How has the government so comprehensively fucked this up. They should have introduced vaxports ten weeks ago. And now we’d be free. Fucking cretins
No. No. No.
Whether you like it or not, I’m right. We need 85% of the country vaxxed. That hasn’t happened because we’ve let refuseniks like Dura Ace live normally.
Now we approach another lockdown, a much greater imposition on our liberty - and economy - and mental health - than a bloody online certificate of vaccination
There won't be another lockdown.
Probably. It would shred what's left of the reputation of the Government, and the country can't afford to bear the cost of it. I also think that the panic over more Covid waves is being seriously overdone (and yes, I know the scientists doing the panicking know a vast amount more about the subject than I do, but that hasn't done anything to prevent numerous august institutions from issuing doomsday scenario models in the recent past which turned out to have the predictive accuracy of a horoscope.) The cases are now largely concentrated in almost invulnerable teenagers, something like a fifth to a quarter of all existing Covid hospitalisations were actually admitted for something else IIRC, and the greatly reduced Covid death toll is mostly concentrated amongst anti-vaxxers and a modest number of very old people with multiple pre-existing health problems, i.e. those who are getting what's coming to them or were already living on borrowed time. There's no real basis for re-imposing NPIs on the basis of Covid alone.
The fly in the ointment is flu. If the flu season this year is terrible - and nobody has the faintest idea how bad it is going to get, so it could plausibly be terrible - then the desperate screaming from the hospitals may yet be enough for the Government to reach for its plan B, or worse.
The public - or enough of it, at any rate, to exert unbearable pressure, particularly amongst the Tories' elderly core vote - has got used to this notion of shutting everything down if the hospitals can't cope and mitigating the damage with borrowed money. If it's done again it will wreck the recovery and cause catastrophic damage - much of the hospitality sector will turn up its toes if there's a second lost Christmas, especially if further massive support isn't advanced by the Treasury - and ministers will therefore be desperate to avoid lockdown. However, the idea of yet another one isn't wholly fanciful given the correct circumstances.
No need for a lockdown with vaccine passports; major error on the part of HMG not to implement them so far.
I don't think there will be a lockdown but I do think vaxccine passports are (belatedly) coming.
Whether or not we're forced down the road of vaxports very much depends on how bad things get, but if it does come down to the re-imposition of masks and fresh WFH advice then one would expect vaxports to arrive along with them. After all, if restrictions have to come back primarily because refusers are clogging up hospital beds, then moving against them is arguably logical and would likely be very popular as well.
Then it's just a matter of whether the Government has the willpower to be really Draconian in their use. Certification will be almost useless if all they do is stop unjabbed youngsters from going into nightclubs. They are going to have to make the lives of the refusers really difficult if they're to have any effect in forcing them to drop their opposition, which is, after all, the whole point of vaxports in the first place.
KotN says today is a day to celebrate and not a day for negativity as an important step in leveling up is proposed. The Government has listened.
SKS negative bollocks about the Government not having a serious plan.
Useless nonentity should look in the mirror.
Looks like Burnham has fucked off to the Tories with me!!
He is head and shoulders above SKS get him a seat quick and Labour still has a chance.
As I said Andy was very effusive about Rishi and many in labour may have been quite upset how far he went in complementing the investment in Greater Manchester
Would be churlish not to.£6 bn on transport in the North is not to be sniffed at Starmers reaction makes him look pathetic.
Muppets like CHB who think SKS will offer working people anything worthwhile are in for a massive shock when vast swathes of the retained red wall says no thanks to the useless nonentity.
Roll on GE 2024 Working class hero Boris vs the useless nonentity.
If people like you are leaving Labour than thank God because it can get back to being a moderate. centre left party once again. Nobody sane goes from supporting Corbyn to lavishing praise on BoJo.
Factional crap.
Try offering an alternative to the Tories.
So hold on you think Labour is simultaneously not doing enough to differentiate itself from the Tories but you also think it's right that Burnham is praising the Tories?
Let's be honest, you came into Labour during Corbyn and you've left because Labour is no longer a home for revolutionaries.
I was there long before Corbyn, I will be there long after. I support Labour because I believe in centre-left social democracy. If you don't then Labour is not the party for you.
Keir Starmer has a very good chance of being PM, current polling agrees with me and you just can't accept that. Boris Johnson will disappoint you as he has the people of London.
One of us will be wrong about SKS time will tell who.
BTW I have been a member of the Labour Party from 1975 to 2002 and from 2010 to 2021 and I voted for the most right wing Candidate in 2020
I am a Democratic Socialist like the back of your card says the Labour Party is. SKS and Evans are neither Democratic or Socialists hence I will for only the 2nd time in my life vote for a Party other than Labour.
Labour has only ever won by offering centre-left social democratic policies. You support losers and policies that will only lose elections.
I was wrong to support Corbyn and I was wrong to have voted for him to be leader, something which I will regret for the rest of my life. But lesson learned, you have learned nothing.
I have learned that Labour under the current leader offers me and working people nothing.
Why has SKS done worse than Corbyn in every single electoral test he has faced so far?
Do you think there is even the remotest possibility that other people may have reached the same conclusion as me and switched their vote.
You think SKS will be an electoral success I disagree.
How has the government so comprehensively fucked this up. They should have introduced vaxports ten weeks ago. And now we’d be free. Fucking cretins
No. No. No.
Whether you like it or not, I’m right. We need 85% of the country vaxxed. That hasn’t happened because we’ve let refuseniks like Dura Ace live normally.
Now we approach another lockdown, a much greater imposition on our liberty - and economy - and mental health - than a bloody online certificate of vaccination
We’re really not approaching another lockdown. Chill.
The news - everywhere - suggests otherwise. This looks very much like another belated panicky handbrake turn by Boris
I hope half term slows the growth and I’m proven wrong.
They should bring in vaxports anyway. Everywhere else is doing it, so it will be the only way of ever travelling
You're forgetting that @Cookie was on here yesterday 'proving' that we passed the peak earlier this week.
The goalposts have been shifted again and again by these people.
First it was that vaccines would be the way out, if we got the elderly done we'd be free and cases would fall through the floor and so would deaths. Didn't happen.
Then it was get most of us vaccinated. Deaths and cases would disappear and we could live with COVID forever. Didn't happen.
Every time we have not acted early, we have been worse off. So let's for once act early and do something.
Vaccines were the way out. Deaths did go through the floor. It did happen.
Most us did get vaccinated. Deaths disappeared even more and we can live with Covid forever. Did happen.
What exactly in that has not happened? We are living with Covid. Some people are just whiny bitches. Diseases, illnesses and death exist in the real world, this is what "learning to live with it" means. Stop whinging and get on with it.
A previous government already gave Fujitsu billions to digitise the NHS. IIRC the project ended up in court...
Such a typical negative comment
What's the betting it was the NHS and the civil servants who messed up the contract rather than the company?
Fujitsu and BT should share the blame - no one comes out of that scheme well.
It should be easier now though as technology has moved on and lessons should have been learnt
If the requirements hadn't been a moving target it might have gone better...
There were a few too many cooks on both the implementation and the NHS side.
One of the problems was that it was an attempt at a vast, waterfall project. Which could only work if the requirements were utterly frozen.
In the real world things change. This is why other project management methodologies embrace change, rather than treating it as evil.
Think small steps, lots of them. A eco system of small pieces, evolving forwards from basic functionality....
The original contractuality was certainly of a waterfall era. I think the ultimate tally was that NPfIT delivered around 25% of the functionality for around 50% of the cost - I think around 6-7 bn of the planned 12 bn was ultimately spent over the 10 years or so of its core life (though the final delivery, the hospital patient admin system for Hull iirc, actually was delivered as late as around 2018-9, over 5 years after Hunt declared it over). So, the cost was around 6-700m per year over the period.
And some things went better than others:
- The central Spine databases delivered a base functionality from very early, but didn't get as much richness as was planned. Still, it exists in successor contracts to this day and underpins a hell of a lot from the 'what the hell data are we looking at here and can we trust it?' that became mid-Staffs and many others (and under another politician might have remained suppressed for far longer, Burnham ultimately a good number of the right things) to e-prescribing and much more. - GP and ambulance systems never got off the ground and were mostly dumped early. - The specced out requirements for separate, very expensive, networking seemed over the top and clunky even for a health systems requirement, and a lot more use could have been made of off the shelf network provider interconnection for many of the needs.
- Hospital systems got bogged down in a lot of customisation requirements, often of dubious necessity, plus data ingestion variability. The dual approach that eventually came about was fascinating (a) adapt existing commercial US system predicated on charging the asses off of people to the NHS (South) vs (b) Develop a new NHS friendly PAS from scratch (North)
It was hare and tortoise stuff. (a) rolled out faster and went fairly well in a decent number of hospitals but was badly, badly fraught in others. The underpinning product was clunky, with dated menu based systems, and I understand a carer trying to maintain good connection with a patient whilst navigate the menus was hard work (one should note in the post 2010 political world the software vendor was able to supply hospital systems independently and had a similar record of triumph and disaster) (b) ran in pilot on one maternity ward for bloody years. When a maternity scandal broke in that trust, it probably wasn't a surprise, that must've been the most analysed NHS data in the history by a nation by a light year. But eventually progress was made and a whole wodge of the systems were ordered by hospitals in the dying days of the program, to be delivered years later in some cases.
How has the government so comprehensively fucked this up. They should have introduced vaxports ten weeks ago. And now we’d be free. Fucking cretins
No. No. No.
Whether you like it or not, I’m right. We need 85% of the country vaxxed. That hasn’t happened because we’ve let refuseniks like Dura Ace live normally.
Now we approach another lockdown, a much greater imposition on our liberty - and economy - and mental health - than a bloody online certificate of vaccination
We’re really not approaching another lockdown. Chill.
The news - everywhere - suggests otherwise. This looks very much like another belated panicky handbrake turn by Boris
I hope half term slows the growth and I’m proven wrong.
They should bring in vaxports anyway. Everywhere else is doing it, so it will be the only way of ever travelling
You're forgetting that @Cookie was on here yesterday 'proving' that we passed the peak earlier this week.
The goalposts have been shifted again and again by these people.
First it was that vaccines would be the way out, if we got the elderly done we'd be free and cases would fall through the floor and so would deaths. Didn't happen.
Then it was get most of us vaccinated. Deaths and cases would disappear and we could live with COVID forever. Didn't happen.
Every time we have not acted early, we have been worse off. So let's for once act early and do something.
Vaccines were the way out. Deaths did go through the floor. It did happen.
Most us did get vaccinated. Deaths disappeared even more and we can live with Covid forever. Did happen.
What exactly in that has not happened? We are living with Covid. Some people are just whiny bitches. Diseases, illnesses and death exist in the real world, this is what "learning to live with it" means. Stop whinging and get on with it.
Chill, Philip
CHB has admitted, on here, that lockdowns have taken a toll on his mental health. That’s a brave admission and I empathise with him. I share some of his anxiety
How has the government so comprehensively fucked this up. They should have introduced vaxports ten weeks ago. And now we’d be free. Fucking cretins
No. No. No.
Whether you like it or not, I’m right. We need 85% of the country vaxxed. That hasn’t happened because we’ve let refuseniks like Dura Ace live normally.
Now we approach another lockdown, a much greater imposition on our liberty - and economy - and mental health - than a bloody online certificate of vaccination
We’re really not approaching another lockdown. Chill.
The news - everywhere - suggests otherwise. This looks very much like another belated panicky handbrake turn by Boris
I hope half term slows the growth and I’m proven wrong.
They should bring in vaxports anyway. Everywhere else is doing it, so it will be the only way of ever travelling
You're forgetting that @Cookie was on here yesterday 'proving' that we passed the peak earlier this week.
The goalposts have been shifted again and again by these people.
First it was that vaccines would be the way out, if we got the elderly done we'd be free and cases would fall through the floor and so would deaths. Didn't happen.
Then it was get most of us vaccinated. Deaths and cases would disappear and we could live with COVID forever. Didn't happen.
Every time we have not acted early, we have been worse off. So let's for once act early and do something.
But it did happen, and we are free.
We're also making good progress on boosters, and with every day that passes, more young people are getting antibodies the natural way.
We may be making good progress on boosters now, but it's been a bit of a shambles hasn't it?
The authorities have had plenty of time to construct a plan to make sure that everybody gets a booster spot on six months after dose two. But they failed; I think I read that so far 4 million out of 7 million eligible had had their boosters. If they'd got this right, we may not be seeing the number of hospitalisations / deaths that we have recently. It's been pretty slack, though I accept that it looks like they're picking up the pace now.
The booster programme is running about 4-6 weeks too late because the JCVI dragged its feet for months waiting in study data while ignoring real world evidence from Israel. We should have started it at the beginning of September or even in the middle of August. We're supposedly sitting on a 25m stockpile of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. It's such a massive waste that we've got arbitrary restrictions on eligibility because the JCVI has got a case if exceptionalism.
Totally agree on the government's complacency with getting the word out though. We should be doing 4-5m doses per week to get all eligible people covered by the end of November and then throwing open the doors for a booster to all under 50s as well.
How has the government so comprehensively fucked this up. They should have introduced vaxports ten weeks ago. And now we’d be free. Fucking cretins
No. No. No.
Whether you like it or not, I’m right. We need 85% of the country vaxxed. That hasn’t happened because we’ve let refuseniks like Dura Ace live normally.
Now we approach another lockdown, a much greater imposition on our liberty - and economy - and mental health - than a bloody online certificate of vaccination
We’re really not approaching another lockdown. Chill.
The news - everywhere - suggests otherwise. This looks very much like another belated panicky handbrake turn by Boris
I hope half term slows the growth and I’m proven wrong.
They should bring in vaxports anyway. Everywhere else is doing it, so it will be the only way of ever travelling
You're forgetting that @Cookie was on here yesterday 'proving' that we passed the peak earlier this week.
The goalposts have been shifted again and again by these people.
First it was that vaccines would be the way out, if we got the elderly done we'd be free and cases would fall through the floor and so would deaths. Didn't happen.
Then it was get most of us vaccinated. Deaths and cases would disappear and we could live with COVID forever. Didn't happen.
Every time we have not acted early, we have been worse off. So let's for once act early and do something.
Vaccines were the way out. Deaths did go through the floor. It did happen.
Most us did get vaccinated. Deaths disappeared even more and we can live with Covid forever. Did happen.
What exactly in that has not happened? We are living with Covid. Some people are just whiny bitches. Diseases, illnesses and death exist in the real world, this is what "learning to live with it" means. Stop whinging and get on with it.
Chill, Philip
CHB has admitted, on here, that lockdowns have taken a toll on his mental health. That’s a brave admission and I empathise with him. I share some of his anxiety
We’re all nervy, one way or another
You're right, I'm being short-tempered by his repeated insistence that we reimpose restrictions. Its affected mine and others too.
I apologise for being short-tempered. But we can not go back into lockdown.
Waning immunity must also be a concern, we must get boosters into arms as well and as quickly as we did the initial vaccines. So what has gone wrong
Hello @CorrectHorseBattery hope all is ok and kudos to you for what you have said. I may not agree with everything but that doesn’t matter, I hope everything goes well.
Ps very late to the party but congrats to @isam !!
Just come back from watching No Time to Die. Didn’t think the plot was as woke as some of the critics were saying. I thought though the villain was sh1t as was the ending.
Anyway, on topic, no great surprise re Trump as favourite when you look at what is going on with Biden both personally and politically. To be fair, I don’t think inflation is actually his fault but this is politics.
I think it’s going to be a few grim weeks for the Democrats. It feels like increasingly they will lose the VA Governorship (check out what is happening with the Loudoun School System Board and the alleged rape of a student by.a transgender person, which is rapidly becoming the story of the last few weeks). The polling from NJ also suggests there is a chance of a shock there. And when the ‘#1/2 downloaded tune on Apple Music is “Let’s go Brandon” (have. A look), you know the mood music is moving against you
Your first paragraph has given me an idea.
Maybe PB should have a shared in-house 'wokeometer' by which we can judge the wokeness of various cultural/media artefacts, films, TV etc., even politicians - anything that moves, really.
So we could have a scale of 1-10, where 1 = fast asleep/totally reactionary, and 10 = woke beyond belief. Then we could see the extent to which, for example, readers view stuff as woke. Sounds like you'd give No Time to Die about 5, for example?
Well, it might make the constant stuff about wokeness a bit more interesting, and we could see if there's any consensus about levels of wokeness.
A previous government already gave Fujitsu billions to digitise the NHS. IIRC the project ended up in court...
Such a typical negative comment
What's the betting it was the NHS and the civil servants who messed up the contract rather than the company?
Fujitsu and BT should share the blame - no one comes out of that scheme well.
It should be easier now though as technology has moved on and lessons should have been learnt
If the requirements hadn't been a moving target it might have gone better...
There were a few too many cooks on both the implementation and the NHS side.
One of the problems was that it was an attempt at a vast, waterfall project. Which could only work if the requirements were utterly frozen.
In the real world things change. This is why other project management methodologies embrace change, rather than treating it as evil.
Think small steps, lots of them. A eco system of small pieces, evolving forwards from basic functionality....
The original contractuality was certainly of a waterfall era. I think the ultimate tally was that NPfIT delivered around 25% of the functionality for around 50% of the cost - I think around 6-7 bn of the planned 12 bn was ultimately spent over the 10 years or so of its core life (though the final delivery, the hospital patient admin system for Hull iirc, actually was delivered as late as around 2018-9, over 5 years after Hunt declared it over). So, the cost was around 6-700m per year over the period.
And some things went better than others:
- The central Spine databases delivered a base functionality from very early, but didn't get as much richness as was planned. Still, it exists in successor contracts to this day and underpins a hell of a lot from the 'what the hell data are we looking at here and can we trust it?' that became mid-Staffs and many others (and under another politician might have remained suppressed for far longer, Burnham ultimately a good number of the right things) to e-prescribing and much more. - GP and ambulance systems never got off the ground and were mostly dumped early. - The specced out requirements for separate, very expensive, networking seemed over the top and clunky even for a health systems requirement, and a lot more use could have been made of off the shelf network provider interconnection for many of the needs.
- Hospital systems got bogged down in a lot of customisation requirements, often of dubious necessity, plus data ingestion variability. The dual approach that eventually came about was fascinating (a) adapt existing commercial US system predicated on charging the asses off of people to the NHS (South) vs (b) Develop a new NHS friendly PAS from scratch (North)
It was hare and tortoise stuff. (a) rolled out faster and went fairly well in a decent number of hospitals but was badly, badly fraught in others. The underpinning product was clunky, with dated menu based systems, and I understand a carer trying to maintain good connection with a patient whilst navigate the menus was hard work (one should note in the post 2010 political world the software vendor was able to supply hospital systems independently and had a similar record of triumph and disaster) (b) ran in pilot on one maternity ward for bloody years. When a maternity scandal broke in that trust, it probably wasn't a surprise, that must've been the most analysed NHS data in the history by a nation by a light year. But eventually progress was made and a whole wodge of the systems were ordered by hospitals in the dying days of the program, to be delivered years later in some cases.
The use of waterfall was laughable - even from the start.
A very eminent Canadian project management expert asked me at a conference to explain why it was being run like that - as the Brit in the room. Since, as he said, no project of even vaguely like that size had ever succeeded.
My answer was to relate the conversation I'd had with a high-flying Civil Servant. Who had explained to me that Waterfall was the Approved Method, and anything else was Heresy. His reaction when I explained other concepts was almost comical.....
How has the government so comprehensively fucked this up. They should have introduced vaxports ten weeks ago. And now we’d be free. Fucking cretins
No. No. No.
Whether you like it or not, I’m right. We need 85% of the country vaxxed. That hasn’t happened because we’ve let refuseniks like Dura Ace live normally.
Now we approach another lockdown, a much greater imposition on our liberty - and economy - and mental health - than a bloody online certificate of vaccination
We’re really not approaching another lockdown. Chill.
The news - everywhere - suggests otherwise. This looks very much like another belated panicky handbrake turn by Boris
I hope half term slows the growth and I’m proven wrong.
They should bring in vaxports anyway. Everywhere else is doing it, so it will be the only way of ever travelling
You're forgetting that @Cookie was on here yesterday 'proving' that we passed the peak earlier this week.
The goalposts have been shifted again and again by these people.
First it was that vaccines would be the way out, if we got the elderly done we'd be free and cases would fall through the floor and so would deaths. Didn't happen.
Then it was get most of us vaccinated. Deaths and cases would disappear and we could live with COVID forever. Didn't happen.
Every time we have not acted early, we have been worse off. So let's for once act early and do something.
Vaccines were the way out. Deaths did go through the floor. It did happen.
Most us did get vaccinated. Deaths disappeared even more and we can live with Covid forever. Did happen.
What exactly in that has not happened? We are living with Covid. Some people are just whiny bitches. Diseases, illnesses and death exist in the real world, this is what "learning to live with it" means. Stop whinging and get on with it.
Chill, Philip
CHB has admitted, on here, that lockdowns have taken a toll on his mental health. That’s a brave admission and I empathise with him. I share some of his anxiety
We’re all nervy, one way or another
You're right, I'm being short-tempered by his repeated insistence that we reimpose restrictions. Its affected mine and others too.
I apologise for being short-tempered. But we can not go back into lockdown.
I entirely agree. There must never be another lockdown, not unless the wolves are eating the dead on Old Bond Street
That does mean we might have to consider many unpleasant things short of lockdown, if the stats worsen. Vaxports, obviously, are one such. As I may have said
And now I shall watch more Narcos then go to sleep. Gnight PB
How has the government so comprehensively fucked this up. They should have introduced vaxports ten weeks ago. And now we’d be free. Fucking cretins
No. No. No.
Whether you like it or not, I’m right. We need 85% of the country vaxxed. That hasn’t happened because we’ve let refuseniks like Dura Ace live normally.
Now we approach another lockdown, a much greater imposition on our liberty - and economy - and mental health - than a bloody online certificate of vaccination
We’re really not approaching another lockdown. Chill.
The news - everywhere - suggests otherwise. This looks very much like another belated panicky handbrake turn by Boris
I hope half term slows the growth and I’m proven wrong.
They should bring in vaxports anyway. Everywhere else is doing it, so it will be the only way of ever travelling
You're forgetting that @Cookie was on here yesterday 'proving' that we passed the peak earlier this week.
The goalposts have been shifted again and again by these people.
First it was that vaccines would be the way out, if we got the elderly done we'd be free and cases would fall through the floor and so would deaths. Didn't happen.
Then it was get most of us vaccinated. Deaths and cases would disappear and we could live with COVID forever. Didn't happen.
Every time we have not acted early, we have been worse off. So let's for once act early and do something.
Vaccines were the way out. Deaths did go through the floor. It did happen.
Most us did get vaccinated. Deaths disappeared even more and we can live with Covid forever. Did happen.
What exactly in that has not happened? We are living with Covid. Some people are just whiny bitches. Diseases, illnesses and death exist in the real world, this is what "learning to live with it" means. Stop whinging and get on with it.
Chill, Philip
CHB has admitted, on here, that lockdowns have taken a toll on his mental health. That’s a brave admission and I empathise with him. I share some of his anxiety
We’re all nervy, one way or another
But he's saying that and simultaneously calling for another one, to what end I don't know. I don't think he does either.
On your earlier point, yes I agree people are nervous. I am too, I'm nervous that the politicians will bottle it and destroy our freedoms again.
The difference between this time and that time is that ~90% of people have been vaccinated and those vaccines provide a very, very high degree of protection from severe symptoms and death to all but the oldest and sickest.
That Italian study should be made mandatory reading for all of our politicians. Vaccinated deaths are average age of 85 and have an average of 5(!) underlying health conditions.
"Why can't SKS attack the Tories more? Andy Burnham does, he's King of the North"
* SKS attacks the Tories, Andy Burnham praises them *
"Why can't SKS support the Tories more? Andy Burnham does, he's King of the North".
Bad faith nonsense, on current polling and current trajectory Starmer will be PM of a minority Government
I disagree with every word of that post.
Burnham attacks Tories when they do stupid things like the ridiculous decisions during COVID re lockdowns and on policing bill etc he also supports them when they finally put real money into levelling up.
SKS has gone along with every Disastrous turn and today decides to criticise them when they do something good for working people in the North.
He gets nothing right and will continue to be an electoral disaster.
How has the government so comprehensively fucked this up. They should have introduced vaxports ten weeks ago. And now we’d be free. Fucking cretins
No. No. No.
Whether you like it or not, I’m right. We need 85% of the country vaxxed. That hasn’t happened because we’ve let refuseniks like Dura Ace live normally.
Now we approach another lockdown, a much greater imposition on our liberty - and economy - and mental health - than a bloody online certificate of vaccination
We’re really not approaching another lockdown. Chill.
The news - everywhere - suggests otherwise. This looks very much like another belated panicky handbrake turn by Boris
I hope half term slows the growth and I’m proven wrong.
They should bring in vaxports anyway. Everywhere else is doing it, so it will be the only way of ever travelling
You're forgetting that @Cookie was on here yesterday 'proving' that we passed the peak earlier this week.
The goalposts have been shifted again and again by these people.
First it was that vaccines would be the way out, if we got the elderly done we'd be free and cases would fall through the floor and so would deaths. Didn't happen.
Then it was get most of us vaccinated. Deaths and cases would disappear and we could live with COVID forever. Didn't happen.
Every time we have not acted early, we have been worse off. So let's for once act early and do something.
But it did happen, and we are free.
We're also making good progress on boosters, and with every day that passes, more young people are getting antibodies the natural way.
We may be making good progress on boosters now, but it's been a bit of a shambles hasn't it?
The authorities have had plenty of time to construct a plan to make sure that everybody gets a booster spot on six months after dose two. But they failed; I think I read that so far 4 million out of 7 million eligible had had their boosters. If they'd got this right, we may not be seeing the number of hospitalisations / deaths that we have recently. It's been pretty slack, though I accept that it looks like they're picking up the pace now.
The booster programme is running about 4-6 weeks too late because the JCVI dragged its feet for months waiting in study data while ignoring real world evidence from Israel. We should have started it at the beginning of September or even in the middle of August. We're supposedly sitting on a 25m stockpile of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. It's such a massive waste that we've got arbitrary restrictions on eligibility because the JCVI has got a case if exceptionalism.
Totally agree on the government's complacency with getting the word out though. We should be doing 4-5m doses per week to get all eligible people covered by the end of November and then throwing open the doors for a booster to all under 50s as well.
It would be nice if they would hurry the Hell up but we are dealing with a (quite literally lethal, in many unfortunate cases) combination of the Government and the NHS here. My better half is actually entitled to a third primary dose, but will probably find it easier to access a standard booster because the incompetent health service has failed to put him on the right list on whichever Commodore 64 holds all the relevant data, and no amount of nagging does anything to improve the situation. Despite the fact that I live with the aforementioned immunocompromised person, on the basis on my second dose date, and as things currently stand, I'll be waiting until January for my booster. It's not very good.
Just come back from watching No Time to Die. Didn’t think the plot was as woke as some of the critics were saying. I thought though the villain was sh1t as was the ending.
Anyway, on topic, no great surprise re Trump as favourite when you look at what is going on with Biden both personally and politically. To be fair, I don’t think inflation is actually his fault but this is politics.
I think it’s going to be a few grim weeks for the Democrats. It feels like increasingly they will lose the VA Governorship (check out what is happening with the Loudoun School System Board and the alleged rape of a student by.a transgender person, which is rapidly becoming the story of the last few weeks). The polling from NJ also suggests there is a chance of a shock there. And when the ‘#1/2 downloaded tune on Apple Music is “Let’s go Brandon” (have. A look), you know the mood music is moving against you
Your first paragraph has given me an idea.
Maybe PB should have a shared in-house 'wokeometer' by which we can judge the wokeness of various cultural/media artefacts, films, TV etc., even politicians - anything that moves, really.
So we could have a scale of 1-10, where 1 = fast asleep/totally reactionary, and 10 = woke beyond belief. Then we could see the extent to which, for example, readers view stuff as woke. Sounds like you'd give No Time to Die about 5, for example?
Well, it might make the constant stuff about wokeness a bit more interesting, and we could see if there's any consensus about levels of wokeness.
A previous government already gave Fujitsu billions to digitise the NHS. IIRC the project ended up in court...
Such a typical negative comment
What's the betting it was the NHS and the civil servants who messed up the contract rather than the company?
Fujitsu and BT should share the blame - no one comes out of that scheme well.
It should be easier now though as technology has moved on and lessons should have been learnt
If the requirements hadn't been a moving target it might have gone better...
There were a few too many cooks on both the implementation and the NHS side.
One of the problems was that it was an attempt at a vast, waterfall project. Which could only work if the requirements were utterly frozen.
In the real world things change. This is why other project management methodologies embrace change, rather than treating it as evil.
Think small steps, lots of them. A eco system of small pieces, evolving forwards from basic functionality....
The original contractuality was certainly of a waterfall era. I think the ultimate tally was that NPfIT delivered around 25% of the functionality for around 50% of the cost - I think around 6-7 bn of the planned 12 bn was ultimately spent over the 10 years or so of its core life (though the final delivery, the hospital patient admin system for Hull iirc, actually was delivered as late as around 2018-9, over 5 years after Hunt declared it over). So, the cost was around 6-700m per year over the period.
And some things went better than others:
- The central Spine databases delivered a base functionality from very early, but didn't get as much richness as was planned. Still, it exists in successor contracts to this day and underpins a hell of a lot from the 'what the hell data are we looking at here and can we trust it?' that became mid-Staffs and many others (and under another politician might have remained suppressed for far longer, Burnham ultimately a good number of the right things) to e-prescribing and much more. - GP and ambulance systems never got off the ground and were mostly dumped early. - The specced out requirements for separate, very expensive, networking seemed over the top and clunky even for a health systems requirement, and a lot more use could have been made of off the shelf network provider interconnection for many of the needs.
- Hospital systems got bogged down in a lot of customisation requirements, often of dubious necessity, plus data ingestion variability. The dual approach that eventually came about was fascinating (a) adapt existing commercial US system predicated on charging the asses off of people to the NHS (South) vs (b) Develop a new NHS friendly PAS from scratch (North)
It was hare and tortoise stuff. (a) rolled out faster and went fairly well in a decent number of hospitals but was badly, badly fraught in others. The underpinning product was clunky, with dated menu based systems, and I understand a carer trying to maintain good connection with a patient whilst navigate the menus was hard work (one should note in the post 2010 political world the software vendor was able to supply hospital systems independently and had a similar record of triumph and disaster) (b) ran in pilot on one maternity ward for bloody years. When a maternity scandal broke in that trust, it probably wasn't a surprise, that must've been the most analysed NHS data in the history by a nation by a light year. But eventually progress was made and a whole wodge of the systems were ordered by hospitals in the dying days of the program, to be delivered years later in some cases.
Interesting post. Many thanks. You sound like you know a great deal about this?
Just come back from watching No Time to Die. Didn’t think the plot was as woke as some of the critics were saying. I thought though the villain was sh1t as was the ending.
Anyway, on topic, no great surprise re Trump as favourite when you look at what is going on with Biden both personally and politically. To be fair, I don’t think inflation is actually his fault but this is politics.
I think it’s going to be a few grim weeks for the Democrats. It feels like increasingly they will lose the VA Governorship (check out what is happening with the Loudoun School System Board and the alleged rape of a student by.a transgender person, which is rapidly becoming the story of the last few weeks). The polling from NJ also suggests there is a chance of a shock there. And when the ‘#1/2 downloaded tune on Apple Music is “Let’s go Brandon” (have. A look), you know the mood music is moving against you
Your first paragraph has given me an idea.
Maybe PB should have a shared in-house 'wokeometer' by which we can judge the wokeness of various cultural/media artefacts, films, TV etc., even politicians - anything that moves, really.
So we could have a scale of 1-10, where 1 = fast asleep/totally reactionary, and 10 = woke beyond belief. Then we could see the extent to which, for example, readers view stuff as woke. Sounds like you'd give No Time to Die about 5, for example?
Well, it might make the constant stuff about wokeness a bit more interesting, and we could see if there's any consensus about levels of wokeness.
Next Doctor Who is an 11?
Doh. You've already broken the rules. 10 is the maximum (though I may make an exception for a female, lesbian, black James Jane Bond).
How has the government so comprehensively fucked this up. They should have introduced vaxports ten weeks ago. And now we’d be free. Fucking cretins
No. No. No.
Whether you like it or not, I’m right. We need 85% of the country vaxxed. That hasn’t happened because we’ve let refuseniks like Dura Ace live normally.
Now we approach another lockdown, a much greater imposition on our liberty - and economy - and mental health - than a bloody online certificate of vaccination
We’re really not approaching another lockdown. Chill.
The news - everywhere - suggests otherwise. This looks very much like another belated panicky handbrake turn by Boris
I hope half term slows the growth and I’m proven wrong.
They should bring in vaxports anyway. Everywhere else is doing it, so it will be the only way of ever travelling
You're forgetting that @Cookie was on here yesterday 'proving' that we passed the peak earlier this week.
The goalposts have been shifted again and again by these people.
First it was that vaccines would be the way out, if we got the elderly done we'd be free and cases would fall through the floor and so would deaths. Didn't happen.
Then it was get most of us vaccinated. Deaths and cases would disappear and we could live with COVID forever. Didn't happen.
Every time we have not acted early, we have been worse off. So let's for once act early and do something.
Vaccines were the way out. Deaths did go through the floor. It did happen.
Most us did get vaccinated. Deaths disappeared even more and we can live with Covid forever. Did happen.
What exactly in that has not happened? We are living with Covid. Some people are just whiny bitches. Diseases, illnesses and death exist in the real world, this is what "learning to live with it" means. Stop whinging and get on with it.
FWIW my view is we are into the endemic phase or near enough. Some bumps coming as we adjust to seasonal upswing in a virus that will be with us for a very long time now.
It is going to take one hell of a lot of evidence to persuade me now that we need to lockdown and close schools yet again give the vax levels we have.
Frankly, I think it would border on criminal to do again for so little reason.
Firstly, always check how much of an announcement is new money. HMT worked out long ago to turn their own return on investment logic to public communications – why only get one good news story out of some money when you can re-announce it again and again? The problem is, of course, if it’s not new it won’t actually make anything better on the ground – which might be important to you if you live anywhere outside SW1.
"Only about £1.5bn of what the Treasury is styling a “local transport revolution” appears to be new money, with £4.2bn having been previously announced in 2019 for cities, and the bus funding coming from a £3bn fund promised by Boris Johnson last year."
A previous government already gave Fujitsu billions to digitise the NHS. IIRC the project ended up in court...
Such a typical negative comment
What's the betting it was the NHS and the civil servants who messed up the contract rather than the company?
Fujitsu and BT should share the blame - no one comes out of that scheme well.
It should be easier now though as technology has moved on and lessons should have been learnt
If the requirements hadn't been a moving target it might have gone better...
There were a few too many cooks on both the implementation and the NHS side.
One of the problems was that it was an attempt at a vast, waterfall project. Which could only work if the requirements were utterly frozen.
In the real world things change. This is why other project management methodologies embrace change, rather than treating it as evil.
Think small steps, lots of them. A eco system of small pieces, evolving forwards from basic functionality....
The original contractuality was certainly of a waterfall era. I think the ultimate tally was that NPfIT delivered around 25% of the functionality for around 50% of the cost - I think around 6-7 bn of the planned 12 bn was ultimately spent over the 10 years or so of its core life (though the final delivery, the hospital patient admin system for Hull iirc, actually was delivered as late as around 2018-9, over 5 years after Hunt declared it over). So, the cost was around 6-700m per year over the period.
And some things went better than others:
- The central Spine databases delivered a base functionality from very early, but didn't get as much richness as was planned. Still, it exists in successor contracts to this day and underpins a hell of a lot from the 'what the hell data are we looking at here and can we trust it?' that became mid-Staffs and many others (and under another politician might have remained suppressed for far longer, Burnham ultimately a good number of the right things) to e-prescribing and much more. - GP and ambulance systems never got off the ground and were mostly dumped early. - The specced out requirements for separate, very expensive, networking seemed over the top and clunky even for a health systems requirement, and a lot more use could have been made of off the shelf network provider interconnection for many of the needs.
- Hospital systems got bogged down in a lot of customisation requirements, often of dubious necessity, plus data ingestion variability. The dual approach that eventually came about was fascinating (a) adapt existing commercial US system predicated on charging the asses off of people to the NHS (South) vs (b) Develop a new NHS friendly PAS from scratch (North)
It was hare and tortoise stuff. (a) rolled out faster and went fairly well in a decent number of hospitals but was badly, badly fraught in others. The underpinning product was clunky, with dated menu based systems, and I understand a carer trying to maintain good connection with a patient whilst navigate the menus was hard work (one should note in the post 2010 political world the software vendor was able to supply hospital systems independently and had a similar record of triumph and disaster) (b) ran in pilot on one maternity ward for bloody years. When a maternity scandal broke in that trust, it probably wasn't a surprise, that must've been the most analysed NHS data in the history by a nation by a light year. But eventually progress was made and a whole wodge of the systems were ordered by hospitals in the dying days of the program, to be delivered years later in some cases.
The use of waterfall was laughable - even from the start.
A very eminent Canadian project management expert asked me at a conference to explain why it was being run like that - as the Brit in the room. Since, as he said, no project of even vaguely like that size had ever succeeded.
My answer was to relate the conversation I'd had with a high-flying Civil Servant. Who had explained to me that Waterfall was the Approved Method, and anything else was Heresy. His reaction when I explained other concepts was almost comical.....
Yes, blind rigidity of approach and lack of understanding is the true enemy. On the NHS, I think what I am driving at is that there were wins and you throw good people at something you will get a degree of output despite everything.
I've held the baby in more recent years on an Agile project where the understand of Agile was 'don't plan or document anything to any degree'. That sort of willful misunderstanding is a massive pain in the arse too. It really isn't a binary choice this stuff.
A previous government already gave Fujitsu billions to digitise the NHS. IIRC the project ended up in court...
Such a typical negative comment
What's the betting it was the NHS and the civil servants who messed up the contract rather than the company?
Fujitsu and BT should share the blame - no one comes out of that scheme well.
It should be easier now though as technology has moved on and lessons should have been learnt
If the requirements hadn't been a moving target it might have gone better...
There were a few too many cooks on both the implementation and the NHS side.
One of the problems was that it was an attempt at a vast, waterfall project. Which could only work if the requirements were utterly frozen.
In the real world things change. This is why other project management methodologies embrace change, rather than treating it as evil.
Think small steps, lots of them. A eco system of small pieces, evolving forwards from basic functionality....
The original contractuality was certainly of a waterfall era. I think the ultimate tally was that NPfIT delivered around 25% of the functionality for around 50% of the cost - I think around 6-7 bn of the planned 12 bn was ultimately spent over the 10 years or so of its core life (though the final delivery, the hospital patient admin system for Hull iirc, actually was delivered as late as around 2018-9, over 5 years after Hunt declared it over). So, the cost was around 6-700m per year over the period.
And some things went better than others:
- The central Spine databases delivered a base functionality from very early, but didn't get as much richness as was planned. Still, it exists in successor contracts to this day and underpins a hell of a lot from the 'what the hell data are we looking at here and can we trust it?' that became mid-Staffs and many others (and under another politician might have remained suppressed for far longer, Burnham ultimately a good number of the right things) to e-prescribing and much more. - GP and ambulance systems never got off the ground and were mostly dumped early. - The specced out requirements for separate, very expensive, networking seemed over the top and clunky even for a health systems requirement, and a lot more use could have been made of off the shelf network provider interconnection for many of the needs.
- Hospital systems got bogged down in a lot of customisation requirements, often of dubious necessity, plus data ingestion variability. The dual approach that eventually came about was fascinating (a) adapt existing commercial US system predicated on charging the asses off of people to the NHS (South) vs (b) Develop a new NHS friendly PAS from scratch (North)
It was hare and tortoise stuff. (a) rolled out faster and went fairly well in a decent number of hospitals but was badly, badly fraught in others. The underpinning product was clunky, with dated menu based systems, and I understand a carer trying to maintain good connection with a patient whilst navigate the menus was hard work (one should note in the post 2010 political world the software vendor was able to supply hospital systems independently and had a similar record of triumph and disaster) (b) ran in pilot on one maternity ward for bloody years. When a maternity scandal broke in that trust, it probably wasn't a surprise, that must've been the most analysed NHS data in the history by a nation by a light year. But eventually progress was made and a whole wodge of the systems were ordered by hospitals in the dying days of the program, to be delivered years later in some cases.
Interesting post. Many thanks. You sound like you know a great deal about this?
I have some direct experience, but at a coal face level. Tbh, a lot of the wider context comes from following industry websites like EHealth Insider, latterly Digital Health for years.
A previous government already gave Fujitsu billions to digitise the NHS. IIRC the project ended up in court...
Such a typical negative comment
What's the betting it was the NHS and the civil servants who messed up the contract rather than the company?
Fujitsu and BT should share the blame - no one comes out of that scheme well.
It should be easier now though as technology has moved on and lessons should have been learnt
If the requirements hadn't been a moving target it might have gone better...
There were a few too many cooks on both the implementation and the NHS side.
One of the problems was that it was an attempt at a vast, waterfall project. Which could only work if the requirements were utterly frozen.
In the real world things change. This is why other project management methodologies embrace change, rather than treating it as evil.
Think small steps, lots of them. A eco system of small pieces, evolving forwards from basic functionality....
The original contractuality was certainly of a waterfall era. I think the ultimate tally was that NPfIT delivered around 25% of the functionality for around 50% of the cost - I think around 6-7 bn of the planned 12 bn was ultimately spent over the 10 years or so of its core life (though the final delivery, the hospital patient admin system for Hull iirc, actually was delivered as late as around 2018-9, over 5 years after Hunt declared it over). So, the cost was around 6-700m per year over the period.
And some things went better than others:
- The central Spine databases delivered a base functionality from very early, but didn't get as much richness as was planned. Still, it exists in successor contracts to this day and underpins a hell of a lot from the 'what the hell data are we looking at here and can we trust it?' that became mid-Staffs and many others (and under another politician might have remained suppressed for far longer, Burnham ultimately a good number of the right things) to e-prescribing and much more. - GP and ambulance systems never got off the ground and were mostly dumped early. - The specced out requirements for separate, very expensive, networking seemed over the top and clunky even for a health systems requirement, and a lot more use could have been made of off the shelf network provider interconnection for many of the needs.
- Hospital systems got bogged down in a lot of customisation requirements, often of dubious necessity, plus data ingestion variability. The dual approach that eventually came about was fascinating (a) adapt existing commercial US system predicated on charging the asses off of people to the NHS (South) vs (b) Develop a new NHS friendly PAS from scratch (North)
It was hare and tortoise stuff. (a) rolled out faster and went fairly well in a decent number of hospitals but was badly, badly fraught in others. The underpinning product was clunky, with dated menu based systems, and I understand a carer trying to maintain good connection with a patient whilst navigate the menus was hard work (one should note in the post 2010 political world the software vendor was able to supply hospital systems independently and had a similar record of triumph and disaster) (b) ran in pilot on one maternity ward for bloody years. When a maternity scandal broke in that trust, it probably wasn't a surprise, that must've been the most analysed NHS data in the history by a nation by a light year. But eventually progress was made and a whole wodge of the systems were ordered by hospitals in the dying days of the program, to be delivered years later in some cases.
The use of waterfall was laughable - even from the start.
A very eminent Canadian project management expert asked me at a conference to explain why it was being run like that - as the Brit in the room. Since, as he said, no project of even vaguely like that size had ever succeeded.
My answer was to relate the conversation I'd had with a high-flying Civil Servant. Who had explained to me that Waterfall was the Approved Method, and anything else was Heresy. His reaction when I explained other concepts was almost comical.....
Yes, blind rigidity of approach and lack of understanding is the true enemy. On the NHS, I think what I am driving at is that there were wins and you throw good people at something you will get a degree of output despite everything.
I've held the baby in more recent years on an Agile project where the understand of Agile was 'don't plan or document anything to any degree'. That sort of willful misunderstanding is a massive pain in the arse too. It really isn't a binary choice this stuff.
That isn't Agile. Any more than burning the warehouse down is implementing JIT....
The wins started when the project was broken in smaller pieces and flexibility in what was delivered and the requirements was bought in. Almost like.....
Real Agile is about some simple truths
1) At the start of the project, the end is a distant blur. 2) Get something working. Then make it better. 3) Things change. *Enjoy* this.
Absurd. It is very clearly political comment targeted at an unpleasant regime.
Welcome to a fun feature of "offended" culture. Using it to suppress protests against unpleasant regimes.
The Chinese do a lot of this, in some countries.
I’ve always been deeply uncomfortable with the idea of criminalising offending people. That the police would even consider such a complaint as this makes me more than uncomfortable. It is extremely clear that this is straightforward political speech.
Watched Dune tonight in the cinema. Don't think I've enjoyed a film as much in the cinema since the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The cinematography, score and Villeneuve's understanding of the source material just make it a mesmerising experience. If we don't get a sequel because streaming undercuts the Box Office, WB really are morons.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has ordered that the ambassadors from 10 countries be declared persona non grata after they called for the release of a jailed philanthropist https://twitter.com/nytimesworld/status/1451983634773184520
How has the government so comprehensively fucked this up. They should have introduced vaxports ten weeks ago. And now we’d be free. Fucking cretins
No. No. No.
Whether you like it or not, I’m right. We need 85% of the country vaxxed. That hasn’t happened because we’ve let refuseniks like Dura Ace live normally.
Now we approach another lockdown, a much greater imposition on our liberty - and economy - and mental health - than a bloody online certificate of vaccination
We’re really not approaching another lockdown. Chill.
The news - everywhere - suggests otherwise. This looks very much like another belated panicky handbrake turn by Boris
I hope half term slows the growth and I’m proven wrong.
They should bring in vaxports anyway. Everywhere else is doing it, so it will be the only way of ever travelling
You're forgetting that @Cookie was on here yesterday 'proving' that we passed the peak earlier this week.
The goalposts have been shifted again and again by these people.
First it was that vaccines would be the way out, if we got the elderly done we'd be free and cases would fall through the floor and so would deaths. Didn't happen.
Then it was get most of us vaccinated. Deaths and cases would disappear and we could live with COVID forever. Didn't happen.
Every time we have not acted early, we have been worse off. So let's for once act early and do something.
But it did happen, and we are free.
We're also making good progress on boosters, and with every day that passes, more young people are getting antibodies the natural way.
We may be making good progress on boosters now, but it's been a bit of a shambles hasn't it?
The authorities have had plenty of time to construct a plan to make sure that everybody gets a booster spot on six months after dose two. But they failed; I think I read that so far 4 million out of 7 million eligible had had their boosters. If they'd got this right, we may not be seeing the number of hospitalisations / deaths that we have recently. It's been pretty slack, though I accept that it looks like they're picking up the pace now.
How do you know that the other 3 million want a booster vaccination ?
And if they don't how are you going to make them accept one ?
Because I know numerous people who have had their booster but I nobody who is eligible to have it but is unable.
So why wouldn't they want a booster ?
Perhaps because they've had covid since being vaccinated or perhaps because they don't feel at risk - its the under 50s who are most lagging on the boosters.
How has the government so comprehensively fucked this up. They should have introduced vaxports ten weeks ago. And now we’d be free. Fucking cretins
No. No. No.
Whether you like it or not, I’m right. We need 85% of the country vaxxed. That hasn’t happened because we’ve let refuseniks like Dura Ace live normally.
Now we approach another lockdown, a much greater imposition on our liberty - and economy - and mental health - than a bloody online certificate of vaccination
We’re really not approaching another lockdown. Chill.
The news - everywhere - suggests otherwise. This looks very much like another belated panicky handbrake turn by Boris
I hope half term slows the growth and I’m proven wrong.
They should bring in vaxports anyway. Everywhere else is doing it, so it will be the only way of ever travelling
You're forgetting that @Cookie was on here yesterday 'proving' that we passed the peak earlier this week.
The goalposts have been shifted again and again by these people.
First it was that vaccines would be the way out, if we got the elderly done we'd be free and cases would fall through the floor and so would deaths. Didn't happen.
Then it was get most of us vaccinated. Deaths and cases would disappear and we could live with COVID forever. Didn't happen.
Every time we have not acted early, we have been worse off. So let's for once act early and do something.
But it did happen, and we are free.
We're also making good progress on boosters, and with every day that passes, more young people are getting antibodies the natural way.
Exactly right. People want to lockdown to protect freedom. It's weird. Let's not throw away our progress against COVID by throwing it all away.
Normally smart people are panicking for nothing. Everyone can get a vaccine. 90% of adults have done so, 1 in 9 adults have now had third doses and we're definitely ramping that up. I saw a lot of advertising for it out in London last night that wasn't there last week.
Final point around half of all cases are in under 18s which I'd why the hospitalisation rate to case rate has been steadily dropping. I think we've got a severe case of fear of large numbers wrt cases. That's where this all stems from.
Many people like the idea of restrictions on others.
Some people like the whole concept of lockdown with people only being allowed to leave their home with the government's permission.
Watched Dune tonight in the cinema. Don't think I've enjoyed a film as much in the cinema since the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The cinematography, score and Villeneuve's understanding of the source material just make it a mesmerising experience. If we don't get a sequel because streaming undercuts the Box Office, WB really are morons.
Thanks for the recommendation. I've been meaning to watch the David Lynch version for ages, never got round to it.
Watched Dune tonight in the cinema. Don't think I've enjoyed a film as much in the cinema since the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The cinematography, score and Villeneuve's understanding of the source material just make it a mesmerising experience. If we don't get a sequel because streaming undercuts the Box Office, WB really are morons.
Thanks for the recommendation. I've been meaning to watch the David Lynch version for ages, never got round to it.
I second Randall. Great movie. And well worth heading to the cinema for.
Comments
Then it's just a matter of whether the Government has the willpower to be really Draconian in their use. Certification will be almost useless if all they do is stop unjabbed youngsters from going into nightclubs. They are going to have to make the lives of the refusers really difficult if they're to have any effect in forcing them to drop their opposition, which is, after all, the whole point of vaxports in the first place.
Why has SKS done worse than Corbyn in every single electoral test he has faced so far?
Do you think there is even the remotest possibility that other people may have reached the same conclusion as me and switched their vote.
You think SKS will be an electoral success I disagree.
Most us did get vaccinated. Deaths disappeared even more and we can live with Covid forever. Did happen.
What exactly in that has not happened? We are living with Covid. Some people are just whiny bitches. Diseases, illnesses and death exist in the real world, this is what "learning to live with it" means. Stop whinging and get on with it.
And some things went better than others:
- The central Spine databases delivered a base functionality from very early, but didn't get as much richness as was planned. Still, it exists in successor contracts to this day and underpins a hell of a lot from the 'what the hell data are we looking at here and can we trust it?' that became mid-Staffs and many others (and under another politician might have remained suppressed for far longer, Burnham ultimately a good number of the right things) to e-prescribing and much more.
- GP and ambulance systems never got off the ground and were mostly dumped early.
- The specced out requirements for separate, very expensive, networking seemed over the top and clunky even for a health systems requirement, and a lot more use could have been made of off the shelf network provider interconnection for many of the needs.
- Hospital systems got bogged down in a lot of customisation requirements, often of dubious necessity, plus data ingestion variability. The dual approach that eventually came about was fascinating (a) adapt existing commercial US system predicated on charging the asses off of people to the NHS (South) vs (b) Develop a new NHS friendly PAS from scratch (North)
It was hare and tortoise stuff. (a) rolled out faster and went fairly well in a decent number of hospitals but was badly, badly fraught in others. The underpinning product was clunky, with dated menu based systems, and I understand a carer trying to maintain good connection with a patient whilst navigate the menus was hard work (one should note in the post 2010 political world the software vendor was able to supply hospital systems independently and had a similar record of triumph and disaster) (b) ran in pilot on one maternity ward for bloody years. When a maternity scandal broke in that trust, it probably wasn't a surprise, that must've been the most analysed NHS data in the history by a nation by a light year. But eventually progress was made and a whole wodge of the systems were ordered by hospitals in the dying days of the program, to be delivered years later in some cases.
CHB has admitted, on here, that lockdowns have taken a toll on his mental health. That’s a brave admission and I empathise with him. I share some of his anxiety
We’re all nervy, one way or another
Totally agree on the government's complacency with getting the word out though. We should be doing 4-5m doses per week to get all eligible people covered by the end of November and then throwing open the doors for a booster to all under 50s as well.
I apologise for being short-tempered. But we can not go back into lockdown.
Ps very late to the party but congrats to @isam !!
Maybe PB should have a shared in-house 'wokeometer' by which we can judge the wokeness of various cultural/media artefacts, films, TV etc., even politicians - anything that moves, really.
So we could have a scale of 1-10, where 1 = fast asleep/totally reactionary, and 10 = woke beyond belief. Then we could see the extent to which, for example, readers view stuff as woke. Sounds like you'd give No Time to Die about 5, for example?
Well, it might make the constant stuff about wokeness a bit more interesting, and we could see if there's any consensus about levels of wokeness.
A very eminent Canadian project management expert asked me at a conference to explain why it was being run like that - as the Brit in the room. Since, as he said, no project of even vaguely like that size had ever succeeded.
My answer was to relate the conversation I'd had with a high-flying Civil Servant. Who had explained to me that Waterfall was the Approved Method, and anything else was Heresy. His reaction when I explained other concepts was almost comical.....
That does mean we might have to consider many unpleasant things short of lockdown, if the stats worsen. Vaxports, obviously, are one such. As I may have said
And now I shall watch more Narcos then go to sleep. Gnight PB
On your earlier point, yes I agree people are nervous. I am too, I'm nervous that the politicians will bottle it and destroy our freedoms again.
The difference between this time and that time is that ~90% of people have been vaccinated and those vaccines provide a very, very high degree of protection from severe symptoms and death to all but the oldest and sickest.
That Italian study should be made mandatory reading for all of our politicians. Vaccinated deaths are average age of 85 and have an average of 5(!) underlying health conditions.
Burnham attacks Tories when they do stupid things like the ridiculous decisions during COVID re lockdowns and on policing bill etc he also supports them when they finally put real money into levelling up.
SKS has gone along with every Disastrous turn and today decides to criticise them when they do something good for working people in the North.
He gets nothing right and will continue to be an electoral disaster.
JamesJane Bond).It is going to take one hell of a lot of evidence to persuade me now that we need to lockdown and close schools yet again give the vax levels we have.
Frankly, I think it would border on criminal to do again for so little reason.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/23/english-cities-transport-budget-greater-manchester-west-midlands
I've held the baby in more recent years on an Agile project where the understand of Agile was 'don't plan or document anything to any degree'. That sort of willful misunderstanding is a massive pain in the arse too. It really isn't a binary choice this stuff.
The wins started when the project was broken in smaller pieces and flexibility in what was delivered and the requirements was bought in. Almost like.....
Real Agile is about some simple truths
1) At the start of the project, the end is a distant blur.
2) Get something working. Then make it better.
3) Things change. *Enjoy* this.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/oct/23/callum-wilson-is-the-best-natural-finisher-ive-worked-with
Absurd. It is very clearly political comment targeted at an unpleasant regime.
Con 335
Lab 230
LD 7
Green 1
SNP 55
PC 4
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html
The Chinese do a lot of this, in some countries.
It is extremely clear that this is straightforward political speech.
We are a democracy, not a totalitarian state.
If we don't get a sequel because streaming undercuts the Box Office, WB really are morons.
Missouri governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found flaw in state website
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch notified a state agency and held its story while a problem that risked exposing the social security numbers of Missouri teachers was fixed
https://missouriindependent.com/2021/10/14/missouri-governor-vows-criminal-prosecution-of-reporter-who-found-flaw-in-state-website/
https://twitter.com/nytimesworld/status/1451983634773184520
And if they don't how are you going to make them accept one ?
Because I know numerous people who have had their booster but I nobody who is eligible to have it but is unable.
So why wouldn't they want a booster ?
Perhaps because they've had covid since being vaccinated or perhaps because they don't feel at risk - its the under 50s who are most lagging on the boosters.
Some people like the whole concept of lockdown with people only being allowed to leave their home with the government's permission.
So far biggest news out of Climate Pledge Stadium is that our WNBA mega-star Sue Bird is at the game modeling a Kraken jersey.