Wednesday 25 March: The Government must be careful not to pursue a ‘cure’ at any cost

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/03/25/lettersthe-government-must-careful-not-pursue-cure-cost/

925 thoughts on “Wednesday 25 March: The Government must be careful not to pursue a ‘cure’ at any cost”

  1. Police to use persuasion rather than punishment to enforce coronavirus lockdown. 24 March 2020 • 9:32pm

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3e4006e188c987129b85dd9636d48bbf268d67d2d1d806b901abfe53f55c88d1.jpg

    British police commissioner Cressida Dick patrols Old Bond Street in London.

    Morning everyone: Or more accurately:

    A lover and her lass in a time of plague.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/24/police-use-persuasion-rather-punishment-enforce-coronavirus/

        1. Morning Minty. I’m sitting here trying to work out whether Ms. Dick is a Ms. Nomer?

          1. Morning Stephen. Apart from its appeal to prurience this is an interesting picture for other reasons. It illustrates to some extent the whole of Ms Dicks shortcomings. Although the street is deserted she hasn’t forgotten to bring along a heavy, (back right) in case they should run across a stray taxpayer and of course the button man (back left) to call up reinforcements if needed. She should not be in the Police at all let alone a Police Commissioner! She’s a disgrace at every level!

          2. Good observations. I wonder how many outriders would have been required had she ventured outside gentile Old Bond Street and gone for a stroll in one or two less salubrious areas to the east….?

          4. The Telegraph suggests that the police will not tolerate (and are prepared to fine) any gatherings of more than two. So who will fine the four in the photo, and how much will the fine be?

      1. Those attired in particular cultural garments will be free to come and go so as to preserve community harmony hegemony.

          1. Displaying dominance by ignoring laws etc. that apply to the majority by appealing to their omnipotent deity’s teachings, is what I mean. That, of course, makes them an enemy, one that the Government may have to confront if mass disobedience occurs.

    4. The description of Dick as the British police commissioner is misleading. Yes, she is British but her appointment is as the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service in London or has she had another promotion, and the Government hasn’t informed us as we have more than enough to worry about as it is, and she is now in charge of all the Country’s police services?😎

    5. Are the two cops behind the dick her “minders”?! And why on earth are 4 of them patrolling an empty Street?

      Morning Minty and all.

      1. Morning VV. Yes they are and the van alongside is probably filled with cops. As to their presence it’s just a photo opportunity to show off Dicks new girlfriend!

    6. Not a reassuring picture. Doesn’t exactly raise morale.
      Hardly up there with WSC or King and Queen inspecting real physical damage.

    7. “British police commissioner (sic) Cressida Dick patrols Old Bond Street in London.” Yes, and I’m the Queen of Sheeba…

      “Cressida’s Dick walks along Old Bond Street preceded by a Met PR photographer for a pointless photo op.”

      ‘Morning, Minty.

      1. I’m sure Old Bond Street was absolutely heaving with criminals on the streets. Before the photo-op started, I mean.

    8. Bodyguard & escape vehicle (filled with armed coppers in case of finding stray Brazilians?).

  2. Having nicely incubated the Petri dish, they reported during the 6am slot (when they think nobody’s listening) that they are thinking of opening up the prisons and releasing these coughing convicts into the community, confident that they’d do the honest thing and stop at home. Likewise internees from the camps.

    1. I suspect the powers fear being sued for not preventing inmates from contracting the virus…..after all think of all those Lawyers working from home with perhaps little to do at the moment….(Are you still looking in from time to time M.Thomas?)

    2. Have the globalists been in touch ?

      Crashing societies is their thing so they can sell off the bits.

      1. Interesting to see who is profiting from the wild movements in share price. Bet there are calls on Parliament to drop income tax on their takings,

        1. One of George’s minnow friends made a hundred mil in London last week.

          But that is a minuscule fraction of what George will make.

          2. Politicians and officials apparently so that he can extend his power base.

            His mission statement rather carelessly brags of “leveraging legislation and policy” through “strong relationships with politicians and officials”.

            Sounds like anyone useful gets an offer they can’t refuse.

  3. Sir – I am very disappointed by the attitude of local inhabitants in areas where there are second-home owners. It is Nimbyism at its worst.

    I live in the country and believe that second-home owners who live in cities should move to these homes. Yes, they should self-isolate for 14 days. Then, when clear, they will put less strain on city medical services and contribute economically to the local community.

    Richard G Faber
    Shefford Woodlands, Berkshire

    There is nothing wrong per se with being a second home owner. Unfortunately your stock has been somewhat devalued by the plethora of gormless, hapless, clueless and witless second home owners, mainly from London and other conurbations, who incessantly whine and moan about the smell of cowshit, the crowing of cockerels, the ringing of church bells and the paucity of kumquats in the local country grocery stores.

    1. The amazing things one learns from NoTTL. I had no idea of “the paucity of kumquats in the local country grocery stores.”

      1. Being able to forget about the existence of kumquats and their Guardian-reading consumers is one of the benefits of shopping at Lidl.

      2. What’s the point of driving out to the shops when one can go out with a shotgun and dog on this fine Spring morning and bag a few perching on the trees?

        2. What’s a perching? Do they go well with that other country rarity, the kumquat?😎

          2. Belle, they look like [sort of!] orange plum tomatoes.

            I have had them in a fruit salad; they are sold in the soft
            fruit stands in supermarkets, and on Olney market.
            I expect Phizzee will know more.

          3. You live near Olney? I lived there for a year, waaaaayyyy back when I was young & going to Cranfield for MSc.
            :-))

          4. Good morning, Oberst.

            Yes I do and, apart from being away
            for work, I always have, I love it but it
            is a very expensive place to live.

          5. We had a tree in our garden in Jo’burg. My mother made lovely kumquat jam each year. Well, more of a marmalade really.

        3. It’s what I call out every morning when the neighbourhood pussy fails to appear at breakfast time: “Come, Kat! Come Kat!”

          :-))

          PS – Good morning all. It’s almost 9am and I slept in for an hour this morning, so I shall shortly sign off until later in the evening. Keep sage, keep well.

          1. Morning Elsie

            Well, you know, I looked the word up.. what does one do with them … how are they eaten… in a fruit salad.. or as a snack..

          2. They’re like little oranges.
            You chop them up into fruit salads.
            They are somewhat over-rated.

    2. I completely agree with the letter writer. The instructions are to reduce the number of people you’re in contact with and this will be easier in rural areas.

        1. Really makes little difference. Sounds like nimbyism from yokels happy enough to get money from tourists in better days. Where’s their patriotic spirit?

      2. People with holiday cottages are banned from going there if it is in a different county to their normal residence. This is because country counties have a health service (Drs, surgeries, hospital) sized for their normal number of residents, not that plus half of the big city (and, in Gol kommune, that is a rise of over 100% if all cottages are occupied) , and would become seriously overwhelmed if many of the grockles became sick.

        1. I understand the point although the UK. The isle of Wight and Cornwall are the only areas I’ve come across where the NHS makes similar claims and differently RE London due to numbers commuting in each day.

  4. Good Morning Fellow Inmates,

    Looking up through the barred window I can make out that we have a nice start to the day again, perhaps a touch of frost.
    Just wondering now I should eat that juicy fat spider i caught last night for breakfast or have a slice of mouse before it goes off.
    Only another 80 days to go.

  5. Been reading reports in the Speccy from people in France, Italy and Germany, despite their more authoritarian approach to people going out they say that the rules and planning are just as vague as here and do not appear to make any rational sense.

    My theory, well it’s not really a theory, more fact, is that we no longer have people with practical experience and common sense in positions of authority any longer, people are chosen to fit a progressive agenda criteria rather than what they know.

    1. Interesting how Soros jnr visited Macron a few months ago.

      I wonder why the President of France looked so happy to see him ?

  6. Further emergency coronavirus lockdown laws could be introduced if current measures ignored. 25 march 2020.

    Britons should expect the introduction of further emergency laws if the current measures are ignored, the national chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales has warned.

    So far as I’m aware the Police Federation has no power to mandate any measures whatsoever so what we have here is the Elites calling up one of their lackeys to reinforce the message. This said sometime in the next few weeks those people who have no wages coming in and no savings will run out of cash and by implication food and set out to find some regardless of any government measures. What are they going to do then? Shoot them?

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/coronavirus-lockdown-laws-measures-ignored-police-federation-warning-a4396746.html

    3. The police did seem to tip over that barbecue yesterday with a great amount of relish.
      (The toerags deserved it though)

  7. Morning all,

    Lockdown Day 3.
    Need to walk around the grounds of VVOF Towers to see if the staff (Mrs VVOF) is required to keep the weeds under control.
    Had a fine mowing of the lawns yesterday but then heard garden waste collections suspended until further notice. I can see piles of garden waste forming over time.
    I was told by youngest she is to be withdrawn from placement on her nursing degree, for safety I presume. She is disappointed as she wanted to make a difference and I can see her putting herself forward for the volunteer army in her spare time.
    Prior to lockdown I bought enough wood and concrete for necessary fence and post repairs and plumbing parts for the jobs I have been putting off until “the better weather”. Climbing the walls with boredom may be delayed a while.

    1. When I was a boy, we burned our garden waste in what we called “bonfires”.

      2. You can’t do that, the smoke police kick your door in if you do.
        When I was a boy, I remember stubble in the fields being burnt at the end of summer.

          1. Yup. Plough a couple of rounds to protect the hedges, then burn the rest. Bloody awful black smoke from the rapeseed stalks, though – like a crashed plane, so it was.

        1. #1 son is also a submariner and he keeps threatening to teach us Uckers.

  9. Morning

    SIR – The current situation seems to be the culmination of an obsession with “being seen to be doing something”, regardless of how effectual.

    Although the Government laudably tries to follow scientific advice, science does not necessarily deal in certainties. The modelling involved relies on assumptions and priorities. No one knows if the cure – of potentially destroying the private sector, including the millions of small businesses that form the fabric of our society – is going to be far worse than the disease itself.

    Barbara Scase

    Stanton by Dale, Derbyshire

    1. SIR – This is not “the end of freedom” (report, March 24). It is the start of an effort to save lives and curb the activities of those who are currently abusing the freedoms that we cherish.

      Catherine Castree

      Fetcham, Surrey

      SIR – The Government’s new measures are misguided. The public needs to be brought on side, not with draconian powers but through reason.

      The current approach undermines the values of these islands, where people respond to requests but are wary of threats to their freedoms.

      Roger Runswick

      Chesham, Buckinghamshire

      1. When you see Twitter videos (like this morning) of some chinese tw@t spitting on lift buttons, then caressing his genitals and wiping his hands on the lift handrails, also people of a darker hue spitting on fruit in the supermarket, youths coughing and spitting in old people’s faces, the only realistic response to these is extreme physical violence – beat the b@stards so they are properly broken, and permanently damaged.
        One then begins to see the point of more draconian measures.

        1. What a good idea, Paul and Good morning. Such draconian measures do work, you may remember from the book, that one of our fellow Boy Entrants in 1960, at RAF Cosford, was jumped on by ‘Teddy Boys’ in Wolverhampton while waiting in a cinema queue with his Wolverine girl-friend.

          It incensed us so much that the next week-end we went mob-handed into Wolverhampton, with secreted webbing belts under our uniform jackets and every oik with long hair, draped coat and brothel creepers was set upon, beaten and let take their bloody nose home to Mummy.

          There never was another instance.

  10. SIR – It’s easy for Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, to blame the public for being selfish. But how would he describe himself for failing to ensure adequate deliveries of protective equipment to essential workers?

    We are told by the Prime Minister to put ourselves into lockdown, but that doesn’t mean we should suspend our critical faculties. The lack of testing and the last-minute appeal for more ventilators are examples of incompetence at the highest levels.

    Tony Narula FRCS

    Wargrave, Berkshire

    SIR – Dr Steven Hopkins (Letters, March 24) believes that the lockdown is taking place because the NHS cannot cope, rather than to protect us.

    No healthcare system can or should be designed to cope with such an influx of critically illunwell people – that would mean thousands of ventilators and intensive care beds sitting unused on the off- chance of another pandemic.

    Even if we did have all the necessary resources, we would still want to slow the spread of the disease. Invasive ventilation does save lives, but it can take months for patients to return to normal function. These measures are only for our protection.

    Dr Beverley Macpherson

    Bath, Somerset

    1. “No healthcare system can or should be designed to cope with such an influx of critically ill unwell people – that would mean thousands of ventilators and intensive care beds sitting unused on the off- chance of another pandemic.”
      Well actually it could have be done. If we had spent money on our citizens rather than on foreign aid and taking in millions of foreigners.
      The term is “Be Prepared”, so I’m guessing that you were never in the Boy Scouts

  12. SIR – Pamela Goldsack asks how we can keep two metres away from others in a supermarket (Letters, March 24).

    We have just returned from a large Waitrose store. The maximum number of customers allowed in store at any one time was 35, with a one- in- one- out policy. Staff were outside the shop managing queues and insisting on at least two metres between customers.

    The system worked very well, and at no time did we come close to other shoppers either in or outside the shop.

    Peter Higgins

    West Wickham, Kent

    1. I’d like to know which Waitrose it was – there are none in West Wickham, but four within a couple of miles…. (And no doubt will be fully stocked with Kumquats….)

    2. Same in our little M&S Simply Food. But the aisles are so narrow you can’t avoid getting pretty close to others!

    3. 6 foot? It’s bad enough without having reminders of the bloody EU inflicted on us.

      1. As I posted a couple of days ago (sorry Peddy) some oldabattoirs had to close in Britain because EU regs demanded 2 metre rather than the 6 foot distances they had constructed.

  13. SIR – Am I alone in wishing for a return to precedented times?,

    Phil Mobbs

    Windermere, Cumbria

  14. SIR – Little things, like a large bumble bee flying in through our patio door, are now giving us great pleasure and new sources of conversation.

    Sheina Burns

    Shaw, Lancashire

    2. At Janus Towers we are being serenaded by our resident Song Thrush morning and evening, and it is just delightful. He is particularly vocal this year – or perhaps just more audible given the almost total absence of aircraft and distant road noise. I think he’s in competition with a nearby Wren. These two go some way to making up for the cancellation of our annual dawn chorus birdwalks on Ashdown Forest this year.

      ‘Morning, Epi.

  15. Morning all,

    Another happy day. The Feast of the Annunciation. Exactly nine months till Christmas.

    Have to work at home now. Lost that battle. Don’t know if it’s safer but it’s certainly more difficult. Tummy ache during the night. I think it’s just stress.

    1. We had this when the lockdown started too. Everyone was amazingly stressed on the day before it started. As we were packing up some stuff in the office, one of my (extremely bright) colleagues had completely lost it, his head was so full he couldn’t take any more. I stopped at the supermarket that evening, and a man was yelling at the cashier about the distance rules.
      I had the tummy ache myself too. There was one day when I was organising home schooling and other stuff from dawn to dusk.
      Then yesterday it kicked in in GB, and I got all the fallout from my family by email and phone.
      Funny really, it’s not that big a change, yet on some level it seems really disturbing.
      We should be thankful we’ve still got jobs to work on, considering what’s going on.

    2. I had his tummy ache the other day Sue and i’ve also had the shakes, all of which have diminished to some extent. It may be somewhat fanciful to say but I regard all these recent afflictions that Nottlers are undergoing as a side infection of CV. When they write the books we will probably find that it was wider in effects than was originally thought!

    4. At least when you work at home, they have the coffee / tea that you like, Sue!
      Take it easy. Only worry & stress over things you can change, not things that you can’t.

    5. I had this tummy ache the other day Sue and I’ve also had the shakes, all of which have diminished to some extent. It may be somewhat fanciful to say but I regard all these recent afflictions that Nottlers are undergoing as a side infection of CV. When they write the books we will probably find that it was wider in effects than was originally thought!

      1. But have you lost your sense of taste, Minty? Started wearing leopard print, white socks with sandals? That is apparently another sign…

    6. It’s also Lady Day, which used to be the last day of the year until pesky modernisers took over in 1752.

    7. Being Ladyday today, it’s the traditional day for the Tichbourne Dole. Woe is supposed to fall upon the Tichbourne family should it not be observed – just as well the family died out.

      It does mean we won’t be receiving our two gallons of sanctified flour this year.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tichborne_Dole

    8. Only just catching up on some of yesterday’s posts.

      Sorry to hear that you’re stuck working at home in difficult conditions. I nearly bought a flat in the Gramps when I first bought, in 1983.

      I find a hot chocolate helps a stress-ache. KBO.

  16. SIR – I am currently in South Africa. I have read with interest the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab’s advice that I travel home as soon as possible (report, March 24).

    Unfortunately, I am travelling with British Airways. So far, it has cancelled four of the flights I have booked – the last one, 45 minutes after I had rebooked on the flight it advised me to take. Needless to say, it is impossible to get hold of anyone at British Airways.

    Under such circumstances, how are we meant to follow the advice to return home? Does British Airways not feel that it has some duty of care to customers who have bought return tickets from them?

    Seán Bellew

    Cape Town, South Africa

    1. Does British Airways not feel that it has some duty of care to customers who have bought return tickets from them?

      Errrrr? No!

    2. BA have had bad press because they try hard to persuade people to take travel vouchers (with expiry date and limited to travel on BA) rather than giving a cash refund as they are legally obliged to do.

      1. After our recent treatment by BA I doubt I we will ever use them again, after 30 + years of being loyal customers and in my case 1mn miles flown.
        We had to cancel for family reasons and accepted we would have to lose a lot of money, but the bastards would not even refund the fuel surcharge, air passenger duty or seat choice booking premium.

        1. We stopped using BA 40 years ago after a terrible flight from Bombay back to the UK.

          That was at the height of their “we’ll take good care of you”. era.

          5 years later we went to Bombay & back with Singapore Airlines – such a difference!

        2. I stopped when they suddenly devalued their airmiles, just before I was to book Oslo-Perth in business for the whole family. The new value meant that we could barely taxi to the end of the runway… F*** them.

          1. Was that the changeover to Avios, where all sorts of purchases qualified for collection, rather than merely air travel?

  17. Good morning All

    Thick frost and fog here this morning , blue sky peeping through , another fine day ahead doing bits and pieces in the garden .

  18. Am I the only one that thinks many of our elder citizens have lost the plot.

    Scanning other daily papers there are a group of Stoke-on-Trent pensioners(in the main) stuck on Tobago.
    With all of the CV on TV /papers etc for the last month these pensioners decided to fly 7,000 miles
    to a poor island for a bit of sun. They are now being threatened with eviction from the hotel & there are no flights home.

    The question I ask is “Why did they go in the first place”.
    It’s the same story as last week when a Professor Jeffrey & wife swapped their comfortable life in Surrey for what could have been the “steel coffin” of the “Braemar Cruise ship + CV” rather than lose £6,000 they paid for the tickets.

    I value my remaining days/ month /years at greater a few thousand pounds.

    1. Am I the only one that thinks many of our elder citizens have lost the plot.

      Self evidently they are not Nottlers!

    2. One must make one’s own mind up. Some will get caught out.
      I chose not to fly to the UK a week ago, although the online check-in was live, as I could see that the situation was rapidly becoming worse – but it was a difficult choice, not knowing for reasonably sure what was the likely outcome.
      Glad I didn’t travel, although Mother is in hospital, no visitors allowed, and nobody to sort her house out for when (if??) she returns. I had just mobilised the cleaners and next day Boris comes with new travel and social restrictions. Sigh…

        1. Yes, a nice Irish lass (with the most gorgeous soft Irish voice… bet she is red-haired, too!) called to discuss whether Mother would be OK living on her own.
          The answer is No – she can’t control her meds, can’t be arsed to eat properly, can’t stand in the shower, can’t clean/wash up properly, can’t manage food in the fridge. If she’s to get home, she will need a daily visit from a support person to make sure she’s taken pills, gets a decent meal, is showered, and the clearing-up done.
          House cleaning is sorted – once travel restrictions are lifted, and food can be delivered by Morisons. Just the daily support to deal with.
          The next issue is that I tracked down a Power of Attorney, but it hasn’t been registered. Get that done, so her bills can get paid… Sigh… – all by telephone, as travel isn’t easy these days.

          1. Hate to say this , but that scenario was played out here when Richard’s late mum was discharged home from a prolonged stsay in hospital .. she was dropped off , all care set up etc, with in an hour she had wandered into the hallway , opened the front door into the porch and fell , badly . Whisked back to hospital , black and blue , and we then had to make some serious decisions .. Our home is on 3 levels , fine when she was mobile and stayed with us , but a care home became our only option , as she had the dreaded dementia!

          2. Sounds just like my mother-in-law. She’s been in a care home near to us since November. With the current situation, at least we know she has company all day. The manager rang the other day for help on setting up Skype so families (those that can use Skype) can occasionally see their relative now the home is in lockdown. Poor mother-in-law looked more confused than normal as her specs are lost!

    3. A couple I know were booked on a month’s holiday to China in late January, to introduce him to her parents, and travel round the country.
      They cancelled – not sure if they got any of the ticket money back.

    4. As far as I know, the majority of cruise lines are offering 100-125% of your cruise fare to Redbook at a later date, but this didn’t happen until a couple of weeks ago. Before that, people stood to lose £thousands if they cancelled, and it seems that travel insurance companies would not pay out.

  19. I note the headline in today’s DT: “Police use persuasion rather than punishment to enforce coronavirus lockdown”.

    Am I being overly cynical to translate this as “The usual rules will apply, and “communities” will get away with everything because we daren’t touch them, but if we see that Tommy Robinson on the streets he’ll be banged up”?

    1. We’re at the point now that if we had a animated Venn diagram with 2 components, cynicism and reality it would look like a backwards running film of an amoeba reproducing

    2. ‘Morning BB2

      He will shortly be in the “frame” again,protecting the helpless when the police and courts have singularly failed to do cannot be tolerated

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD367WR9HLM
      Pesonally I really,really would prefer vigilantism not to be necessary,mobs all too often get the wrong targets but if the system fails the vulnerable and gangsterism flourishes………………………….

      1. Good morning, Rik.

        ‘! This video can’t be played here………………
        …as inappropriate or offensive to some audiences.’

        I have seen it elsewhere [I assume it is the one
        about ‘Omar’]

        It offended me! That we allow such to do as they
        please really offends me!

      2. I have seen that video, and Tommy’s investigation into who the scumbags are. That, unfortunately, is the state of our country today.
        We appear to have effectively no law and order, and the only reason things haven’t yet broken down completely is that most people haven’t realised it yet.

      3. By the way, I get the message “This video can’t be played here. Its content has been identified by the YouTube community as inappropriate, or offensive to some audiences.”

        Who, apart from drug-dealing scum and their supporters would find it offensive, I ask myself?

      4. I was too late to see it before it was taken down. What was it? Tommy Robinson? His treatment brings shame down upon the heads of our civil service, Parliament, the legal profession and the whole system of justice in Britain.

        I am almost coming to the conclusion that ‘The System’ is, in fact, hoping to promote ‘Islamophobia’ because they have worked out that the more they treat TR unfairly the more people will be outraged by his treatment and join his cause.

      5. The video link just shows this message “This video can’t be played here. Its content has been identified by the YouTube community as inappropriate or offensive to some audiences.”

      6. “This video can’t be played here. Its content has been identified by the YouTube community as inappropriate or offensive to some audiences”

        Of course it has. Can’t have TR telling people what’s going on…

    4. ‘Am I being cynical…….’
      No. Realistic.
      It will be a communal bums up time on Friday. On Sunday it will be watch the service remotely.

      1. On a totally different note, Annie. I am not suggesting that you are a Pushy Nurse (© Bill Thomas) nor a dotty old Silly Sausage (© me), but I was always taught to look after my elders (© Boris) and betters (© Mum & Dad) so I was just wondering if you have now had the plaster off your leg and how you are feeling? Keep safe, keep well.

        1. No plaster at all.
          Right from the start, there was just a plastic adhesive plaster over the wound.
          We have experienced hip replacements for 40+ years, and the improvements are amazing. We can remember ‘zips’ running from waist to knee and supporting brackets that had to be removed in a second operation.
          You could say that the technology has come on in leaps and bounds.

          1. Good to hear, Anne, and are you coming on in leaps and bounds? One hopes so.

            And in anticipation of your coming immersion, I do remember a comic phrase, in an infant voice, from way back, “I’m Henry Hall Junior and tonight is my Bath Night.”

          2. The frustrating thing is that my walking is improving daily.
            It’s pathetic jobs like lacing up shoes that I can’t manage; more specifically the left shoe.

      2. Pity that the virus doesn’t hangout at the rear or that the derriere doesn’t serve as an entry point.

        PS I’ve already had my breakfast

    3. Buenos dias, mon amie. (Don’t worry, Peddy, I am just trying to confuse the NoTTLers!)

  23. Morning, Campers.
    Glanced at the Daily Mail headlines and decided they’re a health hazard. Talk about fomenting despair.
    The good news is that our boiler will be replaced tomorrow.
    The bad news is that I will have to postpone my first bath until Friday.

    1. The old cliche joke says cliche Elizabeth l only bathed once a year whether she needed to or not.

      To tell the truth although I swim I do not bathe very often because (to plagiarise Bob Monkhouse) I am like Spider Man and find it difficult to get out of the bath. However I shower regularly and I do not seem to exude an odour which attracts adverse comments.

      1. EIR bathed once a month whether she needed it or not. Her fellow countrymen thought she was obsessive on the hygiene front.

    3. I wonder why the DM suddenly stopped their investigative reporting into Soros when the new editor was appointed ?

      “Leveraged” ?

      2. And didn’t Nigel Farage draw attention to the fact that a significant number of MPs in the EU parliament directly or indirectly received funding from Soros.

        That should have brought about much discussion in the MSM but it did not do so just as ‘Common Purpose’ needed to be put under the journalist microscope.

          2. lol
            I was thinking along the lines of the dam that burst at Private Eye when Robert Maxwell died. Not that I am suggesting that the litigious one would break any law of course – far from it!

  25. “Awkward” doesn’t begin to cover this if accurate

    A model predicting the progression of the novel coronavirus pandemic

    produced by researchers at Imperial College London set off alarms across

    the world and was a major factor in several governments’ decisions to

    lock things down. But a new model from Oxford University is challenging

    its accuracy, the Financial Times reports.

    The Oxford research suggests

    the pandemic is in a later stage than previously thought and estimates

    the virus has already infected at least millions of people worldwide. In

    the United Kingdom, which the study focuses on, half the population

    would have already been infected. If accurate, that would mean

    transmission began around mid-January and the vast majority of cases

    presented mild or no symptoms.

    https://theweek.com/speedreads-amp/904584/new-oxford-study-suggests-millions-people-may-have-already-built-coronavirus-immunity
    Earlier this year I had the most severe dose of “Flu” I have ever had with breathing difficulties needing steroids and antibiotics for a chest infection,many here reported similar if less severe,the chap could very well be right

    1. Morning Rik. I think that I am in agreement with you here. I’m pretty sure that I have had it. What is needed here is an antibody test but it is not yet available. Once you were cleared then there would be no further restrictions required!

      2. She said: “Sir, I’ve never had it.”
        But she spoke too bloody soon

        [It’s the same the Whole World Over]

        Should we continue to throw snowballs at the moon?

    2. We spent December and January listening to people coughing and wheezing and fretting about Christmas and New Year being ruined.
      Expressions like ‘can’t shake this one off’ and ‘I don’t like to bother the doctor but ….’ were frequently heard.
      I think many of us have already had what we looked upon as the usual winter inconvenience.

      2. ‘Morning Anne
        This one really knocked me sideways as I reported here at the time,Sister and BiL delivered essential supplies/picked up prescriptions
        I insisted they drop them off in the corridor as “you don’t want to catch this,it’s a nasty one”
        Boy was I ahead of the game!!

    3. But but but….
      We are exhorted to listen to and follow the advice of experts and told in no uncertain terms that we’re conspiracy theorists spreading fake news if we even so much as question the official narrative.

      2. The “Official Line” you say………………..

        Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”

        1. They never sleep at the Ministry of Truth just like Percy Pilbeam’s detective agency called Argus.

      3. Keep your eyes open for the Skripals pegging out. CV would be a great opportunity to explain their future absence!

    4. #me too. From 15th Jan (my birthday!), in the afternoon had to take Alf to hospital due to excruciating pain in left knee and while there a foreigner came in and coughed his guts up so to speak, no hand over his mouth, and from the next day I was really really poorly, never felt so b…dy awful in my life, I would call it severe case of flu. Lasted 6/7 weeks, never had flu before, took to bed for 3/4 days, didn’t want to eat, various other symptoms. Took ages to ward it off and didn’t go to the doctors, couldn’t be asked.
      Alf on painkillers BTW and has a follow up appointment for his other knee next week, if it’s not cancelled.

    5. Peter Hitchens in his blog brought attention to Imperial College’s track record when it comes to health scares caused by a virus.

      https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/ Go to the 22nd March blog in the above. Here is a chunk below;

      There is a document from a team at Imperial College in London which is being used to justify it. It warns of vast numbers of deaths if the country is not subjected to a medieval curfew.
      But this is all speculation. It claims, in my view quite wrongly, that the coronavirus has ‘comparable lethality’ to the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed at least 17 million people and mainly attacked the young.
      What can one say to this? In a pungent letter to The Times last week, a leading vet, Dick Sibley, cast doubt on the brilliance of the Imperial College scientists, saying that his heart sank when he learned they were advising the Government. Calling them a ‘team of doom-mongers’, he said their advice on the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak ‘led to what I believe to be the unnecessary slaughter of millions of healthy cattle and sheep’ until they were overruled by the then Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir David King.
      He added: ‘I hope that Boris Johnson, Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance show similar wisdom. They must ensure that measures are proportionate, balanced and practical.’

      2. Interesting… Imperial may have been infected with Woke Londonism whereas, other than amongst undergrads, Oxford may not have been so prone…

    6. I wouldn’t say I had the flu, exactly, but did have two days with a raised temperature over three weeks ago, with the expected aching and headache. Still coughing, and at times my chest has felt uncomfortable, but it’s not a dry cough and I’ve not experienced problems breathing.
      MOH has not caught it.

    7. Good morning Rik

      Caroline and I last had flu about 20 years ago but we sometimes get a lergy after flying.

      I remember there was a bit of a panic in a boarding school in which I lived and worked on the 1970’s. A boy who had flown from Nigeria arrived back for a new term and had to go to bed because he had a temperature of 105 degrees and it transpired that a fellow passenger on the plane had developed lassa fever but our pupil only had a virulent flu.

      Much as I dislike the smell of other people’s stale tobacco smoke apparently planes have become less healthy since smoking was banned because the Airlines save fuel by not having to run the air cleansing systems all the time!

        1. I had read about that before. No stale baccy smoke, but myriad germs and viruses assailing you instead. Certainly, we have often felt ‘throaty’ after a flight.

          2. It never ceases to amaze me that in a mere century, one of mankind’s greatest aspirations has descended to a filthy, soul destroying experience.

  26. John Redwood in ConHome.

    https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2020/03/john-redwood-why-i-as-a-strong-supporter-of-the-market-economy-back-the-governments-emergency-economic-measures.html?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newslinks for Wednesday 25th March 2020&utm_content=Newslinks for Wednesday 25th March 2020+CID_c808cff52ac060a19e7ac66c8ac04779&utm_source=Daily Email&utm_term=Why I as a strong supporter of the market economy back the Governments emergency economic measures

    1. Good morning My Friends,

      Chopping wood and lawn mowing yesterday. At last the jungle is under control and we are building up a good supply of logs for the future as we have enough dry wood for the rest of this season. There was a heavy frost last night but it will be hot this afternoon so I shall be able to do more chopping and sawing.

      Thank God we have about 3 acres of garden and so we do not feel at all hemmed in and it is easy enough to get by with just one visit to the supermarket per week.

      Our new Skype courses start this coming week. Wish us luck and God bless you all – even the atheists and agnostics but not the divorce lawyers whose services we shall never need!

      2. Gathered a load of wood with the S@H on Sunday and have just finished sawing it. Only a small amount of it to stack then it’s away for another load!
        Now cutting & stacking for winter 2021/22!

      3. Today we’ve been notified of a much more comprehensive attestation to fill in for each time we go out.
        It is becoming more restrictive every time it changes. The Bergerac market will remain open but probably on a one way basis with very limited stalls. Touch wood, all the supermarkets are still well stocked and customer control is reasonably good. What a contrast to the UK.

        It appears there are completely different rules depending where you live in France.

        1. Good morning

          We have printed the form from our computer and we have to fill it in every time we leave the house – but fortunately we do not plan to do this more than once a week.

          Caroline did the weekly shop yesterday and by and large she could find everything we needed and the Super U at Lanvallay (a suburb of Dinan) was not at all crowded

          1. Hi,
            I gathered from the comments, if I didn’t misunderstand them, that you run a French language school?
            I have a 16 year old coming up to exams, now rather disrupted of course. Spoken exams are in the first week of May. We were planning on booking a last minute week in France, but that fell through obviously. Is it still possible to book an online week of intensive tuition before 19th April?
            (Hope I did not get the wrong end of the stick – I can’t find the relevant comment now!)

    2. Good question.
      Other countries are doing testing and drug trials to see how effective these drugs are, and there’s not so much as a mention of it here.

  29. Shall I cheer you all up?
    (I want to make your flesh creep….. cackle cackle……)
    How long before the Sussed ex-Royals crop up on their soon to be zapped website?
    Megain will test positive for coronavirus (but not enough to actually make her look ill) and Prince Doormat will have ‘mental issues’ over her indisposition.

  30. One effective way of keeping us inside is the “Call Centre”

    Day 4 of trying to get through to BT:

    “Thank you for holding. We are very busy at the moment and apologise for the delay. Your call will be answered as soon as possible.” repeated approximately every 15 seconds, so I make that 60 times I’ve listened to that recording so far today. 61……..62…..63

    To be fair it’s not just BT. Local Council staff appear not to be in work….

    1. Or the bank. Only for Coronavirus emergencies, it appears. So what is that? Someone who has tested positiive comes in for a withdrawal?

  31. Gosh, it’s heartbreaking to see so many of these Brits isolated abroad – heartbrreaking to see them adrift with 1. obvious “underlying conditions” way before their time, and 2. obvious deficiencies in the grey matter and commonsense department.

    Yet the BBC thinks I should join in the hand-wringing … bit like the “*-to-a-room” narrative about the African townships …. now how did that happpen? … it wasn’t me …

    1. I’m fed up to here with charity advertisements about fresh water supplies in Africa. What happened to all the billions sent already? It should have been enough for every African to have his/her own freaking swimming pool! Well, stuff it. I’m not sending good money after bad.

      2. For the answer to that, consult your friendly Swiss private banker, other faciitators of moneylaundering are available in tax havens worldwide.

      3. …and, has no one taught them the merits of using boiled water – kills 101% of all known Abbopotamus germs.

      1. Sadly no , just the interminable number of BT message “Thank you for holding” Don’t they know I haven’t got much longer to live?

      2. Good morning, Phizzee.

        Belle and I [see earlier] are wondering about kumquats
        and recipes other than fruit salad.

        1. Good morning,
          Depends how many you have.
          Kumquat Jam
          Candied Kumquat
          Kumquats baked into a cake
          and my favourite……Kumquat Vodka. 🙂

  34. Been out and about this morning, hardly and cars on the road, saw more people out jogging than driving.
    You never see a jogger smiling for some reason.

    1. You never see a jogger smiling for some reason.

      Probably because they have been told to carry a shed load of shopping back with them………again.

  35. The experimental psychologists will be having a field day at present. What a wonderful opportunity to study mass hysteria…

    1. Already the first report of suicide because of the lockdown. The usual type, selfie and pouting, inevitable really. D Mail.

  37. ‘Morning, all.

    It’s reported that the first case of Kung ‘flu in the Greek migrant camps has been confirmed on the island of Lesbos and the Lesbians are not happy. The IRC has expressed fears that the virus will spread unchecked in the overcrowded camps, where primitive sanitation prevails and there are less than adequate facilities for hand-washing etc. A spokeswoman for the IRC said that almost 50% of the migrants living there are so dispirited that they are contemplating suicide.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1259657/coronavirus-news-greece-eu-latest-refugee-crisis-EU-asylum-seeker-turkey-migration-spt

    I have some sound advice to offer the Greek Government – send troops to guard all agricultural merchants and service stations. It wouldn’t do to allow suicidal migrants to get their hands on any stocks of ammonium nitrate fertiliser and fuel oil.
    :¬(

  40. The Pope has requested that at 13.00 [our time]
    we all pray…….The Lord’s Prayer.

    For all the cynics and non-believers, try it!

    2. Pascal’s Wager

      Blaise Pascal
      Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.

      2. If heaven is to be attained by a cynical appreciation of the odds it is not really heaven!

    3. It’s 1300 hours, so here you go, G.

      “Pater Noster
      qui es in caelis,
      sanctificetur nomen tuum.
      Adveniat regnum tuum.
      Fiat voluntas tua,
      sicut in caelo et in terra.
      Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie,
      et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
      sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
      Et ne nos inducas in tentationem:
      sed libera nos a malo”

      Sorted!
      :¬)

      2. I know this by heart because we used to have it read aloud by a school monitor in Big School (School Assembly) every Saturday morning. Following the Lord’s Prayer was another bit in Latin about Petri Blundelli (Peter Blundell) who founded the place in 1604.

    1. Hitchens Horrible History.

      This gang of plastic wannabe shankin gangsta bad bois have a reputation and pretty lousy form. Tommy found out they dragged a disabled man out of his car; they beat him and spat at him (they have form for spitting). Despite there being a sample of DNA on their victim Hertfordshire Police did nothing about it. That poor man was later advised by Police to change his car, which he did so that his vehicle wouldn’t be identified again for another attack.

      Imagine how that disabled man felt after that pathetic piss poor Police response?

      Tommy also found out that the gang of feral degenerates attacked a father who was protecting his daughter at the time, this gang put him in hospital for his trouble.

      Tommy asks a pertinent question.

      Why are the crimes committed by this feral gang of degenerate smack and crack dealing youth being swept under the carpet?

      If these examples were not enough, a pregnant woman with a young baby was abused by Tariq in a shop. Tariq was chased out of the shop by her partner at the time. How much lower can these scumbags actually go? Well as it turns out, much lower!

      Tommy was sent video footage of a gang member carrying a knife, sent to attack a young boy who dared to wander into “their estate”. Tariq can be heard encouraging a lad known as Tubby to “shank” the young boy. In other words, he was encouraging Tubby to stab and murder a young boy for the crime of riding his bike into “their estate”. This is the state of degenerate, disgusting and despicable feral youth today, absolute scumbags!

      Fair play to the young lad in the video who stood up to them, he took a chain off them and fought back. These cowards, these scumbags, these immoral and abusive youth run when confronted by those prepared to stand their ground.

      If you thought all these incidents are bad, think again, there’s more!

      Back in December last year a sixteen-year-old boy was attacked by the gang, he was beaten with a metal bar which caused injuries to his arm and his head. The poor boy had to be treated for his injuries in hospital. Although Hertfordshire Police called for witnesses, nothing came of the case, so it was closed.

      The good news is that after Tommy and a few lads decided to go sightseeing in Hitchin, Hertfordshire Police have now re-opened the case. Police will now investigate the attack with “more urgency”.

      1. If Hitchin Police refuse to take action, they can hardly complain when others take action themselves.

        1. Indeed.
          The failure of the proper authorities to react inevitably leads to vigilantism, a wholly undesirable state of affairs, but entirely the fault of the failure to act.

    2. Hitchens Horrible History.

      This gang of plastic wannabe shankin gangsta bad bois have a reputation and pretty lousy form. Tommy found out they dragged a disabled man out of his car; they beat him and spat at him (they have form for spitting). Despite there being a sample of DNA on their victim Hertfordshire Police did nothing about it. That poor man was later advised by Police to change his car, which he did so that his vehicle wouldn’t be identified again for another attack.

      Imagine how that disabled man felt after that pathetic piss poor Police response?

      Tommy also found out that the gang of feral degenerates attacked a father who was protecting his daughter at the time, this gang put him in hospital for his trouble.

      Tommy asks a pertinent question.

      Why are the crimes committed by this feral gang of degenerate smack and crack dealing youth being swept under the carpet?

      If these examples were not enough, a pregnant woman with a young baby was abused by Tariq in a shop. Tariq was chased out of the shop by her partner at the time. How much lower can these scumbags actually go? Well as it turns out, much lower!

      Tommy was sent video footage of a gang member carrying a knife, sent to attack a young boy who dared to wander into “their estate”. Tariq can be heard encouraging a lad known as Tubby to “shank” the young boy. In other words, he was encouraging Tubby to stab and murder a young boy for the crime of riding his bike into “their estate”. This is the state of degenerate, disgusting and despicable feral youth today, absolute scumbags!

      Fair play to the young lad in the video who stood up to them, he took a chain off them and fought back. These cowards, these scumbags, these immoral and abusive youth run when confronted by those prepared to stand their ground.

      If you thought all these incidents are bad, think again, there’s more!

      Back in December last year a sixteen-year-old boy was attacked by the gang, he was beaten with a metal bar which caused injuries to his arm and his head. The poor boy had to be treated for his injuries in hospital. Although Hertfordshire Police called for witnesses, nothing came of the case, so it was closed.

      The good news is that after Tommy and a few lads decided to go sightseeing in Hitchin, Hertfordshire Police have now re-opened the case. Police will now investigate the attack with “more urgency”.

    3. It seems that the gang responsible have been causing problems in Hitchin for quite a while with the Police refusing to take action, so when others take action, the Police get upset.

      1. The police will be too busy stopping Bert and Ada from pottering out for a spot of fresh air.

      2. The police will be too busy stopping Bert and Ada from pottering out for a spot of fresh air.

      2. I have just had my campervan MoT-ed. As I can’t go anywhere in it for the moment, I could have saved myself a lot of money.

          1. All the campsites are shut. It’s housed on my property so I don’t think there would be much advantage to that 🙂

    2. It’s amazing how many nit picking job creations schemes become unnecessary when the chips are down.

  43. Some people have no compassion: Here’s a report of a tweet that’s been forwarded to me:

    ” saw saint Greta tweeted that she thought she had covid 19

    Somebody tweeted
    “That’s a shame, why don’t you nip home and give you parents a nice cuddle”

  44. An interesting article on the class snobbery at work when we see pictures of people packed on the tube. I wonder how many of those people are cleaners, builders, plumbers? People who don’t have a comfortable, well-paid office job where they can just check their NOTTL profile whilst they work from home (ahem!). Are these people just so reckless that they don’t care? Or worried that if they don’t go to work they can’t feed their families?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/25/middle-classes-have-rushed-judge-others-less-fortunate-shocking/

      1. A benefit of zero hours contracts. They will work until physically prevented.

    2. I think that’s letting idiots off too lightly. I’d walk or cycle (on the empty roads) before I’d take those fetid death-traps.

      1. Walk? In London? They have no idea what their legs are for! I walked from Portman Square to Notting Hill, then asked someone where my destination was. It turns out I had missed a turning and was told it was in the direction I had just come from. “It’s a long way, though, best get a taxi,” I was told! A long way? It was a five minute walk!

    1. I thought the whole idea of treating babies and small children like pin cushions was to create herd immunity.

      1. Herd immunity would work if it was go a a vaccine, to render the majority of the population immune and deprive the virus of suitable hosts, i.e. as in the smallpox vaccine.
        Letting people just catch and a proportion die is what happened in the Middle Ages. I don’t think it’s a very good strategy unless everyone is happy with mass graves and all the bodies….

      2. New Agers don’t believe in herd immunity, which is why they reject vaccines.
        Half the kids at my children’s (alternative) school are unvaccinated.

    3. I agree that it was a mistake to use that phrase in public, but it was always a consequence, not a policy.

  47. Letters column BTL:

    Who Cares, 25 Mar 2020 7:04AM

    Urgent appeal from the BBC.

    If you have medical qualifications, however slim, and you disagree with the government policy, can you please come forward for interview? Likewise anyone of senior rank in a critical service. Preferably police, ambulance, that sort of thing. But anything will do: pet food supply; nappies.

    There is a desperate shortage of suitably qualified critics, and the supply is fast running out. If more people don’t come forward urgently, I’m afraid there is a real risk that Newsnight, and other programmes of vital national importance, will be unable to continue.

    Yesterday, BBC news programmes gave the London Mayor an easy ride about overcrowded Tube trains, preferring instead to give HMG (especially the Health Sec) a kicking for not ordering construction workers to down tools. It was the BBC at its wretched worst.

    1. Morning WS, your question who cares is spot on. I for one don’t. I rarely watch their propaganda programmes any more.
      As for your other point, if the BBC continues their never ending attacks on Johnson and his government, perhaps it might encourage them to sort them out.

    2. Well, there is not much point in asking MrKhan about the cost savings in cutting back services, as recommended by his accountants, is there?

  48. Psst. I know the password to get into Asda’s without queuing. When they ask you if you are old or infirmed – answer “Yes”.
    This will confuse the snowflake on door patrol and you will be allowed to enter the store.

      2. Got one of those and it’s bloody painful and debilitating.
        Just been to Waitrose and had to queue to get in. A quick shop though and got all but one item on the list.

    2. If it’s some stripling of 20 or so, then a single grey hair will probably be enough to convince them.

      2. The Hog’s Back Brewery shop was closed as I walked past earlier today. Their website says they’re starting a ‘drive-thru’ service from tomorrow.

      4. Some wine companies have ceased to supply, well, the Wine Society is one.
        Following the PM’s dictum they have sent their staff home, as have other companies.

        1. Just checked Laithwaites – their call centre is closed and the website only has a message saying they have had an unprecedented number of orders but will still be delivering. We have a case every 12 weeks. One must be due soon!

    2. When I saw that headline, I said to my teenage daughter “this is an opportunity for the authorities to ban what they really want to ban, but wouldn’t get away with under normal circumstances”.
      (She said “but surely, when the crisis is over, the ban will be overturned?”
      I just looked at her. She got it. She is a bright lass.)
      Then I looked at the article, and bingo! A muslim Prefect had banned the alcohol – I didn’t expect to have such a quick proof of my thesis.

      A few weeks ago, I wondered whether to stock up on alcohol, but then concluded, I have enough in my cellar to last a month or so. However, I was driving out of the supermarket a few days ago behind a car towing a small trailer that was piled high with crates of beer!

  50. Must be spring!
    :-D)
    First skein of geese just flew over, heading mostly North, and honking like a queue of Italians!

      1. Hi

        Passing over from south to north. They usually have summer close to the arctic, apparently, but stop around these parts for a day or to to rest & refuel – and crap on everything!

    4. I hope they skip Orkney where massacres of geese have been authorised. No one has checked that the geese may be the last on the planet, however. Just as no one worried about passenger pigeons.

      1. We have open season on Canada geese, as there are so many, they are a pest. Apparently, not good eating. 🙁

    5. There have been a few thousand around here all winter. They’ll be moving off now, along with the whooper swans that have been wintering on the fields.

      The puffins are due back this week, if they’re not here already. They are pretty regular in their timings. By the end of the first week in August they’ll be off to sea again.

  51. MPs to get 3.1% payrise to £81,932 from April

    How does this compare to teachers, police officers and nurses? The average starting salary for teachers in 2010 was £21,600, and it now stands at £24,400. When you factor in inflation, this amounts to a 6% drop in pay, according to independent fact checking charity Full Fact. The starting salary for a newly qualified nurse in 2010 was £21,200. It is now £24,200. This amounts to a 5% decrease when you consider inflation. And a newly qualified constable’s starting salary was £23,000 in 2010. In ten years this has risen by just £1,200 to £24,200, meaning a 14% fall in pay. MPs’ pay is linked to average rises in the public sector, as determined by the Office for National Statistics. Following reforms to the way MPs’ pay is calculated, the rise is automatic and not subject to a vote in the House of Commons. Ministers’ salaries are determined separately

    What do MPs actually do? Most of MPs’ time is spent in Westminster, where they consider and propose new laws as well as raising issues that matter to their constituents. Parliamentary sessions begin in May or June, and are marked by the State Opening of Parliament. A session normally lasts 12 months, but the 2017 session was extended for two years because of Brexit. The House of Commons sat for a total of 346 days during that turbulent session. When they’re not in Westminster, MPs often hold a ‘surgery’ in their constituency office. This is when they meet local people and discuss issues important to them, traditionally on a Friday. Although it is up to each MP to decide if they have any surgeries at all. It was revealed last month members of the House of Lords were handing themselves a 3.1% pay rise.

    Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/05/mps-get-3-1-payrise-81932-april-12353917/?ito=cbshare

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

    1. I wouldn’t mind but MPs seem uninterested in paying for the things we are forced to as a matter of course – their energy bills, fuel, council taxes. They’re very quick to hike taxes, but seem to prefer other people pay theirs.

  52. A wife asks her husband, “Could you please go shopping for me and buy one carton of milk and if they have avocados, get 6.
    A short time later the husband comes back with 6 cartons of milk.
    The wife asks him, “Why did you buy 6 cartons of milk?”
    He replied, “They had avocados.”
    If you’re a woman, I’m sure you’re going back to read it again! Men will get it the first time.
    My work here, is done.
    This is so true; Best Beloved went back to re-read it!
    ===========================================
    Water in the carburettor
    WIFE: “There is trouble with the car. It has water in the carburettor.”
    HUSBAND: “Water in the carburettor? That’s ridiculous ”
    WIFE: “I tell you the car has water in the carburettor.”
    HUSBAND: “You don’t even know what a carburettor is. I’ll check it out. Where’s the car?
    WIFE: “In the pool”
    ===========================================
    THIS IS A FRIGHTENING STATISTIC, PROBABLY ONE OF THE MOST WORRISOME IN RECENT YEARS.
    25% of the women in this country are on medication for mental illness.
    That’s scary.
    It means 75% are running around untreated.
    ===========================================
    HE MUST PAY
    Husband and wife had a tiff. Wife called up her Mum and said, “He fought with me again, I am coming to live with you.”
    Mum said, “No darling, he must pay for his mistake. I am coming to live with you.

  53. Anyone seen BJ today? He’s not banned any more, but I haven’t seen anything from his newsfeed.

        1. Hi Tom

          I wondered that at first, but I don’t think so. Furthermore, I think Blackbox is a lady, who has talked about her employment, which M never did.

          Was he banned or did he just wander off?

    3. Rik, I emailed the following to my MP on Monday last. No reply as yet but my first communication to him on the CV-19 crisis elicited a response that appears to be a standard reply that merely repeats what the Government have proposed, and are proposing, to do.

      Dear Mr Quince,

      Social media is filled with claims that aircraft continue to arrive in the UK from CV-19 hot-spots e.g. Italy, Iran and China. Is this true, and if so, how can your government condone this action and at the same time insist on the draconian measures it wants to implement on the public? The message from Mr Johnson is if people will not take sensible measures to protect themselves then the law will insist on compliance: if the flights are a fact then the Government is sending out a very mixed message and it’s not a surprise that irresponsible people will ignore measures from what they perceive to be a Government continuing with its own irresponsible behaviour.

      Regards,

    1. OK, so why #BoycottHalfords? Are the Trans mob objecting to them only selling bikes for males and females?

      2. Another outbreak of mass outrage and stupidity, I expect. I’m self-isolating in my home; I’ve thrown away my TV, and avoid contact with platforms such as Twitter and Faceache to the best of my abilities.

      3. 317421+ up ticks,
        Morning S,
        It is my belief that mother nature has enough on her plate with fools forecasting weather doom if we do not follow their lead, NOW.
        A common sense, integrity riddled governance party would have denied him a platform long ago, the way they do any current truthsayers.

  60. Good Morning folks,

    Wiltshire is looking wonderful this morning. The sky is clear blue. The view from Citreon’s hill top must be stunning this morning.

  61. Here is a copy of an email that I have just sent to my MP:

    “I hope that you are well.
    We have noted that there are many items missing from the shelves of supermarkets, including bread, eggs, and fresh fruit and vegetables.
    Also some items are now unavailable to buy online.
    Boots cannot supply some ordinary items such as shaving foam.
    Many wine companies cannot supply wine (now that’s serious!).
    Having stressed repeatedly the need for us all to stay at home, it seems that many who should be working, are not.

    I worked in the supply chain over a number of years, and I know just how efficient it usually is in stocking and re-stocking, including large volume seasonal items at Xmas.
    Could you please suggest to the Government team that it needs to be stressed to those in supply chains, from the big supermarket groups to the smaller businesses importing food of all sorts, that it is important to ensure an unbroken supply of food to the country. That requires all the links need to be in place, planes, ferries, lorries, drivers, fork truck operators, clerks, C&E, as well as willing suppliers.
    The blocking of some exports at French ports is worrying. Will the French block food exports? If so how will we respond? Are we looking at alternatives from other potential suppliers, perhaps within the Commonwealth and others such as Argentina?
    The weeks of lockdown cannot be applied to the supply chains without serious shortages resulting, and unless these routes to market are kept operating then we will run into serious ongoing shortages, and not temporary blips resulting from so-called “panic-buying”. (If we are going to be confined to the house for months then we do need a stock of food).
    Had we relied on a once a week shop then we would already be hungry.
    The time to examine the arrangements in detail is now. The reassurances from some supermarket chiefs ring hollow when the shelves of their stores are empty of basics.”

    1. Update. My MP has replied. He does do quick responses. The usefulness of the response, together with his lack of commitment I leave you to ponder over (not to mention having obviously misread my opening comment). He may not have read further?

      “I am struggling to keep up to be honest. I am getting about 100 emails every hour.
      The government is working hard with the supermarkets to get food and supplies onto the shelves. There was a meeting about this earlier in the week.
      As you say, there is no shortage of food.
      The Co-op in Coldstream is restricting the number of customers allowed in the shop which is helping.
      Keep well.”

    2. Perhaps, like Singapore, we could outlaw the filthy habit of spitting. This also be applied to those overpaid fairies who call themselves footballers. For them a yellow card for the first spit and a sending off for the next one. If the ref or linesman doesn’t see it look at the video and gong them after the game. Forbid them to be paid during a period of suspension. Drastic? I would say long overdue.

  62. Has anyone else thought how much more pleasant life would be with fewer people in the country, i.e. if we weren’t 10 million more than we would otherwise have been without having pretty much open borders to the rest of the world??

    1. The population of the UK should be about two hundred and fifty thousand. That way we could live a hunter/gatherer lifestyle!

  63. Talking of Sunshine or lack of it, here is another interesting article written before the latest Pandemic which has arrived at the start of what many folk believe to be a Modern Grand Minimum.

    https://www.longdom.org/open-access/sunspot-cycle-minima-and-pandemics-the-case-for-vigilance-2332-2519-1000159.pdf

    Although it makes reference to the Wolf Minimum there is no mention of the devastating panzootic / pandemic that started in China and spread to Ireland around 1315 (slap bang in the middle of the Wolf Minimum). The results are described in a pdf of an MA Dissertation by Timothy P Newfield – “A cattle panzootic in early fourteenth-century Europe”

  65. A spot of cut’n’paste so poor NOTTLers can have a laugh: rather a long read, but I enjoyed it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/celebrity-covididiots-stars-making-fools-thanks-coronavirus/

    Celebrity Covidiots: all the stars making fools of themselves thanks to coronavirus

    24 March 2020 • 1:41pm

    Week two: from Madonna to Liam Gallagher, it’s soap suds for sense

    Week two in the Big Bother house and famous people are succumbing to Covid-19 cabin fever. Just like us unwashed civilians, they’re staying at home – albeit in spacious properties with squishy L-shaped sofas and kitchens the size of Suffolk – while going slightly mad.

    Professional hard man Ant “not Dec’s mate” Middleton – former military sniper, adventurer and frontman of TV willy-waving contest SAS: Who Dares Wins – provided much mirth on Friday with his heavily tattooed, tight black T-shirted idiocy. He posted a lengthy Instagram video telling people to “calm the f**k down” about the outbreak, insisting the coronavirus “doesn’t bother’” him because he is “strong and able and it has no benefit or positive impact on my life.” Yeah, I’m not sure that’s how it works, mate.

    But wait, there was more. “Am I still out travelling the world?” continued this living embodiment of brawn-not-brains. “Yes. Am I still shaking hands? Yes. Am I still cuddling fans at the airport? Yes. Has my life changed? No. Get out there, don’t change, f**k Covid-19!” Where to start? Well, “hugging fans at airports” frankly sounds more like a hate crime than a courageous act of defiance. It was all so Alan Partridge, presumably long-suffering PA Lynn was the one wielding the camera.

    After widespread derision and accusations of irresponsibility – plus doubtless a panicked phone call from his agent –Middleton furiously backpedalled with an apology video in which he made that awful “praying hands” gesture and pleaded that he was “not fully aware of the scale of the crisis”. “I am not a doctor, I am not a scientist,” he added. You don’t say, Sherlock. A textbook story arc and a parable for the coronavirus era.

    (Middleton could learn a lesson from that other renowned dumbbell enthusiast, dear old Arnold Schwarzenegger. Governator Arnie’s approach to lockdown, of course, isn’t macho posturing but staying at home and cuddling his pet donkeys. Better.)

    Elsewhere on the modern-day nuthouse that is Instagram, stripper-turned-rap star Cardi B (full name: Cardigan Buttons) ranted to her 60m followers about the lack of information and action from the US government. Brilliantly, she issued a call for any of her fans who happened to work at the Pentagon to give her a briefing on the pandemic. “I don’t know if you can tell but I’m losing my f***ing mind,” she growled. “I want to put on my f***ing expensive outfits and go out.”

    Cardi ended her inspirational missive by shouting “Coronavirus! S**t is real!” which an enterprising Brooklyn DJ called iMarkkeyz (me neither) promptly sampled and turned into a viral dance track which is currently working its way up the iTunes charts. It’s joined in the new pantheon of “pandemic pop” by Detroit rapper Gmac Cash and Florida hip-hop artist Smokepurpp. See? Shakespeare wrote King Lear in plague quarantine. We have this.

    Other musical titans have been busy adapting their hit lyrics into public health pronouncements. Swaggering into this genre has come former Oasis foghorn Liam Gallagher, who is treating fans to kitchen sink reworkings of his old band’s beery anthems, such as “Soap-ersonic”, “Wonderwash” and “Champagne Soap-ernova”, while he scrubs up – still clad in bucket hat and sunglasses, naturally. Our Kid really ought to wash his mouth out too, as most of them come with a generous side order of effing and jeffing. Liam also posted a video wearing a colander on his head while singing Eighties advertising slogan “For mash, get Smash”. Who would have predicted such an eventuality a few short weeks ago?

    Similarly crooning health-and-safety directives has been 79-year-old ledge™ Neil Diamond, who offered up a fireside remix of his karaoke classic Sweet Caroline, which went: “Hands / Washing hands / Reaching out / Don’t touch me / I won’t touch you”. His golden retriever looked on proudly. If only that dog could talk, dude. The tales it could tell.

    I know what you’re thinking. What has Madonna got to say about this unfolding health crisis? Well, you’re in luck. Despite nowadays resembling a blurry photograph of herself that’s been faxed to your local newsagents, the Queen of Pop has been delivering deep and meaningful speeches from her candle-lit bathtub, with her “modesty“ protected by strategically strewn rose petals. “That’s the thing about Covid-19,” pontificated the Hanky Panky hitmaker (nothing like a good spanky indeed), over a soundtrack of tinkly piano. “It doesn’t care about how rich you are, how famous you are, how funny you are, how smart you are, where you live, how old you are, what amazing stories you can tell. It’s the great equaliser and what’s terrible about it is what’s great about it.”

    Not convinced there’s anything particularly great about a deadly pandemic which has killed 17,000 people worldwide and counting, Your Madgesty, which I guess is why you have now deleted the video.

    Non-binary singer Sam Smith posted a video of himself/herself/themselves/whateverwe’reboundtogetitwrong, weeping with boredom in his £12m Hampstead mansion after a mere two days of self-isolation, wailing: “I hate reading!” Put that in your pipe and smoke it, so-called “literature”.

    Popstrel Miley Cyrus has been hosting daily, hour-long “self-care” broadcasts, branded with the deeply awkward acronym BRIGHT MINDS. It stands for (deep breath) Blessings and curses of social media, Reliable sources, Immune boosters, Getting active, Healthy anxiety, Thoughts, attention and toxins, Memories, Inflammation, Negative thoughts, Dedicating 15 minutes to something new and Sleep. Hard to know where to start unravelling that particular stream of psychobabble, although I’ll certainly be turning in for the Inflammation episode.

    Most of her fellow famouses, by contrast, have been whiling away their lockdown time by participating in pointless Instagram Live Q&A sessions, answering such pressing enquiries as “pizza or pasta?” and “kitten or puppy?”. I’m assuming the latter are pets and not pizza toppings. During an apocalypse, it’s hard to tell.

    Meanwhile in the business world, it’s a four-way race between billionaire werewolf Richard Branson, jeggings mogul Philip Green, lionine publican Tim Martin and shellsuit merchant Mike Ashley to settle for once and for all who is the UK’s most punchable tycoon. These are momentous times, people. Batten down the hatches, buckle up your hazmat onesie and enjoy.

    Week one: why, Wonder Woman, why?

    There are two things that can be relied upon in times of national crisis: the great British public will frantically stockpile loo roll for no logical reason (I blame that adorable Andrex puppy, rather than a fixation with hygiene) and celebrities will make thundering idiots of themselves.

    They might misjudge the mood, make it all about them, attempt to clumsily cash in or just generally be dim. Still, at least they inadvertently provide some point-and-laugh entertainment for a population in lockdown. For this, perhaps we should be grateful.

    Former model Caprice Bourret was first out of the blocks on Monday’s edition of The Jeremy Vine Show, arguing with Dr Sarah Jarvis on live TV that she knew better than the experts how to contain the spread of coronavirus.

    Who would you trust more? An experienced GP and the clinical director of the health information service Patient? Or the one-time star of Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical, who’s a former Wonderbra spokesmodel and thinks that the acronym for the World Health Organisation is pronounced “Whooooo”? Open your minds, sheeple.

    Also on Monday, another renowned amateur epidemiologist broke rank to share her hard-won wisdom. High School Musical alumna Vanessa Hudgens told fans in an Instagram video: “I’m sorry, but like, it’s a virus? I get it, I respect it but at the same time I’m like, even if everybody gets it, like yeah, people are going to die, which is terrible but like, inevitable?”

    A powerfully eloquent argument, I think you’ll agree. Hudgens also expressed doubt that the quarantine period could last until July, saying such predictions “sound like a bunch of bulls—”. She later apologised for seeming to question the seriousness of the pandemic, describing the backlash as a “huge wake-up call”.

    By Tuesday, it was time to wheel out the big guns – not literally big, you understand – in the 5ft 5in shape of perennially pompous U2 singer Bono. He was accused of cynically using the Covid-19 outbreak as a promotional opportunity.

    Bono Vox (real name: the rather less rock ’n’ roll Paul Hewson) released the sludgy piano ballad Let Your Love Be Known, his first new music since 2017, as “a St Patrick’s Day gift” to quarantined Italians crooning to each other from balconies.

    The frontman modestly urged them to “sing it from the rooftops”. Haven’t they suffered enough?

    Neither has the heir to Bono’s white-saviour crown (ego size: XXL) been silent. Over-opinionated Matty Healy, frontman of electro-poppers The 1975 – and, arguably more interestingly, the offspring of Loose Women’s Denise Welch and Auf Wiedersehen Pet’s Tim Healy – has insisted he’s “not sorry” for a controversial tweet about fellow musicians affected by the pandemic. You know, despite bravely deleting it.

    In response to indie bands and struggling artists being forced to cancel gigs, Healy Jr’s “joke” read: “Stop telling people to support you, we don’t want your EP and zine bundle right now, Laura, we’re going to die.”

    Fans immediately accused Healy – a 30-year-old showbiz princeling with an estimated net worth of £12m – of being privileged and out-of-touch, arrogantly dismissing the sad fact that music-industry jobs will be lost and some acts won’t survive the loss of tour revenue and merchandise sales. Healy has since issued a textbook non-apology.

    Elsewhere in Covid-19’s own velvet-roped VIP area, West End doyenne Elaine Paige shared her domestic cleaning advice on Twitter, belting out lines from Evita as she scrubbed a tiled wall, and Derrick “Mr Motivator” Evans dusted off his garish Lycra unitard to give home exercise tips on Radio 4’s Today programme. It wouldn’t have happened in John Humphrys’s day.

    Across the so-called pond, a clutch of caterwauling actors including Natalie Portman, Mark Ruffalo, Sarah Silverman, Gal Gadot, Will Ferrell and, well, many more we don’t recognise have filmed a viral video of them massacring John Lennon’s Imagine while in quarantine. See what we’re subjected to when luvvies are unable to work? They start doing unsolicited auditions for musical theatre.

    Semi-retired pop himbo Peter Andre was forced to ban “fans” (read: confused shoppers) from hugging him at a Southampton meet ’n’ greet session.

    By stark contrast, Hollywood hippy Jared Leto just emerged from a 12-day meditation retreat in the desert and claims to have been totally oblivious to the dystopian outbreak that’s been raging worldwide. Who says celebrities live on a different planet? Don’t worry, though. Now that Leto is abreast of matters, he has sent his fans “positive energy”.

    Meanwhile, self-appointed man-of-the-people Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan – if “the people” have a perma-furious Twitter account and an eagerness to shout over invited TV guests – is refusing to stay home and self-isolate, despite his co-host Susanna Reid being unable to go into work because her son is displaying symptoms. Why so stubborn? Because the truth warrior is determined to keep the public informed. Mainly about his own views.

    Who will be the next celebrity to fall victim to the curse of corona-induced stupidity? The smart money is on Simon Cowell building a (flop) talent-show format around it, or Gwyneth Paltrow claiming that it can be cured with vaginal steaming and a diet of alfalfa sprouts.

    Don’t be surprised if Gwynnie’s UK equivalent, the self-styled super-diva Gemma “The GC” Collins – an intellectual thoroughbred from the renowned TOWIE stable – soon has her “say”.

    Thus far, these pop-cultural boffins have been uncharacteristically quiet. Give them time, fellow self-isolators. An expectant nation sits, wipe its backside on its stockpile of Cushelle Ultra-Quilted, washes its hands – and waits.”

    1. Thanks Anne but after a couple of paragraphs I returned to what I was doing previously. Watching the paint dry. Much more interesting and intellectual.

    3. Life’s too short to read such twaddle about – who are these people? They’ve hardly entered my consciousness.

        1. I read it but found it terminally boring – these people are non-entities and a waste of oxygen.

        1. The French eat frogs’ legs. Difference is that (according to the horrible film posed by a Nottler the other day – we were warned beforehand -) the Chinese don’t always bother to cook the live animal before eating it. Or kill it before cooking. Ugh!

          2. I continue to be shocked at how some humans can behave – not just to each other, but to animals.

          4. Oh you mean by the same nations? Edited from my answer where I thought you meant prisoners generally.

      1. Sorry Bob3

        Didn’t have time to reread my comment after posting.
        MOH told me to get off my tablet and stop wasting time.

        it was the virus.

      1. We know the CCP has a lot of question to answer. At the moment it is deflecting by trying to pin the blame on the USA, and acting like Italy’s “saviour”. They really are a reprehensible lot.

        1. There are also reports that the Chinese Cell Phone providers have reported a drop in customers of several million, which give three possibilities.
          First it’s actually fake news which in reprehensible in the current circumstances.
          Second, the Chinese people are rejecting the Communist Party’s demands that they have cell phones so they can be tracked.
          Third, it may be an indication of how much the CCP have covered up the real situation in the country.

  68. If Barry Gardiner can come on the Radio4Toady and (rightly) be appalled by obvious and appalling cock-ups on the (non)-distribution and availability of PPE kits within the NHS, i am depressed … who’s in charge … Inspector Cluseau?

  69. SKY News 10.36:

    The Prince of Wales has Coronavirus; the Princess of Wales Camilla does not …

    2. Snap. Sorry, hadn’t refreshed when I posted, so didn’t see yours.
      :-((
      Reached the Norwegian news as well.

    1. The election in November will hinge on the Corona Virus. High density areas are still seeing surging numbers of cases; rural areas not the same at all. If it is under control by then, Trump will most likely win. if not, I doubt he will.

      Listened to his daily briefing last night – very calm and very sane. But he does need to stop tweeting out unproven theories like “everyone should be taking Chloroquine”, and stop pushing to lift all the restrictions in time for Easter, as “if we left it to the Doctors, the country would be shut down for years”.

      What the US probably should be doing, is isolating certain areas where the virus is running rampant, and easing restrictions outside those areas. No sign of that happening, though.

  72. Putin suspends all non-essential work in Russia, calling a nationwide stay-at-home holiday next week to curb the spread of coronavirus. 1:29 pm, March 25, 2020.

    In a major effort to curb the spread of coronavirus in Russia, Vladimir Putin has canceled the next workweek nationwide, suspending work for all non-essential laborers from March 28 to April 5. The president also indefinitely postponed a nationwide plebiscite on constitutional amendments that was previously scheduled for April 22.

    In his nationwide address on March 25, Putin also outlined a series of federal measures to sustain Russia’s economy and social safety net, announcing debt protections for persons diagnosed with coronavirus and tax and bankruptcy protections for small- and medium-sized businesses.

    Vlad’s on the ball as usual.

    https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/03/25/putin-suspends-all-non-essential-work-in-russia-calling-a-nationwide-stay-at-home-holiday-next-week-to-curb-the-spread-of-coronavirus

  73. Heard the first woodpecker of the spring on the way to Sainsbury’s. Nice and early I thought (just after 9am), no crowds…and then, around the corner, the queue. Had a quiet grumble before realising it was managed and not caused by sheer weight of numbers. Then the mewing of buzzards caught my ear. Six of them wheeling around above the site, catching the early thermals. There’s one resident that has picked its own permanent spot in a sycamore in a field nearby but I’ve not seen that many at once at our end of town before now. They usually hang about at the tip on the other side, along with the kites and great plagues of gulls.

    Hardly a soul about as I went home. I caught a rare sighting of a reed bunting by the lake (well, really a large pond) but the walk was then spoiled slightly by a pair of lowlifes walking their dogs, blocking the path and refusing to move – they had seen me coming but pretended they hadn’t and ambled along ahead of me, backs turned. I skirted around them and then….”Oi! Twat! Haven’t you heard of distancing? Oi! Oi! F***ing come here!” There was a time when I would have bitten…

    1. We had the first woodpecker a week or so ago.
      Our telegraph poles have metal caps, like hub-caps, on the top, to protect against rain. The woodpeckers love to bong on those, like some kind of avian steel drummer!

    2. We get them all year round, greater, middle and lesser spotted, as well as green and black.

      The spotted ones are keen visitors to the peanut feeders and I’ve seen as many as five on the various feeding stations as well as an orderly queue in the tree nearest the main pecker-point.

      The green ones come in good numbers, particularly when the ants are prolific. Tey are remarkably shy birds and will flee as soon as they spot people.

      We only started to see the black ones a few years ago, they are surprisingly large and again, very shy when people are around.

      1. The drummers are hard to see but we have plenty of greens flitting around. A couple of summers ago I watched one from the front window of my house, barely 30 feet away, as it hoovered up the ants from the edge of the footpath. It was a quiet afternoon and it was there for more than 20 minutes, moving away briefly only when a car passed.

        A little egret has taken up residence in the town park.

        1. We get a lot of egrets down in the valley, but I’ve yet to see one here, even though we have had the odd heron, from a nearby pond, hunting frogs in the garden.

    3. 317421+ up ticks.
      Morning WS,
      You should really have offered them some of your anti
      plague spray for protection……… MACE, your protection that is.

  74. UK Lockdown Chaos: ‘Youths’ Fire Bomb Food Delivery Vans, Launch Missiles at Police. 25 Mar 2020.

    Two supermarket delivery vans were firebombed by a group of “youths” after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the United Kingdom would enter a three week nationwide lockdown.

    The group of “anti-social” teenagers took to the streets of Bristol in apparent defiance of the lockdown, throwing bricks through windows, destroying cars, and setting two food delivery vans from the supermarket chain Iceland on fire.

    I haven’t heard anything about this on the MSM. Now if Bill were here…

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/03/25/uk-lockdown-chaos-youths-fire-bomb-food-delivery-vans-launch-missiles-at-police/

    1. Will they still do that when troops are mobilised and put on the streets?

      1. You have to wonder about the motivation! There’s enough inverted comma’s to cover almost any theory.

      2. Those law firms that delight in pursuing Army veterans would have a field day if the Army actually shot a few looters.

        1. I can only quote Shakespeare: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”. Henry VI.

    2. Catch them, strip them naked and put them in a cage in a public park. Supply the onlookers with rotten tomatoes and eggs to throw at them. If they are of a certain religion pigs trotters as well. Most people cannot abide ridicule.

    3. Hand sanitiser and loo rolls have been stolen from a Shrewsbury Hospital, according to my local rag. Some people are despicable. I walked my dog this morning (one period of exercise per day), carefully keeping my distance from other dog walkers (2), a delivery van driver, a couple walking in the middle of the road (the woman had a scarf round her face) and two people coming towards me on the other side of a cyclist/pedestrian track (a youngster in sports gear and a woman pushing a pram). Unfortunately, the 20-something bloke behind me squeezed past to overtake me, despite my attempt to get as far away as possible. No wonder we are in lockdown.

        1. Because I have a lesson (dressage training) I am not allowed to do it. The British Horse Society (BHS) has advised that all training should stop. I would be allowed out to exercise and care for the horse if there weren’t someone who could do it for me, but as there is, I’m in lockdown. It would, however, count as another outing if I had already walked the dog (unless I drove the dog to the stables and exercised him on the car park before riding, presumably).

          4. If I were just exercising, it would count as two excursions, so it would be the dog or the horse.

  76. Breaking News, Charles has tested positive for Corona, says that he is just on his way to hug the Queen

  78. Stolen from elsewhere…

    **** ROYAL UPDATE ****

    Prince Charles is isolating at Balmoral with Covid – 19

    Prince Andrew is isolating at Windsor with Jennifer – 14

    1. A Royal Reality Check. HELEN LEWIS. 10:02 AM ET

      After complacency came amorphous panic. The news that Prince Charles, the 71-year-old heir to the throne, has tested positive for the coronavirus begins the next chapter of the story here in Britain. Within minutes of the news breaking, I received the first of several texts from friends that all said, essentially, the same thing: “Shit just got real.” The sentiment might have been smothered in the ironic language of the internet, but it was genuine. Until now, the coronavirus has been an abstract idea for most Britons. This news brings it home. People you know—whether in real life or through the media—will get the virus. Some of them will become very ill. A few will die.

      Of course. For the first time I felt the cold hands of Fear around my throat! The Terror of non-being. The horror of personal extinction. Then I realised he would be no loss at all!

      https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/03/prince-charles-positive-coronavirus-covid19/608716/?utm_source=msn

  79. Good morning NoTTLers!

    Lovely to hear nothing but birdsong…

    Here is an item containing a petition to have the lowlife, who spat and coughed in an old couple’s faces, deported. I’ve signed. Maybe, given the circumstances, for once the government will take notice? (Or maybe not – I haven’t read yet that Overseas Aid and HS2 have been cancelled.)

    I’ve signed anyway. The fewer like that here, the better.

    TR.News
    Link not working so I have reposted above with another link

    1. If Hertfordshire police do nothing against the gang, then they can hardly be surprised if vigilante action is resorted to.

  80. This is worth a look as it has free virtual tours of museums through the link. This gives a flavour of what’s available .

    Physical travel may be off the cards for now, but you can still feed your wanderlust virtually. Some of the world’s greatest museums offer free online tours, including the British Museum, The Louvre, The Smithsonian and The Vatican, while Look Up London allows you to take to the streets on a virtual guided walk through a selection of historic London locations with a Blue Badge Guide.

    If you’re yearning for the great outdoors, you can visit some of the world’s most magnificent national parks through your computer with Google Arts and Culture — we’ve done a whole blog post on that if you’re interested! You can also bring exotic animals like snow leopards into your living room with a selection of live video streams from Australian zoos.

    And, no matter what’s going on outside, it is still possible to see for millions of miles with your own eyes. Put on some warm clothes, fill a flask, and grab your binoculars or telescope, then head to a garden or balcony to look at the night sky. Even if you have no prior knowledge of astronomy, with apps like the free Night Sky you can just point your phone towards a celestial object to discover exactly what you’re looking at.

    https://www.travelzoo.com/uk/blog/the-best-things-to-do-when-you-cant-leave-home/?utm_source=genericemail_uk&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2871883_html_***-nationwide-***-&utm_content=2871883&ec=0&dlinkId=2871883

  81. China cannot escape the blame for ‘Wuhan flu’

    CON COUGHLIN

    The Communist Party is guilty of rank hypocrisy in seeking to portray Beijing as the world’s saviour

    At a time when the rest of the world is facing meltdown over the coronavirus pandemic, there is something deeply unedifying about China’s attempts to capitalise on the crisis to further its own global ambitions.

    Beijing may take umbrage at Donald Trump’s constant reference to the outbreak as “the China virus” or “the Wuhan flu”, but the American president is simply stating the obvious, namely that the worst public health crisis the world has witnessed in a century originated in a Chinese wild animal market at the end of last year.

    Moreover, the slow response of the Chinese authorities in dealing with the outbreak, together with the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) initial attempt to conceal the true extent of the crisis, may well explain why it is Europe, and not China, that now enjoys the dubious distinction of becoming the pandemic’s epicentre.

    One of the CCP’s guiding principles is that nothing can be allowed to undermine its supremacy. This would explain why, rather than heed the warnings of Dr Li Wenliang, the doctor who first identified the terrifying threat posed by Covid-19, the Chinese authorities denounced him for “rumour-mongering”, and either ignored or played down the risks until well into January.

    By that time Dr Li was at death’s door having contracted the virus, while the tens of thousands of travellers making their way from Wuhan to destinations around the world guaranteed a local crisis became an epidemic of truly global proportions.

    To compound their incompetence, the Chinese authorities made matters worse by failing to co-operate with the World Health Organisation to anything like the necessary extent, denying the outside world access to crucial information that may well have prevented it becoming a pandemic.

    Yet, rather than accept responsibility for causing the crisis, Beijing is seeking to rewrite history by silencing its critics, while positioning itself as the lead aid donor for other countries afflicted by the virus.

    To this day, the rest of the world still does not know for certain how many people in China have died from coronavirus, or how many remain infected.

    But the CCP still insists on pumping out propaganda, portraying the country as “the enabler of miraculous human feats” in terms of combatting the virus. Beijing’s Central Propaganda Department has even published a book in several languages praising the role President Xi Jinping personally played in curbing the outbreak.

    Meanwhile, Chinese activists such as Xu Zhiyong, who provided a more apt description of President Xi’s performance by calling it “clueless”, is being held in secret detention in Beijing on the charge of “inciting subversion of state power”.

    Further afield, Beijing’s attempts to exonerate itself for the outbreak have led the Chinese to try to shift the blame on to America, with officials at China’s foreign ministry absurdly suggesting that the virus can be traced back to an American military delegation that visited Wuhan last October.

    The Chinese authorities have evidently been rattled by the accusations of incompetence, which is why they are so desperate not to be held accountable for causing a disaster of truly catastrophic proportions. It has also prompted Beijing to launch a global charm offensive, where it aims to use its vast aid budget to curry favour with countries worst affected by the virus.

    In what amounts to a blatant attempt to exploit the pandemic it helped to create for its own geopolitical ends, Beijing wants to highlight the superiority of the communist system over all others in tackling the crisis, as well as Mr Xi’s munificence. In short, China is seeking to take advantage of the coronavirus to replace the US in its global leadership role.

    Thus, when the European Union ignored Italy’s desperate pleas for aid to deal with its coronavirus epidemic earlier this month, Beijing filled the gap by airlifting 31 tonnes of medical supplies.

    Many other countries in Europe, as well as other regions such as Africa, have been the grateful recipients of Beijing’s largesse. In Serbia, the country’s president, Aleksandar Vucic, was so pleased with the aid provided by China that he publicly praised the “centennial and strong-as-steel friendship” between the two countries.

    The rank hypocrisy of China’s attempts to profit from the pandemic will not be lost on countries like the US, which are under no illusions about the CCP’s ruthlessness when its own survival is at stake.

    And it raises serious concerns about the CCP’s credibility. It is said party apparatchiks missed the early warning signs about coronavirus because, back in December, they were more interested in attending regional CCP summits than taking seriously the warnings of professionals like Dr Li.

    This is not the conduct of a regime that is fit to govern. It is the behaviour of a corrupt elite that has no interest in protecting the interests of its citizens, nor those of the world beyond.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/25/china-cannot-escape-blame-wuhan-flu/

    1. It is the behaviour of a corrupt elite that has no interest in protecting the interests of its citizens, nor those of the world beyond.

      Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

    2. All of those favours will have a price., maybe not now but at some time in the future China will collect.

      1. Personally, I think every affected country should send China a bill for costs incurred. This whole thing is 100% their fault.

    3. Con is usually the warmonger’s warmonger, on a par with the doomster AE-P on financial issues, but in this case I fear he is correct.

  82. All over the EU they are closing borders to prevent the virus spreading,
    I was just wondering if they had put one between Northern & Southern Ireland yet, not heard anything on the news.

      1. Given that the virus is here already why does closing the border make any difference? Also how many people on those flights are returning British holiday makers?

        1. One case on the aircraft at boarding would probably equate to, who knows how many, on landing. The passengers are doing precisely what is forbidden all over the country. When was the last time you were 2 metres away from the nearest passenger on a commercial flight?

          2. That’s under certain conditions.
            Have a look at this WHO document at https://www.who.int/influenza/resources/research/research_agenda_influenza_stream_2_limiting_spread.pdf
            “Airplanes
            One study of transmission of influenza during air travel found that 72% of passengers developed respiratory symptoms within three days of exposure to an ill passenger on an airplane (Moser, 1979). Influenza A (H3N2) virus was isolated from some passengers and 20 of 22 ill persons who were tested had serologic evidence of infection with this virus.
            Two comprehensive reviews of the risk of influenza transmission in an aircraft found only two other instances of transmission (Mangili, 2005; Leder, 2005). One was an outbreak of seasonal influenza A (H1N1) among 60 military personnel who travelled in two aircraft in the United States (Klontz, 1989) and the other was an outbreak of influenza-like illness among 15 individuals aboard a 75-seat Australian plane (Marsden, 2003). Given the recent advances in aircraft technology and the larger size of aircraft, new studies should explore the spread of influenza in this setting.”

          3. As I think the WHO document shows, the estimated nominal R0 rate on flights goes out of the window. Let’s face it, how do you think the virus got to Europe in the first place?

          4. Many years ago on a Deutsche BA fllght from Düsseldorf to Berlin. Business Class, only one other guy in the cabin.

          5. Back in ’88, 25 of us had a 300 seat aircraft to ourselves on a flight from N’Djamena to Paris. The stewardesses were very friendly.

          6. Back in Jan.’78 on the last leg of my honeymoon flew from Lusaka to Heathrow in a brand new 707 of Zambian Airways with 10 passengers on board. We had a stewardess each. Daylight flight, we watched most of Africa roll by below.

        2. How many people on those flights are returning British holiday makers?

          Good question. Perhaps you should ask Boris?

  83. Just to remind everyone that the last thing left in Pandora’s Box, was hope…..

    IN THE TIME OF QUIET
    No one’s told the daffodils about the pause to Spring
    And no one’s told the birds to roost and asked them not to sing
    No one’s asked the lazy bee to cease his bumbling round
    And no one’s stopped the bright green shoots emerging through the ground
    No one’s told the sap to rest, deep within the wood
    And stop the sleepy trees from waking, wreathed about in bud
    No one’s told the sky to douse its brightest shades of blue
    And stop the scudding clouds from puffing headlong into view
    No one’s asked the lambs to still the springs beneath their feet,
    To stop their rapid rush and quell each joyful bleat
    No one’s told the stream to halt its gurgle or its flow
    And warned the playful breezes, not to gust and blow
    No one’s asked the raindrops not to fall upon the earth
    And fail to quench the soil in the season of rebirth
    No one’s locked the sun down, or dimmed the shimmer of the moon
    And even in the darkest night, the stars are still immune
    Remember what you value, remember who is dear
    Close the doors to danger and keep your family near
    In the quiet all around us take the time to sit and stare
    And wonder at the glory unfurling everywhere
    Look towards the future, after the ordeal
    And keep faith in Mother Nature’s power and will to heal

    Philippa Atkins

    1. Funny, I was thinking something similar this morning. There was so little traffic it was quiet and all I could hear was birdsong and bees buzzing.

    1. 317421+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Rik,
      First you must create a countrywide hardship of sorts then rhetorically seek the solution, keeping in mind NO action to be taken.
      Taught by rote to ALL lab/lib/con coalition politico’s, the rest is left to the electorate as in, party first brigade, best of the worst brigade, keep in / keep out brigade.

  85. UK coronavirus mass home testing to be made available ‘within days’. Wed 25 Mar 2020.

    Widespread availability of a fingerprick test that produces results in 10 to 15 minutes is a game-changer. NHS doctors and nurses with symptoms will know immediately whether they have – or have recovered from – Covid-19, enabling them to get back to work sooner.

    A Bright Spot in the General Gloom!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/25/uk-coronavirus-mass-home-testing-to-be-made-available-within-days

          3. Along with our health workers, food outlet employees are ‘essential workers’ and the ‘salt of the earth’.

      1. The UK is not the only country ordering in the antibody tests. “Tests are being ordered across Europe and elsewhere and purchased in south-east Asia. This is widespread practice. We are not alone in doing this said Peacock.

  86. Earlier today I posted a link to articles about pandemics and solar minimum. I forwarded a copy of the Dissertation on the Panzootic in C14th Europe, to the lead author and he’s just replied:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f1fb6bb0a20d85c40a7a31b9d1b1a5bb2a4e8784c6bd89dc6071df3048f159cd.png

    It turns out he has co-authored a book with Sir Fred Hoyle: “https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0722147546/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_dHcrEbA0AE3E7%20via%20@AmazonUK”
    The first review provides a synopsis and again it makes for very interesting reading.

    1. Didn’t know he was still alive, given that his co-worker Fred Hoyle died many years ago.

    2. Seeing Fred Hoyle’s name reminded me of A for Andromeda – book and BBC TV series. It’s based on the idea that radio telescope operators pick up a transmission from deep space which turns out to be computer instructions for building a device – and so on.

      I always felt Carl Sagan’s “Contact” was a little too close to Fred’s work for my liking.

      2. I never saw A For Andromeda, but I do remember another SciFi series, possibly in 1963, that used Jodrell Bank as a setting.
        I remember it involved a number of people dying at specific intervals, the numbers doubling and the intervals halving each time, with an equal number of people being taken over and converging onto Jodrell Bank for some reason.
        In an effort to stop the process, the place was bombed at the end of the last episode, but the bombing took place too late.

    3. Seeing Fred Hoyle’s name reminded me of A for Andromeda – book and BBC TV series. It’s based on the idea that radio telescope operators pick up a transmission from deep space which turns out to be computer instructions for building a device – and so on.

      I always felt Carl Sagan’s “Contact” was a little too close to Fred’s work for my liking.

    5. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe have advanced the argument that various outbreaks of illnesses on Earth are of extraterrestrial origins, including the 1918 flu pandemic and certain outbreaks of polio and mad cow disease. For the 1918 flu pandemic they hypothesised that cometary dust brought the virus to Earth simultaneously at multiple locations—a view almost universally dismissed by experts on this pandemic.[ Claims connecting terrestrial disease and extraterrestrial pathogens have been rejected by the scientific community. Wikipedia.

      1. Hi Minty, I think the angle I’m most interested in is the fact during solar minimums the level of ultra-violet radiation decreases and this potentially allows viruses once established to thrive.
        Returning for a moment to the dissertation on the C14th Panzootic in Europe (which apparently started in China in the middle of the Wolf Minimum) the current virus pandemic was preceded by the loss of over 100 million pigs in China due to African Swine Fever:
        https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/04/business/china-pork-swine-fever-pigs/index.html

    6. A guy has made a video saying that the Earth has lost two major central jet streams.
      Also the magnetic poles are starting to wander sufficiently to suggest they might actually reverse.
      He has some pretty pictures (below) to illustrate global jet streams and suggests that the external radiation shield that has been removed by the sun spot Maunder Minimum could augur the start of a new glacial period in a few years time.

      Our first family GP said that he always noticed distinct increases in flu during periods of high winds.
      Viruses are known to travel at high altitudes.

      https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/dec-29-2018-water-on-mars-lab-grown-lungs-and-more-the-biggest-science-stories-of-2018-1.4940811/billions-of-viruses-are-raining-down-on-you-from-the-upper-atmosphere-every-day-1.4940815

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c7091eb47c5d5b5ba9ff2cff885235832c96eb355913a19ed8d796dd313ca05a.jpg

      1. Angie, do you have any information on how long Virus can ‘survive’ to be viable?

        1. I’ve only heard about a few suggestions that COVID-19 can hang around for days on metal surfaces but apparently disappears more quickly into cardboard.

          This article looks like a good read on the subject and relative humidity seems to play a big part in a virus’s survivability having left a human body – only given it a superficial read so far:

          https://msphere.asm.org/content/4/4/e00552-19

      2. That would explain why shepherds in the middle of nowhere and not within sight of human habitation for days and days have caught ‘flu.

        1. ♫ “While shepherds self-isolated by night
          All seated round about
          A virus came from outer space
          And wiped the poor sods out” ♫

  87. Afternoon, all. Thank goodness the weather is fine. Managed to plant two rows of spuds and get some more plants out of their pots into the ground. Then I lay in the sun and read a book. The back garden is in shade now, so I’m here to bore you all again.

    1. Thought I’d also mention that my dog studiously feigned indifference while I was planting the spuds. It will be interesting to see if he sneaks across to the veg plots and dis-inters them when he’s let out unsupervised for a pee break tonight. He has previous, as the detectives say 🙂

      1. A few Springs ago Missy watched me closely while I thinned out & transplanted Honesty (Lunaria) seedlings. The next day she watched me ripping out Herb Robert seedlings (it grows everywhere) & attacked my plucking hand.

    2. It’s bloody cold in the shade. For some reason this afternoon, Spartie always found something interesting to sniff on his walk – in the shade. Sunny spots didn’t seem to hold the same fascination.

      1. That was why I came in. Lying in the sun was very pleasant, but once the sun has gone behind the house, things cool down very quickly. Of course, it’s still relatively low in the sky at the moment.

  88. Just back from an expedition. First to Tesco, where hand cleanser was provided just inside the door. Not many customers, all behaving themselves. Bought goat’s milk, buttermilk & kefir. Then tanked with diesel at 123.9/L. Paid at the pump for the first time since leaving Sweden.
    Drove over to W/rose St Ives, bought more provisions. There were 2 damsels at the entrance, each proffering spray bottles. Thinking these were for hands, I said jauntily, “Are you going to spray me from head to foot?” She giggled seductively “Nah,” came the reply, “vees is for vee trollees.” A loud-neck counted me in as No.29.
    Glorious weather with very little traffic about. Drove with the window down to maximise fresh air.

    Now I shall go & write all that in German for the benefit of my German chat group.

    1. “Germans? …. Can’t say I care much for Germans. Bunch of krauts, that’s what they are – all of ’em. Bad eggs!”
      — Maj. Gowen (Fawlty Towers)

          1. I still think, read novels & dream in German; it’s a very expressive language. Besides, being fluent in English & German keeps the brain active. Speaking German with humour always got me far better service in hotels, shops & restaurants throughout Germany.

          2. I have a German neighbour who believes that my life is very much the poorer for my not being able to read Goethe in his original language. She may be right.

          3. Ah, but think of all those trashy novels you can read in your own language – or a fairly close relative if they are American.

          6. Meine Hände hoch.

            But if you reboot the page, you will see that I changed the post completely.

          8. When I was living in Germany, I used to go months on end without speaking a word of English, although I am a gregarious type. German is ingrained in me. I sometimes dream in Swedish as well. In Sweden (for 3 years) I spoke Swedish & German, but very little English.

          14. How about al of those people who like to use really big words to impress, never mind the fact that it confuses the listener. I would have thought that german was the ideal language for those in love with sesquipedalians

          17. There are German speaking minorities in France, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia and probably other countries that I haven’t counted. Also in the US and South America, I believe.

          18. Many US citizens of our generation speak German. German is widely spoken in Chile (see my post below). Also in parts of Sweden, in fact anywhere in the World where German miners settled during the 19th Century.

          19. I had a very good Polish friend in Braunschweig. He spoke very little English; I spoke little Polish but as we both had fluent German we were able to have intensive discussions about all sorts of subjects. As a foreigner speaking a lingua franca with other foreigners has a certain kick to it & so much better than waiting for them to struggle in English. The same applied to Swedish in Sweden. In both cases that applied before the ‘invasion’.

  89. Supper tonight is ‘Crying Tiger’ roasted red peppers and sprouting broccoli on a bed of giant couscous.

    No Tigers were harmed in the making of this dish.

        1. I’m pleased to see you looking so much better, after your recent financial shocks.

          };-))

      1. If you were starving hungry, you would eat it. My mother used to say that her uncle, who apparently was terribly faddy about foodstuffs, would eat anything after returning from the trenches of WWl. Poppiesdad said ‘yuck’ to the pasta I had bought as emergency fodder ‘I detest pasta’ said he. I said ‘Not to worry. No problem. After a couple of days of nothing you will wolf it down.’

        1. I’m sure you’re right. Nevertheless I don’t like and will not eat couscous. It is bland, stodgy and revolting. The war’s over!

          2. Nope. Why would I want to eat it in Tunisia? Or anywhere else for that matter. The best thing to do with couscous is either to throw it away or mix it with some yogurt in a liquidiser and use it to hang wallpaper.

          3. ‘Why would I want to eat it in Tunisia?’

            Because, properly prepared, it is delicious?

          4. But are the delights of properly prepared couscous sufficient reason to visit Tunisia?

            …. probably not.
            ;¬)

          3. The ‘Crying Tiger’ part of the recipe is marinated steak in bird eye chillis and it will make steam come out your ears.

  90. From the Beeb:

    “Coronavirus: Parliament to shut up shop for time being”

    And every bugger breathed a great sigh of relief!

    1. “Coronavirus: Parliament to shut up shop for time being”
      That’s better!

      1. I have been thinking recently that some of the products are no better than others and expensive for what they are. Over the last few years they do seem to have gone downhill.

          1. That explains it. I had wondered about certain products I had seen (e.g, Medjool (?) dates, how could they come from his estate?). And then I suppose other products have crept in and quite simply ‘lowered the tone’ of the original product and the brand. Success goes to the head, even those that are crowned.

          2. I don’t think Chuck has anything to do with them.
            They are now a Waitrose construct.

  93. Aaaarrgghhhhh …….
    I’m beginning to look fondly on Brexit and even the bloody Sussexes.

    1. Is it any consolation to you that you’d have been in a kind of lockdown, regardless, as you recover from your operation?

  94. A better than usual D’Ancona article.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/boris-johnson-has-never-liked-rules-but-he-knows-this-crisis-demands-them-a4397561.html

    But, when the analysis is made, after the event, Boris will be hung out to dry by the lefties, no matter what he does.

    They will always find fault.

    Too soon, too late; too little, too much; too darconian, not harsh enough; etc etc etbloodycetera.

    The usual suspects will be queueing up, the likes of Owen Jones, Abbott, Lammy, Chakrabati etc.

  95. Latest Breaking News – Scientists are becoming concerned that after 12 weeks in lockdown millions of people will end up suffering from the psychological phenomenon known as Stopathome Syndrome.

      1. Pretty much a universal name for locked in syndrome. I see the DM is already reporting someone offing themselves because they could not deal with the thought of isolation, never mind the reality.

    2. Incarceration Syndrome. I experienced that after being on duty in the Bristol Royal Infirmary for a whole weekend as a student. It’s a really weird sensation when you come out.

      1. Same here on a horribly extended car ferry trip from Tilbury to Gothenberg. Extremely tedious and frustrating.

      2. After spending a week in the maternity ward – how bright the colours seemed after the calming and depressing varying shades of grey throughout the hospital; grey-grey, yellow grey, pale green grey, blue grey. Our tiny son, when we took him into our home in my arms, could not believe his eyes at the riot of garden flower shades and hues on the loose covers of our sofa and chairs, peonies, roses and delphiniums. His head was resting in the crook of my elbow, he stretched slightly and turned his head to look and just looked. And looked. Not only did the colours outside the hospital seem so bright and alive, to me as well, I had become highly attuned to potential danger – a car coming up to a junction, cyclists, people all over the place.

        1. 10 days in Tidworth military hospital with my firstborn – it was great to be out but scary too.

          1. Luxury. These days they don’t even want to keep mum&baby in for the night, if at all possible.

          2. Hardly luxury – more like a prison camp. We were moved from one ward to another, and had to take our soiled bedding with us. Not pleasant having smokers in the next bed, either. The nursery was so hot, people were almost fainting while being shown how to bath the baby. No bonding with babies, either, as they were taken away most of the time.

        3. One changes with children.

          What staggered us was how even more risk averse we became when we were blessed with grandchildren.

          Protective doesn’t even begin to describe it.

          1. I had no fear of flying until the children were born. After that I was wary.

          3. Ditto. Although many thousands of people sadly die on the road, the risk is not binary; you have a better chance of surviving a car crash than an aeroplane crash.

          6. Should you be so blessed, you might be surprised by how things that were perfectly acceptable for your own children to do are really scary when it’s your grandchildren doing them.

          7. Don’t forget that the invincibility of youth dissolves into the apprehensiveness of old age, at which point exiting stage left is no longer a theoretical exercise. Plus of course, almost any injury can be much, much worse due to brittle bones, the body’s reduced immune system, and long healing times.

          8. That’s it, cheer us up!

            Very true though. Then there are the drugs we take to ensure that the slightest cut we acquire will bleed and bleed forever.

          9. Err…I think you might have grabbed the wrong end of the stick here.

            I’m not risk averse for me, I’m risk averse for my grandchildren

    3. Is that when for some bizarre reason you end up feeling empathy and warmth for your missus?

  96. Gov UK says isolate in main residence but Royles UK say isolation in secondary residences is fine….

    Who to believe ?

    HMQ and Charles… or Boris Johnson ?

    1. if it’s a choice between big city or rural areas, no contest. Big cities will end up like Wuhan.

    2. Just as it was in 1665. The upper class left London for their country estates and the city poor were locked in their homes.

  97. Of Course

    “We understand these are challenging times, and patients may be

    worried, but we are doing everything we can to continue to ensure

    patient safety.

    Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are not licensed to treat COVID-19 related symptoms or prevent infection.

    Clinical trials are ongoing to test chloroquine and

    hydroxychloroquine as an agent in the treatment of COVID-19 or to

    prevent COVID-19 infection. These clinical trials are still not

    completed, so no conclusions have been reached on the safety and

    effectiveness of this medicine to treat or prevent COVID-19.

    Until we have clear, definitive evidence these treatments are safe

    and effective for the treatment of COVID-19, they should only be used

    for this purpose within a clinical trial.”

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chloroquine-and-hydroxychloroquine-not-licensed-for-coronavirus-covid-19-treatment
    No.no,a drug that’s been safely,widely used for over fifty years shouldn’t be rolled out until we are satisfied,until then just fuck off and die quietly and stop bothering your betters
    Now about the reports of the trials in New York,Florida,France,Auz,India etc etc

      1. True, but as long as it is not seen to do harm, give people hope.

        Just don’t spit into the fish tank.

    1. I could not bring myself to vote for Johnson last December, my choice of candidate was stood down.
      Every week there are things such as this which tell me I was right.
      Cameron, May and Johnson, all lacking what this country needs.

      2. Well of course, they are all Tories who think the government is a household. Their own ideology is their worst enemy because economically they can never get anything right.
        Bet they are wishing now they had invested in the NHS and care services rather than taking them back to the 90’s because well there’s no money (apart from the billions we bailed the banks with, the billions for Osborne’s pet projects, the billions for 2 giveaway budgets, one this year one in 2014 just before election, the money to buy Ulster support, and the response to the pandemic.)

        1. You question highlights what the situation is with our present political setup. The government is comprised of “team players”, ie those not willing to put their head above the parapet but plays safe. My own MP on every occasion votes in line with the government but then he is a PPS. Steve Baker for one has perhaps the potential for future leadership, but the sad fact is that GE candidates must match what CCHQ wants and very few others slip through the selection process.
          I am afraid these days I have an attitude where I think we (as a country) get what we deserve, keep voting the same way, get the same resultant quality of MPs. Keep voting the same way, don’t be surprised with never ending boatloads turning up on our coastline.
          Are you surprised how the worst members of our society have made themselves so prominent during this crisis and how many of them there are?

          1. Sadly the best thing that can happen is for both the Tory party and the Labour party to collapse. We need new parties with new ideas and a modern understanding of economics. Instead we just get this neoliberal corporatocracy no matter who we vote for.

          2. Johnson is far and away the best of a dismal bunch. I strongly believe that 40+ years of subservience to Brussels has bred a generation of MPs who are not up to the task of self-government, preferring to rubber stamp the crap that came from Brussels. This must change and I view Boris as the best option we have to bring about the necessary changes. He has already cleared out the old guard, Liddington, Hammond, Clark, Gauke, Grieve etc. Nobody’s perfect, I expect Boris to do well despite shortcomings. Just cast your mind back to his predecessor…….

          3. For me you have to go back to the fifties to find a decent PM.

            None of the current lot are suitable for the job.

            These people go into politics because their friends are in politics and will arrange a safe seat for you so that’s an 80k a year salary as a minimum for as long as you want it.

    2. I cannot see how any thinking person is surprised by these actions. It’s very clear that the establishment wants as many of these people possible to settle here. Replacement is the order of the day for the Western population, what else makes sense? The GDP argument fell by the wayside some years ago.

    3. They are out to infect the Border Force officials, then they will have a clear route across the channel, ready to join all those pedo guys (that’s a joke, says Elon) in Manchester, Rotherham, Oxford etc.

    4. Even Trudeau has said that we are closing the border for illegals. How come a supposed conservative government cannot do what Mr dressup can do.

    5. Even more reason now to send them straight back but we won’t will we? We have a Conservative Government…or at least that is the rumour.

      1. Must be India, as the last idiot to speak mentions Modi – the Indian Prime Minister.

      1. …it’s all in our 1400 years old scribblings. Of course it is, who could doubt it?
        FFS, our PTB are still intent on bringing in more of this dangerous ignorance and yet the same PTB claim they want the brightest and the best. Arse and elbow come to mind.

    4. “…him the power to decide who lives or dies.”

      I am tempted to add, the Indian Government – Hindu nationalists all – already has that power. I would have thought it better for the Muslims there to keep their heads down, but let’s face it, centuries of marrying cousins, etc., is not exactly good for the IQ levels.

  101. Doctors could prescribe a bath a day to reduce the risk of dying from heart disease, study suggests
    A daily hot bath was associated with a 28 per cent lower risk of cardiovascular disease and a 26 per cent lower risk of stroke
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/25/doctors-could-prescribe-bath-day-reduce-risk-dying-heart-disease/

    But water companies are always telling us to save water by showering instead of having a bath. Not to mention the fuel needed to heat the water.

    3. In order to take advantage of the heated water, you could leave the bath water in until it is cold. Every little watt helps.

    4. Bugger the water companies. I’m fed up with advice that I’m told will save the planet. It’s the globalist multinationals that are wrecking the world I prefer showers anyway.

    5. Reduced risk of heart disease but an increased risk of drowning, or electrocution if your partner tosses the hair dryer into the bath.

  104. The BBC website has a photo of a French policemen and a drone. The French are using them to catch curfew breakers as reported a couple of days ago in Figaro. . I knew the things would come in useful at some point.

    Editd to amend typos.

    1. They’d better not start doing that here. Any drones infringing on my air space WILL be shot down.

      1. Good! When they came on the scene a few years ago, I seem to remember posting a fantasy of sitting in the garden with a shotgun and blowing them out of the sky as they passed overhead. Between sips of my Pimm’s of course.

  106. Sigh,never let a crisis go to waste

    “Greens just can’t help themselves. As the rest of us do what we can to tackle or withstand the Covid-19 crisis,

    they treat it as a sign, a warning from nature, a telling-off to

    hubristic, destructive mankind. The speed with which they have folded

    this pandemic into their misanthropic narrative about humanity being a

    pox on the planet has been shocking, but not surprising.

    Right from the top of the UN, they have been promoting their backward

    belief that this virus is a reprimand from nature. Inger Andersen,

    executive director of the UN Environment Programme, says ‘nature is

    sending us a message’ with this pandemic and other recent disasters,

    including bushfires in Australia

    and locust invasions in Kenya. Of course nature is doing no such thing,

    because nature is not a sentient being, however much the new religion

    of environmentalism might fantasise that it is.”

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/03/25/covid-19-a-glimpse-of-the-dystopia-greens-want-us-to-live-in/

    1. Why don’t they all top themselves to show the way to save the planet. I’m sure ithe world would be a better place without them.

      1. Oh, how I agree with that, Alf. the Planet is very much over-populated an the four horsemen will ride very soon.

        The white horse has already appeared and if Islam continues in looking for a world-wide caliphate the red will be the next to appear.

        Just so that you may check:

        Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse:

        Four riders on white, red, black, and pale horses symbolising pestilence, war, famine, and death, respectively.

        1. Don’t you mean the one horseman and three pedestrians of the apocalypse?

          When Death took Famine, War and Pestilence out for a pint, they got their horses nicked.

          No one in their right mind would steal Binky.

        2. Thanks for the reminder. I had a vague recollection of the 4 horsemen but had forgotten the meaning.

    2. How does Nature not being a sentient being fit in with the general belief of God and Christianity around here?
      If you believe in God as an omnipotent sentient being or force then you would know that Nature is an aspect of that God.

      1. Nature is not an aspect of God – it is a creation of God.

        Except, of course, to shamans and animists etc.

        1. Really? So this powerful sentient being just set up the world and humans on it, demands their belief and prayers, then just leaves them to it? Not really what most religious folk believe. They believe they are being watched over, that said omnipotent being is looking out for them and listening to their prayers. In which case he’s taking a watchful eye and must be somewhat controlling over nature.

          1. Well, it could be argued that God listens to folk’s prayers but ‘looking out for them’ spiritually is not necessarily what they prayed for – and that would include saving them from plagues, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions etc etc.

            “Fiat voluntas tua”, as the saying goes.

            BTW, I was sorry to read of your job problems. I wish you luck and hope you can find a solution.

      2. Nature is not an aspect of God – it is a creation of God.

        Except, of course, to shamans and animists etc.

  107. ” UK government fends off criticism with plan to pay self-employed”
    The Guardian hates everyone and everything.

        1. Really?

          I was one of those under the radar workers. I was paid £7 per hour. That’s almost £2 under NMW so you are damn right i took advantage of being paid in cash and paid no tax ( none was due yet, not earned my personal allowance) or NI (which i should have paid but on that wage no bloody way).

          Now the downside. The self-employed help. I can’t claim it. I was actually told my services are no longer needed. I can’t prove what I was paid, I never received any pay slip. There’s no NI records. I can’t claim UC as the wife earns about £250 per week which they say is enough, and my kid is back from uni for the next six months doing distance learning, eating our food, using our utilities, but due to her age she’s no longer a dependant, and due to being a student she can’t claim anything either.

          So currently no job, 1300 quid in debt on an overdraft and rising, about £20 cash left, an irate and worried wife, not much chance of finding work with the country on lockdown. I have no idea where to go from here.

          2. I’m really miffed. Things had turned a corner for me despite the low wage. I was out of the house 50 hours a week. I had some of my self-belief back. I paid off almost half of my overdraft. i wasn’t worried about where my next meal was coming from and was getting on better with the wife.
            This is my sixth day of unemployment and she’s already threatening to throw me out again. She knows £250 per week is nowhere near enough to cover all three of us and bills.

          3. Like Devonian in Kent, I do not have words that can possibly give you comfort. It really annoys me to think that this country supports so many chavs and feral families who will never seek honest work yet deserving cases like yours are cast aside.

  108. People should avoid using the microwave at the same time as their wi-fi,
    media regulator Ofcom has said, as part of advice to help improve
    internet speeds.

    2. There is some truth in that. Not sure it would improve internet speed but a micro does interfere with wifi.

      1. I’ve had a jug of soup next to my router for an hour and it’s still clay cold.

        Wifi is crap.

          1. I suspect that 5G will cause more problems than it is worth. Remember where you read it first.

      2. It shouldn’t do, as the radio waves can’t exit the shielded box as long as the oven door is in good condition.

  110. We have been siting in the sun all day in our garden. Just the two of
    us. Sprayed the terrace with the anti green mould spray. Oh yes a great
    lunch with lots of wine..

    1. Well done Johnny. We have done much the same.

      Sun shining, a breeze from the East and a walk across fields at the back for our exercise. We met a few on our walk but they sensibly stepped aside as we passed.

      1. You can walk parts of the South Downs and never meet another person or the police.

  112. Our pretendy PM has just shown a few teeth. There was a report yesterday of people coming back from the US flouting the self isolation rules by stopping at the nearest coffee shop and supermarket after crossing the border, some have just ignored the rules and gone back to their normal lives.

    So today, Trudeau invoked the Quarantine Act. Anyone coming into Canada is now mandated to spend 14 days in quarantine. The only exception will be transport drivers carrying cross border goods (and I imagine airline crew and ships crew).

    That’ll teach them.

    1. What does any of that have to do with us using the one and only choice for our 5G network, Huawei antennae?

      It says the Chinese government is doing everything it can to secure jobs and work for Chinese companies and Chinese workers. Well isn’t that exactly what the Chinese government should be doing? If Boris had done this you’d be over the moon about it.
      None of these countries were forced into these agreements. They took them willingly.

    1. Trump has got most things right. He early identified China as the evil empire. He placed severe economic sanctions on the Chinese. He was right to do so.

      The Chinese have infiltrated many countries with their ‘payday loans’ and would, but for the Wuhan virus, have continued contaminating our societies. It is now quite clear that the CCP is our enemy and we would all do well to remember this.

      1. In Trump’s address last night, he indicated he will push hard for strategic supplies of all kinds to be made in the US.

        Let’s hope he can pull it off. But he’s up against the money men, like the Wall Street bankers pushing the pharma companies to take advantage of the situation to raise prices.

          1. yeah?

            just two weeks ago this was a ‘Democrat Hoax’.

            He’s an absolute moron. He acts like a petulant child. He’s made many poor decisions both as POTUS and in business.

          2. You and I will never agree on anything. So please leave us alone and focus your remarks on others who are smack heads and might agree with you.

          3. Nice, abuse someone who you disagree with. Perhaps you should be the one leaving.

          4. Water off a duck’s back Andy.

            i find it quite funny that a highly educated and intelligent individual such as corim worships Trump.

            You sure can see why the West is run by morons.

          5. I wonder if in “real” life people like Cori never admit they’re wrong.?

          6. I read yesterday, attached to anlink someone else posted, that the “reporter” had admitted that that phrase was made up. Sorry I can’t provide a link it was just a little snippet that caught my eye. Didn’t even know he was supposed to have said “it was a Democrat hoax”.

            Try to avoid news progs, prefer nttl.blog for discussions but only dip in and out, irregularly.

          7. It was said at a rally in SC I believe then he backtracked once called out on it as he does and said he didn’t explain himself very well. He has quite a low IQ really and has been terribly lucky in business. He’s far too thin-skinned to be a decent politician. He can’t take criticism of any kind. He’s a narcissist, and a pretty arrogant one at that. Some people on here seem to love him but God alone knows why. Maybe because he took credit for the decent economic recovery that Obama managed to pull off but didn’t take off until the first few months of the Trump administration. Of course there’s always a lag between policy decisions and observable results.

          8. I’m probably not alone in taking the “news” with a huge pinch of salt, just don’t know what to believe half the time.

          10. The implied threat to cut off the supply of antibiotics to the US if he continued to refer to the “Chinese virus” may have got to him – hopefully as the need for US produced medical supplies was something he specifically referred to.

            I am not a great Trump supporter – too much BS, and what we used to call “piss and wind” for me – but he needs to sort this and will get rewarded if he gets on top of it.

          11. I would trust the Americans to gear up and produce far faster than almost anywhere else.

            Tell the Chinese to place their blackmail where the sun hesitates to shine.

          12. A while back I read the book “The Arsenal of Democracy”. Once you get past the title, what it is about is how Ford geared up to mass produce heavy bombers in WWII – something the aircraft manufacturers said was impossible, and how they ended up turning them out at a phenomenal rate.

          13. Trump will get a second term whatever if he’s up against Biden. He doesn’t deserve it though.

        2. Trump seems to have no trouble putting sanctions on foreign goods so possibly that will be enough to encourage local production.

          Canadians do feel that we were screwed in the last round of trade negotiations, it wasn’t a nice diplomatic win win deal, more a US first deal (as the UK might discover). Just don’t take down your neighbours to spite the bogeyman.

  116. The most important question for Boris Johnson must be when he will cancel any involvement of the Chinese in any facet of our national life. This must include Huawei and our nuclear plant infrastructure. The Wuhan Flu has spread most viciously in those countries accepting supposed Chinese largesse.

    Italy and Iran sold out to the Chinese as has much of Africa. We must have nothing whatever to do with China from now on.

    Hopefully the Mullahs of Tehran will be deposed and the evidently corrupt politicians in Italy disposed with and voted out in favour of honest and sensible politicians (we can but hope).

    Throughout the EU has been exposed as a useless incompetent bunch of elitist fools, rabbits in the headlights. The EU bureaucracy has proven to be seized up like an engine out of synchrony and with no lubricant.

    1. At the moment we have to give Johnson the benefit of the doubt re the UK’s involvement with China. We do not know how deeply embroiled past UK Governments were with China. Wasn’t it May who originally signed off on Hinckley and Huawei? She appeared determined to screw the UK: her WA and her determination to keep bringing that failed plan back to the Commons; her involvement with the UN’s immigration pact; what else did she commit the UK to that isn’t in the public domain?
      I agree that China must become an international pariah state and that the UK must divest itself of as many ties as possible to this power hungry cabal. Industries must be brought home as we have become too dependent on countries that cannot be thought of as our friends. It’s dog eat dog out there and this crisis is exposing the rotten core of international trade and supposed cooperation.
      As for the EU? No surprises there although that prat Grayling would disagree.

        2. I do, it’s the media who choose to give publicity to his unhinged rantings. Heseltine has been quiet recently…

    2. Million upticks. China is at the root of the world’s current problems.
      Never again must the west get itself into such a position.

      1. Which ‘current problems’ is China at the root of?

        Most of the West’s problems were self-caused by reliance on poor economics.

        China told the world about covid-19 very quickly. The rest of the world allowed the virus to travel then blames China for it.

    3. You couldn’t survive without China.
      They almost certainly made the electronic device you access this on. They almost certainly made your phone. It’s the electronics workshop of the entire world. These industries can’t come back to Britain now. We import about 50 billion quid of goods from China every year and much more if you count the supply chains of items bought elsewhere.
      As for 5G there is no alternative to Huawei, none at all. they are years ahead of the competition. It’s Huawei antennae or no 5G.
      We can’t build our own reactor which is why we called in the Chinese in the first place.
      We can always enact some regime changes, we have a history of that.

      1. There is an alternative to Huwawai 5G – the 4G that we are using presently. It will suffice until another company is 5G ready.

        1. 4G is slower than wifi and has latency that’s far too high for the applications 5G will get used in. 5G has almost zero latency. Think for instance self-driving cars that know when the pedestrian lifts their foot to walk forward rather than when they are halfway across the road. Whilst 4G may well be fine for reading emails and sending whatsapp messages it’s not good enough to support the coming technological revolution.

          1. Yes, but none of that is essential. Those technologies can wait until a different 5G is available.

    4. Hopefully he’ll wait until I’ve received my 2 bulk spools of braid fishing line (at a very good price) from that inscrutable country.

      1. We will judge Boris by his actions. So far he seems to have been listening.

        So few modern politicians exhibit the magical combination of a certain utterly human frailty with firm political resolve and empathy.

        Boris has both qualities in abundance.

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