I don't think Khan actually even LIKES London. He would far rather be strictly ruling a small, liberal suburb of Jeddah. Or maybe in total control of Newent, where he could enforce litter policing with real success
Oi! Newent would never vote for him. We're far too sensible.
Besides, he'd probably get lost on the way as you have to turn right at Highnam and we know Labour types hate turning right.
(And finally, Newent is very well kept so there's no need for a litter policy.)
I think the government really missed a trick with the booster programme not to ensure everybody got mix and match. We know it is the optimal approach and UK has enough of everything to be able to do it.
I thought everyone did get mix and match. I have not heard of anyone getting the same jab for booster as they got for 1&2. All those I know like me who had Pfizer for 1&2 have had Moderna for booster.
I've had Pfizer 3x. It's a bit disappointing. My wife, who is only slightly older than me, had AZ the first 2x and she got Pfizer the third time as well since we were done together. I do think that the evidence that a mix of vaccines was more efficacious was sufficiently strong for the NHS to have thought about this.
Interestingly, AZ followed by Pfizer is much better than Pfizer followed by AZ. Why? I don't know.
If you had Pfizer-Pfizer, then you should (ideally) have had Moderna as your booster.
Well, too late now. I do wonder if it means I might need a further booster faster than those that had AZ in particular.
The object is to keep you alive when you eventually catch the virus. Your odds are still exceptionally good.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
Rizgar's wife, Kajal Hussein, 45, and their children Hadia, 22, son Mobin, 16 and younger daughter Hesty, seven, all left from a Kurdish town in northern Iraq.
Rizgar says that he didn't want his family to leave for Europe, and he would lose his job as a policeman if he joined them and the plan failed.
But his family were adamant they wanted to try to make it to the UK for a better life. He promised to join them if they made it.
"They wanted to go, everybody wants to live a good life, to have a peaceful heart and mind. But here, ask anyone from seven to 80 years old - nobody feels good," Rizgar says.
Someone wanting “to try and make it to the UK for a better life” is an economic migrant, not a refugee.
Its a question of degree isn't it? A better life might include not having your kids locked up and tortured at random for some perceived slight on someone important or being caught up in a random bomb. But if her husband is a policeman she is going to find it very difficult to persuade the Home Office that she is part of some oppressed minority.
If they grant asylum to people like this - and to people who have lived in Germany for four years, as was discussed yesterday - then I might as well take my wife to Calais and bung a couple of grand to the man with the boat. Way cheaper than getting lawyers to write letters to the Home Office.
The problem, as the woman from Germany demonstrated, is that the government claims that there are routes for those who "do the right thing" and apply from abroad but then make it impossibly slow, bureaucratic and expensive so you get nowhere. It would be interesting to see if there is a material difference between the success rate of those who actually get here and those that apply from abroad.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
You see that in Pret, mixed in with the students. Makes it difficult to get a table.
Interesting to see that it seems the booster program is to be extended to everyone. This is a good idea, which I've said should happen for a while.
Very annoyed about masks, but if they're to return for just a couple of weeks to help give time to rollout boosters then I'd be OK with that. That's about it.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
You see that in Pret, mixed in with the students. Makes it difficult to get a table.
It's the next form of social dumping - we live in the ear of BYO mobile phone.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
I think the government really missed a trick with the booster programme not to ensure everybody got mix and match. We know it is the optimal approach and UK has enough of everything to be able to do it.
I thought everyone did get mix and match. I have not heard of anyone getting the same jab for booster as they got for 1&2. All those I know like me who had Pfizer for 1&2 have had Moderna for booster.
I've had Pfizer 3x. It's a bit disappointing. My wife, who is only slightly older than me, had AZ the first 2x and she got Pfizer the third time as well since we were done together. I do think that the evidence that a mix of vaccines was more efficacious was sufficiently strong for the NHS to have thought about this.
Interestingly, AZ followed by Pfizer is much better than Pfizer followed by AZ. Why? I don't know.
If you had Pfizer-Pfizer, then you should (ideally) have had Moderna as your booster.
Well, too late now. I do wonder if it means I might need a further booster faster than those that had AZ in particular.
The object is to keep you alive when you eventually catch the virus. Your odds are still exceptionally good.
True, I am a rich westerner lucky enough to have access to a Health Service that has really got its act together, twice. So even although I have lung issues, am slightly overweight and 60 I agree my chances are good. But they could have been fractionally better.
Interesting to see that it seems the booster program is to be extended to everyone. This is a good idea, which I've said should happen for a while.
Very annoyed about masks, but if they're to return for just a couple of weeks to help give time to rollout boosters then I'd be OK with that. That's about it.
There are three more weeks of term for most schools (I think). Hopefully the situation will be clearer in the new year.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
Although I believe it's finally moving from Kingston.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
Our local coffee shop have fixed that "issue" but holding mother and toddler hours at various times...
Rizgar's wife, Kajal Hussein, 45, and their children Hadia, 22, son Mobin, 16 and younger daughter Hesty, seven, all left from a Kurdish town in northern Iraq.
Rizgar says that he didn't want his family to leave for Europe, and he would lose his job as a policeman if he joined them and the plan failed.
But his family were adamant they wanted to try to make it to the UK for a better life. He promised to join them if they made it.
"They wanted to go, everybody wants to live a good life, to have a peaceful heart and mind. But here, ask anyone from seven to 80 years old - nobody feels good," Rizgar says.
Someone wanting “to try and make it to the UK for a better life” is an economic migrant, not a refugee.
Its a question of degree isn't it? A better life might include not having your kids locked up and tortured at random for some perceived slight on someone important or being caught up in a random bomb. But if her husband is a policeman she is going to find it very difficult to persuade the Home Office that she is part of some oppressed minority.
If they grant asylum to people like this - and to people who have lived in Germany for four years, as was discussed yesterday - then I might as well take my wife to Calais and bung a couple of grand to the man with the boat. Way cheaper than getting lawyers to write letters to the Home Office.
The problem, as the woman from Germany demonstrated, is that the government claims that there are routes for those who "do the right thing" and apply from abroad but then make it impossibly slow, bureaucratic and expensive so you get nowhere. It would be interesting to see if there is a material difference between the success rate of those who actually get here and those that apply from abroad.
Our Thailand-dwelling son, who is planning to come here en famille for Christmas, is having all sorts of delays with his wife's visa from the British Embassy in Bangkok.She had a five-year one, which has now run out.... last visit 2019. Mrs C is becoming doleful at the prospect of no visit from that set of granddaughters.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
You see that in Pret, mixed in with the students. Makes it difficult to get a table.
It's the next form of social dumping - we live in the ear of BYO mobile phone.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
As an employer through our service company we have been concerned that many of the problems that have been worked on for a long time in an office environment will reoccur. Poorer lighting, bad posture on chairs, no special covers on the computer screens, safe wiring, etc. The problem is that it is exceptionally intrusive to ask to come into someone's home to inspect all of this but there is a risk that our sickness absence rate will increase, even putting aside issues like isolation and boredom. I am very keen to have at least a hybrid model.
As the headline stands almost all house owners have, anyone who has ever used a credit card has, etc.
What they mean is how many have used one of three particular companies.
How is this any different, to the finance options that you have always seen in furniture and electrical shops - usually with high commissions, high interest rates and aimed at those who can’t get a credit card?
The main article implicitly implies the resuts of each election is independent from the last one and does not take into account the very strong autocorrelation in the Conservative party's results over the years. Someone looking forward from July 1983 would estimate the probability of a conservative majority in the next election would be much greater than someone looking forward from July 1997. We are in a similar position to the 1987-1992 election cyle.
I don't agree that there is very strong autocorrelation, but even if there is, that strengthens the central contention, that the market may be underpricing the likelihood of a Conservative victory next time.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
You see that in Pret, mixed in with the students. Makes it difficult to get a table.
It's the next form of social dumping - we live in the ear of BYO mobile phone.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
As an employer through our service company we have been concerned that many of the problems that have been worked on for a long time in an office environment will reoccur. Poorer lighting, bad posture on chairs, no special covers on the computer screens, safe wiring, etc. The problem is that it is exceptionally intrusive to ask to come into someone's home to inspect all of this but there is a risk that our sickness absence rate will increase, even putting aside issues like isolation and boredom. I am very keen to have at least a hybrid model.
IMV there's a good chance that this will end up in legal action - for full-time employees, at least.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
Good for the coffee shop.
If I had a rural or out-of-townpub, I’d invest in some decent tables and wifi, do a deal of something like £20 a day 9-5, including lunch, a pint and unlimited filter coffee.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
You see that in Pret, mixed in with the students. Makes it difficult to get a table.
It's the next form of social dumping - we live in the ear of BYO mobile phone.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
As an employer through our service company we have been concerned that many of the problems that have been worked on for a long time in an office environment will reoccur. Poorer lighting, bad posture on chairs, no special covers on the computer screens, safe wiring, etc. The problem is that it is exceptionally intrusive to ask to come into someone's home to inspect all of this but there is a risk that our sickness absence rate will increase, even putting aside issues like isolation and boredom. I am very keen to have at least a hybrid model.
Many years ago..... it must be, I was still working ..... a lady on may team had a husband who worked for Fords as a designer (I think), and for some reason they started to offer WFH. Someone from HR came round to the house to check that it was suitable, and my colleague told me that she felt very hostile to 'this woman who came round to see if my house was safe and suitable for their equipment!'
Rizgar's wife, Kajal Hussein, 45, and their children Hadia, 22, son Mobin, 16 and younger daughter Hesty, seven, all left from a Kurdish town in northern Iraq.
Rizgar says that he didn't want his family to leave for Europe, and he would lose his job as a policeman if he joined them and the plan failed.
But his family were adamant they wanted to try to make it to the UK for a better life. He promised to join them if they made it.
"They wanted to go, everybody wants to live a good life, to have a peaceful heart and mind. But here, ask anyone from seven to 80 years old - nobody feels good," Rizgar says.
Someone wanting “to try and make it to the UK for a better life” is an economic migrant, not a refugee.
Its a question of degree isn't it? A better life might include not having your kids locked up and tortured at random for some perceived slight on someone important or being caught up in a random bomb. But if her husband is a policeman she is going to find it very difficult to persuade the Home Office that she is part of some oppressed minority.
If they grant asylum to people like this - and to people who have lived in Germany for four years, as was discussed yesterday - then I might as well take my wife to Calais and bung a couple of grand to the man with the boat. Way cheaper than getting lawyers to write letters to the Home Office.
The problem, as the woman from Germany demonstrated, is that the government claims that there are routes for those who "do the right thing" and apply from abroad but then make it impossibly slow, bureaucratic and expensive so you get nowhere. It would be interesting to see if there is a material difference between the success rate of those who actually get here and those that apply from abroad.
Our Thailand-dwelling son, who is planning to come here en famille for Christmas, is having all sorts of delays with his wife's visa from the British Embassy in Bangkok.She had a five-year one, which has now run out.... last visit 2019. Mrs C is becoming doleful at the prospect of no visit from that set of granddaughters.
What I find intolerable is that these difficulties get added to artificially to save some politician embarrassment. All the best for your family.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
You see that in Pret, mixed in with the students. Makes it difficult to get a table.
It's the next form of social dumping - we live in the ear of BYO mobile phone.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
As an employer through our service company we have been concerned that many of the problems that have been worked on for a long time in an office environment will reoccur. Poorer lighting, bad posture on chairs, no special covers on the computer screens, safe wiring, etc. The problem is that it is exceptionally intrusive to ask to come into someone's home to inspect all of this but there is a risk that our sickness absence rate will increase, even putting aside issues like isolation and boredom. I am very keen to have at least a hybrid model.
IMV there's a good chance that this will end up in legal action - for full-time employees, at least.
You may assume that a Board made up entirely of litigation lawyers is alert to this!
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
You see that in Pret, mixed in with the students. Makes it difficult to get a table.
It's the next form of social dumping - we live in the ear of BYO mobile phone.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
As an employer through our service company we have been concerned that many of the problems that have been worked on for a long time in an office environment will reoccur. Poorer lighting, bad posture on chairs, no special covers on the computer screens, safe wiring, etc. The problem is that it is exceptionally intrusive to ask to come into someone's home to inspect all of this but there is a risk that our sickness absence rate will increase, even putting aside issues like isolation and boredom. I am very keen to have at least a hybrid model.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
Good for the coffee shop.
If I had a rural or out-of-townpub, I’d invest in some decent tables and wifi, do a deal of something like £20 a day 9-5, including lunch, a pint and unlimited filter coffee.
She hadn't heard the story of Edward Lloyd and his coffee house......
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
You see that in Pret, mixed in with the students. Makes it difficult to get a table.
It's the next form of social dumping - we live in the ear of BYO mobile phone.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
As an employer through our service company we have been concerned that many of the problems that have been worked on for a long time in an office environment will reoccur. Poorer lighting, bad posture on chairs, no special covers on the computer screens, safe wiring, etc. The problem is that it is exceptionally intrusive to ask to come into someone's home to inspect all of this but there is a risk that our sickness absence rate will increase, even putting aside issues like isolation and boredom. I am very keen to have at least a hybrid model.
Rundown of how the table felt about the UK's virus situation. Almost all were very positive, one person wasn't, now an academic, the pharma people universally disagreed with that person's assessment. The other two academics were sympathetic to the position but overall still thought we were in a favourable place to maintain our current freedom level and roll back the masks again in a few weeks.
The pharma people all said their internal modelling agreed with the LSHTM model on hospitalisations across Europe. They think Omicron will be very difficult in nations that suppressed the delta exit wave, all three academics said that they disagreed with the government's initial stance of unlock hard in July, but all have been won over by the data.
The big one - vaccine efficacy dilution. Much more mixed, but overall confidence from the pharma people that the vaccines will work to a good enough degree to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. The AZ person said that the UK will benefit from doing the majority of over 50s with two AZ doses and a Moderna/Pfizer booster. Their own study shows it gives the best broad spectrum t-cell and b-cell response which won't prevent any infections but will significantly reduce infection severity to the point that they said even with immune escape those people with 2x AZ and 1x Moderna/Pfizer have little to worry about. The table tended to agree that AZ/AZ/Moderna is probably the best combination. Someone suggested that the government should bring AZ back for 30+ booster shots. Another said that the WHO should make the standard three shot course mRNA/AZ/mRNA and that everyone in the UK who had three mRNA doses should be given the option of an AZ booster in the new year for the t/b-cell immunity that mRNA vaccines don't provide to as high a degree.
More generally - the group agreed that Chris Whitty was right that every single person in the country will eventually get COVID. One said that the government lulled itself into a false sense of security with the 95% efficacy on three doses but Omicron proves that we will all get it, probably multiple times over the course of life. They said the thinking in government reflects that but the masks have probably been brought back to "purchase" an R reduction of ~0.1 for a couple of weeks just in case Omicron explodes among the unvaccinated young and unboosted old in the run up to Xmas. This person is probably closest to the government and they said the the way NPIs are now rated is almost like a budget, each one is rated with its R value reduction and it is put against the cost of implementing it from an economic and social perspective. Masks have a low economic and medium social cost but also a very low R reduction. Closing schools has got a very high economic and social cost and also a very high R reduction, lockdown is rated as the highest for costs but a bit less than closing schools for R reduction.
Very interesting summary, Max.
Academics match my experience - not my field, but I was one of the few of my colleagues optimistic in July - the only other with same view was someone on SAGE who has also been involved with a lot of ebola response, he was of the view that this, unlike ebola, is not something that vaccinated people needed to be protected from at any cost. Others, as you suggest, have come round to the strategy.
Rizgar's wife, Kajal Hussein, 45, and their children Hadia, 22, son Mobin, 16 and younger daughter Hesty, seven, all left from a Kurdish town in northern Iraq.
Rizgar says that he didn't want his family to leave for Europe, and he would lose his job as a policeman if he joined them and the plan failed.
But his family were adamant they wanted to try to make it to the UK for a better life. He promised to join them if they made it.
"They wanted to go, everybody wants to live a good life, to have a peaceful heart and mind. But here, ask anyone from seven to 80 years old - nobody feels good," Rizgar says.
Someone wanting “to try and make it to the UK for a better life” is an economic migrant, not a refugee.
Its a question of degree isn't it? A better life might include not having your kids locked up and tortured at random for some perceived slight on someone important or being caught up in a random bomb. But if her husband is a policeman she is going to find it very difficult to persuade the Home Office that she is part of some oppressed minority.
If they grant asylum to people like this - and to people who have lived in Germany for four years, as was discussed yesterday - then I might as well take my wife to Calais and bung a couple of grand to the man with the boat. Way cheaper than getting lawyers to write letters to the Home Office.
The problem, as the woman from Germany demonstrated, is that the government claims that there are routes for those who "do the right thing" and apply from abroad but then make it impossibly slow, bureaucratic and expensive so you get nowhere. It would be interesting to see if there is a material difference between the success rate of those who actually get here and those that apply from abroad.
Our Thailand-dwelling son, who is planning to come here en famille for Christmas, is having all sorts of delays with his wife's visa from the British Embassy in Bangkok.She had a five-year one, which has now run out.... last visit 2019. Mrs C is becoming doleful at the prospect of no visit from that set of granddaughters.
What I find intolerable is that these difficulties get added to artificially to save some politician embarrassment. All the best for your family.
Thank you Mr L. My son is fed up with unanswered messages to the Embassy; whenever he actually speaks to someone he finds them helpful. Of course there's no question of my d-i-l NOT returning to Thailand; she and my son have been married nearly 20 years, and they have a house and three children in school in Bangkok. He's got long-term residency there, too.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
Good for the coffee shop.
If I had a rural or out-of-townpub, I’d invest in some decent tables and wifi, do a deal of something like £20 a day 9-5, including lunch, a pint and unlimited filter coffee.
She hadn't heard the story of Edward Lloyd and his coffee house......
Ha, I just looked that up, hadn’t realised the story.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
You see that in Pret, mixed in with the students. Makes it difficult to get a table.
It's the next form of social dumping - we live in the ear of BYO mobile phone.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
As an employer through our service company we have been concerned that many of the problems that have been worked on for a long time in an office environment will reoccur. Poorer lighting, bad posture on chairs, no special covers on the computer screens, safe wiring, etc. The problem is that it is exceptionally intrusive to ask to come into someone's home to inspect all of this but there is a risk that our sickness absence rate will increase, even putting aside issues like isolation and boredom. I am very keen to have at least a hybrid model.
Long ago, I was told that the reason that everyone in decent employment seemed to buying Aeron chars, was that it made the company fireproof against claims for back problems etc. £1000 chairs paid for themselves in reduced insurance costs....
Rizgar's wife, Kajal Hussein, 45, and their children Hadia, 22, son Mobin, 16 and younger daughter Hesty, seven, all left from a Kurdish town in northern Iraq.
Rizgar says that he didn't want his family to leave for Europe, and he would lose his job as a policeman if he joined them and the plan failed.
But his family were adamant they wanted to try to make it to the UK for a better life. He promised to join them if they made it.
"They wanted to go, everybody wants to live a good life, to have a peaceful heart and mind. But here, ask anyone from seven to 80 years old - nobody feels good," Rizgar says.
Someone wanting “to try and make it to the UK for a better life” is an economic migrant, not a refugee.
Its a question of degree isn't it? A better life might include not having your kids locked up and tortured at random for some perceived slight on someone important or being caught up in a random bomb. But if her husband is a policeman she is going to find it very difficult to persuade the Home Office that she is part of some oppressed minority.
If they grant asylum to people like this - and to people who have lived in Germany for four years, as was discussed yesterday - then I might as well take my wife to Calais and bung a couple of grand to the man with the boat. Way cheaper than getting lawyers to write letters to the Home Office.
The problem, as the woman from Germany demonstrated, is that the government claims that there are routes for those who "do the right thing" and apply from abroad but then make it impossibly slow, bureaucratic and expensive so you get nowhere. It would be interesting to see if there is a material difference between the success rate of those who actually get here and those that apply from abroad.
Our Thailand-dwelling son, who is planning to come here en famille for Christmas, is having all sorts of delays with his wife's visa from the British Embassy in Bangkok.She had a five-year one, which has now run out.... last visit 2019. Mrs C is becoming doleful at the prospect of no visit from that set of granddaughters.
What I find intolerable is that these difficulties get added to artificially to save some politician embarrassment. All the best for your family.
Thank you Mr L. My son is fed up with unanswered messages to the Embassy; whenever he actually speaks to someone he finds them helpful. Of course there's no question of my d-i-l NOT returning to Thailand; she and my son have been married nearly 20 years, and they have a house and three children in school ind Bangkok. He's got long-term residency there, too.
Best of luck with everything, hopefully not too much silly bureaucracy in the way.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
You see that in Pret, mixed in with the students. Makes it difficult to get a table.
It's the next form of social dumping - we live in the ear of BYO mobile phone.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
As an employer through our service company we have been concerned that many of the problems that have been worked on for a long time in an office environment will reoccur. Poorer lighting, bad posture on chairs, no special covers on the computer screens, safe wiring, etc. The problem is that it is exceptionally intrusive to ask to come into someone's home to inspect all of this but there is a risk that our sickness absence rate will increase, even putting aside issues like isolation and boredom. I am very keen to have at least a hybrid model.
Many years ago..... it must be, I was still working ..... a lady on may team had a husband who worked for Fords as a designer (I think), and for some reason they started to offer WFH. Someone from HR came round to the house to check that it was suitable, and my colleague told me that she felt very hostile to 'this woman who came round to see if my house was safe and suitable for their equipment!'
That's blooming obvious Change Management - tell people what you are doing and why you are doing it. Something that clearly the husband hadn't explained to his wife.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
You see that in Pret, mixed in with the students. Makes it difficult to get a table.
It's the next form of social dumping - we live in the ear of BYO mobile phone.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
As an employer through our service company we have been concerned that many of the problems that have been worked on for a long time in an office environment will reoccur. Poorer lighting, bad posture on chairs, no special covers on the computer screens, safe wiring, etc. The problem is that it is exceptionally intrusive to ask to come into someone's home to inspect all of this but there is a risk that our sickness absence rate will increase, even putting aside issues like isolation and boredom. I am very keen to have at least a hybrid model.
Long ago, I was told that the reason that everyone in decent employment seemed to buying Aeron chars, was that it made the company fireproof against claims for back problems etc. £1000 chairs paid for themselves in reduced insurance costs....
Or the fact they are very good chairs.
My Aeron is now 20 years old (at least) and cost £350 second hand
LOL Radio 4 studios have the evacuation alarm going off live on air
Whoops! Hope it’s not their studios on fire.
The sirens went off and then you could hear the "please evacuate the building" recorded message playing over the loudspeakers, then they went quiet.
Now they're back!
They're saying there was no emergency!
You'd think they might have waited until after the Platitude of the Day timeslot had been and gone
There’s a cafe in the basement of NBH. Someone burned the toast.
At one time I worked in a hospital with a ward with several small rooms. The nurse on duty (often just one) would set up a toaster and kettle, then one of the bells would go and she'd go down to see what was happening. It was quite an old, and somewhat rickety, building, so the fire alarm was sensitive. Off would go the alarm, along would come the firemen. It was generally believed that some nurses did it deliberately, so that the hunky firemen would have to call. However the fire service got quite cross and started charging the Trust. Which led to changes!
So has anyone who had two AZs first then had a reaction to a Pfizer/Moderna booster?
Yes: pretty much everyone.
Your body is already primed to look for something that looks like Covid. And then something that look like Covid arrives and your immune system goes into overdrive.
I have a colleague who had covid pre vaccination, and felt rough for months after his first vaccine. Fatigue, muscle aches etc. Understandably not keen on further doses.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
You see that in Pret, mixed in with the students. Makes it difficult to get a table.
It's the next form of social dumping - we live in the ear of BYO mobile phone.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
As an employer through our service company we have been concerned that many of the problems that have been worked on for a long time in an office environment will reoccur. Poorer lighting, bad posture on chairs, no special covers on the computer screens, safe wiring, etc. The problem is that it is exceptionally intrusive to ask to come into someone's home to inspect all of this but there is a risk that our sickness absence rate will increase, even putting aside issues like isolation and boredom. I am very keen to have at least a hybrid model.
Long ago, I was told that the reason that everyone in decent employment seemed to buying Aeron chars, was that it made the company fireproof against claims for back problems etc. £1000 chairs paid for themselves in reduced insurance costs....
Or the fact they are very good chairs.
My Aeron is now 20 years old (at least) and cost £350 second hand
Oh they are good chairs - I was told that the classic sales presentation for buying them was the reduction in insurance costs would pay off in x years, and they would last y years....
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
You see that in Pret, mixed in with the students. Makes it difficult to get a table.
It's the next form of social dumping - we live in the ear of BYO mobile phone.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
As an employer through our service company we have been concerned that many of the problems that have been worked on for a long time in an office environment will reoccur. Poorer lighting, bad posture on chairs, no special covers on the computer screens, safe wiring, etc. The problem is that it is exceptionally intrusive to ask to come into someone's home to inspect all of this but there is a risk that our sickness absence rate will increase, even putting aside issues like isolation and boredom. I am very keen to have at least a hybrid model.
Many years ago..... it must be, I was still working ..... a lady on may team had a husband who worked for Fords as a designer (I think), and for some reason they started to offer WFH. Someone from HR came round to the house to check that it was suitable, and my colleague told me that she felt very hostile to 'this woman who came round to see if my house was safe and suitable for their equipment!'
That's blooming obvious Change Management - tell people what you are doing and why you are doing it. Something that clearly the husband hadn't explained to his wife.
Quite; I don't think that he'd realised the implications. And if it had been a male inspector it probably wouldn't have mattered so much. It was 'this woman inspecting my house' that irritated my colleague. Who was a very pleasant, sensible and competent person to work with; part of her duties involved inspecting other peoples workplaces, too.
Listening to the interviewee on Radio 4, saying something like: it being common sense to wear masks as they allow us to do everything we want to do while reducing the risk is an argument for permanently wearing masks to reduce the transmission of all respiratory infections.
Mr. Sandpit, I think some hotels, with business centres, do a similar kind of thing. You don't actually have to stay there, just have a 'third place' (I think that's the term for neither working from home nor an office). It's more flexible than an office but has a divide between home and work that some find helpful.
The Scottish government has just issued a statement confirming that six cases of the Omicron variant have been identified in Scotland. That takes the total number of identified cases in the UK to nine. The statement says:
Six cases of the Covid-19 Omicron variant have been identified in Scotland. Four cases are in the Lanarkshire area and two have been identified in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area.
Public Health Scotland and local health protection teams are supporting and contact tracing is being undertaken to establish the origin of the virus and any individuals they have come into contact with in recent weeks.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
You see that in Pret, mixed in with the students. Makes it difficult to get a table.
It's the next form of social dumping - we live in the ear of BYO mobile phone.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
I would love all that as an option. Company issued stuff, especially technology, is usually dogshit
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
You see that in Pret, mixed in with the students. Makes it difficult to get a table.
It's the next form of social dumping - we live in the ear of BYO mobile phone.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
I would love all that as an option. Company issued stuff, especially technology, is usually dogshit
I work in a technical team. Home working involves us firing up our custom spec'd hardware etc. We all had our office spaces at home for personal stuff etc...
The interesting contrast was with a non-technical team. The majority of them didn't have an actual computer at home - did all their online stuff on a tablet....
It amazing how the JCVI have managed to come to decision on 5 month gap, all over 18s and double vax kids in one weekend....where as booster campaign took 2 months of "consideration", while the chair was never off the media saying we need to vax the world.
Have they made the decision? Held off booking over weekend as they wouldn’t offer a slot before December 21
Just informed (As seems the received wisdom on this thread) that HR should be able to sort my other half a decent chair (She is perma WFH and has a massive employer) if she wants. Apparently 'HR are not her friends' though
An entertaining catch-up read this morning. If Sadiq Khan is so shit, we have the calm knowledge that Shaun Bailey would have been worse. How on earth did the Tories end up with such an appalling candidate running such an appalling campaign...?
Just informed (As seems the received wisdom on this thread) that HR should be able to sort my other half a decent chair (She is perma WFH and has a massive employer) if she wants. Apparently 'HR are not her friends' though
HR are no-ones friends.
The employer should have such a policy in place, anyway. They are saving a vast amount of money with her not taking up office space. And they are still liable, legally, IIRC....
It amazing how the JCVI have managed to come to decision on 5 month gap, all over 18s and double vax kids in one weekend....where as booster campaign took 2 months of "consideration", while the chair was never off the media saying we need to vax the world.
Have they made the decision? Held off booking over weekend as they wouldn’t offer a slot before December 21
The report is that a decision will be announced today. Javid has been waving a red hot poker around, again.... :-)
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
An entertaining catch-up read this morning. If Sadiq Khan is so shit, we have the calm knowledge that Shaun Bailey would have been worse. How on earth did the Tories end up with such an appalling candidate running such an appalling campaign...?
Very easily - the conventional wisdom was that London was Labour and any Tory candidate faced the prospect of expending a lot of effort in an attempt to avoid losing by an embarrassing margin. Who would take that job on?
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
Rundown of how the table felt about the UK's virus situation. Almost all were very positive, one person wasn't, now an academic, the pharma people universally disagreed with that person's assessment. The other two academics were sympathetic to the position but overall still thought we were in a favourable place to maintain our current freedom level and roll back the masks again in a few weeks.
The pharma people all said their internal modelling agreed with the LSHTM model on hospitalisations across Europe. They think Omicron will be very difficult in nations that suppressed the delta exit wave, all three academics said that they disagreed with the government's initial stance of unlock hard in July, but all have been won over by the data.
The big one - vaccine efficacy dilution. Much more mixed, but overall confidence from the pharma people that the vaccines will work to a good enough degree to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. The AZ person said that the UK will benefit from doing the majority of over 50s with two AZ doses and a Moderna/Pfizer booster. Their own study shows it gives the best broad spectrum t-cell and b-cell response which won't prevent any infections but will significantly reduce infection severity to the point that they said even with immune escape those people with 2x AZ and 1x Moderna/Pfizer have little to worry about. The table tended to agree that AZ/AZ/Moderna is probably the best combination. Someone suggested that the government should bring AZ back for 30+ booster shots. Another said that the WHO should make the standard three shot course mRNA/AZ/mRNA and that everyone in the UK who had three mRNA doses should be given the option of an AZ booster in the new year for the t/b-cell immunity that mRNA vaccines don't provide to as high a degree.
More generally - the group agreed that Chris Whitty was right that every single person in the country will eventually get COVID. One said that the government lulled itself into a false sense of security with the 95% efficacy on three doses but Omicron proves that we will all get it, probably multiple times over the course of life. They said the thinking in government reflects that but the masks have probably been brought back to "purchase" an R reduction of ~0.1 for a couple of weeks just in case Omicron explodes among the unvaccinated young and unboosted old in the run up to Xmas. This person is probably closest to the government and they said the the way NPIs are now rated is almost like a budget, each one is rated with its R value reduction and it is put against the cost of implementing it from an economic and social perspective. Masks have a low economic and medium social cost but also a very low R reduction. Closing schools has got a very high economic and social cost and also a very high R reduction, lockdown is rated as the highest for costs but a bit less than closing schools for R reduction.
Very interesting summary, Max.
Academics match my experience - not my field, but I was one of the few of my colleagues optimistic in July - the only other with same view was someone on SAGE who has also been involved with a lot of ebola response, he was of the view that this, unlike ebola, is not something that vaccinated people needed to be protected from at any cost. Others, as you suggest, have come round to the strategy.
In the real world, very few people understand what the strategy is. Most people still think the goal is to ensure people don’t catch the virus and they envisage a day soon when there are very low or even no cases. When I say to people that you’ll probably catch this virus every few years for the rest of your life but it won’t be serious, I get puzzled looks. Sometimes angry looks.
Once the panic about Xi variant is the out the way, it really needs a Look Down The Camera address to carefully explain this to everyone.
An entertaining catch-up read this morning. If Sadiq Khan is so shit, we have the calm knowledge that Shaun Bailey would have been worse. How on earth did the Tories end up with such an appalling candidate running such an appalling campaign...?
Sadiq's not shit, he's entirely meh. Entirely inconsequential. Just as Johnson was. The only decent mayor London has had is Ken Livingstone in his first term before he went full racist loon.
An entertaining catch-up read this morning. If Sadiq Khan is so shit, we have the calm knowledge that Shaun Bailey would have been worse. How on earth did the Tories end up with such an appalling candidate running such an appalling campaign...?
Sadiq's not shit, he's entirely meh. Entirely inconsequential. Just as Johnson was. The only decent mayor London has had is Ken Livingstone in his first term before he went full racist loon.
Both Ken and Boris hired decent people (at considerable cost) to do most of the work, but Ken did focus on the day job, at least in the early days (and played a key part in securing 2012 and the bike scheme) whereas Boris wasted astounding amounts of public money and time on his various vanity projects, both realised and futile.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
He really is the Worst Mayor Ever, and this move will be his epitaph. It's terrible in every way
Even worse he is fudging the figures
Most of the saving is because no rent will be paid (£55m of the total saving of £60m over 5 years).
No rent is payable because they BOUGHT the property in 2019.
That may or may not be the right thing (I have no view) but it is misleading to present it as a cost saving measure
Surely if you no longer need to pay £11m a year in rent that is a cost saving.
And from memory - the GLA has owned the Crystal since it was built - but it was leased to Siemens who surrendered the lease in 2019 (for they weren't really using the building).
Great update, @MaxPB What is the 'table' to which you refer (or rather who arranged for the people around it) ?
Reunion of university friends, all of us are chemistry or biochemistry grads plus one grad med who did a biochemistry option with us. I'm the only one who didn't stay in science. The rest are pharma types or in academia. We do it every year, except last year.
One of the reasons I'm inclined to trust them is that there was no sugar coating and in general everyone set aside their political leanings.
Tbh, most of them wanted to know what the economy was going to look like next year and when the doctor among our group was finally going to get married to her bf so we can all go to a wedding overseas.
Rundown of how the table felt about the UK's virus situation. Almost all were very positive, one person wasn't, now an academic, the pharma people universally disagreed with that person's assessment. The other two academics were sympathetic to the position but overall still thought we were in a favourable place to maintain our current freedom level and roll back the masks again in a few weeks.
The pharma people all said their internal modelling agreed with the LSHTM model on hospitalisations across Europe. They think Omicron will be very difficult in nations that suppressed the delta exit wave, all three academics said that they disagreed with the government's initial stance of unlock hard in July, but all have been won over by the data.
The big one - vaccine efficacy dilution. Much more mixed, but overall confidence from the pharma people that the vaccines will work to a good enough degree to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. The AZ person said that the UK will benefit from doing the majority of over 50s with two AZ doses and a Moderna/Pfizer booster. Their own study shows it gives the best broad spectrum t-cell and b-cell response which won't prevent any infections but will significantly reduce infection severity to the point that they said even with immune escape those people with 2x AZ and 1x Moderna/Pfizer have little to worry about. The table tended to agree that AZ/AZ/Moderna is probably the best combination. Someone suggested that the government should bring AZ back for 30+ booster shots. Another said that the WHO should make the standard three shot course mRNA/AZ/mRNA and that everyone in the UK who had three mRNA doses should be given the option of an AZ booster in the new year for the t/b-cell immunity that mRNA vaccines don't provide to as high a degree.
More generally - the group agreed that Chris Whitty was right that every single person in the country will eventually get COVID. One said that the government lulled itself into a false sense of security with the 95% efficacy on three doses but Omicron proves that we will all get it, probably multiple times over the course of life. They said the thinking in government reflects that but the masks have probably been brought back to "purchase" an R reduction of ~0.1 for a couple of weeks just in case Omicron explodes among the unvaccinated young and unboosted old in the run up to Xmas. This person is probably closest to the government and they said the the way NPIs are now rated is almost like a budget, each one is rated with its R value reduction and it is put against the cost of implementing it from an economic and social perspective. Masks have a low economic and medium social cost but also a very low R reduction. Closing schools has got a very high economic and social cost and also a very high R reduction, lockdown is rated as the highest for costs but a bit less than closing schools for R reduction.
Very interesting summary, Max.
Academics match my experience - not my field, but I was one of the few of my colleagues optimistic in July - the only other with same view was someone on SAGE who has also been involved with a lot of ebola response, he was of the view that this, unlike ebola, is not something that vaccinated people needed to be protected from at any cost. Others, as you suggest, have come round to the strategy.
I have an extreme bed-wetter colleague who is huge a bedwetter. However its not just covid - for him its everything. He was convinced the end-times had come when Trump was elected. I have weekly reassurance sessions with him...
Oddly, he's just had covid in his house (one of his children) and a flicker of positivity on lateral flow, but no PCR. Now that is a bit reminiscent of the lab scandal round here (and we are in that part of the world) but I hope/assume the problem has been fixed. Probably poor sampling technique, but he seems to be fine. I think he is now a bit happier about the whole thing.
Lots of my other colleagues are pretty bed-wettery with this. Notably, its the ones who have worked from home most. I've been back on site a lot since July 2020, and pretty much fully on campus since the spring. I think there is a correlation between those who have been able to squirrel themselves away, and who are still more fearful.
Sadiq Khan's mayoralty in a nutshell. Moving City Hall from the iconic, purpose built Norman Foster-designed HQ right by Tower Bridge, to an anonymous, low slung glass thing somewhere in Newham, but no one knows where, a jagged blob that has few transport connections, thus degrading his office and the city governance in the eyes of voters, and not even saving that much money
I'm still instinctively a Londoner, and of course very interested in politics, but I really don't care where City Hall is located, and I shouldn't think most Londoners care either.
Locally in Surrey, we tried to get people indignant about the country being run from a County Hall actually outside the County. Sadly, I never met anyone other than activists who gave a toss.
You'd think they would at least get an office big enough to house their staff, wouldn't you?
IIRC City Hall was too small from the start - even before the first Mayoral election it was clear that the unfinished building wasn't big enough.
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
You see that in Pret, mixed in with the students. Makes it difficult to get a table.
It's the next form of social dumping - we live in the ear of BYO mobile phone.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
I would love all that as an option. Company issued stuff, especially technology, is usually dogshit
The nice thing about being a consultant is that I buy my own stuff. So instead of having to suffer from mid-spec laptops crippled with Windows 10 security "features" I'm running a high-end Chromebook and Google everything.
Will likely (and sadly) have to change this as I set up the full UK company for the clients as our stuff will need to fit their IT infrastructure. Boooooo.
It's the next form of social dumping - we live in the ear of BYO mobile phone.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
I would love all that as an option. Company issued stuff, especially technology, is usually dogshit
We're flexible on most things - if you make a reasonable case that you need a new chair/desk/screen to work from home, the organisation covers it. We do however have standard laptops on which private downloads are not allowed, which I reluctantly think is reasonable - if IT problems arise, we don't want the IT department grappling with 15 different varieties of installation. We have free choice on whether to use phones or have an extra office one - most of us prefer to use our own rather lug two phones around.
Rundown of how the table felt about the UK's virus situation. Almost all were very positive, one person wasn't, now an academic, the pharma people universally disagreed with that person's assessment. The other two academics were sympathetic to the position but overall still thought we were in a favourable place to maintain our current freedom level and roll back the masks again in a few weeks.
The pharma people all said their internal modelling agreed with the LSHTM model on hospitalisations across Europe. They think Omicron will be very difficult in nations that suppressed the delta exit wave, all three academics said that they disagreed with the government's initial stance of unlock hard in July, but all have been won over by the data.
The big one - vaccine efficacy dilution. Much more mixed, but overall confidence from the pharma people that the vaccines will work to a good enough degree to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. The AZ person said that the UK will benefit from doing the majority of over 50s with two AZ doses and a Moderna/Pfizer booster. Their own study shows it gives the best broad spectrum t-cell and b-cell response which won't prevent any infections but will significantly reduce infection severity to the point that they said even with immune escape those people with 2x AZ and 1x Moderna/Pfizer have little to worry about. The table tended to agree that AZ/AZ/Moderna is probably the best combination. Someone suggested that the government should bring AZ back for 30+ booster shots. Another said that the WHO should make the standard three shot course mRNA/AZ/mRNA and that everyone in the UK who had three mRNA doses should be given the option of an AZ booster in the new year for the t/b-cell immunity that mRNA vaccines don't provide to as high a degree.
More generally - the group agreed that Chris Whitty was right that every single person in the country will eventually get COVID. One said that the government lulled itself into a false sense of security with the 95% efficacy on three doses but Omicron proves that we will all get it, probably multiple times over the course of life. They said the thinking in government reflects that but the masks have probably been brought back to "purchase" an R reduction of ~0.1 for a couple of weeks just in case Omicron explodes among the unvaccinated young and unboosted old in the run up to Xmas. This person is probably closest to the government and they said the the way NPIs are now rated is almost like a budget, each one is rated with its R value reduction and it is put against the cost of implementing it from an economic and social perspective. Masks have a low economic and medium social cost but also a very low R reduction. Closing schools has got a very high economic and social cost and also a very high R reduction, lockdown is rated as the highest for costs but a bit less than closing schools for R reduction.
Very interesting summary, Max.
Academics match my experience - not my field, but I was one of the few of my colleagues optimistic in July - the only other with same view was someone on SAGE who has also been involved with a lot of ebola response, he was of the view that this, unlike ebola, is not something that vaccinated people needed to be protected from at any cost. Others, as you suggest, have come round to the strategy.
I have an extreme bed-wetter colleague who is huge a bedwetter. However its not just covid - for him its everything. He was convinced the end-times had come when Trump was elected. I have weekly reassurance sessions with him...
Oddly, he's just had covid in his house (one of his children) and a flicker of positivity on lateral flow, but no PCR. Now that is a bit reminiscent of the lab scandal round here (and we are in that part of the world) but I hope/assume the problem has been fixed. Probably poor sampling technique, but he seems to be fine. I think he is now a bit happier about the whole thing.
Lots of my other colleagues are pretty bed-wettery with this. Notably, its the ones who have worked from home most. I've been back on site a lot since July 2020, and pretty much fully on campus since the spring. I think there is a correlation between those who have been able to squirrel themselves away, and who are still more fearful.
Maybe he should have another PCR. I had a positive (but light line) lateral flow and negative PCR, then the next day two definitely positive lateral flows and a positive PCR. Maybe the PCR is calibrated to give a negative unless the result is overwhelming, hence the low rate of false positives.
So has anyone who had two AZs first then had a reaction to a Pfizer/Moderna booster?
Hi Isam, I had Pfizer booster Saturday lunchtime after two AZ.
Grim headache and aching Saturday night, woke up yesterday feeling like I had a combination of a nasty head cold and a hangover derived from shit wine and spirits!
Arm was still very sore overnight which ruined sleep and not 100% today still but imagine it will all wear off today if that’s any help!!
One thing I was wondering and too lazy to google was how quickly the booster “works” - does it protect from day one or does it take , say, a week to give its benefits? Would be good for everyone to know as if it takes time for efficacy there is a risk surely that people will have their booster in lead up to Christmas and just go straight out thinking all is full power protection when it’s not!!
I see the Swiss have had a referendum on vaccine passports for entry into bars and restaurants, called by the vaxport-sceptics. Turnout was huge by Swiss standards - the highest this century - with over 60% in favour of vaxports.
In the real world, very few people understand what the strategy is. Most people still think the goal is to ensure people don’t catch the virus and they envisage a day soon when there are very low or even no cases. When I say to people that you’ll probably catch this virus every few years for the rest of your life but it won’t be serious, I get puzzled looks. Sometimes angry looks.
Once the panic about Xi variant is the out the way, it really needs a Look Down The Camera address to carefully explain this to everyone.
I've heard multiple people saying this kind of nonsense on the radio this morning. If medics and politicians (and some of them quite senior) don't get that covid is forever, then it's hardly surprising that the public keep thinking "it will be over by Christmas" and so on.
Rundown of how the table felt about the UK's virus situation. Almost all were very positive, one person wasn't, now an academic, the pharma people universally disagreed with that person's assessment. The other two academics were sympathetic to the position but overall still thought we were in a favourable place to maintain our current freedom level and roll back the masks again in a few weeks.
The pharma people all said their internal modelling agreed with the LSHTM model on hospitalisations across Europe. They think Omicron will be very difficult in nations that suppressed the delta exit wave, all three academics said that they disagreed with the government's initial stance of unlock hard in July, but all have been won over by the data.
The big one - vaccine efficacy dilution. Much more mixed, but overall confidence from the pharma people that the vaccines will work to a good enough degree to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. The AZ person said that the UK will benefit from doing the majority of over 50s with two AZ doses and a Moderna/Pfizer booster. Their own study shows it gives the best broad spectrum t-cell and b-cell response which won't prevent any infections but will significantly reduce infection severity to the point that they said even with immune escape those people with 2x AZ and 1x Moderna/Pfizer have little to worry about. The table tended to agree that AZ/AZ/Moderna is probably the best combination. Someone suggested that the government should bring AZ back for 30+ booster shots. Another said that the WHO should make the standard three shot course mRNA/AZ/mRNA and that everyone in the UK who had three mRNA doses should be given the option of an AZ booster in the new year for the t/b-cell immunity that mRNA vaccines don't provide to as high a degree.
More generally - the group agreed that Chris Whitty was right that every single person in the country will eventually get COVID. One said that the government lulled itself into a false sense of security with the 95% efficacy on three doses but Omicron proves that we will all get it, probably multiple times over the course of life. They said the thinking in government reflects that but the masks have probably been brought back to "purchase" an R reduction of ~0.1 for a couple of weeks just in case Omicron explodes among the unvaccinated young and unboosted old in the run up to Xmas. This person is probably closest to the government and they said the the way NPIs are now rated is almost like a budget, each one is rated with its R value reduction and it is put against the cost of implementing it from an economic and social perspective. Masks have a low economic and medium social cost but also a very low R reduction. Closing schools has got a very high economic and social cost and also a very high R reduction, lockdown is rated as the highest for costs but a bit less than closing schools for R reduction.
Very interesting summary, Max.
Academics match my experience - not my field, but I was one of the few of my colleagues optimistic in July - the only other with same view was someone on SAGE who has also been involved with a lot of ebola response, he was of the view that this, unlike ebola, is not something that vaccinated people needed to be protected from at any cost. Others, as you suggest, have come round to the strategy.
In the real world, very few people understand what the strategy is. Most people still think the goal is to ensure people don’t catch the virus and they envisage a day soon when there are very low or even no cases. When I say to people that you’ll probably catch this virus every few years for the rest of your life but it won’t be serious, I get puzzled looks. Sometimes angry looks.
Once the panic about Xi variant is the out the way, it really needs a Look Down The Camera address to carefully explain this to everyone.
Its weird isn't it? The plan was laid out quite clearly last year - flatten the curve to get to herd immunity. Took a bit of a knock when we realised the cost without vaccines. Now with vaccines, we are back to that approach and those that won't get vaccinated, or can't (age, or illness) are going to get their immunity via the virus itself. We've also had government briefings about exit waves, which is exactly what we are in, and is now behaving pretty much as modelled (at least the most recent models). This despite @RochdalePioneers claims otherwise. Variant news aside, and that could be a curve ball (although I doubt it is a big worry for the vaccinated, at least in terms of serious disease) cases are going to be falling now - the rises in the youth have flattened off, and the boosters are working a great job on the oldies. Hospital pressure from covid is certainly reducing. Other things will no doubt be adding to the pressure as we get into winter.
If I was doing an outside bet for next Tory leader, then I would look at - and don’t all laugh- Nadine Dorries.
Yes, mad as a box of frogs to many but there is a reason she has been brought into the Cabinet and that is because the Tories will fight the next GE on the culture wars - it’s the best way to keep the Red Wall voters together with traditional Home Counties Tories who may have been mixed on Brexit but aren’t keen that their kids are taught to switch genders at the drop of a hat.
I think there is something in this. If the tories lose the next election they certainly aren't going to go back to Camborne earnest centrism. I'm not sure they'll go for Trump-on-HRT in the form of Mad Nad but they will definitely want a Culture Warrior with as many comorbid psychological disorders as possible.
Just informed (As seems the received wisdom on this thread) that HR should be able to sort my other half a decent chair (She is perma WFH and has a massive employer) if she wants. Apparently 'HR are not her friends' though
HR are no-ones friends.
The employer should have such a policy in place, anyway. They are saving a vast amount of money with her not taking up office space. And they are still liable, legally, IIRC....
I just bought myself a decent (IKEA) WFH chair after sitting on a wooden chair since last March that was starting to give me backache. I don't know if work would have got me one, they didn't offer but I didn't ask. The issue for me has been that I've never had much certainty as to how long WFH would last so I was never sure whether it was worth forking out the cash. So I waited until I was in actual pain before getting it.
It's the next form of social dumping - we live in the ear of BYO mobile phone.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
I would love all that as an option. Company issued stuff, especially technology, is usually dogshit
We're flexible on most things - if you make a reasonable case that you need a new chair/desk/screen to work from home, the organisation covers it. We do however have standard laptops on which private downloads are not allowed, which I reluctantly think is reasonable - if IT problems arise, we don't want the IT department grappling with 15 different varieties of installation. We have free choice on whether to use phones or have an extra office one - most of us prefer to use our own rather lug two phones around.
IT-managed computers are always going to be, by their very nature, balanced more on the security side than the performance side - and will be all the same, from the business line of the manufacturer, and with long warranties. The problem is always when you start to make exceptions to the policy laptops, you quickly end up with an avalanche of requests that everyone is special in their own way - then you’re back to all the laptops being different, which as you say is a nightmare to manage.
Phones are much easier to manage for corporate IT - they’re encrypted by default, have good sandboxes for applications and data, and can be backed up and wiped remotely if required.
Rundown of how the table felt about the UK's virus situation. Almost all were very positive, one person wasn't, now an academic, the pharma people universally disagreed with that person's assessment. The other two academics were sympathetic to the position but overall still thought we were in a favourable place to maintain our current freedom level and roll back the masks again in a few weeks.
The pharma people all said their internal modelling agreed with the LSHTM model on hospitalisations across Europe. They think Omicron will be very difficult in nations that suppressed the delta exit wave, all three academics said that they disagreed with the government's initial stance of unlock hard in July, but all have been won over by the data.
The big one - vaccine efficacy dilution. Much more mixed, but overall confidence from the pharma people that the vaccines will work to a good enough degree to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. The AZ person said that the UK will benefit from doing the majority of over 50s with two AZ doses and a Moderna/Pfizer booster. Their own study shows it gives the best broad spectrum t-cell and b-cell response which won't prevent any infections but will significantly reduce infection severity to the point that they said even with immune escape those people with 2x AZ and 1x Moderna/Pfizer have little to worry about. The table tended to agree that AZ/AZ/Moderna is probably the best combination. Someone suggested that the government should bring AZ back for 30+ booster shots. Another said that the WHO should make the standard three shot course mRNA/AZ/mRNA and that everyone in the UK who had three mRNA doses should be given the option of an AZ booster in the new year for the t/b-cell immunity that mRNA vaccines don't provide to as high a degree.
More generally - the group agreed that Chris Whitty was right that every single person in the country will eventually get COVID. One said that the government lulled itself into a false sense of security with the 95% efficacy on three doses but Omicron proves that we will all get it, probably multiple times over the course of life. They said the thinking in government reflects that but the masks have probably been brought back to "purchase" an R reduction of ~0.1 for a couple of weeks just in case Omicron explodes among the unvaccinated young and unboosted old in the run up to Xmas. This person is probably closest to the government and they said the the way NPIs are now rated is almost like a budget, each one is rated with its R value reduction and it is put against the cost of implementing it from an economic and social perspective. Masks have a low economic and medium social cost but also a very low R reduction. Closing schools has got a very high economic and social cost and also a very high R reduction, lockdown is rated as the highest for costs but a bit less than closing schools for R reduction.
Very interesting summary, Max.
Academics match my experience - not my field, but I was one of the few of my colleagues optimistic in July - the only other with same view was someone on SAGE who has also been involved with a lot of ebola response, he was of the view that this, unlike ebola, is not something that vaccinated people needed to be protected from at any cost. Others, as you suggest, have come round to the strategy.
I have an extreme bed-wetter colleague who is huge a bedwetter. However its not just covid - for him its everything. He was convinced the end-times had come when Trump was elected. I have weekly reassurance sessions with him...
Oddly, he's just had covid in his house (one of his children) and a flicker of positivity on lateral flow, but no PCR. Now that is a bit reminiscent of the lab scandal round here (and we are in that part of the world) but I hope/assume the problem has been fixed. Probably poor sampling technique, but he seems to be fine. I think he is now a bit happier about the whole thing.
Lots of my other colleagues are pretty bed-wettery with this. Notably, its the ones who have worked from home most. I've been back on site a lot since July 2020, and pretty much fully on campus since the spring. I think there is a correlation between those who have been able to squirrel themselves away, and who are still more fearful.
Maybe he should have another PCR. I had a positive (but light line) lateral flow and negative PCR, then the next day two definitely positive lateral flows and a positive PCR. Maybe the PCR is calibrated to give a negative unless the result is overwhelming, hence the low rate of false positives.
TBH he didn't want to, as (a) he felt fine and (b) if it was positive he'd be locked up for 10 days... He has been scrupulous about mask wearing throughout. Now you can argue he should test again, but the negative PCR meets his government requirement.
If I was doing an outside bet for next Tory leader, then I would look at - and don’t all laugh- Nadine Dorries.
Yes, mad as a box of frogs to many but there is a reason she has been brought into the Cabinet and that is because the Tories will fight the next GE on the culture wars - it’s the best way to keep the Red Wall voters together with traditional Home Counties Tories who may have been mixed on Brexit but aren’t keen that their kids are taught to switch genders at the drop of a hat.
I think there is something in this. If the tories lose the next election they certainly aren't going to go back to Camborne earnest centrism. I'm not sure they'll go for Trump-on-HRT in the form of Mad Nad but they will definitely want a Culture Warrior with as many comorbid psychological disorders as possible.
There must be a reason why Stanley J's never touched her bum!
Just informed (As seems the received wisdom on this thread) that HR should be able to sort my other half a decent chair (She is perma WFH and has a massive employer) if she wants. Apparently 'HR are not her friends' though
HR are no-ones friends.
The employer should have such a policy in place, anyway. They are saving a vast amount of money with her not taking up office space. And they are still liable, legally, IIRC....
When I started at Acorn, HR were in a different building from the hoi polloi. On the wall of their office, they had the passes of people who had left the company, along with insulting and rude comments about them. Including two people I knew well, and one friend.
That HR department was no-one's friend. When the main recruitment guy came to leave, he sent an email out saying there would be drinks at a certain pub. He didn't turn up; he and a few mates went to a different place...
Because genocide isn't so bad if you wave a nice red flag when you're filling your atrocity quota.
I'm sure the legions of the victims of communism all went happily to their doom, thanking their maker that it wasn't fascists or racists that were killing them, just people who wanted the best for them...
So has anyone who had two AZs first then had a reaction to a Pfizer/Moderna booster?
Hi Isam, I had Pfizer booster Saturday lunchtime after two AZ.
Grim headache and aching Saturday night, woke up yesterday feeling like I had a combination of a nasty head cold and a hangover derived from shit wine and spirits!
Arm was still very sore overnight which ruined sleep and not 100% today still but imagine it will all wear off today if that’s any help!!
One thing I was wondering and too lazy to google was how quickly the booster “works” - does it protect from day one or does it take , say, a week to give its benefits? Would be good for everyone to know as if it takes time for efficacy there is a risk surely that people will have their booster in lead up to Christmas and just go straight out thinking all is full power protection when it’s not!!
You still have your original protection right at the start (even if its declined a bit). After about 10 days you will be like superman.
If I was doing an outside bet for next Tory leader, then I would look at - and don’t all laugh- Nadine Dorries.
Yes, mad as a box of frogs to many but there is a reason she has been brought into the Cabinet and that is because the Tories will fight the next GE on the culture wars - it’s the best way to keep the Red Wall voters together with traditional Home Counties Tories who may have been mixed on Brexit but aren’t keen that their kids are taught to switch genders at the drop of a hat.
I think there is something in this. If the tories lose the next election they certainly aren't going to go back to Camborne earnest centrism. I'm not sure they'll go for Trump-on-HRT in the form of Mad Nad but they will definitely want a Culture Warrior with as many comorbid psychological disorders as possible.
The next Tory leader if Boris remains in power but loses the next election is Priti....
I think the government really missed a trick with the booster programme not to ensure everybody got mix and match. We know it is the optimal approach and UK has enough of everything to be able to do it.
I thought everyone did get mix and match. I have not heard of anyone getting the same jab for booster as they got for 1&2. All those I know like me who had Pfizer for 1&2 have had Moderna for booster.
I've had Pfizer 3x. It's a bit disappointing. My wife, who is only slightly older than me, had AZ the first 2x and she got Pfizer the third time as well since we were done together. I do think that the evidence that a mix of vaccines was more efficacious was sufficiently strong for the NHS to have thought about this.
I get the impression each site has a supply on one type only, to keep things quick and simple. Getting something into as many arms as possible is the priority.
Certainly one at a time, which I can understand the logic of. But it should still have been possible to have everyone who had Pfizer turn up on a day when Moderna was being handed out and everyone who had AZ turn up when, etc.
They don’t know the distribution of vaccines that far in advance
Just informed (As seems the received wisdom on this thread) that HR should be able to sort my other half a decent chair (She is perma WFH and has a massive employer) if she wants. Apparently 'HR are not her friends' though
HR are no-ones friends.
The employer should have such a policy in place, anyway. They are saving a vast amount of money with her not taking up office space. And they are still liable, legally, IIRC....
I just bought myself a decent (IKEA) WFH chair after sitting on a wooden chair since last March that was starting to give me backache. I don't know if work would have got me one, they didn't offer but I didn't ask. The issue for me has been that I've never had much certainty as to how long WFH would last so I was never sure whether it was worth forking out the cash. So I waited until I was in actual pain before getting it.
One other factor to be careful about is how long you spend in the same chair. Six hours at work can too easily become 12 hours of work plus gaming plus pb when you WFH.
That's blooming obvious Change Management - tell people what you are doing and why you are doing it. Something that clearly the husband hadn't explained to his wife.
Quite; I don't think that he'd realised the implications. And if it had been a male inspector it probably wouldn't have mattered so much. It was 'this woman inspecting my house' that irritated my colleague. Who was a very pleasant, sensible and competent person to work with; part of her duties involved inspecting other peoples workplaces, too.
in the 50s district nurses used to come round to check that kids were being given enough fruit juice etc. - almost textbook Nanny State. My mother was incensed, not so much by the intrusion but by the implication that she wouldn't have thought of it herself. (A small child at the time, I thought it wasn't unreasonable, and appreciated someone nudging her on my behalf.)
So has anyone who had two AZs first then had a reaction to a Pfizer/Moderna booster?
Hi Isam, I had Pfizer booster Saturday lunchtime after two AZ.
Grim headache and aching Saturday night, woke up yesterday feeling like I had a combination of a nasty head cold and a hangover derived from shit wine and spirits!
Arm was still very sore overnight which ruined sleep and not 100% today still but imagine it will all wear off today if that’s any help!!
One thing I was wondering and too lazy to google was how quickly the booster “works” - does it protect from day one or does it take , say, a week to give its benefits? Would be good for everyone to know as if it takes time for efficacy there is a risk surely that people will have their booster in lead up to Christmas and just go straight out thinking all is full power protection when it’s not!!
You still have your original protection right at the start (even if its declined a bit). After about 10 days you will be like superman.
Thanks for that info - maybe something that needs pointing out to the public so they realise it doesn’t kick in immediately.
In the real world, very few people understand what the strategy is. Most people still think the goal is to ensure people don’t catch the virus and they envisage a day soon when there are very low or even no cases. When I say to people that you’ll probably catch this virus every few years for the rest of your life but it won’t be serious, I get puzzled looks. Sometimes angry looks.
Once the panic about Xi variant is the out the way, it really needs a Look Down The Camera address to carefully explain this to everyone.
I've heard multiple people saying this kind of nonsense on the radio this morning. If medics and politicians (and some of them quite senior) don't get that covid is forever, then it's hardly surprising that the public keep thinking "it will be over by Christmas" and so on.
Covid was forever from about February 1st 2020 when it reached the outside world.
The fact people can't see that shows how blinked most people can be.
Socially and occupationally ostracising those who refuse vaccines is not right.
It also doesn't make sense. If you're vaccinated then the degree of protection is very high. The risk is overwhelmingly borne by those who willingly reject vaccination.
If vaccines cannot allow people to resume their daily lives then what's the point? Their function is to protect from this disease, not to act as some sort of performative ritual.
That's blooming obvious Change Management - tell people what you are doing and why you are doing it. Something that clearly the husband hadn't explained to his wife.
Quite; I don't think that he'd realised the implications. And if it had been a male inspector it probably wouldn't have mattered so much. It was 'this woman inspecting my house' that irritated my colleague. Who was a very pleasant, sensible and competent person to work with; part of her duties involved inspecting other peoples workplaces, too.
in the 50s district nurses used to come round to check that kids were being given enough fruit juice etc. - almost textbook Nanny State. My mother was incensed, not so much by the intrusion but by the implication that she wouldn't have thought of it herself. (A small child at the time, I thought it wasn't unreasonable, and appreciated someone nudging her on my behalf.)
You had fruit juice in the 50s? That wasn’t a thing until the late 80s, unless you count posh starters in pubs or frozen concentrate.
So has anyone who had two AZs first then had a reaction to a Pfizer/Moderna booster?
Hi Isam, I had Pfizer booster Saturday lunchtime after two AZ.
Grim headache and aching Saturday night, woke up yesterday feeling like I had a combination of a nasty head cold and a hangover derived from shit wine and spirits!
Arm was still very sore overnight which ruined sleep and not 100% today still but imagine it will all wear off today if that’s any help!!
One thing I was wondering and too lazy to google was how quickly the booster “works” - does it protect from day one or does it take , say, a week to give its benefits? Would be good for everyone to know as if it takes time for efficacy there is a risk surely that people will have their booster in lead up to Christmas and just go straight out thinking all is full power protection when it’s not!!
You still have your original protection right at the start (even if its declined a bit). After about 10 days you will be like superman.
Thanks for that info - maybe something that needs pointing out to the public so they realise it doesn’t kick in immediately.
I was told 14 days by the nurse who injected me, without my asking
Mr. JohnL, as well as brief sports of yoga, I've added a couple of short walks to my daily routine (and often one longer one). Plus working out a timetable that naturally increases breaks helps (I don't exercise then walk, but have a working gap between them).
So has anyone who had two AZs first then had a reaction to a Pfizer/Moderna booster?
Hi Isam, I had Pfizer booster Saturday lunchtime after two AZ.
Grim headache and aching Saturday night, woke up yesterday feeling like I had a combination of a nasty head cold and a hangover derived from shit wine and spirits!
Arm was still very sore overnight which ruined sleep and not 100% today still but imagine it will all wear off today if that’s any help!!
One thing I was wondering and too lazy to google was how quickly the booster “works” - does it protect from day one or does it take , say, a week to give its benefits? Would be good for everyone to know as if it takes time for efficacy there is a risk surely that people will have their booster in lead up to Christmas and just go straight out thinking all is full power protection when it’s not!!
You still have your original protection right at the start (even if its declined a bit). After about 10 days you will be like superman.
Thanks for that info - maybe something that needs pointing out to the public so they realise it doesn’t kick in immediately.
Possibly - but its not as if you are not protected. The waning of protection is mainly against infection - serious disease will still be protected.
Mr. JohnL, as well as brief sports of yoga, I've added a couple of short walks to my daily routine (and often one longer one). Plus working out a timetable that naturally increases breaks helps (I don't exercise then walk, but have a working gap between them).
Mr. Jonathan, surely orange juice was a thing?
It was very high end. The aspiring middle classes got Kelloggs Rise & Shine, a powdered version.
Comments
Besides, he'd probably get lost on the way as you have to turn right at Highnam and we know Labour types hate turning right.
(And finally, Newent is very well kept so there's no need for a litter policy.)
For a long while, most of the over spill was in the next door buildings. Moving to a single building should be a no-brainer - a number of banks and other organisations have done their moves over the years for exactly that reason.
One thing to consider - insisting on home working for x % of staff may sound very kind, hip etc. But what we are seeing in a number of companies is a a re-warmed version of the hot-desking thing. Deliberately having not enough space in HQ. So you are forced to work from home, even for those without sufficient space or equipment. It's all very nice for those with a spare room with space and an ergonomic desk, chair, computer etc etc.
The lady who runs the popular local coffee shop tells me, that in addition to the regulars who are running their own businesses and using her shop as a cheap office, she now has a several people "WFH" from there, regularly....
More than 17 million have used buy now, pay later services
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59433904
As the headline stands almost all house owners have, anyone who has ever used a credit card has, etc.
What they mean is how many have used one of three particular companies.
Very annoyed about masks, but if they're to return for just a couple of weeks to help give time to rollout boosters then I'd be OK with that. That's about it.
Now it will be BYO office space, BYO desk, BYO monitor, BYO chair, BYO computer (more and more companies are moving to VDI)
Of course, the good places (at the moment) are sending stuff to their staff to work from home...
Pfizer-Pfizer-Pfizer
Mrs C had
AZ-AZ-Pfizer.
Plus we both tested positive, and were 'not well' late September!
Now someone's pressed a button for a trailer.
"I'm afraid we're having some problems....."
The problems being all the presenters have left the building!
So it's lots of trailers
Mrs C is becoming doleful at the prospect of no visit from that set of granddaughters.
If I had a rural or out-of-townpub, I’d invest in some decent tables and wifi, do a deal of something like £20 a day 9-5, including lunch, a pint and unlimited filter coffee.
Now they're back!
They're saying there was no emergency!
You'd think they might have waited until after the Platitude of the Day timeslot had been and gone
Academics match my experience - not my field, but I was one of the few of my colleagues optimistic in July - the only other with same view was someone on SAGE who has also been involved with a lot of ebola response, he was of the view that this, unlike ebola, is not something that vaccinated people needed to be protected from at any cost. Others, as you suggest, have come round to the strategy.
Of course there's no question of my d-i-l NOT returning to Thailand; she and my son have been married nearly 20 years, and they have a house and three children in school in Bangkok. He's got long-term residency there, too.
https://www.lr.org/en/who-we-are/brief-history/edward-lloyd-coffee-house/
My office is in the same building as the local LR office here.
My Aeron is now 20 years old (at least) and cost £350 second hand
Trident launches if Radio *3* goes off the air. That will be the sign of the true end of civilisation.
It was generally believed that some nurses did it deliberately, so that the hunky firemen would have to call.
However the fire service got quite cross and started charging the Trust. Which led to changes!
This prospect is not a happy one.
Six cases of the Covid-19 Omicron variant have been identified in Scotland. Four cases are in the Lanarkshire area and two have been identified in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area.
Public Health Scotland and local health protection teams are supporting and contact tracing is being undertaken to establish the origin of the virus and any individuals they have come into contact with in recent weeks.
The interesting contrast was with a non-technical team. The majority of them didn't have an actual computer at home - did all their online stuff on a tablet....
What is the 'table' to which you refer (or rather who arranged for the people around it) ?
The employer should have such a policy in place, anyway. They are saving a vast amount of money with her not taking up office space. And they are still liable, legally, IIRC....
https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1464714792673894401
Because genocide isn't so bad if you wave a nice red flag when you're filling your atrocity quota.
Most of the saving is because no rent will be paid (£55m of the total saving of £60m over 5 years).
No rent is payable because they BOUGHT the property in 2019.
That may or may not be the right thing (I have no view) but it is misleading to present it as a cost saving measure
Once the panic about Xi variant is the out the way, it really needs a Look Down The Camera address to carefully explain this to everyone.
And from memory - the GLA has owned the Crystal since it was built - but it was leased to Siemens who surrendered the lease in 2019 (for they weren't really using the building).
One of the reasons I'm inclined to trust them is that there was no sugar coating and in general everyone set aside their political leanings.
Tbh, most of them wanted to know what the economy was going to look like next year and when the doctor among our group was finally going to get married to her bf so we can all go to a wedding overseas.
Oddly, he's just had covid in his house (one of his children) and a flicker of positivity on lateral flow, but no PCR. Now that is a bit reminiscent of the lab scandal round here (and we are in that part of the world) but I hope/assume the problem has been fixed. Probably poor sampling technique, but he seems to be fine. I think he is now a bit happier about the whole thing.
Lots of my other colleagues are pretty bed-wettery with this. Notably, its the ones who have worked from home most. I've been back on site a lot since July 2020, and pretty much fully on campus since the spring. I think there is a correlation between those who have been able to squirrel themselves away, and who are still more fearful.
Will likely (and sadly) have to change this as I set up the full UK company for the clients as our stuff will need to fit their IT infrastructure. Boooooo.
Grim headache and aching Saturday night, woke up yesterday feeling like I had a combination of a nasty head cold and a hangover derived from shit wine and spirits!
Arm was still very sore overnight which ruined sleep and not 100% today still but imagine it will all wear off today if that’s any help!!
One thing I was wondering and too lazy to google was how quickly the booster “works” - does it protect from day one or does it take , say, a week to give its benefits? Would be good for everyone to know as if it takes time for efficacy there is a risk surely that people will have their booster in lead up to Christmas and just go straight out thinking all is full power protection when it’s not!!
We've also had government briefings about exit waves, which is exactly what we are in, and is now behaving pretty much as modelled (at least the most recent models). This despite @RochdalePioneers claims otherwise.
Variant news aside, and that could be a curve ball (although I doubt it is a big worry for the vaccinated, at least in terms of serious disease) cases are going to be falling now - the rises in the youth have flattened off, and the boosters are working a great job on the oldies. Hospital pressure from covid is certainly reducing. Other things will no doubt be adding to the pressure as we get into winter.
Phones are much easier to manage for corporate IT - they’re encrypted by default, have good sandboxes for applications and data, and can be backed up and wiped remotely if required.
That HR department was no-one's friend. When the main recruitment guy came to leave, he sent an email out saying there would be drinks at a certain pub. He didn't turn up; he and a few mates went to a different place...
https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/29/china_quantum_ai_offensive/
This is similar to how the Americans caught the Cambridge Spies: capture lots of traffic and work out how to decrypt it later.
The fact people can't see that shows how blinked most people can be.
Socially and occupationally ostracising those who refuse vaccines is not right.
It also doesn't make sense. If you're vaccinated then the degree of protection is very high. The risk is overwhelmingly borne by those who willingly reject vaccination.
If vaccines cannot allow people to resume their daily lives then what's the point? Their function is to protect from this disease, not to act as some sort of performative ritual.
13 Portuguese footballers have Omicron after going to S Africa
And 6 cases in Scotland some with no foreign travel involved
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59457268
Biden banned travel from South Africa because of the new Covid variant.
Immigrants have recently been apprehended crossing our border illegally from South Africa.
Biden is doing nothing to stop immigrants from South Africa entering illegally.
Pure politics and hypocrisy.
And yes I did to check it was an actual twitter - it is see https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1465060080131489797
Mr. Jonathan, surely orange juice was a thing?
- How long do you want these messages to remain secret?
- I want them to remain secret for as long as men are capable of evil.