Wednesday 15 April: With sensible precautions, the time is soon coming for a return to work

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/04/14/letterswith-sensible-precautions-time-soon-coming-return-work/

930 thoughts on “Wednesday 15 April: With sensible precautions, the time is soon coming for a return to work”

    1. Is that what is known as the ‘Yellow Peril’?

      Morning Michael and my fellow inmates…..

      1. Jyllands-Posten published it on 27th January. The CCP were not happy (and still aren’t)

        Morning, Stephen

        2. Look on the bright side. Had someone taking the urine out of the Soviet Russian flag, Vlad would have sent a death squad…

          Oh, wait a minute – 16,000 dead = perhaps the CCP did….

  4. The rise and rise of Covid conspiracy theories. Spiked. Frank Furedi. 15 April 2020.

    Historically, conspiracy theories were mostly influential on the margins of society. However, since the turn of the 21st century, conspiratorial thinking has been going mainstream.

    To this day, a significant minority of people believe that the US or Israeli government was involved in the terrorist attack on New York and Washington, DC on 11 September 2001. A survey carried out in 2016 suggested that a majority of Americans – 54.3 per cent – agreed that their government was concealing what it knew about the 9/11 attacks.

    Morning everyone. I dislike the term “Conspiracy Theory” which is itself pejorative and dismissive; a way of disenfranchising an argument without actually dealing with it, an accusation without counter evidence. I would prefer “Speculation or Alternative Theory”. This said the example given by Mr Furedi in the above quote is an unhappy one because as almost everyone knows the majority of Americans were correct and 28 pages of the 9/11 report were indeed redacted by Congress. The others samples he gives are not inaccurate though I would disagree with his overall conclusion that Conspiracy Theories are a bad thing. They have always existed; they are an intrinsic part of human nature, of ceaseless curiosity and the quest for truth. What has happened is the means, the medium of transmission has grown. Namely the Internet, without it most of them would die tomorrow, not of being false or wrong, but because they could no longer spread. In the normal course of events they do no damage whatsoever, people read the and forget them. The example given above, although particularly heinous and moreover true, has not led to the overthrow of the American Government or the lynching of Members of Congress. That the people know the truth is usually sufficient for them. They can express their displeasure at elections.

    This of course is the heart of the problem, not just in Democracies but in all polities. To gain the support for a particular course of action, it is essential for authority to have as many of the people as possible on side and “Conspiracy Theories” not only dilute the message but many actively contradict it. To counter this erosion of their credibility Govenments and their agencies have themselves become assiduous spreaders of propaganda and lies and thus make “Conspiracy Theories” into “Conspiracy Facts”.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/15/the-rise-and-rise-of-covid-conspiracy-theories/

    1. If there weren’t Conspiracy Theories, some people wouldn’t know how to fill their day. {:^))

      Morning, Minty

      1. Morning Rik. This blog would provide a more accurate history of the second decade of the 21st century than any official archive! I do occasionally wonder if that was a factor in the deletion of the old Disqus records!

  5. SIR – Entering the fourth week of lockdown, we are getting a taste of what it would be like to live in a socialist utopia. The economy is in free-fall, people are getting poorer, our movements are restricted and neighbours are spying on and reporting each other to the authorities.

    The silver lining is that we have a Conservative Government which, I am confident, will navigate us through this crisis and back to prosperity.

    Bruce Boulden
    Little Maplestead, Essex

    Let’s hope so.

        2. Fortunately, the prospect of a Starmer government is more than four and a half years away.

    3. Conservative? Well if you say so. They’ve just passed another marriage wrecking bill, so what exactly are they trying to conserve?

      1. But, if asked, any decent boatbuilder worth his salt will add false rivets to a newly built boat to make it look as if it was ‘traditionally built’. Salt in this instance being around £1000 or more!

        1. That sounds a Lot…..Lot – salt – pillar -geddit?

          I’ll get me yachting cap.

          3. Whatever happened to him?

            He was an argumentative backbencher – pain the side of the Liebour party for yonks – then he just disappeared…

          4. Thank goodness he’s gone back to total obscurity. He did have his uses though…he guaranteed that Labour was completely unelectable.

  7. ‘Morning All

    Good God Almighty

    “Frontline police officers are seeking extra powers to enter private

    homes to break up parties and prevent the spread of coronavirus but are

    expected to be rejected by Priti Patel.”

    I’ve already seen one video where 4 uniformed goons kicked a man’s door in with no warrant after “reports” from a neighbour

    He was alone……………..

    “We have asked they consider giving us powers around private gatherings

    or gatherings in a private dwelling. We have no right to enter a

    property and say: stop having a party,” said a federation source. “Some

    officers are having to work round it using other legislation that wasn’t

    designed for it.”…

    Yeah Right,that power would never be misused would it??

    Most of the BTL comment is scathing of the police but there is the odd one that should give us all chills,

    “The police should gain powers to check the identity of those posting in

    public fora such as the DT. There’s a lot of damage being caused by

    individuals and team of people who origin is unknown.”

    Well Charles, wrongthink isn’t a crime……………………………..YET

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/14/police-seek-powers-break-parties-private-houses-help-combat/

    1. Delingpole Def: Similar to a reversal in the Earth’s magnetic poles, in geopolitical commentary a Delingpole is a complete 180 degree reverse of what passes for for MSM truth. High on the list for eradication.

      1. It might de-thaw if he then went inside for a coffee & it re-froze.
        Morning, Peddy.

        1. If he did that he would be a very silly boy. Like when somebody goes for a leak when they are waiting in a delivery slot online queue.

          ‘Morning, Paul.

        1. #Me too. I stayed up to watch the conclusion of Wolf Hall, then read a whole chapter of my German book in bed.

          That’s my excuse for not saying Good Morning the first time round. So, Good Moring, Belle.

  12. Has coronavirus opened the door to mass electronic surveillance in the UK? 15 April 2020.

    The idea of a “black box” in the car, logging every mile driven, was deemed too creepy, even though in hindsight it could have lowered carbon emissions years ago by discouraging drivers from making unnecessary trips. But Britons guard their privacy jealously, at least outside wartime. It’s surprising, then, how little debate there has been about the electronic surveillance culture this epidemic threatens to bring with it.

    There’s no debate because it is already here! The UK has more CC camera’s per person than Communist China with Facial Recognition being rolled out. Car number plates are routinely scanned not just for the record of movements they provide but for the harassment of individuals the state considers a threat. Mobile phone traffic is certainly monitored for key phrases and locations. Orwell’s sin was to underestimate Big Brother!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/15/mass-electronic-surveillance-uk-app-lockdown-download

      1. 318174+ up ticks,
        Morning Olt,
        As for leggin it your mobile phone has you wotched every step.

  13. The Government has given formal approval for the HS2 project to begin the construction phase.

    It has issued a notice to proceed to the companies that will build the high speed railway.

    Prime

    Minister Boris Johnson gave the green light for HS2 in February despite

    it running tens of billions of pounds over budget and several years

    behind schedule.

    https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/news/business/hs2-given-green-light-to-enter-construction-phase/
    Words almost fail me………………….
    But I suppose if you’re going to print 3or 4 hundred billion anyway another two hundred billion hardly matters………….
    Fuckwits,fuckwits everywhere

    1. Don’t worry, Rik – it’ll let the virus spread more quickly – well, at least 20 minutes more quickly.

          1. 318174+ up ticks,
            Morning S,
            Sunk in many respects via multiple
            collisions with the ballot booth, in many cases the same crew knew via deja vu.

    2. From the very beginning, one could tell by the quality of the planning documents and the detailed surveys of the planned route that this project was not going to be derailed by any opposition or rational arguments..

      1. Like Foreign Aid it means a lot of cash siphoned out of the pockets of the taxpayers into private hands!

        2. 318174+ up ticks,
          Morning AS,
          As has been for years, currently we are in the power showing era, as of yet nobody knows the true origin of the virus
          but the malady can be put to use.
          The continuing voting pattern, support,
          vote, pay,( in many instances failure)
          whinge.
          Support,vote, pay, whinge.

  14. ♫ In dark of night I walked the dog
    Through the mist – or was it fog?
    From the branches of a tall oak tree
    An old owl hooted mournfully
    When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a bright blue light
    That split the night
    And shattered the peace of lockdown.

    And in the lonely night I saw
    Two looming police cars – maybe more
    At that moment I felt quite dismayed
    Because the Government I had disobeyed
    And a voice cried, “STAY HOME – SAVE LIVES AND PROTECT OUR NHS
    YOU RISK ARREST
    FOR BREAKING THE LAWS OF LOCKDOWN!”

    And my dog began to bark
    As he rushed out of the park
    Like he had a rocket up his arse
    Never seen that wee dog move so fast
    So I chased after him – as quickly as I might
    Into the night
    And went back home ….. to lockdown ♫

    :¬(

    1. A few doors along we have some new youngish neighbours. They are blessed with a magnificent Oak tree in their garden – well over 100′ tall and well over a century old. I know for a fact that the Oak is home to a colony of stag beetles and a roost for at least one owl. To my utter dismay they have decided to make the Oak a ‘feature’ by illuminating it throughout the night with a floodlight that wouldn’t disgrace a Premier League football ground.

        2. We have a friend – a splendid old girl in her 80’s called Tazeena – who used to be a stage and costume designer for West End theatre productions. Indeed she is still commissioned to do theatre design work throughout Europe.

          Apart from the theatre her other great passion is sailing and she has a 35′ sailing boat which she sailed single-handed from Lymington down to the Eastern Med. She keeps her boat, called Bathsheba Everdene, in the same marina in Turkey as we keep Mianda.

          She objected to the piped music in the Ladies’ ablution blocks so she took a pair of wire cutters with her and peace then reigned quietly.

          (Or should I say piss then rained quietly?)

          1. Long ago, our department was relocated to a production site. The production site had a Tannoy system and announcements would ring out simultaneously from dozens of loudspeakers across the vast expanse of sheds and warehouses. The announcements as in, “Would Betty McFadden please report to bottling line number 5 supervisor” also rang out in our new office which was also fitted with a loudspeaker. That is, they rang out for the fifteen minutes it took to find pliers and disconnect the thing permanently.

      2. The light is likely to get very hot, a water pistol filled with icy water might do the trick, a catapult certainly would.

      3. With a colony of stag beetles it might be falling down soon anyway. The beetle larvae like rotting wood.

      4. Don’t worry, Stephen, at least they will get the electricity bill, not you.

    1. Good morning, Peddy. Are you missing your German lessons and the meals at Cote?

      1. ‘Morning, Elsie.
        Not really, no. My own German group have more or less gone to sleep but meanwhile I am reading our next German class reader & finding it rather heavy going, because I is written in pre-war German. I think most members of the group will be flattened by it. Still, they voted for it.
        But the conversation group are chatting daily via email, so that’s something.

        As for Côte, not at the moment, but last June was lobster month: I shall feel a bit miffed if I miss out on that tis year.

        1. Glad to see you are in good spirits, as am I. But you write “Most members of the group will be flattened by it”. That reminds me of the old WWII joke: “Tomorrow, prisoners, ve vill play Squash. I shall drive ze steamroller.” Not pre-war German, but pretty close.

    1. Never fear – there is no virus in Romania…

      There can’t be otherwise HMG would never have allowed these people to come here….

      1. ‘Course there’s no virus in Romania.

        They’re all over here, driving vans or picking fruit.

    3. It’s what I guessed at the start. There is a shortage of volunteers for jobs that involve actual hard work.
      Can’t grudge it to the Romanians though. Their country must also be suffering economically.

  18. SIR – The legacy of Covid-19 will largely depend on the success of ministers in preventing the banks from frustrating Government policy.

    The current culture of banks is morally bankrupt, and they must be urgently prevented from ruining lives and businesses quite unnecessarily.

    Stephen Lomax

    Presteigne, Radnorshire

  19. SIR – Last Friday, the Archbishops’ Council, on the advice of the police, has told all parish clergy, churchwardens and parochial church council members that tending a grave is not permitted, as it “cannot be regarded as an ‘essential activity’ ”.

    This meant s that in Holy Week and at Easter, I could buy a crate of booze from an off-licence (as shops selling alcohol are now deemed to be “essential”), but a young mother grieving the loss of her first-born child cannot lay flowers at the grave. How absurd, and how very, very cruel.

    Mike Hames

    Cradley, Herefordshire

    1. It is what the present shower Government call “joined up thinking”. There is no thought and nothing joined up.

      It is clear that politicians neither read what appears in newspapers (unless there is something favourable which their flunkeys point out, nor give a toss for the people they are supposed to represent.

      1. Morning, Bill. The ban on solitary prayer in churches, priests streaming videos from them, although otherwise empty, and now tending the grave of a loved one (and indeed the maintenance of churchyards whatsoever) has come not from Government but our Common-Purpose infested Church of England hierarchy.

        1. I was hoping our Vicaress would show a spark of rebellion on Easter Sunday and stream from the church, or at least the churchyard, but no, meekly and obediently to every diktat from Canterbury, it was streamed from her house.

          2. She has neither the literal nor the metaphorical balls for the job. But neither have the men.

        2. The CoE is going down the same route as the libinous and greedy Roman Catholic church of the C15 and C16.
          It is failing its congregations and exposing itself to ridicule.
          Still, I suppose 500 years is a pretty good run.

          1. It’s always amazed me when as a tourist visiting huge churches and cathedrals, how opulent the interiors are and yet how comparatively poor all the populations are.

          3. Some long years ago I visited Sacre Coeur in Paris on the morning of a match against France, and the attendant at the door asked me to pay. I said that I was there to pray, and would not be paying. The attendant withdrew.

          5. As a member of the congregation at prayer it’s free but tourists and visitors get charged.

          6. The cathedrals took decades to build, or longer. York Minster took over 200 years, for example. Payment was seldom extorted from the poor peasants, I suppose, because they had little money. The Church had lots of land and income ( as later noted by Henry VIII) and that went to pay for things, as did donations from rich people hoping to ease their passage into Heaven.
            It is easy to overlook, as do art historians, that people truly believed in God, in every breath of their bodies, in every flicker of their thoughts.
            The current custodians have contributed little in the way of effort, but are happy to charge people to enter.

          7. I often wonder when I see some of the marvellous workmanship if all the trades were actually paid for their efforts.
            Thomas Chipendale died aged around 60 with around 60 quid in his bank account.
            Just one of his customers owed him 10,000 pounds. He couldn’t sue because the lawyers were in the pockets of the so called hierarchy land owners. His customers.

          8. A house near us holds one of the largest collections of Chippendale furniture. It was owned by John Home Robertson MP. He came to some arrangement with HMRC and Paxton House is now run by a Trust. JH Robertson lives on the estate and is one of the Trustees.

          9. Before I was interrupted by a phone call, I was about to say my wife and I visited Berwick on tweed in January this year. We absolutely loved it and still have our parking disc ready for next time.
            We were staying at HPB Lucker Hall.

          10. We live fairly near to Brocket Hall,
            It has wonderful Chippendale book cases. Obviously he didn’t make all the furniture himself he was persuaded to move from Yorkshire and set up in London.
            I suspect quite a lot of the large houses he supplied furniture to didn’t pay for all of it.
            Most of the huge estates were never paid for. Gifts for favours.

        3. Apparently in China during lock down the police have been breaking down front doors of Christians looking at and joining in with streamed religious services.
          How would they know what people were watching in the privacy of their homes.
          5 g ? Perhaps.

        4. Meanwhile. apparently it’s ‘essential’ for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to carry on cleaning / maintaining ‘their’ memorials…

          2. Good morning, Boss.

            We are continuing to carry out ‘essential maintenance’
            and doing so within the suggestions for social distancing,
            but we are not so strictly regulated as the CoE.
            Our funding is provided by us with a sum passed
            to BMS and CBM [and other charities as we see fit.]
            The COE appears to have lost its ‘reason to Be!’

          1. Have failed to identify ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’ as one of the longest words in the English language in an Inter-House Quiz at Eton Welby felt so ashamed of himself that he determined to destroy the Church of England and make sure it was disestablished.

    2. I didn’t think we had a national police farce. Perhaps this proves that we do.
      Stepping well beyond the remit of the legislation I would imagine.

    3. Morning all 😕
      It’s not unusual for Brits to show their nasty and sadly vindictive side wirh relish during a crisis.
      Picking on the unfortunate is akin to fining a driver for having a flat tire in a parking bay.
      I have just had an email from our local police giving information on dobbing neighbours in for garden bonfires. Yet as we have all seen on the recent TV news flytipping seems to have gone berserk. We all know who the worst offenders are and so do Plod. But they are too busy nicking people for walking along a beach or sitting on park benches to do something helpful and positive. For a change.

      1. As I have said many times before.

        If you can’t catch the criminals then criminalise those you can catch.

      2. No point in reporting bonfires to Plod. They are far too busy with sunbathers (and those enjoying online images of them) to bother with acrid smoke.

        I had to contend with a smouldering bonfire the other day. I regard it as a public health nuisance. Green garden waste, which was left unattended and smouldering throughout the late evening. My cottage lies in a dip, so any smoke in the neighbourhood sits there and keeps me awake at night.

        I managed to rig up a 30 metre garden hose, trespass over the hedge into the field in between my garden and the offending bonfire, and had just enough length to direct a stream of water onto the bonfire. 15 minutes of this and it was out, and I could get some peace.

        Green garden waste should be composted, not burnt. Only when it has dried out enough to burn up should it be put on a bonfire. No bonfire should be left unattended and still smouldering by bedtime.

        1. There have been one or two of those in the gardens near me recently and in the nearby allotments.

          I love the smell. A gentle reminder that it’s spring.

        2. We have had similar problems in the past. But my lovely wife dealt with it.
          It hasn’t happened since !
          I once climbed over a shed roof to extinguish a neighbours stinking metal brazier fire.
          A well aimed bucket of water from above did the trick.

    4. The British hardly indulge in “Day of Dead” family picnics when they tend graves.

      1. Having said that, one of my friends who has not long lost her mother took a bottle of pop and some crisps up to the cemetery to sustain her while she changed the flowers on the grave.

  20. France’s Macron says he hopes to secure Putin backing for UN truce plea. APRIL 15, 2020

    Macron said President Xi Jinping of China, U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had all confirmed to him they would back the plea.

    The French leader said he was hopeful of securing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s agreement in the coming hours.

    “I spoke to him at the start of this initiative. I haven’t spoken to him since I got the firm confirmations of the other leaders. I will do in the next few hours,” Macron told Radio France Internationale in an interview.

    “I think that for sure President Putin will agree and the day he says he does, we’ll be able to hold this videoconference and relay this call in a solemn, forceful and efficient way.”

    Here’s Macron hypocritically posturing for publicity effect. A plea is non-binding, it commits no one to anything, is in fact utterly worthless. Vlad will probably join in since it costs him nothing while staying out would gain him negative publicity!

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-truce-macron/frances-macron-says-he-hopes-to-secure-putin-backing-for-un-truce-plea-idUSKCN21X0EE

    1. Yo Minty

      Since there is no mention of where or what the truce is about, I venture that it could be the MSM, Leftards and Clintoians in the war against Mr President Trump.

      On second thought isolation had addled my brain, I will do something easy, like understand the minds of Ladies

    2. Yo Minty

      Since there is no mention of where or what the truce is about, I venture that it could be the MSM, Leftards and Clintoians in the war against Mr President Trump.

      On second thought isolation had addled my brain, I will do something easy, like understand the minds of Ladies

      1. Having read the line “UN truce plea” I have to declare my own puzzlement. Has the UN declared war on the entire world and Macron wants them to stop fighting until the Corona virus is over?!?!?

        1. Yes. It is a proposal for a world wide truce, so that hospitals and health services in war torn countries can deal with coronavirus.
          It is wildly unrealistic and I’d guess that Putin will distance himself.
          It is just another ploy towards a Global Government.

          1. I’ve no illusions about Putin, but he can spot total b0ll0cks from a thousand versts.

    4. What truce?
      We all decide that China is a lovely country that doesn’t chow down on bats and live boiled dogs?

      1. And then he gets his car stuck in the sand the tide comes in and his 100 thousand dollar car is ruined. But well worth the effort…..

  22. I note the article is bravely not open for comments

    Never letting an epidemic go to waste the Remoaners are bleating for an extension

    “The EU would negotiate an extension to the Brexit transitions period because of the coronavirus pandemic, the European Commission said on Tuesday before a meeting of both sides’ chief negotiators on Wednesday.

    David Frost and Michel Barnier, the UK and EU top Brexit officials,

    will hold a video conference call to finalise arrangements for

    large-scale trade negotiations to take place over the internet next

    week.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/14/brexit-negotiators-meet-discuss-potential-transition-period/
    Yup,let’s continue to pay and extend our liabilities to an imploding Eurozone,what could possibly go wrong…………….

    1. Our financial liabilities deriving from the current CV-19 upheaval do not bear thinking about and yet the siren voices of the Remain rump are calling for the UK to remain tied to the crumbling and financially incontinent EU. The direct costs of the EU collapsing must be none our business; indirect costs will be severe enough.

    2. If there is to be an extension it should be on the condition that the UK pays nothing into the EU after the date we are currently due out and any change in EU regulation will NOT be effective in the UK.

      1. What would be the point of an extension in such case? We can still negotiate even after joining WTO, with agreement of the EU. If they don’t agree, then even more reason to get out completely a.s.a.p.

        Morning, BoB.

      2. No. A million times no. So “NO” . They are already plundering our fish stocks, while the UK turns a blind, useless eye.

          1. I did. Now corrected. My incompetent typing allows the predicated toasting to intervene. I am slightly worried that Pitman’s will want to take back my Typing Cetrificate.

    3. Not forgetting that we’d be unable to help out our manufacturing because of EU competition rules. Way to go – not!

  23. Good morning, all!

    Somehow I’ve got so many emails coming from different directions that it takes me more time than ever to “keep abreast” of things. So perhaps I’ll keep less abreast and be able to catch up on NoTTLers.

    First, I saw that Sue Macfarlane has joined the posters, having very kindly given us so many upticks in the past. Welcome, and thank you, Sue. Lovely to see you – I’ve been wanting to thank you for your upticks for a long time!

    Second, would somebody please remind me which NoTTLer it was who wrote to his MP Priti Patel with some fairly searching questions. Does anyone know if she answered? She seems to be hiding behind the sofa at the moment. Having had that before from another MP, hopefully there the similarity ends (apart from them both being female).

    Third (and this is a damn-fool question, so apologies in advance) why are we told that masks can only be used once? I understand that disposable means disposable, but if (as I understand) the Covid-19 virus lasts for up to 72 hours on a surface, what in theory is the problem in using a mask twice, so long as you use it, say 4 days apart? I actually use a home-made one with an additional layer of synthetic material behind it, which I wash when I wear it. I wear it once a week if I go shopping.

    Also, I read that masks protect other people from our potentially pestilential breath, but do not protect us from any airborne viruses. Is that because CO2 molecules are denser than O2 molecules, such that the one cannot travel out of a person’s mask, but the other can travel in? Not being of a scientific bent my little brain was wondering about the distinction.

    To end on a bright note – the sunshine has been lovely for those of us lucky enough to have balconies or gardens, hasn’t it? Best wishes for your health and happiness to you all.

    1. Hejsan min vän!

      I actually use a home-made one with an additional layer of synthetic material behind it, which I wash when I wear it. .

      Do you wash it with spit?

      1. Hejsan, OK, OK peddy-ant, I wash after I have taken it off, having just worn it! :o)

          1. Fine, actually. I can enjoy my natural indolence in the sunshine. My difficulties are mental ones, when i worry about the direction this country is taking, and who is really doing the directing.

            If Boris continues with Huawei and HS2, and generally kow-towing to the revolting Chinese, I for one will be furious. Not that we matter, of course – that’s more than obvious, and has been for ages. Just it’s not nice for our unimportance to be so glaringly rubbed in our faces.

            How about you?

          2. I’m fine thanks. Doing a lot of reading & watching history films on YouTube. I go shopping once a week & so far the trips have been good.

            Sorry about the late reply; the laptop started playing up earlier & I’ve only just regained control.

          3. Fine, actually. I can enjoy my natural indolence in the sunshine. My difficulties are mental ones, when i worry about the direction this country is taking, and who is really doing the directing.

            If Boris continues with Huawei and HS2, and generally kow-towing to the revolting Chinese, I for one will be furious. Not that we matter, of course – that’s more than obvious, and has been for ages. Just it’s not nice for our unimportance to be so glaringly rubbed in our faces.

            How about you?

    2. ‘Morning lass, apropos of masks, I’ve been informed that should I make a mask from a discarded bra, I should only use the left cup, otherwise I’d look a right tit.

    3. Having read the under noted responses (for once) I will only add that there are different masks offering different levels of protection. We have some masks bought for wearing while painting. These are the lowest level FFP1. Levels FFP2 and FFP3 offer more protection. My thoughts are that almost any mask may offer some protection by stopping the vapour droplets from being inhaled. I don’t know if any of these masks will stop “loose” viruses.
      The pictures I have seen of people in Level 4 laboratories show full breathing apparatus being used, as well as full body and head cover.
      The current instruction on the use of PPE say to “tie the hair back”, although there is no instruction to cover hair. This is a bit bizarre, as breath and droplets can presumably stick to the hair and then be transferred to mouth hours later by hand. I have seen no confirmation that the virus cannot penetrate the skin.
      I have no confidence that the PPE and accompanying instructions for use are adequate. The whole PPE aspect has been confused, inadequate, understated, bungled, and this continues.

      1. Morning, Horace.

        Your last sentence especially hits the nail on the head. Presumably after the week’s shopping we should have a hot bath, wash our hair and change our clothes…

    4. As I understand it, from the current multifarious sources, because Covid19 is borne in the aerosol of water droplets we all emit when we breathe out, the masks are to carry out the normal function of surgical masks, to protect others, and surfaces if we have the virus. However the ‘chief scientific officer’ may be looking at this again. But possibly for fashion and crowd endorsement reasons, and also because no one still knows just how many people are already carriers. I am not using a mask.

      1. Thank and good morning jsc. But how is the virus airborne in the air outside us and our masks. Water droplets in other people’s breath? In which case presumably the masks could be made so as to prevent droplets from either side passing through the masks?

        1. I suppose the issue is that as the water droplets, which are already very small, as we can all observe from the mist we breathe out in cold weather, dry out, the virus remains and is still for a time active. So the mask would have to be fine enough not to pass particles of approx 120nanometre size. According to wiki, a human hair averages about 75000nanometres. Viruses are small!

          3. I noted Dr Kildare sweated a lot, there was always a nurse mopping his brow to avoid the rivulets dripping into the patient.

      2. MOH offered to make a mask for our daughter who has joined the district nurses in the community as a nurse practitioner. Daughter says she has to use regulation PPE which they don’t have enough of and if they don’t and there’s a COVID death then her job’s on the line.

        1. I once downed tools & stopped work in Sweden over PPE.

          Whereas Hep B vaccination for health workers in this country is compulsory, in Sweden the dental health authorities refused to provide it on the grounds that “you know how to protect ourselves”, i.e. by wearing face masks & surgical gloves, which do not. of course, protect against accidental needle-stick.
          At the beginning of one particular week I noticed that I was starting on my penultimate box of gloves & requested my staff to order more, which was met with the usual sullen shrug of the shoulders – a typically Swedish reaction, especially towards foreign co-workers.

          Come Thursday mid-morning I lifted the last single glove out of the last box just as an old boy climbed into my chair for a check up. I turned to the nurse & asked if she had ordered any more gloves. Response was the usual shrug, whereupon I dropped the glove & announced that I was going to the social room, where I would stay until more gloves were provided. Round-eyed she said, “Can’t you work without gloves?” My turn to shrug. before I left for the social room.

          1/2 hour later the matron appeared with a single box of gloves which he had begged from the medical dept on the floor below.

          Of course word went back to my area boss (she & I hated each other) & she tried to admonish me. I defended my action & told her, “If the same situation occurs again I shall do exactly the same, Gunilla.”

    5. Believe the masks are made for surgeons, so their breath is likely to contaminate a patient rather than the other way around, and there is a coating on the fibres that collects the viruses (viri??). Likely, the coating cannot be on both sides, as it, being fine so a tiny virus will actually stick, and air will merely whoosh around the sides, thus defeating the purpose of the mask (that’s why they need to be close-fitting at the edge, btw).
      I don’t know what the coating is, but quite likely it is either some kind of adhesive, possibly water-borne, or works based on a static charge. If water-borne, hen moist breath and washing will destroy it fairly quickly.
      Ordinary knitted or woven cloth is a waste of time. Gaps in the threads too big.

      1. Former HS did more than enough damage when she became PM. Diddly squat would have been preferable in both positions.

        Go’morgen, Oberst.

  25. With reference to the BA refunds scam – this is the text of a letter I have addressed to the Editor of the DT:

    Sir

    With reference to Dr René Tayar ‘s letter (15 April 2020),
    although BA are quite happy to accept bookings and payments
    online, they demand that, when they cancel a flight, one telephones
    to obtain a refund.

    I have telephoned the number dozens of times. The call is answered,
    a serious of options have to be selected – then the caller is cut off.

    This is a scam by BA to avoid repaying customers whose flights are
    cancelled.

    Yours etc

    I have also sent a letter before action to BA’s legal department

    I’ll keep you posted.

    3. Excellent, Mr Bill 😀
      Can you post a copy of the “letter before action” text, in case others want to go that route? I’m about to threaten KLM who are playing the same game.

      1. Legal Department
        British Airways Plc.
        Waterside
        PO Box 365. Harmondsworth, UB7 0GB 15 April 2020

        Dear Sirs

        This is a letter before action.

        Last year I booked flights from Heathrow to Rome on 20 April 2020, returning on 25 April 2020. The booking reference is (insert). The cost was £(insert)

        British Airways notified me by e-mail that these flights had been cancelled. I was invited to apply for either a voucher for future use – which I could obtain online – or for a refund, in which case I had to telephone a number. I have called that number many times. The call is answered then immediately cut off.

        I am therefore informing you that if, within seven days of the date of this letter, I do not receive £(insert) from you, I shall immediately issue proceedings in the county court without further notice.

        Yours faithfully

        That’ll be three guineas to you, Paul!

    4. The quill is as sharp as ever. Don’t forget to invoice them for the time spent on the phone!

    5. Easyjet have offered us the chance to change our tickets to a later date. This would have been acceptable at the price we originally paid – but the rates they expect us to pay for the changed tickets are twice as high.

      2. Same with Ryannair. My tickets doubled in price too. Just by moving them from May to September.

        2. I don’t see how they can do that – you enter into contract in good faith, if they can only fulfil their part of the contract at a later date, then they cannot charge extra to pay for that inability. Coronavirus is neither an act of God nor a war-time act. There is no get-out clause for them.

          Of course the simple answer is to demand a refund plus damages for the loss of consequential enjoyment. If they quibble, Bill’s approach applies – Small Claims Court.

          1. I had already paid a substantial deposit for an apartment in Malta and the balance was due.

            Ryannair said they would still be flying on those dates,… pre-lockdown.

            I would also have had to recover £800 from a company in Malta and so i re-booked for September.

            Then with the Airline who would have known very many other people would be in the same position.

            The company in Malta may well let me postpone again. They certainly aren’t getting other customers at the moment.

      3. If you can do it from a new persona (EJ will probably have cookies on your PC) see what they would charge for the later date if it was a new booking.

          1. 45hp from a 2 litre Yanmar block, with twin alternators 50 Amp 12v for the starter battery and 240 Amp 12v for the domestic battery bank.

            From my journal.

            “A family of German tourists watched me moor at Crofton. They were visiting friends who lived locally. It gave me a chance to practice my smattering of German vocabulary something I was taught at school over 53 years ago but never really had the opportunity to put into practice. Der Vater asked in perfect English several questions about the boat, including the size of the engine. I replied that it was a two litre Yanmar block; essentially a tractor engine delivering 45 horse power, which was more generous than required for a boat this size. He then asked me how fast does she go? I replied fast enough for water skiing. The family fell about laughing – and there was I being serious for once! Auf Weidersehen.”

      2. Rowlocks. Well, the manipulator of the wooden stick that goes in them. Or are they carbon fibre now like the shells?

    2. I’m washing jeans. It’s up to 8.6 here, and sunny. They can go out on the line!

        1. I shall accompany her to a funeral next week, but I shall try to get into my old suit…

  28. Is this Chris Whitty any relation to Lord Whitty, who was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions with responsibility for roads and road safety issues? I had a lengthy correspondent with a hapless civil servant about covering the golden sphincter on one’s number plates with, say, a national flag, or county coat of arms. I eventually got a letter from His Lordship, saying that the police had told him that speed cameras would not work on number plates thus defaced. Laugh? I nearly cried.

  29. I’ve been banging on to the extent that even I am getting bored with it, about the infection modelling. Published daily in Norway are the modelling results, compared with the actual, for 3 scenarios. Bearing in mind that the model is limited to hospital (sykehus) and Intensive Care (intensivavdeling) entries, it avoids the issues related to lack of testing, but even so, seems to model reasonably well the inpatient and IC occupancy for the government’s strategy.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/206768777962301e06f60572c9691fb7b8ad8e0e6853c7aad858cedf5d55e45b.jpg
    This shows the 3 scenarios modelled – very restricted reproduction (lockdown) (R=0,9), restricetd (R= 1,3) and “behaviour as before” (R = 2,4)
    The graphs show that the actual is roughly following the model for “undertrykk” – lockdown. Actual measurements are in blue.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e75c45dfd265a8ebbf0d3fccbbca1e1733610a6afea1043a2592bfa114888a3a.jpg
    As a result of this, we expect to be released somewhat next week, with junior schools reopening.

      3. The calculated number of people at the 3 dofferent R values – green = 0,9 (lockdown), yellow =1.3 (restrictions) and red=2.4 – business as usual. Blue are the actual measured.

          1. Looking at the first two pictures.

            The red/orange dot is a bug carrier.

            In picture 1 each bug carrier is assumed to infect one other person for every three they come into contact with, it is referred to as R1. Hence from the first 40 people only 4 become infected (including the first one)

            The second assumes each infects two of the three people and thus 15 of the 40 become infected it is referred to as R2, clearly much more worrying.

            The current best guess for “reality” is that the bug has an infection rating of 2.4. This is very worrying because the rate of infections isn’t as simple as R 2.4 is 2.4 times as fast/bad as R1.

            in simple terms think of it not being 1,2,3, 4; but rather 1, 4, 16, 64. (this is a gross simplification but you see the problem)

            The second pair of pictures show how fast it would be expected to spread under three of the infection control scenarios. The greater the degree of lockdown the slower it spreads.

            The model R numbers shown on the second set of pictures are 0.9 which corresponds to lockdown.
            R1.3 which is partial restrictions

            R2.4 which is estimated to be what would have happened had life carried on as before, with no restrictins.

            The actual figures are those in blue.

            Hope that helps.

          6. Not necessarily.

            You could show me something to do with car engines, which to you would be obvious but would leave me utterly baffled. That wouldn’t be your fault, nor the fault of the engine designer, some of us have blind spots to inforation being presented in certain formats.
            Saying something could expand geometrically or exponentially would mean something to many but would equally leave others none the wiser and a few might argue they are the same,.

  30. DT Story Today

    UK’s highest earning council official received pay package of more than £600,000
    Ms Hewitt was one of 32 council employees who received remuneration over £250,000, making them more highly paid than the Prime Minister
    By     : Danielle Sheridan,

    Janice Hewitt, formerly of North Lanarkshire council, received a remuneration package of £615,550 when she left.

    It is no longer a question of whether it is immoral to evade or avoid paying tax – it is now a question of ‘how can an honest and moral person justify aiding and abetting such a a totally corrupt system by paying taxes?’

    ARE YOU HONEST?

    DO YOU WANT A CLEAR CONSCIENCE?

    Do NOT aid and abet the criminal state!

          1. The Germans have a saying…

            “Die Eine Hand wäscht die andere”.

            The one hand washes the other hand

      2. The remuneration committee, with its ‘independent’ members who are council officials in other areas…It’s not called a merry-go-round for nothing.

      3. The simple rule should be that nobody employed by the state should earn more than the prime minister and that those working in the private sector should have access to same pension schemes as state employees.

        Why should we subsidise these pieces of excrement?

  31. FFS…………….

    Meanwhile in Britain, this month MPs are getting an inflation busting

    increase of 3.1% – taking their salaries from £79,468 to £81,932 a

    year, an increase of £2,464. This is on top of a well publicised and

    controversial £10,000 boost to their free fancy laptop funds, first reported by Guido. This puts their income in the top 2% of all earners. More than three times the earnings of a frontline nurse…

    MPs’

    out-of-touch pay rise comes in the same month that Rishi Sunak admitted

    that never mind getting 80% of their salary, furloughed employees may

    not get any money at all this month, as the Government bureaucracy is

    not yet in place to deliver it after 2 months. All in this together…

    https://order-order.com/2020/04/15/mps-pocket-pay-rise-month-everyone-else-gets-cut/

    1. The likes of the Grosvenors, Percys and Cavendishes often do more good with the money they are allowed to keep than the Government do with what they rob from them.

  34. Hooray!!

    The “You couldn’t make it up files” is risen !!

    “Pandemic shines harsh light on Trump’s failure to protect pangolins

    Wildlife conservation efforts are essential to preventing outbreaks, scientists and advocates say”

    Although there is still much uncertainty about the nature of the

    disease’s emergence, the unwillingness of the Trump administration, and

    the Obama administration before it, to provide legal protections to

    pangolins, and other species, has intensified scrutiny of America’s

    faltering role in international wildlife conservation efforts.

    Scientists and advocates say these are essential to preventing the kind

    of pandemic currently sweeping the globe.

    Though no pangolins live in the US

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/15/coronavirus-pangolins-protections-us-trading
    There you have it,no pangolins live in the USA but “Orange Man Bad” anyway…………………………….

    1. The point is that the pangolin is the most trafficked mammal on earth and critically endangered. They are traded mainly in China and South-east asia for their scales and meat. Trump has failed to bring in or enforce protections for endangered species though it’s hardly his fault pangolins are so prized in China. It’s just another of their “blame Trump for everything” articles.

      And now they’re trying to steal my data by telling me to “register now nd continue reading free”. No thanks.

  35. For the pat couple of days I’ve had a recurring message appearing on DT
    Do you want to allow “https://www.telegraph.co.uk” to use up to 1.2 GB of storage on your Mac?
    Does anyone else get this and do you know why?

    1. Yes, had it on my ipad for the last few days. Not sure why, but it made me suspicious that someone was attempting to plant something in the software.

    2. I’m not a willing Apple user, but isn’t it something to do with their attempts to extract more cash from you by automatically backing stuff up to their cloud all the time?

      1. Despite Apple’s best efforts I refuse to switch on iCloud for the storage of data. It’s just another subscription service like cable TV….

        1. I think by default they do switch it on don’t they? There’s a reason why they make so much cash…

          1. Yes but as the reminders every time I update the OS software tell me, I haven’t got the full benefit of iCloud (because I’ve switched it off!)

  36. The Notice should be “Vacancies”:

    Official figures state 40.9 per cent of acute beds unoccupied — about four times the normal number.

    Follow major efforts to discharge patients, and sharp drop in admissions.
    Critical care in hotspots at more than normal total capacity, especially in Birmingham and the Black Country, and thousands on oxygen.
    Tens of thousands of NHS hospital beds remain unoccupied amid the coronavirus crisis — about four times the normal number — due to huge ongoing efforts to free up space, and a slowdown in admissions from other causes.

    Figures from the national NHS operational dashboard, seen by HSJ, show that 40.9 per cent of NHS general acute beds were unoccupied as of the weekend — 37,500 of the total 91,600 relevant beds recorded in the data. That is 4,500 more than the 33,000 the NHS said had been freed up on 27 March, and nearly four times the normal amount of free acute beds at this time of year.

    The need to switch beds to critical care use is underlined by figures also included in the dashboard. The number of patients in critical care within London, for example, already exceeds the pre-pandemic total.

    The dashboard figures are marked “unvalidated”, and some believe they are overstating the number of empty beds, but they are based on daily reports and are being used widely in the coronavirus response.

    The share of beds unoccupied in London, and Birmingham and the Black Country — where there have been the most serious covid-19 cases — are lower, at 28.9 per cent and 38.2 per cent respectively.

    The clearout follows a huge ramping up of discharges from hospital in recent weeks in preparation for the covid-19 surge, with funding rules and checks scrapped, new facilities opened, and staff told to focus on discharge, change their thresholds, and be more directive about patients leaving hospital. The number of patients who have spent 21 days or more in hospital — so called “super stranded patients” — has reduced by 40 per cent, one source said.

    There has also been a sharp dropoff in numbers admitted for non-coronavirus care, sparking fears among senior clinicians about the harm being done as people fail to get treatment, and widespread suspensions of planned operations.

    Critical care

    Despite hospitals remaining relatively empty overall, according to the dashboard data, certain services and settings, especially in some regions, are under high pressure, and maintaining service levels is becoming more difficult with high levels of coronavirus-related staff absence.

    The dashboard confirms hospital pressure is concentrated on critical care. Across England, 3,228 patients were in critical care beds — representing 78 per cent of the total of 4,122 critical care beds which were available in February. More have since been opened, but it is not known how many.

    In London 1,127 patients were in critical care according to the dashboard report at the weekend, a number which has grown rapidly in recent weeks. It is understood there are currently about 1,550 critical care beds available in London, up from 1,041 in February.

    In Birmingham and the Black Country the number of critical care beds in use is proportionately even greater than those available before covid-19 — at 223 full, versus 175 available beforehand — a surge of nearly 30 per cent.

    On top of this, thousands of covid-19 patients are receiving basic oxygen support but are not on full critical care ventilation. The dashboard data show this number to be more than 8,100 nationally, or about half of the coronavirus cases currently in hospital.

    An NHS England spokesman said: “While the data quoted here are not complete and validated, they confirm continuing success in ensuring we have available capacity to look after patients who need our care, which has been one of our overarching operational goals since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.”

    https://www.hsj.co.uk/acute-care/nhs-hospitals-have-four-times-more-empty-beds-than-normal/7027392.article

  37. I have just been out t walk along the road to the letterbox to post the letter to BA.

    As I am in the “vulnerable – you must stay at home category” – should I call the perlice to denounce myself? Or leave it to the van driver who gave me a cheery wave?

    1. Expect a visit shortly by a Taser carrying Officer who is only concerned for your welfare…

    1. The ministers haven’t got time to be interviewed. They are all busy setting up their taxpayer funded £10k “work from home” packages. Will they give the new equipment back when the lockdown is lifted?

  39. SIR – During this Covid-19 crisis, the British Airways website offers customers two options: to “Cancel flight” or “Rebook”. In very small print, it then asks those who want a refund to ring the airline.

    Please could British Airways simply make “Refund” the third option.

    Dr René Tayar

    South Tadworth, Surrey

    2. And not only that, but when on does telephone the number, it is answered then immediately cut off.

      It is a scam by BA to avoid returning cash.

          1. You might get a better result if you got a Pushy Nurse to issue the summons on your behalf, Bill.

            :-))

          2. You might get a better result if you got a Pushy Nurse to issue the summons on your behalf, Bill.

            :-))

      2. MOH recently found this article. Colour me surprised!

        Airlines WantTo Cancel Rule Requiring Them To Refund Fares For Canceled Flights

  40. SIR – In common with so many others, I signed up as an NHS responder and volunteer for the Red Cross and local council. As a recently retired teacher with time, a car and an up-to-date Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, I felt I could contribute.

    After vetting me, the Red Cross and council said they had enough volunteers, and I have so far not been required by the NHS, although I am on standby.

    I wonder if whether surplus volunteers could help the big supermarkets to deliver groceries to the vulnerable who are self-isolating, which could be done at a lower cost or even free.

    This would leave the supermarkets’ own delivery services more able to meet their regular customers’ orders and reduce the long lead times for booking a slot.

    Brian Martin

    Weybridge, Surrey

    1. Mr Martin should check the effect these deliveries would have on his car insurance.

      1. As I understand it, you have to notify your insurance company, but they won’t invalidate your insurance.

  41. Morning all

    SIR – The important fact is that the number of new cases of Covid-19 is declining. Fewer new cases mean fewer new deaths.

    The NHS, despite its appalling management and organisation, has not crumbled under the pressure, nor will it.

    Is it, therefore, not time for all those who can observe social distancing and other sensible precautions to go back to work as soon as humanly possible?

    Those in groups that are at risk, or who wish to, may continue to self‑-isolate and be properly supported in their homes by their local communities.

    This Government must realise that any further sacrifice will be wasted. .

    Simon Snape

    Elton, Cheshire

    SIR – Fear grips the land at the suggestion of getting people out of their homes and workers back into production.

    Most people seem to think that the Government is perfectly capable of paying their wages, like the patriarch Joseph in ancient Egypt.

    Advertisement

    Only if it is made quite clear to them that this cannot be sustained beyond a very few months, and that ineluctable poverty threatens, will they be encouraged to live with the risk of illness, and venture out.

    David Maples

    Petersfield, Hampshire

    SIR – In our village we all follow government distancing rules for shopping. Only food shops and the chemist are open, and everyone waits their turn to enter them.

    In order to restart the economy a little, surely other small shops could open following the same rules, bringing a little more normality to everyday life.

    Susan Osborne

    Great Bookham, Surrey

  42. Historic sex abuse charges????

    Not if you’re Moslem apparently…………….

    “The brother of a House of Lords

    member has been declared unfit to plead over historical child sex

    offences he faces alongside the former Labour peer.

    The charges

    against Lord Ahmed of Rotherham and two of his brothers, Mohamed Farouq

    and Mohammed Tariq, date back to the late 1960s and early 1970s.

    All three were due to face a trial in the summer.

    Mr Farouq would not be able to follow details from “truly ages and ages and ages ago”, Sheffield Crown Court heard.

    Judge

    Jeremy Richardson QC told the court he had reached the “unhesitating

    conclusion” that Mr Farouq, 68, of Worrygoose Lane, Rotherham, would not

    be able to instruct lawyers.”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-52282486
    Ah the “Saunders” defence

      1. If the Labour Party had taken the Rape Gang allegations seriously, he’d have either been acquitted or banged up as a rapist decades ago.

      2. Will he like Labours Keith Vaz also escape justice?

        Morning Belle. Yes of course. The UK and it’s public institutions are now as corrupt as ever they were in the dying days of the old empires. The law I’ve noticed is almost a travesty of its former self. There have been a couple of decisions lately where I think the Judge has almost certainly been bribed! To seek justice or redress from it is foolishness!

    2. Worrygoose Lane.
      If the lane was named for the reason I think it was, then the authority’s view that their victims were willing participants may be explained. But I doubt yer average Rotherham apparatchik would have a grasp of history.

    3. Just like many illegal occurrences in the UK if only the justice (part of the problem) department got on with things then and there, but no. Not if there is even the slightest connection to the so misnamed effing ‘hierarchy’.

  43. SIR – We’re finally hearing of the plight of care homes (report, April 14). Staff struggle to get personal protective equipment and have been waiting for coronavirus testing for weeks.

    Nothing could be more isolating for their residents than being judged so insignificant that they are not included in the daily death toll for the country. If this isn’t ageism, I don’t know what is.

    I have worked in both the healthcare and social care systems for more than 40 years. Why is one rightly so cherished and respected, and the other so overlooked? How has this blind-spot developed? Longevity has increased, but honouring and caring for our elders has diminished.

    We know that the virus doesn’t discriminate, but people do. This happens through fear and ignorance, in this instance fear of ageing and death.

    We have become dissociated from what should unite us. The essence of our humanity is to care for one another, with grace, until the end of our lives.

    Annie Stevenson

    Director, Integration in Care

    St Albans, Hertfordshire

  44. Morning again

    SIR – In this time of doom and gloom, I – like others – am looking for positives. These are my top 10:

    1 The silence is beautiful;

    2 Our atmosphere is cleaner;

    3 People are nicer to each other;

    4 We care about our fellow citizens;

    5 Loo rolls are back in the shops;

    6 There will be no Eurovision Song Contest, so no opportunity for other countries to “nul points” our entry;

    7 Zoom is enabling contact with friends and family;

    8 Neighbours are becoming friends;

    9 The end is in sight;

    10 Boris is on the mend.

    Andrew Munday

    Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex

      1. Elderly chum got herself entangled with Zoom telecom thanks to a cold call. I could barely understand the people when I called to sort it out, so I reckon it was a case of saying ‘yes’ to everything because she couldn’t hear them and wanted to end the call. I was extra peeved, as I’d spent months extracting her from another ‘contract’ and had just got her back onto BT.
        We had a helluva job to get her out of the muddle.
        Thank goodness for the virus; she’s now in a care home and can’t be moved.

        1. ‘Morning, Peddy, presumably ‘the end is in sight’ because the government and the police have all been caught with their pants down.

    1. The Award, when granted, should specifically exclude all

      Managers
      Diversity Advisers
      Procurement Bods
      infact every one in the (mis)management tree

      etc

      a copy of the award should be presented to every one those

      Actively employed in patient care

      These folk have been successful, despite the management

    2. Fluck the George Cross, pay them properly with extra hazard pay. You can’t spend a collective medal.

      1. They didn’t want to miss a chance to virtue signal

        MP’s get 3.1% Raise.

        I wonder what nursing staff, medics, ambulance drivers and the others at the coalface will get.

    3. What about all the patients who go into our wonderful NHS, just to die alone surrounded by people in masks?

    4. You guys are doomed. The hysteria has taken over, the CoE displaced by the NHS.
      Thank God we left 22 years ago.

  46. It is alright for some

    UK’s highest earning council official received pay package of more than £600,000

    Janice Hewitt, formerly the chief officer for health and social careintegration at the Labour run North Lanarkshire council, was the
    highest-remunerated local official in the UK, the latest figures between 2018 and 2019 from the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) has shown.

    Ms Hewitt received a total remuneration package of £615,550, which included a salary of £146,033, £350,116 added to her pension pot and
    compensation for loss of office of £119,401 when she left the role.

    When Ms Hewitt was awarded the severance package, having served four years in the role, the trade union Unison described it as a “golden
    parachute for poor performance”, at a time when the council had issued £16 million cuts to services and increased council tax by 3 per cent

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/14/uks-highest-earning-council-official-received-pay-package-600000/

    1. 318175+ up ticks,
      Olt,
      The ability to use the three monkeys skillfully pays
      handsomely regardless, take rotherham for instance……

    2. She is merely applying market forces using an example set by bonus professionals throughout the corporate sector, and supported by a rich network of well-supported and well-connected lobbyists, corporate lawyers and PR consultants expert in getting this all past the public.

      The Overton Window has been well opened since Thatcher and Reagan to this sort of thing. It may have been going on long before this, and may be part and parcel of human nature going back to Esau and Jacob, but it was Thatcher and Reagan that dismantled the conscientious alternative of public service and moral conscience.

      1. Morning all.

        Rather like the building societies years ago. The Annual Report always explained that, “in order to attract people of the highest calibration” … blah blah blah. The Remuneration Committees were revolving doors – people just went from one to another hiking up salaries as they went.

      2. “Leave everything to the market. Whatever the outcome, it will by definition be the best possible.”

  47. Midday Speccie email

    UK will not request an extension to the Brexit transition period
    by James Forsyth

    David Frost, the Prime Minister’s chief Brexit negotiator, has held discussions with the First Secretary of State Dominic Raab and other senior ministers in the past few days. As I say in tomorrow’s Spectator, the conclusion of these discussions has been that the UK will not request an extension to the transition period. Interestingly, I understand that no one in these discussions backed asking for an extension.

    The thinking is that a delay would not solve the fundamental policy problems and that a deal is either possible or not. Another factor, I understand, is that the government worries about the cost of any extension. There is concern that extending could drag the UK into the arguments about who pays for the various EU schemes designed to protect the European economy and preserve the eurozone. It is worth remembering,though, that it isn’t only the UK who can request an extension to the transition period. There is nothing to stop the EU proposing one, though the EU has acted as if requesting an extension is a decision for London alone.

    If the EU did ask for more time, it would put the government in a difficult position. Rejecting the request would sit ill with the idea that the UK wants to be a good neighbour to the EU. Frost and Michel Barnier will video conference today. But it now seems that the only way the transition period will be extended is if the EU requests it.

    .

    The pound, the euro and Covid-19

    ‘The stigma of being associated with the EU – and the eurozone in particular – will only increase as a result of the coronavirus crisis… We’ve long had our sights on a return to 0.80 over the coming year for euro-sterling (a sterling rise of nearly 10 per cent) but now we are starting to think that this might be a bit too conservative.’

    – Steven Barrow, head of Standard Bank’s foreign-exchange strategy explaining why the pound may benefit from the coronavirus crisis.

    1. “Rejecting the request would sit ill with the idea that the UK wants to be a good neighbour to the EU.”

      In the same way that the EU has been a good neighbour to the UK?

      No further comment necessary.

    2. The government does not have to agree to an extension. In fact it mustn’t. We will be dragged into the next round of spending for the EU.

      WE MUST NOT AGREE TO AN EXTENSION. the government MUST keep its promise to honour the 2016 referendum vote, and the GE vote of 2019.

    3. Let us hope Forsyth is right, though I think he was exposed as a remainer during the last set of machinations.

  48. Britain faces biggest economic shock in 300 years if coronavirus lockdown extends to summer.

    Budget watchdog warns of slump not seen since 1709 under three month lockdown.

    Are we talking a North Sea Bubble here?

    1. Yo Mr Grizzle

      If we had a ghost of a chance to pull through it all OK, it would be the Casparian Sea Bubble

    2. Indeed, but the last time numerous members of the Government lost fortunes, this current lot will be totally insulated from the effects of their own folly.

      EDIT
      Not quite sure why 1709 was chosen.

        1. Well, England had worked hard for a very long time to wreck the Scottish economy. The Scots were desperate, hence the Darien disaster that sealed our fate. Any reasonable assessment might well say that you’ve had your money’s worth over the last 300 years.

          1. 🙂 It’s a difficult one, but looking at the C18, bar a couple of nostalgic blips, i think we can say the majority of Scots were canny enough to grab the opportunities that the uniting of the two kingdoms offered them.

          2. Oh, yes. It worked as well as might be expected. A border collie in bed with an elephant.

        2. }:-))

          Close, and oddly enough that was my second thought after looking up the date of The SSB.

      1. You missed out the diaresis on the ‘o’ in Ragnarök, Minty, but don’t worry – it’s not the end of the world.
        ;¬)

    1. So you’re saying (© Kathy Oldshit) that no-one will talk to C4 because they habitually lie?

    2. Again, anecdotal evidence; but more and more people tell me they are switching off the telly once the journos start their questions at the end of the 5.0 pm briefing.

      1. We don’t listen/watch any news now except for the snippets on the DT online. Can’t trust any of them, least of all the Bungling Broadcast Council.

      3. 318175+ up ticks,
        Afternoon Anne,
        Switching off their what ?
        I repeat,
        Switching off their what ?

      4. My on switch doesn’t even get approached until the safety of Midsomer Murders these days.

          2. 1 sand box
            2 Man over- board
            3 I understand

            4 reading between the lines
            5 Long underwear

            6 Cross roads
            7 Down town
            8 Tricycle
            9 Lower level
            10 Hierachy

            11 Neon lights

            12 ?

            13 High chair
            14 ?

            15 Touch down
            16 five feet underground
            17 mind over matter
            18 He’s beside himself
            19 backward glance
            20 life after death
            21 Service overseas overseas serviceman

            22 ?

            23 Blousey

            24 Just between you and me.

          3. Very good and thank you. I think
            10 is three degrees below zero (BSc would have been more helpful)
            23 See-through blouse

            I don’t know the remaining 3 either!

          2. You’re back in U.K now…You will just have to settle for these…

            Davidstow Creamery, Camelford, Cornwall. …
            Wensleydale Creamery, Hawes, North Yorkshire. …
            Cheddar Gorge Cheese Company, Cheddar, Somerset. …
            Orkney Cheese Company, Kirkwall, Orkney. …
            Monkland Cheese Dairy, Herefordshire. …
            Caws Cenarth Cheese, Dyfed. …
            Isle of Arran Creamery, Isle of Arran, Scotland.

            There are many more if you look.

          3. Dorset Blue Vinny
            Cornish Yarg

            Why is Yarg so named? It is made on a farm owned by the Gray family and Yarg is their name backwards

          6. It would make me hold my breath as I scurried past the shop.

            I’ve never been a fan of socks in need of an overdue wash.

          8. Most of the flavour of anything is detected in the nasal cavity. The smell is a large component of the taste and I can’t for the life of me comprehend why I would want to put something that smelt of a pile of somebody else’s** dirty socks into my mouth just on the off chance that it might taste less disgusting than it smelled.

            ** They would need to be somebody else’s because I’ve not got sweaty feet and my socks aren’t worn long enough to get dirty in any case.

          9. Surströmming (canned fermented herring) stinks like a cesspit, but its flavour is quite mild. As long as you have a peg on your nose whilst you eat it!

          13. You don’t buy it for the smell, but for the taste, which is completely different.

          14. Flavour experienced is mostly smell and is experienced in the nasal cavity, where the receptors are. You lose your sense of smell, you lose your sense of flavour. Taste on the tongue is limited to sweet, salt, bitter, sour and savoury (umami) and as I’ve said, why on earth would I put something that smells like that into my mouth on the off chance that the taste would be less revolting?

          17. My mum and dad used to go to a cheese monger in Berwick Street just off Shaftesbury Avenue when I we’re a lad. Always had very tasty cheese.

          19. I am very choosy about cheese – as a child I did not like it, not any of it, but some cheeses I do like now if mild, not too strongly flavoured and with the right accompaniment. Mostly I will give cheese counters a miss.

      1. Just me. There’s not much bulk in a couple of fresh tomatoes, a few thin slices of cucumber, a spoonful of brown crab meat, three tiny portions of pickled herring, a few mini sardines, a thin slice of red cabbage, one celery stick, one egg and two slivers of cheese.

        1. I can remember having Norwegian Sild from a tin, as a child. Do you still have them?

          1. You’ll probably be told, Alf, that Norwegian Sild is food of the devil because it doesn’t come from Derbyshire, Yorkshire or any points, North with incomprehensible accents.

            But, what do I know – I’m just a posh boy from way down South, Norfolk way.

            Excuse me, while I go and sign up for Monty Python.

          2. I’m a genuine cockney but was never allowed to speak badly, thankfully. Youngest of 5 inner London children, 7 of us in a 3 bedroom flat, that would be disadvantaged these days. When we were kids I think everyone would now be classed as disadvantaged but we were all the same and never felt disadvantaged and had a great childhood. From just outside the City, London EC1.

          3. We were all disadvantaged because we had none of the consumer crap that people take for granted these days.

          5. The weird thing, Grumps, is that I ate them all the time in England but I can’t get them in Sweden. It’s not a surprise, though, since “sild” is the Norwegian for herring (“sill” in Swedish) and they are quite commonplace in jars in dozens of different flavoured pickling liquids.

        2. Just kidding you, Georgie porgy. 🙂

          Any fresh crab in my house gets wolfed down straight away. Normally in a locked room.

      1. Thanks, Maggie. Cholesterol is not the enemy it’s made out to be, since the body needs it to continue living. The enemy is sugar and carbohydrates, which the body stores as glucose.

        I’m still losing between one and two pounds per week, which is a good steady rate.

        1. Glucose storage as glycogen
          When glucose is in excess, the body stores it away in the form of glycogen in a process stimulated by insulin. Glycogen is a large highly branched structure, made from lots of glucose molecules linked together. … Therefore, excess glucose is removed from the blood stream and stored.

          https://www.google.co.uk/search?sxsrf=ALeKk01aZkOoi7RS6T0EBkzXiY_Pf75s9g%3A1586942537312&source=hp&ei=SdKWXpe9ENrTgweawK-gDA&q=how+is+glucose+stored+in+the+body&oq=+body+stores+as+glucose.&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQARgDMggIABAWEAoQHjIGCAAQFhAeMgUIABDNAjIFCAAQzQJKCggXEgYxMi0xNjZKCAgYEgQxMi0xULnL1wVYucvXBWCclNgFaANwAHgAgAF1iAF1kgEDMC4xmAEAoAECoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpeg&sclient=psy-ab

        3. We ate minimal sugar once diagnosed diabetic. Advice from diabetes doctor Gro was sound and simple: minimum carbs & no added sugar. Fat is ok, it helps food taste of something.
          Weight just melted away.
          Bad part is that I don’t fit my Harris tweed jackets any more; they hang on me like an 8 year old wearing his Dad’s jackets.
          :-((

          1. A common misconception is that eating fat makes you fat and is unhealthy. That used to be the accepted advice but modern research has proved it wrong. When you eat fat, your body takes the nutrients then disposes of it. Stored fat comes from the overproduction of insulin that the body makes to deal with sugars and the sugars produced by carbs. All excess is converted to lipid fat and is stored in the internal organs and around the belly. The concept that eating fat makes you thin can be hard to accept but it is a fact.

            I’ve got a way to go before my clothing starts to hang; thankfully I have some older clothes that I can shrink into.

  51. Gosh – WHAT a relief… I feel so much better now, having read this letter in The Grimes.

    MPs’ OFFICE COSTS
    Sir, In response to the coronavirus pandemic the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority introduced measures to help MPs’ offices to continue to work, including an additional budget for their office costs. We have not given MPs themselves any extra cash, and certainly not £10,000 each for home working expenses as your headline (Apr 9) suggests. All their office costs will have to be accounted for as usual.

    Most MPs’ staff moved at very short notice from being based in Westminster or in a constituency office to working from home. Many staff were not set up for home working or for supporting constituents remotely. This additional budget is to help them to make that transition, if they need it, while they deal with a huge increase in workload from distressed constituents as a direct result of the coronavirus crisis.
    Richard Lloyd
    Interim chairman, IPSA

    1. Thank you for your email about the extra £10,000 being offered to MPs whilst they and their staff work at home, like millions of others are having to do.

      The Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, has issued a statement which you might like to read:

      Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Speaker of the House of Commons, said: “It is wrong to characterise this extra £10,000 allocated by IPSA as MPs giving themselves additional funds. On the contrary, this money is being used to enable MPs’ staff to set up home working to support distressed constituents at a time of crisis. Many MPs have seen their casework soar as a direct result of coronavirus.

      “Enabling staff to work remotely is the best and the safest way for them – and the constituents they are in contact with – to communicate and work together during these difficult times. The additional budget is there to draw down on if it is needed and required – and it will have to be accounted for in the usual way.”

      However, I do not intend to use this additional funding.

      I hope this is helpful.

      Kind regards,

        1. I think it’s Belle’s MP who said that they did not intend to use this additional funding, not Sir Lindsay “Fence” Hoyle

    2. Amazing how the peasants taxpayers have all the necessary equipment in their homes or know how to install it at short notice.

    3. Good morning Bill

      I used your letter last week to email my MP .. Guess what, I had a very satisfactory reply from him yesterday . Dare I post it on here, I will have to think carefully.

    4. “All their office costs will have to be accounted for as usual” – and I’m sure that all expenditure will be closely scrutinised; now excuse me, I’m off to buy a bridge!

    6. So MPs did not get any extra money.
      They just got additional budget.
      I hope that is clear to everybody, and you should all be ashamed of yourselves for doubting that our MPs are the finest, noblest folks who would not touch an extra penny of taxpayers’ money during a national crisis!

    7. Good Morning, Bill

      See my post above. MPs are being treated like Muslims – while some Muslims seem to be allowed to get away with literal rape MPs are getting away with the metaphorical rape of the British people with their foul avarice.

    8. I’ve no problem with MPs being reimbursed for necessary expenses incurred in carrying out their job.
      HOWEVER, every penny that is claimed MUST be supported by a receipt, exactly as my expenditure was when I worked on Network Rail, and details of such expenses MUST be available to the Electorate because, after all, we are their employers.

      1. And each receipt had to have a VAT invoice attached
        [most of our Contracts were nil rated therefore the VAT
        was returned to the Company via the VAT returns.]

        No proof…. no payment!

        The system worked.

        Good morning, BoB.

        1. That’s how it’s always been for me.
          And Firstborn’s farm & lumber company. No itemised VAT receipt, no VAT refund.

    9. And Richard thought this scheme up mostly on his own after receiving a mere 650 begging letters.

    10. A considerable number of MPs use their wives or other members of their family as paid office assistants at their home. I am fairly sure they will already have set up the necessary equipment in their homes, and charged the cost to their expenses, to communicate with their constituents. The whole thing is a scandal, I wonder if the Cabinet minister who travelled to his parents home then to his “family ” home will charge the mileage to his expenses. Another investigation of MPs expenses is overdue as the interim chairman of IPSA appears to have lost the plot.

  53. As my friends know, I am usually rational and reasonable in my views – but like many I can now see quite clearly that the MPs have now gone too far.

    Why, oh why, haven’t the MSM being running an unrelenting campaign against the MPs taking a £10,000 bonus when those of us running our own businesses are facing a loss of income of 80 % or more and bankruptcy.

    Spit in your MPs’ faces
    Pour your slops and faeces over their heads
    They are filth
    They are scum
    They deserve nothing but contempt

    BUT NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE TO PUNISH THEM.

    Come on MSM – stick up for the people whom the politicians have betrayed with their sheer venal greed.

    Remember Kipling’s poem : “When the English began to Hate.”

    It was not part of their blood,
    It came to them very late
    With long arrears to make good,
    When the English began to hate.

    They were not easily moved,
    They were icy-willing to wait
    Till every count should be proved,
    Ere the English began to hate.

    Their voices were even and low,
    Their eyes were level and straight.
    There was neither sign nor show,
    When the English began to hate.

    It was not preached to the crowd,
    It was not taught by the State.
    No man spoke it aloud,
    When the English began to hate.

    It was not suddenly bred,
    It will not swiftly abate,
    Through the chill years ahead,
    When Time shall count from the date
    That the English began to hate.

    1. Why, oh why, haven’t the MSM being running a unrelenting campaign against the MPs taking a £10,000 bonus when those of us running our own businesses are facing a loss of income of 80 % of more and bankruptcy.

      Because they are in bed together Richard. Morning.

    2. 318175+ up ticks,
      Morning R,
      I sometimes weary of pointing out the lab/lib/con are a coalition, close shop, but not most of the time.
      Voting in the nostril gripping, best of the worst manner
      seems to pacify much of the herd,after hearing the
      rhetoric of a polished vow,promised & pledged manifesto
      the fodder of fools.

      1. Morning Ogga. In case you haven’t noticed most of us are totally weary of the pointing out of the “Lab/lib/con are a coalition, close shop etc…etc.

        2. 318175+ up ticks,
          S,
          Good news then if that is carried through to the polling booth in the future,lest we forget. Because I am totally p!ssed off with the support/vote/ whinge mode of electing the same failures,not once but time & again& again, guaranteed.
          I am wont to say as an animal lover that I would totally agree to the three monkeys found in the polling booth to being topped,
          given the chair, or lethal injection on account of being serial decency / democracy killers.

      2. We take your point – but is there any guarantee that UKIP MPs would be any less venal?

        1. 318175+ up ticks,
          R,
          From the 17th feb 2018 the opportunity was there for a year then on seeing the success Gerard Battens leadership tenure was having
          was to much for the party Nec, treachery was triggered.
          As for your question the real UKIP was used & abused by many and the likes of Gerard Batten castigated, the real UKIP designed & triggered the referendum also won the eu elections surely that showed their worth in the past.
          The only proven guarantees we have in politics current is lab/lib/con coalition failures
          past,present,future.

          1. ‘Morning, Ogga, OK, old news but today’s UKIP isn’t worth a light until you all manage to get rid of your NEC and restructure the party, probably with a name change.

          2. 318175+ up ticks,
            Afternoon NtN,
            UKIP was the party to suffer treachery from within for being a success and proving it’s worth once more under Gerard Batten / Richard Braine, why was a successful run
            neutralised, WHY ?
            As for being “worth a light” what is your take on the lab/lib/con parties since say the political knife went into Thatcher?
            When will the electorate have sufficient of the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration /
            paedophilia mass rape& abuse, mass knifing’s
            acid tossing, treachery and restructure THEM
            parties ?

          3. Good afternoon, Nanners.

            You are correct…..But please bear in mind that
            only 31 of more than 100 branches who voted for
            an EGM have had their requests accepted; the
            others have been denied [because the NEC is
            making up Rules ad hoc] and many of the Chairmen
            of these branches have been suspended by the
            Party. The interim Leader…Ben Walker [him of
            Rogue Traders] has expelled our Branch Chairman,
            no valid explanation has been given for this.
            The interim Chairman sees fit to tell us she has a
            garden sing-song on Thursdays…..Ha, bloody, Ha.

            The branches are continually being asked to donate
            funds to help the NEC pay their legal costs and
            reminded that when a branch becomes in-active
            then said funds must be sent to HO.

            We are keeping our branch open, if only to spite
            the totally incompetent ruling elite within UKIP.

            I have previously held back from criticism of UKIP
            management but they are as bad, if not worse than
            the other parties. As much as Ogga is right his
            continual bleating about the L/L/C pact should also
            be directed at UKIP.
            areas bad if

    3. I must say, I have been surprised and disappointed how strongly they have defended their extra ten grand as the country teeters on the brink of a depression. I would have thought at least one of the 650 would have stood up and said they weren’t taking it on principle.

      1. I read somewhere that the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, when asked said he wouldn’t be using his allowance. There may be other(s).

  54. Good Moaning. (Well, we all need a hobby.)
    A snippet from a TCW item about how stroppy old white males are the root of the world’s problems:
    …….. “The general opinion is that the Government doesn’t know its SARS from its ebola” …….

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/guess-whos-to-blame-for-covid-19-the-old-white-male-of-course/?utm_source=TCW+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=d3f3f3af98-Mailchimp+Daily+Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a63cca1cc5-d3f3f3af98-559682581

  57. Good morrow, Gentlefolk – Morpheus was reluctant to release me today.

    After a miserable weekend of high-stakes poker in Vegas, a successful businessman lost the shirt off his back. He was left with nothing but a quarter and the second half of his return ticket. All he had to do was somehow get himself to the airport. So he went out to the front of the casino where there was a cab waiting. He got in and explained his situation to the cabby. He promised to send the driver money from home, he offered him his credit card numbers, his driver’s license number, his address, etc, but to no avail.

    The cabby just kept saying, “If you don’t have fifteen dollars, get the hell out of my cab!”

    So the businessman was forced to hitchhike to the airport and was barely in time to catch his flight.

    One year later the businessman, having worked long and hard to regain his financial success, returned to Vegas. This time, he won big.

    Feeling pretty good about himself, he went out to the front of the casino to get a cab back to the airport. Well, who should he see out there at the end of a long line of cabs but his old buddy, the cabby who refused to give him a ride when he was down on his luck! The businessman thought for a moment about how he could make the guy pay for his lack of charity, and he hit on a plan.

    The businessman got in the first cab in the line. “How much for a ride to the airport,” he asked?
    “Fifteen bucks,” came the reply.
    “And how much for you to give me a blowjob on the way?”
    “What?! Get the hell out of my cab!”

    The businessman got into the back of each cab in the long line and asked the same questions, always with the same results. When he got to his old friend at the back of the line, he got in and asked “How much for a ride to the airport?”

    The cabby replied “fifteen bucks.”
    The businessman said, “Okay,” and off they went. As they drove slowly past the long line of cabs, .the businessman gave a big smile and a thumbs-up to each and every driver.

  58. The old man placed an order for one hamburger , French fries and a drink.

    He unwrapped the plain hamburger and carefully cut it in half , placing one half in front of his wife.

    He then carefully counted out the French fries , dividing them into two piles and neatly placed one pile in front of his wife.

    He took a sip of the drink , his wife took a sip and then set the cup down between them. As he began to eat his few bites of hamburger , the people around them were looking over and whispering.

    Obviously they were thinking , ‘That poor old couple – all they can afford is one meal for the two of them.’

    As the man began to eat his fries a young man came to the table and politely offered to buy another meal for the old couple. The old man said , they were just fine – they were used to sharing everything..

    People closer to the table noticed the little old lady hadn’t eaten a bite. She sat there watching her husband eat and occasionally taking turns sipping the drink.

    Again , the young man came over and begged them to let him buy another meal for them. This time the old woman said ‘No , thank you , we are used to sharing everything.’

    Finally , as the old man finished and was wiping his face neatly with the napkin , the young man again came over to the little old lady who had yet to eat a single bite of food and asked ‘What is it you are waiting for?’

    She answered

    ‘THE TEETH’. ”

      1. Ward story; no less true for being a common experience.
        I bet Belle experienced the enthusiastic rookie nurse who had a fit of efficiency and collected all the false teeth to give them a thorough clean.
        The aftermath makes a 1,000 piece jigsaw of a sunny blue sky an absolute doddle.

          1. When M-i-l went into a nursing home, she had good clothes and a set of teeth. We never saw them again.

          2. I remember the chaos when denture naming kits arrived on the ward.
            Much as one hated to curb enthusiasm, we did have to explain that a slow, well regulated naming of falsies was the better approach.

        2. 318175+ up ticks,
          Morning Anne,
          Maidstone eye hospital years ago, an old boy in the next bed had a problem that kept him in bed for a few days and his mrs asked me to take his teeth to the bathroom for a scrub, no problem.
          An old indian came in saw me in the
          scrubbing position and asked me where he could obtain a second set.

  59. Well, I can learn something new every day.
    Apparently a Moslem doesn’t reach heaven unless the funeral has at least 100 mourners.
    New guidelines needed – but only for one section of society.

    1. Yes, I just saw that on the BBC lunchtime news. I’m not sure if the lady who said it is completely au fait with her religion’s beliefs.

        1. Time to resuscitate an oldie, J:

          The Pearly Gates

          A Muslim dies and by some error in his handling, ends up in heaven.

          He’s stopped at the Pearly Gates by St Peter who says:

          “Sorry, but we don’t allow Muslims into Heaven”.

          “What?” replies the Muslim, “and why not”?

          “Well, we just don’t! And that’s it… we’re short on Virgins”.

          The Muslim complains and carries on until St Peter gets fed up.

          “Well” says St Peter, “have you ever done anything good in your life”?

          “Ummm” the Muslim replies, “yes, the other day a lady stopped me on the street collecting for a children’s charity so I gave her ten pounds. Last week I donated ten pounds to the Cancer Society and a couple of weeks ago a tramp asked me if I could spare any money…so I gave him ten pounds too”!

          “Alrighty then”, says St Peter, “wait here and I’ll have a quick word with God”.

          Five minutes later St Peter returns and says to the Muslim. “Listen, I’ve spoken with God and he agrees with me.

          Here’s your 30 quid back… now bugger off!”

        2. They must be a bad bunch then. They are the only ones who need that volume of endorsement from others.

  60. The 22 countries that have never been invaded by Britain, mapped. 15 April 2020. Indy.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/03b210941a4debb02e58434d1f7e2e6ca8eabdab671aabef9fc4ed7246d89c2c.jpg

    Astonishingly, there are only 22 countries which have never been invaded by Britain. According to Stuart Laycock’s book ‘All the Countries We’ve Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To’, there’s just a handful of nations Britain has never invaded (according to known records). There aren’t many gaps on the map, but some of the more notable include Sweden, Belarus and Vatican City.

    Ahh. Those peace loving Brits. Lol!

    https://www.indy100.com/article/uk-country-invasion-map-empire-9462766

    2. China catching up quickly but they won’t be as beneficial to the countries nor the world.

    5. I have The Howard Vincent map of the British Empire 1924 on my study wall.This shows all we controlled not like the above as most on there we did not control. Big Difference.

  61. We are so lucky to have enough space both inside and outside our home to not feel cabined,cribbed and confined by lock-down in France but it is such a shame that we cannot share it with our students this Easter holidays and are having to run our courses on the Internet.

    We are booked up for the summer – but if we cannot run these courses properly our resentment of the self-serving politicians will be even more vehement.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4aff7689c77ce65c890ea10115e1738b6917180776ede00928fa1d40de14259a.jpg

      1. We have done a lot to it over the last 30 years When we arrived the smaller house on the left was a ruin, the garage (in between the two houses) did not exist and the part of the main house to the right of the central chimney and to the right of the downpipe was not there. Also the grounds were about one sixth of the size they are now.

        We got a professional builder to renovate the ruin so that we could start to run our courses and bought more land around the house but, with the help of an English brickie we built the rest ourselves.

        1. You and Caroline have done a marvellous job.
          There was a TV programme a few years ago that showed a couple who bought a derelict mansion that had been empty for 60 years and brought it back to life. The locals were delighted and said the French would never do that and were grateful to the new English owners. There is still a programme on C4, I think, called Escape to the Chateau: DIY. I haven’t seen it but presumably very similar.
          I would imagine the locals have been delighted with your presence. Are you aware of many French people doing what you did in renovating an old property?

          1. It’s good

            Dick Strawbridge, ex Army (lt Colonel) ex Scrapheap Challenge and Lots lmore does it

            His wife, Angel, is hard work, but we enjoy the programmes

          3. She’ll push hard,
            I’ll push hard,
            We’ll both push hard together,
            We’ll be alright in the middle of the night,
            Pushing hard together!

        1. We would be very happy to see our Nottler friends when the lock down is over. So far Bill Thomas is the only Nottler who has been to stay!

          2. You have an open invitation to come again.

            We were sorry not too see more of you when Christo was at Gresham’s and Henry was at UEA. I believe that your MR was at UEA in the 70’s – I was there from ’66 – ’69

          6. I could do with remembering my French. Maybe I’ll book a place on a course, Rastus. Would you accept a 60-year old?

  62. Morrisons to give all NHS workers discount on their shopping starting this week

    Good on Them

    Supermarket Morrisons has announced it will be offering discount to all NHS heroes starting this week.

    The retailer confirmed from Thursday, April 16, those working for the NHS will be able to get 10% off their shopping.

    Morrisons has launched the discount as a way of saying thank you to those working on the frontline during the coronavirus crisis.

    The discount will be available for 12 weeks until July 12 when it will be reviewed. To get the discount, NHS workers need to present ID at its

    tills.

    https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/shopping/morrisons-give-nhs-workers-discount-18089731

    2. I don’t shop at M because I don’t like it but this idea is praiseworthy.

    3. ALL NHS ‘workers’?
      There are thousands who need no recognition or financial help whatsoever.

    4. Social care workers have the right to shop during NHS only hours at supermarkets. They are often dealing with covid-19. I’m ill now, and it’s probably CV. They have nowhere near the wages of NHS staff, and are even more lacking PPE. Many NHS workers won’t be anywhere near a covid-19 patient let alone providing close personal care without PPE yet they’ll get a discount my wife and I won’t get.

        1. Thanks.

          Just feels like a really nasty head cold atm, but we’ve had a few deaths and 2 positive tests from the care home so I suspect that’s what not just I but all 3 of us have got. Wife and daughter are feeling better, I’m gradually feeling worse but my symptoms started a week after theirs.

  63. Wonderful ww2 veteran Captain Tom set out to raise 500 for charity to give to the NHS. He’s 99 he wanted to carry out 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday.
    He has just passed 5 million pounds.

    2. Praiseworthy, but I’m not sure the vast gaping maw of the NHS is really the right destination. Is it clear to just where in the NHS he intends the cash to be donated ?

      1. The money being raised is going not directly to the NHS but to the charity ‘NHS Charities Together’, and according to the BBC website says that “Money raised by him and others for the charity is being spent on well-being packs for NHS staff, rest and recuperation rooms, electronic devices to enable hospital patients to keep in contact with loved ones, and working with community groups to support patients once they have been discharged from hospitals”.

        1. Once he donates it to the NHS will they, under their scoring system deny him treatment for Corona because of his age?

          1. Indubitably. But possibly he doesn’t mind. Though I think that if I were his age, I’d be working on making it to 100!

  64. The following article from Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust is ambivalent about what patients should do if they are on ACE inhibitors or angiotensin-receptor blockers in rhe face of COVID-19 exposure. It is even suggested that these drugs could be beneficial for fighting COVID-19.

    A feature of ACE inhibitors is that post withdrawal of the drug following an allergic reaction this does not prevent reoccurrence of the symptoms of the allergic reaction months or even years afterwards. The ability of the body to remember invasion by similar undesirable agents does suggest a possible use for ACEIs as immunisation agent for COVID-19.

    However, in the face of absence of drug trials to establish such a use for an existing medication there is no option other to recommend continuance of the prescribed medication.

    https://www.guysandstthomas.nhs.uk/our-services/cardiovascular/specialties/cardiology/heart-failure/coronavirus-update-heart-failure-service.aspx

  65. Russia recruiting youth from southern Syria to fight in Libya. April 14, 2020 at 9:28 am

    Russia has started recruiting dozens of young people in Syria to fight in Libya alongside the forces of retired Brigadier General Khalifa Haftar against the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), local sources said yesterday.

    According to the sources, who asked not to be named because they fear for their safety in Syria, Russia has lured young people with wages and the promise to settle the situation of those wanted on security grounds in Syria.

    Hmmm. There’s no proof supplied here and even the disclaimer is suspect because who could trace back such a nebulous report? Aside from that no offer of wages or appeal to patriotism has motivated the hundreds of thousands of young men who have fled Syria rather than fight for any side. One also assumes that they can read and will be aware that those who have already accepted this offer, albeit for the other side, are not being paid. In other words – more bumf!

    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200414-sources-russia-recruiting-youth-from-southern-syria-to-fight-in-libya/

  70. Some very good friends of mine run a fabulous 5* B&B a stone’s throw from the North Norfolk coast. We were due to visit next weekend but in all probability the visit will have to be postponed. They’ve had no problems getting basic supplies as they have tended to use local commercial suppliers for their business. I’m told that a local Crab fisherman is able to supply home deliveries of crabs & lobsters.

    Despite miles of empty coastline the nearby coast car park is locked off and the Parish Council has displayed notices asking second home owners to stay away

    Their daughter is a recently qualified nurse and until about one week ago she did not have adequate PPE when working with patients with symptoms.

      1. He asked if the report in the Mail is true or not… and she kept on swerving away to say how hard her dept was working… so she deliberately evaded a perfectly reasonable question.

          1. Well she is the minister.

            If she doesn’t know, how about saying……

            ”I don’t know” ?

      2. If that’s Whately, I heard her on Ferrari’s LBC programme this morning. More waffle than Belgium, promised to get to the care home figures and when the time came claimed she didn’t have specific figures. Totally useless and frustrating. If she’s one of the best they’ve got then we really are in trouble.

  73. 318175+ up ticks,
    The last two decades my view of the electorate has deteriorated year on year & this has now been borne out by the political hierarchy who
    seemingly have the same view.
    Not up to the mark on veg / fruit picking only to be used on polling day to guarantee our life styles.
    We are flying in tomorrow a multitude of foreign specialist pickers, no worries, come the next election these actions will be long forgotten by the
    indigenous.

  74. Something to ponder?

    Remember the Boris Referendum Bus?

    Remember the billions that could have been saved and given to the NHS if we had got out of the EU immediately after the referendum?

    The Referendum was four years ago and we are still not fully out.

    ERGO :

    IT IS THE REMAINERS WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE LACK OF FUNDING FOR THE NHS AND REPONSIBLE FOR MANY DEATHS.

      1. She’s been dead from the neck up for many years, J.

        I would certainly have liked to have seen her removed from her Maidenhead seat last December but some people are too blinkered to see evil when it presents itself.

    2. No.

      It is politicians and therefore voters that are responsible. Politicians decide the level of funding, particularly the Chancellor, and they were given their jobs by us as a whole.

    3. I voted Leave in 2016, but I never believed that silly claim about diverting money spent on the EU to the NHS; it is not why I voted Leave. I actually believe that there is a cost to leaving the EU properly. We have to build up those institutions that will have to do the work we handed over to Brussels for over forty years, and we cannot rely on the Germans to do everything for us any longer. We actually have to learn to make things again, and since our factories are now shopping centres and brownfield housing estates and our industrial capacity flogged off cheap to the Chinese and the Americans, we have to rebuild these in order to pay our way in the world. This will not be cheap. If we are lucky, we will break even, but I fear that for about five years we will be out of pocket before we start to reap the substantial rewards of leaving the EU.

      The NHS was stuffed by incompetent and exhorbitant senior management, and has been for decades. Worst of all was the decision, forced by the 1992 General Election, to transfer the cost of Government from Income Tax to stealth taxes. One of these were PFI deals, which may have been spun to the public as “prudence” but the 15% annual return for the hedge fund speculators and the blank cheque approach to hospital maintenance has sucked the goodness out of the Health Service. Short of changing the law to welsh on these deals, I do not see any easy way to get the money to the doctors and nurses.

          1. For some only 9 years to go.

            never forget it was Blair & Brown who promoted PFI heavily to keep public capital expenditure off the Government’s books.

          2. Didn’t that backfire when Brussels insisted PFE contracts be classed as Government Spending?

  75. Signing off, chums, the screen needs cleaning. Too many, WTF’s, guffaws and other screen-flecking explosions, doncha know.

    A bientot.

      1. If Clinton had got it instead, I can’t help thinking that she’d have been in bed with the UN, WHO and CCP and we’d have soon had Blair and Brown’s world government of national unity controlled by the globalists.

        1. Make it worse still. Imagine Clinton in the White house and Corbyn in Downing Street. The best you can say is that Abbotts briefings on the projected number of cases would have been interesting.

          Just because Clinton is really bad, doesn’t make Trump good. It is a lot like May magically being good because Corbyn is beyond belief.

      2. Especially Monday in his latest spat when he said:

        “When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total and that’s the way it’s got to be. … It’s total. The governors know that.”

        Completely contrary to the US constitution, but never mind that minor inconsistency.

        First thing Trump needs to do is to cut the self congratulatory B.S. from the daily covid19 updates that are being given at the White House. People are looking for information, not his rant about he good but Democrat governors all losers.

        1. Thats who he is as alll could see before he was elected. i think its just spot on for the left wing media.

  77. What a lovely day, went out did a few jobs and this afternoon supped beers in the sunshine, if this is the black death then I’m a monkey’s uncle

    2. It was indeed a lovely day; for ages the sky was cloudless, then later in the afternoon, there were wisps of high cloud (mares’ tails) and a mackerel sky. Lovely to contemplate.

  78. Good Afternoon from a Saxon Queen .
    Left the house to go shopping this morning at 7am, accompanied with antiseptic wipes, plastic
    gloves and mask. The roads were ghostly silent, long queue at the shop, huge gaps, masked
    shop workers wishing you good health as you leave ( and you back to then ).
    Unpleasant and chilled the bones even more on a cold April morning. Everywhere deathly
    silent, like waiting for something sinister to happen. It’s all just too much, horrible .

    1. Sinister things have already happened. Many people have died, the country is heading for bankruptcy, and we’ve all lost our freedom.

        1. I nearly drank the bottle of Argentinian Corona beer that my little bruv gave me for my birthday this afternoon. But it clouded over so I didn’t. I shall drink the little coronas down when it gets properly sunny again.

    1. Yo T_B

      The pilot now escorts ‘the visitors’ from their hiding place in the wheel-well, into First Class

    2. What I find surprising is how many cargo flights there are. There is a constant stream of FedEx and ups flights crossing the ocean.

      1. In the past hour we’ve had DHL, UPS, Bluebird Nordic, FedEx & West Atlantic UK all heading into East Midlands.

  80. Damn. Forgot to put the blind down in my sunny sitting room yesterday. I have the remains of a very misshapen Easter egg now…

    2. “I looked and looked and just couldn’t see any Covid cases in Africa. It is all white supremacist propaganda.”

      D Lammy, Shadow Minister of (wait for it) Justice.

      1. So tell me genius, just how are you going to prevent the wealthier ones travelling?

        We can’t even stop the middle income ones now.

  82. Here’s a good comment from the letters BTL:
    Andrew Griffiths
    15 Apr 2020 1:06PM
    For those of us with serious, and growing concerns about media coverage in the midst of the pandemic, including in the Telegraph, this concern appears to be widely shared in both the UK, but also abroad. See Guido’s report on polls conducted in the UK, US, Germany and Sweden:

    https://order-order.com/2020/04/14/media-confidence-meltdown/

    Broadly speaking, confidence in most sectors, perhaps barring financial services to a small degree (and government in the US, though its different system may reflect local as much, and perhaps more than national concerns), has grown during the crisis, with one major exception: the MEDIA.

    Significant drops in confidence across every of the four nations, between 9% in Germany (who are, it seems, far more supporting of the government and less confrontational for the sake of getting clicks), 14% in the US (less than I thought, maybe because less people are now watching/reading the ‘Orange Man Bad’ networks/newspapers) and a whopping 21% in the UK and Sweden.

    If the MSM, including the Telegraph doesn’t get it’s act together, and soon, all trust in the media will disappear. They are doing themselves and their industry (which is vital to hold governments, politicians, organisations and business to account and to expose wrong-doing generally) no favours with their senastionalist, fake news, half truths, opinion-dressed-up-as-fact, egotsistical, poorly-researched grandstanding and hit pieces, not to get to the truth, but to score political points, for click/rage bait and thus extra ad and subscription revenues, and damn the consequences of their actions.

    No wonder many of the Russian state trolls have scaled back plying their trade recently – the MSM are doing their job for them, scaremongering, pitting everyone against each other, trying to gain political scalps of government ministers, who despite their flaws, are doing the best they can under exceptional circumstances, and floating idiotic ideas that contradict one another from so-called experts (who are often doing so to stroke their egos and ‘get’ rivals who were chose to be the government’s ‘resident expert) or just make up stuff when they have no expertise themselves.

    THOROUGHLY IRRESPONSIBLE.

  83. 318175+ up ticks,
    In-house message (parliament) we have had it rough lately
    lads / lasses / things what with the arse falling out of the eu scam, plus making heavy weather of the weather scam, so we usual like to keep a scam in hand but due to circumstances beyond our control ( herd management) a small segment of the electorate beginning to smell the odour of reality, we have decided to bring forward the HS2 scam sorry project.
    The ongoing limited damage to brussels campaign train rolls on unabated.

    Contract workers don’t catch coranavirus because they have hairy bums
    we have that on “expert” advice.

    2. NTN 1/1 – Cut child benefit, only payable to child 1 and 2 and only after child 2 has been registered. Nothing for further children.

        1. But with benefits for the first two kids, but multiple wives ( benefits for 2 for each wife) plus housing benefit for the multiple families, the total for one “family” must be huge.

          1. Again identify that for the benefit of benefits, polygamy is not allowed. The benefits system is based upon UK law and any exceptions made for sub-cultures are simply that – exceptions with no force in law.

          3. Sorry, they ain’t. They have a live-in (occasional) lodger, who only come home after killing some-one so it doesn’t count.

            I think I should apply for a job with DSS ( or whatever set of initials they go be today) 2,704 possibilities today (26 x 26 x 4)

    3. Have they forgotten that CB only applies to the first two children? Oh, and what’s with the subliminal advertising? It’s as bad as TV adverts…

      1. From the Government web-site:-
        Only one person can get Child Benefit for a child.

        It’s paid every 4 weeks and there’s no limit to how many children you can claim for.

          2. I read that because I’d thought they’d stopped it several years ago for multiple children. It seems it was quietly reinstated.

          3. In the 2020/21 tax year, you can claim:
            £21.05 per week for your first child
            £13.95 a week for any further children.

      2. The only ad without either Asian of AfroCab people in I can think of is the security guard sat in an office with his little white terrier. The brainwashing diversity enforcement rolls on.

  85. Headline from ZH:

    Ford Scrambles To Raise Money As Dwindling Cash Balance Becomes A Focus

    Blimey it must be bad if that’s all they can afford….

    3. Are they using their Focus in Scrambles? Not much money will be raised without spectators.

  86. “Today I’m instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus,” Trump said at a press conference.

    “The reality is the WHO failed to obtain, vet and share information in a timely fashion.”

    “The WHO failed in its basic duty and must be held accountable.”

    Didn’t I read yesterday that the British government has just handed over an extra £200 million?

    1. Typical Trump. The main reason for the mismanagement of the virus in the US was the White House’s determination that it was “fake news”, followed by “we have it totally under control”. It wasn’t until people starting dying left and right that they finally realized that had to do something – and that was well after a lot of the state governors had already taken action.

    4. Typical Trump. The main reason for the mismanagement of the virus in the US was the White House’s determination that it was “fake news”, followed by “we have it totally under control”. It wasn’t until people starting dying left and right that they finally realized that had to do something – and that was well after a lot of the state governors had already taken action.

  87. One unexpected – and welcome – side effect of this bollux is that we have not had ANY nuisance phone calls.

    2. We haven’t had any since we got one of BT’s super duper call guardian phones. Trouble is it screens out lots of genuine callers too.

    1. Did the Krauts have to pay back the dosh that the Yanks made available; or was it only little old UK?

  89. My walk this morning took me down a road leading to a nearby beach and along the dunes.

    The beach car park, like the other car parks along the coast has been closed by the council to limit movement. It appears to be working. On a normal morning, especially in weather like this, the small car park would be almost full, 20-30 cars, mostly vehicles brought by people from far and wide to empty their dogs. A consequence of this is that the evidence of their visit is usually all too obvious. Today there were no cars when I went down, but two cars were parked on the roadside when I returned.

    As I walked down the road a police car, which I’d seen earlier parked in the village passed me heading in the direction of the car park. A little later it returned and the driver gave me a polite wave as she approached. Appreciated. I returned the wave.

    A benefit of the lockdown was clear to see. That coastal path is usually a minefield of dog turds, with black plastic bags of dog fruit hanging on fences or bushes. One day I even saw a bag of dog crap that some subhuman had left on a picnic table a few yards from the path.

    Today I saw only a few dog walkers and about equal or greater numbers of that usually rarer species, people who go for walks without dogs. The dog walkers have had to find alternative dog-emptying locations nearer home.

    On the path I only noticed one dog turd and no dog fruit bags hanging from the fences or bushes. The place was clean.

    If only it could remain that way once the lock-down is lifted.

    1. From my Journal:

      Another quaint custom appears to be followed by some dog walkers who have worked out what the “Clean it up signs” mean when walking their dogs. This is evident from the neat rows of little black plastic bags of pooch pooh, carefully tied up and left strewn along the towpath. The good Burghers of Coventry have decided that they should bid to become Britain’s City of Culture in 2021. Judging by the contents of their section of the canal it appears to have more culture than most microbiology labs. I was genuinely surprised that I didn’t encounter any two-headed ducks.

      1. Didn’t someone make some ‘works of art’ that were tins of pooh? I expect Coventry could just claim it was all a work of art.

  90. 31817+ up ticks,
    The “nige” predicts wearing masks & social distancing will be the norm,
    which will I presume morph into the female or weaker of a recognised partnership walking 6′ behind and the burka becoming mandatory.
    The corridors of power political manipulators rate highly the
    Appeasing,PCism & submission tools.
    What may one ask, is “nige’s” islamic ideology take ?

      1. Incredible, unbelievable .

        So the NHS prints money , and the £7million pounds raised for the NHS by that wonderful elderly 100 year old gentleman will be swallowed up .

        A 99-year-old army veteran has raised more than seven million pounds to help doctors and nurses on the frontline in the fight against Covid-19.

        Captain Tom Moore, who turns 100 at the end of April, used to be based at Bovington.

        1. I bet they do; what do you think they do all day in their offices?
          New desks, new PCs, new decorations…

    2. Two from Glawstershire: I wonder why the Director of Children’s Services gets more than the Chief Executive.

      Director: Children’s Services
      140,013

      Chief Executive
      134,971

    3. The totals are eye-watering!

      Count – Council

      Region
      £150,000 or more
      Total Result

      East Midlands
      38
      149

      East of England
      64
      265

      London
      175
      579

      North East
      32
      115

      North West
      64
      271

      Northern Ireland
      1
      26

      Scotland
      48
      210

      South East
      91
      406

      South West
      46
      224

      Wales
      24
      139

      West Midlands
      54
      168

      Yorkshire and the Humber
      30
      115

      Total Result
      667
      2667

    1. Oh dear, we are just about to experiment on my silver locks.

      Well to be more precise, I sit there and her majesty will wield the sheep shears.

      1. Whatever you do, don’t stand up until she’s finished.

        Prince Harry did and Meagain chopped off his balls.

          1. Yes.
            Once he matured, he was a good role model.
            Then the catalyst of a calamity cucked him up.

    3. Funny that; the MR has just cut mine… I look young and trendy (she say (sic)…..!

          3. No I have not seen a picture, but have seen Jack when he’s working outside…..

          6. You obviously cannot read. It was another NoTTLer who was washing jeans. I asked if Jean minded.

            Do try – yes, TRY – to keep up. I know it is difficult what with having to remember to carry your attestation

          7. Ummm…
            The fact that you admit to wearing jeans in your late 60’s suggests there is something odd about you.

          9. Er? I haven’t worn jeans in ten years.

            err…
            late 60’s, 20 years ago

            Are you nearly 90?

          10. Never mind all that, sos. I was hoping some clever nottlers (like you or Bill) would be able to answer the quiz I posted earlier.

  94. Top comments BTL@DTletters

    A Long

    15 Apr 2020 12:38AM
    “…The NHS, despite its appalling management and organisation, has not crumbled under the pressure, nor will it…”

    Letter by: Simon Snape, Elton, Cheshire

    The sole reason the NHS has not crumbled is largely down to the lowly, humble, dedicated and professional likes of my wife and her fellow nurses and doctors. Who, despite the incompetence of the six figure salaried senior NHS management faced the challenges of covid-19 and did their best.

    When this is over, I expect a public enquiry and those hapless, over paid, numpties in the civil service summarily sacked and barred from being re-employed in public service for good.

    Anything less is an insult to those who died and those who have suffered immeasurable economic hardship

    As any fule kno

    15 Apr 2020 6:43AM
    I posted a couple of days ago about a knowledge gap on these pages. I said that medical staff tended to be left wing and therefore did not read the DT.

    This is a pity because it means we never hear from or about the apparently overpaid managers in hospitals as to what they do and why they are there in the first place, from people who actually know.

    It was reported by two doctors in the Speccie last week that all the trusts in England had declared a state of emergency. This had some very important effects, one of which was to remove decision making from managers and place it back in the hands of a small number of clinicians.

    The doctors said that the effect had been revolutionary with informed decisions made at speed by a limited number of people, the like of which they had never encountered before.

    If it has been so effective I would like any post virus review to really think about why hospitals need civil servants making decisions slowly, ineffectively and at great public expense, instead of allowing medical staff to do so.

    1. It would seem that immigrants come to the UK purely to make things better for the indigenous population. In reality, of course, they come to improve their own lives – and there is nothing wrong with that. Just don’t try to dress it up as altruism.

      1. Why are illegal immigrants still allowed in?

        The population of this country is under house arrest but these boatloads still arrive from a safe country.

      2. If only they did come to improve their own lives. Most of a certain kind seem to come here to recreate the hell-hole they just left.

        1. I don’t have a problem with controlled immigration. Only admit people the UK needs, rather than all and sundry. If this were to be applied, there would be less criticism of genuine (and I stress the ‘genuine’) refugees.

    2. Pure, racist, claptrap (pun intended) aimed at the white British population, who know that in the long run, we will be better off WITHOUT you.

      1. More like pouring oil on the fire.

        Not really complementary about Trump stirring up the Chinese dragon.

        1. The leftie media are just ignoring him. He must be doing fine or it would be reported.

          1. Napoleon “Let China sleep, for when she awakes she will shake the world”.
            ol’ Bony knew a thing or two…

        3. Well they reckon St George was born in Turkey and he is Turkey’s national saint too.

  98. One of the things the WHO and the UN have been keen on is that the Covid-19 should never be referred to as the Wuhan or the Chinese virus, because it might stigmatise the Chinese. Covering up connections does not have a good track record.

    They’ll snuff your life to end their stigma.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/theyll-snuff-your-life-to-end-their-stigma/

    If the CCP had really wanted to, I have little doubt that they could have closed “wet markets” years ago. They’ve known about animal => human viral jumps for years now.

  99. Ahem Prof Ferguson……….

    It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions
    than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price
    for being wrong.

    – Thomas Sowell

    1. He just made a guess – well off the mark as it turned out – so it was up to the politicians to make the decisions – after consulting with other experts.

    2. Hancock blathering.
      The vast majority of the issues he is commenting upon come down to poor management in the NHS.

      The front line people are doing a fantastic job, the NHS procurement management much less so.
      Ditto the people who decided it was a good idea to discharge patients into care homes without being sure they didn’t have the virus.
      When this is over I suggest that we discover what the average pay of the nurses who have worked is.

      Then we examine the performance of the managers and fire every single manager who earns more than that. If they are paid more than the nurses they are certainly senior enough to be held accountable..

      The Government is being bamed for NHS management failures.

      1. BAMED? Gosh…I know half the so-called Cabinet are not British, but still….{:¬))

      2. The problem is they’ll keep saying how great they are and how important they must be.

        Far too many managers spend their time meeting targets set by their managers and so on up the chain until you get to the entire department for health itself.

        Dept health, NHS England, NICE, unions.. the list of quangos and non-jobs and endless layers of management reaches to the sky. Yes, without question nurses and docs are great. The ‘what the public think the NHS is for’ bit is doing the best it can. The ‘what the NHS thinks its for’ bit is useless, expensive and a completely pointless abomination.

        It truly is St Edmund’s hospital. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-5zEb1oS9A

    1. What you can’t see is the copper in camouflage waiting to pounce if you stop walking.

      1. Could the picture be the latest “I am not a robot” test –
        Click every square where plod is waiting .

  102. OED – Lockdown – Where people of a great nation sit indoors while globalists seize all their material wealth and leave them in abject poverty with the help of their once trusted elected government . See covid virus-19 – 2020

  103. 318175+ up ticks,
    The softening up prior to supposedly announcing wearing face masks becoming compulsory is in play, lots of that rhetoric much more than anything positive as in “we have high hopes for,” “test’s are showing positive results” doom & gloom ( moral weakening material) seems to be the order of the day.
    Keep in mind, keep your known friends close & those you think are your friends a bloody sight closer.

    1. 318175+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has predicted that all Britons will have to wear masks as the price to be paid for the easing of coronavirus lockdown measures.
      Outrageous supposition is it, best ask “nige”.

      1. Compulsory face masks are looking increasingly likely, as Austria has gone that way, and Bavaria said a few weeks ago that it would follow what Austria did, as they have so much cross border traffic. Austrians are wearing home made ones, with two layers of cotton, and a layer of old T shirt material in between. My daughter has already run up a load of them on myher sewing machine for herself and various colleagues.

        Face masks offer a face-saving exit from economic meltdown for the government. They’re better than watching the economy go down the pan.

        EDIT: Masks are now strongly recommended in Germany, they have stopped just short of making them compulsory as in Austria.

        1. 318198+ up ticks,
          Morning BB2,
          Compulsory strikes me as coming from a controlled regime in light of the fact that we are suffering unchecked access to these Isles via our beaches and airports, lorries etc,etc.
          Fair play to your daughter her efforts are appreciated by many.
          By the by this item was via breitbart / farage I
          am very wary of both.

          1. Indeed. Tax-paying residents must be tightly controlled, travellers or migrants do as they please…all supported by a supposedly Conservative government.

          2. 318198+ up ticks,
            BB2,
            Welcome, you have just been tagged and confirmed as being of a sane & decent nature.

  104. Just had a lovely e-mail from the delightful lady who took over my garden in Laure.

    She said that the co-potagistes had been helpful and generous (as I knew they would be) and had told her that she MUST grow trombetti – and that I had been a very serious gardener and thus a hard act to follow!

    It is rather nice to receive compliments from chaps one has known for 20 years via a third party to whom a typically friendly line is being spun! And who would never in a month of Sundays said it to my face.

    And on that note, I’ll leave you until another day. Have a refined evening being confined with fine wine.

          1. This could go either way.
            1 .They’ll eat the jungle and die.
            2. They’ll cross the channel.

          2. Border Force vessel found drifting, crew dead with purple welts and splotches across the eyes.

          6. Thank you, Sos, that’s reminded me of one of my father’s favourite epithets, “The man’s a BF.” meaning a Bloody Fool and I say to Border Force, “If the cap fits…”

      3. Yes. It was 200 yards away – and I borrowed it from the wife of a local chap.

      1. He was definitely on drugs. I quite like the interior of his Sagrada when the sun is shining.

    3. His apartments are more restrained but his style shows and the result is wonderful.

  108. Evening, everyone. I have had a productive day (for some time I have been overcome with a sense I have been marking time; just finding things to occupy my time until release) for a change. After I got back from ambling the animal (only saw one other person, a fellow dog walker, during the half hour or so) I spent time in the garden, weeding, pruning, cutting out dead wood, cutting the back lawn and generally tidying up. I cut out the green sports in my variegated euonymus so that was very productive; otherwise they would have taken over. I even made inroads into the pesky ground elder (although plenty is left for another day). After that, being tired with a K, I lazed on the chaise longue with my book. Then, when the sun had moved to the front, I did more to my jigsaw puzzle. I felt I’d earned the couple of glasses of Aussie Shiraz I downed with my evening meal!

      1. Indeed it is 🙂 Sometimes I struggle to overcome the pointlessness of it all, sadly.

    2. I know exactly what you mean. I have days stretching ahead of me; I could do this ….. or I could do that ….. there is also the other that needs doing …..
      I’m ashamed of my lethargy. Or would be if I could be bothered with such a strong emotion as shame …

      1. I’m getting more and more lethargic – I can’t be bothered to do anything……….

        1. Agreed, it is getting more and more difficult to raise any enthusiasm for anything, or cooking….keep trying to find something different and then running out of steam!

          1. I suppose that I could go out and keep working on the old hedgerow that I am getting rid of but it is cold outside and I have already been to the chemist to pick up my prescription – cannot do too much in a day.

          2. I just cook whatever we have that next comes out of the fridge. Then eventually another weekly foray for more. That’s about all I do.

        3. Good evening, J.

          I am sowing/have sown lots of seeds to put
          into baskets to be filled with different herbs, for
          our Church open day on June 6th; that doesn’t
          look likely to happen so I am going to turn my
          mind to thinking about making some Christmas
          fold up [material] shopping bags, for the Bazaar.
          NB. I did say thinking about! :-))

      2. ‘Evening, Anne, I’m continuing with the 2nd volume of my autobiography, in order to leave something for my Grandchildren, maybe 100 years hence to illustrate how we lived, what was good, what was bad.

        It’s been, and continues to be, an interesting journey and I would recommend it to any with the slightest bent for writing.

        Yes, there will be autobiographies and biographies of the (so-called) great and the good but we can capture the lives of the ordinary folk, our hopes, aspirations, objectives, successes and failures. As the News of the World used to say, “All Human Life is There.”

        1. As you know, Tom, my indolence is sans pareil and I confess I haven’t looked yet! Sorree…

    3. Well done Conway. I’ve also been in the garden, digging out that pesky bindweed. Blasted stuff. I’m managing to get most of it out completely but there are some very deep pieces that I’ve left sticking out of the ground hoping it will die off in a few days. Had to dig up a salvia because the bindweed was right in the middle of it. It’s having a drink now and I hope I can tease the weed out tomorrow.

    1. Goodnight Peddy

      Clear cold starry night here , I have just been out in the garden with the dogs .

      Moh snoozing on the sofa , lucky him , he can nod off anywhere . I hope I sleep properly shortly.

      Sleep well.. ( my new clematis recovered , gave it a good drink )

      1. Heyup Maggie! Hope you’re asleep as I type this/
        Woke to pump bilges and hour & a half ago, couldn’t get back to sleep so when I realised the DT was also awake, I went down to make a cup of tea for us.

        Almost silent tonight with no passing traffic and the yard thermometer at 1 degree C.

      2. I hope I sleep properly shortly.

        Did you mean properly, i.e. all night, or shortly, i.e. for a short while? 😉

        1. I can sleep anywhere, any time. Meetings and conferences are good places to grab zeds, comfy sofas, after a pint of hoppy IPA… In front of my favourite tv programmes, when watching Youtube – the list is endless.

          1. Go’morgen, Paul.

            My fave place to nod off was in meetings at work in Sweden. It used to make my boss sooooo mad! 😉

            I told her that if she insisted on having useless meetings, she should make them more interesting.

  111. There’s being entrepreneurial and then there’s being a racketeer.
    Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.

    “Australian hoarder unable to return £5,000 of sanitary goods after failing to sell them online

    The owner of Drakes Supermarkets said the man was part of a team who tried to profiteer as the crisis worsened

    15 April 2020 • 7:33pm

    An Australian hoarder has been left high and dry after his local supermarket refused to refund him for more than £5,000 worth of goods he tried to sell online, including 132 packs of toilet paper rolls.

    The Adelaide man recently attempted to return the toilet paper and 150 one-litre bottles of hand sanitiser to Drakes Supermarkets.

    The man hoarded the goods at the beginning of coronavirus panic buying, which saw supermarket shelves emptied of toilet paper, hand wash, sanitiser, tinned food, pasta and other goods.

    Drakes Supermarkets director John-Paul Drake said the man was part of a team of hoarders planning to profiteer from shortages, but his attempts to sell the goods online fell flat.

    Mr Drake told ABC Radio that the shopper had bought around $10,000 worth of goods with his “team” about one month ago and claimed he ran into trouble when his “eBay site (was) shut down”.

    Mr Drake described the shopper’s actions as “absolutely disgraceful”

    “The rest of my team (is) over this sort of behaviour and having to police people taking more than they need — that’s a tough thing to deal with… I never thought I’d be in (the) situation that I’m seeing here. We’re not used to it, no-one is used to it, when people take advantage of the system,” he said.

    In early March police were called to a series of incidents, mostly in New South Wales, in which people came to blows while attempting to buy toilet paper. After one such incident on a Saturday morning in western Sydney, two women were charged with affray.

    Most Australian supermarkets have now introduced limits on the number of such items shoppers can buy.”

    1. Aussies, there are times when I wish we had their attitude to bastards like those profiteers.

    2. My wife was working in a bank when 9/11 happened. One customer came rushing in wanting to buy gold, he was excited by the prospect of making a big profit because the economy was bound to suffer and gold prices would go up. Surprisingly she did not get into trouble after her refusal caused a little scene.

      I was chatting to my investment advisor yesterday. His advice for the upcoming breakdown in society is to buy lots of gold chains and jewellery for use when bartering for supplies, plus a revolver for when in town and a bloody big gun to defend your home when the city crowd arrive.

        1. Nope, Canada.

          Too late now. Although guns are permitted for us rural folk, the licence bureau is closed for the duration and without the paperwork guns are strictly off limit.

    3. ‘Australian hoarder’, ‘the man’, ‘The Adelaide man’ etc.

      It’s all a wee bit vague. We’re supposed to picture a proper Aussie bloke – Crocodile Dundee, Steve Irwin and the like. But you know what, I suspect that this ‘Adelaide man’ (and his team) might look a tad different in ways we can only begin to guess at.

  113. What s*dding frauds.

    If they wanted to donate £90,000 why didn’t they donate when
    they visited the facility in Birkenhead which ‘inspired’ them?
    Why wait nearly three years after their wedding?

    …….Ah! yes,……. we haven’t been in the papers for a few days,
    it must be time to remind the British how kind and caring we are.

    2. Hmmmm, I can guess, Garlands – I wonder whom, now. She cannot do without her PR fix.

      1. Yes, Sos.

        It is the first time I have commented about them
        but it seemed such a grandstanding gesture I
        couldn’t resist….I put it down to my natural
        cynicism!

  114. Took a walk through the village earlier today and noticed smooth pebbles with Meghan Markle banana style inscriptions painted in luminous colours and placed outside several properties.

    I have no idea what gimmick this represents. Do any Nottlers have any idea?

    Also some lunatic has suggested that folk let off Chinese lanterns in celebration of ‘our’ NHS. A thatched property a mile away burnt to the ground after one of these cheap Chinese exports became entangled with a chimney stack. Living under thatch, as I do, I am fearful that the same dolts we witness clapping and banging kitchen utensils with spoons will follow this stupid idea.

    We truly live in fearful times.

    1. Chinese lanterns are a menace. Quite apart from the fire risk, they have wire inserts which can be lethal if ingested by grazing animals. I am not by nature someone who likes things banned, but Chinese lanterns (sky lanterns) should be.

      1. Menace is polite, Conners. I’m not someone who likes to ban things but Chinese lanterns should be banned. Fire and livestock considerations.

        2. When a Chinese lantern was caught on video landing on a stack of paper at a recycling centre, destroying the facility at a reported cost of £3million, David Cameron (our twat PM at the time) refused to ban Chinese lanterns.

          Cameron was reported as saying that he took the decision, to allow these incendiaries, because he did not wish to be a ‘party pooper’.

          I rest my case. Cameron was and remains a fucking idiot.

          1. It was only when Cameron became Prime Minister that I understood my parents’ visceral hatred of Edward Heath.

    3. ” I am fearful that the same dolts we witness clapping and banging kitchen utensils with spoons will follow this stupid idea.”
      It sounds like the world is returning to a time when warding off evil was to make a communal noise or racket to scare the demons away.

      1. I agree. It seems that virtue signalling, doing something of absolutely no import but which gives the exhibitor a rosy glow, has become a substitute for a rational appraisal of the circumstance.

        We are where we are because the Chinese manufactured a lethal Coronavirus. Whether by accident or by deliberation the virus was released upon the world. The Chinese Communist Party failed to notify the rest of the world that this virus was killing people in Wuhan and appear initially to have attempted to cover it up. In this they were either assisted by or else duped the World Health Organization.

        Many of us have observed the descent into some African shambles that has become the United Nations and its agency the WHO. President Trump, alone of world leaders, has pinpointed this inadequacy and presumably has good advice from his security departments that the UN is as corrupt as the average African country. He has pulled the plug on the operation leaving Bill Gates and remarkably, given the evidence, the poor old UK to foot the bill.

        As our more intelligent politicians have noted, there will have to be a reckoning with China and a complete overhaul of ‘our’ NHS after this debacle has passed.

        1. “As our more intelligent politicians have noted, there will have to be a reckoning with China and a complete overhaul of ‘our’ NHS after this debacle has passed.”
          A tiny minority, alas.

          1. Bugger. Oh, I saw a gathering of buzzards this morning. All just holding station in the brisk east wind. I counted 14 of them . A little interaction occasionally between 2 or 3 of them, but otherwise they could have been kestrels. Haven’t seen that before.

    5. Remember the ape house at the zoo somewhere in Germany that was burned down by one of those infernal things landing on its roof.

      The stone painter would be better employed picking veg.

      It sounds as though you are surrounded by idiots! 🙁

  115. I hope our Supermarkets etc are doing the same and refusing to accept returned good bought by hoarders:-

    Australian hoarder unable to return £5,000 of sanitary goods after failing to sell them online
    The owner of Drakes Supermarkets said the man was part of a team who tried to profiteer as the crisis worsened

    By
    Giovanni Torre
    PERTH
    15 April 2020 • 7:33pm

    An Australian hoarder has been left high and dry after his local supermarket refused to refund him for more than £5,000 worth of goods he tried to sell online, including 132 packs of toilet paper rolls.

    The Adelaide man recently attempted to return the toilet paper and 150 one-litre bottles of hand sanitiser to Drakes Supermarkets.

    The man hoarded the goods at the beginning of coronavirus panic buying, which saw supermarket shelves emptied of toilet paper, hand wash, sanitiser, tinned food, pasta and other goods.

    Drakes Supermarkets director John-Paul Drake said the man was part of a team of hoarders planning to profiteer from shortages, but his attempts to sell the goods online fell flat.

    Mr Drake told ABC Radio that the shopper had bought around $10,000 worth of goods with his “team” about one month ago and claimed he ran into trouble when his “eBay site (was) shut down”.

    Mr Drake described the shopper’s actions as “absolutely disgraceful”

    Advertisement
    “The rest of my team (is) over this sort of behaviour and having to police people taking more than they need — that’s a tough thing to deal with… I never thought I’d be in (the) situation that I’m seeing here. We’re not used to it, no-one is used to it, when people take advantage of the system,” he said.

    In early March police were called to a series of incidents, mostly in New South Wales, in which people came to blows while attempting to buy toilet paper. After one such incident on a Saturday morning in western Sydney, two women were charged with affray.

    Most Australian supermarkets have now introduced limits on the number of such items shoppers can buy.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/15/australian-hoarder-unable-return-5000-sanitary-goods-failing/

      1. Refusal to refund bulk bought toilet paper should be the bog standard supermarket response.

    1. Evidently Bill T lacks charm and finesse. He could learn something from an authentic Essex girl such as Liz Marlow.

      Morning, Stephen

        1. BT is going to be so peeed off when he reads the letter. Please be sure to post it on today’s NoTTL page in large format.

          1. Absolutely No Way! I’m not going to be responsible for dearly beloved Bill storming off in high dudgeon never to grace these pages again….

          2. Just tell him that ‘Liz Marlow’ is a nom de plume of Anne Allan’s and that she sent the letter to the DT merely to wind him up.

      2. Yo Citroen

        He will still be trying to sort out the ‘serious (telephone) options’ he was on about yesterday

        I have telephoned the number dozens of times. The call is answered,
        a serious of options have to be selected – then the caller is cut off.

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