By last weekend, with shops across Japan sold out of the precious tissue and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe preaching against panic, TV news shows collated more ominous signage from around the country — some snarling that in-lavatory larceny would bring a police response, others closing their restrooms altogether, defeated by the crime spree.
But it was the images that appeared on Monday, of toilet paper rolls bound to their dispensers with bicycle locks, that finally told a nation that Japan had descended into Lord of the Flies-style depravity. “Bicycle locks on a ¥50 toilet roll?” writhed social media. In a country where even bicycles sometimes don’t need locks? Are we humans or beasts? ..
For all of its extraordinary and pioneering technology, Japan’s largest toilet maker, Toto, confirmed this week that the company has never claimed that its machines provide an alternative to toilet paper.
So if my dream of importing a Japanese toilet doesn't work, what are the (sane, hygienic) alternatives? And would any PBer admit to using them?
You can still get washlets on amazon, remarkably.
They're not good for the sewage system but that's not the greatest of our worries, right now.
Re @eadric’s Albanian cab driver in his late 30’s, who lived in Milan for 18 years and then moved to Britain and took the Knowledge before becoming a black cab driver (estimated to take 2 - 3 years), I’m intrigued.
At what age did he move to Italy? When did he become an Italian citizen? When did he move to Britain and why? How did he earn his living while doing the Knowledge? And how long has he been a taxi driver?
Would be the questions I would have asked him had I been sat in the back of his cab.
I did wonder how he had been a semi pro footballer in Italy for 18 years, and done the knowledge by his late 30s. Possible, but difficult. Maybe he looks younger than he really is
Sigh: Holiday of a life time to USA in 6 weeks looking doubtful, wife's trip to Spain in 2 weeks looking very doubtful and my daughter's university effectively just closed, all in the space of 5 minutes.
Trump's speech made all his previously ones look, well positively presidential. How the hell did he get the job?
My mother and stepfather were meant to be going to Tenerife this month, rescheduled it to late May when this whole thing started to kick off because they were worried about being stuck out there (he's due in hospital in about ten days' time for elective surgery.)
We were discussing this yesterday, along with planning for self-isolation. He might get his op, but I think their holiday's toast. I doubt that any plans of that kind are worth anything until July at the earliest, and then you'll only be travelling if your hotel and/or airline haven't gone bust in the meantime.
The University news was the biggest shock. Suspended as of today (by email to students) for rest of academic year.
Re @eadric’s Albanian cab driver in his late 30’s, who lived in Milan for 18 years and then moved to Britain and took the Knowledge before becoming a black cab driver (estimated to take 2 - 3 years), I’m intrigued.
At what age did he move to Italy? When did he become an Italian citizen? When did he move to Britain and why? How did he earn his living while doing the Knowledge? And how long has he been a taxi driver?
Would be the questions I would have asked him had I been sat in the back of his cab.
Your intriguing comment seems to paint your image as a compassionate citizen in a very warm light.
Sigh: Holiday of a life time to USA in 6 weeks looking doubtful, wife's trip to Spain in 2 weeks looking very doubtful and my daughter's university effectively just closed, all in the space of 5 minutes.
Trump's speech made all his previously ones look, well positively presidential. How the hell did he get the job?
I haven't been abroad for a year. Had three separate jaunts to Lake Como, Rome (for the 6N), and Portugal planned from the 24th of March and the month that follows. Incredible timing from myself.
I don't mean to sound callous but I'd really start worrying if someone in the UK dies from the virus who's relatively young and/or doesn't have any underlying medical conditions. It's difficult to find any information on whether there have been these types of cases in Italy or elsewhere (apart from China and Iran).
Sadly its almost inevitable that will happen. Anxiety is not going to help anyone, the best way to counter it is be prepared, have a plan, eat well, get rest and exercise.
Slightly premature profiteering - periodic crises of demand but supplies of them apparently increasing to take account in some areas, and shops restocking.
New cases: 2795 for a total of currently infected of 17750 including +190 in intenstive care (for a total of 1518) Deaths: 175 for a total of 1441 Healed: 527 for a total of 1996
That is higher daily increases than previous 2 days right?
Deaths went up yesterday, but today's total the second lowest in the last four days. Numbers reported healed also up around ten times since Wednesday, I think. I'm still not entirely sure what the latter figure means
Means the Vatican is going to be fast-tracking some sainthoods for healing.....
Its just mad. When I prepped my parents, yes we got some toilet rolls, hand wash etc, but the real focus was on getting two freezers worth of frozen fruit, veg and meat.
Bog roll mania seems to have become a Thing. It's really taken off. It could be that there is in each of us a deep-seated fear of what running out of it could lead us to resort to, but I'm not so sure it's that. I sense many - perhaps most - people are joining in simply because this is what you do when something becomes a Thing. It's a way of bonding. And in times such as these, we do need to bond - if free of the virus, obviously, otherwise it's the very opposite.
No. It's definitely the terror of having to use a newspaper. Or your fingers.
If it does come to newspaper a handy hint is to roll it between your hands first, make it into a ball or sausage shape. Then unroll it and use it as desired. Makes it much softer, less prone to sharp creases that can bring a tear to the eye. Less smearing as well.
A squaddy mate showed me how to use a sweet wrapper to wipe your arse, in extremis....
Oh is it the ‘poking your finger through it’ method? That’s an army and trawlerman trick to use just the one sheet: stick your finger through the middle of a single sheet of shit paper, wipe your arse with your finger then use the paper to wipe your finger.
Never needed that method but I can vouch for scrunched up newspaper.
Fold it in four, pull off the corner as a quarter circle (save it), use hole created to insert finger and wipe arse. Then you use the saved bit to clean under your finger nail.
Then gut fish/opposing squaddies as required.
Ah yes, that’s it! You remember the intricate fingernail scraper bit. Good work.
Re @eadric’s Albanian cab driver in his late 30’s, who lived in Milan for 18 years and then moved to Britain and took the Knowledge before becoming a black cab driver (estimated to take 2 - 3 years), I’m intrigued.
At what age did he move to Italy? When did he become an Italian citizen? When did he move to Britain and why? How did he earn his living while doing the Knowledge? And how long has he been a taxi driver?
Would be the questions I would have asked him had I been sat in the back of his cab.
Why the hell would I interrogate him aggressively, like that, when we were having a friendly if gloomy chat?? He was a nice guy. Smart and personable. I'm not going to put a shank to his throat and demand the truth.
You have some odd personal habits.
If someone were volunteering the information he gave you, it would hardly be an oddly aggressive interrogation to say "How long you been cabbing mate?" or "When did you move here?". I'd say it would be a bit odd not to ask.
Sigh: Holiday of a life time to USA in 6 weeks looking doubtful, wife's trip to Spain in 2 weeks looking very doubtful and my daughter's university effectively just closed, all in the space of 5 minutes.
Trump's speech made all his previously ones look, well positively presidential. How the hell did he get the job?
My mother and stepfather were meant to be going to Tenerife this month, rescheduled it to late May when this whole thing started to kick off because they were worried about being stuck out there (he's due in hospital in about ten days' time for elective surgery.)
We were discussing this yesterday, along with planning for self-isolation. He might get his op, but I think their holiday's toast. I doubt that any plans of that kind are worth anything until July at the earliest, and then you'll only be travelling if your hotel and/or airline haven't gone bust in the meantime.
The University news was the biggest shock. Suspended as of today (by email to students) for rest of academic year.
Which university is that?
Liverpool
Suspended? Or do they mean all lectures to be done via video and online course material etc etc?
Day one of total shutdown almost over Denise doesn’t understand what’s going on although I’m not sure I do. I did do the supermarket and it’s quite pleasant to have a glass of wine as the sun goes down. No idea where this is going, I have tried to explain why everything is shut but she has forgotten it five minutes latter. I think the Spanish have this right but it’s going to be tough going over the next few weeks. I get a fair bit of data about relationship between infected/hospitalized/icu/ home so will ost as it comes through. At the moment Alicante hospitals not under stress but you do think your in a scene from outbreak as they go around telling you to stay at home.
Just had a fairly terrifying black cab ride across London (I'm now taking black cabs because they are bigger and there is a divide between you and the driver - better than Uber (one of a trillion unexpected ramifications of the Virus))
The driver was a very smart Albanian guy, late 30s, who previously lived in Milan for 18 years, where he was a semi pro football player. All we did - he and me - was talk corona, it is all that anyone talks about, now.
He had a few startling anecdotes.
1. He said it is bollocks that only old people get really ill and die. He said in his old football academy in Milan he knew four people with corona, one of which had died, and two were still very ill. They are/were in thei r30s like him. Super fit athletic types. Quite a few young people get this as well and sometimes they get it very very bad. And even die.
No kids tho, thank fuck.
2. He described the experience of a cousin in a small town. Let's call him X. This guy X is early 40s, unmarried, was living with his two elderly parents. First X's dad got coronavirus, badly, and when the ambulance drivers came and saw how bad X's dad was, they said to X: Say goodbye now, he'd not going to survive, he won't even be treated.
So they took X's dad away and sure enough he died three days later.
Then X's mum got ill, and the exact same thing happened: the medics came and shook their heads and said Say goodbye now, she's going, you won't see her again. So X - this time emotionally prepared - told the locals to come round and wave through the window to his mum, because she was about to go to hospital and she wasn't coming back. The neighbourhood came and waved goodbye.
A few days later X's mum died.
X then rang and asked about the bodies and he was told "Your mum and dad and have been taking to Special Crematorium XP4 (or whatever) they where have been burned with many other bodies. We cannot bury people as the virus lives on in corpses."
Now, the cab driver might have been making all this up. I do not believe he was.
I agree, I dont think it was the cab driver making all this up either.
Oh F off. Why would I lie about this? What's the point? Some kind of evil glee in frightening people?
This is what he said. He was very well informed about the virus, he knew all about containment and delay, and "flattening the curve". He was frightened for his young family, but he was smart, calm and articulate, and, I believe, telling the truth as he had perceived it.
I spoke to a young couple out with their dog in the park earlier. They didn’t know anyone who has been ill. They aren’t worried about the virus. They don’t have any cousins whose parents have been left to die at home.
Are you any the wiser from reading my anecdote?
No.
Are you secretly terrified that eadric has a bigger thingy than you, or something? You may not like him/think he is really somebody else/disapprove of people who write books for a living (ugh!) but I am afraid that for months he has been right time after time after time both on the gravity of the general situation and on key specifics, when nobody else has been. The sniping is just tedious, and misses by a country mile. This latest attempt fails really badly, because whoever said or thought that "man bites dog" is rendered less interesting by "other man does not bite dog"? You need to brush up on information theory.
Don't you think it rather strange that Eadric is the only one who seems to ever have these encounters? Time and time again through all the different world events of the last few years it has been him who has managed, by pure chance, to be the only person on here who has been accosted or driven or served by the very people who confirm his own apocalyptic view of the world.
Things are serious enough without eadric and his 'sky is falling' act
You are free to ignore me if you think I am lying.
THIS is something else that I predicted. People will get violently angry when someone coughs or sneezes at them, without a mask. We saw it in China, now it is being exported.
Soon there will be intense social pressure to WEAR a mask, as against the mild embarrassment of wearing one (which fades daily).
Drunks - on a flight from Saudi Arabia?!?! I'm surprised they weren't all dragged off by the religious police and beheaded.
I've seen precisely no-one, either here in town or visiting Cambridge, wearing a silly mask since this all kicked off, and I don't expect a fad for mask wearing to take off either. Besides anything else, from where is the British population meant to source an additional 66 million surgical masks? We can't even buy bog roll at the moment.
Plenty of Londoners are now wearing masks.
I came through London yesterday and I was the only person that I saw all day wearing a mask. Crazy.
@Foxy Does it seem plausible to you that these anti-IL6 drugs developed for arthritis could help tackle the immune storm that arises in Coronavirus? If so, how widely available are these medications? Seems some promising sounds from Italy about their utility, both in Naples and in Lombardy...
Yes, the thing that seems to be the terminal event in COVID19 is the cytokine storm of inflammation, causing severe interstitial pneumonia, but also a cascade of organ failure. There are theoretical reasons for several drugs to be helpful, but Tolicizumab certainly has very positive anecdotal reports.
One advantage of minimising the first wave is that we may have better information on this sort of therapy, and stocks of the drug for the second wave.
Just had a fairly terrifying black cab ride across London (I'm now taking black cabs because they are bigger and there is a divide between you and the driver - better than Uber (one of a trillion unexpected ramifications of the Virus))
The driver was a very smart Albanian guy, late 30s, who previously lived in Milan for 18 years, where he was a semi pro football player. All we did - he and me - was talk corona, it is all that anyone talks about, now.
He had a few startling anecdotes.
1. He said it is bollocks that only old people get really ill and die. He said in his old football academy in Milan he knew four people with corona, one of which had died, and two were still very ill. They are/were in thei r30s like him. Super fit athletic types. Quite a few young people get this as well and sometimes they get it very very bad. And even die.
No kids tho, thank fuck.
2. He described the experience of a cousin in a small town. Let's call him X. This guy X is early 40s, unmarried, was living with his two elderly parents. First X's dad got coronavirus, badly, and when the ambulance drivers came and saw how bad X's dad was, they said to X: Say goodbye now, he'd not going to survive, he won't even be treated.
So they took X's dad away and sure enough he died three days later.
Then X's mum got ill, and the exact same thing happened: the medics came and shook their heads and said Say goodbye now, she's going, you won't see her again. So X - this time emotionally prepared - told the locals to come round and wave through the window to his mum, because she was about to go to hospital and she wasn't coming back. The neighbourhood came and waved goodbye.
A few days later X's mum died.
X then rang and asked about the bodies and he was told "Your mum and dad and have been taking to Special Crematorium XP4 (or whatever) they where have been burned with many other bodies. We cannot bury people as the virus lives on in corpses."
Now, the cab driver might have been making all this up. I do not believe he was.
I agree, I dont think it was the cab driver making all this up either.
Oh F off. Why would I lie about this? What's the point? Some kind of evil glee in frightening people?
This is what he said. He was very well informed about the virus, he knew all about containment and delay, and "flattening the curve". He was frightened for his young family, but he was smart, calm and articulate, and, I believe, telling the truth as he had perceived it.
I spoke to a young couple out with their dog in the park earlier. They didn’t know anyone who has been ill. They aren’t worried about the virus. They don’t have any cousins whose parents have been left to die at home.
Are you any the wiser from reading my anecdote?
No.
Are you secretly terrified that eadric has a bigger thingy than you, or something? You may not like him/think he is really somebody else/disapprove of people who write books for a living (ugh!) but I am afraid that for months he has been right time after time after time both on the gravity of the general situation and on key specifics, when nobody else has been. The sniping is just tedious, and misses by a country mile. This latest attempt fails really badly, because whoever said or thought that "man bites dog" is rendered less interesting by "other man does not bite dog"? You need to brush up on information theory.
Don't you think it rather strange that Eadric is the only one who seems to ever have these encounters? Time and time again through all the different world events of the last few years it has been him who has managed, by pure chance, to be the only person on here who has been accosted or driven or served by the very people who confirm his own apocalyptic view of the world.
Things are serious enough without eadric and his 'sky is falling' act
You are free to ignore me if you think I am lying.
THIS is something else that I predicted. People will get violently angry when someone coughs or sneezes at them, without a mask. We saw it in China, now it is being exported.
Soon there will be intense social pressure to WEAR a mask, as against the mild embarrassment of wearing one (which fades daily).
Drunks - on a flight from Saudi Arabia?!?! I'm surprised they weren't all dragged off by the religious police and beheaded.
I've seen precisely no-one, either here in town or visiting Cambridge, wearing a silly mask since this all kicked off, and I don't expect a fad for mask wearing to take off either. Besides anything else, from where is the British population meant to source an additional 66 million surgical masks? We can't even buy bog roll at the moment.
Plenty of Londoners are now wearing masks.
I came through London yesterday and I was the only person that I saw all day wearing a mask. Crazy.
Many older South Asian ladies covering their faces in London , but not usually with masks - I'm not sure of the cultural reasons for that - but little sign of that in many of the other people I've seen out and about.
You are free to ignore me if you think I am lying.
THIS is something else that I predicted. People will get violently angry when someone coughs or sneezes at them, without a mask. We saw it in China, now it is being exported.
Soon there will be intense social pressure to WEAR a mask, as against the mild embarrassment of wearing one (which fades daily).
Drunken passengers on a plane FROM Saudi?
That's looks like a Saudi Arabian Airlines plane from the colour scheme, so whatever those passengers are, they're not drunk.
Erm ... they may not have been but I've seen any manner of apparently non-Muslim antics from Arabs abroad.
As it happens the Prophet (pbuh) didn't ban alcohol anyway. In a choice between water, alcohol and milk he singled out milk. He didn't actually ban the alcohol (haram) - that's a later interpretation.
You're far more likely to see a Muslim cave-in for a tipple than eat pork. Truly.
I don't mean to sound callous but I'd really start worrying if someone in the UK dies from the virus who's relatively young and/or doesn't have any underlying medical conditions. It's difficult to find any information on whether there have been these types of cases in Italy or elsewhere (apart from China and Iran).
"we are seeing healthy 30, 40 and 50-year-olds who are coming in with serious pneumonia,” anesthaetist Ivano Riva told Italian television program Piazzapulita."
Sigh: Holiday of a life time to USA in 6 weeks looking doubtful, wife's trip to Spain in 2 weeks looking very doubtful and my daughter's university effectively just closed, all in the space of 5 minutes.
Trump's speech made all his previously ones look, well positively presidential. How the hell did he get the job?
My mother and stepfather were meant to be going to Tenerife this month, rescheduled it to late May when this whole thing started to kick off because they were worried about being stuck out there (he's due in hospital in about ten days' time for elective surgery.)
We were discussing this yesterday, along with planning for self-isolation. He might get his op, but I think their holiday's toast. I doubt that any plans of that kind are worth anything until July at the earliest, and then you'll only be travelling if your hotel and/or airline haven't gone bust in the meantime.
The University news was the biggest shock. Suspended as of today (by email to students) for rest of academic year.
Which university is that?
Liverpool
Suspended? Or do they mean all lectures to be done via video and online course material etc etc?
@Foxy Does it seem plausible to you that these anti-IL6 drugs developed for arthritis could help tackle the immune storm that arises in Coronavirus? If so, how widely available are these medications? Seems some promising sounds from Italy about their utility, both in Naples and in Lombardy...
Yes, the thing that seems to be the terminal event in COVID19 is the cytokine storm of inflammation, causing severe interstitial pneumonia, but also a cascade of organ failure. There are theoretical reasons for several drugs to be helpful, but Tolicizumab certainly has very positive anecdotal reports.
One advantage of minimising the first wave is that we may have better information on this sort of therapy, and stocks of the drug for the second wave.
It looks as if Roche is aware of this, indeed doing well on other fronts.
Sigh: Holiday of a life time to USA in 6 weeks looking doubtful, wife's trip to Spain in 2 weeks looking very doubtful and my daughter's university effectively just closed, all in the space of 5 minutes.
Trump's speech made all his previously ones look, well positively presidential. How the hell did he get the job?
My mother and stepfather were meant to be going to Tenerife this month, rescheduled it to late May when this whole thing started to kick off because they were worried about being stuck out there (he's due in hospital in about ten days' time for elective surgery.)
We were discussing this yesterday, along with planning for self-isolation. He might get his op, but I think their holiday's toast. I doubt that any plans of that kind are worth anything until July at the earliest, and then you'll only be travelling if your hotel and/or airline haven't gone bust in the meantime.
The University news was the biggest shock. Suspended as of today (by email to students) for rest of academic year.
Which university is that?
Liverpool
Suspended? Or do they mean all lectures to be done via video and online course material etc etc?
Just catching up but loads of Unis are suspending.
Wonder if Simon Calder is still recommending snapping up some bargains?
I might send him a tweet.
lol. Yeah. He's one of the worst Just The Fluers. Worse than some on here.
To be fair, he is trying to protect his industry - tourism and hospitality - which is about to take the biggest hit since World War 2. I can cut him some slack, even if his advice is mad. There are 50 million people who work in travel around the world, many of them are gonna lose their jobs.
I've personally written off the chances of any international travel til the Autumn.
I see our special status, brought to us by Brexit, that allowed US travel to continue has now been rescinded.
Ireland had joined us in Brexit?
I was being sarcastic. When the US initially exempted us from their travel ban some simple souls were putting it about that our non-EU status as an independent nation was behind it.
Just had a fairly terrifying black cab ride across London (I'm now taking black cabs because they are bigger and there is a divide between you and the driver - better than Uber (one of a trillion unexpected ramifications of the Virus))
The driver was a very smart Albanian guy, late 30s, who previously lived in Milan for 18 years, where he was a semi pro football player. All we did - he and me - was talk corona, it is all that anyone talks about, now.
He had a few startling anecdotes.
1. He said it is bollocks that only old people get really ill and die. He said in his old football academy in Milan he knew four people with corona, one of which had died, and two were still very ill. They are/were in thei r30s like him. Super fit athletic types. Quite a few young people get this as well and sometimes they get it very very bad. And even die.
No kids tho, thank fuck.
2. He described the experience of a cousin in a small town. Let's call him X. This guy X is early 40s, unmarried, was living with his two elderly parents. First X's dad got coronavirus, badly, and when the ambulance drivers came and saw how bad X's dad was, they said to X: Say goodbye now, he'd not going to survive, he won't even be treated.
So they took X's dad away and sure enough he died three days later.
Then X's mum got ill, and the exact same thing happened: the medics came and shook their heads and said Say goodbye now, she's going, you won't see her again. So X - this time emotionally prepared - told the locals to come round and wave through the window to his mum, because she was about to go to hospital and she wasn't coming back. The neighbourhood came and waved goodbye.
A few days later X's mum died.
X then rang and asked about the bodies and he was told "Your mum and dad and have been taking to Special Crematorium XP4 (or whatever) they where have been burned with many other bodies. We cannot bury people as the virus lives on in corpses."
Now, the cab driver might have been making all this up. I do not believe he was.
I agree, I dont think it was the cab driver making all this up either.
Oh F off. Why would I lie about this? What's the point? Some kind of evil glee in frightening people?
This is what he said. He was very well informed about the virus, he knew all about containment and delay, and "flattening the curve". He was frightened for his young family, but he was smart, calm and articulate, and, I believe, telling the truth as he had perceived it.
I spoke to a young couple out with their dog in the park earlier. They didn’t know anyone who has been ill. They aren’t worried about the virus. They don’t have any cousins whose parents have been left to die at home.
Are you any the wiser from reading my anecdote?
No.
Are you secretly terrified that eadric has a bigger thingy than you, or something? You may not like him/think he is really somebody else/disapprove of people who write books for a living (ugh!) but I am afraid that for months he has been right time after time after time both on the gravity of the general situation and on key specifics, when nobody else has been. The sniping is just tedious, and misses by a country mile. This latest attempt fails really badly, because whoever said or thought that "man bites dog" is rendered less interesting by "other man does not bite dog"? You need to brush up on information theory.
Don't you think it rather strange that Eadric is the only one who seems to ever have these encounters? Time and time again through all the different world events of the last few years it has been him who has managed, by pure chance, to be the only person on here who has been accosted or driven or served by the very people who confirm his own apocalyptic view of the world.
Things are serious enough without eadric and his 'sky is falling' act
You are free to ignore me if you think I am lying.
THIS is something else that I predicted. People will get violently angry when someone coughs or sneezes at them, without a mask. We saw it in China, now it is being exported.
Soon there will be intense social pressure to WEAR a mask, as against the mild embarrassment of wearing one (which fades daily).
Drunks - on a flight from Saudi Arabia?!?! I'm surprised they weren't all dragged off by the religious police and beheaded.
I've seen precisely no-one, either here in town or visiting Cambridge, wearing a silly mask since this all kicked off, and I don't expect a fad for mask wearing to take off either. Besides anything else, from where is the British population meant to source an additional 66 million surgical masks? We can't even buy bog roll at the moment.
Plenty of Londoners are now wearing masks.
I came through London yesterday and I was the only person that I saw all day wearing a mask. Crazy.
It won't be like that 4 weeks from now ...
Saw 4 mask wearers in Sheffield, all Chinese. I just tried to stay 2 metres from everyone and rapidly move through.
Sigh: Holiday of a life time to USA in 6 weeks looking doubtful, wife's trip to Spain in 2 weeks looking very doubtful and my daughter's university effectively just closed, all in the space of 5 minutes.
Trump's speech made all his previously ones look, well positively presidential. How the hell did he get the job?
My mother and stepfather were meant to be going to Tenerife this month, rescheduled it to late May when this whole thing started to kick off because they were worried about being stuck out there (he's due in hospital in about ten days' time for elective surgery.)
We were discussing this yesterday, along with planning for self-isolation. He might get his op, but I think their holiday's toast. I doubt that any plans of that kind are worth anything until July at the earliest, and then you'll only be travelling if your hotel and/or airline haven't gone bust in the meantime.
The University news was the biggest shock. Suspended as of today (by email to students) for rest of academic year.
Which university is that?
Liverpool
Suspended? Or do they mean all lectures to be done via video and online course material etc etc?
Just catching up but loads of Unis are suspending.
Honestly, here is the definition of ‘pointless action:’
Salford University has announced all teaching - except for final-year students - will be suspended from Monday, but the campus and student accommodation will remain open.
Because obviously, they are far more likely to catch it in lectures than in halls of residence...
Re @eadric’s Albanian cab driver in his late 30’s, who lived in Milan for 18 years and then moved to Britain and took the Knowledge before becoming a black cab driver (estimated to take 2 - 3 years), I’m intrigued.
At what age did he move to Italy? When did he become an Italian citizen? When did he move to Britain and why? How did he earn his living while doing the Knowledge? And how long has he been a taxi driver?
Would be the questions I would have asked him had I been sat in the back of his cab.
I did wonder how he had been a semi pro footballer in Italy for 18 years, and done the knowledge by his late 30s. Possible, but difficult. Maybe he looks younger than he really is
Oh FFS.
From what I gathered (without interrogating him like the Gestapo, a la cycle free), this is his life story (I could be wrong because I didn't ask for a written statement, signed in blood).
His family moved from Albania to Italy when he was very young (an infant maybe?). This is a standard move for Italians. He showed promise as a football and went to a football academy, where he got as far as semi pro status, but then it didn't work out ("I wasn't good enough")
At some stage after that he must have left Italy for Britain. Maybe in his mid 20s? That would mean 18 years in Italy and then 12-15 years in Britain, plenty of time for him to learn the knowledge.
He's obviously kept his links with Italy - friends in Milan - and he still has family there.
Slightly premature profiteering - periodic crises of demand but supplies of them apparently increasing to take account in some areas, and shops restocking.
The shops will need to do a very thorough job of restocking their shelves, if there are many people like me around. After this experience of the locust-like voracity of the hoarders, I'm once bitten, twice shy. If I see bog rolls on the shelves they're going straight in the trolley.
One four pack: good. Two family-sized dozen roll bags: better.
Sigh: Holiday of a life time to USA in 6 weeks looking doubtful, wife's trip to Spain in 2 weeks looking very doubtful and my daughter's university effectively just closed, all in the space of 5 minutes.
Trump's speech made all his previously ones look, well positively presidential. How the hell did he get the job?
My mother and stepfather were meant to be going to Tenerife this month, rescheduled it to late May when this whole thing started to kick off because they were worried about being stuck out there (he's due in hospital in about ten days' time for elective surgery.)
We were discussing this yesterday, along with planning for self-isolation. He might get his op, but I think their holiday's toast. I doubt that any plans of that kind are worth anything until July at the earliest, and then you'll only be travelling if your hotel and/or airline haven't gone bust in the meantime.
The University news was the biggest shock. Suspended as of today (by email to students) for rest of academic year.
Which university is that?
Liverpool
Suspended? Or do they mean all lectures to be done via video and online course material etc etc?
Yes my posting was for effect, but as my daughter put it in her email to me:
'Uni is basically cancelled'.
She is pretty cheesed off as this follows a 1 week study week (no lectures) followed by a 2 week lecturer strike (no lectures and now this.
New cases: 2795 for a total of currently infected of 17750 including +190 in intenstive care (for a total of 1518) Deaths: 175 for a total of 1441 Healed: 527 for a total of 1996
That is higher daily increases than previous 2 days right?
Deaths went up yesterday, but today's total the second lowest in the last four days. Numbers reported healed also up around ten times since Wednesday, I think. I'm still not entirely sure what the latter figure means, and whether it relates to healing from severe symptoms, but more positive nonetheless.
Can we please stop talking about todays' numbers being higher or lower than yesterday's before the day is over?
I see our special status, brought to us by Brexit, that allowed US travel to continue has now been rescinded.
Ireland had joined us in Brexit?
I was being sarcastic. When the US initially exempted us from their travel ban some simple souls were putting it about that our non-EU status as an independent nation was behind it.
Ah.
*Thinks*
*Panics*
Does this mean we’re back in the EU and have to go through the whole sorry saga again?
Re @eadric’s Albanian cab driver in his late 30’s, who lived in Milan for 18 years and then moved to Britain and took the Knowledge before becoming a black cab driver (estimated to take 2 - 3 years), I’m intrigued.
At what age did he move to Italy? When did he become an Italian citizen? When did he move to Britain and why? How did he earn his living while doing the Knowledge? And how long has he been a taxi driver?
Would be the questions I would have asked him had I been sat in the back of his cab.
I did wonder how he had been a semi pro footballer in Italy for 18 years, and done the knowledge by his late 30s. Possible, but difficult. Maybe he looks younger than he really is
Oh FFS.
From what I gathered (without interrogating him like the Gestapo, a la cycle free), this is his life story (I could be wrong because I didn't ask for a written statement, signed in blood).
His family moved from Albania to Italy when he was very young (an infant maybe?). This is a standard move for Italians. He showed promise as a football and went to a football academy, where he got as far as semi pro status, but then it didn't work out ("I wasn't good enough")
At some stage after that he must have left Italy for Britain. Maybe in his mid 20s? That would mean 18 years in Italy and then 12-15 years in Britain, plenty of time for him to learn the knowledge.
He's obviously kept his links with Italy - friends in Milan - and he still has family there.
Just write it as a novel. Then no-one can carp.
Well, not as much.
Well, except about the sex scenes. In masks.
But they’re not likely to be compared to Sony Walkmen, so that’s progress of a sort...
New cases: 2795 for a total of currently infected of 17750 including +190 in intenstive care (for a total of 1518) Deaths: 175 for a total of 1441 Healed: 527 for a total of 1996
That is higher daily increases than previous 2 days right?
Deaths went up yesterday, but today's total the second lowest in the last four days. Numbers reported healed also up around ten times since Wednesday, I think. I'm still not entirely sure what the latter figure means, and whether it relates to healing from severe symptoms, but more positive nonetheless.
Can we please stop talking about todays' numbers being higher or lower than yesterday's before the day is over?
The numbers from Italy are published at the same time every day, and the progress of how the disease is developing in Italy potentially matters a great deal to the rest of us.
Sigh: Holiday of a life time to USA in 6 weeks looking doubtful, wife's trip to Spain in 2 weeks looking very doubtful and my daughter's university effectively just closed, all in the space of 5 minutes.
Trump's speech made all his previously ones look, well positively presidential. How the hell did he get the job?
My mother and stepfather were meant to be going to Tenerife this month, rescheduled it to late May when this whole thing started to kick off because they were worried about being stuck out there (he's due in hospital in about ten days' time for elective surgery.)
We were discussing this yesterday, along with planning for self-isolation. He might get his op, but I think their holiday's toast. I doubt that any plans of that kind are worth anything until July at the earliest, and then you'll only be travelling if your hotel and/or airline haven't gone bust in the meantime.
The University news was the biggest shock. Suspended as of today (by email to students) for rest of academic year.
Which university is that?
Liverpool
Suspended? Or do they mean all lectures to be done via video and online course material etc etc?
Just catching up but loads of Unis are suspending.
Honestly, here is the definition of ‘pointless action:’
Salford University has announced all teaching - except for final-year students - will be suspended from Monday, but the campus and student accommodation will remain open.
Because obviously, they are far more likely to catch it in lectures than in halls of residence...
How bad do we expect the coming economic contraction to be compared to 2008? My guess is we're looking at something possibly worse, in part because the markets won't see an end to it
Talking of films, a great review of Contagion in today's Telegraph. Never has a film seemed so prescient. As I mentioned a couple months back, it views like a documentary but bloody hell it's close to the mark. Superb effort which had a number of epidemiologists and WHO people on board.
New cases: 2795 for a total of currently infected of 17750 including +190 in intenstive care (for a total of 1518) Deaths: 175 for a total of 1441 Healed: 527 for a total of 1996
That is higher daily increases than previous 2 days right?
Deaths went up yesterday, but today's total the second lowest in the last four days. Numbers reported healed also up around ten times since Wednesday, I think. I'm still not entirely sure what the latter figure means, and whether it relates to healing from severe symptoms, but more positive nonetheless.
Can we please stop talking about todays' numbers being higher or lower than yesterday's before the day is over?
It is the most gruesome game of Play Your Cards Right.
New cases: 2795 for a total of currently infected of 17750 including +190 in intenstive care (for a total of 1518) Deaths: 175 for a total of 1441 Healed: 527 for a total of 1996
That is higher daily increases than previous 2 days right?
Deaths went up yesterday, but today's total the second lowest in the last four days. Numbers reported healed also up around ten times since Wednesday, I think. I'm still not entirely sure what the latter figure means, and whether it relates to healing from severe symptoms, but more positive nonetheless.
Can we please stop talking about todays' numbers being higher or lower than yesterday's before the day is over?
It is the most gruesome game of Play Your Cards Right.
Here's Brucie!
"Higher! Higher!"
I personally prefer to comment on them when the figures show more grounds for hope - yesterday higher figure for deaths - no comment from yours truly.
On the general subject of hoarding, now that the supermarket supply chain has been shown to be seriously vulnerable to panic buying even when everybody is well, I'm going to be doing some more stocking up myself tomorrow. Thinking of what will provide an efficient (and enjoyable) store of large amounts of calories in a relatively small space, I'm going for chocolate biscuits. The hoarders haven't discovered those yet.
One box of Tesco's milk chocolate butter biscuits (made in Germany, probably in the same factory as Choco Leibniz but sold for half the price) will supply over 600 calories. I'm intent on clearing the shelf.
Sigh: Holiday of a life time to USA in 6 weeks looking doubtful, wife's trip to Spain in 2 weeks looking very doubtful and my daughter's university effectively just closed, all in the space of 5 minutes.
Trump's speech made all his previously ones look, well positively presidential. How the hell did he get the job?
My mother and stepfather were meant to be going to Tenerife this month, rescheduled it to late May when this whole thing started to kick off because they were worried about being stuck out there (he's due in hospital in about ten days' time for elective surgery.)
We were discussing this yesterday, along with planning for self-isolation. He might get his op, but I think their holiday's toast. I doubt that any plans of that kind are worth anything until July at the earliest, and then you'll only be travelling if your hotel and/or airline haven't gone bust in the meantime.
The University news was the biggest shock. Suspended as of today (by email to students) for rest of academic year.
Which university is that?
Liverpool
Suspended? Or do they mean all lectures to be done via video and online course material etc etc?
Just catching up but loads of Unis are suspending.
Honestly, here is the definition of ‘pointless action:’
Salford University has announced all teaching - except for final-year students - will be suspended from Monday, but the campus and student accommodation will remain open.
Because obviously, they are far more likely to catch it in lectures than in halls of residence...
Yep exactly my thought.
Keep the young people away from the academic staff.
Panic buying is a slippery and dubious concept to identify, including sometimes plain wrong, and generally more favourable to governments and those organising than individuals. What is irrational at one momemt can immediately be rational the next - I think rather than the blanket condemnation of it it might be better for governments or supermarkets to focus on the positive - we appreciate everyone at some times might have good reasons to buy more, but if we operate a more shared and gradual approach supplies are less likely to run out.
Talking of films, a great review of Contagion in today's Telegraph. Never has a film seemed so prescient. As I mentioned a couple months back, it views like a documentary but bloody hell it's close to the mark. Superb effort which had a number of epidemiologists and WHO people on board.
The similarities between the plot and our present predicament are eerie, including the young doctor who tries to warn everyone, but ends up catching BatPig Disease and dying.
Re @eadric’s Albanian cab driver in his late 30’s, who lived in Milan for 18 years and then moved to Britain and took the Knowledge before becoming a black cab driver (estimated to take 2 - 3 years), I’m intrigued.
At what age did he move to Italy? When did he become an Italian citizen? When did he move to Britain and why? How did he earn his living while doing the Knowledge? And how long has he been a taxi driver?
Would be the questions I would have asked him had I been sat in the back of his cab.
Why the hell would I interrogate him aggressively, like that, when we were having a friendly if gloomy chat?? He was a nice guy. Smart and personable. I'm not going to put a shank to his throat and demand the truth.
You have some odd personal habits.
I am curious and interested in people and his life story sounds genuinely intriguing. And I can assure you that if you are interested in what someone is saying it is very easy to find out information from someone without interrogating them or torturing them, indeed without them even realising what they are revealing
Most people, after all, are very willing to talk about themselves, as we see on here.
As it happens I can quite believe that funerals and cremations are being rushed through with little if any ceremony, from my own knowledge of Italy. It is not something which started with this virus but has certainly been accelerated by it.
From what I gathered (without interrogating him like the Gestapo, a la cycle free), this is his life story (I could be wrong because I didn't ask for a written statement, signed in blood).
His family moved from Albania to Italy when he was very young (an infant maybe?). This is a standard move for Italians. He showed promise as a football and went to a football academy, where he got as far as semi pro status, but then it didn't work out ("I wasn't good enough")
At some stage after that he must have left Italy for Britain. Maybe in his mid 20s? That would mean 18 years in Italy and then 12-15 years in Britain, plenty of time for him to learn the knowledge.
He's obviously kept his links with Italy - friends in Milan - and he still has family there.
@Foxy Does it seem plausible to you that these anti-IL6 drugs developed for arthritis could help tackle the immune storm that arises in Coronavirus? If so, how widely available are these medications? Seems some promising sounds from Italy about their utility, both in Naples and in Lombardy...
Yes, the thing that seems to be the terminal event in COVID19 is the cytokine storm of inflammation, causing severe interstitial pneumonia, but also a cascade of organ failure. There are theoretical reasons for several drugs to be helpful, but Tolicizumab certainly has very positive anecdotal reports.
One advantage of minimising the first wave is that we may have better information on this sort of therapy, and stocks of the drug for the second wave.
It looks as if Roche is aware of this, indeed doing well on other fronts.
Talking of films, a great review of Contagion in today's Telegraph. Never has a film seemed so prescient. As I mentioned a couple months back, it views like a documentary but bloody hell it's close to the mark. Superb effort which had a number of epidemiologists and WHO people on board.
The similarities between the plot and our present predicament are eerie, including the young doctor who tries to warn everyone, but ends up catching BatPig Disease and dying.
"But for all its excellence and now-obvious prescience, there are two respects in which Contagion failed to predict the reality of 2020. The first is just a lucky throw of the RNA dice: namely, that the real coronavirus is perhaps an order of magnitude less fatal than the movie virus, and for some unknown reason it spares children. But the second difference is terrifying. All the public health authorities in the movie are ultra-empowered and competent. They do badass things like injecting themselves with experimental vaccines. If they stumble, it’s only in deeply understandable ways that any of us might (e.g., warning their own loved ones to evacuate a city before warning the public).
In other words, when the scriptwriters, writing their disaster movie, tried to imagine the worst, they failed to imagine a US government that would essentially abandon the public, by
(1) botching a simple test that dozens of other countries performed without issue, (2) preventing anyone else from performing their own tests, and then (3) turning around and using the lack of positive test results to justify its own inaction.
They failed to imagine a CDC that might as well not exist for all it would do in its hour of need: one that didn’t even bother to update its website on weekends, and stopped publishing data once the data became too embarrassing. The scriptwriters did imagine a troll gleefully spreading lies about the virus online, endangering anyone who listened to him. They failed to imagine a universe where that troll was the president."
Talking of films, a great review of Contagion in today's Telegraph. Never has a film seemed so prescient. As I mentioned a couple months back, it views like a documentary but bloody hell it's close to the mark. Superb effort which had a number of epidemiologists and WHO people on board.
The similarities between the plot and our present predicament are eerie, including the young doctor who tries to warn everyone, but ends up catching BatPig Disease and dying.
"A Chinese Red Cross team of nine doctors and researchers is in Rome, sharing experiences with staff at the Italian capital’s infectious diseases hospital. ........... Speaking with a hospital mask, and through interpreters, one of the Chinese Red Cross members praised efforts in Italy, which for weeks has been grappling with Europe’s largest outbreak of the coronavirus. The member, whose name wasn’t immediately available said the Chinese, observing how the hospital is handling the cases, said the team believes the Italians have done a very good job."
Panic buying is a slippery and dubious concept to identify, and generally more favourable to governments and those organising than individuals. What is irrational at one momemt can be immediately rational the next - I think rather the blanket condemnation of it it might be better for governments or supermarkets to focus on the positive - we everyone at some times might have reasons to buy more, but if we operate a more shared and gradual approach supplies are less likely to run out.
In the end there will be wartime style rationing, and things will calm down. Everyone will get their 1-2 rolls per bottom per week.
It's the few weeks of possible chaos/shortage between now and then that need to be bridged. And I mean chaos
Tesco Loughborough this morning was reasonably well stocked, with hoarder target goods having polite signs saying "To help people gain access to essential items, this product is limited to X per customer". Not a riot or mask in sight. Admittedly, last week there were a lot of empty shelves.
Panic buying is a slippery and dubious concept to identify, and generally more favourable to governments and those organising than individuals. What is irrational at one momemt can be immediately rational the next - I think rather the blanket condemnation of it it might be better for governments or supermarkets to focus on the positive - we everyone at some times might have reasons to buy more, but if we operate a more shared and gradual approach supplies are less likely to run out.
In the end there will be wartime style rationing, and things will calm down. Everyone will get their 1-2 rolls per bottom per week.
It's the few weeks of possible chaos/shortage between now and then that need to be bridged. And I mean chaos
"Atmosphere of panic" in local Sainsburys txts a mate.
Run out focaccia bread?
Three reports: 1. Sainsburys on outskirts of Guildford. This morning. Many shelves empty, no tinned soups or veg, only organic muesli in the cereal aisle, no pasta or bog roll etc. Lots of fresh fruit and veg.
2. Waitrose in Richmond. Organic fruit and veg, both fresh and chilled/frozen totally cleared. Otherwise not too bad.
3. Whole Foods, Richmond. No shortages. But makes waitrose look cheap!
Not sure what this says about inhabitants of Guildford and Richmond...
Sigh: Holiday of a life time to USA in 6 weeks looking doubtful, wife's trip to Spain in 2 weeks looking very doubtful and my daughter's university effectively just closed, all in the space of 5 minutes.
Trump's speech made all his previously ones look, well positively presidential. How the hell did he get the job?
My mother and stepfather were meant to be going to Tenerife this month, rescheduled it to late May when this whole thing started to kick off because they were worried about being stuck out there (he's due in hospital in about ten days' time for elective surgery.)
We were discussing this yesterday, along with planning for self-isolation. He might get his op, but I think their holiday's toast. I doubt that any plans of that kind are worth anything until July at the earliest, and then you'll only be travelling if your hotel and/or airline haven't gone bust in the meantime.
The University news was the biggest shock. Suspended as of today (by email to students) for rest of academic year.
Which university is that?
Liverpool
Suspended? Or do they mean all lectures to be done via video and online course material etc etc?
That seems to me to be pretty disruptive. How do science students do practicals?
I'm sure that the idea of "moving classes to online courses" is a nice idea from university admin but has not actually been properly thought through.
Just one example of the many possible problems.
I have done online lecturing for the "Virtual Fahchochschule" as part of my work at a uni in Berlin. We used special software to do this, ... each online coure has it's own virual classroom ... On Thursday morning we got the news that lectures for the summer semester would be starting 20 days later. On Thursday afternoon we got an email from the IT administrator at the Virtual FachHochschule, having clearly had hundreds of emails from lecturers asking if they could teach their course online. He said the VFH currently has licenses for 500 courses, the uni would need licenses for over 5000 courses, and even if the money is there to pay for this, they can't orgainse the set up for so many courses just like that.
If people think "moving to online courses" means everyone logging into Skype, they are very much mistaken.
Panic buying is a slippery and dubious concept to identify, and generally more favourable to governments and those organising than individuals. What is irrational at one momemt can be immediately rational the next - I think rather the blanket condemnation of it it might be better for governments or supermarkets to focus on the positive - we everyone at some times might have reasons to buy more, but if we operate a more shared and gradual approach supplies are less likely to run out.
In the end there will be wartime style rationing, and things will calm down. Everyone will get their 1-2 rolls per bottom per week.
It's the few weeks of possible chaos/shortage between now and then that need to be bridged. And I mean chaos
Panic buying is a slippery and dubious concept to identify, and generally more favourable to governments and those organising than individuals. What is irrational at one momemt can be immediately rational the next - I think rather the blanket condemnation of it it might be better for governments or supermarkets to focus on the positive - we everyone at some times might have reasons to buy more, but if we operate a more shared and gradual approach supplies are less likely to run out.
In the end there will be wartime style rationing, and things will calm down. Everyone will get their 1-2 rolls per bottom per week.
It's the few weeks of possible chaos/shortage between now and then that need to be bridged. And I mean chaos
Tesco Loughborough this morning was reasonably well stocked, with hoarder target goods having polite signs saying "To help people gain access to essential items, this product is limited to X per customer". Not a riot or mask in sight. Admittedly, last week there were a lot of empty shelves.
Not a loo roll left nor bottle of hand san in Tesco's Melton. Other than that shelves were brimming.
The German (not the NHS or the US version) healthcare system is probably the best in Europe.
Does feel like there must be a genetic North vs South element at play here as the Italian & increasingly Spanish experience seems so different, and more than can be explained by lack of Protestant work ethic
Panic buying is a slippery and dubious concept to identify, and generally more favourable to governments and those organising than individuals. What is irrational at one momemt can be immediately rational the next - I think rather the blanket condemnation of it it might be better for governments or supermarkets to focus on the positive - we everyone at some times might have reasons to buy more, but if we operate a more shared and gradual approach supplies are less likely to run out.
In the end there will be wartime style rationing, and things will calm down. Everyone will get their 1-2 rolls per bottom per week.
It's the few weeks of possible chaos/shortage between now and then that need to be bridged. And I mean chaos
You may well be right. This thing's now about getting ahead of the curve: if you spend too much time feeling guilty about what other people won't be getting because you've got it, you just end up becoming other people yourself. Once the panic buying gets past a certain critical mass, the first wave of them stop looking silly and start looking prescient - and, until the retailers and the Government itself take proper action to restore order, it's very much a case of every household for itself.
I have to be a bit choosy about what I stockpile because we've not got the space in the flat, but if we had a spare room I'd be filling it with at least two months' worth of long shelf life supplies.
Oh, and if everyone thinks it's bad now, wait until the order goes out for every vulnerable sick person and everyone over 70 to go into quarantine at once. It'll be like those scenes when Black Friday first arrived in Britain, or possibly even the 2011 London riots. Fisticuffs are inevitable; outright civil disorder and looting is a distinct possibility.
Panic buying is a slippery and dubious concept to identify, and generally more favourable to governments and those organising than individuals. What is irrational at one momemt can be immediately rational the next - I think rather the blanket condemnation of it it might be better for governments or supermarkets to focus on the positive - we everyone at some times might have reasons to buy more, but if we operate a more shared and gradual approach supplies are less likely to run out.
In the end there will be wartime style rationing, and things will calm down. Everyone will get their 1-2 rolls per bottom per week.
It's the few weeks of possible chaos/shortage between now and then that need to be bridged. And I mean chaos
"Atmosphere of panic" in local Sainsburys txts a mate.
Run out focaccia bread?
Three reports: 1. Sainsburys on outskirts of Guildford. This morning. Many shelves empty, no tinned soups or veg, only organic muesli in the cereal aisle, no pasta or bog roll etc. Lots of fresh fruit and veg.
2. Waitrose in Richmond. Organic fruit and veg, both fresh and chilled/frozen totally cleared. Otherwise not too bad.
3. Whole Foods, Richmond. No shortages. But makes waitrose look cheap!
Not sure what this says about inhabitants of Guildford and Richmond...
It's the out-of-town development supermarkets and some of the biggest central ones that seem to be having a few problems, particularly with the toilet roll/soap -style items. Others not so much.
Panic buying is a slippery and dubious concept to identify, and generally more favourable to governments and those organising than individuals. What is irrational at one momemt can be immediately rational the next - I think rather the blanket condemnation of it it might be better for governments or supermarkets to focus on the positive - we everyone at some times might have reasons to buy more, but if we operate a more shared and gradual approach supplies are less likely to run out.
In the end there will be wartime style rationing, and things will calm down. Everyone will get their 1-2 rolls per bottom per week.
It's the few weeks of possible chaos/shortage between now and then that need to be bridged. And I mean chaos
What sort of a place is Colney Hatch? Never heard of it.
Isn’t it a service station on the M25?
No, It's a big Tesco on the North Circular. I have actually been to that Tesco many times, as it's not far from East Finchley, where my older daughter lives
Simon Calder's latest piece in the Independent, from yesterday.
"Hitch-hiking, you may be surprised to learn, still works despite the growing fears about coronavirus. I base this on my experience on Tuesday afternoon, when I successfully thumbed my way from the Israeli resort of Eilat to the Egyptian border."
No idea how true it is but I did see Rutger Hauer claim in an interview that he was almost single handedly responsible for making hitch hiking unpopular in the US.after a certain notorious depiction
Panic buying is a slippery and dubious concept to identify, and generally more favourable to governments and those organising than individuals. What is irrational at one momemt can be immediately rational the next - I think rather the blanket condemnation of it it might be better for governments or supermarkets to focus on the positive - we everyone at some times might have reasons to buy more, but if we operate a more shared and gradual approach supplies are less likely to run out.
In the end there will be wartime style rationing, and things will calm down. Everyone will get their 1-2 rolls per bottom per week.
It's the few weeks of possible chaos/shortage between now and then that need to be bridged. And I mean chaos
What sort of a place is Colney Hatch? Never heard of it.
Isn’t it a service station on the M25?
No, It's a big Tesco on the North Circular. I have actually been to that Tesco many times, as it's not far from East Finchley, where my older daughter lives
Anyone short on bog roll should go on Amazon and search for Christmas toilet roll or novelty toilet roll; there is tons on offer for pennies. Search on Andrex and its on sale for £50+
I can't believe I'm discussing this stuff on pb. A toilet roll will last me several months based on being needed 3-4 times a week and using 5-6 sheets per time.
I do go out of the house. Having lived with people in the past I'm genuinely confused by the amount of toilet roll some people feel the need to use. It's a bit different if you have a cold and use them for tissues of course - that's when I would be going through them.
Panic buying is a slippery and dubious concept to identify, and generally more favourable to governments and those organising than individuals. What is irrational at one momemt can be immediately rational the next - I think rather the blanket condemnation of it it might be better for governments or supermarkets to focus on the positive - we everyone at some times might have reasons to buy more, but if we operate a more shared and gradual approach supplies are less likely to run out.
In the end there will be wartime style rationing, and things will calm down. Everyone will get their 1-2 rolls per bottom per week.
It's the few weeks of possible chaos/shortage between now and then that need to be bridged. And I mean chaos
Sigh: Holiday of a life time to USA in 6 weeks looking doubtful, wife's trip to Spain in 2 weeks looking very doubtful and my daughter's university effectively just closed, all in the space of 5 minutes.
Trump's speech made all his previously ones look, well positively presidential. How the hell did he get the job?
My mother and stepfather were meant to be going to Tenerife this month, rescheduled it to late May when this whole thing started to kick off because they were worried about being stuck out there (he's due in hospital in about ten days' time for elective surgery.)
We were discussing this yesterday, along with planning for self-isolation. He might get his op, but I think their holiday's toast. I doubt that any plans of that kind are worth anything until July at the earliest, and then you'll only be travelling if your hotel and/or airline haven't gone bust in the meantime.
The University news was the biggest shock. Suspended as of today (by email to students) for rest of academic year.
Which university is that?
Liverpool
Suspended? Or do they mean all lectures to be done via video and online course material etc etc?
Just catching up but loads of Unis are suspending.
Honestly, here is the definition of ‘pointless action:’
Salford University has announced all teaching - except for final-year students - will be suspended from Monday, but the campus and student accommodation will remain open.
Because obviously, they are far more likely to catch it in lectures than in halls of residence...
All the universities are doing the same. Many students don't have the choice to go home - at least not at short notice. The aim of ending face to face teaching is in many cases to stop the lecturers and staff catching it. And quite right too given many of them may well be approaching the age at which it becomes truly problematic.
As with so many different aspects of this outbreak, there are no straight forward, simple answers or solutions that will solve every problem. The universities, much like everyone else, are simply trying to do the best they can to minimise the risk to the most vulnerable parts of their community.
Mr. Booth, human activity, to be politely vague, varies from thrice daily to once every three days (within the normal range, obviously illness and unusual habits can vary even more).
In the event of significant problems and disruptions of just-in-time chains ( where have we heard that before ? ) , toilet roll will be a lot easier to re-stock than fresh food. Individuals might have good reasons to stock up on more than average, but profiteers are probably jumping the gun.
Panic buying is a slippery and dubious concept to identify, and generally more favourable to governments and those organising than individuals. What is irrational at one momemt can be immediately rational the next - I think rather the blanket condemnation of it it might be better for governments or supermarkets to focus on the positive - we everyone at some times might have reasons to buy more, but if we operate a more shared and gradual approach supplies are less likely to run out.
In the end there will be wartime style rationing, and things will calm down. Everyone will get their 1-2 rolls per bottom per week.
It's the few weeks of possible chaos/shortage between now and then that need to be bridged. And I mean chaos
What sort of a place is Colney Hatch? Never heard of it.
Isn’t it a service station on the M25?
No, It's a big Tesco on the North Circular. I have actually been to that Tesco many times, as it's not far from East Finchley, where my older daughter lives
The only people panic buying are those who believe in your posts
Hence why it is not widespead
Do you remember that conversation you and I had about a week ago? I predicted that most international air travel would come to an end in about a fortnight.
You loudly scoffed and said "Huh, let's revisit that tweet in two weeks, shall we?"
That's looks like a Saudi Arabian Airlines plane from the colour scheme, so whatever those passengers are, they're not drunk.
Erm ... they may not have been but I've seen any manner of apparently non-Muslim antics from Arabs abroad.
As it happens the Prophet (pbuh) didn't ban alcohol anyway. In a choice between water, alcohol and milk he singled out milk. He didn't actually ban the alcohol (haram) - that's a later interpretation.
You're far more likely to see a Muslim cave-in for a tipple than eat pork. Truly.
The Prophet forbade intoxication, which includes alcohol.
The point I was making is that Saudi Arabian Airlines does not serve alcohol. And if you were flying from Saudi Arabia, you would not have had a chance to imbibe before the flight.
The German (not the NHS or the US version) healthcare system is probably the best in Europe.
Does feel like there must be a genetic North vs South element at play here as the Italian & increasingly Spanish experience seems so different, and more than can be explained by lack of Protestant work ethic
Either that or we are just a bit further behind on the timeline.
Panic buying is a slippery and dubious concept to identify, and generally more favourable to governments and those organising than individuals. What is irrational at one momemt can be immediately rational the next - I think rather the blanket condemnation of it it might be better for governments or supermarkets to focus on the positive - we everyone at some times might have reasons to buy more, but if we operate a more shared and gradual approach supplies are less likely to run out.
In the end there will be wartime style rationing, and things will calm down. Everyone will get their 1-2 rolls per bottom per week.
It's the few weeks of possible chaos/shortage between now and then that need to be bridged. And I mean chaos
What sort of a place is Colney Hatch? Never heard of it.
Isn’t it a service station on the M25?
No, It's a big Tesco on the North Circular. I have actually been to that Tesco many times, as it's not far from East Finchley, where my older daughter lives
The only people panic buying are those who believe in your posts
Hence why it is not widespead
Do you remember that conversation you and I had about a week ago? I predicted that most international air travel would come to an end in about a fortnight.
You loudly scoffed and said "Huh, let's revisit that tweet in two weeks, shall we?"
You still try to create misery and seem to delight in bad news
I don’t think he wants to create misery he just sees a rather bleak outlook. There is nothing to be gained by causing misery to other people, I have thought I was in the film outbreak today as the town hall toured the streets telling us to stay in doors, no where to go for a sandwich or a drink, flights being cancelled to the UK. Only shops open supermarkets and far Pharmacies, the roads extremely quiet most public transport shut down. Plenty of bog rolls but no potatoes. I can’t be arsed going back four or five weeks to se who was right because it doesn’t really matter.
Comments
They're not good for the sewage system but that's not the greatest of our worries, right now.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Andrex-Washlets-Classic-Micellar-Flushable/dp/B071LPLXQS/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=washlets&qid=1584207238&sr=8-5
Astonishing that they haven't sold out.
See my comment up thread re scrunched up newspaper. It’s a passable substitute when the real thing is sadly absent. I’m being entirely serious.
Edit: block quote thing’s bollocksed but I can’t be arsed to sort it.
BEN HABIB
CHAIRMAN OF BREXITWATCH AND FORMER MEP
(Telegraph)
Oh piss off. The country is about to enter the equivalent of wartime and thousands will likely die. Just the f up about your bloody Brexit.
It won't be like that 4 weeks from now ...
One advantage of minimising the first wave is that we may have better information on this sort of therapy, and stocks of the drug for the second wave.
Will you rap like this when you do?
https://twitter.com/MaskedSingerFOX/status/1237951450686218242?s=20
Erm ... they may not have been but I've seen any manner of apparently non-Muslim antics from Arabs abroad.
As it happens the Prophet (pbuh) didn't ban alcohol anyway. In a choice between water, alcohol and milk he singled out milk. He didn't actually ban the alcohol (haram) - that's a later interpretation.
You're far more likely to see a Muslim cave-in for a tipple than eat pork. Truly.
Remember when he learned the word "nepotism" a year or two ago? Of course, he didn't really understand it...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/14/elderly-left-isolated-abandoned-italy-death-rate-soars/
Sorry.
That seems to me to be pretty disruptive. How do science students do practicals?
https://twitter.com/haydn_davies/status/1238858290664280067
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/13/shares-of-swiss-drugmaker-roche-up-11percent-after-fda-approval.html
I re entered the stock market late Thursday, when it was looking most awful. Roche was one of my purchases.
Lets hope the decline in the proportional numbers of deaths today and the numbers healed keeps increasing in line.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-51880355
Salford University has announced all teaching - except for final-year students - will be suspended from Monday, but the campus and student accommodation will remain open.
Because obviously, they are far more likely to catch it in lectures than in halls of residence...
And the more I think about Titanic, the more it does seem relevant.
In particular, Tory austerity has left us short on lifeboats.
Well, not as much.
Well, except about the sex scenes. In masks.
One four pack: good. Two family-sized dozen roll bags: better.
'Uni is basically cancelled'.
She is pretty cheesed off as this follows a 1 week study week (no lectures) followed by a 2 week lecturer strike (no lectures and now this.
*Thinks*
*Panics*
Does this mean we’re back in the EU and have to go through the whole sorry saga again?
The effects of this virus truly know no bounds.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/postman-went-work-day-before-17897799
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/contagion-got-coronavirus-right-films-science-advisor/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/trying-not-panic-coronavirus-dont-rewatch-contagion/
Here's Brucie!
"Higher! Higher!"
One box of Tesco's milk chocolate butter biscuits (made in Germany, probably in the same factory as Choco Leibniz but sold for half the price) will supply over 600 calories. I'm intent on clearing the shelf.
Arse wipers: Simply buy a second hand paperback from your local charity shop. Two hundred sheets for a quid - bargain!
Most people, after all, are very willing to talk about themselves, as we see on here.
As it happens I can quite believe that funerals and cremations are being rushed through with little if any ceremony, from my own knowledge of Italy. It is not something which started with this virus but has certainly been accelerated by it.
We had our first COVID19 death in Leicester announced today.
In other words, when the scriptwriters, writing their disaster movie, tried to imagine the worst, they failed to imagine a US government that would essentially abandon the public, by
(1) botching a simple test that dozens of other countries performed without issue,
(2) preventing anyone else from performing their own tests, and then
(3) turning around and using the lack of positive test results to justify its own inaction.
They failed to imagine a CDC that might as well not exist for all it would do in its hour of need: one that didn’t even bother to update its website on weekends, and stopped publishing data once the data became too embarrassing. The scriptwriters did imagine a troll gleefully spreading lies about the virus online, endangering anyone who listened to him. They failed to imagine a universe where that troll was the president."
Scott Aaronson
...........
Speaking with a hospital mask, and through interpreters, one of the Chinese Red Cross members praised efforts in Italy, which for weeks has been grappling with Europe’s largest outbreak of the coronavirus. The member, whose name wasn’t immediately available said the Chinese, observing how the hospital is handling the cases, said the team believes the Italians have done a very good job."
https://wbng.com/2020/03/14/the-latest-new-zealand-orders-self-quarantine-on-arrivals/
Admittedly, last week there were a lot of empty shelves.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07Z1S8ZGP/ref=sspa_dk_detail_2?psc=1&pd_rd_i=B07Z1S8ZGP&pd_rd_w=uqyvF&pf_rd_p=1055d8b2-c10c-4d7d-b50d-96300553e15d&pd_rd_wg=oSQid&pf_rd_r=PHEBTMBJY55DDBD1DWFC&pd_rd_r=1ab00d91-bf9b-4fe3-bd91-5d628068fe7b&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzQjVCN1BRUzhFTzVMJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNTQ3OTE3MjkwVlhBTDlQQUNENiZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMzM4NzM2MUhIR1lUTzZaSU83MyZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2RldGFpbCZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=
1. Sainsburys on outskirts of Guildford. This morning. Many shelves empty, no tinned soups or veg, only organic muesli in the cereal aisle, no pasta or bog roll etc. Lots of fresh fruit and veg.
2. Waitrose in Richmond. Organic fruit and veg, both fresh and chilled/frozen totally cleared. Otherwise not too bad.
3. Whole Foods, Richmond. No shortages. But makes waitrose look cheap!
Not sure what this says about inhabitants of Guildford and Richmond...
Just one example of the many possible problems.
I have done online lecturing for the "Virtual Fahchochschule" as part of my work at a uni in Berlin. We used special software to do this, ... each online coure has it's own virual classroom ... On Thursday morning we got the news that lectures for the summer semester would be starting 20 days later. On Thursday afternoon we got an email from the IT administrator at the Virtual FachHochschule, having clearly had hundreds of emails from lecturers asking if they could teach their course online. He said the VFH currently has licenses for 500 courses, the uni would need licenses for over 5000 courses, and even if the money is there to pay for this, they can't orgainse the set up for so many courses just like that.
If people think "moving to online courses" means everyone logging into Skype, they are very much mistaken.
I have to be a bit choosy about what I stockpile because we've not got the space in the flat, but if we had a spare room I'd be filling it with at least two months' worth of long shelf life supplies.
Oh, and if everyone thinks it's bad now, wait until the order goes out for every vulnerable sick person and everyone over 70 to go into quarantine at once. It'll be like those scenes when Black Friday first arrived in Britain, or possibly even the 2011 London riots. Fisticuffs are inevitable; outright civil disorder and looting is a distinct possibility.
How on earth can we have trust US passengers are not equal or worse than ours
I reckon I'd need 2-3 rolls a week (max), same for my wife and one each for two kids. So let's be conservative and say 8 rolls a week.
Assuming this "crisis" lasts 4 months and you cannot (ever) buy bog roll again then no-one should be buying more than 150 rolls with contingency.
So 9-10 packs of Andrex (16 roll bundles) should do anyone.
Anyone trying to buy more should be given a slap and told to put it back on the shelf.
Hence why it is not widespead
I do go out of the house. Having lived with people in the past I'm genuinely confused by the amount of toilet roll some people feel the need to use. It's a bit different if you have a cold and use them for tissues of course - that's when I would be going through them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friern_Hospital
As with so many different aspects of this outbreak, there are no straight forward, simple answers or solutions that will solve every problem. The universities, much like everyone else, are simply trying to do the best they can to minimise the risk to the most vulnerable parts of their community.
The point I was making is that Saudi Arabian Airlines does not serve alcohol. And if you were flying from Saudi Arabia, you would not have had a chance to imbibe before the flight.
So, the story simply doesn't fit.
Leaves in the woods are always available