Sunday 10 May: The time has come for Britain to get its economy moving again

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/05/09/lettersthe-time-has-come-britain-get-economy-moving/

1,351 thoughts on “Sunday 10 May: The time has come for Britain to get its economy moving again”

  1. Good Morning Folks,

    Cloudy start here, the weather is getting ready for the easing of lockdown.

  3. In London today, the police behaved disgracefully. Spiked. 10 May 2020.

    You heard them before you saw them. It sounded like a platoon of soldiers. The one in charge was barking orders to ‘move forward!’ and then came the trudge of their boots. Scores of them, making military manoeuvres, marching in a long, thin line through one of Britain’s prettiest parks: St James’s Park in London. This was the Metropolitan Police today, enforcing the lockdown, sweeping through parks and streets and issuing the same warning to everyone they came across, from young lovers to dads playing football with their kids to homeless people with nowhere else to go: ‘Move on.’ It’s one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen the police do.

    Morning everyone. This is a Police State. They’re the Stasi! This is what they do!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/09/in-london-today-the-police-behaved-disgracefully/

      1. You need a bit of physical co-ordination to do that. I don’t recall seeing any lard-asses in the pictures of the Wehrmacht and SS on the march.

    1. This is getting beyond a joke, why are we standing for France just sending them over?

      1. I think there is a secret deal – that we have agreed to take them; and yer French have agreed not to stop them.

        Given that one cannot leave ones place of residence without a signed, dated and timed paper stating why you are out – that these illegals can leave their jungle and walk several miles to a beach and then board a boat WITHOUT a rozzaire seeing them and stopping them is beyond belief.

        4. With May in position as either Home Secretary (6 years) or PM (3 years) the idea of a secret deal is very believable and probably the reason why Patel is having to have further talks with the French, along with offering them a larger bribe to halt the flow.

          Kipling sums up this type of behaviour, “Once you have paid him the Danegeld/ You never get rid of the Dane.” Why would the French act when weak British politicians keep on begging and paying?

        5. A twenty-first century Treaty of Dover – except we’ll become muslim, not catholic and we’ll be paying the French instead of the other way round?

    2. Immigrant inflatables should respond in the appropriate manner to lockdown spikes.

    3. Drag them back to swimming distance of France. Sink the boats. Only when these people are physically told they’ll be refused will this change.

      France needs to obey international law and process these people. Instead if does bugger all.

  7. ‘Morning All

    BP Warning

    https://twitter.com/jack_oldcastle/status/1259238424621580290
    Embedded you say?,indeed embedded just as a foul diseased tick embeds itself in healthy flesh and just like a tick he should be extracted and tossed on a griddle to vanish in a puff of greasy smoke.
    Look at him,just like Gates,he can barely contain his glee or hide his smug grin of delight at the opportunities this outbreak of human misery gives him and his ilk to advance their New World Order of “Global Governance” by failed politicians and wealthy elites.
    “Conspiracy Theories” my arse they are in the open now plainly stating their intentions to rule

      1. I’m not encouraged Bob,look at Soros hanging around like a bad smell looking like the undead

  8. Hitchens on fine form

    “We will not escape from this misery until

    the Government has been forced to admit that it made a foolish mistake

    and over-reacted wildly to Covid-19.

    The Prime Minister is like a man who sets fire to his own pyjamas, while he is wearing them, to cure himself of hiccups.

    Now

    he stands naked and scorched, as his house burns around him, and exults

    that his hiccups have indeed gone away. This is what I mean by getting

    things out of proportion.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8303715/PETER-HITCHENS-mad-mass-house-arrest-Covid-19-saved-single-life.html
    A rant worthy of a NoTTLer a must read in full

        1. You can reply, but to PH’s website:

          “If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click here

          Read more:

          Mail Online – Peter Hitchens blog”

    2. If Johnson still hasn’t realised that the game is up on the basis that the Bonking Boffin’s predictions have been consistently wrong, we really are done for.

      ‘Morning, Rik.

  9. Good morning, all.

    Eighty years ago today, Chamberlain was despatched and Winston took over. He rallied the nation.

    Would that there was someone to rally the nation today. There isn’t.

    1. But code quality is not merely stylistic. It goes to the heart of the problem — if others cannot read what you have written, then they cannot verify that it is correct. I have squinted and stared at this code for a day now and I am still none the wiser what is going on in many parts. Egyptian hieroglyphics may well be easier to interpret. Latin scribal abbreviations certainly are.

      It is a scam. The Piltdown Man of Computer Code.

      1. Even if his code was completely perfect, based on the reported ‘success’ of his forecasts about various other epidemics it seemed it failed miserably on each occasion in the past. The chances of the forecast being right this time appear to be exceedingly slim (even if the number of deaths included in the Covid death stats include the large numbers of those dying with Covid and not necessarily from Covid)

        1. To keep the pressure on, the PTB are going to have to find a new source of deaths to mine.

          They will of course release the figures gradually to show the deaths per day isn’t dropping.

          I suggest people who have died in accidents because they were distracted while thinking about Covid-19.
          That should cover RTA’s, falls, DiY disasters, street robbery, suicides, etc.

        2. If the code was perfect (or at least supported by thorough tests), and if his maths are sound, then the forecasts would probably be more correct.

  13. Morning all

    SIR – Who are all these people who are scared to go back to work?

    Last weekend I had to drive my neighbour to A&E. Over Kingston Bridge, and on the pavements approaching Bushey Park, there were so many people – family groups, walkers, runners and cyclists – that it looked like a tube station platform during rush hour.

    The message now needs to be: “Go out, get the economy moving again – but use some common sense.”

    Alison Place

    Hampton, Middlesex

    SIR – The politicians’ phrase, “the new normal”, suggests that we have just one step ahead of us.

    This is clearly nonsense. Our escape from lockdown will be a slow progression. “Initial transition” would be a more accurate phrase.

    Simon Channon

    Newark, Nottinghamshire

    SIR – Half the country seems to think the lockdown has gone on too long, while the other half thinks it needs to go on a lot longer.

    Boris Johnson, his Cabinet and their health advisers may as well just close their eyes and stick a pin in the calendar for the date to lift it. Whatever they choose, and whatever happens after, they will be vilified by some – including the self-appointed experts who always know best.

    Paul Morley

    Skipton, North Yorkshire

    SIR – I am shocked that many over-70s appear to be happy to remain confined to their homes so that younger people can go to work free from the fear of infecting.

    Should I and my elderly friends not be allowed to go for our daily swim, attend the gym, employ our young personal trainers, meet friends for lunch or go to our hairdressers, beauticians and chiropractors? Retired people are an important market.

    On top of that, we sing in choirs, we volunteer in schools and we are the churchwardens who keep our churches clean and cared for. We volunteer as librarians and childminders. We should not be separated from society – unless we wish to be. It is our decision.

    Jaqui Taugwalder-Hill

    Middle Barton, Oxfordshire

    SIR – I have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and have been shielding for the past seven weeks.

    I also have an interest in photography, particularly at sunrise. Before the pandemic I would regularly drive to a car park and walk, often for a round trip of four miles, to take photographs of the beautiful Jurassic Coast. This was good for my lungs, weight and overall health. I seldom saw anyone else.

    I am looking forward to National Trust and village car parks reopening so that I can pursue my hobby and healthy lifestyle, while making my own risk assessments as to how safe these solitary activities are.

    Clifford Baxter

    Wareham, Dorset

  14. SIR – There is obsessive negativity in much of the media – and particularly on the Today programme. Politicians are treated like imbeciles, and everything they do is criticised. There is never a word of thanks on behalf of the public for any of their successes.

    With this constant stream of bad news, it is not surprising that people fear for their lives and feel unable to leave their homes. Winston Churchill and the wartime media knew that, in a crisis, the public must be given hope for the future. The same is true now.

    Raymond Humphrys

    Cambridge

    1. I have remarked on today’s date. I wonder if the PM deliberately delayed his “address to the nation” until today. He sees himself as Winston reincarnated – poor deluded chap.

    2. The job of a news editor is to sort the wheat from the chaff and then print the chaff (for the benefit of both the Chavs and the Chav nots)

  15. Good morning all.

    The brief sunshine has been swallowed by the clouds, the noticeably cold north wind is already flicking the branches in the garden & my dog roses have all suddenly opened in the west hedge. Meanwhile right before me as I gaze out of the landing window, Lady Hillingdon has produced a sea of richly-scented apricot goblets.

    1. Good morning Peddy

      What a lovely description you have given re the change in the weather , I can almost catch the scent of your roses from here!

      The recently replaced telegraph pole smells strongly of creosote , but the new climbing roses seem to be settling down nicely .

      The yellow azalea is now fading . The scent is delicious , the next yellow flowering shrub due to flower is the buddleia which will smell strongly of honey.

      1. ‘Morning, Belle.

        That’s a long gap until the Buddleia opens – I’m surrounded by them but I’m not expecting them to flower until August, although so far everything seems to be early this year. Is it a yellow B. davidii or a B. globosa that you have?

        1. MB and I were surprised to see the dog roses already blooming along Colchester’s Northern Approaches Road.

          1. They were a big surprise this morning; yes’day there wasn’t one out.

          2. My rosa canina is out – the first of my roses to bloom. It’s in a tub to commemorate one of my dogs.

        2. BUDDLEIA WEYERIANA * SUNGOLD , just coming into bud now , it was pruned badly in the autumn , so am amazed it has recovered .

          1. I wonder who did the pruning? Don’t tell me; I can guess.
            They should be cut back somewhat in Autumn to avoid wind damage by rocking, then hard-pruned in February. Or not pruned at all.
            One of mine, Pink Delight, is almost as tall as the house.

          2. Don’t you get buddleia seedlings in the gutters?
            I cut my parents’ buddleia right down every autumn, to try and prevent this, since my mother planted it right next to the house (eye roll). “oh but we love to see the butterflies on it!” and every year it grows as high as the house again, waving its seed heads next to the gutter (if I didn’t cut them away).
            It’s not as though they don’t have enough space to plant it a safe distance away.

          3. Not in the gutters so far, but a few seedlings elsewhere. In fact all the Buddleia in the front garden are self-sown from a tree in the west hedge. Last year I was delighted to see that one had sprouted in the grass verge on the opposite side of the road. One of my ramblers, probably Bobbie James, has done the same thing, as has my cotoneaster, which is a handsome bush with bright red berries in Autumn.

  16. Who has leaked the message to the nation that Boris is going to tell the nation .

    That message .. Stay alert sounds like a neighbourhood watch message … you know , keep an eye on your handbag , watch out for suspicious activity , lock your shed etc.

    1. ‘Morning, Belle.

      Since Tom’s doubtful joke yes’day, I should think every woman is keeping an extra eye on her handbag.

    2. “…lock yourself in your shed…”

      Morning, Mags. Those boats still there?

  17. Bame groups are complaining that they have a greater exposure and higher risk of being taken down by the virus .. Could gobbing off be one of the reasons , a spit culture perhaps ?

    1. Vitamin D deficiency. Plus a tendency to live hugger mugger in cities and working in jobs that bring them in close contact with other people.
      I also wonder if the fact that thalassaemia and sick cell anaemia are afflictions of the BAME population means that C19 affects them disproportionately, as the virus does seem to attack the blood system.
      Morning, Belle.

      1. Morning Anne .
        My gripe here is , are whiteys also not victims , why are BAME groups the particular focus of the media .

        Nearly 32,000 people have died from this virus , what proportion of them are BAME, and what proportion of them are currenty in hospital compared to white people.

        We need more honesty from politicians, and if number crunching is necessary , well so be it.

        1. I agree that ‘special interest groups’ have inevitably jumped on the bandwagon, but I was looking at the matter from a scientific POV; rather more scientific, I suspect, than Prof. Underpant’s playing with his space invaders.
          BTW, did you ever get your trellis or some form of support for concealing the post?

        2. There is something deeply sinister in the way politicians and the MSM seem to think they must suck up to BAME.

          Hundreds of potential illegal immigrants were estimated to be in the course of crossing the Channel last night.

          Nothing will be said in the MSM and of course the politicians will do nothing to stop them arriving in Britain and nothing to send them packing if they do. It really is time for the leaky dinghy plan: The immigrants should be placed in dinghies which are with 5 minutes of the French coast but are programmed to sink in 20 minutes which will give the illegal immigrants time to save their own lives if they go back to France.

        2. I am sure there is a link. We all have congenital weaknesses; C19 is just latching on to a particular one.
          Next time it could be one that latches onto a tendency to sunburn or an inability to eat spicy foods.

    2. They all seem to have a similar active chip. Perhaps that’s the cause.
      The door is always open.

    3. Morning, Maggie.

      Yes the Bames are complaining. Well, tough – don’t come and live in a country that’s not suited to you (I mean the Vitamin D deficiency, not Covid D). But in the case of Covid – what exactly do they want us to do? Take the virus to court for discrimination? Allow all Bames off any work in case they get infected (on full pay of course).

      If the opposite was the case, and Bames suffered less from certain viruses, could we whiteys complain? Of course not!

  19. The Sunday Grimes is reporting “100,000 dead if lockdown lifted too quickly”.

    Shurely a misprint for 1,000,000.

  20. Just been outside – fresh, is the word.. To be followed by cold, I fear. Bloody global warming….

    2. I hope you are protecting your tommies Bill. There could be a nasty nip in the air.
      Apparently after a promising spring time. They had snow in Toronto.

      1. All safely in the greenhouse, Eddy. I am no fool. Well….

        The real bugbear is the wind here. Very strong every day for the whole week, apparently.

        1. I was recently advised that Tommies won’t survive a temperature under 9c.
          Not sure i agree but……
          I’ve been using bubble wrap to cover mine most evenings. You can be sure despite their attention to detail makeup and wardrobe, our weather presenters are often quite wrong.

    3. I wouldn’t mind if it meant some real rain, but I see the odd couple of millimetres here and there in the week ahead. I’m going to have to get the hose going again, despite the temp drop (11.7C here at present).

    1. “Unacceptable Behaviour” isn’t that the modus operandi and the corporate slogan of the “Embedded Ones”?

          5. Handy mandy ?

            Brenda must have been aware of his deviousness. No knight hood for that particular bastard.

          7. A few years ago my wife and I were staying in a private members only holiday accommodation in Tuscany. A few days before we arrived the Blair’s turned up out of the blue suggesting they required accommodation for the night. And were almost insistent on imeadiate access.
            But we’re politely rebuffed and turned away.
            It was thought they had been staying with Burlesconi AKA
            burlesque phoney the then Italian PM.
            Quite a few suggestions were bandied around as to their apparent early departure.

    2. Notwithstanding that the article is thirteen months old…no surprises here, we always knew that Blair is a traitor, a betrayer, a fifth columnist etc (no doubt other epithets are available).

      ‘Morning, Belle.

        1. Actually, looking at that picture, the chips at the side worry me (admittedly 400 years too late). Do they indicate an inexperienced or short sighted axeman?
          The execution of Margaret Pole springs to mind.

          2. Take aim and as many wacks as you wish.
            Last night I watched Taken, again I love those sort of films because the ‘Knight in shinning armour’ wipes out all of the villains.
            The problem is at the moment, we don’t have anyone who could actually get remotely comfortable in the steel suite or even get onto the trusty steed.

          3. An armed knight and his armoured horse were the tanks of their time. About as manoeuvrable as Little Willie.
            There was logic in the Tank Corps being the descendant of the Cavalry.

          4. That’s why the French lost the flower of their chivalric aristocracy (yer armour and steed didn’t come cheap) at Agincourt. They got stuck in the mud of the ploughed field and the Welsh slaughtered them with their arrows (the machine guns of the day).

      1. I wonder how many of us here have similar feelings towards Blair as Miriam Margolyes has towards Boris Johnson?

      2. His Supreme Court must be abolished. Not wanted or needed, set up purely to fetter the UK with globalist ideas.

  22. A girl comes home from a date rather upset. Her mother asked her what was wrong and she replied

    “Anthony proposed to me an hour ago.”

    And her mother says “Then why are you so sad?”

    And the girl says “He’s an Atheist, he doesn’t believe there’s a Hell.”

    Her mother looks at her sympathetically and says, “Marry him anyway. Between the both of us, we’ll prove him wrong!”

      1. Difficult to say, being a sceptic at heart Johnson would consider me part of the problem, ignoring the MSM and project fear I think makes me part of the solution?

  24. Temp now down to 10.8. I shall have to get the heavy weather gear out for tomorrow’s oldie hour trip to M&S. It’s predicted to be 6C at 9AM here…

      1. Can’t. I’ve already had a phone call from my cousin’s daily carer saying she has run out of meals. They keep stuffing food into her as though she was getting lots of exercise, and I have no way of stopping them doing this.
        When the carer rang yesterday, she also said, can I get smaller packs of roasted chicken legs. It had not occurred to her to just defrost one or two at a time…

        1. Oh yes you do. Don’t take her any for a couple of days. Then they can’t stuff her with food.

          (A hard man writes….look what I did to Adele…!!)

          1. I tried that, but then they start phoning! And I don’t think Adele’s gastric band would be a solution, no matter how tuneful they might be

          2. I tried that, but then they start phoning! And I don’t think Adele’s gastric band would be a solution, no matter how tuneful they might be

    1. In truth, Gerard, the Monarch was the supreme judge for appellants who truly believed that they’d been done down by lower courts.

      1. 319045+ up ticks,
        Afternoon Ntn,
        “Was” then she was “advised” to become an eu citizen.

    2. He is right, the Supreme Court has to go.
      It does not seem to be high on Blue Labour’s agenda.

      1. And let’s scrap the Electoral Commission [that bastion of impartiality] who are trying to award themselves the powers to prosecute campaigners and political parties!! How do you “award yourself” that power – I think I ought to have it too, so I could prosecute the Electoral Commission!

        1. They are “Leading Beyond Authority” in accordance with the Common Purpose Handbook.

    3. We can solve the problem in this particular case by allowing him to stay, but only if he agrees to physical castration. He won’t rape anyone else in the future.
      I bet he gets on the first plane out of here.

    4. I despair.

      Why must society protect and pay for the people who have ignored it’s laws? You get the benefits when you obey it’s rules – while you’re a member of it. As soon as you disobey those rules you forfeit the protections.

    1. I appreciate they’re trying to show a humourous, we’re human side. I understand the intent is to demonstrate some humanity.

      But you’re not human. You’re a public service. I pay your wages to shut the noisy buggers up, to kick the scum in the face. To keep the sick alive. I don’t care beyond that. In uniform you are not paid to dance about. Do it on your own time.

      1. 319045+ up ticks,
        Afternoon Aoe,
        We had better believe it & with the governance parties in collusion as they swear by it in parliament & it is shown on the menu.

  28. Daring or stupid? How plot to overthrow Venezuelan regime lacked everything – except ‘cojones’. 8 May 2020.

    So when he met Jordan Goudreau, an ex-US Special Forces soldier turned mercenary, he finally thought he had the right man.

    “He seemed to have the skills necessary to lead a battle like this,” Mr Aleman told The Telegraph last week. “In order to make this successful, you needed four elements: men, a good plan, resources, and – excuse this phrase – a good set of ‘cojones’, or testicles.”

    Yet despite its cover being blown, Mr Goudreau sent his men in last Sunday, apparently believing that Mr Maduro was so unpopular that his security forces would switch sides. He even live-Tweeted the mission, apparently hoping for Mr Trump’s backing.

    Mr Goudreau is currently in the US, having failed to take part in the mission himself because his boat had broken down. He is now facing an FBI probe in connection with the weapons brought from Miami, as well as an arrest warrant from Venezuela.

    His boat broke down! Lol! This fiasco makes the Bay of Pigs look like a work of Military Genius!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/09/daring-stupid-plot-overthrow-venezualan-regime-lacked-everything/

    1. Sounds JUST the guy to come over here and take over from Plonker Hancock.

      Good morning, Minty.

    2. Quite right too. I swear that woman and that boy were less than two metres apart, and that a crack squad is needed to protect society from such flagrant breaching of the rules.

    3. Forgive a facetious comment, but those shorts make the Ozzie Stasi look daft.

  30. SIR – I worked in logistics, focusing on international imports, for major retail clients in Britain.

    It is common practice for the manufacturer not to allow shipment until goods are fully paid for. This has resulted in clients having the goods inspected first in the exporting country, by an independent auditor who has full details of the order. Trust is in short supply. Quantities are carefully checked and random samples examined against the original specification – for each shipment.

    The order of personal protective equipment from Turkey has been an almost perfect example of getting every element wrong: an aircraft waiting on the runway on arrival, no export pre-clearance, goods found to be unfit for purpose on delivery. Because payment has been made, obtaining recompense will be a nightmare.

    Despite recent NHS supply-chain reviews, this is concerning, given that the organisation buys goods and services worth £27 billion annually.

    Neil Kerr

    Pontrilas, Herefordshire

    1. I remember seeing a few training videos produced by and featuring John Cleese. Some of them had examples of how not to do things. This PPE fiasco would be a prime example in producing a new training video about procurement.

      1. Many firms stopped using them, because the staff were remembering the WRONG way…..{:¬))

        1. 🙂 I’ve not seen them, but I gather they date from the days when Mr. Cheese was still funny.

  31. Motorbikes with ear splitting sound mounted by dim witted boys crash through town whilst policemen waddle around beaches and parks.

    SIR – My worry about life after lockdown is not so much the risk of infection from Covid-19 as the increasingly reckless driving I have seen recently.

    Only the other morning, on a short walk to the shops, I observed three cars going through red lights – and not for the first time.

    William Wright

    London N20

    2. Gosh – you’ve seen the same cars driving through three sets of red lights? Respect, Mr Wright.

  32. Morning again

    SIR – My small solicitors’ firm deals with conveyancing and elderly client law (for example, wills, powers of attorney, care home fees and probate).

    The lockdown caused almost all that work to stop overnight. The same is true of many other small businesses. Yet most of them qualify for a full holiday from business rates and a grant of either £10,00 or £25,000, depending on whether their rateable value is under or over £15,000.

    Which businesses get help and which do not is set out in a Government guide. Those that qualify include second-hand car lots, tanning shops, betting shops, casinos, gambling clubs and bingo halls. Specifically excluded are vets, dentists, solicitors and accountants.

    I would not expect special help for small professional firms, but it is not clear why we are excluded. The need for vets and dentists when the lockdown ends is obvious – but, like it or not, society also needs the 8,000 small law firm across the country that help ordinary people to sort out their affairs. My firm is a member of Solicitors for the Elderly, for example, which provides support for that group. We are also on the Mencap panel.

    There is an anomaly in the current policy that needs to be addressed.

    Robert Sayer

    Sayer Moore & Co

    London W3

    2. Another anomaly caused by Foghorn Dreghorn and her stooges in Holyrood. The limit for a grant of £10000 is a rateable value of <£17000, the grant for £25000 is a rateable value of >£18000. All well and good, but if your business falls between the two values, it has to go to appeal as it doesn’t qualify for either of the grants. This is not only worrying for the business concerned but yet another layer of self-perpetuating bureaucracy to solve a problem that it itself has caused. The Holyrood experiment has been an expensive failure from day one – as an aside, why does it take 129 MSPs to replicate the tasks of 72 MPs? – and this latest fiasco must surely usher in the need for a forensic audit of all spending in the Shortbread Senate.

  33. A Spectator subscription is the best spent of my money:


    Dr John Lee
    Ten reasons to end the lockdown nowSomewhere around 99.9 per cent of those who catch the disease recover. Of those unlucky enough to die, over 90 per cent have pre-existing conditions and were anyway approaching the end of their lives. To say this is not being uncaring: it is simply a fact of life that older people are more likely to die in any event, and especially more likely to die from new types of infection.

    2. The policy response to the virus has been driven by modelling of Covid – not other factors
    Not only has such modelling been extravagantly wrong before in predicting the course of viral epidemics, but it says nothing about anything else. In this case, it has been bedevilled from the start by poor data and flawed assumptions. The data on virulence was hugely biased in favour of severe cases. There was an assumption that 80 per cent of the population would rapidly catch the disease, when in fact 15 per cent seems nearer the mark. Even the much-discussed transmissibility of the virus, the R number, is not something that is known accurately because there has been so little testing; it remains an assumption or an output of the models. Modelling can be very helpful in terms of pointing out the weaknesses in our data, which is why it is incredible that after six weeks of lockdown we have still done so little community testing. But, in complex situations, models are rarely comprehensive or accurate enough to be a sufficient basis for public policy. The very models that put us into lockdown – on the basis of predictions no longer believed accurate – are keeping us here despite their known flaws.

    3. We don’t know if lockdown is working
    You may be forgiven for thinking that we do. But the fact is that direct evidence for the effectiveness of lockdown in this situation is minimal, and the approach is mainly based on modelling. Many counties with very different approaches to lockdown seem to have similar curves, in so far as their different testing and recording of the virus allows meaningful comparison. Are the curves a result of our actions or are they just a manifestation of the way this virus is coming into equilibrium with its new human hosts? The curves on ships affected by the virus seem similar to the population curves too. It’s easy to make plausible-sounding arguments that what we are doing ‘must’ be slowing the spread. But Sweden’s model of voluntary social distancing seems equally effective, but with much lower costs.

    4. We should ease the lockdown to save lives
    The economic and direct health costs of lockdown are enormous. Lockdown has caused huge disruption to healthcare of conditions other than Covid, which is having significant immediate effects and will also have significant delayed effects. But apart from this, economic downturns are a direct cause of ill health. One way to try and measure health interventions is by using ‘quality of life years’, or QALYs. One QALY equates to one year in perfect health. In the UK, the average age of someone who dies of Covid is 80. Most of those dying have a relatively small number of QALYs left. But the direct health effects of lockdown and economic downturn have a disproportionate effect on younger people with many more QALYs left, so comparing deaths between Covid and other causes such a suicide does not do justice to the scale of the health effects attributable to lockdown. Also, we should not forget that there is more to life than death. One year with depression (for example) is not one QALY. When you factor in all the lockdown-attributable mental and physical health effects short of death, as well as the deaths, it is clear that lockdown is having a huge impact on QALYs across the population that far outweighs those caused by Covid.

    5. Lockdown is not sustainable
    Unless we are to live this way forever, lockdown will have to be eased. Then what? Pandora’s box is open. No one thinks this virus will be eradicated. It will be present within the population and will spread in its own way. To understand the overall effects of a virus we cannot just look at now or the next few weeks. The impact of this pathogen will be measured, like flu, over years. Some years will be worse than others. There is no guarantee or even probability that this lockdown will have made any impact on the overall numbers of deaths in say five years time. Lives ‘saved’ now may well be claimed later. Our own immune systems have been honed by hundreds of millions of years of evolution to cope with viral threats. They are the only way we survive in a world full of viral pathogens, many of which we have all already had without ever knowing. Countries that are now pleased to have a low incidence of the virus will have to face it later unless they are to enter a North Korea-like state of isolation. Even then the virus may enter on the wind, or domestic cats, or some other way we haven’t yet thought of. No country has ever improved the health of its population by making itself poorer. Lockdown is impairing our ability to live with the effects of this virus, while not changing the long game.

    6. Lockdown directly harms those most likely to be affected by coronavirus
    Coronavirus affects mainly the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. But the large majority of this group who catch the disease recover. In the meantime lockdown is preventing many of the things that make life worth living: seeing children, grandchildren, and friends; eating out, hobbies, charity work, travelling. Doing all the things that people work so hard to be able to enjoy. Isolation is dangerous for everyone but particularly the elderly.

    What about people who have died during this period of Covid or – many more – of other diseases? Is it right that they should have had lonely deaths, that they and their loved ones should not be able to say goodbye? What effects will this have on the survivors? How many elderly people have died because they did not access care? In whose name is the lockdown being prolonged? Do the healthy old, as well as ‘vulnerable’ groups, need the state to extend this damaging experience for their own good or would they like to make their own risk assessments in the face of uncertainty, as they have always done before?

    There are 10,832,396 people aged over 65 in England and Wales. Even if we assume 50,000 deaths from Covid in this spike, and all occurring in this age group, the probability of death is less than 1 in 200. Would you rather see your family and live your life (with reasonable precautions as necessary) and take your own chances, or be locked up by the government for your own good?

    7. Lockdown directly harms those who will be largely unaffected by coronavirus
    The vast majority of people under 65, and almost everyone under 50, will be no more inconvenienced by this disease than by a cold. They are being asked to make huge sacrifices for something that will not affect them. Education, jobs, businesses: these are not abstract concepts, they are people’s lives. This group includes the people who are the most productive part of our society and whose efforts support everyone else, including those who are ill. Why is removing them from activity a sensible thing to do? The argument that they might unknowingly pass the virus on to others and so are best kept at home – the ‘stay home, save lives’ message given to us by government – is spurious (see also 9 below). There is no evidence that self-isolation of those at special risk is a worse option. Lost education, lost job opportunities, and destroyed livelihoods cannot necessarily be made good.

    8. The health service has not been overwhelmed nor likely to be
    Boris Johnson is expected to address the nation on Sunday (Picture by Pippa Fowles / No. 10 Downing Street)Boris Johnson is expected to address the nation on Sunday (Picture by Pippa Fowles / No. 10 Downing Street)
    Boris Johnson is expected to address the nation on Sunday (Picture by Pippa Fowles / No. 10 Downing Street)
    The epidemiological models had nothing to say about how quickly our health service could adapt to a new disease. As it turned out, it adapted quickly. It has not been overwhelmed nor been close to it. That fear can no longer be a justification for continuing the lockdown. In fact, lockdown has merely harmed our ability to adapt more quickly. Unfortunately, the episode has also revealed less palatable things about the NHS. The gusto with which managers followed the Covid refrain meant that many vital treatments and investigations for conditions that we can and were dealing with were summarily put on hold. What is the moral equation that shows why a patient with one particular disease takes priority over all others? Is it right that health care staff can simply be ordered who to treat by managers? Who takes responsibility for patient care? I know many who are deeply unhappy to be working in an NHS where the command and control culture is so embedded that doctors can be told to stop, for example, cancer chemotherapy halfway through a course and feel they have no option but to comply.

    9. The virus is almost certainly not a constant threat
    As I explained in my last magazine piece, an evolutionary view suggests that the virus is likely to change quickly, with less virulent forms becoming dominant. Lockdown could potentially slow this beneficial tendency. On this view, asymptomatic people spreading the virus is a good thing because it means that the disease becomes milder more quickly. This could already be contributing to the flattening of the deaths curves that we are seeing. In this case, the sooner we lift lockdown, the better. It also implies that the peak in illnesses we have seen this time is likely to be as bad as it gets. In future, the virus will come into equilibrium with the population as wider immunity combines with predominantly milder forms of the virus to cause a lower overall death rate that nevertheless fluctuates from year to year, much like flu.

    10. People can be trusted to behave sensibly
    Six weeks of lockdown have clearly demonstrated that the British people are grown-ups and can be trusted with making sensible decisions about their health. All they ask is to be presented with a true picture including a realistic assessment of what we don’t know. Following science, I am afraid, means living with uncertainty. Our politics doesn’t generally like associating with uncertainty but in this case, I would have thought that most people would be delighted to see the government acknowledging the changing landscape around Covid and the effects of lockdown. It is already quite obvious that Covid is far from the existential threat that was initially feared and that lockdown, in itself, is a major harm on many more axes than Covid. The government’s continuing elaboration of the consequences of its incomplete initial narrative just puts it in the position of piling further harms on top of those that already exist. The state cannot control what it doesn’t understand. In such a scenario, the only reasonable solution is to inform people of the risks and let them, sensibly, calmly, and individually, make their own decisions.

    It turns out that ‘following the science’ on Covid is not at all easy or even really possible. One thing has become clear: Covid is not, in fact, an extraordinarily lethal pathogen, just a nasty one, similar to many others. So it makes no sense whatsoever to follow the science on Covid to the exclusion of everything else. The government should rapidly lift the lockdown to a condition similar to that of Sweden’s.

    The first step is often the hardest. It will be much easier to plot a course back to normality from there. And despite the fears that we continue to harbour over this virus, our new normal should look very much like our old, perhaps with the addition of some social responsibility in the face of respiratory illness. It is the only way for us to live in the world.

    I have little hope left in the Johnson-Cummings government – if it had been a show, I’d have already slipped out an exit door to go to a pub**

    **BUT remember, they’ve all been closed for weeks

    1. This begs the question:

      Why do the politicians wish to wreck the economy if not to control and subjugate us?

  34. Last night Lacoste telephoned me to say that Stig had made a post about the loss of my mother. I looked up the comments and would like to thank those of you who posted nice remarks. Thank you.

    2. Sorry to hear of your sad loss. As others have said, it will be good to see you from time to time.

    4. I hope you decide to stay and comment further.

      I’ve missed your contributions and I am sure I’m not alone.

      1. Thanks, Sos. Bill T remarked on why I had stayed away – I’m afraid there is a good reason.

        1. We do miss you. We understand your reasons.

          So sorry your mother has gone – you will miss her.

          1. Thanks, It was a fairly awful couple of months. She was in hospital for 6 weeks, so I had a bit of time to get used to her not being here. Even now I wake up in the middle of the night when I hear a noise and have to remind myself she has not here and hasn’t fallen!

          2. Mine died more than 30 years ago – my aunt said at the time “You’ll always miss your mum”. She was right – never a day goes by when she’s not in my thoughts. It does get easier over time though.

          3. As a wise NoTTLer said to me four years ago – you don’t get over it; you just get used to it…

          4. Talking of “closure” is a load of bollocks, the hole left in your life never heals fully, it remains for ever.
            What does happen is that the initially raw, painful edges of that hole heal and become less sensitive.
            But that hole is still there.

          7. Thanks, John. It doesn’t get any better = EXCEPT that his daughter is a dream come true.

          9. It does, John, it does. Especially in these awful times.

            I wish he was here so that we could, together, trash the PTB.

            We had such fun in that way!!

          12. I somehow doubt that will be true for my oldest. Just 8 months after my dear old Mum passed away, and I became upset, he told me that as it was ‘Almost 8 months now, you should be over it!’ Nearly 7 years on, the pain of loss has indeed eased, but Mum is always in my thoughts and sorely missed.

          14. It took ages for me to get over that hyper-alertness; in fact even though it’s been a few months now, when the wind slammed a door last night, I was upright and moving before I was awake. Look after yourself; it is exhausting.

          15. From what you wrote in the DT, grieving was tough with the restrictions in place so have a virtual hug from me.

            My mother in law is in a home and so far doing quite well. At the moment her big grievance is that someone took her glass of champagne so she had to toast the queen with a glass of water. It is a worry though when you hear what is happening in care homes.

          17. Someone taking her water was very insulting, she had to break into her last bottle of scotch to give that water some taste.

            The home took some photos of their VE day lunch and posted them on Facebook, the picture of her unhappy face could have killed a thousand strains of the virus.

          18. Very sorry for your loss. My Mum was over 7 weeks in the stroke ward, we always knew what the outcome would be, but the end is still a shock.

          19. Indeed. No matter how long you’ve known what is to come, when it happens it still knocks you back. My mother had breast cancer and it was four years before the inevitable happened. I was surprised how much it affected me when it did, because my mother and I never got on.

          20. We were sorry to hear the news, T-P. It will take time to adjust but, as J says, mums stay with you. I woke up from my nap today with a “must tell Mum that when I ring…” even though it’s now nearly six years since I could!

    5. We are really sorry to hear your sad news, P T. It is bad at any time, but particularly so under the current circumstances. Have a virtual hug from me.

        1. No. What a lovely picture. I love a grey. I bought a share in one when he was on box rest (he subsequently recovered and won) out of sentiment.

          1. That was 6th Feb at Huntingdon – he has also been second 4 times and I was beginning to think he’d never get his head in front! He had his head in front the whole way and liked having things his own way – and what a jumper! Never puts a foot wrong but then his mother and grandmother were the two best jumpers a jockey could have sat on.

          2. Ah, it seems like a lifetime away when we were racing. I ascribe having gone down with the dreaded lurgy (I had all the C19 symptoms) in February to having been caught in Storm Brian on the way back from Haydock where my grey won. I got thoroughly soaked and frozen hanging around on stations when the trains were cancelled. If it hadn’t been for that, I probably wouldn’t have gone down with anything. I chose to go by train because I didn’t want to drink and drive and I was fairly sure he’d deliver the goods 🙂 Hubris, eh?

    6. I missed that. Sorry to hear of the loss of your mother. I’m with those who would like you to pop in occasionally.

  35. Stay alert: Boris Johnson’s new message to the nation. 9 May 2020.

    Boris Johnson will ask the country to “stay alert, control the virus and save lives”, as he unveils a new Covid-19 warning system as part of his road map to gradually unlocking the economy.

    In an address to the nation tomorrow evening, the Prime Minister is to call on workers and businesses to stay alert by following strict social distancing rules, as the Government encourages those who cannot work from home to begin returning to offices and factories.

    A new five-tier warning system, akin to the scheme used to publicise terror threat levels, will be used to flag up the virus risk and encourage public adherence to the rules.

    This Mad Marxist plan that would do credit to a juvenile Pol Pot is Stranger than Fiction. If you read it in a book, you would make the fire with it the next day. Just for starters it is worth remembering that all this is due to the forecasting of a discredited fraudster who couldn’t tell you when next week was going to arrive. If it weren’t all so dreadfully sinister you could sit back and gawp at the sheer barminess of it all. It makes 1984 look like Pride and Prejudice. But behind it all, monstrous things, the establishment of a Police State, the physical control of the people are taking place under the cover of Benign Intention.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/09/stay-alert-boris-johnsons-new-message-nation/

    1. Morning Minty

      I think Bris has given into media pressure and advice from his rich chums .

      From now on it is the survival of the fittest and I am really fearful that we are all at risk now.

      Pandora’s box will be opened up when he gives his speech.

      1. 319045+ up ticks,
        Morning Tb,
        The last thing out was hope &
        hope is……….

      3. Don’t buy expensive bracelets, then T_B – stay alert for jewellery clanking on people’s wrists 🙂

    2. Some people just aren’t on message.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/100e3ad2b4a271b78cc8eeab5d7518a32e61eed65ca4201907147ad28a7d378d.png
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/003ba4a252d5e8914a0b433b5264c59a95e7bb723b6618914e297c91b91d964c.png
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/878c90ee85f8d3f61f3c0786c910e69a6f242cba17bb1604ad269dbb3594cd61.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b70efd154f162927f5b027532bf54deb9b18ce276b2c4aa5c84a8d70a148edd3.png

    3. “It’s for your own good.”
      “If you’ve nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”

      Knit your own platitude.

    4. So we don’t have to Stay Home, we can go about and do anything we like as long as we keep swivelling our eyes and are suspicious of everyone? How can we control the virus? Save lives is the same old mantra as before. No change there. I’m sure everybody wants to save lives.

  36. Morning, Campers.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/10/chilling-truth-decision-impose-lockdown-based-crude-mathematical/

    Is the chilling truth that the decision to impose lockdown was based on crude mathematical guesswork?

    Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College “stepped back” from the Sage group advising ministers when his lockdown-busting romantic trysts were exposed. Perhaps he should have been dropped for a more consequential misstep. Details of the model his team built to predict the epidemic are emerging and they are not pretty. In the respective words of four experienced modellers, the code is “deeply riddled” with bugs, “a fairly arbitrary Heath Robinson machine”, has “huge blocks of code – bad practice” and is “quite possibly the worst production code I have ever seen”.

    When ministers make statements about coronavirus policy they invariably say that they are “following the science”. But cutting-edge science is messy and unclear, a contest of ideas arbitrated by facts, a process of conjecture and refutation. This is not new. Almost two centuries ago Thomas Huxley described the “great tragedy of science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”

    In this case, that phrase “the science” effectively means the Imperial College model, forecasting potentially hundreds of thousands of deaths, on the output of which the Government instituted the lockdown in March. Sage’s advice has a huge impact on the lives of millions. Yet the committee meets in private, publishes no minutes, and until it was put under pressure did not even release the names of its members. We were making decisions based on the output of a black box, and a locked one at that.

    It has become commonplace among financial forecasters, the Treasury, climate scientists, and epidemiologists to cite the output of mathematical models as if it was “evidence”. The proper use of models is to test theories of complex systems against facts. If instead we are going to use models for forecasting and policy, we must be able to check that they are accurate, particularly when they drive life and death decisions. This has not been the case with the Imperial College model.

    At the time of the lockdown, the model had not been released to the scientific community. When Ferguson finally released his code last week, it was a reorganised program different from the version run on March 16.

    It is not as if Ferguson’s track record is good. In 2001 the Imperial College team’s modelling led to the culling of 6 million livestock and was criticised by epidemiological experts as severely flawed. In various years in the early 2000s Ferguson predicted up to 136,000 deaths from mad cow disease, 200 million from bird flu and 65,000 from swine flu. The final death toll in each case was in the hundreds. In this case, when a Swedish team applied the modified model that Imperial put into the public domain to Sweden’s strategy, it predicted 40,000 deaths by May 1 – 15 times too high.

    We now know that the model’s software is a 13-year-old, 15,000-line program that simulates homes, offices, schools, people and movements. According to a team at Edinburgh University which ran the model, the same inputs give different outputs, and the program gives different results if it is run on different machines, and even if it is run on the same machine using different numbers of central-processing units.

    Worse, the code does not allow for large variations among groups of people with respect to their susceptibility to the virus and their social connections. An infected nurse in a hospital is likely to transmit the virus to many more people than an asymptomatic child. Introducing such heterogeneity shows that the threshold to achieve herd immunity with modest social distancing is much lower than the 50-60 per cent implied by the Ferguson model. One experienced modeller tells us that “my own modelling suggests that somewhere between 10 per cent and 30 per cent would suffice, depending on what assumptions one makes.”

    Data from Sweden support this. Despite only moderate social-distancing measures, the epidemic stopped growing in Stockholm County by mid-April, and has since shrunk significantly, implying that the herd immunity threshold was reached at a point when around 20 per cent of the population was immune, according to estimates by the Swedish public health authority.

    The almost covert nature of the scientific debate within Sage, the opaque programming methods of the Imperial team, the unavailability of the code for testing and review at the point of decision, the untested assumptions built into the model, all leave us with a worrying question. Did we base one of the biggest peacetime policy decisions on crude mathematical guesswork?

    Matt Ridley’s new book ‘How Innovation Works’ is published in June. David Davis is a Conservative MP

    1. It’s all part of the highly insane globalists plan.
      Even the virus was developed to bring the world’s more advanced cultures and populations into line.

      1. I think it looks like that Eddy but to a large degree they are seizing the moment!

    2. It’s a sad fact of life that academics don’t often ask professional programmers to write their code. Most experts like Ferguson write their own code. The models climate change theories are based on suffer from the same issue but look at the worldwide policy decisions caused.
      When run in single-threaded mode it runs fine albeit slowly. You need years of experience to write fully correct exception safe multithreaded C++. Even the pros get that wrong often.
      A professional would have made the code nicer, and more extensible, and more readable, but the maths of the model, the important bit would have come straight from epidemiologists.

      1. An added complication is that scientists tend not to live on Planet Human. I don’t like using the tired word ‘autistic’ but many are incapable of looking outside their own discipline.
        That is where politicians come in and have to insert some common sense into logic taken into the realms of madness. (Yes, I know.)

        1. Politicians and common-sense used in same sentence. Does not compute. Does not compute. Bang. Circuit overload.

        2. Politicians and common-sense used in same sentence. Does not compute. Does not compute. Bang. Circuit overload.

        3. Given my experience of the computing students (Essex had a big reputation for Computer Studies when I was there the first time), I’d endorse that. They all congregated together at functions, probably because they were the only ones who understood the language they were talking (I was an MFL student).

      2. Good morning Thayaric

        Funnily enough one of my sons, Henry, is studying for an M.Sc in Computer Technology while writing software for a company which tries to help care homes respond to the needs of their residents. Meanwhile his girlfriend is studying for a Ph.D in Epidemiology at Lancaster having done her Masters’ last year at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

        (Quite a romance – they met in their first week at UEA when Henry was still 17! How different from his father who did not meet the great love of his life until he was 40!)

        1. Richard the important thing is that you have met your special someone. I couldn’t imagine a live without love. I did it for a while but it was a hollow existence.

          A coder and an epidemiologist. They should send their CVs to Boris 🙂

      3. Long ago in the dim and distant past, I used to write programs in COBOL and PL1. The requirement of the department I worked for was that the code should be ‘walked-through’ by one’s colleagues before testing commenced. This forced the individual programmer to produce code which was properly structured and more-or-less self-documenting, as other people had to be able to understand it. It also meant it was easier to debug.

        1. How often did you have 24-48 hours to do all that?

          We seem to be forgetting that best coding practises take time. Time is a precious commodity when facing a possible pandemic.

          2. Some of it is old, some of it is very new. I don’t think functions called Covid…. were written 13 years ago.

          3. New or old, any code should not be rushed into production without proper testing, especially when lives depend on getting it right.

          4. So what Ferguson should have said was gimme six months and i’ll get back to you?

            Well that would have ended well.

          7. What we at 32k deaths?

            So you’d expect that we couldn’t do worse than that?

            That’s 32k deaths with an average R0 of somewhere around 0.7. At R0 between 2.5 and 3 that’s 400k deaths.

            So yes things could have been a lot worse, or are you basing your assumptions on Sweden?

          10. I don’t. But I do know that he was wrong on the last three death estimates – by an enormous factor.

          11. Forecasters are often wrong. The BoE hasn’t been right once in the last decade with their economic predictions, yet every few months we ask for a new one. Has the BoE economic modelling been open-sourced? Has anyone been sacked? Has anyone been held accountable for poor predictions?
            The future is unclear even to the most experienced experts in their field.
            Again we can’t say Ferguson was wrong. Nobody really knows because we changed our strategy immediately from carry on as normal to large scale lockdown of the economy. We also knew so little about this virus because it is completely new, we haven’t encountered it before.
            You expect too much from forecasters.

          13. To have one person design and code a system which is as critical as the one Ferguson produced, without any review of the methodology or the code is a recipe for disaster.

          14. I agree in general but this was a very time-sensitive issue. We’ve lost 32k people roughly according to the stats with the R0 for most of that time being around 0.7 but if we’d have treated it like flu the R0 was between 2.5 and 3 which could easily have meant 250k+ dying. Boris had to do something. What politician can happily lose a quarter to a half a million ‘subjects’ and expect the survivors to be happy with their handling of the issue. I suppose poor Boris is facing both barrels whichever way he turned. Do nothing, you’re a butcher, do lockdown, you’re an economic butcher. Was there a decent middle-ground policy even possible?

          15. Given that 22,000 people died in a week (ending 24th April) in the UK and of that, only about a third of those – and died with, not from as the stat the number of people killed on the roads every day is 5 no one squeals we should ban cars.

            Over time, a car is vastly more lethal than COVID 19 could ever be. We will eventually – if we’re allowed to – become immune to it. We’ll never become immune to car accidents.

          16. You say that but self-driving cars are expected to reduce accidents to almost nil.
            We wont necessarily become immune to it either. It could easily mutate again much like the flu. Are you immune to flu? I seem to get it every other year on average.
            This underlying conditions thing has been blown out of all proportions. We are treating ‘underlying condition’ as meaning ‘would have been dead inside a year anyway’. We also know that CV causes some of these underlying conditions.

          17. As far as Professor Ferguson’s scientific qualifications are concerned, I (unlike many on this board) am loath to make any judgement, as I have no experience in that field (or any other scientific discipline).

            However, I do have experience in IT, designing, coding and maintaining systems for major Pharmaceutical companies. I can only comment on what has been published in the media i.e. that Professor Ferguson produced thousands of lines of undocumented code in order to model the effects of this pandemic and previous health crises e.g. BSE, Foot and Mouth etc.

            To rely on the efforts on one person without checks on his methodology and the quality of his code, and then to use the results of such modelling to make decisions which will have a major impact on the lives and health of millions, not to mention the economic impact, is in my opinion madness. He may be right, he may be wrong. But to rely on his model without any proof that it works is incomprehensible.

          19. Not only that but if you examine the code, between lines 10112 and 10114, you’ll clearly see 66613 imbedded in a comment.

          20. Not only that but if you examine the code, between lines 10112 and 10114, you’ll clearly see 66613 imbedded in a comment.

          21. Not only that but if you examine the code, between lines 10112 and 10114, you’ll clearly see 66613 imbedded in a comment.

    3. What ‘evidence’ can there be for things which might happen in the future?

      The only thing you can do is forecast, and almost all forecasting from the weather, to climate change to pandemics to spread betting to economics is based on a model, a model which usually contains a flawed assumption or twenty, which is why the economic forecasts are never even close to right.Most economics even in the current day is modelled with the loanable funds model, a model that says banks can only lend what savers deposit. Well we all know that’s a fiction.

    4. 319045+ up ticks,
      Morning Anne,
      What is good to see is that as with a
      wounded shark his odious contemporaries turn and devour him,
      currently we are in urgent need of daisy chains of devouring political sharks.

    5. Bearing in mind how quickly technology advances in this era and how information gathering amasses facts, would it be fair to compare Ferguson’s 13 year old model’s output with reading tea leaves?

      3. Casting the runes, more like. Or, as it’s a Chinese virus, perhaps i Ching.

    6. At the time of the lockdown, the model had not been released to the scientific community. When Ferguson finally released his code last week, it was a reorganised program different from the version run on March 16.

      The rewriting was an attempt to disguise the fact that the original was nonsense!

      2. …and it appears that the re-written version is also nonsense.

        ‘Morning, Minty.

      3. A controlled, scientific way of saying that Ferguson is a lying little shiite.

        1. Morning Anne. He is certainly the Greatest Fraud (so far) of the Twenty First century.

          1. Why is he a fraud?

            His prediction was 250k to 500k deaths if we treat it like flu. We didn’t. Did you expect 250k to 500k deaths in lockdown?

          2. He’s a fraud because he sold predictions based on code that he knew to be unreliable (but if we run it single threaded while standing on our heads and touching our belly-buttons, it gives reproduceable results…) and because so many of his past predictions have been proven to be nonsense.

          3. I hardly think you are a neutral observer. You worked for him did you not? Perhaps even played a part in writing this “Code.”

          4. No of course I don’t work for Ferguson.

            I am being realistic.

            The plan is herd immunity. The plan is treat CV like flu. Tell me Ferguson what will happen….

            Err Boris my model says we’ll see 250k to 500k deaths….

            OK Scratch that. We need keep everyone who can be at home, at home.

            But Boris now that’s gonna make my prediction look silly and i’ll be public enemy number one!

            So what. It’ll make me look good, and I need some of that 🙂

          6. Other than working last night and everyone having the ‘shits’ i’m fine.

          8. 319045+ up ticks,
            Morning As,
            No staying power his actions will be forgotten in a month, sooner still if a GE was imminent.
            Currently we should keep our enemas close & our supposed friends
            closer.
            Very long term treachery merchants are still very much in play.

    7. Even a casual google search would have revealed the long history of wildly over-exaggerated forecasts that this man has made. Why would you use him again? Did the government simply want to wheel out an ‘expert’ who would provide evidence to back up their wish to lockdown the population?

      I am becoming increasingly worried that there is an agenda here that we are not being told about.

  37. Morning all ☺
    What a relief it is to be able to join in first thing without having to get out of bed.

      1. Morning Sue

        If I were him , I would have closed all our borders and air travel months ago.

        I wonder whether the common cold has been obliterated?

        1. Morning, M.

          In that case I’m happier to be in Sweden rather than in the UK. Here we have used common sense and no one that I know (or who my friends know) has caught any virus except for the odd cold.

          The data is being manipulated by politicians to keep you all in order.

          1. The cynical side of me thinks that our population has risen so much , and crime rates are beyond the pale and unmanageable, so perhaps there is some truth in your in your comment .

            A big perhaps of course.

          2. The UK’s population hasn’t risen that much since the commencement of planned immigration in the late 1940s. Even back then the population of the UK was an unfeasibly huge 50 million (for such a small island group). It is now 17 million more than it was back then.

            Here in Sweden the population was seven million in 1949 and is now 10 million. Three million more in seven decades. And this in a country with twice the land area of the UK.

          3. I suspect that 63 million is a woeful underestimate for the UK. It’s more likely to be closer to 70mn.

          5. The supermarkets several years ago said that 80 million was closer the mark, as did the mobile phone companies. It certainly felt like that pre-virus on the roads.

          6. We are due another census in March, so we might yet see.
            Assuming it is not been banned/stopped.

            If I ruled the UK, a very bad thing indeed, I would make the census coincide with the introduction of ID cards.
            If you don’t feature on the census no ID card.

            No ID card, no access to the NHS nor any state benefits.

          7. The census is just fiction.
            If you’re living in a foreign country, particularly if you don’t have papers, and a form comes through the door, the first thing you do is ignore it. Then you ask someone you trust if anything bad will happen if you don’t fill it in, they say No, nobody ever gets fined for not filling that in, so you throw it in the rubbish.

          9. Would just lead to a black market in faked ID cards. But yes, would be better than the current situation.

          10. If you think plod is Gestapo-like at the moment, wait until you have to show your ID on demand and get fined (or worse) for not carrying it. Of course, to avoid cries of racism, certain sections will be immune and others (the indigenous whites) will be targeted.

          11. ID cards work fine in France and Germany. But Britain so often seems to have a common sense problem when it comes to implementing the simplest things.

          12. Perhaps the fact that the Germans (Ausweiss, bitte) and the French (whose gendarmes can also be officious) are happy with it is why I am not. The last time we needed ID cards we were at war (and the Germans were trying to wipe us out). We don’t so much need ID cards as to get rid of the elements that are currently making people push for it.

          13. Conditions have changed, eg cheap travel and foreign influence. The Channel no longer protects us as it once did.

          16. I’m fairly confident that if the will was there, an almost unfakeable ID could be created.

          18. They already do for the privilege of living in the UK, for the law-abiding.

          19. Supermarkets say 80 million and I agree with them. All my life, I’ve seen nothing but building, building, building.

          20. The reason I don’t go with the supermarkets’ figures is because there are so many enormous blubberwallies wobbling around the roads.
            When one considers that the ones one sees are probabvly only the tip of the fatberg, because significant numbers seldom go out, I can well imagine them eating 20% more than average people. And there is so much evidence of food waste.

          21. Not sure about that. They are probably eating the same amount that their grandparents ate, but as ready meals with far more fat and sugar in.
            Also, they are doing less exercise.

            I once worked as a temp in the London headquarters of a well known supermarket, and it was the most organised office I ever worked in. They had data on everything. So I tend to believe their population estimates.

          22. I misread the data on the website. It is given as 67 million, not 63. OP now amended.

          25. Reading your comments I understand your concerns, Belle, I really do, I feel the same way but at the same time I am coming to the realisation that for the sake of society we have to get the economy going once again otherwise we will eventually face the scenario of no food in the shops, amongst others, because we won’t be able to afford to pay for it. This virus sort of thing has happened for centuries on and off and society has just got on with it. We need to, too. It is our turn now. For those of us who are vulnerable to the effects of this virus then we have to protect ourselves as best we can and accept the fact that our lives will be different for some time to come.

          26. This area , Lulworth and Durdle door , and Corfe Castle etc and all the other attractions , attracts thousands of day trippers, holiday makers a year, plus the second home fraternity .

            This part of Dorset , the Purbecks and South and West Dorset have thousands of retired people , we have one smallish County hospital in Dorchester .

            Because the rules have been so strict here re being told to stay with in 10 mts of one’s home , etc and huge notices telling visitors to go home , and all the carparks closed , we have minimal Covid 19 contagion.

            This is why people feel fearful when lockdown is eventually relaxed .

          27. Sadly, all that has done is delay the ‘herd immunity’.
            The population of your area will be in the same position as Eskimos meeting their first measles carrier.

      1. I wonder if anyone would have had the nerve to go onto TV saying that he or she had hoped that the stroke Marr had a few years ago would have carried him via an appropriate crematorium to Hell where he deserved to be and would feel at home?

        I am quite impressed by just how stupendously ugly the repulsive-looking Miriam Margolyes is but one cannot deny that some of us here have similar feelings towards abominable left wing people as she has towards Boris Johnson but we would be reluctant to express such views openly in the MSM without hiding behind a pseudonym!

        As I have mentioned before, Russel Brand’s mum, Jo, may get only the silver medal for physical repulsiveness (the gold going to Margolyes) but she is equally vocal in expressing her homicidal wishes towards right wingers with whom she does not agree.

        1. I wouldn’t wish him dead. I would simply ask that his bias be checked.

          It’s the lack of responsibility to the truth that bothers. He’s being paid very well to spread a biased viewpoint by people who have no choice but to fund him. If that choice is made freely, fair enough – you get what you pay for but he isn’t and he must be forced to balance.

          However that will only happen when the BBC is shut down.

        3. Yes. I have no doubts that we harbour exactly such uncharitable thoughts as the Lefties, but we wouldn’t dream of actually posting them.

    4. Look, we’re keeping lockdown until we cure death. No one may ever die, ever again.

  39. A friend in Cyprus who experienced actually being under fire in Kyrenia in 1974, tells me that most Cypriots over 55 just shrug and dismiss the pandemic as “ola vlakies”, which roughly translates as “a load of bollocks”. This is not war.

    1. Morning, Sue, and well said.

      All countries operating a ‘lockdown’ (how I hate that word) system are doing nothing other than invoking Big Brother on their fellow countrymen and women for no tangible purpose other than control.

      For proof just look at how the police are being used. I (and most of my former colleagues) would be in big trouble if I had still been a serving officer since I would have been asked to forget all my prior training and become part of the new Gestapo. My refusal to co-operate would have probably have seen me imprisoned.

    2. 319045+ up ticks,
      Morning Se,
      To bloody true, also it is a fact that in receiving a direct hit regarding a
      500 pounder, ( or doodle bug) you do not recover.
      No comparison.

  41. Yippee! Colchester appears to be breaking the lock-down; I’ve just noticed a fast-food box has been discarded on to my drive. The first for weeks.😒

    1. Ah, the first signs of Normal (for Colchester – other towns are available) life returning…..

    2. Oh …. the deep joy. Will we find a discarded Wife Beater can or a family size chip packet on our driveway!

    1. 319045+ up ticks,
      Morning Aoe,
      I do believe the walking on the beach with an armalite down Dover way would be the actions of a decent patriotic governance party.

    2. I’ve been saying that to anyone who’ll listen since the start of lockdown. One should be able to argue it is an essential activity – I wonder if the argument would stand up in court.

      1. Invite plod to try it in court.

        ‘Morning, Cynarch – no plod out here in the sticks for me to practice stasi-baiting on.

      2. Quite right cynarch.
        Some bits of elementary science are just being overlooked by professors using OkCupid to advise Government on social distancing.

  44. It’s all very well arguing if the code was good or bad, or consistent or reliable. Or pointing at Ferguson’s catalogue of past failures.
    The real failure was that of the people running the country in relying so heavily on such a single input when making plans to deal with the problem. There must be other models as epidemics have surely been studied, reviewed and modelled in depth over the last 100 years.
    We have seen simple R0 models demonstrated on this blog.
    These things are never about the science but about management. We look sideways at weather forecasts as they are so often wrong. We base our decisions for the day on more than the weather. I’d have thought that those running the country and managing an epidemic would give substantial weight to many more factors than Ferguson’s blindfold “weather forecast”.

    1. “We look sideways at weather forecasts as they are so often wrong.”

      I’ll stick up for the Met Office here. Daily weather forecasts are very good. I’m surprised when I read or hear so many saying ‘”Wrong again!”

    3. At the very least you would have expected Ferguson to have modified his models using the historical outcomes of previous pandemics. I mean, even the Met Office do that with their weather models.

      As for the code, my suspicion is that it is riddled with memory leakage bugs, which explains why it produces different answers with identical inputs.

    4. “We look sideways at weather forecasts as they are so often wrong.”

      I’ll stick up for the Met Office here. Daily weather forecasts are very good. I’m surprised when I read or hear so many saying ‘”Wrong again!”

  45. I’d love to say “you have to be joking”…………….
    Once in a blue moon a couple of these Pakirapists get what they deserve,losing their citizenship and a deportation order
    But no………..ah read it for yourselves i’m too sickened to write any more
    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/rochdale-child-sex-gang-members-22001948?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar
    There needs to be hangings and I don’t mean the rapists

    1. An absolutely sickening aspect of this is that these monsters are openly accepted back into their previous community.

      If that community had any shame they would ostracise them and make their lives impossible.

      1. As far as the “community” is concerned, what they have done is not only acceptable, it’s recommended in the book.

      2. Shame? They think white girls are decadent trash who deserve what they get.
        These rapes will never end as long as the rapists are supported by their own “communities” – including the women.

        1. I fear you’re right, notwithstanding the constant claim that they are not representative of the Muslim community.

          My view is that they are representative.

        2. ‘Morning BB2, “These rapes will never end as long as the rapists are supported by their own “communities” – including the women.”

          It will never end until we deport the lot of ’em.

          1. I agree. I listened to the You Tube VE75 Sunday service (5th Sunday after Easter) today. The service was all about peace and the prayers the same. In the rededication (will you work for peace and harmony?) I thought, I’ll certainly work to try to get rid of islam and then we might have a chance to live in peace and harmony.

        3. Their women are only too glad to escape the male ‘attention’ for a while.

      3. When it’s accepted by the cult members that anyone not a member is a lower form of life than the animals of the field then there is a problem with the cult. Our problem is that the PTB cannot see, or rather turn a blind eye to, the problems within the cult and then attack those who publicise the problems. Decades of rape, trafficking young girls, corruption, terrorism, murder etc. do not lie: there is a serious unaddressed problem in the UK with the moslem cult and its hordes of adherents.

      4. As these people are totally compliant with the mores of the “community” they fit back in seamlessly. They are not “monsters” in the “community”. Why would it be otherwise? It is delusional to project the thoughts, morals and attributes of those brought up in a Christian ethos onto any member, or any aspect of the “community”. To attempt to do so, is to fail. We need to respond to these atrocities as part and parcel of the lifestyle of regular members of the “community”.
        There is a programme on TV tonight in respect of VE 75 years. An “Antiques Roadshow” special. It features “a typewriter belonging to a journalist who witnessed the Nazi invasion of Poland” (sic).
        The Nazis did not invade Poland, the German Army did. It would be accurate, therefore, to say that the Germans invaded Poland. This is an important point. In 1815 the French were not fighting the Tories, they were fighting the British. To separate a part from the whole is sophistry intended to blur the reality. These men are a full, characteristic, typical and accepted part of their “community”. To take any other view is to ignore the reality and thereby condone the ongoing consequences.

      5. Which gives the lie to the constantly repeated refrain “it’s only a tiny minority”
        Aided and abetted by a sizeable portion of the rest of the population,( 25-50%)

  46. This ‘change of message’ from Boris that the papers are going on about ahead of his earth-shattering broadcast this evening, where he will no doubt do nothing much more than tell us to keep on keeping on, but with added bluster .

    We no longer have to ‘Stay Safe’.

    Now we must just ‘Stay Alert’.

    Where did the idiot focus group that were no doubt paid a lot of money to dream this up get together to meet? In alternate cubicles in a 1960s public toilet, to maintain social distancing?

    They would have been chattering over the walls of the cubicle, coming up with, and discarding suggestions, then one of them, reading a message on the back of the door, scrawled in faded blue ball-point cries out in a Eureka moment ‘BE ALERT!’

    His colleages yell in admiration ‘That’s it!’, then one of them wanting to do his bit suggests that they meld it with the existing message and retain the ‘Stay’ to replace ‘Be’.

    It’s a pity Bright Spark Number 1 didn’t look further, because if he had, he would have noticed the even more faded response ‘Your Country Needs Lerts’.

    History is always repeating itself and the sun won’t have set on Boris’s speech before the country starts taking the piss and going out on a Lert Hunt.

    2. Complete with a colour coded Lert-spotter’s I-spy guide.

      10 points for a grossly overweight policewoman wearing a rainbow pride uniform, telling off sunbathers.

    3. Do we have to carry one of those tennis racket things that fry flies so we can zap incoming viruses?

      1. Oh, yes, please! (I’d prefer a handgun, but it’ll have to do.)

  47. Some thirty years ago the country was in the grip of an AIDS epidemic. Every homosexual was at risk at time when perversion such was not publicised and celebrated.
    In order to control AIDS a number of antivirals were developed. They are now used to control the infection and reduce the number of deaths. With a wide range of well understood antiviral drugs at their disposal how many of these drugs have been tried on Covid-19 by the medicos?
    Are we the compliant, docile victims of a ruse?

    1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/09/us-uk-intelligence-agencies-examining-report-mobile-phone-data/

      ”

      US and British intelligence agencies are reportedly examining mobile
      phone data suggesting there could have been an emergency shutdown in
      October at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

      According to a report, obtained by NBC News,
      there was no mobile phone activity in a high-security part of the
      Chinese laboratory complex from Oct 7 to Oct 24. Previously, there had
      been consistent use of mobile phones.

      The report, carried out by private experts, suggested there may have
      been a “hazardous event,” specifically at the institute’s National
      Biosafety Laboratory, between Oct 6 and Oct 11.

      Analysis of mobile phone data from the area surrounding the institute
      also suggested roadblocks were in place between Oct 14 and Oct 19.”

      1. “Analysis of mobile phone data from the area surrounding the institute
        also suggested roadblocks were in place between Oct 14 and Oct 19.”

        In Blighty, we keep it simple; we leave the potholes to get worse.

    2. At the time (mid-1980s), I was working for the Wellcome Foundation, which produced AZT and was conducting clinical trials for the drug for treatment of HIV. After a very short time, people were clamouring for the drug to be licensed, and the FDA approved it in short time in 1987. AZT was not a new drug, but was one of a number of existing drugs trialled for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. The situation can’t be any different nowadays, with existing drugs being suggested as treatment for Covid-19.

    3. That’s putting it a bit strongly, but I do have the feeling that whatever treatments are offered on the NHS will be governed by political rather than medical decisions.

      1. If not political then cost. Take the discredited projected case load, multiply by the cost of a tylenol then compare it to the cost of a real treatment and there you have it.

    4. CNN reported a trial with three of the antivirals. In all cases patients responded well, with a cocktail mix of all three having the best effect.

      The trial was done on patients with early signs of CV so the treatment would probably not work when you are told to stay home and only seek help when you are almost dead.

      1. I think the Profit of Doom is a deliberate pun.

        I agree paragraphing would have been helpful.

      1. My parents used to take me there to buy school uniforms.
        It also had the REAL Father Christmas; well, it shared him with Derry and Toms.
        I knew this, so I ignored all the pretendy ones – including the chap in Pontings.

        2. Pontings was just haberdashery, wasn’t it? Down-market from the other two :o))

          And of course there was C&A on the other side of the road. (“Cheap and Awful” as my father called it).

    4. Thats why I do not have a tv licence as I never watch the BBC. Suggest you do the same.

      1. It is by normally accidental that I catch a BBC ‘News’. Rather than compulsion I would prefer a subscription model of funding so that folk who love the Beeb can subscribe if they so wish. Whether the Beeb would survive is another matter.

      2. They’ve been sending me threatning letters for years. I bin all of them unopened.

        They’ve stopped putting ‘from TV licensing’ on the back now and for some reason my quacks send me letters from Darlington, so I opened one which said ‘We’re visiting you. You will be arrested and charged with a crime’

        I binned it. Beneath each bold, red statement was a tiny bit of text giving the caveat, none of which I met.

        One of their thugs tried to break into the house by hanging on the door to force entry. When Jerry – the German Shepard – went to look the bloke scarpered.

        Then the utter fools went to left a note with my neighbour. We live on a farm, she’s off down the lane a bit. The scum shoved a hand written ‘we’ll be back’ note through her box, causing her huge stress and panic. At that point I lost my temper and complained to the BBC – as TV licencing have no email address, their form is broken (deliberately) and you have to write to them. I ignored that and went to BBC TV Licensing directly and remidned them they had no automatic right of entry, that if they came anywhere near my property again I would treat them as a trespasser. They were to stop all letters, all threats, all visits. I do not care what they want. I am under no obligation to deal with them at all.

        I reminded them I had offered access – at a cost of £25,000, non-refundable at a time of my choosing under my conditions. The letters have stopped, but i am putting that down to COVID.

        1. They give up after a while, the cost of paying the chasers exceeds any money they will get from you, and they have to prove their case in court which is not going to be easy for them.

    5. Heresy! Burn the Wizard – he writes common sense. I avoid the Bbc like the plague. In fact, I avoid it altogether, whereas I just keep six foot away from the plague.

  49. What difference a day makes!

    Just back from two hours helping the MR complete a job she started on Thursday – when she had to stop because it was too hot! Reducing a beech hedge by two feet in width and height.

    Bloody freezing outside. Gale force wind, rain in the offing and about 8º. Good old Swedish Muppet (you don’t hear much about her lately, thank God.)

          6. Oh I don’t know, I could watch some of those women curlers for hours and frequently do.

          8. At least it is normally warmer in the shed than your weather is at the moment.

      2. No hedges should be trimmed now – it’s bird nesting season.

        https://www.google.co.uk/search?sxsrf=ALeKk023uvEpq2mfvrMWx-M3osrymxBhyg%3A1589096765579&source=hp&ei=PbG3XrawIfXIgweJi4_4DQ&q=trimming+hedges+re+birdnesting&oq=trimming+hedges+re+birdnesting&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzoFCAAQgwE6BAgjECc6AggAOggIABAWEAoQHjoGCAAQFhAeOgUIIRCgAToICCEQFhAdEB46BwghEAoQoAE6BAghEBVQiqOXAVjPypgBYMbOmAFoAHAAeACAAb0BiAHaFZIBBDIyLjiYAQCgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwj2wuXh5qjpAhV15OAKHYnFA98Q4dUDCAg&uact=5

        2. As if……the hedge too close to the house.

          Blackbirds nest in the camelia and in the ivy on the mature beech trees nearby. i feed the blackbirds daily and they reward me with a heat-lifting dawn chorus a around 5pm!

    2. Still 19C outside but the wind is picking up – no sign of any rain forecast for the next 12 days 🙁

      1. Rain just started – useless rain than makes things damp but doesn’t get into the soil.

        19º Where are you? Athens?

          6. That reminds me of a funny QSO (I am a radio ham). Conditions were poor (about 4 and 3 with QRM) and we were struggling to get information over to QSL the contact. When I finally got his name (Romeo Oscar Golf Echo Romeo), I said “that’s a Roger, Roger – Roger, Roger, Roger!” Then I burst out laughing.

          7. “Achtung! Spitfire.”

            “Don’t vorry, Hans, ve vill vin in zee long run.”

          10. Good afternoon all.
            for BT esq, re Onions.
            My disqus replies often go to a spam inbox, so rather than look for it, here is my follow up. Raw onions are an ancient folk-remedy.
            Carefully applied onion juice or pulp can rapidly cure an ear infection, in my own experience. Fifty years ago the lodger of a friend’s family used to keep a sliced onion on his bedside table (he would slice a bit off the top every evening) and he claimed that the vapour prevented him from ever ever catching a cold (well almost never).
            In a book “The plague of the Spanish lady : the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919”
            by Richard Collier (published 1974) there is a mention of a landlady in the USA who fed vast quantities of boiled onions to her lodgers. None died of Spanish ‘flu. Haven’t read the book for 30 years, not easy to locate at this moment. Other allium plants may also be useful, eg garlic.
            Hope that helps.

          4. The funny thing about Skåne is that the locals here are the butt of the rest of the country’s jokes. A bit like Norfolk in England where they are all accused of inbreeding, as well as Newfoundland in Canada and Queensland in Australia. I suspect every country has an equivalent.

          6. Like Irish jokes for us, les Histoires Belges take the p1$$ out of the chip-eaters.

          7. A house a few doors from us in Laure was bought as a holiday home by a chap from Lille…..

            “He’s almost Belgian…” said the natives!

          8. Lille used to be part of the Spanish Netherlands. Louis XIV took it for France (and then lost it again).

          9. The Achterhoek (back corner) for the Dutch – somewhere between Arnhem and the German border.

          15. Fucking freezing here west of Oslo.
            :-((
            Jumper back on. Snow on the hills. Rain here.

      2. It rained a little here an hour or so ago – nowhere near as much as we need.

      3. I don’t understand what it is but some people seem to think that a spot of sunshine allows them to turn music up very loudly.

        I hate people. I hate their rudeness, their arrogance, their sense of ‘I’ll do what I want’. No, you won’t. You can behave as you wish until your freedoms intrude upon mine. Treat it as a giant CSMA/ collission detection alogrithim for human behaviour. Others first.

        This ‘I’ll do what I want’ attitude needs to be met with equal force. You want to roar down the road? I want to set your car on fire. What’s that? I can’t? Why can you then?

        1. Oh Gawd I know the feeling. I’ve got neighbours where the female part considers herself a “Green, Feminist Conservative”. Her idea of being green is to plant a wood on what was previously lawn at the rear, thus cutting out our light from the East. Plus planting trees and more aggressive vegetation at the front, including a goat willow about 8 feet from our house wall at the front..

          1. Their large ivy aggressively grew through and over our fence, so that it tilted at an angle of 30 degrees. I had to have 80 ft. of an otherwise solidly-built fence strengthened with concrete posts, which meant that there was less earth to plant in, by the fence. Plus it cost me around £400. For the sake of good neighbourliness I let this go at the time rather than bring proceedings, even though I tell them that their ivy was pushing over the fence, and they refused to come and look at the damage.

          2. An arboricultural specialist provided us with a report saying that the goat willow tree so close to the front of our house constituted a potential damage, and that he recommended removing, or at least coppicing it. Their idea of coppicing has been to remove a couple of branches and the tree is now 3x the size it originally was.

          3. Then at the front their plants’ roots knocked down a small wall belonging to us.The wall was a couple of weeks ago. When I asked for a contribution I was met with a complete denial that any of their plants had ever caused any damage (I have photographic evidence as to all, which is pretty conclusive).

          4. Now I discover that they have an oak sapling about 12 ft. from the wall of our house, at the back.

          I am at the end of my tether. The trouble is you can’t normally try to do anything until damage has actually occurred. I have tried to talk nicely but they simply don’t want to know.

          Now I know that this bl***y oak is going to cause trouble in the future. I DON’T want to sell the house just now, as I have spent money over the years getting it just as I like it. I was thinking of possibly moving in around 10 years time, by which time the oak will probably make the place unsaleable.

          I guess I could take them to court for the wall, but that is such a pittance compared to everything else. The rest is for the future. While I can write them a letter stating that I have had enough of paying for the encroachment and damage by their plants and trees, and that any further damage will be actioned – but they will take no notice and I don’t want any further damage, perhaps subsidence from the oak, before I can do anything. I can’t do anything legally.

          Has anyone else had this kind of thing? What did they do?

          Grrrrrrr!

          1. I haven’t had this sort of problem, but my solution would be to put something noxious on the roots of that oak and the goat willow if you can get at them. If they complain, say, oh dear, it must have been a disease.

  51. I know it won’t apply to all but see if you recognise yourself.

    A new sign in the Bank reads:
    ‘Please note that this Bank is installing new Drive-through cash machines enabling customers to withdraw cash without leaving their vehicles.
    Customers using this new facility are requested to use the procedures outlined below when accessing their accounts.
    After months of careful research, MALE & FEMALE Procedures have been developed. Please follow the Appropriate steps for your gender.’

    ***********
    MALE PROCEDURE:

    1. Drive up to the cash machine.
    2. LOWER your car window.
    3. Insert card into machine and enter PIN.
    4. Enter amount of cash required and withdraw.
    5. Retrieve card, cash and receipt.
    6. Raise window.
    7. Drive off.

    ***********
    FEMALE PROCEDURE:

    1. Drive up to cash machine.
    2. Reverse and back up the required amount to align car window with the machine.
    3. Put hand brake on, put the window down
    4. Find handbag, remove all contents on to passenger seat to locate card.
    5. Tell person on mobile phone you will call them back and hang up.
    6. Attempt to insert card into machine.
    7. Open car door to allow easier access to machine due to its excessive distance from the car.
    8. Insert card.
    9. Re-insert card the right way.
    10. Dig through handbag to find diary with your PIN written on the inside back page.
    11. Enter PIN .
    12. Press cancel and re-enter correct PIN.
    13. Enter amount of cash required.
    14. Check make-up in rear view mirror.
    15. Retrieve cash and receipt.
    16. Empty handbag again to locate purse and place cash inside.
    17. Write debit amount in cheque book and place receipt in back of it.
    18. Re-check make-up.
    19. Drive forward 2 feet.
    20. Reverse back to cash machine.
    21. Retrieve card.
    22. Re-empty hand bag, locate card holder, and place card into the slot provided!
    23. Give dirty look to irate male driver waiting behind you.
    24. Restart stalled engine and pull off.
    25. Redial person on mobile phone.
    26. Drive for 2 to 3 miles.
    27. Release Hand Brake

      1. That’s what got me. We were celebrating our freedom while being under house arrest! Well, not all of us; some of us went over the wall 🙂

      2. Did you miss the pics i posted? We celebrated with more than a dozen neighbours throughout the afternoon. Two metres apart of course.

          1. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5d37a4adab1c90146845b19fd411e86092353d2cc2174d1559cbec61cc5f02a0.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2609c3c101bde57cd23bb3f45afd825a65d0ab03d84beadcac79f070b5ed3da3.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4ff72fcb8a7403d7711c63bb1e4baf77e3bfcdaf7eed1c7d83badee820a1f50a.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/475a5c7dc89c1c0943bbdc59565231a01f0f855d7dacb998aa5daebed92b83eb.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d1d500556d8f2e0507aa3254ba841a859795935fdd220ca4d4669cf2fd38fb97.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ecda05b274c59c48a38a3c813d65951ecbf4f47e33ad91baa9292917e26e7bd.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7dac3952b6fd7088117d0bea39988eb02a7300235b8746e96ebba074d516a0c1.jpg

          2. And then the perlice arrived….

            Thank you. see even greater need for sanitisers etc etc…{:¬))

          3. The lady in the white cap on the left is our neighbourhood watch.

            Generally i think it is worse in the city. No problems here.

        1. No, but then again I do not expect her too. They are more for the influence of others.

  53. Good morning, my friends

    How much is Johnson being paid to promote Costa coffee – without which he is seldom photographed. He is clearly looking for new commercial opportunities so I expect he will soon be advertising Viagra.

  54. Australians told not to touch their mothers on Mothering Sunday

    Australians have been urged not hug their mothers on the country’s Mother’s Day today, despite the country’s apparent success in combating the spread of Covid-19.

    DT teenage journos are obviously unaware that ‘Mothering Sunday’ is the 4th Sunday in Lent, which is far behind us, whereas Mother’s Day (initially a Greek festival to the Goddess Rhea) is now just another ghastly, commercial import from the US, along with Father’s Day, Grandma’s Day, Hallowe’en (which they cannot spell) and sundry other days in order to give a boost to Hallmark Cards.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/09/australians-told-not-hug-mothers/

    1. There aren’t many servants the masters can give the single day a year off to in Australia. All those convicts did not take their households with them.

    2. And Australia has had (a couple of days ago) a whopping 97 deaths.
      For the whole country.
      Out of a population of 23+ million.

      In this country, apparently just 2 under-tens have died out of 10 million (and there may have been other causes for their deaths). And schools are still closed.

      1. They don’t seem to understand that you can’t catch it from somebody that hasn’t got it.

  55. Top Russian scientist trying to clone extinct Ice Age woolly mammoth from remains frozen for tens of thousands of years in the Siberian permafrost dies suddenly from heart attack. 9 May 2020.

    Hopes of cloning the extinct woolly mammoth back to life have suffered a major blow with the sudden death of Russia’s top scientist in the field.

    Dr Semyon Grigoryev, 46, was leading the research into the remains of woolly mammoth, frozen for tens of thousands of years in the Siberian permafrost.

    Now plans to restore the Ice Age beasts have been thrown into jeopardy following the world-famous scientist’s death from a heart attack.

    No doubt he was eliminated by the KGB on the instructions of the Kremlin! Watch out for several more! Devilishly cunning these Russians!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8303085/Top-Russian-scientist-trying-clone-Ice-Age-woolly-mammoth-dies-suddenly-heart-attack.html

    1. If they bury him in Siberia for tens of thousands of years – they might be able to clone him.

    3. Will the death certificate say Covid 19? The scientist, that is – or maybe the woolly mammoth too. What a shame we can’t clone some of the great men and women of European history.

    1. Educated in England judging by his accent. We have done something seriously wrong since then.

      2. We met an old beekeeper in Uganda a few years ago – he spoke very precise English – he said he went to a British school.

        1. I had a couple of Nigerians in my house when I was a housemaster. Both of them were highly intelligent and went on to do very well.

          George, who went on to study Law at Bristol University was the son of the Chief Justice in Nigeria. I remember reading his ‘personal statement’ in his university application form:

          Reading Milton and Shakespeare gives me sheer pleasure.

          and he meant it.

          His brother, Daniel, had a white girlfriend whom I referred to as Desdemona!

        2. Weren’t we really nasty colonialists to have take education to the masses of Africa?

          3. Change “Taxpayer” to “Aid Donor” and the message is the same:-https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/767cfe09713700bee3c40d2943a660f81860eca4ba6ee3610f4e98fe4904c526.jpg

          4. That and the big corporations helping them to spend aid money on big projects and big machinery and consultants…

            I wrote a paper saying that backward countries would be better to spend money on labourers with buckets and spades, than on one man in a bulldozer. The paper won me my diploma.

    5. Well he’s absolutely spot on.
      Make it snappy Mr president.
      I wonder,……. was there an ambulance parked outside the building ?

      1. Unless all the “aid” is in his off-shore account and he has decided he needs no more…(a cynic writes).

        1. Do you think Mugabe left him the keys to his Swiss bank
          safe deposit ?
          Nah it wouldn’t have happened.

          1. I think the fragrant Mrs Mugabe had the keys on a string round her neck…

          2. Some where more out of sight Bill.
            The only thing that I have ever admired Peter Tatchell for was, when he tried to take murdering Mugabe to task in Paris. And he was punched in the gob by security.

    6. Fantastic – he speaks far more truth and has far more common sense than any of our scurvy politicians.

      (He went to school at Lancing – the school where BT’s great hero, Evelyn Waugh, went!)

    7. ..and anyone who disagrees will be shot by the big bloke on the right.

      Oh, I don’t suppose we could give President Nana Akufo-Addo a UK passport and have him lead the Tory party?

  57. The central heating has just switched itself on, and the outside temp is now 10.0 and falling.

    1. I have just put the central heating on. I didn’t intend starting to use the oil until later in the year, but needs must when the temperature drops 🙁

        1. It was either oil or light the Rayburn, so I opted for the easier of the two 🙂

      2. ‘Afternoon, Conway, having just ordered 1,000 litres of heating oil at just 20p per litre, I think I can afford to be a trifle profligate.

        1. That’s expensive! 🙂 I paid 17.95ppl. I ordered 1,000 litres, but I didn’t need the whole amount. The tank only took just under 800. Most of the heating is by Rayburn (so many bangs for the same buck – heating, hot water and cooking). I only use the oil if the temperature is cool in Spring and Autumn – and particularly when we’ve had hot days followed by a drop in temperature. It’s a real fag lighting the Rayburn, then letting it out (because the temperature has risen and we’re sweltering) and then having to light it again usw.

          1. You might think it expensive but, compared to the norm of 45-55p per litre it’s bluddy cheap.

          2. Quite – I paid 48.5p a litre on 20 February. I thought I’d fill up before we went back to France for the last time. I didn’t need to….

            Curses!

    2. Wind quite blustery here, Weather radar shows Hunts in the thick of it but dry outside.

    3. Deep joy. My central heating was switched off on 1 May and it will remain off until 1 October regardless of the weather. Communal heating systems in apartment blocks save money and energy…until the electric heater becomes the only warm alternative to staying in bed!

        1. Indeed. I put my weegie cardy on, but MOH, as a result of the stroke (and being generally “nesh”) feels the cold, so I had to put the heating on.

          1. I, too, feel the cold post-stroke. But being a bloke, and an expat Yorkshireman to boot, I reach for a jumper.
            No insult intended to YOH.
            ;-))

          2. MOH, being a townie and generally indoor person, had no outdoor waterproof clothing before we met. The idea that there was no bad weather, only inadequate clothing came as a shock 🙂

          1. Nobody gets it? Too obscure… It’s Felicity Kendal in Tom Stoppard’s play Jumpers, which I saw in the West End in 1974 or so. At the time she was exceptionally close to the playwright.

          2. Wasn’t Michael Hordern – one of my favourite actors – in the production?

            He did two very good television Shakespeare productions – one as King Lear and the other as Prospero.

          3. Wasn’t Michael Hordern – one of my favourite actors – in the production?

            He did two very good television Shakespeare productions – one as King Lear and the other as Prospero.

      3. That’s London for you, Sue.

        They are much more civilised in York, you know. 😉

      4. Boris to announce new motto:

        “Stay in bed; save Maternity Units; make more lives”

    1. None of this is a surprise. This Bill will effectively make planning revolution a crime, and the SNP will be banned as a terrorist organisation. Or maybe not.
      Since its inception the Scottish Government has pushed through a plethora of laws, none of which make life any better for anyone. Most nuisance crimes, such as football hooliganism and sectarian squabbling, could already be dealt with under the long-standing Breach of the Peace law, which is a very broad category. A catch-all for bad behaviour not specifically covered elsewhere.
      In the 60s the RBS opened a “Ladies Only” Branch bank on Princes’ Street in Edinburgh. It remained open until 1997, although the distinction had ceased to be meaningful earlier. Women have been treated unfairly at times in the, but it would be very hard to argue that case today.

      https://www.rbs.com/heritage/subjects/women-in-banking/women-in-banking–customers.html

      1. ‘Afternoon, Horace, one would have to wonder how long it will be before Scottish Muslims are hauled up for misogyny in the way they treat their women.

        1. Just suggesting that is a hate crime. Your front door will soon be in the lounge…

        1. A lot of these calls come from India I think. We haven’t had any since we got the super duper BT callguardian phones. A lot of others don’t get thtough either.

          1. Glad I bought that system, stopped the unwanted calls completely. Building the list of those allowed access takes a bit of time and it’s a nuisance when you forget one or two people.

  60. 319045+ up ticks,
    These establishment parties know much of this political prattle is complete sh!te and they are on safe ground telling the electorate to stay alert, if the electorate was
    alert fully these establishment parties would have great difficulty in remaining in power.

  61. It occurs to me that if the government and the PTB really want to eliminate the invasion of illegal immigrants arriving across the channel then now is the time to do it.

    Why?

    Because they have the ideal excuse that they are doing it for health reasons and not for race/religious reasons and can deflect such accusations.

    But once the coronavirus scare is over they will be accused of racism if they try and stop illegal immigration so now is their chance.

    But will they take it? Or do they even want to take it?

    1. 319045+ up ticks,
      Afternoon R,
      Hardly likely to want to stop it as it is a party builder.

    2. The better reason, which has been there from the start, is that when they reach these shores they have committed a crime of illegal invasion and, in some cases, with hostile intent. They should be treated appropriately with no resort to legal aid or benefits. After legal action and punishment they should be deported back to where they came from with no right of appeal.

      1. Yes, but we already know that Muslims receive more tolerant treatment from the law than indigenous white Christians.

    3. If they wanted to do it, it would have been done ages ago.
      They lie to you.
      Why, I wonder?

      1. Because HMG has done a deal with yer French. As I have said repeatedly (and, no doubt, boringly) right now, in France you cannot go out of your place of residence WITHOUT carrying a signed, dated AND timed document explaining why you are not indoors. The plod are everywhere enforcing it.

        Calais has been swamped with police for years. I know – I go there six times a year.

        For a bunch of several dozen illegals to leave their jungle and wander several kms to the shore and wait for the boat to arrive WITHOUT being picked up by yer plod is – quite simply – unbelievable

        So there is a fix in place – no doubt arranged by Treason to placate the EUSSR, or to try to get the French on our side during the leaving negotiations.

        1. Yup, seems likely.
          Where does the endless supply of boats come from?

        2. A police escort would make it safe eh.
          But Still rather childishly taking revenge for Agincourt Trafalgar and Waterloo.

        3. Afternoon Bill. Two chances of “getting the French on our side during the leaving negotiations” – Bob hope and no hope. They hate us with a vengeance.

          Our stupid politicians just love throwing our money at them for no reason, same as we accept all incomers, whether by train, boat or plane, while we are supposed to “stay at home”. Has there ever been a more stupid government/country?

          3. I agree with you Oberst, however they just do not have the will. All the power but no will. Barstewards the lot of them. There is not even a mention of these illegal arrivals.

            On a different note, I mentioned a possible reluctance to return to work on the part of some of the population some time ago and now it seems, from what’s in the MSM, that may well be how some are feeling. It occurred to me that Rishi could announce that, from such and such a date, the “furlough” money will cease. That should concentrate minds. I’m just very concerned that for some people their jobs will no longer be there. And I think it very unfair that the public sector will have come through this awful time completely unscathed financially while the rest of the population, who pay their salaries and pensions, will be in deep trouble. Also local councils have gone ahead with their tax increases when almost all services have been curtailed or stopped.

          4. Soon, there won’t be enough nonstate employees to pay all the state salaries & pensions.

          5. Absolutely right and then there will be fun and games with the unions being outraged that their members’ pensions may have to be downgraded ever so slightly. (Some hopes!). The unions will be bellyaching about their members’ rights “to work in a safe environment “, I.e., without the risk of getting the dreaded virus. Which is utterly impossible.

          6. I am particularly proud that this year, unlike last, I persuaded my fellow councillors not to increase the precept. As we have had new building to increase the money coming in, our council tax has actually gone DOWN. Unfortunately, we’re only a parish council and the other elements have gone up, so overall I expect the rate payers won’t see any benefit.

          7. Well done Conway, we could do with many more like you. Our Police and Crime Commissioner rate has gone up by 3.8%, the highest increase of the 4, the lowest 2% for Adult Social Care.

          8. I am your typical small state, low tax, fiscally prudent, small C conservative (actually UKIP). I keep reminding my fellow councillors that it isn’t OUR money, it’s the rate payers’ money and we have a duty to spend it wisely.

          10. Well done again. And of course that used to be Margaret Thatcher’s mantra. The government doesn’t have money + only what it takes from you and me.

          11. I am clearly a dying breed – if the govt had its way, Covid 19 would have finished me off long ago. They would save on my pension (into which I paid handsomely over a quarter of a century of full-time work) and get rid of my inconvenient morals.

          12. Unfortunately The government is not known for its morals or common sense. Don’t let the bu..ers cheat you out of your Pension! KBO.

          13. When we had to vote for a PCC when it was introduced, I spoiled my ballot by writing “this is yet another layer of unnecessary bureaucracy which will cost a fortune and bring about no improvement”. Subsequent events (the bloke elected appointed a crony as his deputy on a generous salary) proved me spot on.

          14. When were salaries introduced for PCC members, I didn’t realise they were paid. And not all areas have them do they. At least I’m not aware of one local to us

          18. Ohhh, sorree! I’m pretty certain the PCC is a waste of our money – as you say. (Should have realised what you meant doh!). No idea what they’re supposed to do or represent.

          20. Sorry Conway, my mistake doh! Did reply last night but iPad ran out of power and cut off.

          21. I saw it, though. It’s an easy mistake to make and you aren’t the first one to do it, even here 🙂

        4. Yup, seems likely.
          Where does the endless supply of boats come from?

    4. The forces that wish this Cross Channel traffic to continue are more powerful than the Government!

  62. Tomorrow, yer French open the door an inch. People will be able to use trains and buses. On BFMTV, the presenter, (the equivalent of the preachy one on Sky – Kay suffin’) is interrogating a chap from Paris public transport and saying, “It is all very well having the rules about masks and distance, but WHAT are you going to do when people ignore them?”

    Very patient Matey said – that there will be plenty of people around to give advice and guidance and, anyway, the passengers are far too sensible…

    Presenteress not pleased…!

    1. This seemingly universal belief that masks are some sort of magic talisman is a bit concerning.

      Most of them are useless, yet we are in danger of being forced to wear some kind of face cover.

      Once they get wet and soggy they are less than useless, worse, they are potentially dangerous and sources of infection transmission.

      What the hell happened to ‘following the science’?

      Following the latest media fad, more like.

        1. Is that the one where he models Nuclear Armageddon for the Chinese Government, and everyone survives?

      2. It’s not about “does it work”? It’s about “do people think it works”? In other words “can we fool the public”?

        Well, the government has managed so far. But remember “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time”.

        1. The same has applied in respect of “airport security” since it was introduced. I was listening to the radio and the Home Secretary of the time (1970s?) was being interviewed. He said all the searches and X-Rays had no security value at all, they just made people feel safer (“if they are doing all this it must work, right?”).
          The public are easily fooled, and manipulated. The more it happens, the more we accept it, and the more it happens…

      3. Just think of them as a way of saying up yours to the face recognition cameras.

  63. ‘I don’t know what ”stay alert” means’: Nicola Sturgeon rubbishes
    Boris Johnson’s new lockdown slogan warning ‘mixed messages’ mean
    ‘people will die’ as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all refuse to
    use it ahead of crunch speech at 7pm tonight

    These creeps are making political capital at every turn.

    It goes almost without saying that these dozy bastards won’t know what ‘stay alert’ means.

    They’ve never been alert in their lives, except to claim their expenses.

          2. Did someone not post a picture that did not show a Finnish sniper?

    2. She is very alert. She took out injunctions to “protect” her private life………

  64. That’s me for the day. “Antony and Cleopatra” from the National Theatre tonight…. Apparently, Cleopatra is played by a bame.

    I expect it will be in modern dress and they’ll use ski-jets…

    Can’t wait…..

    A demain.

    2. I had to abandon watching the Shakespeare play they broadcast last week – the production was a travesty

      1. Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
        Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
        The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
        Where most she satisfies

        ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ was one of my “A” level set books and after studying it I was hooked.

    4. Cleopatra was a Ptolemy and was therefore Greek and maybe had blonde hair. Will the BAME go blonde?

  65. Have anyone else noticed, there is no News in the Tellylaff, apart from Covid

    There has been no further news about this

    Forty firefighters tackling blaze at 20-storey tower block in west London
    The building in Maida Vale is located close to Grenfell Tower, where 72 people died in a fire in June 2017

    Not a word, but wait till St Grenfell Day on 14 June

      1. Does that sort of suggest a new proverb?

        If the victims were BAMEs, then whitey’s to blame

  66. Don’t know if this was mentioned earlier
    “Family reunion rescue flight to bring vulnerable migrants from Athens to UK” – couldn’t get a proper link – 52 more people taking off Monday and heading here. May as well just welcome the world here.

    1. When they say vulnerable do they have covid or are they at risk of child grooming gangs?

      2. They’ll most likely be unemployable, uneducated, non English speaking, economic migrants hoping for a life on ‘free’ benefits, medical care and homes. The first family member enters the UK illegally, asylum sob story accepted,, permission to remain granted.

        1. The “right to family life” means that another couple of hundred relatives follow; wife, father, mother, wife’s father and mother, their parents and grandparents and brothers and cousins and their offspring…

  67. Top statistician blows his top at No 10’s ‘number theatre’ and accuses government of MISLEADING the public as pressure mounts on Matt Hancock after his bust up with PM

    ‘There is a public out there who are broadly very supportive of the measures, they are hungry for details, for facts, for genuine information.

    ‘And yet they get fed what I call number theatre, which seems to be co-ordinated much more by a No10 communications team rather than genuinely trying to inform people about what is going on.

    I gave up with the numbers about a fortnight ago because I couldn’t make head or tail of them. I was interested to note at the start of his show this morning Andrew Marr saying “Let’s begin with facts. 31,000 people have dies of Coronavirus so far in the UK. That is the highest in Europe and the second highest in the world.” Then, “It is probably many more than that.” So much for facts. The truth is that this is the most God Awful shambles. They were probably better informed during the Black Death.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8304747/Top-statistician-accuses-government-MISLEADING-public-pressure-mounts-Matt-Hancock.html

    1. There was a good guy on Marr this morning. Talked a lot of sense, which the lefties at the Beeb cannot have liked.

    1. They’ve been using that clip for many months. They, like the rest of the MSM esp. BBC, are neither in tune with the people, nor the law.

    1. Thanks Eddy. Just asked J to record that for later. I guess it’s the Levison Wood programme.

      1. What a coincidence I’ve just scrolled a long way down looking for you to remind you and here you are 😊
        Yes Levison Wood.
        I’ve also set it on record.
        I’m watching Chappaquidick at the moment.
        More dusgusting vile malipulation and lying from the political classes.

        1. I was elsewhere earlier on – good timing!

          After a sunny start, it’s now cold, wet and windy. Not enough rain to lay the dust yet, though.

      1. Val Singleton is one of those very attractive ladies who never went over the top in trying to appear glamorous and was all the more attractive for it.

      1. Hi Richard I do remember that.
        I also remember driving over night in the pitch black from Victoria falls to Kariba along the Zambian side of the border and suddenly rounding a bend slamming on the brakes and getting very close indeed to a huge bull bringing up the rear of the herd. He towered above the VW beetle we were in. Stared at us for about 60 seconds and turned away following his wives and girlfriends.
        When we arrived in Salisbury a friend showed us a photograph of a squashed mini moke a bull had sat upon.
        As the four Yorkshire men from monty python would have said. We were lookey.
        Thanks for posting my pictures for me.
        I’m back on line on my PC now.
        I think it was a faulty
        mouse (opposite end of the animal spectrum 😊) causing the problem.

      1. I shall pass the chart to my team of statisticians and come back to you on that one. Sometime…

          1. I did get the whole team cheaply from Imperial, they said it was either me or fruitpicking, and now that the weather’s taken a turn for the worse, it’s warmer working indoors. They even brought their own abacus, only one though so it has to be rationed out. They have another one on order from a Turkish supplier but it has got stuck in customs.

          2. The abacus will be released from customs but then fail testing before being released for use.

          4. Actually, to be serious, my last boss emanated from Imperial. A very nice chap, and competent to boot.

      2. “Don’t worry your little head about that Antonia – do come in!”

  71. ‘Afternoon, all.

    Why is that sorry bunch of failed and opportunistic politicians who rule the EUSSR always referred to in the media as a “technocracy”? Here’s the definition of the word:

    Technocracy is an ideological system of governance in which decision makers are selected on the basis of their expertise in a given area of responsibility, particularly with regard to scientific or technical knowledge.

    What scientific or technical expertise do people such as von Lederhosen, Juncker, Verhofstadt, Tusk, Lagarde, the Kinnocks, Mandelson et al. have to offer? They are nothing more than patter merchants, former corrupt politicians who more often than not were abject failures in their countries of origin, that is, failures in everything other than their outstanding ability to cream-off and trouser large wedges of cash.

    And is technocracy so desirable anyway? You’re likely to end up being governed by irresponsible amadain like the “Bonking Boffin”, Neil Ferguson, whose scientific “expertise” has managed to bring down the economies of the West in a crash that will probably take a generation to recover from – if we’re lucky.
    :¬(

    2. Their qualifications are a fanatical belief in the Projekt, allied to a propensity to lie.

    3. Trouble is, the “experts” that set the pace are the ones the politicians picked for the role – not necessarily the brightest and the best.

      Fauci and Birx in the US are both veterans of the AIDS epidemic and also worked on Ebola. Their problem is Trump who does not want to hear anything or anyone that disagrees with his personal views. I watched the “Can’t we inject disinfectants and use bright lights” speech, and Birx’s face was just a picture. Talk about “God just take me now…”

      Reliance on modeling is fine – as long as you have plenty of actual real data to base the extrapolations on -which is lacking in the present epidemic. China may have it, but they are not helping. Otherwise it’s GIGO.

  72. An hiatus on Nottle as we wait with bated breath for bonkin’ Boris’s baffling bollocks.

    2. And baffling bollocks it is. I think this virus has affected his brain more than I thought.

  73. I had to do a Captain Oates and go outside.

    One of the bid feeders was swept from the tree and carried several feet cross the garden. It really is blowing a hooley out there.

    1. Finished cutting the hedge….just enjoying a sherry….or maybe two!
      It’s warm and I’m hoping for rain later…I can’t face watering the garden and pots again….
      Just listening to the recorded Cello prog on BBC4 last night. Cellist Beatrice Harrison’s charming recording with the nightingale.
      Catch it on BBC I player…

    2. SO you’re the one that stuffs the bids on Ebay…Is it a solo effort or are you part of an organised team? Norfolk? Wasn’t that where Lovejoy was based?

  74. Terrorising the public afresh. Control the virus? Is he taking advice from Mickey Mouse. This is appalling. Destroying the country. This is sheer lunacy.

    1. Well I watched five or seven minutes and now I’ve turned it off. It’s all bureacratic Bull!

      2. We turned off as well. No sign of hope no clear path to trust the people.

        1. I just read the “live” bit on the beeb and gave up.

          Off to get some veg etc ready for dinner now.

          Will be back tomorrow – goodnight all.

        2. The alerts and all that stuff is just something for them and the MSM to talk about. You might as well anounce that we have gone to Defcon2!

  75. Shouldn’t the US be seeing an upturn in CV cases about now? Georgia eased restrictions two weeks ago now so it would seem logical that all of that returning touchy feely would see a big increase in cases.

      1. I would hope that experience with Georgia would allow fact to rise above political expedience.

        I see that the Republicans are fighting the opening of an additional polling station in the upcoming California election, calling it an insult to democracy. Objecting to postal voting and attempting to block polling stations in non Republican areas is hardly a defense of democracy.

    2. In a lot of places, the state governors are easing restrictions, but many people have no confidence that the governors are making anything other than political statements. We are somewhat lucky, in that our governor seems to be a straight shooter – and the state has had relatively few cases. In his announcement a week or so back, he ended with saying, “If y’all are as old as I am, you ought to maybe give it another couple of weeks to see how things go.”

      Comes of having a governor who is not a professional politician, I guess.

      By the way, rural Georgia got whacked a few weeks back : https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/us/coronavirus-funeral-albany-georgia.html

      Just shows how fast things can spin out of control – all down to one infected person.

    1. Jumper on time , and large windows closed .. I have just watered the garden, very chiilly drying breeze blowing the May blossom off.

          1. It is, but he neighbours’ white wisteria (mentioned above to Bill) has a much more powerful scent than mine.

        2. Magnificent. My wisteria is only young, so it isn’t flowering well yet. I have a couple of clematis (Miss Bateman and Wada’s Primrose) out and the Daniel Deronda is just opening. Bee’s Jubilee will be another few days.

        3. My white clematis is about half way to full blossom – I fear it ill be bashed about – even though it is on a south facing wall and the wind is from the north east.

          1. My white clematis is struggling to survive after the unsupervised mauling it was given a few weeks ago, just as the flowers were about to open.

            Some neighbours have a white wisteria – it was looking splendid yesterday.

        4. That’s not your C. alpina, is it?

          My montanas are going over, probably hastened by this wind.

          1. No – it’s Montana Rubens. The Alpina Alba had a severe mauling a few weeks ago by OH – he got one from me. Hopefully it will recover in time for next year – it is sprouting now from the base.

          2. Take heart; I went to a talk about clematis at a gardening club. The chap had the national collection or something. He gave us a demonstration of pruning and a gasp went up; all that was left was a little stick with two buds!

          3. All that was left of mine after OH had finished with it was wilting greenery with never to open buds, and the thick wooden stunps that it had been cut back to a few years ago when the old oil tank came out. It’s sprouting a bit now, though.

      2. The wind is rumbling like thunder here. Kept me awake from my usual nap.

  79. Great comment by “Sue Denim” on lockdownsceptics about the Ferguson computer code…
    Having demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the figures on which the government made their lockdown decision were not worth the paper they were printed on (he’s discovered a few later bug fixes that they appear to have tried to hide, and ran the code without those bug fixes to see what it really did), he comments:

    “For standards to improve academics must lose the mentality that the rules don’t apply to them. In a formal petition to ICL to retract papers based on the model you can see comments “explaining” that scientists don’t need to unit test their code, that criticising them will just cause them to avoid peer review in future, and other entirely unacceptable positions. Eventually a modeller from the private sector gives them a reality check. In particular academics shouldn’t have to be convinced to open their code to scrutiny; it should be a mandatory part of grant funding.
    The deeper question here is whether Imperial College administrators have any institutional awareness of how out of control this department has become, and whether they care. If not, why not? Does the title “Professor at Imperial” mean anything at all, or is the respect it currently garners just groupthink? ”

    The state of academia at Imperial seems to be pretty much the same as in every university the length and breadth of Britain.

    1. If their coding is so sloppu, what about their approach to research or teaching? Equally crapulent?

      1. I have the lowest opinion of academics. In this case, they are not just sloppy, they’ve been caught out lying.

    3. That’s what happens when you start accepting students on quotas and their political opinions.

    2. Given my recent discoveries, I wonder about the condition of his nasal hair and eyebrows.

      Should I drop him a line?

    3. Boris has certainly lost the plot. He had praise but no sympathy for the elderly. I suspect he was reading a script written for him. His enthuaism for what he was saying seemed false.

      1. Agreed.
        The constant stuttering presentation, with clenched fist movement after almost every phrase, suggested as much

        2. Just the result of what he has been through. Many recorded cases of people taking months to get back to normal after a bad bout.

          1. Bull shirt.
            That was rehearsed, all the false sincerity.

            You’ve watching too much Obama.

  82. So science is the new name for superstitious pagan belief based on power hungry theoretical fantasy unsupported by empirical evidence. We can be 100% free of the virus forever if only you forfeit free will and obey big brother. No.

    3. There’s plenty of empirical evidence that ignoring social distancing recommendations is probably the Number One cause of viral spread. In the US, we have had multiple nasty local outbreaks caused by dimwits who decided they did not need to heed the advice on maintaining distance, and went partying or similar. Some of them are now dead. Others are finding out first hand just how nasty this disease can be. Frankly, I think people who behave stupidly in this way should go to the back of the queue for medical care.

      What makes zero sense is telling people they can’t go for a drive, or for a walk, or go to a park or a beach. All perfectly OK, as long as you keep your distance. We have “stay at home” recommendations (not police enforced or anything like that), but with many exceptions – everything from buying groceries to buying hooch or ammo, are all OK. My local beer and wine store tells me business is booming. Still, re-opening is well underway where we live, so we will see how it goes.

      1. Matt Ridley wrote in the Telegraph that a medical Doctor in the Philippines has observed that sufficient levels of vitamin D may be a significant factor in determining whether people get seriously ill.

    2. Makes you wonder what is going to happen at midnight on Tuesday to make these previously dangerous activities suddenly safe.

      Has anyone got a pumpkin? I feel the need of a carriage.

    3. Oh, thank you …. thank you … thank you, Milord …. (touches forelock, doffs cap, cringes with gratitude).

    4. Makes you wonder what is going to happen at midnight on Tuesday to make these previously dangerous activities suddenly safe.

      Has anyone got a pumpkin? I feel the need of a carriage.

      1. it’s probably not that anything other than the restrictions themselves have changed but that it takes three days for information to penetrate very thick skulls.

        Edit: and sometimes just as long before I see the need to edit a typo!

  84. 319045+ up ticks,
    Some time back but was the bliar chap something to do with park toilets, some sort of poger pogger,willy watcher,etc,etc, have I got the right one ?

    1. In 2014, when everybody was lighting candles for the centenary of the beginning of the First World War, my son, then a fireman, was called to a house fire and personally rescued a house-bound woman just before she would have been overcome by smoke. She was trapped alone in her bed with the blankets pulled up over her head for protection after a candle set fire to curtains and a silent alarm was sounded at the fire station.

      These pointless gestures can have unintended consequences.

      New age mumbo-jumbo.

        1. He had to go in wearing full BA before they could switch the branches on to put water in, visibilty zero, literally. He found her by using thermal imaging equipment. The poor soul was terrified. She didn’t know if the message from her smoke alarm had got through and she was lying in the bed with her head covered as a last resort and protection against the smoke. I fill up just thinking about it.

          He was ten feet high when he was telling us.

    2. All this singing, clapping and shining lights reminds me of that scene in Aliens where the Colonial Marines having had their asses kicked and waiting to be impregnated and walled up alive the villain of the piece suggests they light a fire and gather round for a sing-song!

      1. You could bash your pots on behalf of the diverse who are unable to do their bit for the NHS on thursdays because they are vulnerable.

    5. Couldn’t we set one day aside for tying yellow ribbons around old oak trees?

      I’m sure that’d be a big comfort to everybody in their darkest hour. Why, somebody might even write a song about it…

      1. Sorry no. In the song they walk arm in arm at daybreak which would break social distancing rules.

        1. You’ve got it mixed up with Green Green Grass of Home. Tie a Yellow Ribbon was about a happy homecoming, not a hanging.

    6. I wonder whether Boris has been put under pressure by Muslims to relax the rules for the remainder of Ramadan, and the celebration there after?

    9. 319045+ up ticks,
      Afternoon A,
      Congregate at the beach in crowds of two at Dover.

    10. I thought we had to observe a moment’s minute’s silence on Wednesdays and sing “We’ll Meet Again” on Fridays, Aeneas.

      EDIT: Corrected following BT’s post to The Master (Mr Lime) who in the film version of his life was portrayed by a Merkin, one Orson Welles.

  86. Playing golf in twos I don’t see a problem it is easy to keep 2m apart, playing tennis the same, not sure what the problem is who one plays with.

    2. 319045 + up ticks,
      Evening B3,
      My problem is locating a 6’6” crib board
      for the daily workout.

    3. Hell, we have a shootout with about fifteen of us playing at the same time and even then there is zero chance of us being within two yards (metric) of each other. Being on the same hole is a bonus!

  87. Roasted a stuffed pork joint (1.3kg) for 4 hours at 150 not fan, totally disregarding the instructions on the label. Gave the roast potatoes the same time after par-boiling them.
    Meat soft, juicy & luscious, good crackling & plenty of juice for gravy. Also topped a garlic bulb, oiled & roasted alongside – I love garlic.

        1. It was – lecker!

          And sufficient for a repeat tomorrow, so easy dinner.

    2. We will be having the same tomorrow , because the weather will be colder . I will remember not to use my fan oven , and try it your way .
      We had steaks and salad and trifle today , we were too busy in the garden .

      1. Use a bigger roasting pan than usual because the liquid produced is phenomenal. I nearly got caught out with a flood.

  88. Right, that’s me, suffering from a surfeit of NoTTLing so I’m off to veg out in front of the TV and/or a book, to see which drives me to a nap first.

    1. Telly usually sends me to sleep, a book not so much, unless it’s hard going.

      1. A talking book is a sure fire way to send me to sleep; I have never managed to stay awake to the end of one yet.

        1. I’m not surprised. Aren’t you supposed to listen chapter by chapter?

          2. Funnily enough, they have the opposite effect on me.

            Driving 450 miles a day – I would arrive completely knackered. After we started the books – I now arrive rejuvenated (well fairly).

  89. Ok , freedom to exercise and go to public parks etc where does one go to spend a penny, pee in a bush then go home again?

    Towns and cities will become one giant urinal!

    1. Towns and cities will become one giant urinal!

      In the UK they already are.

    3. TB you certainly have a Pee in your Bonnet about the availability of public loos….

      1. Coffee shops and dept stores will be closed , those refined clean areas with decent loos used to be decent places to pop in for a pee .

    4. We shall have PPE (Personal Pee Equipment).
      P.S. I formatted my daughter’s nursing degree thesis on Self Catheterisation using my PC.

      2. When I told a nurse that I had once heard another nurse describe Male catheterisation as ‘a long standing problem’. She replied I wish it was it would make the task so much easier….

  90. Nicola Sturgeon has announced that Scottish people are now allowed to exercise more than once a day, lifting a restriction that has been in place since 1853.

    (Tom Peck.)

  91. Family reunion rescue flight to bring vulnerable migrants from Athens to UK. 10 May 2020.

    The flight on Monday is the result of intense efforts by refugee families in the UK with the support of campaign group Safe Passage and the peer Alf Dubs. It was organised with collaboration from the UK and Greek governments after direct flights between Greece and the UK were suspended in March.

    Family reunification is suspended across much of Europe, as borders have closed to stop the spread of Covid-19, but unusual efforts between the Home Office and the Greek government have allowed this flight to go ahead.

    Lol! They probably didn’t bother asking Priti Patel . She is after all only the Home Secretary!

    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/may/10/exclusive-family-reunion-rescue-flight-to-leave-athens-for-uk

    1. Perhaps BoB can send another tweet to Priti Patel and ask wtf is going on? We’re not allowed to see our families – I haven’t been able to see my mother since January, or my sister – we’re harassed by the police for “unnecessary journeys,” and they’re flying in people who don’t have a right to be here to join their families. Are they taking the p*** or what??

      1. Of course they are. We need to rise up and show them we won’t be conned. Unfortunately, too many of the current generation have no concept of critical thinking. Edjukashun, Edjookashun, Ejookashun.

    2. If they want family reunion, send the ones here back to where their families are.

      1. No. They stopped doing that long ago Ndovu when they worked out how to game the system!

    4. And people wonder why the illegal immigrrants are paying handsomely to be towed across the channel.
      Get one past home base and set in the anchor for the rest.

      1. My reading of the situation Sos is that the Home Office is under the control of its bureaucracy. It obeys only those government instructions that it likes and ignores the rest. It also acts by itself as here. There is no mention in the article of any Minister at all, let alone Patel, having any input in this decision

        1. There are also lots of people in the Home Office who identify with/are related to people who make up the illegals.

          1. I didn’t want to mention that Bill because I have no direct evidence for it. If I had to, I would bet that the major opposition to restricting immigration within the Home Office is made up of ethnic, specifically Muslim enclaves within the bureacracy!

          2. You wouldn’t get any proof of it, anyway, even under an FOI request. It wouldn’t be “in the public interest”.

          3. Who cares about evidence. You have only to look at the people tricked out in macho uniforms in Border Farce; the Perlice Farce, the Passport Office etc etc – the end is listless; They get bloody everywhere – and no one appears to notice.

          4. It always gets up my nose that, when arriving at airports, almost without exception the first faces you see are not white! And I the ones at the X-ray machines are not white either.

          5. Well I know you don’t care about evidence but I like to be able to support my opinions with either that or deductive reasoning!

          6. I have the evidence of my own eyes, Minty. Every time I go through the border.

            And further evidence is provided by the thousands who have landed illegally on the Kent coast – an been made welcome by the very people (and their agents) of whom I wrote.

        2. It’s been agreed months, if not years ago, when May signed us up for it.

          2. They made all sizes including torch batteries and the batteries for small radios.

  93. Watching Yesterday TV – Thailand : Earths tropical paradise.
    Beautiful.

  94. HAPPY HOUR –
    Posted earlier Classic cello at the BBC. catch up on IPlayer.
    Cellist Beatrice Harrison’s charming recording with the nightingale.

    I was in my late teens when I first heard Elgar’s Cello Concerto played by Jacqueline du Pré before she was cruelly struck down with MS. The arrogance of youth told me the cello was for me. I was going to be famous !

    However after lugging the monster cello around London on and off the tube in the 60’s I knew it was not for me….!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH0jUQTCCQI

    4. We watched that prog on Friday evening. I have an old LP recording of her performance but sadly now no means of playing it. We’ll have to make do with Julian L-W – he did sign it for me.

      1. Her stuff is on CD if you want it.

        Incidentally I recently hooked up my deck again. Needed to buy a pre-amp, but they are cheap and easy to get these days – courtesy of Mr. Bezos.

    1. A politician in training. Will soon be able to get the head where the sun doesn’t shine.

        2. There are apparently men flexible enough to not need a partner, if you get what I mean.

          They must also be young, as flexibility seems to fall off a cliff with advanced years.

  96. The virus peaked on the 8th April. Nothing the government has done has made any difference to the death rates, just compare Sweden, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea which had similar virus trajectories but no lockdown. Bojo may wish to take credit for this, but the virus probably hit these shores last December. It had already run rampant through the population before we even knew what it was. He can impose all the rules and restrictions he likes, he might as well try and take credit for the sun rising tomorrow.

    With deaths and infections on a downward trajectory and the NHS underwhelmed, let us hope there any no excuses to prolong this damaging lockdown any longer than the end of May. Get the children back to school and the adults back to work. Then we can start picking up the pieces of our shattered economy.

    https://www.itv.com/news/2020-04-21/coronavirus-peak-in-deaths-happened-april-8-ons-data/

    1. It strikes me that since they announced the lock-up they have done nothing but sit on their hands and wait for it to sort itself out. Out of their depth.

      They are twiddling their thumbs in hospitals, while their normal customers have been relegated to 2nd class and the government is still in ‘clap for the nurses’ mode. Deaths are due to hit the level this week that we had before lock-up. Why don’t they at least present that as light at the end of the tunnel instead of continuing with ‘Project Go Out And You’re Dead’?

      1. I suspect that if they had done nothing from the start we would have had a better result than the awful damage caused by the lockdown. At least we would not have seen Covid patients moved into care homes. I want to know who authorised that decision – they should be prosecuted.

    2. South Korea – an incredibly aggressive public health and mass testing response. But, they are now dealing with widespread re-infections. Japan has a full state of emergency in place until at least the end of the month due to almost runaway conditions. Given Britain’s high population density, vigorous transmission is almost guaranteed without strict distancing controls. Britain’s problem is that like the US, it was in denial until it was overwhelmed, then there was nowhere near enough PPE or test kits to cope.

      A better comparison is Germany which had adequate medical supplies, got on top of things quickly, but they again have found that as soon as controls are loosened, it starts to spread again.

      It’s a simple tradeoff – the economy vs lives. And I don’t think anyone really knows how to make that call – or wants to be responsible for getting it wrong. The only good news is that younger people by and large will survive it. Older ones, not so much. Oh, and having it once does not produce immunity.

      1. “It’s a simple tradeoff – economy vs lives”. Do you not think that a healthy economy is important if we are to be able to fund the NHS? And do you not think that there will be severe public health implications from millions of people losing their jobs, such as poverty, homelessness, domestic violence, drug/alcohol abuse, divorce, suicides? And how many thousands of people have/will die due to missed cancer screenings etc because the NHS became the Covid Health Service?

        99% of people are not at risk of dying from Covid-19. We should have adopted a strategy of isolating the elderly and vulnerable and letting the rest of us get on with our lives. But we have treated this like the Black Death. History will judge this period as an act of monumental folly and self-harm.The ‘cure’ is far worse than the disease.

      2. “It’s a simple tradeoff – economy vs lives”. Do you not think that a healthy economy is important if we are to be able to fund the NHS? And do you not think that there will be severe public health implications from millions of people losing their jobs, such as poverty, homelessness, domestic violence, drug/alcohol abuse, divorce, suicides? And how many thousands of people have/will die due to missed cancer screenings etc because the NHS became the Covid Health Service?

        99% of people are not at risk of dying from Covid-19. We should have adopted a strategy of isolating the elderly and vulnerable and letting the rest of us get on with our lives. But we have treated this like the Black Death. History will judge this period as an act of monumental folly and self-harm.The ‘cure’ is far worse than the disease.

      3. Germany never closed down as much as the UK did. People were working all through, from home, or delivering things like plants and cooked meals.

  97. COVID symptoms are known to involve multiple organs and not just the lungs.
    Malaria treatments are also known to alleviate COVID infections and blood types are an influencing factor.
    Reports differ on how the COVID affects the blood but it seems that your blood type may be an influencing factor.

    Olivia explains some things you might not know about your blood type and vulnerability to infection and talks about the importance of your von Willibrand factor:

    https://youtu.be/cEhUj_BKzGI

      2. Apart from the accent – understandable in a septic – the croakiness that is universal in young females today really gets to me….

    3. They seem to think “A” is not good news. Being from good peasant stock, I have the common stuff – O.

          1. Not allowed to donate here – we lived in Europe while the mad cow madness was under way. They even banned Bovril imports at the same time. Still banned, but anyone who comes to visit from Britain knows what the price of admission is.

      4. I’ve said this before. After I had the legs ‘trimmed’, I was given a transfusion. Never having known my blood group, I asked the nurse. “Be positive”. “I’m being bloody positive – what’s my blood group?”

    4. Ah well, since I have no German blood in my veins – including yer Anglified-Saxon – I won’t have a “von Willibrand” factor, or “von” anything else for that matter.

      Deo gratias!

      ;¬)

      3. And here’s me thinking that Willibrandt was the German Chancellor when JFK visited Germany to tell the German people that he was a doughnut!

        :-))

        1. Indeed. I played Macbeth in 1953. I found it was easier to learn the whole play by heart than simply my part.

          (The words might almost have been a quote from Mrs Murrell today about Mr Johnson…)

        2. Indeed. I played Macbeth in 1953. I found it was easier to learn the whole play by heart than simply my part.

          (The words might almost have been a quote from Mrs Murrell today about Mr Johnson…)

  98. I note that the figures for deaths are down again. The lower they get the greater that any slight increase looks in % age terms.

    Always recall that a 50% drop in anything requires a 100% increase from the new lower figure to get back where you started.

    Boris speaks, lockdown is eased the figures start to nudge upwards and we immediately get locked down again, with loud choruses of “we told you so” from the usual suspects.

        1. My husband’s nephew and family in Sheffield were all quite ill some weeks back, but they all recovered ok.

      2. Given the recovery rate and the fact that most people don’t get extreme symptoms, together with the supposed immunity one obtains, I think that might actually be a good thing for society as a whole.

      4. Will worrying about it, Belle, help?
        I doubt it. You may well have had it without knowing as will thousands/millions of people.

        1. When it comes to the virus, either you’ll catch it or you won’t. If you don’t catch it, no need to worry. If you do catch it, either you’ll recover or you won’t. If you recover, there’s no need to worry. If you don’t recover you can’t worry!

          3. I am of the generation that played on bomb sites as a child. We had an Anderson shelter in the garden and items were still on ration.

          4. Likewise. My big playground was, what is now, the Barbican in the City of London. Used to wash cars on Saturday mornings in Chiswell Street home of Whitbread brewery and Hatton Garden area. Used to enjoy the aroma of Old Holborn tobacco produced by Richard Lloyd in Clerkenwell Road. Happy memories.

        2. Which of you by worrying can add an hour to his life. (Some translations of Luke:12,25.)

      5. We have to learn to live with it – it’s not going away. Keeping the country locked down is more damaging than the virus itself.

        1. Absolutely right. You could end up dying from worry. What a dreadful way to go.

          1. People are dying from untreated conditions – heart attacks, strokes, mental health issues.

          2. As we, on here, have said all along. We should be advising the government when you think of all the years of life and experience we have between us.

      6. Not if the vast majority are asymptomatic, or recover from their symptoms.
        The more widespread, the better, i.e. herd immunity.
        But are these new infections, or as a result of testing?

      7. Given the recovery rate and the fact that most people don’t get extreme symptoms, together with the supposed immunity one obtains, I think that might actually be a good thing for society as a whole.

          1. I hope so, but I fear it will be like the common cold and never totally disappear.

    2. The reported number of deaths from /with Covid-19 in Hospital in England over the past 7 days is reported as 176. To put that into perspective that is less than 2 per week in each District’s DGH.

      1. And, of course, 9,000 will have died from “natural causes” during the same period.

        1. Indeed. A figure of around 8-10 deaths per day per DGH is probably right. Others will be dying in Care homes, at home or in Murders or RTA’s.

          3. I thought DGH was a fairly common parlance for District General hospital of which there must be at least 100 in England

          4. How agreeably old fashioned. I have to keep reminding myself not to say BMH…..

          6. Ah – a lacuna.

            British Military Hospital. I was raised in a service environment….

          8. Thank you. I’m reliably informed that in one BMH in Germany the ‘In case of Fire Instructions” read:

            “In case of Fire,
            Stand at Attention at the end of the bed and shout:
            Fire! Fire! Fire!”

          1. No Bill, all that means is that as more reports come in over the next few days, the historic deaths in those reports will simply be allocated to the actual days that they occurred, pushing up the figures in the shaded area (and also the columns further to the left, but to a much lesser extent), so correcting and refining the information.

            That curve is doing very nicely.

    3. Re the charts below.
      I hope that when the lockdown is lifted the PTB will take that into account when numbers inevitably rise due to timing differences.

      1. Looking back at recent days, between 75% to 95% of the daily figure is taken up with deaths that have occurred in the past week, with the remainder tapering off rapidly and spread back for several weeks.

        The numbers should correct themselves for timing differences within a very few days.

        The effect of lifting the lockdown won’t show for a week or two afterwards, because of incubation period.

        1. Are they yet certain as to the incubation period? I’ve read all sorts of figures.

  100. Have spoken this pm with my old boss and friend who still works in a Central London hospital lab.
    The workload there has dropped by 70%. Lab staff are being furloughed on a rotating basis.
    The hospital is trying to get patients back in to attend clinics, but it seems most are still too terrified. Plus there’s the additional problem of there being nowhere to park, so they can only get there by public transport, taxi, or walking.
    The government has not so much flattened the curve as steamrollered hospital attendances flat. There’s more than enough capacity in the system now, which was the entire reason for lockdown, or so they told us. If they don’t significantly lift the lockdown then we’ll know it was never about that.

        2. Given BC’s known proclivities I suspect he’d have noticed the gob immediately.

    4. 319045+up ticks,
      Afternoon Bob,
      Maybe they share a cottage or cottaging facilities.

  102. When the Spanish sent their Armada: we sent Drake to sink it. WE HAD BALLS.

    When The French got uppity through Boney: we sent Nelson and Wellington to smack their arses. WE HAD BALLS.

    When the Kaiser got ideas: we listened to Kitchener and enlisted. WE HAD BALLS.

    When Adolf had designs: Churchill deployed the Royal Navy, British Army, and RAF to win the day. WE HAD BALLS.

    When Argentina got above itself: Mrs Thatcher got the boys to yomp to victory. WE HAD BALLS.

    When Africa and the middle east invaded: our PMs looked the other way and we whinged away on social media. WE ARE DICKLESS AND SANS BALLS.

    1. The Royal Marines “yomped”. The Army “tabbed”, Grizz.

      Just saying!

      2. 🤭 But, to be fair, Duncan, I didn’t say that the army ‘yomped’. Just the boys.

      4. The RAF went up-tiddly-up-up and down-tiddly-down-down 🙂 I met Ron Goodwin at Central Flying School when he was guest of honour and they adopted Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines as the CFS anthem.

      1. Come now Missus – just think of the trans folk.. They’ll be up in arms…………….!!

    3. When Covid-19 arrived: The government and media went completely mad and totally destroyed the economy for two generations.

    1. 319045+ up ticks,
      O2O
      Now there a thing,
      Gerard Batten on Twitter: “This is what I predicted in 2014 in …twitter.com › gerardbattenuk › status
      29 Dec 2018 – Article 50 is a trap to delay Brexit long enough for a general election to take place & for Brexit to be reversed. If you want to leave the EU then …

  104. Oh well, whilst recording the Africa elephant prog.
    Thoroughly enjoying the David Stratton stories of Australia.
    Many great memories.
    Especially Jenny Agutter swimming naked.
    Just call me an old perv…..
    Night all I’m orff, only a bit though 😆

      1. I’m beyond humour,I’m deeply angry,as soon as the fuckwits in charge(yes you Boris) suggest the Tube is a safe way to get to work you realise the whole “Lockdown/Social Distancing” is just fantasy island…………
        Words fail me

  106. What am I hoping to hear from Boris this evening: ?

    HS2 is cancelled (he has every justification to save the £100bn it will cost) officially cancel Heathrow’s 3rd runway.

    I suspect we are going to be crippled by ridiculous and impractical “social distancing” restrictions for months to come. I see the misery of mass unemployment looming on the horizon whilst our government run around like headless chickens.

    And FFS get the country back to work to save the economy.

    I’m not holding my breath.

    1. Boris will be Boris.

      A gormless, gurning, gobshite who changes with the wind.

      I’ve lost patience with him.

      1. Aw, I once suggested to someone I know who works for the Conservatives in the HoC that with Boris, much depends on which side of his bed he got out of. She corrected me. Much depends on whose bed he got out of.

        1. No Health and Safety man there.
          Wonder if they’d try that as the train went into the Channel Tunnel?

          4. PS

            I’ll get the up votes ‘cos mine’s above yours.

            Not that it matters, as we both wear our zeroes with pride!

    3. He shouldn’t cancel the third runway, the speed that they are going at it will be needed before construction is finished.

        1. Good evening (and good night) Geoff. It was that Corbyn deliberately planned, ridiculous photo-op – that introduced me to the word “rammed” – to mean crowded. For the whole of my life, I had thought that the word to desribed a crowded raily carriage was “crammed” – and I assume that the old fool was just using the wrong word.

          Apparently (and not for the first time) I was wrong – and woke folk say “rammed” all the time.

          Off to have a second glass, then supper, then culchur.
          TTFN

          1. I think he said “ram-packed”. I think he got two sayings confused – “crammed” or “jam-packed” – which is what I would have said.

          2. Pity he is not the PM, really…he would have had his finger on the pulse…

          4. Evening, Bill. That story brought to my attention that his companion on that trip, Sam Tarry, was part of Momentum’s hierarchy. I had played the organ for Tarry’s wedding, only a few months before.

            I’m on the second glass, will hear what Boris has to say, then supper. Then prolly the third glass…

          10. I had a splendid burger last night. The Hog’s Back Brewery are now selling / delivering local groceries. Their meat hamper from Alf Turner of Aldershot was impressive. The mince was possibly the best I’ve ever had. The burger rivalled Donald Russell, but was larger. The bacon was a bit thick, and unsmoked, but was OK. The sausages, beef and chicken are in the freezer, for another day. I have some WR Italian meatballs, and the oven is warming, but I’m less than peckish.

          11. Mouth watering!

            I hope you will continue to support those suppliers in the “new normal”

          12. Damn right. 20 pints sedimented TEA are winging their way to Devon for the ex’s birthday as I write.
            Alf Turner was on Dragon’s Den, which resulted in the “Dragon’s Egg” – a somewhat spicy Scotch Egg. Sadly it’s made somewhere up North. Rather like the “Cumberland Sausage” proudly displayed in the window of a butcher in Conway (sorry, Conway) back in 1963. Having enquired, it turned out it was made in Liverpool.

            Alf Turner’s shop is just about within walking distance (2.3 miles), but the brewery does free local delivery over £40, so it’s a no-brainer to order from them. And easier than the supermarkets for delivery.

  108. Travellers between Britain and France will NOT face two-week quarantine despite PM telling the nation people coming by air would have to self isolate
    Countries said any move will be reciprocal and only imposed after consultation
    The PM said ‘it will soon be time to quarantine people coming into country by air’
    But shortly after a statement from his office said that it would not apply to France
    It added any measures would be taken in a ‘concerted and reciprocal manner’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8305609/Travellers-Britain-France-NOT-face-two-week-quarantine.html

      1. Obviously.

        Their travel plans must not be inconvenienced or disrupted in any way.

      3. No, they have special exemption because most of them belong to the Religion of Peace and are welcome whether or not they have the corona virus.

  110. My thoughts before bed. All those here who express dissatisfaction, disappointment, anger, disbelief at Johnson’s handling of this pandemic, do you experience surprise as well?
    I for one do not, he was unworthy of my vote at the last election, his performance since then has proved me correct.
    If voters keep voting for the likes of Cameron, May or this present clown, expect more of the same.

    1. 319045+ up ticks,
      Evening Jg,
      Precisely, but it has been known by many of us for quite a while, going back to when the political knife went into M. Thatchers back.

    2. The only really decent person who should be the leader of the Conservative Party and the prime minister is Owen Paterson.

      I have not forgiven the Bonking Buffoon for his refusal to explain clearly how his EU WA was any different from Mrs May’s capitulation WA. Why did he refuse to be interviewed by Andrew Neil? What was he afraid of?

      And how I wish that Nigel Farage had not given Johnson his victory on a plate, Farage should have bluffed it out far more strongly and demanded as proper quid pro quo.

      But now with anybody other than Corbyn leading the Labour Party the Conservatives’ days will be over as soon as the next election comes along.

      1. Ed Miliband, ably supported by his illustrious front bench honed to political perfection by Blair and Brown, put the fear of God into the Tories, didn’t he?

        There is nobody capable of running the country for as long as whole economies are held to ransom by globalist corporates with the power to whip away a nation’s assets on the click of a mouse.

      2. 319117+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        Still many a person willing to put trust into proven treacherous politico’s time & again.
        As for the lab. party they are now playing host to a much more dangerous political element, dissenting talking heads don’t operate to well when underneath arms.
        The “nige” did give the johnson chap his victory for sure, as in premeditated collusion in my book.

  111. Afternoon, folks. From the fact I am here shortly after lunch you should be able to deduce the state of the weather today – dull, windy and COLD! I only met one person out on my permitted exercise session today – someone I haven’t seen for ages, so it was good to catch up.

  112. I’m thinking that Boris is playing the long game here, we all know what happened after the war when Labour won the election so he has now become Atlee and cut out the middleman.

    2. I am amused that his figures and comments have been used/abused by politicians and the MSM and that he has had to resort to Twitter to explain what he meant!

      Sir David, who is chairman of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication

      1. Hello Sir..

        I hope you are well and that everything is going smoothly.

        I wonder if I could ask you a little favor ?

        Would it be possible for you to whitelist my Disqus account please ?

        The reason is because two of my recent rather lengthy posts were ”detected as spam”.

        One post was on Breitbart where I outlined my understanding of why Bill Gates is involved with the NHS. The other was on Conservative Woman and explained why I think David Cameron removed Colonel Gaddafi.

        If you could whitelist me, that would be great and thank you very much in advance !

        With best wishes,

        Polly

    2. No

      He said that people can take public exercise in the open as long as it is with the same family .

      Oh yes , Mr Rashid ‘s huge family and Mr Khan’s enormous half of Pakistan !

  117. July 1st. until near normality – although people who need to go to work should do so from tomorrow……

  118. 319045+ up ticks,
    May one say, it is certainly of major importance that the economy is protected or where will the welfare wonga
    come from when regarding the growing invasion numbers ? will there be cutbacks on indigenous OAP
    pensions ?

  119. 319045+ up ticks,
    May one ask is it the fear factor being pushed greater than the fear of being overrun by the invasion numbers which are increasing alarmingly, that is stopping the peoples from DEMANDING protection from the establishment on the grounds of health & safety.

    The same health & safety that they are pushing so hard on a daily basis.

    Maybe the governance party has washed it’s hands of
    repelling boarders it certainly looks that way.

    2. Yes , that is what is so alarming .

      Are we all doomed ?

      He is the man with a plan .

      No mention of closing the borders and airports .. what a farce .

      I say the alert should be to STOP all air travellers coming into Britain .. and send illegal migrants who cross the Channel back to Europe .

      1. Far too late to close the airports – it should have been done two months ago. They should certainly be sending the illegals back to France.

    3. Yes, They can’t abandon that Geoff because it is the raison d’être of everything they’ve done!

    1. Can I start (horse) riding again? I had to put in the (horse) despite the fact I despise the phrase, because I know what you lot are like!

      1. You’ll be OK to ride the Connemara after you have lost a stone weight, Conners … :))

        1. I’ve made a start, thankfully. I am slightly lighter than I was when I weighed myself a few days ago. Exercise more (difficult under lockdown) and eat less (ditto, unfortunately, because the kitchen is too close and I’m often bored) are the keys.

      2. Why haven’t you been able to ride your horse. I have seen riders out round our village on a regular basis through the lockdown?

        1. Because I have to travel to do so (and plod was stopping people who were driving to exercise). I am hopeful with the new guidelines that I might be able to start again. We’ll see.

        1. That is even worse! I’m not about to mount it anywhere but on its back! 🙂

      1. No, but pocket billiards is allowed – as long as social distancing is maintained.

      2. Only if you play with your household.

        Does Mrs Bob3 play golf?

        No.

        Unlucky, you’ll have to play with yourself.

        As it were…

        1. Future son in law is living with us and plays golf.
          i can play tennis with the wife

          6. That name is up there with Voldemorts – she who must not be named (Only kidding jenny if you are reading this….)

  124. I couldn’t bring myself to watch the buffoon,by the comments I didn’t miss much

  125. Supper tonight…. Wild Salmon tranche sprinkled with fresh Dill wrapped in puff pastry served with Jersey Royals, fresh harvest Asparagus and Hollandaise. Plus one or three glasses of Chardonnay.

    Sod off Boris…You’ve lost the plot !

      1. Boris? Insincere? I thought he was thoroughly committed like he was to his wife…erm.

      1. It was the breathless pauses, followed by a closed fist movement, that got my dander up, right from the start.

        1. And I suppose the elephant in the room was the total unreliability and hypocrisy of the Government’s chief forecaster.

        2. I agree. It looked as though he’s been got at by some body-language coach or some such. Not a pretty sight, and totally unconvincing.

        3. Breathless pauses in the manner of one Tony Blair? Who did the closed fist movement, wasn’t it Tim Henman?

          Edit – I have to confess I couldn’t bear to watch it. I’ve had enough.

  127. Boris has actually done nothing that was already agreed 3 weeks ago, more time for exercise, driving to a walking place. No mention of shops, garden centres reopening and a promise of heavy fines for those who break the rules. I am disgusted by the expert advisors and Boris and his cabinet.

    1. Wow, I caught your post within seconds! Sleep well my friend! Hasta mañana!

  130. I’ve just been asked how far I’m going to drive. I answered: round the bend

        1. Which side of the road are they supposed to be driving on?

          I frequently meet oncoming drivers, here in Sweden, who haven’t got the foggiest clue about how to keep to their lane. The Swedes are far worse road-hogs (and all-round crap drivers) than even the French and Italians are!

          2. That makes sense. Prior to arrival in Istanbul on a school cruise on SS Uganda, we were advised “it is said they drive on the right”

          3. When hiring a car in Malta I was warned that the Maltese like to drive in the shade.

    2. 319045+ up ticks,
      o2o,
      This post link moved faster that the fastest cake in the world, scone.

      It showed the b liar admitting his aim was to reverse Brexit.

    1. They wasted their money.

      Incidentally, London buses are now free if you can tolerate the dumb recorded message played at every stop. “TFL services are for those whose travel is essential only. Everyone else should not travel and save lives” {sic, honestly}.

    1. Churches (of whatever denomination) will obey the rules. Mosques do not recognise any law but that of Allah, so will ignore any secular law. See what happens at the end of Ramadan.

  134. I thought Johnson was far too aggressive with his control by fear tactics.
    They not us got it totaly wrong in the first place,and he showed no real sympathy for the people. They have been unable to manage the NHS for years and at the first real test they failed.

    1. Now is not the time to apportion blame, Johnny. I agree that the NHS management are useless, but Boris has a difficult path to tread, assailed as he is from all sides whatever he does. He did emphasise that any progress will take time (Step 1 is over, Step 2 begins – hopefully – on June 1st and Step 3 in early July) but I think this is simply attempting to downplay loosening of the lockdown, so that he can later on make concessions “early” and be thanked for it.

      Plus, he was admonished by the Speaker of the House for making announcements before he told Parliament of his plans. Expect more information tomorrow and then let’s see how things pan out. (I know, I know, I was “conned” by Theresa May and a large number of NoTTLers are turning against Boris following the lead of the MSM.) But I am still prepared to “wait and see” how things develop. I certainly wouldn’t want to have his job at present.

        1. ” ‘It’s not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It’s the hope I can’t stand.”

  135. My wife apologised for the first time ever today. She said she’s sorry she ever married me.

        1. A bit like stopping smoking. Not the sort of thing you want to do more than once.

    3. She didn’t say “that if you really loved her you wouldn’t have married her”.

    5. That’s a bit random Stephen unless I’ve missed something? Or I’ve missed the joke?

      1. I was just trying to distract attention away from the Boris blather…..

        1. 👍 any distraction warmly welcomed. It was a load of old baloney and bluster.

    1. Out of his depth as all of them are. Not an effing clue. Nothing personal Boris.

      2. Nigel Farage.
        But whoever we have as PM would be scuppered by the Blob if they stray off script.

    3. I feel Johnson, like May, is obeying Orders. It can be the only answer. Nothing else in this is making sense. Bonne nuit. À demain.

  137. Old Datz’s Almanac.
    Prediction for June/July 2020

    The death rate overall for England will plummet below the annual average, the government will claim this was the justification for the stringent lockdown and bask in the glow of self satisfaction, but somewhere perhaps a small voice will point out this was because the people that would have died due to underlying conditions and/or extreme age in June/July were actually dispatched by the virus a couple of months earlier in advance of their appointed time .

    1. We haven’t a plan.

      That’s the problem.

      Without an EU Directive the bastards are lost.

      1. The Americans are in the same state over IT. They’ve not had a decent operating system on the table since XP, when they handed over IT skills to industrious little Asians, so they could concentrate on the bottom line.

  140. If people as relatively mature and stable as most golfers can not be allowed to play a round with anyone from outside their immediate hosuehold, how on earth can professional football restart even behind closed doors?

    1. Putting it mildly.
      It’s a hole new identity, when the courses will re-open soon, the players will be amazed at how wonderful the courses now are. After two months of hard work and preening by the dedicated green staff. Better than the mess the ‘players’ usually leave behind. New rules, no divots allowed.⛳ and that means the bar areas and the changing rooms.
      Anyone whose been a regular golfer will understand what I mean.

  142. Good morning from a Saxon Queen
    Just off out for once a day government allowed walk in the woods.

      1. For a couple of hours, but if I were out in the woods all day then who’d know
        and it’s not full of people anyway. This concept of one hat fits all was
        always a nonsense. Those who live in rural areas compared to those
        in cities .

    2. I believe one can now leave the home for exercise as many times and for as long as one wants.

    3. We have at least two once a day walks under instruction of my video physiotherapist.

        1. It’s years since we’ve seen a policeman here and will go out as often as I like. I will not be imprisoned in my own home voluntarily.

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