Thursday 30 April: Schools are ready to reopen and must be trusted to manage the risks

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/2020/04/29/lettersschools-ready-reopen-must-trusted-manage-risks/

921 thoughts on “Thursday 30 April: Schools are ready to reopen and must be trusted to manage the risks”

    1. Morning, Peddy. (Or rather good afternoon.) I went out on my fortnightly shop today; very light traffic on the roads, like early 60s, and a definite change from a fortnight ago, when it was more like a Sunday afternoon in the early 50s. I reckon that slowly life is returning to normal, although “firing up the engines of industry” will depend on Boris allowing schools and restaurants to re-open. (Which I reckon will happen in mid- to late May.)

    1. Every death is from Covid now, no distinction between ‘died of’ and ‘died with.’

      I hope the families of those who died in care homes club together and hire a very clever lawyer. I want to know whose decision it was to move Covid patients from hospitals to care homes. Was this done to ‘protect the NHS’ so introducing infection into enclosed environments full of frail, vulnerable people? This is the greatest, most sickening scandal of this whole awful chapter. Who authorised this slaughter of the innocents?

    1. The Prof: “What are the antipodes going to do when they finally eradicate Covid? Keep their borders closed forever? Because the disease is going to be out there across the World”…. Very good point.

    2. The Prof: “What are the antipodes going to do when they finally eradicate Covid? Keep their borders closed forever? Because the disease is going to be out there across the World”…. Very good point.

    3. One thing that strikes me is that Ferguson, not satisfied with screwing up UK livestock farming with his models, will now be the cause of untold economic misery across the world.

      1. The needless damage to young people’s education is just another factor to tally up at the end of all this when we ask the question ‘Was it worth it?’

        1. ‘Morning, JK, with the schools closed, it is a small respite for the children, having their daily dose of the Common Purpose curriculum shoved down their throats.

    2. No,the unions won’t have it,sat at home on 80% pay or deal with classrooms of snotty stroppy kids??
      We’ll be lucky to see them open in September

      1. Quite possibly. When have teaching unions ever prioritised the welfare of children over that of their members?

        1. They had some harridan on the wireless the other day from NUT (or whatever it has become). She had claimed that teachers always had the interests of the children in the forefront. It was suggested that, in that case, perhaps the summer holiday should be scrapped and the autumn term start at the ed of July.

          Ballistic is not strong enough to describe the way the wretch turn the idea down….. “That would totully (sic) in breach of our contract …”

  6. The UK is seeking to renegotiate an international agreement so that

    it will be easier to return migrants who try to cross the Channel.

    Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, has revealed she is in talks with

    her French counterpart to introduce new measures that could enable more

    migrants caught in UK territorial waters to be returned to France

    potentially even without setting foot in Britain.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/30/priti-patel-seeks-new-agreement-eu-return-channel-migrants-france/
    Now colour me cynical,why would they renegotiate?? At the moment every gimmigrant that makes it across is one they don’t have to fund,we get stuck with them
    How about a really radical idea JUST ACT ship them back and dump them on the beach they left from having taken their fingerprints and telling them because of their illegal entry they will NEVER be given right to remain in the UK

    1. 318735+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      The political rhetorical rubber stamping
      no action to be taken brigade, it HAS to have a purpose if NOT they as a government are proving to be a danger to the herd.
      What other credible reason is there ?
      This is not an anti government post but THEY are putting MY family in daily danger.

    2. It’s called the Dublin Agreement, and states that the refugee must seek asylum in the first safe country they arrive at. Basta! Not walk through until they reach one where they prefer the benefits. Unless, of course, France isn’t safe…?

    3. Why renegotiate it?

      The law isn’t complicated. A refugee stops at the first safe country and from there applies to where they want to go. That application is then decided by the applied to nation.

      If you are not a refugee and merely an illegal immigrant, you are sent back to where you came from. That no nation has bothered to do this for their entire march through Europe is not only absurd, it is also illegal.

  7. Boris Johnson’s baby is the perfect symbol of his personality-driven politics. 28 April 2020.;

    Let’s acknowledge, if nothing else, that today’s announcement was a brilliantly executed piece of political tradecraft. The operation in Downing Street is still a lot smarter than many would like to think when they see it preside over those wooden and evasive daily briefings. That’s because, over the 24 hours preceding the announcement that Carrie Symonds and Johnson had had a baby son, No 10 played the media brilliantly.

    On Tuesday, Downing Street was studiously evasive about whether Johnson, who had only returned from his Covid-19 recuperation the previous day, would be taking his first prime minister’s questions in the virtual Commons reassembled last week. The evasiveness triggered speculation that Johnson’s health might in fact not be up to the task. No 10’s silence this morning fed the speculation still further. How many journalists began to question Johnson’s and the government’s continuing fragility? Then came the news of the birth. Chapeau!

    Morning everyone. Yes of course, Boris conceived this child last August so he would have some positive copy when the CV outbreak was well into its stride.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/29/boris-johnson-baby-personality-politics

    1. Call me cynical, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was ‘encouraged’ to take his take his time returning to work after his illness. What better propaganda than to demonstrate that anyone can be struck down by this disease, even the Prime Minister? And of course, the ‘angel’ who saved his life (hooked him to a ventilator) is just one more of the saints from ‘our glorious NHS.’

      The way data is being manipulated to suggest any death is caused by Covid, only one school of doom-mongering scientific thought is listened to by government, the ‘mission creep’ of the reason for the lockdown – nothing would surprise me anymore!

        1. Ah. Not to denigrate the wonderful NHS nurse who looked after him, but what exactly did she do to save his life then? Make him a cup of tea?

          2. Now that is a silly response, JK, and you know it. She was doing her job, aware that her patient was a Very Important Person.

        2. Exacto (© yourself), Peddy. As I have posted on here several times, everyone in the UK has theory about all aspects of the Corona Virus and the actions the Government has taken / is taking / plans to take. And they are convinced that everyone else is wrong. So when a theory is propounded they cherry pick bits of information (conjecture more likely) to support their own theory. And this is why JK has forgotten that Bojo was not hooked up to a ventilator.

      1. Don’t put ideas into their heads, Bob of Bonsall. Or the MSM will be claiming that he did know about the pandemic last August and did nothing at the time!

    3. So what you are saying is the the PM got his fiancée pregnant in order to deflect attention from a crisis that he knew was going to occur 9 months in the future??

  8. Good morning all. A better night. Bright sunny start to the day, but rain due about midday.

    Anything happened overnight?

  10. SIR – It is not possible to eliminate further Covid-19 infections in the foreseeable future. We know that, although all ages get infected, the death rate for those under 40 is a fraction of 1 per cent. We also know that there is currently spare capacity in intensive care units, and that if we do not resume economic activity soon, the outcome will be dire.

    Would it not be both sensible and ethical to allow those under, say, 40 to be released from lockdown and return to normal activities and employment? There is no doubt that some will become infected, but at present we have the capacity to give first-class treatment to those who do.

    Peter Hutton

    Former President, Royal College of Anaesthetists

    Birmingham

    1. Dear President Hutton – your reasoned and logical proposal presupposes that HMG is operating in a similarly reasoned and logical manner. They aren’t. The lockdown has never been about keeping us safe from Contrick19 but, rather, seeing how far they can push us before we push back. Hope this helps.
      Yrs aye,
      Caratacus

    1. They need to keep him in the public eye for the sympathy he generates for government policy

      1. Morning Your Maj – glad to see you’re taking an interest in what hoi polloi are actually thinking! Get on the blower and have Mrs. Hancock’s little boy placed somewhere he can do no further harm, would you?. The Tower will do – if there’s room. Ta ever so.

      2. Morning Your Maj – glad to see you’re taking an interest in what hoi polloi are actually thinking! Get on the blower and have Mrs. Hancock’s little boy placed somewhere he can do no further harm, would you?. The Tower will do – if there’s room. Ta ever so.

        1. And she could tell him to take that clown Ferguson and the rest of the SAGE committee with him.

  12. Morning again

    SIR – At last, a conversation has started about how Britain’s obesity epidemic is contributing to the number of deaths associated with Covid-19.

    As Dr Aseem Malhotra (Health & Fitness, April 27) pointed out, there is a tenfold increase in death from coronavirus in those with obesity and the associated metabolic syndrome. He reasons that this may explain the increased prevalence of complications in those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. It is also worrying that a recent study published in the British Medical Journal showed that half of NHS employees are overweight.

    If this increased risk of death does not stimulate a change to healthy eating habits, nothing will. With most junk food outlets closed, there has never been a better opportunity to alter our national diet. This country was very successful in reducing smoking with the slogan “smoking kills”. This should now be adjusted to “obesity kills”.

    Given these figures, the science would suggest that it would be more logical to shield the seriously overweight rather than the over-70s.

    Dr Michael Pegg

    Esher, Surrey

    2. Oh dear – Dr Pegg will be on the whinging slammer anti-Phillips doctors’ hate mail list.

  13. SIR – Has it yet occurred to politicians that continuing lockdown for those aged over 70 when current restrictions begin to be lifted would be totally counterproductive as the Government endeavours to revive the economy?

    People from this age group make up many of the customers for small businesses, beauty salons, garden centres, cafés and restaurants that may gradually be allowed to reopen (some of these places are even managed by someone over 70).

    If this group were to remain in lockdown, where would a large proportion of the congregations in churches or other places of worship be once doors reopen? Indeed, where would some of their ministers and leaders be? Where would the grandparent childminders be, once parents return to work?

    The answer to these questions is, of course, stuck at home – rendering proposed measures to lift the lockdown virtually useless.

    Dr Ruth Grayson

    Sheffield, South Yorkshire

    1. SIR – It was kind to lock up the over-70s to keep us safe but, should it continue, those of us who are well at the moment will gradually be in trouble.

      We have lost our dentistry, our chiropody, our eye tests and many other check-ups that kept us wonderfully fit. Please let us out in a controlled manner before we become burdens to the NHS after all.

      Felicity Pinder

      Fovant, Wiltshire

    2. What are they going to do with the over 70s who tell them to stick it and go out anyway?

      Fine them?

      Don’t pay the fine.

      So they lock them up in a jail full of overcrowded people.

      Smart thinking.

      1. Bundle them into a care homes for their ‘protection’ and search for replacements in the Dover Straights.

      2. Accommodation, three meals a day, no heating bills ……..
        Now, where’s a Plod I can defy?

  14. SIR – I live alone and have found some comfort in eating my grandchildren’s undelivered Easter eggs.

    Am I the only shameful granny?

    Anthea Cox

    Dorridge, Warwickshire

    3. As our sons have left home and we do not yet have grandchildren Caroline bought Easter Eggs for me cutting out the middleboy.

      1. Same here, and M&S were unexpectedly offering a free third one. So I bought 2, gave one to my alzheimered cousin and ATE 2 all by myself…

  15. No,and the horse you rode in on………….

    A major increase in state surveillance is a “price worth paying” to beat Covid-19, a UK think tank says.

    The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), founded by the former

    prime minister, says it could offer an “escape route” from the crisis.In

    a report, the Institute argues the public must accept a level of

    intrusion that would normally “be out of the question in liberal

    democracies

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52401763

    1. We will cease to be a liberal democracy then? That is, we are clearly not a liberal democracy today, so we won’t go back?

    3. Why is it that whenever I see the words ‘Tony Blair’ my blood begins to boil?

  18. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, an oldie but a salutary one:

    A rabbi and a priest are involved in a car accident and it’s a bad one.

    Both cars are totally demolished, but, amazingly, neither of the clerics is hurt.

    After they crawl out of their cars, the rabbi sees the priest’s collar and says, “So you’re a priest. I’m a rabbi. Just look at our cars. There’s nothing left, but we are unhurt. This must be a sign from God. God must have meant that we should meet and be friends and live together in peace the rest of our days.”

    The priest replies, “I agree with you completely. This must be a sign from God.”

    The rabbi continues, “And look at this. Here’s another miracle. My car is completely demolished but this bottle of Captain Morgan Rum didn’t break. Surely God wants us to drink the rum and celebrate our good fortune.”

    Then he hands the bottle to the priest.

    The priest agrees, takes a few big swigs, and hands the bottle back to the rabbi. The rabbi takes the bottle, immediately puts the cap on, and hands it back to the priest.

    The priest asks, “Aren’t you having any?”

    The rabbi replies, “No… I think I’ll wait for the police.”

    2. Reminds me of the car crash in which a rabbi and a priest are involved. The priest cannot understand why the rabbi makes an elaborate sign of the cross and asks why. The rabbi replies – “I was just checking: Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch”.

  19. For followers of Rodders Liddle

    As a general rule, I have posted his weekly Sunday Times column on this blog after my mid-morning cup of coffee. As you will have noticed, this has not happened the last couple of weeks because the new editortrix of the ST, Her Wokeness Harridan Emma Tucker, formerly deputy editor at The Times, has fired him (entirely predictably).
    She is beneath ghastly as the worst sort of metropolitan elitist and to be avoided at all costs; you know the type
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/63e46fb8310c2fb96a4f728355d75bc2dd21b0ea/319_481_4478_2687/master/4478.jpg?width=605&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=7214554bf1a309c219667d24c09e92a0
    Oxford PPE; joined FT trainee programme; 6 years fawning at the EU’s skirt hems; 3 years following Mutti in Berlin; then downhill from there.

      1. Speccie; but for how much longer, given the leftoid leanings of he “editor”;

        The Sun (but prolly not for long as it is part of Murdoch’s empire”)

          1. I have met both Rod Liddle and James Delingpole. Of the two, Rod was the more amusing.

          2. But he was a far-right, swivel-eyed, drooling, leaver (ie, a normal person) wasn’t he?

          3. News report at the time:

            He said the party was just trying to make mischief, adding: “UKIP is sort of a bunch of … fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists, mostly.”

            I wonder whether Nigel ever recieved the apology he was seeking from Dodgy Dave for this well-publicised slur on UKIP? Knowing wide-boy Dave as we do, I suspect that none was forthcoming…

          4. The Babbling Poltroon never apologised for anything. The only thing he did right was to have the referendum. (expecting a resounding NO)…

  20. The boss of Marks & Spencer is not taking a pay cut despite furloughing staff and cancelling its £210million final dividend.

    Chief executive Steve Rowe will still take his full £810,000 salary plus bonuses this year despite asking long-suffering savers and the taxpayer to prop up the ailing business.

    Last year he received a pay packet of £1.6million, which included £203,000 of pension payments and a £621,000 bonus.

    https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-8266021/M-S-defies-pressure-cut-executive-pay-packages.html?fbclid=IwAR30Lajm6iFNHM0G1_8uouuoIWR81cy6RVjjvWxl2m1eGXdTunE1z019nm8

        1. Very bad form. I do not believe Stuart Rose, for all his remainer status, would have behaved like this.

    2. Morning all 😕
      Last night on the ‘News’ they ran a feature from Bangladesh, and it was found that the people who work in the clothing industries are very unhappy because British stores have been cancelling clothing supplies. The report suggested some were close to starvation. What a load of bolero the media are shoving out at the moment. They need to Get Real.
      And then they presented a feature on an ex Arsenal player who has had a kidney transplant and his apparently feeling vulnerable. It showed a close up of him taking medication.
      No idea who he is, nor do I care about the moaners in Bangladesh. If this is the best these media people can do perhaps they need to take a break from all this nonsense.
      It’s almost become physiologal warfare attempted brainwashing.
      Oh i almost forgot, the boss of the Bangladesh clothing manufacturers lives in London. I expect he’s pretty well off as a result.
      Then I went to bed.

      1. Don’t worry. My daughter in law is in Bangladesh ‘advising’ them how to stike for better working conditions and more pay. It’s why we are looking after the grandchildren during this lockdown.
        I think she may find she does not have a home to return to.

    3. Much as we might disapprove this is not as bad as MPs taking a £10,000 bonus out of public when many of us are having our businesses bankrupted.

      As long as the BBC staff are also paid out of public funds they may be nervous of tacking these grubby, sleazeball politicians properly to task.

    1. He pioneered it,which was very brave and praiseworthy but really Radio London was the better one.

    1. The Activists should attack those NHS managers who have failed in their jobs to purchase the PPE.

      Are they going to blame ‘Ancock, if there is no salt to go on the Fillet Steaks in the Staff canteens?

    3. “It has since emerged that all 5 doctors and nurses Panorama chose to interview were longstanding Labour Party activists or supporters.This was not shared with viewers, in what appears to because sharing it would be a flagrant breach of BBC guidelines.“.
      I think that’s a bit more accurate.

    5. From the above:

      Priti Patel signals crackdown on illegal immigrants crossing the Channel.

      How is she going to do this? Has she considered the Rastus plan of taking all illegal immigrants to within easy 5 minute rowing range of the French coast and loading them into dinghies programmed to sink in fifteen minutes so it will be their own decision as whether or not they drown?

      2. 318735+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        No further action need be taken
        after we,
        STOP WELFARE YESTERDAY.

    6. “It has since emerged that all 5 doctors and nurses Panorama chose to interview were longstanding Labour Party activists or supporters.This was not shared with viewers, in what appears to because sharing it would be a flagrant breach of BBC guidelines.“.
      I think that’s a bit more accurate.

    1. …No viewers at all?
      Seriously?

      Nul Points from the viewers?
      That’s quite an achievement!

    3. I was rather shocked last night at 11 on R4 to come across a programme staring Rosie Jones. Its comedy, apparently. Rosie Is listed as a triple threat, Disabled, gay and northern. I found it rather sad, as the lady was very difficult to understand because of her disability and what I did hear, sounded like schoolboy humour where you talk about rude bits of the body. There was nothing clever. The audience thought it was hilarious but the beeb probably have cans laughter opened for such shows. BBC sounds, 11 pm last night, should anyone want a listen.

      1. It helps that alcohol is usually taken by the audience prior to the performance.

        1. I tend to listen to newsey/factual programmes. The world service in the middle of the night ,when I can’t sleep, usually has something interesting. However, around 11pm there is often something a bit off beat which I rarely enjoy. I was genuinely shocked at the appalling programme last night. It was like school kids talking about sex for the first time, and sniggering.

  24. Puke alert This load of disingenuous bollux just popped into my inbox.

    The Telegraph

    We’re pleased to announce that we’re making some changes.

    They start with commenting on our website. You’ve told us that you enjoy seeing what’s on our readers’ minds, but don’t always feel free to share what’s on yours. So, only subscribers will now be able to comment on our online articles.

    We’re introducing a friendly new team of moderators, too, so you can share your thoughts – and tag our journalists – comfortably and with confidence.

    We’re also removing our ‘Premium’ labelling. Instead, you’ll find that the vast majority of our journalism is now subscriber-only, to ensure that you’re getting even better value from your subscription.

    In these difficult times, we’re working harder than ever to ensure you have somewhere to turn. Visit our You Are Not Alone hub and you’ll find inspiring stories of people coming together. We’ve also set up our dedicated Facebook page, where you can chat with your fellow Telegraph readers about the issues of the day.

    We are doing everything in our power to keep you informed, entertained and connected, both now and in the brighter weeks and months to come. Indeed, your fellow readers recently came together to raise over £1,000,000 for our ongoing Coronavirus Appeal.

    These are trying times. But our community has never been stronger. Together, we will prosper.

    1. “We shall fight them on the newstands, and in the comment columns. We shall never surrender.”

    2. Telegraph Management speak with forked tongue.
      Translation:
      “Fork out or Fork orf”

    3. “We are making some changes…” is the usual line from BT, when the truth is that they will be charging more for less.

    4. Ugh. Buying a newspaper does not imply being part of a “community.”
      I buy a newspaper to read the news, not to buy into a particular mindset.

    5. “We are doing everything in our power to keep you informed, ……..” French riots …..?

      1. “We are doing everything in our power to keep you informed” by making comments and content subscriber only???

    6. They have now driven away the last few of their old readers who have no intention of subscribing. We still buy the Saturday paper (or get it free from Waitrose) but that’s it.

        1. He usually has one on Saturdays in the paper copy – goes on the website on Friday evening I think.

          1. I won’t pay the subscription, but I might buy a Saturday copy. More likely to if Ms Sanghani and Ms Gorden are not padding it out with their nonsense.

          2. If you spend £10 in Waitrose you get it free. I don’t think you get Radhika but Briony’s in there.

        2. Occasional Saturday articles and a Tuesday diary. The Saturday piece is usually on the website the evening before.

        1. Two reasons that I used to by the DT

          Crossword

          Sports Section.

          It was the only paper, that had a heading to tell you what sport you were reading about.
          With Redtops you had to assuem fitba, unless told differently

        2. Morning Bill – yes, it’s very thin these days but I guess they don’t have much to fill it – “in these difficult times”.

          1. 318735+ up ticks,
            Morning N,
            It burns on par with the sun / mirror I found.
            Good wood burner starter.

  25. Morning all

    SIR – Those who work in private education are anxious to reopen schools as soon as possible. How disappointing it is to hear teaching unions call for schools not to be opened until they are deemed safe (report, April 28), as if our work environment is uniquely dangerous. Every walk of life carries some degree of risk, and we who work in schools cannot be insulated from it entirely.

    This is the time for our educators to answer the country’s call and get children back to school, so that their parents can start to turn the wheels of the economy. Surely it is for every school to identify and mitigate the risks that it can control, and to open up as soon as possible. We cannot wait for regulations from the Government, as every school setting is different.

    Suitably shaded outdoor spaces can make first-class teaching rooms through the summer term. Sensible hygiene strategies can be put in place that do not require personal protective equipment. Headteachers can very quickly identify those members of staff particularly at risk of infection; those staff should continue to deliver their lessons remotely. Schools can establish their own protocols to reduce close contact and send home any child or adult who is displaying symptoms, however mild.

    We need to get children down to core learning without further delay, and for their own health they need access to sport, drama and music. If we have to wait for the unions to be satisfied, we might not open this year.

    Alastair Graham

    Headmaster, Hall Grove School

    Bagshot, Surrey

    1. SIR – I work as a teaching assistant in a large secondary school, supporting those students who need extra help in the classroom.

      If there is no return to school soon, many of these students will simply never catch up. It will be a struggle for even the most capable Year 10 or 12 pupils who are due to sit exams in the summer. To face months of GCSE or A-level content with no one-to-one support is deeply unfair to those who rely on it. They will be severely disadvantaged compared to their peers.

      Kate Pycock

      Ipswich, Suffolk

  26. Plod again making misery amongst the decent……

    SIR – Last Sunday, police paid an unfriendly visit to my 83-year-old mother because she had been breaking coronavirus rules. Her neighbour of six years, who lives in the same building, had reported her.

    My mother’s “crime” was to have a carer (her daughter) visit her each day, as she can’t walk or care for herself.

    Surely the police have better things to do than bother an old lady, and what has happened to people if they are willing to denounce their neighbours in this way?

    Janet Burns-Cox

    Edinburgh

      1. I think it is high time they raised the obligatory IQ level of all police officers to over 100.

        1. If I remember rightly, Ron Glum failed to get into the police force because he didn’t pass the intelligence test…

          1. And the lovely June Whitfield played Eff, his long-suffering fiancee. She always defended Ron against his father, played by Jimmy Edwards. I remember Eff being very impressed when she saw that Ron had completed a crossword puzzle but she was rather less impressed when she had to ask him what a smdkozi was and Ron explained that he thought he could fill the crossword frame with totally random letters.

            The whole family listened regularly to Take It From Here and in those days we didn’t have a television set. My mother, who always proclaimed vigorously that she was not a snob, probably thought TV was very common.

          2. In a similar vein; I recently treated myself to the first four series of the ‘Hancock’s Half Hour’ radio show. I’m slowly working my way through them with much enjoyment. Galton and Simpson were masters of their craft and Hancock, James, Williams and co play up the absurdities splendidly. Apolitical humour? That’ll never catch on.

          3. My mother used to race home from work as a teacher in London, wash her hair and listen to Take It From Here as it dried.
            There’s never been a comedy actress more talented than June Whitfield. Dick Bentley too, he had the most marvellous comedy voice. I recently put the Glums on for my aspiring comedian son to learn from and I noticed him laughing a few times!

        2. Could we do that to the entire population?

          Some people out there are truly, monumentally thick.

    2. I trust that Mrs B-C has written to the Chief Constable (or whatever he/she/it is called these days) with a formal complaint.

      As for the neighbours, I hope she has a couple of well-built pals with some large dogs who could tap on the neighbour’s door and thank her for her concern…..

    3. This is what Police States look like! She was lucky that it wasn’t three o’clock in the morning!

    7. We were all brought up to believe that one of the greatest horrors of the Soviet Union was the fact that people were encouraged to betray their neighbours, friends and family. When we were at school the most despised of our classmates were those who sneaked to the teachers.

      The rot began when they put adverts on the TV telling us to report any tradesmen whom we suspected of being unregistered and avoiding tax. I have heard that this is even worse in France where informers are given bribes in exchange for information.

    8. We once had an old bag as neighbour. We’d had some work done on our plumbing, and she had a bad smell in her downstairs lavvy. naturally, it was our fault, our builders had broken her plumbing, she was going to call the council and report us, bla bla effing bla.
      Had a look in her lavvy, and what a surprise… there was a dead plant rotting there, making the smell she accused us of creating. Handed it to her to dispose of, no apology.
      Cow.
      Just the kind that would report someone for having a carer visit – without asking “Who’s that nice lady visiting you in these lockdown times? A carer? That’s kind”

    1. I have to say………although I miss meeting my friends for lunch, and not being allowed to go where I want, when I want, and there are no concerts, sports or evenings out – I am getting used to this. I’ve never minded my own company – perhaps because I was an only child. And of course, I have OH here, also doing his own thing. And we have Lily.

          3. Her purr is quite quiet, unlike our previous cats – but she does purr, very gently, and loves a cuddle. She likes to see where we are, and join us for dinner, or telly in the evenings.

          4. Our Chaucer was half-Siamese and had a loud purr. He slept with us and loved a snuggle. He also enjoyed a good scrap and I would put on a leather glove so that he could use his claws and teeth without hurting or drawing blood. He knew very well never to extend his claws or bite my hand when I was not wearing a glove. He had both a spirited nature and a lovely affectionate temperament – a marvellous combination.

      2. As the saying goes: ‘Those who don’t like their own company are usually right’

        I have only left our house once (to get the lawn mower repaired) in the last five weeks but I have enough to keep me going. What I don’t like is not being allowed to go out when I like even though I don’t particularly want to go out!

        I know that I am incredibly lucky. We have a large house and garden and Caroline can do her sewing and play her organ. (The Dinan Music school is now giving her on-line classes) She does this on the Mezzanine while I can fiddle about on my guitar and read in the library and watch rubbish TV. Of course the best thing of all is how much Caroline and I enjoy each other’s company and how we are completely comfortable never having to mind our Ps and Qs.

        1. You (and we) are lucky having space to enjoy your own activities independently or together.

          Our garden is not as large as yours but we have the common very near and if we want to walk, we can. I haven’t felt like going out the last couple of days as it’s turned cool and wet.

    2. CodeProject had a questionnaire about this recently, and iirc, “my life hasn’t changed much” was the overwhelmingly popular choice among software developers.

  29. Leading Swedish Epidemiologist Slams British Scientist Whose Paper Triggered Worldwide Lockdowns: ‘Normally Quite Arrogant’ 29 April 2020.

    Business Insider noted, “In 2009, one of Ferguson’s models predicted 65,000 people could die from the Swine Flu outbreak in the UK — the final figure was below 500.” Business Insider also noted, “Michael Thrusfield, a professor of veterinary epidemiology at Edinburgh University, told the paper he had ‘déjà vu’ after reading the Imperial paper, saying Ferguson was responsible for excessive animal culling during the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak. Ferguson warned the government that 150,000 people could die. Six million animals were slaughtered as a precaution, costing the country billions in farming revenue. In the end, 200 people died.”

    Some people ripped Ferguson for reportedly overestimating the potential death toll in the 2005 Bird Flu outbreak. Ferguson allegedly estimated 200 million could die, but the actual total was reportedly less than 1,000.

    They are to a large degree still following this moron’s advice!

    https://www.dailywire.com/news/leading-swedish-epidemiologist-slams-british-scientist-whose-paper-triggered-worldwide-lockdowns-normally-quite-arrogant

    1. …and let’s not forget that the contiguous culls, which destroyed many thousands perfectly healthy animals as well as fine herds built up over many years of successful breeding, were all illlegal. No doubt the government was stampeded into such action by the hopelessly inaccurate predictions of Ferguson and others. You would think by now that his appalling track record should have prevented any further involvement in these matters.

    2. Business insider is not quite correct on the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak. Long standing Standard procedures were used to tackle the disease which involved the slaughter of all cattle sheep and pigs on affected farms and farms with dangerous contacts.. Progress was held up significantly at the start as some farms particularly in Cumbria were not dealt with quickly as animals were left alive. The carcase disposal sites and vehicles were not readily available. This allowed the airborne disease to spread rapidly to other herds nearby. This meant, in the early stages, the disease was much further advanced than the vets and techs dealing with the outbreak . It took several months to gain control and stop the disease. Midway through the disease outbreak a decision was taken to slaughter all sheep within a certain distance around affected farms. This was not a unanimous decision in the Veterinary profession. F&M does not kill the animals other than very young and very infirm animals and it does not kill people, in fact I only know of one individual who may have been diagnosed with the Disease. I think one slaughterman in Cumbria died of a gunshot wound at a slaughter site , one fell out of his Hotel window in the Yorkshire Dales and sadly, on a Yorkshire Dales farm a civilian, who volunteered to help the drovers gathering sheep off the moor on his brother-in-laws farm, suffered a heart attack and died on the moor.

    1. The article omits consideration of the different types of mask categories. We have some FFP1 masks that we bought for sanding/painting work a while ago.
      Even the top level masks seem a bit dubious against viruses?
      We should settle for “V” for Vendetta masks. At least we’d be making our feelings clear.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFP_mask

      1. The only valid suggestion that I have seen is that they do help to stop people touching their faces and thus spreading virus particles from hands to the eyes, nose and mouth areas, which humans do a lot.

        1. Then Horace’s suggestion for using a V for Vendetta Mask is eminently sensible…

      1. 318735+ up ticks,
        Morning Jbf,
        Maybe more info. will be in the
        PIE working manual of ethics.

    3. “Who is going to teach it?”

      Well they could give Gary Glitter and friends the job

      2. 318735+ up ticks,
        Morning Bsk,
        The fact is that there are those out there that would allow that to happen, the BBc & rotherham can confirm that.

  33. Morning (just) everyone.

    Have just received a local magazine for Woking and Chobham and there’s an article inside about household waste. If you are suffering from the dreaded virus, or if you have symptoms of it, “you are to put tissues and disposable cleaning cloths into a bag, then placed into another bag, tied securely and kept separate from other waste in your room. This should be set aside for at least 72 hours before being put into your external normal waste bin.” This is official government advice.

    Do you think anyone is doing this? What more can they do to terrify the population? I’m feeling so fed up and down at the moment I feel as if I’m going 😠 mad. No, don’t tell me, I already am!

    1. I have lost all sense of purpose and urgency – I’ve been a bit up and down, but one gets used to doing nothing much, except reading, and chatting here. Even gardening is a bore, and today it”s raining.

      1. I felt quite virtuous a couple of days ago, when I started clearing and cleaning in the garage (an utter mess with mouse droppings discovered in a crate of I don’t know what!), and also cleaned out the cutlery drawer and some cupboards with a sudden burst of energy but now I feel all lethargic. There’s stuff I could be doing at home but …

        1. “…an utter mess with mouse droppings discovered in a crate of I don’t know what!”

          Did you wear a mask? You could have breathed in something DEADLY.

          1. Mouse flu. Keep a watch out for the symptoms, twitching nose, a desire for cheese and hiding under the sofa if there is a cat about.

      2. Ditto J, the same with us .

        We started tidying up drawers and looking at photos etc. Moh is playing a game on phone called Klondike .. which he is addicted to. He dumped his Desert Operations a week ago . He had been playing that for over ten years!

        1. I have piles and piles of photos which need sorting – when I started with family history years ago I had very few, but gradually have acquired many more from known relatives and new contacts.

          My wildlife photos I sort out after each trip and make up a book of the ones I like best. I have quite a collection of those now. I sorted out 25 years’ worth of photos into albums a couple of years ago, but need another album to finsh that job.

          1. My sister-in-law scanned ALL the family photographs which were in their mother’s house and sent them to the MR and their brother.

            A wonderful treat.

          2. Can she do mine? I have a hundred years’ worth in two suitcases, a large box and two big drawers!

          3. Come, come, John. You are “vulnerable”, confined to barracks – what better way to fill your empty days?

          4. I lack:

            the technology
            the skill
            the motivation
            and the will.

            That aside, you are correct.

          5. My excuse is that the scanner is tricky to use; the download time is long and – I can’t be arsed!

            The other excuse is that the decent scanner is in a box in a warehouse in Watton waiting till 2025 for the Government to allow removal firms to start working again.

          6. It is my main hobby. I have over 500 photos on Ancestry and thousands of scrounged family photos going back to the 19th century on USB storage. Most printers have the scanning facility and if you have a good photo storing and repair app it is an absorbing pastime

    2. Everything should be incinerated these days , waste to energy .

      Afternoon, no you are not going mad .

      Here in the village some one has been depositing their wine bottles in the waste bins , probably ran out of space . drinking is a huge problem , people are just getting rat arsed. We don’t drink , we used to enjoy a drink years ago , but no longer , our B/P medication made us lose the need or the taste for anything alcholic.

      Back to the bins , on every waste bin is a telephone number for alcoholics anonymous and a stern request NOT to discard empty bottles in the bins !

      1. We’ve certainly been enjoying a couple more bottles of wine than we used to – but I wouldn’t say we are heavy drinkers – two or three bottles a week between us is probably still within the guidelines.

        1. I have found the perfect long cool drink for someone with a sweet tooth like me:

          One part tonic mixed with one part Mixture (Mixture = 70% Sweet Martini & 30% Triple Sec (40% by vol) with two cubes of frozen fresh squeezed lemon juice.

          (Caroline finds it far too sweet for her taste)

          1. I like Marsala, white port or medium to sweet sherry, bottle in the fridge, over ice, in a wine glass. It’s too sweet unless it’s cold, then it is magic!

          3. Thinking about it I have sailed into a few paces renowned for their fortified wines: Opporto, (Port), Barbate (near Jerez the centre of sherry production), Funchal (Madeira) and Marsala in Sicily.

            I made a point of sampling the local fare.

          5. Sounds too sweet for me! I enjoy a glass of dry white, or a nice red – depends what we’re eating as we don’t usually drink without food.

        2. I am starting to worry about my wine imbibing habit. I used to drink occasionally when I’d had a bad day, but now I only have the occasional dry day!

        1. Don’t you have different bins for different things? We haven’t got wheelie bins here as the lane is too narrow and steep for the lorry, but we have a green box, a green bag and plastic bags for the rest.

          1. Yes, see my reply to Belle just above. So do you have to carry your stuff down to the end of the lane each week?

          2. No – they bring a small vehicle round and we leave the bag/box etc on the drive. Food waste each week, and alternate weeks for recyclables or other waste. They seem to chuck it all in together so I do wonder why we have to sort it.

          1. We have a black bin for household waste eventually taken to landfill, blue for cardboard, paper, bottles plastic cartons, and green for garden waste. Plus the food waste caddy. Luckily we have a side area where they’re all hidden from view. Don’t know how people/families in flats manage.

      3. The problem, with ‘household’ recycling, is that you ditch mainly ‘AIR’

        Having spent many happy years on campsites, where rubbish and recycling bins are seperate, I cannot count the numer of people who just throw away empty 5,6,7 or 8 litre water bottles, the same with ‘Pop bottles, empty cardboard boxes.etc

        I always crush plastic containers that have held liquid and put the caps back on; cut up cardboard boxes into their 6 basic sides, take the bottoms off ring=pull bean tins and flatten them

        It all sounds silly…. however as the Virus bites more, the binmanpersons visit will be lesserester, but heed the aboveyou can still be get stuff into your bins

        I know it is pedantic, but it will stop your bin overflowi

        1. When our recycling bin has got overfull (not often) my son has been known to get into it and jump on everthing to compact it down.

        2. Not silly at all, but a good idea.
          I don’t cut the boxes, I unpick their adhesive & unfold them so they can be flattened. IF I’m not strong enough to unpick the box, I jump on it to make it as flat as I can.
          We shouldn’t flatten cans & plastic bottles, as then the deposit machine can’t read the barcode, and you don’t get your deposit back.

          1. The ones I am on about are non returnable.

            Seriously I have seen so many reycling skips overflowing with just empty plastic bottles and still made up boxes.

    3. Afternoon V. I went down town this morning on Bank Business and then dropped into Marks and Sparks, where they had fooled me to some considerable extent by having the queue inside and that ran around every ladies clothing rack in the place before finally arriving at the Food Hall. During this episode I inadvertently drew nearer to the woman in front who almost had an anxiety attack. I just said to her (since I am to a large degree a sceptic about this business), “It’s not Bubonic plague.” More hand waving and incoherent babble followed. I thought to make some further remarks and then stopped because I could see that she was in a state almost of hysteria. This is what happens when you believe the BBC!

      2. Most mysterious. The fact that I replied to your post but it hasn’t appeared. Anyway, I am of the same opinion as you. And we gleefully entered Morrisons the other day as there was no queue only to find that it wound round all the aisles inside. We quickly ditched the trolley and used 2nbaskets instead and used the DIY till. Much quicker.

    4. Our Council usually provides compostable liners for waste food caddies, but aren’t distributing them at present. I looked on their website on what to do when we run out and it basically says: ‘use any liner, including plastic, because the liners – even compostable ones – are removed before the food waste is put into the bio-digesting machine and burned along with other waste’. Er, so what’s the point of issuing compostable liners, guys?

      1. Our BC supplied them originally but stopped ages ago so, when we go the garden centre, I pick up a few of their plastic bags and they are just the right size. Other than that we were told that any plastic bag would do.

        1. Our kitchen waste caddy was lost several years ago because we put it out for empying – and it disappeared. We never have more than a small bag of chicken bones or suchlike as all vegetable waste goes in our compost bin. I just use any bag that comes to hand – usually from a salad or the inside of a cereal packet.

    5. It would be better just incinerate them, surely, if you have the facility to do so. But flat-dwellers are surely getting a raw deal out of this, in all ways.

  34. A crooked charity? Never!
    “The former trustees of a now defunct charity that enabled companies to avoid £17m in business rates by installing bluetooth transmitters issuing public safety messages from thousands of properties have been disqualified from being company directors.
    A report published by the Charity Commission about its inquiry into the Public Safety Charitable Trust says the charity leased empty properties from business owners at a peppercorn rent and installed bluetooth transmitters in them to broadcast messages to passers by.
    The report says the charity held about 2,000 leases for properties in 240 local authority areas at the time the commission opened its inquiry in 2013.
    Charities receive mandatory discounts of 80 per cent on business rates if the property is used wholly or mainly for charitable purposes, and councils can offer a discretionary discount on the remaining 20 per cent.
    The property owners typically gave donations to the charity as part of the arrangements. But the set-up was challenged by three local authorities and the Court of Appeal ruled in 2013 that the installation of the transmitters did not mean the properties would qualify for charitable relief, so the charity became liable for about £17m in business rates.”

    https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/former-trustees-public-safety-charitable-trust-banned-company-directorships/governance/article/1681252?bulletin=governance-bulletin&utm_medium=EMAIL&utm_campaign=eNews%20Bulletin&utm_source=20200430&utm_content=Third%20Sector%20Governance%20Bulletin%20(49)::&email_hash=

    1. Charities are supposed to have a charitable purpose – to provide a public benefit. I wonder what theirs was?

        1. 318735+ up ticks,
          Anne,
          Different beaches have vastly different meanings as in,
          Omoha, Gold,Juno, Sword, unwelcoming by many.

          South East beaches of England
          welcoming by those of unsound mind to those of unsound natures,
          on a daily basis.

        2. 318735+up ticks,
          Anne, far better the newspaper than the second class stamp with a centre hole for finger insertion, surely.

    3. Must be a modern; some of us remember newspaper hanging on a nail in the Ty Bach 🙂

    2. They haven’t completely destroyed our economy yet and broken the will of the people, there is still more work to do

          3. From Wiki: “In some modern Anglican hymn books, it is replaced with Onward, Christian Pilgrims…”

        2. Dammit. All the ear worm possibilities presented this morning, and my brain latches onto that one.

    6. They haven’t completely destroyed our economy yet and broken the will of the people, there is still more work to do

    7. You might be allowed to play. Unfortunately, singing might continue to have a problem. Apparently, the increased vibration of the vocal folds causes the air which passes over them to “aerosolise”, meaning that we expel droplets much smaller and lighter than those produced when, say, coughing.

      This means that such droplets stay airborne for much longer. And the increased breath pressure of a good sing really doesn’t help matters.

      I have my fingers crossed for you, but am sadly thinking that opera is buggered for a while.

        1. Yep, but as I say, with any luck you’ll at least be allowed to play once they think things through.

    1. Are there any links to serious information about the Gates vaccine programme?
      – not put out by anti-vaxxers
      – digital currency in a vaccine, vaccine passports etc i.e. all the stuff that’s being talked about?

      I found one with testimonies from Kenya about the tetanus vaccine/infertility scandal there, but I’ve lost it again.

      1. Seems that the main goal is to ensure one is vaccinated before being allowed to travel anywhere – internationally at first and then domestically I’m sure. China has social credit controls – it looks like we are heading for ‘Health Credit’ controls.

  39. Good morning all

    The media is milking Captain Tom Moore for all it’s worth. He said he felt cold , he is sitting outside in the open . The media will make him catch his death of cold ..

    1. Much as one might approve and commend the old boy’s fund raising I find the MSM circus around it incredibly depressing.

  41. Yo All

    Captain Tom Moore becomes a Colonel as MoD announces honorary promotion on 100th birthday

    The hugely popular veteran is now the first ever Honorary Colonel of the Army Foundation College after raising £29 million for the NHS

    Ground Control to Colonel Tom
    Ground Control to Colonel Tom
    Take your protein pills and put your helmet on

    Ground Control to Colonel Tom
    Commencing countdown, engines on
    Check ignition and may God’s love be with you

    Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One, Liftoff

    This is Ground Control to Colonel Tom
    You’ve really made the grade
    And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
    Now it’s time to leave the capsule if you dare

    This is Colonel Tom to Ground Control
    I’m stepping through the door
    And I’m floating in a most peculiar way
    And the stars look very different today

    For here am I sitting in a tin can
    Far above the world
    Planet Earth is blue
    And there’s nothing I can do

    Though I’m past one hundred thousand miles
    I’m feeling very still
    And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
    Tell my wife I love her very much
    She knows

    Ground Control to Colonel Tom
    Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong
    Can you hear me, Colonel Tom?
    Can you hear me, Colonel Tom?
    Can you hear me, Colonel Tom?
    Can you….

    Here am I floating round my tin can
    Far above the Moon
    Planet Earth is blue
    And there’s nothing I can do.

      1. ‘Colonel’of a Regiment, in his case, will bea Honoury Title.

        If you did deep, you will find that the Queen certainly (and Brash.maybe) hold similar titles

      2. I never heard of a Honorary Major, they all seem to be Colonels. Maybe Colonel is selected because they are, in fact, useless for anything other than ceremony? :-o)
        Us Vice-Colonels, are, however, the backbone of the Army ;-))

  42. We are living in a post-orwellian nightmare. Sherelle Jacobs

    A mass breakdown about the limits of science has plunged our society into a dangerous new political era

    The dystopia into which the West has sleepwalked is not Orwellian. It is post-orwellian. In the 20th century, we feared the state’s ability to terrorise the masses into destructive inhumanity. Today we must fear the masses’ ability to terrorise governments-by-focus-group into suicidal irrationality. Take the response to the latest ONS death figures. On one hand, these suggest that our peak is falling slowly, recording the highest five-day average of any major European economy at such a point in the pandemic’s curve. On the other, only around 9,000 of the almost 12,000 excess deaths recorded were Covid-related, which invites speculation about whether the lockdown’s effect is lethal.

    Surprise surprise, then, ambiguous numbers derived from imperfect data can be used to justify both ending the lockdown and extending it. And, shock horror, far from “following the science” – which is contested – politicians are following the polls, particularly in the Midlands and the North, which strongly back lockdown.

    No10 has fixated on our stubbornlooking peak and overlooked the number of non-covid-related excess deaths to justify a political decision to resist calls against lockdown. The PM has also fallen back on the unscientific sunk cost fallacy, arguing against the dangers of “throwing away” our “sacrifice”, to throw rhetorical weight behind his – I repeat – political decision.

    The fascinating question is not why this inexperienced government, still shellshocked by its landslide, should be too crippled by opinion polls to show an ounce of authentic leadership. Rather, it’s why so many people lean instinctively towards scorched earth lockdown.

    The answer may be found in popular scientific culture. Man 2.0 is in denial about where he comes on the civilisational timeline; drowning in gadgetry, he falsely views science is a sort of black magic – a force that can solve all problems and, ultimately, save him even from the terror of his own death. This, coupled with the rise of managerialism in politics, has created an unhealthy feedback loop, with a public that expects to be shielded from all risks, and a political class that justifies its existence based on the myth that it can manage such dangers.

    What the politicians are petrified to tell us is that we live in a dark age of scientific limbo. Up to the

    19th century, we overcame “problems of simplicity” involving a small number of variables, to invent things like the radio and the car. In the 20th century, we developed statistical mechanics to tackle problems of “disorganised complexity”, which involve billions of random variables. Predicting things such as an insurance firm’s payouts and a phone company’s call patterns with mesmerising accuracy became possible. But there is a third step we are yet to make – a sort of Great Leap Backwards – conquering “organised complexity”. This is a vast middle ground of problems that involve many – but not billions – of variables. They range from managing pandemics and explaining why mimosas curl up when you touch them to deciding whether markets “work”.

    In 1947, an American systems theorist called Warren Weaver warned that we had 50 years to crack “organised complexity”, through a computer revolution and the deployment of “mixed teams” that bring together experts from various disciplines. Twenty years too late, a Government adviser obsessed with systems theory called Dominic Cummings has failed to realise Weaver’s vision. Today’s tyranny by epidemiologists, at the expense of insights from the likes of economists and psychologists, makes a mockery of Weaver’s vision. So too No10’s enthusiasm for computerised crystal balls that generate projections-on-acid in 1970s programming language, à la Imperial College.

    Still, this failure of science is not as interesting as the state’s post

    Orwellian refusal to admit science’s failure, particularly in post-industrial towns. It’s worth remembering that, as well as being passionate about the NHS, former industrial powerhouses still have a mesmerising faith in scientism. They have lent votes to the Tories in exchange for a levelling up of infrastructure. They expect a stake in the next digital revolution. Even their claims about being “left behind” stem from a teleological assumption about unrelenting civilisational progress. Is there a misplaced fear among the policy wonks that Tories, science and failure in the same sentence is a recipe for political death in Red Wall regions?

    To go forwards, sometimes you have to go back. For centuries, scientists believed that after becoming experts in things like viruses, plants and money, they could put all the pieces together to form an “intelligible” system. Scientists exploring “organised complexity” have returned to the Aristotelian metaphysics jettisoned in the 16th Century, realising that the whole is greater than the sums of its parts and that we need to understand the interrelation of elements as well.

    The layman – and the politicians – need to return to Western philosophy too. In the absence of science that does not yet exist, lockdown becomes an ethical argument. Is it The Right Thing to compromise 10 lives to save one? Or to kill a cancer patient to spare a Covid sufferer? Leaders must now tell the truth: the only way to solve the complex Covid crisis is to tackle these basic dilemmas.

    I SWEAR BY ALMIGHTY GOD THAT THE EVIDENCE I SHALL GIVE SHALL BE:
    THE LIES,
    THE WHOLE DAMN LIES,
    AND NOTHING BUT THE STATISTICS.

    1. Atheists who have thrown out Christian-based morality in favour of a blind belief in “Science” have to bear some of the responsibility for the current situation.
      But I doubt they will. As true believers, they will find reasons why “Science” is not to blame for anything.

    2. Could the lockdown have side-effects no one has considered?
      This virus is still evolving
      https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/could-the-lockdown-have-side-effects-no-one-has-considered

      Dr John Lee

      ‘Nothing makes sense in biology, except in the light of evolution,’ the splendidly named biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote in 1973. It’s a good rule of thumb. Despite near-miraculous advances in medical science we remain biological beings, subject to biological laws. None is more central to our understanding of disease than evolution. Yet this theory remains poorly understood and poorly utilised in medicine. And an evolutionary perspective raises important questions about the drastic action we have been taking to confront Covid-19.

      Most doctors are too busy dealing with the day-to-day deluge of cases to have much time for what they may consider abstruse academic ideas. I can see why: it’s hard enough to understand diseases, let alone think about how they might be changing as we watch. But we know a lot about viruses and their evolution, and this perspective seems relevant (if largely overlooked) now.

      So far, in most commentary on this pandemic, it has been assumed that we are dealing with an unchanging threat. Sars-CoV-2 is a new type of virus that is attacking people, causing a disease called Covid-19. The extent of the threat is constant and can be assessed by examining what happened in places where the pandemic is ‘further ahead’. We know that a certain proportion of patients develop mild disease. Others suffer a much more severe infection. These figures are assumed to be a consistent feature of the new virus: it affects some worse than others.

      But an evolutionary approach suggests a different view. What if there are different versions of this coronavirus — some less deadly than others? All viruses mutate. Typically, a rapidly spreading virus tends to become less harmful as it changes because this helps it survive. If the virus kills too many of its hosts, it is more likely to die out. If it becomes milder, it spreads further. Unlike some viruses that spread slowly and can be fairly quickly suppressed by case isolation, Sars-CoV-2 spreads quite easily. We know that it can evolve, because it has recently colonised humans. To understand why it is still evolving further, you have to grasp just how small a virus is.

      Imagine a birthday balloon. A virus is smaller than this by roughly the same amount that the balloon is smaller than the earth (think about that for a moment: balloon, earth; virus, balloon). When a person is infectious with a virus, it is estimated that they may excrete 10¹¹ virus particles a day. Even if 99.99 per cent of the particles were destroyed on contact with the air, there are still a huge number of infectious ones left.

      These particles will not all be identical. Evolution is driven by inaccuracies in biological copying. Covid-19 is caused by a single-stranded RNA virus, a type particularly susceptible to copying errors. So much so, in fact, that viruses of this group are often referred to as ‘quasi-species’ because they are so variable. It’s likely that some particles of this virus infect their victims with a slightly less severe form of Covid-19, making them less ill. And so, on average, those people will be more likely to continue with their normal daily activities outside of a lockdown, going to work or out shopping. In short, they will be more likely to spread the virus to others.

      In contrast, the particles that cause more severe Covid-19 disease will be spread less since the people who feel worse will circulate less. Hence the evolutionary effect: more severe versions of a new virus tend to decrease quite quickly over time, because the milder versions get spread around more. But change the circumstances — change the environment in which the virus exists — and it could go the other way.

      Think about the lockdown. We have substantially reduced the number of people circulating in the community. If lockdown is working, and stopping the spread of the virus, it might be reducing the circulation of milder versions among the population, while at the same time concentrating people with the most severe disease in hospital wards. There we can find the perfect viral storm, containing everything needed for rapid evolution: huge numbers of reproducing units (the virus), an environment for rapid reproduction to take place in (patients and staff), and selection pressures (things that alter how the virus spreads, such as density of people, severity of disease, or length of survival).

      All of this raises an important question: might lockdown be frustrating a helpful evolutionary tendency of the virus, as well as economically hindering our ability to deal with it? The epidemiological models are silent on this. Most studies so far suggest that this virus is not mutating in a way that meaningfully changes its nature. But we are learning more about Covid all the time.

      A recent paper from China employed a more thorough sequencing technique than generally used to examine the virus from a small number of cases. Standard quick-but-superficial sequencing methods have already revealed more than 4,000 mutations in the virus. But the detailed method revealed 19 new, overlooked mutations in just 11 patients, and these mutations altered the infectivity of the virus. The most aggressive strain generated a viral load that was 270 times greater than the weakest one, and also killed cells fastest. This is the first direct evidence for the effects described above, namely that mutations in this virus can affect the severity of disease. And with such a maelstrom of mutation going on below the surface of standard detection methods, it is entirely possible that an intervention as drastic as lockdown could be having negative effects on the evolution of the virus itself that we don’t appreciate.

      So the question remains: is it better to lock everyone down in hope of reducing a wave of severe cases, but with no real understanding of the wider effects on the virus or society at large? Or would it have been better to adopt what’s often described as the ‘herd immunity’ strategy and let the virus continue to circulate among younger, fitter people, diminishing its severity, while doing our best to protect and support those with greater vulnerabilities? In this view, spread of the virus by people with no symptoms is a good thing because it helps the virus get milder more quickly. Now, more than ever, we need robust and open discussion about whether we are on the right course.

      1. “it is estimated that they may excrete 1011 virus particles a day.”
        Is that possibly meant to be 10¹¹, because 1011 doesn’t sound like a lot?

      2. 10^11, but very good resumé. The simple parallel between the balloon and earth sizes is a good one.

    3. Reminds me of the film ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ – the original one that is, not the Donald Sutherland remake.

      1. Both good but I (unusually) preferred the later version- it didn’t have a schmaltzy ending.

    1. One proposal, made by ‘researchers’ at the University of Warwick, is for over-50s to remain in lockdown while younger people go back to work. This to ‘protect’ older members of the population (who would be fined if caught out and about).

      If ethnic minorities are at greater risk, and should be withdrawn from front-line NHS services, then if over-50s must remain at home, it must also make sense for all BAME people to remain locked down.

      Imagine the outcry if ‘researchers’ at the University of Warwick were to make that suggestion.

    3. Anyone who things that race is a ‘social construct’ has never heard of taxonomy and, therefore, their education is incomplete.

          1. C Louseau
            30 Apr 2020 8:31AM
            ‘BAME workers could be pulled from NHS front line’

            So, now we have a highly contagious, potentially life-threatening virus which is homophobic by virtue of an HIV strain and … seemingly racist !

            Not content with castigating the admirable Trevor Phillips, and casting him into the wilderness for his ‘heretical’ opinions regarding victimhood, the Anti-Fascist Fascists, Anti-racist racists and the multifarious tentacles of the Left are still not satisfied.

            See no Evil/Speak no Evil/Hear no Evil … and, now … Think no Evil.

            Cue the responses from the ‘lurkers’ in three … two … one !!

            david ofkent
            30 Apr 2020 8:46AM
            @C Louseau BAME ‘workers’ are apparently more at risk for reasons not known. It is probably to do with genetices, and/or not having the childhood vaccinations that we indigenous people had when young (I’m guessing, like everyone else). Surely, this leads to an important question. If we cannot use them because they are vulnerable why are we allowing them to become resident here?

          2. Good morning, Lovely Maggie

            That is an inadmissible question as you well know.

          3. Because we need them to pay our pensions. (Scottish Government official policy.)

      2. I learnt my Linnaeus nigh on 50 years ago Grizz
        I wonder if he and his systems are still taught??

      3. Good morning, Grizzly

        I think some people get stuffed while misdefining it!

    5. Not attending their shifts? And not getting paid, obviously.
      That should be popular.

  45. ‘Life turned upside down’: Harry ‘misses the Army’. 30 April 2020.

    The Duke of Sussex has told friends he “cannot believe” what has happened in recent months and that he misses the Army, The Telegraph has learned.

    Prince Harry has confided in pals that he “misses the camaraderie” of life in the Armed Forces, where he was affectionately known as ‘Captain Wales’, having been stripped of his military appointments following the Sussexes’ split from the Royal Family on March 31.

    This young man has abandoned his country, his family, all his friends and everything that is familiar to him and gone to live in another country that really has no place for him except as a curiosity and a celebrity toyboy. His present misery is nothing to what is to come.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2020/04/29/prince-harry-tells-friends-misses-camaraderie-army-following/

    2. He can’t believe it?

      Was he sleepwalking? Didn’t he notice? Wrong medication?

      He’s in for more shocks to come, I fear.

      What a dope.

    3. At the risk of being accused of using a cliché – he has made his bed, now he has to lie in it.

      1. The truth of the matter is that there are some women with whom a young man would like to go to bed but whom he should never dream of marrying. And I am sure that there are some men with whom women have affairs but with whom they should never dream of committing matrimony.

        His grandfather reputedly told Harry that actresses might be fun to have a saucy tumble or two with but they were not for marrying. But Harry did not pay any attention and has got what he has got.

      1. Afternooon Ndovu. I have lived in another country and to a large degree work is what makes it possible since it confers some legitimacy and purpose to your presence. It must be soul destroying to be just a useless appendage to someone else’s ambitions. He’ll either top himself or be back (alone) within a couple of years

        1. I think so – he’s finding out that he has no purpose in life now. She’s got what she wanted and soon she might discard him.

        2. I moved to France with my young wife at the age of 42. It took me a few years to settle down but now I am sure that I am far happier in France than I would have been had I stayed in England.

          It probably sounds smug and corny but if you are happily married then you will probably be very happy wherever you settle.

          1. I love home, but when I’m away I always realise that ‘Here’ is ‘Here’, wherever ‘Here’ happens to be at any given time.

            It doesn’t take long to almost forget home.

            Until I come back and the image is reversed.

          2. As I remembered last week Richard Burton, the Welsh actor, observed that: home is where the books are.

            I have built quite a few book cases at home here in France.

          3. Whenever we have moved house, I never feel I’ve settled until the books are on the shelves.

      1. He should have thought ahead a bit, of the implications of planned actions.
        He would have been a lousy officer in a crisis.

        2. That’s what has puzzled me about this whole affair.

          An officer who doesn’t see or plan ahead isn’t going to last.

    6. I hope he keeps his zip zipped up ..

      Big mistake for him to have another sprog , could be a disaster.

      I bet they won’t show us photos of Archie ‘s 1st birthday.

      1. My mate’s dachshund is called Archie and he’s had it since before these two met.

        Every time I hear the name Archie, I see a brown dog with long ears and a long nose.

    7. He was well into his thirties when he chose to behave like hormone crazed teenager; he appears to have both brain cells situated below his waist. No sympathy whatsoever..

  46. I am amazed that so much spare cash is floating around and dispatched in under 3 weeks re the magnificent amount of money raised by Captain Moore .

    1. People can’t go out and spend it on those expensive morning paper cups of “coffee”; pub lunches; “fine dining”….

      They have to get rid of it somehow, Mags.

  48. Foolishly listened to the idiot Vine when I was in the kitchen. He was ranting about the racism, apparently stirred up by President Trump (yes, he actually mentioned that!) now being seen in London’s Chinatown. Only 2 interviewees, both Chinese gentlemen. He followed them up with his pet female doctor raving about a Chnese medical professor having similar experiences. Do the ghastly BBC do anything without bias?

    3. If these tossers are so worried about Trump’s utterances, why do they keep spreading them far and wide to millions of people who wouldn’t have been aware of them otherwise?

      1. What the Biased Bitching Commies do not seem to realise, is that everyone now knows they cannot believe anything from the BBC, that we automatically believe the opposite, ie It was said by the Democrats/Clintons (sic), not President Trump

  49. BBCTV South today talking about Ramadan just now and interviewing immans and families .. I cannot recall the BBC talking about Easter and interviewing Christians/ all church goers and lamenting the lack of church bells .

    The BBC just doesn’t get it .. we matter as well .

  50. Having just had the misfortune of watching 5 minutes of the lunchtime news, I have come to the inescapable conclusion that today is National Beat Up The Government Day. The broadcast media is completely out of control.

    Naturally, it went off.

    1. Waste of time watching the news, even more so now, since it”s been replaced by a programme called Coronavirus.

      1. There is no other news – how did they manage before – oh – they blasted us with Climate rubbish.

      3. I know, I know…but Mrs H J likes to watch it, until she gets fed up with my rising bile – at which point she finally gives in and watches Create and Craft instead. I allow her to do so (instead of turning it off) in recognition of the many hundreds of cards she makes for our church charity, which raises several hundred pounds annually – but not at the moment of course since the ArchBish took the easy way out and told churches to close.

        1. Even SWMBO has managed to turn off the news.
          She used to be a Remainer (Bless!) and a BBC-o-phile, but the last year or so has converted her to being an arch-Nottler, with all the fervour and evangelism of the newly converted.
          TBH, it’s kind of scary… :-O)

        1. Brush Up your Shakespeare from Kiss Me Kate has some excellent verses about the bard’s plays. One line for the revised play title you suggest to replace Coriolanus might be:

          If the men in charge fail to inspire us
          Then castrate them with Coronavirus.

          I often play my VCR copy of the film of the musical play. Here is a song from a stage production:

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJIpp2Jj8AQ

    2. Yo HJ

      What is this ‘News’ thing.

      We have not watched any since October last year, ie when in Spain and since we cam back 5 weeks ago

      Have I missed anything; I have not seen many nrighbours about lately

    1. Now, if Tommy crossed the road to post a letter, he would be lifted by the perlice

      1. The three surest ways to promote Islamophobia:

        1. Keep the rape gang rape report secret and unpublished;

        2. Give Muslims special favourable treatment;

        3. Continue to persecute Tommy Robinson.

    2. There used to be police whistle blower, but he was stopped

      He has Risen, his blog is below

      Inspector Gadget is the pseudonym used by an anonymous British police officer,
      reportedly an inspector in a rural constabulary in the south of England, who wrote
      an influential blog called Police Inspector Blog, between 2006 and 2013, when he was ordered to stop

      Wikipedia

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_Gadget_(blogger)

      Books: Perverting the Course of Justice: The Hilarious and Shocking Inside Story of British Policing

      https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=inspector+gadget+blog

      I

      2. One thing I miss from the UK are the old pork butchers’ shops. [Drifts off in a haze of nostalgia!]

        Happy birthday to your erstwhile neighbour.

        1. Fat bacon, hog’s pudding, pork chops (with kidney), proper pork pies…..sorry , what were you saying?

    3. Respect!
      I’ll raise a glass to the man, once I’m home (and nobody is watching – see comment below about bottle-to-box conversions…)

  53. Happy 100th birthday to Captain Tom Moore. Have a great day.
    Don’t over do it. 🎂

      1. My best mate lives in MM, he’s sent me some shots of the Spitfires flying past.
        I can’t post because my pc won’t let me sign in to Nottlers.
        I email the main clip and ask another Nottler to post it.

      2. Perhaps give him a promotion every year on his birthday. With a bit of luck he’ll get to Field Marshal!

        1. Probably a combination of tradition and available alternatives.
          I believe that Honorary Colonel is one of the few such ranks in the army.

          2. Brilliant. I would contribute if I didn’t think it would be wasted (and I have paid so much in NICs during the 25 years I was working), Also, I know that Justgiving would take a cut as well. Cynical old me, what a dog! 🙂

  55. Last night we watched a prog on “Yesterday” about railway architecture. Amazing how the Tristrams (© the late A A Glll) can wreck something interesting.
    Pointless musak; frenetic, arm-waving “presenter” who was taking us on a “journey”; and then the mad decision to chop the three items to be described into pieces – so that, instead of a straightforward description of a “lost” Tube station, a cast-iron viaduct and Rotterdam’s Centraal Station – each was split into three and mixed up.

    Shan’t watch any more of it. The most embarrassing part was the meeting between daft presenter and the very patient architect who had designed and built the station. It was cringe-worthy.

    Heigh-ho – time for my porridge.

    2. Thanks for the warning, Bill. You describe the kind of programme that rarely lasts more than 5 minutes in Janus Towers.

      Now, if you would like to watch a fascinating programme (to me, anyway) dig out from iPlayer the prog about the 30th anniversary of the Hubble telescope. Apart from some initial hero-worship of the astronauts involved in its deployment and subsequent repairs and maintenance, it is well worth a viewing.

      1. Thanks, Hugh – and good day to you.

        Yes, we watched the Hubble prog. Spell-binding. And to think that it still works.

        1. ‘Morning, Bill. Thank goodness it still does, but with no means of visiting it now that the Shuttles have been retired, one wonders how long it can remain operating.

        2. Like our first central heating boiler.
          And unlike our second (Green mandated) central heating boiler that showed signs of strain at a third of the age and is now lying in pieces waiting for collection.

  56. The virus death figures of nearly 27,000 are really alarming , but if the BBC were to report on 300,000 incoming shuffling migrants a year , what sort of a reaction would that be , I wonder, or so called children that the last PM promised to nurture out of their culture .

    Can we assume that all migrants / illegal or otherwise are innoculated against diseases the way that we were as children , and that because the population are now in lock down , that no other diseases are festering away in inner city migrant heartlands ?

    1. How long ago would one have said: “This is unbelievable?”

      I expect it was several years ago but now we just shrug our shoulders and say: “That’s only what we expect.”

  59. Politics latest news: Boris Johnson to set out lockdown exit strategy, as his spokesman hints measures could continue until June

    Boros started lockdown far too late

    He has not blocked incomers legal by trains and boats and planes

    He has not ordered the Border Farce to return illegal immigrats IMMEDIATELY they are picked up to france. They should not set foot here.

    Sporting events, which crowds attened should have been stopped, even prior to Lockdown

    The words ‘Protect the NHS’ should not have been used.

    An experienced Crisis Manager (and hisher team) should have taken reponsibility over the PanicDown. Ministers are not equpped for these tasks

    People ARE dying of Covid 19 (how many we do not know) but the endless TV programming and luvvie acts are kiling us all off

    End(ish) of today’s rant

    1. Quite right. We should have either aggressively locked the country’s borders down as long ago as January, or went with the Swedish ‘herd immunity’ approach. This ‘strategy’ seems to be the worst of all possible worlds, lock us in our homes whilst still allowing foreign travellers and illegal migrants to bring the disease to our shores. We are on course to have the highest death rate in Europe (partly due to the slaughter of the innocents in the care homes) whilst causing huge social and economic harm.

      1. 318735+ up ticks,
        Afternoon, Jk,
        The hard line lock-down is perfect if there is other business afoot as in, the opposing team can keep on scoring if you lock the home team in the dressing room.
        As in, crowds of two pose little threat, etc,etc.
        Keep the herd moving in a pacified manner with a promise here, a vow there, and pledges still work.
        A threat when needed let them know who’s who.
        Always remember our unacceptable actions now will be forgotten by the time the next GE comes round, even if that occurred in a fortnights time.

  60. DM Story

    JANET STREET-PORTER: If a female Prime Minister had just had her sixth (or seventh) child by a third father, just months after getting divorced and in the middle of a massive crisis, would we all be putting the flags out?

    I suppose many people still think it is acceptable to apply different standards to men’s and women’s sexual morality. Chastity in women is probably more highly rated by men than sexual inexperience and abstinence in men is regarded by women.

    Double standards are now endemic. Why, for example, are we expected to give Muslims better treatment than we give others? Why are feminists not attacking those in favour of female genital mutilation? Why are animal rights activists not up in arms against halal slaughter? Why have the police been instructed not to pursue ethnic minority rape gangs and why is the report on this suppressed?

    Any views from fellow Nottlers?

    2. Boris is a larger than life character – I doubt if any of his ex wives and mistresses are “putting the flags out” for his latest sprog, but in their time they all fell for his charms.

      Would you rather have the colourless and incompetent Mrs May? Boris has a good brain and leadership qualities, and obviously other qualities too.

      He’s had a roller-coaster year and I wish him well – and his new little family.

      1. Good morning, Ndovu

        I think that JS-P’s point is more about double standards of sexual morality that we have about men and women rather than specifically about Boris Johnson or Theresa May.

        To some extent your post confirms J S-P’s point. We men can get away with being ‘naughty boys’ while ‘naughty girls’ are still considered by many to be sluts!

        As an example Ms Dorries and Edwina Curry were not treated with an indulgent wink when their sexual activities came to light.

        Do you honestly believe that either Mrs Thatcher or Mrs May could have got away with having such a flamboyant sex life as Boris Johnson? I agree with you entirely that Mrs May was colourless and awful but in my view Johnson has a long way to go before he catches up with Thatcher for competence and strength of character.

          1. Her flashing eyes ?

            Major seemed to be such a grey man , one would have to be full of a sense of mischief to arouse such a stiff backed monotonous drone like him .

          2. No , I didn’t fancy them either , to be honest . I like Rod Stewart’s singing voice and twinkle though .

            I just love Boris’s mind .. and charming natural sense of being , and can do attitude. He is the only one who espouses the power of positive thinking .

            BELTING down with rain here , huge drops . the Jackdaw nesting in the chimney is making little sounds of disapproval .

          3. Boris is a force of nature – and I was very worried when he was obviously so ill. His team seemed to flounder without him, and he is the best leader we have.

            Still raining here too, but not heavily. We’re watching our starling mother on the telly (camera in the box wired to the telly) as she is feeding her five voracious chicks. They are only a few days old, and growing fast.

          6. Over 50% of kids born today have parents who are not married.
            This might not be important to some but in the general population break-up is even more common that
            married couples. This can lead to more single parents, more poor households and possible more social issues.
            Marriage might not be right for everyone but it seems better for the kids brought up with 2 parents.

          7. Yes – and quite often the unmarried couples want the same legal protections afforded to couples who decided to marry legally. Yet they dismiss marriage as a “piece of paper”.

          8. I wonder if Caroline would say the same about me!

            (I am sure that BT’s MR thinks that of him!)

        4. Yes – you’re right, Rastus.

          But bastards used to carry a stigma whether they were male or female, and they had done nothing to deserve that sobriquet.

          Nowadays, it doesn’t seem to matter who you are or what you do, but women will still be thought of as sluts if they behave in this manner.

          1. I posted Edmund’s soliloquy on bastardy (King Lear) yesterday. It is splendid stuff.

      2. We rarely have genuine inside information on the stresses and strains of a shared everyday life. However, i would make the point that a woman who knowingly moves from her role as mistress of a married man to becoming his next wife, often leaves a mistress shaped hole in his life.
        Harsh, I know, but a fact of life.

    3. I thought it had been conclusively proven that the strength of a society stands or falls by the chastity of its women.
      That gives a reason for caring more if women are sleeping around and having babies with many different men than if men are doing the same the other way round.

    4. It will not matter soon

      When sad Dick Khant becomes PM, he will just add another wife (or husband?) to his expenses list

  61. According to Wikipedia….

    The Daily Telegraph has described liberal conservative think tank ”Bright Blue” as “the modernising wing of the Tory party”[4] and the ConservativeHome website has described it as “a deep intellectual gene pool for the Conservative Party’s future”

    ”In 2018, the Evening Standard[6] noted “[Bright Blue] has managed to set the party’s agenda on a number of issues”. In 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019, it was shortlisted for both UK Social Policy Think Tank of The Year and UK Environment & Energy Think Tank of The Year in the annual Prospect awards”

    https://brightblue.org.uk/

    On Bright Blue’s website are the ”partners” which include George Soros’ Open Society for the years 2015 -2019 inclusive.

    So as George Soros’ Open Society has ”partnered” an organization which allegedly is ”the modernising wing of the Tory Party” and allegedly is it’s ”deep intellectual gene pool” , I wonder why the Conservative Party or Conservative MPs apparently, as far as I can see, hardly ever mention or want to discuss Open Society or George Soros ?

    2. Perhaps they are beginning to see what it’s up to? They probably all thought it was a “force for good”.

  62. Good afternoon, it was sunny and bright just a few moments ago but is stormy grey .

    1. ‘ullo Ethel.

      The sound of the rain pelting down woke me from my midday nap.

      1. Hello Mr Viking, it’s raining cats and dogs now, pouring down,
        utterly miserable.

        1. In yer North Narfurk – just a light shower, dagnabbit. Not enough to refill the water butts.

          1. In yer Souf East Norfants we have had a tremendous
            funderstorm and heavy rain, with flooded roads following
            shortly after.

            I managed to shop for everything my friends needed/wanted
            at yer Olney Market [before the rains came down!]……superb,
            but will those advocates remember when [if ever] this is all over?

            I doubt it

          5. In yer central Narfurk it’s just been belting down. Dry earlier, sufficiently long enough to dry some washing. Got it in not long before the heavens opened.
            It’s been very windy today, but it’s calmed down in the last hour.
            Our water butt was half empty last week, but should be full again now.

          6. All stopped now. Not much wind, either. Funny the difference a few miles makes.

        2. I decided I’d had enough of being indoors and took shanks’ pony to the shops instead of driving. I had barely got under way when the heavens opened. Still, I didn’t have to worry about social distancing – there was no other idiot out and about! I went to three shops and with one exception the queues were all inside (to pay) rather than outside.

          1. Afternoon, Conwy. Should be over by now – but more to come in about an hour….

  63. Nicked #MeToo

    Sky News (yes, I know) just ran a piece about the Chief Executive of
    Astrazeneca saying they will potentially have a COVID-19 vaccine ready
    to go by June/July this year if it passes its clinical trials. Sky
    featured a clip with Sir John Bell, Professor of Medicine at Oxford
    University, who was talking about it. What Sky DIDN’T mention is
    that Sir John Bell chairs the Global Health Programme for – yes, you
    guessed it – the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.If a vaccine
    takes years to come up with, how come they have this ready to go within
    months? Exactly what is the involvement of the Gates Foundation with
    Astrazeneca? Why is the Gates Foundation a donor to all of the
    institutions from which the Sage scientists have come and how has that
    affected their scientific opinions? I find this very worrying indeed

    1. The Gates foundation is putting up the money for research that governments should be funding. His public comment here the other day – “My only involvement is to keep writing the checks”.

      1. 318735+ up checks,
        Jtl,
        Keep checking the writing, of those asking revealing questions more like.

    2. It may be anathema to many round here but have they ever thought that Gates has no desire to do anything except give back some of his wealth to the “common good”. So donating millions to medicine is not part of a demonic plot to install a socialist world order. Plus I would bet that his tax return gets a lot of tax relief.

      1. Maybe he does, but that doesn’t mean there’s not an ulterior motive. There can be nothing worse than someone on a mission to save everyone else from themselves. They’ll be doing it for your own good, whether you like it or not.

      2. Good luck to the foundation, but I’m afraid I will always be highly suspicious of a supposedly altruistic organisation that makes shedloads of money for itself and its employees from its altruism.

      3. That’s what he said many years ago – that when he turned over the reins of Microsoft, the foundation would be in the humanitarian business.

        But much easier for some to always see a “they’re coming to get me” plot. You have to wonder whether Andrew Carnegie faced the same ill informed criticism when he started funding public libraries across the US.

        p.s. it’s called paranoia – and is treatable these days.

        1. And I suppose that Kellogg, Rowntree and Wedgewood were just dirty capitalists trying to screw the workers when they build decent housing.

          It is going to be interesting to see how the meat packing plants go with that back to work order.

          2. One might argue that he was – at least indirectly – responsible for a significant proportion of Covid-19 deaths. Stuffing our faces with sugar hasn’t helped our overall health.

        2. I’m sorry, but I don’t want a compulsory vaccine, or to lose some liberties if I don’t agree to it.
          I’ve read, for example, that 70% of polio cases are caused by the polio vaccine.
          There’s lots of talk about an Covid19 immunisation certificate, i.e. to allow people to travel or not be restricted to their homes. This isn’t being discussed by the conspiracy theorists, but by news media, pundits, etc. It’s raising alarm bells with people.
          The lockdown in Ireland is being char in the courts as being unconstitutional, which is assuming that the case will even be allowed to go to court. As with Robin Tillbrook’s case over Brexit, it’s currently being blocked.
          It’s the international bodies, WHO, Gavi, the Gates Foundation, UN, etc, that’s discussing all this. You may be ok with their plans. The rest of us wouldn’t trust them any further than we for throw them. The UN and WHO are corrupt. I don’t know about the others.

        1. Some of us don’t even believe Trumps latest whine about Chinese handling of covid19 is just their way of stopping him from winning the election. Hell we might even call him a paranoid megalomaniac.

          It is many years since I met Gates, for someone at the top of a multi gazillion dollar operation, he was very level headed. I prefer my opinion of him.

          1. Trump isn’t planning on ruling the world. The Chi Communist Party are, with their 100 year Belt and Road plan, trapping other countries in debt to China for huge infrastructure projects. We know they’re doing it.

    3. Vaccines don’t have to go through the same clinical trials as other drugs. They can be produced and rolled out at much lower cost to the drug companies, and if they may it compulsory and/or annual, that’s a great revenue stream for the drug companies…
      …and the Gates Foundation…

  64. I just cannot see Edwina Izzhard making £21,000,000 for Charity, the way Colonel Tom has.
    (I expect a lot would have gone on his? expenses)

    Edit Total now over £30,000,000.00

    The Left must really hate Tom,

    Ironically, if you delve deep, youwill find that the majority of the contributors were people that

    Liebore see as the backbone of their Party/voting profile

    1. Never heard of Bright Blue before, but it has a bit of a globalist whiff.

      “Pro-market not free-market.
      Markets are the best way of allocating resources, but they can be inefficient and inequitable, so government and social institutions can help correct market problems. ”

      Also, calling themselves liberal conservatives, when the above is anything but liberal.

      I was at university at the same time as Gove. He is a political fixer par excellence. While at university, he played to the mainly Labour supporting electorate, and was quite mean towards Conservatives. About 5 minutes after graduating, he was suddenly a Conservative – I’ve never found him a particularly convincing one.

  66. Younger workers will be scarred by the coronavirus crisis

    Temporary ‘warehousing’ of workers will only partially prevent economic scars while students are most at risk, say experts

    If they are Effnic Brits, They all should have words with their Grandparents (if they know who they are) and ask

    them about life in UK from 1938 to 1950.

    We did not have ibbly dibbly I-pads, computers mobile phones etc. We had bomb sites and wrecked buildings and lives

    The kids of today (that includes the 20+ yo ones) really Pee me Off

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/04/29/younger-workers-will-scarred-coronavirus-crisis/

    1. Indeed. We still had cracks in the bedroom ceiling from a near miss (bombs jettisoned during a raid on Birmingham – it wasn’t only the RAF that missed the target by miles) when I was growing up. We couldn’t get things repaired. I played on bomb sites when I visited relations in Exeter (subject to the Baedeker raids – what was that about Dresden?).

      1. The continued whinging about Dresden really gets me. The effing Chermans started the war; they attacked London and then many other cities. They bombed indiscriminately. They set up death camps throughout Europe. They fired V1s and V2s at England and- given half a chance, would have used the V3 (nuclear) device.

        They had it bloody coming.

        Rant over. I’ll go and have a lie down.

        1. People today don’t realize that WWII was a fight to the death. If Hitler had had nukes, he would have used them; if the Manhattan project had borne fruit earlier, Berlin would have been the target.

          Had an older colleague years back who spent a lot of time for our company based in Japan. After a particular heavy evening boozing with the “salarymen”, he was asked how Japan could have avoided Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “By not bombing Pearl Harbour” was his reply.

          1. ‘With the Old Breed’ by Eugene Sledge is a young US Marine’s account of his experiences on the islands of Peleliu and Okinawa. Okinawa was the last island before the planned invasion of mainland Japan.

            If ever you wondered whether ‘war is hell’ is a bit of an overstatement or if dropping the atom bombs on H & N was the right thing to do then read this book.

        2. I agree about Dresden. It’s often said by the hand-wringing brigade that history is written by the victors and that Nuremberg was “victor’s justice”.

          Well, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is also such a concept of “Victor’s Guilt”, where victory has to be tempered by perpetually apologising for doing the right thing.

      2. Just check the word Coventrate

        It is ‘German’ for making playgrounds

        The nearest to our houe was about 150 yards away

        PS Mum had to go to Stratford Upon Avon, to calve (me) as Coventry was stil deemed unsafe in 1944

        2. My parents and both sets of grandparents lived in Small Heath, Birmingham, just a few hundred yards from the BSA factory. Mom was evacuated to Evesham which is why my oldest sister was born there in 1941.

          My parents were married in September 1940 and were living with Dad’s parents in early 1941, when an incendiary bomb came through the roof. By all accounts, Dad managed to get the thing into a bucket and heaved it out of a bedroom window, hence Mom’s evacuation soon after.

  67. The BBC’s unforgivably Trot-dominated Panorama shows why we need transparency

    TOM HARWOOD

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b8085527ab6de3e743ab445c060c16460ad21ab22f936f62667ed34a3f1ffb0e.jpg
    Doctor Meenal Viz holds a banner as she protests outside Downing Street
    CREDIT: KIRSTY WIGGLESWORTH /AP

    The BBC’s Panorama programme this week was a disaster. What could have been an enlightening insight into the genuine NHS front line and the undoubtable problems that a pandemic throws up instead descended into attempted hatchet job that ignored all perspectives but one – that of its hyper-partisan line up of interviewees.

    Research from Guido Fawkes yesterday remarkably revealed that every single doctor interviewed for Panorama had a history of left-wing political activism. The Labour Party links were so deep that the programme turned into more of a Party Political Broadcast than a piece of serious journalism. It even shared the same cast as one, as Panorama’s trainee GP (and wannabe MP) Sonia Adesara genuinely appeared in the Labour’s 2019 TV adverts.

    Instead of representing a range of voices, the critiques that certainly exist from the pro-market perspectives were simply ignored. Panorama instead favoured highlighting the views of longstanding far left members of the Labour party, union organisers, and even candidates. To cap it all off, none were flagged up as such to the audience by the BBC, directly breaching the organisation’s code of conduct commitment to disclose what the Beeb calls ‘Contributors’ Affiliations’.

    It would have been about as appropriate to have interviewed Tory MP Dr Luke Evans on NHS sentiment towards the government as it was for Panorama to showcase this cabal of Corbynites.

    Undoubtedly, many NHS workers are concerned. It would be worrying if they weren’t at a time such as this. What is less clear is the idea that they heap political blame on the Tories in the same way that Panorama’s tiresome troop of Trots tried to. If there genuinely is widespread anti-Tory sentiment in NHS ranks as a result of coronavirus, it should have been easy enough to find someone among the majority of doctors who are not party political activists to say that. Interviewee-rigging undermines the programme’s own case.

    Examining the remarkable list of medics given the spotlight up you would be forgiven for thinking that the entire health service was staffed exclusively by Tory-bashing, Corbyn loving, political headbangers. You would be shocked to discover that in fact survey after survey finds that fewer than half of medical professionals support the Labour Party, and of the ten doctors elected to parliament in the last election, eight were Conservatives.

    This debacle, however, is not the first time a broadcaster has fallen foul of its duty to keep viewers informed. Recently the BBC interviewed GP Dr Paul Williams on a ‘Your Questions Answered’ news broadcast, where he proceeded to attack the Government. The catch? Dr Williams was a Labour MP until 2019 and is currently standing to become a Labour Police and Crime Commissioner. Not that the viewers were told.

    Nor were BBC viewers informed about the political background of the ‘A&E Nurse’ who turned out to be a Unite activist who “fights the Tories hard”, or Professor John Ashton (also featured in the Panorama disaster), who proudly described himself as a Labour Party member “for 53 years”.

    The argument here is not that television programmes have no right to interview partisan guests – of course they do. News with views is in many ways a more honest and healthy way to conduct a political conversation than the faux-impartiality half-heartedly pursued by so many of our broadcasters. The point is not to shut things down but open them up. Audiences have a right to know, and broadcasters have a duty to say, who their ‘experts’ really are.

    While trust in every other profession has risen, confidence in the media has collapsed over the last month. With egregious errors of judgement like these, it’s easy to see why. It’s clear that things need to change. Transparency has to increase.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/29/bbc-panoramas-trot-dominated-ppe-broadcast-shows-much-need-transparency

    Yesterday’s ‘The World Tonight’ on Radio 4 started with the ‘new’ figures including care home deaths. Chris Morris was admirably objective in his analysis, emphasising the need not to draw false comparisons with other countries because of significant differences in the recording of deaths. It was almost a surprise. Well done to him for not being drawn into political comment by the presenter.

    1. 318735+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Ws,
      Whisper in the nearest lab party person
      ear, Jay report, rotherham, lest we forget.

    3. Colour me surprised. (Not that I bothered to watch it; I could have written the script if I wasn’t fully occupied watching paint dry.)

    3. But surely it cannot be a daddy as the poor widdle ex-girlie cannot and will not produce those ickle wriggly things like wot daddies do.

    4. What did you say Bob? I’m still suspended from Tw@tter as I can’t receive a text on my defunct phone to say I’m who I am.

      1. Basically stating that the woman pretending to be a man, Freddy McConnell, can not be the father of her own child.

      1. There was a story yesterday of a new arrival, criminal record (including possession of a fire arm) & with added HIV resisting Deportation, for around 7 years Supreme Court Judges referred case back to immigration judges. I would be delightfully surprised if no legal aid was involved. Lucky lawyers indeed….

        1. I agree that there is a dreadful waste of taxpayers money in funding so many cases these days through legal aid. Especially for the illegal economic migrant/criminals.

          However , I suspect that most NoTTLers would look for a lawyer should they be arrested. And that they would hope that in a criminal case their legal fees would be met by legal aid. Just saying.

          1. I guess different attitudes might be taken if legal aid was abolished of even tightened up.
            Back to the days of common sense instead of common purpose.

          2. Most Nottlers, should they require legal aid, would almost certainly not qualify for it.

          3. True. Best to cross to France, black up and then get a rubber ferry back. Then you will be well cared for.

          5. My next door neighbour was taken to the cleaners by the lawyers over her divorce case. Her ex strung things out for so long that there was practically nothing left in the pot – just like Bleak House. She now has a house she can’t sell and an enormous legal bill she can’t pay.

          7. The lawyers strung it out as well – their case kept being pushed back. It went from one court to another, gathering costs like a rolling stone.

          8. Lawyers do not generally suggest an exit strategy, but the individual should keep an eye on the cost/benefit analysis. Invoices are generally settled monthly, so costs are apparent quite quickly.

          10. They let her let it mount up and pay off small amounts, and encouraged her to take out loans. She also had to engage a barrister, as her ex did. The whole fiasco wore her down. Which of course was what he was after. He thought she would be a pushover, but she stood her ground. It’s cost her dearly.

          11. Hmmm.

            If courts make orders to refer cases to other courts, that is NOT the fault of the lawyers. Are they expected to attend court after court hearing for nothing?

          12. Most NoTTLers are probably legal citizens of this country so have a right to be given legal aid. The correct way to resolve an illegal situation is to make it legal, and deportation does just that.

          13. In Norway, appeals against refusal of residency and/or deportation must be made, by law, from abroad. They cannot be made until the miscreant has left / not arrived yet.

  69. What’s with the Disqus Coronavirus popup? It asks five questions about the impact it’s having on your life, and then asks what State you live in. I couldn’t locate ‘Complete and Utter F’in Boredom’ in their list.

    2. He has a smile as fake as a £3 note! I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him!.

      1. 318735+ up ticks,
        Evening BB2,
        Submissive, PCism,& Appeasement
        have a pretty strong hold on society and the coalition party use these tools daily & in a controlling manner.
        Example being Tommy Robinson
        being undeservedly castigated for taking certain pro decency actions,
        etc,etc.

    4. I stumbled on this earlier today and now Brian Silvester’s revelation. This Country is close to being lost and all the current political parties are facilitating the demise of the true British culture.

  71. Further to yesterday’s pics, here’s another ‘might have been’, if only I’d been able to fly last week as planned.

    One year ago today, 30th April 2019. Spain in the foreground, France in the background.

    It’s the same view that I used as a back-drop for my 2018 drawing of a Lammergeier. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a72d0019fc869ad2bd90f5cc5f95a90f2fb0338b9137a141ea7a871a67c308a0.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5bffec0be1408002ba1c7c684c827fde24eb3fd39bc18c20fd48ec323b105b67.jpg

    1. I remember watching lammergeiers at the top of Mont Aux Sources in the Drakensberg. Magnificent birds.

    2. I remember watching lammergeiers at the top of Mont Aux Sources in the Drakensberg. Magnificent birds.

  73. Colonel Tom raised £30 million. Over in the US: “Over 30 Million Americans Have Lost Their Jobs In The Last Six Weeks”….

        1. Well I suppose that when the Republican governors impose stay at home orders, many people will become unemployed, regardless of political affiliation. I don’t see why anyone is surprised by the numbers being so high.

          No it is Democratic governors as well but this us vs. them has become quite pathetic.

      2. A statistic I learned a while back. To reduce unemployment by 1,000,000 requires the creation of 1,000 jobs a day, every day, seven days a week for almost three years…

    2. And now we find out he appeared on the Wogan show when he was 63. Cynical old me begins to smell a rat. He probably has an Equity card stashed away somewhere.

    1. I’ll have you know that the UK Chapter of the International Flat Earth Society is going strong. Or it was when I retired from the Civil Service.

  78. “Ah, yes, divorce, from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.”
    Robin Williams

    “According to a new survey, women say they feel more comfortable undressing in front of men than they do undressing in front of other
    women. They say that women are too judgmental, where, of course, men are just grateful.”
    Robert De Niro

    “There’s a new medical crisis. Doctors are reporting that many men are having allergic reactions to latex condoms.

    They say they cause severe swelling. So what’s the problem?”
    Dustin Hoffman

  80. Afternoon everyone. If this continues I shall be one of the first to post! Actually, the other day when I was still awake at 06.00 I could have been the first to post if I had bothered to turn the computer on! Is it me or is everything becoming more difficult and frustrating? I have just gone round the houses trying to contact the TV tax people because MOH turns 75 in a few days’ time and I need a refund (should have had a short licence, but I got no joy when I tried to contact them last September – they told me to contact them again in April). I’ve tried the website – no joy. I’ve tried the telephone number – I got a recorded message and then, after about ten minutes of listening to things I didn’t want to be told, they said the telephone line had been shut down due to coronavirus! I have resorted to a letter (again – I sent a letter last September). I have threatened them with the Ombudsman if I don’t get a satisfactory response this time. They can go whistle for me renewing as well. I had a similar thing when trying yesterday to chase up the fridge-freezer we’ve paid for but not received. No response from the website and going round in circles on the telephone before being cut off when I got to the place I needed to contact. They did ring me back this morning, but without a result. They were going to ring me again when they’d investigated. I’m still waiting.

    1. Everything seems to be taking longer – I ordered a book on 14th April and it arrived on Tuesday. Tracking info said had been with Royal Mail “out for delivery” for a week. At least I got it eventually.

      You should have been able to get the free telly tax set up long before OH turned 75.

  83. Social distancing:

    “The figures also show our use of the enforcement powers remains
    proportionate with just 0.02 per cent of the population in England being
    issued with a fine.”

    That’s not an awful lot fewer than the total death toll from CV in England.

    Are we over-reacting?

    Of course we are.

    1. It’s also about the same as the number of air passengers and illegal immigrants coming into the UK.

      1. err….?

        Does anyone have even the remotest clue about how many poxed air passengers, let alone illegal immigrants are entering the UK?

        Just askin’

  84. I am off to eat wild boar sausages, potatoes in garam masala, washed down with a toothsome red (of some sort).

    I’ll join you in the morning, should I be spared.

    BTW – someone was asking the other day about how to get a decent bit of sleep at night. I took a slurp of a jollop called “Night Nurse” – and had a much better night. I was wondering whether to add a drop of brandy to it (it has a sickly taste) but the MR advised* against it.

    A demain

    * She said, “Don’t even THINK of it…”

    1. Night Nurse contains lots of paracetamol. Paracetamol and alcohol are not a good combination. The MR is right.

  85. A couple of interesting and worrying comments from yesterday over on Lockdown Sceptics:

    KurtGeek
    “A tested, positive patient was ‘pushed out’ of the local hospital into the care home my wife works at, back when they were trying to empty the wards. I don’t suppose he was the only one they pushed out of the door. What staggers me even more than that is that the hospital did not make the home aware. I believe they only found out when he was already there, had a temp. and was coughing. They phoned the hospital and they then confirmed it. He infected someone else at the home during some nocturnal wanderings. Fortunately, just those two affected, and both have now recovered. One was 99!

    A second point: an old chap (unconnected with the above) died. The home management called his GP to get a death certificate. The cause was put down as CoVid19. Home says ‘hang on, he didn’t have CV19’; GP: ‘he had a temperature last week’. Home: ‘Really? OK, so do we need to isolate anyone?’ ‘No, no need.’”

    BecJT:
    “Is there some points mean prizes thing going on with hospitals and GPs (as there is with everything else) for declaring a death? That’s shocking, and it’s happening near me too, friend of family is a hospice nurse, they’ve had to take 7 covid terminal patients, already terminal, then got covid, but she’s livid, as they have lots of vulnerable life limited people in there (and they’re a charity, rapidly going broke at the same time).”

    Anika Pilnei
    “I sent these links to Toby [Young] the other day but he didn’t publish them, maybe they weren’t relevant enough at the time:

    1. https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/04/21/the-anti-lockdown-strategy/
    Sending old people still with symptoms back into care homes is NHS policy at this time to keep hospital beds free… Dr MK has written a few superb blog posts on the whole lockdown disaster from the front line as a NHS worker / GP. Worth a look!”

    “NHS policy.” Now why would the NHS deliberately send elderly patients into care homes knowing that they have symptoms of CV19??

    1. Somebody needs to spread it!

      But seriously what are all the beds for if they’re sending Covid19 carriers back to care homes/home? We know of 2 cases where a patient was toing and froing between a Covid19 ward and a “clean” ward. We’ve come to the conclusion the NHS wanted them to catch the virus – there’s no other explanation. (They has both tested negative for the virus). But as I said what are all the hospital beds for and where are their patients? .

        1. It stinks of total ineptitude.

          Never attribute conspiracy to something where cock-up is the more likely explanation.

          1. So far the Gummint has managed to evade such questions, but I suspect they will have to answer to their poor ‘policies’ at some point in the future.

          3. That’ll be 100 years from now, when the papers are finally released they realise that the papers they were about to release have accidentally been shredded at some unknown time by persons unknown.

          5. Hold on, A A, is this something that should be laid at the ‘Gummint’ door, or is it poor training and incompetent administration within the NHS?

            I know which way my thought-process is going.

  86. “The Independent reports that police in Norfolk are hunting a man who takes daily walks in a Norwich suburb dressed as a “terrifying” plague doctor, complete with pointed beak-like mask.”

    https://lockdownsceptics.org/2020/04/30/

    Bill, is that you, come down from Narf Narfulk to terrify the natives ??

    2. He lives in Hellesdon, not Hellespont … or Styx (they are in the next county!*).

      [* A £5 postal order to the first unraveller of this conundrum]

        1. Still in the dawnlit waters cool

          His ghostly Lordship swims his pool,

          And tries the strokes, essays the tricks,

          Long learnt on Hellespont, or Styx.

          Dan Chaucer hears his river still

          Chatter beneath a phantom mill.

          Tennyson notes, with studious eye,

          How Cambridge waters hurry by . . .

          from The Old Vicarage, Grantchester. Rupert Brooke

      2. Um… Od[d] Nun Ruth sic[k]? (This conundrum unravelled – with the help of an extra d and k.)

      1. ‘Evening, Bass, I don’t think that opinion is founded on any relevant information.

        I’m Norfolk born and bred and find that there is very little that frightens Norfolk folk nor indeed anything that might terrify them. They stood up stoically to any Nazi bombers dropping their loads as they turned round and beat it for home when set upon by our Royal Air Force (in which I served for 10 years which included the Cuba Crisis).

        1. Not a dig at Norfolk at all.

          Just a wry reflection that the police are hunting someone in fancy dress on the grounds that he might terrify the locals. I read about it in the Mail on Line last night and that was the line that was being taken. I think he’s doing great. British dark humour.

          1. Quite.
            They can’t be easily frightened, they allow BT to live amongst them.

            Of course the real reason they allow it, is to frighten the children:

            “If you don’t behave, the Trombetti man will get you…”

          2. Humour is one thing our once approachable bobbies don’t seem to do any more.
            Probably something to do with common purpose training. Not reuseable common sense.

          3. “Excuse me, Officer, but my watch has stopped, would you be so good as to tell me the right time.”
            “It’s tazer time, Wrinkly!”

          4. GET ON THE GROUND 😠
            Ooh just a minute officer I’m a bit stiff these days.
            GET ON THE GROUND….NOW !

        3. So you’re saying, NtN (©Cathy Newman) that Nazi bombers took part in the Cuban Crisis?

        2. Also – and this is my favourite in that it makes me wince every time I hear it used especially for some reason by the younger members of the Royal Family and particularly MM – wait for it! here it is : Incredibly. Incredibly this, incredibly that. Incredible. I can only assume they think it makes them sound intelligent.

          4. Especially when speaking about women. They seem to think that HEROINE is some kind of a drug.

          7. I have a high regard for our current Home Secretary, but I do wish that Priti would enunciate her “g”s. (Just sayin’.)

  88. NoTTLers will recall my rant about the local garden centre and its lack of initiative. I had several e-mail exchanges with them three weeks ago urging them to do delivery or collection.

    Today, I heard from a neighbour that they started doing this last week. Now call me a old grump, but one would have thought that the people they would immediately have contacted would have been the thousands on their e-mail database. Not a word!!

    Still, at least it may be a chance to stock up.

    1. Go to B&Q, then send them an email, listing what you bought.

      Customer relations work both ways

      1. I suppose if you have zero initiative, it doesn’t suddenly
        arrive over night!

  89. From the DT Live feed

    “As the Prime Minister himself has said the worst thing we could do is relax the social distancing measures too soon and throw away all the progress which has been made thanks to the hard work and sacrifice of the British public.”

    And of course the NHS is being told every five seconds how brilliant it is.

    Don’t people get a bit fed up with being patronised? I was a pretty rebellious and idle child and I know that when I was at school I did not work very hard and that I was a disappointment to my father who had been a brilliant First Class student at Cambridge.

    But to be praised when one knows one could have done better is an insult to one’s intelligence and is not at all encouraging. By all means congratulate people for doing well and thank them – but be sure not to condescend to them as it will get contempt as a response.

    I am sure that many teachers here would agree with me.

    2. It’s a new mutation of Diana Death Syndrome that is infecting many in the political and underclass sections of society.

  90. Suddenly all pictures won’t download – maybe I’m being told to go to bed? Night all.

    1. Of course the rest of us have been lapping it up and enjoying the separations and solitude.

      Why do these lens-hoggers think their opinions and feelings matter a toss?

      1. Black tart whose “victory” in some beeboid cooking prog was rigged, so that a daft bint in a burkha (alright, not quite) could be seen to be “just like us”…..

    3. The silly tart was on about this the other day – two weeks ago? In the Sat Telegraph.

      Obviously that didn’t get her the wokish support she needed – so she hawked the story to the beeboids, who will, natch, lap it up.

      Who cares a jot or tittle?

      2. We used to use that regularly.
        For such a narrow river it is extraordinarily deep.

    3. But you will still be locked in if the age police have anything to do with it. Imagine standing at the window staring out at all of those Londoners enjoying the countryside.

      We are separated from the mainland by four bridges and a ferry, so if plod could be persuaded to keep the townies out, it would be fairly easy.

        1. We have some stationed here ready for the next riots up at the reserve.
          They normally let the locals know where the drink driving checkpoints will be.

          1. The last time I saw Plod in action was at a Hippie Love In St. Agnes in the 70’s…….

          2. W pay about $10 million a year for policing in the county. The money goes to the provincial police who provide what’s needed. They subsidise their wages with occasional speed traps.

    4. You’ve been on a beach ?👱
      Naughty…..I suspect you might have been playing secret tennis as well. 🎾
      You’ll be okay if your local coppers are anything like the bloke in Doc Martin. 👀

      1. It was a lovely sunny day so I took a stroll along the beach to the local shops. No queues and plenty of people enjoying sunshine in the park. The tennis courts looked a bit sad..can’t understand why members couldn’t play singles…

        Re Doc Martin……they’re not actors!

    5. Gosh – do they have supermarkets in Cornwall? I thought you all lived in stone round houses with turfed roofs.

  93. Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, due to the current COVID-19 situation, we are temporarily closed until further notice.

    An automated response, probably replicated across small businesses throughout the UK.

    I hope the sacred White Elephant is worth the cost.

  94. Why we shouldn’t trust governments. An old one but similar now.

    This is too true to be funny.

    The next time you hear a politician use the word ‘billion’ in a casual manner, think about whether you want the ‘politicians’ spending YOUR tax money.
    A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.
    A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
    B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
    C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
    D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
    E. A billion Pounds ago was only 13 hours and 12 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.
    Stamp Duty
    Tobacco Tax
    Corporation Tax
    Income Tax
    Council Tax
    Unemployment Tax
    Fishing Licence Tax
    Petrol/Diesel Tax
    Inheritance Tax
    (tax on top of tax)
    Alcohol Tax
    V.A.T.
    Marriage Licence Tax
    Property Tax
    Service charge taxes
    Social Security Tax
    Vehicle Licence Registration Tax
    Vehicle Sales Tax
    Workers Compensation Tax

    STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?

    Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and our nation was one of the most prosperous in the world.

    We had absolutely no national debt.

    We had the largest middle class in the world. Mum stayed home to raise the kids,

    Dad was allowed to discipline kids a criminals life was uncomfortable.

    What the hell happened?
    ‘Political Correctness’, ‘Politicians’,or both?
    I hope this goes around the UK and beyond at least 100 times.

    1. Actually a hundred years ago income tax did exist – it was invented as a “temporary” measure to pay for the Napoleonic Wars.

      1. Income Tax was formally repealed in 1816, a year after the Battle of Waterloo, but it was reintroduced in 1842 by Sir Robert Peel to deal with a massive public deficit. At this time, it was levied only on the very rich, and it remained so for many years. In 1874, it contributed only £6 million of Government revenues of £77 million.

        Income Tax rose dramatically in the early 20th Century. A new range of taxes and rates was introduced in 1907 by Herbert Asquith. In 1909, an alternative to Income Tax for high levels of earnings, called the “Surtax” or “Super Tax” was introduced. Super Tax survived until 1973, when it was replaced with the Higher Rate of Income Tax.

        By 1918, the standard rate rose to 30 per cent, which brought in £257 million per annum, on top of £36 million from Super Tax. Moreover, by 1930, 10 million Britons were liable for Income Tax.

        Income Tax was extended to a larger proportion of the population and its rates increased again in 1945, to pay for the Second World War effort. The current Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system for deducting tax at source was introduced in 1944, replacing the previous system of annual or six-monthly collection. The “tax code”, telling employers the proportion of income to be deducted, and the P45 form was introduced alongside PAYE.

      2. And still has to be renewed each year in the Finance Act, I believe but am prepared to be proved wrong.
        Hope you’re well.

        1. Apart from being stir crazy and extremely frustrated at my inability to get problems sorted out due to everything shutting down for coronapanic, I am, thank you. You?

    2. An analogy, you throw something out becuse you do not need it…

      and the next day you are proven to be wrong

  98. We have just had half an hour of quite heavy rain – and a roll or two of thunder. About to end. I can see the sun behind the rain clouds.

    Still, useful for the potatoes and broad beans.

    2. With a stiff SSW breeze you should get some more later today (it’s just passing overhead and persisting it down!)

    3. It’s been chucking it down here for most of the day Bill.
      My butts overfloweth.
      What a waste.

      1. If I may butt in – why not have more, er, butts? All my original ones have been doubled with those natty linking pipes. I now have 4 cubic metres of water storage… I just wish that the butts were nearer the places that need watering…

        1. I’ve got 5 in line Bill with overflows and syphon tubes to and from the last two in line which are the same height.
          All done by mirrors.
          And the pond is kept topped up by my work shop roof via the directed down pipe and guttering.
          You might look into a small pump to shift the water to where you need it. A Pond pump might do the job. It’ll save you all the heavy lifting.
          I’ll ask our eldest.

        2. How far away from the supply do you need to move the water ?
          My son will check out what’s available tomorrow.

  99. Nobel prize winning scientist who discovered HIV has stated, CORONAVIRUS was developed in a laboratory.
    No real surprises eh.

      1. It just means the Chinese Secret Service are smarter than their US counterparts.

      2. In other words, Ready Eddy and One Last Try, everyone has his or her theory and latches on to any statement (a claim by a Nobel prize-winning scientist or a US spy agency unsubstantiated theory) which “proves” their views and claims that they are right and everyone else is wrong.

        1. Yo Elsie

          Wot I was sayin wos

          The Merkins sais it was not man=made, but at the end say it could have accidentally? escaped from a Lab.

          1. Right at the start before all the cover ups started. It was said that some of the animals used in the experiments, probably monkeys were removed from the laboratory and sold as meat on the market. The Chinese have a sad and terrible reputation for eating any type of meat. I’ve even see videos of them roasting dogs. The dogs were still alive.
            Back in the day, the National Medical Research centre in Mill Hill kept a number of dogs for experimention. We could often hear them barking.

        2. What actually is a substantiated theory ?
          You can have four experts and 5 different opinions.
          Quite often we see today’s lauded expert often becomes tomorrow’s fool.

      3. According to the press today, the virus was developed in the lab at Wuhan.
        Which strangely was predicted by a novel in 1981 by American author Dean Koontz Eyes of Darkness.
        Why would any country choose to do that ?

  100. 318735+ up ticks,
    May one ask, why was the contents of this report not given over to the public immediately ?
    Was it not made public, protecting in a submissive, appeasing manner the islamic ideology following with a false facade of integration working, no problems ?

    If so are these governance parties carrying out a campaign of treacherous deception ?

    https://twitter.com/GerardBattenUK/status/1255929148146679808

    1. Dusgustingly and quite deliberately annoying.
      Typical of our useless political classes.

  101. https://computingforever.com/2020/04/29/the-rationalization-of-tyranny/
    Dave Cullen: The Rationalisation of Tyranny

    Links: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/14/health/social-distancing-research-coronavirus-2022-trnd/index.html
    (CNN)This may be the new normal for quite a while.
    The US may have to endure social distancing measures — such as stay-at-home orders and school closures — until 2022, researchers projected on Tuesday.
    That is, unless a vaccine or better therapeutics becomes available, or we increase our critical care capacity. In other words, 2022 is one scenario of many.

    https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-no-exit-to-full-lockdown-until-theres-a-vaccine-says-health-minister-11973906
    Sky News:Coronavirus: No ‘exit’ to full lockdown until there’s a vaccine says health minister
    England’s Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty says the UK is “probably” reaching the peak of the outbreak.

    https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/reaching-everyone-everywhere-with-life-saving-vaccines
    WHO:..Reaching everyone, everywhere with life-saving vaccines
    25 February 2017

    Dr Margaret Chan, Former Director-General of WHO,
    Chris Elias, President of the Global Development Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
    Anthony Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases,
    Anthony Lake, Executive Director of UNICEF,
    Seth Berkley, Chief Executive Officer of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

    In 2015, world leaders agreed to a new development plan—a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Expanding access to immunization is crucial to achieving the SDGs. Not only do vaccinations prevent the suffering and death associated with infectious diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhoea, whooping cough, measles, and polio, they also help enable national priorities like education and economic development to take hold.

    The unique value of vaccines was the driving force behind the Decade of Vaccines, an effort launched at the 2010 World Economic Forum and supported by many stakeholders to extend the full benefits of immunization to all by 2020. Governments welcomed the initiative, and 194 member states endorsed the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) at the 65th World Health Assembly. The plan is ambitious and aims to ensure that all people everywhere live free from vaccine-preventable diseases.

    https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2019/0423/1045277-could-the-state-introduce-compulsory-vaccination-laws/
    Could the State introduce compulsory vaccination laws?
    This raises the question of whether the Oireachtas could legislate to make vaccinations compulsory (e.g. by imposing a penalty for failure to vaccinate, or by making vaccination a pre-condition of school attendance). A 2018 study found that 11 of 31 European countries surveyed have compulsory vaccination laws.

    https://impakter.com/digital-identity-basic-human-right/
    Digital Identity As a Basic Human Right.

    Anyone else starting to feel worried yet??

    1. Well that’s CNN. Yesterday Trump said that he was going to let the social distancing guidelines lapse.

      Somewhere between the two might be a glimmer of truth.

      1. CNN are barely a news organisation any more, but it’s the general discussion that’s going on with our esteemed leaders in various countries, the UK included. Some of our scientific advisors have been talking about lockdown for 18 months, or until there’s a vaccine. There won’t be an economy left by that point. People here are already starting to go back to work regardless of lockdown, so we’ll see.

    2. I wish that clip of Marilyn Monroe had never been recorded. They all trot it out, thinking they are being cute and original.

      The original isn’t even very good. In fact it’s bloody awful.

    3. I feel sorry for the poor old guy. They’re feeding off him like vultures at a barbecue!

      1. The mawkishness is stomachturningly horrible with the slebs trying to cash in by showing how warm and caring they are.

  107. Obviously this is a just a totally unconnected random coincidence….

    On March 25 2018, liberal conservative pressure group Bright Blue, described by ConservativeHome as “a deep intellectual gene pool for the Conservative Party’s future”, and part partnered with billion dollar green tech investor George Soros through his foundation Open Society, calls for legal Net Zero….

    ”UK should adopt new G7-leading legal net zero emissions target, says Bright Blue”

    https://brightblue.org.uk/uk-adopt-leading-net-zero-emissions-target/

    In June 2019, “Now is the time to go further and faster to safeguard the environment for our children,” Prime Minister Theresa May said in a statement.

    ”Reaching net zero by 2050 is an ambitious target, but it is crucial that we achieve it to ensure we protect our planet for future generations. Legislation will be put before parliament on June 12 to amend the existing climate change act to incorporate the new target”

    What a small world it is !

    1. Is there something you hate about philanthropy?

      Just as Bill Gates is a billionaire philanthropist with an interest in increasing vaccinations in the third world, so Soros is a billionaire philanthropist with an interest in climate change and decarbonising (silly word) developed economies. He’s fully swallowed up the Al Gore and IPCC propaganda and is throwing his money away in an effort to stop hockey stick growth of temperatures. Well it’s his money he can do what he likes with it.

      You’ll see the people moaning about climate change are largely only attacking developed economies forcing them into the change to service economies and importing production from the third world.
      Bright Blue seem to have two real aims. They want carbon credit/permit trading to continue, it’s very profitable, and they want landowners subsidised for carbon storage. Meanwhile we will suffer ever falling wages due to the switch from production to making each other’s coffees, and an ever-widening trade deficit in goods with the rest of the world that we have no hope of overcoming with trade in services. Meanwhile as we target inflation rather than full employment we’ll go on keeping at least 5-6% of people out of work so that full employment doesn’t make inflation take off, although this can be mitigated somewhat like the Tories have done by forcing people into gig economy jobs where they don’t earn any purchasing power but make our official unemployment figures look better.

      Politicians for 40 years or more have been too stupid, too short-sighted and too easily swayed by donations to see what a mess they have made of the country by jumping on every bandwagon that passes their noses. It is they who should be blamed, not elderly idiots trying to use their money to further the common good however misguided they seem to be.

  110. Amusing how Soros and RenewableUK part funded “Bright Blue” advises the Conservative Party on policy including Net Zero.

    This sounds just like the Institute for Fox Nutrition advising farmers to leave hen coops open, and having their advice accepted.

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