Thursday 2 April: The Chancellor must fix his unfair rescue plan for the self-employed

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/04/01/lettersthe-chancellor-must-fix-unfair-rescue-plan-self-employed/

900 thoughts on “Thursday 2 April: The Chancellor must fix his unfair rescue plan for the self-employed”

  1. Having posted the first comment yesterday, I’ll let someone else go first today….

  2. Britain has traded individual liberty for a terrifying state omnishambles. 2 April 2020.

    This isn’t the deal we bargained for when we acquiesced in the shutdown of the economy and mass house arrest: individual sacrifice in return for collective shambles. In a way, the lack of pushback against lockdown has been remarkable. Perhaps our love of liberty has been bludgeoned by human rights culture, our confidence to question punctured by elite snobbery over who is allowed to comment on scientific debate. Still, suspicion is rising that we have been duped into accepting the unacceptable. After allowing crisis to spiral into chaos, No 10 seems too ensnared in strategic confusion, managerial dysfunction – and, intriguingly, a nannying moralism – to engineer even the most blunderous exit route.

    Morning everyone. Can some kind person please put up Sherelles’s latest offering? I strongly suspect I am going to agree with the rest!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/02/britain-has-traded-individual-liberty-terrifying-state-omnishambles/

    1. Britain has traded individual liberty for a terrifying state omnishambles
      SHERELLE JACOBS – DAILY TELEGRAPH COLUMNIST
      Follow 2 APRIL 2020 • 6:00AM

      The public is starting to realise it has been duped into accepting the unacceptable

      This isn’t the deal we bargained for when we acquiesced in the shutdown of the economy and mass house arrest: individual sacrifice in return for collective shambles. In a way, the lack of pushback against lockdown has been remarkable. Perhaps our love of liberty has been bludgeoned by human rights culture, our confidence to question punctured by elite snobbery over who is allowed to comment on scientific debate. Still, suspicion is rising that we have been duped into accepting the unacceptable. After allowing crisis to spiral into chaos, No 10 seems too ensnared in strategic confusion, managerial dysfunction – and, intriguingly, a nannying moralism – to engineer even the most blunderous exit route.

      Its new tactic of distracting us with a cover up isn’t going well. On Sunday, Michael Gove said we were carrying out 10,000 tests a day. Only after some disputed this figure did officials admit that we are closer to 8,000; it will take weeks to reach the target of 25,000.

      The precise reason for this failure remains a mystery, but a picture is building of an anarchic strategic U-turn, distribution cock-ups, and rivalry between NHS penpushers over control of testing data. Meanwhile, reports from medics who have little or no protective gear are widespread. In an atmospere of tightly controlled unaccountability redolent of the Chinese Communist Party, apparatchiks have been dutifully silent on the risks mandarins expect ill‑equipped doctors to take for the greater good. Nor have we been told in sufficient detail about what the hold-up is on testing or equipment – though Tory politicians weakly sidemouth that they didn’t foresee a spike in global demand and issues with supply chains.

      It is hard not to despair at the PM’s inability to boldly choose between two politically costly solutions: immediately stamp out the virus with border closures and even greater social distancing – which many scientists say should have happened much earlier to be effective, as for every week you delay, the death toll increases five-fold – or back herd immunity to keep the economy going and take the heat for it.

      Instead, we witnessed a half-hearted effort at herd immunity, which the Government apparently agreed to only on the basis of dud “expert” advice that it was achievable with 20 per cent of the country being infected rather than the more realistic 80 per cent. This was abruptly followed by a halfway house of indefinite lockdown after the horse had bolted.

      Essentially, the Government crumbled, after Downing Street used science experts stunningly badly. All the more dispiriting given that Dominic Cummings has for years plotted how to cure Whitehall of this very affliction. Perhaps he struggled to convince colleagues that the purpose of the experts was to explain medical scenarios and unsettled science debates – not decide policy. A world-leading epidemiologist can hypothesise about the best way to eliminate a virus, but he can tell you nothing about the link between lockdown, poverty, and death rates.

      One wonders also whether Britain has suffered from the prejudices of an aide who considers economics a bogus practice – in his view, its quaintly antiquated methods render it the scientific world’s disciplinary equivalent of Cuba. No  10’s failure to bring economists into the heart of the debate was even more of an oversight given our emasculated Chancellor.

      All this is depressing enough, but it gets darker still. Acts of individual sacrifice may be warranted in an emergency, but, as the public is coming to learn, these risk being repaid not only through collective shambles but collective tyranny. We have morphed into a police state, where officers enforce rules about what groceries we buy with no legal basis. The Government claims its draconian restrictions takes their precedent from the 1984 Public Health Act and the 2004 Civil Contingencies Act, but their sweeping scope appears to do no such thing.

      On top of this, a curiosity: our state, it seems, has more concern for our virtual liberties than our physical liberties. The Government rushed through emergency powers to keep us at home, but it hasn’t rushed through legislation allowing tech companies to handle our data in new ways for emergency tracing measures without penalty. Instead it has opted to build a clunky, voluntary public-sector app.

      The reason for this paradox is simple: the nanny state aspires to both curtail our freedoms and pose as the only entity that can protect those freedoms from powerful rivals. Even in a moment of crisis, it cannot suppress these grasping instincts. Misgivings about online surveillance aside, many would prefer to give Google greater data access with sunset clauses than sit at home watching the economy crash. Such a view is, however, difficult for politicians who love to dress up big state 2.0 in moralising discourses about the internet’s dark forces.

      Another farcical twist, perhaps, in this animal balloon of a presentation of serious leadership. And yet the public’s patience is already wearing thin. The PM must get his act together: this cannot continue.

      1. Thank you Michael for posting and Minty for commending this article. One thing she doesn’t mention is the fact that Stockmarkets around the world were in the opinion of many vastly overvalued as a result of ZIRP & NIRP allowing companies to gorge on cheap money, and buy back stock. In short (and a lot of folk did a lot of shorting) It was a veritable House of Cards on the verge of collapse that is being brought down by and blamed on Corvid.

      2. Thank you Citroen. I have the horrible feeling that Sherelle is correct and disaster is on its way!

    1. Expect lots of headlines in the globalist media blaming Tory cuts, to try and throw mud in people’s eyes.

  5. The rest of the Ladybird Book of Covid 19.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d95a7fa5cd373952fc74d14afda6ee3db055e4d5f4b0c35983b9dacbefc0b158.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2b1781c46f762e254c36c0b5b51a19c1c7a43a914e727b0041c3494e3c15eeec.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5881b4ee420c848004fd69c2f2616d8c4267b042a779052c69ec5fa89d74694e.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fb72fdca364d0d19fcea9dfdbfb8e483565fa0f6f8bfc98b9400757bc7c10a1d.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/247f0b480430aaa0396f4be585547e4f4021f4d390e811f66c38bf5ff52790f0.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5b68dbd26f332121f3382d5c8666cab3618140a3bbef448069dc1dbd8452d033.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b1b888a1f0d4e62542ee86f8d7befb3a1b281071b0225ea6c6927f3399f8393f.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0f150093299f8db2242bf33863def5f91b7a78ce8cc1d2e545be6b21d22a0b5f.jpg

    Seems to draw the line there. Another three to follow.

  6. Good morning all.

    Had an unusual breakfast: nucked a carton of w/rose butternut squash soup, added a generous knob of butter & a good sprinkling of Cayenne pepper & stirred well.
    Delicious & heart warming.

      1. ‘Morning, Paul.

        I’m out of dairy until I go shopping, so I had to improvise.

  7. Yippee! The Eurovision Song Contest is back on at its original date, 16th May.

      1. It’s like the Yanks bombarding Noriega with high volume 24 hour crap pop music to flush him out of hiding.

    3. ‘Morning, Peddy, in order for Nanny State to ensure complete acquiescence, I’m sure it’ll be the only programme on, on all channels from 18:00 – 23:59 in an effort to ‘cheer us up’.

      Good Government says this must be the way to go.

      1. It’s the pay-back for having bloody rugby on every channel simultaneously last year.

      2. We’re lucky that our TVs are not, at the moment, so ‘smart’ that the PTB can turn them on and off at will to ensure the population gets the messages and programmes the ‘beloved’ leader decrees. Think Blair with that power, and shudder. 😎

    6. …just when we thought things could not get any worse…

      ‘Morning, Peddy.

  9. Rory Sutherland
    The world’s best virology lab isn’t where you think
    1 April 2020, 12:22pm

    If you ever doubt how clever evolution can be, remember that it may take a year or more for the brightest minds on the planet to find and approve a vaccine for the coronavirus. Yet 99 per cent of otherwise healthy people seem to have an immune system that can crack the problem in under a week.

    When I posted this on Twitter, I got a little abuse from a few strange people who thought I was calling scientists dumb. Quite the reverse. 99 per cent may be too high a figure, but it is surely evidence of some bizarre superintelligence within the human body that many of us can do unconsciously something that the combined brains of the world’s pharmaceutical industries so far cannot match. In a matter of days, it can spot, target, test and devise an antibody to eliminate a hostile pathogen that it has never encountered before. Each of us is walking around every day without realising that we are home to the world’s best virology lab.

    True, the immune system does not have to wait for FDA approval. But it does have to do something similar – ensure that the cure does not do more harm than the disease. (Diseases such as Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis and Rheumatoid Arthritis are examples of what happens when the system goes rogue.) And it’s also worth noting that a human vaccine does not, in fact, cure the disease – it simply hacks the immune system to create its own cure.

    A few dissident thinkers – including me and the economist Robin Hanson – have wondered aloud whether, in the time before a vaccine is available, there might be a role for an earlier practice called ‘variolation’. This was introduced to Britain from the Ottoman Empire by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in the early eighteenth century as a treatment against smallpox. Montagu controversially infected her own children with a small initial dose of smallpox, the assumption being that the body was better able to cope when presented with a small initial dose of the virus than with a larger one. She gained a PR coup for the procedure when the then Princess of Wales adopted the procedure for her two daughters. Seven prisoners awaiting hanging at Newgate prison had been offered their freedom in exchange for undergoing the procedure – all seven survived. (Horrible to say it, but one small advantage of the death penalty is that it does solve certain problems in medical ethics). Once Edward Jenner (and, earlier, Benjamin Jesty) came up with a cowpox vaccine, variolation sensibly fell out of favour.

    We don’t yet know whether the scale of the initial dose affects the course or outcome of the disease – and it would be heinous to act without this information. So far, strangely, most models of the disease assume infection is just a binary question – you are either infected or you are not. Is this a safe assumption, or are there gains to be had from also ensuring that if you are infected, you aren’t infected very much?

    I’m not taking any chances, While everyone else was stockpiling toilet paper, I invested in one of these*.

    *https://johnlewis.scene7.com/is/image/JohnLewis/237489733?$rsp-pdp-port-1080$

    1. That makes sense.
      How quickly an infectious disease affects an infected person depends on how many viruses or bacteria are present when infection actually occurs.
      A large viral or bacterial load will give a rapid onset of the disease, allowing little time for the body’s immune system to react before damage is done.
      The slower progress from a smaller load however, may often allow the immune system to cope with the infection, perhaps without the infected person realising anything is wrong.

    2. I always enjoy Rory Sutherland’s pieces in the Spekkie.
      They make you think and laugh at the same time.

    3. So, that you are saying is that we should sentence a few people to death, and offer them a coronavirus infection alternative?

    4. ‘Morning, Citroen – “one of these” being…

      A hand warmer
      a shaver

      answers on a postcard to…

        1. Good morning.

          I had already bought two air purifiers because Dolly was getting smokers cough. All the nasties in tobacco smoke sink to the ground.

          She hasn’t coughed since.

        2. I have a Rayburn. When I come in from the infected areas as well as washing my hands I breathe heated air for a few minutes. The virus doesn’t like heat. This tip, incidentally, I picked up from a doctor who specialised in virology and how to avoid ‘flu and the common cold.

  10. ‘Morning All

    What a dreadful night. I dreamt something bit me on the neck.

    I even got up to check, but the mirror’s not bloody working………….

  11. How come the Germans are doing so much testing and have a much lower death rate

    Virusprung covid Testnick, they say

  12. SIR – You report: “China will face ‘a reckoning’ over virus, warns Downing Street” (March 30). Disregarding China’s huge sacrifice in the fight against Covid-19 is slander.

    Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organisation, hailed the speed and scale of China’s response to Covid-19 and said its government showed solid political resolve by timely, effective measures, and that other countries should learn from China’s experience.

    Under the personal guidance of President Xi Jinping, the Chinese people’s arduous efforts are paying off. Economic activities and people’s lives are getting back to normal.

    On March 23, President Xi and Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, had a telephone conversation, with a constructive exchange of views on the fight against the epidemic. In an earlier call, Mr Johnson spoke highly of China’s effective measures.

    In a timely, open and responsible manner, the Chinese government has released information in and outside China, and worked closely with the WHO and international community, including the United Kingdom.

    At this critical moment in the battle between mankind and the epidemic, Western media should deliver more positive messages conducive to cooperation in the world.

    Zeng Rong
    Spokesperson, Chinese Embassy in the UK
    London W1

    BTL:

    Max Bonamy -2 Apr 2020 5:00AM

    Mr Rong,

    Appropriate name. You are indeed wrong.

    You officially represent a highly repressive totalitarian state. The CCP has no interest in human rights. animal welfare or the environment.

    Your coal-fired industry grows ever bigger and your rivers are the most polluted in the world.

    Most notably, your wet-markets are the cause of the global pandemic in the first place.

    Your bosses delayed, withheld, obfuscated the emerging threat to the world until the Chinese New Year was ‘safely over’.

    You punish those who are brave enough to try and warn the world. Can you explain the sudden disappearance of Mr Chen Quishi, the citizen journalist in Wuhan, and Dr Ai Fen, the colleague of Dr Li Wenliang who you tried to silence and was himself, in the end, silenced?

    Your country lies so routinely it has a colossal credibility problem. There is deep suspicion, voiced at the highest levels of the British government, that the true numbers of Wuhan deaths are massively underreported, perhaps by a factor of 40.

    Incredibly, your authorities have just reopened the very wet-markets that kicked this all off.

    In trying to dodge and duck culpability, your Foreign Minister suggested American soldiers are to blame when they attended the Military Games you hosted last October. After the US was able to prove their ground zero patient came long after that, the same Minster switched tactics and is now trying to blame Italy (seizing on the words of one Italian doctor who recorded what he thought some odd pneumonia cases pre-Christmas).

    Overseas Chinese companies have been caught buying up face masks (Australia). Your help is limited and often not free. Italy paid for most of the masks from you.

    That the CCP is hoping to exploit the crisis for massive commercial and geopolitical gain is transparent to all but your apologists.

    You and the CCP are a disgrace and a continuing stain on the world.

    At a bare minimum I hope you lose all contracts in Britain – 5G, Hinckley, HS2.

    2. China has redefined the description ‘pariah state’, and richly deserves it for generations to come.

      ‘Morning, Citroen.

      1. Morning, HJ.

        The people may believe and want, if not demand, that China is sidelined until they get their act together. However, its the money men and duplicitous politicians that are in control of that situation. So much of the World’s industry has been relocated to China that it will take years to bring some of it back, even if the will exists.
        Policy makers who appear to only look at money i.e cheap labour, have allowed China to dominate the World market in many areas, including pharmaceuticals. The old adage, “Putting all one’s eggs in one basket,” seems to have passed these ‘leaders’ by. This pandemic has to be the greatest example of, “Lessons will be learned,” but will our ‘leaders actually take heed?

        1. I always translate ‘Lessons will be learned’ to ‘Lessons have been identified’. Policy makers will weigh up the financial costs versus the good that any measures may bring. They also know that by the time the measures have been identified the media circus will have moved on to the next ratings-grabbing ‘sensation’ and it will be safe to drop or reject any costly (to them) answers.

          1. “What experience and history teach is this – that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”

            Hegel, I think?

    3. What a cracker of a riposte.
      I assume Chinese agents are not allowed freedom of movement in Blighty? Or have been spotted buying scent?

    4. Thank you Max Bonamy.
      What a disgraceful, slimy, weasely letter from the Chinese spokesman. Stop spreading pandemics!

    5. China or the communist party, has apparently unleashed 1600 internet trolls to try and put a positive spin on things and has, while banning other reporters, shipped 300 approved reporters into Wuhan to present a cosy picture. They report what they are told top report. Meanwhile 3 citizen journalists critical of the CCP have gone missing, possibly arrested, possibly worse.

      A doctor reports corona virus patients being discharged to show successful outcomes and then readmitted to hospital with different diagnosis attributed to their conditions. Photos show some in ventilators.
      In the phase when China was in cover-up mode it sent out directives worldwide which resulted in its tame overseas companies (some controlled by former PLA officers) busy cornering the markets in AUstralia, for example, and New york, for face masks and medical supplies.
      The true depth of the Chinese Government’s culpability and chicanery is emerging and will emerge and there will be a reckoning that, in the US, not even the democrats can save them from. Questions too about the WHO acting as a propaganda arm of the Chinese and rebuffing Taiwan at their behest.

      Time has come to disband the UN and the WHO and find some better, less politicised way to handle things.

  13. Morning all

    SIR – The Chancellor’s scheme to help the self-employed omits people who trade through a limited liability company and are remunerated by salary and dividends.

    I know the details of one business, which I believe are replicated in many others run by self-employed people. Its income is seasonal and unpredictable. Its owner owns all of its shares, works full-time in the business and has no other employees. He draws a fairly low monthly salary under the PAYE system and, in good years, the majority of his annual income comes from dividends. The business is currently not operating and the owner therefore has no income at all. His salary and dividends did not exceed £50,000 in the last tax year.

    The owner pays PAYE on his salary, income tax on his dividends and corporation tax on the company’s taxable profits. If he was paying another employee a salary, that person would be entitled to a grant of up to £2,500 per month. Yet the owner of the business, who started it, finances it and takes all the risk, will only receive a grant based upon his salary and not his dividends too.

    Advertisement

    Handing out taxpayer funds in these difficult times on an unfair basis is a recipe for long-term resentment. Small businesses will be important in the fightback that will come once the virus has been beaten. I urge the Chancellor to change his scheme.

    Michael Johns

    London SW6

    SIR – I have owned and run my lighting manufacturing company for more than 40 years.

    The lighting industry faces stiff competition from the Far East. Products arrive in Britain that cost the same as our raw materials. This makes life difficult, but it is nothing compared to the problems companies such as mine are facing now.

    I am in self-isolation, but production has continued and lighting for use in NHS temporary medical installations has been prioritised. Although my company is complying with all government protection standards, we have received online abuse for not closing down. Yet the economy will need companies like mine to pick up the pieces when this is all over.

    Rupert Martin

    Gillingham, Dorset

    SIR – Banks are refusing to advance government money allocated for business rescue unless customers have tried all other conventional means of borrowing, such as the pledging of property as security (report, April 1). This defeats the entire purpose of the Government’s rescue scheme.

    The Bank of England has asked banks to suspend payment of dividends, which they will no doubt be glad to do, and to cease the payment of bonuses, which they will probably not do if past experience is anything to go by. The role of a private banking system that milks society when tasked with helping it must be called into question when this virus crisis is over.

    Malcolm Parkin

    Kinnesswood, Kinross-shire

    1. Where have you been for the past couple of decades Mr Parkin? Have you not realised that our greedy and shameful banks are not there to help their customers; they are there only to help themselves. Remember the various mis-selling scandals? Remember them forcing their business customers into bankruptcy in order to steal their assets? The banks are there to fleece, not to support. The current disaster has merely highlighted their disgusting practices. Never has there been a better reason to nationalise them.

      ‘Morning, Epi.

      1. My memories of nationalised entities is not one of better services. Nor of imagination or empathy.
        The problem is that the banks got so big they became as monolithic, bureaucratic and insensitive as nationalised systems.

    2. This sums up why government largesse with other people’s money usually results in waste and unfairness.

  14. Guidelines required

    SIR – My husband and I suspect we have had the coronavirus – without testing we cannot be certain – but after self-isolating for two weeks, we are fully recovered.

    We should both like to help the vulnerable residents in our village by shopping and collecting prescriptions, but we are restricted by the current guidelines on staying at home. We also have children and grandchildren that we miss seeing, despite video calls.

    There must be thousands of others like us who want to get back into society to help those in need. What are the Government’s guidelines for those who have recovered?

    Alison Gee

    East Clandon, Surrey

    1. SIR – The Government’s “list” of vulnerable people seems to have been compiled in a very haphazard way.

      I am 74 and have leukaemia, but I have not received a letter from any supermarket recognising my vulnerable status, although a healthy 52-year-old relative was offered preferential booking slots by Sainsbury’s. My GP practice says it was not contacted regarding the list.

      If I cannot get a delivery slot I shall have to go shopping for food, which the Government and the NHS websites are asking me not to do.

      Peter Crawford

      Sheffield, South Yorkshire

      1. A sad letter. Does he not have anyone to help out?
        I actually had to apologise to our neighbour yesterday for not taking up her kind offer. She and her husband popped round a card with an offer to help when this hoohah first blew up.
        So far, our sons have helped and, because I went OTT before my operation, our needs have been few.

  15. SIR – Keith Phair (Letters, March 31) asks where holidaymakers are left. The answer is: in the dark.

    EasyJet understandably cancelled my flight to Greece later this month. I applied for a refund online. This has not been forthcoming, although it shows as pending.

    It now asks me to pay the balance on a summer holiday we all know won’t take place. Do do I pay, and hope to get it back, or lose my deposit?

    Roger Gentry

    Sutton-at-Hone, Kent

  16. Open the garden centres for goodness sake.

    SIR – Gardening is the great British pastime. If the Government wants to ensure cooperation during the lockdown, it seems senseless for garden centres and nurseries to be closed.

    Given the recent spell of half-decent weather, we should allow people to buy the basic necessities for a frenzy of gardening – such as compost, seeds, seedlings, weedkiller, fertiliser – and encourage them to take out their frustrations on the veg patch and the border. It should be possible for such establishments to limit crowds, keep people two metres apart and introduce an outside card-payment system.

    This is a huge opportunity being missed, especially in terms of mental health. What happened to “dig for victory”?

    Lauren Groom

    Salisbury, Wiltshire

    SIR – Gardening is a good form of exercise, but you do need plants and shrubs to work with.

    All garden centres have outdoor sales areas and, as long as customers practised social distancing, they would be safer than the shops and supermarkets currently open.

    Surely they should be allowed to open and trade. If not, they will go under and thousands will be made unemployed.

    Brian Seage

    Liskeard, Cornwall

    1. Where did this grotesque americanism “furlough” come from? I’d always known it as “gardening leave”.

          1. ‘Afternoon, Jeremy, though Santa Claus is the Anglicised version of the Dutch Sint Niklaas.

      3. As if that were not bad enough, but a reporter on Talksport today was referring to “furloo” . Somebody must have whispered in his headphones, as he concluded his piece by referring to “fur-low”.

    2. Everyone has had a weeks holiday and is now wanting to get back to work. Most of them of course no longer have jobs and will not get their old ones back when and if normality returns. It seems unlikely that this state of affairs can last without the imposition of draconian sanctions worthy of the USSR or the Peoples Republic of China!

      1. And to think that I, along with thousands, used to think that the “Prepers” over on ZH were nuts……

        1. Morning Stephen. It will take time to build up a head but it looks unsustainable to me. This might be a very good time to start “panic” buying for the real crisis in about six months!

        2. Morning Stephen. It will take time to build up a head but it looks unsustainable to me. This might be a very good time to start “panic” buying for the real crisis in about six months!

          1. Morning Minty – Well with all my kitchen cupboards acting as the set for Old Mother Hubbard as a result of my cancelled planned move yesterday, I’ve got loads of space for new stock – what I don’t have is any means to protect any stock – unless of course I’m called upon to join a new Dad’s Army….rank of Sergeant would be fine 😉

          2. Yes better to make sure you don’t tell anyone or let them see what you are up to!

          3. Yes better to make sure you don’t tell anyone or let them see what you are up to!

  17. Having been awake until gone 03:00, I’m off back to bed to try and find some more zeds.

    Back later.

    1. Morning Tom

      What kept you awake , and how are you going to get back to sleep.. Sleep is so elusive these days .

      It is this fear thing , isn’t it.

      1. Why is everyone going around in their own private cloud of fear? If you get it, you get it. If you don’t you don’t. No need to go actively seeking it, but likewise, don’t creep into a grave to hide, quivering in terror. Disregard what’s in the press – see, as predicted, what a disaster Brexit is as an example of their judgement and anti-Tory hysteria.
        Bah!

      2. I’m starting to get a bit angry, Belle. It’s the PTB who appear to want us to be frightened.

        2. That fuelled my fire today in the bank. I know the risk I’m undertaking in being out and I wouldn’t need to if they’d do their job right in the first place. I take reasonable precautions and anyway, I’ve got to go sometime.

      3. Why is everyone going around in their own private cloud of fear? If you get it, you get it. If you don’t you don’t. No need to go actively seeking it, but likewise, don’t creep into a grave to hide, quivering in terror. Disregard what’s in the press – see, as predicted, what a disaster Brexit is as an example of their judgement and anti-Tory hysteria.
        Bah!

          1. The MSM have deliberately worked up the hysteria.
            Their behaviour has been disgusting.
            Morning, Belle.

          2. Claire Fox
            This is no time for ‘gotcha!’ journalism
            2 April 2020, 8:50am

            The lockdown has ensured that many millions now gather round the TV and watch the daily press conference from No.10. We hang on every word from politicians and medical/ scientific experts, trying to read the runes of our fate for the next hours, days, months. These people are leading the country’s response to Covid-19.

            A third group in the room (be that virtually), whose leadership should be indispensable, are the press, charged with asking penetrating, crucial questions on our behalf. This should be when the nation feels the latest strategy is being held to account and scrutinised, when more light is shone on controversial decisions that affect our livelihoods and liberty, even life and death. The media are so key in a national emergency, especially when opposition parties in the UK are – let us say – largely in disarray, even leaderless. That’s even more true with parliament in recess.

            And yet many of us watching end up groaning or swearing in disbelief that the journalists seem more intent on playing ‘gotcha!’ than digging deeper.

            The present dissatisfaction in the media was brought home to me in reaction to its response to the news that Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock and Chris Whitty are all self-isolating after either testing positive, or showing symptoms, for Covid-19. One broadcast journalist asked if the PM had been negligent in catching the virus. I tweeted in exasperation, asking if journos had noticed that this was a highly contagious virus. I wondered if politicians hiding away from the country and refusing to leave their home would have been more negligent. The tweet went viral and almost all the replies were cries of despair at journalistic standards, not political ineptitude.

            Reading the replies to this tweet, and comments across social media, it has become obvious that many people are exasperated that the media are squandering their privileged position as inquisitors on behalf of the public. MSM, as it has become disparagingly referred to, is in danger of losing the public’s trust as impartial truth-seekers. Instead, too many of the hacks’ questions come over as narky, petulant or hostile. Many sound more like adversarial advocates of any strategy that is at odds with the one being put before them.

            Take the specific criticism that those leading the fight against Covid-19 should have shielded themselves from any possibility of being infected. One press conference ‘hot take’ quickly becomes the news.

            The Guardian’s headline was ‘Nonchalant’: Boris Johnson accused of Covid-19 complacency – Government ‘too slow to act’ and ministers have failed to lead by example, health experts say.

            The Daily Mail read: ‘Why didn’t they practise what they preached? Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock and Chris Whitty face accusations they failed to follow their own advice’.

            Isn’t this a partial and confused picture of what might constitute leadership? After all, early in the crisis, Boris was castigated for not leading from the front when he didn’t chair the first Cobra meeting on the pandemic. Had he deserted the scene and refused to speak at press conferences, we might have rightly worried that the Prime Minister, his government colleagues and advisers, were refusing to risk themselves in directing the country’s response.

            Imagine if care workers, nurses, food producers, sewage workers, cleaners, et al – who are working to ensure the lockdown is feasible and safe for the majority – decided on reading the headlines that turning up for work was ‘nonchalant’ and ‘negligent’? What of the three quarters of a million people who have put themselves forward to join the ‘volunteer army’ to expand NHS capacity or the local community groups self-organising to help the most vulnerable? On the same measure applied to Johnson, would their selfless acts of public service be seen as neglectfully not following advice? Indeed, journalists themselves, playing a key role as the public’s eyes and ears, wander about the country reporting. Are they too being irresponsible by continuing to step up to do a crucial job in a crisis?

            The same journalists have been rather more reticent in criticising parliament’s decision to dissolve itself for at least a month. As one commentary astutely noted: ‘This is supposedly to ‘lead by example’ by respecting the government decree that all ‘non-essential’ workplaces should close. The ‘Mother of all Parliaments’ has effectively deemed its own work inessential.’

            But perhaps this journalistic restraint is explained by the media’s own arrogant assumption that they know what should be done. A disconcertingly unanimous media clamour for ever more measures to achieve a total lockdown of public life is rarely challenged within their own ranks. The specific focus can seem arbitrary, plucked from the ether. Often evidence for action is less scientific than based on stories that journalists themselves have trawled for, searching for proof that not enough is being done. Those claims are then amplified on TV screens and front pages.

            There are interviews with scared teachers and pupils asking when the government will close the schools. Drinkers are spotted in pubs, so the Prime Minister is interrogated on when he will call time at the bar. Photos of strollers in London’s meagre green areas lead journos to ask when politicians will tackle this scandal, close the parks and penalise the walkers? On and on it goes. More useful questions, around issues like protecting liberties, remain unasked.

            Some variation and dissent from a one-tone approach would help. Whatever the merits of herd immunity (something few lobby journos seemed to be familiar with before they all became experts in critiquing it, with an impressive sense of assurance), there is something disconcerting about the herd-like behaviour amongst our leading hacks. Every 24 hours or so they latch onto some theme and repeatedly, over and over, push their one thought for the day. Until the next day, when it becomes another issue they alight on as crucial.

            Take the way that almost every journalist started querying whether construction workers were really essential workers. Why did everyone focus on construction workers? Because they were the only ones visible on those empty streets apart from roving reporters? A worrying groupthink may be in danger of stultifying journalistic inquisitiveness beyond the bleedin’ obvious.

            I am not calling for a compliant media that nods along at the latest announcement. If anything, we need harder probing and more considered good-faith analysis, based on the research, of the complexities of tackling a new virus. Rather than what can feel like bad-faith haranguing, we require some long-term thinking about the consequences of this reorganisation of how we live. My colleague suggests that someone at the press conference today could ask the government if they have modelled the health, social and economic effects of a six-month lockdown. If not, why not?

            I am aware that turning on the MSM can itself be a lazy ‘gotcha’ tactic. Last week, I argued with a friend in broadcasting, who is frustrated that so many of the more thoughtful TV and radio packages are being side-lined, while egregious questions at press conferences and hot-take headlines are the basis for complaints. Fair enough. Science and medical correspondents have more consistently asked nuanced questions, often because they recognise that it is too early for a forensic post-mortem of the science, that the whole world is feeling its way. They have gone beyond the increasingly shrill demand for testing, testing, testing by their political colleagues, by looking at the challenges of different types of testing and at least querying if this would be the panacea some seem to assume.

            I have also watched some fantastic examples of more interrogatory investigations, such as into the plight of children in care under lockdown. There have been insightful articles and TV items on the unseen and unsung heroic front-line work of everyone from rubbish collectors to bread-makers, who are too often forgotten as we laud NHS staff and forget less glamorous employees who are keeping society fed, safe and clean.

            But there is no room for back-slapping complacency. When Roy Greenslade argues that ‘This media criticism should not be viewed as cynical or carping’, he is illustrating far too self-satisfied an attitude to his own tribe, very much at odds with readers and viewers’ sense that journalism is indulging in a daily toxic bombardment of point-scoring. Perhaps he lets the cat out of the bag when he concludes: ‘By refusing to accept the official narrative, they have disrupted the government’s agenda and, on the positive side, have played a key role in changing the direction of public policy.’

            But is making up policy via press conference real journalistic leadership? Can they or we be sure the media’s public policy outcomes are more effective than the collective decisions of the democratically elected?

            So while some journalists happily critique our political leaders for not being good enough, this is just a plea that leadership in the fourth estate should go beyond the low-hanging fruit. Please can you take your audiences seriously enough to realise that we can cope with the complexity of acknowledging that there is no single correct strategy worldwide (if only). Asking questions with an air of certainty based on what feels like an assumption that the government and its advisers are invariably malign or incompetent, inevitably creates a fatalistic and demoralising mood. We have enough dystopia to contend without our media class wallowing in worst case-scenarios as though they are inevitable, without feeling as though our leaders are under psychological attack from know-it-all scribblers. More humility and smarter thinking from all of us, please. Yes, me included.

          7. Very well. Just off for a walk with Spartie. I will keep a fold-up walking stick in my pocket for a few days – more as a comfort blanket than because I really need it.
            The one thing I can’t do is reach my left foot long enough to pull on a sock or do up laces. But at least I can now reach that area, albeit briefly.

          8. Softly, softly, catchee monkey – or put on sockee, anyhow.
            Glad things are going the right way, Anne.

          9. In some ways, because MB likes nursing, I feel rather guilty at depriving him of a job.

          10. 317675+ up ticks.
            Morning TB,
            As it has been meant to, very same as continuing to support / vote lab/lib/con
            coalition has been a success at being a complete failure.
            Better times are coming.

        2. It’s not fear so much as low level, constant stress.
          I can’t shake off a minor headache. I can’t put on my reading glasses in the supermarket because I don’t want to put potentially contaminated stuff near my eyes. All the new regulations about distance and what you can and can’t touch. The pressure to hurry round. The stuff you need, that is sold out. And I’ve got to go to work now.
          Work is positively relaxing, all I have to think about are the usual problems.

          1. I agree about the stress. The only time I can relieve it is when I’m out with the dog. I am then in charge of what I do and my own destiny. I can feel myself getting depressed (stress does that to me) and I am extremely irritable. I just hope I can move forward now most of the stress factors have (hopefully) been dealt with.

  18. There are also claims that PHE decided to destroy thousands of swabs sent by GPs who suspected their patients had contracted the disease, before they could be analysed, because they did not meet strict criteria.

    ‘If they had looked at those swabs earlier instead of throwing them away, we could have got a handle on this thing much earlier,’ one GP told The Daily Telegraph.

    Meanwhile at least some of PHE’s reluctance to requisition university and commercial laboratories appears to stem from a politically-motivated hostility towards private sector involvement in the healthcare system.

    ‘Their top staff of course like their fatcat salaries, but on other issues their world view is basically Corbynite,’ complains one healthcare expert.

    In the longer term, our best chance of emerging from this crisis is likely to involve the widespread rollout of antibody tests to show who has had coronavirus. Unfortunately, that too is currently being handled by Public Health England. Given the gargantuan salaries its bosses command, let’s hope they find a way to do better.

    Staggering incompetence of our public health fatcats: An astonishing 242 health quango workers are on 6-figure salaries – yet nanny us about mobile phones and soft drinks… while dropping the ball on testing

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8177785/Staggering-incompetence-public-health-fatcats.html

    1. “Staggering incompetence of our public health fatcats… That’s a bit better. But what’s new? They have been useless for yonks.

      1. True. But people were dying unspectacularly in dribs and drabs, not with the full blast of media hysteria.
        (Apart from one or two hospitals where it couldn’t be successfully hidden – eventually.)

    3. Morning Belle. All these people were appointed for their PC credentials and surprise, suprise, when they are required to think for themselves they are hopeless!

      1. They are self-assured and go-getting. That is the only qualification required of a senior public servant post-Thatcher.

          1. Actually right wing and hijacking the gullible left into exploiting a situation for personal advantage while pretending otherwise. The hallmark of the faux-left is taking up red herrings that awake passions whilst not actually being bad for business, such as gender and identity politics (the latter being classic divide-and-rule). Paedophilia and terrorism are always good for subverting fundamental justice, but a global pandemic scare is a gift from the gods.

            The honest Right at least does it openly; we can see it for what it is and either work with it or condemn it (not that the Right worries too much about the Left’s moral damnation!).

    1. Saw Corden doing this ‘live’. Truly ghastly and appalling lump of self-indulgence. We walked out at half time.

      1. The good news with watching on youtube is one doesn’t have to wait for the end of an Act to walkout!

      2. Being television and celeb free, I have hitherto resisted finding out who this Corden bloke was. Up until I Googled a few seconds ago, I was completely unaware of what he does despite having heard countless references to him in our meeja.

        I appear to have missed nothing.

    2. I saw this play at the Theatre Royal in Bath a couple of years ago, one of the funniest plays I can remember seeing, tears of laughter streaming down my cheeks.
      Of course it probably helped that Corden never starred in it.

    3. We saw this a couple of years ago when the London production was taken on tour. Very funny and enjoyable, with plenty of slapstick. Highly recommended, although I don’t know whether James Corden will be as good.

      1. That’s great – all that vacuum did before was sit around & collect dust.

  21. Funny Old World
    It looks like standing outside oiur front doors clapping the saintly NHS is to become a regular occurance(You VILL clap comrades)
    What all of them??
    Including the uncountable fat cat managers on 6 figure salaries who when required to do some actual “managing” seem to have proved to have the skill,efficiency and effectiveness of a flock of headless chickens??
    Indeed rather than doing their jobs they seem to be busily briefing against a government they loathe ably assisted by the Al-Beeb
    It wasn’t BoJo’s job to organise staff testing and protective gear IT WAS YOURS!!

      1. The Blob appear to have no idea what was stocked, where or whether it was in date.
        Like finding a blown can of chickpeas behind the 5 bottles of olive oil.

        2. One assumed they have a functioning stock control system. SAP, Maximo, JDEdwards, all the ERP systems have one.
          Whilst a sudden surge of demand can bugger things up until production and deliveries are ramped up to match, one would have hoped that, since the ppe is not short lifetime equipment, they could have had an adequate stock to cover the time taken in improving deliveries (although, to be fair, crisis planning involving the whole world could be a tad complex…)

          1. Ppe stuff does have a shelf life.
            Canada learnt most of a lesson after the SARs outbreak and proactively built up a stock of face masks and stuff.

            Part two of the lesson was that they should have used the stockpile and replenished it over time. Now that we need it, they have found that the bl**dy stuff is all out of date.

        3. Like the Safeway freezer bags I recently found in a kitchen drawer. Safeway went under in 2005.

    2. It’s ludicrous that it’s the PM’s job to organise protective gear in hospitals. This is socialism folks, a nationalised health service!

    3. Today I received a text message saying that I had said I didn’t have any corvid 19 symptoms and if I did I would be prosecuted.

      The NHS aren’t sodding heroes, they’re cowards who’ve shown themselves incapable of doing their sodding job.

    1. Aprpopos the wheelie bin, let’s hope the situation continues. If the bin men stop, we’ve a big problem.

      1. They went on strike for three months around our way. People got fed up and chucked bin bags on the green.

        No discount for no service, either.

    1. If the situation is bad under the Conservatives, just think how catastrophic it would have been under a Corbyn government.

          1. After his CJD predictions made Diane Abbott look like Einstein, he had to come up with something eye catching.

    2. Morning Belle and everyone.

      I looked at some of the other tweets underneath the pictures, where it say so many other people are talking about this, and a Leslie Harris has tweeted that “Boris Johnson has been blocked from claiming EU unemployment rescue cash despite Uk’s budget contributions.

      Don’t know if it’s true or where it’s come from. Will google it.

        1. Thanks Belle, I found it in yesterday’s DE but couldn’t get the link on here for some reason.

        1. Until the EU wants more money from us, then we’re “in transition” and haven’t yet left.

    3. Morning Belle, the sad fact remains if Johnson and his team upped their performance, the criticism would have less credibility.

      1. How much of this is down to the civil service – the same body taht won’t show the Grooming Gang report to their boss, the Home Secretary?

        1. I agree the snivel service needs to be sorted out, the swamp is in need of attention.
          What with the way things stand at the moment, perhaps bypass the snivel service and get testing underway without them. NHS Nightingale is a glimmer of hope things can be achieved.

    4. Perhaps the next time Campbell sticks his head above the parapet someone should ask a few questions about Dr David Kelly? The MSM won’t but …

  27. LBC reporting that Johnson has stated that testing for CV-19 is to be ramped up following the high number of deaths yesterday.
    Responding behind the curve e.g. retaining open borders, even from highly infected countries, holding back on testing, poor PPE provision for frontline staff, seems to be endemic in our political and establishment leaders. The Brussels effect?

    2. 317675+ up ticks,
      Morning KtK,
      IMO all the ingredients are in place for cv-19 to follow
      TB that was eradicated within the UK & has now returned with a vengeance.

      2. I think the term ‘ramped up’ is used to convey a sense of urgency after accusations of a lack of getting on with the job.

    4. I thought the main reason for the sudden apparent increase was that they’d changed the reporting criteria?

      1. I can only report what I heard. It was a headline, short and to the point. You have further information and my post prompted you to report that, now we’re all much better informed. It’s one of the things this blog does well.

    5. 40 plus years of being rubber stampers has highlighted the shortcomings of our politicians.
      It is no wonder they fought so hard to ignore the referendum result and overturn Brexit, they knew we would see them for what they are. The first time they had to show any leadership and resolve in a crisis they have made a pigs ear out of it, and they cannot blame anyone else but themselves.

  28. Good morning my friends,

    If the Sherelle article hasn’t been posted here yet : ‘yer ’tis:

    Britain has traded individual liberty for a terrifying state omnishambles
    SHERELLE JACOBS

    The public is starting to realise it has been duped into accepting the unacceptable
    This isn’t the deal we bargained for when we acquiesced in the shutdown of the economy and mass house arrest: individual sacrifice in return for collective shambles. In a way, the lack of pushback against lockdown has been remarkable. Perhaps our love of liberty has been bludgeoned by human rights culture, our confidence to question punctured by elite snobbery over who is allowed to comment on scientific debate. Still, suspicion is rising that we have been duped into accepting the unacceptable. After allowing crisis to spiral into chaos, No 10 seems too ensnared in strategic confusion, managerial dysfunction – and, intriguingly, a nannying moralism – to engineer even the most blunderous exit route.

    Its new tactic of distracting us with a cover up isn’t going well. On Sunday, Michael Gove said we were carrying out 10,000 tests a day. Only after some disputed this figure did officials admit that we are closer to 8,000; it will take weeks to reach the target of 25,000.

    The precise reason for this failure remains a mystery, but a picture is building of an anarchic strategic U-turn, distribution cock-ups, and rivalry between NHS penpushers over control of testing data. Meanwhile, reports from medics who have little or no protective gear are widespread. In an atmospere of tightly controlled unaccountability redolent of the Chinese Communist Party, apparatchiks have been dutifully silent on the risks mandarins expect ill‑equipped doctors to take for the greater good. Nor have we been told in sufficient detail about what the hold-up is on testing or equipment – though Tory politicians weakly sidemouth that they didn’t foresee a spike in global demand and issues with supply chains.

    It is hard not to despair at the PM’s inability to boldly choose between two politically costly solutions: immediately stamp out the virus with border closures and even greater social distancing – which many scientists say should have happened much earlier to be effective, as for every week you delay, the death toll increases five-fold – or back herd immunity to keep the economy going and take the heat for it.

    Instead, we witnessed a half-hearted effort at herd immunity, which the Government apparently agreed to only on the basis of dud “expert” advice that it was achievable with 20 per cent of the country being infected rather than the more realistic 80 per cent. This was abruptly followed by a halfway house of indefinite lockdown after the horse had bolted.

    Essentially, the Government crumbled, after Downing Street used science experts stunningly badly. All the more dispiriting given that Dominic Cummings has for years plotted how to cure Whitehall of this very affliction. Perhaps he struggled to convince colleagues that the purpose of the experts was to explain medical scenarios and unsettled science debates – not decide policy. A world-leading epidemiologist can hypothesise about the best way to eliminate a virus, but he can tell you nothing about the link between lockdown, poverty, and death rates.

    One wonders also whether Britain has suffered from the prejudices of an aide who considers economics a bogus practice – in his view, its quaintly antiquated methods render it the scientific world’s disciplinary equivalent of Cuba. No  10’s failure to bring economists into the heart of the debate was even more of an oversight given our emasculated Chancellor.

    All this is depressing enough, but it gets darker still. Acts of individual sacrifice may be warranted in an emergency, but, as the public is coming to learn, these risk being repaid not only through collective shambles but collective tyranny. We have morphed into a police state, where officers enforce rules about what groceries we buy with no legal basis. The Government claims its draconian restrictions takes their precedent from the 1984 Public Health Act and the 2004 Civil Contingencies Act, but their sweeping scope appears to do no such thing.

    On top of this, a curiosity: our state, it seems, has more concern for our virtual liberties than our physical liberties. The Government rushed through emergency powers to keep us at home, but it hasn’t rushed through legislation allowing tech companies to handle our data in new ways for emergency tracing measures without penalty. Instead it has opted to build a clunky, voluntary public-sector app.

    The reason for this paradox is simple: the nanny state aspires to both curtail our freedoms and pose as the only entity that can protect those freedoms from powerful rivals. Even in a moment of crisis, it cannot suppress these grasping instincts. Misgivings about online surveillance aside, many would prefer to give Google greater data access with sunset clauses than sit at home watching the economy crash. Such a view is, however, difficult for politicians who love to dress up big state 2.0 in moralising discourses about the internet’s dark forces.

    Another farcical twist, perhaps, in this animal balloon of a presentation of serious leadership. And yet the public’s patience is already wearing thin. The PM must get his act together: this cannot continue.

    1. I can’t help wondering how much Boris and Cummings both having the virus has got to do with this situation. There was a photo of Boris chairing a meeting via video link, and he did not look well.

  29. You may have seen this before..
    Just trying to spread a little humour.

    Are my testicles black?

    A suspected Covid-19 male patient is lying in bed in the hospital, wearing an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. A young student female nurse appears and gives him a partial sponge bath.
    “Nurse,”‘ he mumbles from behind the mask, “are my testicles black?”
    Embarrassed, the young nurse replies, “I don’t know, Sir. I’m only here to wash your upper body and feet.”
    He struggles to ask again, “Nurse, please check for me. Are my testicles black?”
    Concerned that he might elevate his blood pressure and heart rate from worrying about his testicles, she overcomes her embarrassment and
    pulls back the covers.
    She raises his gown, holds his manhood in one hand and his testicles gently in the other.
    She looks very closely and says, “There’s nothing wrong with them, Sir. They look fine.”
    The man slowly pulls off his oxygen mask, smiles at her, and says very slowly,
    “Thank you very much. That was wonderful. Now listen very,
    very, closely:
    “Are – my – test – results – back?”

  32. Stop looking at all the bad news and have a laugh. Some oldies but better than moping. Have a great day all.

    Just seen a news report about the stresses and strains of self isolation. It reported that people are going crazy from being in lock down!
    It was strange, actually, because I had just been talking about this with the microwave and toaster and all of us agreed that things are getting bad. I didn’t mention anything to the washing machine as she always has to put a different spin on everything, and certainly not to the fridge as he is acting cold and distant. In the end the iron calmed me down. She said everything will be fine, which surprised me because she’s usually the first one to apply unnecessary pressure and get steamed up over nothing !!! I think she might have been sneaking off to the medicine cabinet.

    —————

    Two 90 year old men, Mike and Joe, have been friends all of their lives. When it’s clear that Joe is dying, Mike visits him every day. One day Mike says, “Joe, we both loved football all our lives, and we played football on Saturdays together for so many years. Please do me one favour, when you get to Heaven, somehow you must let me know if there’s football there.”
    Joe looks up at Mike from his death bed and says: “Mike, you’ve been my best friend for many years. If it’s at all possible, I’ll do this favour for you.”
    Shortly after that, Joe passes on.
    At midnight a couple of nights later, Mike is awakened from a sound sleep by a blinding flash of white light and a voice calling out to him, “Mike… Mike…”
    “Who is it?” Asks Mike sitting up suddenly. “Who is it?”
    “Mike. It’s me, Joe…”
    “You’re not Joe. Joe just died.”
    “I’m telling you, it’s me, Joe.” insists the voice.
    “Joe! Where are you?”
    “In heaven”, replies Joe. “I have some really good news and a little bad news.”
    “‘Tell me the good news first,” says Mike.
    “The good news,” Joe says, “is that there’s football in heaven. Better yet, all of our old friends who died before us are here, too. Better than that, we’re all young again. And best of all, we can play football all we want, and we never get tired.”
    “‘That’s fantastic,” says Mike. “It’s beyond my wildest dreams! So what could possibly be the bad news? ”
    “You’re in the team for Saturday.

    ——————

    A frog goes into a bank and approaches the teller. He can see from her nameplate that her name is Patty Whack.

    “Miss Whack, I’d like to get a $30,000 loan to take a holiday.”

    Patty looks at the frog in disbelief and asks his name. The frog says his name is Kermit Jagger, his dad is Mick Jagger, and that it’s okay, he knows the bank manager.

    Patty explains that he will need to secure the loan with some collateral.

    The frog says, “Sure. I have this,” and produces a tiny porcelain elephant, about an inch tall, bright pink and perfectly formed.

    Very confused, Patty explains that she’ll have to consult with the bank manager and disappears into a back office.

    She finds the manager and says, “There’s a frog called Kermit Jagger out there who claims to know you and wants to borrow $30,000, and he wants to use this as collateral.” She holds up the tiny pink elephant. “I mean, what in the world is this?”

    (You’re gonna love this.)

    The bank manager looks back at her and says, “It’s a knickknack, Patty Whack. Give the frog a loan. His old man’s a Rolling Stone.”

    (You sang it, didn’t you? Yeah, I know you did.)

    Never take life too seriously.

    ★♫.•Pass it on!! Give someone else a reason to smile. ♫

  33. Might it be useful if every News programme had to provide two figures in the upper left-hand screen to accompany any Covid story: – number of respiratory deaths UK, 2020 and 5-year average 2015-19; daily and cumulative?

    1. If only we had people of that character now. A forlorn dream unfortunately.

      1. This was one of the creepiest parts of the film Cabaret.

        The story was based on two stories by Christopher Isherwood – Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin. I am sure there were strong homosexual overtones in the film. Isherwood was a close frined of W.H. Auden whose poem Stop All the Clocks came to prominence in the public eye after it has been read at the funeral of the character played by Simon Callow in Four Wedding and a Funeral.

        Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
        Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
        Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
        Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

        Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
        Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
        Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
        Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

        He was my North, my South, my East and West,
        My working week and my Sunday rest,
        My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
        I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

        The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
        Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
        Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
        For nothing now can ever come to any good.

        W H Auden

        1. The stage version is better. The secondary ‘love interest’ is an elderly, poor and powerless couple; she is a retired ‘actress’ who runs a boarding house, and he is an elderly Jewish greengrocer.
          Ultimately, Fraulein Scheider has to decide between her last chance of love and companionship or keeping her licence to run the boarding house. After his rejection, Herr Schultz decide he will still be safe if he moves to a different area of Berlin.
          They are not the glossy, rich young couple who can escape before things get nasty.

        2. ‘Afternoon, Richard, I first came across that poem entitled “Song for Hedli Anderson”

        3. The stage version is better. The secondary ‘love interest’ is an elderly, poor and powerless couple; she is a retired ‘actress’ who runs a boarding house, and he is an elderly Jewish greengrocer.
          Ultimately, Fraulein Scheider has to decide between her last chance of love and companionship or keeping her licence to run the boarding house. After his rejection, Herr Schultz decides he will still be safe if he moves to a different area of Berlin.
          They are not the glossy, rich young couple who can escape before things get nasty.

          1. I’m due to see the stage version at Milton Keynes this month but have today received info that the performance will be postponed & my seat reservation honoured (best in house). I saw a brilliant stage version in Hamburg 20+ years ago where the entire theatre was changed in to a night club, with sofas, tables & waiter service.
            I’ve seen the film at least 50 times in both English & German. I don’t recall that the young couple – the Jewish couple – escaped.

            Btw, the landlady was Fräulein Schneider.

    2. How about we clap all the shop assistants, delivery drivers and all those other people who are keeping us supplied with food and how about clapping ourselves for giving in so meekly to house arrest.
      Sometimes I wish I was French then we could have a bloody good riot.

        1. The French Pox?
          Or is that the other one that required sneaking into the dingy little clinic at the back of the hospital?

          2. As part of out training, we had to visit the local pox shop.
            The Charge Nurse was a lovely, witty chap whose wife ran the only fun OT department at Severalls.
            While he gave us a preliminary talk before the tour, none of us would use the seats in the waiting room.

      3. I was speaking to a fellow dog walker this morning; she works for WH Smith, which is now closed. She said they had a massive delivery of paracetamol (in all her decades working there, they have NEVER sold medicines) and tried to claim they were essential because they were selling it! She and her fellow assistants refused to work (they had no gloves, no hand sanitiser, no protections whatsoever) so the store finally closed. The head office staff were working from home so she decided it was time she and her co-workers did, too.

      1. We’ve got to keep up the pressure so that the NHS doesn’t loose its sacred cow status.
        Not denigrating them but they are doing what they signed up to do and that is to look after sick people.

  37. In these testing times is it preferable to be incarcerated with a partner or braving it alone?

    Sad lonely b*stard however I do have Maud!

        2. In this life, one thing counts
          Knocking back Sherry, large amounts
          I’m afraid this don’t come free,
          But you’ve got to ‘ave a bottle or two
          Plum
          You’ve got to ave a bottle or two

          Take a tip from Bill Sikes
          He can sip what he likes.
          I recall, he started small
          Now he has to ‘ave a bottle or two.

          You’ve got to ‘ave a bottle or two
          Plum
          You’ve got to ‘ave a bottle or two

          1. I once played Mr Bumble in a school production of Oliver. The boy who played Fagin was brilliant.

          3. Did Fagin have a Jewish accent? It was a cause for discussion when my school put on Oliver. Fagin was played by Paul Romang who became a manager of the British Fencing Team (epees, wired suits, face guards and all that lunging stuff).

          4. I checked the stores, it’s not looking good. Three bottles left!
            I might drink them all at once…..glug…glug…glug

          6. My Sherry Amour, will be gone by the end of today
            My Sherry Amour, distant as the Milky Way
            My Cherie Amour, pretty little glug that I adore
            You’re the only drink my heart beats for
            How I wish all stocks were mine

      4. Vouvray

        What were you previously, I mean your last avatar..
        You sound as if you have been here years , but I am confused , do say , please x

        1. I was “vw”, wife of “gg” but am now married to “Alf”. Used to read nottl through gg’s posts then decided to join in. It’s a great distraction activity! And boy do we all need distracting at the moment! x

      1. Not even the tennus.
        Gardening …geraniums to plant in window boxes and pots.
        Dog to walk.
        Catch up TV later – Clive James Postcard from Shanghai
        Film Rain Man
        Playback University Challenge – see how many answers I can remember….!

        1. We had a friend in Oz who use to play Tennus with Dennus.
          We called him serve ’em Jonesie.

        1. As I said on here last week, many people have to learn the pleasure of being alone.

          3. Tried and failed to post a video (mp4) – maybe one of our more techie chums will provide some help?

    1. I’m coming to the opinion that this is a form of madness. We are destroying everything in the cause of what is essentially an outbreak of virulent Flu!

      1. We are not destroying everything.

        They are getting ready for a World Government, as called for by A. Blair and G. Brown and many others.

      1. I’m reasonably fortunate Obs I can still manage about 5 hours between ‘bathroom breaks’ 😊

      2. ‘Afternoon, Paul, thank you for the zeds, unfortunately they didn’t work too well.

        1. Oh. :-((
          Sorry about that.
          Maybe they had become infected whilst travelling over??

      3. My feeling exactly. I find it hard to drag myself out of my pit when there is nothing to do and nowhere to go.

  41. Not all bad, it would seem. My wine order from Laithwate’s is expected today as opposed to next Saturday/Sunday. Six bottles of Rocksand Shiraz and 3×2 mixed whites. Every little helps.

    1. That Rocksand is a tasty little drop but I’m not going to mention it, or you’ll all want some – er D’oh!

      1. It is very good. I heard that Laithwaites ordered an additional 6,000 bottles recently to meet the demand.

    2. I’m going to try Majestic to see if I can get a delivery slot before Christmas 😊

      1. Majestic gave us a slot for the 9th. No worries, as we gave up alcohol for Lent.

  42. Matt Ridley – Speccie
    Britain’s coronavirus testing is bogged down in bureaucracy
    2 April 2020, 9:13am

    Despite what Corbynites like to claim, Britain’s National Health Service has always relied heavily on the private sector for lots of things. The food it serves to patients is not grown on state-owned farms, nor are the pills it prescribes manufactured in state-owned factories. Yet when it comes to diagnostic tests there seems to be a reluctance to buy them in, even from other public bodies let alone from private firms. This ideological prejudice is proving costly.

    A new report by Matthew Lesh for the Adam Smith Institute, published today may explain the British failure compared with other countries when it comes to tackling the current pandemic by testing. On 14 March, Britain was the fifth best country for quantity of Covid-19 viral tests performed per capita. By 30 March it had fallen to 26th in the league.

    The contrast with the United States is especially striking. America was found badly wanting at the start of the epidemic when the federal Centers for Disease Control insisted on controlling the process of testing people for the virus. It ‘sought to monopolise testing, discouraged the private sector developing its own tests and misled state and local authorities about efficacy of its tests’, writes Lesh. After heavy criticism, it reversed course, decentralised the system and rapidly expanded testing.

    Germany and South Korea began farming out the work of testing samples to contractors from the very start. Britain did not. It initially sent all samples to one laboratory, at Colindale, in north west London. Public Health England also ‘chose to develop and encourage the use of its own diagnostic tools, rather than seeking the development of a range of private sector tools and providing fast-track approval’, Lesh finds. On 12 February, it began to use 12 other laboratories, but still only with its own tests.

    When the number of people showing symptoms shot up in the second week of March, rather than outsource the testing, the NHS simply gave up testing all but patients in hospital. As if to reinforce the centralisation strategy, the government then announced the construction of a huge new testing facility in Milton Keynes, which may work well eventually but to date has been accumulating testing devices donated by universities some of which are sitting idle. The centralisation urge runs deep in this organisation.

    By all accounts government ministers were calling for more involvement of the private sector from the start but their orders were being frustrated somewhere inside the bureaucracy of the NHS and Public Health England. The excuse was that the reliability of the tests had to be maintained at a high level, or else false positives and false negatives would cause confusion and danger. So even when other laboratories were eventually allowed to do tests, any ‘presumptive positives’ had to be sent to Colindale for confirmation right up till 28 March. The United States had suspended a similar policy on 14 March.

    Lesh reports that ‘On 27 January, South Korean regulators summoned the top 20 medical companies to a special meeting to give them one key task: develop an effective test to detect the novel coronavirus. At the time, South Korea had just four known cases.’ In Germany, as Dr Christian Drosten of Berlin’s Charité University Hospital explains, ‘Germany does not have a public health laboratory that would restrict other labs from doing the tests. So we had an open market from the beginning.’

    Here, private-sector providers were banging on the door of the NHS throughout, offering to do testing. These were not cranks and charlatans, but reputable firms like Northern-Ireland based Randox, one of the biggest manufacturers of diagnostic tests in the world (and the list of companies trying to help includes, I hereby disclose, QuantumDX, a Newcastle based startup in which I became an early stage investor several years ago). I have spoken to neither of these two firms lest they think I am the source for this article and become subject to retribution, but I have heard rumours from others that conversations became heated.

    This reluctance of the NHS to buy new tests is not new. One diagnostic industry insider complained to me some years ago that ‘I can sell in 140 countries, but the country I find hardest to crack is my own’.

    Probably not all the blame lies at the door of the public sector. The shortage of reagents to use in the testing kits is now clearly a problem, and some of this may be down to the way the reagents have been bought up by the big private firms that make the testing cassettes used in the key PCR machines that diagnose the presence of viral RNA. So there may yet prove to be a blockage caused by Big Pharma, which for whatever reason has left Britain exposed. Unlike America, we lack home-grown manufacturers of the key materials – a hole in our life-science industrial strategy, it seems.

    Yet centralisation is plainly a big part of the problem. Lesh finds that ‘The UK’s Covid-19 testing has been dangerously slow, excessively bureaucratic and hostile to outsiders and innovation. There appears to be an innate distrust of outsiders. PHE has actively discouraged use of private sector testing. Even within the system, the process for testing and validation is very centralised.’

    4. And I don’t really understand this. When I worked in a path lab, we rarely developed our own tests, but bought in test kits from the private sector. Why should this be any different?

        1. I thought it was Lionel Bart, not Sami.

          :-))

          PS: Good afternoon to all NoTTLers.

    1. I wonder if any of these ‘traditional’ Chinese medicines have gone through Clinical Trials and approval by a regulating body such as the FDA or EMA?

      1. They have been encouraging the despicable slaughter of animals for medicinal products for many decades.
        Perhaps it’s time for them to comply with world opinion.

        1. Time to get tougher on poaching. Shoot to kill must be the rule. Only good poacher is a dead poacher. Customers of poachers also to be killed. Give MI6 some decent practice.
          All of this money now sloshing around, but we cannot save the rainforests, or rhinos, or gorillas, or orange-utans, or pangolins, or elephants.

    2. China needs to be sectioned off from the world forever and never, ever, revisited.

      Good morning, Anne.

    3. Strange how the alternative medicine nutters here latched onto homeopathy, acupuncture, crystals and god knows what other mumbo-jumbo, but avoided the messy ‘ancient traditional’ stuff like bear bile and tiger penis.

    4. No – the practice of keeping bears caged like this for their bile is despicable and should be banned forthwith. As should all the other dubious and cruel practices like wet markets, illegal trade in pangolins, rhino horn and all the other animal products that nobody in their right minds think cure any ailnents at all.

      1. ‘Afternoon, J, When I worked in Singapore, which has a large ethnic Chinese population, because Singapore wouldn’t allow it, I heard of many Chinese visiting Taiwan to get a good dose of Snake blood – supposed to increase their virility.

  45. SIR – The majority of people serving prison sentences of less than six months were sent there for non-violent offences, most commonly theft. They are primarily men and women suffering a combination of deprivation, drug addiction, homelessness and mental ill-health.

    This puts them at high risk of serious illness and death if infected with coronavirus, and adds enormous risks to prison staff, other prisoners, and the communities these prisoners will return to.

    During the peak of the pandemic, 5,000 people will arrive in prison for a stay of three months. The churn of people going in and out of prison is extraordinarily high, with 82 per cent of people sent to prison for less than six months for theft being convicted again within a year of release.

    Unless urgent action is taken, this rapid churn of people could lead to more deaths in prison and increased staff shortages, and make our prisons unmanageable.

    In these extraordinary times, keeping non-violent and non-sexual offenders out of prison is the sensible thing to do to save lives.

    Signed by 42 virtue signalling charidees hitching their wagons to crims. Why do we need 42 separate charities for this purpose?

    [P.S. My favourite has to be ‘Paddy Tipping, PCC Nottinghamshire’]

    1. As the pubs are closed, perhaps there is an increased market for other substances, thus keeping potential looters happy.

      2. Terrible shortage of illegal drugs in Norway. Who’d a thunk it, close the borders and it’s very difficult to get the wretched stuff in.

        1. Ontario legal pot shops are apparently having a big sale, undercutting the illegal pot shops on the reserves. Obviously trying to keep the locals calm and indr control.

          In other news there is a shortage of beer. They closed down the bottle recycling program so no beer bottles are being returned and the breweries are running out.

        2. Is this why the BBC isn’t crying out for our borders to be shut?

          A national shortage of marching powder on top of no Glastonbury, no Wimbledon and no Notting Hill would be too much for them to bear.

      1. You mean, how would we tell the difference, or would they tell us if it did happen…?

    3. Give it chance, they’re all in holiday mode at the moment. Wait until the boredom really kicks in. The devil really will make work for idle hands.

      1. I don’t think they ever worked. Difficult for boredom to set it when it’s just another day on benefits.
        Good morning pm.

  48. A fleeing Taliban, desperate for water, was plodding through the Afghan desert when he saw something far off in the distance. Hoping to find water, he hurried toward the spot only to find a British soldier selling regimental ties.

    The Taliban asked, “Do you have any water?”

    The soldier replied, “There’s no water here mate, the well is dry. Perhaps you’d like to buy a tie instead? They are only £10 – really great value.”

    The Taliban shouted, “You idiot infidel, I do not need an over-priced tie. I need water! I should kill you, but I must find water first!”

    “OK,” said the soldier, “Please yourself. It doesn’t matter to me that you don’t want to buy a tie and that you hate me. I’ll show you that I’m bigger than that, and that I’m a much better human being than you. If you continue over that hill to the east for about two miles, you will find our Sergeants’ Mess. It has all the ice cold water you need.”

    Cursing him, the Taliban staggered away over the hill.

    Several hours later he staggered back with chronic dehydration, collapsed next to the soldier and croaked, “They won’t let me in without a f***ing tie!”

  49. How come the Germans are doing so much testing and have a much lower death rate

    Virusprung covid Testnick, they say

    1. Testing doesn’t cause or prevent death, it merely records (or, sometimes not) the presence of a virus in somebody’s system.
      Death rate in terms of what? Head of population? Numbers tested?
      Fooey.
      Morning, Bob!

      1. The more they test, the less serious the virus looks and the sillier their measures to control become evident.

      2. And it is snapshot. An hour or two later it could be wrong.
        Checking for historic virus anti-bodies is more productive. That would free up millions of people.

  50. Here is a copy of a letter I sent to my MP yesterday. My original enquiry was to ask the Government to consider special status to plant nurseries, similar to that for supermarkets because gardening is an activity well suited to lockdown conditions and can be enjoyed anywhere.

    Her response was to advise me to make use of delivery services of the big companies to help in my own situation.

    “Dear Harriett Baldwin

    Thank you for your quick response.

    I am ok here – there is plenty for me to do at the cottage, and I already have my onions in and potatoes chitting. What bothers me personally is that all the choirs I belong to have closed down for the foreseeable future.

    I am more concerned about the survival of the businesses who rely on the Spring trade to carry them through the year – many of them have invested in stock over the winter thinking they could sell it as usual in the Spring. Home deliveries are all very well, but most people like to see what they are buying, and a lot is bought on impulse. I do hope that a lot of local nurseries can offload some of their stock onto those local shops that are allowed to stay open to provide necessities during the lockdown.

    I find it sickening that banks are profiteering out of the emergency by refusing the Government aid through a loophole that enables them to charge exhorbitant interest on business loans, and by refusing to man the phones or branches when businesses require emergency cash flow. You are a business minister – why are you persisting in this sector letting the public and the Government down so brazenly? I heard this morning that Tottenham Hotspur, a Premier League football club, has negotiated for its staff a huge Government payout for themselves as well as exemption from an extended lockdown. What is so precious about the Premier League that it can get out of the rules that the rest of us must observe and suffer?

    I also have grave reservations, considering his performance at RBS (which ruined many a small business while building up its renumeration pot for its executives), about the appointment of Andrew Bailey as Governor of the Bank of England when we need a Mervyn King to steer the economy through this emergency. Bailey may have once signed the banknotes and be good at self-assurance and impressing the Conservative Party, but I do not think the man has a conscience, and he could ruin the country. No doubt some are doing very nicely out of insider trading during a time of extreme market fluctuations. I do hope that, despite deregulation, the Bank of England is above such behaviour.

    Money, especially public money, will be tight once we are over the emergency, and it would be tragic if so many businesses went under, which is why the Government are borrowing so much to keep them afloat. The more businesses, especially niche businesses, that can survive this emergency, the more competitive the UK will be when we are completely adrift from the EU in January. Local growers in Worcestershire must compete with the Dutch instead of just importing everything from them willy-nilly, or leaving it all to the Americans or the Chinese (who do tend to put their own interests first). So too must many other sectors.

    Would you please reconsider my original request, and also now consider taking the Government Emergency loan scheme away from the banks, including the Bank of England, and administering it direct from anyone competent at No,10, or failing that asking the Palace to appoint a Royal Commission to take this on.

    Would you also please ask the Head of the Civil Service why the Department of Health have made such a mess of procuring mass test kits in good time, forcing the Prime Minister to admit that this lockdown could drag on six months, and take much of Britain’s future productive capacity with it. From previous correspondence (when you scapegoated Bromsgrove Clinical Commissioners who passed the buck upwards), you know how I find the Department of Health in Whitehall corrupt and incompetent, and came within a whisker of bringing in the Parliamentary Ombudsman over evidence I produced of profiteering by the pharmaceutical lobby at public expense and at the expense of my own health. In the end, I decided against because I found a temporary workround privately, and had little confidence in Parliament’s capacity to address my concerns, while the stress of such proceedings would be considerable and probably futile. The drug I rely on to sleep properly is now severely rationed to 1/2 tablet every four days in order to eke out my remaining supply until 2021. My GP who was instructed by the Department of Health to lie to me over its medical risk has now taken early retirement.

    With best regards
    Jeremy Morfey”

    1. A 6 month ‘lockdown’ would take our world back to the middle ages, if not worse.

          1. If you are the high priest, you can always find a new story to scare the populace.

        2. They would merely agitate for a return to the Bronze Age. Ooops ….. nasty heat needed to melt the metals; settle for the Neolithic Age.

      1. Last week I mentioned that my late Mother’s bank wanted a grant of probate before releasing her accounts to me. As it was so straightforward the Probate Registry approved it within 5 working days, and the actual grant arrived soon afterwards. Contrast that with Barclays – it s now almost 3 weeks since they got my letter and the paperwork – no response, not even an acknowledgement! I emailed last Friday asking for an update, and enclosing a copy of my letter – nothing! The link they gave me doesn’t work, and last time I tried Messenger to contact them it took 6 messages before anything actually happened and that didn’t solve the issue – [expletive deleted] useless!!

        1. http://www.ceoemail.com
          Email the boss.
          We had an argument with barclays a few years ago, before the ceoemail site was set up, it took me about 30 minutes to find the COO Retail Banking and his email address. I hadn’t time to press “send” before he was on the phone to me to sort it out.
          Give the bastards hell, in a polite way, if their minions are useless..
          Then, go round and burn their offices down.

        2. Update: Tried to make a formal complaint to Barclays today – the preferred method is online, but you need to log in to your online account, which I can’t do as it was closed as soon as I notified them. The other option (as I know writing to them doesn’t work) is webchat – “An advisor will be with you shortly” – typed in my question – 50 minutes later still no action and it froze my computer too! I have written to my MP and will also try the banking ombudsman.

        3. Just before things went t!ts up, I entered a bank for the first time in years to pay in a big cheque (so I could afford to cover the NHS’s inadequacies).
          What a muggers buddle.
          Only two out of four ‘desks’ were open. There were various suited bods wandering around, occasionally making contact with those inconvenient customers; I couldn’t decide whether a clip board was mark of high office. Scattered around were couches and chairs – presumably for the convenience of the less abled.
          Apparently I was lucky, MB, who goes to the bank roughly every week (no, I don’t know why either) said he has frequently known the queue to be right to door. When he questions the arrangement, the excuse is always ‘staff sickness’. Maybe the bank should ask itself whether it is employing skivers or if its own practices are causing such high levels of absenteeism.

          1. Hmmm. Did they not interrogate you as to the source of funds? A bit slipshod, I’d say.

          2. I had already shown signs of being a rabble rouser. I think they just wanted me out of the door!

      1. I got caught out again by the horrible inconsistency with Facebook’s ‘Enter to Post’ feature, where Ctrl-Enter is the only way to make a new paragraph. When I do that here, it posts, forcing me to edit my comment.

        1. Reading your edited comment now requires me to reload the page, something I prefer not to do.
          When I need to amend/edit a comment I’ve incorrectly posted, I tend to copy the text, delete the post, then paste & edit in a new box before reposting.

          1. The problem with that is that it takes down follow-up discussions under the comment if any time has elapsed before spotting the typos, the grammatical anomalies and the missed points. If these are spotted early on, then it is simpler just to edit.

    1. The difference is probably still too small to measure.

      It would be lost in the ‘noise’, where figures annually for deaths from flu fluctuate from about 8,000 to 28,000 (2014) in any given year.

  52. Good afternoon all.

    When I went into the kitchen at 11.30 – to check on the sprouts for Easter – I turned on R4 . It was featuring a programme about artists ” healing ” the people of NZ after the Christchurch massacre. Earlier the news on al-beeb had announced that the islamist who was convicted of murdering Daniel Pearl had had his sentence commuted and would be free soon.
    Will those ” artists ” reach out to the Pearl family?

    1. ‘Afternoon, Issyagain, it just bears out our thoughts that the World has gone to hell in a handcart; it is now full of weirdies, shamans, witch doctors and greens, all of whom are convinced (and try to convince us) that their peculiar ideology is the ‘Real Go To Religion’.

      Funnily enough, I’m not convinced.

    3. Let us hope that when they release the beheader that they send him out with maximum publicity and a target tattooed onto his forehead.

    4. The sprouts should be a nicely uniform grey colour by Easter. Don’t forget to keep topping the water up.

    1. 317675+ up ticks,
      Afternoon LD,
      The mindset of many is ” what does that Peter Hitchens know” we get our meat, fruit,veg from Tesco’s etc.

    2. There are many stories here of people supporting their local business by sending them money, with messages like “I’m at home having a coffee that I would normally have in your coffee bar. I’ll send you the money anyway.” – and restaurants, hairdressers… rather moving, so it is.

      1. I did offer to send the chap who runs the stable where I ride a cheque to cover my cancelled lesson. He turned it down!

    3. Maybe there should be a callout for people to help farmers, same as they did with the NHS. After all, if the farmers can’t produce enough food for us, there’s not much point having the NHS….And currently, some people are being paid to just sit at home when they could spend some hours outside in the fresh air, helping with farm animals, or whatever other jobs are needed.

      1. I wouldn’t want to let some people loose anywhere near farm animals! Strange that farming continues (stock have to be fed, cows milked, etc) but CO2 levels have continued to fall. Maybe farming is not as blek as it’s painted?

      1. 317675+ up ticks,
        Afternoon Anne,
        The very sad serious thing is, neither do their supporter / voters no matter how horrendous,
        odious the consequences are.
        The best of the worst voting mode covers & gives carte blanche to multiple sins, ask the victims of rotherham for conformation.

  55. Stark warnings part of government’s new coronavirus messaging. 2 April 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c99fb23fc496f8d72e025b8abb5e539848fd5ecbd8e5bdba6035acd888e2a68d.jpg

    The government has ramped up its coronavirus public information campaign with a stark new approach, telling people they will be responsible for the deaths of others if they leave home.

    Shortly to be followed by..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bc2eb19e0d21d4217cd223c6930975e52b8964bf0050de3a41b7371b3cfdfd5a.jpg

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/stark-warnings-part-of-governments-new-coronavirus-messaging

  56. If all civil servants, non front line NHS staff and politicians were told that for the duration of the lockdown their maximum monthly pay would be £2,500 it might concentrate a few minds and get things done.

  57. Just think about all those traffic measures concerning statistics about pollution shortening peoples lives. I imagine that any respiratory deaths supposedly due to pollution will now be put down to Covid-19, so the statistics will be even more meaningless.

  59. Ode to Joy…

    “While most airlines are grounding planes, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has been given permission to run several routes.

    PIA will run a total of 17 international flights from 4 – 11 April. They will mainly be going between Islamabad and London, Manchester, Birmingham and Toronto, PIA confirmed to our BBC Pakistan & Afghanistan correspondent Secunder Kemani.”

          2. I mentioned yesterday that the MSM had managed to interview three or four of these “Britons”. All were visiting family. One woman wanted a special flight to pick her up from Lahore. Presumably the UK Government is chartering a plane from Branson at our expense.

        2. I wouldn’t if I were them. The UK is seriously infected, far better to go to their real homes.

    2. Wonderful – and why didn’t these “stranded British people” get home from Pakistan while they could? They could have rebooked their return tickets on earlier flights. Who is paying for their travel now?

      1. Isn’t Pakistan bringing in a lockdown and curfew?
        Where would you rather be?

        1. I’d rather be here at home…….. I don’t think I’d want to travel to Pakistan at any time, now or ever.

          2. Pakistan has always been one of those places that people travel from, not to.

          3. Unless that’s where your “family” is – and the cousin you want to marry your daughter off to.

        2. It’s where I would rather these “British” people be, that concerns me 🙂

    4. On several occasions, a significant minority of passengers on our flights between Toronto and LHR have been of ‘Indian subcontinent’ extraction. We felt many were likely just using London as a transfer point as very few showed up at the luggage carousel.

  60. Wel that is it fourteen days of house arrest over, we can now venture beyond the boundaries of our property.
    The last time we went to our local supermarket was late February, it was like a meeting place and our shopping trip took well over thirty minutes as we kept stopping to chat with friends and staff.
    I wonder what todays outing will be like with controlled access and a mandatory hockey stock between customers.

    1. We self-isolated about three weeks ago, maybe more. (Who can remember that far back?). A weekly trip for stuff we cannot get delivered.
      I noted that our neighbours have had visitors. A former neighbour visiting a female neighbour, ahem, yesterday. A family member visiting family this morning. A person delivering something to an elderly couple and hanging on for a chat and some tea this afternoon.

  61. Covid shopping update.

    Asda was very civilised this morning.

    Arrived in the queue at 10.00. A queue of about 20 well-behaved and well-spaced (I almost said ‘spaced-out’ there ) people outside the shop with their trolleys and another 10 inside. Antiseptic spray and paper towels just inside the entrance so you could spray your hands and trolley handle. It took me about 15 minutes wait in pleasant weather to get to the escalator. Not bad.

    The shop was almost empty because of the limited number of people allowed in at any one time. One way system with arrows on the floor working well apart from one or two zombies. A pleasure to shop.

    Shelves reasonably well-stocked. They even had some spaghetti. Tinned veg including tomatoes available again, but ony Heinz and Asda beans – no Branston.

    Tinned meat more in evidence for those that like it. Cooking oils and eggs available. It seemed pretty much back to normal, some spaces on shelves, but no empty shelves or sections (apart from flour).

    About 6 people in the queue for each of the working tills (with spacing marks on the floor) added a few minutes, but I left at 11.00, only an hour including the wait outside and at the till.

    That’s the courtesy car parked up again for another week. The last time it was used was last Thursday.

    1. If her prescription is ready I need to go into town in an hour or so to collect medicines for an 86 year old bed-bound friend. My plan is to park in Waitrose and walk up the high street to collect the script and then shop in the store before delivering the medicines. I shall be carrying 700ml of Dettol antiseptic spray & wearing vinyl gloves during the tricky bits in the chemist & Waitrose…

      1. I saw one person in the queue wearing a mask and a couple of women with scarves around their necks, pulled up in front of their chin, but leaving their noses and mouths clear. Don’t know what they thought that was going to do.

        A few had gloves. In that situation, gloves are no different to bare hands.

          1. A lovely mild spring day (11°) with no discernable wind, particularly in the lee of the large building where we were standing in sunshine. I was wearing a fleece over a t-shirt with the fleece unzipped and open and I was completely comfortable.

          2. You’re a tough outdoors man – not one of those little flowers that feel the cold!

          4. 11 here, but windy with it so not that pleasant. Still almost no rain, so I was watering this morning. (Proud little flower here)

        2. 317675+ up ticks,
          Afternoon B,
          Could be to conceal the attempted strangulation marks, maybe.

        3. I met a friend from church yesterday when I was heading to Boots. He had a scarf round his face. I couldn’t see what good that was going to do, frankly, but I didn’t disabuse him.

          1. On the 15 mile drive back through open country I passed a cyclist heading in the opposite direction. He was one of the arse-up-head-down types, fully kitted out in yellow and white Alien Insect From Outer Space gear, with an added scarf across his lower face below his compound eyes.

            Keeping fit and frightened.

    2. We guiltily dashed into Weymouth Sainsbury .

      The queue stretched all the way around the car park .. everyone was correctly spaced .. and wow the wind blew , it was very cold , customers looked frozen stiff .. another way to catch pneumonia! I believe they were allowing very small groups in .. but It is a huge store !

      We didn’t hang around .. and came on back home .

      We cannot get a delivery slot for ages .

    3. No Branston beans. How on earth did you cope. Beans are for people that live in houses with numbers.

      1. Didn’t want any anyway. It was just an observation. My surveying training still working at peak efficiency.

        Report on what is or isn’t there. I also didn’t buy tinned meat, eggs, spaghetti or tinned tomatoes.

      3. Sorry to wreck your theory, Johnny. I live in a house with a name not a number, but we like the occasional snack of beans on toast.

        1. Lucky you.

          I live in a hamlet where the road has no name or number, the houses have neither numbers nor names.

          The general instruction is ask someone when you arrive. We regularly get people pressing the bell at the gate asking where does so-and-so live?

          1. My street is the name of the hamlet, but there are some houses with numbers. It just so happens that mine and the one next door were afterthoughts, so we don’t have numbers, we have names. When people ask, “what number are you?” I reply, “I am not a number, I am a freehold” 🙂

          2. I like the Aussie method of giving a number that equates to the distance from the nearest main junction/road.
            If the number is 1750 you know you’ve got the better part of a mile to go. It also allows for infill and afterthoughts.

          6. If my ‘orse does a furlong in the time your ‘orse does 200 metres I know which ‘orse my money is on.

    4. Lidl was fine yesterday.
      Eggs and flour missing; are the bog roll hoarders really suddenly getting an urge to bake their own bread and cakes?
      Couldn’t find any Easter eggs; last year, Lidl had some lovely imaginative ones at a reasonable price. Maybe they didn’t want their customers to end up in chokey.

      1. Loads of Easter Eggs in Asda today, a whole aisle of them. No flour. Haven’t seen any flour since two visits ago when my wife put plain flour on the list for a cake she wanted to make. The only packet of flour in the whole shop was a single packet of self-raising in an otherwise empty section. She got a packet of flour at the village shop after I gave her the news.

        Eggs were about half-stocked today, after being almost completely absent the past two weeks.

      2. It’s yeast and bread mix that are missing in our town. Probably everyone did like us – bought a packet – then used it, in order to avoid an unnecessary trip to the supermarket – and then remembered how nice home made bread tastes!

    5. I braved Tesco this morning; I only wanted to put some money on my PAYG phone. Queue outside, with markings for spacing, hand sanitiser and trolley wipes before the entrance, one in one out – although the line moved fairly quickly. My only problem was that although I did my transaction at customer services very quickly, I then had to follow the maze to get out, dodging the usual customers who seemed to be in a daze and hadn’t made a list of what they needed.

  62. Whoosh! Sunshine, then heavy hail, all accompanied by wind strong enough to move the terrace furniture around. All seasons today!

    1. Spring. And it would have been the Grand National this weekend. I recall watching it on TV some years ago and the telephoto shots of the horses were blotted out in a blizzard of snow.

  63. Dammit, my lunch has slipped round to 2pm again. My body isn’t used to the hour yet…

  64. I bought the two grand-children an easter egg each this morning. I’ll Whatsapp them a photo of them next weekend with a Happy Easter message.

      1. They’re safe from me.

        I can eat chocolate, but I’ve never been a particular fan. Didn’t like it much as a child.

        I don’t like the feel.

          1. Don’t like the feel on my fingers and I like it even less when it turns to slime in my mouth.

            Gutting fish or rabbits, no bother. Ask me to handle chocolate – pass the tongs.

  65. Some fun from Conservative Woman.

    This beastly lockdown!
    By
    Weaver Sheridan
    –

    April 2, 2020

    ‘HELLO, Fred. Bill here. Just phoning to see how you are. Do you realise we’ve all been stuck inside for a year now because of the coronavirus lockdown?’

    – ‘Blimey, a year? Well, time flies when you’re not enjoying yourself. Hang on a sec, Bill, I’m just busy with steppenwolf.’

    ‘Boy, you’ve got some Steppenwolf records? Vinyls? They must be worth a fortune. Get your motor running! Born to be Wi-i-ild! Yeah! Those were the days, eh?’

    – ‘Er, no, Bill, not records. There’s a pack of steppenwolf roaming down the street at the front of my house.’

    ‘You mean . . ?’

    – ‘Yes, Bill. Real live wolves.’

    ‘Crikey! It was bad enough with mountain goats in the streets of Llandudno, but it’s getting worse now that animals are escaping from the zoos. Can’t you get your dog to chase the wolves away?’

    – ‘Fido’s gone, Bill. A golden eagle swooped down and snatched him last week when he went into the garden to do his business.’

    ‘Poor Fido. No wonder people are getting dog substitutes then. That explains the sticker I saw on the window of the delivery van that brought my food supplies the other day: A Coyote is for Life, Not Just for Christmas.’

    – ‘Give me another minute, Bill. I’m just reaching over for the lynx.’

    ‘Oh, come on Fred, you’re not going anywhere, so you don’t need deodorant, especially Lynx. That’s a bit trendy for a bloke your age.’

    – ‘No, Bill, you don’t understand. I’ve got a lynx, a large wildcat. I caught and tamed him after our little pussy Tiddles was crushed by a boa constrictor. I’m just going to put him outside. He likes to hunt at night.’

    ‘Hunt?’

    – ‘Yes, he goes after the wild boars that keep digging up my potato patch. I hear Jeremy Corbyn had to fight off a herd of them when they got into his allotment in Islington the other day. Squashed his butternuts and mangled his wurzels.’

    ‘Ouch! Whatever next?’

    – ‘Hopefully it won’t get as bad as last September. Do you remember? The North Circular gridlocked by herds of migrating wildebeest and boat traffic halted on the Thames because of hippos at Putney.’

    ‘Well, I just heard on the news that beavers have dammed the upper Mersey near Stockport and there are piranhas in the lake that’s been formed.’

    – ‘This is getting ridiculous. You’d think Boris Johnson would do something about it.’

    ‘Well, in his latest daily broadcast he said the lockdown will be over by June – just like he said last year. Apparently it’s a struggle to get in and out of Downing Street through the undergrowth these days. The plants in the hanging baskets have run wild and it can be pretty hairy when the tumbleweed comes rolling in from Whitehall. No 10 is covered in so much Russian vine that people are calling it the Hanging Gardens of Babylondon. And to cap it all, Dilyn the dog has mated with a timber wolf.’

    – ‘Blimey! They’ll have to rename it Wild Westminster.’

    ‘Anyhow, look after yourself, Fred. I’m just off round the block for my allocated hour’s exercise.’

    – ‘Okay, but be careful, Bill . . . it’s a jungle out there.’

  66. If as below the EU is going to deny the U.K. funds from the EU employment rescue cash despite our budget contributions then the government should immediately declare all Brexit negotiations over, WTO rules silly apply forthwith, and all contributions to the EU will cease immediately.

    Also this “lockdown,” should be ceased. Only the vulnerable and over 70s should self isolate and life should be resumed as before the virus reared its ugly head. (I have always thought the “lockdown” a complete overreaction anyway). Who knows how many jobs and livelihoods will have been shattered? I don’t think it’s worth all this “stay at home” and living in a police state.

    Edit: WTO rules should apply …

    2. Not forgetting the suicides, family break ups, mental health problems. Why are we all so subservient?

      1. I’m so fed up, ican’t get my nails done, my hair trimmed and highlighted, I’ve run out of make up, my eyebrows have spread all over, and my trout pout is sagging.
        I don’t know wether I’m Arthur or Martha 👞🎩💼 👜👗👠😆

    3. Both the Diamond Princess and Zaandam cruise ships outbreaks indicate a mortality rate of around 0.5% (4 deaths on the Zaandam out of 1400+ passengers and 600+ crew) The ships would not have full-on ITU capabilities, I would guess. That suggests a mortality rate around that of flu.
      I’m guessing here, but it seems to cause a nasty flu-like illness, and can kill someone who has compromised lungs, but is not fatal in the vast majority of people.

      1. Doesn’t it beg the question – if we can see it why can’t the government or the advisers and the Chief Medical Officer et al?

          1. Good question. Don’t think they have any sort of plan, they’re just floundering. Maybe the decision makers are paralysed.

        2. It also begs the question, why are they deliberately destroying the economy? Wasn’t Brown sufficiently successful at this task back in 2008?

          1. I do wonder if it’s the precursor to “the U.K. has had a rethink and we wish to rejoin the EU” – not that we’ve even left yet. But, you know, “we’re all in this together, United we stand, divided we fall”.

  67. ‘In late January ZH asked whether a prolific Chinese scientist who was experimenting with bat coronavirus at a level-4 biolab in Wuhan China was responsible for the current outbreak of a virus which is 96% genetically identical – and which saw an explosion in cases at a wet market located just down the street.
    For suggesting this, ZH were kicked off Twitter and had the pleasure of several articles written by MSM hacks regarding their ‘conspiracy theory’ – none of which addressed the plethora of hard evidence linked in the post. These are the same people, mind you, who pushed the outlandish and evidence-free Trump-Russia conspiracy theory for years.

    Whether or not the virus was engineered (scientists swear it wasn’t) – it shouldn’t take Perry Mason to conclude that a virulent coronavirus outbreak which started near a biolab that was experimenting with — coronavirus — bears scrutiny. Could a lab worker have accidentally infected themselves – then gone shopping for meat at the market over several days, during the long, asymptomatic incubation period?’

    In February, researchers Botao Xial and Lei Xiao published a quickly-retracted paper titled “The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus” – which speculated that the virus came from the Wuhan biolab.

    Now, mainstream outlets are catching on – or at least have become brave enough to similarly connect the dots.

    A pre-print published by Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao, titled “The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus” whose abstract is the following…

    The 2019-nCoV has caused an epidemic of 28,060 laboratory-confirmed infections in human including 564 deaths in China by February 6, 2020. Two descriptions of the virus published on Nature this week indicated that the genome sequences from patients were almost identical to the Bat CoV ZC45 coronavirus. It was critical to study where the pathogen came from and how it passed onto human. An article published on The Lancet reported that 27 of 41 infected patients were found to have contact with the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan. We noted two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus in Wuhan, one of which was only 280 meters from the seafood market. We briefly examined the histories of the laboratories and proposed that the coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory. Our proposal provided an alternative origin of the coronavirus in addition to natural recombination and intermediate host.

    … and an especially ominous conclusion:

    In summary, somebody was entangled with the evolution of 2019-nCoV coronavirus. In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.

    Who is Botao and should anyone listen to him? Well, yes: this is what we find about the research group of the Harvard post-doc:

    The Xiao group study mainly in the fields of cellular and molecular biomechanics, single molecule biophysics and engineering. Current research areas are: protein-ligand interactions, DNA and RNA assembly, high-throughput nanometer measurements and manipulation, mathematical modeling and quantitative analysis. The experimental techniques include: magnetic tweezers, optical tweezers, biomembrane force probe, fluorescent microscopy, genetic engineering, and chromatography. An project example is using high-throughput single molecule techniques to study the modulation of protein drugs on interactions of integrins and their ligands such as TGF-beta. We also study von Willebrand Factor and glycoproteins on platelets. We collaborate with a number of well-known universities and institutions, and a few enterprises. Our research will be of relevance for the prevention and treatment of cancer, immune and cardiovascular diseases.

    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/30/china-researchers-isolated-bat-coronaviruses-near-/

  68. It is a great pity that the baying crowds of “gotcha” journalists are not let loose on the Chief Executives, Chief Operating Officers and Chairmen of all the dozens of NHS Trusts.

    Most of the responsibility for the debacle we are witnessing rests with the management.

    Many of these men and women are paid salaries greater than that of the PM but are performing at the level of inadequate junior clerks.

    1. Got it in one.
      Very easy when all they did was complain about people turning up at A&E With a headache but now they’ve got to cope with really sick people and it’s just not fair.

      1. They can’t even go down the pub for lunch or to a fancy restaurant. I bet they don’t eat hospital food.

      2. PHE run by left-wing bureaucrats, maybe? Wanting to protect their own positions and power? Ideologically opposed to using the private sector except when unavoidable?

    1. Looks like the Llynfi Surgery drew the short straw in testing the waters…

  72. Doh!!

    I’ve just been to Tesco and saw a bloke buying 4 crates of San Miguel, 5
    paellas and 3 sombreros and I thought to myself……….

    Hispanic buying.

  73. Just did battle with our GP surgery receptionists, asking for a telephone consultation about a recurring sinus infection. “Oh, we are short staffed at present and GPs aren’t doing face-to-face consultations. Please go to your Pharmacy and get them to check you over”. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Will they be able to prescribe anti-biotics if I need them?”. “Oh no. You will have to telephone the surgery and ask for a telephone consultation”. Groundhog Day MKII…

    2. In that case AA, although printed before, this, being relevant, might cheer you up.

      Ear Infection
      This is so true!
      They always ask at the surgery why you are there, and you have to tell them (in front of others) what’s wrong and sometimes it is embarrassing.

      There’s nothing worse than a Doctor’s Receptionist who insists you tell her what is wrong with you in a room full of other patients.
      I know most of us have experienced this, and I love the way this old guy handled it.

      The 65-year-old man walked into a crowded waiting room and approached the desk.
      The Receptionist said, ‘Yes sir, what are you seeing the Doctor for today?’
      ‘There’s something wrong with my dick’, he replied.

      The receptionist became irritated and said, ‘You shouldn’t come into a crowded waiting room and say things like that.’
      ‘Why not, you asked me what was wrong and I told you,’ he said.
      The Receptionist replied; ‘Now you’ve caused some embarrassment in this room full of people. You should have said there is something wrong with your ear or something and discussed the problem further with the Doctor in private.’

      The man replied, ‘You shouldn’t ask people questions in a roomful of strangers, if the answer could embarrass anyone. The man walked out, waited several minutes, and then re-entered.
      The Receptionist smiled smugly and asked, ‘Yes?’ ‘There’s something wrong with my ear,’ he stated.

      The Receptionist nodded approvingly and smiled, knowing he had taken her advice. ‘And what is wrong with your ear, Sir?’
      ‘I can’t piss out of it,’ he replied.
      The waiting room erupted in laughter…

      Mess with seniors and you’re going to Lose

    3. If it’s any like the Boots pharmacy, the main store is closed to the public, and you have to talk to an assistant through a glass window…

    4. Some receptionists seem to be relishing their new powers. Hope you eventually manage to be sorted.

      1. Like the police, I suppose. Although our local monopoly GP clinic made sure you that you did not get an appointment unless you were known to the receptionist personally, via school, family, friends. Still do.

      2. ‘Initiative’ and ‘common sense’ don’t appear in their lexicons. The one I dealt with had to constantly refer to their ‘senior colleague’, who also appeared to know diddly squat.

        1. But he, she or it has known diddly squat for much longer than the others. That’s why they are ‘senior’.

    1. Day four of first week of French courses by Skype which is going very well. Our students are – as usual – cheerful, hardworking and very appreciative as Caroline is a brilliant teacher. I have written an article for the Daily Telegraph about running French courses for English Sixth Formers during shutdown in both countries but so far I haven’t had a reply – they prefer to publish prurient crap.

      3. I was about to post a comment about the BBC website. There is a kind of surreal feeling generated by the BBC website main News page. An article about, “Who will leave Masterchef” takes up as much space as the headline,”Latest global updates as UK death toll rises”.

  75. ”Governments are set to spend huge amounts to boost their economies once the pandemic is over. There’s a view that when the summit is eventually held, it could be an important forum for ensuring that money is spent on sustainable and renewable projects”.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52122450

    So coronavirus = more green projects which means…

    More wind turbines.

    More solar.

    Earlier Net Zero.

    1. 317675+ up ticks,
      Morning PP,
      Lessons have been learnt ……………………. my bum.

  76. Corona press conference on in Norway.
    Constructive questions. All calm & in fact dull and somewhat pompous.

    1. They’d never get away with that here.

      Press conferences in the UK have bundles of kindling, pitchforks and blazing torches in reception to be picked up on the way in.

  77. Afternoon, all. Just back from another struggle with my bank over the SO they didn’t set up right in the first place. I think I have finally, at the third time of asking, got them to do what I want. Not that it was easy. Firstly they claimed they couldn’t do it (although they’d made one, insufficient, change yesterday), they said I should be doing it on the telephone. I countered with the fact that I had tried the telephone yesterday; after a quarter of an hour of being in a queue and getting nowhere, mindful of the fact that I was paying for the call to rectify their mistake, I had given up and had to come in to get it sorted, only it wasn’t was it? They admonished me that I was putting my life at risk by coming in. I pointed out that I wouldn’t have had to come in a second and certainly not a third time if they had carried out my wishes correctly in the first place. Eventually, grudgingly, they did what I asked. I no longer trust them so I wrote my wishes plainly on the new mandate, even though there was no space for it. Why is it so hard for things to be done right the first time? I think I shall have to factor in the possibility that the bill will be paid 9 days early again next month and leave extra in my account. I do not want to be paying things electronically (the whole point of setting up an SO is so it’s all done automatically), I do not want Internet banking (the account I have is more trouble than it’s worth and my Internet is dodgy at best), 25 years in a noisy environment means using the telephone is sometimes difficult (strong regional accents and rapid patter don’t go down well) and I don’t have a smartphone. If there were an alternative I would change my account, but the other available bank is even worse! I gave them 12 months to get their act together, but their performance only deteriorated, so I left.

    1. I think these days they just expect everyone to set it up themselves online. I have to say, that I have never had a problem with internet banking, even though our connection has often been dodgy.

      1. I was offline for eight days last year (that would have been disastrous if I’d had to rely on moving money between accounts) and I have logged on only to be told on more than one occasion that there was a glitch in their system and access to my accounts was not possible. I can’t be doing with that. Maybe it’s because I have a short fuse, but I want things to be available when I want them. I also expect things to be done right – hence my meltdown in the bank today!

      2. TSB went into meltdown last year when it was sold. They are effing up again right now for some online customers.

  78. Just suppose. What if the Chinese had said nothing about coronavirus and had kept it quiet? No new name, no warning. No nothing.
    Would we in the West have spotted it? Would doctors have distinguished it from other dangerous corona viruses? Or would they have diagnosed a “bad case of ‘flu”?

    1. Or would they have diagnosed a “bad case of ‘flu”?

      Effectively the same point made in this letter.

      Daily Telegraph, Sat 14th March 2020

      SIR – As a 90-year-old doctor who qualified in 1953, I have been reflecting on how we would have reacted to a coronavirus epidemic in those days. The answer is not at all, for three main reasons.

      The Covid-19 virus could not have been identified rapidly enough, if at all. Most cases would have been too mild to attract attention in this season of coughs and sneezes. And the small proportion of deaths among elderly people with chronic respiratory disease would have remained much as usual for the time of year.

      It follows that there would have been no alarm or countermeasures. International trade and travel would have carried on as usual. World stock markets would not have collapsed. And governments would not have needed to get involved.

      As it is today, we know too much about the coronavirus for our own good, but almost nothing about treating its victims or preventing its spread.

      Dr George Birdwood
      Shipton Moyne, Gloucestershire

      1. Yes. I am not a medic. I have managed problems of all sorts. Problems that required careful analysis. Some needed a very quick response and others required work over a prolonged period. Working in business and commerce requires this. Not so politics. Majority of politicians are career politicians from school onwards.

      2. Hmmm.
        I’m not entirely sure about that. Cruise passengers dying on cruise ships happen all the time, but it would have been noted that there was an uptick in flu cases, or a flu-like pneumonia on various cruise ships. Plus the outbreak in Italy could not have gone unnoticed, even if China had kept completely silent about their own cases.
        Had it happened back in the 1950s or 60s, the virus would have travelled much more slowly around the world and therefore been, as he says, not unusual. There was much less international and national travel, and just as importantly, fewer people, therefore less crowding together.

      3. I doubt that in 1953 several million Chinese would have flown back home for Chinese new year and then back to all corners of the earth carrying the virus with them. Spread would have been slower, to start with at least. Populations were also less densely packed.

        1. in the 1600s it took 4 years for a plague in Northern Italy to reach what is now Southern Germany. It would take about 10 hours from China today.

        2. 317678+ up ticks,
          Morning M,
          Give credit were due he makes more sense to to me than many a current
          view out there.

  79. Oh well, luv u and leave u.
    I’m bending my sides today, steaming the 3 mm mahogany to shape of the profile blocks to fit the back and top of my project parlour guitar.
    Wish me luck. ☺

  80. It’s time to remove Matt Hancock and call in a no-nonsense outsider to win the coronavirus war. NIGEL FARAGE. 2 APRIL 2020.

    ‘Action this day’ was stamped by Winston Churchill on every crucial government document during our country’s greatest test in the Second World War, and he meant it. It is now vital that Boris Johnson assumes his great hero’s style of leadership and acts quickly. If he does not, his reputation will collapse and so will the public’s respect for the lockdown.

    I’ve just seen Boris on my daily ten minute news ration. He did not fill me with confidence. As for a no-nonsense outsider there is only one person that springs to mind!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/02/time-remove-matt-hancock-call-no-nonsense-outsider-win-coronavirus/

        1. #MeToo…i just need time to grow a little moustache and practise my hand signals.

    2. Nigel seems to run away when the chips are down and it’s time to put up or shut up.
      How many parties has he led, for example?

      1. Hardly fair to dump it on Her Majesty at her advanced age. Let her daughter do it.

      2. I can just see her striding off down The Mall towards Whitehall with a determined look on her face, sleeves rolled up, skirts tucked into her knicker-legs and a good-edged sword waving above her head.

        1. She has more experience than the cabinet put together, doesn’t take no for an answer and knows how to delegate.

  81. Apols for the length of this post from ZH, but it does raise some important questions. It will be interesting to see if these questions are answered and reported in due course.

    Open Letter
    Dear Chancellor, A Merkel

    As Emeritus of the Johannes-Gutenberg-University in Mainz and longtime director of the Institute for Medical Microbiology, I feel obliged to critically question the far-reaching restrictions on public life that we are currently taking on ourselves in order to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

    It is expressly not my intention to play down the dangers of the virus or to spread a political message. However, I feel it is my duty to make a scientific contribution to putting the current data and facts into perspective – and, in addition, to ask questions that are in danger of being lost in the heated debate.

    The reason for my concern lies above all in the truly unforeseeable socio-economic consequences of the drastic containment measures which are currently being applied in large parts of Europe and which are also already being practiced on a large scale in Germany.

    My wish is to discuss critically – and with the necessary foresight – the advantages and disadvantages of restricting public life and the resulting long-term effects.

    To this end, I am confronted with five questions which have not been answered sufficiently so far, but which are indispensable for a balanced analysis.

    I would like to ask you to comment quickly and, at the same time, appeal to the Federal Government to develop strategies that effectively protect risk groups without restricting public life across the board and sow the seeds for an even more intensive polarisation of society than is already taking place.

    With the utmost respect,

    Prof. em. Dr. med. Sucharit Bhakdi

    * * *

    1. Statistics
    In infectiology – founded by Robert Koch himself – a traditional distinction is made between infection and disease. An illness requires a clinical manifestation. Therefore, only patients with symptoms such as fever or cough should be included in the statistics as new cases.

    In other words, a new infection – as measured by the COVID-19 test – does not necessarily mean that we are dealing with a newly ill patient who needs a hospital bed. However, it is currently assumed that five percent of all infected people become seriously ill and require ventilation. Projections based on this estimate suggest that the healthcare system could be overburdened.
    My question:

    Did the projections make a distinction between symptom-free infected people and actual, sick patients – i.e. people who develop symptoms.

    2. Dangerousness
    A number of coronaviruses have been circulating for a long time – largely unnoticed by the media. If it should turn out that the COVID-19 virus should not be ascribed a significantly higher risk potential than the already circulating corona viruses, all countermeasures would obviously become unnecessary.

    The internationally recognized International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents will soon publish a paper that addresses exactly this question. Preliminary results of the study can already be seen today and lead to the conclusion that the new virus is NOT different from traditional corona viruses in terms of dangerousness. The authors express this in the title of their paper „SARS-CoV-2: Fear versus Data“.

    My question:

    How does the current workload of intensive care units with patients with diagnosed COVID-19 compare to other coronavirus infections, and to what extent will this data be taken into account in further decision-making by the federal government? In addition: Has the above study been taken into account in the planning so far? Here too, of course, „diagnosed“ means that the virus plays a decisive role in the patient’s state of illness, and not that previous illnesses play a greater role.

    3. Dissemination
    According to a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, not even the much-cited Robert Koch Institute knows exactly how much is tested for COVID-19. It is a fact, however, that a rapid increase in the number of cases has recently been observed in Germany as the volume of tests increases.

    It is therefore reasonable to suspect that the virus has already spread unnoticed in the healthy population. This would have two consequences: firstly, it would mean that the official death rate – on 26 March 2020, for example, there were 206 deaths from around 37,300 infections, or 0.55 percent – is too high; and secondly, it would mean that it would hardly be possible to prevent the virus from spreading in the healthy population.

    My question:

    Has there already been a random sample of the healthy general population to validate the real spread of the virus, or is this planned in the near future?

    4. Mortality
    The fear of a rise in the death rate in Germany (currently 0.55 percent) is currently the subject of particularly intense media attention. Many people are worried that it could shoot up like in Italy (10 percent) and Spain (7 percent) if action is not taken in time.

    At the same time, the mistake is being made worldwide to report virus-related deaths as soon as it is established that the virus was present at the time of death – regardless of other factors. This violates a basic principle of infectiology: only when it is certain that an agent has played a significant role in the disease or death may a diagnosis be made. The Association of the Scientific Medical Societies of Germany expressly writes in its guidelines: „In addition to the cause of death, a causal chain must be stated, with the corresponding underlying disease in third place on the death certificate. Occasionally, four-linked causal chains must also be stated.“

    At present there is no official information on whether, at least in retrospect, more critical analyses of medical records have been undertaken to determine how many deaths were actually caused by the virus.

    My question:

    Has Germany simply followed this trend of a COVID-19 general suspicion? And: is it intended to continue this categorisation uncritically as in other countries? How, then, is a distinction to be made between genuine corona-related deaths and accidental virus presence at the time of death?

    5. Comparability
    The appalling situation in Italy is repeatedly used as a reference scenario. However, the true role of the virus in that country is completely unclear for many reasons – not only because points 3 and 4 above also apply here, but also because exceptional external factors exist which make these regions particularly vulnerable.

    One of these factors is the increased air pollution in the north of Italy. According to WHO estimates, this situation, even without the virus, led to over 8,000 additional deaths per year in 2006 in the 13 largest cities in Italy alone. [7] The situation has not changed significantly since then. [8] Finally, it has also been shown that air pollution greatly increases the risk of viral lung diseases in very young and elderly people. [9]

    Moreover, 27.4 percent of the particularly vulnerable population in this country live with young people, and in Spain as many as 33.5 percent. In Germany, the figure is only seven percent [10]. In addition, according to Prof. Dr. Reinhard Busse, head of the Department of Management in Health Care at the TU Berlin, Germany is significantly better equipped than Italy in terms of intensive care units – by a factor of about 2.5 [11].

    My question:

    What efforts are being made to make the population aware of these elementary differences and to make people understand that scenarios like those in Italy or Spain are not realistic here?

    * * *

    This is an unofficial translation; see the original letter in German as a PDF.

    1. My question; Prof. em. Dr. med. Sucharit Bhakdi:

      Are you a frequent visitor to Nottle? It would appear so.

    2. Gosh! That seems to be a clear and concise summary of what Nottlers have been saying for a couple of months.

    3. Ii think we will only know in retrospect whether this unprecedented world panic is justified or not, when excess deaths over and above the norm are counted. Most of the known deaths so far occured in people who were elderly, had underlying conditions, or possibly undiagnosed conditions.

      In the UK, apparently the normal daily death toll from all causes is about 1500. Annual deaths from “normal flu” average 17,000.

        1. I was never any good at numbers! I think the 1500 figure should be “daily” not monthly!

      3. Until we have reliable statistics we will know nothing. Just as we do now. The politicians have grasped at anything and everything, vacillating from A to Z and back again in order to make their bad decisions.

    4. Interesting… the Norwegian government have said that they decided the extent of lockdown without consulting economists, so they have no idea of the expected cost of it. I suspect taht they are finding out, even so soon, how bad it is, with not just layoffs but permanent sackings rocketing, so now the employment situation is as bad as it was in 1946.
      Why are the politicians so panicky? Fear of not doing enough, as judged by those shits at MSM? Why is everyone so scared? Was there weeping and rending of clothes in the streets when war was declared in 1939? No. So why now? Even on NTTL, there are posts using the word “fear” in them.
      What a bunch of wimps.

      2. Except, there are now videos on Facebook (links on ZH) of bodies being piled into the back of refrigerated trailers outside some hospitals in NYC because their morgues can’t cope….

        1. “A single death is a tragedy – a million deaths is a statistic”
          — Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin
          ;¬)

          1. Afternoon Tom. ZH – ZeroHedge was originally a financial website but has morphed in recent years to a geo-political website that by and large disagrees with most of the MSM….

          2. Thank you, Stephen, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of them but then they are unlikely to be a source quoted by the Miserable Shitty Media.

          3. They aren’t usually quoted but I’ve noticed in the past stories run in ZH sometimes appear in the MSM a couple of days later but without attribution…

      3. I’m not ‘afraid’ of what comes next but only a fool would think it’s notgoingto have significant repercussions for a vast number of people.

    5. “1. Did the projections make a distinction between symptom-free infected people and actual, sick patients – i.e. people who develop symptoms.”
      I think, apart from frontline NHS staff, they’re only testing people with symptoms. 10,000 tests, or thereabouts, a day doesn’t leave much room to test asymptomatic folks.

      1. A firm in Cambridge has developed a portable tester that can return results within 90 minutes. It’s also highly accurate. It’s called Samba II, I think. Some philanthropist has donated enough to buy 100 machines for the NHS. The thought struck me that we have returned to pre-1948; private initiative and donations from philanthropists.

      2. Agreed. We need one large scale town or city wide testing initiative and extrapolate from there.

        1. With a proper randomly selected sample of people, which represents the population as a whole I suspect that even 10,000 tests would give us a much much better idea of what is happening than we have now.

        2. But it could be Glasgow where their immune systems have been fundamentally altered by massive consumption of deep fried Mars bars and Irnbru…

        3. I read somewhere in the German papers that they’re doing exactly that somewhere near the border with the Netherlands. Hopefully some useful data will come out of it.

  82. Just back from w/rose, St Ives.
    Orderly 5-minute queue with marshals, once inside everyone keeping their distance including very obliging staff. Bought everything I wanted.

    Despite very little road traffic & driving at normal speeds managed to pick up tailgaters on the way to & from. What is it with these idiots?

    1. They are operating on the quite sensible basis, presumably, that the least time one is exposed to current police activity the better.

  84. Daily Post: “Tyres slashed on more than 20 cars in ‘blatent’ Llandudno attack.”

    Not those goats again.

    1. Hi, Twig. Maybe my specs need a polish, but haven’t seen owt from you recently.
      You ‘n yours keeping ok?

      1. Yes thank you quite well. I like to keep a track on here of what is really going on in the world.

  85. A plane has crashed onto a cemetery in Dublin – police say hundreds are dead

    2. The first time I visited Redcar racecourse, I thought I had come to the wrong place – you had to go through a cemetery to get there!

    3. And from the wreckage of the Cesna 2,354 bodies have found and police say they are searching for more.

    7. Rhinoceros, your hide looks all undone,
      You do not take my fancy in the least:
      You have a horn where other brutes have none:
      Rhinoceros, you are an ugly beast.

      To A Rhinoceros

      Hilaire Belloc

    8. The world’s richest animal, I give you the Rhino Soros – Rhino as in money and sore arse as in piles.

  87. Headline in the Daily Mail Comic;

    Breaking News. Comedian Eddie Large, 78, dies from coronavirus as he was being treated in hospital for heart failure.

    Eddie Large, one half of the famous comedy duo Little and Large, has died from coronavirus aged 78 after contracting the infection in hospital, his family said today.

    ‘From’ or ‘with’?

      2. He apparently had a heart transplant in 2003 but it had started to fail which is why he was in hospital .A good innings for someone with that underlying condition.

        1. First rule of the hospital: if you’re sick, it’s the worst place to go: … all those sick, infectious other patients; doctors: their hands in your life…

          1. There’s an apocryphal story from a couple of decades ago than when the Medics went on strike in Italy a couple of decades ago the death rate actually went down….

      3. At this moment, you are surrounded by viruses, and your skin is crawling with them. Normally, the wonderful defence mechanisms our bodies have render them ineffectual most of the time. But, with a weakened immune system from a heart transplant, a person would be less resistant.

  89. I’ve not seen any mention of the Blood Transfusion Service. As people with coronavirus may have the infection and be infectious before they show symptoms any donors who are infected but asymptomatic will be passing the virus on. Or not.
    From the NHS website;
    “No we do not test for coronavirus because there is no evidence it is transmitted through blood donation.”
    If they do not test, then how do they know? The only proof would be to use blood from infected donors and check whether recipients become infected?
    https://www.blood.co.uk/news-and-campaigns/news-and-statements/coronavirus-covid-19-updates/

    2. The NHS has form on this, H. I’m thinking of the scandal of a few years ago, when many hemophiliacs were infected with HIV because the NHS decided tests on donated blood were not necessary.

      1. Because I lived in Britain during the mad cow/nvCJD crisis the French still will not accept blood donations from me..

      3. Yes, also the hepatitis scandal in Scotland. People infected, people died. They covered it up for a while until it all came out.

      4. Wasn’t it lack of tests on blood products bought from the US? Where they pay criminals and drug addicts to hand over a whole armful?

      5. Blood plasma from convicted criminals and drug addicts because of price. I wonder if any who made that decision would have accepted having it used on themselves.

  90. Has anybody been able to source bread flour? I’m down to 1 kg of strong white, 1 kg of strong wholemeal and about 600g of spelt.

    2. I ordered some on Amazon a week ago – (6x1kg packets) arrived yesterday. Kept half and distributed rest to the neighbours.

  91. From the BBC article, linked:
    “The long-held fears that terrorists or other groups could unleash bio-weapons will also be turbo-charged by recent events with already some signs that far-right groups have thought about deliberately trying to spread the virus. The US Department of Justice has said those intentionally doing so could be charged as terrorists.”
    My highlighting. So it goes.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52122991

    2. Like those who were videod spitting on people, fruit & veg? licking the handrails on the tube? Wiping genital sweat on lift buttons? Will they be arrested & charged with terrorist offences?

    3. What signs? What far-right groups? Does the BBC give any details, or is it merely speculation and rumour-mongering?

      1. If there really have been “long-held fears” why are we so dismally, fatally unprepared?
        BBC journalism and detail and substance? Nope.

    4. Well, if you can find an example of anything further to the right than Islamic jihadists…

    6. How do they know that “far-right” groups have thought about it – have the police been round to check their thinking?

      1. It is made up. However these kind of statements, free of any evidence, lay the path toward further control.
        We are barely a few steps away from complete censorship of the media, MSM and “social media”. The social media moguls are keen to co-operate with Government wishes in order to fend off legal controls that might be even more constricting.
        You can’t run a police state properly if the public have free access to finding out what you are doing.

    7. Well, it’s good of the BBC to remind us again all why the licence fee should be abolished.

    1. Don’t much like the look of the professor. His face suggests he may be related to Edward and ‘Tubs’ from Royston Vasey.

      1. He stands no nonsense from Peston who has the wrong end of the stick and is peddling “fake news”. There are lots of people around similar to Peston. They can be affable, amusing, forceful, persuasive, articulate, dogmatic and completely wrong.

    1. That is beautiful, congrats to YoH!! It’s been a while since I made a quilt, have loads of off-cut fabric in a bag and that’s as far as I get these days!!

      1. I think Psychiatric is the word you are looking for – perfect good material was cut into thosands of pieces and then sewn back together over several weeks….

    5. I can see it. The first time I’ve ever managed to see the picture in one of these . Ha ha.
      .
      It’s a Bengal Tiger!!!!

  94. Forgive me if it’s been asked before but…….
    What is testing 10,000 people a day going to prove?
    What are they going to do with the results?
    How many doctors and nurses is it going to take from treating ill patients to carry out the testing?

    2. It gives people something to do, makes them feel useful and occupied.
      Didn’t they do that in the war?

      1. I’ll bow to your knowledge B3 as I was born the year after it ended. 🙂

    4. As I suggest above senior schoolchildren could carry out the taking of samples/swabs/whatever. Processing the test sample is also a routine and repetitive task. It requires a bit more training, a couple days would probably cover it.
      At the moment we’ve been told the getting test results takes 7 hours. That’s the clincher.

  95. There are roughly 1.5 million people employed by the NHS in various capacities.

    At 10,000 tests a day, which also means that people in hospitals, and showing symptoms at home and in other front line jobs, etc etc won’t be tested, that will take 5 months for NHS staff alone. And of course even if given the all clear that won’t mean one remains clear.

    Use the tests initially to get a better idea of how it has spread in the general population, how many are “immune” how many have it mildly, how many are highly infectious because they have it but with no signs.

    1. Ah, but how many are front-line staff dealing directly with COVID-19 patients? I say that as my oncologist and specialist nurses are now all working from home.

    2. Your last sentence describes one of the tactics announced by Hancock, namely to conduct random tests of the public to measure the spread.

      1. About bloody time.

        But how many tests is he going to do, how are the testees to be selected and how are they going to “validate” the results?

    3. I’ve got an even better idea (IMO). Let’s forget about testing – we don’t have the facilities, the manpower or the time. I think it’s actually pointless. According to a post on here yesterday one test will only show that someone has had the virus, not whether they still have it. What, then, is the point of it?

      Let’s all get back to work, or whatever we were doing before this “lockdown”, and carry on life as normal. Those who are at extra risk of death if they catch the virus can still self isolate and probably would do in any case if they have any sense. It seems from several posts on here that people have had this virus, or something like it, and survived. We are trashing our way of life, our economy, shedding jobs and businesses all for nothing. And also surrendering our freedom to go out. Far more people die every year from flu than are dying with Covid19 infection. Figures have been quoted on here previously but easily looked up. 28,000 died I think in 2014.

      An article on the front page of the DT is now saying that your insurance may be invalid if you go out in your car. It truly is ridiculous.

      1. The big problem we have with doing that, is that if the bug is as virulent and deadly as suggested, the NHS, crematoria and support services will be completely overwhelmed.

        We need to get much better figures on what is happening in the general population, before we make decisions. We’ve approached the whole thing arse about face.

        1. As vouvray had a viral infection in January that may have been CV and others had similar. I think it may have been around since November/December. Purely a guess but isn’t everything at the moment.

          1. Julia Hartley-Brewer posed that question to a doctor she had on her programme while I was on my way to the shop this morning.

            The doctor gave a very long reply with lots of words, none of which addressed the question Julia put to her and we were left none the wiser.

          2. I was in hospital for the better part of two weeks in March.
            I got pneumonia, ran a temperature of 104+, suffered convulsions and was on a ventilator, three drips and close monitoring 60/24. I’ve been drip fed, and eaten pills for 3 different antiobiotics. I was bloody lucky!

            Covid negative.

            I wonder how many poor sods have died of what I had, but were registered as Covid-19 without testing.

          3. Agreed it’s so much easier to have a ready made cause of death. A tick box exercise. This becomes more ludicrous as the days go by.
            Sorry that you had such a rough time but glad you’re back with us now.

      2. I also suspect that the general population will come to a similar conclusion and suddenly start returning to their normal daily lives and challenge the authorities to stop them.

        Then it migtht turn really nasty (pronounced Nazi!)

  97. Now, this bloke is a well educated idiot. Where do they dig them up.

    10 million tests a day needed to end UK lockdown and avert economic disaster

    Exclusive: Leading scientist says whole population could be quickly tested if every lab in country was used

    Lockdown could be ended and up to 10 million people a day tested for Covid-19 tests if every laboratory in the country joined the effort, a leading epidemiologist has suggested.

    Weekly testing for every member of the UK population is the only way to both save lives and prevent the destruction of the British economy, according to Professor Julian Peto from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

    1. The whole propulation tested every week, week in week out?

      Yeah, of course they can.

      I would love to see the logistics on that one Prof Petridish.

      1. This is how the Mail reports it.

        University and research institute labs in the UK ‘have thousands of machines that could be used for coronavirus testing’

        There are dozens of laboratories in the UK that already have the equipment needed to process coronavirus tests, according to scientists.

        Experts calling for testing to be done more widely have offered their services and say research institutes, universities and private science companies have thousands of the DNA testing machines that are needed to look for COVID-19.

        The PCR machines examine DNA taken from a nose or throat swab to look for signs of viral genetic material (RNA) left behind by the coronavirus. This is the kind of testing currently being used by Public Health England, which has eight of its own laboratories and access to 40 in NHS hospitals around the country.

        ‘Every self-respecting medical or bioscience laboratory in the UK will have the necessary equipment to conduct hundreds if not thousands of these tests every day,’ said Professor Colin Garner, who runs a charity called Antibiotic Research UK in York Science Park.

        ‘So why has the government not asked/commandeered/enlisted facilities and people to do these tests?’

        One scientist told Sky News that there are thousands of PCR machines all over the UK.

        Professor Julian Peto, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: ‘These PCR machines are in every university and commercial lab in Britain so I’m sure you’ve got 14,000 of them.

        ‘If the people who are already operating those machines turned over to testing to the virus, you’d be able to test everyone in Britain once a week, and you’d be able to test every other day people who come into contact with patients – nurses, doctors, the NHS in particular.’

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8181349/Matt-Hancock-announces-U-turn-mass-testing-plan.html

        By my calculations, 14,000 machines running 24 hours per day would need to test 30 samples per hour to process 10 million daily samples. That doesn’t take into account the logistics of handling that many samples every day. Can we procure 10 million swab kits every day, send them to households, collect them then distribute them to widely dispersed testing centres. After testing, the results have to be sent back to each person tested. Peto is bonkers.

      2. The logistics may be a problem. Indeed it’s hard to see how they would not be. Around 100,000 testers would be needed as a minimum assuming that test could be carried out in 3 minutes. Another difficulty is assessing the test as processing is taking 7 hours. How many technicians needed? Even roping in and training everyone who ever did “O”level Chemistry would be a chore.
        However there is a difference between what is needed and what can be done. I need £235,000 to buy a Ferrari, however I only have £5/14/6.

    2. If this is the best they can do for an expert then this country is a considerably worse state than I thought possible.

    1. The problem is that what is being said is true, but creates a lie.

      1. The majority of the population is still white.
      2. Most sexual abuse happens within families or in church/youth groups.
      3. A father/uncle/priest scoutmaster molesting a child is treated as a case.

      BUT
      4. Most organised grooming of vulnerable young girls is carried out by gangs of predominantly Pakistani heritage, Muslim males, and can involve literally hundreds of cases of rape and sexual assault by literally dozens of perpetrators and these are also treated as one case.

    1. Looks as though a fake appeal has been calling to post pictures of rainbows to the NHS Nightingale Hospital. Quite understandably, staff at the hospital have better things to do than open loads of mail.

      The rainbow logo has become a symbol of support for people wanting to show solidarity with NHS workers. It’s good to see the rainbow being taken back from the LGBT movement. They hijacked it themselves, along with the word ‘gay’ (which has subsequently developed into meaning ‘rubbish’). What goes around comes around.

      1. Not ‘arf. The bloke was suggesting that frequencies of 5G (radio spectrum) were inimical to humans. They are good for allowing high speed processing in phones etc. The sickness is not coronavirus but 5G. The worst areas affected are where 5G has been rolled out. 5G is being rolled out because it will allow everything to be connected in a controllable matrix. As a former senior manager of Vodaphone UK he may know something.
        Is it genuine? Is it true? Who knows?

        1. The supermarkets will be all out of aluminium foil now that he’s set that off.

    1. My Physio encourages me to do that for my back pain/ scoliosis; I prefer watching HER do it !

  102. 317675+ up ticks,
    May one ask in the nicest possible manner, they are now talking of if the NHS is overwhelmed which it is likely to be owing to mass uncontrolled immigration, will the person coming up the beach today be given preferential treatment over an indigenous granddad who has been in combat & has a full compliment of NI stamps ?
    Only it is sounding more like age etc, etc, is coming into play more so in
    the daily bulletins.
    For the want of a ventilator there goes granddad.

  103. By the time we go back to work all the vulnerable people would have died of old age.

    1. I suppose Boyle is angry at the Conservatives, if we are going to have totalitarian police state rule it must be under socialists, hey wait a minute

  108. “You couldn’t make it up files”
    “Politicians call for action against footballers who don’t take a voluntary pay cut”
    In other news

    “MP’s continue with 3% pay rise despite crisis”
    Not to mention that 10 Grand expenses increase…………………
    Good to know we’re “All in it together”
    Bastards,one and all

    4. You can choose not to fund footballers. They exist in a market. Politicians and fat cat wasters I can’t choose to not fund.

  113. D Tel: Live Politics Nadine Dorries undermines PM claiming testing ‘is not a cure’
    Well, eff me. Here I was, thinking that if only I can get tested, I’ll be cured! Yaay!
    Most of your politicians are thick. Thank goodness I emigrated.
    Edited: expletives deleted. Sorry :-((

    2. What Nadine says and what Boris says are not contradictory, much as the DT journalist thinks they are.

  115. Covid 19 prevents prancing.

    A big story in our local paper is that the 2020 ‘Pride’ festival in Newcastle is being postponed until next year.

    A little ray of sunshine amidst all the doom and gloom.

    1. Sorry, must polish those specs.
      Read that as “… doom and porn”.
      Maybe I need a libation…

  116. BREAKING NEWS

    A 24 year old man who was taken to hospital after suffering multiple gunshot wounds in London, has been declared dead on arrival.

    Pathologists are conducting tests for coronavirus, which, it’s thought, may have been the cause of his death

    1. The gunman must have passed the virus on via the bullets, he forget to wash his hands before loading the gun

    2. Just finished watching episodes 2&3 a few minutes ago.

      There are some very funny moments amongst the drama. Timing is perfect.

      1. It’s about an accountant from Chicago who works for a drugs cartel who has to move with his family to Ozark, a redneck yokel kind of town. Shan’t give away any more but it’s one of those programmes that starts out a bit slow but keeps your attention and develops lots of twists.
        The acting is quite understated and there’s some black humour in it. I’m up to episode seven since starting watching it only yesterday.

        1. Sounds like it may be our sort of thing. Thanks for the tip. 7 episodes already?

          1. Let me know how you get on 🙂

            Better Call Saul is another I’d recommend. It’s a prequel to Breaking Bad but I dont think you need to have seen BB to follow it (If you have seen BB though, its satisfying to spot elements of crossover when they do happen. By the way, if you haven’t seen BB, stop everything and watch it NOW. Best bit of TV ever made.)

  118. I got very excited during last week when my husband found some loo rolls,
    becoming exited about loo rolls, what has humanity come too.

    1. I’m not surprised. In disgust I assume at the childish behaviour of the clappers. It really is shaming for the country.

        1. NK’s leadership claps itself happily. The rest of the population do it at gunpoint.

          How are you doing, Sue?

          1. I’m very fortunate in that I have a job that can be done from home (if not always easily), a cosy little home to myself that I own (emphasis on little) and can go out for long walks and to the numerous nearby supermarkets. I’m also 64 but not on any medication and feeling fine. I’m hating it.

          2. We do live in strange times. It’s going to be a while I think. Even with the truly draconian measure China put in place, it’s taken them since last November to get it under control – not eradicated, but under control just enough to ease the restrictions, so I don’t see a return to normality for the rest of us any time soon.

          4. Can’t be too sure what China has under control, the virus or the reporting on the virus. They’ve been up to their old games of signing virus patients out of hospital as cured and readmitting them by the back door and logging them in under a different problem.

            And that’s just the start.
            There is also a question of where 21million mobile phone accounts have gone….and apparently the Chinese can no more live without their mobiles than they can without a cigarette. Worse even. Some even have two phones which are all very strictly controlled so that Big Brother can keep a very close eye on them. So when 21million go missing during a period when last year the numbers were climbing is causing some serious questions to be asked.

            With around 1.6 billion phones, 21 million is a drop in the ocean….. numerically speaking…..

            https://www.ntd.com/the-closing-of-21-million-cell-phone-accounts-in-china-may-suggest-a-high-ccp-virus-death-toll_447579.html

      2. They know I do not participate on our estate, so a group stood outside our house and clapped. Bullying or what. Perhaps they should move to the next street where my brother who works for the NHS is ill with the virus. All he gets from me is a bottle of milk!

      3. People applaud all over Spain, but generally the health workers are not as highly remunerated as in the UK, and it is relatively easy ( and morale boosting ) for the populace to clap from their balconies; many Spaniards live in apartment blocks.
        Both in Italy and Spain, there is significant mortality amongst nurses and doctors. In my limited experience, I have found the Spanish health service to be more efficient than the NHS.

        There is a difference between popular gratitude and virtue-signalling.

  121. Off topic

    Having very carefully tied in some trailing plants using garden twine; I’ve just looked out the window to see several blue tits busy pecking at the knots at stealing my string.

    It made me smile, cheeky little things.

  122. So slow I am becoming.

    There I was, idly wondering why the lab quango calls itself ‘Public Health England’ rather than ‘Public Health United Kingdom’.

      1. Well yes, if it is a bad thing and no if it is a good thing. Can’t go wrong with that litmus test. Anything and everything bad, big or small and he is in there somewhere.

    1. I think he was banned for a day for doom and gloom, so he has taken himself off elsewhere (I can’t remember where) someone (I can’t remember whom either) reported seeing him, ah, now I think it was the DT comments a few days ago.

    2. BJ has been spotted on Breitbart apparently. I guess we will need to visit just to be reminded how many stabbings take place every day in the UK.

      1. I’ve not been paying much attention recently, did he leave of his own accord ?

        1. He was temporarily suspended for posting too much depressing news and has never returned since the suspension ended.

  124. Good evening from the Saxon daughter of Alfred of Wessex.
    I pop back to the dark ages to visit the plague only to find it’s followed me to the present .

    The whole thing is so tiresome, a plague of locusts has emptied supermarkets,
    everywhere there is an unearthly silence. The only place with any sign of normality is
    out amongst nature in the countryside. It’s supposed to be Spring.

      1. Hello Mr Viking, hope everything is okay with you too,
        rather tired of this virus stuff like everyone else is .

        1. I’m OK, thanks. Nottlers & other online fiends are keeping me sane. 😉

          Did you catch the mini-series on BBC4 on Alfred & his successors about 2 or 3 weeks ago? You got a large section to yourself.

          1. I am glad you are okay Mr Viking, take care won’t you.
            No I missed the Alfred and his successors programme, I’ll see if
            I can find it somewhere.
            Online ‘ fiends ‘ Mr Viking , surely Friends:)

    2. Vouvray was saying a few minutes ago that we hadn’t seen you for a while.
      Hope you are OK.

      1. Yes Thank you, I’ve just been a bit quiet for awhile.
        Hope all is well with you too .

    1. I’ve not heard anything the like of that in my lifetime. Very concerning. Very, very, police state. We are sliding at speed down that slippery slope.

      1. Luckily, here in Bournville there are many parks and one can do an awful lot of off-footpath walking/jogging/cycling.

        Reckon the Lockdown is going to be severely tested in the warm, sunny, weather forecast on Sunday.

        And the population knows, after so long inside that :

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD5tyat_L68

      1. Times change but the last time i looked they expected one to speak the language and be able to buy a property and place a bond…returnable to you after five years.

        A country that has been over run by these marauders back and forwards tends to know what they are doing.

    2. This very stupid woman is completely incapable of seeing any point of view other than her own. How can anyone consider her to be an objective journalist?

    4. I have not yet watched the interview, but Ms Maitlis has Jewish heritage.
      Hungary sided with Germany until the climate changed.
      From Wiki:
      Randolph Braham estimated that just over 564,000 Hungarian Jews died between 1941 and 1945. From over 800,000 Jews living within Hungary’s borders in 1941–1944, about 255,500 are thought to have survived.

  129. Booths supermarkets have the right idea, but maybe should have had notices in the windows prior to starting this. If this current pandemic doesn’t finally bring an end to the ridiculous situation of nurses, doctors and all other front-line medical staff travelling to and from work in uniforms then what will? How often do we see nurses wearing uniforms on the bus, in the supermarket and other such places? Yet staff have to obey the ‘bare below the elbow’ rule at work …. unless you are slammer, of course. Hospitals need to have laundries on-site to ensure uniforms are washed appropriately too. How many uniforms are just washed at home in with a family’s assorted laundry and at low temperatures? Possibly toucheded by pets too.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8179703/Booths-supermarket-turns-AWAY-NHS-staff-uniform-fear-spreading-coronavirus.html
    Haven’t the Chinese learned anything? What could possibly go wrong? …
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8179287/China-treat-coronavirus-patients-injections-BEAR-BILE-GOAT-HORN.html

    1. As a Booths card-holder, I’m with Booths. Nice place to shop. We make a 150 mile round trip to visit in the summer.

  131. Nearly 22,000 ahead of me in the queue to login to Morrisons… No booking a delivery, then. :-((

  132. Boo, hiss… sosraboc.

    I’m guessing AndyCochrane has been banned. A pity, because an alternative viewpoint might have been interesting.

  133. Anyone else hearing rumours that hospitals and GPs (apart from a long queue at the pharmacy, due to 2m distancing) are practically empty ,as non-urgent ops have been cancelled and we are warned (practically) not to visit the GP if we’re feeling unwell?

    1. According to a text I received from Imperial College Healthcare, the GP practice at Charing Cross Hospital and the NHS “walk in” centre at Parsons Green are closed, so those in need are directed to Hammersmith Hospital.

      1. Interesting. HH is redirecting many outpatients elsewhere. My OH now has to go to St Mary’s near Paddington and as she can’t use public transport as she is ‘vulnerable’ she is having to fight to get Patient Transport.

        1. Interesting. Here’s the actual text message.

          Dear Patient, due to Covid 19, both Surgeries will only operate from Hammersmith Hospital (Branch) from tomorrow. This means Fulham Centres for Health located in Charing Cross will be closed. Please check the website for further updates. H&F Centres for Health.
          sms.hammersmithandfulhamcentresforhealth@nh

    2. I attended the Eye Clinic at Frimley Park today. They had phoned, twice, to say that I didn’t need to attend for three months. I replied that the good eye had deteriorated somewhat in the last week or two, and by July, i’d be expecting them to issue me with a dog and a white stick. The scan proved me correct, Lucentis injection duly administered. The hospital was like a ghost town. Car parks deserted, a few folk milling around the corridors in a purposeful manner. Outpatients 4, Fracture Clinic and another that i can’t remember, closed. Only a handful of patients at the eye clinic. Much emphasis on hand sanitiser, and temperature being checked on arrival. Masks on patient-facing medics. But this was not an organisation looking remotely overstretched.

      Out within two hours. Sometimes it can take five. Back in two months…

    3. Over here, there’s a concern that people who should be going to the doctor aren’t, and doctor’s incomes have fallen noticeably due to lack of footfall.

    4. Our GP surgery is closed, so it would be a wasted journey.
      I left a repeat prescription request in the entrance lobby postbox and collected the prescription several days later.

      2. In Argyll and Bute, Anne, if I request a repeat prescription by GP internet account on – say – Sunday evening; it will be delivered c 9.00am Tuesday …

    5. Dr. daughter said the same yesterday when she phoned, in fact the consultant told the team to head off home early!

    6. If I were feeling unwell, the last place I would visit would be a GP surgery. They’re invariably full of sick people and there’s the danger of catching something nasty.

      GP surgeries should be avoided like the plague.

    1. I didn’t like L&L on TV, but I saw them live one evening at a pub in Enfield.

      They were one of the funniest acts I have ever seen.

      A two hour giig seemed to last two minutes. They were side-splittingly funny. My guess would be that the pub made a loss, very few people left their seats to go and buy drinks. RIP EL.

      1. You need another colour for the likes of me.

        Done isolation, went out once, not really interested in venturing out again.

          1. I salute your attention to detail and general nerdiness! Have you thought of becoming a software developer (or are you one already?)

          2. I started writing computer programs in 1963 on London University’s Atlas computer and after graduation in 1966 went on to use the Elliot 503 at the GPO Research Station at Dollis Hill, home of the wartime Colossus computer.

          3. Knew only a fellow programmer could be so logical 🙂
            What languages were you using?

          5. Respect!
            I looked up some Algol sample code at http://cs.ecs.baylor.edu/~maurer/SieveE/Algol60.htm .
            You clearly have to have your wits about you not to do anything bad – like C.
            How did you do debugging on those platforms?

            I started on BBC Basic at school, then learned C. I will always be a C programmer at heart! even though C# is much more comfortable.

          6. On the Atlas your program was submitted on punched tape and it took at least 24hrs to get the result back from the central machine.
            It really needed to be right first time.
            It was a bit qucker at the GPO because we had computers on hand at two sites.

          7. Oh God, I’m so lazy 🙁
            I used to rely on the compiler to tell me my mistakes.
            Now IntelliSense does.

            Did you get a reason why it had failed, or just the point of failure?
            C compilers are well known for their cryptic error messages, I can only imagine that their predecessors were worse.

          8. I don’t know if there were error messages – I got it right first time for fear of having to do it all over again.

          9. Programming was a very different game then!
            I noticed an increasing trend with young programmers these days – they won’t check anything into version control unless they have already run it through unit tests. They are too scared of “breaking the build”.
            I heard one of these young teams saying “But we can’t implement that, because the unit tests would take too long, and then checking in would be too slow”
            Nobody moves a finger without having a static analyser checking their code and a unit test suite.
            Funny really, you’d think all the software surrounded in such cotton wool armour would be bug-free these days, wouldn’t you!

          10. Knew only a fellow programmer could be so logical 🙂
            What languages were you using?

          12. As NHW coordinator I am subject to the Data Protection Act 2018 and have special priveleges granted to me by the Home Office for ensuring the safety of residents in my scheme.

  136. Paging Mr Jackson, paging Mr Jackson:

    “Six people arrested over double murder in ‘crowded’ south London flat”

  137. From previous comments I’ve often wondered if there is an unofficial competition to post the first comment on each new page. Let me be the first to declare that I’m not competitive in any way…and to say Good Morning all.

Comments are closed.