Wednesday 13 May: British voters backed Brexit and back the PM’s common-sense message

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/05/12/lettersbritish-voters-backed-brexit-back-pms-common-sense-message/

843 thoughts on “Wednesday 13 May: British voters backed Brexit and back the PM’s common-sense message”

  2. A one-sided view of the Empire is no way to understand Britain’s past. Michael Portillo.12 may 2020.

    However, the European powers enslaved Africans on an industrial scale. According to one estimate, the British shipped 3.4 million people to its colonies, second only to Portugal, out of a total of more than 12 million seized and transported across the Atlantic during the 16th and 19th centuries. The Caribbean islands were, for some time, Britain’s most prized colonies, and the profits helped to launch the industrial revolution.

    Morning everyone. I have undergone something of a recent conversion concerning Portillo due almost totally to his Railway programmes on BBC. It is therefore somewhat painful to read this article which panders to Political Correctness while giving the impression that it is the product of Free Thinking. The above paragraph is typical of his approach. The European powers did not enslave Africans on any scale at all. That was done solely by their fellow Africans who then sold them to independent entrepreneurs. The British merchants shipped the vast majority most of their purchases to the America’s not their colonies per se, Jamaica being an exception that proves the rule.

    He makes similar concessions to Cultural Marxism with his comments on India, where the Mutiny is described as the Indian Rebellion, (something he has in common with Wikepedia) a description which panders to Indian Nationalism and which if true would have seen India independent a century earlier than it actually was.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/12/one-sided-view-empire-no-way-understand-britains-past/

    1. He gets a good income out of television I expect, they all have to say these things to keep their lucrative overpaid jobs and win friends among the vulgarati

    2. He’s another person I can’t stand. Never have. A shocking minister; reinvented as a creepy telly tart presenter.

      1. The chap’s not British…what does he know.
        Another opportunity to give the British a good kicking….

        1. I recall years ago – when I still looked at beeboid telly – he did a prog about his Spanish roots.

          The Spanish side of his family wee filmed – and there was a large meal. They all seemed terribly unimpressed by the over-weight upstart!

      2. Good morning, Bill. The man does have some qualities, though. He is the only person I know who can travel by train and constantly change his bright (some would say garish) jackets without carrying a suitcase!

        :-))

    3. Ada: “The natives are restless tonight!”
      Bert: “I’m sure we can capitalise on that!!”

    4. Britain did profit from the slave trade, it is true. But Britain also abolished slavery throughout the Empire (at the time about a third of the world) and the Royal Navy spent fifty years patrolling the Atlantic to try and stop slave ships, at great cost of money and lives. We abolished the slave trade voluntarily, because it was understood that it was a crime against humanity. Compare and contrast the far longer, more prolific and far crueller treatment of slaves by the African and Arab slavers, who only stopped the trade when they were made to by military force. And what about the depradations suffered by white people from slavers? Barbary pirates anyone?

      https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Barbary-Pirates-English-Slaves/

      Britain did not invent slavery, it has been part of the human condition since year dot. Were the pyramids not built by slaves? It is the one-sided view of history which annoys me. It is wrong to teach young British people that their culture is uniquely evil, that their history is solely one of colonialism and slavery, and they should basically be ashamed to exist.

      2. Nah – the Pyramids were built by Wimpey. That’s why they took so long and there were only three at Giza…{:¬))

        Ackshally, I recall being told at the Cairo Museum that the builders were NOT slaves but indentured labourers.

        1. I’m sure they were paid minimum wage and given regular breaks in line with the Working Time Directive! 🙂

          1. And time off to pray five times a day…(oops – I was a bit previous!!)

      3. Not to mention the ongoing human trafficking and slavery all over the world, even today.

        1. Indeed. It is not because of white British people that we need a Modern Slavery Act.

      4. It took a hundred years to pay off the debt that we incurred from freeing slaves. As well as the money, the Atlantic blockade cost the lives of 17,000 British sailors.

        1. And even before the Atlantic Trade was finally extinguished, the RN began anti-slavery patrols in the Indian Ocean, interdicting the Arab slavers leeching off the East African coast.

    6. But very few Africans were actually enslaved by white Europeans, they had already been enslaved by their fellow blacks before being sold as slaves to the white.

  4. Good morning, all. Cloudy, grey and very strong wind – and the weather’s not much different.

    Any news? Thought not.

    1. Bright & sunny over this bit of the country, not much warmer though.

    2. The good news, Bill, came in Boris’ 50-page Road Map To Normalisation presented to Parliament on Monday. With a bit of luck we may be able to celebrate on the Fourth of July with a haircut and a visit to our local pub. “Food service providers” will also be open for business, which I hope means my local fish and chips shop.

  5. Spanish police trap parrot-stealing gang in complicated sting operation. 12 May 2020 • 11:25am.

    He received a call from a woman who claimed she had bought Mika and wanted €500 before she would give the bird back. Short of money as he and his partner have both been temporarily laid off due to Spain’s Covid-19 crisis, the owner offered to pay in instalments – but this was refused.

    Mika’s owner stopped negotiating and turned to the police when he was sent a photo of his pet looking emaciated, probably because her captor was not able to hand-feed her gruel as he had been doing.

    “They had her in a small cage, in bad condition and my heart sank,” the unnamed man told the newspaper El Mundo.

    The police winged their way to the scene and clawed Pablo the Parrot back from the cruel talons of the thieves and put them up in front of the beak who caged them for five years!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/12/kidnapped-parrot-returned-owner-spanish-police-handover-swoop/

    1. ’emaciated’ – So definitely not a “Pretty Boy” then…

      Morning Minty et al

        1. Morning O1 – I always thought trading puns involving exotic birds was banned.

  7. Good morning all.

    Not a single aphid to be seen on my roses. I don’t spray. Where are they?

    1. Good morning Peddy
      Cross fingers , no aphids here either, but there seems to be a lack of insects anyway.
      Our security lights don’t attract the moths they used to, I haven’t seen a ladybird, caterpillar, beetle for ages. Ants are thriving , and manage to crawl indoors!

      1. If you’d like some ladybirds/caterpillars/beetles etc. I can post you some! And I’ll throw in some crane-flies and spiders. Big ones. ;@)

        1. No spiders or craneflies thanks.

          We are on the edge of treated ag fields , not green belt .

          That could be the reason for lack of insects.

          1. It’s certainly the reason for the lack of insects, many of which are being driven towards extinction, along with the more popular things that eat them, such as buntings and other farmland birds by the over-extravagant and irresposible use of pesticides.

            The countryside is becoming an impoverished desert.

    2. Just ignore the EU rules you don’t like. After all, that’s what the French do.

    3. We are a ‘vassal state’ of the EU as Boris himself said we would be. I still don’t understand why we couldn’t have just left on the 31st October (as Boris promised us we would, “die in a ditch” and with no qualifications) and simply agree ‘standstill’ arrangements on trade.

      With the CV distraction, we must keep a very close eye on what is being negotiated in our name. We haven’t left the EU until we are a fully-independent nation again. Boris voted for Theresa May’s deal, and up until November Farage was saying that the ‘new’ deal was 95% the same as the Awful Surrender Treaty. We must not let our guard down.

  10. Morning all

    SIR – The Labour Party, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats think I’m too thick to understand the Government’s common-sense message, “Be alert”.

    Funnily enough, these were the same culprits who said I was too thick to know what I voted for when I voted to leave the EU.

    Simon Fawthrop

    Bromley, Kent

    SIR – I suggest people read the 50-page government Plan to Rebuild, rather than the carpings of commentators. It makes clear what the Government is trying to do and explains what the issues are. It covers why people need to go back to work – so that they will be paid and their taxes can pay for the health of the nation. It explains how that might be possible. It does not offer certainty, but rather what needs to be considered to move forward.

    Ben Sington

    Blairgowrie, Victoria, Australia

    SIR – As we move into the phase of relaxing the lockdown in a controlled and responsible way to get people back to work, the “Stay home” message would have been better replaced with “Work safe” rather than “Stay alert”.

    You cannot govern by slogans alone; however, “Work safe” is a much clearer message than the slogan the Government has now chosen.

    David W B Burnside

    London SW1

    SIR – The Prime Minister has been criticised for not giving precise guidance for relaxing the lockdown. It is, however, impossible to give exact instructions for all eventualities. I find the guidance extremely helpful, and I use common sense to apply it to my particular circumstances. It seems that those complaining about the lack of precision are heavily dependent on the state to micromanage their lives.

    Alan Belk

    Leatherhead, Surrey

    SIR – Could someone explain to me the point of restrictive social distancing rules when, in order to go back to work, millions of Londoners have no alternative but to be squashed together on the Tube? Is this not akin to securing windows against burglars with state-of-the-art protection while leaving your front door open?

    Julia Delmonte

    London SW3

    SIR – It is ironic that many of those who clap the bravery of NHS workers from the safety of their front steps now protest at being asked to undertake the modest risks that come with the first stage of alleviating lockdown.

    Lindsay Jones

    Poole, Dorset

    SIR – As a 90-year-old living alone, I am now able to meet my son on neutral ground, staying two metres apart, but he is not permitted to help me in my garden. Yet my neighbour is allowed to employ a gardener. This seems to be both illogical and unfair.

    Michael Osborne

    Clevedon, Somerset

    1. Is Mr Osborne correct? Surely he can “employ” his son to do the garden? Just not pay him…..

          1. You must ask your MR about the breath of an unfee’d lawyer mentioned in ‘King Lear.’

  11. Morning again

    SIR – I followed the United Kingdom Government and Prime Minister’s briefings closely when the health emergency began. It came as a surprise to me to find that the devolved nations had their own emergency health regulations, and an even bigger surprise that restrictions by the devolved governments could go further than those imposed by Her Majesty’s Government.

    This is surely an unconstitutional, excessive and unjustified use of political power. We now have rules that are not being followed by the majority population of the UK.

    It feels to me that I am no longer entitled to the range of freedoms enjoyed by citizens of the UK. The first ministers of the devolved assemblies are taking every opportunity to exercise their powers simply to make it plain that they can.

    David Curtis

    Tonteg, Glamorgan

    SIR – The Leader of the Opposition and the First Minister of Scotland spent days recently beseeching the Prime Minster to come forward with his plan to start to unlock. Who would have thought it, listening to them now?

    I just wish that they would stop playing politics and work together in the national interest.

    David Ryeland

    St Margaret’s Bay, Kent

    SIR – The leaders of the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have chosen to retain the “Stay home” slogan. Is this because they have access to different scientific advice or is it because they are not paying for the consequences of this policy, or am I being cynical?

    James Wynne

    Great Glen, Leicestershire

    SIR – The UK Government initiated the furlough scheme for all the country, funded by UK Government borrowing.

    All three devolved governments have stated their right to schedule their own lockdown exits. They can ignore the economic pressure that bears down on the largest part of the UK – England will pay the bill.

    Peter Monk

    Limpsfield, Surrey

    SIR – Why on earth did Westminster ever legislate to give devolved administrations power to deviate from the central authority in a situation such as we now face? It is divisive and a recipe for confusion and chaos.

    Nicholas Southward

    Fontmell Magna, Dorset

    SIR – What a shambles removing the coronavirus lockdown has become in the four nations of the UK, each one doing its own thing at its own pace, making life impossible for those who live and work in the border areas.

    The person to blame for this mess is Tony Blair, who, as prime minister, pushed through the regionalisation of the UK, which was not a priority for the majority of the electorate. The English were denied a vote on the break-up of the UK and the Welsh only just voted for it by a tiny margin.

    Now, because of Mr Blair’s actions, we have a divided country and cannot act in unison to deal with a crisis affecting us all.

    Derek Bennett

    Walsall, Staffordshire

  12. Dentistry has displayed gross derilection of duty and moral obligations.

    SIR – Last week, one of my son’s baby teeth started to ache. He has a history of dental problems, so we rang 111 and were advised to administer painkillers. These had little effect so, after another painful and sleepless night, we contacted every dentist we could find, and were eventually referred to the paediatric dental department at Guy’s Hospital. Hours later, after endless calls and photos, a dentist informed us that – as there appeared to be no inflammation – the official instruction was treatment with painkillers.

    Another sleepless night attempting to comfort a screaming child followed. Desperate, we finally persuaded a dentist at King’s College Hospital that this was an emergency and rushed to London. The tooth was pulled out.

    Current government protocol effectively deprived a suffering child of treatment. To ignore a patient’s history, and to expect each case to develop along a standard path, is unscientific and seems to go against every tenet of the NHS.

    Anna Bilas

    Orpington, Kent

    SIR – When shall we hear from our chief dental officers regarding the provision of treatment in Britain during the Covid-19 crisis?

    Many people have tooth problems or temporary restorations, and many others are in the middle of a course of treatment.

    Most emergency dental clinics are not functioning due to a lack of PPE for staff. Those that are working will provide only antibiotics or extractions. This situation cannot continue.

    Ray Winstanley

    Sheffield, South Yorkshire

    1. It is far easier to get an appointment with a dentist in France than in Britain but it is expensive.

      But, as I have mentioned before the best dentistry I have ever received was in Turkey. 15 years ago I had: an extraction, six crowns, three bridges and a deep filling – the total cost was 1,200 Euros. All the work is still in place and looks good and has never given me any pain and it looks as if I have a full head of teeth.

  13. SIR – The sudden cold snap will have come as no surprise to inhabitants of northern, eastern and central Europe, where folklore predicts the annual arrival of the “ice saints” – so named because their feast days fall between May 11 and May 15.

    They were bishops or martyrs of the fourth and fifth centuries. This year, the cold is arriving exactly on their name days: St Mamertus (May 11), St Pankratius (May 12), St Servatius (May 13), St Bonifatius of Tarsus (May 14) and St Sophia of Rome (May 15).

    Often, in central Europe, the warm weather at the beginning of the month is followed by icy polar air streaming down, with clear skies bringing late frosts that damage the newly sown crops. Old proverbs warn farmers about the risks from these frosty rascals.

    Roger Croston

    Christleton, Cheshire

    1. On 13 May – 1998?? – in Laure there was a heavy frost which wiped out acres of apple blossom – ad meant virtually no harvest. I recall the car being covered with thick ice.

    2. About this time of year, a couple of years back I took two friends up the Thames on the boat. We were aiming for Lechlade. However, after 4 days of a continuous NNE wind and very low temperatures my friends implored me to abort the trip and return to the mooring in Surrey. 🙁

  14. SIR – My husband and I had to cancel our holiday due to coronavirus and the closure of airline services.

    We were fortunate in that British Airways promptly refunded the cost of our flights. We opted for a cash return rather than a voucher. However, when we approached the company with which we had taken out our unused travel insurance in the hope that it would also refund us, it refused, merely offering a 20 per cent discount on our next travel insurance. We were told that our cancellation was a factor, even though the circumstances were beyond our control.

    The insurance companies must be sitting on millions of pounds.

    Heather Thomson

    Huntingdon

    SIR – I had been due to fly to Madrid on May 4. Spain is not allowing anyone other than Spanish passport holders and residents into the country.

    As the flights, both outgoing and incoming, were not cancelled, I cannot get a refund. Unable to contact anyone at British Airways, I had no option but to accept vouchers in recompense.

    Sally Ross

    Bicester, Oxfordshire

    SIR – Once international travel is again permitted, who would pay an airline in advance for a flight, given that it could go bankrupt or refuse a refund?

    In the case of Greece, do its people not realise that a free-floating drachma would make their tourism industry so attractive that travellers might be prepared to take the risk?

    Gordon Brown

    Grassington, North Yorkshire

    SIR – With regard to wearing face masks on flights (Letters, May 8), no one has mentioned the impact on passport control.

    To verify my identity I am required to remove my headgear and spectacles. Will we not also have to remove masks, with all the attendant risks to Border Force personnel?

    Keith Appleyard

    West Wickham, Kent

    1. Mrs Thomson fails to understand the point of holiday insurance. If, a any time prior to the cancellation, she had contracted some illness which would have prevented her going, she would – quite rightly – have claimed.

      Silly woman.

      1. I had the same thought. Silly woman and silly letters editor for printing it.

      2. That is precisely why travel insurance should be taken out at the time of booking, not just before you travel.

        1. I’ve just renewed my annual travel insurance. Multiple trips to the EU (excluding Spain) not exceeding 30 days. £25. Bargain.

  15. Pam Ayres…

    Lockdown

    I’m normally a social girl

    I love to meet my mates

    But lately with the virus here

    we can’t go out the gates.

    You see, we are the ‘oldies’ now

    We need to stay inside

    If they haven’t seen us for a while

    They’ll think we’ve upped and died.

    They’ll never know the things we did

    Before we got this old

    There wasn’t any Facebook

    So not everything was told.

    We may seem sweet old ladies

    Who would never be uncouth

    But we grew up in the 60s –

    If you only knew the truth!

    There was sex and drugs and rock ‘n roll

    The pill and miniskirts

    We smoked, we drank, we partied

    And were quite outrageous flirts.

    Then we settled down, got married

    And turned into someone’s mum,

    Somebody’s wife, then nana,

    Who on earth did we become?

    We didn’t mind the change of pace

    Because our lives were full

    But to bury us before we’re dead

    Is like a red rag to a bull!

    So here you find me stuck inside

    For 4 weeks, maybe more

    I finally found myself again

    Then I had to close the door!

    It didn’t really bother me

    I’d while away the hour

    I’d bake for all the family

    But I’ve got no bloody flour!

    Now Netflix is just wonderful

    I like a gutsy thriller

    I’m swooning over Idris

    Or some random sexy killer.

    At least I’ve got a stash of booze

    For when I’m being idle

    There’s wine and whiskey,

    even gin If I’m feeling suicidal!

    So let’s all drink to lockdown

    To recovery and health

    And hope this bloody virus

    Doesn’t decimate our wealth.

    We’ll all get through the crisis

    And be back to join our mates

    Just hoping I’m not far too wide

    To fit through the flaming gate.

          1. Grizz’ advice above is correct. Also, i replaced my dinner plates with 3/4 sized plates. You end up putting less food on them.

          2. During lock down , I have been doing more cooking than usual, plus of course elder son lives at home , but is working , so even though I try to balance the diet , casseroles, roasts, fish etc and loads of vegetables .

            Moh and I generally have a sandwich and soup at lunchtime .
            I guess anxiety doesn’t help.

      2. Morning, M.

        Stop eating bread, potatoes, carrots and anything containing any form of sugar! If I can do it, you can. [Also, just one meal a day is advisable].

        1. “If I can do it, you can” !!! Bet you can’t do some of the things I can, my sweet!

      3. We buy a new set of scales each year and throw them away pretty quickly. We have yet to find any that are accurate. :-))

      5. ‘Morning, Belle. I do hope your scales are not the ‘I speak your weight’ variety, otherwise you might have heard “One at a time please”. (Very old gag but best I can do for now.)

  16. Good morning, everyone. Some observations on our hospital visit yesterday. Mrs D was seen on time. As I waited there were nurses and support staff scurrying up and down corridors. Where are they all going? When my wife went for the scan the staff were delighted to see her as they were standing around with no patients to deal with. I think we have definitely saved the NHS!

    2. Unsurprisingly, the presidential style of prime ministers was started by Blair and his girning gargoyle of a wife, who seemed to think she was Britain’s “First Lady”.

      A notable example of her arrogance and hubris was when she rocked up for an audience with the Pope, following her husband’s conversion to Roman Catholicism. She was dressed in white, in clear breach of a long-established protocol that only reigning queens or the wives of reigning kings wear white at a Papal Audience.

      As a Catholic, the Blair Witch would have been well aware of this but she intended to make a statement to the world at large.

        1. Rarely has she put a foot wrong, Con – for more than 60 years. What a woman!

          1. She has a sure touch. I watched “Our Queen At War” the other day. She’s the only monarch who was a member of the armed forces during the war.

        2. Wearing white isn’t compulsory, Con, it’s a matter of choice, but protocol dictates that only queens should wear that colour at Papal Audiences.

          1. Perhaps I misread it; I thought the protocol was that Queens should wear white at an audience. I’ve seen photos of HM in lilac as well as black. No photos of her wearing white.

  18. ‘Mornng, all.

    This video clip from 1968 was sent to me yesterday by my sister’s lad, who wasn’t even born at the time. He found it while researching “fake news” online and he wondered if I recalled it – I don’t, but then I watched very little television back in those days. It was one of the “Thirty Minute Theatre” series, produced by the BBC. Of course, it’s far-fetched science fiction but nonetheless I found it interesting, thinking on the fake news being churned out on a daily basis by the BBC propaganda mills.

    I’m wondering if the beeboids would make such a programme today – or would they feel that falsification of the news was too delicate a subject to tackle..

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

  19. On a thread, yesterday, discussing the various systems for weights that are used in the world, I asserted that the old (dry weight) system using tons, hundredweights, quarters, stones, pounds, ounces and drams is — and has long been — known as the Avoirdupois system.

    Jack the Lad then informed me that this system of weights is known as the British Imperial system. This is not quite the case.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_units
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoirdupois_system

    The “British Imperial System” covers only units of length, area and capacity (volume). It does not cover weight, which comes under the aegis of three systems: Troy weight (use for precious metals); Avoirdupois weight (used for most other applications); and Apothecaries‘ weight (which has virtually been replaced by the universal adoption of the metric system).

    The word avoirdupois is from Anglo-Norman French aveir de peis (later avoir du pois), literally “goods of weight” (Old French aveir, as verb meaning “to have” and as noun meaning “property, goods”, comes from the Latin habere, “to have, to hold, to possess something”; de = “from”/”of”, cf. Latin; peis = “weight”, from Latin pensum) This term originally referred to a class of merchandise: aveir de peis, “goods of weight”, things that were sold in bulk and were weighed on large steelyards or balances.

    The Avoirdupois weight system, which is still widely used in many parts of the world, is not a part of (and never has been a part of) the “British Imperial System”, despite popular opinion erroneously placing it there.

      1. The two wiki links are in the meat of my post (in red), Joe. If you search furlong enough, you’ll find them! :•)

        2. ‘Morning, George, are you sure that Joseph isn’t pulling your chain. Give ’em an inch and they’ll take an ell of a distance.

    2. Most of these systems evolved as they were easy to use without calculators in markets and trading, goods could be divided up easily with no odd bits unlike under the metric system with all its decimal points.
      For some reason people can relate to the old systems in their heads again unlike with metric.

          1. Morning, Sue.

            I’l be using a few of each today when I make a minestrone soup.

          2. Haricot beans? Minestrone is my very favourite! I still use my college recipe from 1973! Enjoy the soup!

          3. Thanks, Sue.

            I don’t have any haricot beans in so I’ll use some broad beans and string French beans instead.

          4. Ah! Squeaky beans! Our girlies loved them! Was thinking of Mr Harry Kobeans!

      2. ‘Morning, Bob and similarly many measurements were based on parts of the body, an inch is roughly the length of the nail part of your thumb, a foot is self-explanatory, a yard is 1/2 a pace and an ell is the distance from the tip of your nose to the end of your outstretched arm (used to measure cloth)

          1. I was 6′ 3″ but lost an inch as one gets old and bent. A pace is two steps, hence a Roman mile was 1,000 paces of a legionnaire which equates roughly to our 1,760 yards.

          2. The old Sainsury’s of our youth.
            Strapping maidens chopping and slapping blocks of butter around to the desired weight.
            In shops lined with wonderfully decorative green tiles.

          4. The bacon and ham smell that escaped from Sainsbury’s on Colchester High St is a lingering memory of my childhood. Oh, I nearly forgot, Woolie’s squeaky floor.

      3. Having lived in Germany for 16 years, I have no problems with the metric system, whether weights, distance or temperature, & I don’t convert.

      4. I’ve been fully comfortable with both systems all my adult life. Conversion factors are wired into me. Without looking it up I can tell you that a hectare is 2.471 acres, an inch is 2.54cm, a yard is .9144m and a foot is .3048m, a kilo is 2,205 lb and a pound is 454 grammes and a host of others. A pint is 550ml roughly. I know that 6 feet is 1.83m, 1.2m is four feet and 20cm is 8 inches.

        A ton is 2240lb, a tonne is 2205lb and a short (American) ton is 2,000lb.

        I’m comfortable with both systems and interchange. Driving in Spain I see a road sign telling me it’s 54km to the next town, I read that as a little over 32 miles (if I feel like it) but I’m also happy to leave it in km, because my hire car’s speedo is calibrated in km, so that makes the simple division to determine my time to cover it easier.

        We’ve been using metric measure in this country almost as long as we’ve been using Celcius for temperatures, almost 50 years. I understand a yearning for tradition, I still happily use Imperial measure. but how long does it take to catch on to something that is all around us?

        It’s as well that we didn’t take as long to getting our heads around decimal currency.

          4. That was an old one much-favoured by my dad. He also used to delight in showing me the easy way to work it out:
            3¾d x 2 = 7½d [2]
            7½d x 2 = 1s-3d [4]
            1s-3d x 2 = 2s-6d [8]
            2s-6d x 8 = £1 [64]
            64 x 1,000 = 64,000

          5. I found it easier to multiply 1,000 by 240 (pennies in a pound) and divide the resultant 240,000 by 3.75 (3d 3/4) = 64,000.

            Two operations rather than 5. Of course a calculator helps with the division.

          6. My old dad never had a calculator. He usually got mum to do his reckoning for him.

        2. In my first job as a plater (between 1967 and 1973), depending upon where the project of the time originated, the drawings would come either in feet and inches or in millimetres. Swapping between the two systems was as easy as pulling off a pair of shoes and putting on a pair of boots. We did it all without thinking.

          3. Yup. Another “lessons will be learnt” scenario. Trouble is: they seldom are!

          1. 1 Metre = 3.2808 feet.

            An imperial gallon is 4.546 litres.

            10cm = about one hand.

            I have others.

            It’s no more difficult than remembering that a mile is 63,360 inches, a figure I learnt when I was about 10, but one I’ve not used in about 50 years, or that there are 112 lb in 1cwt. They are just numbers.

          2. 1 to 63360 is, of course, the scale of the old 1″ to 1 mile OS maps and where I learned it from.
            I first started map reading when I joined the Wooler Army Cadets when I was 12.
            It was, in fact, one of the first session training topics together with the BREN gun.

          3. Still got mine that I bought for 5 bob at school in 1965. I get it out now and again as a reminder of how things have changed, roads, towns etc. Other standards scales were 10,560 (6″ to the mile) & 2500, the latter often refered to as ‘Two Foot’, as in two feet to the mile, which it roughly approximates to (5280 feet to one mile).

          4. I’ve a fair collection of 1″ Maps that I split into three sections.
            The immediate post-war 6th series, based on an updated 1930s survey, which have the pre-nationalisation rail network.
            Then the early edition 7th Series, issued from the late ’50s that shew the post-nationalisation rail closures that predated Beeching’s butchery of the network.
            Then the later 7th Series from the late ’60s onwards that have the post Beeching closures and preceded the new 1:50,000 metric scale.
            It’s interesting following the A1 on the earlier maps to see towns where it actually passed through before the by-passes were built, also the number of level crossings there were.

          5. A1 through the middle of Morpeth, Felton, Alnwick (through the Bondgate Tower!), Belford, Berwick…. I remember heading into Scotland right into the 80s, before the A720 bypass was built, having to go through the centre of Edinburgh to get anywhere. Such fun.

      5. 319212+ up ticks,
        Morning B3
        Usage of has also be known to get a person a criminal record,
        By the by I also look at 100” as
        eight & fourpence 8′ 4”

    3. Bonjour, Grizz.

      In yer France – they still use “livre” for a pound; “pouce” for an inch…..

      1. God morgon, Billy.

        Yer French? Give them a pouce and they’ll take a livre! :•)

        1. And they use 1″ and 1½” pipes. And their sheets of chipboard etc are 8′ x 4’…..

          2. Morning Grizz – I installed a fuel filter in my oil feed to the boiler – it had metric threads and I had to re-tap then to BSP

          3. Morning, Spikey.

            I had to buy a ¼ inch BSW tap, last year (off eBay), to re thread a damaged hole in a 100-year old Stanley No 4 smoothing plane that I also bought off eBay. I used the tap wrench that I made when an apprentice.

          4. I could have supplied you with that tap Grizz and probably any other tap you could think of

          5. Thanks Spikey, but it only cost me four quid. It would have cost you much more than that to post it to me.

            Also it was only a one-off use, I’ll probably never use it again.

          6. Dunno – I am nuts about bolts.

            BSP in this house means Bite Sized Pieces…

        2. The linear equivalent of mixed metaphors Grizz – surely it should read “Give them a pouce and they’ll take 1.60934 Km

          1. Ah – metric feet. As used in UK timber yards…

            Morning Spikey. Much snow your way?

          2. Morning Bill – the hills still have the snow from the winter but there has been the odd flurry at ground level

          6. ‘Morning, Spikey that’s a common mistake to think that it’s give them and inch and they’ll take a mile whereas it never was a mile but an ell (approx 45 inches).

            See my reply to Bob3 earlier.

    4. Interestingly enough, the term “Avoirdupois” comes from French where “avoir” means “to have” and “pois” means “pea”.

      In days of yore, peas were sold by the pound in French markets and “Avoirdupois”? meant “Have you any peas?”. Et voilá! The term passed into general usage for the system of weights used to measure other produce as well.

      Not a lot of people know that.

      1. An Auld Scots Wife’s Tale…!!

        You have been thinking too much of Mrs Murrell.

        Morning, Duncan. Much snow your way?

      1. Well many NoTTlers give hours over to watching WokeAngle TV every day. And this can be consumed in 10 minutes segments.

      1. I can tell you a few stories involving my trips to the principality and encounters with the Welsh.
        But not here.

        2. Thanks, Eddy but I lived there for seven years – I have stories of my own.

    2. Two days ago our wonderful political classes decided to fly a chartered aircraft to Greece and collect 50 or more Syrian migrants who had landed in Greece from Turkey. And bring them to the UK.
      A classic short cut.
      My word what a revelation.
      And when our people get back to work and prices rise we can all enjoy paying for their keep.
      As sure as eggs is eggs.
      These people are now about live their lives in relative luxury. But why is this still happening ?
      Why aren’t all these people back home putting their own countries in order instead of taking the easy option.

      1. Syria is choc-a-bloc with doctors, engineers, teachers etc…. It’s merely exporting its surplus.

      2. Have a read of this – if you have the energy, it’s heavy going. My bold https://refugeesmigrants.un.org/sites/default/files/180713_agreed_outcome_global_compact_for_migration.pdf

        Especially Paragraph 13:
        13. This Global Compact recognizes that safe, orderly and regular migration works for all when it
        takes place in a well-informed, planned and consensual manner. Migration should never be an
        act of desperation. When it is, we must cooperate to respond to the needs of migrants in
        situations of vulnerability, and address the respective challenges. We must work together to
        create conditions that allow communities and individuals to live in safety and dignity in their own
        countries. We must save lives and keep migrants out of harm’s way. We must empower
        migrants to become full members of our societies, highlight their positive contributions, and
        promote inclusion and social cohesion. We must generate greater predictability and certainty
        for States, communities and migrants alike. To achieve this, we commit to facilitate and ensure
        safe, orderly and regular migration for the benefit of all.

        1. So, since the UK signed, they are committed to not only collecting migrants, but allowing them to enter. That’s why Priti does bugger-all to stop the boats crossing the channel, rather, doing the opposite, helping them across.
          So, the governments of all colours lie, obfuscate and mendate.
          And we’re surprised?

  23. Morning all 😊
    Yesterday evening one weather forecast said frost free the next said frost. Once more after conflicting information I had to go out into the still night before I turned in and cover all my delicates up with bubble wrap. Now the wind has wound it’s self up again and the wrap is flying about all over.
    But hey never mind, don’t some of our TV weather presenters dress up really nicely.

        1. Expenses luv,expenses,salaries would be taxed and that’s only for the little people

        2. I am not vindictive. I would be happy if MPs lost as much in salary as we have lost in earnings this year.

          But how their throats remain unslit is beyond my comprehension.

    2. And what percentage of that largesse has ended up in the back pockets of despots?

      1. About the same percentage that has been paid out to the “Charity” workers that administer it,those school fees and first class flights don’t come cheap tha knows
        ‘Morning Grizz

        1. Morning, Rik.

          Mrs Mugabe used to love her frequent shopping trips abroad. I paid for much of what she treated herself to.

          1. “But think of how much I’ve saved!” is the usual response after my wife’s shopping trips.

    4. What I posted elsewhere:

      “In the UK the entire Labour Party would be having multiple-orgasms if they were able to throw the amount of money that a ‘Conservative’ Chancellor is currently spreading around with what appears to be the accuracy of an ancient farm muck spreader. One day soon the shit is really going to hit the fan.”

    5. I didn’t think it was possible for me to loathe Cameron any more than I did before.

    6. Not bad, eh? What are they thinking of? We could have bought some of these places in their entirety for the sums mentioned, Kiribati -£63m?
      The former French country of Senegal – £1000m.

        1. Gosh. Somehow I don’t think it is anything to do with slammers. They don’t like exercise such as climbing mountains, anyway.

          Th word “witch” suggests some loonies.

          1. That was my thought too.

            People tend to forget that France has as many out and out Atheists as Muslims, let alone mindless vandals.
            However, even with an angle grinder or similar that must have taken a fair while and generated a lot of noise and probably sparks.

          2. …and hérétiques?

            Mohammed, Hussein and Ahmed were seen running away and throwing hacksaws into the bushes.

          3. Nah, Tom – the slammers don’t do exercise or running – let alone climbing.

            Just some nutters.

    2. Hérault : la vidéo de la croix du Pic Saint-Loup sciée, indignation et colère au sommet. 13 May 2020,

      La croix de fer au sommet du Pic Saint-Loup a été la cible d’un acte de vandalisme à la veille du déconfinement, dimanche 10 mai. La mairie de Cazevieille a fermé l’accès par le versant sud afin de sécuriser les lieux. Elus, randonneurs et usagers sont complètement écoeurés par cet acte qui les prive à nouveau de leur lieu de balade préféré.

      The iron cross at the top of Pic Saint-Loup was the target of an act of vandalism on the eve of the deconfinement on Sunday, May 10. The town hall of Cazevieille has closed access via the south side in order to secure the premises. Elected, hikers and users are completely sickened by this act that again deprives them of their favorite place to walk.

      https://www.midilibre.fr/2020/05/12/herault-la-video-de-la-croix-du-pic-saint-loup-sciee-indignation-et-colere-au-sommet,8884382.php

    2. Ah, but did she actually catch the Spanish flu, or just happened to be alive at the time? I’ve seen several stories in tthe past few weeks of old-timers who had ‘survived’ the Spanish flu, according to the headline, but on reading the article below it, found that a major factor in them surviving it was that they never had it in the first place.

      It’s like saying someone survived a multi-vehicle pile up on a motorway when they weren’t even involved in it, but simply happened to be driving on that road several miles away when the pile-up happened out of sight behind them.

      Looking into it, it seems that this is the case witjh this fortunate lady.

      1. Did anyone really survive Blair’s time in office and his malign influence thereafter which continues to sicken us today?

  31. Come on Boris, tell a frightened nation that its fears are out of proportion

    ALLISON PEARSON

    The Prime Minister’s latest speech was far from his finest hour. It’s time he started to listen to the Ladies’ Tea Party

    You must admit The Great Pause has created some unlikely lawbreakers. Three grandmothers I know have been meeting up once a week for tea and a nice chat in the back garden. All fit and active in their seventies, they weighed up the perils of the coronavirus against the benefit of fresh air and friendship. (Loneliness is not listed as a cause of death, but it can be an absolute killer.) In case you’re muttering, “stupid women” under your breath, two of the three are retired doctors and they make sure to stay well apart. Long before the Prime Minister gave his statement easing lockdown measures on Sunday night, many Britons, like the Ladies’ Tea Party, had done some qualitative easing of their own. While Boris continues to thunder about “the most vicious threat this country has faced in my lifetime”, many have looked at the relatively minor risks and drawn their own conclusions.

    In a recent poll, eight per cent admitted to breaking lockdown rules just like the Ladies’ Tea Party. When those same people were granted anonymity, that figure leapt to 29pc. And the rest, I bet. As water is to a crevice in a rock so human nature is to excessive regulations. We always find a way.

    Boys and young men (and libidinous mathematical modellers called Neil) are the most likely to breach lockdown. According to a study by Sheffield University, half of young men have met up with friends (compared with a quarter of girls the same age). Could this youthful masculine insouciance possibly be related to the fact that if you’re a boy, especially one in a big city, you are more likely to have your life ended by a knife than by Covid-19? The latest figures from the Office of National Statistics make that painfully clear. Just three youngsters aged from 0 to 19 without any pre-existing conditions have died from the virus. That’s three cases out of 10 million kids. Despite the shifty official obfuscation on this matter, young lads have figured out that what the PM calls “this killer virus” is hugely restricting their freedom while posing no threat to them at all.

    Personally, I didn’t have any problem with the clarity of the PM’s statement on Sunday; it was meant to be a broad outline of a new phase, the fine detail would follow. Yes, Stay Alert sounds like one of those robotic announcements on the London Underground which, for some unfathomable reason, draw on a formal vocabulary last used by an actual Englishman in 1954 (“inclement weather” anyone?) Be Careful or even Keep Your Distance would have been better. Still, the gist of his plan was plain to all but those with a vested interest in misunderstanding so they could attack Boris.

    What I objected to was the failure to lay off the It’s-the-End-of-Civilization-As-We-Know-It nonsense. The Ladies’ Tea Party agreed. Here was the PM’s opportunity to present Covid as a nasty disease which had tragically taken the lives of over 30,000 of our fellow citizens – a bloody gash in the national psyche, no doubt – but which, in all honesty, poses little threat to most of the population who will either have it mildly or remain asympomatic. Boris could have broken the good news that, according to Oxford University, Coronavirus is no longer an epidemic in the UK. Yes, really. Just 0.24 per cent of adults – that’s 136,000 people – currently have the virus. Transmission in the community is very low with most new cases coming from care homes and hospitals. He could have gone on to say that, while we must continue to shelter the most vulnerable and maintain sensible hygiene measures, it really is safe to go to work and to take the kids to school. Not just safe, but absolutely vital if we are to preserve jobs and spare the country an economic depression that will cause infinitely more suffering.

    It would have taken moral courage to tell a frightened populace that their fears are out of all proportion to the actual risk and it’s time to start living again. Boris ducked it. This was not his Finest Hour, it was a disappointing thirteen minutes.

    Generally, I’m not too fussed whether it’s men or women who are taking the decisions so long as they’re highly competent. On Sunday night, I was acutely aware that no mother could possibly have been privy to the content of Boris’s statement. It revealed a startling lack of emotional intelligence (EQ). If you tell 29 million viewers that they must “go to work if you can”, you don’t have schools as an afterthought. Schools will have been foremost in the minds of all parents watching and wondering, “How on earth can I go to work if the kids are still at home?” The so-called “quad” – Sunak, Raab, Hancock, Gove – seem to think of work purely as work, it isn’t. Work is people. Do our leaders really not understand how people think or how they live? All I can say is you know that men are in charge when the golf clubs are open and the hairdressers closed.

    Simon from Essex spoke for baffled parents everywhere when he asked a question of the PM at Monday’s briefing. Were people like him allowed to use the schools that had stayed open for key workers? “If not how do you propose these people return to work if there’s no childcare available?”

    “I think it’s only fair to regard that as an obvious barrier to their ability to return to work and I’m sure employers will agree with that,” answered the PM without answering at all.

    Nor did he have a defence for the frankly laughable proposition that people will be able to see one parent out of doors, but not both. Natasha from Richmond asked “How is it logical that I as a primary schoolteacher can mix with the many returning children but seeing my relatives is still not allowed?”

    Don’t go expecting logic, here, love. We’re living in the Age of Anti-Reason. So, under the new rules, people can see their boss, but they can’t see their dad/grandchild/girlfriend? Trust me, that is going to infuriate pretty much everyone.

    What happened is some pointy-head at SAGE did the maths and worked out that if an individual sees just one extra person outside their own household that will stop R (the reinfection rate) going up too much. What pointy-heads can’t compute is that if you drive to, say, Nottingham from London to see your mum and dad, a non-pointy person is not going to just invite their mother out the front for a chat and then drive home again. Being human, and possessed of the full complement of unscientific feelings, they will end up seeing both parents, whether together or separately.

    I actually have huge sympathy for the Prime Minister as he tries to pull off this “supremely difficult balancing act” of suppressing the virus while coaxing the country back to life. It’s as if the Prince hacked his way through the thorns, scaled the palace walls, blew Sleeping Beauty a kiss from the other end of the bedchamber and, when she awoke, cried, “Prithee, stay right there, beloved, and keep two metres away from me at all times!”

    To make a tricky situation even worse Boris’s enemies, still smarting from their Brexit defeat, have no qualms about using a national crisis as a proxy war. Somehow, the PM must plot a course through the Scylla of a shamelessly opportunistic Nicola Sturgeon and the Charybdis of the trade unions who rather like having half of all adults on the state payroll and so set an impossible standard of “100% safe” before members can return to work.

    The Ladies’ Tea Party are big Boris fans, but they worry that his own mortal brush with Covid has made him take an ultra-cautious approach. Over socially-distanced Earl Grey, they agree that they were prepared to go along with “flattening the sombrero” and saving the NHS from being overwhelmed. Now that’s done they fear the PM seems hellbent on waiting until Covid is eradicated no matter if it puts their sons and daughters out of work, traumatises their grandchildren and fundamentally damages our way of life.

    The Ladies’ Tea Party see the harm this is doing to youngsters and believe the teaching unions must be put back in their box and schools reopened so parents can actually do as they’re asked and return to work. (France opens her nurseries and primary schools on Monday so, hey, it can be done.)

    The Ladies’ Tea Party are a law-abiding lot on the whole, but they cannot support for much longer a lockdown which, as it goes on, starts to do more harm than good. Indefinite social distancing while we wait for a vaccine that may never come is totally unacceptable. Forget the new normal, they want the old normal.

    As he tries to chart a course out of this crisis, the Prime Minister really should include some women in his inner circle. It would save him from a lot of basic errors. An ability to calculate the R rate is not much use if you have zero EQ. I have a number for the Ladies’ Tea Party if he needs it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/come-boris-tell-frightened-nation-fears-proportion

    1. ” the Prime Minister really should include some women in his inner circle” – yeah, right. Treason is available….

      1. If I use my Old Fart’s travel card, I could pop up to Downing Street and give Bozza some advice without it costing the Treasury too much.

        1. Anne, I realise you probably don’t actually want to venture into London by bus but at the moment all London buses are free and accessed via the back door without any need to show or tap our old fart passes. Apparently their being completely enclosed and screened off in the cab isn’t enough to stop us killing the driver just by being there!

          2. Apparently TFL have lost a number of bus drivers to the lurgy but that’s as likely to reflect the gender, ethnicity and lifestyle of their staff as it is passenger behaviour?

        2. That might have been misconstrued – many see “mothers” in the American usage….

    2. I think it’s Boris whose fears are out of all proportion. He’s proved yet another disappointment, not that I had the conviction to vote for him.

    1. Lovely music.
      After my guitars and ukuleles I was thinking of making a violin.
      I’ll do some research.
      I might have to cut a tree down.
      🌲

        1. Well orchestrated. 😊

          I’ve decided to make ‘cigar’ box guitars.
          Tobacco road comes to mind.

    1. Bill have you ever used chIcken pellets for fertiliser in the garden. It’s cheap and results are excellent.
      Especially for roses. A handful around the Base in the autumn brings much growth and so many flower heads this time of the year.
      It’s a bit pongy and wash yer ‘ands.
      You can dilute it in a bucket it givie it a stir, takes a few days to break down.
      Water it straight in.

        1. A long time ago when turn ups were still in fashion, I’d been playing golf on Sunday morning.
          Came home sat down to rest and I was disturbed by an offensive odour.
          It seemed to be following me around the house. I went upstairs to shower and change. Took off the trousers and chIcken pellets fell out of the turn ups. They’d been spreading it in areas of the golf course. 😃

          7. He is a chip off the old block.

            (I don’t know how I am doing this – I don’t even like golf, let alone play it!)

          14. Well putt Ed.

            I think I mentioned Pauly (Paul Walters) Wallie was a member at the club.
            Wogan’s radio producer.
            Nice guy. And good guitar player.
            Sadly departed.

          15. ‘Morning, Eddy. Part of our local golf course was extensively excavated by badgers last year. I wonder whether chicken 5hit attracts or deters?

        1. Yes, when you take the lid from the container there’s a bit of a wiff. 😀

        1. If you have a dog it might have a tendency to try and eat it.
          Best to dissolve it first.

          1. Mine loves to hoover up the chicken pellets and the bonemeal. As you say, dissolve the manure and water it in.

          2. My sister had a Lab that ate half a bag of bone meal. Concrete poo all over the garden.

  35. Just had an invitation to be tested for Covid from the NHS. The website given does not exist and the telephone puts the receiver down on you after explaining how busy they are..Lord help us.

      1. If only they were.
        The lunatics left the asylum years ago.
        The asylum has been abandoned to the vandals.

      2. ♫ “The lunatic is in the hall
        The lunatics are in my hall
        The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
        And every day the paper boy brings more” ♫
        — Pink Floyd

      3. Nothing new eh.
        In more ways than one, they manage to eff up everything they come into contact with.

          1. The alternative was too un-nerving Bill.
            But for the second time I have promised never to vote again.

          3. Next time I’m definitely going to spoil the paper, if there is a next time of course.

          4. I spoiled my paper last time.
            I don’t feel better for doing so!

            Good morning, Ready.

          5. Morning G.
            My intention was to spoil, but it seemed Korbinsky was getting too close for comfort.
            I live in a strong conservative constituency but the limps are hovering.

        2. 319212+ up ticks,
          Afternoon Re,
          Yes, it amazes me, how
          do there type keep getting returned to power ?
          All the same odious players re-shuffled and dealt up again, why ?

    2. No problem they must have all sat down and worked that one out.
      Everything we do, buy or own will be far more expensive.
      We will all soon wish we were flown in from Greece or arrived in small boats.
      Sharpen the pitch forks.

      1. 319212+ up ticks,
        Morning Re,
        Reality, the pitchforks are needed on the land in local hands to feed a nation.
        The ballot booth is the place to use rhetorical pitchforks and hoy out the political sh!te, not keep re-cycling it,

      2. They are using the virus as a tool to scare us shitless…..and it’s working.

        1. Absolutely correct PT.
          But you can play tennis again now 🎾 serves you right 😊

          3. Only singles – OH was annoyed about that – he hasn’t played singles for 20 years, and really wanted to get back on the court now his shoulder is more or less recovered from the injury and surgery.

          5. Can’t you play 2 games of singles on one court with only 1 ball?
            Problem solved?

          9. But if you’re his partner and you play another ‘household’ pair, shirley that’s as safe as singles.

    3. I feel a kipple coming on ……

      If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
      Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
      Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
      And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

      We have spent thirty years building up our business from scratch. And if people pay attention to Hancock and don’t come to France this summer then stooping and building it up with older minds and bodies than we started with will not be that easy to do!

      Oh well. mustn’t grumble.

      (It cannot be said too often: while collapse is all about them the politicians gave themselves a £10,000 bonus. How come so few member of the Order of Sheer Filth have not been slain in their beds?)

      1. And a 3.1% rise in salary! Can they not see what they’re doing to the economy? Somebody has got at Boris I think or several somebodies. And to make companies to pay 50% of the furlough scheme until October is sheer utter madness. Un bl..dy believable. The furlough scheme should only have lasted until the end of June, as originally set up, and would have co-ordinated with the “back to work now” message. There really is nit a lot more to be said is there – just a sinking of the heart for our following generations.

  37. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    I see from the Times this morning that the teachers are flexing their muscles over the reopening of primary schools on 1st June. Having missed out on their Easter conference(s) and the opportunity to threaten the government with lots of bellicose speeches, presumably they now see this as a replacement therapy. I wonder if any of them stop to think what they look like, and the contempt in which they are likely to be held by parents who may well be prevented from returning to work? Has anyone explained to them that children under 10 are unlikely to pass on the Chinese virus?

    Perhaps the time is fast approaching whereby unpaid leave should be the response to their planned absences.

    Just a thought…

    1. We need a bit of Reaganism.
      Sack the bloody lot and let them reapply for their jobs on new terms à la air traffic controllers.

  38. A few headlines from DM articles, just to really cheer you all up

    Britons face pay freezes and tax rises to cover £300bn bill for
    coronavirus, leaked Treasury plans reveal as it emerges that one in
    three firms may NEVER reopen and employers could have to pay staff to do
    nothing under Rishi Sunak’s furlough extension

    One week of lockdown dealt the biggest ever economic hit to UK: GDP
    fell by a record 5.8% in March – the largest fall on record – and
    analysts expect WORSE to come

    Eight million ‘vulnerable’ workers should not leave lock-down, study
    warns (and 587,000 could die if 80% of people catch it within a year)

      1. To put the £300bn figure into perspective, together with the deaths number.

        If 500,000 OAP’s were wiped out and assuming their state pensions are ~£7,000 pa each, it would take ~ 85 years of saving that amount of money to recover that 300bn and that ignores the interest to be paid on the debt

        2. Don’t forgot the “burden” we are to the NHS ( that we paid for ). And wiping out half a million OAPs would leave a lot of houses empty, ripe for putting in those that Border Farce are ferrying in (they will not be paying in, why bother when it’s free from the moment they arrive?). With construction stopped for weeks and incoming still arriving and being punished with being put in hotels and waited on, we must be running out of hotel capacity. I won’t be surprised if compulsory “vaccinations” appear.

          1. The Border Force is not a rescue service and should not be cruising the Channel looking for boat loads of potential illegal immigrants safe in a small boat. The BF is there to protect our borders and should only “rescue” if they inadvertently come across a boat in immediate danger of sinking. The BF is wasting taxpayers’ money on this ferry service. They would be better utilised by shepherding these boats back to France. The Home Office must stop this traffic . It is illegal , costing the UK a lot of money and angering the UK population. The government is losing votes it cannot afford to lose

          3. If the films I have watched are correct, the USA border force fleet have guns and they don’t mess about. They board and search suspicious crafts. I suspect our BF cutter fleet is not armed.

          4. They should at the very least tow them back to French territorial waters and keep doing so until the message gets through. If they choose to sink rather than head back to France, so be it.

          5. Well, the virus targets the most vulnerable in terms of pre-existing conditions, such as obesity and diabetes, lung, liver and kidney complaints and cardiac problems etc., not to mention its racist tendencies.

            The NHS might be better off.

    2. “They wants ter make yer flesh creep” © The Estate of the late C Dickens

    1. What a brilliant speech. Told people exactly how it was but finished with hope for the future 80 years ago today.
      Only one other person was able to do that and Lady Thatcher has been much maligned but was a great leader.
      We now have a ‘Cabinet’ the size of a wardrobe but empty of wisdom and presence.

      1. I cannot think of anyone in this country who could come within a country mile……

        1. Or even an Isle of Wight mile which, from memory, is 5 times longer than a country mile.

          1. When I was a young solicitor, I used to act sometimes for people from the Isle of Wight.

            Strange folk…….

          2. I used to make regular work visits to the IOW, and found them helpful and very laid back. ‘Island race’, I suppose.

          4. I’ve only been over there once and I shall not return. I was not made welcome by the locals who, in the main, seemed to be a gang of get-rich-quick Cockney spivs who had relocated.

            It was quite a different story on the mainland of Hampshire where everyone I met was most charming.

          5. They must have seen you coming. We often used to sail from Poole to Yarmouth for the w/e & had a great time every time.

          10. It was that one that reports on a Conservative party win in an election, when he shouted through to his wife “Love – -Labour’s Lost”. Apologies.

          3. You’d never think that such a little pipsqueak would have such a macho voice.

            All down to electronics, I suppose.

          4. I seem to recall a theory that Rick Astley didn’t actually exist and his records were sung by Kylie and played back at the wrong speed, or was it the other way around?

    2. The Labour Party having imported their own voters are now in hock to them. They are, like the Home Office, agents of Islam!

      1. The sites, including Twitter, than I stumbled across a few weeks ago are a source of real concern, or should be to all decent people. Concerned locals are exposing Manchester and its environs as a cesspit of corruption and incompetence: not only financial but power, votes, influence and the police. Claims indicate that the driver at the heart of it is the islamic vote, or Cartel as it’s known. The Northern Powerhouse will become an even greater den of corruption as the money, if it’s ever forthcoming, will attract the corrupt as flies to a turd.

  43. Who does the Muslim Council of Britain speak for? Spiked 13 may 2020.

    Reports like this lead to claims appearing in the media that misreporting on issues around Islam is widespread and is driven by racism. Headlines allege that ‘most UK news coverage of British Muslims is negative’. These reports and the headlines they generate are designed to create a chilling effect around reporting on Islam, making discussion, outside a strictly defined and policed rubric, impossible.

    It’s pretty difficult to get positive about mass rape and terrorism unless you’re a member of Isis or Al Qaeda. The term Islamophobia is itself a take- off of the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism and serves the same purpose, which is to stifle any criticism of the practices or beliefs of the parties concerned and if possible criminalise them. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Fortunately if you are running out of people to slag off, or murder, or whatever there’s always the Christians and of course it’s open season all year round on Old White Males.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/13/who-does-the-muslim-council-of-britain-speak-for/

    1. Most debate and articles about the British Empire are negative these days
      The reports and the headlines they generate are designed to create a chilling effect around reporting on the British Empire, making discussion, outside a strictly defined and policed rubric, impossible.

    2. White males are a minority in this country (think about it). Therefore they should be a protected species. Where do I go to get my free handout?

    3. The Muslim Council of Britain write as if there is negative news in the MSM every day. I’ve yet to see one negative article.

      Don’t mention the Slammers, I did once but I think I got away with it.

  44. Well I’ve been to Morrisons! The normalisation of the UK proceeds apace, contrary to the Governments wishes, and I did my bit by undermining their credibility in the pay out queue.

  45. Attention Norfolk NoTTLers,

    We may get rain. The window cleaner has just been (first time since February)….

  46. Today, the lockdown regulations are relaxed somewhat.

    They had a pretty long-haired GP on the news just now explaining that surgical masks are not necessary with social distancing; any face covering will do to stop the droplets.

    I have therefore had a rummage and found a pair of red Y-fronts. Stick the leg holes over the eyes, and some sort of clip at the top and bottom of the nose to keep the view clear, and it works fine, even with bearded people. Stylish too. Good for job interviews.

      2. You could provide face masks for a family of 4 if you used the bloomers which I saw on the washing lines in days gone bye.

      3. Queen Victoria’s would provide you with total protection – from head to toe.

  47. Just had my first haircut since February 3rd. The cat didn’t recognise me.

  48. 319212+ up ticks,
    A large prefab class room joining the HOc please if this
    odious issue gets traction, there is an untapped field of
    political pin stripe clad TOP RANKERS performing daily,
    daisy chains must be booked in advance, no cameras.

    breitbart,
    WHO: Under-4s Should Learn About ‘Early Childhood Masturbation’, ‘Explore Gender Identities’

  49. The Covidmandments (more useful if they were written on Tablets of Vitamin C & D

    * 4 year olds can go to school, but university students who have paid for the tuition they haven’t had and the accommodation they aren’t living in, can’t go to university.
    * A teacher can go to school with many 4 year olds that they are not related to, but can’t see one 4 year old that they are related to.

    * You can meet one person from another household for a chat or to sunbathe, but not two people so if you know two people from another household you have to pick your favourite. Hopefully, you’re also their favourite person from your household or this could be awkward. But possibly you’re not. But as I can’t go closer than 2m to the one you choose anyway you wouldn’t think having the other one sat next to them would matter – unless two people would restrict your eyeline too much and prevent you from being alert.

    * You can work all day with your colleagues, but you can’t sit in their garden for a chat after work.

    * You can now do unlimited exercise when quite frankly just doing an hour a day feels like you are some kind of fitness guru. I can think of lots of things that I would like to be unlimited but exercise definitely isn’t one of them.

    * You can drive to other destinations, although which destinations is unclear.

    * The buses are still running past your house, but you shouldn’t get on one. We should just let empty buses drive around so bus drivers aren’t doing nothing.

    * It will soon be time to quarantine people coming into the country by air… but not yet. It’s too soon. And not ever if you’re coming from France because… well, I don’t know why, actually. Because the French version of coronavirus wouldn’t come to the UK maybe.

    * Our youngest children go back to school first because… they are notoriously good at not touching things they shouldn’t, maintain personal space at all times and never randomly lick you.

    * We are somewhere in between 3.5 and 4.5 on a five point scale where 5 is all of the virus and 1 is none of the virus but 2,3 and 4 can be anything you’d like it to be really. Some of the virus? A bit of the virus? Just enough virus to see off those over 70s who were told to self isolate but now we’ve realised that they’ve done that a bit too well despite us offloading coronavirus patients into care homes and now we are claiming that was never said in the first place, even though it’s in writing in the stay at home guidance.

    * The slogan isn’t stay at home any more, so we don’t have to stay at home. Except we do. Unless we can’t. In which case we should go out. But there will be fines if we break the rules. So don’t do that.

    Don’t forget…

    Stay alert… which Robert Jenrick has explained actually means Stay home as much as possible. Obviously.

    Control the virus. Well, I can’t even control my dogs and I can actually see them. Plus I know a bit about dogs and very little about controlling viruses.

    Save lives. Always preferable to not saving lives, I’d say, so I’ll try my best with that one, although hopefully I don’t need telling to do that. I know I’m bragging now but not NOT saving lives is something I do every day.

    So there you are. If you’re the weirdo wanting unlimited exercise then enjoy. But not until Wednesday. Obviously.

  50. I heard someone at work this morning ask in a meeting, “Is British reluctance to wear face masks actually just lazy racism”?

    1. That’s a bit of a racist question. I hope he/she/it was taken to task and admonished.

    2. No, it isn’t. We are scared of being accused of cultural appropriation from veiled Muslim women.

    4. Why indeed?

      This reluctance is so much greater in the UK than we see over in Canada. We have very few cases in our rural area soit is not as if we are seeing friends and neighbours keel over, but maybe 70% of customers in the supermarket have masks.

      Maybe it is that traditional British “we did not fight the germans so that we could have identity cards” stubbornness – but racism only in those seeking to be perpetually offended.

      I did read an article in The Atlantic that was playing the race game big time, it claims that Trump stopped bothering about CV19 when hr saw that only black people caught the bug.

      1. Maybe it’s because many doctors have informed us that these masks don’t do what people wish they did. They are just a token, a comfort blanket.

        In a very few circumstances they may perform a useful function (an infected person wearing one may reduce transmission – until it gets soggy or he touches it and then touches something else), but they will not prevent someone inhaling virus. They are as much use as the woman’s scarf I saw this morning in the supermarket, covering her chin and her lower lip only, but doubtless she felt better and maybe marginally less terrified of life for wearing it.

        1. It seems that people in the UK have jumped on the it will not work to stop you catching it mantra, over here people have accepted the opposite laim that it may help stop you spreading it.

    6. If you were in the mood you could ask your nearest Director of Diversity (or whatever title they hold) to put out a ruling on this that should be followed by all BBC employees.

      You could say that a colleague raised the very important point in a meeting and that you did not wish to be acting in a culturally inappropriate or racist manner.

      Put it in writing.

      Then leak the response to Littlejohn or Hitchens or someone similar.

    7. The presenters don’t seem to wear them while interviewing or reading the news. As my hearing is not good and I subconsciously lipread most of the time I wouldn’t be able to understand what they were saying.

    8. How on earth do you stop yourself from bursting out laughing at these meetings?

    9. He was probably bored by the agenda. It’s the sort of question I would ask in meetings in Sweden, if I hadn’t managed to fall asleep.

    10. Afternoon Sue. Was this a take off of; “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

      1. I suppose you could say that the hand clap is the onanist’s venereal disease?

        1. Many a true word spoken in jest. Ever heard of herpetic whitlow?

          https://www.google.co.uk/search?sxsrf=ALeKk00l6Skt8EW2QWaSJaJmVZIz1VKixQ%3A1589375852690&source=hp&ei=bPO7XpTjJoeNlwS-4oKICw&q=herpetic+whitlow&oq=herpeic+witlow&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQARgAMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANOgUIABCDAToECCMQJzoCCAA6BAgAEAo6CAgAEAUQChAeOgYIABAFEB46BggAEA0QCjoICAAQDRAKEB46BggAEA0QHjoICAAQCBANEB5Qqv_gAVi3suEBYMbe4QFoAHAAeACAAcsCiAG-DpIBBzkuMi4yLjGYAQCgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6&sclient=psy-ab

    11. Masks do not prevent you catching the virus unless they are of the proper grade to protect against ingress of the virus*, and if your skin and hair are covered by material impervious to viruses.
      As the mask only works to the extent that it will intercept liquid droplets expelled when one coughs or sneezes, anything will do.
      so why not wear something that looks good?

      1. Wrong link, sigh…and no “edit” button visible…
        …and “you must be logged in…”

  51. From:

    https://www.healthline.com/health/respiratory-acidosis

    Normally, the lungs take in oxygen and exhale CO2. Oxygen passes from the lungs into the blood. CO2 passes from the blood into the lungs. However, sometimes the lungs can’t remove enough CO2. This may be due to a decrease in respiratory rate or decrease in air movement due to an underlying condition such as:

    asthma
    COPD
    pneumonia
    sleep apnea

    …and now there is a new one:

    the homemade face mask

    I raise this issue because MOH was forced to remove her Government recommended homemade face mask in Waitrose this morning after she realised she was hyperventilating.

    The NHS and other H&S regulated bodies have to use PPE that conforms to certain standards otherwise the kit just stays in a warehouse at Heathrow.

    Using any old face covering introduces an airway obstruction with inhibition of inhaled air and recirculation of rebreathed air. The body’s reaction is to compensate with changes to the vital signs resulting in respiratory-acidosis.

    I know we have to use our common sense during the current health crisis but should our behaviour in remaining safe not be driven by purely scientific findings?

    1. There was a story in the Mail yesterday about someone in China out jogging with a facemask and died. Unfortunately I didn’t click on it (as on almost all stories there), so I don’t have the detail, but I think a distance of two and a half miles was mentioned.

      1. If a patient came in with bad breath or BO, I used to put a small dab of orange oil in the corner of my face mask. OO is used for degreasing in the surgery.

    3. AO’e – there is also a condition which the doctors call “Happy Hypoxia” where a COVID- 19 patient in the early stages thinks he is OK but his blood 0xygen level could be dangerously low, down to 50 in extreme cases. Around 95 is the normal reading for blood oxygen.

      1. I woke myself up snoring one afternoon and just for fun I measured my blood oxygen level and it was 88%. I can’t say I was surprised but I didn’t feel very happy.

  53. Gerry Adams wins Supreme Court appeal over 1970s Maze prison escape convictions

    Adams’ detention was unlawful, hence his convictions of attempting to escape from lawful custody were, likewise, unlawful, said Lord Kerr

    The former Sinn Fein leader claimed his two 1975 convictions were unsafe because his detention was not “personally considered” by a senior government minister.

    So, not only are our Servicemen still being prosecuted for thaings that happened during tge Troubles, a known IRA Terrorist has had his convictions quashed by our ‘supreme court.

    I despair.

    Ihttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/13/gerry-adams-wins-supreme-court-appeal-1970s-maze-prison-escape/

    2. The sooner that bunch of suppurating shiites are removed, the sooner we can get back to real British Justice as identified in Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights.

      1. Do we have enough rope and spikes ?
        Chance would be a fine thing.
        And the list grows longer by the day.

        1. Plenty of lamp posts available, but piano wire seems to be in short supply…

    6. When you are lost in the countryside and you ask a wise yokel for directions he will tell you that you cannot start from where you are but will have to return to Lostwithiel (if you are visiting friends in Cornwall) and start again.

      Our country needs to be rebuilt again – but is it possible to start from where we are now?

      1. 319212+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        A well known party designed & triggered the perfect opportunity for exit, the referendum was a winner then
        I can still hear the echo’s of
        no need of that UKIP any longer, job done, leave it to the tories.
        Then unbleedinglybeleavable they went went back to supporting / voting lab/lib/con
        & mass whinging, for four plus bloody years.
        The depth of political sh!te we are in currently has past ones top lip as much of the electorate are of the “party first “persuasion and the only thing that will cure that is
        an overdose of mullahs as we will shortly be witnessing.

          1. 319212+ up ticks,
            Afternoon Ntn,
            Nothing new about the daily rise in the islamic ideology followers it continues unabated.
            As the parliamentary canteen menu points out if you read between the dishes.
            My fear is that the indigenous voting lemmings refuse to acknowledge there is any danger.

    7. 319212+ up ticks,
      Morning Olt,
      It is like you cannot be a bit pregnant,
      treachery has to receive 100% input & the elites are playing a blinder as can been seen.
      “Know your place ” is the current message, or else……….

      Correction duly made via edit.

          1. Funny how so many in that link, eulogising the death of so many health workers, seem to be BAME.

            Sad as it may be, is there something to be learnt?

          2. That racist whiteys are deliberately infecting them, Tom.

            No possible other explanation

        4. That was probably due to your diet.

          You should have passed on the sausage! :•)

    8. Blair’s Supreme Court has to go. If Boris had a spine, it would be top target on his list.

      1. I fear he has none. And to think he seemed such breath of fresh air….{:¬(((

      2. The top target on his list is getting the country through this virus, and the second is to totally extricate us from the clutches of the EU by the end of the year. After that he will have many “top targets”, including paying off the nation’s debt, so he will have to prioritise.

        1. But, Harry – he need NOT increase the nation’s debt at the speed of light.

          If he had one once of grey matter – he would get the country back to work pronto – not in the autumn or next year or, bloody never.

          Sorry – I feel strongly…..

          1. Fair enough, Bill. I am hoping that the gentle easing of the brakes will soon rapidly become an open floodgate.

          1. Not at all, Hertslass. I believed that May was attempting to compromise with the evil EU and was saying, in effect, give her a chance. Then I realised that instead she was just caving in, time after time, and had no intention of getting us out.

            My post about Boris says in essence that he has more than enough on his plate for others to be carping; let him deal with the Coronavirus before shouting that he ought to focus on other problems.

          3. Apologies accepted. Sometimes we write things which are not as clear as they might be, and so they can get misunderstood. Fortunately, the vast majority of NoTTLers on here are decent, intelligent posters even if a minority have to be banned by moderators or blocked by ourselves.

      3. When I worked on/with airyplanes, there was a priority system, to get equipment/components manufactured in workshops.

        The system was dynamic, it was accepted that if you required an item Two months hence, more demanding tasks could be done, however, your item was always getting closer to the required date. An internal system ensured this (usually) happened

        Now, with government/desk bound snivel curvants, there does not seem to be a time line

        Boris should state:

        By May 2o21, The Supreme Court will no longer be used and the UK Justice system will resort to the system used for the last xoo years

        By January 2021The Border Farce will act in a more forceful manner and escort ALL immigrants trying to enter UK illegally out of UK waters

        etc

        1. Morning Triers, you’ll also remember the spares priority system for aircraft – AOG (aircraft on ground) which translated to LOG (Lightning on ground) when I was on a Lightning squadron which could involve a coms aircraft being sent to Warton or another Lightning base to get the spare.

  54. ConWoman

    THE National Education Union has emailed its members with what it describes as this ‘strong advice’:

    ‘… you should currently not engage with any planning based on a wider reopening of schools.

    ‘If your head asks you if you will be available for wider working

    after 1 June, we urge you to reply that you are waiting further advice

    from your union.’

    Beneath is the slogan: ‘Value education’.

    This advice follows publication of the union’s guidance to teachers

    with regard to the provision of online lessons. These should be kept to

    ‘a minimum’ and teachers are told that they ‘cannot be expected to carry

    out routine marking or grading’ of pupils’ work whilst schools are

    closed. Only in ‘exceptional circumstances’ should teachers live-stream

    lessons from home or undertake any video calls to pupils.

    The hands of head teachers are tied, as one explained to the Sunday Telegraph: ‘Some

    teachers say that they are not willing to do it and that you can’t make

    them, because the unions say they don’t have to. There is not a huge

    amount I can do if I am honest.’

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/snub-any-attempt-to-reopen-state-schools-union-tells-teachers/
    Words Fail Me

    2. Teachers’ jobs would be a lot easier if there weren’t any pesky children to educate.

      1. A large percentage of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses in independent schools refuse to go on strike or even join a union.

        I have never been on strike

        1. Our grandson is getting daily lessons from the RHS. The days are shorter because there is no sport, but otherwise, they still hold on-line regular lessons. Because of the time difference – the lessons take place at British time – pupils from Canada clock on during the evening, a pupil from Hong Kong starts at 4.0 am.

    4. The Trade Unions are flexing their muscles and are reawakening the times when they held the country to ransom and caused chaos .
      If they follow their unions advice they will lose any respect which they have. The government needs to take the Teacher’s Union on and stand up to them.

    6. That good old find a reason not to that seems to have taken over everywhere.

      I wax talking to a primary school teacher on Tuesday, she is doing a one hour online class for her students every day.

      No computer? No problem, the school board have been able to get hold of quite a few iPads and in addition, old redundant laptops are being repaired and made available to children who need them.

      I don’t suppose that the government have the guts to stand up to the teachers, transport unions and any other naysayers and tell them to get back to work if they want to get paid.

      1. I have no fear – the Memsahib stands ready. She can freeze a puddle at twenty paces with a single glance …

          1. Don’t be deceived, Hugh, she can charm the birds from the trees, always could. It’s just when fools come within range, particularly agents of the State and all their hellish disciples, that the bodycount goes up.

      1. It is to suggest (I think – but what do I ever know?) that the bigger the shyte debt that HMG has created – the longer it will take to pay it off; if ever.

        1. If only it were just the debt.

          Those figures are what might end up being added to the debt.

      2. It starts the March Budget, Now and Potential Deficits because of his policies.

  57. While the media in the pursuit of market share have people quaking with fear if they see someone approaching them on a pavement three metres wide to the extent that one of them steps onto the adjacent road to maximise separation, and airlines are threatened with closure because you can’t sit people 2m apart and still use the toilets or provide a load factor that will make a flight economic, it’s worth contemplating a fact that I heard on the car radio when I went shopping this morning.

    The WHO recommended separation for Covid 19 isn’t 2m. It’s 1m.

    And that 1m makes a hell of a difference to the economic impacts of this outbreak, while it seems not being a significantly greater health risk that the 2m which our gold-platers have given us.

    I’m all for being safe and not catching stuff, but if Russia says a small bear (1.5m) is plenty and the WHO says 1m, shouldn’t we be considering whether we are getting it right?

    (Before someone says the WHO have got stuff wrong, I know, but occasionally they may be right).

    https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public

      1. Would all the people on Earth be able to stand on the Isle of Wight if they stood one metre (or two metres) apart?

        Discuss. Show your calculations for extra marks.

        1. Not a hope. You could only get half of Europe on there, never mind the rest.

          1 sq m each gives 1,000,000 to the sq km. The isle of Wight has an area of 380 sq km, so you could get 380,000,000 on it. Europe’s population is about 740,000,000.

        2. No.
          The earth would topple over and they’d all fall off into outer space…

          2. Remember it well. ” scientists who burn incense to appease volcanoes …”
            “There are seven billion-plus humans crowding the surface of 21st-century Earth.”
            Hmmm, I think Brunner must have had a time machine. I read it many moons ago, hence the IOW comparison.

        4. The answer to you question is definitely No. The reason being that the logistics of arranging for 8+ billion people to assemble on the IoW are such that the first to arrive would have died of starvation (and therefore no longer able to stand) by the time the last person on earth arrived…

        5. 120,000,000 at 1m social distancing and 30,000,000 at 2m. Using bassetedge’s numbers but using 1m and 2m radii.

          1. Radius doesn’t come into it. Imagine each person standing in the centre of each square of a 1m grid. They are separated from each other laterally and fore and aft by 1m and diagonally by 1.412m (root 2), therefore the density is 1 person per square m, not 1 person per 3.142 sq m.

            If you surround each person with a 1m radius circle, they are 2m apart.

            Try it with a 0.5 m radius and it works better than the grid, but harder to organise on the ground.

          2. The centres of their heads, looking from above, yes 2m apart, but you’ve surely got to take a body’s extremities into account.

          3. The danger is from their nostrils and mouth, pretty much in the centre, so you might have to allow a few mm for the width of the septum.

          4. Fingers and tosies can also transmit the virus, or we wouldn’t have to wash our hands for so long and so frequently.

          5. ‘You there! Get those hands in those pockets. Now!’

            Don’t know if they transmit covid, mind. The reason for washing is to stop the build-up of mozarella, witch later finds its way onto pizzas and other unpalatable ‘foods’ of the sort, such as Welsh rarebit.

          6. I can still hear those words shouted across the hangar at me, and “get a haircut!”.
            Edit; “out” of course.

    3. As someone pointed out yesterday, a 1m radius equates to 3.1m² while a 2m radius is 12.6m².

        2. But transmission doesn’t just rely on range (distance), it relies on duration. If you are briefly close to someone, you don’t get enough of a dose.

          When all this kicked off we were being told not to get within 2m of someone else for periods exceeding 15 minutes (government advice). Everyone seems to have forgotten that essential detail. Now they think if someone passes them 5 feet away at 20mph on a bike, they will die.

          1. A reason to go for a quickie instead of quiche for lunch.

            Isn’t this where facemasks come in? If wearing a facemask surely the droplets will be slowed by the mask and not go so far.

          2. Not slowed, but trapped, and then only so long as the facemasks are of the right standard, aren’t allowed to get soggy and aren’t touched by hands to transfer to other surfaces. False security.

            A bit like the people you see wearing rubber gloves to shop. Gloves are worse than bare hands for spreading contamination.

          3. I am sure that there will be competing medical advice on that. Like everything else, it has become so politicised that I don’t trust any of them now.

            How come everyone around Trump now wears masks, they are not the sacred m95 masks either?

          4. I noticed that female reporter talking to him the other day was wearing one, as were everyone else there, except that she had hers pulled down over her chin to expose her mouth.

            I would imagine everyone close to Trump will be wearing them because they don’t want to do a Boris. I would also imagine that they are top grade medical masks, which are changed and disposed of regularly at short intervals, not something made out of an old T shirt worn all day until it drips with germ-laded condensed breath like those we are shown how to make in the newspapers.

            If they aren’t wearing top grade masks, maybe they’ve been told they are a waste of time, but they’ve got to keep up appearances.

            Politicians.

          7. The point is that nobody seems to be taking duration into consideration any more, only distance. You need both to dictate doseage.

            They think walking past in opposite directions on a 2m path is dangerous. Only if you’re in the habit of licking passers-by like a dog.

          8. Like the Victorians believing that if a newfangled train went above 30 mph – everyone would die?

        3. But transmission doesn’t just rely on range (distance), it relies on duration. If you are briefly close to someone, you don’t get enough of a dose.

          When all this kicked off we were being told not to get within 2m of someone else for periods exceeding 15 minutes (government advice). Everyone seems to have forgotten that essential detail. Now they think if someone passes them 5 feet away at 20mph on a bike, they will die.

    4. To maintain the recommended separation then you need to imagine yourself at the centre of a circle of that distance around you. The area of a 2m radius circle is 12.5 sq m. The area of a 1.5m radius circle is 7 sq m. The area of a 1m radius circle is 3.1 sq m.

      Put those differences in terms of shop floor availability and you can see that reducing separation from 2m to 1m would quadruple the number of customers who could be in a shop at any one time.

      1. Or one person in the centre of each square of a 1m grid, as opposed to a 2m grid. The 1 m grid gives 1 person per sq m, with 1m lateral separation and 1.412m diagonal separation; the 2 m grid, 1 person per 4 sq m.

          1. Russian cages, smaller than the bear. Like China, but without the bile drain.

    5. It was, as I understand, always 1 metre but some snotty little bureaucrat thought we wouldn’t understand 1 metre so they made it 2? No I don’t understand either, why didn’t they say 1 yard?

      1. Because no-one else uses yards, not even the Yanks, who don’t seem to think there is any unit between a foot and a mile, and it’s the World Health Organisation.

          2. The grave of the oldest man in Ireland was found recently aged 117. According to his headstone he was Miles from Dublin….

          4. Half mile and mile markers. They must be counted in yards.

            When any of you are next out on a motorway, look out for signs at 1/3 and 2/3 of a mile from an exit. There was a period from the late 90s when new signs (for new exits) were put up in anticipation of metrication of road signs i.e. 1/2 and 1 km. The excuse was given that this was done because it was impossible to erect signs at 1/2 a mile or a mile because of obstructions. I passed one of about 6 or 7 where that was the case. I think the Highways Agency was eventually rumbled and told to stop it.

            The 1/3 and 2/3 mile characters were on plates rivetted to the signs. I don’t know whether anyone established if the 1/2 or 1 km characters were painted on the signs underneath the plates.

          5. Because the law states that distances on roads in the UK are measured in Imperial measure. It was a specific exclusion like pints of beer, when we went metric.

          7. Not in Britain they aren’t

            EDIT, you mean those small posts at the side of the road that give distances to the next emergency phone in steps of 100m. Not the same thing as exit markers (hundred yards, 1, 2 &3) and sign-posts (miles).

          8. It was the small posts to which I referred. It took me some time to work out that a place 80 things away was in fact 50 miles away!

          10. I wish we had some dragons. I’d train them to keep the bloody tourists at bay who take up all the local parking spaces, so if I go out on a weekend morning I’ve got to be back home before midday or there’s nowhere left to park in the village and I have to drive somewhere else until about 4pm. One of the few pleasures of lockdown has been that there’s plenty of space in the village. The drawback is that my car hasn’t moved apart from once per week to go shopping and I haven’t needed to park.

            Now that we can move about I might drive a bit more and the chances are I’ll get parked for the time being at least, because the pubs are shut and the tourists will have to learn to cook their own Sunday dinner.

          12. He’s correct. But quite why they use metric I have no idea

            Since at least 1980, motorways have had distance marker posts, aka Blakedale Posts, installed at 100 metre intervals alongside the hard shoulder. These posts are used to help pinpoint road locations for maintenance and emergency purposes, and also show the direction to the nearest emergency roadside telephone.

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

          13. I think they thought – at the time these posts were put in – that we would have abandoned Imperial measures for ever.

          14. I think it’s more likely that when they were done, the surveyors doing the plans and measures would have been working in metric, using metric grids on their plans and metric levelling staffs for level and measure. Metric road building, but imperial signposts, because signpost on the other roads are imperial.

            I was surveying in metric on new sites from around 1970, with imperial measure persisting on pre-existing sites.

          15. I thought it had to do with the standards for the European Road Network.

          16. Don’t know Sean, just guessing, but the surveyors would have been doing all their setting out in metric, so it makes sense to have the emergency phones and distance markers in metres too.

            Road signage is an entirely different kettle of fish and there for different reasons and if need be can be easily replaced at little notice should we go mad and go metric at a later date.

          17. I’d forgotten they existed, then remembered them when I hit ‘post’, so I did the immediate edit.

            We don’t see many motorways in these parts, they haven’t even got round to dualling the A1 yet!

          19. Note where I say, ‘these parts’. It’s been a scandal going back to the 1980s. They are due to do some more dualling on certain sections starting next year.

          20. Don’t fret – HS2 will be your salvation. You won’t need a car…..{:¬))

          21. HS2 isn’t planned to come to the North. Even phase 2 is only planned to get to Leeds in the North Midlands, which is almost just on half-way to London.

        2. Some Americans have not got to decimals yet, in some states you see mile markers on freeways showing distances in tenths of a mile.

          and you want them to switch to metric?

          1. Never said that. As I said this morning I’ve been happy all my adult life with imperial and metric and any blend of the two.

            Tenths of a mile? No trouble 176 yards/ 160m.

            I used to do metric feet at work on a daily basis. 1 inch = 0.08 feet, then 0.17, 0.25, 0.33, 0.42, 0.50, 0.58, 0.63, 0.75, 0.83, 0.92 and 1.00. Needed to know my 27 times table too for calculating from cubic feet (on plans) into cubic yards (recorded quantities).

          2. I think that cubic yards are still used when calculating concrete needed when pouring basements.
            You are right though, we never see anything linear expressed in yards even though they surely had one hundred yard races in the days before they switched to one hundred meters.

          3. It’s US TV shows that highlight it for me. ‘He was thrown 60 feet’, rather than ’20 yards’, which to my mind is easier to estimate and define, but to someone who thinks a yard is something you grow flowers in, I suppose they get used to estimating distances like that in tens of feet.

            I do the same, but my feet come in hundreds from the days when I was working on sites with a one hundred foot grid. You get used to what a hundred feet looks like, count in hundreds, then quickly divide by three to put it into layman’s English.

          4. Slowly realised, golf courses are measured in yards, they know what they are.

    6. If you’re much closer than 1m to anyone, you’re almost in their arms and it’s unlikely to be a stranger, so the whole distance business seems to be a complete nonsense.

        2. Well so would you huddle when it is minus fifteen outside.

          I wonder what a self distancing huddle will be like?

  58. While the media in the pursuit of market share have people quaking with fear if they see someone approaching them on a pavement three metres wide to the extent that one of them steps onto the adjacent road to maximise separation, and airlines are threatened with closure because you can’t sit people 2m apart and still use the toilets or provide a load factor that will make a flight economic, it’s worth contemplating a fact that I heard on the car radio when I went shopping this morning.

    The WHO recommended separation for Covid 19 isn’t 2m. It’s 1m.

    And that 1m makes a hell of a difference to the economic impacts of this outbreak, while it seems not being a significantly greater health risk that the 2m which our gold-platers have given us.

    I’m all for being safe and not catching stuff, but if Russia says a small bear (1.5m) is plenty and the WHO says 1m, shouldn’t we be considering whether we are getting it right?

    (Before someone says the WHO have got stuff wrong, I know, but occasionally they may be right).

    https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public

      1. 319212+ up ticks,
        A lesson should really be learnt by all from the treatment of the real UKIP from inside / outside the party.
        The lab/lib/con coalition party are a destructive pro eu close shop force, those still thinking otherwise
        & judging by the present state of the nation, need a serious cannister check up.
        UKIP with Gerard Batten
        re-instated as leader was NEVER going to be allowed it had to be suppressed, triggering treachery from within did the rest.
        Will see what road Braine / Batten / Benjamin / TR take, decent peoples.
        Being of a decent nature & anti
        submissive,pcism, & appeasement
        I cannot support any of the anti UK governance parties.

    2. Narrator needs to hone his presenting skills – very boring!

      Small wonder that it takes 29.5 minutes to expound what could have been said in 16 minutes, maximum. I gave up at 7:53

      1. 319225+up ticks,
        Morning Ntn,
        Then it was a success at what it was intended to achieve the total annihilation of UKIP.
        In truth the only political party that has shown success in recent years only to have success turned into sh!te by treachery.
        Any true pro UK party is going to come up against the lab/lib/con
        close shop and opposition from them and a multitude of following fools.
        By the by Tell me your choice of a successful party these last 3 decades ?

      1. 319212+ up ticks,
        Evening Ims2,
        After All he had done in his year in office in saving then building the party membershipwise & financially.
        The Nec judged him to be “not of good standing” blocked his standing.
        Richard Braine took the leadership
        with a convincing win then wanted Batten as deputy, he was blocked all the way from operating as a leader by the Nec.
        An orchestrated take down of a party once again on the rise.
        Check out Battens actions since the 17 th Feb 2018.
        Instance, on taking over he asked the membership for £100,000 and in reply got £300,000 it’s all on record.
        You ” take it” correctly.

  60. Moh’s 74th birthday today .

    We had a walk with the dogs on a field earlier , there was a very cold wind blowing , such beautiful views of a resting green countryside , we were walking near some ancient Bronze Age barrows, on a hill not too far from here .

    Nearly an hour ago we watched a family of young starlings screeching and bathing in the bird water dish .. they make such a din , didn’t they enjoy the dried maggot treats I scatterd on the grass.

    New potatoes, purple sprouting broccoli and grilled salmon fillets for an early supper for us .. chocolate pud and custard for dessert, as a treat.

    Moh ‘s golf course might open next week.

    2. Happy birthday to YOH.
      Good to get the golf bats out again ⛳ have a good one. 🍷🍻

    3. Preparing a pork curry, Mags, in case some Pakistanis decide to come round.

    4. Are you sure that golf courses being open overrides the seniors stay locked up directive?

      Hopefully our golf courses are not far behind, they have been allowed to prepare for play. It will be interesting, they are talking of only one person per buggy but we only have about fifty of them. Luckily I walk, I find it much easier to find effant balls that way.

      1. So lon as you play on your own with one person who remains six feet away – you are OK. No foursomes (or whatever golfers do).

    5. Our barrow’s getting on a bit too, Belle. It’s good to get out, it’s a chilly wind here but nothing like Monday’s Siberian blast. I mekka da meatballs dis evening.

    1. Is the ‘Home’ in ‘Home Rule” a euphemism for EU?

      If you want tae take Jockland doon wi’ ye when the EU sinks, Wee Krankie, dinnae come back tae us with your Tams in hand beggin’ for a bail oot!

    1. It seems Starmer might have his uses then. Keeping the front bench on their toes and needing to do some prep.

          1. He can trade on recovering from the illness for a short time – but such goodwill as that brought him will soon expire.

          2. In his defence I can attest he was a far better Mayor of London than Dear Leader, Ken IL invingstone and Sad Dick khant

          3. Not much competition. Anyway – the Mayor doesn’t actually DO much (except he did get rid of Hogan-Hyphen – and look who followed him…)

          4. Dear Leader was bloody expensive and they have the capacity to destroy wealth (and drink fine wines allegedly…)

          7. Boris seems to forget at times that his replies must be factual and correct and that his replies can be checked forensically,particularly by the BBC, and drawn to the public;s attention, He must learn not to blurt things out.

          10. I have serious doubts as to whether he’s fit enough to be back at work.

          11. I agree, he still doesn’t look well. My comment about thinking on his feet refers to pre-Corvid. He is a waffler but prepared to listen to advisors. Unfortunately he was betrayed; the advisors seemingly had an agenda of their own.

    2. It’s the job of the Opposition to challenge the Government. A weak Opposition and/or Leader is bad for democracy.

      1. There was no Opposition after the King invited Churchill to form a Government but there was still opposition to the Government’s plan to fight opposing forces.

    3. Pity he wasn’t “ruthless” when he was a useless Director of Public Prosecutions.

      1. Yeah, well, Ruth kept telling him to prosecute the rapists and child-groomers so he got rid of her.

    4. Got a feeling that the Torygraph supports Starmer they are always bigging him up.

      1. Middle class. Well spoken. Well briefed. Knight of the Realm.

        How quickly these parasites forget the man’s background in wrecking criminal law enforcment.

  63. Well, well. Here I am again, like a bad penny..

    The BAR – being in yer Italy – had e-mailed all members world-wide to announce the lecture at 5 pm BST today.

    The MR had a mail at 4 pm saying “The lecture will start in one hour”.

    The lecture is being carried around the World by Zoom. Unfortunately, Luigi Salami at the BSR had booked the Zoom for, er, 14 May 2020.

    So we will look forward to seeing it tomorrow (or not!).

    Italians, eh?

    1. How long’s a piece of spaghetti?

      At least you know how to set it up now, so you shouldn’t miss the first ten minutes.

      1. Apart from there being no lecture, it was all working fine! Especially the little box saying “Your meeting is scheduled for 14.05.20″…{:¬))

        1. Could be 20 seconds after 5 minutes past two.

          Tricky buggers, these eyties, they couldn’t manage in Latin, so they seem to have bowdlerised Spanish and whole-heartedly embraced mañana

  64. At PMQs today Boris came out supportive of the Climate change questions from 2 Conservatives and Caroline Lucas. Electric charging points, Aeroplane emissions. and support for green policies. Buses in London were apparently packed with passengers this morning. Boris is going to sort this out. The Londoners are going to set us back from the new “freedom” we have been given.

    1. The climate will certainly change when the cold icy wind blows through home that can’t afford the cost of heating.
      This government is making the Muppets look like serious government of the future. Sorry they are the Muppets. Heaven help us.

    2. Even if there were watertight evidence to prove that man-made global warming is a total myth invented by vested interests who have launched a monumental scam upon us and that carbons dioxide is ‘a good thing’ to have in the air not‘a bad thing’ the politicians would refuse to publish the facts and shriek that if the truth gets onto the internet it should be taken down because true facts are fake news!.

      The more evidence that arises to prove the climate change scam is based on lies the more the facts will be suppressed by people like Johnson in the same way that the facts about Muslim rape gangs is suppressed.

      1. …the facts about Muslim rape gangs is are suppressed. English, Rastus!

    3. There are fewer buses and with the front half of the lower deck cordoned off in each one to protect the driver. What do they expect will happen if people need to use them to get to work?

    4. Boris is buggering the country faster than any mythical climate change ever could.

    5. He has been talking to Trudeau again.

      Thers may not be a conspiracy working to kill the population but one exists to worship St Greta.

    6. Hasn’t he worked out that green stuff costs more than the ordinary stuff and cash might be a little tight in the foreseeable?

      1. I wonder if Boris was just humouring them. Perhaps he has lost his fighting spirit.

    7. Aeroplane emissions aren’t going to be a problem for some time to come. He’s already cured that one.

    8. The climate will certainly change when the cold icy wind blows through home that can’t afford the cost of heating.
      This government is making the Muppets look like serious government of the future. Sorry they are the Muppets. Heaven help us.

  65. OT – last night we watched most of the first part (of two) of a doc about Geroge W Bush (the “Mission Accomplished” hero). The rest and part 2 tonight.

    He does come across as even more stupid, ill-prepared and out of his depth than he looks.

    And tomorrow, the Roya Academy is streaming (on YouTube) a lecture on Manet and his portrait painting.

    Loadsa culchur chez nous…{:¬))

    1. Yes we all thought that George W was stupid but then he visited Ottawa while was Pres and in his free time he toured the National Gallery. Some of the tour guides were more than surprised by his interest and knowledge of the arts.

      Maybe not all that he is made out to be.

      1. The media wouldn’t have him portrayed as anything different.

        Unlike Saint Barack.

        1. To my surprise he did get a good review on CNN last week after he tried pushing for a bit of conciliation between factions when dealing with CV19.

          Naturally Trump did not agree with CNNs view.

          2. No surprise there. He goes ballistic at anyone in the public eye who disagrees with him – or even worse, points out he has once again told a rather large porkie.

          3. Unlike Billy,destroy the banking system, “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

          4. Do I detect that you don’t care for the man the Americans elected as President?

          1. The MR has taught me – with infinite skill and patience – to see art of all kinds in a completely different way. I shall always be indebted to her. It has been a fascination education in my late middle age.

            Don’t mock it.

      1. Right now, it is only available to Friends of the RA. But it should be on YouTube generally next week.

    3. George Dubya was a war hero, Bill. In 1968 – during the Vietnam War – he joined the 147th Fighter-Interceptor Group of the Texas National Guard, as a volunteer.

      Military records show that during his service, there were no successful Vietcong incursions into Texas.

      2. And of course, the reason he did that, was that back then National Guardsmen were not deployed abroad.

        1. Not that I want to defend a neo-con but in fact some ANG units were actually deployed to Vietnam. So joining the ANG was not a 100% guarantee of avoiding Vietnam. In addition individual ANG pilots (and others presumably) could and did volunteer to join regular units in Vietnam.

          Luckily for GWB, just as he was signing up to the Texas ANG in 1968, the F-102 he would learn to fly was just being withdrawn from Vietnam*. And was on its way out as a front line USAF aircraft as well. Whether this was cunning or luck I dunno? By training as a short term reservist on a type that was soon to disappear it was unlikely that the airforce would be prepared to spend the time and money to retrain him on another type.

          *Since it was intended as a high speed, high altitude interceptor it was never a good fit for much of it’s service in Vietnam anyway.

  66. Is it just me – but the black circle next to my name which usually shows red when there are “notifications” is steadfastly black today.

    Anyone else having this discurse problem?

    EDIT Oh – it has started again. Not to worry..

    1. Yes. I’ve posted one comment that hasn’t made it to my profile and I’m also getting problems with notifications!

      1. Less than 1/2 of my notifications are coming through & some of those are 3 or 4 days late, e.g. I’ve just received one from Sunday.

    2. Having to sign each time I reopen and confirm I’m not a robot. Last bit’s difficult.

        1. No. It’s a bit of a so and so but not life threatening. 😂😂😂 one started today. Probably go back to normal one day.

    3. Refresh, dear boy, refresh.

      I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve refreshed today.

        1. Well, Bill, my little circle was read and just shewed 1. When I looked there were in fact, 6.

          My constant refreshing is because the little banner displaying how many new comments there are above or below, gets tired and refuses to work.

          1. My conshtant refreshering ish becosh my glarsch keepsh being emptity… hic.

  68. An ‘extremely rare’ two-headed baby turtle has been given a new home after being found in the wild.
    The reptile was adopted by aquarium the Virginia Living Museum after being discovered by a member of the public.
    The turtle has a slim chance of surviving into adulthood.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8316093/Mutant-baby-turtle-two-heads-discovered-Virginia.html

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fdbb142c50ac1c4b803f04e21f8552aa442565432aec7ef3f4680d200b758c83.jpg

    4. If it was deepest rural Virginia or West Virginia, nothing would surprise me.

      “Paw, if I divorce mah wahf, is she still mah sister?”

        1. That’s Trump’s “base” you are talking about. He’s the one telling them they just have to vote for him, and all those long departed coal mining jobs in the abandoned mines will be back. It worked at the last election, so….

          1. Well, the choice is hope a job will return or vote Dem and know it won’t.

    6. The turtle has a slim chance of surviving into adulthood

      Why, they’re not thinking of sending it to China are they?

  69. Jenrick was Minister on the 5pm update which is really a Party Political broadcast in all but name. 30% discount on houses for all first time front line workers in the NHS . Local authorities encouraged to accelerate planning permissions. House construction workers to be allowed work up to 9pm in residential areas and later in non residential areas.

    1. I thought it was 5%? Anyway, anyone who can’t negotiate at least a 5% discount from a builder deserves to work in the NHS. 😉

    2. Building new towns for NHS workers?

      This thing must be even worse than they are pretending.

      Any plans for crematoria?

      1. Sorry Basset – first time buyers in the NHS front line can get a 30% discount financed by the taxpayer I presume, on a new house [ I am not sure it applies to an existing house for sale] I suspect it will be a new house and could be in the areas where new towns are or will be built.

        1. Which of course will be miles away from hospitals .. because hospitals tend to be in the middle of a city / town etc.
          NHS workers , at what salary scale?
          Cleaners, porters, kitchen staff perhaps.

  70. Following my earlier comments about the British School at Rome – they sent the MR an e-mail to say that because of “technical problems” the lecture will take place tomorrow.

    Yeah, right, Luigi – you got the date wrong when you booked the Zoom….{:¬))

  72. iNTERESTING:

    Forgive me for boasting, but I reached a personal milestone last month when an article of mine was classified as ‘fake news’ by Facebook. It discussed some of the many studies that have emerged in the last two months showing smokers to be significantly under-represented in the coronavirus wards of Europe, America and China.

    Those who stumble across on it on Facebook are now warned that it is ‘misleading’. Admittedly, the headline was ‘Smoke fags, save lives’ and I did call on doctors to start prescribing Lucky Strikes. Perhaps I overstepped the line when I called for the British public to clap for cigarettes every Thursday evening. But surely the intelligent reader could tell these comments were tongue-in-cheek?

    Joking aside, the hypothesis that smokers are at less risk of contracting Covid-19 has a growing weight of evidence behind it and is being taken seriously by serious people. There are now more than twenty studies pointing in that direction.

    In the last week, two meta-analyses combining findings from the scientific literature have been published. One of them suggested that smokers are 78 per cent less likely to ‘have an adverse outcome’ from Covid-19. The other suggested that smokers are 82 per cent less likely to be hospitalised with the disease in the first place. This is an enormous protective effect, if true.

    But is it? As you might expect, the medical establishment is not exactly punching the air with joy at this news and every alternative explanation is being thoroughly explored. There are certainly reasons to be sceptical. Some of the studies have not yet been peer-reviewed and most of them rely on crude comparisons between the number of smokers with Covid-19 and the number of smokers in the general population.

    A large study from the UK last week found that only 6.9 per cent of the people who died from the virus were smokers, but this translated into a slight reduction in risk, a slight increase in risk or no significant effect at all, depending on how the figures were adjusted for other factors. It is also likely that the unfashionable habit of smoking is under-reported by people attending hospital with an acute respiratory disease, and yet it is difficult to believe that ‘shy smokers’ fully explain the exceptionally low rates of smoking recorded among Covid-19 cases.

    The percentage of smokers with the virus is typically around five per cent in countries where the smoking rate is between 15 and 30 per cent. Since Covid-19 attacks the lungs and preys on those with underlying health conditions, one would expect smokers to be over-represented in these studies. Instead, they are heavily under-represented.

    It is natural to approach counter-intuitive findings with caution, but there is a difference between scepticism and blind denial. When asked about the smoking- coronavirus link on television recently, the celebrity doctor Xand van Tulleken said “I haven’t looked into this particular piece of research but I would discount it completely. It is definitely wrong.” Public Health England’s only contribution has been to assert that smokers who contract Covid-19 are 14 times more likely to die from it, based on a tiny Chinese study which included just five smokers.

    It is notable that those who are so eager to point out the potential flaws in the epidemiological evidence on smoking and coronavirus happily cite exactly the same kind of evidence when talking about obesity and coronavirus.

    In any case, not all the studies have relied on a crude comparison with the national smoking rate. Studies from the USA and France have adjusted for other factors – including, crucially, age – and found that the significant protective effect still holds. The working hypothesis is that nicotine is responsible. This is assumed because there are plausible biological mechanisms by which nicotine could confound the virus and because the prospect of smoking per se being the prophylactic is too terrible for doctors to contemplate. But it remains an assumption.

    The French neuroscientist Jean-Pierre Changeux is currently carrying out experiments with nicotine patches, but he has yet to publish his findings. Other than that, the only real crumb of evidence comes from a study based on an online survey which concluded that vapers were 55 per cent less likely to get Covid-19.

    Although smokers are less likely to be hospitalised with Covid-19, several studies have found them to have worse outcomes once admitted. With smoking banned in and around hospitals, this leaves open the intriguing possibility that smokers are less able to fight the virus once they are deprived of nicotine. This idea was raised by doctors at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital back in mid-March, before the lockdown began. They suggested that “the simple use of nicotine patches should be be urgently considered and discussed”. This advice may have fallen on deaf ears, but perhaps giving nicotine patches to Covid-19 patients is not such a bad idea – and not just to smokers.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/12/can-afford-ignore-growing-link-nicotine-covid-19-survival/

    And the second most popular BTL:

    Janet Mozelewski 12 May 2020 9:07PM
    The reaction of Public Health England is exactly what I would expect given its generally negative, repressive and inward thinking during this whole episode. There doesn’t appear to be a single genuinely open-minded scientific brain between the lot of them.

    1. When I passed my local hospital earlier this week the were quite a few what looked like ambulance crew standing outside puffing away

    2. There are now more than twenty studies pointing in that direction.

      Twenty studies on top of God only knows how many others on the planet?

      Yes, I know it’s important to sort this thing out, but really, 20 studies? Who is paying for all this?

      2. The tobacco companies. Just like the French wine growers paid for the studies that “proved” red wine is good for the heart.

        1. Possibly, but what’s the point?
          Lung cancer almost certainly TRUMPS (I knew you’ld like that) covid

    3. It would be ironic if it was a tar build up in the lungs that thwarted the coronavirus.

  77. Another quandary. No strong flour available in the supermarkets for home bread making, the excuse is, that small packaging is not available. Total BS.
    No yeast available either. More BS.
    Why ? What is really going on ?

    1. Everyone is cooking/making bread at home to save them a trip to the supermarket. I need Gluten free flour and can’t get it because greedy bastards are hoarding it – I’ve got a 25Kg sack on order but don’t know when I’m going to get it

      1. I saw that at our local one, my only reservation was that it was labelled ‘all purpose culinary flour’.

    5. Yo, Eddy. I understand that the mills are geared up mainly to bag the flour into 16kg or larger quantities. Their bagging lines for domestic size packs are running 24/7, but can’t meet the demand. I ordered two 16kg sacks direct from Heygates, which dutifully arrived. One “Prestige”, which is a Very Strong Canadian, one “Norfolk Crunch”, which is malted with various grains. I bought some 1.5 kg paper bags from Amazon, and divvied it all up on Saturday. Strangely therapeutic. As for yeast, again demand is outstripping supply. Try searching Amazon or eBay for Fermipan.

      I walked to the shops in the next village today. The bakery was selling flour at £2.50 for 850g. Considering they can buy it for less than a pound a kilo, that’s gouging, and I’ll never darken their door again.

      1. Last week Morrisons had obviously self-bagged 1 kilo strong white flour at 60p. A very short shelf life (about 5 weeks) but very welcome nonetheless.

        1. Which makes the local bakery’s gouging look even worse. I recall from building a Sainsbury’s many years ago that the in-store bakeries receive their flour in bulk. There’s prolly a reasonable profit selling at 60p / kilo.

          1. We bought 1k self-bagged strong flour at Tescos for 60p and 8oz fresh yeast for 50p, which they donate to local charity.

      2. I’ve been making sourdough with the last bag i managed to get.
        All gone.
        There’s a garden centre with a farm shop near us. I bought some once and they charge more than 3 quid for a kilo.

    6. Bought 2×1.5 kg bags in Waitrose last week. Canadian very strong white. £1.79 each.

      1. We’ve been shopping at Waitrose all during lockdown and we’ve only managed one bag. Never seen and yeast.

        1. That’s ‘cos it’s all in my cupboard! I found a stack when I was clearing out the other day.

  78. My son in Texas has alerted me to a problem Nicola Sturgeon has on a possible cover-up in Scotland over an early confirmed case in Scotland.
    It involves an outbreak at a Nike conference in the Hilton Carlton Hotel in Edinburgh on February 26/27 where an attendee was confirmed as being a victim of the virus. The earliest case of COVID-19 was confirmed on ! March in Tayside. It wasn’t clear to me in the Glasgow Herald report if this was the attendee.
    Tracing of the of the outbreak found at least 25 people linked to the outbreak of which 8 were in Scotland.
    Nicola Sturgeon is being accused of covering up this outbreak and is vehemently denying a coverup.
    Apologies if this has been reported and discussed already,

    1. I can’t see the significance of this, is it in front of England?

      Is someone suggesting that Scotland was UK’s ground zero?

      1. Surprisingly the first 2 cases in the UK were confirmed on Friday 31 January so I don’t think the finger can be pointed at Nicola Sturgeon. I posted the comment to show despite her stand on the lockdown she is not getting a clear run in Scotland. Perhaps Duncan or Prickly Thistle can help me out.

        1. Hi clydesider! Nicola does get a clear run here, as the Scottish meeja appear to be terrified of challenging her divisive and slightly deranged utterings. Anything Westminster says she will Say the opposite! She is, after all, a lawyer! Her reaction to the case in her lunchtime question time at the big cooncil building was a joy to behold!

          1. Thanks Sue – Bullys don;t like criticism. I will find her lunchtime appearance, I need some cheering up.

          3. ‘Evening, Sue. I would only add that Mrs Murrell is past her political sell-by date and her popularity was waning before Covid-19 reared its spiked head. There are two main reasons.

            First, and most important, are her incessant demands for a second referendum – she’s a one-trick pony and sounds like a broken record these days – and an increasing number of folk do not support independence as the polls show.

            Second, the failed plot to get Salmond convicted on trumped-up sexual assault charges, which I believe were fabricated by the Sturgeonista faction of the SNP to prevent Wee Eck from returning to active politics. Sturgeon runs a “tight ship” and such a plot could not possibly be arranged without her knowledge and approval. She fears a Salmond come-back – he was always a much more charismatic leader and could well oust her in any new leadership contest.

            If you add to that the underhanded way in which much of Westminster’s “furlough” grants to Holyrood have been funneled into SNP funds, I’ve a feeling most Scots would welcome her departure from politics.

          4. Hello Duncan! Can’t wait for Wee Ecks book/expose! It may be the final straw for Nicki although her more rabid supporters will probably not be deterred from their rather demented,single-minded independence ranting! We live in hope!

          5. Yo Duncan. I have heard reference to Westminster’s largesse being syphoned off into the SNP but can’t find chapter and verse. Can you guide me?

          6. Hmm! A couple of days ago there were quite a few reports on the subject but I can’t seem to find them now.

            Very odd…

      1. Thanks bassett. More info there than in the [Glasgow} Herald. I think from what my son said that some of the contacts went back overseas after the conference.

    1. Bob and Adams are my two favourite current full sized cartoonists.
      Matt is still King of the pocket cartoon.

      Giles and Larson are in the hall of fame for me, along with so many others where one can see the illustration and immediately know who did it.

      I don’t particularly like Brookes, but he’s instantly recognisable, like Scarfe.

        1. For me that’s an interesting cartoon. It combines two formats, clarity of content and a good punchline.

          You probably can’t find too many examples on the internet, but Hebblethwaite was a master of expression. Try to find “The Fluker” a cartoon of a useless billiards player beating a pro. The facial expressions on the observers, let alone the guy who was beaten, are a picture!

      2. My favourite Scarfe cartoon – perhaps c 6 years ago – is a depiction of Frau Merkel, arms folded, riding a monocycle – the wheel of which is an EU coin …

      3. I’ve got every Giles original issue annual going back to the first from 1946.

  80. Right. I am signing off early. The British School at Rome has arranged an online lecture at 5 pm BST on Roman ports. We are both very keen on things Roman.

    So I must go and fight the laptop thingy to see if it can be connected to the telly in time to see the lecture. (Often we miss the first ten minutes!)

    I hope to see you on Thursday. Have a jolly distant evening.

  82. To TCTMD, Bikdeli said one of the biggest questions facing physicians is how to handle COVID-19 patients with coagulation and platelet abnormalities. One option is standard dosing of prophylactic anticoagulation, as would be the case with any medically ill patient. Another option would be to aggressively screen all COVID-19 patients for VTE. There is also the possibility of intensifying treatment to provide the intermediate or full dose of therapeutic anticoagulation in these patients.

    “Truthfully, nobody knows what the best answer is right now, but running the issue by our panel the consensus was that most of these patients, especially those that are hospitalized in the ICU, need the preventive dose of blood thinners,” said Bikdeli. “Use of the higher doses is a little uncertain, but many clinicians, including some panel members use it in their practice.”

    https://www.tctmd.com/news/how-covid-19-promotes-thrombosis-posing-problems-drug-drug-interactions

    I put this reference here because I believe it is highly relevant to my experience in February 2020 to what I believe was exposure to COVID-19.

    MOH had symptoms now recognised as warranting a COVID suspected report to NHS 111.
    By all accounts I expected to succumb to the illness within a few days. However I did eventually experience a limited fever over a week later followed by what seemed to be a very heavy extended cold. At the end of the cold I experienced an unusual spontaneous nosebleed and failure of skin abrasions to heal.

    I do wonder if the existing therapeutic dose of blood thinning medication that I have been on for several years, prescribed post atrial flutter, acted to ameliorate symptoms that could have been caused by a COVID-19 infection.

    You may well comment that I don’t have any evidence of such speculation but then the coagulation and platelet abnormalities being presented by COVID-19 are beyond all known previous diseases.

    I posted this here as an aid memoire on my thoughts having read the above article.

  83. 10pm

    Venus is brilliant in the clean evening sky. You don’t have many minutes left to view it against the blue.

  86. Evening, all. It’s been a funny sort of day today. Occasional sunshine, cold wind and lots of nimbus but no rain. I have trimmed (ie removed the straggly bits) the hedge and done some weeding. I did try sitting out with a book, but really it was too dull and chilly. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

    1. Conners, I’ve just been out side to bubble wrap our delicate plants. It’s one degree in the green house. And already freezing in the garden.
      A wee dram is in order. No ice.
      And good night all.

      1. It was 5 degrees C here when I last looked. I don’t have anything delicate out and I haven’t bothered with greenhouse plants this year.

      2. I think that she is probably the best reporter in the World, or at least she has the best crystal ball as the Blitz didn’t start until at least 3 momths after Dunkirk.

    4. Most troops were ferried back on the same kind of civilian and RN ships that had taken them to France in the first place.

      Despite the misleading impression given in popular culture – particularly Dunkirk (1958) and Dunkirk (2017) – the Little Ships were largely used to take men off the beaches to those larger ships offshore and not to inefficiently ferry them across the Channel.

  89. Apparently heavy smoking is a deterrent for Covid 19; isn’t that a wheeze ? …

    ‘Gnite all ….

  92. Has anyone else had this: earlier on today Disqus wanted me to sign in and by mistake I signed in on a very little used Gmail account. As I didn’t want that name to appear I got into NoTTL via some older posts, and am now back as Hertslass.

    However, I keep on getting notification that 2 new posts have come in to HL, but it is two now older posts which keep on appearing, whereas new responses don’t show. I have looked in the Gmail but there is nothing there. Essentially, I have no idea who is writing in response unless I come across it as a “new” post – which is a bit hit and miss.

    Weird. Anyone else had that?

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