn something.

    6. R4’s Feedback covered this recently. The desperation in the voice of thr person defending the status quo was almost palpable.

  59. Is grass-cutting allowed. The small Council park has just been mowed. It is about 50 sq yards in area and has three trees and a bench.
    If it it is OK for this to be cut, is it OK for our garden services bloke to come and cut our grass?

    1. Yes. My son does gardening, fencing, pressure washing etc. No direct contact is necessary, he views the job and quotes. Any queries are dealt with by phone or email. When the job us done and the customer is happy the invoice is paid by BACS. He hasn’t had to stop or even slow down since the restrictions came in. The only thing he won’t tackle for now is the minor indoor repairs for a housing association.

    2. Yes. (IMO!). Our neighbour across the road, whose husband had a stroke some years ago and now also has Parkinson’s, has her lawn mowed every Saturday and he was here this morning. I do not see why gardeners cannot work as usual. They are outside and they needn’t come into contact with anyone else. (Plod May see this as not being essential?).

      If and when this crazy isolation business is ended what’s going to happen? The virus will spread again because, unless they keep us in until Autumn, there will be those who are still infectious and no way will there be enough kits to test the whole population in between times. And, of course, when Autumn and Winter are upon us again …

      I think this isolation is very ill advised. As I’ve said before, those who are especially vulnerable will be staying indoors anyway. But to keep “the worried well” in too will not solve the problem.

      2. They are postponing our demise. The object is to keep the numbers infected and suffering serious symptoms to a minimum, a kind of plateau of hospital admissions and patients.
        As you say, when they let us out we will be the patients, or not. There may be an upper age limit on hospital admissions.
        An iron fist is gradually closing around us.

      3. The other day when I came back from the bank, one of my neighbours was sitting on the wall in her front garden. Her friend, with child in pram, was sitting six feet away from her and they were chatting. As far as I’m concerned, that followed the social distancing guidelines, but not the “do not meet up with friends” injunction. I am not a snitch. I just said hello.

        1. TBF the neighbour may just have been passing by. We talk to neighbours as they pass our front garden – what’s wrong with that?

          1. No, they were both sitting on the wall in the neighbour’s garden. I had no problem – they were six feet apart. I am not part of the stasi. I sat out in my garden (six feet apart) and chatted to the friend who brought me my milk to avoid my going to the shops.

            We are told to distance ourselves socially – I have no problem with that (although it’s difficult when others don’t move out of the way, as happened to me this morning). It shouldn’t stop us interacting with a friend if we can keep our distance. I am a subversive, obviously!

          2. It’s impossible to avoid other shoppers in supermarkets. We had to buy milk today in Morrisons and managed to arrive with no queue outside. However the queue was up and down the aisles approaching the checkouts although, as we only had a basket, were able to skip the long queue and join the shorter DIY one.

    1. This says more about the hubris of the elites than anything else, it is their stupidity that has got us here.

      1. 317795|+ up ticks,
        Morning B 3,
        This has been recognised over the years but the same were alternately returned to power time & time again.

          1. 317795+ up ticks,
            B,
            Win what ? they are three of the same kind, they are the only winners, winning in their eyes give them the right to fulfill their personal
            self interest, and receive a money spinning
            windmill, or duck pond fixtures for treachery rendered.

          2. 317795+ up ticks,
            B3,
            That means then the whole electorate must
            enter a sort of Stockholm syndrome, hold ones
            nose, or the best of the worst & continue to
            support& vote for the very same creatures / parties that got us into & keep us in sh!teland
            for ever, definitely count me out.
            lab/lib/con are a proven coalition and have been for years, mass uncontrolled immigration
            ongoing proves that.

    2. It must be a very young donkey, adults tend to weigh around 150 kg upwards. Even a small adult would weigh 100 kg and the soldier is also carrying other kit.

    1. The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. Sun Tzu.

      They are already here!

      1. 317795+ up ticks,
        Morning AS,
        I know that & you know that but every scam, odious action needs daily back up.
        The elite enemas of the state in many cases are in power, supported continually by politically ignorant fools & those intent on bringing about the demise of the UK as a nation.

    1. All talk and no action from the police as they only go for soft targets.
      One law for them and another law for us.
      Who will stand up to these people.?

        1. And who are less likely to turn nasty. And also have bank balances that can be milked for arbitrary fines.

          1. That applies to most of us here.
            If they’re going to release all those prisoners then all us oldies who are fined for being sensible can refuse to pay the fine. We’ll then take the place of thermal criminals and have 3 meals a day provided, instant doctor’s appointments and won’t have to worry about queuing at supermarkets or delivery spots. It could be a win win result for us all.

          3. Thank you John. Should have been the real criminals. Too late to correct it. Hope you and yours are keeping well.

          5. And….if all the crimbos are set free it’ll be safer on the inside than the outside. 😂😂

    2. Please pardon the repetition but here is a comment I posted yesterday:

      This special, deferential treatment of Islam will not end well.

      The more the MSM and the political establishment kowtow to Muslims the more it will create resentment amongst Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists.

      Indeed, kowtowing to Muslims is probably the very surest way of generating islamophobia.

      1. Why cannot the ptb see this, Rastus – good morning, btw.
        The press bleat about the rise of “far right” politics, but it’s a reaction to your point.

    3. Why are the faces blurred? Oh, I know it is to prevent us knowing who they are. As if they were just young irresponsible children.

  63. Yesterday Northumberland County Council announced that they were closing all the cemeteries in the county with immediate effect, other than for funerals attended by close family only. In accordance with corona virus procedures according to them.

    Mayhem.

    They got the kicking of their lives with responders pointing out that nowhere in Government Guidance did it say that such a measure should be taken. A grieving mother who had just lost a child a month ago and who was still visiting the grave daily was distraught, recently widowed husbands similarly. Others who had lost parents, the same. Almost every one of them said that when they went to the graves of their loved ones they rarely saw another person in the whole graveyard. Some others came back with the timid whine that the rules are the rules and people are dying so we must do as we are told. They didn’t get much sympathy from the rest.

    Within hours the council backtracked and issued an announcement that they were reversing their decision.

    Where do they get these tossers? Box-ticking morons whose sole purpose in life is to spread misery and restrictions in the cause of being seen to be doing something. A waste of a wage, one and all.

    1. I’m sure that those box-ticking moronshad several pi$$-useless meetings before deciding to be ar$eoles.

      1. You may have put the cart before the horse, Issy.

        I suspect they were already arseholes before they called the piss-useless meetings, which served only to confirm their arsehole-hood.

    1. I’m tempted to send a copy to my MP along the lines of:

      Dear Bob,

      I think you will agree with me that all honourable Members of the House should be aware of this scurrilous attack on the reputation of the former Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.

      Yours

      1. No it isn’t. Plaque is a slimy layer which is easily removed. Just use a good toothbrush properly.

        It is hard calculus (tartar) which has to be removed professionally.

  66. “After nearly two weeks of Lockdown
    the real front In the ‘fight’ or ‘the war’ against the Coronavirus is
    taking shape. It’s not, as you might have thought, us, the Nation led by
    the PM and his government, against the deadly virus – it’s ‘Our MSM’,
    with inside support from Whitehall Mandarins, some Cabinet ministers and
    some Tory MPs – all ‘anonymous’ – against the PM and some other Cabinet
    ministers. We peasants, safely locked inside our homes, are simply the
    sheep being herded hither and yon.

    I planned to write about models and modelling
    today but yet again I feel compelled to look at ‘Our MSM’, the main
    enemy. Thus, with that plan in shambles, there’ll only be a concise look
    at this question, below.

    I don’t need to remind you about the ‘Project Panic’ headlines, blaring from the front pages
    for weeks. The insidious message is that Johnson has bungled it and
    should be replaced. So far, the MSM jury is out as to who that should be
    – Hancock has been getting ‘mixed reviews’. Some
    ‘replacements’ are conspicuous by their sudden absence in the MSM
    reports, for example Mr Gove hasn’t officially been heard of for some
    time.

    Home Office Mandarins still seem to undermine
    Ms Patel – else why is the Border Farce, under her Ministry, still
    letting in ‘refugees’ from war-torn France, with no quarantine. The last
    lot, 52 of them, were picked up yesterday (link).
    Us unruly plebs would like to know why they’re allowed out and about
    while we’re locked in, especially since we’re being threatened that the
    Lockdown could be made more restrictive – note that it’s ‘a government
    source’ who said this, anonymously:

    “The coronavirus
    lockdown could be tightened if the public flouts social-distancing rules
    with a warm weekend expected, Government sources have warned. […] One source suggested public spaces including parks could be shut if people defied the warnings.” (link)

    To me, this smacks of ‘teacher’ (“government”)
    telling ‘class’ (us peasants) that we’ll all be punished if one or two
    misbehave. It’s as if this is now about controlling us rather than the
    spread of the virus. One more quote:

    “However, The
    Telegraph has discovered there is a dispute at the heart of Government
    over the possibility of the restrictions being tightened two weeks into
    the lockdown, which began on 23 March. One Cabinet minister said that
    the “draconian” measures had “gone far enough” and risked harming the
    economy to an even greater degree.” (link)”

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-betrayal-saturday-4th-april-2020-17th-covid-19-pandemic-special-day-twelve-of-lockdown-britain/

  67. I will go to Hull (again).
    While out walking Spartie, I spotted from a distance, a precious family leap into the scrub alongside the path to avoid us.
    I’m a cripple, so I can’t walk quickly. Spartie loves to check every blade of grass, sniff every nettle clump, check out the hedge for pop holes ……
    Let’s just say, they spent what probably seemed an eternity to them, crammed up against a school fence amongst stinging nettles and brambles.

    1. They should rename this period ‘The Terror’.

      I was out and saw women wearing scarves over their faces as if they were on their way from a bad time at the dentist’s.

      Apparenty a virus a few nanometres across can’t get through loose wool held an inch or two from the face.

      1. The idea is that it will reduce the effect of said person sneezing or coughing by catching a good percentage of the droplets. Does nothing for the wearer.

          1. Personally, I think it’s more of a comfort than any actual advantage. The US instructions until yesterday were that people did not need facemasks, now they want us to cover up – but only if we want to. Probably just trying to scare the idiots still congregating, shaking hands, etc.

      2. I think that the idea of wearing masks is so that droplets of moisture from your coughs and sneezes that would otherwise spray out are reduced. Even a poor barrier is going to be better than none at all.

        1. I don’t think, in fact I’m almost certain that that isn’t the reason these people are garbed as they are in open spaces. They are in fear.

          2. But they aren’t! That’s the point!

            They are terrified of what they might be breathing in in open countryside, to the extent that they are wearing woollen scarves on a spring day in the fond hope that it might stop them breathing in something that isn’t even there.

            A useless gesture.

          4. But they aren’t! That’s the point!

            They are terrified of what they might be breathing in in open countryside, to the extent that they are wearing woollen scarves on a spring day in the fond hope that it might stop them breathing in something that isn’t even there.

            A useless gesture.

          5. Perhaps, but it’s better that people do the right thing because of ill-founded fear than do the wrong thing for fear of being criticised for doing the right thing.

      1. 317795+ up ticks,
        Morning Kp,
        But those in receipt of coverage given by the
        submissive, pc, appeasement unwritten
        umbrella governance rulings are already on board, the likes of many of us are not and have to be brought into line.

      2. Which is why they are not rights. They are permissions. The state should have no ability to tell you what you can do.

      3. My post from 18 March 2020:xx
        Muslim (or any other type) of terrorism acts like the Corona virus, in causing chaos and damage to dociety. This acts as camouflage and opportunity for a take-over by the “elites” to “save” society and restore order. At the same time, freedoms are removed to ensure “safety”.
        Like boiling a frog, by the time society realises, it’s too late.
        Thus, immigration is encouraged & facilitated, virus panic encouraged, all leading to draconian curtailment of freedom to protect society. Nearly there now – look at the discussion of London lockdown.
        Never waste a good crisis.

        1. Except that the new draconian actions by the police are never taken against the “protected” part of our population. Well if they spread it amongst themselves, perhaps there will be a certain element of poetic justice.

    2. Thing is those crimes *do* now exist. They’re enacted as part of the emergency powers act. It’s carte blanche for the state to do whatever it wants.

      1. 317795+ up ticks,
        Afternoon W,
        It always has, especially since the 24/6/2020 as is glaringly obvious, it came out of shadowland
        under it’s own odious colours.

    3. Police are setting road blocks to stop motorists. Anywhere that looks as if people might travel there.

  70. We bought several climbing and rambler roses and another Clematis for the garden a while ago .

    We had some plastic stuff to wrap around the recent replacement telegraph pole to support the clematis and Seagull rambler rose.. We thought the old spare trellis support for the other two was behind the shed .. nope , no such luck .. Moh said that had been consigned to the tip during one of our tip visits about 2 months ago.. Well , I cannot remember that.. but what I can see before me on the fire hearth are bits of kindling , which look remarkabley similar to the remainder of the old wall trellis.

    So what are we to do?

    Everywhere is closed .. including garden centres!

      1. If they are , it entails a 12 mile trip, and the police are out doing road blocks and things .. Turning day trippers away etc.

        1. Tell them the sink’s leaking underneath and you need a new ring or u-bend thingy or something!

    5. No panic. The rambler won’t send out new branches until the autumn, so you have plenty of time.

      You don’t say which Clematis you have, so I can’t advise you on that.

      1. Moh wanted another Montana Rosa.

        I would have preferred the on of the ones you recommended!

        Hope Seagull copes with the telegraph pole , and the creosote smell.

        My old Masquerade galloped away over the years and climbed very well. It couldnt be saved when the old pole was removed sadly .

  71. Good morning all.

    Does anyone have the wherewithal to post Charles Moore’s article in full please?

    1. Why are we clapping the NHS? It is right and just to clap NHS workers, but
      that is not the same thing. Virtually everyone has reason to thank good
      nurses, doctors and paramedics. But if we are to praise large
      organisations for how effectively they have dealt with the coronavirus
      crisis, we should be clapping vigorously for Sainsbury’s, Tesco,
      Waitrose and Morrisons, who have responded nimbly to sudden extra demand
      for one of life’s basics – food. We should give only rather tepid
      applause for the efforts of the NHS to look after another of life’s
      basics – health.

      As its name suggests, the National Health Service is there to serve
      the health of the nation. In this crisis, the roles have reversed – it
      is seen as the duty of the nation to serve the NHS. “Protect the NHS.
      Save lives,” says the slogan, in that rather surprising order. Children
      are made to recite it like a prayer. How are we to do this? We must help
      the NHS by avoiding hospitals and surgeries, we are told. The
      Government’s policy of lockdown is in significant part dictated by the
      demands not of patients, but of the NHS, and by its lack of adaptability
      and readiness.

      In the most immediate sense, this mantra is justified. Too many
      patients in surgeries and wards will spread infection. Too many Covid-19
      cases will overwhelm the doctors and nurses, the ventilators and the
      beds. We must all do as we are told, and stay at home. But isn’t there
      something wrong that the problem is so extreme?

      We are trained, when we notice organisational or operational failures
      in the NHS, to blame the Government. This is partly reasonable: the
      Government is ultimately answerable for its existence, and no government
      has ever dared grasp the nettle of reform. But it misses out something
      important. When dissatisfied by other organisations – the police, the
      BBC, utility companies, supermarkets, banks, the Church – we arraign the
      people who run them. With the NHS, an unwritten law forbids this. It is
      treated like a God, even when it fails.

      Take this week’s row about testing. A significant reason for the slow
      development, arrival and use of the antigen tests (“Have I got it?”)
      and the antibody tests (“Have I had it?”) seems to be the reluctance of
      the health service, and of Public Health England, to look outside their
      own spheres for help. In a culture almost proudly hostile to the private
      sector and mistrustful of independent academic work, the NHS’s first
      instinct is to defend bureaucratic territory. The extraordinary scene on
      Thursday when almost no health workers came for specially provided
      drive-in tests at Chessington World of Adventures seems to have resulted
      from a bureaucratic muddle about who was in charge.

      In his skilful performance at the daily virus press conference on
      Thursday, the recovering Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, obliquely
      expressed his frustration. He exclaimed how well “non-ventilator
      companies” had come up with inventive solutions to produce ventilators
      fast. He issued a “call out” to British life sciences, laboratories and
      universities to do likewise for antibody tests.

      Behind that ventilator comparison lies a story. Three weeks ago, the NHS
      belatedly admitted within government that it had failed to get enough
      ventilators. The Cabinet Office stepped in to help procure. Thanks in
      part to the energy of the distinguished surgeon Professor Lord Kakkar,
      University College Hospital, Formula I and Mercedes Benz got together to
      produce the CPAP (Continuous Positive Airways Pressure) machines that
      are one up on normal oxygen masks but less invasive than the full,
      intubating ventilators. Next week, the repurposed Mercedes Benz F1
      factory in Brixworth expects to produce 1,000 CPAPs a day.

      An equivalently brilliant initiative is urgently needed for antibody
      tests. At present, we are largely at the mercy of China (many of whose
      kits don’t work) to produce them. This is the embarrassment which Mr
      Hancock was gingerly admitting. It is why he cannot promise that
      antibody tests will be part of his 100,000 tests per day by the end of
      April. Or take the amazing 4,000-bed capacity Nightingale field hospital at
      the ExCeL centre in east London, opened yesterday by the Prince of
      Wales. For two weeks after it was proposed, NHS top brass opposed it.
      When they finally admitted they needed it, the Army and the private
      contractors were the ones who made it happen in nine days.

      These are not one-off problems. Every day, scores of people with
      useful offers of medical supply get in touch with the Government. It
      filters these and passes on the best to the NHS. Too often, the offers
      get fobbed off or not even answered. Ten days ago, government contacts
      found the only company in Britain with expertise in making reagent for
      antigen swab tests. The firm was put on to the NHS, but at the time of
      writing, the health service had still not had a conversation with it.

      Such rebuffs happen on the small scale, too. Yesterday, I received an
      email from the family of a couple of working medics recently returned
      from New Zealand. Both answered the call to rejoin the NHS, but have so
      far had nothing but a holding message. They see media stories of staff
      shortages because of infection and self-isolation, but still await the
      call.

      Last week, I wrote about the construction of “hot hubs”
      where GPs could safely triage Covid-19 sufferers and decide whether to
      send them to hospital. The Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) had
      ordered its small rural GP groups to set up such hubs within a
      fortnight without means, skill or direction. When I emailed the CCG last
      week to get its side of the story, it replied after my deadline, and
      then only to refer responsibility to a higher power.

      A week later, the local GP groups have finally persuaded the CCG that a hot hub
      must be erected next to the local hospital (only after the hospital
      tried, in a classic example of the destructive rivalry between primary
      and secondary care, to refuse because of parking problems). Even now,
      however, the CCG has not worked out who will actually run the hub once
      built. As the local GPs’ spokesman, Dr Camilla Pashley, puts it, “The
      system moves at an unbelievable snail’s pace, though better than usual.”
      Meanwhile, Dr Pashley and her colleagues have to see Covid patients in
      their cars in surgery car parks.

      That system is the problem. Most NHS staff are dedicated people. The
      defects are baked into our system of national bureaucratic command.
      People have noticed that Germany has been more successful in managing
      the virus spread through testing. This is not a coincidence. Germany
      does not have our lumbering central diagnostic system, because it does
      not have, in our sense, a national health service. It has 176 testing
      centres, part of localised arrangements which mix private insurance,
      employer involvement and government funding. There are more than three
      times as many beds per 1,000 patients as in Britain.

      It is probably also not a coincidence that Germany has a less
      draconian lockdown than we do: it can focus on the Covid problem more
      exactly.

      We are locked down by the needs of the NHS in the face of Covid. If
      this goes on for, say, three months, we could well run out of money to
      answer those needs. Work matters urgently for the health and wealth of all. As soon as possible, we must get back to it.

        1. Thanks Issy. I agree with every word Harley’s wrote. Perhaps the NHS will no longer be the “sacred cow” after all this is over.

      2. Bit annoyed that he gets paid to write what I’ve been saying.

        Yet nothing will change. As soon as genuine reform is presented, the opposition Left, desperate to keep people afraid of paying for their healthcare – which they already do, at far higher levels than the Germans – use it as a whipping post. To the Left reality doesn’t matter.

        It isn’t a case of selling it. It’s a case of making it work. Making it efficient. Those people who wail about getting rid of doctors and nurses ignore that the biggest drain on the NHS is bureaucracy, management. A mental health nurse I know said she enters data in a web form, prints that off, takes it to another building for filing, who then print it off for filing somewhere else.

        It’s all waste. All so Joe Soap can say he’s met his targets. Thing is, nurse then complains that she can’t see more patients.

        The problem is the NHS doesn’t operate in a market, so has no reason to be response or efficient.

    1. I wonder how soon the problem would stop if the coastguards drilled holes in the invaders’ boat and left them to drown?

      2. Better yet, drill holes in the invaders and sell their boats by auction to defray the cost of the ammunition used.

      3. Is the ferry an essential service?

        Unfortunately a number of well publicized drownings may be needed. How fat from shore do the boats need to be pushed to make sure this happens or they turn round and go hack to France.?

      4. Shots across the bows should be the tactic, followed by “turn around or you will be sunk” warnings.

        1. Just don’t try and ram the invader like the Venezuelan navy tried with that cruise ship.

          1. Rule One of Warfare – Know your enemy.

            I think they thought the ship would change course when the Captain saw the Navy vessel approaching. Again, know your enemy…

          2. The Captain of that cruise ship had balls. I thought it may have been an attempted act of piracy.

        2. Can you imagine the howls of anguish from the MSM & Supporters. The only way to bring the message home that all these folk gaining entry to Britain through non-official channels will have to be funded initially from the totality of the Foreign Aid Budget and when that runs out by eye-watering increases in income tax and or VAT and reductions in benefits so the pain is shared by everyone. Only then will the population at large realise that there is a very real cost of supporting unlimited immigration and as far as I can tell there is absolutely no limit on the numbers of people who wish to live in Britain.

          1. Never mind paying for them – use internment camps and prompt repatriation.

            We could lend you Donald if you like – his policies have severely cut back the number of illegals claiming asylum, primarily by enforcing the rule that asylum must be applied for outside the USA.

          2. Repatriation. Are countries willing to take back their emigrants. Many claim to be stateless. Should we give them a short course on parachuting by night and fly them out each with a parachute in a Hercules?

          4. Ah Got it! Change the signs around at the Channel Tunnel & pop them on a train to “St Pancras” …

          5. As far as I’m concerned, anyone coming from the UK via a safe country should automatically be permanently refused asylum, including those sailing across the Channel. Do as the Aussies did.
            And claiming asylum nowadays is just another means of circumventing immigration laws.

          6. I’ve no problem with massive hikes in taxes – as long as they’re applied to those who want the migrants and not to those who don’t.

            If you want to feel better, fine. You pay for it.

        3. That’s what the Greeks did and were condemned for it when Turkey allowed 10’s of 1000’s thru their border.

          No potential jihaddi was harmed in this exercise.

          1. Did it stop the Greeks, and did all those condemning them find another target when the Greeks didn’t back down?

    3. Tow them back towards France until one may be confident they can see land; check that they all have lifejackets and tip them out to swim back.

      1. Wot, you’d give them lifejackets?**

        ** There might be Covid19 on the lifejackets

      3. I hope they all got fined 60 quid each as advance payment on their handouts for their non-essential journey.
        Government fixed it for you!

    5. The weasel words are “where appropriate”
      It never bloody is “appropriate” according to the them!

    6. Can’t we have the Venezuelan coast guard? I’m sure they’d welcome the extra money!

        1. They could train our taxi service on the right spirit to deal with invaders though!

    1. I hope you have only been unbearded in a literal and not a metaphorical sense and that you will still state your points of view with unequivocal clarity.

    5. Morning Grizz – Nice shot.

      We are all dying (in some cases literally) to know how the Swedish Non-lockdown experiment is going?

    6. Hoorah!
      p.a. how do you keep things so tidy?
      I keep looking at the fridge, but I’m afraid I’ll wake the Kraken if I shift so much as a tub of yoghurt.

    9. Good morning Grizzly, we miss your pithy erudite comments.
      What a fabulous studio you have.

    11. Good morning, Grizzly

      So good to see you back!

      Hope you are now fully unmiffed!

  74. Labour leader —- Five minutes to go…From al-beeb ..

    If you’re just joining us, in a few minutes’ time we will be getting the results of Labour’s leader and deputy leader contests.

    What’s the system for how party members, trade unionists, and supporters have chosen the winners?

    The ballot, which closed on Friday, was a preferential system, with voters ranking the candidates in order of preference.

    If one candidate gets more than half the first preference votes, then they win – but if not, it gets a bit more complicated.

    In
    this case, the second preference votes of the lowest-ranked candidate
    will be redistributed…until the contest produces a winner.

    That should be whinger, surely.

    1. I’ve not taken much interest – it appears that the three candidates are all Hideous and White….

    2. I’ve paid no attention to this long drawn out saga but Keir Starmer is extremely boring to listen to. Ah well, perhaps he’ll liven up PMQ if and when we ever return to normal.

    2. Is Beckett unaware that the reason the country is a stand still is precisely because the giant, monolithic, state controlled NHS can’t cope?

      I imagine such obvious facts have passed him by.

  77. Update on shops and companies in these troubled times:

    It is with great sadness that I have to mention the loss of a few further
    local businesses around our Town. The bra manufacturer has gone bust,
    the specialist in submersibles has gone under, the manufacturer of food
    blenders has gone into liquidation, a dog kennel has had to call in the
    retrievers, the suppliers of paper for origami enthusiasts has folded,
    the Heinz factory has been canned as they couldn’t ketchup with orders,
    the tarmac laying company has reached the end of the road, the bread
    company has run out of dough, the clock manufacturer has had to wind
    down and gone cuckoo, the Chinese has been taken away, the shoe shop has
    had to put his foot down and given his staff the boot and finally the
    laundrette has been taken to the cleaners!

  78. I don’t believe what some people will do to take advantage of the situation.

    My son answered an SOS after a man posted on our local Facebook help page that he was desperate for paracetamol. My son duly left the packet on their window sill.

    This afternoon this same person posted a message thanking the kind person who picked up his wallet that had fallen out of his pocket in Aldi and handed it in.

    If he had flu symptoms with a high temperature as he said he had, what the hell was he doing in Aldi?

  79. PM’s virus adviser warns Britain might still need to adopt herd immunity in its fight against coronavirus as lockdown measures have painted the country ‘into a corner’. 4 April 2020.

    Boris Johnson’s coronavirus lockdown has pinned Britain ‘into a corner’ with no obvious exit strategy, according to a senior Downing Street scientific adviser who braced the country for a return to a policy of herd immunity.

    Professor Graham Medley, the government’s chief pandemic modeller, said the only viable path through the health emergency would be to let people become infected so they are no longer vulnerable.

    Hmmm. Looks like Cochrane has had the push!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8186507/PMs-virus-adviser-warns-Britain-need-adopt-herd-immunity.html

      1. Morning Bob. They have to navigate the paths of Political Correctness and Bureacratic Diplomacy. We say what we think!

        1. The consensus on here is that most of the country has already had the virus, I personally think in November, December and January going by people I know that had a few weeks of bad health.
          Someone somewhere decided to use this new virus as a decoy for some other world order purpose, that is my opinion.

          1. Add February to your list of months. That’s when I was ill with very Coronavirusesque symptoms.

          2. Never underestimate the cowardice of governments, and their fear of twitter and the mainstream media!
            Are we about to enter the first media-created depression in history?
            Not that they will ever take the blame of course!

          3. Gordon Brown and Tony Blair called for global government and a massive transfer of wealth to the Third World, Net Zero pretty well achieved and President Trump’s re-election race disrupted.

            Looks like the plan is working out.

          1. Morning Richard. Did you have some particular facet of his personality in mind?

          2. As you know I have hardly an original thought in my head which is why I allow my mentors, such as Shakespeare, to speak for me by quoting them.

            I have frequently quoted this line by Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra, the realist who was not taken in by charlatans:

            “That the truth should be silent I had almost forgot.”

            By linking your name with that of Enobarbus I was paying you a sincere compliment.

    2. I thought most NoTTLers came to that conclusion some time ago. Perhaps the Prof has only just stumbled on our blog.

  81. With Keir Starmer in charge of Labour, the Tories can be held to account again. Polly Pinko. 4 April 2020.

    Starmer has swept the board, a man risen without enemies. No digging has found anything but decency and a background of pro bono work: “a bit dull” is the worst they can think of. Not since Tony Blair in 1994 has a Labour leader emerged from the party’s byzantine structures with support from every section, backed by a majority of MPs, trade unions, affiliates and now its members, too. He has promised unity and this solid support may augur an end to the party’s civil wars. The respectful tone of the leadership campaign in the three finalists’ hustings drew praise from all sides: peace was possible. His cool authority swayed many Jeremy Corbyn supporters and Momentum members, when only a short while ago it was glumly assumed only a Corbynite stood a chance.

    Lol! All this bongering and he somehow only got 56% of the vote! Are they going to have another? What about best of three?

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/04/keir-starmer-labour-tories-coronavirus-crisis

    1. My back of the envelope calculation indicates that his vote count was around 30% of eligible voters. I can’t swear to it but I think the none of the above contingent had the greatest share of eligible voters. BJ would know.

    2. “No digging has found anything but decency…”

      Apart from his call for ‘victim-centred justice’ which encouraged the appalling Alison Saunders in her crusade against the presumption of innocence in sexual assault cases.

      1. Largely hidden injustice where even children were mercilessly hounded by lazy callous policemen and women until months or even years later all charges are dropped. Unforgivable.

  82. Interesting to see laws restricting freedoms are enthusiastically accepted and bring out the little Hotlers in society. Apparently, the 2m rule is advice, so our Welsh gov is going to make it law. Plod will now be issued with a tape measure instead of a truncheon. Just off to the bitch for a paddle… only jaking…

    1. To use a tape measure the plod will have to get close up and personal with those being measured, not a healthy move. A more secure method would be two, two metre lengths of good old 2″ x 2″ fashioned into a T shape: this design would ensure the person doing the measuring was at around 2.23m from the measurees. One day of training in the manufacture and operation of this novel device should suffice.😎

      1. Or something mounted on a tripod using some combination of rangefinder and triangulation? No need to get too close!

      1. ‘Thick thighs are healthier’, according to the Chinese I seem to recall…

        1. As usual methinks the Wail is pushing out an advert opportunity rather than an actual article.

    1. “The Struggle continues” – Indeed it does. I’m still struggling to understand how 40,000 of her constituents could possibly vote for her….

    3. 317795+ up ticks,
      Afternoon TB,
      “The struggle continues” but on cutting out bread & potatoes i have lost two of those kilo things.

    1. You have to actually watch his briefings to understand. If he gets asked anything other than a fawning, softball question he goes off at the questioner (as quoted above). The man just cannot accept any criticism, however mild. Also, he told the states they were responsible for obtaining their own emergency medical supplies, and when Massachusetts’ bulk supply of masks arrived in New York, the federal government confiscated them – now part of Kushner’s “our supplies”.

      Kushner by the way is far from the sharpest knife in the box. He got into Harvard the old fashioned way – his father made a $2.5M donation.

      1. It’s about time more politicians and interviewees had a real go at the “gotcha” journalists who, in the main,are asking questions not to elicit new information , but to try to make the spokesman look stupid.

      2. “The man just cannot accept any criticism, however mild.”

        He more or less gets scathing criticism 24/7 from numerous sources and has been under constant threat of impeachment since Nov 16. nearly every reporter in that room have had their knives out since 2016. Mild criticism, huh, what’s that?

          2. If Trump cured covid-19 by “laying on of hands” he’d be criticised for not using hand-sanitiser.

          3. To be fair, I’ve also seen them criticise Hillary.

            Once.

            Probably because they were asked if they had written a will after doing so…

      3. When I read the comments beneath the original I still don’t understand what the problem is.

        If her question was intended to attack him, then it’s a stupid question. if it was trying to understand how materials are arranged on a national basis, that’s different.

        I do wish Americans were literate. They prefer to use emojis and nonsense clips rather than grammar.

        1. Re. your last sentence – it may be a matter of capability rather than preference.

        1. When Fox News ask, the questions are all soft fawning and unquestioning, they are as bad as each other.

    1. There is a Hurnard Drive not far from here that lies on the north side of Lexden Road.
      I think the Hill House he refers to is now a care home.

    1. If they want to congregate, let them.

      But don’t treat them if they catch the Satan bug having done so.

    2. I have an idea. The Saudis can pay for Muslim-only hospitals, staffed by Muslims and built on our neglected Brownfield sites. No Muslims will henceforth be treated by the NHS. The Saudis can pick up the tab for all expenses.

      1. RT were reporting today that the Saudis are in financial difficulties, with the price of oil falling. Don’t suppose they’re down to their last trillion dollars yet but apparently production has been increased to make up for the loss of income. Just when Greta was celebrating the decimation of the tourist industry too.

  89. Q: Apart from the production of sanitisers and toilet rolls, can you think of an economic activity which has become more profitable in this lockdown?

    A: Yes, motor insurance.

      2. S’funny I notice there are 4/5 times the number of walkers here than in pre-Covid springs.

    2. The outdoor walking business, boots etc.
      The literary industry will grow with more people reading.
      Gardening .

  90. At least no one injured, but how the hell did the Freight loco collide with the buffer stops?

    News story
    Passenger train collision with a derailed locomotive, Bromsgrove
    Investigation into a passenger train collision with a derailed locomotive near Bromsgrove station, Worcestershire, 23 March 2020.

    Published 3 April 2020
    From:
    Rail Accident Investigation Branch

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/image_data/file/97772/s300_Bromsgrove.jpg

    The locomotive involved after the accident (image taken looking south, ie towards the direction from which the passenger train approached on the adjacent main line)

    At about 22:43 hrs on Monday 23 March 2020, a 3-coach class 170 passenger train, operating the 21:05 Cardiff Central to Birmingham New Street service, was approaching Bromsgrove station when it collided with a class 66 locomotive that had become derailed at the end of a siding. The passenger train suffered significant damage along the side of all three vehicles, although it remained on the track and did not derail. There were 4 passengers and 2 crew on board the passenger train and none reported any injuries.

    The locomotive had just travelled from Bescot to Bromsgrove, to act as a banking locomotive required to assist heavy freight trains up the 1 in 37 Lickey incline to the north of the station. It derailed as it ran through the buffers at the end of the siding adjacent to the mainline, and stopped with its front left corner foul of northbound trains. The driver of the locomotive was not injured in the collision, although the locomotive suffered damage to the corner of the leading cab.

    Our investigation will identify the sequence of events which led to the accident. It will also consider any factors relevant to operation of the locomotive, how the risk of overrun within the siding was controlled and any relevant underlying factors.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/passenger-train-collision-with-a-derailed-locomotive-bromsgrove

    1. Wow! I didn’t think there was any other news at the moment, apart from CVid.

      Maybe that’s why BJ has disappeared – no newsfeed. No stabbings, accidents or murders anywhere.

  91. 317795+ up ticks,
    News from the Broken Biscuit Co, is that felons are to be released on account of the bug, but if truth be told it will be to accommodate those who have been TR ad.
    Bloody funny when granny walking the dog is glaringly obvious to the law
    ( employees of the government) yet paedophiles pass unnoticed in say
    rotherham, for 16 plus years.

  92. Just prepared dinner.
    Greek lamb with Orźo. Which also has Kalamata olìves, chopped tomatoes, fresh oregano, red onion
    pinch of cinnamon and parmesan cheese, i add some feta cheese too.
    Served with crusty bread and a glass or two of Burgundy red wine .
    Not been eating much this week so looking forward to it. I hope to somehow find
    a joint of lamb for Easter Sunday but am not holding my breath .

    1. We’ve just got a shoulder of hogget for Easter. First time I had heard of such a thing…a lamb in its second year. Some of it tomorrow on the Barbeque, Greek fashion with oregano. Souvlakia.

      2. Sounds delicious, I’ve not heard of shoulder of hogget either .
        If you can find one, fresh oregano plants seem to last forever.
        I’ve one on the kitchen windowsill that’s watered every day.
        Got it 4 months ago from Sainsbury’s. Other herbs have come
        and gone but that one is taking over the kitchen.

        The barbecue sounds very nice too. Enjoy .

          1. Yes, forget to mention Basil, indeed it lasts a long while.
            Unlike dill and thyme. Mint lasts well, i had a scraggly mint plant
            that I didn’t think would last that long but it proved me wrong
            and became quite robust .

    2. I’ve cut a fillet of pork into half inch slices and fried it off and set aside.

      Onion & garlic fried until soft with sage, herbes de Provence, cumin, cinnamon and black pepper. Added a green and a red pepper, sliced. Then a can of chopped tomatoes. Simmering now until the meat goes in at the end to heat through (about another 20 minutes).

      Basmati rice with peas & diced carrot mixed through it cooked by absorbtion in chicken stock to go with it.

      Dunno what it’s called. I just made it up as I was cooking it.

      3. Sounds really delicious and original, those that you make up
        as you go along are usually the best. It’s what I do normally.
        Your pork recipe is similar to one I make with the addition of
        Chorizo sausage sliced and added, as well as canniloni beans .

        1. I forgot to mention I chuck a spoonful of fennel seeds into the oil before the rice goes in for its pre-fry.

        2. I love Chorizo, but fry it without oil separately until crisp, before adding it to the cooked food just before eating. I don’t like it soggy.

    3. Any English butcher will be able to supply your request,
      their orders will have been placed a while ago.

      This morning my butcher was selling ‘Isle of Man,’
      lamb.

    4. A little bird told me that Morrisons will have lambs’ legs on offer next week, English or NZ I don’t know.

      1. What a very helpful little bird 😉 we have a Morrison’s nearby
        I shall venture there next Wednesday and try and find one.
        Thank you.

    5. MOH is doing the cooking tonight. I don’t care what I have (within reason) for dinner as long as I’m not having to cook it. Beans on toast would be acceptable.

      Yours sounds very nice, btw.

          1. For some reason my mind recalls Charlie Chaplin eating a leather-soled shoe. His masterful forking of the shoelaces as though they were spaghetti was genius.

          1. Sandal – familyspeak for supermarket schnitzel. Called after I’d been in a Luanda guesthouse, where that’s all the maid could cook (& rice) – and every time they were like the sole of a sandal…
            I did dinner yesterday; we try to take turns. The cook doesn’t do the washing up except when I cook.
            Anyhow, it’s now with salad.

          2. Sorry, but I lost my sense of taste a while before a stroke in 2016. Since then, the tongue areas only work, so food has become fuel, not a source of pleasure. So, one tends to eat to stop being hungry.

  93. ‘Afternoon, all.
    From the Telegraph letters page. I am not able to give Mr Isherwood 1000 upticks there, but I can say 1000 upticks here:

    Paul Isherwood
    4 Apr 2020 9:24AM
    Exclusive: ‘Game-changer’ coronavirus tests could be delayed until June, causing prolonged UK lockdown

    Once again we cannot comment.

    Spain has revealed that the antibody tests purchased from China are only 30% accurate

    When is the government going to get the message about China?

    When is the public going to get the message about China?

    When are manufacturers going to get the message about China?

    When are universities going to get the message about China!

    P.S. When are we going to get the message about the French, who apparently snaffle the few deliveries we are supposed to get?

  94. I’ve just watched the Grand National. Red Rum won narrowly. I’d backed Canal Turn at 166/1 but it didn’t go anywhere.

  95. Just been sitting in the open patio doorway with a glass of splendid Californian Colombard Chardonnay, enjoying the sun but out of the wind, listening to Arvo Part and the Estonian Choir singing Psalm 117 and in the quiet moments hearing the distant sound of a train running over tracks, a chap hammering, the occasional buzz from a chainsaw and of course bird song. Bliss.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e27546786f2d412b9a2b113f6f4c71db76e382606d29dcbeb48901189d49097f.png

    3. Just been down the road with the bushsaw to sort out a couple of dead elms for dragging home.
      A decent 4 to 5″ at the but end, they provide some excellent ready seasoned firewood.

  98. When I walked down to the river this afternoon there was an uppity girlie in a police uniform having a go at the guys working on Hammersmith Bridge. She was demanding names and numbers and making phone calls but when I passed that way again an hour later she’d gone and they were still working, so I assume she lost the argument.

    2. The sooner we restrict the beat coppers to lean mean 6’6” tall males, built like brick shithouses, the better. They do not need degrees or to be clever. They need quite simply to be ‘reasonable’ and pursue and when caught clobber criminals.

      The supposed LGBT ‘community’ should be barred from the New Police Force. Their introduction has proven to be an utter disaster from Dick downwards.

      1. A Sergeant had an exemplary record as a miltary policeman.
        He was being given an award and he was asked by his commanding officer:

        “Why do you always go out with 5’7″ little guys in support, instead of choosing the biggest ugliest men available?”

        “Well, sir, those little guys are the best unarmed combat people I have; and if you were a drunken squaddie, who would you go for, the big ugly one or the little guy? They always go for the little guy, hence my record, and my lack of a broken nose.”

  99. During the Plague which preceded the Great fire I understand dogs were slaughtered which allowed more rats to thrive…

    Here we go again:

    “If we do not get enough sunshine, sheltering in place just might have the unintended consequence of prolonging the COVID 19 epidemic. As the elderly become less mobile and spend less time outside, a vitamin D deficiency would only amplify their vulnerability.”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/04/02/fight-the-virus-with-sunshine/

    1. I’ve been out gardening, but wouldn’t have benefited from the sunshine, as it was a bit too windy and cool not to wear a fleece jacket.
      Everyone, especially older people, should take VitD supplements in the winter.
      A still-working friend of mine was diagnosed with extremely low VitD levels, which had caused chronic tiredness, among things. Those of us in northern climes simply don’t get enough sun exposure in the winter, and for those cooped up in offices don’t get enough all year round.
      It’s also why we developed pale skin, to absorb sunlight, and why there’s an epidemic of low VitD levels in certain immigrant populations in this country, with brittle bone disease, rickets, etc. It’s literally why they don’t belong in Europe, as they’re not adapted to reduced sunlight, and covering themselves up for “religious” purposes makes it even worse and one more drain on our health service.

      2. I fractured my ankle last September. Various blood tests to discover why revealed a deficiency of Vit D – my result being ’38’. Vit D enables the efficient uptake of calcium. I was told that 30 and less indicates a real deficiency, 50 would be just about ok but it would be preferred that the number was 75. Everyone at these latitudes of ours should be taking Vit D, I am out twice a day for half an hour at least to take our dog for a walk, longer during the summer months.

        In the last three decades universities have stopped giving lectures to those studying geography in connection to racial characteristics, latitude and climate.

    2. The only nutritional deficiency that elderly chum had in tests taken during the winter was Vitamin D.
      We had all done our best to make sure that she was getting a balanced diet, but she had become too frail to go outdoors; an extra tragedy because gardening was her one real love. We had started her on vitamin tablets to make up any deficiency, but then she had a fall and is now in a care home.

        1. It is and it isn’t. Ever since her previous fall about 18 months ago, it was obvious that she couldn’t cope.
          More and more people were dancing round her fantasy that she was all right and cooked, washed etc…. perfectly well. Hoops had to be jumped through to satisfy various legal and social requirements.
          Then she cut across all that by falling in her kitchen one evening as she was pottering around getting ready for bed; she lay there for about 14 hours before her neighbours found her. They are elderly themselves, but kept an eye on her.
          Niece was called, and EC was whisked into hospital. The social workers nearly fell on EC’s nephew’s neck and wept, when he told them that the care home where his father lived already had a bed for her and that she would be self-funding.
          And there she stays; care home in lock down. Everyone else taking a breather.
          And all this happened the week I was in hospital having my operation and recuperating from it.

    4. That’s interesting, I didn’t realise Public Health England was already operating in the seventeenth century.

    5. That’s interesting, I didn’t realise Public Health England was already operating in the seventeenth century.

  100. My wife was watching the news earlier (I know, I know, what’s the point?) and she said a Sky reporter was off to a park somewhere to see all the people huddling together to frustrate lockdown restrictions.

    The trouble was, there were no crowds to report on. She said the reporter was quite disappointed.

    I asked her if the reporter is being charged with making an unnecessary journey.

  101. The mainstream media at it again….

    Sweden not in lockdown:
    “12:58PM
    Why has Sweden decided against a lockdown?
    As countries across Europe deploy strict social distancing rules, in Sweden an interesting experiment is playing out.
    The country has bucked the near global lockdown trend, choosing to allow schools, businesses and sports venues to remain open…”

    Brazil not in lockdown:
    “3:45PM
    Brazilian president warned that his coronavirus strategy will lead to the “collapse” of the country’s health system.
    Brazil’s hard-Right president is facing mounting pressure over his increasingly isolated position on coronavirus, as infectious disease specialists warn that his strategy will lead to the “total collapse” of the country’s health system…”

    Both snippets from today’s DT of course.

    1. Tucker Carlson Tonight is probably the only news I watch regularly.
      And what he says on his show does get picked up by the Trump administration.
      In fact, I’m starting to think that Tucker should be running the U.S…..

      It’s a shame we have no one like him in the UK on any of our tv channels. I don’t always agree with his position on certain issues, and he sometimes misses an open goal for questioning, but he’s way, way better than almost any interviewer we have here. Probably Andrew Neil is the only one.

    2. P.S.: Tucker isn’t wrong “most of the time” from what I’ve seen since he started his show.

    3. There are a few IT firms will be unhappy with that news, they gave been using those visas to import cheap Indian software people to replace much more expensive locals.
      Naturally they get charged out to clients at the same exorbitant rate.

    1. Grizzly was on her 6 hours ago with a picture showing him painting in his studio.

    3. I have welcomed Grizzly home earlier today.

      Stop press: The picture of him at his easel suggests that he has shaved off his beard and is no longer The Beatnik.

    1. The death penalty needs to be brought back to deal with killers like that. I expect he will be dealt with by other prisoners when he is jailed but the Judicial system should be empowered to apply the death sentence when appropriate.

      1. No, I disagree. You don’t murder people like that.

        You flog them, flay them alive, dismember them, throw them into a quicklime pit and then bury them alive in concrete with a drip so they take weeks, maybe months to die.

        You do the same to the Lily Allen’s of this world who want to destroy it.

      2. It’s a woman,a Somali Moslem Woman and she will never see trial or prison,the “mental health” card has been played,no doubt in a few short years she will be released into “Care in the Community”
        Edit
        If it was a man who was tried and convicted he wouldn’t be “dealt” with by other prisoners,those days are long gone,more likely he would be celebrated as a “Kuffar Killer” by the Moslem gang members who largely run our prisons these days

    3. There is as yet no evidence that the killing was carried out by a Somalian devil worshipper, but the total absence of media interest is repugnant.
      Reminds me of the media keeping shtum the detail that Lady Starmer is Jewish, in case that influenced the selection process.

          1. We are just doing one of a Monet painting of the waterlilies. 1000 pieces, with an awful lot of green dabs of paint.

      1. I’m trying to learn a selection of Sea Shanties so I can join in with the crew who meet at The Cross Guns, Avoncliff each Tuesday evening when the pub is open again…

        2. Not quite sea shanties, but can I recommend the works of Cyril Tawney? I posted a link to one of his songs here yesterday, ‘Sally Free and Easy’. He was in the ‘Grey Funnel Line’ and used that as the title for a song. I saw him in our local folk club in 1969 or thereabouts and he was brilliant.

          The throbbing acoustic guitar that runs right through Sally Free and Easy was supposed to imitate the throbbing diesel engines of the pre-nuke submarines that he served in and if you give it a listen it does so perfectly.

          Another of his songs, more of a shanty was ‘Chicken on a Raft’. Egg on toast with a hangover on a Monday morning.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGnM1JCbKu0

          2. “Chicken on a raft” was the bowdlerised version.
            Originally it was about Kidneys in Gravy on toast with a name referring to the appearance of the meal!

          3. What do you think about Sally Free and Easy, Bob?

            Watching him sing it from a distance of about 12 feet in the Cellar at Ashington with a few bottles of Brown in my belly will stay with me to the end of my days. What a voice, and there was absolute silence from the audience while he was doing it.

            Beautiful.

            He died a few years ago (a few! it’s 15!) and by pure coincidence I was flying south over Exeter at just about the precise time of his funeral. I looked out of the window and thought about a singer I’d only seen once, maybe twice 36 years before.

          4. Excellent song, and Sammy’s Bar.

            I was lucky enough to see him twice, once at a Folk festival and then at the Fo’c’stle Folk Club in Southampton.

      3. But I can invite people who God must surely have personally blessed, into my living room to sing and play for me, personally.
        Visitors recently have been Pavarotti, Louis Armstrong, Choir of St Martin in the Fields, Xaver Varnus…
        It could be worse.

        1. Fairy nuff. We’re trying a live streamed Communion Service in the morning. There will be no music, since I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that I may not enter the church building, on pain of something or other. Its not a legal requirement, just Welby embellishing the Gummint advice.

        3. It’s marvellous that so many are finding solace in the arts (of all kinds) in these times. Spare a thought, all of you, for those of us who make the art, and who are often dismissed as luvvies (not all of us are…) or immensely rich (ditto) or irrelevant to real life. I think my entire profession just disappeared.

          3. I’m full of admiration for anyone who tries to make a living in the music profession.

          4. True, go to open mic sessions and it’s utterly amazing what talent is out there.

          8. Thank you! It’s a weird profession to navigate but an unparalleled joy when things work 🙂

    3. At this time on a Saturday, it is a Saturday isn’t it, I’d be getting set for my walk up to my local for the musical soirée. Virus us and be damned, I say!

    5. Gorgeous music! Shame. What’s he like for choral singers? My experience is that he never realised singers actually need to breathe from time to time 🤣

        1. Good to know; thanks. As a soloist he’s a damned tricky bugger, but the music is so glorious it’s worth all the torture!

          2. Mezzo. So Symphony No. 9 get paid for just showing up and looking beautiful, LOL; Missa Solemnis is a beast.

          3. The last Soloist our Choir sang with was the late Sally Silver who had a beautiful voice (she died far too young in late 2018 from a Brain tumour) she was accompanied by her very talented husband Jeremy.

          5. I’ve worked with Jeremy, but didn’t personally know Sally. Very sad indeed. Beautiful voice.

      1. No, not allowed to travel to the stables. He’s out in the field, getting fat, no doubt, and planning some cunning moves for when he’s made to work again.

        1. Nah, it’s been standing dead for several years so it’s dry and VERY well seasoned for the fire!
          There were a lot of elms up the Via Gellia before Dutch Elm clobbered them, but their descendants still grow to a point where they set seed for several years before they die off so effectively, they are now arboreal weeds!

  108. Meanwhile……….

    “After all this Boris “80 seat majority” Johnson still won’t scrap HS2,
    will still pay billions in foreign aid to countries that hate us, will
    still allow China to get into our communications, still encourage
    unlimited immigration of third world terrorists, criminals and
    freeloaders. There will be no consequences to the scare-mongering BBC
    and no consequences for blatantly failing NHS bosses and QUANGOs.”
    It’s being so cheerful that keeps me going…………………..
    Hattip different Rick

    1. “Unlimited immigration”. While we are under virtual house arrest under threat of fines, court, jail and a criminal record for living in our own, supposedly free country, the Border Agency have ferried in another 53 earlier today. On BBC text news for Kent. Presumably all 53 were within 2 metres of each other so should be done for that. Also , how many ambulances turned up for them?

      1. And how many cv tests were used for them, that are denied to the people who have paid for them?

    1. I thought we all appreciated by now that the UN is yet another corrupt African organisation. The same applies to the World Health Organisation.

      We have reached a point in our history where we need to re-establish our innate sovereignty, We can no longer be beholden to the direction of hostile foreign states such as the French and Germans.

      1. We need to avoid becoming the next Italy, with a hollowed out Chinese owned industry busy turning out tat labelled “Made in Britain!”

      1. That would upset George.

        It’s only a short walk across Manhattan from Open Society to UN HQ, and some of the personnel interchange.

      2. Well it is quite interesting. Up til now, the biggest voting block on the UN was the muslim countries. China will hardly be flavour of the month with them, given its apparent determination to eradicate Islam in China, and its 1930s methods of doing so. Yet China prevailed.
        One wonders if it is now game over and the Chinese lobby of purchased countries will be unbeatable from now onwards.

      3. ‘Evening, Anne, didn’t they get kicked out of their original European Headquarters, I can’t remember if it was Switzerland or France?

        It’s about time that most ‘sensible’ i.e., Western, Anglo-sphere, Capitalist countries left the UN and let it collapse as the ‘League of Nations’ did and the EU will.

      4. I’ve been advocating that for many years. Somewhere like Isalmabad or Mogadishu would be apposite.

    3. AH Blair’s vision of a world government. Monsters like him are wetting their pants and drooling over it.

    4. Surprised?

      China has 1.5B citizens, more than any other country, and is something like the 2nd biggest economy in the world and likely to take over from the States pretty soon in the number one spot.

      Over the past 30 years extreme communism has mellowed and China have moved towards market socialism.

      On human rights they are getting better but still have a long way to go to match the rights of free people in the West. It’s happening slowly. Things are getting better for the Chinese people.

      The UN is all about international cooperation. They seem to think china is moving in the right direction albeit rather slowly.

      1. Far more likely is the influence of Chinese money as a result of their “belt and road” program.

        1. Yes, given their influence in Africa and other 3rd world countries, all of whom get a vote at the UN, I am not surprised.

          Time for the world’s true democracies to form their own organization and dump the UN. That real estate their building sits on is worth a pile too…..

        2. A sensible foreign policy from china’s perspective.
          Through running constant trade surpluses and holding down domestic living standards china has built up huge amounts of funds and is investing around the world.
          Is it as political as you seem to think, or just sensible economic policy?

          2. Complete domination or economic domination?

            None of us have complained about USA dominating economically for donkeys years.

            Are you worried china is planning a Hitler type expansion?

          4. Well I’ve expected them to invade Taiwan for many years, but I don’t think we’ll all be speaking mandarin and answering to the one world chinese government in a marxist dystopian society.

          6. What’s your expected timeframe for this mass domination event to start? 3 years? 5? 10? 30? 50? 150?

          7. I have no time frame, but it’s pretty obvious where this is going.

            Looks like you’re trolling.

          8. Nope.

            All my life China has been a military superpower and it hasn’t even attempted to invade Taiwan yet despite that being claimed territory and their only identifiable military target.

            Just can’t see them going from political solutions with Taiwan to military expansion around the world soonish.

        3. “The influence of Chinese money”? So you’re saying, Polly, (© Cathy Newman) that George Soros is a Chinaman?

      2. Not sure the Uyghurs would agree with you on human rights. And their legal system has an assumption of guilt.

        I would categorize China as capitalist in that successful businesses and business people are now admired, but the Party is still very much in control and enforces its will – often brutally.

        In the aftermath of the 2008/2009 economic crash, many people in the US could not understand why those who enabled the various frauds that led to the collapse were not prosecuted. As was darkly said at the time, “In China they would all have been put up against a wall”.

        1. Yes nobody said things were perfect they are far from that, but even so there has been improvement.

          China practises market socialism, even though state capitalism is pretty similar. As you said, the party is still very much in control. it is not a free capitalist liberalised economy like the West, but it is vastly different from the China of the fifties to early eighties.

          1. I for one, and my family are actively boycotting anything we can positively identify as coming from China. Quite apart from their attempts to dominate the Western World (in competition with the Mohammedans) their disgusting eating and pseudo medical practices seem to contribute to disease and death.

      3. That is complete bollocks and you know it. Following this latest example of Chinese influence I suspect the the Chinese will be consigned to the bin of history. And good riddance.

        1. Good luck with that. They are the world’s electronic workshop. It’s where we get our dirty manufacturing done. We rely on their resources for anything with a rechargeable battery in it. We rely on their resources for anything with a strong magnet in it.

    5. See if you can do catch up on Portillo ‘railway journeys’ in Hong Kong it’s was on TV earlier tonight.

    6. My mother, she’d be 107 if she were still alive, always said we should beware the ‘Yellow Peril’. I guess it’s an old adage, but it does bear considering.

      1. “Which I wish to remark,
        And my language is plain,
        That for ways that are dark
        And for tricks that are vain,
        The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
        Which the same I would rise to explain.”
        — Francis Bret Harte

      3. “… beware the ‘Yellow Peril’

        Mine too, MM!
        She woud be 110 if she were still alive …

        1. I still have memories of my nan lying in Bury St Edmunds hospital screaming “Don’t let that bloody darky doctor near me”. You can take the woman out of Walthamstow but you’ll never take Walthamstow out of the woman.

    3. Dragged away for re-education by the Lonely Goatherd who will show what self-isolation means.

    1. “Akeel Mughal” Yet another good old English name or is it just another demented Norwegian Methodist?

  112. 317795+ up ticks,
    School uniforms are to change for a three month stint on account of the
    Broken, Biscuit, Co, running a campaign of home lessons for the children.
    Button to the neck tunics are to be worn, this is compulsory, not choice.
    The tunic purchasing payment will be an additive to the licence fee.

      1. Funny but forty odd years ago I attended a concert in the Royal Festival Hall for a recital by the Chinese pianist Fou Tsong.

        He wore a button to the neck tunic except that it was made from fine embroidered black silk.

        I imagine that the upper echelons of the CPC wore similarly expensive garments. Sackcloth is after all for the masses in their perfect socialist system. Not too dissimilar from our masters in the EU or for that matter, Corbyn and his allies in the West.

    1. There was film earlier this week of at least 20 men leaving a terraced house in the Midlands all putting shoes on as they left.
      There’s been no word of how the 13 year old muslim boy might have caught the virus.
      But people are now being told to keep dogs on a lead in public spaces. I can’t imagine who might have objected.
      The police will probably deal heavily with innocent happy dogs chasing their favourite ball.

      1. Phizzee molamola • 2 minutes ago

        I read recently that we can bring it into our homes on our shoes and we should leave our shoes outside…..eyes..wool …pull.

        Keep a watch on how ‘they’ are trying to align us with an alien culture.

        1. We need the shoe dipping troughs used during the agricultural problems.
          And it hasn’t rained for nearly 3 weeks. With all this hand washing there’s likely to be a water shortage soon.
          And the sewers will become over whelmed with surplus bog paper. 😆

        1. Yes HL, the dislikers and dissenters who are deviously determind in undermining our culture, have found in these difficult times another way to turn the screw of dissent.
          I hope you and OH are keeping safe.
          It’s all becoming a tad tedious. 😕

          1. Thanks, and you and yours too.

            I said to D that it’s like what it will be when we are both retired – we won’t be able to afford to go out to pubs and stuff that much anyway and will have to be spending lots of time together…

            Apart from not being able to go for walks and things that are relatively close and free, we are not having a bad time at all, actually. To be honest, we play Scrabble and other pursuits, have done some gardening (we are both not gardeners!), painted the shed and will paint some more. Also, slowly tidying the house and doing things we normally get away with not doing.

            Get up when we want – it’s rather nice, like a long weekend. Perhaps we’re just both chronically bone-idle, boring farts….

          2. Don’t get a dog T although
            they can be lovely company, but hairy smelly and expensive and time consuming and restrict holiday destinations. We’ll have that coffee one day.
            Before it’s too late.

        2. If I had one, I’d take a pig for a walk in the same park that all the arses were up in the air. A sure-fire way to break it up.

          1. I think you may find the police will prosecute you for “causing a disturbance, causing someone to feel alarm or distresss”!

          2. Bring it on Vouvray, I’d love to see how that would stand up in court.

            The Police are now acting like the Waffen SS and Gestapo. They need to be brought to heel. Where’s Priti Patel when she’s needed.

    3. “It goes to shoŵ these Muslims think their faith is above the risk of them getting Covid19.”
      More to the point, these Muslims think their faith is above the law the rest of us have to conform to.

      1. I read recently that we can bring it into our homes on our shoes and we should leave our shoes outside…..eyes..wool …pull.

        Keep a watch on how ‘they’ are trying to align us with an alien culture.

      3. A deliberate act of defiance, knowing they are unlikely to be properly dealt with because of ludicrous wayshul sensitivities.

    4. Start by arresting them for holding services in a public place. There’re laws against that. Laws the police don’t bother enforcing – for Muslims.

    5. Government COVID broadcasts as far as I know are not transmitted in all prevalent languages in the Midlands.
      Could this explain why COVID death rates in the Midlands are overtaking London?

      1. We can hope.

        I lived there for five years.

        Millions spent on people that pretend to not speak English when other family members do.

        You should hear what they say about you when you are assessing them for benefits when they don’t think you understand.

        1. Knew they spoke English but if appearing in court always wanted an interpreter. Like the mugs we are always provided at taxpayers expense. Sickening.
          Edit knew for new

    6. Government COVID broadcasts as far as I know are not transmitted in all prevalent languages in the Midlands.
      Could this explain why COVID death rates in the Midlands are overtaking London?

    1. Nor Meredith. They disappeared at the same time.

      Same person, two browsers ?

      1. No. Jenny was warm, humorous & friendly. Meredith was the opposite & completely up his own arse..

          1. Meredith’s last post (and the one before that I think) was in connection with islam which is slightly worrying.

  115. Met a regular acquaintance on the village green today with his dog and talked about old cameras that we had owned.
    He said he hadn’t experienced any COVID or flu symptoms for three years.
    As a foreign traveller he had had every conceivable immunisation but three years ago he experienced symptoms that would have demanded self isolation under the COVID rules.
    We maintained the statutory separation and duration limits.

      1. It’s not listed as a statutory time but I did read somewhere that there was a recommended limit of 15 minutes when engaged close enough to converse.

        2. All this needs to end soon it is just not on when flights from all over are still landing at heath row.

          1. For what it is worth the Daily Mail is reporting that a couple from one of those cruise ships has arrived back at Heathrow. It includes a picture of them strolling out of the arrivals area as if life was normal.

            Yer Canadians get a quick ride to an airforce base where they enjoy free board and lodging for a mandatory two weeks.

          2. I’ve heard that there are flights landing from China carrying ventilators.
            Would that be Lao Che Air Freight?
            With their planes landing at London City Airport it’s quite handy for the Nightingale Hospital at Excel.

  121. I’m turning in to something…….now what can it be?
    Ah bed time, night all.

    1. My first wife was a witch. When she put her hand on my leg , I turned into a layby!

    1. Good night, Peddy. No need to stay up until 8 pm tomorrow night to watch the Queen’s Speech to the Nation and the Commonwealth. The Telegraph has already printed it in order to save us all the trouble.

    1. Of course they intend to cheat.
      They already have same-day registration and voting in some states, which has to be wide open to abuse. They oppose voter-ID, of course, for the same reasons that Labour do, and have made exactly the same excuses.
      Cheating is what they do.

      1. And there are countless reports of polling stations being located in ways that make it harder for poor, supposedly Democrats to vote.

        Neither side is perfect.

      2. The Democrats wouldn’t allow any state to upgrade its Electoral Rolls because they had so many dead people on those lists that could be identified as voting for the Undemocrats.

    2. I’m with Donald all the way. I used to be against ID cards but I have changed my mind. We should have them and have to present them to surgeries, hospitals, job centres (do they still exist?), to all voting booths.

      1. Apparently, although I don’t remember them, we had them until 1954 through and after WW2.

          1. But no photo in those days. I remember mine too and my medical card.

            If we’re going to have ID cards they must 1. be extremely hard to forge, 2, Shew your NINO and 3. NOT be issued to immigrants who shouldn’t be here, i.e., illegals and those seeking asylum

          2. 4. should not contain all the information the govt has on you (car registration, MoT date, insurance renewal date, bank account number, pension entitlement, blood group, biometrics – the list is endless).

      2. #metoo
        I’ve long been against ID cards, but over recent years I’ve very reluctantly come to realise that, given the 3rd world standards of so many of our New Citizens, they are now necessary.

  125. Neill Ferguson and the Imperial team need to be in lockdown and maintain social distancing for 18 months.

    1. The haircut looks like Berlusconi’s painted on hair job, are we saying it’s a dummy?

    2. There’s a new Scandi drama on BBC 4 – we’ll be watching that tonight. Norwegian, with subtitles. Much easier to follow than UK regional accents.

      1. You’re right there. All that Estuary and other Southern accents set my teeth on edge. So hard to follow. Give me a good Scandi with subtitles any day.

    4. I know the site rule is no selfies but I think we can make an exception for you wearing a face mask….

  130. Groundhog Day. I’m trying to purchase Microsoft Office, or whatever it’s called this week. When I use my e-mail address to set up an account it insists I already have an account and asks me to fill in a form to prove who I am. It contains questions like ‘what are the passwords you have used in the past?’ and ‘Do you have an account for another product?’ I have neither, so I fill it in with nonsense and eventually I get an e-mail saying it cannot verify my ID. It must be easier to change my name by Deed Poll…

      1. It’s fine for the things I need it for. Maybe the MS office does more but I haven’t used it since I was at work.

    3. You too, eh?
      I’m trying to buy a Microsoft Surface PC from MS, because they had the full set of kit, and cheaper than anywhere else.
      But I’m apparently trying to defraud myself, someone at some point will contact me about it… A week later, nowt.

      1. Can’t comment on MS; I have Office 365, which they charge me for every August. However, I’m increasingly having difficulty buying stuff. 2 ASDA deliveries, and now Screwfix, have crashed and burned, after “paying”, and doing the “two stage authorisation” stuff with the bank. No problem with funds, sites just seem to be broken.

  132. I’ve not been on much today but I have unearthed an old joke book that I may inflict on you all from tomorrow – mostly dirty jokes though. Let’s see how you stand up to it.

    Meantime, Good night and God bless.

  133. Just been looking over the fake news link between G5 masts and COVID-19. I’ve come to the conclusion that Tw@ter and Farcebok users need to pass an IQ test before they are let loose on it, especially Z-list celebrities like Amanda Holden.

  136. Virus or not, me and my partner are just having a couple of hours down Skegness seafront.

    We’ve toured the arcades, had a couple of rides and got some ace photos, eating candy floss in ‘kiss me quick’ hats.

    My boss even rang me up to see how we’re getting on ..

    I told him, “All quiet here Sarg, we’ve not had to make any arrests.”

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