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Punter Psychology. Finding the perfect balance of arrogance and humility – politicalbetting.com

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  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172

    Ukraine, as currently constituted, is like Yugoslavia.

    It is an artificial construct. It needs to split into a Western part and an Eastern part (that will probably rejoin Russia).

    The West finally understood that the house Tito built could not be put back together after his death. The West encouraged the breakup of Yugoslavia.

    We should do the same for the Ukraine.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    What would people call that sort of fluid? I've always used the term white out.

    Tipp-Ex.
    Interesting. I wonder why that's known differently here to there?

    Penguins to Tim Tams I suppose.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,926

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:
    I have never taken the term whitewash to mean white is clean, anything else is not.

    I've always taken it to mean like using "white out" on paper to remove mistakes. Blank paper is white and to use whitewash/whiteout on a report essentially means you're getting rid of the inconvenient details/mistakes as part of a cover up, not making it clean.
    Absolutely bizarre post. Not sure what to make of it.

    If anything.
    I'm saying etymologically I never thought whitewash was racist.

    Any more than the liquid 'white out' being used to go over mistakes on paper is racist. The name comes from making the paper white again to cover up what was written, there's no judgement in it.

    Though I haven't used whiteout since I was at school downunder in the 90s, so no idea if it's still called that or even manufactured anymore. Computers kind of removed the purpose of using that.
    Never heard the phrase "whiteout" at all - and I lived in Sydney for a while back then. You must have been in the outback.

    But I agree. Tippex isn't racist. If somebody is saying that as part of the culture wars they need to back off.
    Melbourne not Sydney but it's simply what it was called. I always had a bottle of whiteout in my pencil case.

    I was contrasting whiteout or as you call it Tippex with whitewash. It's about covering up, not cleanliness.
    Whiteouts are blizzards where the snow is so heavy you can see nothing but falling snow.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    edited April 2021
    "Halt rollout for younger people until safety of AstraZeneca vaccine 'certain', says adviser
    Senior doctor suggests waiting for approval from regulator could help to maintain public confidence in Oxford jab"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/06/halt-rollout-younger-people-safety-astrazeneca-vaccine-certain/

    "Certain"...
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:
    I have never taken the term whitewash to mean white is clean, anything else is not.

    I've always taken it to mean like using "white out" on paper to remove mistakes. Blank paper is white and to use whitewash/whiteout on a report essentially means you're getting rid of the inconvenient details/mistakes as part of a cover up, not making it clean.
    Absolutely bizarre post. Not sure what to make of it.

    If anything.
    I'm saying etymologically I never thought whitewash was racist.

    Any more than the liquid 'white out' being used to go over mistakes on paper is racist. The name comes from making the paper white again to cover up what was written, there's no judgement in it.

    Though I haven't used whiteout since I was at school downunder in the 90s, so no idea if it's still called that or even manufactured anymore. Computers kind of removed the purpose of using that.
    Never heard the phrase "whiteout" at all - and I lived in Sydney for a while back then. You must have been in the outback.

    But I agree. Tippex isn't racist. If somebody is saying that as part of the culture wars they need to back off.
    Melbourne not Sydney but it's simply what it was called. I always had a bottle of whiteout in my pencil case.

    I was contrasting whiteout or as you call it Tippex with whitewash. It's about covering up, not cleanliness.
    Whiteouts are blizzards where the snow is so heavy you can see nothing but falling snow.
    Don't get many of them downunder.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Good question - but I'm not feeling compelled to leap to any of their defences......

    https://twitter.com/sarah_stook/status/1379497745229168643?s=20

    Edit - in defence of Hunky Dunky, I knew him vaguely at Uni and while he was never "out" he never paraded "girlfriends" either - which in the mid-seventies was moderately brave for a Tory (or anyone, for that matter - Mandelson didn't do "girlfriends" either).

    The Nicky Morgan quote seems very apt for Duncan
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774
    Wow. This is the story of the week: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/us/covid-vaccines-emergent-biosolutions

    WASHINGTON — More than eight years ago, the federal government invested in an insurance policy against vaccine shortages during a pandemic. It paid Emergent BioSolutions, a Maryland biotech firm known for producing anthrax vaccines, to have a factory in Baltimore always at the ready.

    When the coronavirus pandemic arrived, the factory became the main U.S. location for manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines developed by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, churning out about 150 million doses as of last week.

    But so far not a single dose has been usable because regulators have not yet certified the factory to allow the vaccines to be distributed to the public.

  • AnneJGPAnneJGP Posts: 2,869

    Leon said:
    As Russia plans its invasion of Eastern Europe, conservative freedom fighters are exercised by the expansionary evil of wokery.
    The pictures showed a lot of tanks. I've been wondering how they were able to control the spread of the virus.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774
    rcs1000 said:

    Wow. This is the story of the week: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/us/covid-vaccines-emergent-biosolutions

    WASHINGTON — More than eight years ago, the federal government invested in an insurance policy against vaccine shortages during a pandemic. It paid Emergent BioSolutions, a Maryland biotech firm known for producing anthrax vaccines, to have a factory in Baltimore always at the ready.

    When the coronavirus pandemic arrived, the factory became the main U.S. location for manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines developed by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, churning out about 150 million doses as of last week.

    But so far not a single dose has been usable because regulators have not yet certified the factory to allow the vaccines to be distributed to the public.

    Last week, Emergent said it would destroy up to 15 million doses’ worth of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine after contamination with the AstraZeneca vaccine was discovered.

  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,926

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:
    I have never taken the term whitewash to mean white is clean, anything else is not.

    I've always taken it to mean like using "white out" on paper to remove mistakes. Blank paper is white and to use whitewash/whiteout on a report essentially means you're getting rid of the inconvenient details/mistakes as part of a cover up, not making it clean.
    Absolutely bizarre post. Not sure what to make of it.

    If anything.
    I'm saying etymologically I never thought whitewash was racist.

    Any more than the liquid 'white out' being used to go over mistakes on paper is racist. The name comes from making the paper white again to cover up what was written, there's no judgement in it.

    Though I haven't used whiteout since I was at school downunder in the 90s, so no idea if it's still called that or even manufactured anymore. Computers kind of removed the purpose of using that.
    Never heard the phrase "whiteout" at all - and I lived in Sydney for a while back then. You must have been in the outback.

    But I agree. Tippex isn't racist. If somebody is saying that as part of the culture wars they need to back off.
    Melbourne not Sydney but it's simply what it was called. I always had a bottle of whiteout in my pencil case.

    I was contrasting whiteout or as you call it Tippex with whitewash. It's about covering up, not cleanliness.
    Whiteouts are blizzards where the snow is so heavy you can see nothing but falling snow.
    Don't get many of them downunder.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteout_(weather)
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    edited April 2021

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:
    I have never taken the term whitewash to mean white is clean, anything else is not.

    I've always taken it to mean like using "white out" on paper to remove mistakes. Blank paper is white and to use whitewash/whiteout on a report essentially means you're getting rid of the inconvenient details/mistakes as part of a cover up, not making it clean.
    Absolutely bizarre post. Not sure what to make of it.

    If anything.
    I'm saying etymologically I never thought whitewash was racist.

    Any more than the liquid 'white out' being used to go over mistakes on paper is racist. The name comes from making the paper white again to cover up what was written, there's no judgement in it.

    Though I haven't used whiteout since I was at school downunder in the 90s, so no idea if it's still called that or even manufactured anymore. Computers kind of removed the purpose of using that.
    Never heard the phrase "whiteout" at all - and I lived in Sydney for a while back then. You must have been in the outback.

    But I agree. Tippex isn't racist. If somebody is saying that as part of the culture wars they need to back off.
    Melbourne not Sydney but it's simply what it was called. I always had a bottle of whiteout in my pencil case.

    I was contrasting whiteout or as you call it Tippex with whitewash. It's about covering up, not cleanliness.
    Whiteouts are blizzards where the snow is so heavy you can see nothing but falling snow.
    "Whiteout" also caused the infamous NZ air crash on Mount Erebus in Antarctica in 1979, although in fact that was a different phenomenon. It happened without any rain, snow or sleet falling.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    kinabalu said:

    The Boris’ name discussion is the dullest debate on PB since the doctors’ date notation classic of the genre.

    For me it's the "West Lothian question".

    Gosh that's a yawner.
    Bring on the AV debate
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905


    Ukraine, as currently constituted, is like Yugoslavia.

    It is an artificial construct. It needs to split into a Western part and an Eastern part (that will probably rejoin Russia).

    The West finally understood that the house Tito built could not be put back together after his death. The West encouraged the breakup of Yugoslavia.

    We should do the same for the Ukraine.

    There is a reasonably clear divide in Ukrainian territory, though it's more north/south than east/west.

    OTOH that nice Mr Putin might decide that West = about 50 sq km with a few thousand Hungarians in it, and East = everything else.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172


    Ukraine, as currently constituted, is like Yugoslavia.

    It is an artificial construct. It needs to split into a Western part and an Eastern part (that will probably rejoin Russia).

    The West finally understood that the house Tito built could not be put back together after his death. The West encouraged the breakup of Yugoslavia.

    We should do the same for the Ukraine.

    There is a reasonably clear divide in Ukrainian territory, though it's more north/south than east/west.

    OTOH that nice Mr Putin might decide that West = about 50 sq km with a few thousand Hungarians in it, and East = everything else.
    You mean .... he might capture Alastair Meeks' property portfolio :)

    Go, Vlad, go.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774


    Ukraine, as currently constituted, is like Yugoslavia.

    It is an artificial construct. It needs to split into a Western part and an Eastern part (that will probably rejoin Russia).

    The West finally understood that the house Tito built could not be put back together after his death. The West encouraged the breakup of Yugoslavia.

    We should do the same for the Ukraine.

    There is a reasonably clear divide in Ukrainian territory, though it's more north/south than east/west.

    OTOH that nice Mr Putin might decide that West = about 50 sq km with a few thousand Hungarians in it, and East = everything else.
    You mean .... he might capture Alastair Meeks' property portfolio :)

    Go, Vlad, go.
    Wow.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905


    Ukraine, as currently constituted, is like Yugoslavia.

    It is an artificial construct. It needs to split into a Western part and an Eastern part (that will probably rejoin Russia).

    The West finally understood that the house Tito built could not be put back together after his death. The West encouraged the breakup of Yugoslavia.

    We should do the same for the Ukraine.

    There is a reasonably clear divide in Ukrainian territory, though it's more north/south than east/west.

    OTOH that nice Mr Putin might decide that West = about 50 sq km with a few thousand Hungarians in it, and East = everything else.
    You mean .... he might capture Alastair Meeks' property portfolio :)

    Go, Vlad, go.
    ¿Qué?
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    rcs1000 said:


    Ukraine, as currently constituted, is like Yugoslavia.

    It is an artificial construct. It needs to split into a Western part and an Eastern part (that will probably rejoin Russia).

    The West finally understood that the house Tito built could not be put back together after his death. The West encouraged the breakup of Yugoslavia.

    We should do the same for the Ukraine.

    There is a reasonably clear divide in Ukrainian territory, though it's more north/south than east/west.

    OTOH that nice Mr Putin might decide that West = about 50 sq km with a few thousand Hungarians in it, and East = everything else.
    You mean .... he might capture Alastair Meeks' property portfolio :)

    Go, Vlad, go.
    Wow.
    Of course, he could just push on and subdue those Alpine ski resorts, as well.

    A happy ending.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,631
    Andy_JS said:

    A few years ago everyone was saying that during the 21st century China would become more like Western countries. At the moment it looks like the West is becoming more like China.

    There has been always a cadre within our civil service and politicians that would absolutely love to get their hands on the something similar to the chinese social surveillance system
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    edited April 2021
    MaxPB said:

    Pulpstar said:

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bKjufyZQcj4bPTnlZDL4iXU83aMBMQWgcEt_WG20GkE/edit?usp=drivesdk

    Here is my model, "England" tab has the 2.7 million a week supply situation modelled

    That looks like it needs cleaning up.
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GNeA5gkwXnhdkuVZsupSW-O3GT9suJh3UjnAZfgE7qw/edit?usp=sharing

    1st doses

    Dec 983,384
    Jan 6,809,612
    Feb 9,258,249
    Mar 9,214,929
    Projected
    Apr 1,651,091
    May 2,967,816
    Jun 5,706,816
    Jul 6,670,301

    Weekly average (Total doses)
    Dec 301,977
    Jan 1,639,115
    Feb 2,347,662
    Mar 2,664,909

    Modelled in
    Apr 2,561,482 (Partial)
    May 2,699,998
    Jun 2,699,998
    Jul 1,999,998
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840

    What would people call that sort of fluid? I've always used the term white out.

    Tipp-Ex.
    Interesting. I wonder why that's known differently here to there?

    Penguins to Tim Tams I suppose.
    Liquid paper for me. Wonder if it's still made?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,717
    Charles said:

    Good question - but I'm not feeling compelled to leap to any of their defences......

    https://twitter.com/sarah_stook/status/1379497745229168643?s=20

    Edit - in defence of Hunky Dunky, I knew him vaguely at Uni and while he was never "out" he never paraded "girlfriends" either - which in the mid-seventies was moderately brave for a Tory (or anyone, for that matter - Mandelson didn't do "girlfriends" either).

    The Nicky Morgan quote seems very apt for Duncan
    Sounds like Duncan is trying to be a poor man's Alan Clark
  • solarflaresolarflare Posts: 3,623
    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Outrageous. Surely they must abstain as only applies to England?
    They are politicians. They'll do whatever suits them.

    Now, what would they have to gain from going through the voting lobbies with the Evil Tories on a measure that doesn't apply in Scotland? Are there Barnett consequentials available through this?

    EDIT: This is what the thick as mince commentary in the newspapers has been neglecting. They've assumed the Government's majority is under threat because there are over 40 Tory rebels. They've failed to account for parties like the SNP and DUP either not turning up, or voting with the Government. I would've thought the former to be more likely than the latter, but neither could be wholly discounted. Basic fail.
    If the SNP vote for it will get through and rightly so if we are to restore confidence to our hospitality and entertainment industries
    The government could restore confidence any time it chooses, without vaccine passports. Indeed it might want to do so if it wants to open those industries before any vaccine passport scheme is in place, as per the current plans.

    What's eroding the confidence is the mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy, arse-covering positions the governments (all across the UK) are taking at present, which seem to boil down to little more than "oooh we have really good vaccines and really good take-up of those vaccines but we're worried for reasons we're struggling to specify so we might need restrictions unspecified after the period we previously said that all restrictions would end".

    Yes, filling me with absolute confidence that.

    "Vaccines are the way out" WAS the way to get back confidence, and it was working until just very recently. They either work or they don't. They must have the data by now to be confident of that. The fact that they've apparently gone wobbly on this means they either don't work as well as expected/hoped for but will never admit it, or they're merely making perfect be the enemy of good.

    "We've got vaccines now but we're still shitting our pants so you still can't do anything in a vaguely normal way and we might need restrictions till NEXT year" is the surest way to fuck up any return of confidence. Maybe that's a fair position if you are the man from the public health service but the politicians already screwed it up by being so bullish on the 21 June "end of all legal restrictions" thing.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    edited April 2021

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Outrageous. Surely they must abstain as only applies to England?
    They are politicians. They'll do whatever suits them.

    Now, what would they have to gain from going through the voting lobbies with the Evil Tories on a measure that doesn't apply in Scotland? Are there Barnett consequentials available through this?

    EDIT: This is what the thick as mince commentary in the newspapers has been neglecting. They've assumed the Government's majority is under threat because there are over 40 Tory rebels. They've failed to account for parties like the SNP and DUP either not turning up, or voting with the Government. I would've thought the former to be more likely than the latter, but neither could be wholly discounted. Basic fail.
    If the SNP vote for it will get through and rightly so if we are to restore confidence to our hospitality and entertainment industries
    The government could restore confidence any time it chooses, without vaccine passports. Indeed it might want to do so if it wants to open those industries before any vaccine passport scheme is in place, as per the current plans.

    What's eroding the confidence is the mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy, arse-covering positions the governments (all across the UK) are taking at present, which seem to boil down to little more than "oooh we have really good vaccines and really good take-up of those vaccines but we're worried for reasons we're struggling to specify so we might need restrictions unspecified after the period we previously said that all restrictions would end".

    Yes, filling me with absolute confidence that.

    "Vaccines are the way out" WAS the way to get back confidence, and it was working until just very recently. They either work or they don't. They must have the data by now to be confident of that. The fact that they've apparently gone wobbly on this means they either don't work as well as expected/hoped for but will never admit it, or they're merely making perfect be the enemy of good.

    "We've got vaccines now but we're still shitting our pants so you still can't do anything in a vaguely normal way and we might need restrictions till NEXT year" is the surest way to fuck up any return of confidence. Maybe that's a fair position if you are the man from the public health service but the politicians already screwed it up by being so bullish on the 21 June "end of all legal restrictions" thing.
    Absolutely. Where is there ANY evidence at all of a "lack of confidence in the hospitality industry"? It's a pathetic argument. If you are in favour of vaccine passports at least argue why it will assist on public health grounds, not entirely nonsensical claims like this. The only people claiming to lack confidence about it are people who by and large wouldn't go anyway.

    I could guarantee that if the Govt opened everything tomorrow with no social distancing, then every venue would get sold out in hours. Nightclubs would be turning people away. Theatres would rapidly sell out. Football matches would see record crowds. Hell there might even be more than a few hundred at County cricket matches!

    And you know who REALLY doesn't "lack confidence"? Vaccinated people! Vaccinated people aren't afraid of unvaccinated people because the believe in the vaccines! So the idea that venues need to be restricted to vaccinated people to give vaccinated people the confidence to go to them is, er, ridiculous!
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,961
    HYUFD said:

    Charles said:

    Good question - but I'm not feeling compelled to leap to any of their defences......

    https://twitter.com/sarah_stook/status/1379497745229168643?s=20

    Edit - in defence of Hunky Dunky, I knew him vaguely at Uni and while he was never "out" he never paraded "girlfriends" either - which in the mid-seventies was moderately brave for a Tory (or anyone, for that matter - Mandelson didn't do "girlfriends" either).

    The Nicky Morgan quote seems very apt for Duncan
    Sounds like Duncan is trying to be a poor man's Alan Clark
    Maybe a pocket version.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    kinabalu said:

    The Boris’ name discussion is the dullest debate on PB since the doctors’ date notation classic of the genre.

    For me it's the "West Lothian question".

    Gosh that's a yawner.
    The West Lothian question is one of the most important issues in politics. It's incredible that it still hasn't been resolved after about 45 years.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    I think the Gov't wanted the adult pop vaxxed by the end of May but if the 2.7 million doses a week is true from now till June we won't be reaching under 40s generally. That's a bit awkward as nightclubs become potential SEIR bombs if opened generally on the 21st June.
    2 months later, and herd immunity should be in place in a nightclub setting.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pulpstar said:

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bKjufyZQcj4bPTnlZDL4iXU83aMBMQWgcEt_WG20GkE/edit?usp=drivesdk

    Here is my model, "England" tab has the 2.7 million a week supply situation modelled

    That looks like it needs cleaning up.
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GNeA5gkwXnhdkuVZsupSW-O3GT9suJh3UjnAZfgE7qw/edit?usp=sharing

    1st doses

    Dec 983,384
    Jan 6,809,612
    Feb 9,258,249
    Mar 9,214,929
    Projected
    Apr 1,651,091
    May 2,967,816
    Jun 5,706,816
    Jul 6,670,301

    Weekly average (Total doses)
    Dec 301,977
    Jan 1,639,115
    Feb 2,347,662
    Mar 2,664,909

    Modelled in
    Apr 2,561,482 (Partial)
    May 2,699,998
    Jun 2,699,998
    Jul 1,999,998
    I make it that means the Government fails to finish the first doses in July, with under-23s taking until about mid-August. Assuming that things don't get even slower, which they probably will.

    What they might do is skip all the twentysomethings, do schoolkids first, then go back and do them in September. The lack of complete vaccine coverage for adults provides cover to leave half the restrictions in place; a late start to the boosters and the onset of Autumn then grants the excuse needed to keep them right the way through the Winter, whilst ID cards are also brought in to restrict the movements and social interactions of the whole population. For, once they are made mandatory, a police officer can then demand your papers and drag you off to a detention centre if you either won't provide them or fail to provide an answer that is satisfactory to them as to why you have left your house.

    You can see the possible endgame for all this. A mass health screening program for respiratory diseases could be permanently instigated under the guise of protecting the NHS, that could be used as the pretext for the permanent use of ID cards to access certain settings (football grounds? large indoor events?), and that of course would necessitate the permanent, compulsory use of ID cards full stop. I'm not sure about masks. They might be permanently enforced on public transport, or more widely; alternatively, we might be permitted not to wear them as a gift of the quasi-Chinese national biosecurity state, in exchange for which consideration we must all be very grateful and obedient little children.

    This all sounds very far-fetched of course, but just ask yourself one question before dismissing it outright: do you trust the politicians, most especially the ones we have in charge at the moment, any further than you could throw them?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    edited April 2021
    @Black_Rook Those are England numbers and we're at over 90% coverage by the end of July. Everyone over 18 will have the vaccine that wants it I think.

    I don't think schoolkids will be done before young adults, schools are a very controlled enviroment and schoolkids are at less risk than 20 somethings.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,288
    Doesn’t help that, in contrast to last year, we’re heading for one of the coldest, shittiest springs in recent history.

    Next Sunday, mid April: wintry showers. 8C. In London
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,557
    edited April 2021
    Andy_JS said:

    kinabalu said:

    The Boris’ name discussion is the dullest debate on PB since the doctors’ date notation classic of the genre.

    For me it's the "West Lothian question".

    Gosh that's a yawner.
    The West Lothian question is one of the most important issues in politics. It's incredible that it still hasn't been resolved after about 45 years.
    Often the dullest questions are the most important. Certainly it's been that way in my career.

    What is also incredible is that most other western democracies, including a few that grew out of our Empire, and others we set up after the war, manage to have coherent federal structures, and we've failed completely to set one up.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    Andy_JS said:
    Hyperbolic as the vaccine will eventually be sufficient.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853
    edited April 2021
    Andy_JS said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:
    I have never taken the term whitewash to mean white is clean, anything else is not.

    I've always taken it to mean like using "white out" on paper to remove mistakes. Blank paper is white and to use whitewash/whiteout on a report essentially means you're getting rid of the inconvenient details/mistakes as part of a cover up, not making it clean.
    Absolutely bizarre post. Not sure what to make of it.

    If anything.
    I'm saying etymologically I never thought whitewash was racist.

    Any more than the liquid 'white out' being used to go over mistakes on paper is racist. The name comes from making the paper white again to cover up what was written, there's no judgement in it.

    Though I haven't used whiteout since I was at school downunder in the 90s, so no idea if it's still called that or even manufactured anymore. Computers kind of removed the purpose of using that.
    Never heard the phrase "whiteout" at all - and I lived in Sydney for a while back then. You must have been in the outback.

    But I agree. Tippex isn't racist. If somebody is saying that as part of the culture wars they need to back off.
    Melbourne not Sydney but it's simply what it was called. I always had a bottle of whiteout in my pencil case.

    I was contrasting whiteout or as you call it Tippex with whitewash. It's about covering up, not cleanliness.
    Whiteouts are blizzards where the snow is so heavy you can see nothing but falling snow.
    "Whiteout" also caused the infamous NZ air crash on Mount Erebus in Antarctica in 1979, although in fact that was a different phenomenon. It happened without any rain, snow or sleet falling.
    You can easily have a white-out without any precipitation. I have experienced this quite a few times.

    You need hill fog and full snow cover. It is worse with fresh or spring snow, because old frozen snow has more of a texture.

    It is extremely disorienting. You can't see where the ground is at all, so you end up stumbling along because you've no idea when your foot is about to land.

    The only way to navigate without a GPS is to count paces and in the worst cases the only way to maintain a bearing is to send someone in front to act as a marker. If you were get it wrong and end at a cliff then you just wouldn't see it until you were over the edge.

    Falling snow actually helps because it gives you some definition.


    On the original topic, liquid paper or Tippex. Never heard it called anything else.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,288
    edited April 2021
    RobD said:

    Andy_JS said:
    Hyperbolic as the vaccine will eventually be sufficient.
    By 2022. Hopefully

    Probably 2023-24 for Africa, much of Asia, LatAm, etc

    It is a catastrophe for tens of millions of jobs in travel and hospitality
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    Andy_JS said:
    What aren't the scientists/govt telling us about vaccines, such that they believe them to be next to worthless?
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    edited April 2021
    Leon said:

    Doesn’t help that, in contrast to last year, we’re heading for one of the coldest, shittiest springs in recent history.

    Next Sunday, mid April: wintry showers. 8C. In London

    Yep, it's fucking dismal, and the entire Summer (during which we will all still be semi-imprisoned, and the only available entertainment that doesn't involve being sat at bloody home will be outdoors) will be a complete washout. A complete washout with masks and social distancing, that is. You just know what's coming.
    Pulpstar said:

    @Black_Rook Those are England numbers and we're at over 90% coverage by the end of July. Everyone over 18 will have the vaccine that wants it I think.

    I don't think schoolkids will be done before young adults, schools are a very controlled enviroment and schoolkids are at less risk than 20 somethings.

    At the rate the wheels are falling off the wagon we will not be done by the end of July, and then the Government will want to shove whichever adults haven't been done yet out of the way and start working their way through children. The rationale will be to reduce disruption to education, though that would have the fortunate side-effect (from their point of view) of leaving lots of adult disease spreaders roaming around, which in turn will provide the excuse to keep all the restrictions that the scientists seem to want, which in turn will give us a nice long Winter of suffocating rules enforced by compulsory ID cards.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774
    Pulpstar said:

    I think the Gov't wanted the adult pop vaxxed by the end of May but if the 2.7 million doses a week is true from now till June we won't be reaching under 40s generally. That's a bit awkward as nightclubs become potential SEIR bombs if opened generally on the 21st June.
    2 months later, and herd immunity should be in place in a nightclub setting.

    There are clearly "roadblocks", such as the astonishing story below from NYTimes about the Emergent plant in the US that's made 150 MILLION doses of the AZN and J&J vaccines, and not a single one has gotten in the arm of a real human yet, or behaviours of the India and the EU.

    But at the same time, the Lonza plant in Switzerland is gearing up and is going to hit its production targets of 800k per day by the middle of this month (and we're front of the queue there for at least 7 million doses - with another 10 million coming by the end of this quarter); we also have Pfizer's increased production and Novavax/J&J coming soon.

    It's also not been remarked upon, but in the US some states are rapidly running out of people to jab. Pretty much all states are now open to all ages, but in some places (mostly in the deep South), the number of people being vaccinated in plateauing. Indeed, I suspect that Alabama and Mississippi are going to end up with a smaller proportion of the population vaccinated than France. This means that some manufacturing capacity earmarked for the US will end up being used for us.

    So... put those together and I suspect the 2.7 million target will end up being comfortably beaten. As, indeed, were most of the previous vaccination targets.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774

    Leon said:

    Doesn’t help that, in contrast to last year, we’re heading for one of the coldest, shittiest springs in recent history.

    Next Sunday, mid April: wintry showers. 8C. In London

    Yep, it's fucking dismal, and the entire Summer (during which we will all still be semi-imprisoned, and the only available entertainment that doesn't involve being sat at bloody home will be outdoors) will be a complete washout. A complete washout with masks and social distancing, that is. You just know what's coming.
    Pulpstar said:

    @Black_Rook Those are England numbers and we're at over 90% coverage by the end of July. Everyone over 18 will have the vaccine that wants it I think.

    I don't think schoolkids will be done before young adults, schools are a very controlled enviroment and schoolkids are at less risk than 20 somethings.

    At the rate the wheels are falling off the wagon we will not be done by the end of July, and then the Government will want to shove whichever adults haven't been done yet out of the way and start working their way through children. The rationale will be to reduce disruption to education, though that would have the fortunate side-effect (from their point of view) of leaving lots of adult disease spreaders roaming around, which in turn will provide the excuse to keep all the restrictions that the scientists seem to want, which in turn will give us a nice long Winter of suffocating rules enforced by compulsory ID cards.
    Haven't the actual data on number of vaccinations (ignoring the fact we've just had Easter) actually been fine? (Or indeed, rater better than fine.) And it's just been this one "SAGE" model that has been pessimistic?
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,968
    Leon said:

    Doesn’t help that, in contrast to last year, we’re heading for one of the coldest, shittiest springs in recent history.

    Next Sunday, mid April: wintry showers. 8C. In London

    Sunny and dry, day after day.

    Cease this eloi longing for picnics and do something constructive.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,288

    Leon said:

    Doesn’t help that, in contrast to last year, we’re heading for one of the coldest, shittiest springs in recent history.

    Next Sunday, mid April: wintry showers. 8C. In London

    Sunny and dry, day after day.

    Cease this eloi longing for picnics and do something constructive.
    I like warm sunny weather. I need it. I was born in the wrong place

    I would have emigrated years ago but I was always able to escape, before

    Yes yes yes, first world problems, etc, but is a personal truth. I suffer from SAD
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,968
    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I think the Gov't wanted the adult pop vaxxed by the end of May but if the 2.7 million doses a week is true from now till June we won't be reaching under 40s generally. That's a bit awkward as nightclubs become potential SEIR bombs if opened generally on the 21st June.
    2 months later, and herd immunity should be in place in a nightclub setting.

    There are clearly "roadblocks", such as the astonishing story below from NYTimes about the Emergent plant in the US that's made 150 MILLION doses of the AZN and J&J vaccines, and not a single one has gotten in the arm of a real human yet, or behaviours of the India and the EU.

    But at the same time, the Lonza plant in Switzerland is gearing up and is going to hit its production targets of 800k per day by the middle of this month (and we're front of the queue there for at least 7 million doses - with another 10 million coming by the end of this quarter); we also have Pfizer's increased production and Novavax/J&J coming soon.

    It's also not been remarked upon, but in the US some states are rapidly running out of people to jab. Pretty much all states are now open to all ages, but in some places (mostly in the deep South), the number of people being vaccinated in plateauing. Indeed, I suspect that Alabama and Mississippi are going to end up with a smaller proportion of the population vaccinated than France. This means that some manufacturing capacity earmarked for the US will end up being used for us.

    So... put those together and I suspect the 2.7 million target will end up being comfortably beaten. As, indeed, were most of the previous vaccination targets.
    Why doesn't the US government sell or donate those vaccines to someone ?

    It would be an easy way of creating some goodwill.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    edited April 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Doesn’t help that, in contrast to last year, we’re heading for one of the coldest, shittiest springs in recent history.

    Next Sunday, mid April: wintry showers. 8C. In London

    Yep, it's fucking dismal, and the entire Summer (during which we will all still be semi-imprisoned, and the only available entertainment that doesn't involve being sat at bloody home will be outdoors) will be a complete washout. A complete washout with masks and social distancing, that is. You just know what's coming.
    Pulpstar said:

    @Black_Rook Those are England numbers and we're at over 90% coverage by the end of July. Everyone over 18 will have the vaccine that wants it I think.

    I don't think schoolkids will be done before young adults, schools are a very controlled enviroment and schoolkids are at less risk than 20 somethings.

    At the rate the wheels are falling off the wagon we will not be done by the end of July, and then the Government will want to shove whichever adults haven't been done yet out of the way and start working their way through children. The rationale will be to reduce disruption to education, though that would have the fortunate side-effect (from their point of view) of leaving lots of adult disease spreaders roaming around, which in turn will provide the excuse to keep all the restrictions that the scientists seem to want, which in turn will give us a nice long Winter of suffocating rules enforced by compulsory ID cards.
    Haven't the actual data on number of vaccinations (ignoring the fact we've just had Easter) actually been fine? (Or indeed, rater better than fine.) And it's just been this one "SAGE" model that has been pessimistic?
    We have months of inadequate vaccine supply coming (every revision of the figures emanating from Government is downwards,) which means that much of the population is defenceless, which means - allied to the avalanche of pessimistic models we're now going to get out of all the scientists, because they will just keep on coming now, they have established form for it - that we'll be locked up harder and for longer.

    Happily enough for the scientists, who are very, very keen on keeping as many of the restrictions as possible, this will put everything back so far that by the time we are in sight of finally completing this vaccination program, it will be time for boosters, and Winter flu, and Winter Covid, which means another six months of restrictions, which is long enough to get compulsory ID cards up and running. At the end of the process in about a years' time, it will be determined that some of the restrictions must be made eternal for public health reasons, enforced via use of the ID cards, and both the Government and the scientists then get the permanent public health measures and the Chinese-style total state surveillance and control system that they want.

    Apart from that, everything's going swimmingly.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    edited April 2021

    Andy_JS said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:
    I have never taken the term whitewash to mean white is clean, anything else is not.

    I've always taken it to mean like using "white out" on paper to remove mistakes. Blank paper is white and to use whitewash/whiteout on a report essentially means you're getting rid of the inconvenient details/mistakes as part of a cover up, not making it clean.
    Absolutely bizarre post. Not sure what to make of it.

    If anything.
    I'm saying etymologically I never thought whitewash was racist.

    Any more than the liquid 'white out' being used to go over mistakes on paper is racist. The name comes from making the paper white again to cover up what was written, there's no judgement in it.

    Though I haven't used whiteout since I was at school downunder in the 90s, so no idea if it's still called that or even manufactured anymore. Computers kind of removed the purpose of using that.
    Never heard the phrase "whiteout" at all - and I lived in Sydney for a while back then. You must have been in the outback.

    But I agree. Tippex isn't racist. If somebody is saying that as part of the culture wars they need to back off.
    Melbourne not Sydney but it's simply what it was called. I always had a bottle of whiteout in my pencil case.

    I was contrasting whiteout or as you call it Tippex with whitewash. It's about covering up, not cleanliness.
    Whiteouts are blizzards where the snow is so heavy you can see nothing but falling snow.
    "Whiteout" also caused the infamous NZ air crash on Mount Erebus in Antarctica in 1979, although in fact that was a different phenomenon. It happened without any rain, snow or sleet falling.
    You can easily have a white-out without any precipitation. I have experienced this quite a few times.

    You need hill fog and full snow cover. It is worse with fresh or spring snow, because old frozen snow has more of a texture.

    It is extremely disorienting. You can't see where the ground is at all, so you end up stumbling along because you've no idea when your foot is about to land.

    The only way to navigate without a GPS is to count paces and in the worst cases the only way to maintain a bearing is to send someone in front to act as a marker. If you were get it wrong and end at a cliff then you just wouldn't see it until you were over the edge.

    Falling snow actually helps because it gives you some definition.


    On the original topic, liquid paper or Tippex. Never heard it called anything else.
    What I find difficult to believe is that the Air New Zealand pilots weren't briefed about the white-out phenomenon before flying to Antarctica even though it was known about at the time.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,288
    Maffew said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Outrageous. Surely they must abstain as only applies to England?
    They are politicians. They'll do whatever suits them.

    Now, what would they have to gain from going through the voting lobbies with the Evil Tories on a measure that doesn't apply in Scotland? Are there Barnett consequentials available through this?

    EDIT: This is what the thick as mince commentary in the newspapers has been neglecting. They've assumed the Government's majority is under threat because there are over 40 Tory rebels. They've failed to account for parties like the SNP and DUP either not turning up, or voting with the Government. I would've thought the former to be more likely than the latter, but neither could be wholly discounted. Basic fail.
    If the SNP vote for it will get through and rightly so if we are to restore confidence to our hospitality and entertainment industries
    The government could restore confidence any time it chooses, without vaccine passports. Indeed it might want to do so if it wants to open those industries before any vaccine passport scheme is in place, as per the current plans.

    What's eroding the confidence is the mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy, arse-covering positions the governments (all across the UK) are taking at present, which seem to boil down to little more than "oooh we have really good vaccines and really good take-up of those vaccines but we're worried for reasons we're struggling to specify so we might need restrictions unspecified after the period we previously said that all restrictions would end".

    Yes, filling me with absolute confidence that.

    "Vaccines are the way out" WAS the way to get back confidence, and it was working until just very recently. They either work or they don't. They must have the data by now to be confident of that. The fact that they've apparently gone wobbly on this means they either don't work as well as expected/hoped for but will never admit it, or they're merely making perfect be the enemy of good.

    "We've got vaccines now but we're still shitting our pants so you still can't do anything in a vaguely normal way and we might need restrictions till NEXT year" is the surest way to fuck up any return of confidence. Maybe that's a fair position if you are the man from the public health service but the politicians already screwed it up by being so bullish on the 21 June "end of all legal restrictions" thing.
    Every time the government or sage talks about ongoing long term restricyions it makes me that bit less inclined to follow any restrictions. I knuckled down up to know because of the fears for collapse of the healthcare system and the promise that the vaccine cavalry was on its way. I increasingly feel like my life, my future has no value beyond serving the NHS and elderly voters. There's no value put on anything else in life as an ever greater mountain of debt builds up and I trudge the 5 or so metres through my flat every morning for another day of tedium.

    Yes, I'm engaging in hyperbole out of frustration, but I increasingly feel like the social contract is entirely one way. The last year has been surviving, not living. My mental health has suffered, the quality of my work has suffered and there's basically no respite. I then get assured by older friends from their nice houses with their secure incomes that it's not that bad, shouldn't complain, things were much worse in the war.

    The goalpost shifting is outrageous and every time I read some spokesman saying that we might be 'allowed' to do something like sit down on a park bench it reminds me that the government now not only has the power, but also the inclination to ban things like that.

    I supported this lockdown because vaccines were here and it was 'just a little longer'. I could live with the roadmap, slow as it is. I am in genuine despair at the calls for it to be delayed.

    Anyway, I'm tired it's late, I'll probably feel better in the morning, but my mental state for the last month or so has been an oscillation between depression and fury and I imagine there are a lot of younger people in a similar mindset.

    This older person hears you. LET RIP. You are entirely right and entirely justified. And you write very eloquently

    This is not a life. I am the same. I get up, I trudge, I work, I trudge, I go back to sleep. FUCK THIS SHIT

    Open the pubs. Open society. Enuff. Humans must live, and, if needs be, we will live with some added risk. No one lives forever
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    The best song about alcoholism - Between The Bars by Elliott Smith.

    Alcohol singing to its victim

    https://youtu.be/ebSRSyycPf0
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    edited April 2021
    "Could Brian Rose be London’s next Mayor?
    The maverick YouTuber is the bookies' second favourite
    BY DAVID FULLER"

    https://unherd.com/2021/04/could-brian-rose-be-londons-next-mayor/
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    Maffew said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Outrageous. Surely they must abstain as only applies to England?
    They are politicians. They'll do whatever suits them.

    Now, what would they have to gain from going through the voting lobbies with the Evil Tories on a measure that doesn't apply in Scotland? Are there Barnett consequentials available through this?

    EDIT: This is what the thick as mince commentary in the newspapers has been neglecting. They've assumed the Government's majority is under threat because there are over 40 Tory rebels. They've failed to account for parties like the SNP and DUP either not turning up, or voting with the Government. I would've thought the former to be more likely than the latter, but neither could be wholly discounted. Basic fail.
    If the SNP vote for it will get through and rightly so if we are to restore confidence to our hospitality and entertainment industries
    The government could restore confidence any time it chooses, without vaccine passports. Indeed it might want to do so if it wants to open those industries before any vaccine passport scheme is in place, as per the current plans.

    What's eroding the confidence is the mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy, arse-covering positions the governments (all across the UK) are taking at present, which seem to boil down to little more than "oooh we have really good vaccines and really good take-up of those vaccines but we're worried for reasons we're struggling to specify so we might need restrictions unspecified after the period we previously said that all restrictions would end".

    Yes, filling me with absolute confidence that.

    "Vaccines are the way out" WAS the way to get back confidence, and it was working until just very recently. They either work or they don't. They must have the data by now to be confident of that. The fact that they've apparently gone wobbly on this means they either don't work as well as expected/hoped for but will never admit it, or they're merely making perfect be the enemy of good.

    "We've got vaccines now but we're still shitting our pants so you still can't do anything in a vaguely normal way and we might need restrictions till NEXT year" is the surest way to fuck up any return of confidence. Maybe that's a fair position if you are the man from the public health service but the politicians already screwed it up by being so bullish on the 21 June "end of all legal restrictions" thing.
    Every time the government or sage talks about ongoing long term restricyions it makes me that bit less inclined to follow any restrictions. I knuckled down up to know because of the fears for collapse of the healthcare system and the promise that the vaccine cavalry was on its way. I increasingly feel like my life, my future has no value beyond serving the NHS and elderly voters. There's no value put on anything else in life as an ever greater mountain of debt builds up and I trudge the 5 or so metres through my flat every morning for another day of tedium.

    Yes, I'm engaging in hyperbole out of frustration, but I increasingly feel like the social contract is entirely one way. The last year has been surviving, not living. My mental health has suffered, the quality of my work has suffered and there's basically no respite. I then get assured by older friends from their nice houses with their secure incomes that it's not that bad, shouldn't complain, things were much worse in the war.

    The goalpost shifting is outrageous and every time I read some spokesman saying that we might be 'allowed' to do something like sit down on a park bench it reminds me that the government now not only has the power, but also the inclination to ban things like that.

    I supported this lockdown because vaccines were here and it was 'just a little longer'. I could live with the roadmap, slow as it is. I am in genuine despair at the calls for it to be delayed.

    Anyway, I'm tired it's late, I'll probably feel better in the morning, but my mental state for the last month or so has been an oscillation between depression and fury and I imagine there are a lot of younger people in a similar mindset.
    Well quite. As you say, everything that has been done had been done (it has been repeatedly argued) to protect the elderly and protect the NHS. Well now the elderly are protected, and the NHS is over its crisis - and the argument has shifted to... "we must proceed with caution because the younger age groups are not vaccinated?". Feck that.

    And one could point out that for no obvious reason, the NHS in large part still seems to be operating at very low capacity, with large areas of specialist consultation still broadly off limits. Nobody can really say why. If the problem is (still!) people visiting hospitals for out-patient appointment - FFS set up consultation offices elsewhere! There are consultants who have by many accounts barely done anything for months. And this has real world health consequences for... many young people!
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,968
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Doesn’t help that, in contrast to last year, we’re heading for one of the coldest, shittiest springs in recent history.

    Next Sunday, mid April: wintry showers. 8C. In London

    Sunny and dry, day after day.

    Cease this eloi longing for picnics and do something constructive.
    I like warm sunny weather. I need it. I was born in the wrong place

    I would have emigrated years ago but I was always able to escape, before

    Yes yes yes, first world problems, etc, but is a personal truth. I suffer from SAD
    Then do something different or constructive.

    Tomorrow is sunny and dry.

    Go somewhere you've never been before and see something new.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    edited April 2021
    test
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,288
    alex_ said:

    Maffew said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Outrageous. Surely they must abstain as only applies to England?
    They are politicians. They'll do whatever suits them.

    Now, what would they have to gain from going through the voting lobbies with the Evil Tories on a measure that doesn't apply in Scotland? Are there Barnett consequentials available through this?

    EDIT: This is what the thick as mince commentary in the newspapers has been neglecting. They've assumed the Government's majority is under threat because there are over 40 Tory rebels. They've failed to account for parties like the SNP and DUP either not turning up, or voting with the Government. I would've thought the former to be more likely than the latter, but neither could be wholly discounted. Basic fail.
    If the SNP vote for it will get through and rightly so if we are to restore confidence to our hospitality and entertainment industries
    The government could restore confidence any time it chooses, without vaccine passports. Indeed it might want to do so if it wants to open those industries before any vaccine passport scheme is in place, as per the current plans.

    What's eroding the confidence is the mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy, arse-covering positions the governments (all across the UK) are taking at present, which seem to boil down to little more than "oooh we have really good vaccines and really good take-up of those vaccines but we're worried for reasons we're struggling to specify so we might need restrictions unspecified after the period we previously said that all restrictions would end".

    Yes, filling me with absolute confidence that.

    "Vaccines are the way out" WAS the way to get back confidence, and it was working until just very recently. They either work or they don't. They must have the data by now to be confident of that. The fact that they've apparently gone wobbly on this means they either don't work as well as expected/hoped for but will never admit it, or they're merely making perfect be the enemy of good.

    "We've got vaccines now but we're still shitting our pants so you still can't do anything in a vaguely normal way and we might need restrictions till NEXT year" is the surest way to fuck up any return of confidence. Maybe that's a fair position if you are the man from the public health service but the politicians already screwed it up by being so bullish on the 21 June "end of all legal restrictions" thing.
    Every time the government or sage talks about ongoing long term restricyions it makes me that bit less inclined to follow any restrictions. I knuckled down up to know because of the fears for collapse of the healthcare system and the promise that the vaccine cavalry was on its way. I increasingly feel like my life, my future has no value beyond serving the NHS and elderly voters. There's no value put on anything else in life as an ever greater mountain of debt builds up and I trudge the 5 or so metres through my flat every morning for another day of tedium.

    Yes, I'm engaging in hyperbole out of frustration, but I increasingly feel like the social contract is entirely one way. The last year has been surviving, not living. My mental health has suffered, the quality of my work has suffered and there's basically no respite. I then get assured by older friends from their nice houses with their secure incomes that it's not that bad, shouldn't complain, things were much worse in the war.

    The goalpost shifting is outrageous and every time I read some spokesman saying that we might be 'allowed' to do something like sit down on a park bench it reminds me that the government now not only has the power, but also the inclination to ban things like that.

    I supported this lockdown because vaccines were here and it was 'just a little longer'. I could live with the roadmap, slow as it is. I am in genuine despair at the calls for it to be delayed.

    Anyway, I'm tired it's late, I'll probably feel better in the morning, but my mental state for the last month or so has been an oscillation between depression and fury and I imagine there are a lot of younger people in a similar mindset.
    Well quite. As you say, everything that has been done had been done (it has been repeatedly argued) to protect the elderly and protect the NHS. Well now the elderly are protected, and the NHS is over its crisis - and the argument has shifted to... "we must proceed with caution because the younger age groups are not vaccinated?". Feck that.

    And one could point out that for no obvious reason, the NHS in large part still seems to be operating at very low capacity, with large areas of specialist consultation still broadly off limits. Nobody can really say why. If the problem is (still!) people visiting hospitals for out-patient appointment - FFS set up consultation offices elsewhere! There are consultants who have by many accounts barely done anything for months. And this has real world health consequences for... many young people!
    There is room here for a new political party to suddenly seize 10% of the electorate. The young, and the lockdown skeptics. I’d possibly vote for them

    THAT, and maybe that alone, would put intense pressure on the major parties
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853
    edited April 2021
    Andy_JS said:

    Andy_JS said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:
    I have never taken the term whitewash to mean white is clean, anything else is not.

    I've always taken it to mean like using "white out" on paper to remove mistakes. Blank paper is white and to use whitewash/whiteout on a report essentially means you're getting rid of the inconvenient details/mistakes as part of a cover up, not making it clean.
    Absolutely bizarre post. Not sure what to make of it.

    If anything.
    I'm saying etymologically I never thought whitewash was racist.

    Any more than the liquid 'white out' being used to go over mistakes on paper is racist. The name comes from making the paper white again to cover up what was written, there's no judgement in it.

    Though I haven't used whiteout since I was at school downunder in the 90s, so no idea if it's still called that or even manufactured anymore. Computers kind of removed the purpose of using that.
    Never heard the phrase "whiteout" at all - and I lived in Sydney for a while back then. You must have been in the outback.

    But I agree. Tippex isn't racist. If somebody is saying that as part of the culture wars they need to back off.
    Melbourne not Sydney but it's simply what it was called. I always had a bottle of whiteout in my pencil case.

    I was contrasting whiteout or as you call it Tippex with whitewash. It's about covering up, not cleanliness.
    Whiteouts are blizzards where the snow is so heavy you can see nothing but falling snow.
    "Whiteout" also caused the infamous NZ air crash on Mount Erebus in Antarctica in 1979, although in fact that was a different phenomenon. It happened without any rain, snow or sleet falling.
    You can easily have a white-out without any precipitation. I have experienced this quite a few times.

    You need hill fog and full snow cover. It is worse with fresh or spring snow, because old frozen snow has more of a texture.

    It is extremely disorienting. You can't see where the ground is at all, so you end up stumbling along because you've no idea when your foot is about to land.

    The only way to navigate without a GPS is to count paces and in the worst cases the only way to maintain a bearing is to send someone in front to act as a marker. If you were get it wrong and end at a cliff then you just wouldn't see it until you were over the edge.

    Falling snow actually helps because it gives you some definition.


    On the original topic, liquid paper or Tippex. Never heard it called anything else.
    What I find difficult to believe is that the Air New Zealand pilots weren't briefed about the white-out phenomenon before flying to Antarctica even though it was known about at the time.
    Yes, that one was a matter of a lack of perspective rather than a complete inability to see I think. A bit like the pictures people take on salt flats. A uniform colour with no definition is very difficult for the brain to interpret and it often makes bad guesses.

    You often find on a mountain that snow features are a completely different size to what you expect, even when it is sunny.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,288

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Doesn’t help that, in contrast to last year, we’re heading for one of the coldest, shittiest springs in recent history.

    Next Sunday, mid April: wintry showers. 8C. In London

    Sunny and dry, day after day.

    Cease this eloi longing for picnics and do something constructive.
    I like warm sunny weather. I need it. I was born in the wrong place

    I would have emigrated years ago but I was always able to escape, before

    Yes yes yes, first world problems, etc, but is a personal truth. I suffer from SAD
    Then do something different or constructive.

    Tomorrow is sunny and dry.

    Go somewhere you've never been before and see something new.
    We’re still not allowed to travel. Perhaps you ignore the law, or haven’t noticed the law
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I think the Gov't wanted the adult pop vaxxed by the end of May but if the 2.7 million doses a week is true from now till June we won't be reaching under 40s generally. That's a bit awkward as nightclubs become potential SEIR bombs if opened generally on the 21st June.
    2 months later, and herd immunity should be in place in a nightclub setting.

    There are clearly "roadblocks", such as the astonishing story below from NYTimes about the Emergent plant in the US that's made 150 MILLION doses of the AZN and J&J vaccines, and not a single one has gotten in the arm of a real human yet, or behaviours of the India and the EU.

    But at the same time, the Lonza plant in Switzerland is gearing up and is going to hit its production targets of 800k per day by the middle of this month (and we're front of the queue there for at least 7 million doses - with another 10 million coming by the end of this quarter); we also have Pfizer's increased production and Novavax/J&J coming soon.

    It's also not been remarked upon, but in the US some states are rapidly running out of people to jab. Pretty much all states are now open to all ages, but in some places (mostly in the deep South), the number of people being vaccinated in plateauing. Indeed, I suspect that Alabama and Mississippi are going to end up with a smaller proportion of the population vaccinated than France. This means that some manufacturing capacity earmarked for the US will end up being used for us.

    So... put those together and I suspect the 2.7 million target will end up being comfortably beaten. As, indeed, were most of the previous vaccination targets.
    Why doesn't the US government sell or donate those vaccines to someone ?

    It would be an easy way of creating some goodwill.
    Yes.

    Think about this for a second.

    Emergent has made more doses of vaccines than the EU, the UK and Israel have used in total. In fact, they have made the equivalent of around A QUARTER of all the doses given to people.

    And yet none of them have been used. None.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    Maffew said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Outrageous. Surely they must abstain as only applies to England?
    They are politicians. They'll do whatever suits them.

    Now, what would they have to gain from going through the voting lobbies with the Evil Tories on a measure that doesn't apply in Scotland? Are there Barnett consequentials available through this?

    EDIT: This is what the thick as mince commentary in the newspapers has been neglecting. They've assumed the Government's majority is under threat because there are over 40 Tory rebels. They've failed to account for parties like the SNP and DUP either not turning up, or voting with the Government. I would've thought the former to be more likely than the latter, but neither could be wholly discounted. Basic fail.
    If the SNP vote for it will get through and rightly so if we are to restore confidence to our hospitality and entertainment industries
    The government could restore confidence any time it chooses, without vaccine passports. Indeed it might want to do so if it wants to open those industries before any vaccine passport scheme is in place, as per the current plans.

    What's eroding the confidence is the mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy, arse-covering positions the governments (all across the UK) are taking at present, which seem to boil down to little more than "oooh we have really good vaccines and really good take-up of those vaccines but we're worried for reasons we're struggling to specify so we might need restrictions unspecified after the period we previously said that all restrictions would end".

    Yes, filling me with absolute confidence that.

    "Vaccines are the way out" WAS the way to get back confidence, and it was working until just very recently. They either work or they don't. They must have the data by now to be confident of that. The fact that they've apparently gone wobbly on this means they either don't work as well as expected/hoped for but will never admit it, or they're merely making perfect be the enemy of good.

    "We've got vaccines now but we're still shitting our pants so you still can't do anything in a vaguely normal way and we might need restrictions till NEXT year" is the surest way to fuck up any return of confidence. Maybe that's a fair position if you are the man from the public health service but the politicians already screwed it up by being so bullish on the 21 June "end of all legal restrictions" thing.
    Every time the government or sage talks about ongoing long term restricyions it makes me that bit less inclined to follow any restrictions. I knuckled down up to know because of the fears for collapse of the healthcare system and the promise that the vaccine cavalry was on its way. I increasingly feel like my life, my future has no value beyond serving the NHS and elderly voters. There's no value put on anything else in life as an ever greater mountain of debt builds up and I trudge the 5 or so metres through my flat every morning for another day of tedium.

    Yes, I'm engaging in hyperbole out of frustration, but I increasingly feel like the social contract is entirely one way. The last year has been surviving, not living. My mental health has suffered, the quality of my work has suffered and there's basically no respite. I then get assured by older friends from their nice houses with their secure incomes that it's not that bad, shouldn't complain, things were much worse in the war.

    The goalpost shifting is outrageous and every time I read some spokesman saying that we might be 'allowed' to do something like sit down on a park bench it reminds me that the government now not only has the power, but also the inclination to ban things like that.

    I supported this lockdown because vaccines were here and it was 'just a little longer'. I could live with the roadmap, slow as it is. I am in genuine despair at the calls for it to be delayed.

    Anyway, I'm tired it's late, I'll probably feel better in the morning, but my mental state for the last month or so has been an oscillation between depression and fury and I imagine there are a lot of younger people in a similar mindset.
    It is the total sense of powerlessness that, I think, pervades this entire crisis and truly drives us to despair. We can see the Government talking about making us carry papers, and rolling back and prevaricating on most of the details in its timetable, and the endless wait for the vaccines - my God, this past year has been about nothing but endless, impotent waiting, whether to live or to die - and now the scientists are popping up with their latest doomcasts and telling us we must put up with the entire apparatus of oppression for another year, or maybe two years, or maybe for bloody ever. And you just wonder, what is the point of any of it? Because there isn't any. We're never going to be free of this.

    The best that can be said of well-to-do middle aged types like me is that we have disposable income to spend watching shit on Netflix and getting drunk to blot out the overwhelming, inevitable, inescapable, miserable tedium of it all. The young don't even have that. Their lives mostly consist of scraping by on shitty wages and paying exorbitant rents whilst they wait for their parents to die and pass on an inheritance for them to spend on Netflix and booze. The ones from poor families don't even have that. They're just expected to work and work until they drop down dead from it.

    Apart from that, everything's wonderful.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774
    Andy_JS said:

    "Could Brian Rose be London’s next Mayor?
    The maverick YouTuber is the bookies' second favourite
    BY DAVID FULLER"

    https://unherd.com/2021/04/could-brian-rose-be-londons-next-mayor/

    QTWTAIN.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    Andy_JS said:

    "Could Brian Rose be London’s next Mayor?
    The maverick YouTuber is the bookies' second favourite
    BY DAVID FULLER"

    https://unherd.com/2021/04/could-brian-rose-be-londons-next-mayor/

    "How did he achieve this? Well, a number of political pundits have questioned whether Rose may have bet heavily on himself to distort the odds. In a flattering interview with the Times last month, he confirmed that he has bet on himself. His spokesman told me: “Mr Rose has staked a small amount on himself in the mayoral race, which wouldn’t be enough to influence even a single bookmaker’s odd”. As it stands, he is still around 20-1 at many bookmakers, ahead of the Conservative Candidate Shaun Bailey."
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,968
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Doesn’t help that, in contrast to last year, we’re heading for one of the coldest, shittiest springs in recent history.

    Next Sunday, mid April: wintry showers. 8C. In London

    Sunny and dry, day after day.

    Cease this eloi longing for picnics and do something constructive.
    I like warm sunny weather. I need it. I was born in the wrong place

    I would have emigrated years ago but I was always able to escape, before

    Yes yes yes, first world problems, etc, but is a personal truth. I suffer from SAD
    Then do something different or constructive.

    Tomorrow is sunny and dry.

    Go somewhere you've never been before and see something new.
    We’re still not allowed to travel. Perhaps you ignore the law, or haven’t noticed the law
    Do you think anyone cares about that any more ?

    And you could claim to be a travel journalist researching the covid landscape - just don't go to a national park or similar.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,288
    Why isn’t Farage setting up a Fuck Lockdown Party? This is what he’s good at. Finding the democratic pressure points and applying electoral pain.

    This is the whole point of Brexit. That our democracy is restored and we, as humble voters, can once again frighten the shit out of our rulers.

    Come on, Nigel. At the least you will generate vital debate
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    Andy_JS said:

    "Could Brian Rose be London’s next Mayor?
    The maverick YouTuber is the bookies' second favourite
    BY DAVID FULLER"

    https://unherd.com/2021/04/could-brian-rose-be-londons-next-mayor/

    No.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    Andy_JS said:

    "Could Brian Rose be London’s next Mayor?
    The maverick YouTuber is the bookies' second favourite
    BY DAVID FULLER"

    https://unherd.com/2021/04/could-brian-rose-be-londons-next-mayor/

    The bookies' second favourite in a one horse race.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,288
    edited April 2021
    Mortimer said:

    Maffew said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Outrageous. Surely they must abstain as only applies to England?
    They are politicians. They'll do whatever suits them.

    Now, what would they have to gain from going through the voting lobbies with the Evil Tories on a measure that doesn't apply in Scotland? Are there Barnett consequentials available through this?

    EDIT: This is what the thick as mince commentary in the newspapers has been neglecting. They've assumed the Government's majority is under threat because there are over 40 Tory rebels. They've failed to account for parties like the SNP and DUP either not turning up, or voting with the Government. I would've thought the former to be more likely than the latter, but neither could be wholly discounted. Basic fail.
    If the SNP vote for it will get through and rightly so if we are to restore confidence to our hospitality and entertainment industries
    The government could restore confidence any time it chooses, without vaccine passports. Indeed it might want to do so if it wants to open those industries before any vaccine passport scheme is in place, as per the current plans.

    What's eroding the confidence is the mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy, arse-covering positions the governments (all across the UK) are taking at present, which seem to boil down to little more than "oooh we have really good vaccines and really good take-up of those vaccines but we're worried for reasons we're struggling to specify so we might need restrictions unspecified after the period we previously said that all restrictions would end".

    Yes, filling me with absolute confidence that.

    "Vaccines are the way out" WAS the way to get back confidence, and it was working until just very recently. They either work or they don't. They must have the data by now to be confident of that. The fact that they've apparently gone wobbly on this means they either don't work as well as expected/hoped for but will never admit it, or they're merely making perfect be the enemy of good.

    "We've got vaccines now but we're still shitting our pants so you still can't do anything in a vaguely normal way and we might need restrictions till NEXT year" is the surest way to fuck up any return of confidence. Maybe that's a fair position if you are the man from the public health service but the politicians already screwed it up by being so bullish on the 21 June "end of all legal restrictions" thing.
    Every time the government or sage talks about ongoing long term restricyions it makes me that bit less inclined to follow any restrictions. I knuckled down up to know because of the fears for collapse of the healthcare system and the promise that the vaccine cavalry was on its way. I increasingly feel like my life, my future has no value beyond serving the NHS and elderly voters. There's no value put on anything else in life as an ever greater mountain of debt builds up and I trudge the 5 or so metres through my flat every morning for another day of tedium.

    Yes, I'm engaging in hyperbole out of frustration, but I increasingly feel like the social contract is entirely one way. The last year has been surviving, not living. My mental health has suffered, the quality of my work has suffered and there's basically no respite. I then get assured by older friends from their nice houses with their secure incomes that it's not that bad, shouldn't complain, things were much worse in the war.

    The goalpost shifting is outrageous and every time I read some spokesman saying that we might be 'allowed' to do something like sit down on a park bench it reminds me that the government now not only has the power, but also the inclination to ban things like that.

    I supported this lockdown because vaccines were here and it was 'just a little longer'. I could live with the roadmap, slow as it is. I am in genuine despair at the calls for it to be delayed.

    Anyway, I'm tired it's late, I'll probably feel better in the morning, but my mental state for the last month or so has been an oscillation between depression and fury and I imagine there are a lot of younger people in a similar mindset.
    Thank you for writing this. It encapsulates everything I have been feeling for weeks. And I hope you are doing something to feel better, periodically? Ironically, my little black Cockapoo always cheers me.

    My depression has returned after several years of beating it. Weirdly, it was accompanied by anxiety for just a single day. Its usually the anxiety that triggers the depression and it gets into a vicious cycle. But having something to rail against, in the pure unscientific bullshit of Covid quackery (zero covid, covid ID cards, etc), has detached the latter from the former. Today was the first day in a loooong time that I didn't want to get out of bed. I did, and had a very productive day through the distraction of sheer relentless hard work.

    This is no life. I am looking forward to an almighty, multiple week bender. My friends are slowly all getting sick of it. Even the most virtuous of them are relenting now. Soon no-one but the fearties will be obeying the rules.
    Courage, friend. I too have dallied with the Black Dog. We will whip this bastard
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Doesn’t help that, in contrast to last year, we’re heading for one of the coldest, shittiest springs in recent history.

    Next Sunday, mid April: wintry showers. 8C. In London

    Sunny and dry, day after day.

    Cease this eloi longing for picnics and do something constructive.
    I like warm sunny weather. I need it. I was born in the wrong place

    I would have emigrated years ago but I was always able to escape, before

    Yes yes yes, first world problems, etc, but is a personal truth. I suffer from SAD
    Then do something different or constructive.

    Tomorrow is sunny and dry.

    Go somewhere you've never been before and see something new.
    We’re still not allowed to travel. Perhaps you ignore the law, or haven’t noticed the law
    Do you think anyone cares about that any more ?

    And you could claim to be a travel journalist researching the covid landscape - just don't go to a national park or similar.
    Perhaps a piece on the phallic symbols of England. From Cerne Abbas to Nelson's Column. Whilst napping away at flint versions of same.

    Seriously, though, is there anyone that isn't done with this? Once everyone over 40 has been through the jab queue, mass death just isn't happening. Whatever the government says, lockdown will be over. They might as well get with the programme.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    There is one other political issue about the Government pivoting away from "vaccines are the magic bullet out of this" to "well we just don't know if they'll be enough, so... everyone can get tested twice a week to make sure, and we'll keep open the options of delaying lifting restrictions, or even bringing them back at the slightest hint of a rise in cases".

    It is argued that the one thing the Government fears is having to return to lockdown or semi-lockdown, and that is why they are being ultra cautious. But two things. Unless they are prepared to take a few risks and ride out an increased "wave" (with hopefully low hospitalisations and deaths) then they can't break the vicious circle. And if you're going to take some risks, the absolute best time to do that is as we move into the summer. And second, the Government is riding high in the polls on the back of their vaccine success. They're getting plaudits for doing so much better than the rest of the world, and it is helping considerably with countering the negative economic effects of Brexit.

    But if the vaccine "achievement" was all for nothing? If our Government's 'caution' results in us actually unlocking slower than many European countries? If we still can't lead normal lives. And the economic effects of Brexit start to become noticeable at an individual level?

    Well there's not much political advantage to be had then. They might prefer to have the opportunity to send us all back into lockdown, and have all the oldies blaming the young for spoiling it.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,968

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Doesn’t help that, in contrast to last year, we’re heading for one of the coldest, shittiest springs in recent history.

    Next Sunday, mid April: wintry showers. 8C. In London

    Sunny and dry, day after day.

    Cease this eloi longing for picnics and do something constructive.
    I like warm sunny weather. I need it. I was born in the wrong place

    I would have emigrated years ago but I was always able to escape, before

    Yes yes yes, first world problems, etc, but is a personal truth. I suffer from SAD
    Then do something different or constructive.

    Tomorrow is sunny and dry.

    Go somewhere you've never been before and see something new.
    We’re still not allowed to travel. Perhaps you ignore the law, or haven’t noticed the law
    Do you think anyone cares about that any more ?

    And you could claim to be a travel journalist researching the covid landscape - just don't go to a national park or similar.
    Perhaps a piece on the phallic symbols of England. From Cerne Abbas to Nelson's Column. Whilst napping away at flint versions of same.

    Seriously, though, is there anyone that isn't done with this? Once everyone over 40 has been through the jab queue, mass death just isn't happening. Whatever the government says, lockdown will be over. They might as well get with the programme.
    Great idea.

    This one really needs the Leon treatment:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keppel's_Column
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    I'm with Maffew and Mortimer all the way.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,968
    alex_ said:

    There is one other political issue about the Government pivoting away from "vaccines are the magic bullet out of this" to "well we just don't know if they'll be enough, so... everyone can get tested twice a week to make sure, and we'll keep open the options of delaying lifting restrictions, or even bringing them back at the slightest hint of a rise in cases".

    It is argued that the one thing the Government fears is having to return to lockdown or semi-lockdown, and that is why they are being ultra cautious. But two things. Unless they are prepared to take a few risks and ride out an increased "wave" (with hopefully low hospitalisations and deaths) then they can't break the vicious circle. And if you're going to take some risks, the absolute best time to do that is as we move into the summer. And second, the Government is riding high in the polls on the back of their vaccine success. They're getting plaudits for doing so much better than the rest of the world, and it is helping considerably with countering the negative economic effects of Brexit.

    But if the vaccine "achievement" was all for nothing? If our Government's 'caution' results in us actually unlocking slower than many European countries? If we still can't lead normal lives. And the economic effects of Brexit start to become noticeable at an individual level?

    Well there's not much political advantage to be had then. They might prefer to have the opportunity to send us all back into lockdown, and have all the oldies blaming the young for spoiling it.

    The thing I find the most bizarre are the fears about a third wave when the the UK has already had its third wave.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    My very much g6 friend in the Netherlands has had his covid vaccine delayed due to the stoppage. His risk profile from Covid outweighs any AZ risk massively.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    Leon said:

    Mortimer said:

    Maffew said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Outrageous. Surely they must abstain as only applies to England?
    They are politicians. They'll do whatever suits them.

    Now, what would they have to gain from going through the voting lobbies with the Evil Tories on a measure that doesn't apply in Scotland? Are there Barnett consequentials available through this?

    EDIT: This is what the thick as mince commentary in the newspapers has been neglecting. They've assumed the Government's majority is under threat because there are over 40 Tory rebels. They've failed to account for parties like the SNP and DUP either not turning up, or voting with the Government. I would've thought the former to be more likely than the latter, but neither could be wholly discounted. Basic fail.
    If the SNP vote for it will get through and rightly so if we are to restore confidence to our hospitality and entertainment industries
    The government could restore confidence any time it chooses, without vaccine passports. Indeed it might want to do so if it wants to open those industries before any vaccine passport scheme is in place, as per the current plans.

    What's eroding the confidence is the mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy, arse-covering positions the governments (all across the UK) are taking at present, which seem to boil down to little more than "oooh we have really good vaccines and really good take-up of those vaccines but we're worried for reasons we're struggling to specify so we might need restrictions unspecified after the period we previously said that all restrictions would end".

    Yes, filling me with absolute confidence that.

    "Vaccines are the way out" WAS the way to get back confidence, and it was working until just very recently. They either work or they don't. They must have the data by now to be confident of that. The fact that they've apparently gone wobbly on this means they either don't work as well as expected/hoped for but will never admit it, or they're merely making perfect be the enemy of good.

    "We've got vaccines now but we're still shitting our pants so you still can't do anything in a vaguely normal way and we might need restrictions till NEXT year" is the surest way to fuck up any return of confidence. Maybe that's a fair position if you are the man from the public health service but the politicians already screwed it up by being so bullish on the 21 June "end of all legal restrictions" thing.
    Every time the government or sage talks about ongoing long term restricyions it makes me that bit less inclined to follow any restrictions. I knuckled down up to know because of the fears for collapse of the healthcare system and the promise that the vaccine cavalry was on its way. I increasingly feel like my life, my future has no value beyond serving the NHS and elderly voters. There's no value put on anything else in life as an ever greater mountain of debt builds up and I trudge the 5 or so metres through my flat every morning for another day of tedium.

    Yes, I'm engaging in hyperbole out of frustration, but I increasingly feel like the social contract is entirely one way. The last year has been surviving, not living. My mental health has suffered, the quality of my work has suffered and there's basically no respite. I then get assured by older friends from their nice houses with their secure incomes that it's not that bad, shouldn't complain, things were much worse in the war.

    The goalpost shifting is outrageous and every time I read some spokesman saying that we might be 'allowed' to do something like sit down on a park bench it reminds me that the government now not only has the power, but also the inclination to ban things like that.

    I supported this lockdown because vaccines were here and it was 'just a little longer'. I could live with the roadmap, slow as it is. I am in genuine despair at the calls for it to be delayed.

    Anyway, I'm tired it's late, I'll probably feel better in the morning, but my mental state for the last month or so has been an oscillation between depression and fury and I imagine there are a lot of younger people in a similar mindset.
    Thank you for writing this. It encapsulates everything I have been feeling for weeks. And I hope you are doing something to feel better, periodically? Ironically, my little black Cockapoo always cheers me.

    My depression has returned after several years of beating it. Weirdly, it was accompanied by anxiety for just a single day. Its usually the anxiety that triggers the depression and it gets into a vicious cycle. But having something to rail against, in the pure unscientific bullshit of Covid quackery (zero covid, covid ID cards, etc), has detached the latter from the former. Today was the first day in a loooong time that I didn't want to get out of bed. I did, and had a very productive day through the distraction of sheer relentless hard work.

    This is no life. I am looking forward to an almighty, multiple week bender. My friends are slowly all getting sick of it. Even the most virtuous of them are relenting now. Soon no-one but the fearties will be obeying the rules.
    Courage, friend. I too have dallied with the Black Dog. We will whip this bastard
    Yeah. It's a bugger. I was on an upswing today though...
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853
    edited April 2021

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Doesn’t help that, in contrast to last year, we’re heading for one of the coldest, shittiest springs in recent history.

    Next Sunday, mid April: wintry showers. 8C. In London

    Sunny and dry, day after day.

    Cease this eloi longing for picnics and do something constructive.
    I like warm sunny weather. I need it. I was born in the wrong place

    I would have emigrated years ago but I was always able to escape, before

    Yes yes yes, first world problems, etc, but is a personal truth. I suffer from SAD
    Then do something different or constructive.

    Tomorrow is sunny and dry.

    Go somewhere you've never been before and see something new.
    We’re still not allowed to travel. Perhaps you ignore the law, or haven’t noticed the law
    Do you think anyone cares about that any more ?

    And you could claim to be a travel journalist researching the covid landscape - just don't go to a national park or similar.
    Perhaps a piece on the phallic symbols of England. From Cerne Abbas to Nelson's Column. Whilst napping away at flint versions of same.

    Seriously, though, is there anyone that isn't done with this? Once everyone over 40 has been through the jab queue, mass death just isn't happening. Whatever the government says, lockdown will be over. They might as well get with the programme.
    Great idea.

    This one really needs the Leon treatment:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keppel's_Column
    Oddly enough I had that one in mind as a candidate. It wasn't in the best of states last time I was there though (probably not that long before lockdown).

    Nearby Wentworth Woodhouse is worth a look too. Just to remind you how vindictive Labour could be (a story for another day, perhaps).
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    Pulpstar said:

    My very much g6 friend in the Netherlands has had his covid vaccine delayed due to the stoppage. His risk profile from Covid outweighs any AZ risk massively.

    I hope people making these decision are held accountable for them. Experts in some countries who should be well-versed in risk don't seem to understand it.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789
    If the US is making the vaccine generally available in a couple of weeks, they must be close to being in a position where they can start exporting.
  • YokesYokes Posts: 1,178
    Headline piece

    All arrogance is , in may cases, confidence expressed in particular way at least in the eyes of the beholder. As a decent punter you have to be confident in what you are doing because chances are you have your own doubts but you also have 'others', i.e. everyone else whether other bettors, the markets, or people who insist that you cant make money, or your bet is stupid. This is turn multiplied by the too much information available.

    If you are bettor and you come on here share your thinking and actually suggest bets, you are likely to have that confidence anyway. As Pip pointed out you feel more confident if you know what the other side of the bet is thinking, in short what the market is thinking. Going against it prevailing wisdom is where you make some seriously good money and where you can look a total spoon if it goes wrong. Its also where you get the greatest boost to your confidence when it goes right. You have to have the hide of a buffalo because its going to go wrong plenty.

    Spotting the market getting it wrong is the foundation of value betting but that is often such a difficult concept to apply, though simple in explanation.

    Some ways of looking for that market flaw, in politics betting in particular because it can be easier to exploit due to the often stretched out nature of the event, is hype and overreaction. If you think you see those, you are much closer to a bet.

    The third exploit is is in open public elections. Learn to ignore the political wonks, sometimes. They represent fuck all squared of the voting populous and often the wonks are very live holders of certain political views so they are hobby horsing.

    The Democratic nomination race for the 2020 election was a good example of all three of these in action, including on this forum and is worth studying.









  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    edited April 2021
    Andy_JS said:

    Pulpstar said:

    My very much g6 friend in the Netherlands has had his covid vaccine delayed due to the stoppage. His risk profile from Covid outweighs any AZ risk massively.

    I hope people making these decision are held accountable for them. Experts in some countries who should be well-versed in risk don't seem to understand it.
    Yep. I think our MHRA struck the right tone. It'll take a while to get to groups 11/12 generally now so there's time to assess before we do anyone who might be at more risk from AZ vaccine compared to covid.
    I think it could be marginal for females under 25, but that'll be about it.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    .
    Pulpstar said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Pulpstar said:

    My very much g6 friend in the Netherlands has had his covid vaccine delayed due to the stoppage. His risk profile from Covid outweighs any AZ risk massively.

    I hope people making these decision are held accountable for them. Experts in some countries who should be well-versed in risk don't seem to understand it.
    Yep. I think our MHRA struck the right tone. It'll take a while to get to groups 11/12 generally now so there's time to assess before we do anyone who might be at more risk from AZ vaccine compared to covid.
    Unlike the yo-yo of the various government in Europe. First under 65s only, then no one, now over 65s only. Does wonders for confidence.
  • YokesYokes Posts: 1,178
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I think the Gov't wanted the adult pop vaxxed by the end of May but if the 2.7 million doses a week is true from now till June we won't be reaching under 40s generally. That's a bit awkward as nightclubs become potential SEIR bombs if opened generally on the 21st June.
    2 months later, and herd immunity should be in place in a nightclub setting.

    There are clearly "roadblocks", such as the astonishing story below from NYTimes about the Emergent plant in the US that's made 150 MILLION doses of the AZN and J&J vaccines, and not a single one has gotten in the arm of a real human yet, or behaviours of the India and the EU.

    But at the same time, the Lonza plant in Switzerland is gearing up and is going to hit its production targets of 800k per day by the middle of this month (and we're front of the queue there for at least 7 million doses - with another 10 million coming by the end of this quarter); we also have Pfizer's increased production and Novavax/J&J coming soon.

    It's also not been remarked upon, but in the US some states are rapidly running out of people to jab. Pretty much all states are now open to all ages, but in some places (mostly in the deep South), the number of people being vaccinated in plateauing. Indeed, I suspect that Alabama and Mississippi are going to end up with a smaller proportion of the population vaccinated than France. This means that some manufacturing capacity earmarked for the US will end up being used for us.

    So... put those together and I suspect the 2.7 million target will end up being comfortably beaten. As, indeed, were most of the previous vaccination targets.
    Why doesn't the US government sell or donate those vaccines to someone ?

    It would be an easy way of creating some goodwill.
    Yes.

    Think about this for a second.

    Emergent has made more doses of vaccines than the EU, the UK and Israel have used in total. In fact, they have made the equivalent of around A QUARTER of all the doses given to people.

    And yet none of them have been used. None.
    Didn't they go to Mexico and Canada?
  • ChameleonChameleon Posts: 3,886
    Pulpstar said:

    I think the Gov't wanted the adult pop vaxxed by the end of May but if the 2.7 million doses a week is true from now till June we won't be reaching under 40s generally. That's a bit awkward as nightclubs become potential SEIR bombs if opened generally on the 21st June.
    2 months later, and herd immunity should be in place in a nightclub setting.

    Given that 13 months ago it was '2 weeks to flatten the curve', hopefully you'll excuse my scepticism about 2 extra months on top of the 3 planned months before a semblance of normality returns?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789
    Yokes said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I think the Gov't wanted the adult pop vaxxed by the end of May but if the 2.7 million doses a week is true from now till June we won't be reaching under 40s generally. That's a bit awkward as nightclubs become potential SEIR bombs if opened generally on the 21st June.
    2 months later, and herd immunity should be in place in a nightclub setting.

    There are clearly "roadblocks", such as the astonishing story below from NYTimes about the Emergent plant in the US that's made 150 MILLION doses of the AZN and J&J vaccines, and not a single one has gotten in the arm of a real human yet, or behaviours of the India and the EU.

    But at the same time, the Lonza plant in Switzerland is gearing up and is going to hit its production targets of 800k per day by the middle of this month (and we're front of the queue there for at least 7 million doses - with another 10 million coming by the end of this quarter); we also have Pfizer's increased production and Novavax/J&J coming soon.

    It's also not been remarked upon, but in the US some states are rapidly running out of people to jab. Pretty much all states are now open to all ages, but in some places (mostly in the deep South), the number of people being vaccinated in plateauing. Indeed, I suspect that Alabama and Mississippi are going to end up with a smaller proportion of the population vaccinated than France. This means that some manufacturing capacity earmarked for the US will end up being used for us.

    So... put those together and I suspect the 2.7 million target will end up being comfortably beaten. As, indeed, were most of the previous vaccination targets.
    Why doesn't the US government sell or donate those vaccines to someone ?

    It would be an easy way of creating some goodwill.
    Yes.

    Think about this for a second.

    Emergent has made more doses of vaccines than the EU, the UK and Israel have used in total. In fact, they have made the equivalent of around A QUARTER of all the doses given to people.

    And yet none of them have been used. None.
    Didn't they go to Mexico and Canada?
    No, they only agreed to send 2.5m to Mexico and 1.5m to Canada.

    https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/17/politics/us-astrazeneca-mexico-canada/index.html
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Chameleon said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I think the Gov't wanted the adult pop vaxxed by the end of May but if the 2.7 million doses a week is true from now till June we won't be reaching under 40s generally. That's a bit awkward as nightclubs become potential SEIR bombs if opened generally on the 21st June.
    2 months later, and herd immunity should be in place in a nightclub setting.

    Given that 13 months ago it was '2 weeks to flatten the curve', hopefully you'll excuse my scepticism about 2 extra months on top of the 3 planned months before a semblance of normality returns?
    I'm talking about biological reality, not the gov'ts plans. They could open nightclubs without restriction on the 21st. It'd cause a spike for sure and some hospitalisations or they could keep them shut. It'd be a choice of the gov't but that's what will happen; it's up to the Gov't really.
    I dismissed 2 weeks to flatten the curve quickly and early on I remarked here that we'd need about 7 waves to get through the pandemic (If each was the size of the first one). Absent of vaccines I think that was about right.
  • MikeLMikeL Posts: 7,281
    MIRROR POLL : DELTAPOLL:

    Who should be next Monarch?

    William - 47
    Charles - 27
    Neither (abolish Monarchy) - 18
    Don't Know - 8
  • YokesYokes Posts: 1,178
    And in other news, Israel continues to attack Iranian assets at will. This time an Iranian military vessel in the Red Sea.

    At some point Iran will have to stop looking like a piece of cheese.

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774

    If the US is making the vaccine generally available in a couple of weeks, they must be close to being in a position where they can start exporting.

    The issue with the US is that some states are seeing vaccine take up stalling in the mid to low 30s: look at the charts for some of the Southern states, and you see that (even though there is plenty of availability) they are doing fewer vaccinations than last week, and that was fewer than the week before.

    My guess is that the US (as a whole) could well see vaccine take up top out in the 50s. Which is great, I suppose, for allowing for exports. But equally is a concern for anyone who wants this blasted disease to be completely gone.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774
    Andy_JS said:
    Thank God. I was really worried about the lack of individually named vehicles.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789
    edited April 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    If the US is making the vaccine generally available in a couple of weeks, they must be close to being in a position where they can start exporting.

    The issue with the US is that some states are seeing vaccine take up stalling in the mid to low 30s: look at the charts for some of the Southern states, and you see that (even though there is plenty of availability) they are doing fewer vaccinations than last week, and that was fewer than the week before.

    My guess is that the US (as a whole) could well see vaccine take up top out in the 50s. Which is great, I suppose, for allowing for exports. But equally is a concern for anyone who wants this blasted disease to be completely gone.
    The land of the free will just rely on transmission of the virus to get to overall herd immunity.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,243
    Speaking of betting (excellent post by the way) wonder just how much money was won by Trumpsky and/or his family & fellow insiders, by betting AGAINST him precisely while he and his minions were working overtime to convince his more rabid-stupid followers that he had really, truly won the 2020 election?

    Bet it was more than bus fare!
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    "Moderna vaccine rollout to begin in Wales

    A third Covid-19 vaccine will be rolled out across Wales from Wednesday with patients in Carmarthenshire becoming the first in the UK to receive it. The Moderna vaccine was approved as safe and effective for use in the UK in January this year. Supplies arrived in Wales on Tuesday, with 5,000 doses sent to Hywel Dda University Health Board vaccination centres. The first doses will be administered at Carmarthen's Glangwili Hospital."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56657038
  • rpjsrpjs Posts: 3,787
    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:
    Thank God. I was really worried about the lack of individually named vehicles.
    Stockholm’s T-bana trains are individually named.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,099
    I'm interested to know what difference to rollout pace in April Moderna will make.

    First order 7 million. Second order is 10 million.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,099
    edited April 2021
    Trigger warning: Comical Dave Incoming.

    Delighted to announce that Dave has found a new graph to big up the EU. He is now measuring average daily doses over the last week. The current "pace" of vaccination.

    Best 2 countries: Malta and .. er .. Hungary, which has for the current 2 minutes stopped being a pariah.

    https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1379375163700043777

  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,099

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:
    I have never taken the term whitewash to mean white is clean, anything else is not.

    I've always taken it to mean like using "white out" on paper to remove mistakes. Blank paper is white and to use whitewash/whiteout on a report essentially means you're getting rid of the inconvenient details/mistakes as part of a cover up, not making it clean.
    Absolutely bizarre post. Not sure what to make of it.

    If anything.
    I'm saying etymologically I never thought whitewash was racist.

    Any more than the liquid 'white out' being used to go over mistakes on paper is racist. The name comes from making the paper white again to cover up what was written, there's no judgement in it.

    Though I haven't used whiteout since I was at school downunder in the 90s, so no idea if it's still called that or even manufactured anymore. Computers kind of removed the purpose of using that.
    Never heard the phrase "whiteout" at all - and I lived in Sydney for a while back then. You must have been in the outback.

    But I agree. Tippex isn't racist. If somebody is saying that as part of the culture wars they need to back off.
    Melbourne not Sydney but it's simply what it was called. I always had a bottle of whiteout in my pencil case.

    I was contrasting whiteout or as you call it Tippex with whitewash. It's about covering up, not cleanliness.
    Whiteouts are blizzards where the snow is so heavy you can see nothing but falling snow.
    Don't get many of them downunder.
    We used to get those or valley fogs on the dip just going North just before M1J28 when I were a lad - back in the 1980s or so.

    Occasionally there'd be an occurrence where the whole traffic flow would slow down to 5 or 10mph.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,184
    MikeL said:

    MIRROR POLL : DELTAPOLL:

    Who should be next Monarch?

    William - 47
    Charles - 27
    Neither (abolish Monarchy) - 18
    Don't Know - 8

    But we don't get aa vote on it. That's kind of the point.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Andy_JS said:

    Andy_JS said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:
    I have never taken the term whitewash to mean white is clean, anything else is not.

    I've always taken it to mean like using "white out" on paper to remove mistakes. Blank paper is white and to use whitewash/whiteout on a report essentially means you're getting rid of the inconvenient details/mistakes as part of a cover up, not making it clean.
    Absolutely bizarre post. Not sure what to make of it.

    If anything.
    I'm saying etymologically I never thought whitewash was racist.

    Any more than the liquid 'white out' being used to go over mistakes on paper is racist. The name comes from making the paper white again to cover up what was written, there's no judgement in it.

    Though I haven't used whiteout since I was at school downunder in the 90s, so no idea if it's still called that or even manufactured anymore. Computers kind of removed the purpose of using that.
    Never heard the phrase "whiteout" at all - and I lived in Sydney for a while back then. You must have been in the outback.

    But I agree. Tippex isn't racist. If somebody is saying that as part of the culture wars they need to back off.
    Melbourne not Sydney but it's simply what it was called. I always had a bottle of whiteout in my pencil case.

    I was contrasting whiteout or as you call it Tippex with whitewash. It's about covering up, not cleanliness.
    Whiteouts are blizzards where the snow is so heavy you can see nothing but falling snow.
    "Whiteout" also caused the infamous NZ air crash on Mount Erebus in Antarctica in 1979, although in fact that was a different phenomenon. It happened without any rain, snow or sleet falling.
    You can easily have a white-out without any precipitation. I have experienced this quite a few times.

    You need hill fog and full snow cover. It is worse with fresh or spring snow, because old frozen snow has more of a texture.

    It is extremely disorienting. You can't see where the ground is at all, so you end up stumbling along because you've no idea when your foot is about to land.

    The only way to navigate without a GPS is to count paces and in the worst cases the only way to maintain a bearing is to send someone in front to act as a marker. If you were get it wrong and end at a cliff then you just wouldn't see it until you were over the edge.

    Falling snow actually helps because it gives you some definition.


    On the original topic, liquid paper or Tippex. Never heard it called anything else.
    What I find difficult to believe is that the Air New Zealand pilots weren't briefed about the white-out phenomenon before flying to Antarctica even though it was known about at the time.
    Commercial pilots should really be able to fly on their instruments! Big planes have plenty of redundant instruments and automatics, for exactly these scenarios.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,587
    Yokes said:

    Headline piece

    All arrogance is , in may cases, confidence expressed in particular way at least in the eyes of the beholder. As a decent punter you have to be confident in what you are doing because chances are you have your own doubts but you also have 'others', i.e. everyone else whether other bettors, the markets, or people who insist that you cant make money, or your bet is stupid. This is turn multiplied by the too much information available.

    If you are bettor and you come on here share your thinking and actually suggest bets, you are likely to have that confidence anyway. As Pip pointed out you feel more confident if you know what the other side of the bet is thinking, in short what the market is thinking. Going against it prevailing wisdom is where you make some seriously good money and where you can look a total spoon if it goes wrong. Its also where you get the greatest boost to your confidence when it goes right. You have to have the hide of a buffalo because its going to go wrong plenty.

    Spotting the market getting it wrong is the foundation of value betting but that is often such a difficult concept to apply, though simple in explanation.

    Some ways of looking for that market flaw, in politics betting in particular because it can be easier to exploit due to the often stretched out nature of the event, is hype and overreaction. If you think you see those, you are much closer to a bet.

    The third exploit is is in open public elections. Learn to ignore the political wonks, sometimes. They represent fuck all squared of the voting populous and often the wonks are very live holders of certain political views so they are hobby horsing.

    The Democratic nomination race for the 2020 election was a good example of all three of these in action, including on this forum and is worth studying.

    Some of us called that ...

  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853
    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Andy_JS said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:
    I have never taken the term whitewash to mean white is clean, anything else is not.

    I've always taken it to mean like using "white out" on paper to remove mistakes. Blank paper is white and to use whitewash/whiteout on a report essentially means you're getting rid of the inconvenient details/mistakes as part of a cover up, not making it clean.
    Absolutely bizarre post. Not sure what to make of it.

    If anything.
    I'm saying etymologically I never thought whitewash was racist.

    Any more than the liquid 'white out' being used to go over mistakes on paper is racist. The name comes from making the paper white again to cover up what was written, there's no judgement in it.

    Though I haven't used whiteout since I was at school downunder in the 90s, so no idea if it's still called that or even manufactured anymore. Computers kind of removed the purpose of using that.
    Never heard the phrase "whiteout" at all - and I lived in Sydney for a while back then. You must have been in the outback.

    But I agree. Tippex isn't racist. If somebody is saying that as part of the culture wars they need to back off.
    Melbourne not Sydney but it's simply what it was called. I always had a bottle of whiteout in my pencil case.

    I was contrasting whiteout or as you call it Tippex with whitewash. It's about covering up, not cleanliness.
    Whiteouts are blizzards where the snow is so heavy you can see nothing but falling snow.
    "Whiteout" also caused the infamous NZ air crash on Mount Erebus in Antarctica in 1979, although in fact that was a different phenomenon. It happened without any rain, snow or sleet falling.
    You can easily have a white-out without any precipitation. I have experienced this quite a few times.

    You need hill fog and full snow cover. It is worse with fresh or spring snow, because old frozen snow has more of a texture.

    It is extremely disorienting. You can't see where the ground is at all, so you end up stumbling along because you've no idea when your foot is about to land.

    The only way to navigate without a GPS is to count paces and in the worst cases the only way to maintain a bearing is to send someone in front to act as a marker. If you were get it wrong and end at a cliff then you just wouldn't see it until you were over the edge.

    Falling snow actually helps because it gives you some definition.


    On the original topic, liquid paper or Tippex. Never heard it called anything else.
    What I find difficult to believe is that the Air New Zealand pilots weren't briefed about the white-out phenomenon before flying to Antarctica even though it was known about at the time.
    Commercial pilots should really be able to fly on their instruments! Big planes have plenty of redundant instruments and automatics, for exactly these scenarios.
    The problem wasn't that they couldn't fly, it was that the big white mountain in front of them looked like a flat ice shelf until they hit it. There weren't lots of navigation beacons in Antarctica.
This discussion has been closed.