Wednesday 29 April: The Government should trust older people to make their own decisions

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be blacklisted.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/04/28/lettersthe-government-should-trust-older-people-make-decisions/

842 thoughts on “Wednesday 29 April: The Government should trust older people to make their own decisions”

  2. The Queen will address the nation on the 75th anniversary of VE Day, with the public invited to join a country-wide singalong of “We’ll Meet Again” outside their front doors.

    Oh gawd

    1. Surely it would be better to sing We’re all going on a summer holiday led by Cliff Richard.

      1. “Doo dooby doo … doo doo doo ….”
        Blast. Thank you for today’s ear worm.

        1. “Oh yes we are!”
          “Oh no you’re not!”
          “He’s behind you!”
          “Yeah, but over two metres away!”

        2. Do what some neighbours of mine have done; put your caravan at the back of your property, surround it with a windbreak enclosure, get the table and loungers out and Romania (remain here) is your destination 🙂

    5. Where’s your spirit of invention, BSK? Tuesday at 11 am is Pretend You’re In The Library Day (1 minute’s silence), Wednesday at 7pm – for me at least – is Greet Your Chums Day (chat for up to one hour), Thursday at 8 pm is Clapometer Day (open the front door and clap for one minute) and Friday is Armed Forces Day (open the door and sing “Happy Birthday” to Captain Tom this Friday; open the door and sing “We’ll Meet Again” with Her Majesty the following Friday). There are still three more days of the week left: Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Can’t you think of another three ways to celebrate “these exceptional circumstances”? Perhaps we could take a leaf out of Plum-Tart’s book and open this game to any and all NoTTLers?

      EDIT: For “these exceptional circumstances” read “in these difficult times”.

  5. Good morning all.

    Lotsa luvly rain again.

    I followed Race across the World this time, so glad the right pair won, the only pair who seemed normal.

    In case there are those yet to see it…
    So glad the bossy blonde didn’t win – Imagine being nagged by that all day.

    1. Well, semi-normal. I don’t think normal people are allowed on TV, are they?

  6. Good moaning. (Particularly if you’re a parched lawn.)
    A Spekkie article:

    “Is Britain’s coronavirus response bogged down in bureaucracy?

    Professor Angus Dalgleish

    Is Britain’s coronavirus response bogged down in bureaucracy?Is Britain’s coronavirus response bogged down in bureaucracy?

    The NHS has rightly been praised for its response to coronavirus. But it still isn’t quite the model of efficiency it could be. And there remains a problem with how British medical bureaucracy is handling the treatment of hospitalised Covid patients.

    Hard-pressed consultants are reportedly being forced to swap news in WhatsApp groups about possible cutting-edge treatments. These doctors are desperate for information which may help their Covid patients in hospital either stay out of intensive care or, if unlucky enough to be in ICU, improve the 50/50 odds of life or death once on ventilation. Why? It seems likely that doctors are forced to innovate off the record because of the bureaucracies we’re all too often lumbered with in the medical world. Public Health England and Britain’s other stifling quangos are too process-driven and all-too-often too risk-averse to be able to respond to the nimbleness being shown by consultants at the top of their game across the world, who are willing to dare all and do everything possible to try and save patients’ lives.

    When this is all over, one clear lesson is that we must return the NHS to control by medical consultants and old-fashioned matrons, as it used to be, with administrators in their proper place to take – not to give – orders.

    The basic facts about coronavirus should make this abundantly clear. Why? Because the victim of this disease does not die from the virus but from the body’s over-stimulated reaction to Covid-19: a ‘cytokine storm’. This is an autoimmune crisis triggered in the lower lungs by the virus that has infected the upper respiratory tract. So once a patient is hospitalised, the key objective on admission must be to stop the slide into that ‘cytokine storm’ by all means necessary.

    The good news is that it seems conservative treatment by oxygen and ventilation and organ support is not all that can be done to support the immune system to fight back. There are various options here for a doctor to experiment with. First comes Vitamin D. Studies in cancer patients treated with Immunotherapy has revealed a remarkable association here. Patients with low levels of vitamin D3 do not respond well. And by correcting such low levels, it greatly improves the chances of responding and survival. Indeed, across different cancer types and treatments, correcting a low vitamin D3 level at the time of cancer diagnosis can improve outcome and survival at a rate nearly twice that of Tamoxifen on breast cancer. Could the same apply for those struck down with coronavirus?

    Secondly, a research programme under professor Cecilia Söderburg-Naucler at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, soon to be published, has suggested that another virus – herpes 5, or CMV, which is dormant in the lungs of very many of us, can be ‘woken up’ by Covid infection in order to boost it. The study indicates that early use of a safe and common drug which can successfully treat herpes may help stop that fatal slide into the cytokine storm. In the UK population it infects less than four per cent of young people but rises to over 65 per cent in the elderly. Significantly, CMV rates are markedly higher in BAME populations. Acyclovir is cheap and without significant side effects. It should be top of the list to be considered in Covid-19 patients, especially BAME patients, who appear to be affected by this virus disproportionately, as first line to see if it can stop progression from early symptoms to fatal complications.

    Thirdly, another more recent realisation is that Covid-19 is using ‘bitter/sweet receptors’ to enter the upper lungs (loss of taste is a commonly reported early symptom). Once the virus gets a grip in the lower lungs, in order to proliferate it needs energy: glucose. So starve it. During the pandemic there has been some clinical success in these moderately advanced patients in administering Metformin, a common glucose-blocking drug used in diabetes treatment, along with a high-fat diet. Again, it’s worth asking whether this is an avenue that needs further exploration.

    Fourthly, clinical friends of mine fighting the Italian pandemic have made a discovery which seems to be the only one that really helps for those who have progressed to ventilation. Once in a developing cytokine storm, it is vital to block the IL-6 receptor and this, they have found, can be done by re-purposing the monoclonal antibody anti-rheumatoid arthritis drug tocilizumab. This is a superb example of re purposing already available drugs.

    Fifthly, we have heard that a drug used to fight ebola also seems to be showing effectiveness in the battle against coronavirus. This has been disputed but it is an avenue worth investigating. Other agents including antibiotics are also being associated with unexpected benefit, perhaps having unintended anti-viral activity. We need to collect and monitor all this information to underpin the rationale for clinical trials. But is the NHS up to the job of doing so?

    There are so many potential simple possibilities to improve the fight against this dreadful virus that can be done without waiting for official approval. I was recently reminded of a patient on ITU when I was a registrar who was in a coma and would not respond to all conventional treatments. I remembered that this occurred in a rare condition associated with a severe thiamine deficiency. My boss said there was nothing to lose and I gave him a big intravenous injection. The result? He woke up and was discharged the next day. In the current climate I would almost certainly not be allowed to do this as there is no protocol or proof as red tape demands, and the patient would have died, but at least no rules would have been broken. It is time we returned to this type of front-line thinking in these challenging times – and allowed doctors to put their knowledge to full use.

    Angus Dalgleish is professor of Oncology at St George’s University of London and a Fellow at the Centre for Brexit Policy”

    1. Alas the culture of litigation we have now would mean we could not afford the legal and compensation costs if something like you describe did not have the required effect.

      1. When this (litigation) proved a problem in the States some years ago, the US Government passed what I believe is known as “The Good Samaritan Law” which indemnified bystanders who attempted unsuccessfully to help people taken ill. Previously the next-of-kin (or rather their lawyers) had sued those who attempted to help, which was leading to the general public just walking by rather than stopping to help and risking litigation.

      2. Looking at it completely callously, and in the light of what we are seeing, who’s to know?
        The patient dies, the reason is recorded as Covid-19.

        It’s what is happening anyway.

    2. The reason is probably because HMG reserved repurposed drug research to Bill Gates and his consortium.

      As a result of pandemic planning exercise Event 201 held in New York in October 2019.

      Professor Whitty has prohibited doctors repurposing drugs themselves.

  7. Allison Pearson in the DT:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/emotionally-drained-scared-death-yearning-things-make-life-worth/

    “Emotionally drained and scared to death, we are yearning for the things that make life worth living

    Up and down the country, people are longing to know when they can see their grandchildren again

    Up and down the country, people are longing to know when they can see their grandchildren again Credit: Liam Norris/ Taxi

    How much more of this can we bear? Day and night, the TV news brings us stories of Covid-19 victims in an endless funeral cortege of heartbreak and loss. The low point came last week when the BBC interviewed Zoe Davis about her twin sisters, Katy and Emma, 37, who had died within three days of each other. It was a devastating story and the poor woman was beside herself. Her grief still raw, she was shaking as she cried: “They were angels on earth and now they’re angels in heaven.”

    The reporter was careful to tell us that Zoe wanted to pay tribute to her sisters. As if that was an excuse for exploiting her tragedy. Clearly, she was not in any fit state to be paraded on national television. I’m sure I wasn’t the only viewer who found it far too distressing to watch. Even worse, it added nothing to our understanding of the pandemic. Instead, once again, the Ten O’ Clock News left viewers feeling emotionally drained and scared half to death. Hardly helpful as we try to navigate our way out of this historic crisis.

    The fact that both Katy and Emma Davis had other health conditions and had been unwell for some time was swiftly passed over, lest it interfere with the message that we were up against something uniquely terrifying which presents a clear danger to every one of us.

    On Monday night, towards the end of its late bulletin, the BBC quietly conceded that it was mainly older people who were Covid’s victims (90 per cent of the fatalities are over 60), before running a touching report on one virus victim, Ken Sumner. A Dambuster veteran, Mr Sumner was obviously a wonderful man, but he was great-grandfather to 15, and 96 years old. You would be hard-pushed to claim that he was taken before his time or that his passing was especially newsworthy.

    As a matter of fact, on the day Ken Sumner died, around 450 of his fellow Britons will have succumbed to cancer. Many of those, including young parents and teenagers, really will have gone too soon. Yet, in her coronavirus report, Lucy Manning solemnly intoned: “Deaths come hundreds a day, thousands upon thousands a week. When just one is too much for a family to bear, how does a country cope with, comprehend, these numbers?”

    Can I suggest that one way for Manning to help the country “comprehend these numbers” would be to provide some context. She could, for example, point out that, mercifully, Covid fatalities, although sad and grim, come nowhere near the toll for other common diseases. Cancer kills 165,000 people in the UK every year while nearly 170,000 people die of heart disease, with 42,000 of those classified as premature deaths. (Tragically, those fatalities are about to go through the roof because fear of coronavirus has deterred thousands from going to hospital. It may well be that “excess” deaths will eventually exceed those attributed to the virus.)

    One reassuring statistic that TV news might usefully share with viewers is that just 140 people under the age of 40 have died in this pandemic. You would get absolutely no sense of that from the alarmist presentation of the daily casualties.

    Covid-19 did not invent death. Sadly, death is all around us always. It is, as Saul Bellow said, the dark backing to the mirror. The loss of a grandparent is a source of intense sorrow to their family; 30 years after losing him, at the age of three score years and ten, I think of my wonderful grandfather almost every day. (His steel shirt armband is within touching distance on my desk.) Yet it cannot be a minute-by-minute matter for the national news or they will make us all mad with mourning.

    The voracious, 24-hour news beast needs feeding, and that has contributed to a dumbed-down, hyper-emotional coverage. I was watching Sky News the other day and they had a picture gallery of Covid victims, giving a poignant potted biography of each one. I thought: why don’t they run a gallery of faces of the children whose futures are about to be destroyed by the upcoming economic carnage if we don’t get back to work?

    Just imagine it: “With his schooling badly disrupted by the Covid pandemic of 2020, Louis Green failed to go on to higher education after the university sector contracted sharply. Like millions of his contemporaries, in the Second Great Depression that followed, Louis was unemployed throughout his twenties, becoming clinically depressed and eventually taking his own life at the age of 32.”

    That, I am afraid, is where all this relentlessly negative coverage is going to get us. Instead of reporters pouncing gleefully on the remote possibility that schools may not be “safe”, how about presenting the clear evidence that not reopening them in the next few weeks will be a generation-blighting disaster?

    Is it any wonder that viewers are appalled by the corona coverage? Look at the astonishing recent YouGov poll in which just one per cent of people said they “trust TV journalists a lot”. That hostile opinion was held by people of both sexes, all ages and all social classes.

    Of course, we are living through an appallingly difficult time and the TV news has to reflect that. It could also put as much energy into broadcasting comparative data from other countries in a calm, measured way as it does into shrieking, “Look! More Dead People!” Instead of tear-stained obituaries for nonagenarians, for instance, how about reporting the fact that many doctors and nurses are now saying their hospitals are almost empty? Covid admissions have slowed to a trickle. The Beast may not be beaten, but it is badly wounded.

    At the daily Number 10 press briefing, too often TV political correspondents behave as though this were a general-election campaign, not a national emergency. One tenuous scandal after another is hurled at a Conservative government they clearly resent and would like to bring down. Aware that reporters are fishing for a Gotcha! scoop, ministers become defensive. They parrot robotic replies and infantile mantras, instead of admitting to human error and taking the public into their confidence about the hard trade-offs that will be needed to spring us from lockdown.

    People are not stupid. They are fully aware that the Government has made bad mistakes. (Don’t get me started on letting planes from China and Italy fly into our airports while British people are doing as they are told and staying indoors.) They also understand this is an unprecedented situation and they have some sympathy for those shellshocked men and women who are striving round the clock to bring this horror show to an end.

    At Monday’s press briefing, one question was allowed from a member of the public. Lynn from Skipton could not give a damn about whether Dominic Cummings did or did not attend Sage meetings. What Lynn wanted to know was how long would it be before she could hug her grandchildren again?

    Up and down the country, that is what concerns us. While the TV news piles death upon death, the people yearn for the restoration of the things that make life worth living.”

          3. I only get up to let the dog out, to be honest. Then I go back to bed. What’s the point? Every day is the same except for the problems that arise.

          4. There’s certainly not much to get up for – I’m surprised I still bother getting dressed.

          5. I confess to wearing the same clothes for longer. I only change my outer garments when I’ve spilled something on them or they’re looking a bit grubby. Tramps ‘R’ Us at the moment 🙁

    3. While the TV news piles death upon death, the people yearn for the restoration of the things that make life worth living.”

      I think the main reason why I am so emotionally laid back about CV is that I don’t actually watch any of this! When it’s convenient to do so I watch the beginning of one BBC News broadcast and that only lasts about five minutes on a bad day. If you watched all of it, all day, and some people undoubtedly do, it would eventually send you crazy!

    4. ‘Morning, Anne. Thanks for posting this.

      Of all the articles that I have read since this wretched business started, this one is absolutely spot on regarding the disgraceful media coverage. Full marks to AP; she has excelled herself. I’m sure we at Janus Towers are not alone in turning off this tidal wave of mawkish rubbish which masquerades as ‘news’, particularly the seemingly never ending interviews with distraught friends and relatives who are obviously in deep shock and distress. We all know that editors and producers like nothing more than an interviewee in tears, which makes all of this disgustingly exploitative. The media seems to take some kind of perverse pleasure in making people like me turn off their so-called news broadcasts. Shame on them all.

      The media is a total disgrace.

      1. MB is convinced I write the scripts. When he – for reasons best known to himself – settles down to watch the hour’s gloomfest that is the 6’0 clock news + Look East (the same news with added rainbow posters), I tell him what will be featured.
        And I is krekt.

      2. I’m sure you will have noticed the special hushed and sombre voices and the doom laden intonation applied to the whole shebang.

        It’s like listening to the funeral procession of some significant personage.

        1. I’m so glad I don’t have a TV set. I can just imagine how they stir up fear and anger in equal measure. It’s bad enough reading the newspapers and listening to the news on the radio.

        2. Talking of funeral processions, one of our long-time hunt supporters has died (not covid as far as I know, he was getting on). Family have asked that people line the route of the cortège to the church (it is a rural area).

          1. Good for them. I hope he gets a really good send off.

            You could all beat riding whips against your boots and sound the horns.

  8. Morning all

    SIR – I never expected to find myself writing this, but David Blunkett’s article (Comment, April 28) is spot on. Social isolation isn’t good for anybody, but for an elderly person living on their own it may – literally – be a killer.

    The elderly are not a homogeneous bunch who need to be told what’s best for them. Offer advice, by all means, then let them take their own risks on the same basis as the rest of the population. If you drive them into decline by taking away social contact, then you have spared them Covid-19 in exchange for the privilege of dying of something else, or for the joy of ending life in residential care. That doesn’t look like a great deal.

    Jenny Furness

    Doncaster, South Yorkshire

    SIR – I am 71. Until a year ago I was a working professional making serious decisions.

    I am still quite capable of making decisions, specifically as to how and to what extent I can enjoy any relaxation of the lockdown rules, while ensuring my own safety and that of my 98-year-old -mother.

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    Our remaining life spans are limited. It would be outrageous to enforce a separate set of rules for the over-70s and effectively take away a chunk of what is left.

    Marcus Wide

    Bognor Regis, West Sussex

    SIR – I believe the lockdown has had positive effects, and that we should continue to protect those who are vulnerable.

    It therefore grieves me to see people who should know better (such as Lord Blunkett) questioning the validity of this necessary policy. New Zealand has provided a good example of how it should be done, enforcing strict rules and then relaxing them gradually.

    We must remain vigilant or all the good work done so far will unravel.

    Lawrence Gordon

    Sutton Coldfield

    SIR – Very few young people without underlying health problems have died from Covid-19. Most have suffered either mild symptoms or none at all. It therefore makes sense that this group should be released from captivity. Otherwise their education and economic prospects will be damaged and they will be saddled with a huge national debt.

    As an “oldie”, I do not wish them to be sacrificed for my protection. I have a good idea what to do to shield myself and am happy to take my chances.

    Diana Macfarlane

    Langebaan, Western Cape, South Africa

    SIR – It is not a good idea to have Sunday lunch on a Thursday (Letters, April 24).

    A long time ago I asked a favourite uncle the secret of a happy retirement. He said, without hesitation: make weekends different from weekdays, as they have been all your life. It has worked very well for us 20 years into retirement, and now in lockdown.

    Tim Lee

    Kenilworth, Warwickshire

    2. Morning Epi and all Nottlers.

      À propos Jenny’s and Marcus’ letters, the thing is that “they” are not so much protecting the over 70s as shoving us under the carpet. The whole lockdown was to “Save the NHS” from blasted patients overwhelming the hospitals not actually saving them.

      The over 70s have more common sense in their little fingernail than the idiots in charge at the moment. Anyone with health problems will be taking great care of themselves and, now there is spare capacity in the hospitals, we should be allowed to take our chances and revert to a normal life. I do not want to spend what’s left of it stuck at home and only allowed to go shopping and exercise for an hour a day. It’s my life and enough with “stay at home”.

      All Adverts on TV start with someone spouting on about this virus – talk about overkill.

      1. ‘Morning, Vouvray, good to see that you have overcome the vagaries of Disqus sign-ins.

        1. Thanks. Great to be back although finding replies to my posts are a bit different now. Just need to get used to accessing them.

      2. It would be great for my health (mental and physical) if I could go riding again. I have given up jumping and cross country so I’m minimising my risk.

        1. You are not alone Conway in the mental and physical health department. I certainly am feeling a bit down today. Hopefully there will be a loosening of restrictions very soon.

    3. Why do I get the feeling, that all those supporters of a ‘Stong Lockdown’ would be totally aginst us forceably returning all Dover Boat People to France

        1. With the wy, thit me ‘puter ignores mi imput and prinnts tpyo’z, im nit surprized

          I bout the computer off Officer Crabtree

          1. ‘Morning, OLT, it’s a well-known fact that computers do what you tell them to do, not what you want them to do.

          2. There seems often to be something wrong with the operator of my keyboard when posts to the Nottlers’ site are made.

          4. How dare you, blackbox2!?!?! PEBKAC to you too!

            (Sorry, but I don’t do obscure acronyms.)

          5. Computer and tech humour is a huge area. We need something to laugh about.
            Dilbert, xkcd, Code Project news etc.

            PEBCAC (sorry I spelled it wrongly above) = Problem Exists Between Computer And Chair.

            I am currently engaged in a battle to try and get some code working on a different platform. I’m currently at three bugs reported to Microsoft in their tools, which they refuse to fix, plus another one that we just identified yesterday. I have no faith that they will fix that either. The company I am working for has already invested heavily in this system, so we are just having to fight our way through the thicket as best we can.
            Every time I search for how to do something, there is either no documentation or there is a blog page by some bright-eyed Californian.
            The one I have just read (which was really badly explained!) finishes with the words “This is awesome!….I’m LOVING .NET Core!”
            I’d rather shoot him than myself, but both are valid options at this stage.

  9. SIR – I find it incredibly worrying that Britain’s cash system could collapse within months (report, April 25). How dangerously disruptive this would be for the poor and homeless.

    The people on the fringes of society are so reliant on physical money that a life without it would be almost impossible. More than one million Britons do not have a bank account, so must use cash for everyday essentials such as rent, energy and utility bills.

    Banks can reject applying customers if their credit rating is poor or they do not have enough forms of ID, while many who live on the streets have either lost their documents or had them stolen. Replacing ID not only takes months but also costs money, which they probably do not have.

    A cashless society is discriminatory by design. Everybody in our nation should be able to buy, to sell and to store their wealth.

    Emilie Lamplough

    Trowbridge, Wiltshire

    1. This is not a good argument in favour of keeping cash. TPTB will simply offer even more convenient cards and free accounts, merely to give people no excuse to carry on using cash.

    2. So you are saying, Emilie, (copyright Cathy Newman) that when cash was introduced to enable farmers to exchange a ton of hay for 250 eggs, the purpose was discriminatory?

  10. Morning again

    SIR – Quite reasonably, the NHS blood transfusion service is not currently calling up its donors who are over 70 years old. This means that, in my case, they are an armful short of O negative blood and I have just missed making my 90th donation.

    I want to encourage as many youngsters, between 18 and 68 years of age, as possible to look out for donation sessions local to them and to take my place.

    Penelope Stranack

    Exmouth, Devon

    1. Yo Epi

      Penelope,

      since Mr ‘Ancock is guilty of every sin committed by the NHS, why not have your arm amputated and whilst still full of blood send it to him

      He will then be regaled as the saviour of the NHS (Not)

    3. I gave blood last night, as it happens. It was quite funny.
      When having the anaemia test, Inflinched as the needle pricked my finger. The nurse apologised and asked if I was OK but it was just that I wasn’t looking and was expecting to feel the prick in my index finger but she used my middle finger. She thought this dreadfully funny and started giggling, which made me giggle with her.
      Ten min later, I was on the couch waiting to start the donation and could see she was still giggling when she told another nurse about it. (Must have been a long day)

    4. That is some total! I only managed 25 donations before I had to cease. On the last session they had three attempts at getting the needle in, causing a fair bit of bruising. The doctor said, “Your veins are collapsing, it is nature’s way of telling you to stop.”

  11. SIR – Since the lockdown I have seen many more older people using their bicycles on our relatively quiet roads, and not for years have I seen so many hand signals.

    This is such a refreshing contrast to the usual Lycra-clad cyclists wearing shades, who seldom signal and whose direction of travel I have to guess.

    Tony Manning

    Barton on Sea, Hampshire

    1. The problem is they all need to be given a very wide berth since they wobble about a lot due to unaccustomed muscle use.

    4. The other day a trio of cyclists passed me when I was out for a walk. The first two (young teenagers) assiduously gave a hand signal before turning left. Their mother, following behind, didn’t bother and just turned left!

  12. Morning again

    SIR – The fact that airlines are selling tickets for flights that have little or no chance of taking off is not “fundamental misrepresentation” (report, April 26), but fraud.

    They are offering credit coupons to be used in the future. Obtaining a refund is just about impossible, and, if available, can take 12 weeks or more to achieve. This disgraceful behaviour could be stopped immediately if the major credit-card companies declined to take payments for flights with these airlines.

    David Crawshaw

    Langport, Somerset

  13. SIR – In our household, home-schooling has taken on a whole new meaning. Our 28-year-old son, currently living at home, has become acutely aware of his parents’ ignorance, and is devising a curriculum to rectify the matter.

    Last Sunday, he announced that his biggest concern was class control.

    Mark Wade

    Woodley, Berkshire

    1. No problem with home class control, just throw the board rubber or give a rap over the knuckles. It’s in schools that you aren’t allowed to enforce control measures.

  14. Personally I despair of the Plod whose corpulent strutting arrogance has been an embarrassment.

    SIR – In order to help enforce the country’s current lockdown, our police service is, in the main, doing an excellent job in fulfilling an unprecedented and critical public-health function.

    However, there has been is a tendency among a small minority of officers to act in an uncompromising and heavy-handed manner, thereby introducing an element of unnecessary conflict between police and the public.

    It was Sir Richard Mayne, the joint first commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who, in 1839, with regard to the behaviour of officers, wrote: “By the use of tact and good humour the public can normally be induced to comply with directions and thus the necessity for using force, with its possible public disapproval, is avoided. He who in this way secures the object he has in view is a far more useful officer than his colleague who, relying too much upon the esteem of his authority, sees that authority challenged and possibly, for the time being, overborne.”

    This doctrine is clearly still relevant, and should be followed by all officers on the street who are responsible for enforcing the current restrictions.

    Robert Glen

    Lee-on-the-Solent, Hampshire

    1. There is a small tpyo in the above letter

      Greta the Bleata says:

      It should be Lee-on-the-Solvent, Hampshire.

    2. There is a small tpyo in the above letter

      Greta the Bleata says:

      It should be Lee-on-the-Solvent, Hampshire.

        1. Please don’t bring your CV to job interviews when the lock down is over!

      2. It’s still 1950 in Lee.

        They do have a nice chippy. A good and generous carvery. A butchers and a sausage shop. A veg shop and a small Co-op. A bakery where they still bake bread. We lost the fishmonger but the upside is that it turned into a wine bar. And of course we have the beach… 🙂

        1. Yo Fizz

          Do not forget ‘The Inn by the Oggin’

          The FAA War memorial

          And of course Gosport Road, where I used to live.

          I think the Blue Plaque is still ont

          1. I sometimes sit in the War Memorial garden.

            The Inn by the Oggin is where they have a very good carvery. They also do an all you can eat breakfast.

            You have a Blue Plaque?

  15. A man flops down on a subway seat next to a priest.

    The man’s tie is stained, his face is smeared with red lipstick, and a half empty bottle of gin is sticking out of his torn coat pocket. He opens a newspaper and begins reading.

    After a few minutes the guy turns to the priest and asks, “Say, Father, what causes arthritis?”

    “Loose living; cheap, wicked woman; too much alcohol; and contempt for your fellow man,” answers the priest.

    “I’ll be damned,” the drunk mutters, returning to his paper.

    The priest, thinking about what he said, nudges the man and apologises. “I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to be so harsh. How long have you had arthritis?”

    “Oh, I don’t have it, Father. It says here that the Pope does.”

    1. Drop the c*nt into Mogadishu by parachute from a C130!

      She will do much better there.

      1. Ash Sarkar is a British journalist and political activist
        currently serving as Senior Editor at Novara Media and teaches at the
        Sandberg Institute. In 2017, she taught Global Politics at Anglia Ruskin
        University         as an associate lecturer.
        Sarkar is a contributor to The Guardian and The Independent.
        Pretty much says it all!

          1. = total dump.

            A young woman whom we know used to lecture there and was grossly overworked and never paid. It is astonishing that the place still exists.

          3. It has its origins in the Cambridge School of Art, founded by William John Beamont in 1858. It became a university in 1992 and was renamed after John Ruskin in 2005

            Just saying!

          4. Yes, I had forgotten its early origins. It has no identity; it cannot flourish as it is because of another institution down the road. Our sons used to refer to it in their teens as the ‘Anglia Retard University’ about the time it named itself the Anglia Polytechnic University. This is an institution that should return to its roots.

    3. What a nasty little child. She deserves a good spanking and sent to bed without her supper.

    4. But … but … we are always being lectured about the superior family values of our ethnics.

      1. Will they be running courses at colleges of Further Education on How to join a Rape Gang and Improve the Quality of Your Life?

  17. In an obituary in today’s Daily Telegraph by its Chief Sports Writer — Paul Hayward — on the former footballer, Michael Robinson, the following abridged sentence appears:

    ”He lent to the left, but ‘detested’ Tony Blair for the Iraq war…”

    The important information this clause doesn’t go on to explain is: what did the Left borrow from him?

    However, if he’d simply leant to the left it might mean that his right leg was longer than his left leg!

    Whatever the answer the sub-editors at the DT have, once again, made clowns of themselves by their clueless and inattentive ineptitude.

    1. Good morning, Grizzly

      And they don’t publish the letters and articles you and I send them which are far better expressed, relevant, entertaining and informative than most of the drivel they do publish.

    2. Reminds me of the Bob Hope film “Son of Paleface” – “He draws from the left, so lean to the right. There’s a wind from the East, so aim to the West. He crouches when he shoots, so stand on your toes”.

      1. Talking of obits, a recent one included the classic “…he and his wife’s…”

    4. No subbies left. The obituary writers do their best, and generally correct the online version if you leave a polite comment BTL.

  18. Good morning, my friends

    I haven’t scrolled down to see if this Allison Pearson article has already been posted but, in case it hasn’t yer’tis:

    Emotionally drained and scared to death, we are yearning for the things that make life worth living
    ALLISON PEARSON
    Follow Allison Pearson28 APRIL 2020 • 7:00PM
    Save
    615
    Up and down the country, people are longing to know when they can see their grandchildren again
    Up and down the country, people are longing to know when they can see their grandchildren again CREDIT: LIAM NORRIS/ TAXI

    How much more of this can we bear? Day and night, the TV news brings us stories of Covid-19 victims in an endless funeral cortege of heartbreak and loss. The low point came last week when the BBC interviewed Zoe Davis about her twin sisters, Katy and Emma, 37, who had died within three days of each other. It was a devastating story and the poor woman was beside herself. Her grief still raw, she was shaking as she cried: “They were angels on earth and now they’re angels in heaven.”

    The reporter was careful to tell us that Zoe wanted to pay tribute to her sisters. As if that was an excuse for exploiting her tragedy. Clearly, she was not in any fit state to be paraded on national television. I’m sure I wasn’t the only viewer who found it far too distressing to watch. Even worse, it added nothing to our understanding of the pandemic. Instead, once again, the Ten O’ Clock News left viewers feeling emotionally drained and scared half to death. Hardly helpful as we try to navigate our way out of this historic crisis.

    The fact that both Katy and Emma Davis had other health conditions and had been unwell for some time was swiftly passed over, lest it interfere with the message that we were up against something uniquely terrifying which presents a clear danger to every one of us.

    On Monday night, towards the end of its late bulletin, the BBC quietly conceded that it was mainly older people who were Covid’s victims (90 per cent of the fatalities are over 60), before running a touching report on one virus victim, Ken Sumner. A Dambuster veteran, Mr Sumner was obviously a wonderful man, but he was great-grandfather to 15, and 96 years old. You would be hard-pushed to claim that he was taken before his time or that his passing was especially newsworthy.

    As a matter of fact, on the day Ken Sumner died, around 450 of his fellow Britons will have succumbed to cancer. Many of those, including young parents and teenagers, really will have gone too soon. Yet, in her coronavirus report, Lucy Manning solemnly intoned: “Deaths come hundreds a day, thousands upon thousands a week. When just one is too much for a family to bear, how does a country cope with, comprehend, these numbers?”

    Can I suggest that one way for Manning to help the country “comprehend these numbers” would be to provide some context. She could, for example, point out that, mercifully, Covid fatalities, although sad and grim, come nowhere near the toll for other common diseases. Cancer kills 165,000 people in the UK every year while nearly 170,000 people die of heart disease, with 42,000 of those classified as premature deaths. (Tragically, those fatalities are about to go through the roof because fear of coronavirus has deterred thousands from going to hospital. It may well be that “excess” deaths will eventually exceed those attributed to the virus.)

    One reassuring statistic that TV news might usefully share with viewers is that just 140 people under the age of 40 have died in this pandemic. You would get absolutely no sense of that from the alarmist presentation of the daily casualties.

    Covid-19 did not invent death. Sadly, death is all around us always. It is, as Saul Bellow said, the dark backing to the mirror. The loss of a grandparent is a source of intense sorrow to their family; 30 years after losing him, at the age of three score years and ten, I think of my wonderful grandfather almost every day. (His steel shirt armband is within touching distance on my desk.) Yet it cannot be a minute-by-minute matter for the national news or they will make us all mad with mourning.

    The voracious, 24-hour news beast needs feeding, and that has contributed to a dumbed-down, hyper-emotional coverage. I was watching Sky News the other day and they had a picture gallery of Covid victims, giving a poignant potted biography of each one. I thought: why don’t they run a gallery of faces of the children whose futures are about to be destroyed by the upcoming economic carnage if we don’t get back to work?

    Just imagine it: “With his schooling badly disrupted by the Covid pandemic of 2020, Louis Green failed to go on to higher education after the university sector contracted sharply. Like millions of his contemporaries, in the Second Great Depression that followed, Louis was unemployed throughout his twenties, becoming clinically depressed and eventually taking his own life at the age of 32.”

    That, I am afraid, is where all this relentlessly negative coverage is going to get us. Instead of reporters pouncing gleefully on the remote possibility that schools may not be “safe”, how about presenting the clear evidence that not reopening them in the next few weeks will be a generation-blighting disaster?

    Is it any wonder that viewers are appalled by the corona coverage? Look at the astonishing recent YouGov poll in which just one per cent of people said they “trust TV journalists a lot”. That hostile opinion was held by people of both sexes, all ages and all social classes.

    Of course, we are living through an appallingly difficult time and the TV news has to reflect that. It could also put as much energy into broadcasting comparative data from other countries in a calm, measured way as it does into shrieking, “Look! More Dead People!” Instead of tear-stained obituaries for nonagenarians, for instance, how about reporting the fact that many doctors and nurses are now saying their hospitals are almost empty? Covid admissions have slowed to a trickle. The Beast may not be beaten, but it is badly wounded.

    At the daily Number 10 press briefing, too often TV political correspondents behave as though this were a general-election campaign, not a national emergency. One tenuous scandal after another is hurled at a Conservative government they clearly resent and would like to bring down. Aware that reporters are fishing for a Gotcha! scoop, ministers become defensive. They parrot robotic replies and infantile mantras, instead of admitting to human error and taking the public into their confidence about the hard trade-offs that will be needed to spring us from lockdown.

    People are not stupid. They are fully aware that the Government has made bad mistakes. (Don’t get me started on letting planes from China and Italy fly into our airports while British people are doing as they are told and staying indoors.) They also understand this is an unprecedented situation and they have some sympathy for those shellshocked men and women who are striving round the clock to bring this horror show to an end.

    At Monday’s press briefing, one question was allowed from a member of the public. Lynn from Skipton could not give a damn about whether Dominic Cummings did or did not attend Sage meetings. What Lynn wanted to know was how long would it be before she could hug her grandchildren again?

    Up and down the country, that is what concerns us. While the TV news piles death upon death, the people yearn for the restoration of the things that make life worth living.

    Read Allison Pearson at telegraph.co.uk every Tuesday, from 7pm

    During what can only be described as an extraordinary time for the world, the Telegraph wants to give readers the opportunity to come together as a community. Join our Facebook Group.

    1. The writer is right about one thing. The MSM are not reporting news. Instead of all the utter baloney of video clips of everyone at home, each as meaningless, as incoherent and as pointless as the last, what about telling us about something else that is happening, anything else, that is happening?

    2. A welcome breath of common sense from Allison Pearson.

      The media are not covering themselves in glory.
      They are stoking hysteria all the way – editing video footage and twisting words so that they can accuse Trump of ever more ridiculous things; whipping up hatred against individuals identified by them as “hoarders”; dwelling endlessly on ghoulish stories of death.
      The BBC, Daily Mail etc are all as bad as each other.
      The case for the licence fee to be abolished gets stronger every day.

    3. I am thankful that I don’t watch much TV and what I do is “light entertainment”. Even Midsomer Murders is more cheerful than the Bbc news!

  19. Hmmm the figures for covid deaths are set to rise today because they are going to count old people in care homes, one thing that puzzles me, these people should have been safe as they are indoors and why weren’t they in hospital if the had corona.

    1. Because they were sweeping them out of hospitals into the care homes so they could infect others while we watch from our homes with our noses pressed against the windows, waiting for the next exercise period, shaking our heads at people howling at the moon for the NHS on Thursdays at 8.

      1. They were shaking them out of hospital , they were being selective .. and insisting that older ones had signed DNR forms .

        Once one reaches a certain age they don’t mind that we don’t matter .. Bit like employers when their women staff reached 50 years of age , that sort of thing .. that was such a last century thing!

        1. ‘Morning, Mags, by that token, I have to assume that when these snowflakes reach 70 they will voluntarily kill themselves.

    2. Here is a plan

      Move all the Old Folk from the Care Homes, into the Nightingale Hossypitals

      Move the Covids into the Care homes. that should take care of the accounting

      To steal from Ian Fleming

      You only Die Once regardless of what the NHS claim

      1. But your death can be counted several times if it suits Her Majesty’s Government…

    4. Yo Bob3

      they are going to count old people in care homes

      They could at least wait for them to die

      1. After Psychiatric reports (in which it’s pointed out who is mother is) he’ll possibly be sent to a tropical paradise to recuperate for a couple of years….

      2. In fairness, having a degree from Cambridge doesn’t stop a woman producing a crystal meth smoking schizophrenic.
        In this case, she does have my sympathy. It may also explain her rather odd behaviour over the last few years; rather a lot on her mind.

        2. How many Cambridge graduates, I wonder, have crystal meth smoking children?
          Not many, I’d guess.
          Normally I sympathise with parents of problem kids, but Diane Abbott has so often been shown to be way out of her depth and over-estimated her own abilities, and in my opinion she has played the R card all the way, would never have got anywhere on her own merits.

          1. I agree she was never up to the job, and is an example of tokenism.
            However, that doesn’t stop me feeling sorry for woman with such a disturbed son.

          2. If she was less arrogant she would have stepped down years ago. I feel sorry for her having a son who is a waste of space right now, and even sorrier for taxpayers picking up the bill.

          3. She was parachuted into one of the safest Labour seats in the country so that the Party could claim the kudos of having the first black woman MP.
            I suspect her longevity in that seat is due to her receiving a huge amount of admin support and a lot of pressure not to stand down.

          4. It is my belief that Labour would struggle to get 100 seats if not for postal voting.

          5. But why is he disturbed? Did she not send him to the very best school because nobody could understand him in the state system and Windies mums are the greatest for their kids?

        3. I agree – it must be sheer misery for her to have a son like this. I must be one of the very few people who defended her for her decision to send her son to a private school as, as far as I am concerned, my own children are more important to me than political ideology. This son clearly did well enough to succeed academically and got to go to Cambridge University but I should imagine he has probably always been pretty screwed up.

          Many psychologists and psychiatrists give the impression that it is the fault of the parents if children go off the rails. Most of us with any experience know that a great deal of psychobabble is as much bullshit as astrology.

          I quoted my favourite Shakespearean villain, Edmund in King Lear, earlier today. Here he is again on the subject of astrology:

          This is the excellent foppery of the world that when we are sick in fortune—often the surfeit of our own behaviour—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars, as if we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence, and all that we are evil in by a divine thrusting-on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the dragon’s tail and my nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. Fut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardising.

    1. A built in statistic gererator for the Vietnam War

      Agent Orange is aherbicide and defoliant chemical, one of the “tactical use” Rainbow
      Herbicides. It is widely known for its use by the U.S. military as partof its chemical warfare program,
      Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971.

      1. The Vietnam War is yet another example of why the West should keep out of other country’s internal conflicts. Let them get on with it.

        And under no circumstances accept the inevitable refugees, let the local countries deal with them, so that when the dust settles they are close enough to return to their own countries in due course.

        1. The upside is that it’s given a major boost to Vietnamese tourism businesses.

          Every tunnel has a silver lining.

      3. Rainbow Herbicide? Is that what Brighton council use to keep the weeds down in the parks?

    2. Or alternatively, more Americans have died after being infected with covid than were killed in the Vietnam War

    4. Is this the really the number of Americans killed by the C-19 Wuhan Virus, or the inflated number caused by the extra Federal funding allocated to the C-19 deaths?

    5. Rather a meaningless statistic I would have thought – this reeks of TDS and an attempt to accuse Trump of killing more people than the Vietnam war did.
      It would have been more meaningful to compare the numbers that have died of flu, surely.

          4. Yo anne

            Mentioning the ‘S’ word nearly got you a down Vote.

            Besides that, your post should have said

            the sprouts …. on Hob 17, burner 4 for Xmas 2092

      2. Totally meaningless.

        I’m sure you’re right that it will be used as an attack on Trump.

    1. How offensive – it wasn’t the occupying Allies that taught the Germans the value of liberty.
      It was their experience under the Nazis.
      All the Allies taught them was the winners’ version of the war and to hate themselves!

      1. Fortunately the BBC recently announced that 600 “asylum seekers” had landed at Dover and been released into the community.

        1. Usually they announce that the asylum seekers have been arreseted, as if it’s a crime to break into this country illegally.

    4. The British public have had a small taste of what will come if the zero-carbon target goes ahead, and I suspect they won’t stand for it.

        1. Give it another month and the increase in lock-down flouting will become a torrent.

    6. I reckon you could superglue someone on each point of the turbine blades and still maintain social distancing.

    7. That sheep had better watch out that one of the blades doesn’t shear off and kill it.

        1. Are the windmills going to be ‘weaponised’ by the groups who want to rustle and kill sheep on site for their pork-free meals.

          1. Three Romanian nationals were recently convicted after a series of in-the-field slaughters.
            At least, their names are of romanian origin.
            I am not a fan of the RoP, but the adherents can not all be wrong’uns.
            If you enjoy prejudice, I know two villages that have a simmering rivalry. Why?
            Because one was for King and the other was for Parliament.

    10. We can’t afford the climate changes this government has put in place. HS2 must also be stopped. The Chancellor has built up massive debt . The National debt must be on its way to £3 trillion now.

      1. It was just after the Thatcher reign.

        When Gordon Brown left office it was closer to 12trillion.

        The coalition’s continuation of his tax and waste policies drove that up to 15-16 trillion. We are lied to about the debt. Most of it is off book and future liabilities.

    11. The one bonus of the last few weeks has been not having David Shuckman pushing bloody climate change every night on the news – he’s been too busy pushing NHS propaganda.

    12. I really don’t see how they’re related – except in the twisted mind of the BBC.

      How can recovering the economy do anything about climate change? Is the BBC suggesting that about 4bn people die?

  24. On Friday last one of my wife’s brothers-in-law loaned me a DVD with some photographs he had put together of our late FiL’s army career. With VE Day approaching these photographs taken only a few years before war was declared give an idea of how one regiment, stationed in India, was operating. The ‘tank’, is I believe, a Vickers MKII Light Tank and not well thought of by my FiL.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/008c6643059fc31d4886e5b63e75a4658b58448aa37fbbb767ea7fdc49940568.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/87e458d1db1ef5ac2c22fbccef0081b10a639a810434ef1c83f07b8fa0dd5fe0.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/69c047e6ede702bf0ae705c660f93783622037777e6e6cd4e690b3eb4d8d9e3e.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e59226b6fdc67164e5722332ad3fbd07aed424dd5e27ed0fa40c9533b86795f1.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/567de5f2409c8796c683b3d6e04a7bbc6e06fea4229241e45dd3d7560ab5719a.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eac4b4718ffdecfad835f22901c019937930172c40bddb35bd2402a56abbf6e4.png

    1. VE will soon stand for Victory over the English day, celebrated by all the immigrants here, every time benefits are paid into their accounts.

    2. 17/21st, eh? Was an Army cadet with them back in the day. Still have the side cap & stable belt (somewhere…).
      That’s a blast from the past.

      1. Somewhere I have a brass ‘Death or Glory’ badge of his: not sure if it was the cap badge or the one NCOs wore on their chevrons.

  25. Good morning – drizzly and grey. The promised prolonged (and useful) rain never really materialised, dagnabbit.

      1. Don’t be so parsimonious, jsc. Fill the glass to the brim, drink it down, and then have a top-up or two.

    2. Yesterday the roofers turned up here to repair an area at the back of the cottage. They took off the loose and cracked tiles before the rains came then they retreated to their big white van to drink tea and watch the heavens fall into my attic through the gaping hole. Once the rain stopped, they blocked up the hole using the old tiles and departed. Lovely weather today so they might return.

        1. Buckets galore but a big stain on the ceiling of the spare bedroom. I was going to have it repainted anyway so it doesn’t really matter.

          1. Don’t let them know about your previous intentions and deduct the cost of paint and labour from their eventual bill, Citroen1.

      2. ‘Morning, Citroen, sounds like an advert for that well-known pikey firm of Bodgeit and Leggitt.

        1. BOTCHIT and Leggitt, surely?
          Though they are close homonyms, there is a world of difference between a “Bodge” and a “Botch”.

          1. ‘Afternoon, BoB, you employ whomsoever you like, I’ll avoid both since I see not a lot of difference. A Bodge is a deliberate botch, which in turn is a FUBAR.

          2. Coming from the skilled craft of “Bodging”, producing turned wooden artifacts, traditionally chair legs and tool handles, from coppiced green wood such as chestnut and hazel, using largely improvised tools such as a “pole lathe”, a “BODGE” is a makeshift and temporary repair using whatever materials and tools are to hand that will do the job required for as long as necessary.
            Similar in essence to a sailor’s “Homeward Bounder”, a repair carried out on the homeward leg of a voyage that only needs to last until the ship docks.

      3. Morning Michael et al. My eldest daughter & her husband had better luck with their roof which needed repair.. With the scaffolding and materials in place six roofers turned up at 8:00 am on Monday morning and stripped the old roof off the front of their bungalow and replaced all the battens and felt and then installed new roof tiles completing the job in the one day!

  28. A moment of culchur.

    Last night we watched the You-Tube of “Twelfth Night” from the National Theatre. It is not a play I know – having read it only once, in 1957.

    Leaving aside the quirks – a black girl played Viola (very well) and – amazingly, because I was expecting the opposite – a black bloke played her twin, Sebastian.

    Malvolio was transmuted into Malvolia – and played extremely well by Tamsin Greig (Debbie Aldridge off of them Archers). She held the audience in the palm of her hand

    Feste (the fool) was also played by a woman, Doon Mackichan, who was also very good, as you would expect (well, hope, anyway) a professional comedian to be.

    I managed to stay awake, which was a miracle in itself, and quite enjoyed it. I was also glad not to have had to spend £100 getting there and back plus another £60+ for tickets.

    It is on for two or three days more.

    1. Years ago, I saw ‘Twelfth Night’ at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre.
      The cast were dressed in Tudor outfits, but their feet were bare. This was because every time they had a moment of self-realisation (sorry) they plunged into a pool placed between stage and audience.
      I spent the entire performance, worrying about the logistics of drying padded Tudor style costumes in time for the next performance.
      The director, I was ashamed to note, was English.

      2. We did a very good production of Twelfth Night at Allhallows. The Head of School was brilliant as Malvolio as he captured the bombastic pomposity and ridiculousness of the role to perfection and when, still in cross-gartered yellow stockings and with an obsequious smile on his face, delight was unconfined when he was put in a cage at the back of the stage for his insanity.

        Indeed, there are certain politicians who would be typecast for the role.

    2. Sorry, but having studied the play at school, I don’t want to see the travesty you describe.

      1. I understand.

        However, the MR, who taught English for 40 years, and knows most of Shakespeare’s plays off by heart, and who hates blind casting and cross gendering etc etc and is a stickler for form – was delighted with the play. She says it certainly wasn’t a travesty.

        To my very ignorant brain, it was worth it to see Tamsin Grieg dealing with “the letter”.

        1. I’ll take your word for it, but I suspect it was something perhaps that an English literature specialist could appreciate more than a layman like myself.
          I can appreciate obscure paintings and sculpture because I’ve studied art, but I’d rather see standard Shakespeare.
          I’ll happily see a play or film with black characters in, but casting black actors in white roles is just offensive, sorry, as is making male roles female. I very much doubt that these substitutions occur the other way round.
          They are just trying to airbrush out differences between races and genders – the coronavirus should have taught them that that is a stupid, blind thing to do.

          1. I’ll accept blind casting when a white chap – not blacked up – plays Porgy.

            Until then it is pointless pandering to the bames.

        2. I thought Shakespeare was all about cross-gendering. Weren’t female parts usually played by boys in his day?

    3. Thanks for the endorsement Mr T. I am surprised that the National, in the spirit of embracing diversity didn’t have twins of different colours.
      Me I watched Anna Bolena from the NY Met. Donizetti’s take on Tudor History – Powerful stuff.

      2. That shocked me, too. Ackshally rather spoiled the show…{:¬))

        I can take Donizetti or leave him.

    4. Kenneth Brannagh did a production of Much Ado in which, predictably, the good brother Don Pedro Prince of Aragon was played by a black actor while his machievelian evil brother, the bastard Don John, was played by a white actor.

      Shakespeare was a bit ambivalent about bastards; while Edmund, one of the villains in King Lear was a scheming rogue he had some of the most convincing lines in the play:

      Why bastard? Wherefore base?
      When my dimensions are as well compact,
      My mind as generous, and my shape as true
      As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us
      With base? With baseness, bastardy? Base, base?
      Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
      More composition and fierce quality
      Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
      Go to th’ creating a whole tribe of fops
      Got ‘tween asleep and wake? Well then,
      Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.
      Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund
      As to th’ legitimate. Fine word-,’legitimate’!
      Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed
      And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
      Shall top the legitimate. I grow, I prosper:
      Now gods, stand up for bastards!

    1. Nope. Though, after the MR sent the letter before action – no reply, natch –
      their PR outfit sent ME a letter thanking me for my request, giving me a
      complaint number and telling me that I should hear within two weeks.

      I expect that they ill then tell me that BA is bust and I can sing for my money.

      1. It looks as though you’re one of many. If last night’s announcement of mass redundancies is anything to go by, then they will be bust.

        1. “British Airways” is a misnomer. The name is just a brand. The brand is owned by IAG accompany registered in Spain. Part Spanish, part Quatari, part UK owned, as well as others. My research did not yield any accurate information on ownership. Suffice to say that it is not British.
          things would improve all round if all passenger airlines closed down, in my opinion.

          1. Not sure about your last sentence – are you saying nobody should fly anywhere on holday or business ever again? I hadn’t got you down as a greeniac.

          2. I am in favour of looking after the planet and everything on it. I’m not in favour of everybody flying everywhere every year. For coal and oil – yes. Nuclear power -yes. Do I imagine that wind power can power an economy?-no. Do I think that electric cars are good? -probably. Do I think that the present plan for battery cars is insane? -yes.
            I could go on at some length. The “family manifesto” we sent to the Scottish Government prior to the last election was completely ignored by them, by other parties and by the newspapers.

          3. Many countries rely on tourism for a large part of their income, Britain included.
            Wildlife tourism has enabled the Mountain Gorillas to thrive, and tourism money pays for rangers and guides to protect other wildlife to thrive instead of being poached for bushmeat.

            I am in favour of looking after the planet – there is a lot we can do to encourage cleaner seas, less plastic and pollution for instance.

          6. No, I know. It is a joke , sort of. Shooting poachers dead used to be quite usual in East Africa. It should be continued, so why not make some money on the side. “Habari za asubuhi, Herr Burger, we have some nice poachers all waiting for you in some scrub 10 miles away. Jambo. Then we have lunch.”

          7. Unfortunately the countries which are the worst culprits are not those who respond to encouragement. It’s hard cash or nothing, with them.

          9. Things would improve all round if people stopped breeding, in my opinion.

            At pushing 8 milliard people (those who call them ‘billions’ cannot count) the earth has around 7 milliard people too many.

          10. From the Spekkie:

            https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-no-bad-thing-that-the-airline-industry-will-never-be-the-same-again

            It’s no bad thing that the airline industry will never be the same again | The Spectator

            Matthew Lynn

            British Airways is laying off 12,000 staff. Virgin Atlantic is desperately looking for a buyer. Air France-KLM is being bailed out by the French and Dutch governments, Lufthansa is getting rid of planes, and Airbus is furloughing workers. The once mighty airline industry is in terminal trouble, with massive state support now required to keep it alive. Rishi Sunak hasn’t stepped in with his chequebook yet, but, heck, it is only Wednesday and it is probably somewhere on his ‘to-do’ list for the week.

            But hold on. Sure, we want to rescue most industries and bring them back to life as soon as practically possible. That is certainly true of gyms, restaurant chains, car manufacturers and most of the shops (although if we are being completely honest here, maybe not Sports Direct). But the airlines? In truth, the industry has become completely dysfunctional, and this is a good moment to re-invent it.

            As anyone who has experienced the check-in ‘experience’ at Gatwick at 4.30 on a Saturday morning in August will know, modern air travel has turned into a dystopian nightmare. Airports are over-crowded, with ‘customers’ herded through ‘retail opportunities’, squeezed onto over-stuffed orange or blue metal tubes on schedules that are jammed to capacity. OK, we didn’t expect the 1960s golden age of air travel when trolley dollies batted their carefully manicured eyelashes at businessmen while serving them chilled martinis to survive once it became a mass market. But it didn’t need to become quite so hellish.

            After all, most industries don’t evolve like that. The major car manufacturers manage to make comfortable, reliable vehicles at an affordable price. The supermarkets and casual dining chains have made a vast range of quality food available at low-ish cost. The out of town multiplexes have better seats, screens and sound than the old fleapit in the town centre ever did without costing a fortune. And so on. In most sectors of the economy, the product gets better and better over the years, and prices remain competitive. That is the middle, mass-market, which most companies and entrepreneurs go after – because it is where the real money is made.

            But led by the low-cost carriers that started out battling hostile regulators and suffering from badly designed green taxes which punish ticket holders and force companies to scrimp on every other possible cost, the airlines have developed a weird model that made price the only consideration. Nothing else mattered except shaving another pound off that ticket to Lisbon and taking another thirty grams off the luggage allowance. The result? The carriers are barely profitable. And the service for passengers gets worse and worse. It is a nightmare for everyone

            Right now, we have a chance to fix that. With most of the airlines grounded anyway, and with little clarity on when they might be able to start flying again, here is a simple solution: let most of the existing airlines go bust. The planes and the landing slots can be parked for a while and once it is safe to take to the skies, we should allow a new generation of entrepreneurs to emerge who have worked out how to combine low-ish prices with decent quality. True, that might mean a little less air travel. But it would also be a lot more fun – and a few of us might even start to look forward to getting on a plane again.

          11. One of the reasons air travel is so hellish these days is because of security and we all know who’s to blame for that.

          12. Or maybe just higher prices to go with better service and comfortable seats?
            I read somewhere, but have been unable to find it again, that the cost of a flight to Hawaii on the early flying boat “clippers” cost nearly as much as the plane.

          13. Agreed, Horace. Hoi-polloi should not be flying at all – nor have their own cars….

          14. One thing has been overlooked and that is these planes which are on the ground have been static for a long time and as far as I know haven’t had their engines or systems run for a month. I would be reluctant to fly in one which has just been started from being idle for a month and expect it to fly without any problems unless they give each one an airtest before allowing the public on board

    1. I went to a meeting of the premature ejaculation support group, it was to start at 7pm but everyone got there at 6.30

      1. A loving couple of musicians got married and decided that most of the terms for the act of love were either coarse and vulgar or too clinical so they used the euphemism of ‘having a concert’ when talking about such matters. They did this because the initial gentle andante movements, followed by a progressively more vigorous and frantic fortissimo exploding into to a marvellous climax seemed to make the metaphor entirely appropriate.

        When questioned about their honeymoon by a close friend the couple explained that as soon as they got to the hotel after the wedding reception they had three concerts. The following morning they had two more concerts before showering and having breakfast in bed. The eggs and bacon had a marvellous effect on their libidos so they had three more concerts before lunch. But as they drank rather too much celebratory champagne with lunch in the hotel dining room they had a rehearsal when they returned to their room. The friend enquired: “What’s a rehearsal?’ to which they replied: “It’s just the same as a concert but nobody comes.”

    1. The sun has now gone in and the clouds are building for a midday burst of garden watering.

      1. Other than the trees being the wrong colour, it’s Fast forward to Autumn here!

  32. Even the Guardian can produce sensible articles.

    Three points about executive pay in the current climate should be obvious. First, bonuses should be a non-starter if a company has taken support from the government, for example, by getting the state to pick up a chunk of the wage bill.

    Second, bonuses for 2019 should be returned if a company has subsequently cancelled its dividend. Third, it would be outrageous if pay committees make unspoken promises to executives to grant bigger potential long-term jackpots in exchange for some bonus pain now.

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2020/apr/27/stock-market-plunge-is-the-time-to-ditch-long-term-rewards-for-ceos

    I’m expecting to see a significant number of CEOs and senior executive teams jumping ship and joining similar companies in a CEO merry-go-round.

    2. MPs giving themelves a £10,000 bonus when many of us are suffering an 80% fall in income makes me feel homicidal towards them. Are these sleazy wallowers in excrement indifferent and insensitive to and unaware of what people think of them? Has a single MP stood up and said that he or she did not think it right to reward themselves while others were going bust?

      1. They are another mealy mouthed group that has a you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours so-called independent remuneration committee.

  33. I don’t hold with this clapping malarkey. Loada bollux. And how do they stop it? Who is to be the spoil-sport who says, “Enough”? I bet he’ll get hate mail.

    If I did clap – it would be the postman – who always smiles and mouths through the window, “Everything alright?”; and the chap who arrives at 6.30 every morning with the doom and gloom filled newspaper.

    1. And our milkman who arrives on Tuesdays and Thursdays around midnight – or early hours.

    2. It’s the feeling that one has to join in which puts me off. I admit I opened the door on the first session to see how many people were clapping, and gave a token round of applause. Since then, I have made a point of not clapping at 8pm every Thursday. As you say – who calls a halt, and when? Will this still be going on in 6 months time?

      1. As far as I know, nobody in our little enclave is clapping, though my friend next door surely would be as she is a retired nurse. All our front doors face away from the lane so nobody can see who’s out there anyway. I haven’t noticed any banging of pots and pans, apart from me dishing up the dinner at 8pm.

        1. Pointless me doing it as my nearest neighbour wouldn’t hear it they are so far away

      2. I must be immune to feeling I have to join in, but then I am a dyed in the wool curmudgeon.

      3. As I said earlier, I heard everyone was going to clap at 8pm but my hearing is not too good and I thought “the sewers will never cope” and went to the toilet anyway

    3. This strange British disease was incubated at the time of the death of the Princess of Wales and they will doubtless find a vaccine for CV19 before they do for it.

      1. It certainly was, Rastus. Like many on here, I am very firmly pre-Diana, and deeply lament the loss of the British spine. Besides, public clapping at the behest of the state is so North Korean!

        1. All those bloody teddy bears and tea lights after atrocities as well! We should be getting angry and doing something about the perpetrators.

          2. What about t’other way round, Bill. It’s the latter that give rise to the former…

    4. We were out for a walk a few days ago and saw our postman. He looked up and said “having a nice walk with your daughter”. A great chap. Like so many postmen he wears shorts all year round.

    5. The clapping outbreak seems to have originated in Spain, where there are plenty of blocks of flats built in clusters, with residents in lockdown, balconies and adequate acoustics. Plus an enthusiasm for flamenco, au lait (ole!).

    6. I’ve just had an invitation to a virtual VE75 parade. Don medals and cap, stand in doorway. Forgive me if I give this a miss. I would have done the Nation’s Tribute toast at 3pm, but that seems to have gone by the wayside (our pub is closed).

      1. I share your despair at this. I fear that we will never return to anything approaching normal – because there is no one with the balls to take charge.

        The PM is in thrall to (a) the NHS for “saving his life” and (b) professor Branestorm and his lunatic guesses at the”hundreds of thousands dead”.

        While I am glad for all sorts of reasons that we were able to sell our house in France, at least, there, there is a sort of plan to loosen the quarantine.

        BTW – as you are a cunning linguist – you would just relish Mélenchon’s address to the Assemblée Nationale yesterday. Mostly bollox but oratory of a kind rarely seen anywhere these days.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8NUVgI_WTk

        1. I am always impressed by the linguistic contortions of French politicians not to leave anybody out when they are speechifying 🙂

          1. He doesn’t care for Edouard Philippe, or Macron (who came up in the subtitles as maquereau!) – but then, who does?

  34. Putin accused of MASSIVE cover-up over number of Russians dying from coronavirus. Express 29 April 2020.

    RUSSIAN doctors working in state hospitals are being forced to give a false picture about the number of deaths caused by COVID-19, a leading medical activist has claimed.

    “They are really writing down other diagnoses, cardiovascular, a lot of other diseases that a person has. So that is why these statistics are not true.”

    TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE

    David Rober.

    “They are really writing down other diagnoses, cardiovascular, a lot of other diseases that a person has. So that is why these statistics are not true.”

    Hilarious. The Russians are telling the truth but because they are not lying about the cause of death, like those in the West, who are actually instructed to write COVID-19 on death certificates even if the cause of death is another pre-existing condition, they are accused of lying.

    This practice was revealed by the Italian Health Institute who confessed that 90% of the deaths they reported from COVID-19 were actually from other conditions. The same is being done in the UK as many medical professionals have revealed.

    So up is down, right is left and good is evil. It really is 1984 all over again in the West. Actually I think Putin is once again showing up his “colleagues” in the West as he knows the games they play and likes to make them look silly, which they are. They are just pathetic.

    There’s a lot of truth in what Rober says here. I’ve stopped paying attention to the numbers because I find most of them unintelligible and have strong suspicions that the Fatality Rate is massively overstated.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1275175/vladimir-putin-news-coronavirus-russia-cover-up-death-toll-anastasia-vasilyeva-kremlin

    1. It really has come to something when I trust the Russians more than the UK media!

      2. I have heard several people say that they listen to Russian news broadcasts in English as they get more truth on these than from the BBC.

        (We also have a cousin who listens to Irish radio for the same reason but we think she is mad.)

        1. Press TV is an Iranian English news site. It’s where i go if i want to know anything about the rioting in Paris. The BBC said it doesn’t believe it to be newsworthy.

      3. As much as I recognise Putin as a nasty sod, I would sooner trust him than most our own politicians.

    2. Ironic, innit? The words Tractor Production Statistics now apply to the British government’s communications.

      1. Good morning, Anne

        Have you read:

        A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian ? It is a humorously ironic novel by Marina Lewycka and worth reading,

        1. We have that. Very good – surprisingly so, given the title. A bit light on actual statistics though.

      2. I drift back to dark nights when Radio Free Europe fought the East Europeans over the airwaves. (Ironically, Radio Free Europe was an American enterprise.)

      1. Good morning Dandy Front Pager

        Lies, damned lies and statistics. And when the statistics don’t give the picture you want – as in both Covid 19 and global warming – you must just invent statistics which do.

        1. Good morning, Rastus.

          We are in a dark place when attempts to silence or criminalise the challengers of those ‘skewed’ statistics are made.

      2. It’s becoming like the USSR or Herr Schickelgruber’s Germany.
        Careful wording inserted to further government propaganda. In this case ‘Covid 19’ – in previous cases ‘Jew’ or ‘bourgeoise’.

  36. Had a phone call this morning from an 80 year old friend who seems to have been carrying on as normal – “yes we’ve been going down to the Forest to see Sylv’s daughter – the police are only stopping people on the motorway”.

          1. I think they check the car numbers – and a lot have been fined for having no tax, valid licences or insurance.

          3. They can check the numbers. An acquaintance of mine was at home when there was a knock on the door. It was a passing policeman who had checked the numberplate and learned that the car was not taxed or insured.

          5. Was he on foot or from a patrol car? I can’t imagine they would carry a bulky ANPR system if the former, or phone the station each time they come across a dodgy car. Then again, perhaps there’s now an ANPR app available only to Plod?

          7. They can access the DVLA computer from the patrol car or from a smartphone. When they stop you and ask, “Is this your car, sir?”
            (‘sir” optional), they already know the answer.

          8. Ah, but there’s a difference between ‘owner’ and ‘registered keeper’, as any company car driver will tell you.

          9. The acquaintance lives in Staffordshire. The cop was a passing motorway traffic cop from Derbyshire who just happened to be passing in his car, maybe on his way home.

        3. All checked by courtesy of our electronic surveillance ANPR system. Most cctv per person country on the planet. Nice to live in the so called free world.

      1. Keep that up and the 19 will be the number of centimetres added to our waists during the quarantine.

    2. Same for Boris’ bun in the oven. Now all we need is Plum to come along and tell us about her plum duff, or maybe Bill’s duff plums. I’ll get my pinnie..

  38. Greetings all, I’m not sure if this has been posted previously but IMO this should be spread far and wide. It clearly shows how the BBC News department deliberately edited Trump’s press conference in order to undermine him and create a completely false narrative.

    https://youtu.be/aFXdWWiF0oU

    They clearly are beneath contempt.

    1. Nothing new in this falsification. During the independence campaign the BBC falsified Alec Salmond’s responses to questions.

    2. The BBC telling lies goes back a long time – it happened in the 1960’s.

      My cousin, C.G. Tracey, was a prominent farmer and businessman in Rhodesia during the time of UDI and when he came to London he represented Ian Smith, the country’s then prime minister. He was interviewed by the BBC and was shocked to discover when he watched the interview on television later that the questions to which he had given his answers were substituted by other questions and his words had been edited in order to misrepresented and completely distort what he had said. So he then determined that he would never again give a recorded interview for the BBC and only appear on BBC news programmes if the interview was transmitted live and could not be corrupted.

      1. Years ago I did a “Media Interview Techniques” course. First thing on day 1 we were given a scenario and “interviewed” a little later. On day 2 the instructors played the results back, after they had edited the original – they did exactly what you describe; our answers were no longer to the questions we had been asked – new questions had been spliced in, and our responses also edited to make us look bad – very good lesson!

      2. Just proves yet again you cannot trust the BBC. How do they get away with it.?

      3. I once sent a report to a newspaper. They edited it and published it under the name of one of their journalists, without actually adding anything, other than “as told to”.

        1. I’ve been writing a column for our local newspaper for seven years – they never acknowledge my name.

  39. The Chinese unleashed Covid-19 from their laboratory in Wuhan in order to wreck the economy of the West. Many people have returned to doing jigsaws, especially those of us who used to do them long ago. We ourselves are members of the wonderfully named Benevolent Confraternity of Dissectologists. I am not sure what that means, except that it is a jigsaw club.
    Looking to buy the odd jigsaw, I have been searching on eBay. Ah, but the Chinese are devilish cunning! Having condemned us all to lockdown thereby creating an increased market for jigsaws they have been quick to exploit it. Fancy a brand new 1000 piece wooden jigsaw of a Van Gogh work at a lockdown knockdown price? Here it is, courtesy of a company in Wuhan. (Wuhan Qiuzhi Network Technology Co., Ltd. I wonder if they are paying the copyright owners?) Some coincidence, no?

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Jigsaw-Puzzle-1000-Pcs-Van-Gogh-Abstract-Apricot-Blossom-Adult-Kid-Wooden-Puzzle/193401163333?_trkparms=aid%3D333200%26algo%3DCOMP.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D225113%26meid%3D710b974c8d4940f8a39c0d033498d912%26pid%3D100275%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D202969026197%26itm%3D193401163333%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2060778%26algv%3DItemStripV3%26brand%3DUnbranded&_trksid=p2060778.c100275.m3474

    1. The first jigsaws were ‘dissected maps’, made by John Spilsbury in the late 18th Century.

      2. The first time I bought a bottle of 70% strength absinthe on holiday my wife told me she was going to hide all the knives because she likes me with two ears.

        2. I spilt a little on a table and it removed the varnish. You could also feel your teeth dissolving.

      1. Just so. Aragon.

        The first one is the Upper Hecho Valley, just three of four miles short of the French Border (crossable by foot – No vehicular access).

        The second is the ‘New’ monastery at San Juan de la Peña a few miles west of Jaca.

          1. It’s still there, carved into the cliff side a couple of kilometres back down the access road, built 920AD.

            The new one was built in the 17th C

      1. It’s full of monks. I wasn’t there for them, though. The mature pines behind the camera are home to black woodpeckers, citril finches and stuff like that.

  44. 318720 + up ticks,
    How about if they were of the islamic ideology persuasion nige ? or have you done a 180 on the submissive stance.

    Farage: Illegal Boat Migrant ‘Scandal’ Is ‘Bigger Than Anyone Realises’

    1. Water companies in Australia are also urging people to stick to toilet paper

      Perhaps that’s why they are using alternatives?

  47. In response to the latest bit of tomfoolery and smokescreening I have just posted this message elsewhere.

    ‘Message to those whom it may concern.

    I am giving due notice that on 8th May 2020 I will not be standing on my doorstep singing ‘We’ll Meet Again’, or anything else for that matter.

    I am mentioning this to ensure that my absence from my doorstep on that evening is not taken by anyone who might notice it as an indication that I am unable to be there through ill health or infirmity and there will be no need to call out the emergency services.

    Should ill health or infirmity strike in the intervening period I will provide updates.

    In the meantime, keep on keeping on.’

      1. I noticed I got a ‘like’ that quickly vanished. Presumably the liker had read the message again and realised that it didn’t mean what she thought it did. 🙂

        I’m guessing she’ll be on her doorstep as instructed.

  48. Walker dressing as 17th century plague doctor to be offered ‘words of advice’ by police

    The unidentified individual has been spotted in the Norwich suburb of Hellesdon wearing a long black cloak, hat and pointed beak-like mask

    So that is where Uncle Bill goes for walkies

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/29/walker-dressing-17th-century-plague-doctor-offered-words-advice/

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2020/04/29/TELEMMGLPICT000230346872_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bqon2PTdBP6gHp4ZiqwCqj9ohIl6sSIip02QGNeMKfMM8.jpeg?imwidth=960

      1. But that’s different; it’s their culture innit. When such costumes offend, intimidate or scare us that proves we’re waycist.

    2. Yo, Tryers.

      You’ve never been to Hellesdon. I have (I used to work next door).

      There is a very good reason why Chris Rea wrote a song called The Road To Hellesdon.

    3. Why on earth should he be “offered advice”, FFS?

      There is no law against dressing up.

      1. I’d offer the police some ‘advice’. I’ve had about enough advice this past couple of months and I’m up to here with it.

        1. ‘Morning, B. I’m beginning to feel left out. There’s not an all-pervasive police presence in these parts so I haven’t yet received any “advice” from them despite my roving free, when and where I will.

          But should I ever become the recipient of such “advice”, I shall have some advice of my own to offer in return, advice that my advisor will at least remember – if not cherish – to his dying day.

          1. No fuzz to speak of here either Duncan although when I do pass our local plod we just wave to each other

        2. Perhaps they could do the same to that fluckwit Grayson Perry when he dresses up. Or that Izzard idiot.

          1. What did your MR make of the fact that Eddie Izzard was given an honorary degree at UEA in July 2003?

  49. Afternoon, all. As you may deduce from the fact I am here not long after lunch, the weather is abominable. It is hissing down. I put the uncompleted wash out to drip dry before the rain started and now it’s wetter than ever. No point in bringing it in so it can stay there.

          1. You see that yellow bit in the green to the left of Stafford (I think it is, it’s underwater). I’m in the middle of that.

    2. I did that once. The washing ended up smelling musty and I had to put it through again.

      1. Well, it’s out there because I couldn’t put it through the first time. My washing machine gave up the ghost.

    3. We’ve had two bands of rain so far today and it’s brightened up again now, so you may be ok.

      1. There’s another band or the Met map covering Cornwall, Pembroke and the South Coast of Ireland.
        Due up here in the small hours of the morning, so will probably hit you 10ish this evening.

    1. I saw this a couple of days ago, and I personally think it is brilliantly executed. I would have posted it on here had I known how.

    1. I’m waiting for the Welsh locals to start begging people to visit when they realise there is no money coming in.

    2. Surely now that HM is back in residence “for another year at least” (© Government Advice for the over 70s) surely the Council Tax rebate for unoccupied second homes can be clawed back, can’t it?

      :-))

  52. Afternoon all.

    Animal Instincts
    A woman is very distressed because she has not been married very long,and yet her husband has lost interest in having sex. So, she goes to see
    her doctor, and relays the problem.

    The doctor doesn’t seem worried at all and tells her that this is nothing serious, that her husband has merely lost his animal instincts. The doctor tells her to crumble some dog biscuits on her husband’s cereal every morning without telling him, and little by little this will bring out the savage beast in him. He wishes her good luck and tells her to come back in a week with a progress report.

    A week later the woman returns to the doctor, who asks how her husband is.

    “He’s dead,” she replies.

    “Dead?” the doctor asked. “What happened?”

    The woman replied, “He was sitting on the driveway licking his balls, and I accidentally backed over him with the car.”

          1. Just read this on Facebook: “Took my hubby to the local supermarket for our weekly shop wearing masks as usual. Once we got home we took the masks off. That was when I realised that I had brought the wrong hubby home. Ladies beware!”

          5. Ahem, Spikey. A friend told me he’s a porn star – possessed of some sort of prowess…

        3. Why does a dog lick his balls and his willy?

          Because he can. Wouldn’t you do the same if you could?

    4. That’s actually how my mother killed our Retriever with her Austin Healey Sprite.
      :-((

    2. Great post.

      It’s hardly surprising that the media are so mediocre.
      They have eliminated true cognitive diversity from their ranks.
      Talented people who don’t parrot the correct propaganda, like Neil Lyndon, James Delingpole, Claire Fox, Kathy Gyngell and Paul Joseph Watson could be writing and presenting funny, entertaining, thoughtful radio and TV.
      Instead, they are consigned to the fringes, on various alternative websites and blogs, or having their income stolen by YouTube.
      They don’t get rich like the Linekers and the Snows.
      They don’t get awards or honours, or invited to meet the Royal Family.
      A whole generation of right wing talent lost to the mass media.

      And the Conservative Party appears to see nothing wrong with that! (and that, dear Cons, is why you will NEVER get my vote unless you fix this!)

      This paucity of thought is why TV and radio are so dreary.
      The screen may be colour, but the thoughts are black and white.

      1. Oi! Woodlice are my friends!

        Of course you may pull as many legs as as you want off mosquitoes and houseflies, but leave woodlice alone.

      1. We’ve been endeavouring to watch the C5 serial on all this week – Blood. Hard enough to follow, without being interrupted every few minutes with propaganda.

  55. Priti Patel: Calls for bullying report to be released amid reports home secretary ‘cleared’

    Labour demands the results of the Cabinet Office investigation into the allegations against Ms Patel are made public.
    https://news.sky.com/story/priti-patel-calls-for-bullying-report-to-be-released-amid-reports-home-secretary-cleared-11980321
    Good for Labour of course this report should be released,it’s great to see such consistancy as this follows up their loud public demands that the Pakirape (by their core vote) Report should also be released…………….
    Oh Wait………………….
    How I despise these foul hypocrites

    1. A shame Priti can’t bully the ” 91 in one day” that arrived at Dover courtesy of the BF back to where they came from.

    2. How about a compromise: publish both reports.

      Forget masks for the Corona virus – masks are needed to prevent the foul stench of rotting, corrupt politicians attacking our nostrils

  56. Revolutionary news, the Judean People’s front has at last split from the People’s front of Judea:

    https://order-order.com/2020/04/29/new-faction-within-forward-momentum-faction/
    “Earlier this month, Guido brought you the news of a new faction opening up with Momentum – ‘Forward Momentum’ – aiming to “Refound and democratise” the movement. It was a good old Labour factional split romp… Yesterday the black hole of left-wing politics collapsed in on itself even further, when a group within Forward Momentum launched the new faction ‘Momentum Internationalists‘, focusing on “democracy, class struggle and internationalism“.”

    1. I always thought they were backward momentum. After all, they seem to be trying to take us back to a time before Enlightenment.

  57. Even if one has no belief, Choral Evensong can still sound comforting – and timeless (apart from the woman with the speaking-clock like voice who is the “president”….

  60. DT Headline

    Moment of Unalloyed Joy

    Boris’s latest bastard is born!

    I wonder if the little chap’s siblings from Boris’s previous marriage and fornications are ‘unalloyed’ in their joy!

      1. I agree – it is not his fault – poor little chap.

        Funnily enough before seeing this piece of news I had posted something about Shakespeare’s treatment of bastardy in Much Ado About Nothing and King Lear.

        I quoted Edmund’s spirited defence of bastards who, in his view, are superior to ‘honest madam’s issue’ who are the product of dull, tired, stale matrimonial copulation and conceived ‘between awake and sleep’!

      2. True, but the sins of the fathers are visited on the children. Why couldn’t Bojo marry the wench when he knew she was expecting?

        1. His divorce from Marina was only recently finalised, then came CV19, and he was ill. Also, Carrie may have gone into labour early, as they only announced it in February.
          He can be legitimised when they eventually get round to marrying.

      3. I agree – it is not his fault – poor little chap.

        Funnily enough before seeing this piece of news I had posted something about Shakespeare’s treatment of bastardy in Much Ado About Nothing and King Lear.

        I quoted Edmund’s spirited defence of bastards who, in his view, are superior to ‘honest madam’s issue’ who are the product of dull, tired, stale copulation in the matrimonial bed and conceived ‘between awake and sleep’!

    4. They will taste delicious .

      I love cherries , and so does my parrot , but as I haven’t been shopping properly , I haven’t spotted any Spanish cherries in the shops yet.

      1. I have a cherry tree in my front garden. I am going to have to net it. Bloomin’ great fat woodpigeons keep pinching the unripe fruits.

        Plant one yourself, Belle. The link will take you to them.

          3. Go for it, Belle, if you want one, go get one. We only go this way once. (I know only too well how difficult it is – but just do it. Saying ‘No!’ Is a way of controlling us.)

        3. When i was a child we had an enormous cherry tree in our back garden which my brother and i used to climb.
          From memory the variety was Whiteheart, very sweet and juicy.

          1. Mine is only six years old but i get about 3lbs of fruit from it. When the birdies haven’t pinched it all.

  62. What’s the betting that when the “new” numbers of dead are published, the bar charts will have an almighty spike and there will be no attempt to distribute the deaths to the actual dates so that we can see if the peak really has passed?

    More scares for the masses, more justification for the lock down to continue.

    1. PDC Darts Corona Virus Home Tour 2020 results LIVE: Latest scores, Day 12 stream, watch free online and TV channel

      1. Care home, mainly private, will probably been far ahead of the curve with PPE. Perhaps the NHS overpaid fat cats could explain why those who tested positively were returned to their Care Homes. Was it ti infect the rest of the elderly to make the NHS look better.

      2. Prisons and other “closed” communities.

        EDIT
        As if on cue:

        A total of 337 prisoners have tested positive for coronavirus in 71 jails as of 5pm on Tuesday, the Ministry of Justice said.

        The same number of prison staff have also contracted the virus in 63 jails as well as 11 prisoner escort and custody services staff.

    3. That would be very unwise of them, as any half-way competent journalist would notice. Ah, I see the problem…

    1. We can but hope;

      “ Mr McConnell, a multimedia journalist who works for the Guardian”

      What a surprise, not!

    1. Not sure if I will take it up when it eventually arrives – last time I had flu was 25 years ago and I’ve never bothered with the annual flu jab. Got caught out last year when I hadn’t bothered with the shingles one……….

      1. Poppiesdad came down with shingles last October, he was really ill with it. So, I booked myself in for the shingles jab in January this year (I am a conscientious objector where ‘flu jabs are concerned) but I cancelled this because we both came down with a ghastly virus post Christmas on the same day. I haven’t got around to booking another appt with the coronavirus doing the rounds in view of the fact that my immune system may well have enough to cope with at this time. I am someone to whom winter viruses joyfully leap towards. Pd was ill for about 3 months with shingles, if one were living by oneself it would be difficult to deal with in terms of meal preparation, everything that goes with that to the not-wanting-to-eat when it has been made! The accompanying discomfort is only just starting to release its tentacles.

        1. On the subject of ones immune system, I posted a link late yesterday to a video which which is no longer available (censored by youtube) of a press conference given by 2 doctors somewhere in the USA which were arguing that the lock down was no longer appropriate now that there was two months worth of information to base decisions on and COVID was no more serious for the majority of the population thant flue. One of the many points made was that the longer healthy people were locked indoors the more our immune systems would deteriorate because they wouldn’t be fighting off germs on an everyday basis (especially anyone constantly washing hands and sanitising surfaces). Another was that doctors were feeling pressured into putting COVID on death certificates even when it was a very minor side isssue in cause of death (had it been standard flue it would not have been mentioned). It’s really unfortunate it has been censored, but it clearly wans’t compatible with globablist world order policy.

        2. Sounds nasty – mine started with a pain in my right ear which I assumed was an infection. The pain spread downwards then a rash appeared a few days later. The penny dropped so I had a look on the NHS website for shingles and there was a photo of my rash – a classic one-sided one. I phoned the surgery and was told to come in for anti -virals as it was within 48 hours of the rash appearing. The nerve pain was bad, so I lived on paracetamols, but it all cleared up in three or four weeks with no permanent pain thanks to the huge five a day tablets. Other than the pain and the rash, I didn’t really feel ill.

          2. Thank you for that. You can’t get shingles if you haven’t had chickenpox first and your immune system should cope with late onset chickenpox if it isn’t compromised. My immune system always used to go into overdrive if I had an insect bite (and still does, although not to the same extent as when I was a child) so it seems like some good news for a change 🙂

          2. I gathered that she recognised it right at the start and got some sort of medication for it before it really got going.

      2. I did agree to the shingles jab, as it’s a one off and shingles is no joke.
        The flu jab is more of a lottery; sometimes the predictions are right, sometimes they are wrong.
        Understandably, because the virus is a sneaky little bugger and has 18 months to morph into something very different.

        1. Yes – 70. And I think also to some older people who didn’t or couldn’t take it up at the time. I was going to have one, but didn’t get round to it, to my cost. Shingles is most unpleasant and I probably had a mild dose. I remember my aunt suffered for years afterwards with nerve pain. The anti virals are supposed to stop that development and they seem to have worked for me, as it cleared up and the pain went.

          1. Thanks, it’s good to know that the jab will be offered (hopefully). I must say that age 70 seems a bit late, though; I would have thought that people might get it in their sixties.

          2. I think you can get it at any age, if you’ve already had chicken pox.
            We were due to have a family weekend when I got it last year, so I was a bit worried the children might not have had c-p. But the boys had all had it, and also the eldest one had shingles, too, aged 11.

    2. Too complicated. “No, thanks” works just as well, takes less time, and isn’t open to lies and spin, or prolonged discussions about the effects of these other compounds.

    3. I think I’d decline just on grounds of Step 2 as aborted fetal cells sounds very unethical to me.

        1. I think I’m suffering from CEPD — Compulsive Excessive Punning Disease……..

        2. I think I’m suffering from CEPD — Compulsive Excessive Punning Disease……..

    2. The only alternative I knew was told to me many moons ago by a devout RC.

      It starts

      “Old mother Hubbard, went to her cupboard
      To fetch poor Rover a bone”

      You probably know it, it is rather naughty so I won’t continue here. But I remembered it as it was out of character for what I thought a devout RC would say. Or maybe not?

      1. This one? Hidden so as not to cause unnecessary offence.

        When she bent over, Rover took over, and gave her a bone of his own

    1. Nice typo.

      The Electoral Commission is not fit for purpose. They should all be taken out and shot for the traitors that they are.

    2. Bet that will be reported…nowhere in the mainstream media, leaving the impression that there is something dodgy about Arron Banks.

  67. Totally O/T.
    Can anyone explain why small children wear crash helmets when riding a scooter? Invariably they can run faster than they can scoot but don’t wear a crash helmet when running.

  73. With glass in hand, I did you all good evening. They say it’ll rain again tomorrow afternoon. I certainly hop so.

    Have a jolly evening thinking of names for the PM’s latest child. Mohammed would be topical.

    TTFN

    2. As I said earlier, they would have called a daughter Connie

      I suppose that a boy could be Coran

  74. Bye for now, folks. Going to read a book (The Borgias). I may be some time or even longer if I get poisoned 🙂

  76. Just sat through the daily Downing Street briefing. I still don’t see why they can’t adjust the daily death stats retrospectively to allocate reported deaths to the actual day of death, rather than create a spurious spike on Tuesdays – and then have to explain why it happens every time they show the relevant slide.

    1. If they did that someone would go back and complain that the numbers were fixed because they are different to yesterdays.

      Probably find that the numbers are completely unreliable now, care homes will have allocated cause differently to gphospitals which will be different to at home deaths. Died of covid vs. died of covid is nothing compared to what these stats have become.

    2. Ptolemy? A common enough name around these ‘ere parts…. or Polonius? (Not so common.)

  78. 318720+up ticks,
    Is there any link do you think between the number we lose, and the incoming hoard numbers as in lab/lib/con party numbers being topped up due to some of the more intelligent of the herd becoming disillusioned at long last after years of supporting political sh!te dealers.
    NO decent Countries governance would be at the front door shouting DEMOCRACY thrives here whilst entertaining a welcome prayer mat at the back door.

  79. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52465629

    Coronavirus: County councils say non-essential spending at risk

    Let me guess. That won’t include cutting the salaries of troughers infesting councils, will it? Government isn’t there to do whatever it wants to. it is there to ONLY provide essential services. If it’s doing anything non-essential then that’s just blasted waste.

        1. I would go further – it is very funny. Anne is clearly pushing the limits with her sparkling wit.

    2. Can’t understand this virginity thing. The bloody mohammedans are obsessed with “virgins”, now Kim Jong Un …….

      Who needs virgins anyway? In Inverness, we lost all ours years ago and we’re none the worse for it.

      4. Hmm, Duncan only four and twenty that time.

        How often is the Ball of Kirriemuir held, these days?

      5. Were there more virgins at Inverness or at Kirriemuir? And from which places were the vicar’s wife noted for knitting rubberwear and the village idiot who did a remarkable vanishing trick?

        1. Four and twenty less, but this is grammatically incorrect, so I came up with an alternative: “Four and twenty virgins came down to Kirriemuir, and when the ball was over, there were…”

  81. Over-50s should be kept under coronavirus lockdown measures for longer, say researchers
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/29/over-50s-should-kept-coronavirus-lockdown-measures-longer-say/

    The over-50s should be kept in lockdown for longer than younger groups and fined if they cannot prove their age when out and about, researchers at the University of Warwick have suggested.
    …
    The over-50s should be kept in lockdown for longer than younger groups and fined if they cannot prove their age when out and about, researchers at the University of Warwick have suggested.

    A new paper suggests the safest way out of the UK’s coronavirus lockdown is social distancing combined with a “rolling age-release strategy” that could allow younger and less vulnerable, people out earlier.

    The controversial strategy is based on widely-reported data showing older age groups are at much greater risk of death if they contract the virus.

    Fatalities among 50-year-olds are 20 times greater than those among 20-year-olds, and fatalities among 60-year-olds would be approximately 50 times as great as people in their early 20s, the research says.

    It suggests older and middle-aged people should be kept in lockdown for longer because “younger people are far, far safer”.

    “Presumably, police officers would have to be given the right to fine those caught breaking the age rule,” the researchers said. “The vast majority of citizens in the UK carry driving licenses that would allow a police officer to check their date of birth. Most nations have something similar”.

    Men have been shown to die from the virus in greater numbers than women. Perhaps men should be kept in quarantine while women are allowed out?
    BAME people have been shown to die from the virus in greater numbers than white people. Perhaps BAME people should be kept in quarantine while white people are allowed out?

    3. Put them in camps – the Germans have plenty of experience and could help, I am sure.

    5. Perhaps men should be kept in quarantine while women are allowed out?

      Now there’s a plan 🙂

      1. This may well be a naive comment, but I hope that Boris has at last found happiness with Carrie. Some of us take longer than others. A lot longer.

    7. The over-50s should be kept in lockdown for longer than younger groups and fined if they cannot prove their age when out and about, researchers at the University of Warwick have suggested.

      And the researchers at the University of Warwick can go f*** themselves.
      Apologies for the language.

  82. Just thinking out loud here .

    Boris must be a super stud , the prize breeder, the one that can guarantee a fertile woman super intelligent good looking children and he might be forgiven for all the disloyalty and hurt he has probably subjected his ex wives and girlfriends to.

    Men like that have strong genes, the male line must be so strong , his children look so successful .

    How is it that selection like that works , and when some families suffer so?

    Edited https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8268775/Newborn-son-officially-Prime-Minister-Boris-Johnsons-sixth-child.html

    1. ‘Afternoon, Mags, sometimes the answers, both good and bad, may lie in the family tree – quiet, beautiful, peaceful, English green wood or raucous, monkey-chattering, deadly snake infested jungle.

      If you could see your ancestors all standing in a row,
      Would you be proud of them or not, or don’t you really know?
      Some strange discoveries are made when climbing family trees,
      And some of them you know do not particularly please.

      If you could see your ancestors all standing in a row,
      There might be some of them perhaps, you wouldn’t care to know.
      But here’s another question which requires a different view.
      If you could meet your ancestors, would they be proud of you?
      (from Edith Fletcher’s pedigree book)

  83. DOOMED ….

    “Former prime minister Gordon Brown agrees to assist the Welsh Government
    as part of an external advisory group to help the nation recover from
    the coronavirus pandemic”.

    Oh, shonet …

    1. Thought he was being held at Carstairs, suffering from a psychotic personality disorder. Seems he kept insisting his name was “Prudence” and that he had saved the world.

      I suppose they must’ve released him under the “care in the community” scheme. Still, as long as that community is in Wales, we’ll be safe enough here.

      1. Didn’t he have a thing about women who accosted him with the truth? Bigot, I seem to recall!

      2. There used to be lots of stuff on th’internet saying that Gordon Brown is a paedophile.

        1. And a scurrilous (and completely untrue) rumour that St Tony was done for gross indecency but was charged under his middle names.

      1. Perhaps he has a cunning plan – to send all the Corona virus patients across the border to English Hospitals. Oh, wait, isn’t that what they usually do with a lot of patients?

        :-))

        1. They do that now. We English can’t get to Wrexham, but the Welsh are winging their way to Shrewsbury and Telford. In theory, the costs are reclaimed from NHS Wales. Squadron of porcine incoming on the radar!

  84. I heard on the Bbc London News that there are calls from the usual suspects about granting illegal immigrants an amnesty because they aren’t eligible for financial assistance and have to rely on secretive food distribution. The negative response from the HO was rather blunt, surprisingly.

    1. They aren’t eligible to breathe the air here, never mind collect benefits and free food.

      They are illegal.

  85. Night All

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f4c40d6c5e7d3439a76e0a8fffd23f3cc927be51b25a563d7c42f08d805f9a75.gif

    https://scontent.flhr2-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/95090404_3216606911706223_5932884960166805504_n.jpg?_nc_cat=110&_nc_sid=110474&_nc_ohc=7h5VLlr5y1sAX94QZ72&_nc_ht=scontent.flhr2-2.fna&oh=b041643ebc5c46658eb3e7792b97a1c8&oe=5ED08BC7&dl=1

    https://media.giphy.com/media/tjbd9vNYJbGDK/giphy.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/14af36890546c504fd655e43612892e4729e5f0a5bca3d05de80abe6f6d3c368.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/86b47a2cf369866d5d848b7d04901ba77d1cb908ada5f89f8e241d304eb39cad.jpg

    1. The clip that he shows starting at about 4mins is part of the video I linked to yesterday and which I mentioned today has been totally wiped by youtube.

  87. DT Story Headline

    Boris Johnson DELAYS his paternity leave and is ALREADY back at work as UK faces its biggest crisis since the Second World War with deadly coronavirus outbreak

    There’s no paid maternity or paternity leave for the self-employed.

    The Head of Modern Languages of Ampleforth – a leading Catholic public school in England from which we have had many students – called in to discuss our courses. While we were chatting Caroline started her contractions and as soon as our visitor left I drove her to Dinan hospital where our second son, Henry was born.

    Caroline has just had a Facebook message from a friend of hers who has had a baby by Caesarean section in the last week. She was kicked out of the hospital just 24 hours after the birth and was devastated – the reason given was the corona virus but surely maternity and the virus sections are far apart from each other.

      1. My brother had to drive my wife to maternity hospital for both my son’s birth. My boss took his holiday first week in
        June as he was a steward for the RAC Scottish Car Rally. Both my sons were born in the first week in June 2 years apart. I got the happy news later on in the day. My sons’ greatgrandfather, grandfather and father were also born in the first 6 days of June

      3. When our first was born I took my wife in (via taxi – no car) at around 2am, expecting to stay, but the nurse that received us told me that I might as well go home and get some sleep because first births aften took ages. I went home and got to sleep eventually, only to be awoken by our neighbour banging at the door at about 7.30 to tell me my wife was on the phone (we didn’t have one).

        I went over and she said ‘guess what I’ve had’.

        I replied ‘A false alarm’, (she was a couple of weeks ‘early’).

        ‘No, a baby boy’.

        I went in on the bus to see her straight way.

        That afternoon I was back at work.

    2. Not in UK NHS hospitals. The standard HR “family friendly” policies mean that nurses may work shifts that suit them. The shifts may not suit the hospital as the nurses may work a few hours in maternity then a few hours in theatre, then a few hours in A&E…

    3. The probably are, but after all the happy clappy on Thursdays, its all shared out as the equality advisor has stipulated.

  88. Popping back in,what the flying fuck is going on??
    “The Telegraph now understands that the military has drawn up plans to build 17 new coronavirus field hospitals.”
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/do-many-nhs-nightingale-hospitals-remain-empty/
    The existing Nightingale hospitals are empty but there are plans for 17 more?????????????????/
    It’s almost as if this is a binary attack and they are expecting the release of the second element……………………………

      1. Not convinced it’ll make much difference going by the dates of CV19 deaths rather than date of announcement:

        https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-update-29th-april/

        There may well be a further rise again if/when the lockdown is eased, but I’m sceptical that it will overwhelm the NHS any more than it already has done:

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8245313/Fury-endless-showreel-NHS-staff-dancing-fooling-coronavirus-crisis.html

    3. 318720+ up ticks,
      Evening Rik,
      Always look for the hidden alternative truth of any issue, 17 accommodation facilities along the route of HS2 for the chinese coolies, initially, then the
      beaches armada in time to qualify for the next General Election.

    6. It’s over forty miles to our nearest 3 A&E hospitals so perhaps we might get one in Powys.
      My daughter rang once to say that she was being conveyed by ambulance to Aber and could we be there to meet her. We went to Abergavenny. They went to Aberystwyth!

    7. The existing Nightingale hospitals will need to be returned to their owners at some point and are probably not as well-suited to act as coronavirus hospitals as something well-thought out in advance. Having plans is not the same as actually building them and it may be useful to have well-thought out models as a contingency against an escalation of coronavirus or a mutation of it. If you want peace, plan for war!

      Edit: Sorry Aberrant Apostrophe, I didn’t see your earlier post saying much the same thing.

      1. Seventeen could be more regional than the few that there are now, maybe smaller and more manageable as well.

        Why are the military building them rather than the NHS… oh never mind, silly question.

        1. I have always maintained that the Overseas Aid budget should be allotted to Defence to buy hospital ships, stand-by field hospitals, heavy-life aircraft and helicopters, assault ships and landing craft, mobile water purification plants and large-scale field kitchens. All of these would be a valuable addition to our military capability and would enable us to deliver real aid to countries, including our own, experiencing natural disasters . If the military are planning to build the 17 new hospitals, they will gain knowledge and experience, and perhaps get to keep them once the current crisis ends. Your final sentence says it all!

          1. But ..
            We know full well that the UN, WHO and countless charities will be running out the need for aid in Africa to avoid a catastrophy.

            Naturally Boris will not be the only national leader saying yes, here you are.
            Trump may well argue against the money but he will just be the bad boy that is chastised whilenour leaders pump even more money into the needy nations.

            No one will turn round and ask what has happened to all of the aid money handed out before.

          2. Sadly, you are quite right. Ref your last sentence: top of the range Mercedes Benz, Swiss bank accounts, luxury villas, corruption on an industrial scale.

      2. Good Point. Having ceilings on hospital wards is probably a good idea (unlike the Nightingales).

    8. There’s a difference between planning for and building them. Anyway, wouldn’t the Gummint get even more flak for not having contingency plans for a second CV wave?

      1. Everyone has a favourite version of that wonderful song. For me this one is second only to the version by Graham Bonnet.

  91. A virus called COVID-19
    Had hardly ever been seen
    Until a bloke from Wuhan
    Found a bat in barn
    With markings showing where it’d been.

  92. Incidentally, the woman whose husband died after ingesting chloroquine sulphate – a death that Donald Trump was widely blamed for in the mainstream media, following his praise for hydroxychloroquine – is now under investigation by the Mesa City Police Department’s homicide division. The Washington Free Beacon has the story.

    https://lockdownsceptics.org

    I laughed when I read this. I remember all the Trump critics jeering at his supporters for being so stupid as to drink fish tank cleaner. Turns out that she was a prolific Democrat donor, and had posted a lot of criticism of DT, who she hated.

    Steven Crowder covered the fake news story about this couple in a video a week or so ago, and on hearing the details, it seemed to me quite likely the wife murdered her husband. Now the local police think so too. I bet the MSM don’t report anything.

    1. Sometimes technology should be classified as an interesting possibility, but no thanks.

      You can just see the woke kiddies lining up for the UPC implant as a sign that they are up to date.

  94. After stating she/they (SNP) were in control, Stupid Sturgeon seems to be lining up to blame the UK government for the deaths in Scottish care homes.
    Tribalism might be creeping in to her boring vacuous rhetoric again.

    1. Her arms must be aching,

      She is doing handstands, as she talks out of her backside… and that is me being polite

    2. Typical weak leader. Takes credit when things go right, apportions blame when things go wrong.

  95. HeeHee, Just re-watching ‘The Last Kingdom’ .Lord Ethelred kills his paid assassin and his chief advisor says, “You can’t just kill your subjects, Sire, this is the 9th century.”

    2. Just finished watching the whole of series 4 half an hour ago in binge mode over three nights on Netflix.

      I remember when people were saying ‘You can’t do that, this is 1967′ and I couldn’t see the relevance then. 53 years later it still sounds stupid, as if there is a timetable for certain actions that are random.

      PS Spoiler. Edward is a proper knob.

      1. Got about 6 episodes of series 3 left to watch again to get me into ‘Uhtred!’ mode before I start series 4.

  96. Went to the QE Hospital Birmingham for an eye-scan rearranged from early April (when I thought I would be in Poland). Instead of the usual 25 people in waiting in the small waiting space, there was only me, then later, one other person. That part of the hospital looks as if it is running at 10% of its previous level of output. Indeed, that was my general impression of other epartments, judging by the thinness of the people in the atrium …

    1. Our younger son was in the Lister at Stevenage over the last weekend with suspected appendicitis – he said he was the only person in the ward and the place was like a ghost town. He was treated with IV antibiotics as it was thought the appendix wasn’t quite ready to be removed. He was sent on his way with a 7-day course of antibiotics after several injected armfuls after he was told we-ell, we can keep you in and we can wait and see, or we can try the antibiotics as we feel it is not quite ripe enough to be removed. He couldn’t wait to go home.

    4. NHS not overwhelmed, then? Rather supporting the two Californian doctors, whose video has been removed from YouTube….

  98. Latest Pandemic Breaking News – Just even thinking about abandoning lockdown has dramatically increased the death rate by thousands, don’t think about abandoning Lockdown, save lives stay safe.

  99. Today’s update of the days that Covid deaths actually occurred, rather than the day they were reported. Hot off the press.

    The more eagle-eyed will notice that the figures announced in the media as ‘today’s’ figures actually go all the way back to the 9th March and almost every day since (top chart) and that the highest number was two days ago, rather than yesterday.

    https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-update-29th-april/

    1. And it’s still looking as if the peak was ~ 6-12 April and it’s not getting worse, try as they might to scare the populace into accepting continued or even harsher lockdowns.

          1. By this weekend coming, or very shortly after, I predict a lot of foot-shuffling going on and avoidance of eye contact, because we’re going to be back in early March territory and they are going to have to get themselves and us out of it somehow.

      1. Not panicking at all, but realistically it’s with us for good, like heart disease and strokes, albeit in an attenuated form.

        It won’t go away.

    1. We are doing some wonderful gym classes using technology like that.

      This morning, I was able to sit there with my coffee watching the instructor talk me through four sets of press ups followed by five sets of planks. I was exhausted just watching him.

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