Thursday 12 March: Rishi Sunak left an impression of hope for post-coronavirus Britain

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/2020/03/12/lettersrishi-sunak-left-impression-hope-post-coronavirus-britain/

769 thoughts on “Thursday 12 March: Rishi Sunak left an impression of hope for post-coronavirus Britain”

  1. Well, I seem to be first (among equals, of course!). Windy here, not caused by corona….

  2. Couldn’t sleep so I’m back again with a little story for today:

    I saw this on an expat website yesterday: “My wife and I have lived in the Algarve for 8 years. We recently took a holiday in Germany at Lake Constance and loved it so much that we’re thinking of moving there.

    We are sick of Portuguese bureaucracy and red tape.”

    A reply from a German: “You’re fed up with bureaucracy and you want to live in Germany? Are you fucking crazy?!”

  3. Interesting speech by Trump, wherein he identifies that he is instituting a travel ban on flights from Europe…
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    …except from the UK!

    By Jove, Thiefrow and Gatport airwick are going to be busy – much to the chagrin of the EU, imagine, having to channel all your US flights through the UK – suck it up Verhofstadt, you prancing ponce. I just love it!

      1. ‘Morning, Tryers. I was born and bred not 20 miles from Gatport Airwick and the place was ‘renamed’ long before Mr Moore came along. I can recall my father explaining the name to me when I was no more than ten years old, and that was nearly 60 years ago.

        1. I was listening to him doing the Bog Eyed Jog, the RM prog, when he just went off The Air.

          His illness had finally overcome him

          1. I turned R2 on the next morning when I was getting ready for work and thought, “That’s not Ray Moore, what’s going on?”
            I’ve his autobiography, “Tomorrow is Too Late” somewhere about the house.

        1. Traumatic sweets?!?!? That’s no way to speak to sleepy NoTTLers, NtN. :-))

  6. In dramatic step, Trump suspends travel from Europe to U.S. to fight coronavirus

    President Donald Trump on Wednesday suspended travel from

    Europe to the United States, except for the UK, for 30 days starting on

    Friday as he responded to mounting pressure to take action against the

    spread of the coronavirus.

    https://uk.reuters.com/news/archive/worldNews

    1. There must have been a window when we could have simply suspended all flights from China and Italy and kept the virus out of the country. But no, I guess that would have been racist, so now it is spreading and there is no way to stop it, any more than we could stop the common cold.

      We will crash the global economy, for something which could have been prevented if decisive action had been taken early on. The horse has long since bolted, we just need to ride this thing out now and try not to cause a worldwide recession in the meantime.

  7. Donald Trump suspends Europe travel to US for 30 days over coronavirus but UK exempt. 12 March 2020 • 3:25am.

    Businesses as well as tourists will be impacted, with Mr Trump saying that the “tremendous amounts of trade and cargo” from Europe heading to the US are included in his ban.

    “Anything coming from Europe to the United States is what we are discussing,” Mr Trump said, calling the action “strong but necessary”.

    Morning everyone. Well this should finish off the independent airlines and usher in the recession. It looks as though we are heading for Financial not Bacterial Armageddon!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/12/donald-trump-restricts-travel-europe-us-30-days-uk-exempt/

    1. ‘Morning, BoB. This morning’s news item about finally ditching coal and further expansion of wind and solar simply because the latter are cheaper (are they really?) completely ignores the rather fundamental problem with reliability. Heaven help the government in office when we have a hard winter and days or weeks of high pressure…when the grid falls over so will the government.

    5. Wind mills are:
      Inefficient, never returning the cost in energy they take the produce.
      Expensive, reliant entirely upon tax payer subsidy
      Pointless unable to be run when the windo is too strong.

      Polluting, requiring hundreds of tons of concrete to be poured into the ground, ruining the water table
      Destructive, killing hundreds of birds, bats and other flying animals.

      Hideous, ruining views.

      Someone explain to me why politicians keep building the blighting things?

  9. Baffled of Bognor.

    Every pound that gets spent generates CO2.

    How does the government’s borrow and spend splurge square with its aim of reducing CO2 emissions?

    1. Perhaps the government is increasingly sceptical about the (alleged) effects of C02 but can’t bring itself to say so for fear of upsetting Saint Greater of Thunderbox?

      ‘Morning, Eddy.

      1. I think there is a lot of truth in what you say, Hugh. Boris has inherited thousands of problems which need tackling (to which the Corona Virus has now been added), and whatever he does will be attacked by one faction if not many. So I reckon he is keeping a “friendly attitude” towards all his potential enemies (remember “our friends in Europe” when he was trying to escape the EU?) as he slowly works his way through cleansing the swamp. Once this virus is over and we are truly free from the EU (December the 31st, but hopefully much earlier) then – one by one – I think (or at least hope) that the other dominoes will fall, starting with the Civil Service. Then, hopefully, on to education and the MSM before winning another five-year term with the country behind him when he can tackle the biggest problem – Islam. After that he can drop the ridiculous green targets as being “no longer practical nor affordable”.

        I know that many NoTTLers don’t see it that way and are very suspicious of his motives. As I am fond of saying: “Only time will tell”.

      2. Morning Hugh.

        Avoiding the usual arguments, I’m totally baffled as to how a rising population and a booming economy can be compatible with a fall in CO2. The usual suspects against ‘austerity’ seem to also be the ones who want a big reduction in the very by-product of prosperity.

        Hopefully, my trip into town later this morning to stock up and partake of a full English will unbaffle me.

          1. Most of the beans were laid off due to Project Fear. I read they’ll soon be hiring again.

        2. More to the point, carbon dioxide (wrongly referred to as Carbon) is plant food and does not cause global warming.

          2. This is a recurring major irritation to me, like a badly hung picture – it’s obvious to any sensible person that carbon , you know that filthy dirty black sooty stuff, and CO2, a harmless gas that nurtures plant life, are two totally different things but semantics being what they are the muck sticks so to say. One of our vaguely ER sympathetic chums was banging on about the floods and when I replied that yes the excess of hydrogen pouring over the riverbanks was indeed a problem he didn’t see or understand the irony.

          1. They don’t do fried bread so I stick a slice in my pocket before I venture out (lard, of course).

            Sausages, egg, beans, bacon, tomato, hash browns and black pudding are the order of the day.

          3. That reminds me of school dinners.
            I could never understand why my mother got so shirty when I slipped the gristly bits of stew into my uniform pocket.

          4. Morning Anne.

            School dinners were the highlight of my schooldays. I believe we had lessons but don’t remember much about those.

            First year at the big school we were on first sitting, after which on second. That gave us access to all the stuff in the tureens which had been left by the first sitting. Deblinkinlicious.

          6. Morning Elsie.

            Mushrooms are an optional extra but there’s seldom mushroom on the plate to accommodate them.

            As for HP, they only take cash.

          8. I don’t know, Elsie, I’m not well up on showbiz.

            I have, though, heard of Fungis and Dolls and may have seen Mushroom at the Top, but can’t remember.

      3. It is time a reputable scientist should be promoted in the MSM to explain why the planet must have CO₂.

        Horror films and photos could be shown of suffocating plants – and even tropical rain forests – withering and dying through lack of carbon dioxide.

  11. Q: Daddy, what’s the Schengen zone?

    A: Well son, it’s a large chunk of the EU covering several countries where there is freedom of movement across borders without any checks. It is a key part of the principle of freedom of movement of people within the Single Market. It is of key importance to those federalists/elites seeking a full United States of Europe. It is also an area where you can catch a plane to the UK, where you can catch a flight to the USA – unless you live in a democracy like Italy, where you will need to have an official permit to leave the house and undertake such a journey ….

        1. There won’t be any newts or orchids to protect although one could say the entire plantet would be an SSSI.

    2. 317086+ up ticks,
      Morning S,
      I would seriously advise the Martian race to strongly resist if the first to land were decked out in pinstripe space suits topped of with a bowler, we are a political
      mission from earth, ( governance earthlings) we have come to help.
      The Martian reply echoed around the martians hills,
      NOOOOoooooooooooooooooo, F….O.

    4. Great picture. And when it breaks down will we see a blik female AA engineer hove into view?

  15. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-symptoms-covid-19-cough-breathe-advice/

    What this means is:

    If you have one or more of:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/189f6bb38a575b9536407e362406c5bcbd0184240cfb2948c4751035f9893ca5.gif

    and

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/51867c26c8790a10a39e687a02135b0cc4de3da374e644fc9062ec2cc8b88e78.gif

    and

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0b703957ebe187d763ca00d81e5748a98438b378e504559989dc9a88eb79bf43.gif

    …..just stay two metres away from everybody and don’t spend more than fifteen minutes with them even at that distance.

  16. Morning all

    SIR – Rishi Sunak was impressive. It was hard to believe that he had been Chancellor for only a few weeks. He had a good grasp of all areas of spending and taxation and built arguments convincingly, for example on Entrepreneurs’ Relief.

    In contrast, Jeremy Corbyn had nothing new to say. The Conservatives are offering hope, whereas Labour is offering nothing.

    Barry Smith

    Loughborough, Leicestershire

    SIR – I thought Rishi Sunak made a wonderful Budget speech. I was unable to absorb all the figures, but it was the confidence he exuded and the optimism throughout.

    I cannot remember a Budget speech with anything like its hope. However, he said nothing to encourage me to read John McDonnell’s “fairy tale”, Economics for the Many.

    Bob Wallace

    Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex

    SIR – I watched Jeremy Corbyn’s response to the Budget. It was telling that his colleagues behind were chatting, messaging and, at one point, passing round a couple of books to sign. Perhaps it was a leaving gift.

    David Lovie

    Barrow upon Trent, Derbyshire

    SIR – I was surprised that, in their Budget responses, Jeremy Corbyn and Ian Blackford (at length) belaboured Boris Johnson for past Tory sins.

    They seemed to have missed the astonishing political “trick” he has pulled off: he claims, and is believed, to head a brand new Tory government with no sins to answer for, because he has no connection with the Remainer administrations of Cameron and May.

    The Opposition may regard that as unfair, but that is the political fact they must now face.

    Jim Sillars

    Edinburgh

    2. Rishi Sunak should be cheerful.

      He’s got a lot more money to spend now that we are no longer contributing to the EU.

    3. Rishi Sunak should be cheerful.

      He’s got a lot more money to spend now that we are no longer contributing to the EU.

    4. Hope? A good speech? Optimism?

      What about the tax hikes? The massive debt? An oppressive state that is only going to be expanded? Throwing away the rulebook on government borrowing (which Brown added a zero to the debt figure).

      Stuff the blasted Tories. They’ve done nothing positive with this budget. It was yet more tax and waste.

  17. Morning all

    SIR – Rishi Sunak was impressive. It was hard to believe that he had been Chancellor for only a few weeks. He had a good grasp of all areas of spending and taxation and built arguments convincingly, for example on Entrepreneurs’ Relief.

    In contrast, Jeremy Corbyn had nothing new to say. The Conservatives are offering hope, whereas Labour is offering nothing.

    Barry Smith

    Loughborough, Leicestershire

    SIR – I thought Rishi Sunak made a wonderful Budget speech. I was unable to absorb all the figures, but it was the confidence he exuded and the optimism throughout.

    I cannot remember a Budget speech with anything like its hope. However, he said nothing to encourage me to read John McDonnell’s “fairy tale”, Economics for the Many.

    Bob Wallace

    Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex

    SIR – I watched Jeremy Corbyn’s response to the Budget. It was telling that his colleagues behind were chatting, messaging and, at one point, passing round a couple of books to sign. Perhaps it was a leaving gift.

    David Lovie

    Barrow upon Trent, Derbyshire

    SIR – I was surprised that, in their Budget responses, Jeremy Corbyn and Ian Blackford (at length) belaboured Boris Johnson for past Tory sins.

    They seemed to have missed the astonishing political “trick” he has pulled off: he claims, and is believed, to head a brand new Tory government with no sins to answer for, because he has no connection with the Remainer administrations of Cameron and May.

    The Opposition may regard that as unfair, but that is the political fact they must now face.

    Jim Sillars

    Edinburgh

  18. SIR – Is this Mark Carney’s final bid to create the doom and gloom that he has been warning us about? Cutting interest rates to 0.25 per cent will have the greatest impact on the elderly, who rely on their savings and are most likely to be affected by the virus.

    Rick Emerson

    Bagshot, Surrey

    SIR – It is great that banks are considering mortgage holidays for those affected by coronavirus – but many people who rent may not be able to pay and the landlord may also rely on this income.

    Hannele Marttila

    Stamford, Lincolnshire

    SIR – The Chancellor has confirmed major expenditure on rail. However, in the future more and more people will be working from home. Obviously there will still be a demand for traditional office space, but it will be smaller than today.

    From the situation created by the coronavirus outbreak, it is clear the money must be invested in broadband.

    James Nicholson

    Southampton

  19. Morning again

    SIR – I have just travelled back by plane from a cruise ship that had two confirmed cases of coronavirus.

    The cruise company that arranged the flights states that because of data protection and confidentiality laws, it is not allowed to tell me and the other 300 or so people if the infected passengers were also on our flight. This extra knowledge would be useful in ascertaining whether we should be tested or not.

    Surely data protection laws should not override the right to remain healthy and prevent further illness.

    Angela Jones

    Ascot, Berkshire

    SIR– There are more than six million carers in Britain, many living with and looking after those with chronic conditions. There appear to be no strategies in place should these carers become infected with the coronavirus.They cannot self-isolate for fear of infecting those in their care.

    I have contacted hospitals and a care charity. No one could offer any real help or advice.

    Daphne Bland

    London NW11

    1. .They cannot self-isolate for fear of infecting those in their care.

      Daphne has got it the wrong way round.

  20. SIR – The visual impact of wind turbines is bad enough. An even bigger problem for local communities, given increasing awareness of how low-frequency noise affects health, is the irregular thumping noise from working turbine blades.

    If the Government is to allow further onshore wind-farm developments (Letters, March 5) then all wind farms ought to prove their compliance with the planning approval noise conditions after they are built but before a licence for permanent connection to the national grid is given. All planning approvals should include the mandatory siting of permanent monitoring stations in the local area recording all noise emissions from the site.

    Bev Gray

    St Neots, Huntingdonshire

    SIR – Experts have discovered that noise from ships affects crabs badly (Nature Notes, March 10). This leads me to wonder what effect the noise from offshore wind farms has, not only on crabs but on all sea creatures around our coastline.

    Eileen Armstrong

    Tunbridge Wells, Kent

    SIR – Professor Michael Jefferson’s demand (Letters, March 4) that an onshore wind farm should lose its subsidy if it has a capacity factor of less than 30 per cent lacks logic. Onshore is the cheapest form of energy and the subsidy is lower than for offshore.

    Some offshore fields do achieve 40 per cent, but they are much more costly to build and maintain.

    Roger Hannaford

    Haddenham, Buckinghamshire

    1. BTL Comment:-

      Stephen Priest
      12 Mar 2020 4:42AM
      My wife’s petition – “Reverse the decision to support new onshore wind farms”
      We published the petition you created – “Reverse the decision to support new onshore wind farms”
      Click this link to start sharing it:
      https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300276

      Thanks,
      The Petitions team
      UK Government and Parliament

      Flag17Unlike
      Reply

      Robert Spowart
      12 Mar 2020 5:25AM
      @Stephen Priest Signed.

      Delete6Like
      Reply

    2. If onshore is the cheapest for of energy, why are they paid twice the market rate via the ROC system for the electricity they generate?

      That extra cost is added to our individual bills.

      More lies and disinformation.

      1. Climate change relies upon lies and disinformation. That’s why they keep saying ‘the science is settled’ when science is never settled.

  21. Trump bans travel from Europe to the US but exempts UK

    Donald Trump avoided declaring a national emergency over the coronavirus outbreak but is shutting down all travel from Europe – with the exception of the UK – and reversing himself by urging sick people to “stay home”.

    The president addressed the country from the Oval Office, seated behind the storied Resolute Desk, for just the second time in three years he called for national unity as he laid out a number of steps he is taking or asking Congress to take to defeat the novel virus.

    1. Good morning, Bill.
      In your haste to tell us ‘news’ we already know
      your typos do cause a chuckle!

  22. Nick Ferrari, LBC this morning, reports that while the Australian authorities are keen to keep the COVID-19 infection under control they have nevertheless allowed the northern Italy based Ferrari and Pirelli teams into the country for the Formula 1 Championship race this Sunday. How does that make sense? Billion pound business getting a free pass, surely not?

    1. It is as daft as allowing International football matches to be played to empty stadium the players still have to enter he country

      1. They should assemble each team in their own ground and give each side a football machine – the sort with rotating handles so they can decide the outcome of the match like that. Alternatively does Subbutio still exist?

  24. Government to bring in total UK pavement parking ban

    Parking may be allowed on some pavements where the width of them can allow it. The pavement parking area would be marked with a white line. It would still
    to park though outside of the marked area

    A ban on parking on pavements is to be introduced across the UK.

    It is already illegal in London, apart from some specific areas marked by blue signs or white box markings on the road.

    Motorists who flout the law in the capital face a mixture of criminal and civil sanctions including fines.

    1. Oh Goody!

      Another department in our Council.

      Lots of well paid administrative jobs for those in with the in crowd.

    2. Oh Goody!

      Another department in our Council.

      Lots of well paid administrative jobs for those in with the in crowd.

    3. At a busy junction a kid drove on to the pavement, stuck his hazards on and walked off in to town. He’d blocked a lane. He didn’t give a stuff. It’s tedious. Heck, could we sort out the simple things like tail gating? Indicating? People around here can’t manage that.

      I reported two thugs for dangerous driving. The police did nothing.

  25. Government to recommend we stay at least 1 metre apart./ That should be interesting on the Underground

      2. It’s about three and a bit inches too short.

        (As the actress said to the bishop)

  26. Schools lockdown: Will schools close tomorrow? Are schools closed from next week?

    Schools could be about to close as teachers were put on alert last night amid the growing threat of coronavirus.

  27. Abut the gauge problem if a rail link is built across the Irish Sea: visit Gare de Latour-de-Carol-Enveitg where Iberian, standard and metre gauge lines meet.

    1. They’ve got bigger problems than the space between the rails.

      The physical impossibility of building bridge towers in ocean water a thousand feet deep for a start.

      A tunnel would be no easier.

      1. People look at projects overseas and decide “We could do that” without having the slightest idea of the engineering difficulties & constraints imposed by the different conditions.

        1. A pontoon bridge might be the answer… or perhaps a bridge suspended from an array of hydrogen balloons… We have the technology.

        2. They also look only at lines on maps.

          And the maps they use are small and the lines very short. Everywhere looks close to everywhere else.

          That essential third dimension, the ‘z’ axis never enters their tiny two dimensional brains, and if that z axis is hidden out of sight out of mind by water, so much the better in their eyes. They see no difference between a few miles of shallow water about 30 feet deep in the sheltered approaches to the Baltic and over 20 miles of turbulent stormy seas with strong tidal currents in a channel up to a thousand feet deep, and on average over 200 feet deep between the end of a single carriageway road in Scotland an a rock in Northern Ireland.

          If you point out reality to these elf-believing idiots you are dismissed as being ‘negative’ or a luddite.

          The fact that the bridge fron Denmark to Sweden was being hailed as a major feat of engineering under exceedingly difficult conditions in the late 80s in all the civil engineering magazines that lay on my office shelves also passes them by. ‘If the Danes can do it, so can we’ is all they think.

          They don’t understand the depths of their own ignorance.

        1. A 23 mile long floating jetty would be a bit of a challenge.

          Ships trying to ply their trade in and out of the Irish Sea would love that.

          They wouldn’t be inconvenienced for too long though. The Mulberry Harbour at one of the D Day landing beaches wasn’t even completed before it was irrepairably destroyed in a storm.

          1. As I point out to people who complain when we have foul weather around the D Day anniversary, it was even worse in ’44 and nearly cost us the Overlord Invasion.

  28. Q: What proportion of those “undocumented” people massing on the French coast or the Turkish Border or taking over Lesbos in Greece and Sampadusa in Italy have been tested for coronavirus and what plans does the EU have to sort this mess out?

    A: I hope you are not implying that the EU isn’t a smooth running, superbly managed entity, but rather an increasingly big c@ck-up.

      1. A bit of a lazy one, given that the French have had relatively low birth-rates since the time of Napolean.

    2. That reminds me of when I pop to the end of our garden to lift the lid and tip the collection of veggie waste into the compost bin.
      It all looks quite calm on top, but dig around a bit and all sorts of creatures appear to be living off the rotting kitchen waste.
      Even the occasional (rat) gets in.
      Still, taken from the bottom flap it’s good for the greenhouse tomato plants.

        1. How strange the word rat vanished 😆
          I catch them in a trap, let them ‘bathe’ in a water butt and when clean i put them on the shed roof. Red Kite ‘up cycling’ process takes place.

    2. I am 74 this year but Caroline and I plan to go on running our business for as long as people want our services.

      1. Good for you Richard, I’m 79 in a couple of weeks and still driving a recovery truck

        1. And you are still making your music to delight the people in the nursing homes at which you play.

          Have you something to post for us here?

          2. Great stuff. WELL DONE!

            Very many thanks you ought to post your brilliant music more often.

    1. Apparently our Prince of Thickness actually phoned back to an unknown number to chat with the false Gritty and Dad.
      Two phone calls totalling one whole hour. Hasn’t he got anything else to do with his time? There’s a whole world out there to save.

      1. Even better, he gave them his mobile number and personal email address. I bet his security people love working with such an interesting client.

      2. With such defective genes Harry should be removed entirely from the line of succession.

    2. Everything that happens to the pair of them is of their own making.
      A sad case of we know best is going horribly wrong so far.

        1. The problem is Ntn there’s no much else happening in the media at the moment. 😕

          1. Eddy, the .gif is not aimed at you, just at the brash/trash mix. News of their ongoing stupidity has now reached the point of being boring.

    3. The two brothers were born into two family traditions at odds with one another: The stuffy British royalty of their father and the woke celebrity glamour of their mother. We ended up with one of each.

      History is littered with such a mix – Charles II had a liking for Nell Gwynne; William IV had his Irish actress who bore him many children, none of them legitimate; Edward VIII of course. About the most successful was Prince Rainier of Monaco and Grace Kelly, whose hybrid pocket principality became a sort of yacht-millionaire Hollywood on the Mediterranean. Team GeeBee UK plc though has moved on, I hope, from being Blair’s “Cool Britannia” or Osborne’s “Aspiration Nation”.

      These two remind me of the sort of shotgun coupling made by Chester Zoo. They may not be completely compatible, but as long as they do the business, the keepers are happy. Maybe these two are zoo exhibits and have to come to terms with their destiny as such; at least they are better off than in the wild, where they would almost certainly be wiped out by poachers, habitat loss, disease or climate change.

    4. I was duped. Or rather I duped myself by not checking before reading.

      I started reading this article and thought it was unmitigated drivel and so I looked to see who had written it – it was Briony Gordon whose absurd articles I never willingly or knowingly read.

  32. UK soldier and two Americans killed in rocket attack in Iraq. BBC. 3 hours ago

    At least 12 people were injured in the attack on the Taji military camp, north of Baghdad.

    US military sources said an American soldier, an American contractor and a British soldier were killed. No names have yet been released.

    This might be a one off but I wouldn’t bet on it! The truth is that the murder of Qasem Soleimani and the refusal of the Unites States to leave Iraq has revealed that they are in fact a Force of Occupation. As always in the Middle East it will all take time to fester but will eventually add another reason to get out of this septic quagmire!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51842744

  33. The wind is blowing , yet the sun is shining .. green shoots of Spring and waving daffodils , blossom on the trees .. light relief after such a wickedly wet dark winter .

    Why now, of all times has calamity hit us all for six?

    1. Morning all.
      Yes bright and breezy here.
      Newts found in our garden pond two weeks ago and frogs have come out of the adjacent wood pile and also moved in to the pond now. The grass needs another cut. And some pruning has to be carried out.
      Shame the Chancellor did increase the OAP pension payments.
      We’re one of the richest countries in the world.
      And we have some of the poorest elderly.

      1. I got my mother onto pension credit in 2008 after buying her a car, which reduced her savings below £10k and, after that, she was really comfortably off. Later, after she got Attendance Allowance (nearly £100 a week), when she became frail in her 90s, it became a problem to stop the money accumulating … she didn’t spend long having to pay for carers to visit.

        1. I seem to remember my ex banker elder sister doing something like that after our father died. Not the car she didn’t drive.
          Do they take into account the value of your property ?
          My wife receives a much higher pension payment than I do. Although I worked for a total of 53 years I feel i was severely ripped off and would dearly love to take some finacial revenge for my perception of injustice.
          I’ll look into it.

          1. It depends how your property is held. If it is as “joint tenants” (i.e. when the first of the married couple dies, the property automatically passes to the other, irrespective of any will) – it is therefore not part of the first person’s estate. If it is a “tenants in common”, then you each always owned half of the property, and the half that a spouse owned will go according to their will. I should think you and your wife are probably joint tenants.

            But don’t worry, about what your sister did, regarding your father. The situation is different for spouses than for parents and their children – a spouse receives everything at nil rate. So no IHT to be paid. But – if you have children, relatives etc. whom you want to inherit, then things might be different.

            As a former practising lawyer myself, in the first instance I actually would recommend Which? Legal for initial answers. They are far cheaper than private solicitors (no, I’m not connected with them!).

            Your pension grouse might be different. I dealt with occupational pension schemes as part of my work when I active in the City, so there are some things I know that are hard to understand.

            Are you on the list? (I can’t get around everybody’s new names, especially as I m not on here that much at the moment.)

          2. You helped me on this subject before T.
            Thanks for the reply, I’ll take a more specific look later. ☺

        2. My cousin, who has Alzheimers now gets attendance allowance after I filled in what seemed to be several hundred pages of the form, but even though she has ‘carer’ visits twice each day, to make sure she eats, the allowance is at the lower level so less than £100 per week. Because she has more than 23K capital, excluding the house, she is also having to pay for these visits.

          1. This is the key phrase:

            Because she has more than 23K capital

            With everything, she will pay … and her payments will help pay for those who don’t pay. Socialism, fairness, equality … It’s wonderful, innit?

          2. What irritates the shonet out of me is the habit care providing companies have two sets of prices, a lower one for those funded by the Local Authority, subsidised by a substantially higher one for private clients.

          3. Private clients who pay national taxes and council taxes for funded care residents who pay neither national income taxes nor council tax.

          5. That’s the rule. We have to run her capital down to that before she becomes eligible for the benefits she, as a working person throughout her life, paid taxes towards. This is why I am not a socialist and am against immigration.

          6. The tragedy is, when they brought that figure in it was a lot of money. You could have bought a house with it.

            Few objected because it wouldn’t impact on them personally. Then the foot was in the door and the politicos just had to sit put and allow inflation to ensure it impacts everyone with two pennies to rub tegether.

            Inheritence Tax is another trap in a similar vein. It thrives on envy and spite.

          7. Fiscal Drag.
            Do not increase tax & benefits allowances in line with inflation and you drag more & more people into the net.

          8. Yes; the “no more boooom or bust” boast by Broon was simply that the lower paid people would continue to be lower paid by virtue of the fiscal drag. Labour have done nothing – but nothing – since Wilson, to ease the conditions of the British working class.

            That’s because, instead of being a party formed for the protection for the British workers, the one that cared about the conditions of the working class (around the early 1900s onwards until the WWII),it has become the who-can-we-get-votes-from party. (Or who will pay us most in backhanders. Remember, it used to be said that Tory scandals were sex-related, but Labour’s were money-related)).

            Who can Labour get the votes from, why immigrants, of course! Or those who don’t fancy working because living off bennies is easier. It’s certainly not the old indigenous working class.

            Blair tried to get former conservatives onside (only to vote, natch) by being a “reasonable” socialist. When he had become established, and laid the foundations for him and his wife to become very rich, he started dabbling in what the very rich blueprint for the world is. Hence his most productive meeting/s (whether by person or my communication) with a certain s* r*s sssssss snake.

            Look what we have to choose between nowadays. I despair.

          9. I got bloody annoyed by one Labour supporter who said that Brown had paid off part of the National Debt and could not understand that, to do so, he’d not only destroyed the country’s pension system, but had dragged may low paid into the tax bracket with the fiscal drag he was so fond of.

          10. Brown left a national debt of 14 trillion.

            Cameron’s failure was not cutting spending to reduce that.

            The idea that Brown paid off the debt is ludicrous. He took it from about 3 trillion to 14! Why are Labour voters so damned ignorant?

            Oh. Hang on. If they weren’t ignorant, they’d not be Labour voters.

          11. In the early days of Brown’s occupancy of No.11, the National Debt was, indeed, reduced, all be it by a small amount.
            But as I say, to do this he destroyed the national pension system.

      2. My all time favourite female singer.
        She was completely self taught. What a wonderful natrual talent.
        And always a great backing band.
        But keep cool, don’t get too warm eh.
        One of our loner elderly neighbours was taken to hospital with breathing problems Tuesday night this week.
        We haven’t heard how he’s getting along.

    1. The West’s neglect of science has left us chillingly exposed to deadly pandemics
      SHERELLE JACOBS
      DAILY TELEGRAPH COLUMNIST

      12 MARCH 2020 • 7:00AM

      Medical staff members wearing protective gear carry a patient infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus at a hospital in Seoul on March 8, 2020. – South Korea has the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world outside China, taking its total to 7,134
      We need to stop being sceptical about the power of science to change the world for the better CREDIT: AFP

      The global elite don’t want you to know that the scale of this crisis was categorically avoidable
      We can’t afford to get it wrong this time. Yesterday’s Budget – which pledged billions to boost science funding – is the last roll of the dice for a country finally waking up to the fact that running the world like some sort of global risk management firm has proved a catastrophic gamble for international elites.

      That Western countries lack China’s dexterity for draconian measures is forgivable. That they crumble on first contact with crisis is not. It turns out that running bloated “bureauconomies” based on the mitigation and litigation of problems, rather than the swift discovery of solutions, is not ideal preparation for a pandemic.

      In the fog of panic, however, a chink of light. Rishi Sunak vowed yesterday that the Government will bankroll NHS research for a coronavirus vaccine. It will also pour unprecedented resources into a science funding programme inspired by 1950s America’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (set up for high-risk, high-reward research development in competition with the Soviet Union).

      As Covid-19 spreads, threatening to savage our health system and plunge us into a recession, such action can’t come soon enough. The only way to defend ourselves from the ravages of unfettered globalism is massive science innovation.

      There is one vital insight about the scale of this world crisis, which elites are being very careful not to broadcast: it was categorically avoidable. After the SARS outbreak in 2002, research funding for investigating SARS-like viruses exploded; within three years it fizzled out.

      We lost 15 years, and because we didn’t do the groundwork, precious time is now being wasted testing drugs we use for other viruses and piloting experimental vaccines and combinations. As it stands, it will take until mid next year to find a vaccine. This timetable is (through no fault of the scientists) disgraceful in its slowness; all the more so if you consider that another virus variation or mutation could prove more deadly.

      Thankfully – as Bill Gates has pointed out – shortening the time frame for vaccine discovery to a mere few months is perfectly plausible. We are on the brink of seismic scientific advancement, from “one bug, one drug” vaccine races to platforms technologies, which can develop multiple vaccine candidates for multiple viruses (and, importantly, multiple potential viruses) from a single “system”. Mass-scale vaccines will be cheaper and quicker to make than ever. Dominic Cummings must now put Britain at the forefront of such R&D.

      The first hitch is that such endeavours will cost billions. The second hitch is there is little profit motive in saving humanity. The silence of big pharma over the bankrolling and manufacture of a coronavirus vaccine is both glaring and unsurprising; they prefer business models based on recurring profits rather than one-off windfalls. Some have also been burned by their experience with Ebola, pumping big sums into a vaccine, without a return.

      Which hits on capitalism’s greatest weakness. It is not flawed so much as limited – it can only help us indirectly at best to solve some of the big problems of our time. We must do most of the work ourselves.

      We need citizen crowdfunding campaigns to help governments finance pandemic research. We need grassroots pressure on MPs to scrap HS2 and put the money into vaccine platform R&D clusters (why not in the North West, where universities like Liverpool are leading on vaccine scholarship?). We need to redirect university financing away from climate change predictive modelling, into the scientifically uncontested problem of pandemics.

      Instead, however, we bulk buy toilet roll, and leave it to the “experts”.

      Perhaps that’s because we haven’t quite digested the power of science to change our dysfunctional world for the better.

      And if the Right is unfocused on this issue, the Left is utterly clueless. Bourgeois Corbynistas speak with a mystical quiver about the need to “protect” the NHS as if it were some precious antiquity, rather than a source of medical innovation. Instead of the science of radical innovation, Blairites advocate the pseudo-science of managerialism.

      Anarchists dig up Oxford lawns when they should be marching on Geneva to protest at the WHO, a monstrous project management junket that spends millions on employee travel expenses, including first-class flights, and had the gall to praise China for its “extraordinary” response to coronavirus (China’s contributions to the organisation have surged 52 per cent since 2014). Meanwhile, the young squeal about climate change, as they await the apocalypse on the Tube, shivering with ecstatic neurosis behind their face masks.

      In countries where the apocalypse has already come, the grassroots attitude to science is a little different. Ukraine and Japan – which have both endured the trauma of nuclear catastrophes – also host some of the most exciting tech hubs in the world, much admired by Mr Cummings. It is as if suffering the evil of science has engendered these nations with a collective cultural determination to make science a force for good. We must hope that it doesn’t take a disaster like a pandemic for the British people to adopt the same disposition.

      1. “… running the world like some sort of global risk management firm has proved a catastrophic gamble for international elites“ ordinary people. There, fixed it.

      2. “…the Government will bankroll NHS research for a coronavirus vaccine. It will also pour unprecedented resources into a science funding programme…”

        Top priority for that programme must be to find a fuel to replace petrol and diesel for transport.

        1. Pay for the research and development then sell the idea off to our competitors for peanuts: the British way.

          1. The tilt system developed for the APT & sold to FIAT for their 2nd Generation Pendolino comes to mind.

    2. Yo P_T

      Nary a word about Porton Down ………. and what the place was designed for

  36. Gosh, I do hope Joe Biden doesn’t catch the virus to accompany his advancing dementia.

  37. I’m feeling baffled and battered by the turn of events since the election. Instead of the sunny post-Brexit uplands, the horrible autumn weather has been succeeded by the foulest, ugliest, winter I can remember (plenty storms, no sledging, or bright snowy landscapes) and the coronavirus has transformed a clear runway to a Trump re-election backed by a happy stock-market into a body-strewn, potholed path, with some prospect of the Americans choosing a demented, utterly corrupt, geriatric Biden in November. Mind you, the EU seems to be running into even deeper trouble and neither it nor its constituent nations appears capable of tackling any of its growing problems – problems which are worse than ours …

      1. Worse than that.

        Only a couple of slowly-melting ice-cubes lying in a puddle of their own substance in the bottom.

      1. As Dudley Moore – Peter Cook used to say “There’s always someone worse off than yourself”.

  39. China declares virus peak over

    Officials in China have declared that the peak of the country’s outbreak is officially over.

    Mi Feng, a spokesman for China’s National Health Commission, said “the increase of new cases is falling”.

    There were just 15 new cases logged across the whole of China on Thursday, and Hubei province – the epicentre of the virus – logged just eight new infections. This is the first time the province has recorded a daily tally of fewer than 10 new cases.

    Over the last seven days, the progress of coronavirus in the country has slowed markedly. China has been enforcing strict measures on traffic and the movement of people in an attempt to stem the spread, including effectively putting Wuhan on lockdown.

    As the virus has slowed, authorities have cautiously started easing restrictions and businesses have been reopening. Earlier on Thursday, Hubei officials announced that travel restrictions would be further loosened.

    1. If you watch the video I’ve posted above there’s a slide which shows how there was a much larger second wave of the SARS virus after a short period of decline in numbers in the first wave.

  40. Good morning all
    I survived my visit to the hospital yesterday. Nowt to worry about and spent longer finding a parking space than with the doctor.

    Came across this article while trying to find some truth about flu. It’s over a year old but, I suggest, from a good source.
    https://www.bmj.com/content/361/bmj.k2795/rr-6

    Does this put the current panic into perspective. Getsurrey.co.uk has a report that ‘Surrey not far from widespread Coronavirus outbreak. Meanwhile 462 confirmed cases U.K. wide.

  41. This report of a COVID death in Manchester indicates how little time there is between development of symptoms and onset of heart failure due to oxygen starvation:

    https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/north-manchester-hospital-coronavirus-family-17900478.amp

    That is, alpha-blockers and alpha-2 agonists aren’t necessarily dangerous, but less effective compared to other high blood pressure medications

    https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-you-want-to-avoid-2-types-of-blood-pressure-meds#1

    We do know however that several blood pressure drugs present an increased risk of symptoms similar to COVID-19 because they influence the RAS process in the body by influencing alpha-2 receptors.

    For that reason people on blood pressure drugs may be more at risk from COVID infection.

  42. Too little, too late. We know something needs to be done as soon as the horse has bolted. So we shut the stable door. Never mind our intellectual expertise in Games Theory or Crisis Management, let’s just leave it to the politicians.
    By the way, whatever happened to VD and AIDS? We were buried under VD warnings in the 60s and in the 80s AIDS was going to wipe us out (well, the perverts anyway). As our society is even less Puritan than it was then, it might be possible to assume that VD is even more widespread* than it was, but nobody mentions it?

    * Don’t assume, as the figures show it. Oh, and the ethnic group most enriching us this way…
    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/806118/hpr1919_stis-ncsp_ann18.pdf

          1. Morning Triers………MO ” my that’s a big one you’ve got there”……Me “My mother only had one arm and it was the only way she could lift me out of the bath”

        1. Thank you, Richard, I thought I’d heard all of Tom Lehrer’s repertoire but I obviously missed that one.

    2. And the CJD panic – as I recall half the population were doomed to be gibbering idiots by now, hmmmmmm that might explain a lot actually

    2. The woman should shout stop and the dog freeze. Chasing an animal that doesn’t want to be caught is daft.

  45. Oh dear Donny’s travel ban has up set the EU Mafiosi. He didn’t ask them for permission.

  46. 317086+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    That makes a change “hope” usually plays a major part regarding political decisions made, leaving the peoples “hoping” once again that the politico’s follow through on their rhetoric, ( never have yet) but it instils into the peoples a sense of political security, once again.
    The rishi sunak chap spiel has left an impression of “hope” for post
    coronavirus UK, “hope” once again in play.

    Hope johnson does the right thing, this can be used & is used regarding many issues, there is NO 99% sure as in certain, he & others of his political ilk have proved that they cannot be trusted to fulfill any of the peoples needs in the “hope” department, quite the reverse is much more likely.
    The way I see it is it is no good giving any proven treacherous governance party a new overcoat if it’s underwear is full of sh!te.

  47. ”
    Trump announces travel ban from Europe to the US in bid to stem coronavirus –”
    Just got up and saw this on the Guardian page.
    Not read the article yet, but seems to be a EU-turn.

  48. It just struck me, looking at the Guardian news page, what a lot of bullshit there is on every imaginable topic.
    It’s time there was a complete change in the way the news is presented.
    Removing bias and falsehoods, for a start, would be a good idea.

    1. Remove bias and falsehoods from the Grauniad and that leaves an awful lot of blank pages.

      1. Fortunately the Guardian can be cut into squares and hung from a string. This prevents many visits to over-crowded supermarkets.

          1. Yes Tony. Recent statements by the BBC claim that they buy 55,000 copies of the Guardian a day for their employees.

          3. That can’t be right? I’m pretty sure that the owners don’t pay for a copy?

  49. “The European countries that are not part of the Schengen zone, and whose
    citizens are therefore exempt from Trump’s ban are: Albania, Andora,
    Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus,
    Georgia, Ireland, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro,
    Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, The United
    Kingdom and Vatican City.”
    Armenia has been moved from Asia to Europe. Part of Soros’ world master plan ? That’s worse than mis-spelling Andorra.

    1. Are there direct flights to Vatican City and San Marino? Or is the US government aware that you have to travel through Italy to get to both countries?

  50. Britain is “highly likely” to go into lockdown over Covid-19 with the Government scheduled to make a decision before next Friday.

    Pressure grew to make a decision as the World Health Organisation last night said the coronavirus is now a pandemic with the number of cases outside China up 13-fold in the past fortnight.

    A government source said: “The UK going into lockdown is at this stage highly likely and the final decision is expected to be made as soon as next Wednesday but no later than next Friday.

    “A decision like this is vital but the timing of the decision and its announcement are equally vital.

    “There’s a definite need to avoid panic but if lockdown is the best way to save lives and prevent the spread of Covid-19, then a way has to be found. So, yes, contingency plans are being made now.”

    It is understood a lockdown would prevent general movement in and out of the UK for all travellers, traders, workers and students.

    If lockdown is triggered, it is understood citizens would be:

    – Prevented from entering or leaving England, Scotland and Wales for a limited period of time

    – All citizens over 70 would be advised to self-isolate

    – All citizens with serious underlying health problems would be asked to self-isolate or be assisted to maintain best health with least external contact

    – GPs would be advised to close surgery receptions to the public, and

    – Prescriptions would be forwarded to nominated pharmacies for collection.

    The knock-on effect on produce entering and leaving UK ports could be vast. But the thorn in the side of decision makers once again would be Northern Ireland.

    With no hard border between counties Derry , Tyrone , Fermanagh and Armagh and the Republic which remains in Europe, it would be impossible to establish a full UK lockdown to include Northern Ireland.

    The government source said: “It’s likely Northern Ireland will be cut adrift to deal with its own self-isolation run by Stormont. It doesn’t appear to be feasible to be run by Westminster without a significant issue affecting the border.

        1. 317086+up ticks,
          BJ,
          No serious effort has been made before
          to stem the flow allowing in illegals with
          nasty consequences.

        3. They will be given a house in which to isolate and as much free health treatment as they need.

    2. Where did this come from, Bill? I’m supposed to be flying in tomorrow to see Mother, and more info would be useful!

  51. I’ve just heard Nigel bring to the attention of the British public that on Monday when Italy thought it sensible to ‘lock down’. 17 aircraft from Milan alone landed at UK airports.
    And those around him thought it would be unfair to retailers if airport’s shut down !! Let’s face it the must have clutchy coffee and the 4 am burger and 6 pints session, are far more important than the nation’s overall health.

    2. I like the article heading on CNN.com
      “Sydney Opera House to be disinfected following Rita Wilson performance ”

      She must really be an awful singer!

    1. Good one. It really does give clear idea.
      Without a map like this, it is very difficult to grasp the relative sizes of the countries.

      1. the United Kingdom has a land area of approximately 242,495 square kilometres, Uganda has an area of approximately 241,037 km². Their population has trebled since 1984.

        1. 317086+ up ticks,
          Morning T,
          I was there for four months when BIG dada kicked out 50000, many coming the UK.

          1. He made the classic mistake; kicked out the intelligent and hard working, but I doubt Idi Amin was hot on European history.
            Louis XIV made the same mistake in 1684. Our gain, his loss.

      2. I have argued for years that population density should be a determining factor as to where immigrants should go.

        England, followed by Holland, is the most densely populated country in Europe and a greater density of population is the last thing we need and not at all good for the environment.

        Why doesn’t a responsible politician point out this simple fact to those millions of people who are all in favour of uncontrolled immigration and protection of the environment that they are deluded and that these two points of view are not mutually compatible.

        1. ‘Why doesn’t a responsible politician point out this simple fact’

          Because his career would be ended before he had time to sit down after uttering such a truth and his words would be lost in a river of blood, never allowed to be heard again.

    2. Absolutely. I keep looking at global maps, seeing just how small the UK is and wondering just how everyone thinks they can fit in half the rest of the world in?

  54. You will be delighted to know that 30,000 US Army personnel are arriving in Europe for a large scale Defense (sic) exercise. I wonder if in a couple of weeks American Citizens will be protesting “Yanks don’t go home!” ?

        1. The picture at the top of the article shows how many women serve in Norwegian military. Tough lasses, as well as good looking!
          Edit: you’d be forgiven for thinking that they come from Yorkshire!

        1. They do so regularly and have done for the last 50 years or more. My favourite duty when on a squadron was QRA

        2. Maybe that was the plan all along – to make Britain an unstable diversity mix, that no bugger in his right mind would want to invade and have their ground troops involved in an un-winnable war of attrition?

          In the meantime Russian & British RAF pilots have been playing the response game since the end of the cold war. It stops the pilots becoming bored. Wasn’t the last time an RAF pilot actually shot down another aircraft during the Suez Crisis?

          1. It’s what passes for reporting in the Express Stephen. It’s the third this week and as yet no Russian aircraft has actually penetrated UK Airspace!

        3. Actually ‘over’ the Shetland Islands? Surely not. That’s UK Territory. In the past half century that they’ve been playing the same game they always turn back in international airspace.

          Missiles await otherwise.

          Journos are as thick as politicians.

          1. ‘Afternoon, Basset, “Journos are as thick as politicians.”

            I think they continually infect one another.

      1. It’s a question of rationing. If there aren’t enough ventilators to treat everyone (and it appears there aren’t in Northern Italy) which patients should the doctors treat and which ones left for nature to do its worst?

    2. Coming here within 6 weeks. The rate of increase in cases is now off the scale.

  56. Non-gregarious isolation.

    SIR — May we please have a moratorium on the currently fashionable, yet vacuous tautology, “self-isolation”.
    If you are going to isolate yourself we take it as read that you are doing so alone.

    A Grizzly B

    1. Not so sure. In 1665 the villagers of Eyam decided to quarantine their entire village to stop the bubonic plague spreading further afield. So, was that an early example of self-isolation?

        1. 37% death rate, compared with an expected 75%, so yes it was successful. Well, apart from those who died, obviously.

      2. I isolate. You isolate. We isolate. They isolate. In every case the qualifier “self-” is redundant.

    4. Hey, Beatnik, as an ambulatory and itinerant philosopher, you will know, Dude, that the modern denizen of the Global Village is surrounded by folks yet lives in a state of permanent sensory deprivation akin to abject loneliness and consequently has to join whatever bovine herd is available, bro. This explains the way young people identify with whatever are the latest PC norms of behaviour dictated by the Wokeocracy. So, Dude, they are already in isolation yet they think they are part of some movement that’s going to change the world. On that basis, they need to “self-isolate” and remove themselves from the latest mania. As such, they need to decontaminate themselves form all Woke programming. As Charles Mackay observed, Dude:

      “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”

      1. I hear you, Dean.

        The word round the campfire, Dude, is that no one has yet latched onto using the woke term “Covidgate” to describe the malaise. Gate is the buzzword, hombre, if we don’t shut them gates (starting with Bill), this whole shebang is gonna get outta control.

        Them herds, bro. They need corralling!

        1. Hey, Beatnik, remember “You’ve been Tangoed!”

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhOeG-uTJxw

          Now, you might be Corona’d, Dude. Covidgate, is the shady “made in the PLA’s lab” meme whereas just being Corona’d is “tough luck hombre, hole yourself up in your crash pad and don’t emerge before you’ve croaked.” Have a nice 40 days, pal.

    5. Good morning Grizzly

      I tried to follow your advice and write CO2 with the 2 in subscript but can’t seem to do it. Any tips?

        1. Thank you

          CO₂           – it is a good idea but not always easy to find in a hurry.

      4. If you use windows (any version) you should be able to search for and find charmap.exe – once open, in the Arial font you’ll find both 2 and 3 as superscript character ( for use in M² and M³ as well as 3°C and of course, CO²).

        There is an absolute multitude of characters, especially in the ‘WingDings’ Font.

        1. I tried subscript in Windows, Wordpad IIRC, using the keyboard shortcut: it was fine until I copied it into Disqus then it reverted to CO2. Appears from your comment that character map is the way to go. Thanks, NtN.

      5. Good afternoon, Rastus.

        I only use Apple Macs (other technology is alien to me). On my iMac I click on the little Union Flag icon on the top right hand bar. On the drop-down menu I click onto “Show Emoji & Symbols”, then when that page opens I go to “Digits — All”, then simply double click on the subscript ₂.

        1. I’ll consult George Formby when next I’m cleaning windows and see if that produces anything.

          In the meantime Angie O’Edema has suggested cut and paste which works well if you can find it written by someone else somewhere:

          CO₂

          2. Drop it onto a Notepad document and save it for future use.
            You can also add other snippets such as ° etc.

  57. Well I’m venturing out to the Supermarket where Coronavirus Zombies stalk the aisles and Death lurks behind every toilet roll. I may be some time1

        1. 317086+ up ticks,
          Afternoon AS,
          So is everyone else seemingly, myself being first & foremost English.

    2. That’s why all the toilet rolls have been removed…along with the baked beans and tomato sauce.

      1. I’ve just seen my first case of panic bog roll buying.
        In ALDI a young couple staggered up to the till with four loaded baskets. Do we really want people who are too dim to use a trolley to live long enough to breed?

    4. There will be no toilet rolls to lurk behind

      Still I am ok my pallet of 500 I ordered has turned up., Just no room in the Garage now

      1. 500? How long are you planning on staying isolated?
        We only ordered 150, and that was weeks ago, before this virus outbreak.
        I always like to have a good supply of loo rolls. You never know when the apocalypse will strike….

        1. Glowing bog rolls?
          At least you’ll be able to find them in the dark when the wind doesn’t blow.

    1. Coronavirus: UK to enter new phase of emergency measures as it admits virus’s effect can only be delayed not contained

      Britain will enter a new phase of its response to the growing coronavirus outbreak, following a £30bn package of measures aimed at postponing the peak of the crisis until June.

      Boris Johnson will say the UK has moved to the “delay” phase of efforts to battle the virus, and outline “social distancing” measures expected from the public.

      A meeting of Cobra is today expected to discuss the timetable for such moves, which could include asking the elderly to stay home, and encouraging working from home, as well as strict isolation by those with symptoms.

  59. Ireland closes all schools, colleges and nurseries and bans outdoor gatherings with more than 500 people amid coronavirus outbreak

    All schools, colleges and nurseries will be closed across Ireland until March 29 amid a growing coronavirus outbreak.

    Prime Minister Leo Varadkar made the dramatic announcement in a speech given outside Blair House in Washington DC, where he is due to meet with Donald Trump later today.

    He added that under the emergency measures, which will take effect from 6pm today, teaching will be done online and state-run ‘cultural institutions’ will close

    1. Should he be allowed back into Ireland. Surely he’s a health risk and why was he in USA anyway.

  60. Former NHS doctor trapped in coronavirus-hit Italy begs the UK Government to shut down EVERYTHING in the fight against the killer infection as he warns it’s NOT just the elderly who are dying

    1. I know it’s difficult to work out, but how much of the death rates for older people are due to ‘underlying health issues’, with CV being the ‘final straw’?

    2. That’s comforting, at age 75 (8%) plus ischaemic heart disease (10.5%) and COPD (6.3%) and being male (2.8%) if caught, I appear to have a 27.6% of popping my clogs.

      Bugger it, have another large whisky to disinfect my insides.

    3. Its about the same as flu. and we do nothing about that do we. We are being run by idiots.

      1. Well, no. It isn’t. You cannot get flu from touching a handle two days after someone who has the flu. Also the Cover-19 risk is additional to flu and everything else.

  63. Look on the bright side.

    If you get it you’ll know about it.

    If you die from it you won’t.

    1. If I get it, I’m minded to mingle amongst some multiculturals at Dudley Road Hospital …

  64. We’ve wasted a month’: Former public health chief issues furious condemnation of UK coronavirus response

    The former regional director of Public Health England has issued a furious condemnation what he described as the UK government’s “complacent” response to the coronavirus pandemic.

    A visibly angry Professor John Ashton told BBC Newsnight the government should have started putting measures in place a month ago, and raised concerns hospitals would be overworked.

    “We’ve got a complacent attitude, it feels wooden and academic, and we’ve wasted a month when we should have been engaging with the public.

    “If this now spreads the way it looks likely to spread, there will not be enough hospital beds and people will have to be nursed at home. We should have gotten a grip on this a month ago,” he added.

    1. A research study by the University of York estimates that avoidable drug errors are causing more than 700 deaths a year in NHS hospitals .

      In total, almost one in six hospital patients fell victim to a drug blunder, the research suggests.

      Comparing eight ‘flu deaths with over seven hundred hospital deaths, it appears that your best chance of survival is to keep away from NHS hospitals!

      1. The procedures should make it impossible, A second person should make an independent check before any drugs are administered

          1. The checkers can form a line around the building, then when the last checker has checked the prescription, it is handed back to the first one, who is by then the person immediately to his left.

            Only then will the drug be administered, provided of course that the patient has survived the wait while the checks are being carried out.

        3. The problem is that there can be numerous prescribing health professionals e,g, dentist, nurse prescriber, pharmacy precriber, psychiatric nurse presciber, hospital consutant, registrar etc.

          All prescriptions should be entered on the patient’s prescription list, signed of by the patient’s GP and checked by the dispensing pharmacist for inappropriate drug combinations.

          That should result in all the necessary checks and balances.

          However, when the NHS is under pressure human error cannot be avoided.

          Ultimately the onus is on the patient anyway to fully read the Patient Information Leaflet issued with every drug which will identify side effects, contraindications and the appropriate action to take in case of overdose or life threatening adverse reaction.

    2. A research study by the University of York estimates that avoidable drug errors are causing more than 700 deaths a year in NHS hospitals .

      In total, almost one in six hospital patients fell victim to a drug blunder, the research suggests.

      Comparing eight ‘flu deaths with over seven hundred hospital deaths, it appears that your best chance of survival is to keep away from NHS hospitals!

    3. And some medical expert has been saying on LBC this week that there’s nothing to worry about. I don’t know who she was, but she was definitely downplaying the risks of infection from Covid-19. Perhaps Boris and his ministers have been listening to her.

      In other related news, we cancelled our upcoming cruise in May. I’m very disappointed, buy MOH is at higher risk than me, i.e. diabetes and heart condition. Had we not cancelled today, we would have lost the flight money to and from north America. As it is, the tickets hadn’t been issued,so we get the full cruise credit.
      At least our pussycat will happy, as she won’t be imprisoned in the Big House (cattery) for two weeks.

    4. Its the flu for Gods sake. ( a nasty one I grant you.) its for people to decide what to do not governments.

  66. Shopping centre giant Intu warns it could go bust

    The owner of some of the UK’s biggest shopping centres, Intu, has said there are doubts that it can survive unless it raises extra funds.

    Its comments came as the firm – which owns Manchester’s Trafford Centre and the Lakeside complex in Essex – reported a £2bn loss in 2019.

    The weakness in the retail sector meant Intu wrote down the value of its shopping centre sites by nearly £2bn.

    Intu will try to raise extra cash after an earlier plan to raise £1bn failed.

    The collapse and contraction of High Street retailers has left landlords such as Intu struggling to fill vacant space. At the same time, Intu has run up debts of nearly £5bn.

    In January, the firm approached its shareholders to ask for more money amid the downturn in the retail sector.

    But last week, Intu said it was at risk of breaching debt covenants after it was forced to abandon the fundraising attempt. It said “extreme market conditions” deterred investors from giving fresh cash.

  67. EU to offer £2,000 to migrants willing to go home from Greek islands

    Migrants on the Greek islands are to be offered €2,000 (£1,764) per person to go home under a voluntary scheme launched by the European Union in a bid to ease desperate conditions in camps.

    The amount is more than five times the usual sum offered to migrants to help them rebuild their lives in their country of origin, under voluntary returns programmes run by the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration.

    The offer will last one month, as the commission fears an open-ended scheme would attract more migrants to Europe. It will not apply to refugees who have no homes to return to, but is intended to incentivise economic migrants to quit the islands.

    1. If I was one of the illegals I’d jump at that.

      Then once ashore at the other end I’d be on my way back for next week’s payment.

      Don’t ‘incentivise’ them. It just encourages them. Punish them.

    2. They’ll take the money and then use it for flight so that they can come back in again in rather more comfort.
      Alternatively some of them will club together to buy a fleet of boats to set upa profitable busineess bringing more people across the Med into Europe.

    3. Siberian Rhod, over on CW comments section : “Russia….actually has a very tough immigration policy, sweeps by the police on building sites, markets are frequent and anybody without a work visa is immediately arrested and deported and if they have no papers and don’t admit where they are from they are just sent to where ever the next flight with seats is going. There is no appeal, no tribunals, just out you go!
      It is very effective and cheap.”

      2. That’s the sort of thing you can only do in a country with a severe shortage of legal due process.

    4. Clearly the same (snowflake) thought process as those advising the similar ZanuLabour scheme a few years back … most of the recipients will mass again on the border to come back for a second helping (and it increases the rewards from crossing …. technically this might be called FEEDING THE FEEDBACK LOOP …

    5. The Eu encourages this with the Barcelona agreement. The whole point was to bring North Africans into the EU.

  70. Good afternoon all
    We’ve just returned from what was an inspirational morning. We 3 Captains from the bowls club presented a cheque to the local Hospice. We first enquired if we were still welcome because of the Coronavirus and were told that of course we were as they will carry on regardless and have the view that as the virus is, predominantly, airborne they will either get it or not.
    We were given a tour of the facilities which are awe inspiring and driven by patients needs. The newly opened hospice was designed after talking to the nursing staff to find out what the patients needed. They have a vast pool of volunteers which includes the Chief Executive. No remuneration for her. What an example to set. They have just 20 rooms but 75% of their patients are looked after at home. They make no charge at all for their services.

    While vast swathes of the country are panicking about the virus this wonderful hospice is getting on with caring for people who are very sick. Why would anybody give to these bloated national and international charities when there are fabulous charities like this locally.

    It brought a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye at how wonderfully caring this hospice is.

    2. Who are these guys? Sounds like an island of sanity and charity in a sea of greed and hysteria!

    1. Isn’t that for the really expensive electric ones, where a new tyre costs lmore than that ?

  73. I’m worried about the effect on the environment of the immense amount of paper being stuffed through our letter boxes.
    This lot shows a worrying trend. It is printed on hight quality gloss paper. Far too hard to be recycled and used for toiletry purposes.
    A terrible waste.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0633c9b4434d66c9166503534713a0f14f393a3cdaac123698ae95d084b17053.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3c72c6ee78d9b85715cc43e0a76e27c37c5993188a80381d6faf244e97cfd7bb.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/11e1fdffe76d7b0ccc1ee331393618e70c378aeadff9769918112127446844f7.jpg

    1. I thought the Tory budget had chopped down a few money trees, but this lot want to strip entire forests…

  74. Blowy, and my weather station says it’s 9.1C in the shade. But the wind chill makes it feel bitter. Still got the sheets dry in less than an hour…

        2. Do you mean what sort of *** did she do?

          Edit: *** = left to your imagination

    2. I have just returned from taking the dog for a walk, it might have been the other way round she’s always in front. Stepped over two downed trees in the woods, winds very chilly. I was pretty hot under my wind proof jacket.
      Cuppa tea and a toasted hot cross bun with cheese in.
      Yummy.

      2. I put thin slices of Cheddar in a Hot X Bun and then microwave for 20 seconds.
        Let it settle and then – yum.

    4. What a disgusting and frightening looking woman. A picture of her would give a child nightmares.

      1. Very good!. I have that one too, but it’s only just beginning. Hopefully it will miss the gale and be out in quieter weather.

        1. I’ve managed to raise three more from seed, they are no longer seedlings more like Sodlings…..

          3. Never say Never. Years ago I bought some seed of Magnolia Officinalis. And 2 germinated and turned out to be the Biloba variant. Got one up to about 8 feet, and then during a dry summer lost it.

  81. These are fun, and worth a read – great dinner table fodder

    1. A rat can last longer without water than a camel.

    2. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or it will digest itself.

    3. The dot over the letter “i” is called a tittle.

    4. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.

    5. A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.

    6. A duck’s quack doesn’t echo. No one knows why.

    7. A 2 X 4 is really 1-1/2″ by 3-1/2″.

    8. During the chariot scene in “Ben Hur,” a small red car can be seen in the distance (and Heston’s wearing a watch).

    9. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily! (That explains a few mysteries…)

    10. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn’t wear pants.

    11. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood

    12. The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.

    13. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple and silver.

    14 The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan. There was never a recorded Wendy before.

    15. The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin in World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

    16. If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death (who was the sadist who discovered this? )

    17. Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to s-l-o-w film down so you could see his moves. That’s the opposite of the norm.

    18. The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA”

    19. The original name for butterfly was “flutterby.”

    20. The phrase “rule of thumb” is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn’t beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

    21. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.

    22. Roses may be red, but violets are indeed violet.

    23. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand.

    24. Celery has negative calories. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.

    25. Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.

    26. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.

    27. Sherlock Holmes NEVER said, “Elementary, my dear Watson.”

    28. An old law in Bellingham, Washington, made it illegal for a woman to take more than three steps backwards while dancing!

    29. The glue on Israeli postage is certified kosher.

    30. The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from public libraries.

    31. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them.

    32. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave!

    1. “10. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn’t wear pants.”

      Good Lord! That’s an odd one, right enough. So all the ducks* in Finland are compelled to wear pants?

      *other wildfowl are available

    4. Although a number of those in your list are true, many are utter bollocks. It makes you wonder who make this tripe up.

      Take No 13 for example: “There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple and silver”.

      Silver has only sylva (trees of a particular region and quicksilver to rhyme with.
      Orange has 18 words that rhyme (including: binge, cringe, springe, whinge, unhinge, syringe, scavenge and lozenge).
      Purple has around 200 words that it rhymes with.

      [Source: The Penguin Rhyming Dictionary]

    5. 32. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave!

      Unlike American personnel when exiting a US Air Base in the UK

    6. You could discuss for hours which are true and which aren’t.

      There are plenty of both.

      EDIT. More of the latter than the former, I think.

  84. Dentist tomorrow. He’s probably just back from a nice skiing trip in the Dolomites and feels fine…

    1. My dentist is off to California next week for a conference. Or at least that’s his plan.

      1. Long flight in a closed environment breathing other people’s exhalations. Not a recommended move with CV on the rampage. Plus California is quite the hotspot.

      2. Lots of meetings being cancelled in CA and many restrictions on public meetings.

        It seems doubtful that he will going. If he does go, you might want to look at changing dentist.

  85. Booger. My GP surgery has just phoned to cancel my next Mondays’ blood test, as they are using the medical bay area to triage possible CV patients. That means I now have to go to the main hospital for it. So, my cunning plan to minimise my exposure to CV by an SAS-style in-and-out visit to the surgery is thwarted, and now I will have to queue for hours with farsands of the Great Unwashed with all their ‘orrible diseases, including CV.

    3. Is it really that urgent? Why don’t you postpone the blood-letting until after the crisis is over? I would.

        2. Very good thanks.
          I had the ‘specials’ starter – salad de Crevettes with bread & butter & cider, followed by profiteroles & a flat white.

          Business seemed to be ‘as normal’ & the staff were happy.

          2. Yes, at the moment t’s the best thing on the menus. I’ve had the Wiener Schnitzel special & the pan-fried Haddock special & they were OK, but not much else appeals. I won’t touch chicken because it’s nearly always too dry.

            Back to the prawns, they come like a glorified prawn cocktail in layers in a sundae ‘vase’, so I tipped them out on to a flat plate so I could get at everything at once.

        3. As a precaution against you know what, U3A has closed down early (8 days before the end of term) & is not expected to reopen until the start of next term on April 20th, so I’m not likely to go into Cambridge until then.
          The guided bus timetable & routes change dramatically on March 29th, so I’m glad of the break, because it gives me time to digest that.

    4. I cancelled an appointment i had booked for today.
      I felt that I didn’t need to take the chance. We have a family and three young grandchildren.
      The old man living opposite our house was taken into hospital with breathing difficulties Tuesday night. No news yet.
      Hopefully It may have been an unfortunate coincidence.
      Most of his family are out of the country.

      1. We have an old Amaryllis from 1985. So pale the flowers are almost colourless. That one is just a half-grown flower stalk just now.

          1. Nice!
            We’re fond of these two. Watered once a week and otherwise neglected, we get lovely flowers every year. They were bought at “10p or we throw it away” deal.

    2. T’Lad brought one from IKEA when he was 10yo.
      It’s not only flowered nearly every year since, but it’s produced another three bulbs two of which, in the sitting room, have buds on for this year. The other two bulbs, in the bathroom which is a bit colder, don’t look as if they’ll be flowering.

  87. The latest two deaths were an 89-year-old at Charing Cross Hospital in London and a woman in her 60s at Queen’s Hospital in Romford, NHS England said. They both had underlying health conditions.

    1. I imagine that most people over 60 in the UK are reliant on a few prescription drugs.
      There’s a decent chance of victims having underlying health problems.
      I’m begining to wonder if this virus was ‘designed’ to take this into account.

      2. Or, the statement “underlying health conditions” is a cover. People of all ages have underlying health conditions, allergic to shellfish, strawberries, gluten, dairy products, astigmatism…
        This routinely trotted out statement does nothing except encourage cynical suspicion. We can be certain that Covid-19 is not just flu. A country like Italy would not take the measures that it has for an ordinary seasonal flu outbreak.
        We are also being told that the virus remains viable and infectious for several days when on a plastic or metal surface. Sensibly, the Tube system would be shut down…

        1. The government prefers to use the word ‘underlying’ as opposed to making statements ‘under oath’.

        2. Which is actually just like any new flu-like virus really…That’s why there are these periodic pandemics. The virus from HongKong killed one million in 1968, another virus killed 2million in 1956/58, the post WW1 pandemic killed 20-50million in 1918-20 etc.

  88. Paramedic tests positive for Coronavirus:

    A paramedic has tested positive for coronavirus as cases in the UK continue to rise

    An NHS Spokesperson said: “The Chief Medical Officer today confirmed a further case of COVID-19 who is a resident of Hertfordshire and a paramedic with the East of England Ambulance Service (EEAST).

    “There are well established procedures that are being followed in a case such as this and the NHS and Public Health England are taking all necessary steps to manage the situation.”

    It was not made clear if or how many people the paramedic had come into contact with.

  89. Durham University cancels classroom lessons

    Durham University has cancelled classroom based lessons for the final week of term as a precaution against coronavirus.

    All lessons will be conducted online from Monday, a spokeswoman said.

    The university is due to break up for the Easter holidays on 20 March.

    1. That’ll be the students off to the pub, then.

      On second thoughts, that’s the way it would have been in the old days. This lot will probably draw the curtains and take to bed with a hot water bottle and a glass of milk.

  90. John Ward

    A deeply sinister article

    “Cruel Britannia’s sexploitation cover

    up is the story of the century so far. But the Secret State prefers dead

    children to open government”

    “In turn, however, it also demonstrates the infinite power of Sir Mark

    Sidwell to both maintain and nurture The Secret State. Because this

    diabolical spook has every kind of dirt on Boris Johnson.

    “He has the evidence to prove that BoJo conspired with Rupert Murdoch

    and Rebekah Brooks to attempt a perversion of justice in the Newscorp

    phone-hacking scandal. He is also the owner of condemnatory documents

    showing how Johnson’s capacious bottom sat on an Enquiry into the role

    of Richmond Tory Council in the Elm House paedophile affair.

    Probably, Patel will keep her job. But any attempt by the PM to demand the

    release of Rape Gang files at the Home Office will evoke a threat to

    release the De Pfeffel Files. And that will be a bridge too far for the

    Prime Minister.”

    https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2020/03/12/explosive-islamic-rape-gangs-labour-paedophiles-senior-police-graft-and-two-dead-in-soham/

    1. Give me a wash-leather and I will clean the chalk off the blackboard.
      I have no interest in these guys who jump on the bandwagon with their invented stories.
      It’s a bit like all those women who suddenly appeared to tell us how Harvey Weinstein had
      tried to rape them.
      I think it’s mostly a load of bullshit.

    1. Frank Zappa was bang on the money, many years ago, when he declared, “Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.”

      The human species gets incrementally more stupid by the second.

      1. The state likes it that way.

        It’s idiotic: they wail when Boris doesn’t front the calls, then they wail when he does.

        He doesn’t know anything. What’s the use of him?

        We have legions of Lefty idiots blithering on about mankind needing to stop eating cows to somehow save the planet given more credence than a sensible rational chap asking serious questions about it.

        The Left push an agenda that diminishes education and intelligence in favour of their own dogma. None of them want you to think or learn yet when people act in these daft and irrational ways they complain and wail.

        The press publishes hysterical silliness and people believe it, yet when they publish facts no one does. The populace is stupid, but it is stupid because it has been trained not to think, to reason and understand in favour of gibberish and mindless nonsense.

  93. BBC1 programmes are in disarray, because of virus announcements, but if QT takes place…

    Fiona Bruce presents an hour of topical debate from West Bromwich. On the panel, Steve Barclay MP, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, former Brexit Secretary under Theresa May and Boris Johnson, Conservative; Louise Haigh MP, Shadow Policing Minister, Labour; Pete Wishart MP, SNP shadow Leader of the House of Commons, and Chair of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee, SNP; Richard Walker, Managing Director of the supermarket chain, Iceland Foods; and Professor John Ashton, former Director of Public Health in the North West and former Professor of Public Health at Southampton University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

    2. Fiona Bruce is immensely irritating. Because she is undoubtedly intelligent, she won’t shut up and let the talent shine.

      1. Exacto. In a trailer she has already announced that they’ll be discussing the virus AGAIN (having wasted over 1/2 the programme on it last week, so I may be having an early night. My bedtime novel is turning out to be rather good.

  94. Coronavirus: People with fever or persistent cough told to self-isolate

    Boris is still doing almost nothing. The Easter holidays are coming up and many children will be going abroad,. Surely that cannot be sensible

    Anyone with a new persistent cough or high temperature is now advised to self-isolate for seven days, as the UK government moves to the “delay” phase of its plan to tackle coronavirus.

    Schools have been advised to cancel trips abroad, and older people and those with pre-existing health concerns have been told not to go on cruises.

    PM Boris Johnson said it was “the worst public health crisis for a generation”.

    In total, 10 people have now died in the UK with the virus.

    There have been 596 confirmed cases across the country. However, the actual number of people infected could be between 5,000 and 10,000, the government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said.

    As part of the new measures, testing will only focus on identifying people with the virus in hospital.

    Public Health England has released new guidance for those with confirmed or suspected cases of coronavirus.

    It warns against going to work, school, or public areas, using public transport or taxis – or even going for a walk.

    Up to now, under the previous strategy of containment, people were told to self-isolate only if they had the cough and fever but had also been to an affected country recently, or had contact with someone who had tested positive for the virus.

    The delay phase aims to lower the peak impact of the virus and push it away from the winter season – when pressures on the NHS are more acute because of issues including seasonal flu.

    1. ” Boris is still doing almost nothing”.
      He is not doing almost nothing. He is procreating. Increasing the birth rate to compensate for the fatalities in the older generation is brilliant, especially as he put it into practice before the virus had been notified.

      2. Boris works hard and plays hard.
        If a man is going to start a relationship with a much younger lady, the least he can do is to have a child with her. Along the lines of whoever saves a life saves the world.

    2. I hope he bans people travelling anywhere in the UK at Easter ..

      For once I wish people were altruistic enough to sacrifice their so called holiday entitlements .

    3. I recall the phrase ‘follow the science’ was recently proclaimed by a cretinous under-developed Swedish seventeen year old. A young female who should, frankly, be put in care (for her own protection)!from her money grubbing parents.

      By contrast it is utterly unacceptable for our government to hide behind ‘the science’. These fools have faciitated the present debacle by worshipping at the feet of the damnable EU and its globalist free movement mantra. These fools can now be seen to be the utter incompetent fools we ordinary folk recognised as such. Time to sweep them away.

      2. 317086+ up ticks,
        Afternoon V,
        It was up and down quicker than a lady of ill reputes drawers when the fleet come ashore, as my edited post above points out.

        1. And don’t forget that that evil witch May said that she supported the new SA president’s land reforms. She was and is a monster who gave the nod to blacks murdering whites.

      1. 317086+ up ticks,
        Afternoon BoB,
        Hence the edited post, it was up & down quicker than a lady of the nights drawers when the fleet comes in.
        It showed a white chap stripped naked still moving in the process of being stoned to death in South Africa as traffic went by, the question posed by G,Batten was, if this had been a black chap would it have received extensive MsM coverage ?
        Mind Batten type chaps would ask that wouldn’t they.

        1. Do you mean MSM here or in SA? There was plenty of coverage of the “necklacing” advocated by Winnie Mandela and others in the early 90s.

          1. 317086+ up ticks,
            Afternoon N,
            MsM here, done a fair bit on construction work in Africa Ivory coast, Nigeria, Uganda, Nigeria was the worst I had seen.

    5. Many white people, especially elderly, white farmers, have been attacked, tortured, killed and burned in South Africa in recent years. Our MSM ignores this.

      1. The wife of one of my cousins was murdered in Zimbabwe and his brother had his farm stolen from him and his workers killed, sacked or made homeless and a productive and profitable farm was turned into an arid desert producing nothing. An aunt of mine, my father’s sister, was murdered in Kenya.

        Any comment I might make would probably be considered racist so I just state the facts – but even the facts are probably considered racist..

        1. It was terrible in Zimbabwe, but is still ongoing in SA. As for racism – it’s racism against white people – but of course that is “different”.

    2. “COVID-19 Fatality Rate by SEX”
      So that’s what caused it !! Transmission by octogenarians !!

  97. Transport for Wales: First drop in rail journeys in 24 years

    The number of rail journeys taken in Wales dropped in 2019 for the first time in 24 years.

    It is the first full year that the Welsh Government-owned Transport for Wales (TfW) has been operating rail services.

    There were around 33.5 million trips on TfW compared with 33.6 million in 2018, the Office of Road and Rail (ORR) said.

  98. Some strange patterns with Corona Virus Why such a high incidence of it in Italy and why such a high death rate

      1. It wasn’t so long ago that any firm wishing to employ immigrant labour in the UK had to apply to the Department of Employment before they could do so. Now it seems we have a completely open doors policy….

      2. ‘Inexpensive immigrant labour’ whilst thousands of Italian young people are unemployed. Ditto eu free movement of labour to the UK. Also 1947 govt encouragement of movement of mainly West Indian female labour to service the nhs. No jobs for their husbands/partners, which explains why there is such a problem with West Indian youths (bad role models) also part of their culture – the women do the work.

        The Almighty is giving us lesson no 2 as to why we need borders, and as to why globalisation is a bad idea. Unfortunately there will be collateral damage.

        1. Spot on. Every action has a reaction. The politicians were persuaded and thought they were being innovative and clever but as ever we have to live with the unintended consequences of their fancies.

          In the case of the wretched Windrush mob this has consigned large areas of South London to a no-go area for white folk.

          In the case of the Muslim accommodation this has resulted in more extensive no-go areas, a direct threat to white human life and the prospect of Sharia Law being allowable. We could go on about Pakistani rape gangs but the perversion of our traditional way of life is the likely killer. We are instructed to acquiesce and accept this ‘diversity’ but in our hearts and minds we see it as an evil force.

      3. Lots in Spain as well, where they operate enormous shops selling all types of Chinese manufactured goods. Family run, so minimum wage laws etc can be evaded.
        Interestingly, there are Chinese children being brought up in Spain who are accepted/integrated/popular/OK. Met one a couple of years ago who was trilingual, english&spanish&mandarin.

    4. Italy has the highest proportion of elderly people in Europe. It’s all that dolce vita.

    5. Itinerant Chinese workers. Some will have returned to Wuhan for the Chinese New Year family celebrations, contracted the coronavirus and then returned to Italy in numbers. Many others, including thousands of Chinese students studying at UK and European universities, will have done the same.

      I reckon something should be done to improve the habits of the Chinese. On the one hand they have very able scientists but on the other hand they are a nation of superstitious peasants with filthy habits.

      Any person who believes that consuming Rhino-horn rutting powder will improve potency is by definition deluded and mad. The fact that these nut jobs create this and similar demands which is wiping out whole species of animals in Africa needs must be addressed with international pressure and sanctions.

    6. Lots and lots of old people going every day to small, crowded churches? Maybe the same sort of thing in Iran (but in mosques)?

  99. Champions League and Europa League to be SUSPENDED by UEFA over coronavirus fears

  100. Norway just closed. Portcullis down, drawbridge up. No travel in or out, minimal travel domestically, schools & colleges closed, restaurants and businesses that involve touching (hairdressers, massage, pedicures etc) closed, airports closed, public transport limited, everyone who can to work from home. Even my dinner date tonight with a beautiful and clever Irish girl cancelled, as all restaurants closed if they can’t guarantee a metre separation…
    Can’t get to Mother in hospital.
    Bugger.

          2. Stays on the Wey. It may become a bolt hole if things turn very nasty!!

            (I’ll fly a Yellow duster from the stern!)

          6. Good luck – I am sure you’ll enjoy Bath.

            I used to walk in a crocodile over Pulteney Bridge every Sunday morning from 1954 – 1959 as we made our way from prep school in North Road to Bath Abbey for the Sunday matins.

            Caroline was at Bath University and one of my best friends was an antique dealer in Guinea Lane so I have many memories of the place.

      1. Thanks, Issy.
        Don’t have a discharge date yet.
        Are your carers privately-funded, and what do they do? Looking more & more like I’ll take up your offer…

        1. They are my part-time PA’s via a system here. I’ll have to check with them. Hertslass has my contact details.

    4. Hi Obs,

      The Norway Closed item isn’t featuring on the Beeb Website. Do you have a link to an official Norwegian source?

    5. Someone I know was heading to Oslo and Tromso for a short break. She will be upset.

      Has your Mother in Wales got friends or neighbours who could co-ordinate with you by phone or videocall?

    3. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8105995/UK-EU-CANCEL-post-Brexit-trade-talks-coronavirus-fears-pandemic-sweeps-Europe.html

      They are already considering video conferencing. It’s just the venue and face to face discussions that are being cancelled, not the talks.

      ‘And today a source in Brussels told the AFP news agency: ‘Given the latest COVID-19 developments, EU and UK negotiators have today jointly decided not to hold next week’s round of negotiations in London.’Both sides are currently exploring alternative ways to continue discussions, including if possible the use of vdeoconferences.’ ‘

      1. We don’t want them over here, thanks. Best thing is we e-mail them what we want and they can like it or lump it.

    4. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8105995/UK-EU-CANCEL-post-Brexit-trade-talks-coronavirus-fears-pandemic-sweeps-Europe.html

      They are already considering video conferencing. It’s just the venue and face to face discussions that are being cancelled, not the talks.

      ‘And today a source in Brussels told the AFP news agency: ‘Given the latest COVID-19 developments, EU and UK negotiators have today jointly decided not to hold next week’s round of negotiations in London.’Both sides are currently exploring alternative ways to continue discussions, including if possible the use of vdeoconferences.’ ‘

    6. No problem. An agreement, we don’t want. And no Pizza Virusa alla Italiana either, thank you.

    7. Au contraire, Monsieur Barnier won’t look so tall and patrician on a video screen.

  103. Whilst I was busy making tonight’s spag bol, radio two was playing it’s usual crap.
    There was a feature set around a new charity. It’s about people running in various places and events including triathlons. I thought I was hearing things when some one said you can donate 20 pounds to help children living on the streets of Harare.
    Surely the Zimbabwean government can access Mugabe Swiss bank accounts and help these people out. Or ask for some money back from China who took all copper from the country.
    Hideously white Ian Smith and his then government would never have let this happen.

    1. And now our government is letting the Chinese in. Dangerous times and naive politicians and advisers.
      Lessons are never learned.

      1. Yep and they are now stripping Australia of its minerals.
        The dinkie die ozzies are going crazy.
        Farmers are going broke and some comiting suicide.
        Politicians are so stupidly short sighted.

        1. Both the brain and the penis rely on a a strong blood flow. Unfortunately the heart can only supply enough to work one organ at a time. Are most of these decisions made by men?

    2. Yes, there is some female DJ called Jo Wylie who is doing triathlons whilst whizzing around the UK producing CO2. It’s a great effort, but Sports Aid leaves me cold.

    3. I have fond memories of blancmange & junket – they were often dished up as ‘pud’ at lunchtime in my private school.. The last time I had them was about 65 years ago.

      1. Our Comprehensive could only afford pink semolina. We used to have contests to see who could hold their dish upside down for the longest.

        1. Rice pudding & jam, tapioca & jam (frog’s spawn) – yum!

          My father spent some time in a thoracic ward during the war, where some patients were coughing up sputum laced with blood. As a result he couldn’t stand the sight of any of those puds, so Mum & I had to wait until he was away on business before we could enjoy them.

          1. Seems we received and enjoyed the same milk puds. Did your mother make bread and butter pudding? My mother’s version was souffle like when it came out of the oven, full of milk, eggs and dried fruit. Delicious cold the next day.

        2. My mother made three milk puds: a milky rice pudding cooked in a large saucepan; creamy tapioca and the very best, rice pud cooked slowly in the oven with a nutmeg skin. The first and second were improved with homemade jam but the last needed nothing to improve it and when cold could be cut like a cake. I cannot recall her ever making semolina, which I also enjoy.

          3. Hadn’t had b&b pud since about 1974 until a job in South Sudan 2007 when it was a regular in the canteen, together with Queen of Puddings and other school favourites!

          4. Made that tonight; a way of ensuring that MB doesn’t end up with stale/furry bread over the weekend.

          5. My late father told us that the skin on my mother’s rice pudding would give us cancer. He then proceeded to scrape the pan and consume it himself.

            He said much the same about the skin on walnuts. We tried to peel away the skin whereas he consumed the lot, skins and all. I suppose his ruse kept us occupied if pathetically innocent.

          7. My fading memory is that it was sago pudding at school that was frogspawn – semolina is quite nice.

          9. I often make semolina pudding; MB loves it.
            I also use it in shortbread to give it texture.

          10. I loved semolina and we were allowed a blob of jam in the middle if we wished, but woe betide any one of us who mixed in up into a pink morass.

          1. One day, the cooks had accidentally chucked in a whole banana into the dish of custard.
            The whole table lunged at it, but the presiding teacher insisted on cutting it up into fair portions.
            At least she taught arithmetic, so it was done fairly.

      3. I had junket at b/school as well .. There were 2 flavours .. we had delicious old fashioned brown bread and butter slices to eat with our junket , blancmange or jelly .. I haven’t had junket for about 60 years either!

    1. I do wish people would learn to use their phone in landscape format rather than portrait when videoing or photographing subjects that are wider than they are tall (the bloke with the rope on his unicycle who keeps vanishing off the edge of the screen).

      Do these same plonkers have their televisions mounted narrow side up?

      1. Just give yourself plenty of time to get to the bus stop and you’ll never have to run.

          2. Yes. Very civilised; I rock up at 12.00 middayish.
            I need to re-organise my packing as books, charger, earphones and laptop take up more room that I realised.
            Heyho – up to the attic in the morning.

  107. What is the betting that in a few weeks we will all be wondering what all this corona madness was about.

  108. Another charidee thing being rammed down our throats on BBC. This time it’s Sport Relief, whatever that is. I was OK once a year when Wogan led the campaign for Children in Need, but now it seems every 3 or 4 months we’re expected to dig deep into our pockets for something or other. It’s as ridiculous as it’s unacceptable.

    1. It keeps the performers in the limelight, thus carrying out its main purpose. Any money raised is incidental.

  109. I live in an apartment block where residents congregate in the reception area to chat, which is nice but I got home this evening to find a young Italian neighbour telling an elderly German neighbour that this isn’t flu it’s pneumonia, doom, doom and thrice doom!

    Poor old Ulla is depressed as it is without anyone winding her up. She has some memory loss as a result of her stroke, which upsets her enough already. This is not what looking out for our neighbours is about! Grrr!!

    1. A day or two ago, someone posted some information that sounded very useful but I have no idea how accurate it was. It was to the effect that most/all of those who have died as a result of Coronavirus actually died from the pneumonia that developed from it. Therefore, anyone having had a pneumonia vaccination will have a vastly better prognosis if catching coronavirus. If this is the case, why isn’t there a major vaccination process for vulnerable citizens? Having had a pneumonia jab a few years ago, I hope that the information above is really the case but are there any medical experts on this forum (not you, Jill Backson) who could comment?

      1. Norway has very small stocks of pneumonia vaccine, and are keeping it for those that actually have pneumonia. Was in the paper a day or several ago.

        1. Sorry, O, but I am not sure if you are being serious or not. Your post reminds me of the old RAF joke about storemen who would not issue you with something or other in case someone needed it.

          1. Not enough for a general innoculation, only for those actually wit, pneumonia.

      2. I had my pneumonia jab a few years back (If I recall correctly it lasts at least 10 years).

        1. I didn’t know you could get them until I went for my flu jab last autumn and the nurse asked me if I wanted a pneumonia jab at the same time, because they had some in.

          I shrugged my shoulders, said OK and got a jab in each arm. Job done.

      3. A quick search turned this up in the US press:

        The natural progression of coronavirus symptoms has led many to ask whether the pneumonia vaccine, administered to millions of patients each year, might protect someone if they contract the virus. The short answer is no, says Dr. Rachel Roper, associate professor of microbiology and immunology at East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine.

        “The current pneumonia vaccine protects against Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria that cause pneumonia,” Roper told The News & Observer via email on Thursday. “That vaccine will not protect against COVID2019 pneumonia.”

    2. May I humbly suggest that Ulla should ask her GP for a vaccination against pneumonia. ASAP.
      Whoops, now I have read the comment below!

    1. But only if you have chronic viral hepatitis?
      Very dangerous if you’re on blood thinner like warfarin. Not always good to self medicate.

    2. My wife has just volunteered for a trial that has aspirin being prescribed to counter chronic kidney disease.

    3. It can also increase the chances of developing a stomach or duodenal ulcer causing you to bleed out internally, unless you take a medicine to counteract the aspirin.

      1. Was on mini Aspirin for literally decades – no side effects whatsoever. It used to be considered a preventative for strokes and heart issues. The current thinking is only prescribe it if the patient has actually had heart or stroke disease.

        1. It caused a duodenal ulcer with me. Got weak as a kitten with the internal bleed. Into hospital and the next morning the Spanish male nurse gave me an aspirin along with my other meds. Increased the bleeding and nearly slipped off the old mortal coil. I never realised how invigorating a blood transfusion was.

        3. A nice glass of dry white does that. We often have ‘Doctor’s Corner’ at the pub and it’s amazing what you learn and, or, have experienced.

    5. I quarter the aspirin and take one quarter a day to thin my blood. I have done this for 15 years with no problems.

    1. Most of them. It’s what they do, they go back to China to visit family in the biggest annual migration the planet, apparently.

  113. Italy Covid-19 death toll passes 1,000
    More than 1,000 people in Italy have died as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak, according to the latest figures.

    Look, this is serious. It’s no joking matter. Not sure that anything can be done about it, but we seem reasonably safe over here at the moment.
    But what will we do when all the Europeans are gone ? Will we be full of regrets and miss the EU ?

    2. Public Health England
      estimates that on average 17,000 people have died from the flu in England annually between 2014/15 and 2018/19.Yes thats right 17.000 How many are going to die this year. Just put things in perspective.

      2. The Chinese have already admitted that the virus has mutated. This means that the antidote to the mutated virus is more difficult to formulate. In any event this will take many months to formulate.

        When this is over I do hope that pressure will finally be applied to China, the source of most of these contagions.

  114. Oh lordy lordy, it’s Friday the 13th tomorrow. Ah well, what could possibly go more wrong?

        2. Good news and bad news.

          First the good news. Caronavirus is no longer a threat.

          The bad news is that it was a meteorite the size of Wales wot dun it.

  115. Italian traveller arrives at Chicago O’Hare flight from Birmingham, UK:

    Official: Have you been in the Schengen Zone within the last two weeks?

    Italian: No, I have been touring in Teeside and the Black Country staying with friends, first in Hartlepool and then in Tipton.

      1. Yes Nanny new laptop windows 10!!!
        I can’t post pics here …..the post tag disappears!

        1. God love you, but windows doesn’t; that’s why I’ve stayed with 7 – it makes more sense.

          Perhaps Windows 11 may make Microsoft see sense and discard the Emperor’s New Clothes.

    2. A lovely girl wiped out.. the toll on our bods who serve in those fly ridden heathen places is far too much for any one to bear .. Why are our armed sevices out there.

      1. Shiteholes not worth one drop of British blood.leave them to their own devices to sort themselves out.explain if they allow any of their own fanatics to threaten us beyond their borders,if they fail to police them themselves,we will turn their cities to glass car parks
        In the 1920’s we used weapons of mass destruction (poison gas) to control Iraq,it worked then,it would work again,the threat of clan extermination is all they understand

    3. Ben Wallace, the UK defence secretary, described the attack as “a cowardly and retrograde act” and said his thoughts were the families of those killed. “We shall not forget their sacrifice and will ensure those who committed these acts face justice,” he said.

      I think I’m getting too cynical for my own good. Look at this mealy mouthed rubbish. We shall not forget their sacrifice Tell that to the guys up on charges in Northern Ireland.

      1. “Face justice”? Translation: “They will join the new Government once the Allies have b*ggered off”.

  123. Boris’s latest Plan

    You self diagnose yourself, self isolate yourself and self treat yourself

        1. I don’t know what the F stands for in the F1 button but I’ve got a pretty good idea. Over to the Nottler technically minded….

    1. I liked this tweet:

      “Norfolk is the only county in the UK without any confirmed cases of coronavirus.

      The total lack of transport links to the rest of the UK is finally paying off”

  131. Labour leading in London but looking as if they will fall short of an overall majority, Brexit Party on 2%. Still some weeks to go though

    2. Talking of which…..a jewish couple flew in to Kennedy from Israel. They took a cab to New York city.
      The driver asked where they were from. The wife a triffle hard of hearing said to hubby, what did he say ? The hubby said he asked where we are from dear.
      I told him Israel.
      The cabbie told them he worked on a kibbutz when he was in his early twenties. She said what did he say ?
      He said he’d be out in Israel working on a kibbutz dear.
      The cabbie said I have to tell you during that time I had some of the worse sexual experience in my life.
      What did he say ?
      The hubby breaths out and says,
      He says he thinks he knows you dear !

    1. I’m hanging on to Windows 7 for as long as I can at work. Colleagues who’ve been upgraded to 10 are not impressed.

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