Saturday 18 April: Active people over 70 are being tidied away into endless house-arrest

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/04/17/lettersactive-people-70-tidied-away-endless-house-arrest/

1,190 thoughts on “Saturday 18 April: Active people over 70 are being tidied away into endless house-arrest”

  1. British workers reject fruit-picking jobs as Romanians flown in. 17 April 2020.

    There was controversy in Romania after photographs emerged of crowds gathering in regional airports for flights to Germany, which, like the UK, is also suffering a labour deficit. Questions are being asked in Romania as to how workers could leave to help ease other countries’ demand for fresh food when much of Romania is in strict lockdown.

    Morning everyone. I might wonder that myself if I hadn’t realised that the PTB actually have no idea what they are doing. The inconsistent not to say idiotic lock down advice? The failure to meet its own forecasts? Like all incompetents promoted beyond their abilities they are floundering around trying to look busy and hoping that it will all somehow come right in the end. This is the where twenty years of neo-liberalism has brought us; a political class that doesn’t know its arse from its elbow!

    My instinct about this business is that, minor though this virus is in the nature of such things, it is going to do for us here in the UK. If it doesn’t mutate genetically, and that is not unlikely, its effects political and economic will do so and overwhelm us.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/17/british-workers-reject-fruit-picking-jobs-as-romanians-flown-in-coronavirus

    1. Morning Minty. The UK canvas is huge whereas the brains of those paid to daub on ‘solutions’ are so minuscule in comparison they cannot see the bigger picture. Worse still they belong to different schools which is why the resultant mess always turns out to be a load of Jackson Pollocks and not a true Constable.

        1. Is that Dick of the Yard explaining her understanding of 2m separation? She should stick to what she’s good at, or are there no longer any Brazilian electricians left in London to gun down?

    1. But the danger is that when you go to hospital they will only see your age, and mark you as “severely frail” – and who is going to point out that that is not true?

    2. “Symptoms of mild dementia… repeating the same question/story” Obviously they have met ogga1 and Polly Parrot!

      1. One of the first questions to diagnose dementia is Who is the Prime Minister?
        Now who would that be?

    5. I come out as 1 on that scale – or I did until I was locked down and can’t go riding any more. I find it hard to get motivated and am rapidly becoming lethargic.

  5. For impoverished NoTTLers but no comments allowed

    Now is the time for us to beat back China and renew the international order
    CHARLES MOORE – 17 APRIL 2020 • 9:30PM

    Since taking power in 2012 Xi Jinping has presided over a more aggressive foreign policy

    The website of the China Centre at Jesus College, Cambridge, says this: “Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China since 1978, [China] has experienced an extraordinary transformation under the policy of ‘Reform and Opening Up’. China’s national rejuvenation is returning the country to the position within the global political economy that it occupied before the 19th century.”

    Odd words for an academic project in a great university. They read more like propaganda than independent scholarship. Imagine if there were a “Britain Centre” in a Beijing university whose website said: “Under the leadership of the Conservative Party since 1979, Britain has experienced an extraordinary transformation…” Imagine the (justified) howls about its bias. I shall return to the embarrassing readiness of British institutions and individuals to take the Chinese Communist Party at its own valuation, but first let us look at Jesus College’s assertion in the light of Covid-19.

    In a sense, its historical summary is correct. Ever since Deng Xiaoping threw off the extremes of Maoism in 1978, China has pursued a policy of learning from Western capitalism how to get rich. On the whole, the West welcomed this, believing China would converge with us. To some extent, despite the massacres in Tiananmen Square in 1989, it did.

    In 2012, however, Xi Jinping came to power, reversed the more collegiate approach to leadership and reasserted the absolute dominance of the Communist Party, of which he is general secretary. He also became the President of China, and got rid of term limits. His personality cult started to produce interminable books of “Xi Jinping Thought” which are supposed to guide the nation. He crushed dissidents and jailed party rivals.

    Deng Xiaoping’s approach was that China should keep its head below the parapet, creeping up on the West rather than challenging it. Xi broke this rule. Conspicuous and aggressive, China’s diplomats became styled as “Wolf Warriors” by Xi supporters. He boasted of China’s ambitious 2030 programme for 5G and of his One Belt, One Road initiative for the economic (and therefore political) dominance of Eurasia and Africa. He showed hubris.

    The world began to notice. It came to see China less as a friendly neighbour, and more as a threat and – in areas such as intellectual property and cybersecurity – a thief. The most important objector was Donald Trump, who challenged China’s power-grab and correctly calculated that it could not afford to fight America to the death on trade. This weakened Xi (though it may well have weakened America too).

    Next, in March 2019, began the demonstrations in Hong Kong. Their suppression reminded the world of the Chinese Communist Party’s violent hatred of democracy. The Hong Kong protests had an even more damaging effect for Xi at home. He had declared that the “problem” of Taiwan could not be left to future generations. His enticement to Taiwan to end the split with mainland China was that it could become like Hong Kong – benefiting from the “One Country: Two Systems” concept negotiated with Britain. But events in Hong Kong showed that China does not respect One Country: Two Systems. So, Taiwan has turned against reunification. Xi has lost face at home. His only remaining way to get Taiwan back is to invade. Will he dare?

    Then came the virus. Xi’s suppression of the facts about the Wuhan outbreak created the biggest explosion of scorn on Chinese social media ever known, and the explosion of the disease itself. After quite a long disappearance in January, he came roaring back, with propaganda claims that China was saving the world and the US Army had concocted the virus anyway. But the virus spread across the planet: the planet knows where it came from. We can now see that the secrecy, mendacity and incompetence of the Chinese Communist Party have made the world ill. This is a literal truth, and also a metaphor for the current role of such a power in the world order.

    So what on earth (earth is the right word, because it matters everywhere) are we to do about it? It seems worth pointing out, lest we be ruled by fear alone, that what has happened is as great a disaster for China as for us. China’s “national rejuvenation” (© Jesus College), has, in economic terms, halted, as yesterday’s GNP figure proved. In reputational terms, it has collapsed.

    It was only when Russia tried to poison the Skripals that we woke up to exactly how appallingly Vladimir Putin was behaving. The Chinese Communist Party has infected hundreds of thousands of people across the globe. We must believe that this was not deliberate, but we can suggest that, without its behaviour, it would not have happened.

    All the elements China had to learn from us to achieve economic success – laws of contract, media accountability, Western-style higher education, privacy and property rights, a liberal trading order – have been deeply damaged by a ruthless, dishonest state intervention that has led to mass death.

    Who now, in Western business, academia, media etc will feel easy about selling China bits of the action? Even greedy Western universities will surely notice that uncritical acceptance of Chinese money threatens their academic standing. Incredibly, as late as this week, figures including Lord Browne of Madingley (ex-BP boss) and Sir Andrew Cahn (ex-UK Trade and Investment chief executive) welcomed Sir Mike Rake (ex-BT boss) as he joined them – all three, by the way, fervent Remainers – on the board of Huawei UK. One savours Lord Browne’s choice of phrase as he welcomed Sir Mike: “The current global crisis has demonstrated the importance of world-leading connectivity.” Yes, but perhaps not quite in the way he means.

    The World Health Organisation, led by Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has been criticised for its deference towards China
    The West’s natural reaction might understandably be Trumpian. The President has an imminent election to win. Anti-China feeling in the United States is fiercer than it has ever been, so he is more than happy to own it. He is not very good at governing, but he is excellent at campaigning, and that is what he is doing right now.

    Dare one suggest, however, that this may not be the best way to go? Take the World Health Organisation (WHO). Mr Trump is right that its deference to China made it criminally slow to warn of the virus. Its director-general is a former Ethiopian health minister whose country is close to Beijing. But is it sensible suddenly to pull US funding, leaving China to fill the gap? Better, surely, for the US to warn the WHO that it will lose the money unless it shapes up, and insist on putting in proper doctors to put things right.

    Better, more generally, to explain to the Chinese party leaders – who are not, whatever else may be said about them, stupid – that they have to rebuild trust all over again if they are to reclaim the pre-19th Century “position within the global political economy” of which the Jesus College website boasts. Is it not better, in short, for the West to use the current weaknesses of the international order to lead the reshaping of that order rather than to retreat into isolation?

    Funnily enough, I can see only one national leader who is committed to a rules-based order but untainted by the failings of the present one. He runs a country with a strong tradition in such matters. Currently, he is recuperating at Chequers.

    1. This is the purest waffle. China pays not the slightest attention to the UK except to slap it down when it gets out of line!

      1. ‘Morning, Minty. Not sure it’s as simple as that. In 2018 our trade deficit with China was £-22.1bn. Our imports from China in the same year totalled £44.7bn, a not inconsiderable sum and one which, I imagine, they would not want to ignore. (I suspect that the figures for 2019 are at least the same if not greater.)

    2. But is it sensible suddenly to pull US funding, leaving China to fill the gap?

      This is an odd statement from Moore. From recent events it’s clear that China has a large measure of control/influence over the WHO without directly paying for it. Better that they pay the full price and control the WHO while the civilised World sets up a corruption free organisation that does the job it is set up to do i.e. advise its members on health issues rather than playing power politics with the World’s health.

    3. I hope Boris has read this.

      Will he pull out of Huawei? Will he get British Steel back? What about the new Hinckley nuclear power station?

      Will there be a big reorganisation of the NHS?

        1. They’ve already taken advantage of his absence and announced it will continue. They’ll justify it as investment in infrastructure.

  6. Government figures reveal far more EU migrants in UK than previously thought. 17 April 2020.

    The number of EU citizens in the UK has been massively underestimated by the Home Office by up to 55 per cent, according to figures for applications to the EU settlement scheme.

    The data shows the number of applications from Bulgarians to the EU settlement scheme to continue to live in the UK after Brexit was 155 per cent of the actual estimated number of Bulgarians living in the UK.

    For Romanians, there were 119 per cent more applications than the Home Office has estimated are actually living in the UK, while for Italians, it was 115 per cent, Spanish 111 per cent, Hungarians 107 per cent and Slovakians 103 per cent.

    And the rest!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/17/government-figures-reveal-far-eu-migrants-uk-previously-thought/

    1. ‘Morning Minty,

      “ The migration observatory believes the wrong estimate could be undercounted through the Labour Force Survey (LFS) which does not include people living in multiple occupancy houses, caravan parks or dormitories.”

      Whoever thought that a wrong estimate would result from not counting people who live in the very type of place that new immigrants (and single males) tend to live.

      Completely surprise to me as I am sure it is to all NoTTLers…not.

    2. Confirms what a useless bunch of number-fudging lefties are employed at all levels of the Home Office. They’ll never implement what Priti tells them to do.

  7. I have been told that every single member of the SAGE committee draws all income from the public purse. Not one iota of commercial experience or nous between them.

  8. I just read that most fish species in the Bay of Bengal are being driven to extinction by large industrial trawler fleets run by global companies.

    Their managers bought up quota concessions, which are applied against the small local fishing fleets. Any attempts by Government to restore order, preserve stocks and the livelihoods of locals is met by lawsuits from the companies suing governments for loss of profit under trade deals stitched up way over the heads of the local governments.

    I ask – is the law there to protect us or is it there to destroy us?

    1. 318268+ up ticks,
      Morning JM,
      Carry on with our governance parties limited damage to
      brussels campaign and it will not be our concern, as with many other issues.

    2. Once more and in every aspect, coporate greed is out to destroy the planet.
      When will our useless political classes understand what is happening ?

  9. Morning

    SIR – I am worried by the apparent ease with which we could slip into becoming a police state. All that is needed is the acceptance that what the police are doing is “for our own good”.

    Mike Thomas

    Everton, Hampshire

    SIR – Listening to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge advising us on our mental health after four weeks of lockdown made me, for the first time, consider the plight of my mother during the war.

    She was evacuated, with me as a baby, to a tiny village in rural Hertfordshire. She knew nobody, of course; there was no television, no telephone, no electricity. Food was scarce and supplies unreliable, and the fear of invasion permanent. Most of that time she had no knowledge of where my father was fighting during the war, or even if he was still alive.

    And this went on for almost five years.

    Nina Keay

    West Molesey, Surrey

    SIR – I begin to wonder whether the nation is having an extended “Diana moment”. There are certain similarities.

    The whole world has come together at the shock and sadness of death. There is a protracted period of grief, often personalised by the media. The Queen has sent a sincere message. The Prime Minister or his deputy speaks solemnly to us each day.

    There are conspiracy theories, and there is growing anger, as we look for someone to blame.

    Instead of a mountain of flowers, money is being donated.

    Christine Whild

    Marcham, Oxfordshire

  10. Morning again

    SIR – I am 76 and the sole carer for my 97-year-old mother, who lives alone in a one-bedroom flat. She manages well, but needs help washing her hair, cutting her nails and preparing food.

    It must be better to go on travelling eight miles three times a week to help her rather than to ask staff in the care system to take on an extra person. They visit many patients, but I keep my mother safe by only visiting her.

    Ann Tomline

    Oxford

    SIR – My wife’s doctor told her to self-isolate. She and I are in our late seventies, but are not on a government list, and find it impossible to get a delivery slot. Sainsbury’s, with whom we have shopped for seven years, will not let me past its first website page. We had one delivery from Tesco, but cannot get another for three weeks.

    Yet, I see neighbours of working age get deliveries more than once a week from several providers. I guess we are just not tech-savvy enough to compete in the Wild West of deliveries.

    Nick Davies

    Norton, Kent

    SIR – I am in self-isolation and cannot get food delivered from a supermarket. But it is offering to deliver pet food, including wild-bird feed, regularly.

    Ann Acres

    Caversham, Berkshire

    1. To the 2 Anns and Nick, bugger the self-isolation and just go to a shop or supermarket for supplies once a week whilst taking as many precautions as possible.

      1. Most, if not all, supermarkets are offering an oldies only hour between 8.30 and 9.30 on certain days. In the same way they are offering an NHS only hour on other days.

      2. Morning Mola, instead of writing pointless letters to the DT they could be using a bit of common sense and going to a supermarket. That’s presuming they have no family or neighbours to help out.

        1. All the supermarkets I have visited have social distancing in place – marked lines for the queues, one-way systems and lines 6′ apart for the queue for the checkout. If they really feel it’s dangerous to go out they could wear a mask and take hand sanitiser (or just a bottle of whisky if they can’t get gel ).

      3. I found going shopping yesterday evening was a good time – no queues, few people and well stocked ready for Saturday.

  11. Good morning all – dreary damp start to the day and the weather is not much better.

    Still, it is the MR’s birthday and we’ll celebrate by eating some of the venison that my dear elder son and his darling wife sent us (to keep the wolf from the door, they said).

    Good prog on PBS America about six doughty ladies who survived Auschwitz. Worth seeing if you can find it. No sub-titles, though

  12. SIR – I have an up-to-date DBS check and should have been easy to get operational for the NHS Volunteer Responder scheme. I was rejected, apparently because they couldn’t verify my identity. I suspect that somewhere I had used the shortened form of my first name. An email could have sorted that out immediately. If they reopen applications, I can apply again. I doubt I’ll be bothering.

    Jenny Furness

    Doncaster, South Yorkshire

    1. The morris side I once belonged to passed a policy of refusing any approach from young people because few of us would accept the intrusions, injustice and prejudices set up by the DBS Enhanced check. For that, hearsay and malicious rumour is admissible as evidence, and that any judgements made would effectively blacklist someone for life, and set up a whispering campaign that is impossible to defend oneself against. The only appeal mechanism is at the individual’s expense through the High Court, and which is based on the word of the police against the word of a suspect.

      I walked out of my church in 2018 over the application of these rules, and nearly did so from my choir when it adopted a “Safeguarding Policy”.

      I suppose they believe children and vulnerable adults are better protected in their bedrooms on their smartphones than engaging with adult cultural activity.

        1. Madcap (Mixed Festival Side, Border, Cotswold & Molly) 1992-2019
          Old Meg (Mixed Northwest) 2000-2010
          Beacon (Mixed Border) 1994-1996
          Old Wonder (Men’s Border) 1986-1988
          Knockhundred Shuttles (Twin Northwest) 1984-1986
          Beaux of London City (Men’s Cotswold) 1975-1976

      2. I know of a supply teacher who can get work from at least 4 council areas i.e.4 different education departments.
        This required 4 x Enhanced Checks and if they had no employment in 1 council area say for 12 mths
        then a new check was needed.
        A person I know was a deputy head in s secondary school – 40 years and the last 25 in a one school.
        He joined the Supply List, as Maths has shortages – he had to get and enhanced check as a “new employee”

        1. Insanity. And of course, they will never point the finger of blame for the explosion in sexual abuse where it belongs – at the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s.

        2. From what I recall, it was the appalling Soham Murders that began these criminal record checks, yet I remember comments that, had proper checks under the law that existed at the time been carried out, Ian Huntley would never have been given the job that led to the murders.
          So yet again the British Public are messed about and inconvenienced because public employees are unable to do their jobs correctly.

    2. I know how you feel, Jenny Furness. I signed up quite early on, and certainly before the target of 250,000 had been reached. And then….nothing. No email to confirm or reject, and the app refuses to connect to my details. Have tried several times to obtain acceptance or rejection, no joy. Task abandoned.

      1. How frustrating! I managed to get signed up but despite marking myself as on duty for most of the time have never been asked to do a thing.

  14. ‘Morning all.

    Raining steadily at last. It was raining when I jumped out for a pee at 6 am.

      1. Saw something small, brown and tail-less scoot across my garden path this morning. Have no idea what it was, but I doubt it was a weasel.

    1. You’re about an hour late, Wm. (see below)

      Does this depict you with the ever tolerant and saintly MR at Fulmodeston Castle?

  20. Did you ever experience a wart or pimple, a minor irritation that repeatedly appears from nowhere , an irritant that you valiantly try to ignore but can’t help scratching , has no obvious benefit other than to advertise it’s existence and eventually having caused some discomfort disappears only to re-appear a little later in a slightly different guise? Just asking for a friend

  21. Received by email…

    Only women of a certain era will fully appreciate this…. True story.

    A Michigan woman and her family were vacationing in a small New England town where Paul Newman and his family often visited.
    One Sunday morning, the woman got up early to take a long walk. After a brisk five-mile hike, she decided to treat herself to a double-dip chocolate ice cream cone.
    She hopped in the car, drove to the center of the village and went straight to the combination bakery/ice cream parlor. There was only one other patron in the store: Paul Newman, sitting at the counter having a doughnut and coffee.
    The woman’s heart skipped a beat as her eyes made contact with those famous baby-blue eyes. The actor nodded graciously and the star struck woman smiled demurely. Pull yourself together! She chides herself. You’re a happily married woman with three children, you’re forty-five years old, not a teenager!
    The clerk filled her order and she took the double-dip chocolate ice cream cone in one hand and her change in the other. Then she went out the door, avoiding even a glance in Paul Newman’s direction.
    When she reached her car, she realized that she had a handful of change but her other hand was empty. Where’s my ice cream cone? Did I leave it in the store? Back into the shop she went, expecting to see the cone still in the clerk’s hand or in a holder on the counter or something! No ice cream cone was in sight.
    With that, she happened to look over at Paul Newman. His face broke into his familiar, warm, friendly grin and he said to the woman,

    “You put it in your purse.”

    2. Top BTL – There are some wonderful British institutions. The House of Lords isn’t one of them. JUST GET RID.

      1. It’s strange when labour were last in office they wanted to abolish it. Lord Prescot lord Kinnock lord Mandleson were but three. What a pile of hypocritical has bins
        they turned out to be.

        1. What they had in mind was abolishing it to create in its place a second chamber full of hypocritical ever-tossers like themselves.

        1. I agree. Rather than lose a reforming chamber it would be better to bring back the hereditaries.

          1. Alternatively it could be like jury service – a random selection of the general public called to sit for a set period of time say 3 or 6 months – I think most people would be happy to be compensated £300 per day or whatever it is they get.

    3. Yes, sensible and fair control of their access to the trough. They must be missing the subsidised food and drink too, poor dears.

      Morning, Peddy.

      1. I know a really nice good hearted guy, who due to his former position could and did attend the HoLs, but he’s far too honest to take advantage.
        I often bump into him, I’ll ask next time I see him.

        1. Sounds like my father. He spurned the idea of standing for re-election as a local councillor when expenses became available. He despised those who looked on the expenses as a good reason to become a councillor; he didn’t want to be tarred with the same brush.

          1. Well done him.
            I dislike intensly people who use the expenses system to their advantage. They are liable to accept ‘bungs’ and seemingly do from building companies, to approve planning applications.

            This chap I know however was a man ‘of the cloth’.

          2. My father was ‘chapel’ from North Wales and his father was a well known preacher in that area, including in Cheshire, as my brother discovered.

          3. The Cabinet system of local government (step forward T. Blair) has created a cosy little cabal that leaves most councillors twiddling their thumbs.

          4. From what i once read, I understood that he and his old flatmate made significant alterations to the Treason laws.
            It might be how he was able to get away with so much.

      2. ‘Morning, Korky.

        Perhaps they charge home-delivered take-aways to expenses?

    4. ‘Morning Peddy. A hard culling of the HoL membership is well past its due date. Perhaps kicking out all those that want to claim the daily attendance allowance, whilst sat at home, would be a good place to start.

      I am shocked by their attitude, for years and years we have been told that MPs/Lords are underpaid and that They only do the job out of a sense of honour and duty to Great Britain and its peoples.

    3. Dick – That’s it everyone, move in closer, we have to make it look like there are more of us here for the cameras.

        1. Did that mayor fellow have something to do with her appointment? He’s a dwarf too, I gather.

    4. No photo-op is ever too demeaning for her, and if it can be incorporated with plenty of VS then job done!

      ‘Morning, Bill.

          1. Morning, Willum.
            I wish it was a wet morning here. Just dull and cold. Not exactly mood lightning.
            Are you doing a special birthday meal for MR?

          2. Venison – supplied by elder son. The MR will cook. As usual.

            No one would want to eat what I can cook…

          4. Ackshally, I can do a good daube – and, believe it or not (and I find it hard to believe it, sometimes) I did do a three month course at the Cordon Bleu School of Cookery – run by a young woman in an apron called Prue…..(dunno what happened to her…)

            That was in 1965…..

  24. I am astounded by the apparent willingness (according to suspect polls) of the GBP to accept the current lockdown and its continuance for at least a further three weeks

    Speccie – Katy Balls
    When will the public accept an end to the lockdown?
    17 April 2020, 4:12pm

    In the weeks leading up to Boris Johnson announcing lockdown measures, ministers and aides wondered how in the world you could enforce a lockdown like the one seen in authoritarian China in a liberal democracy such as the UK. But following Dominic Raab confirmation on Thursday that there will be another three weeks of lockdown, public resistance is the least of ministers’ concerns.

    The biggest surprise about the lockdown within government has been the level of public support for it. Polling has repeatedly shown that rather than fighting the social distancing measures, Britons are embracing them more obediently than anyone in might have dared imagine. A YouGov poll prior to Raab’s announcement found 91 per cent of Brits support extending restrictions for a further three weeks and 67 per cent say they strongly support it. A Kekst CNC survey suggests that Britons are among the most supportive of lockdown measures, with 74 per cent saying they are happy to prioritise limits on personal movement even if it means costs to the economy – compared to 61 per cent in the US – and 54 per cent in Germany and Sweden.

    The lack of public outcry over social distancing is making it easier for ministers to bat away questions over an eventual exit strategy. Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said any such discussion is premature as it could distract from the social distancing measure themselves. While Raab went a little further on Thursday by setting out five tests that must be met for any lockdown easing to occur, the latter two points – adequate PPE and testing and no risk of a second peak – are vague enough that they don’t offer much clarity on when the principles can be described as met.

    Part of the reluctance to have a serious discussion about it – as both Keir Starmer and now Nicola Sturgeon have pushed for – is down to Boris Johnson’s absence. Such a big decision – which will have winners and losers no matter which path is taken – is seen as something only a prime minister can take. But behind the scenes, preliminary conversations have begun in government. While the Treasury has started discussions with the Department for Health on different models for easing the lockdown, several departments are coming up with their own ideas. With no Prime Minister in Downing Street, there is a heavy reliance on scientific advice. However, as one senior government figure says, this can only take the government so far: ‘Behavioural scientists will tell you one thing, epidemiologists another – but in the end it has to be a political decision’.

    But the current support for lockdown means that a key part of any easing will actually be selling it to the public. As one aide puts it: ‘We can tell people they’re allowed to go outside but if they don’t think it’s safe they can just ignore it.’ There are cabinet ministers who wish for the lockdown easing to begin in three weeks but think there is little point pushing too hard if public opinion is so against it.

    Public opinion could change quickly. In the coming weeks, expect more evidence of the general cost to public health of the lockdown – from those not seeking NHS treatment for other illnesses to an expected rise in domestic abuse. The economic hit could also start to be seriously felt. Either way, expect a focus on what can be done to reassure the public when the government eventually says it’s time to get back outside in some form.

    Up until now, the government has been reluctant to advise the use of face masks, in part because it could lead to a consumer demand which would make it harder for health staff to get the PPE they need. Given that step four of Raab’s five point plan involves adequate supplies, face masks could eventually be deployed among the public to ease concerns over public transport.

    Key to any lockdown easing is Johnson. Not just because he is the ultimate decision maker. He’s also the party’s most valued communicator. ‘No one else in the party has anywhere near his cut-through,’ says one member of the government. Johnson’s own experience with coronavirus means that he ought to have an increased level of trust with the public on the issue.

    *********************************************************************************************************

    Katy Hibbert • 16 hours ago
    I wonder who these polls are asking. People in government jobs where the taxpayer always coughs up, so to speak? Wealthy people with huge gardens and well-stocked wine cellars who like the idea of locking up the riff raff?

  25. I must be getting wicked but when I heard the BBC say that graduates would have to spend years in low paid work after the pandemic is over I felt rather pleased for some reason

    1. Except they will not be required to pay back their student loans so that’ll be more money lost to the Treasury.
      Threshold salary atm before they have to start repayments is £26K

  26. There are bits of blue and high cloud here, but we only got .3mm of rain between 11 and 12 last night and none since. I’m going to have to start watering again…

      1. Not really. It’s Chinese, as they all are. It’s just that the little cups that tip over, empty, and trigger the computer to record the amount, convert to 0.3mm for each little cup full. This would be one cupful.

        1. Isn’t anything under 1mm merely condensation?!

          Anyway, here in sunny Northants, our two nearest stations have recorded 8 and 10 this morning.

          3. It could be, and it could be that the cup was already nearly full from a week+ ago and needed less than .3mm to tip. But it’s automatic, and I don’t have to go out to measure a rain gauge every day. Clearly, the more rain, the more accurate it gets!

    3. metoo.

      The drizzle for two hours has barely dampened the surface – I am hoping for some more in an hour or so, but am beginning to hae me doots.

  27. Back to bed for some Zs. There’s nothing to watch outside because it has stopped raining.

    I lay awake most of the night because I had a portion of Colombian coffee ice cream which tasted really good but the effect was like having a couple of double espressos.

  28. Enrichment ongoing………………….

    “Police said they found a “disturbing scene” with a large amount of

    blood on a driveway in Arleston, Telford, while responding to another

    call.

    Inside they said they found three sheep “in a very poor state of health” with one already dead.

    The force said it is now urging people to report suspicious sales of meat.

    A spokesman for the force said: “The discovery was made at around 9.15pm

    last night when officers responded to reports of a collision with a dog

    on Elmwood Road.

    “As part of their associated enquiries officers

    attended an address in Charles Road where they discovered a disturbing

    scene with a large amount of blood on the driveway. Inside they

    discovered three sheep in a very poor state of health and one already

    sadly dead.”

    https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/crime/2020/04/17/seven-arrests-in-illegal-abattoir-investigation/
    I note this was only stumbled across by accident,did no neighbours notice the rivers of blood?? Or the stench??
    Or is the area so “Diverse” nobody cares??

      1. By which time the meat will be nicely hung.
        I wonder if the police paid any attention to a farmer complaining that his sheep were being stolen?

          2. “Fatima, stop that washing and rustle me up some mutton, you lazy bint, or I’ll divorce you get the other three on the job!”

    2. Silly boy.

      Someone did report it.

      The police went to arrest them for a hate crime, but in the face of overwhelming evidence that it was the truth, not a hate crime, they had to investigate.

    4. Telford ? Didn’t they have a problem with sexual abuse against children.
      Perhaps the silence of the lambs were part of another local ritual.

    8. My guess is they were all of the same persuasion – Telford ranks alongside Luton and Bradford for grooming offences.

    9. Did they arrest the householder for animal cruelty or just accept that it is cultural differences?

  30. Your Daily Betrayal

    “NHS leaders have

    quietly instructed doctors to lower their targets for how much oxygen

    seriously ill patients should carry in their blood – a measure of

    fundamental health – to below levels regarded as “adequate”. The new

    guidance was sent to hospital bosses earlier this month, days after a

    trust near London declared a critical incident because the demand for

    oxygen from Covid-19 patients caused pressure to fail. […] On April 9

    officials told trusts that in order to reserve the medical gas for those

    who need it most, trusts should downgrade their oxygen saturation

    targets.” (link)

    Administrators forcing doctors

    to make clinical decisions detrimental to patient safety in order to

    cover up their failures … ! That, dear friends, is how ‘Our NHS’ is

    managed, that is the organisation for which the Nation indulges in

    well-videoed clapathons, for which ordinary citizens raise funds right

    now. If there is one inquiry which must take place, it’s into the way ‘Our Sacred Cow’ is being administered.

    If the country is now run by scientists anyway

    isn’t it time they and we ask how come non-medical administrators can

    tell doctors about taking clinical decisions to cover up their own

    ineptitude, to the detriment of the lives of us peasants once we’ve

    become patients? ‘Us not to reason why …’, is it?

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-betrayal-18th-april-2020-29th-covid-19-pandemic-special-day-26-of-lockdown-britain/

    2. I read that this change in guidelines was because they are getting coronavirus patients who have much lower than expected oxygen, but are still functioning much better than pneumonia patients with similar oxygen levels.
      (I have a very low opinion of NHS admin, but they may not be so far off track here).

    1. Interesting article. I know next to nothing about ventilators, other than they don’t seem terribly successful with C19. It’s chicken and egg; by the time ventilators are used is it too late for many patients, or does the actual procedure place too much strain on a vastly weakened body? Many of the patients are elderly with several long term ailments, so their aged systems would probably not take too kindly to such drastic measures.
      Heavy sedation would not really help matters, but, given how invasive the treatment is, it would seem to be the only option.

    4. A guy who was a chef at the Village Restaurant on Richmond hill, Black Sam, was caught smuggling a sheep up to his top floor flat and the police were called. He’d rustled it from Richmond Park. We didn’t know anything about Muslims back then.

        2. What, to Oz, with more sheep than people? Well, he still worked in the restaurant’s kitchen after the incident, but took some ribbing.

          4. Heard in the outback “Are you going to shear that sheep?”……..”No, you can find your own”

        1. They wouldn’t get away with it now, wasn’t there a culturally appropriated ‘Red Indian’ amongst them?

        2. ♫ “In the Navy, you can live the life you choose
          In the Navy, you can screw a lot of ewes …. ” ♫

          1. At the time I was so naive that I thought it was just a way of being noticed, homosexuality aspects didn’t enter the equation.

          2. It was just a way to be noticed. They were a 70’s disco dance band from New York. The gay reputation came about because the red indian in costume was seen by the press dancing in a gay bar.

      3. Yo mo

        heritage will always show through

        he may have left Cardiff:- Cardiff did not leave him

  34. Hello folks.

    Hope you are all well.

    Much needed rain here to make the grass grow but this lockdown nonsense is getting tedious.

    1. Good morning to lucky you. All we’ve received are vague promises and a few spots on the ground. I’ve been watering my fruit bushes etc for almost a month.

  36. SIR – A Cabinet minister (report, April 15) told The Daily Telegraph: “It looks like elderly and vulnerable people are going to be self-isolating for six months rather than three.”

    Jaqui Taugwalder-Hill (Letters, April 16) fears that fit people over 70, such as she, will be expected to self-isolate indefinitely. My husband and I are in this position. We own and run substantial businesses involving many jobs, and I have a separate profession in the arts.

    We belong to a vast group of people who appear to be about to be tidied away by scientists and politicians who can only see statistics. The prospect of this is, to us, far more frightening than catching or even succumbing to a disease or accident.

    Older people will not just be expected to self-isolate for six months; we are being threatened with extended, legally enforceable house-arrest. We are told to disappear because we’re a health hazard and courageous NHS staff cannot cope with us clogging up the system. Watching the reckless deconstruction of our economy and society, for a large part built and funded by the over-70s, is bad enough. Far worse is to see that personal liberty has come to mean nothing.

    Victoria Edge
    Farningham, Kent

    Wafch out Boriis….we won’t be voting for you if you bugger us about.

    1. ‘Morning Citroen, why do the DT keep publishing these “me, me, me, I’m different/special”

      The majority of 70+ people in this country are not like the Hedges so need to heed the Government advice. They are not being threatened with ‘house arrest’.

      1. I may not be part of a majority, hoppy, but I feel as though I’m being threatened with house arrest. I may be over 70, but I am fit – or I was until my regular exercise on top of walking and running the hills was stopped. Then there was my busy social life – ground to a halt.

          1. Pets are supposed to reduce stress, aren’t they? Mind you, I am a dog person (although I quite like cats and they certainly like me). I haven’t had a cat since I was a child and we kept losing them to traffic because they would insist on crossing a very busy road to go hunting in the churchyard opposite.

          2. I’ve always had cats – and Lily is a rescue who came to live here last August. She’s sweet-natured and 12+. She did forgive me for snapping at her. My mum had a dog – he died when I was about seven. We didn’t have another, as she was working full time by then.

          3. We had a dog when I was a child, but then when he had to be put to sleep we didn’t have another (I don’t think my parents were keen, to be honest; it had been my brother’s dog). I didn’t have another dog until I was an adult, married, working and settled. Since then I have only been without a dog for four months – and they were the most miserable four months I had experienced since I’d taken the plunge to get into dog ownership.

          4. We’ve never been very long without a cat (or two) but Lily is the first time we’ve taken in an older cat. For 10 days or so she was very quiet and shy, but since then she’s become much more communicative and assertive, though not quite as bossy as Suzie was.

            Suzie disappeared one evening almost a year ago – she was 17. The house was terribly empty without her. When we read in our local rescue’s newsletter that Lily needed a home, we didn’t need to think twice. We don’t let her go out in the dark, and she’s never been used to using a cat flap.

  38. 318268+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    It does seem to me to be pointless testing all the time one incoming unit
    is allowed to come in via the beach or airport.
    Surely security of borders is top of the menu regarding the welfare of the
    peoples within.

    1. Surely security of borders is top of the menu regarding the welfare of the peoples within.

      Not here Oggy! The opposite pertains!

      1. 318268+ up ticks,
        Morning AS,
        As shown quite clearly by the odious attitude towards the supporter / voters of the governance parties, shown right up until the
        “rhetorically nice manifesto period”, just prior to the GE.
        The lab/lib/con coalition party
        manifesto’s = addictive mana for fools.

      2. “Surely security of borders is top of the menu regarding the welfare of the peoples within.”

        Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

  40. NoTTLers will recognise the hand…

    BTL@DTletters

    Donnchadh a’ Ghlinne
    18 Apr 2020 10:14AM

    Mike Thomas is not alone in in having concerns about the ease into which Britain appears to be slipping into a police state.

    Many videos are available online which show shocking and unlawful abuse of their new powers by the police, and the relish with which they try to enforce them. The open encouragement of a network of informers is reminiscent of the tactics used by the late unlamented East German Stasi and now police chiefs are demanding new rights to enter private premises BY FORCE to “check on the number of people there present”.

    The infiltration of the top hierarchy of the police by Common Purpose graduates – started under the Blair Government – has resulted in the entirely wrong sort of people being recruited to the police, while the thuggish elements that already existed have been promoted to positions of junior command. The wearing of paramilitary uniforms has had a negative effect too. It seems to empower the bully-boys (and girls), giving them a feeling of absolute dominance and it installs in the public a feeling of fear.

    Wake up Britain! George Orwell’s vision of a dystopian future is fast becoming our reality. A boot stamping on the human face – forever.

    1. The game’s afoot:
      Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
      Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’

          7. That’s a view most people don’t get to see, taken from the east and looking from the coastal dunes across the ‘Old Waters’, which is a tidal saltmarsh that used to be the original course of the river to the sea until a ‘great storm’ in the 18th Century breached the dunes and formed a new river mouth at what is now Amble.

          8. I’ve been to Amble, too (on a separate occasion). I spent a week there and never saw any of it due to a sea fret!

          9. A hazard of the area, I’m afraid. The number of times, particulary in early summer I’ve fumed at the media going on about a heatwave over the country while sitting in a curtain of dense fog hugging the coast. Often it’ll be the first fine day of said heatwave, then in the afternoon you notice that objects along the beach are taking on a soft-focus effect. colours soften, then the curtain of grey rolls in from the sea, the foghorn on Coquet Island fires up and that’s the local heatwave over.

          10. The last time I experience that was a Saltburn Festival weekend.
            Radio news waffling on about the gorgeous weekend for the country, never once mentioning that a 3 mile strip of the coast was swathed in a sea fret.

          12. Can’t be true, there were no storms until they invented man made climate change.

          13. Only a few years later, in 1806 the same thing happened in another ‘great storm’ with the mouth of the River Aln, only three miles to the north. Land that was once on the north side of the river and part of the village of Alnmouth is now on the south side of the river, with a large tidal saltmarsh remaining as evidence of the old river course.

            There was a lot of climate about in those days.

          15. I hope you don’t mind, Bass, if I download that picture and use it in the book I’m writing of History Down The Ages – a history (where I can find it) of each person in my tree – all 53 generations.

          16. For the avoidance of doubt, the uptick I gave earlier signifies approval. 🙂 Good luck.

          21. That Hotspur (1364 – 1403) is in my family tree, married to Elizabeth de Mortimer (1371 – 1417) around but not before 1380 – they married the girls young in those days

    2. 318268+ up ticks,
      Morning C,
      Then may I welcome the likes of micky & co to the realms of the enlightened, I would say approx. 28 years late, better late than never.
      But being a REAL UKIP member I would say that wooden eye.

    3. Looks like a jolly sound chap to me, Citroen, I shall most certainly keep my eye out for his comments in the future.
      ;¬)

      1. He might well be a jolly chap, but his finger is evidently on the pulse.

        I was looking at the photograph of that creature who runs London police on the front page of this morning’s DT as she was surrounded by dozens of her staff. It occurred to me that not one single individual on that photograph would have passed the police recruitment procedure forty years ago or at any time back from then to 1829.

        2. Many looked as if they would prefer to sit on a verticle truncheon rather than wield one.

        1. Write out one hundred times:

          “I must learn the difference between Gàidhlig and Gaeilge”

  41. We keep on being told to max the dog but not how to do it..

    Is it by overfeeding and encouraging bloating ?

    Throwing sticks a long way ?

    A lot of walkies ?

    I think we should be told.

    1. 318268+ up ticks,
      Morning PP,
      Maybe neutering would help ?
      It would definitely help within the political field.

      1. 318268+ up ticks,
        O20,
        This clinical suggestion should also be applied to
        certain self confessing midgets of the atg calibre.
        On reaching the height of a mirror & obtaining
        mirror image confess I am A…….. scroat.

  42. Excerpt from Unherd;

    https://unherd.com/2020/04/what-will-you-do-when-lockdown-is-lifted/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3

    “Introduce my children to Old England

    Niall Gooch

    I can’t wait to get back to dragging my children round old stones in fields.

    One chilly afternoon in January, in those far-off days when a disease outbreak in provincial China was the third-listed story in the foreign news section, I was sitting amid the ruins of St Augustine’s Priory in Canterbury with my two small children, trying to explain the Dissolution of the Monasteries. My account must have made some impact: on the train home my three-year-old daughter announced that on Monday she would tell her nursery teacher that Henry VIII was bad because he wouldn’t let people go to Mass.

    I don’t know how much they took in at St Augustine’s. They liked the clever animation showing its centuries-long development from simple Romanesque chapel c.600 to vast medieval monastic complex with huge Gothic priory church and one of the finest scriptoriums in Europe. However, they did not seem to share my excitement about the graves of the early archbishops of Canterbury. Perhaps that will come.

    Before coronavirus, I had intended the Priory to be the first instalment of a busy year of historical visiting. Having fulfilled the middle-class stereotype and left London for rural Kent in my mid-30s, last autumn I leaned into early middle age and bought an English Heritage membership.

    We are now within striking range of several important sites, including a Roman fort, and my children are of an age where they can begin to understand Our Island Story. One of the gifts I‘ve always wanted to give them is to know that they are, so to speak, from Somewhere.

    I’d like to help them to understand that this is an old country; to know that to be born in England is to be born into a magnificent, sprawling, globally important saga, and a rich heritage of art, architecture, language and landscape. I want them to be able to look at Dover Castle or HMS Victory or a Jacobean manor house and to know that it is in some sense theirs, a part of who they are.

    When I tweeted pictures of the children at St Augustine’s, a Twitter friend commented “What a privilege to grow up and play in the midst of such deep history”. That captures my feelings exactly, and I’m looking forward to showing them Old England up close when the current unpleasantness has passed.”

  43. Morning all 😕
    And inactive people are now demanding 320 odd pounds a day for ‘working’ from home. Politicians have given themselves 10 thousand pounds for ‘working’ from home. Meanwhile thousands people have lost their lively hoods and are suffering from lockdown. Who the hell do the ‘political classes’ think they actually are ?
    I hate to think that useless labour back benchers and all the other do nothings are stealing money from the UK taxpayer, again.

      2. Dull here in N Essex with a few spots of wet stuff appearing on the patio. We need some serious rain here; went for a walk the other day and the fields of the archaeological park I walked were rock hard and the bridle way was very dusty. Plenty of larks in the fields, though.

    1. Oh!!..No there aren’t, there are 2753 holes!

      Are you short sighted or summat?

      :-))..Good morning, Rik.

      1. Good morning, Garlands.

        I love the word “summat”. It is much underused and must be brought back. 👍🏻😊

  46. Questions have been raised if you can or cannot wash your car during the lockdown.

    Using your car for non-essential travel is forbidden and many car-related services have shut down, including car washes.

    That has left many drivers questioning whether they can still wash their car during lockdown, either to keep it in good condition or simply to keep themselves occupied.

    Can you wash your car during lockdown?

    Following the Government’s instructions precisely means that you should not be washing your car.

    It states simply that you should “only go outside for food, health reasons or work (but only if you cannot work from home)”. So spending an hour or two outside polishing your car doesn’t count.

    Addressing the issue on Good Morning Britain, Dr Hilary Jones told presenter Piers Morgan that car owners should not be thinking about cleaning their vehicles at the moment except for safety reasons.

    Morgan asked: “Can I wash my Aston Martin in the street? The windows are all getting filthy, and I have to drive myself to work. And I can imagine there are a lot of people out there who are driving, not an Aston Martin, but vans, lorries, whatever.

    “What is the rule, there are no car washes open, are you allowed, under Government guidelines, to wash your car?”

    Essential use only

    Dr Jones said: “Washing your car is non-essential, apart from being able to see through the windscreen for safety.”

    So if you have to use your car to carry out essential trips to the shop or to get to work, you can and should ensure all the glass areas and lights are clear.

    However, pampering your car with a full wash, wax and detail isn’t necessary during the current climate.

    If you need to use your car, especially if you are a key worker reliant on it for getting to work, you should also ensure that the car is kept germ-free by cleaning all the common touch points inside and out.

    https://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/18388413.washing-car—can-cant-lockdown/

    1. Morning Belle. Non essential travel is not “forbidden”, it is Government advice to avoid making non essential journeys.

    2. There is a DIY car coin-operated car wash near us (well 10 miles away). I used it a week or so ago. No one was there and I rinsed the car. Then someone else came along and we kept well apart. (Oddly, I found myself using sign language instead of speaking normally.). I took the car home and rinsed it again, dried it and applied polish. The weather looks nice today so I’ll maybe do the interior.
      In a normal year I would take the car to the car valet and let them do it all.

    4. Is there a law that specifically says you can’t wash your car? No.

      You can wash your car.

      2. I washed my car on the street last week. It’s a diesel and must be driven in such a way as to clear the exhaust particulate filter. I therefore took it out for a drive this week to warm up the engine then drive it at over 2000 revs to burn off the particulates. I think that is necessary after numbers of short journeys to the local shops. Modern batteries are much more reliable and hold their charge well. The new guidance for the police is that you can drive to your favourite walking spot provided that the driving time there and back is less than the walking time. You are also allowed to have a seat on the walk if you wish and observe the 2 metre rule.

        1. A caveat – I notice the police say the walk must be longer in distance than the drive to the walking place. I am not sure that that is correct but cannot find the document on the internet that was provided to the police for guidance.

    5. Here’s one thought. Many cars will have been sat idle for almost the past month, How many will start up when the owners need them?

      1. For totally different reasons, mine had been sitting idle since mid-March.
        When I shunted her around so MB had a better parking space, she started immediately.
        Let’s hear it for 9 year old German built Noddy cars.

      3. I use mine about once a week to get shopping. It has always started first time so far. It’s petrol. The campervan started first time after several months’ lay off when I took it for its MoT and service. That’s a diesel.

    6. “Can I wash my Aston Martin in the street?

      How the hell do I know what he is capable of doing?

      [I am going to start a campaign to abolish all requests that begin with the phrase ‘can I’.]

    7. If you are washing your car on your own drive there is absolutely NOTHING in the regs that says you can’t do it. Just about everybody here has been washing and polishing their car. One of my neighbours, having already washed his car, was giving it a dust the other day because it had been so dry the car was now dusty!

  48. I nominate myself for the Nottler village idiot award.

    I mentioned recently my financial losses because of the drop the in value of my investments. The shock blinded me and i misplaced the decimal point.

    Sos was right.

      2. Good, because given time i can recover the lost amounts. The larger amount which i thought had been lost would have been irrecoverable within 10 or 15 years.

  49. Good afternoon from a Saxon Queen

    A dull and miserable afternoon, didn’t go out for the daily walk today, couldn’t be bothered,
    maybe I can go for two walks tomorrow instead.

    1. I shouted at my lovely cat today – she got in the way of my laptop. I felt terrible afterwards.

        2. I found out recently that cats can become addicted to tuna.
          Mine certainly love it – I usually drain the water from the tin into a saucer for them.

      3. Cats are inexplicably drawn to keyboards. I have to lock mine out of the room if I’m trying to work.

          2. If that’s the proper name of those pads then I hate them. My hands are too big, too old and too worn out to cope with them. Far too fiddly. As the majority of people seem to be right handed, why are these pads on the left hand side of the laptop? I have a wireless USB mouse plugged in to use and find it brilliant.

          3. #Me too. Mouse for the laptop, I neve touch the pad, which is slightly off-centre to the left.

          4. If you ca learn to use the pad, and shortcut keys on the keyboard, you will find it far more accurate and efficient than taking your hand off the keyboard to put on the mouse to wiggle it around to find the cursor to trying to click in the right place.

            Keep your hands away from the mouse. You’ll thank me once you’re used to it.

          6. Mine’s in the middle of my laptop – I haven’t got big hands but it needs only the lightest touch from one finger to work. I can use either hand but usually the right.

  50. Good afternoon from a Saxon Queen

    A dull and miserable afternoon, didn’t go out for the daily walk today, couldn’t be bothered,
    maybe I can go for two walks tomorrow instead.

  51. Dr Matt Strauss
    Emily Maitlis is wrong: courage is crucial in the fight against coronavirus
    18 April 2020, 8:38am

    As Boris Johnson was being treated in intensive care, Dominic Raab expressed his confidence that the Prime Minister would defeat Covid-19 and return to work because ‘he is a fighter.’ The press howled in opposition to these hopeful words. Things culminated in BBC Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis, disdainfully telling viewers: ‘You do not survive the illness through fortitude or strength of character, whatever the Prime Minister’s colleagues will tell us’. The video clip achieved its intended virality, and was picked up by cable networks around the world. But we need to set the record straight.

    She’s wrong. Medically wrong. Dangerously wrong. As a critical care physician, I can say from both clinical experience and from scientific literature, courage in illness matters. It matters for survival.

    In ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ the Austrian psychiatrist and holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, describes a crystallised behaviour pattern among concentration camp inmates who lost the will to live:

    ‘Something typical occurred: they took out a cigarette from deep down in a pocket where they had hidden it and started smoking. At that moment we knew for the next forty-eight hours or so we would watch them dying.’

    No one blames such people for giving up hope, of course. And obviously, many people who never gave up hope perished all the same. Even so, Frankl observes the converse clearly: every single person who gave up hope died.

    I see the same of patients in the throes of life-threatening illnesses. Sadly, no amount of optimism and pluck will cure terminal conditions like stage IV pancreatic cancer. But with infectious disease, there is some proportion of cases that could go one way or the other. In my experience, if the patient decides to let go of life, they really only go one way and never the other.

    In the year before his death, Coleridge remarked, ‘he is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.’ I sometimes feel like a woolly-eyed mystic healer, telling my patients that spirituality matters. But I don’t mean spirituality in the sense of incense or chanting. Instead it’s about the sense of keeping one’s spirits up. The mind-body connection definitely exists, it’s called the spinal cord (as well as the hormones secreted by the hypothalamus.) One need not resort to unscientific claims about energy meridians to make the case for the salutary effects of high spirits in illness.

    Statistical evidence for the relationship between hope, purpose, and survival abounds. Depressed heart attack patients are four times more likely to die than their non-depressed counterparts. Men who lose their wives are 17 per cent more likely to die in the following five years than men who have not (somewhat awkwardly, the corresponding number was only six per cent for women who lost their husbands.) Homebound elders who report feeling ‘rarely’ hopeful are 50 per cent more likely to die than those who feel ‘often’ hopeful.

    I do not need to know how these relationships work in practise to observe them empirically. Perhaps the patient who will fight for their life is more likely to alert the care team to an important change in their symptoms, or to engage more vigorously with physiotherapy, to eat better, to breath deeper. It could be any of those things, or all of them, or yet some others I haven’t thought of.

    For an illness like Covid-19, where the only real treatment is supplemental oxygen and time, hope and courage are all the more critical. Which brings us to Boris. Can anyone question that the leader of a great nation, in a time of global catastrophe, with a young pregnant partner at home, is going to be anything less than cataclysmically motivated to keep breathing? I do not think the producers of BBC Newsnight can find one critical care physician or nurse who will say that such things don’t matter.

    On my morning run yesterday, I was passed by a man and his teenage son on a tandem bicycle that had been ingeniously modified to accommodate the boy’s significant physical disability. They both pedalled like mad. My heart leapt. Everyone can fight. In my leaping heart of hearts, I don’t believe this plague will take either of them.

    Even if you have not contracted Covid-19 yet, you can start fighting now. Start jogging. If you can’t jog, start walking. Feel the sun on your face. Breathe the wind. Tell your family you love them; they’ll probably tell you the same. You’ll remember their words when tribulation comes.
    *******************************************************************************

    Robbo • 13 minutes ago
    Finally. A well written piece in The Spectator that challenges the lockstep Guardianista view of the MSM, using empirical, experience-based knowledge. The Strauss-Maitless slap-down should become as significant as the DCMO schoollng of that other MSM activist, Robert Peston.
    Whilst keeping the likes of Peston, Balls, Hardman, DePetris (for humour value), would it be possible for the magazine to include more articles like the above – you know, for “balance”?

    1. Totally agree. I suspect most NOTTLers can come up with examples.
      The one I remember best is an elderly man who had had several strokes but – not exactly bounced back – but had resumed his normal life with adjustments.
      Then, overnight, he had a relatively small stroke, but it affected his speech. He had been a solicitor, so clear speaking it mattered to him. He gave up.

    2. Maitlis or is it “mate less”, really is a nasty person.

      “ Things culminated in BBC Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis, disdainfully telling viewers: ‘You do not survive the illness through fortitude or strength of character, whatever the Prime Minister’s colleagues will tell us’.

      When I was in intensive care the surgeon (a very experienced guy) told my partner at one point that I had about 10% chance of survival. He said (paraphrasing here), “It is now up to him, if he is a fighter and fights hard, then he may just pull through”.

      Subsequently I spent another nine weeks in hospital on various critical care wards and you could Visibly watch the rapid deterioration in patients when they stopped battling. Almost like a switch being turned off, despite the best efforts of the nursing staff. There were many tears shed.

    4. That last paragraph is very moving. Sometimes there does comes a point where the body shuts down no matter how hard one tries to fight. But ‘do not go gentle in that good night.’

      Or, we could just listen to the doom-mongers of the Left and shoot ourselves now. No thanks!

  52. The magpies in the garden have been busy collecting twigs and nest building the last few days.

        1. I long for a return to the days when on country roads one would pass a row of dead crows and magpies strung up by a professional gamekeeper to remind others.

          1. Yes, those downvotes are mine.

            I would prefer to see a row of certain dead humans strung up in a similar manner.

          1. They do well because the current environment suits them and there is lots of prey and carrion. Magpies and other crows are among the cleverest of birds.

          2. I must also say that, however much I like cuckoos, their parasitical nature should probably be more abhorrent than a magpie preying on young birds of other species.

  53. Cool and cloudy so far today, but the sun is breaking through and the forecast is for sun for the rest of the day.

    Went and bought some chicken manure pellets this morning and a few lengths of treated timber. Looks like I might do a bit of gardening and knocking-together this afternoon, although a walk isn’t without its attractions.

    We’ll see what I can fit into my hectic schedule.

  54. All the worry about PPE I bet this time next year Attenborough will be finding PPE at the bottom of the Mariana Trench inside a dead whale.

  55. Morning, Campers.
    No comments allowed in the DT on either Charles Moore’s or Toby Young’s article.

    1. A Public Service posting…

      Where has the British love of liberty gone?
      TOBY YOUNG – 18 APRIL 2020 • 6:00AM

      Protests against lockdown are raging in other nations. In the UK, people want even tougher restrictions

      What happened to the British people’s bulldog spirit, our instinctive libertarianism? Judging from how we’ve reacted to the lockdown, we’ve become a nation of authoritarians. Far from rebelling against our liberties being removed, most people are demanding the authorities impose even more draconian measures.

      According to an opinion poll published earlier this week, only six per cent of people think the current restrictions are “too severe”, while 44 per cent think they’re “not severe enough”. This is in spite of the fact that 84 per cent believe they’ll face years of economic hardship as a result of an extended lockdown.

      Contrast this with the reaction in Germany, where a comparable lockdown has been imposed. According to popular mythology, the Germans are pinched and hidebound rule-followers, whereas the British are Rabelaisian freedom lovers. Turns out, that’s not true. Forty-four per cent of Germans are opposed to more severe measures, while 32 per cent want the existing ones to be scaled back.
      +
      In Berlin, hundreds of people took part in an anti-lockdown protest earlier this week – and we’ve seen similar demonstrations in Belgium and across the United States. In Michigan, even the police have joined the rebels, with local sheriffs issuing a statement saying they would not enforce the governor’s stay-at-home orders.

      If only our own police showed the same reluctance to do the bidding of their political masters. Instead, they’ve embraced their new powers and, in some cases, abused them. They’ve sent drones after walkers in the Peak District, arrested people for sunbathing in public parks and set up “hotlines” so wannabe members of the Stasi can dob in their fellow citizens.

      You’d expect journalists to baulk at this assault on our liberties, particularly with politicians telling them they should stop questioning the Government’s handling of the crisis. But, with a few honourable exceptions, many have become zealous lockdown enthusiasts, only criticising the Government for not having placed the British people under house arrest sooner. Those who do ask questions about whether the Government has a strategy for exiting lockdown, meanwhile, are attacked for undermining the national effort.

      I discovered just how unpopular any dissent from the official line is when I wrote an article suggesting the lockdown should be scaled back. I was rounded on, accused of being “irresponsible”.

      Derbyshire Police have been criticised for using drones to capture images like this one of members of the public during lockdown
      I was so shocked by this reaction, I’ve set up a website called Lockdown Sceptics where dissenters can gather to share their reservations. I’ve been amazed by the calibre of the contributors. For instance, I was sent a paper by Mikko Paunio, a key scientific adviser to the Finnish Government, estimating that the infection fatality rate of Covid-19 is around 0.13 per cent – roughly the same as seasonal flu. In spite of his impeccable credentials, as well as the robust evidence he presents, the paper was rejected by various academic journals for being too controversial.

      How can we account for this change in our national character? According to Jonathan Sumption, the former Supreme Court judge, we’ve been frightened into it. “When human societies lose their freedom, it’s not usually because tyrants have taken it away. It’s usually because people willingly surrender their freedom in return for protection against some external threat.”

      No doubt there’s some truth in this, but it doesn’t explain why there’s more support in Britain for limiting our freedom than anywhere else in Europe. It’s particularly mystifying when you consider that countries that have avoided hard lockdowns have recorded fewer deaths per million – Japan (1.2 coronavirus deaths per million), South Korea (4.3), Singapore (1.8) and Taiwan (0.3) – than those that have imposed the most severe restrictions – Spain (397.6), Italy (358.2), France (256.3) and the UK (193.5).

      If we’re worried about the “external threat”, as Lord Sumption claims, why not urge our Government to follow the more laissez-faire approach of the Swedish authorities? Schools, restaurants and bars are still open, and gatherings of up to 50 people are permitted, but deaths per million in Sweden (118) are lower than in the UK.

      Perhaps the answer is that we’re more easily frightened than our European neighbours. It’s tempting to think the feminisation of British culture has left us bereft of manly virtues. We have become men without chests, to use CS Lewis’s phrase. An alternative explanation is that our sense of ourselves as a nation of indomitable warriors has always been vainglorious nonsense. We’ve been able to keep this myth alive because the last successful invasion of Britain was in 1066, but if Hitler hadn’t paused at Dunkirk perhaps we would have fared no better than other conquered European peoples.

      But, I prefer to think it’s a temporary aberration and we will eventually recover our love of freedom. In the meantime, it’s up to the minority of us who still hold fast to Magna Carta to keep the flame of liberty alive.

      1. Interesting that Taiwan is left OUT of the world death rate charts in The Grimes. I was puzzled – then remembered that the awful Murdoch has “interests” in China….

      2. Nice controlled opposition from Toby Young, who completely fails to mention that we currently have two parallel communities running in the UK, one of which is being fined for sitting on benches, and the other one gathers freely with not a police officer in sight.

      3. It’s just like living through the Leave/Remain campaigns all over again. Half the political commentators (and others who have no qualification to speak except for their own self-publicity) are advocating strongly for maintaining lockdown and isolation with the other half arguing that the correct approach is to let everyon roam free.

        Loxit anyone?

    2. 318268+up ticks,
      O2O,
      The person of very short statue, bloodless, & of Irish
      descent ( a ne mic ) AKA A….Scrote ? seems also to be of an anti President Trump nature.

  57. Well, in view of the egg dearth – rushed out to the next village to find that the far still has trays of eggs as usual. And still at 90p for six.

    Bought 500 – can’t be too careful – so as to throw 488 away next month…..

    1. I bought a kilo of powdered egg equivalent to 70 medium sized.

      Surprisingly it makes very nice scrambled egg and you can still use it in baking.

      1. Morning Phizzee, well it is for me! I remember my mother saying the best scrambled eggs were made with powdered egg during the war, and she was employed as a cook before the war, so she knew what she was talking about!

        1. Good afternoon Jill.

          Some people might turn their noses up but i have as much scrambled egg as i want and others are scrambling for eggs. 🙂

  58. Two Arab gentlemen are sitting on either side of a Jewish rabbi on a crowded aeroplane. The Arabs say they want a cola.

    The rabbi, who has slipped off his shoes, says “I will get it for you.”

    The Arabs protest but the rabbi insists and jumps up to get the colas. While he is gone, each Arab picks up one of his shoes and spits into it.

    The rabbi returns with the colas and takes his seat. When the plane is ready to land, the rabbi slips on his shoes and knows immediately what has happened.

    He launches into this big speech about a thousand years of conflict and says, “All of this has to end… this spitting in each other’s shoes, this pissing in each other’s colas…”

    1. The Government needs to get its act together and start fighting back against these BBC interviews. Do what Trump did and show it as fake news every evening.

  60. SIR — What a strange world we live in. Tom Moore, a 99-year-old exserviceman, has been walking to raise funds for the NHS (report, April 15). Younger people seem unwilling to pick locally grown food (report, April 16).

    Lynda Wigelsworth
    Ossett, West Yorkshire

    Well, Lynda, the answer to that is plain to see. Tom Moore was raised when people had moral fibre, discipline and an innate sense of community spirit. Younger people do not possess any of this since it has been bred out of them by piss-poor parenting and execrable teaching standards.

    The liberalism of modern society has supplanted selflessness with selfishness. Discipline — especially self-discipline — has all but disappeared along with courtesy, good manners, etiquette and redoubt.

    One Tom Moore is worth six million millennials.

    1. Hear hear.

      I cant believe were flying in fruit pickers when so many people have been laid off. Reports of people turning down farm work because they can’t work full time due to childcare. Why aren’t the farms accepting part time workers?

      Dole monies should not be paid if there is a viable job offer (That goes for pre and post covid too)

      1. I suggested direction of labour during this national emergency.

        Got some very funny looks from the under 40s.

      3. Years ago, the local fruit farm used to run a bus service for all the women who picked apples during the season.
        The work fitted in well with school hours.

          1. More likely Great Horkesley or the Land Settlement orchards in Ardleigh. My mother worked at both in her time: she was still working picking apples in her early seventies along with a few survivors of the ‘old gang’. We, her children, had a devil of a time getting her to give up. She didn’t need the money, it was more of a social gathering of women who had worked together for years.

          2. Yes. Great Horkesley. Williamson’s Pattinsons (thank you, Korky) had their own bus; a navy blue thing that rattled and banged its way round the lanes.

          3. My mother worked at Pattinson’s for years and Carter and Bluett’s occasionally, the latter at Boxted used the local bus company Went’s. They had a few coaches and the fruit picking hire was probably a good source of income. Pattinson destroyed his orchards soon after we joined the EEC and my mother then worked at Ardleigh.

          5. Williamson are in the Langham Boxted area, on or around the old airfield, I believe. Not sure but I think they are relative newcomers compared to the now defunct Pattinson and Carter and Bluett’s. The latter grew a range of fruit, cherries, apples, plums, damsons and walnuts IIRC. I once fell out of one of their damson trees, really shook me up, and to add insult to injury I had to walk home to Shrub End as my bike had a puncture. Money I earned went on a new tyre. A memorable day for all the wrong reasons.

          6. The orchards and nearby fields are now growing a goodly crop of bijou rabbit hutches.

          7. I seem to recall the EU encouraging people to grub up their orchards. We lost a lot of traditional varieties through that, I believe.

          8. I remember Pattinson growing Worcester Pearmain as early and Cox’s Orange Pippin as a late. He also grew fields of blackcurrants, they disappeared at the same time. Lot of work lost when that happened.

      4. As I understand it, so many people have volunteered for fruit picking (the “land army”) that they have been turning people away.

    2. I am guessing that there was little effort to recruit farm workers and fruit pickers locally. Fruit-picking was a family holiday in the 60s.
      Bringing in foreigners is sending us a message. The message is about open borders, and staying close to the EU. As well as race replacement…

        1. There is no analysis of why the British deserted this work and how we became so reliant on imported labour. Simply pointing the finger and saying ‘lazy Brits’ is, well, lazy.

        2. One of the factors that has changed very considerably is the length of the soft fruit-growing season.
          In the 60s the soft fruit may have ben available for maybe six weeks. Strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries ripening at slightly different times. No that soft fruits are grown in tunnels the season is now over 3 months long. This means that people from schools and universities are only available for a part of the time. Also, the pay is poor.
          We need to move to paying higher prices and better wages. (Also consider a more flexible workforce, fields in summer, factories in winter.)

    3. On a personal note; I went for a walk a couple of days ago and I took a route that I knew would afford me plenty of space to avoid close contact with others. However, as I passed through an opening into a locked car park a young female jogger who had obviously approached from behind me – I hadn’t heard her approach – passed within a couple of feet. I had checked left and right and the dog-walkers were well clear as was the family group entering the car park from the road.
      On my return trip another young female jogger passed within a few feet of me on the bridle path; both I and the couple in front were on the right of the path and the jogger came down the centre to avoid a few potholes on the left. She could have slowed down and avoided the potholes and kept a good distance from me and the couple in front but she just ploughed on regardless. However, I did encounter two middle-aged male joggers and both took action to avoid approaching too closely.

  61. Closed pubs, open Borders

    Sitting down in a park for 30 minutes is dangerous
    Sitting down in an aeroplane for 12 hours is safe

    Something not quite right with all of this………………

    1. This is so good I’m going to pop it on Twitter (hope you don’t mind Rik)

  62. 318268+ up ticks,
    You can high jack a plane land at a UK airport, and enter the countries
    welfare scheme, be shod,fed & housed plus sheltered by the submissive,
    PCism & Appeasement umbrella, & vote, content that you have won an
    “untouchable” position and the opportunity to steer the country via the ballot booth on a course of your choosing, say of an islamic nature.

    Currently you can still land, unchecked in this case, and be a major threat
    unintentionally but a threat no less, may one ask ”

    Has the fighting them on the beaches brigade turned up yet ?
    ………………………………….Where is the manager ?

    Funny old world, methinks.

    1. Irrespective of the failings of the stores, given the importance of the delivery the bloke didn’t use his initiative to try to find another member of hospital staff or the on-call duty manager – pathetic in the extreme.

  64. Back to bed for some Zs. There’s nothing to watch outside because it has stopped raining.

    I lay awake most of the night because I had a portion of Colombian coffee ice cream which tasted really good but the effect was like having a couple of double espressos.

    1. I have to stop anything containing coffee from 12.00 md for that very reason.
      But, I do like coffee ice cream.

      1. I usually finish lunch at Côte with a flat white. That’s about 14.30 – doesn’t seem to affect my sleep.

      2. I have taken your advice on coffee, Anne – I half a small cup after lunch (about 1.15) then no more.

        Makes not a ha’porth of difference to my lack of sleep! But I feel virtuous.

          3. I put coffee in with Bovril by mistake and as punishment I drank the mixture. It was drinkable. Waste not want not.

        2. ‘morning Bill, in the past I have tried not drinking coffee at all in an effort to improve my sleep. After two weeks there was no noticeable difference to my sleep pattern chaos. Last night I drank a few glasses of red with my meal and then about a third of a bottle of Old Pulteney single malt whilst watching a couple of films. Went to bed just before midnight and woke up at around 0230 hours. Stared at the ceiling in the dark for an hour then got up. Apart from the drinking, that is a fairly typical night for me.

          If anyone has any good suggestions I am happy to try most things.

          1. Good afternoon, Hopon.

            I have had insomnia since 1976. [when my Mother died]
            After about a month my Doctor prescribed 4 strong sleeping
            pills……’to break the habit of not sleeping, if it doesn’t work
            then you are likely to have it for the rest of your life’!!
            Other doctors since have said more or less the same thing.
            I can count on my hands the times when I have slept all night!!

            Sorry to be so negative, but nothing has worked for me.

          2. Hi Garlands, sorry to hear that you are a fellow sufferer. My GP did say to me a couple of years ago “as you get older you need less sleep, it’s normal”. Whilst being relieved that a doctor had used the word “normal” in a sentence about me, I was a bit put out at the “older’ reference – I was only 58!
            😃🥱

          4. I just switch the reading light on and read for an hour until my eyelids begin to drop. I have also found a nightlight useful.

          5. Hi Phizz, I have a nightlight that slowly reduces its brightness before sleep and then gradually increase the light coming up to the morning alarm. The problem is that I am up way before the alarm sounds. Because of my back I find it very difficult to read lying down or to sit up in bed. I do keep a couple of ‘real’ books to read rather than using a screen. After an hour or two reading I do sometimes get a couple more hours sleep.
            Thanks for your suggestions.

          6. You could try audiobooks. They work like a charm for me. I have never yet finished an audiobook because after the first chapter I’m sound asleep!

      3. Morning, Annie! I like coffee and walnut cake. Following an earlier post by you I how have in my kitchen cupboard a plastic bottle of Camp coffee and a sachet of walnuts – time to get baking again! (After a mid-morning snooze.)

        1. Coffee and walnut cake, mmm, me too.

          My fave though, is apricot, ginger and walnut.

          1. Never could take a liking to Ginger, BSK. (I refer to the spice, not the latest recruit to the California Food Bank charity – I went off him yonks ago, when he was playing naked bar billiards in some US hotel.) When Korky brought me some rhubarb a day or so ago, he asked if I had tried mixing the rhubarb with ginger. I replied “Yes, but I didn’t like it, so now I shall just use the rhubarb with the crumble topping”.

          2. Ah, but it has nuggets of crystallised ginger, not ground ginger. A very different taste. Do you like that?

          7. Sounds good; do you have the recipe? I have plenty of dried apricots.
            I was planning some baking today.
            Sticky Toffee Pudding done as a cake. (It freezes well for about 1 month.)

          9. 100g butter
            Hang on, we’re out now

            4oz butter
            6oz caster sugar
            1/2 cup of milk
            6oz SR flour
            1 egg
            3oz dried apricots
            2oz walnuts
            2oz preserved ginger

            Prep
            Line an 8″ loaf tin with GPP
            Set oven to 375F (It’s an old recipe)

            Soak dried apricots in boiling water to plumper then drain and chop them
            Coarsey chop walnuts and ginger
            Roll ginger pieces in a little of the flour to coat them
            Beat butter and sugar together
            Add egg and half of flour and bits and half the milk and mix
            Add re aining egg, milk and bits
            Put into lined tin and bake for about 1hr.

          11. 100g butter
            Hang on, we’re out now

            4oz butter
            6oz caster sugar
            1/2 cup of milk
            6oz SR flour
            1 egg
            3oz dried apricots
            2oz walnuts
            2oz preserved ginger

            Prep
            Line an 8″ loaf tin with GPP
            Set oven to 375F (It’s an old recipe)

            Soak dried apricots in boiling water to plumper then drain and chop them
            Coarsey chop walnuts and ginger
            Roll ginger pieces in a little of the flour to coat them
            Beat butter and sugar together
            Add egg and half of flour and bits and half the milk and mix
            Add re aining egg, milk and bits
            Put into lined tin and bake for about 1hr.

          13. That sounds good, Stormy.

            I don’t like nuts in anything, shall I add more apricots
            instead to keep the ratios correct?

        2. You have eggs? My son couldn’t find eggs in either Lidl or the Co-Op this morning but did find icing sugar. I’m reduced to making shortbread this afternoon rather than another Madeira cake with lemon drizzle icing this time.

          1. Sorry to hear that, Korky. On my last shop (Thursday just gone) Aldi had a limited number of boxes.

          1. Have you noticed how the picture on the bottle of Camp coffee has changed. It used to show very clearly that the Indian was serving a cup of coffee to British officer who was seated but now both of them are sitting down and enjoying coffee together? Perhaps not camp but very PC.

          2. Doesn’t surprise me. Is nothing sacred? Mind you, I can’t stand Camp coffee because of the chicory. I Only started drinking coffee once I left home and discovered Nescafe.

          3. Tradition is not PC. Everything is wiped away in a blizzard of snowflakes.

          4. Blimey, been drinking it for 60 years and not noticed the change…..is nothing safe from the PC brigade?

          8. Delicious made with ice cubes and cold milk,
            an instant iced coffee.

            Good morning, Alec.

        4. Afternoon, Elsie.

          You do know that a bottle of Camp only contains only 4% coffee? The predominant flavour is chicory, at 25%, and lots of (71%) sugar and water.

          From Wiki: The current ingredients of Camp Chicory & Coffee are sugar, water, chicory extract (25%) and dried coffee extract (4%). Camp is a dark brown, syrupy liquid. It has a smooth flavour of chicory and coffee but with a very sweet, predominantly chicory aftertaste.

          Maybe Chicory and Walnut cake is nice? :•)

          1. Not yet tried it out, Grizzly. Today I baked some rhubarb crumble and an apple and raspberry pie. (I am about to eat a slice of the latter with a dash of single cream.)

          3. Not at all. I really did bake those two today. And I enjoyed my slice of pie so much that I cut myself a second and third helping. Delicious! (But only half of the pie left!)

    2. Tell the truth, Peddy. You just read my earlier post and have decided to follow suit. I am the NoTTLers’ Trend Setter!

      :-))

    3. Yummy! There are some sacrifices that are justifiable. Was there added marching powder?

      1. Come to think of it there were some black granules. I just took them for coffee grounds, i.e.
        no grounds to get excited.

        1. I believe that Chilean marching powder is white, but it could be that the Colombian variant is black. One never knows…

  65. Nearly half the crew of the French aircraft-carrier Charles de Gaulle have the virus. Just hope that Minty’s Rooshians don’t think it a good time to attack….

          5. Incitatus was a horse. He was more interested in eating and sleeping than being a dictator 🙂

          6. Oblique reference to her alleged demise?
            Her enemies and her ghastly son really couldn’t blacken her name enough.

          8. At the time Catherine died, the artist Elizabeth Vigee Lebrun was working at the Russian court. She describes it in her memoirs, written much later when Napoleon invited her home to France. Lebrun is very gossipy in her writing but Catherine’s demise comes across as a very humdrum event. No sensational goings on at all.

          9. When I was studying in Russia I visited a museum which had one of Ekaterina Velikaya’s dresses on display. She was a very large lady!

          10. Exactly.
            Apart from Potemkin, who was special to her even after the sexual side of their relationship had died, Catherine’s toy boys were kept firmly in the background.

          11. I remember my history teacher telling us that the West made the mistake of thinking that Russian foreign policy had changed after the revolution. Then we made the same mistake in 1989.

          12. The West’s reaction to post 1989 developments was appalling. Did they really think crowing over a large country when it was on its knees was a sensible way to behave?

          14. Yes. The part of Russia that counts is western looking.
            I couldn’t believe at the stupidity of western pols at the time. (On second thoughts – yes, I could.)

          15. At that time I was working for a Finnish bank in NYC. The Finns couldn’t believe how stooopid the West/NATO were being. And that was not because of the serious knock-on effects that the collapse were having on the Finnish economy. They had long been entangled with and fought the Russians.

          16. Spot on. Particularly in 1989. Just think how different the world today would be had we invited Russia to join NATO.

    2. Let us hope that President Putin is smart enough to learn from history that despite having a massive early initial advantage Napoleon and Adolf both came to grief for biting off more than they could chew.

      1. The Russkis had General Winter on their side (other factors did play a part). Adolf didn’t learn from history and lost, eventually.

        1. The blessed Trudeau added some climate twaddle funding in his aid to the western Canadian oil patch yesterday and announced that we must not forget the climate fight.

          Damn, we had hoped he would have forgotten, soon be back to normal.

    3. Watched a Golden Eagle circling in a thermal over the next door farm this afternoon. Didn’t look so big until we saw it in plan as it banked steeply. Wow! What a bird!

      1. Living as we do on a clifftop, we enjoy watching big birds soaring almost on a level of the house, from turkey buzzards to bald eagles. The hawks too are fascinating to see.

    1. {“error”:{“code”:”EC-4008″,”requestId”:”2d50b320-817d-11ea-c000-d7609473bc63″}}

        1. That’s his speciality. Gave away the “Mousetrap” last year, much to many people’s annoyance.

      3. Hara-kiri be honourable end. Presents some challenges for production designers though. There was one that used a very large red fan which Butterfly opened as she collapsed. Inventive.

  72. Hmm

    The LCG positions itself as providing top-of-the-range living

    conditions. So let’s assume that the LCG charges near top-of-the-range

    rates of say £55,000 a year. Then with 208 residents, the LCG is taking

    in £11.4m a year in fees. Specialist consultants in the care home

    business have calculated that the average care home profitability is

    around 8%, though industry sources suspect that profit margins are

    actually much higher due to a whole lot of mysterious extra charges.

    But even if we stick with the 8% profitability, this would mean that

    the LCG is making profits of at least £900,000 a year for its owners.

    And there are many care home groups larger than the LCG

    One might have thought that companies making this kind of money could

    afford to buy PPE for their own minimum-wage staff instead of bleating

    endlessly about how the Government is supposedly letting them down.

    http://www.snouts-in-the-trough.com/archives/27354

  73. A suggestion for a new conspiracy theory, just to while away the time.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/coronavirus-survivors-immunity-world-health-organisation-warning-a4417696.html

    Senior epidemiologists at the WHO are suggesting that even if one has had the virus that it doesn’t mean that there is immunity from getting it again.

    I read the other day that a few people in China had recently tested positive for the virus in an area which had been declared “clean”. China has suddenly admitted to 50% undercounting.

    China and the WHO are hand in glove.

    I wonder if we are being prepared for another massive outbreak in China?

    1. Here’s two more….

      The WHO is hand in glove with Bill Gates who is now very influential in the NHS.

      Also, a few months after the referendum I met at a party a highly educated German who lived in DC and who had worked for something that he referred to as ‘rather like the World Bank’ although he was otherwise very discreet. This guy told me very calmly and with complete conviction that the UK would not be leaving the EU.

      I have been unable to shake the idea that he had inside knowledge of a future very unusual scenario.

    2. So, if we can not gain immunity from a dose of the virus how will vaccination work. Medics?

      1. Vaccination works by giving Bill Gates, who now helps run the NHS, $billions in profits.

      2. The devil doesn’t do logic. Natural immunity bad. Mr Gates makes millions marketing vaccine good.

    3. What we will actually get is a massive outbreak of lockdown prolongation and stricter enforcement of rules “for our own good”.

    4. 50% under counting – yeah right. “Oops, sorry – there were 30 dead in Wuhan, not 20. Apologies…”

      1. Numbers killed in The Great Leap Forward 1958-62: 20 to 40 million.
        Solleeee, we don’t do acculate figures.

      2. I’m thinking that like the IRA, they haven’t gone away, and the virus is still rampant over there.

        1. I think you are mistaken, sos. The People’s Daily assures us that it is all over and done with.

          And the press would never lie, would it?

    5. Here’s two more….

      The WHO is hand in glove with Bill Gates who is now very influential in the NHS.

      Also, a few months after the referendum I met at a party a highly educated German who lived in DC and who had worked for something that he referred to as ‘rather like the World Bank’ although he was otherwise very discreet. This guy told me very calmly and with complete conviction that the UK would not be leaving the EU.

      I have been unable to shake the idea that he had inside knowledge of a future very unusual scenario.

      2. Afternoon P-P – Parliament thought they could prevent Brexit by hook or by crook from Day 1 after the referendum result. They have been proved wrong as has the highly educated German in DC.

    1. 318268+ up ticks,
      Morning LD,
      More likely to say MADE IN THE UK ( under license from china) in very small chinky print.

    2. A pity that the Chinese copyright didn’t make its reproduction outside of China illegal.

    1. When I was a youngster a “stotter” in Glasgow used to be something which was a “wow”, for example really good looking girl was described “she’s a real stotter”. I don’t know if the word is still used in that manner. (Stotter needs to be pronounced something like “stoa’er” with a throaty “uh” for the ‘.)

    1. We have a Baltimore Oriole in this neck of the woods, but I have only seen him a couple of times. I was told they like oranges and to hang a couple of slices from a tree, tried that, but didn’t see one.

      1. Very, and for such a brightly coloured bird it is incredibly difficult to spot, even if you know exactly which tree it’s in.

        I watched one cross from one tree to another and the instant it was in the second tree it vanished, as if it had moved to a different dimension.

        1. We stood still for half an hour in Laure (there are a pair who nest by the lake) and I’ll swear the bird was on a branch watching us – but declined to show himself.

    2. Where are the plod? Wisely keeping out of it.

      Looking for OAPs sitting on a bench – or antisocial people buying plants and paint in shops selling plants and paint.

      1. Wisely ? Bill.
        It’s always the same.
        I noticed that stage George’s day coincides with ramadam.
        I wonder……no I actually know, how that will be handled. Many of the previous St George’s day parades were banned because of invented H&S regs and public liability insurance nonsense.
        It’ll be interesting to see the media coverage of all the participants entering and even leaving mosques. It could all kick off. I predict a long expected riot. Call me an old sepict but …..I wonder if this is the real reason for the army being put on standby.

          2. Well The IRA have beaten all the Defence (and De Gate) Cuts

            Corbyn made da”n sure of that

          5. Well what’s left of it has been put on standby. It might explain the recent and rather strange military aircraft movements around the country.

      2. It started in the ’60’s and went on from there. Every government since has been complicit. And anyone who pointed out the blindingly obvious long term impact was howled down as a racist – Enoch Powell being a good example.

  79. Where are all the eggs?

    Since all the media-induced panic-buying started there have been notable shortages of various items; toilet rolls, pasta, flour, tinned and frozen food, hand-cleaning products, painkillers, etc.

    Mostly those shortages have either vanished, or have been reduced. I went to Asda on Thursday and the toilet roll section was filled to bursting with various products. I could have bought a pack of 24, but I went for a smaller one. I didn’t know what the flour situation was, because I didn’t go into the home-baking section, having bought a packet of plain flour last week. Tinned meat was 90% back to normal. It’s been a while since there was a lack of painkillers. Some green vegetables were below their normal stocking levels and there were some gaps in the freezer when I went to get some frozen green beans. Loads of fresh meat. Cleaning products were somewhat depleted. Loads of Domestos, but no Cif Cream.

    All back almost to normal, with the exception of eggs. A display section six feet high by about 5 yards long that in saner times would be filled with eggs in dozens, half-dozens, small, medium, large, extra large and mixed-size; battery, barn or free-range, own brand or any one of several different produces was absolutely empty. Not an egg to be had. It’s been like this for well over a month. On only one weekly visit were there eggs available, and then only in smart-price trays of 15 on a single pallet.

    Where have the bloody eggs gone? It’s not as if they have a long shelf life in the home.

    Presumably all those hens are still pushing them out at the same rate.

    Has the government confiscated and impounded the entire production of the nation so that they can grow vaccine cultures?

    Are there secret kitchens where meringues are being churned out in huge numbers? Can’t be, otherwise there’d be no sugar and there’s plenty of that.

    Why eggs?

    1. It ain’t the eggs…………..

      New deliveries of eggs to British supermarkets are being snapped up as

      quickly as the shelf stackers can get them onto the shelves. At the

      same time, tons of eggs are going off in warehouses which currently hold

      massive stocks of food. The unexpected reason for this situation, we

      learn from the BBC’s Farming Today programme on Wednesday, is that the UK is currently in the grip of an unanticipated egg carton

      shortage. The entire of Europe is supplied by just three egg carton

      manufacturers. None is based in Britain; and the nearest one – in

      Denmark – is closed for the next fortnight. And so we have warehouses

      full of eggs and queues of shoppers asking for eggs, but no means of

      connecting the two.

      https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2020/03/26/liebigs-law-writ-large/

      1. Ah.

        I remember we used to get them from the grocer in a brown paper bag when I was a lad. 3d for going to the shop and ‘be careful not to drop the eggs on the way home’.

    2. There were plenty in Lidl when I shopped there yesterday. I was surprised (but pleased, because I was getting low and I bought a pack) as they had been completely out for ages.

    3. There were plenty in Lidl when I shopped there yesterday. I was surprised (but pleased, because I was getting low and I bought a pack) as they had been completely out for ages.

    4. We were fortunate last week when a friend dropped some off to us – fresh from her hens.

      1. No probs here. Duck or Goose eggs if you so wish…but we’re fresh out of Haggis eggs.

    6. I must be very fortunate, Bass. My good friend, Bertil, has free-range chickens running around his land (just a mile down the road) and I can have as many eggs as I want. Delicious they are too.

      1. I thought you were going to use a toilet roll cylinder and some sticky back plastic 🙂

    8. Which reminds us, we must go about a mile along single track road and visit our Anne’s relatives, Gordon and Wilma, who produce a wide variety of hen’s eggs and duck eggs. I have to wait for the season to get goose eggs.

    10. We have our own duck eggs in production, but the supermarket egg section looked pretty normal on Friday. The ‘bread’ flours are still not to be seen in our 2 nearest supermarkets. 2kg strong white rationed at the ‘expensive’ greengrocer in Tavistock. Picked up one bag of malt house strong flour by accident. Made a loaf with it and the family gives it the thumbs up.

    12. Is the shortage of eggs linked to the shortage of flour – i.e. people with nothing to do at home are baking much more than they usually do?

  82. I don’t watch but from the reports i’m reading it seems Penis Morgan and various other talking heads in the media now run this country
    Instant expertise from virology,immunology,economics etcetc etc
    Funnily enough I don’t remember these gobshites standing for election…………….
    But then the politicians we elected are too damned scared of the media to make ANY damned decisions,the hell with the country,will no-one think of my career???
    Gutless cowards
    What a bloody mess!!

  83. Just back from a bizarre little shopping trip. I have a hair appointment on Tuesday and of course it ain’t happening so I trotted along to Boots to buy some dye and conditioner. Helpfully, there is an industry standard for numbering hair dyes and my hairdresser had recommended a 6.4 Copper. Somewhat predictably, across several brands, Boots only had 6.3s and 6.5s, so I phoned my hairdresser right there in the shop and described what was available. We settled on a John Frieda 6.5 Almond and she was kindly still dispensing instructions on safe use when it was my turn at the check-out. I feel slightly guilty about that ‘cause normally I loathe people who faff about on their phones instead of paying swiftly and moving on but I was trying to be grateful and polite at both ends, if that makes sense!

    3. I need my fringe cutting , and lots of dead ends removing , I will look rather wild by the time this lockdown is over .

      Hope your colour goes well , be careful , and don’t splash it everywhere !

      1. I have to say Belle that in the Video you posted on the lack of Public Conveniences you looked pretty wild, nay furious, to me

    4. Poor Sue, all these men (guilty, m’lady) making fatuous comments. Seriously, all appearances of “normality” help to keep one’s morale up!

      1. That’s a lovely small copper! I’ll leave the puns to those wot are good at it!

        1. Unlike the one shown in the photograph wot I posted early this morning (if you can be arsed to trawl back…)

    9. Let us know how it turns out, won’t you! I am going to have to apply some henna to my hair soon. Eldest daughter, who is a world expert in everything to do with hair, says to buy the henna from the expensive organic shop.
      My hair now needs trimming, but the hairdresser I go to is beyond retirement age, and won’t be working again any time soon, I would imagine. This is a disaster for both of us 🙁

  84. The rumour mill is going full tilt, says Don Quixote

    bars and cafes (I cannot spell Retruanants) are going to be closed until the end of the year

    s

    Brittany Ferry crossings cancelled until after September

    ‘Arry married a Virgin

      2. Are they transferring to becoming an incomers’ Channel ferry service? More lucrative?

  85. Ave, amici. Both the dog and I are fed up and restless today; it’s dull, wet and cool. He’s had his breakfast, a treat and his walk and the day stretches endlessly before him. Apart from the treat, I am in the same situation. Neither of us can laze out in the garden. To add to the misery, the BHA has said racing is cancelled for the foreseeable future, so no flat season. My youngsters will probably go out in the field because there’s no point in keeping them in training if there will be no races for them to take part in. Meantime, Hancock has said that there are thousands of unchecked, unquarantined, unisolated travellers arriving all the time. What’s the point?

    1. I’m feeling fed – up, the lack of freedom is getting to me now. I’m eating too much, not taking enough exercise, and the weather is gloomy. I didn’t bother going shopping yesterday, so that pleasure awaits me today.

      1. Apart from the shopping (I did bite the bullet and do that yesterday), I sympathise. I shall have to buy a whole new wardrobe once I’m released. Lack of wear is causing everything to shrink 🙂

        1. I have to wear a suit I haven’t worn for 9 years on a day next week. It is quite extraordinary how much it has shrunk just sitting in the wardrobe. I suppose the lack of light in there has caused the fibres to bunch up.

          1. I dread to think how much my suits will have shrunk. Even when I was going out regularly I tended to wear jacket and trousers (smart casual). The last time I wore a suit was to the Battle of Britain service in Westminster Abbey last September.

      2. Don’t let it get to you. Stay active. Do a different chore each day. Surprise hubby with a candlelit dinner. Don’t forget the negligee.

          3. Heavens man, surely he dresses for dinner and puts on his best suit underneath the negligee

      3. Well there is one good thing coming out of this.
        The aerobics instructor organized a session yesterday morning but since we cannot go to the gym we met using one of those virtual meeting thingies.

        Al of the socialising of the gym but none of the hard work.

      4. We shopped this morning .. Visited a lovely farm shop , bought a nice piece of pork and sticks of rhubarb and some veg.. There were a few people following the rules thank goodness.

        I needed other stuff so headed for the small local Sainsbury , line of people waiting to get in , blow that for a lark , so Moh drove around to the small Co op in the High street, he parked outside whilst I searched for sugar free jellies and laundry stuff etc. No sugar free jelly sachets left , popped a tray of raspberries and those black juicy things , not grapes into my basket and a pack of sweet corn cobs, the parrot likes those.

        This is such a palavar, no one smiles , people look as if they are about to burst into tears , the pressure that this disgusting Chinese virus has imposed on the world is unforgiveable .

        I keep telling myself that although I was born a couple of years after the war had finished , the strain our parents , grandparents , aunts and uncles , cousins and many millions more endured was colossal .

        Aare we strong enough in these modern times to cope with all this stuff now?

        1. I grow my own rhubarb and it is ready to be harvested. I still have sweetcorn in the freezer from the last lot I grew (I eat it, though, as I don’t have a parrot).

          2. I made your pork belly recipe today, most successful ever with that cut of meat, my children scoffed up every scrap! Thank you.

        3. That is what is getting to me. It is positively Stalinist, everyone afraid to make eye contact and some numpties practically chucking themselves over the fence to avoid you.
          I really think this has got to Spartie – who is normally a very sociable little chap – and that is why he is getting spooked.
          Today, I just couldn’t be bothered with the hassle.

        4. It’s beginning to get to us, isn’t it? At first there were things to do, nice weather and “soon it’ll be over” – but now it’s just depressing.

          1. It certainly is J,

            It is not being able to get out and about , either to walk amongst the blue bells, check up to see if the barn owls have nested , look to see if anyone has picked and plundered the wild flowers I keep an eye on, all the usual things.. This time last year an osprey landed in a tree on a lovely walk we were having .. it sat there calling , then flew off . I was just so thrilled . Moh didn’t get his gadget out quick enough to take a photo .

            It is the little things that mattered , that now make me anxious.

          2. Do it anyway. Plod can’t be everywhere at once. You’re trouble is honesty. When plod asks you what you are doing say you need some grocery. Not walking the dogs.

          3. The actual Coranavirus Act has not been amended, Maggie, so whatever new guidelines that the Government choose to issue remain just that – guidelines, they have no force of law. The police have no powers to compel you to explain where you’re going or why. Print out a copy of the Act – it’s available on the Government’s own website – and keep it with you.

            I haven’t been stopped yet but I know what my response will be if I am. However, I’m sure a refined lass like you can think of more ladylike ways to tell them to GTF!

    2. I’m feeling fed – up, the lack of freedom is getting to me now. I’m eating too much, not taking enough exercise, and the weather is gloomy. I didn’t bother going shopping yesterday, so that pleasure awaits me today.

    3. The unquarantined travellers are presumably subject to the same restrictions as the rest of us when they get wherever they’re going.

      1. The Bulgarians are being imported to work fruit picking. I can’t see them being locked down. They’ll be sharing dozens to a room (or caravan) and possibly shedding virus onto the produce.

          4. Come to think of it, it may do; they are telling us that if we go for a walk and touch a stile we should sanitise our hands immediately. If it will live on wood, it may well live on other vegetable matter.

          8. But the important part of infection is the viral load, i.e. how many viruses actually get into the body on infection and what parts of the body they go to.
            With many diseases, a small initial load of viruses or bacteria will often trigger the body’s immune system before the infection gets too serious, thus reducing the severity.

          9. I thought wood has an antiseptic action, which is why wood was better as a kitchen/butchers’s chopping block than other surfaces, to the surprise of microbiologists. I don’t know if it’s also antiviral.

          10. And they only announced that discovery after thousands of butchers had been forced to replace their old wooden chopping tables with less hygienic plastic ones.

    5. What’s the point?

      Very good question. They’re p***ing on us and telling us it’s raining…
      I have absolutely no faith in Hancock. He’s on a par with Governor Whitmer in Michigan. We should emulate the Michiganers and start protesting…

    1. Recently, people from India were drinking cows urine to ward off corona virus.

      And they ask why these people are more susceptible to disease.

  87. OT There was quite a good prog on Wed evening on Channel 4 about the repair work on Notre Dame.

    Lots of very interesting scientific work on the structure and the roof – and the glass. Slightly marred by infuriating plinky-plonky “musik” – which had no relevance to anything, of course. Impressive how many of yer French people involved spoke very good English.

    The fire was a year ago. The amount of work to be done gives the lie (once more) to Toy Boy’s ludicrous statement that the cathedral would be fully restored in five years.

    1. I’d have thought it would take the thick end of a year just to do the surveys. Than a host of design work.

      1. Amazingly, they had done a complete computerised survey of the whole of the timberwork in 2014 prior to the work which was being done when matey dropped his cigarette end the electrical fault occurred.

        The scaffolding from a year ago – which collapsed dramatically into a messy heap at roof level – is still to be removed.

        Ten years min, I reckon.

        1. In which case, keep the last remaining bottle of 1986 Pichon Longueville Comtesse Lalande to toast the reopening.

          It will give you something to live for.

          Just get President Le Pen to ensure it re-opens on the 27 May 2030 and offer the MR some Jade, she’ll be pretty jaded by then.

  88. We received a Pet insurance update from Tesco this morning in the post .. We have 2 spaniels .

    £1350 new figure .. an increase of £500 from last year .. What thieves these people are .

    1. Good God. That’s disgusting. Are there other suppliers? Other than that why not phone them and complain – bitterly.

        2. Goodness me. You’re stuck then. Bad luck. You could compare other providers just for info and then complain.
          Edit: Alf has suggested a TSB Classic plus account, you and your husband/other half can have an account each and also a joint one. At a maximum of £1500 the interest rate is 3% paid monthly but you must remember to transfer £500 out of the account and back again as it requires £500 to be paid in each month.

    4. You’d be better off just paying the vet’s bills – unless you have another nasty injury like before.

    5. Put so much away a month into an instant access savings account and draw on it as and when you need to pay vet’s bills.

      1. I have just been told that my instant “save” interest rate is going down to 0.25%……{:¬((

          2. Good idea.
            At least that way, whilst you miss out on the paltry interest rates, you’ll avoid the inevitable Savings Tax that will be imposed in the very near future.

          3. Osborne imposed a hefty tax on interest from investments some time ago. Fixed rate accounts got stung.

          7. They do Bill. They estimated what I might get in Dividends in the 2019/2020 tax year and added £600 to my tax calculation. As it is I am well short of that now and should get money back in years to come.

          9. I’m fully expecting a raid on people’s accounts like the ones in Cyprus years ago. The way the govt’s money man is finding, creating and throwing cash around something has got to break.

          11. They used to tax interest at source – now they just make you cough up sometime later.

          12. I am obviously out of date; when I had a non-ISA account in the past they used to shovel a fair chunk into the HMRC pocket.

          1. The MR – being young – is assiduous in moving her savings hither and yon to get the best rates.

            Frankly, my dear, I can’t be arsed.

          2. I haven’t bothered since rates dropped so low. OH does – and got a big tax demand for his pains.

          3. It’s the same here; MOH insisted on moving the savings account to one with a slightly less paltry rate. Me, I can’t be bothered with the hassle.

          4. Same here. the difference between fckall and 10% of fckall isn’t worth the keyboard time.

          1. Skipton Building Society put their easy access account down to 0.01% and some others. Their ISA is 0.35%. Halifax Bank easy access account also went down to 0.01%. Savings are a dead loss at the moment as debt increases. The money program at 12.30 on BBC radio 4 spent time on people who can’t afford payments for their car purchase, their Mortgage and Credit card payments.They are promised holidays from payments with interest payments attached. The interest payments were not discussed but I am sure the rate will be more than 0.01%. The Government is going to pay a heavy price at the polls for neglecting savers. The money men are raking it in.

          2. You are being robbed, I just looked at a US bank, they are paying 0.05%. If you give them $250,000, the rate reaches a staggering 0.85%.

    6. A friend of ours had the same problem. The cost went up each year to the stage when she actually noticed it.
      Of course, by then the dog was old and oodles of exemptions appeared when she tried to claim.
      I just put an untouched sum aside and hope it covers eventualities.

    1. Interesting and, if true, absolutely sickening how this has been handled.

      What I cannot come to terms with is how many “experts” there are, with apparently impeccable qualifications. giving completely differing opinions.

      Small wonder the political policy makers cannot decide what to do.

  90. 318268+ up ticks,
    That very near scared the living sh!te out of me on hearing the length of incarceration cannot be determined until the boris chap is back in action.
    Is the collective brains of the rest of the cabinet not fit to make a judgement, then get boris on the blower and say, agreed ?

    At least God forbid it happens, but after the initial balls up, shortages, and
    seemingly no distribution plan, if the virus returns then we SHOULD be prepared.

    Post virus these politicos MUST be judged as to the non existent security
    on beaches / airport & when finding ALL parties guilty jailed for a very long time, currently they, the politico’s are giving succour to the virus via the entry points.

  91. Interesting BTL comment on the DT page:

    We can only live in hope that when we eventually are given our freedom back that we not only learn from the failures but actually do something about it!
    These are a few to be getting on with:-

    a) Whilst the front line staff have risen to the challenge they have been failed by the over paid NHS managers.

    b) Whilst the USA and the UK provide the majority of the funding the over paid bureaucrats in the WHO are in the pockets of the CCP.

    c) The world needs to reevaluate its relationship with the CCP.

    d) Our police have mysteriously doubled in numbers overnight to over zealously apply their new powers and make life a complete misery for law abiding citizens, yet they have spent the last decade complaining that they don’t have the resources to deal with real crimes and actual criminals.

    e)While it’s own citizens are practically under house arrest illegal immigrants can turn up on our beaches unchecked and travel wherever.

    f) In the meantime this countries economy is being destroyed while PHE think it is more important that only they have control of testing and evaluation when there are private labs, not only willing to help, but who would probably do a better job. Working at speed and cutting through red tape is most definitely NOT PHE’s forte!

    g) the overseas aid budget should be scrapped and funds diverted to the NHS. Ring fenced for the front line.

    1. I see that another existing drug ratinovar (?) was very effective in a test on about 35 patients with all but one recovering. No mad rush to celebrate, just utmost caution.

      If ever there was a time to fast tracking drug testing, now is ths time.

      1. Remdesivir? Developed and tried out on Ebola cases, I believe. Now being trialled on Wuflu cases.

      2. So if ”fast tracking drug testing” is highly desirable why didn’t the NHS do just that way back in February, and instead wait until March 19 when just by coincidence your friend Bill Gates started his link up with Oxford University ?

        It couldn’t have been because certain officials knew Gates was on the way could it?

        Thereby wasting a month of testing time, and why didn’t they instruct British medical professionals to try everything they’ve got ?

        Is it because Britain is in the implementation stage of Gates’ Event 201, and Gates got this through his contacts with officials ?

    2. Re (c), some of those bureaucrats will be in the pockets of anyone who eases their financial burdens.

    3. There was a journalist of colour on the BBC Daily upgrade on Corona virus questioning the high % of people of immigranr descent and recent immigrants developing Corona virus with many deaths. He said some did not qualify for free
      NHS treatment and some were frightened to come out into the open as they had no documentation and were frightened they would be punished. The person of colour suggested the government should do something to help these people. The Minister, he who made the notorious journey back to his “family” home via his parent’s house had managed to travel back to Downing Street to lead the update, refused to be drawn on that subject. No doubt the matter will not rest there.

  92. Just to add to the suspicions about the Bill Gates sponsored UK drug trials..

    The most promising drug of all, remdesivir, is not part of the official Gates-NHS-Oxford University trial, but is only in a small UK trial by Gilead themselves who are the makers.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8232357/Breakthrough-drug-used-treat-coronavirus-NOT-Oxford-University-trial.html

    Long delays to start trials, strange U turn on March 19, then leaving out the lead contender. It all looks very odd indeed.

    1. There was a small trial of remdesvir in the US. About 35 patients, all but one improved dramatically.
      Normal disclaimers now being applied – no control group, not peer reviewed, needs a bigger test.

      I disagreed with your demand to give everyone that malaria drug, there was only hearsay evidence about a trial in France, but on this one there is surely enough reason to start pumping out the stuff and using it everywhere, if nothing else we will be cured of SARS and AIDs.

      As for Gates, it is many years since I had lunch with Bill but he really isn’t the megalomaniac that you claim he is.

      1. The wife of a friend of a friend helps out (or used to) at a NGO with Melinda. I am sure that if they were anything other than normal, we would have heard.

      3. I think drug trials in emergency life or death situations are immoral if everyone doesn’t get one of the trial drugs.

        I didn’t say everyone should get hydroxychloroquine, but that everyone should get something. Paracetamol doesn’t count.

        Hydroxychloroquine should be administered with a zinc supplement. The theory is that HDQ opens cells making it easier for zinc to penetrate which prevents the virus replicating, and then the immune system has a far easier task to eliminate the infection.

        However, it does look that remdesivir is the top contender so far and therefore it’s weird that Gates has not selected it for his trial.

          1. Pendy.. if you research properly, which I doubt you will, you’ll find remdesivir is easily the lead contender.

            That Gates isn’t trialing it is ridiculous.

        2. Hydroxywhatever has now been shown as not working, trials now would seem to be a diversion. Other drugs are effective in the small tests that they have been used in .

          2. Several trials reported if you go through Google. Some claim it works, some claim it is a total waste of time.
            It has become a political issue, sometimes the world gets what it deserves.

          3. That is so slapdash.

            You made a definitive factual claim.

            Now we find it’s not a fact at all.

          4. Like your claim that Gates is working with Soros and China to do who knows what?

            I suppose that I could have picked just a few reports that support just one set of results

          5. I asked questions, and used words such as “might”, “maybe”, “perhaps”, “looks like” and I produced evidence to support my inquiry. The intention is a perfectly legitimate desire to prompt debate.

            Whereas you make definite claims.

            I suspect you don’t want therapies to be effective if Trump supports them.

        3. Hydroxychloroquine is already in short supply. People who need it to survive, like Lupus and RA patients are already being told their long term prescriptions are at risk. Grabbing the stocks for a “maybe” hurts those for whom it is a “must have”.

    2. The problem may be Gilead. They are very protective of their patents – and even more protective of their revenue. Their stock is currently climbing based on a “maybe” that Remdesivir can control Covisd-19. An independent controlled test may puncture their bubble.

  93. Well I finally went for my exciting shopping trip to Morrisons. They had most things, but no lemons or sweetclems. Not much veg left. I was too late for DT – walked down through the unnaturally empty streets of closed shops, to the Coop. Choice of Wail, Grauniad or Grimes. So that was my walk as well. No queue outside today, or for the checkout. Car park almost empty.

      1. Complacency and familiarity. We’ve done this job for that long we know it backwards and standard procedures do not apply to us.
        Possibly a management failure in not coming out with the gangs to ensure they are not cutting corners.

    2. Technology let down by human operators. Better off putting an ear to the rail…

  96. Can’t find tinned tomatoes anywhere, fresh tomatoes but not tinned tomatoes for sauces.

        1. In case anyone doesn’t know that’s easily done by plunging the tomato (on the end of a fork) into a bowl of boiling water and the skin peels off very easily.

        2. You don’t need to.

          What i would do would be to even roast them which intensifies the flavour. Liquidise and pass through a fine sieve.

      1. I’m off to Morrsons next Wednesday ( the once weekly shopping day ) shall look.

      1. Since no-one can drive anywhere, make tins for the tomatoes, using the doors, wings, boot etc of your car

  97. Not applicable to all the blonds here

    Jack, a handsome man, walked into a sports bar around 9:58 pm. He sat down next to this blonde at the bar and stared up at the TV as the 10:00 news came on. The news crew was covering a story of a man on a ledge of a large building preparing to jump.

    The blonde looked at Jack and said, “Do you think he’ll jump?”

    Jack says, “You know what, I bet he will.” The blonde replied, “Well, I bet he won’t.” Jack placed $30 on the bar and said, “You’re on!”

    Just as the blonde placed her money on the bar, the guy did a swan dive off of the building, falling to his death. The blonde was very upset and handed her $30 to Jack, saying, “Fair’s fair… Here’s your money.”

    Jack replied, “I can’t take your money, I saw this earlier on the 5 o’clock news and knew he would jump.”

    The blonde replies, “I did too; but I didn’t think he’d do it again.”

    Jack took the money.

    Edit the for he

  99. Being bored, I’ve started digging out seed packets from the fridge. I never throw anything away and I’ve just found a self collected envelope of Ipomea (Morning Glory)Heavenly Blue, which I had dated 2003. In they go, after a warm water soak…

          1. Exactly, that’s why I like them. Usually our cool weather keeps them under control, but you never know…

        3. Are they as rampant as bind weed, we have a real problem with it growing through the hedge..

          I do like some colour , so might experiment a little , but will be scared if it gets out of control..

          1. It is considered an ‘invasive’ here, Belle. Can get out of control very quickly.

    2. I just potted up two standard Oleanders for my neighbors as a wedding present in July. They are both on their third marriages.

      Every part of the Oleander is toxic. I thought it an appropriate gift. 🙂

        1. The Oleanders they will find on their patio when they get back. I have other presents for the big day. Two of them good and two of them outrageous.

      2. If second marriages are the triumph of hope over experience, what are third ones? My mother, by the by, married four times.

      3. Nothing wrong with third marriages. Come 27 May (if we are still here) e’ll have managed to reach our Silver Wedding.

      4. I am envious (slightly resentful I suppose) of people in second, third marriages when I haven’t been married once 🙁

        1. Maybe a lucky escape…? I’m dull enough to only have had 1 marriage… Thank God.

    3. How long do you soak the dried seeds for? I found a tin of assorted vegetable seeds a few days ago and I may have to go that route, rather than the garden centre which I usually use.

      1. Be caareful, sos.

        There once was a man from Leeds
        Who swallowed a package of seeds.
        Great tufts of grass
        Sprouted out of his ass
        and his balls were covered in weeds!

        1. Warm water and then 24hours soak. Starting off with warm water helps the dry seed to imbibe the moisture as it contracts and cools. That’s probably an olde gardeners tale…

    3. That policeman is a bit behind the times. The answer might have been “Me” a few years ago, not any more!

  103. Excerpt from Unherd;

    https://unherd.com/2020/04/what-will-you-do-when-lockdown-is-lifted/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3

    “Introduce my children to Old England

    Niall Gooch

    I can’t wait to get back to dragging my children round old stones in fields.

    One chilly afternoon in January, in those far-off days when a disease outbreak in provincial China was the third-listed story in the foreign news section, I was sitting amid the ruins of St Augustine’s Priory in Canterbury with my two small children, trying to explain the Dissolution of the Monasteries. My account must have made some impact: on the train home my three-year-old daughter announced that on Monday she would tell her nursery teacher that Henry VIII was bad because he wouldn’t let people go to Mass.

    I don’t know how much they took in at St Augustine’s. They liked the clever animation showing its centuries-long development from simple Romanesque chapel c.600 to vast medieval monastic complex with huge Gothic priory church and one of the finest scriptoriums in Europe. However, they did not seem to share my excitement about the graves of the early archbishops of Canterbury. Perhaps that will come.

    Before coronavirus, I had intended the Priory to be the first instalment of a busy year of historical visiting. Having fulfilled the middle-class stereotype and left London for rural Kent in my mid-30s, last autumn I leaned into early middle age and bought an English Heritage membership.

    We are now within striking range of several important sites, including a Roman fort, and my children are of an age where they can begin to understand Our Island Story. One of the gifts I‘ve always wanted to give them is to know that they are, so to speak, from Somewhere.

    I’d like to help them to understand that this is an old country; to know that to be born in England is to be born into a magnificent, sprawling, globally important saga, and a rich heritage of art, architecture, language and landscape. I want them to be able to look at Dover Castle or HMS Victory or a Jacobean manor house and to know that it is in some sense theirs, a part of who they are.

    When I tweeted pictures of the children at St Augustine’s, a Twitter friend commented “What a privilege to grow up and play in the midst of such deep history”. That captures my feelings exactly, and I’m looking forward to showing them Old England up close when the current unpleasantness has passed.”

    1. I’d like to help them to understand that this is an old country; to know that to be born in England is to be born into a magnificent, sprawling, globally important saga, and a rich heritage of art, architecture, language and landscape. I want them to be able to look at Dover Castle or HMS Victory or a Jacobean manor house and to know that it is in some sense theirs, a part of who they are.

      I applaud his sentiments, even agree with them, but by the time his children reach their majority it will be as distant to them as Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. A myth around which to weave the story of Islam!

      1. It is a mystery of the current age that our politicians appear to have no regard for the great history of these islands or their people and wish to change the demographic for all time. Even during a pandemic hundreds are brought over the Channel and goodness knows how many are being airlifted in while the population are in lock-down. Until Johnson and Patel get their act together and massively reduce immigration in real terms, including so-called family reunions, they will be seen as useless and double-dealing as the likes of Blair, Straw, Cameron and May.

        1. Blair, Straw, Cameron and May. – useless double-dealing gits left far richer after their time in office. :o((

      2. Mr Gooch shouldn’t worry too much. The evils of the industrial revolution, the empire and the slave trade will be always be taught with the greatest of enthusiasm!

          1. Ah, yes. The last time the West tried to reclaim what had been lost to islam.

    2. Don’t know that I would be “excited” about the graves of the early archbishops of Canterbury, Anne, but seeing the grave of the current one might do the trick.

      1. Not wishing to depress you but Minty (&others) are of the view that this will soon become ‘This Sceptic Islam’….

    4. I’ve found that genealogy is great way of letting the young know where they come from. I’m immensely proud that I can trace my Father’s line back to 1580 and on my Mother’s side all the way back to 530 in Sweden of all places. There’s a Nordic one who rejoices in the name and nickname of Øystein Halfdansson ‘The Fart’ (c 736 – c 780). That’s because he travelled.

  104. Paul Sperry. Twitter.

    Trump’s bold gamble on hydroxychloroquine (HC) appears to be paying off. Medical professionals in NY tell Judicial Watch that doctors battling the pandemic are increasingly reporting benefits from the drug. They’re prescribing it for themselves & patients

    2. There are trials reporting good and bad results so who knows what the true story is.
      13,000 dead in New York doesn’t say too much for it.

      Other treatments using SARS or AIDS antiviral drugs have seen much better results in trials.

        1. Verstehe Ich “eadun” nicht, OLT. But it sounds like you are trying to be offensive. Are you?

          2. German , pah.
            Any langauge that has sixteen different words for ‘the’ can’t be taken seriously.

          3. It’s not German – he’s saying get your head in, boy.

            Btw, German has 8 words for ‘the’: der, die, das, den, dem, der, des, den.

        2. I read that as : get your head down, boy. I have no idea why Elsie could think it rude: honi soit qui mal y pense and all that.

    1. I remember once, in Halls, I didnt have any milk for my Weetabix so used Bailey’s instead.

    2. The same one you have for elevenses, lunch, tea, dinner and supper of course. And if you get thirsty between drinks.

    4. It depends, Bloody Marys are always a good choice.

      I recall with delight trips on the first BA flight of the day from Amsterdam to Heathrow, when they would serve a full breakfast and the first question as soon as you boarded was always, Mimosa or Champagne? And the young BA stewardesses pushing their trolleys “uphill” as the plane was still climbing out – the older ones all used their seniority to do the long haul flights with layovers in nice places.

  108. Bye for now, folks. Am off to investigate the freezer again. I think I saw some chicken breasts in there yesterday which might do for tonight’s offering. I shall still drink red wine with them as the only white I have is a couple of bottles of champers (kept in reserve in case we ever do get free off the effing EU),

      2. Depends on the red wine, Phil. You wouldn’t want a full-bodied Malbec or Zinfandel,with poultry, I don’t think.

      3. Have a recipe for Coq au Riesling that I have been meaning to try, using Riesling and finishing off with creme fraiche after reducing and straining the sauce.

          1. Agreed, I am not a lover of Riesling, too sweet, although I have found an acceptable dryish one. The recipe does say you can use a Sauvignon Blanc, but that I like to slurp!!

          2. Dry Marsala works well with chicken.

            I think in cooking the dry wines work better. Red or white.

            Most Rieslings work well with different cheeses. Next time you have a cheese and wine party i will provide the bikkies, Save me a place… 🙂

          3. Place of honour reserved!! But rather than bikkies, good English cheese please!

    2. Beer, wine and liquor stores are considered essential, so with a clear conscience, but compulsory (to go into the store) mask and gloves I ventured out yesterday and picked up a case of white Burgundy (not the pricey kind) and a supply of cheap Californian Pinot Grigio. We shall not go thirsty for a little while.

  109. Food freezer space could run out in a fortnight

    So here you have it

    The Frozen Food suppiers cannot store much more, meanwhile lotsa freezer counters in shops are empty

    They could always get it to the shops and have a sale

    Britain will run out of industrial freezer space for food within two weeks, industry chiefs have warned.

    The use of refrigerated warehouses and lorries for storing and moving goods is almost at tipping point.

    Shane Brennan, chief executive of the Cold Chain Federation (CCF),

    said that although customers such as schools, airlines and caterers are

    no longer active, existing orders of “frozen and chilled food and drinks are still coming into storage at a high rate”.

    “We predict that [warehouses] will be full across the UK, with no new space available, in about two weeks’ time.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/04/17/britain-could-run-freezer-space-food-within-two-weeks/

    2. Is this due to the regulations regarding labelling? I seem to recall reading that it’s verboten to sell foods aimed at commercial clients to the public because they don’t have the same information on them. Perhaps the government could suspend bits of the relevant regulations temporarily to solve the problem? (yes, I know…)

      1. They might still be packaging in bulk because that is what commercial customers buy.
        I normally buy wine by the bottle but a skid would do.

        1. If you skid, you risk breaking the bottles, or gaining a splendid haematoma if you save them. Don’t ask me how I know this.

    2. It could have been a lot worse, the deck could have fallen off your Cutter when sailing….

          1. I watched the Queen at the official opening of the Cutty Sark in its dry dock. Indeed I remember the dry dock being empty before the ship was floated in.

          5. I was actually there waving a union Flag. It’s seared on my memory because all my cousins were given bigger flags than me!

    3. Oh Caroline , you are so well matched , you share his humour , well done and very amusing .

      Hope he manages to sort things out .. mustn’t let the grass grow too long .

  111. Y’know it’s a shocking thing but NHS Trusts are running terribly short of staples …. A foolish bit of economy because Matt Hancock foolishly promised to supply every Trust a whole million of free ones at a March Press Conference. (Sarc)

  112. HAPPY HOUR – Plum reporting from Stalag 17

    The sun appeared briefly this afternoon so I took my ”short walk to freedom” with the intention of finding a park bench
    on which to sit and enjoy the sea views. Several lone walkers passed by, a couple with a child riding a trike and a man
    walking two dogs. Cyclists in tight fitting velcro left little to the imagination as they raced by….

    I waited for at least 20 mins. expecting Plod to arrive and haul me off to Jankers for the rest of the lockdown
    however all was peace and calm. I sat awhile longer until a callow youth passed locked in conversation with a
    smartphone….. completely oblivious of other escapees.
    After a further disappointing 10 minutes and no Plod in sight I’d had enough and headed home
    for the duration…

    Government Warning – STAY AT HOME OR ‘PEOPLE WILL DIE’ message…….true it’s bloody
    boring out there….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a85c7cf3365b015e556119704fe6d81487cb174e4bbd882b3b19a67c3cfbb2d8.gif

    1. Don’t get too excited. They wear a lot of padding down there. Those seats are like sitting on knives after a while.

      I’m sure you mean Lycra. But who can say.

        2. Men’s Lycra-clad thighs are by definition not sexy!
          If they are wearing Lycra, they cannot be anything other than cyclists, which puts them somewhere under pond life, David Cameron and that appalling little ex Speaker in the league table of male attractiveness in my book.

  113. I am off now to get a glass of fizz to drink the health of the MR. (She’ll have a small one, too).

    Then the venison accompanied by one of our few remaining bottles of 1986 Pichon Longueville Comtesse Lalande. I’ve given it a good shake to spread the gruts about fairly!

    A demain. At a distance.

      2. I replied to Sainsbury’s email today about no bread making flarr.
        Not heard a word back.

          4. Organ? That rings a bell. Haven’t played it in weeks. Unlikely to for many more. As for the flour, having been let down by Waitrose and Ocado, I managed to order some direct from the miller. 6 kg sounds like panic buying, but that was the minimum quantity. Which reminds me, must make a loaf…

      1. It reminded me of the time my GP (with his sense of humour) was about to examine my prostate. Flip flip gloves on and he said, I hope you’re not going to enjoy this.
        I quickly replied…..I hope you’re not. 👈

        1. Old friend was having an inspection with a Sigmoidoscope some years back. His long time Doctor placed him on his side and told him it would not hurt. His response was, Just as long as a I don’t hear any grunting…..

        2. A friend of mine said to his GP: “Blimey, are you sure that’s just your finger?” A sense of humour failure ensued…

          3. We were at the London boat show and we bumped into to him and his wife looking round the inside of a luxury yacht. After that I liked to wind him up and bit about that. He’s semi retired now. I expect sailing the 7 seas.

    2. Let us pray for the virtue signalling Pharisees leading the church to destruction, that they may acknowledge and repent of their sins. Amen.

      1. The born again Christians here are the worst for that sort of thing. Always pointing out the motes in the eyes of others.

      3. The born again Christians here are the worst for that sort of thing. Always pointing out the motes in the eyes of others.

    4. I don’t mind praying for refugees.
      None of that lot queueing for the services of people smugglers in Calais will be included in these prayers.

    5. Why don’t you stand on the beach in Kent and tell them all to go back……..oh yes I have just remembered that you might be arrested. Justin Time.

    6. “Let us pray for all those who cannot take shelter from #theABC in relative safety -“

      1. 318268+ up ticks,
        Evening R,
        Only if you are on the indigenous waiting list which should NOT exist if one, foreign to these shores, is housed.

  118. The clouds have lowered, and the nasty easterly breeze has pushed the rain over from Norfolk, so it’s now arrived here. 9C…

    1. Because they have filled all available hours with videos and Skypes of brain dead blondes and their feral offspring drawing rainbows with the three crayon?

  120. Strewth. The buses have been coming down the high street today (usually once every three hours) completely empty as is the norm these days, bearing the legend in brilliant lights where the destination is normally seen:

    Love the Nurses !
    Clap for the NHS !

    Where is it all going to end?

      1. They are certainly following the route, and one is an awkward turn around off a T junction – it goes so far into the village and then backs into a side road to retrace its path and continue on its route. But of course, no passengers to pick up.

    3. When I way young, the recommendation was to go to the NHS for clap, rather than getting it for them.

    4. That’s nothing – last time I ventured into darkest Aldershot the buses were alternating ‘Thank you key workers’ with ‘सम्पर्क रहित भुक्तान गर्नुहोस्’ (‘Pay contactless’)…

    6. When they’ve got us all in line with glazed eyes following them where they will.

      Not long to go apart from some awkward outposts.

  121. Not to be missed…
    BBC1 Film 11.45pm. The Damned United – Michael Sheen/ Brian Clough (Cloughy)

    Quotes:
    I wouldn’t say I was the best manager in the business. But I was in the top one.

    Sheen excellent as usual.

    Is Auntie getting it at last…..

    1. Clough was probably the best England manager we never had. Getting the best out of a collection of players from various clubs needed and still needs someone who would never flinch from side-lining even the best player if that player didn’t do what he wanted, and he would always be the boss. Didn’t he say something along the lines of “If I have a problem player, we sit down and he tells me his views, then I tell him mine and then we agree that I am right”?

    2. Superb film and one of football’s genuine characters.

      I have always thought, that but for injury, he would have been one of England’s finest ever players.

  122. I see somebody has won 58 million on the Euromillions. Single ticket win.

    And the poor bugger is on lock down just like the rest of us. Party for two at his house.

    1. Put that in the bank and there might be enough interest to live on; frugally that is.

  123. Can anyone tell me why there are so many tv ads for incontinence pads? Is their use really most common among sporty young women, as the ads portray? Shirley Knott?

    2. I used to know a Shirley Knott, a formidable woman, a teacher of English who would brook no argument from me that I couldn’t Polka ( let alone perform any sort of social synchronised footwork without plaiting my legs ) and just picked me up and propelled me around the PTA disco/barn dance floor with gusto. I’m 6″2′ and was around 17 stone at the time. Her students were very well behaved.

    3. My own observation is that they put on those adverts after I have eaten. It was the same with Attenborough and mating elephants, those were put on as I was eating.

      1. I hope you enjoyed the birthday supper.

        But, one has to wonder, what kind of cad leaves his wife to do the washing up on her birthday?

      2. You jest.
        A bloke in the office was smiling one morning because he had just seen a car registration OHP 150F, with different spacing. That has disappeared into the mists of De Vale, but ‘800BS’ still exists, attached to a Ferrari.

        (apologies for recycling)

    6. I suspect it’s all a plot by pro-EU hardline Remoaners, who want us to stay in Continent.

  126. A few thoughts to make y’all smile……

    Half of us are going to come out of quarantine as amazing cooks. The other half will come out with a drinking problem.

    I need to practise social distancing from the refridgerator.

    I don’t think anyone expected when we changed the clocks, we’d go from standard time to the Twilight Zone.

    I am so excited, it’s time to take out the garbage, what should I wear?

      1. Floyd, the master of TV cookery. He (and his producer David Pritchard) were simply brilliant at what they did. Most of those cooking sequences, in obscure and difficult locations, were done in one take. Masterful. RIP Keith Floyd and David Pritchard.

          4. His dishes laden with butter and cream led to him having serious heart problems.

          5. He was good. Floyd, like Julia Child injected their own personality. It’s what makes them memorable. Even if they dropped the dish on the floor live on camera.

    2. We are lucky, the garbage and recycling go out on different days so we have two opportunities to dress up.

  127. The BBC is utterly shameless. This evening’s ‘Archive on 4:The Phoney War’ made comparisons between today’s events and WW2. Here’s the blurb:

    Edward Stourton tells the story of the BBC in the “phoney war” of 1939-1940 and the period’s strange echoes of Covid-19 today. When war was declared in September 1939, everyone in Britain expected a catastrophic bombing campaign. Theatres and cinemas were closed and children were evacuated to the countryside. What followed instead was a hiatus when tensions remained high but the bombs did not fall. How does the experience of the Home Front at the start of the Second World War echo the Covid-19 crisis and what did it mean for the evolution of the BBC?

    The corporation’s initial response became known as the “Bore War”. The BBC was berated for broadcasting dreary music and endless, highly repetitive news bulletins. It then changed tack to find a more popular voice, in tune with the needs of its audience. How did it become a trusted source of news in the face of wartime censorship? What did it do to cheer up the nation and enliven public service messages about health and education?

    What it doesn’t say is that BBC was under some pressure by the government about content and presentation. It didn’t like this so it set about doing things its own way as far as was possible (the oblique reference to ‘changing tack’). While it’s true that early on in the war some of what was ‘officially’ broadcast was some way from the truth, the tone of this programme was that the BBC was a doughty upholder of the truth in age of propaganda and it’s doing the same today. Just roll that around inside your head for a few moments…

    It had a little swipe at WSC, saying ‘he didn’t like the BBC but he was to prove one of its most effective broadcasters…when he formed a truly national government by bringing Labour members into the Cabinet, the party political pressure on the BBC more or less disappeared‘. Cheeky bu**ers.

    My message to the BBC is this: “Get over yerselves.”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hdcx

    1. “How did it become a trusted source of news in the face of wartime censorship”?

      One might think they had learned a lesson but they broadcast information during the Falklands that cost the lives of our Servicemen and women.

      2. The reason, the bombs were not arming, is because they were released too late, before the propellor arming device had rotated enough times to align the bomb arming mechanism, thereby allowingi to explode on contact

        I was in the Senior Rates Mess at RNAS Portand, HMS Osprey, when some twat said this on a TV programme

        1. You nailed it.

          My question is why would our broadcaster do such a thing?

          Look at them today and it might give us a clue.

          It sickens me.

          1. The BBC also reported that troops were being transferred at sea, from the QE 2 to other ships off South Georgia and the Argies immediately put up reconnaissance aircraft to search for her.

            Luckily, they never found her. If they had, it could have proved a major disaster for us – maybe even a game-changer.

    2. Theres another reason the BBC is utterly shameless. I’ve been watching the MOTD ‘top ten’ programmes and the most decorated player to ha e ever played in the Premiership hasn’t even been mentioned in any of them. That’s Ryan Giggs

    1. I envy him the control panel on his chest. As I understand it, the implants planned for the UK simply fit under the forearm skin and can only be controlled remotely from the government departments involved. There is no local control option fitted, for economy.

      1. Must get my eyesight checked I read that as “implants ….under the foreskin….”

          1. You know what I said to Sue M about choosing one’s words carefully when posting to this forum….?

  129. 318268+ up ticks,
    Be like dad keep mum but the word is today harry was found by the establishment on the 14 floor of a tower block, but tom & dick are still going ahead, keep it quite.

    We will exit.

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