Best Of

F sake.

https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1310456522074357762

Is it really only a few weeks since we were all being encouraged out to enjoy cut price meals, and told that we should go back to the office or possibly face the sack?

To be fair the Government didn't know we would face a second wave and wanted to reboot the economy.

Why would they not expect a second wave? It was already starting in Other countries, what made the UK different?

The delusion of English exceptionalism is the common thread running through all this government's numerous fuck-ups. It also explains the neuralgic reaction to anybody who criticises our glorious imperial past.

On the 10pm shut off - had lunch today with a friend of mine who owns and runs a restaurant (and now takeaway), inevitably the subject got onto the 10pm closing time. His view - it won't drive restaurants to bankruptcy as most are now baseline profitable from their takeaway business, at least if they are good enough for repeat business. His major insight to me is that the shift to takeaway has made the restaurant business into much more of a meritocracy as punters rely on reviews on takeaway websites and less so on passing trade than before. Give customers a bad food experience and they won't come back.

On how the restriction will change things, the kitchen now closed at around 9:30pm and last orders are at around 9pm. This means they now have just one dinner sitting down from two. He said pre-COVID they would have 320 diners per night and they were basically fully booked every night of the week, with social distancing this went down to 140 diners and now they are down to just 70. He's happy that they developed a website and e-commerce business as soon as lockdown started and they got the government grant because now they sell sauces, marinades and seasoning mixes on their own website for local and now national delivery. He said this makes up for basically all of the revenue loss of the eat in business.

His view on pubs - they're fucked and the government has completely fucked it for them. After speaking to him I'm very worried about @Cyclefree and her daughter's pub. That the government are throwing away thousands of businesses and millions of jobs just to make it look like they are doing something is absolutely devastating.

I am meant to be going for a pub drink-up in Soho with friends tonight.

It's a cold grey evening, like November. I know we will be corralled to our allotted table and people in masks will hover, and track, and trace, and we won't have time to get properly sozzled.

Utterly depressing. I'd rather stay home and drink my own good (cheaper) wine, with my own music and food, and have a couple of these friends over.

This, indeed, is how pubs will die

Yeah he's actually talking to a pub owner he knows about how they can help him but pubs aren't in the same position as he was because none of them really have unique products, their food is good but nothing unique there, they offer good quality beer and wine but people can buy that from the supermarket and they can't really run a takeaway business that will keep them going and they don't have any chance of an e-commerce sideline.

There's no way out for them, he's run a pub previously and says that around 60% of their revenue came between 9pm and midnight, now pubs only have 30 mins to sell drinks in that window with much reduced capacity.

I want to fucking emigrate

Leavers gonna Leave, Remainers gonna Remain.

Its a bit ironic really.

Latest news from the halls of residence:

The Civil Engineering students are digging a tunnel, the Aeronautical Engineering students are building a glider and the PE students have set up a vaulting horse in the quad.

The American Studies students will claim all of the credit.

And presumably the philosophy students are contemplating what to do.

Daft comment.

They’ll be contemplating why humans have an irresistible urge to escape when feeling trapped.

The business students of course will be working out how to charge consultancy fees.

The geography students will be drawing maps so everyone can get completely lost while tunnelling.

And the History students, being smarter, never turned up at all so are sat at home wondering what the f*** all the fuss is about.

The PPE students are the only ones wearing face masks.

If a raging BLM zealot started a campaign to remove poppies from football shirts I highly doubt you'd be queuing up to support them.

I saw my first stupid bastard wearing a poppy today. This year's poppy cringefest is going to be something special as its going to have to distract, what Marx would have described as, 'the decaying elements of all classes' from both Covid-19 AND possible Australian-style Brexit.

As a kid, we all used to buy a poppy for the Haig Fund to presumably support old servicemen. You would see three or four of the old boys paying their respects at the local cenotaph at 11.00 on the Sunday closest to 11/11 before heading down the pub for a swift half. I appreciated that

In the last twenty years the poppy has been hijacked by civilians of my age, who were fortunate enough to miss conscription.

I think it was Simon Jenkins who wrote a great opinion piece as to why 100 years after the eleventh day was the right time to draw a line under military remembrance. I think he had right.

After all, the dead of the Napoleonic period go unremembered despite having died to save us from kilogrammes and driving on the right

I think we are a very long way off from getting rid of "military remeberance", and the Napeoleonic Wars are still on the "Remembrance List" in France, Germany etc. although of course any direct contact with those wars is long since gone.
The problem is not with remembering that military and civilians died, because politicians started wars.

The problem is with the poppys. It is now almost impossible to be a public figure without wearing a poppy at the certain time of year. If someone doesn't wear a poppy, they are forced to defend their motives. This then extends to ordinary life with shop workers and office workerrs being cajoled into wearing one. The original idea of the poppy was to promote a charity and nobody should be forced (or have to pretend) to donate to a charity. Charity donations are a deeply personal choice.

OfCom regulates telecomms and broadcasting.

WTF does Dacre know about either?

Pure cronyism.

With the punting of a former telecoms exec as the next CEO of the health service the Tories are just laughing in our faces now.

Of all the stupid things Boris has done I think this might take the biscuit. The bulk of Ofcom's job is regulating the telecomms market, the broadcasting stuff that gets the hard-right in a froth is a relatively small part of the job. Now Dacre might suit them for dealing with the latter, but I doubt that he has even the tiniest clue about telecomms. The mere fact his name is being suggested to run Ofcom makes me think that those proposing him don't even really understand what Ofcom does, which is entirely probable if Boris is any way involved.