Monday 27 April: The country must brace for a surge in infections as it leaves lockdown

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/04/26/lettersthe-country-must-brace-surge-infections-leaves-lockdown/

885 thoughts on “Monday 27 April: The country must brace for a surge in infections as it leaves lockdown”

      1. Plenty of little white girls for entertainment.
        Or is that too prescriptive and not allowing for diversity?

      2. This man sucks but do Muslims respect those who suck? He is so completely beneath contempt that it is astonishing that even the most disgusting of Lib/Dems wants to have anything to do with him. Mind you, didn’t he lose the party’s leadership election to somebody even worse?

        1. Muslims don’t respect anybody who isn’t muslim (and then they have to be the right sort of muslim). Kuffars are lower than cattle.

      5. Plenty of little white girls for entertainment.
        Or is that too prescriptive and not allowing for diversity?

    2. 318592+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,
      Double him up with lord steel of paedophilia cover up infamy, & you have a highly dangerous win double.

    1. Those horses and the chariot will never fit through that doorway. Nevertheless, welcome back BoJo!

      ‘Morning, Citroen.

          6. My grandmother used to travel around in something similar.
            Two of her grandsons inherited her love of horses and carriages.

          7. Unfortunately neither my family nor my beloved late husband Olaf were that well off, so we didn’t have a carriage for our wedding. Instead we rode off on honeymoon on a bicycle made for two.

          8. I enjoyed driving a singleton to a gig or governess cart. Great fun doing an obstacle course in the scurry.

        4. Satellite showed that Ben Hur was the night’s film. We sat down to enjoy only to discover it was a very inferior remake. Why do they bother?

  4. Good morning all. Made it – despite a dreadful night. I have bronchitis – and the cough kept me awake for hours.

    1. Sorry to hear that (your news, that is…not the cough because I’m too far away). I’m sure that there are any number of NoTTLers with nursing tendencies who will dispense advice and sympathy as the day progresses. I’m a firm believer in hot sweet builder’s tea but I seem to recall that you don’t drink the stuff.

      1. Tea? I do drink it. I am taking an anti-biotic. And, until 1 am, thought I was on the mend!

        1. Not nice.
          Whenever I’ve had a chest infection, I’ve found that lying down to try & sleep makes it worse but sitting up with a mug of hot tea does help it feel better and loosens the phlegm.

      1. I have no idea. I wouldn’t go there, anyway. Always full of sick people.

        Fortunately, I have a supply of anti-biotics.

    4. Let’s just hope that it is no more than bronchitis, Bill. Good morning, keep safe and enjoy your day as much as possible.

          2. Morning Bill, I used to suffer from terrible bouts of bronchitis three or four times a year. I decided to take up long distance running (against Doc’s advice) and after six months training never suffered from bronchitis again.
            Mind you I was twelve at the time so not sure would work in your case as I believe you are past the “twenty-one again’ age.
            Take care of yourself and get better soon.

          3. Good morning, hopon. Thanks for that

            Running? You mad or suffin’? I can just about walk…{:¬))

  5. Lockdown begins to fray as Britain realises it can’t live like this
    The Government will come under pressure to explain its lockdown exit strategy after Britain’s beaches and parks were packed on Sunday
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/26/lockdown-begins-fray-britain-realises-cant-live-like/
    Among the excuses given to Gwent Police officers were:

    “My son is a rubbish cook so I take him food every day”
    “I’ve just been to feed the fish”
    “I’ve been to buy nail clippers for the dog”
    “I’ve bought a new catapult and wanted to try it out”
    “I don’t watch the news – what’s going on?”
    “I’m taking my mate into Newport to buy drugs”
    “I am taking my quad bike for a walk and I promise I am not going ride it around a field”
    “I thought I heard someone may be in trouble, so I came to have a look but I don’t know their name or remember the person who told me it”.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52386123

    1. …but still no excuse (or apology) from Cressida’s Dick for the now infamous Met Police V-S nonsense on Westminster Bridge. Is it any wonder that some people are not taking this seriously?

          1. Dunno. It doesn’t look like it’s set for the Last Supper – perhaps the First Breakfast?

          3. No; it was a staged protest by the local hoteliers and restauranters. Not sure if anyone could give a sausage.

      2. Word has got round that, when it comes to invading yer Ukay, it’s a doddle to paddle. A spot of rough weather should stem the flow ‘cos nothing else seems capable of doing so.

        ‘Morning, C301.

    4. And why does lockdown begin to fray? Because the MSM are constantly trumpeting that “The British people are fed up with lockdown”. If they were more supportive of the government’s strategy instead of constantly knocking it in public then things might not be so bad.

      2. How can the government allow unchecked planes to land and the people just leave the airport with no checks whatsoever. Why is public transport still running. Sorry its rules only for some and its not on.

      3. Actually, Elsie, I think it’s more that we are fed up about being kept in lockdown when so many (15k) are arriving here without screening or quarantine and then being released into the herd and the rubber boats are being helped ashore. If nothing else, the English believe in fair play.

      1. Around here it’s more like desperation.

        Everyone is worried that there won’t be an economy to go back to, and as there have been so few deaths CAUSED by Coronavirus a lot of

        people are starting to work again whilst carefully social distancing themselves.

      2. Definitely. for some the lockdown is over. For others who don’t care or think the rules don’t apply it never started. .

    6. Why should we even be giving the police reasons/excuses?
      Or are we waiting for internal passports to be issued?

  6. Young Un “alive and well” according to a South Korean chappie.

    If true, isn’t that just the best news to start the week?

    2. “How did you work that one out, Sherlock?”
      “Emmentally my dear Watson!”

  8. My sister in law rang yesterday. She lives just outside Colchester (Wivno – for the Essex brigade). She told us that two neighbours take their prescribed walk wearing , each day, different clothing from the past. She said that it not only brightens the day but encourages other resident to try to guess what the next outfit will be.

    Inititative. Makes the world go round. Sort of.

  9. If ‘now is not the time’ to commit to a coronavirus inquiry, then when? Mon 27 Apr 2020.

    The British government knows it has messed up. So it will dodge and delay a public inquiry until the moment passes.

    Morning everyone. Well since the “crisis” is not yet over one would have thought any inquiry pointless. This is aside from the fact that inquiries in the UK are invariably fixed beforehand by the choice of their parameters and its members even more so. I cannot actually recall an inquiry in the UK that was free and unprejudiced and which would certainly be supressed if it were to arrive at some unwanted conclusions.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/27/public-inquiry-coronavirus

  13. ‘Morning All

    I was lead to this DT article by a link below,I note just below the photo the DT publishes a flickering,attention grabbing infomercial

    Total Covid Cases 152,840

    Total Covid Deaths 20,732

    Now by my quick mental arithmetic that’s a death rate of 13/14%

    WHICH IS UTTER BOLLOCKS

    No wonder some people are scared to death,completely irresponsible “journalism”

    See for yourselves……………….

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/26/lockdown-begins-fray-britain-realises-cant-live-like/

      1. ‘Morning Sos
        We have all noted how the same stories,the same numbers are pushed across the whole MSM and at the same time almost as if the “3AM email” is true

        1. The Alastair Campbell school of information management, but to be fair to the MSM these will be the figures coming from the NHS and DNS, so one would expect them to be the same.

          It is the swallowing; hook, line and sinker and regurgitation that I find poor journalism.

  16. All this fuss about fruit pickers, over the years all we have heard is that the big supermarkets put the squeeze on farmers to purchase their products at the tightest rates possible, this could be a reason why they have to bring in cheap almost slave labour from abroad to keep the costs down.
    The government should think up some way of guaranteeing that Supermarkets pay farmers a decent price for their goods while this is all blowing over, I wouldn’t mind paying an extra 50p or so for strawberries and soft fruit if this was the case.
    Also the country would save money in the long run in not paying for our own people to sit at home unproductive and for all the costs to public services.

    1. Good news as you say.
      How did she get the puppies back Bob ?
      I could only open the photos.

      1. She doesn’t say.
        Presumably the rapid exposure via Faceache & Tw@ter made them too hard to sell on.

      2. The mother had forgotten to tell her master that she had temporarily self isolated them with the pikeys. But they got hungry and the wailing was so bad the pikeys sent them back.

        1. 😉
          I was once approached by a pikey whilst taking our lovely black lab for a walk. A dead giveaway as he was over interested in her age state of health etc.
          I quickly sussed him out, he cleared off when I told him she’d been spayed.
          I threw the pikey a stick.

  19. Good morning everyone.

    Moh is looking at Flight Radar.. 3 aircraft Boeing 777 just about to land at Heathrow .. 2 Shanghai and one from Guangzhou, Cargo.. Masks perhaps?

    Instanbul , 4 mts , more masks?

    1. 318592+ up ticks,
      Morning TB,
      The only way mask’s will enter the equation is in masking the truth on
      quarantine actions taken / not taken.

      1. 318592+ up ticks,
        Morning Atg,
        Same with ALL politicians in power
        rhetorically speaking,
        🎵
        Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.

      1. 318592+ up ticks,
        Morning Olt,
        IMO will never come about, she has underestimated Jock and the contents of the sporran.

    6. She does realise that no one is travelling anyway and that’s Jockland’s food supply cut off.

      1. Worse than that. Much worse. We are in Scotland and our wine is delivered from Majestic in England. (Other English wine suppliers are available.)

        2. If I was living under Mrs Krankie, I think I’d try drinking bleach just to forget, or has she added a tax to that as well?

    1. Of course they want Sweden to fail, and ideally to fail disasterously.

      If the Swedes end up with similar or worse still, better, results than lock-down countries, the political price will be shattering.

        1. All the organs of the body were having a meeting, trying to decide who was in charge.

          The brain said: “I should be in charge, because I run all the body’s systems, so without me nothing would happen.”

          “I should be in charge,” said the heart, “because I pump the blood and circulate oxygen all over the body, so without me you’d all waste away.”

          “I should be in charge,” said the stomach, “because I process food and give all of you energy.”

          “I should be in charge,” said the rectum, “because I’m responsible for waste removal.”

          All the other body parts laughed at the rectum and insulted him, so in a huff, he shut down tight. Within a few days, the brain had a terrible headache, the stomach was bloated, and the blood was toxic. Eventually the other organs gave in. They all agreed that the rectum should be the boss.

          The moral of the story?

          You don’t have to be smart or important to be in charge… just an arsehole.

    2. What an ar$e he is, the only good thing you can say about him is that he isn’t Jo Swineson.

    1. Fake news. Won’t stop the censorious. Easy targets.

      One wonders why they are not down on the south coast turning slammers (and other illegals) away.

    1. reminiscent of the Chinese trying to organise a “Show of Gratitude” to Chairman/president Xi Jinping…. it went down like a lead balloon in Wuhan.

  26. Things must be improving as all the numbers are no longer being printed by our evil press.

  27. Something I overlooked last week was this excellent article from the Hefferlump:-

    The French celebrate this English war hero – so why don’t we?
    SIMON HEFFER
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/music/2020/04/17/TELEMMGLPICT000229556748_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqeCwD–eYyhoJsbXUMQsWbbT5LfTkYhqvBvjfatlPy1M.jpeg?imwidth=1400

    Among the 72,000 names carved on Sir Edwin Lutyens’s stunning memorial to the Missing of the Somme at Thiepval is that of Lieutenant G S K Butterworth, of the Durham Light Infantry. To those who love English music, the sight of his name is both stirring and depressing. Staring at it four years ago, during the commemorations of the Somme centenary, I reflected (as countless had, I know, done before me) of the abominable waste not just of the life of this sublime composer, but of the generation he represented.

    His death in 1916 was a loss ranking with that of Wilfred Owen or Edward Thomas, to choose just two names from the creative holocaust wrought by the Great War. George Butterworth’s short life – he was killed at 31 – is recalled in Stewart Morgan Hajdukiewicz’s moving documentary out on DVD, called All My Life’s Buried Here. The title comes from a song Butterworth wrote after the death of his beloved mother in 1911. Within a few years, it would resonate for him.

    His mother, Julia Wigan, was a fine soprano; his father became the general manager of the North Eastern Railway. His mother encouraged young George’s interest not just in the piano, but in writing music. He had a work performed while at Eton; and read music at Oxford, becoming president of the music club there. As the film – which includes interviews with Butterworth’s biographer and other experts on his music – suggests, a young composer of his generation ought to have studied at the Royal College of Music, a formidable nursery of the highest talent, where he would have been taught by Parry and Stanford, and encountered alumni such as Vaughan Williams and Holst. But Butterworth made all the connections he needed at Oxford, meeting not just Vaughan Williams, who became his friend, mentor and profound admirer, but also Adrian Boult and Cecil Sharp, the godfather of English folk-song collecting, whose influence over him was enormous.

    This was the era when Sharp, Vaughan Williams and Holst sought to establish a properly English musical language, rather than taking inspiration from the great German composers of the 19th century, notably Brahms and Wagner, as Parry and Stanford, and the towering musical presence in Edwardian England, Elgar, had done. So Butterworth, often with Vaughan Williams, tramped around the English countryside collecting folk songs and writing them down. And, like his companion, Butterworth developed some he had collected into arrangements for professional singers or orchestral works, such as the Two English Idylls of 1911 and The Banks of Green Willow of 1913.

    Folk song collecting inspired Butterworth to try folk dancing, and one of the film’s greatest wonders is footage from nearly 110 years ago of him, Cecil Sharp and others shaking a leg. It also provided a starting point for perhaps his best-known work, the settings of some of A E Housman’s A Shropshire Lad poems, which show how, as with Vaughan Williams, Butterworth’s idiom, grounded in folk song, was heading in a more experimental direction. One is forced to wonder what Butterworth might have achieved, if, like Vaughan Williams, he had been spared.

    My only criticism of this excellent film is that it omits completely what I consider to be Butterworth’s masterpiece – not simply because of its sheer beauty, but because of its striking originality: his setting of four poems for tenor from W E Henley’s Echoes, three of which he orchestrated as Love Blows As the Wind Blows. Those settings, more than anything Butterworth did, hint where he would have gone as a composer, and it would have been good if they could have been shared with the large audience this film deserves. The peerless recording of the orchestral version is by Robert Tear, with the CBSO conducted by Vernon Handley, if you can find it.

    Hajdukiewicz’s film was crowdfunded, a brilliant enterprise and noble of those who supported it. It is scandalous that no major broadcasting network commissioned it and put its resources behind it; presumably because of its lack of diversity, or because it requires some intelligence to appreciate its profundity, or because it did not offer an opportunity for Dr Lucy Worsley to dress up. The film opens with the most touching ceremony in the village of Pozières in France, where local people commemorate, on the anniversary of his death each year, the fine English composer who came to drive the Germans from their country. How typical that our cultural tsars don’t afford Butterworth’s memory the same respect.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/classical-music/french-celebrate-english-war-hero-dont/

      2. We know these things but often do not understand them. We cannot grasp the meaning.. We went to see an exhibition in Berwick some years ago, “The Lost Houses of Berwickshire”. When WW1 came along the sons went to fight. Sons of ploughmen, labourers, railway workers, factory workers, shopkeepers. So did the sons of the mill owners, of factory owners, of railway shareholders. Members of the recently emerged bourgeois capitalist class. Many of the class had built large houses in the country, with servants and many rooms, using as much coal to heat them as ocean liners.
        When the sons of the houses were killed, there was no one to inherit. When these young men were killed there was no one to take over the running of the businesses. There was no income to support the grand mansions. The houses were abandoned and fell into ruin. These ruins are dotted over the countryside. Not just Berwickshire, but the entire country had a generation of energy, work, intelligence and enterprise wiped out. I was touched by it. I came to understand the enormity of the loss. A loss whose effects have reverberated down the years.

          1. Horrible. In Scotland the same has been happening. Big house with land. Bought by speculators/property developers/crooks. New owners apply for planning permission for 30 or more new bungalows. Permission refused. Big house burns down, and is demolished. Owners re-apply for planning. Permission granted. This repetitive pattern is so obvious the only reason it can continue is because of the brown envelopes.
            In the Borders the big strong and ruggedly attractive mills have been demolished to be replaced by disgusting concrete flats. Only one reason that I can think of as to why this would happen.

        2. I remember when I was a bairn standing in Northumberland Avenue watching North Seaton Hall being burnt out before it was demolished. That must have been when I was 7 or 8.

    2. Thanks for posting, BoB. We are still paying a dreadful price for the slaughter of such a fine and dutiful generation.

      1. An average of 530 a DAY every DAY for 50 months.

        On top of the natural deaths of people from old age, lack of breath, accidents etc

        2. It puts it into perspective, and that is also off the back of a much lower population.

  28. Morning all

    SIR – Dominic Raab, who has stood in for Boris Johnson during his period of recuperation from coronavirus, has set out five points on which the Government must be satisfied before any of the restrictions currently in place can be lifted. These will never be met.

    The vast majority of people have obeyed lockdown restrictions. They have had no exposure to the virus and therefore have not had the opportunity to build up immunity to it. There must be a second or a third wave of infections.

    Eric Gibbons

    Dunfermline, Fife

    SIR – With infection rates going down and the economy failing, the old joke about the operation being a success but the patient dying is beginning to sound apposite.

    John Frankel

    Newbury, Berkshire

    signage outside a closed West Bridgford Infants School in Nottingham

    Schools remain open only for the children of essential workers, or the most vulnerable CREDIT: Tim Goode /PA

    SIR – It was never necessary to close the schools and put most of the economy into hibernation. Sweden has shown that sensible measures, including isolating the more vulnerable, have very similar results, but without the unwanted problems from a draconian lockdown.

    The Government has relied too much on the advice of the small Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), and this advice has been far too narrowly focused.

    NHS critical care capacity is now at an acceptable level, the worst of the pandemic is over, so let’s get the nation back to work without any further delay.

    Clive Pinnell

    Bristol

    SIR – I have being trying to discern, so far without success, whether Sage is made up of mavericks and misfits – as once recommended by the Prime Minister’s adviser, Dominic Cummings – or of civil service-type apparatchiks.

    I think it’s the latter.

    James McCaig

    Auchterarder, Perthshire

    SIR – My partner and I are fortunate enough to live in Powys. The population density in the county is 26 people per square mile.

    The equivalent figure for the Greater London area is 15,400. The figure for Birmingham is 9,451 and for England generally 1,010. Given the fact that Covid-19 thrives in areas of high population density, it is to be hoped that the Government will bear these disparities in mind when deciding how to take the country out of lockdown.

    Mark Calvin

    Tretower, Powys

    A medical professional in in PPE

    Testing an NHS volunteer at a drive-through centre in Leicester CREDIT: Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty

    SIR – It would seem that our route out of lockdown is a combination of testing booked online, an app to monitor contacts and a huge contact tracing team, presumably requiring a large database (report, April 25).

    Three separate, government-specified IT projects. What could possibly go wrong?

    Steve Thomas

    Northwich, Cheshire

    1. Dear Eric Gibbons – The 5 tests can always be met, because if they are qualitative tests, then you can always argue you have met them can’t you?

      Especially when you want to.

    2. Mr Thomas – at heart, it’s not difficult. It really isn’t.

      The problem is one of load and capacity planning. Producing the software is the easy bit. navigating the incompetence and ego of civil servants is the hard bit.

    3. Eric, I would say that a large proportion of the population has already had C19 in December to February. What we need is to establish if that’s the case by testing for anti-bodies.

    1. It is a pity that there isn’t a proper sample survey asking whether one agrees or disagrees with the above statement. I think the BBC would be gobsmacked by the result.

  30. Just been to Sainsbury’s. As i walked in a woman started shouting at me about social distancing. It appears i was less than two metres away from her. I said i was awfully sorry but i had left my measuring tape at home. She went an interesting shade of puce.

    1. You could have remarked that you would have been the full two metres if it wasn’t for her girth, but you might have to be quick on your feet.

    2. As a matter of interest, who is responsible for ensuring that the distance is maintained?

      If she saw you coming surely she could have moved out of the way?

      2. Good heavens, take responsibility for oneself? Whatever were you thinking, sos? 🙂

      3. My fault probably. There was no queue and very few people about. She decided to hang around the entrance so i just walked straight past her.

        1. I would have told her to “get out of the way, then and stop blocking the door” – more or less politely, depending on how I felt. The word “Shitforbrains” might well creep in.

          1. I don’t think that would be very helpful. I don’t go out of my way to ruin a persons day. I let them do that by themselves.

          2. Anyway, you didn’t need to be introduced, her name is obviously Karen….. I suspect there are a lot of wild Karens about these days… the circumstances are ideal for them to come out and play

    6. Shouting is almost as bad as coughing and sneezing in spreading disease.

    7. People are absurd. If you want to avoid any expulsion from the human body then you need to wear a bunny suit and live in a clean room. People have this odd idea that they’re quite safe 2m aaway, or wearing a mask. Yet they ignore every other orifice. We’re impossibly dirty in a truly filthy environment.

  31. SIR – Sir Keith Burnett, the president of the Science Council, feels that universities are such a special case as to deserve a government bail-out (Business Comment, April 24).

    In the Midlands, several golf courses have closed recently. In some cases universities have been so flush with cash that they have been willing purchasers of these courses to add to their portfolios. I haven’t noticed any enthusiasm from the Government at the prospect of bailing out failing golf courses.

    C W Elks

    Birmingham

    1. They are flush with cash, or should be, if they can pay some vice-chancellors up to £400,000 and with vast payoffs when they foul up. No, they can plead all they like, but the public teat owes them precisely nothing.

      ‘Morning, Epi.

      1. Hear, hear.
        Particularly as I have a grand-daughter whose first year has been effed up by a combination of striking lecturers and an hysterical over-reaction to C19.

          1. Apparently they will take their end of year exams on line.
            I hadn’t the heart to question further, as both she and her parents are well aware of the cost and I didn’t like to put them under more pressure.

          3. If you are BAME you will be awarded a first. If you are white, you’ll be lucky to get a Desmond (Tutu = 2.2).

  32. SIR – The plan to put new arrivals into Britain under 14-day quarantine (report, April 26) is sensible, but should have been enacted months ago.

    It is worldwide travel that first brought this disease to our island.

    W B Tait

    Helmsley, North Yorkshire

    SIR – Last week I arrived at Heathrow Terminal 3 from the Philippines.

    In Manila, temperatures were taken three times; we and our hand-luggage were sprayed with disinfectant in a tent set up for that purpose. As we queued for departure, masked security men enforced social distancing. Our home address and details were taken for contact tracing. At Heathrow, by contrast, no precautions or restrictions were evident.

    The Home Secretary, Priti Patel, has focused her energy on keeping out potential immigrants including nurses and care workers, whom we desperately need. Due to her ineptitude, we have been too slow to put in place the really necessary restrictions on entry seen in other countries.

    Richard Stevens

    London N6

    1. It does seem a little strange that our law enforcement has spent most of it’s time policing and frightening the good and ignoring the bad.
      How can they possibly justify letting thousands of people jet in a day unchecked while we are all in lockdown? it doesn’t make any sense if the virus threat is real.

    2. It does seem a little strange that our law enforcement has spent most of it’s time policing and frightening the good and ignoring the bad.
      How can they possibly justify letting thousands of people jet in a day unchecked while we are all in lockdown? it doesn’t make any sense if the virus threat is real.

    3. It does seem a little strange that our law enforcement has spent most of it’s time policing and frightening the good and ignoring the bad.
      How can they possibly justify letting thousands of people jet in a day unchecked while we are all in lockdown? it doesn’t make any sense if the virus threat is real.

  34. Morning again

    SIR – Two years ago my husband was sadly diagnosed with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

    This was spotted during a routine eye test. He had an urgent referral to an eye specialist and treatment was started within 10 days. This stabilised the condition. Last year, he had the same problem in his other eye, for which he is having ongoing treatment.

    As things stand he is now registered as severely sight-impaired; his driving licence has been surrendered and for reading he relies on an Audio Kindle. When we went for his routine injection last week there were only eight patients in the unit: those scheduled for ongoing treatment. On our previous visit just before the start of the lockdown, there must have been more than 30 patients.

    What is happening to all possible new patients, given that swift detection and early treatment are vital if there is to be any hope of saving sight in cases of AMD?

    Anita Chapman

    Gobowen, Shropshire

    1. I have two friends who are given injections for wet AMD.
      I must admit, I haven’t dared ask them; they have enough to worry about without fielding stupid well-meaning questions.

    1. No different from here then I suppose, especially on issues like the riots in France and the grooming gangs

      1. ..And the shootout recently with the French police in Nimes…widely publicised elsewhere, but a complete black out in the British MSM.

        1. The Mail and the Sun covered it along with the Daily Star (hardly mainstream, that one).

  36. SIR – It looks like the current two-metre social distancing rule could well be kept in place until a cure for the coronavirus is found (report, April 24).

    This could mean that, even when allowed to reopen, thousands of small and micro pubs (the only real growth area in the licensed trade in recent years) will face closure as they become uneconomic to run.

    My small local can comfortably accommodate more than 40 drinkers, but under the two-metre rule it could only accommodate six people. Another method needs to be found if pubs across the country are to survive.

    Richard Sanders

    Loughborough, Leicestershire

    SIR – I am sure the Prime Minister knows the words of Hilaire Belloc:

    “Change your hearts or you will lose your Inns and you will deserve to have lost them. But when you have lost your Inns drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England.”

    Ian Dickson

    Bideford, Devon

    SIR – There are a great number of rural pubs with large grounds or adjacent fields. These could be used for tables set apart so as to distance customers from one another, and thus allow service to resume.

    Martin Thurston

    Midhurst, West Sussex

    1. Hmm… drinking warm beer in cold, blowiing rain. Not my idea of a good evening out.

        1. Well, I’m drinking myself into something, but I don’t think it’s compliance 🙂

      1. When we lived in Horsham, we noticed that the rain would sweep north of the North Downs or south of the South Downs, and leave us dry in the middle.
        Morning, Peddy. :-))

        1. Go’morgen, Paul.

          We have a similar phenomenon here in Hunts, but I don’t know what causes it.

          2. For a rainshadow a range of hills bigger than pimples is necessary; there is no such range around here.

      2. When we lived in Horsham, we noticed that the rain would sweep north of the North Downs or south of the South Downs, and leave us dry in the middle.
        Morning, Peddy. :-))

    3. The Nutshell in Bury St Edmunds could only take 2 people but only if the barstaff stood at the back of the counter space

      1. Does anyone know The Adam and Eve pub in Norwich? In the 1960’s when I was at UEA it had just one small room and no bar but the patron came and took your orders before disappearing down to the basement to fetch your beer.

        1. There was a pub in N Bucks, a few miles from Olney (can’t remember the name, but they had an excellent collection of hubcaps) that was effectively the landlady’s front room. Beer ( 3 choices, bitter, best or mild) was brought up from the cellar in a jug.
          Wonderful!

        2. I remember it well. I spent a year surveying the tower of Norwich Cathedral and formulating repairs to the masonry stages and the fractured wrought and cast iron Belfry louvres.

    1. Their ‘solidarity with Muslims’ and publicised fasting are no more than vote-catching stunts. The LibDems are a spent force if this is the sort of activity they view as important.

    3. I have no idea why so many homosexuals seem to despise those, such as Christians and those of European enlightened heritage, who to treat them with acceptance and tolerance and seem to love those who would throw them off high building or kill them in other nasty ways.

      Is there something in the homosexual psyche which actively seeks a masochistic association with those who actively wish them harm? Is there a sense of ‘not being accepted’ which is an essential a part of the appeal? Do they deliberately seek the right to feel victims? Do they actively seek rejection?

      I don’t know. Can anyone explain it? Can anyone unflabber my gast?

      1. 318592+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        I’m from a Naval / garrison town, many a pub had a poof as an entertainer and bloody entertaining they were to.
        Everybody lived side by side so to speak, no problem.
        Today’s society is the problem in the main a multitude of peoples are not sure what sex they are or want to be.
        Maybe a trial run with a BIG chief stoker at their rear would help them make their minds up.

    4. What amazes me is how these lefties are fawning over about 7% of the population, that leaves 93% for the Tories to target, or 85% after they have hoovered up the gays and the BAME.

      I thought the first rule of politics was “learn to count”

  38. If ‘now is not the time’ to commit to a coronavirus inquiry, then when? Mon 27 Apr 2020.

    The British government knows it has messed up. So it will dodge and delay a public inquiry until the moment passes.

    Morning everyone. Well since the “crisis” is not yet over one would have thought any inquiry pointless. This is aside from the fact that inquiries in the UK are invariably fixed beforehand by the choice of their parameters and its members even more so. I cannot actually recall an inquiry in the UK that was free and unprejudiced and which would certainly be supressed if it were to arrive at some unwanted conclusions.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/27/public-inquiry-coronavirus

    1. “would certainly be supressed if it were to arrive at some unwanted conclusions.*”
      * See Pakirape Gangs for details
      Morning Minty

      1. ‘Not in the public interest’ will be a hard sell after locking said public in their homes for weeks.

      3. The “Russia Report” Rik? Even the Titanic inquiry was fixed as well as Windscale. The Iraq war? You could go on forever.

  40. Good morning, my friends

    If the government lifts lockdown to save the economy (if it is not already too late) it will question whether they should have ever had the lockdown in the first place; if they do not lift the lockdown the whole economy will undoubtedly collapse and there will be no more NHS and nothing else as there will be no money to pay for it.

    We were planning to run our business for about 4 – 5 more years but with only 20% of our former income we cannot go on. Our business may well never recover and we shall have to take enforced retirement with none of the perks and benefits that employed people expect – mind you, if the economy is dead even the employed will find enforced retirement very difficult financially.

    I would have had rather more sympathy for a government which is in an impossible position – but the fact that the politicians gave themselves a £10,000 bonus when we had to offer internet courses at a 75% discount has killed that sympathy stone dead.

    I wonder if the politicians are even remotely aware of how despicable they are thought to be?

    1. My only conclusion is that the plan all along has been to destroy the economy, how else could they have been so stupid.

      1. In Norway, the government said they imposed the lockdown based solely on medical advice, without considering the economy at all. Fortunately, they reconsidered and eased things off enough for the economy to sort-of function OK, although in dire straits.

      2. 318592+ up ticks,
        Morning B3,
        “They” are far from stupid, if you want a multitude of stupidity look at “their” supporters.
        I do honestly believe we are doing penance for the 24/6/2016 result.
        We have a PM rhetorically in many respects running the Country and the home office under priti patel rhetorically
        solving the invasion problem whilst in reality holding the
        entry back door wide open.
        Our semi exit IMO HAD to be granted to allow the damage limitations to brussels to continue.

      3. I doubt there was a plan.

        More a panicked response to be seen to ‘do something’.

        Throughout, what’s annoyed me is the veneration of the public services rather than the demand that they simply ‘get on with it’ and cope. If they cannot cope, they’re defective. This is what all those strategists and advisors are for.

        1. To use an overworked cliché Priti Patel, who used to be much respected by many of us Nottlers, has gone from ‘hero to zero’ as a result of her total failure to do anything about the illegals crossing the channel preferring to harangue instead the British who are already in Britain.

          1. Yaaas Minister,I quite understand your desire to either sink the boats or send the blighters straight back but sadly as we very quietly signed up to the UN Migration Pact under PM May those acts would be unlawful.
            Pity……………

          2. I imagine much of that is actually out of her control. No doubt the Home Office has it’s own policies and has kept to them whereas she might be asking for something else. It’s common practice to take what minister’s say as ‘advisory’. Until the Rutnam issue is put to bed positively – i.e incompetent people are sacked – nothing will change.

    2. My only conclusion is that the plan all along has been to destroy the economy, how else could they have been so stupid.

    3. I’m sorry that your business is in such dire straits, Rastus. That really sucks. Can you hold out for a while in the hope of an upsurge after summer?

      1. We have students with us during the February Half-Term, the Easter school holidays, the summer school holidays and the October half-term but we have to do a considerable amount of work writing a new course book each year and marketing our courses. We have built up a niche market and our students come from the very top academic schools in Britain; indeed, looking at the examination league tables there are very few independent schools in the top ten from which we have not had students at one time or another.

        We worked very hard to establish our reputation and we shall not lose this – but, like all businesses, we depend on the prosperity of the economy and the prosperity of our potential clients. Here’s a link which tells you more about us: http://www.tracey-frenchcourses.com/

    4. We’ve had an 80% cancellation rate now, and I suspect that it will hit the 100.

      The last family are holding on because they are booked in August.

      Good luck.

      1. And to you! We are offering courses in July and August and have already received the 25% deposits. In order to justify holding on to this money we have had our internet system professionally upgraded. During the Easter holidays we ran three very successful weeks by Skype conference link but we have yet to see if students and their parents will want such courses during the summer – part of our attraction is our lovely location in France.

    5. Morning Rastus and all.

      Don’t forget the 3.1% salary increase they had as well as the £10,000.

      1. Not to mention the House of Lards £325 a day for signing on at home – that’s taking taking the piss to a higher level
        Instead of sleeping in the HoL they can now sleep more comfortably in their own beds

    6. Morning Richard. I am deeply sorry to hear this and while I appreciate it is no comfort to you, it must be a story that is gathering numbers and pace every day. Unless the lockdown is eased (I would prefer that it be abandoned) the whole economic system will collapse with consequences that dwarf the effects of the virus!

    7. Please hang in there. It is becoming more obvious by the day that the British have had enough. The government’s hand is being forced.

        1. I saw that and scoffed. 15,000 incomers not being quarantined or checked makes a mockery of it.

          1. Certainly there are tradesmen still working across the way. I don’t understand why they feel the need to shout at one another when they’re ten feet apart, but hey.

    8. I wonder if the politicians are even remotely aware of how despicable they are thought to be?

      Good morning, Rastus. So sorry to hear of your and Caroline’s predicament. Your point is well made and just as important is, do they care how they are perceived by the electorate?
      My most recent emails to my MP elicited what appeared to be standard replies and avoided addressing the questions that I posed. I didn’t vote for him back in December because, in my opinion, he misled me when replying to an earlier email. Not a good example to set.

    9. I would have had more sympathy for Westminster if the MPs had said “We are all in this together and, therefore, we will be accepting only £2,500 per month, as are all those furloughed during this crisis (overused word) “ able to avail themselves of the government’s offer.

      I like fairy stories.

    10. If they do know, they don’t seem to care.

      For most, working remotely saves money. No travel costs being the key issue. For others it’s the ability to keep the house running while you’re working. That MPs gave themselves a big wodge of cash for doing something most people do anyway – and are penalised for (insurances) is disgusting.

      I’ve no idea what to advise, Rastus. The state said they would cover losses. Perhaps they need to be held to that.

      We need to get back to living our lives. The state puts so much power over us to avoid risk that it’s now oppression rather than effective. If the NHS cannot cope then that means the NHS is inadequate. it is not cause to shut down the economy on the altar of statism.

    11. I have to say that I have been very dubious about the lockdown but think I understand why.

      It is now claimed that China’s first cases were in November last year but Chin and the WHO went into cover up mode. When China did finally comprehend the scale of the problem their response was what they had done previously, lock down.

      Dr Tedra cold not praise the Chinese highly enough and followed the CCP line to the letter saying their response was brilliant but at the same time condemning the close down of international travel.

      So now we have governments in the west not told about the virus till after infected passengers had flown it around the world and not told of human to human transmission till late on and the statistics from China were rather incomplete. They also didn’t release the genome till late and have been shredding data and evidence like Oliver North on steroids.

      But with full data perhaps the virus could have been seen to have a relatively low CDR (Critical Death Rate) estimated at between 0.125% and 1.0%. Previous pandemics caused by “mild” versions in the past have CDRs of upto 8% i.e. 8% of the infected will die. But very little is known once the pandemic is an established fact and other countries advised well after the event, after the horse has long gone. Smarter China watchers responded better than others, like Taiwan, despite being continuously blocked from the WHO even as observers at the behest of the Chinese. The rest are deer in the headlights and faced with two options:

      1) Do nothing and treat it just as previous outbreaks like the 27,000 deaths in the UK for one such previous event or the 80,000 in the US in 2018 and all with the higher CDR “mild” virus infections but without the lockdowns. Of course, in the past outbreaks, bar bird flu, the media didn’t go into full on hysteria and possibly the WHO was more reliable(even though the previous chair was also a CCP sympathiser). AT any rate, no lockdown.

      2) Lockdown. This is what China did and which was lavishly praised by Dr Tedra thingy.

      Cue the “Scientific advisers” like Prof “Mad Cow” Fergusson in the UK, Trump’s adviser and the French bloke. These guys all predicted the apocalypse with dead bodies in the streets. Other advisers such as John Ioannis calculated the probable CDR and considered the response well over the top. Ioannis likened it to an elephant, frustrated by a house cat, that throws itself off a cliff and dies. If we believe the Times story about Cummings, the initial advice in the UK, somewhat callously delivered (that sounds like him) was that a few old people would die, so what. Do nothing.

      But, in politics, doing nothing with people dying is not an easy option. Thatcher might, Churchill might, but Boris? He dithered (as ever. always the last to declare whether he will support brexit or remain, whether to resign honourably in the face of May’s “sign here or walk home”, he again dithered, even before himself becoming a victim. And for Trump, he would be damned either way by the neo marxist media and democratic party who were quick to criticise him closing the borders and have reversed themselves again to condemn him for doing to little.

      So the easy choice is to do as the Chinese and go fo0r lockdown.

      The CDR, how do we know what that is?

      Well, the useful data is here:

      https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
      This includes “Diamond Princess” among the countries. Why? because passengers were infected and the ship quarantined. There was 100% testing. All but 54 cases have closed and of the just over 700 people on board there were 14 deaths. This in a closed population with a disproportionately high number of “at Risk” people i.e. old people. From this Ioannis concludes, projecting this data onto the US population, a CDR between 0.125% and 1.0%.

      So, lockdown or not?
      Well, with this low CDR in all probability the final death toll will be somewhere around past non-lockdown death tolls, the lower CDR offset perhaps by the high number of infections before being alerted and before shutting down travel from India, Iran and China. But it allows politicians, governments, to claim the low numbers as a success of the lockdown policy.
      Or it might if every country went down this route.

      But Sweden did not. They went the no lockdown herd immunity route.

      If this was the wrong thing to do then their deaths would be far worse.
      But, from that data, San marino has 1208 deaths per million population, Belgium 622. At the other end of the scale some countries have 0.03 deaths per million (and some you just don’t trust, of course). But Sweden? Sweden is in the list at 225. The USA at 168 and the Uk at 305.

      On this data, even fudging around about population density and the different degrees of natural social distancing, this would suggest that there is little, death rate wise, to choose between the two options. Except, of course, that apart from the effect of supply failures, probably from China, the Swedish economy is in far better shape than the rest of the west.

      Of course, this is just my view based on what I can find. Others may well disagree.
      Oh, one more point, herd immunity… it means those exposed and survived will be better able to survive the next outbreak.Those in lockdown may find they are more vulnerable next time round.

  41. Does anyone remember the headlines last week of 8,000 extra deaths for the week ending 10th April, over and above the weekly 5 year average? 6,000 were Covid-19 related and 2,000 were thought not to be. The ONS figures have been adjusted and extra deaths (over and above the weekly 5 year average) are now 6,082 with 3,475 put down to Covid-19. I don’t recall this as being headlined anywhere. Tomorrow the ONS figures will be issued up to the week ending 17th April. I shall watch with interest.
    https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/coronavirus/2020/04/covid-19-coronavirus-deaths-unexplained-extra
    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales

    1. Govt likes scary headlines, to help keep the people under control.
      Over 20,000 dead !!!!! . . or
      (estimated) population 75 million x 0.0003

    2. Governments statistics are about as reliable as tractor production numbers back in old USSR.

      1. I remember listening to Radio Moscow, or wherever, with their endless reports of factory and agricultural production. Production of left boots in Factory 27 in Minsk are up by 32%, wheat production in the Pinsk oblast exceeded targets by 2%… On and on it went, night after night.
        Followed by award ceremonies, where Stakhanovites were awarded Bronze Stars of Soviet Industry, Junior Grade, Third Class. I couldn’t find anything like it on Radio Luxembourg.

  44. Terrifying moment deadly octopus almost bites a young girl after it crawled out of an empty shell she picked up on the beach. 27 April 2020.

    A man has revealed a child’s terrifying encounter with a deadly blue-ringed octopus after it crawled out of a shell she was carrying.

    The man shared a video of the deadly octopus in a blue bucket to social media on Friday.

    I nearly wrote a comment about this and almost posted it on Nottl but I thought better of it and didn’t .

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8259463/Blue-ringed-octopus-crawls-shell-young-girl-collecting-Sydney-beach.html

    1. A very long time ago when I was very young, I was drawn to the contents of a Poster for a Circus that would be coming to Blackheath. I was in awe of the fact that one performer would wrestling alligators in a tank of water. You can imagine my disappointment when advertised alligator turned out to be all of 15 inches long. About this time I gave up believing adverts….

    2. “Despite its high toxicity there have been just three recorded deaths in
      the last century – two in Australia and one in Singapore.”

      More people die falling off ladders!

  45. As the great Rabbi Burns said:
    “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.”
    Or, at Allan Towers of a Monday morning; “Right my next job, is ……. WTF is that dreadful smell?”
    Spartie had decided that the best way to pull the birds was to smother himself in the male grooming product known as Fox SH1Tee.
    He certainly attracted one bird’s attention; sadly for him, it was the wrong one and she gave him a bath.

    1. GoodO.

      We had a corgi in 1977 and on the day of the Queen’s Jubilee had 5 miles of pristine Northumbrian beaches to ourselves. The corgi managed to find the only patch of crude oil tar and promptly rolled in it. He did look a mess after the tar had been cut out of his coat.

    3. It was pheasant poo our little lass had a good old roll in yesterday morning. It was the bath for her, too.

      Edit: spelling – role for roll. I blame the g&t.

  47. All this fuss about fruit pickers, over the years all we have heard is that the big supermarkets put the squeeze on farmers to purchase their products at the tightest rates possible, this could be a reason why they have to bring in cheap almost slave labour from abroad to keep the costs down.
    The government should think up some way of guaranteeing that Supermarkets pay farmers a decent price for their goods while this is all blowing over, I wouldn’t mind paying an extra 50p or so for strawberries and soft fruit if this was the case.
    Also the country would save money in the long run in not paying for our own people to sit at home unproductive and for all the costs to public services.

    1. As I posted yesterday, “Farmers have shown themselves to be very poor at negotiating prices with supermarkets, in respect of milk in particular and everything else. Form an agriculture cartel and put up prices. It is not that difficult. In the NFU they currently have the best Trade Union, and can walk into Downing Street any time.”

    2. My good lady brought home some lovely strawberries from Waitrose last week. Large and deliciously sweet.
      Grown in Wales.
      There’s luvvley.

    3. That’d be protectionism though. An alternative is to buy from local producers and to pay more for the good.

  48. There’s no need to worry about Britain’s economy collapsing because everyone’s staying home.

    The Chinese stand ready to help with finance to support the Pound. Also to help in practical useful ways by taking a seat at the Cabinet table, and to build everything Britain needs real cheap.

    1. The mind begins to boggle at the disinformation and misinformation being fed to the public by an unquestioning or complicit media, with their reporting of ‘daily’ cases and deaths as though they were conveying accurate up-to-date information on the status of the outbreak.

      They are not boggling here on Nottl. Morning Anne.

    2. “An article from TCW. Since WHAT and journalism are not a good mix, but it is an interesting read.

  50. 100,000 Brits could die if coronavirus lockdown is lifted too soon, Prof Neil Ferguson claims. The Sun. 27 April 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/143e86ae08de1fbf3cb6bb9578804cf604ae0072d8991cd5358af5e89a3e34f0.png

    Professor Neil Ferguson warned it would be impossible to send some people back to work without seeing a huge increase in deaths.

    “If you just achieve 80 per cent shielding – and 80 per cent reduction in infection risk in those groups – we still project that you would get more than 100,000 deaths this year from that kind of strategy.

    Even Sun Readers seem to have woken up to this fraudster!

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11483669/100000-die-lockdown-too-soon/#comments

    1. Ferguson has achieved ‘media tart’ status with ease, just by thinking of a number and adding a few noughts.

    2. Titus Oates? Savonarola? Lord George Gordon?
      Or does Prof. Ferguson have the compromising photos and recordings in his safe? I see absolutely no reason why this charlatan is still heeded, 20 years and millions of animal deaths later. (Though not so many from variant CJD.)

    3. Well, just to say that, yesterday, several well-respected NoTTLers sided with Professor Branestorm.

      1. The numbers are plausible, assuming that all the other figures we are being quoted are correct.

        It’s the numbers which we are being given and how they are collated that should be under much greater scrutiny.

  51. Morning all 😊
    I see the usual crew aka the British billionaires are taking the micky again as seems to be the norm. Using taxpayer’s money to finance the furlough schemes in paying their staff.
    Whilst prince Charles had the decency to keep his staff employed from his own income. Hard times bring out the best and certainly the worse in people.
    Especially the “do you know who I am” already over privileged.

    1. Premier League cannot wait to get up to their usual rates of pay for their “minimum wage” foreign workers, funded by the phone bills.

      1. I don’t really understand why people think that because someone is worth X that that money sits in the bank. It’s the accumulated value of their assets. Those assets, one assumes, include their business. Thus demanding people pay their staff from the proceeds of selling the business that employs those staff is a bit… odd.

        By all means sell property, but if the sole asset is their company it seems a bit daft. Besides, who in this climate is buying property?

        Explaining this to Daily Mail high tax economic idiots is understandable, but to see it here is a bit weird!

      2. Gary (loadsa money) Line acre is still in a virtual TV studio with some sort of fictional football programme he Ian Wright and that bald ex Newcastle bloke.
        Sit and discuss old matches.
        Don’t ask me,…… i only looked at it for around 5 minutes and glazed over before i switched off.

    2. Remember the the RBS scandal and all the other terrible banking/ building society / Insurance etc disasters, and if any of you were lucky enough to escape from the shock of losing money etc , you were lucky.

      How is it that Billionaires bounce along yet manage to accumaulate even more dosh off the backs of law abiding tax payers, I just don’t get it .

      I seems to me that bods like that are so hardnosed , their money is the bubble that protects their egos. Still , I guess this virus is a great leveller .

      1. They seem to know all the right people.
        It’s been going on for centuries TB.
        Thats how our country was divided up, land for favours.
        I recent TV programme on Thomas Chippendale, showed he died with around 60 quid in his bank account.
        Some of his furniture is now priceless now. Quote a lot of it was never actually paid for. He couldn’t sue the rich land owners because the lawyers were in the pockets of the rich.
        And so it seems, it goes on.

      2. Their money is mobile and is outside of tax demands. It’s tied up in areas that guarantee a high return.

        It is appalling policy that sees the worker fund the already rich. However once you reach a point where you can make the state underpin your own endeavour you’re already going to get rich with no risk. Then of course there’s corruption, nepotism, bribery and fraud. People call it different things but it’s rife. Look at Mandelson, for example.

    3. A local worthy who portrays himself as being something of a ‘squire’ (surname Fuller, as in brewery) has furloughed both his groom and his gamekeeper. He doesn’t see the irony in that he has just confirmed that he’s a cheap bastard and obviously not born or raised to be a squire.

      1. I guess there has always been some sort of invisible line where certain people especially in England see their station above it.
        There are certain accents and pronunciations that many people adopt to attempt to elevate them selves into a ‘superior position’.
        Apparently it all started way back when people who had a bit of money moved out of the old London to places such as Hampstead for instance. And not wanting to be associated with their imiteadiate past, to emphasise there perceived superiority changed the way they spoke.
        One of my sisters use to live in an area where they audibly changed the way they spoke. I once heard one of their neighbours refer to another who lived close by as, plumb in the mouth…… “not quite top drawer stuff like us”.
        A Horrible thing to say.

  52. Second Russian doctor in mystery fall: Physician with coronavirus ‘blamed for outbreak at training facility’ plunges to her death at hospital after medic who reported PPE shortages fell from a window. 27 April 2020.

    A doctor who contracted coronavirus in Russia’s Star City where cosmonauts are trained has died after falling from a hospital window.

    Natalya Lebedeva had been accused of failing to stop an outbreak of Covid-19 inside the restricted city, colleagues claimed.

    Ahhh! They’ve been Novichokkied by glaziers with links to the Kremlin. Putin himself gave the instruction to have these traitors eliminated!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8260147/Doctor-coronavirus-falls-death-hospital-Russia.html

    1. I read a report about a week ago by a doctor that the Covid patients he was treating were exhibiting all the symptoms of altitude sickness. Might altitude sickness like symptoms cause one to lose one’s balance?

      1. A witness says that Dr Enza looked a little off balance. He stumbled against the window, which happened to be partially open, and out flew Enza.

        1. And the cure is to loose altitude rapidly. The problem being the stop at the bottom.

        2. And the cure is to loose altitude rapidly. The problem being the stop at the bottom.

        3. I did that once. I was staying with my boyfriend who lived in an attic room in his mother’s house (she was an absolute star). After a New Year’s Eve party – I wasn’t really drunk – I got out of bed in the middle of the night to have a pee. In my sleepy state I did what I would do at home: turn right and then sharp right out of the door.

          Only the door was an open window, and out I went, onto concrete paving two floors down. The most embarrassing thing was that I was naked. Apparently my boyfriend’s mother’s neighbours alerted her that there was a naked woman walking around the garden, crying…

  53. 318592+ up ticks,
    The invasion continues on ( code name ) welfare beach, unopposed,
    Total their numbers up halve the total, then that is, I would say, how many places the indigenous social housing person on the current waiting list has to make way for in homes.
    The only way to stop the invasion is via stopping the welfare so the governance parties ie lab/lib/con will unintentionally do the peoples a favour when they wreck the economy.

  54. I have just returned from shopping

    To cut out the middle man and get you straight to hospital, one shop had Covonia on sail

  56. Very quiet in the M&S oldies hour today. No queue at all. Everyone must already have ‘passed on’ or are just not bothering any more! Though according to the chap guarding the trolleys, it’s because there was apparently some drizzle before I got up.

  57. ‘Nuff Said

    Miley/Billy Ray

    Rhyming slang for coronavirus, as in popstrel
    Miley Cyrus (ie ‘virus’) or her country crooner father Billy Ray. Sample
    usage: “I’m suffering with a touch of the Mileys” or “I’m achy-breaky
    and displaying Billy Ray symptoms”. Which one you use is a useful
    indicator of your age.

    Claphazard

    Someone so enthusiastic
    about saluting our care workers that they forget all social distancing
    guidelines, start hugging their neighbours and high-fiving passing
    pedestrians.

    The elephant in the Zoom

    The glaring issue
    during a videoconferencing call that nobody feels able to mention. E.g.
    one participant has dramatically put on weight, suddenly sprouted
    terrible facial hair or has a worryingly messy house visible in the
    background.

    Doughverkill

    One’s social media feed being
    dominated by smug photos of home-made sourdough or banana bread. If
    making sourdough is so great, how come you’d never done it before March?

    Quentin Quarantino

    An
    attention-seeker using their time in lockdown to make amateur films
    which they’re convinced are funnier and cleverer than they actually are.

    Covidiot

    One
    who ignores public health advice or behaves with reckless disregard for
    the safety of others can be said to display “covidiocy” or be
    “covidiotic”. Also called a “lockclown” or even a “Wuhan-ker”.

    Space invader

    Someone who routinely comes closer to you than the recommended two metres and who you’d like to zap like in an arcade game.

    Goutbreak

    The
    sudden fear that you’ve consumed so much wine, cheese, home-made cake
    and Easter chocolate in lockdown that your ankles are swelling up like a
    medieval king’s.

    Caught between a shop and a hoard place

    The
    dilemma of needing to purchase basics but not wanting to be accused of
    stockpiling. I’m not stockpiling, I usually buy this many tins of beans.

    1. Part of the reason is that patients are discharged far quicker these days, presumably to reduce the risk of picking up hospital-related bugs. With my two cancer ops I was out in three days (small bowel resection via keyhole) and two weeks (liver resection). Ironically, I developed post-op infections in both cases, so I was back in for a few days to receive intravenous antibiotics.

      1. Nothing to do with risk , all to do about making an inadequate number of beds available ASAP, each hospital has a “Bed Manager” to facilitate this. When I was driving for the Out of Hours service we had at least 3 or 4 calls a week due to pre-emptive discharges( not the ooozy sort) needing urgent re-admission which meant the GP had to then spend an hour on the phone trying and sometimes begging to get the poor patient back on the ward.

        1. I am aware of a study from about 9 years ago in which it was noted there were around 120 patients ( 4 wards worth) across 2 District General Hospitals on the South Coast whose transfer of care had been delayed (in some instances by many weeks). There were many reasons for the delays in the transfer of these patients who could no longer benefit from acute hospital care. These included unwillingness by relatives to seek residential or nursing home care places, lack of suitable care home places, lack of Social Services funding etc.

          This week I learned that an NHS professional who has responsibility to help with the discharge of patients had no problems with relatives accepting patients for fear of them contracting Covid in the hospital.

          By the way the weekly Delayed Transfers report was being sent to 127 staff across 2 hospitals, 4 GP purchasing authorities, 1Regional Health Authority and the Dept of Health

      2. 318592+ up ticks,
        Afternoon AA,
        I would think that there was a need for your bed the one that if you stayed in initially there is a good chance you would not have had to return.
        Plus to my mind you are far more likely to pick up nasty’s outside the hospital boundaries then in, my personal view.

  59. After all, international cooperation is where it’s all at, which is why Britain signed away her rights to a new British coronavirus cure or vaccine.

    Stand in line with the world, Britons. Globalist Boris Johnson who loves Chinese solutions knows best.

    1. The Korea Times reports that the SK government have confidence in the Noth Korean leaders health.

      Those words seem to be meaningless.

  61. Moscow’s motives questioned over coronavirus aid shipment to Italy. Mon 27 Apr 2020 12.50 BST

    “No country does humanitarian assistance purely because of the kindness of its heart,” said Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian politics and security, adding that Russia was interested in currying favour with the Italians and framing a new narrative about its partnership with Europe. “We’re all in this together, which obviously can be used to chip away at sanctions.”

    Actually that’s quite wrong. The UK ostensibly gives away vast sums every year in the form of Foreign Aid for no discernible return whatsoever.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/moscow-motives-questioned-over-coronavirus-aid-shipment-to-italy

    1. 318592+ up ticks,
      Afternoon AS,
      It does get a return in one respect as shown by the invasion forces coming up the beach daily, looking for more.

    2. Reminds me of the farce some years ago when the UK gave Pakistan £zillions of ‘aid’ money in return for a large fighter jet order – which went to the French.

    4. Is it not about time that we faced up to the possibility that Russia may not be our enemy? A white Christian, Western country. Yet we are forever currying favour with despots (black non-Christian), tyrants (brown, muslim), committees (atheists, yellow), and many others, none of whom have ever produced a person you would introduce to your grannie.

  62. An elderly Jewish woman decided to have her portrait painted.

    She told the artist, “Paint me with diamond earrings, a diamond necklace, emerald bracelets, a ruby brooch, and a Rolex watch.”

    “But you are not wearing any of those things.”

    “I know,” she said. “It’s in case I should die before my husband. I’m sure he will remarry right away, and I want his new wife to go crazy looking for the jewellery!”

  63. Why the WHO should be scrapped. Spiked. 27 April 2020.

    ‘Dr Tedros, you’re truly a superstar’, cooed Lady Gaga ahead of the One World concert – an online celebrity-fest extolling the sacred status of the World Health Organisation. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO, must have been delighted to have such praise heaped on him and his organisation.

    Well even leaving aside that WHO is simply a Chinese Glove Puppet that’s pretty damning in itself. This unfortunately is not the limit of the problem. Nearly all the worlds international bodies not least including the UN have been subverted or corrupted in some way to serve Corporate or National interests. It is now so bad that it is useless to listen to any of them for truth or insight. It seems unlikely that this process can be reversed and that they will eventually become moribund and their original purpose lost. This is not good news because they offered cooperation instead of confrontation for over fifty years. Their loss will make the world a far more dangerous place!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/27/why-the-who-should-be-scrapped/

    2. I doubt this Ga-ga person knows anything about what the WHO is. She probably thinks it’s something to do with Doctor Who.

    2. Those working in the NHS are not heroes. They’re doing their job.

      As for them – sold his country out for cash x 2, sold all the cash his country had, coward who cut and ran and one who tried to sell us down the river.

    3. Looking at that lot convinces me that it just isn’t a runner. In fact, a very bad idea indeed.

    4. What are they proposing, a campaign medal?

      And why not all the delivery people, train drivers, farmers, shop assistants, army personnel etc tec.

      Looking at some of the on-line videos they should sweep the Baftas and all the other luvvie fests.

      1. A campaign medal? Like Bomber Command, you mean? Battle of the Ruhr, Interdiction, Dams Raid, Sink the Tirpitz, Battle of Berlin … What did they get for losing 55,000 plus casualties? Nearly 50% loss rate. A bl00dy clasp! And a monument decades too late!

        1. Quite. That puts it into perspective.

          Perhaps I should have finished my rant as I feel the same way.

          1. I feel that the crews of Bomber Command were severely short changed. The chop rate was horrendous yet they went out, night after night. That calls for a very special sort of courage. Even Butch Harris didn’t get a peerage. They were hung out to dry.

          2. Looking at that ignoble parade of shysters and idiots, it’s a wonder there’s still any sort of Blighty left at all.

      1. The discussion about bronchitis & phlegm 2 hours ago (perfect timing) was enough to put anyone off their breakfast.

    7. Anyone for a game of skittles ?

      By far absolutely the worse PMs we have ever had. And one after another.

    8. Ohhh Ohhh, can I guess the criminal? Was it May’s 2017 General Election campaign?

    11. Ex-SAS men supply PPE after frustration at government’s failure to distribute enough supplies

      The Pilgrim Bandits charity has supplied face masks, suits and other equipment to A&E departments, care homes and individuals in need

      Now, who will stop this van

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2020/04/26/TELEMMGLPICT000230205425_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqFYaFMqenqvL3x_jptXZ5MxKi2sT3vi7ux2-RDZwC4QA.jpeg?imwidth=960

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/26/ex-sas-men-supply-ppe-frustration-governments-failure-distribute/

  66. A most peculiar occurrence.

    I mentioned here some time ago the ‘flu-like’ chest infection that flattened me for the last week in February and the first week in March, leaving me with a dry cough that hung on for weeks, but which has now disappeared (almost). Others had similar experiences.

    Well yesterday I noticed another by-product of that infection.

    My normally abundant nasal hair has almost vanished.

    2. It could be bestioles nibbling in your nose thrills at night. Or possibly the Chinese are collecting the clippings to make wigs from. Personally, a lack of nose and ear hair is something I would be pleased to have!

    2. I have lefty green (in both senses) friends in Fulham telling me how nice and peaceful it is not to have any planes overheard but I sat in Holland Park yesterday afternoon counting them for about half an hour. Three in to Heathrow and one much higher in the sky going in the opposite direction.

      1. Sorry everyone – can’t post as vouvray for some reason. Alf’s on the case.

          1. I only look depressed from the outside. Inside, I’m happy as a sandboy. What is a sandboy by the way? Someone from the enriched countries thinking of oil revenues?

      1. 318592+ up ticks,
        TB,
        So is getting ones rear end blown off, or loosing ones cannister to an islamic ideology
        follower “guest,” does not deter the Submissive, PCism & Appeaser brigade sir dick ed davey being one.

        1. Not, I suspect, Macron’s fate. They don’t make French Presidents like they used to.
          “Faure died suddenly from apoplexy in the Élysée Palace on 16 February 1899, while engaged in sexual activities in his office with 30-year-old Marguerite Steinheil.”

    3. They may think that, but who could possibly comment.
      Who knows what will happen next…………

  69. postd by G Batten

    NHS facts:

    In 1948 it took over 480k hospital beds, 10 per 1k of
    population. 2020 = 129k beds, 1.9 per 1k of pop. Germany has 8, France
    has 6.

    UK spends 9.8 of GDP. OECD average 8.5%. The problem isn’t under funding.

    What are the real problems? Organisation & bureaucracy?

      1. Batten had his chance to put forward policies which the public could vote for regarding the NHS but he was more interested in Tommy effing Robinson.

    2. During the height of the corvid 19 crisis, a hospital advertised for a diversity manager. If that’s not a screaming fact that their priorities are not only hopelessly wrong but also that they are awash with money to waste on such nonsense I really don’t know what is.

    3. 318592+ up ticks,
      Afternoon JN,
      Looks the same as the post I put up 2 hours ago from my ex, much maligned,
      suppressed, supposedly far right racist leader Gerard Batten ( Real UKIP).

  70. Anyone know how many NEW cases are being reported. ? i cannot find the info .

    1. New cases usually come out a couple of hours or so after tte reported deaths.

      350 reported deaths today. Lowest for a month, compared with 449 last Monday and 717 the week before.

      1. Thanks I saw that but its new cases that are so important if we are going to have our freedom back.

        2. My constant complaint is that in order produce a sensible risk model I need Capacity/New Infections/Recoveries.
          No data for recovery is published in UK.

      2. The drier sunny weather must be making a contribution to the downturn as well as the Muslims beginning to respect the lockdown.

      3. Counts are consistently lower on Mondays, I suspect because NHS reporting staff are not putting the reports through to the civil service, it being Sunday ‘n all…

        2. That’s why I’m comparing the various Mondays. Like for like, the week on week trend is down.

    2. https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-update-27th-april/
      COVID-19: Death Data in England – Update 27th April
      April 27, 2020

      This is an interesting site that’s been analysing the data. Updated today.

      “Consistent with previous analyses, the peak day of deaths was the 8th of April. ”

      They’ve analysed the data from the point of view of date of death, not date of announcement/notification of death, which can be quite different, and means that the peak has already happened, and was unrelated to the lockdown, as the infections had already occurred back in March, before house arrest.

      https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/reconciling-covid-19-death-data-in-the-uk/
      Reconciling COVID-19 death data in the UK.

    1. That song is like fingernails down a blackboard to me. Hated it from the first time I heard it.

    1. I see that his unnamed Labour critic nevertheless gave some tacit support to the oft-quoted ‘austerity policies killed 100,00 people’.

    3. Will he live long enough to investigate it? I don’t think they thought that appointment through.

          1. I have been away from NTTL for some time.

            I notice that lots of NoTTLers have changed their name/avatar.

            Could you remind me who you were before Christmas? Thanks.

          3. Good morning again Bill

            Of course you know who I am: I used to be rastusctastey – I am now Rastus C. Tastey and Caroline changed my piratical avatar to one which, she hopes generates more warmth and affection from those who read my posts. Also she tired of people thinking she was married to a complete buffoon.

            The reason for the change was that all my upvotes had been removed which in itself is of no real concern to me other than that somebody said that people with no upvotes are considered to be Trolls and their comments are not put up elsewhere.

          8. I am not a number, I am a freehold! (My house doesn’t have a number, which Johnny will be pleased to hear ).

          16. Good morning again Bill

            Of course you know who I am: I used to be rastusctastey – I am now Rastus C. Tastey and Caroline changed my piratical avatar to one which, she hopes generates more warmth and affection from those who read my posts. Also she tired of people thinking she was married to a complete buffoon.

            The reason for the change was that all my upvotes had been removed which in itself is of no real concern to me other than that somebody said that people with no upvotes are considered to be Trolls and their comments are not put up elsewhere.

    5. The real reason the MCB don’t want Trevor Phillips is because they know he will be honest and impartial in his investigations. What they actually want is an arselicker like Ed Davey.

    3. For a man recovering from coronavirus, there doesn’t look or sound much wrong with him.

      2. 318592+ up ticks,
        Morning PT,
        A master of rhetorical deception, top bloke in the
        lab/lib/con coalition party.

    1. Where did they do the survey Boys names include Elijah, Benjamin, Levi and Nathanial.

      The normal excusenis that they spell Mo in different ways but even so.

      1. Even with Mo’s different spellings I’ve seen him ranked four or five times separately in these lists.

    5. Different spellings mean there won’t be one version as the top boys’ name. Aggregating them might give a different result…

      1. The last time I saw this kind of list “Mo” and variants thereof came in as individual entries.

    7. Asher is No 1 boy’s name and Luna No 1 girl’s name?

      Really?

      Guess what all these Lunas will be getting for a nickname as they go through school.

    1. Caught a glimpse of the broadcast today (I happened to be in the room when MOH had the TV on). Was disgusted. If they’re letting in 15,000 a day unquarantined and unchecked, how dare they say we need to be locked up down?

      1. I believe there are at least 3 different strains, if not many more.
        Perhaps they are trying to get the full set into the UK?

  78. Vouvray can’t log into Disqus. Each time she tries she logs into my account. Tried rebooting, logging me out then logging in as herself but it still reverts to my account.

    Any wise words to help her log in will be gratefully received.

      1. Yes and that has worked fine until this afternoon. When logging in it shows her name but opens up as me!!

        1. Do you have different browsers on the machine? Try using a different one, the beast is probably keeping a cache of stuff somewhere. The age old remedy is deleting cookies but then everything else is gone as well.

          2. Trouble is which cookies? I only have five disqus cookies in my chrome storage , maybe just clearing those five would be enough.
            The problem is that some sites are devious enough to use cookies that have misleading names

  79. We still have Yellow Fever vaccination certificates, required for certain destinations. Not much change of wording required to apply to the present virus, Yellow Fever (wuhan) should do.

  80. Am I alone (as the saying goes!) in finding that the DT messes about with the comments under its articles?

    In today’s DT there is an article by Nigel Farage. I posted a comment which, within a minute had 8 likes. I looked again a minute or two later to find that the likes had reduced to 3.

    I then posted another comment in response to the fact that another poster had said that Nigel Farage had claimed that with Brexit illegal immigration would be sorted out and the fact that it has not been sorted out means that Nigel Farage is a liar. My response to this comment , which has been taken down, was:

    British politicians – many of whom are frustrated Remainers – are very happy for illegal immigration to continue.

    Now we are out of the EU these politicians have the power to control immigration and they are not doing so – only an idiot would criticise Nigel Farage for the failings of remainers!

    My conclusion is that The Daily Telegraph cannot and must not be trusted. Remainers have it by the short and curlies.

        1. I never check. If people are so lacking in taste as to down-tick my pearls of wisdom, then bad cess to them.

    2. I notice that the vast majority of those that disagree with Farage have adopted the ‘play the man’ tactic and don’t actually counter his points.

      2. I’ll very often make the comment that by resorting to ad hominem insults instead of actually addressing the points made speaks volumes more for themselves and their own bigotry than it does for the person they are attacking.

  81. Another 13 migrants, including a toddler, arrive at Dover after 35 on Saturday and 76 on Friday as total for April surges to almost 500 – the highest month ever recorded
    Coastguard helicopter and lifeboats involved in sea rescue off the Kent coast
    A toddler and 12 other refugees rescued while trying to cross the Channel today
    At least 476 migrants have made the crossing this month – a record number
    Border Force are not testing migrants for coronavirus ‘in line with PHE guidance’
    Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8260719/Another-13-migrants-including-toddler-arrive-Dover-total-April-surges-400.html

    2. So I assume the French Coast Guard are under orders to return Nelson’s favour and turn a blind eye….

      1. And the French police. As I have explained, to be out of your house – even to go 100 yards to post a letter – you need a signed, dated AND timed document (“attestation”) on you at all times.

        How these illegal wazzocks have managed to get out of their jungle, walk three or four miles to the shore and get on effing boats without a rozzaire spotting them – is beyond belief.

          1. I simply do NOT understand why Priti Awful hasn’t sorted this.

            Could it be anything to do with the number of slammers in the Home Office?

          3. They seem to be over-represented among security staff and Border Force personnel at Birmingham Airport.

    4. Afternoon T-B – The Border Force should arrest these illegal invaders. Take them to a secure place on the coast, DNA, face recognition and fingerprints should be taken and put on the relevant database. Give them basic food and water. Tell them they will never be UK citizens and take them back to France as soon as weather conditions are safe. They should have no right of appeal so lawyers needn’t get involved. I wonder what covert instructions are being given to the Border Force by the Home Office . The Conservatives, I am sad to say, are upsetting a large section of the UK population by this policy of laissez- faire. This and several other of their prominent decisions will ensure a massive defeat at the next election

      1. “take them back to France as soon as weather conditions are safe. ”

        Put them on the first flight or ferry straight back to France, after having done all the ID tests.

        As for the Home Office. Whichever politician said it’s not fit for purpose was correct. Priti needs a team in there to do a complete root and branch clear out and reform. She can’t do it on her own, and needs a team she can trust. If I were her, I’d think about putting IDS and David Davis, or someone like them, in there to do the clean up, while she concentrates on more immediate matters. The HO doesn’t work in the interests of the British people.

        1. 318592+ up ticks,
          Afternoon Ims2,
          NO more reshuffles
          there are nigh on 7 decks of cads in HOc
          They have by their continual input brought these Isles to it’s knees
          and that is nearing the truth more so daily. Plus it would not surprise me for governance prayer mat issue to be on line shortly.

        2. The HO doesn’t work in the interests of the British people.

          And even worse is the Foreign Orifice

      2. 318592+ up ticks,
        Afternoon C,
        On this occasion I am afraid you are wrong.
        Since t b liar lifted the latch not a thing has altered via the ballot booth regarding mass uncontrolled immigration only the coalition link between lab/lib/con has got stronger.
        Gaining strength after every GE regardless of mass murder,mass rape / abuse, mass acid tossing / knifing’s etc.
        Never underestimate the strength of the three monkeys
        within the polling booth.
        Only change coming through is the lab party being devoured as a host party what emerges will get the peoples praying five times a day for change.

  82. 318592+ up ticks,
    The boris makes an appearance after 25 days smacks to me of a mini maydays 9 month delay, I do not believe I am being over cynical owing to the fact that their past has proved to me they are totally untrustworthy.

  83. Unkindess cut …

    Headaches

    The
    doctor said, ‘Harry, the good news is I can cure your headaches. The
    bad news is that it will require castration. You have a very rare
    condition, which causes your testicles to press on your spine and the
    pressure creates one hell of a headache. The only way to relieve the
    pressure is to remove the testicles.”

    I was shocked and depressed. I wondered if I had anything to live for. I had no choice but to go under the knife.

    When
    I left the hospital, I was without a headache for the first time in 20
    years, but I felt like I was missing an important part of myself.

    As I walked down the street, I realized that I felt like a different person.. I could make a new beginning and live a new life.

    I saw a men’s clothing store and thought, “That’s what I need. A new suit.”

    I entered the shop and told the salesman, “I’d like a new suit.”

    The elderly tailor eyed me briefly and said, “Let’s see. Size 44 long.”

    I laughed, “That’s right, how did you know?”

    “Been in the business 60 years!” the tailor said.

    I tried on the suit it fit perfectly.

    As I, admired myself in the mirror, the salesman asked, “How about a new shirt?’

    I thought for a moment and then said, “Sure.”

    The salesman eyed me and said, “Let’s see, 34 sleeves and 16-1/2 neck.”

    I was surprised, “That’s right, how did you know?”

    “Been in the business 60 years.”

    I tried on the shirt and it fit perfectly.

    I walked comfortably around the shop and the salesman asked, “How about some new underwear?”

    I thought for a moment and said, “Sure.”

    The salesman said, “Let’s see, Size 36”.

    I laughed, “Ah ha! I got you! I’ve worn a size 34 since I was 18 years old.”

    The
    salesman shook his head, “You can’t wear a size 34. A size 34 would
    press your testicles up against the base of your spine and give you one
    hell of a headache.”

    1. Hockey is a sport for white men.

      Basketball is a sport for black men.

      Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps.”

      Tiger Woods

      “My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.”
      Jack Nicholson

  84. BBC should be ‘untouchable’ after coronavirus. 27 April 2020.

    Author Nick Hornby has written an essay praising the BBC as “one of our crowning achievements as a nation”, saying that its handling of the coronavirus pandemic should make it “untouchable” once the crisis has passed.

    The BBC, meanwhile, “has tried to inform and educate us while entertaining us, as its remit has always been,” writes Hornby. He praises Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis’s “blistering” editorial on 9 April, when the presenter spoke out about how lower paid frontline workers – “bus drivers and shelf stackers, nurses, care home workers, hospital staff and shopkeepers” – are more likely to catch the coronavirus, calling it “a health issue with huge ramifications for social welfare. And it’s a welfare issue with huge ramifications for public health.”

    Lol! If it’s untouchable it’s because it’s a leper.

    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/27/nick-hornby-bbc-untouchable-coronavirus-high-fidelity-broadcaster

  85. “A distraught mother whose son, three, and daughter, one, were stabbed to death ran into the street screaming ‘help me… it’s my children’ as they died in an ‘attempted murder-suicide’ that has left the youngsters’ father, 40, fighting for his life in hospital.

    The man held over the murders of two children has been named locally as their father Nithin Kumar,” Daily Wail

    Good old English name – one of the Somerset Kumars I shouldn’t wonder.

    2. I always wonder in these particular types of cases why the hospital does anything to aid the monster.

      2. The report does say the father is fighting for his life in hospital, it does not say that doctors are diligently fighting to keep him alive. They would though, wouldn’t they.

        It is like someone on death row in the US appealed against the use of lethal injections because the needles night not be sanitized.

        1. Can’t believe that’s still happening! That’s why I became blackbox2 years ago!

          2. I was several names on the telegraph. Honestly not sure if I can remember them now. I made my user activity secret after some left wing troll trawled painstakingly through all my past posts, cherry-picking phrases to try and make out that I was a nazi, and said they were going to report me to the police! The Telegraph did ban that account after I complained to them.
            I changed my username regularly in order to be less noticeable to such people. Mostly I try to pick neutral sounding names, because I got ten times more flak when I was YorkshireWoman.

    1. I do like yer Boccherini. First really came to my attention in the soundtrack of ‘Master and Commander,.

          1. Thank you. I know that piece very well. I was just intrigued and pleased that Berio could “arrange” it without buggering it up completely.
            When I heard that he had done it, I was worried. Needlessly.

    2. It is immediately followed by Charles Ives’ “The Unanswered Question” – Strikes me that this should be the Nottler’s Anthem……

  88. Good afternoon, folks. I have had a busy and productive day, for once. I have cut my lawns, painted the studio and got an occupational therapist and physio to see MOH after the fall the other evening. There isn’t much they can do, but at least I feel I’ve tried.

  89. BREAKING NEWS FROM THE PRESS & JOURNAL (Highland Edition)

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9093c9fa3c3e811e1d933ce11d7099000b70bce4e5864131e489fa69cfdd8a2d.png

    The seaman who made this startling discovery, Mr. Duncan MacArthur, said – following extensive research – he believes the spoon came from a vessel located in the area of a similar time.

    “I looked up online and in World War One there was navy activity in the area with minelayers, and in the Second World War there was other activity as well.” he said. “Everybody has been quite amazed. It is something different and something you don’t see every day.”

    Aye, that’s the way it is here, right enough. One moment you’re stuck in your humdrum routine and then – out of the blue – something incredible happens and startles the very life out of you.

    1. I’m so frustrated. They didn’t even tell us what sort of spoon it was…My day is ruined.

  91. https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-update-27th-april/
    COVID-19: Death Data in England – Update 27th April
    April 27, 2020

    NHS England releases data at 2 pm each day and reports daily count up to the previous day as well as a total figure. We wrote about the problems with reconciling the different data here:

    Today’s reported figure is 329 deaths in hospitals in England. These deaths are distributed back to the 17th of March.
    These figures are consistent with declining COVID death rates.

    On the 20th of April, 429 deaths were reported in hospitals in England.

    On the 13th of April, 667 deaths were reported in hospitals in England

    Consistent with previous analyses, the peak day of deaths was the 8th of April.

    What makes tracking up to date daily death data particularly tricky is that counts get revised daily. When the latest number of deaths are announced, numbers for all previous days are revised upwards with the most recent days often given the large adjustment.

    For example, the NHS announced that a further 828 people, who tested positive for the Coronavirus (COVID-19) have died, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 6,483 (April 8th). You might think that this means that 828 people died the day before, but this isn’t what is reported.
    https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/reconciling-covid-19-death-data-in-the-uk/
    Reconciling COVID-19 death data in the UK

    I’ve just posted this in a conversation from several hours ago, so I’m repeating it here.
    The peak has already happened, and was unrelated to the shutdown, as the infections that led to the deaths had occurred in the couple of weeks beforehand.

    The U.S. has also reported that the virus is destroyed more quickly by increasing temperature and humidity, but the real killer is sunlight/UV, i.e. the half-life is reduced to 2 mins.
    So go out! Sit on that park bench! You can’t catch WuFlu from a park bench seat if it’s sunny out.
    https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/23/us-says-covid-19-lives-just-2-minutes-sunny-surfaces-21c-70f-12602532/

    1. “So go out! Sit on that park bench! You can’t catch WuFlu from a park bench seat if it’s sunny out.”

      True- but you can be arrested and threatened by the Stasi.

      1. And you can ask them what the scientific or epidemiological reason would be.

        I had been thinking of Ferrari on LBC when I wrote this, as he’d been wittering on about it a couple of days ago. He’d asked what was wrong with resting or sitting on a park bench, and been told that, ooh, someone else with WuFlu might have sat there earlier and contaminated it…

  92. How long will it be before when people reach 65 they will get a letter from the government saying, dear sir / madam, we have been looking into your life management profile and we can see you have abused your body all your adult life, through drink, eating meat and not taking enough exercise, we are extremely worried that you will put a severe strain on the NHS in years to come, please report to your nearest incinerator for termination

      2. Logan’s Run. Used to be regularly aired on TV, but hasn’t been seen for a while in case people twig.

    4. 318634+ up ticks,
      Evening B3,
      What is odd is that it is peoples who elect governments, what puzzles me is why do they always elect a failure, tis very odd.

      1. Somerset – but they do mail order & delivery.- have a “box of goodies” which can be sent to friends and rellies who are locked up

        1. I have sent the link to my son and daughter in law in Long Newnton. Very keen bakers,

    2. Good film.

      I went to see the Ladykillers at the Mayflower Southampton. I particularly liked the bit where all the main characters disappeared into different parts of the Set when the dorrbell rang and re-appeared at the elderly lady’s front door 90 seconds later in full drag as her visiting friends.

  97. “In short, the entire oil production industry is shutting down, not because it wants to – of course – but because it has no choice. According to Goldman, in as little as three weeks there will be literally no place left on earth to store oil, and unless oil producers want to pay “buyers” to hold the oil……. they have no choice but to shut in (stop) output”
    Every week, another 50 million barrels of crude are going into storage, enough to fuel Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the U.K. combined, with estimates that the world will run out of land-based storage some time in late May or early June. Meanwhile, what’s not stored onshore, is stashed in tankers.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/03d98d075a4d022f8fd662469fcafa27e07c0970d0f6c3a73e6833af52f28ac6.png

    I can’t see enforced lockdown lasting much longer….

    1. It’s the state telling the individual what to do. They are removing our freedom ‘for our own good’ where really it’s for their good – the inability of the NHS to cope with this issue.

      1. In the absence of good clinical data I don’t know what the solution is. However, there’s not one us who wants to catch this virus and end up on a ventilator in ITU, where the chances of emerging alive are 50-50 at best and in the case of one hospital group in NY – an 88% mortality rate.

        1. Now that they’ve built all the new Nightingale hospitals there is plenty of capacity being unused.

          1. The problem I see with Nightingale hospitals is they are not hospitals – more containment /recovery wards. As I understand it they lack all the technical infrastructure present in an acute hospital and the support staff to match.

    2. One can but hope that all the billionaires will lose vast sums of money and be taken to the cleaners. Wouldn’t that be poetic justice.

      1. Of one thing we can be sure – the markets do not consult any committee of worthies or jobsworths before handing out rewards and penalties. And they don’t care whether you’re Sir somebody or Lord Nobody or have an OBE – they don’t discriminate …. nor do they even care whether you’re black or white

      2. If the billionaires go down, you don’t think they’ll take the rest of us too – standing on our necks to keep themselves afloat? Only by force of arms can that be avoided, and much of the West is disarmed. I wonder why??

  98. MUST READ! Research Reveals That COVID-19 Attacks Hemoglobin In Red Blood Cells, Rendering It Incapable Of Transporting Oxygen. Current Medical Protocols Could All Be Wrong!<

    A few days ago I came across and posted this article from Thailand Medical News.

    https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/must-read-research-reveals-that-covid-19-attacks-hemoglobin-in-red-blood-cells,-rendering-it-incapable-of-transporting-oxygen–current-medical-protoco

    Today I found this article which explains a rare blood disorder called AIHA:

    https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/312508

    Not only does AIHA profile the symptoms of COVID-19 adverse reactions but there are indicators that treatment of AIHA with antibiotics and ibruprofen would be inappropriate.

      1. The authors are now receiving peer reviews so are a bit Thaid up at the moment.

    2. Con permiso…

      …there are indicators indications that treatment of AIHA with antibiotics…

          2. It does. I have no idea what it indicated. My chemistry marks seldom climbed above 5%.

    3. The haemoglobin thing has been known for a while. However, our glorious medicos will not change treatment as that would be to admit that they got it wrong and that hundreds have died as a direct result. They will continue the present course of treatment and hundreds more will die so that they can save face.

    4. They’ve changed their mind about ibuprofen being dangerous with covid19.

      Antibiotics don’t work on viruses.

    1. One look at the authoress’s name was enough to strike off my list. thanks Richard

  100. Goodnight, folks. I’m off to catch up on recordings or watch something live (although a repeat) on TV.

  101. This poem says more or less what I feel at the present.

    Quilts by Nikki Giovanni

    Like a fading piece of cloth
    I am a failure

    No longer do I cover tables filled with food and laughter
    My seams are frayed my hems falling my strength no longer able
    To hold the hot and cold

    I wish for those first days
    When just woven I could keep water
    From seeping through
    Repelled stains with the tightness of my weave
    Dazzled the sunlight with my
    Reflection

    I grow old though pleased with my memories
    The tasks I can no longer complete
    Are balanced by the love of the tasks gone past

    I offer no apology only
    this plea:

    When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end
    Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt
    That I might keep some child warm

    And some old person with no one else to talk to
    Will hear my whispers

    And cuddle
    near

          3. For those who don’t know quilting fabric is sold by the metre (or fat quarters). Apparently quilters need an immense quantity of different fabrics which they call their ‘Stash” (I’m not making this up). Eye watering amounts of money are spent building up the stash. None of the quilts produced over the past 25 years have been sold but given away as presents….

          5. Do you know I’ve been asking that very same question for years. The answer apparently is Cobblers……………..children…..

          6. As of today the Bernina I bought my wife 40 years has seized up.

            I will have to take it to a repairer as soon as the lockdown allows. I offered to buy a new Bernina but Carol prefers her older model and is not comfortable with the complication of the digital displays on the latest models.

          7. MoH has two Berninas (one inherited) from the same vintage. They are serviced fairly regularly and are regarded I believe as the Rolls Royce of sewing machine manufacturers, (She also has 3 other machines for different uses….)

          8. Yup. Bernina are real engineering. My late mother in law had a top of the range one but after she died we let it go to the mother of my brother in law. A decision I probably now regret as they owed the family tens of thousands in unpaid loans. My wife and I decided life is too short to pursue such issues.

            We sleep at night.

          9. I suspect a lot of folk on this forum won’t know that it is possible to spend over £7000 on a top of the range Bernina!

          10. I remember I paid bout £350.00 for my wife’s Bernina about 40 years ago. It was a lot of money back then.

            Her Hermes shawl back then cost even more. I just wish she would wear the bloody thing along with all of the jewellery and other trinkets that have hardly ever seen the light of day, stuck in a couple of safes.

          11. The price of the Bernina sounds about right. Our first one was bought about 7 years earlier and cost £199. Still a lot of dosh (About the same time I picked up a used Morris Traveller for £25!)

          12. Good lord! My mind is boggled at the thought of five sewing machines. I seldom run out of imagination but simply can’t work that one out.

          13. Right you know about the two Berninas (one is simply a reserve machine used when the other is away for servicing). Then there’s an overlocker (think dresses for granddaughters). The Pfaff which is an industrial machine for upholstery. And finally there’s a modern Juke with lots of whizzy electronics does precision button holes and all sorts….

          14. PS I forgot to mention MoH is City & Guilds qualified in tailoring and curtain making. Curiously much of the curtain making involves hand sewing!

          16. They’re wonderful, Stephen. Thanks for sharing the pics. I haven’t seen quilts of this quality since visiting Pennsylvania eons ago and seeing ones the Amish make.

          18. These quilts are truly magnificent. I took quilting lessons many years ago and can see the artistry and work that has gone into these. I too, still have my ‘stash’ that I shall use one day, or so I say!!!

          20. It is a veritable cottage industry. Just ask the ex-schoolteacher who owns Midsomer Quilters – he seems to be doing a roaring trade….

        2. How did you get into Bill Thomas’ bedroom to take that photo, King Stephen?

          :-))

        1. That’s a very traditional quilt. My wife who is reasonably accomplished comes back from quilt shows amazed at the work that goes into winning pieces….

          4. I can’t answer that question. But I do know that even if paid at the minimum wage the hours that are required to make a complex quilt would make it unaffordable….

          6. It’s an interesting question. The line between art and craft has become increasingly blurred. There seems to be no logic but what the market will pay. Maybe it was ever thus.

          7. The patches are from Liberty fabric adhered to foam filling from recycled plastic bottles. The materials were scraps from Lavenham Leisure in Sudbury. They make quilted garments.

            Eat your heart out Saint Greta.

    2. It’s amazing how the feelings for one poem can spark such a vibrant thread…..

    3. I just don’t get poetry. Why can’t the above be written as

      Like a fading piece of cloth I am a failure. No longer do I cover tables filled with food and laughter. My seams are frayed, my hems falling, my strength no longer able to hold the hot and cold.

      I wish for those first days when, just woven, I could keep water from seeping through, repelled stains with the tightness of my weave, dazzled the sunlight with my reflection.

      I grow old though pleased with my memories; the tasks I can no longer complete are balanced by the love of the tasks gone past

      I offer no apology only this plea: when I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end, please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt that I might keep some child warm and some old person with no one else to talk to will hear my whispers and cuddle near

      1. Each poet tries to write the lines in such a way as they would like them to be read (and assimilated) by the reader.

        If you ever get the chance to hear a poet recite his/her own verse (impossible I know, with long dead poets) then you get a better feeling for what he/she is trying to say.

        I love poetry but, like the late, great, Auberon Waugh, I like it to rhyme, scan, and make sense.

  102. Big headlines about NHS staff being hit badly by the CV.

    82 NHS workers and 16 social care workers have died.
    £60,000 payouts and this is already being complained about as too little, for the risks involved.

    Population of the UK ~ 66,000,000. NHS employees 1,500,000
    NHS employees as % of population ~ 2.25%
    Total UK deaths from, by, with, under CV-19 ~ 21,000
    21,000 * 2.25% = ~ 470 compared with 98, and that assumes social care workers come under the NHS umbrella.

    By that measure NHS workers have got off comparatively lightly compared with the general population.

    NOW

    I know those figures are not fair, because the NHS staff are doing their jobs; but how are delivery drivers, shop assistants, farm workers etc etc being cared for?

    2. Well have any NHSers been taken to court yet

      Of course not, it is only our servicemen

    3. I note that when Hancock was asked if the £60,000 compensation would mean the family of a dead NHS worker wouldn’t be able to sue their employer, he replied “No. Next question?”. Quite refreshing for a politician.

      1. If that’s accurate, it makes me very sure that the statistics being quoted by the politicians are utter horseshit.

          1. When the Intrnational GDP/Health care comparisons are made I wonder whether that side is included.

    5. The NHS has failed us. We are asked to sacrifice our freedoms in order to protect an organisation which is supposed to protect us. After this current scare has passed I expect our government to sort this mess out once and for all.

      They could start with the NHS Trust management and curtail the increasing numbers of management posts, abolishing the Common Purpose posts such as ‘Diversity Managers’ and all the other non-posts.

      Senior clinicians should be determining the allocation of resources not idiots such as Lady Mary Archer, who proved a disaster at Addenbrookes, and all of the other political appointees.

      We spend more on the NHS as a proportion of GDP than other comparable European countries but lag far behind in terms of the numbers of hospital beds, services available and outcomes of specialist treatments.

      The NHS heroes are clearly confined to clinicians and nurses, hospital porters and cleaners. The management is anything but heroic and their escape clause of near worship as risible as the adoration of the wretched Diana.

      1. People will always tell you that we spend less on HC than comparable countries. The problem is that it is impossible to tell if one is comparing like with like.
        I err to your side of the scales.

        However, the beatification of the NHS has put it above criticism.
        People confuse the front-line workers with the edifice as a whole.

          2. Never underestimate the British people. Hitler made the same mistake. We are clearly equal to the latest mob, Chinese or whoever.

            I am personally fed up with threats from China, whether its deliberate release of Covid-19 and its many derivatives or else its supposed assistance to the West with supplies of masks and gowns etc.,

            We clearly need now to freeze trade with this regime and halt communications with this regime.

      3. Totally agree but I fear the current situation is being deliberately hyped up in such a way as to justify elevating the Sacred Cow to untouchable status. Mild questioning is already met with viciously irrational attacks in some quarters.

        1. Good afternoon, Our Susan

          I am writing here so as to keep it away from today’s NTTL.

          In the Times 2 today (29 April), there is an article about how to deal with hair dyeing. It looks quite useful.

          1. Thanks Bill! My hairdresser phoned today to ask how I got on. At the moment my roots don’t show so badly because my hair has reverted to its fluffy curly natural self. My next appointment is set for 22 May so fingers crossed. The hairdresser tells me that four people from the college where her husband teaches have died. I don’t know if it’s relevant that they have a lot of foreign students, including those of a certain persuasion who lie about their age to gain entry both to the country and the college.

          2. Good. I hope you realise that I was trying to be helpful and not taking the proverbial.

      4. In having to do what they have done to “Protect the NHS” The NHS has failed as have the governments of the last 20 + years.

    6. I checked that out on the calculator earlier. You’d have a lot of screaming if it was mentioned online, as opposed to here, if you see what I mean.

    7. I noted the government put a lower price on a life than your more generous suggestion a few days ago of £250,000 for every death not just NHS workers. And everyone has been saying for weeks it’s not possible to put a price on a life, but it obviously wasn’t too difficult to come up with a price.

    1. “Worse pandemics coming” – Only effective preventative measure – Obliterate China.

    2. Our agriculture would not need to be so intensive if we hadn’t increased the population by millions in the last 20 years.

      1. This is what happens when a country of over 70 million people living in small country like Britain , whose cities comprise of tower blocks and towns that encroach on the countryside , with the pollution of motorways and rivers and airports and the unimaginable vision of factory farming of animals , small wonder we have a death virus which has spread so quickly .

        Khan said London was open, oh yes it was open alright , just like a bleeding sewer!

      2. The coronvirus and the need to keep one’s distance has really highlighted Britain’s overcrowding.

  107. Why do the Calais migrants keep wearing out their tv remote batteries?
    Because they are channel hoppers.

  108. Great Quotes on Sex:

    “There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women”
    Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz SL500.”
    Lynn Lavner

    “It isn’t premarital sex if you have no intention of getting married.”
    George Burns

    “Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake a whole relationship.”
    Sharon Stone

    2. If they’ve actually cut the grass away, rather than just putting a sheet or some white paint down, I’d stake the bastards out on that hillside and leave them for the crows.

          1. T’was she after whom I lusted. I always thought the blonde girl was a bit sulky.

    4. Clearly he got hold of the wrong end of the stick when advised by the Family Planning folk to take precautions….

  110. 318634+ up ticks,
    breitbart,
    Boris Govt Rejects Petition Demanding Release of Buried Grooming Gangs Report.

    Seemingly we should be seeing the concealed Dunblane
    report prior to the grooming gang one then.
    Really what does posses an electorate to keep replacing one failed governance party, with another of the same type time & time again.

    1. The gulf between the BBC and the rest of the country is just getting wider. And they imagine that people rely on them in time of crisis!
      Deluded.

        1. I won’t mind, if he’s the last BBC Director-General before it becomes a subscription service…

  114. I am off. Time for a drink – of medicine of some kind. Shopping tomorrow morning – Wow – can’t wait…{:¬((

    I’ll leave you with this thought. Young Un is either alive or dead.

    A demain.

  115. A simple question

    Can someone please explain to me why there is such a furore over lack of PPE for NHS staff, when in virtually every picture I have seen of these people (and their testers) they all have bare arms to way above the elbow.

    1. Morning Geoff I hope you are well.
      I was awoken by the dawn chorus today just as it became daylight. Made a cuppa and one for the good lady. Snuggle back down at this unearthly hour.
      Slayders ☺

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