Whilst it's potentially inconvienient news this is a bit hyperbolic, we've 1st dosed ~ 60% of all adults and the virus is in abeyance.
It's not a disaster but it is very bad news
I cannot believe the MHRA is considering this. We've had 7 fatalities from 18m doses. WTAFFFFF
Suspending its use for under 40s might be a good compromise. Another avenue is cutting for females in G12 & 11 - the clots are overwhemingly in women.
My guess is that, or something similar, is what they will do.
The decision is about balancing risk. If there is a vaccine effect, the risk is significantly greater for women under the age of 50 - and the risk from Covid, of course, is lower in women, and falls rapidly for younger age groups.
Conversely, I (male and over 50) am not in the least worried about getting a second shot of AZN, and there is almost no reason for me to be so.
I still don't understand why men weren't prioritized for vaccinations. Obviously age is a much bigger factor and women live longer so the stagger might not have been all that pronounced, but even so I'd have thought it would have made sense to do it (perhaps not for care homes, hospitals etc.).
40 - 50 male risk is about the same as 50 - 60 female risk iirc
Whilst it's potentially inconvienient news this is a bit hyperbolic, we've 1st dosed ~ 60% of all adults and the virus is in abeyance.
It's not a disaster but it is very bad news
I cannot believe the MHRA is considering this. We've had 7 fatalities from 18m doses. WTAFFFFF
Suspending its use for under 40s might be a good compromise. Another avenue is cutting for females in G12 & 11 - the clots are overwhemingly in women.
My guess is that, or something similar, is what they will do.
The decision is about balancing risk. If there is a vaccine effect, the risk is significantly greater for women under the age of 50 - and the risk from Covid, of course, is lower in women, and falls rapidly for younger age groups.
Conversely, I (male and over 50) am not in the least worried about getting a second shot of AZN, and there is almost no reason for me to be so.
I still don't understand why men weren't prioritized for vaccinations. Obviously age is a much bigger factor and women live longer so the stagger might not have been all that pronounced, but even so I'd have thought it would have made sense to do it (perhaps not for care homes, hospitals etc.).
Just out of interest, all these lock us down harder and longer polls.
Not sure what the split is on PB but my impression is that it is 60:40 let's unlock now.
Is it/are we typical of the GBP? Seems not by a long way.
It's very odd. I am extremely opposed to lockdowns in any form and I would respond that way in any poll. Yet I am also extremely rules-oriented by nature and have obeyed the law scrupulously (I can't help it; it's in my make-up, more's the pity). Can all those who claim to want harder and longer lockdowns say the same?
I'm assuming the same behaviour is at play as when people claim to support higher taxes i.e. for everyone richer than me.
At least I hope that's what's going on otherwise I despair for my fellow countrymen (and women).
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
That does put into perspective just how transient the yes vote is.
They're quoting 52% Yes, 48% No [haven't I seen those figures somewhere else?], which I wouldn't have thought was anywhere near enough for the SNP to risk a referendum.
But I think you are right about the transience of the Yes vote (or rather, the Yes opinion-poll figure). It does seem to vary according to very short-term factors which actually have nothing whatsoever to do with independence. It wouldn't be surprising if respondents used it as a proxy to express dissatisfaction with the UK government, or conversely with the SNP government.
Why wouldn't 52% Yes be enough to risk a referendum. Quite frankly 48% from their perspective ought to be enough to risk it.
As the IRA used to say, they need to get lucky once. Not many expected the Brexit referendum to be lost by the Westminster government but it was and we're out now.
If they lose a second referendum that might be the end of the matter (like in Canada), or they can regather and find a new grievance to push and then push for a third - until the Scottish voters decide enough is enough.
Even more reason to refuse a legal indyref2, as Boris will do, as even if Unionists narrowly win it the SNP will push for a third referendum shortly after.
Canada only resolved the matter by allowing Quebec's second independence referendum in 1980 a full 15 years after the first in 1980 ie a genuine generation, then even though No only narrowly won with 51% the matter was resolved with devomax for Quebec
You do know Canada didn't "allow" the second independence referendum, it was held at a time the Quebecois chose for it to be held. So why do you continue to lie about this?
Do you not care for having integrity?
It was still the Canadian government's decision, the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed that Quebec independence would have been illegal without the approval of the Federal government of Canada.
Spain's government since of course has refused to allow the Catalan nationalist majority government even 1 legal independence referendum, as Tories we should follow the example of our sister party the Popular Party when they were in government and say a firm No to the Nationalists. 2014 was a once in a generation vote
That is a lie and you know it. It was not the Canadian government's decision to "allow" 15 years for the date.
The Supreme Court of Canada did not choose 15 years for the date. In fact the Supreme Court ruling came after the referendum and you know that, so stop lying.
The only people who chose the date were the Quebecois voters and the Quebecois government. The federal government had no say in it and you know that.
Wrong, the Supreme Court of Canada stated after the referendum that a unilateral secession without the approval of the Federal Government of Canada would have been illegal.
Spain's government has of course refused any legal independence referendum by the Catalan nationalist government.
For now we Tories must follow the example of our conservative cousins in the Popular Party in Spain and refuse a legal independence referendum, 2014 was a once in a generation vote and there must be no concessions to the SNP and Salmond on that.
Pro independence liberals such as you can be ignored
You can not be this stupid.
Them speaking "after the referendum" means they didn't choose the fifteen year date. 🤦♂️
A unilateral secession without the approval of Westminster would be illegal too, that's no different to what the Supreme Court ruled. But the 15 year date was the choice of the Quebecois, it was not what was "allowed". If the Scots choose differently, then they choose differently. That is democracy.
No, you're both wrong. HYUFD is wrong to say that Ottawa allowed the Quebecois referendums, the Canadian constitution expressly gave Quebec the power to call their own - as you say
But you are wrong to suggest Scotland can just call a vote when it wants, it cannot. You may think the Scots have a moral right to call a vote if Nats win a majority in Holyrood, but that's a different matter. The overriding law is the Scotland Act which reserves the power to permit a referendum to Westminster
The Nats, if they win, are free to challenge this in the SCOTUK if they disagree, they will lose
I never said Scotland can just call a vote when it wants. I said it should be able to and we should respect democracy, but that Canada didn't "allow" the Quebecois referendum was the point. So since you agreed with that, you agree with me.
As for whether the law allows a second referendum, that isn't settled. Some say it does, some say it doesn't. I don't know, I think they should be allowed one, but I don't know if they are. As you say it could end up in SCOTUK.
A few eccentric lawyers say a Nat government could maybe win a case in SCOTUK, but the large majority of experts say they would lose. And they surely would. The Scotland Act is quite explicit
The Scotland Act is actually pretty vague. Since referendums are non-binding and advisory only (as SCOTUK have already confirmed) then is a referendum changing the law on a reserved matter? Probably not.
Which would put the Scots in the same position as Quebec: able to hold a referendum if they choose to do so, but unable to do anything even with a Yes result without the consent of Ottawa/London.
If they don't get the agreement of Westminster to a referendum (as they did in 2014, with the Edinburgh Agreement) many Scots (perhaps most, according to polls) would see any wildcat "consultative" referendum as illegitimate, and many unionists would boycott it, as happened in Catalunya.
It would be a disaster for Nattery, which is why Sturgeon refuses to do it. Salmond, being an older man in a hurry, might try and force her into it, but he needs lots of MSPs to do that, and initial polls are unpromising for him
Interesting study on several levels. The rapid antigen test LFDs are evidently pretty effective. If we'd had mass use of them last year (coupled with decent incentives for isolating if testing positive), we could have dispensed with most of the contact tracing apparatus and have achieved better control of the pandemic.
SARS-CoV-2 infectivity by viral load, S gene variants and demographic factors and the utility of lateral flow devices to prevent transmission https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.31.21254687v1 ...How SARS-CoV-2 infectivity varies with viral load is incompletely understood. Whether rapid point-of-care antigen lateral flow devices (LFDs) detect most potential transmission sources despite imperfect sensitivity is unknown. Methods: We combined SARS-CoV-2 testing and contact tracing data from England between 01-September-2020 and 28-February-2021. We used multivariable logistic regression to investigate relationships between PCR-confirmed infection in contacts of community-diagnosed cases and index case viral load, S gene target failure (proxy for B.1.1.7 infection), demographics, SARS-CoV-2 incidence, social deprivation, and contact event type. We used LFD performance to simulate the proportion of cases with a PCR-positive contact expected to be detected using one of four LFDs. Results: 231,498/2,474,066 (9%) contacts of 1,064,004 index cases tested PCR-positive. PCR-positive results in contacts independently increased with higher case viral loads (lower Ct values) e.g., 11.7%(95%CI 11.5-12.0%) at Ct=15 and 4.5%(4.4-4.6%) at Ct=30. B.1.1.7 infection increased PCR-positive results by ~50%, (e.g. 1.55-fold, 95%CI 1.49-1.61, at Ct=20). PCR-positive results were most common in household contacts (at Ct=20.1, 8.7%[95%CI 8.6-8.9%]), followed by household visitors (7.1%[6.8-7.3%]), contacts at events/activities (5.2%[4.9-5.4%]), work/education (4.6%[4.4-4.8%]), and least common after outdoor contact (2.9%[2.3-3.8%]). Contacts of children were the least likely to test positive, particularly following contact outdoors or at work/education. The most and least sensitive LFDs would detect 89.5%(89.4-89.6%) and 83.0%(82.8-83.1%) of cases with PCR-positive contacts respectively. Conclusions: SARS-CoV-2 infectivity varies by case viral load, contact event type, and age. Those with high viral loads are the most infectious. B.1.1.7 increased transmission by ~50%. The best performing LFDs detect most infectious cases...
Yes, good news. I've been frustrated by the amount of negative press that LFDs have been getting: some of it seems to have been motivated by either not-invented-here syndrome, or from not wanting to administer the tests because of the hassle. In my institution non-experts have disparaged their use in every forum.
It's long been a bugbear of mine that neither the UK nor insofar as I can tell any other country has properly integrated fast-but-imperfect testing into their control. The administrative structures in public health are stacked against it.
--AS
Agreed. IMO, it's an absolutely brilliant technology far more suited to infection control than is laboratory PCR. And in real world use PCR is not only much slower and more expensive, but also less accurate, since very, very few of the approx 30% who are infected but asymptomatic just won't get tested at all.
Whilst it's potentially inconvienient news this is a bit hyperbolic, we've 1st dosed ~ 60% of all adults and the virus is in abeyance.
It's not a disaster but it is very bad news
I cannot believe the MHRA is considering this. We've had 7 fatalities from 18m doses. WTAFFFFF
Suspending its use for under 40s might be a good compromise. Another avenue is cutting for females in G12 & 11 - the clots are overwhemingly in women.
My guess is that, or something similar, is what they will do.
The decision is about balancing risk. If there is a vaccine effect, the risk is significantly greater for women under the age of 50 - and the risk from Covid, of course, is lower in women, and falls rapidly for younger age groups.
Conversely, I (male and over 50) am not in the least worried about getting a second shot of AZN, and there is almost no reason for me to be so.
I still don't understand why men weren't prioritized for vaccinations. Obviously age is a much bigger factor and women live longer so the stagger might not have been all that pronounced, but even so I'd have thought it would have made sense to do it (perhaps not for care homes, hospitals etc.).
Ha ha ha
Really?
In a world where prostate cancer screening is "unthinkable"?
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
In which case you believe it ok to risk other peoples' children then.
We all make our own decisions.
I wouldn't speed by a school, and I don't speed if its raining, but if I deem conditions are right I could do 80 to 90 on the motorway.
Everyone in the third lane does over 80 on a motorway. It's the ambient speed - custom and practice. Same goes with visiting grandparents as far as I'm concerned!
For those cars whose speedo in the third lane reads 80, they are probably doing about 72.
I go by the sat nav. In both my cars going along at 82/83 means 80 assuming sat nav is more correct than the speedo.
Yes, I found the same in both my previous Golf and current Corolla. At 80 I find that Google Maps says 75. Clearly there is a good margin for error in calibrating the speedo!
It’s illegal (MoT failure) for the speedo to read under the true speed, so the manufacturers allow a fair bit of margin of error. Modern digital displays are considerably more accurate than old analogue devices, as are GPS devices on phones - given a straight road and good signal. Police cars have calibrated speedos, that have to be tested periodically.
You may remember the Evul Lawyer who specialised in getting people off for speeding offences?
He was so disruptive that the police tried investigating *him*
His Evul Trick was to ask in court - "According to the manufacturer, your speed measuring device needs calibrating every x months. When was it last calibrated?"
The police hadn't bothered, for the most part, to re-calibrate since purchase....
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
Thank you Topping. Yes, motorway speeding is far safer than residential speeding.
Especially when kids are walking along the road. I can not think of a worse example of when speeding would be appropriate than the school run.
Why are you thanking him? You said that you WOULD speed in a residential area if it were just you in the car.
???
Busted again, aren't you? Wriggling around on a petard of your own construction. Again.
It's very odd. I am extremely opposed to lockdowns in any form and I would respond that way in any poll. Yet I am also extremely rules-oriented by nature and have obeyed the law scrupulously (I can't help it; it's in my make-up, more's the pity). Can all those who claim to want harder and longer lockdowns say the same?
I'm assuming the same behaviour is at play as when people claim to support higher taxes i.e. for everyone richer than me.
At least I hope that's what's going on otherwise I despair for my fellow countrymen (and women).
I've long thought that if lockdown was strictly enforced (same rules, just your chances of being caught and fined if you break it are maybe 50% instead of 0.01%) that support would go through the floor. I personally know a lot of people who have expressed very pro lockdown views while happily breaking the rules when it suits them.
MHRA and JCVI to hold press conference at 3pm amid speculation AstraZeneca guidance may be revised
The MHRA is going to hold a briefing at 3pm, it has been confirmed. It will be a joint affair with the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. We’re expecting that they will provide an update on guidance for the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the light of concerns about its possible link to a form of extremely rare blood clot in the brain.
Interesting study on several levels. The rapid antigen test LFDs are evidently pretty effective. If we'd had mass use of them last year (coupled with decent incentives for isolating if testing positive), we could have dispensed with most of the contact tracing apparatus and have achieved better control of the pandemic.
SARS-CoV-2 infectivity by viral load, S gene variants and demographic factors and the utility of lateral flow devices to prevent transmission https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.31.21254687v1 ...How SARS-CoV-2 infectivity varies with viral load is incompletely understood. Whether rapid point-of-care antigen lateral flow devices (LFDs) detect most potential transmission sources despite imperfect sensitivity is unknown. Methods: We combined SARS-CoV-2 testing and contact tracing data from England between 01-September-2020 and 28-February-2021. We used multivariable logistic regression to investigate relationships between PCR-confirmed infection in contacts of community-diagnosed cases and index case viral load, S gene target failure (proxy for B.1.1.7 infection), demographics, SARS-CoV-2 incidence, social deprivation, and contact event type. We used LFD performance to simulate the proportion of cases with a PCR-positive contact expected to be detected using one of four LFDs. Results: 231,498/2,474,066 (9%) contacts of 1,064,004 index cases tested PCR-positive. PCR-positive results in contacts independently increased with higher case viral loads (lower Ct values) e.g., 11.7%(95%CI 11.5-12.0%) at Ct=15 and 4.5%(4.4-4.6%) at Ct=30. B.1.1.7 infection increased PCR-positive results by ~50%, (e.g. 1.55-fold, 95%CI 1.49-1.61, at Ct=20). PCR-positive results were most common in household contacts (at Ct=20.1, 8.7%[95%CI 8.6-8.9%]), followed by household visitors (7.1%[6.8-7.3%]), contacts at events/activities (5.2%[4.9-5.4%]), work/education (4.6%[4.4-4.8%]), and least common after outdoor contact (2.9%[2.3-3.8%]). Contacts of children were the least likely to test positive, particularly following contact outdoors or at work/education. The most and least sensitive LFDs would detect 89.5%(89.4-89.6%) and 83.0%(82.8-83.1%) of cases with PCR-positive contacts respectively. Conclusions: SARS-CoV-2 infectivity varies by case viral load, contact event type, and age. Those with high viral loads are the most infectious. B.1.1.7 increased transmission by ~50%. The best performing LFDs detect most infectious cases...
Yes, good news. I've been frustrated by the amount of negative press that LFDs have been getting: some of it seems to have been motivated by either not-invented-here syndrome, or from not wanting to administer the tests because of the hassle. In my institution non-experts have disparaged their use in every forum.
It's long been a bugbear of mine that neither the UK nor insofar as I can tell any other country has properly integrated fast-but-imperfect testing into their control. The administrative structures in public health are stacked against it.
--AS
Agreed. IMO, it's an absolutely brilliant technology far more suited to infection control than is laboratory PCR. And in real world use PCR is not only much slower and more expensive, but also less accurate, since very, very few of the approx 30% who are infected but asymptomatic just won't get tested at all.
The people who are against it include those in the lab testing empires. If this kind of test gets rolled out to there areas of healthcare.....
"The BBC will not make programmes aimed specifically at older viewers because their tastes are too varied, the corporation has said. Instead, the over-50s are urged to enjoy shows made for a “general audience”.
So alienate further the only demographic that watch consistently in very large numbers and go for a market that aren't interested in your output.....good job they don't work in the private sector...
No. If the BBC's critics read the linked article, they'd see the BBC is agreeing with Charlie Higson's complaints about the BBC. There is no over-50s demographic. People who grew up during the war, or during post-war austerity, or the birth of rock and roll, or the swinging sixties, or the 1970s with decimalisation, joining the Common Market (what could possibly go wrong?), Thatcherism and punk, have nothing in common except being over 50. Oh, and some of them started out life eating spicy food in sunner climes.
As anyone who has worked with older people will know, they are not all the same. This is what the BBC is saying. This is what Charlie Higson was complaining about. The stereotype that over 50s want to sing along to Vera Lynn over pictures of tanks is absurd. Captain Tom was 100. That's double 50. Almost everyone who'd fought in the war is now dead or Prince Philip.
Or, from the original Telegraph link, what the BBC said was:
“We find that tastes in older age groups vary just as much as those in any other age range - for example, some older viewers prefer quizzes, soaps and lighter programmes whilst others prefer more cultural or factual programmes.
“This being the case, there simply isn’t a typical programme or range of shows that would appeal specifically to older audiences, and that’s why our television channels and radio stations and the information on our website is for a general audience… we are a general broadcaster so by definition our approach has to be general and broad, so there needs to be a degree of compromise.”
Perhaps the BBC might have a greater rate of creating hit shows if it didn't target demographic groups in such a patronising fashion. The starting point should be making amazing TV.
Most television is made by small production companies commissioned by ITV or the BBC (following Birt and other reforms in the Thatcher/Blair years). The starting point is not to make "amazing TV". The starting point for an independent production company is to watch a hit show and ask how we can tweak it a bit to make our own version, probably fronted by a "star" to catch the BBC's eye. That is how comedy panel shows spread, and cookery shows and talent shows and so on. You can play this game at home. Take a programme you enjoy and create a not-quite carbon copy.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
In which case you believe it ok to risk other peoples' children then.
We all make our own decisions.
I wouldn't speed by a school, and I don't speed if its raining, but if I deem conditions are right I could do 80 to 90 on the motorway.
Everyone in the third lane does over 80 on a motorway. It's the ambient speed - custom and practice. Same goes with visiting grandparents as far as I'm concerned!
For those cars whose speedo in the third lane reads 80, they are probably doing about 72.
You can turn off the exaggeration factor through fucking around with the OBD2 port to get an accurate speedo reading on some cars. I did it on my F34 BMW and then topped it out at a disappointing 143mph.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
It is a terrible example. Speeding on the school run, past kids who are walking to school - do you seriously do that?
It isn't even possible to speed on the school run typically, since the roads are so congested with traffic at that time. But its bloody stupid to do so.
85 on the motorway I said I'm comfortable doing. But on residential roads with children walking, on the school run like you said? No, absolutely not.
Whilst it's potentially inconvienient news this is a bit hyperbolic, we've 1st dosed ~ 60% of all adults and the virus is in abeyance.
It's not a disaster but it is very bad news
I cannot believe the MHRA is considering this. We've had 7 fatalities from 18m doses. WTAFFFFF
Suspending its use for under 40s might be a good compromise. Another avenue is cutting for females in G12 & 11 - the clots are overwhemingly in women.
My guess is that, or something similar, is what they will do.
The decision is about balancing risk. If there is a vaccine effect, the risk is significantly greater for women under the age of 50 - and the risk from Covid, of course, is lower in women, and falls rapidly for younger age groups.
Conversely, I (male and over 50) am not in the least worried about getting a second shot of AZN, and there is almost no reason for me to be so.
I still don't understand why men weren't prioritized for vaccinations. Obviously age is a much bigger factor and women live longer so the stagger might not have been all that pronounced, but even so I'd have thought it would have made sense to do it (perhaps not for care homes, hospitals etc.).
Ha ha ha
Really?
In a world where prostate cancer screening is "unthinkable"?
Ha ha ha
Unthinkable ? Knees up to chest and relax I think !
I'm no fan of this government (a gross understatement), but I don't share the doom and gloom of so many on here.
The government set out a roadmap with which most broadly agreed, in the context of a horrendous death and illness toll in January/February. It's now April. Yes, it was a cautious roadmap - understandable given the history of the virus and some uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccines. That uncertainty has diminished massively, but not completely. As far as I can tell, the government is sticking to the roadmap and restrictions will be eased next week, and more significantly on May 17th and then in June. If the government backtracks on the roadmap without good reason I'll join the complainants, but there's no sign of that yet.
Meanwhile, while the restrictions are a complete pain, they are increasingly less arduous, especially as people interpret them more sensibly. We've started having visitors to the house, because we know infections locally are now very low. The police have not knocked on our door, nor will they. I leave the house several times a day. Next Monday, my daughter has booked a table at a beachfront bar from 2pm - 8pm; we shall visit in shifts of six.
I just wonder if a bit of patience would be wise. We should man the barricades if/when it is clear that conspiracies about extending lockdown and enforcing ID cards are imminent, but not while they are still theoretical risks that I don't actually think will happen.
Yes, I'm broadly with you. I think the problem for me is that I don't trust the government, particularly given its predilection for following lumpen opinion over science and principle. Johnson want to be liked, and I don't think that's doing us any favours. If the road map is adhered to (inc international travel 17 May (in conjunction with traffic light system) ) then I'll heave a huge sigh of relief.
My view is almost the same but slightly nuanced re: Boris. I think Boris is a metro liberal at heart and his instincts are towards liberty. The same cannot be said, sadly, for many others in his party –the Patels and the rump Red Wallers, who love a bit of authoritarian lock'em and flog'em. The Tory version of the Sandy Rentool Tendency if you will.
I reflect northern working class opinion.
North London handwringers should take note.
By North London hand wringers, presumably you mean "people who live in north London (like Anabobazina) who have a different worldview to me?"
He does. And it includes me too. In spades it does. But Sandy is a Red Wall voice and we don't have that many.
The digital ID card consultation has ended. It's going ahead unless there are riots in Tunbridge Wells ... a metaphor for what it took to stop the poll tax.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
Thank you Topping. Yes, motorway speeding is far safer than residential speeding.
Especially when kids are walking along the road. I can not think of a worse example of when speeding would be appropriate than the school run.
Why are you thanking him? You said that you WOULD speed in a residential area if it were just you in the car.
???
Busted again, aren't you? Wriggling around on a petard of your own construction. Again.
No I didn't say that. Read again. I don't know why you're being nasty as I never said that.
If I was driving across country to an important meeting then I might speed on the motorway to get there. Speeding on the motorway saves time, if its safe to do so. Speeding on residential roads does not.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
Plenty of 30s are dual carriageways. Everyone speeds on those.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
In which case you believe it ok to risk other peoples' children then.
We all make our own decisions.
I wouldn't speed by a school, and I don't speed if its raining, but if I deem conditions are right I could do 80 to 90 on the motorway.
Everyone in the third lane does over 80 on a motorway. It's the ambient speed - custom and practice. Same goes with visiting grandparents as far as I'm concerned!
For those cars whose speedo in the third lane reads 80, they are probably doing about 72.
You can turn off the exaggeration factor through fucking around with the OBD2 port to get an accurate speedo reading on some cars. I did it on my F34 BMW and then topped it out at a disappointing 143mph.
I rarely know what you are talking about but enjoy reading it!
Yesterday SNP majority was odds against and I got distracted and failed to back them.
I kick myself.
Much like the toasters who jumped from SNP to Alba who are watching their political careers self immolate before their eyes.
Has anyone who jumped from the SNP to Alba actually sacrificed a viable political career? Seems to me that the MPs at least were very much out of favour, for fairly good reason, and with no real way back.
What is fascinating about this poll is that the Alba launch has kicked into gear the "what, there's no point me voting SNP at list" conversations. I had to explain to my brother and sis-in-law how the electoral system actually works up here, where voting SNP for the regional list when they will take most of the constituency votes is a waste of time. They are now voting Green on the list.
How many other people have woken up to the "Supermajority" concept (either for or against) and have changed their voting intention accordingly? D'hondt isn't the most intuitive of systems - people probably thought they could vote for the party of their choice and it matter. On the list that isn't the case...
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
Plenty of 30s are dual carriageways. Everyone speeds on those.
Dual carriageways are not residential roads either.
Residential roads with no barriers between pedestrians and cars, with children walking potentially by themselves? Only an idiot speeds on those roads.
A dual carriageway with no pedestrians? That's a different matter.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
it is almost impossible not to go up to 35mph on an empty Spaniard's Road, in Hampstead. Every Londoner with a car has done this
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
Plenty of 30s are dual carriageways. Everyone speeds on those.
Hmm. You might be pushed to find one without a speed camera but yes, as I said, dual carriageways where visibility is good and there is little chance of a child running out between the cars or a teen, eyes glued to his phone, stepping in front of you then yes I accept that.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
Most people do whether by accident or design. Are you saying you have never exceeded a speed limit ?
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
Plenty of 30s are dual carriageways. Everyone speeds on those.
Dual carriageways are not residential roads either.
Residential roads with no barriers between pedestrians and cars, with children walking potentially by themselves? Only an idiot speeds on those roads.
A dual carriageway with no pedestrians? That's a different matter.
Wales is a bit odd, it has had proportionately way more doses but it hasn't slowed down their first dose rollout. I expect first doses for England to be between 30 and 50k; second doses 250k perhaps
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
It is a terrible example. Speeding on the school run, past kids who are walking to school - do you seriously do that?
It isn't even possible to speed on the school run typically, since the roads are so congested with traffic at that time. But its bloody stupid to do so.
85 on the motorway I said I'm comfortable doing. But on residential roads with children walking, on the school run like you said? No, absolutely not.
We need a hero. We're holding out for a hero 'til the morning light. He's gotta be sure and it's gotta be soon. And he's gotta be driving alright ... driving alright.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
Most people do whether by accident or design. Are you saying you have never exceeded a speed limit ?
Gah! I have explicitly said I have exceeded the speed limit. I have also said, because I'm pretty sure that this is how most, perhaps the vast majority of drivers drive, that speeding on a dual carriageway or motorway is vastly different to speeding "on the school run" in a built-up area.
I'm no fan of this government (a gross understatement), but I don't share the doom and gloom of so many on here.
The government set out a roadmap with which most broadly agreed, in the context of a horrendous death and illness toll in January/February. It's now April. Yes, it was a cautious roadmap - understandable given the history of the virus and some uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccines. That uncertainty has diminished massively, but not completely. As far as I can tell, the government is sticking to the roadmap and restrictions will be eased next week, and more significantly on May 17th and then in June. If the government backtracks on the roadmap without good reason I'll join the complainants, but there's no sign of that yet.
Meanwhile, while the restrictions are a complete pain, they are increasingly less arduous, especially as people interpret them more sensibly. We've started having visitors to the house, because we know infections locally are now very low. The police have not knocked on our door, nor will they. I leave the house several times a day. Next Monday, my daughter has booked a table at a beachfront bar from 2pm - 8pm; we shall visit in shifts of six.
I just wonder if a bit of patience would be wise. We should man the barricades if/when it is clear that conspiracies about extending lockdown and enforcing ID cards are imminent, but not while they are still theoretical risks that I don't actually think will happen.
Yes, I'm broadly with you. I think the problem for me is that I don't trust the government, particularly given its predilection for following lumpen opinion over science and principle. Johnson want to be liked, and I don't think that's doing us any favours. If the road map is adhered to (inc international travel 17 May (in conjunction with traffic light system) ) then I'll heave a huge sigh of relief.
My view is almost the same but slightly nuanced re: Boris. I think Boris is a metro liberal at heart and his instincts are towards liberty. The same cannot be said, sadly, for many others in his party –the Patels and the rump Red Wallers, who love a bit of authoritarian lock'em and flog'em. The Tory version of the Sandy Rentool Tendency if you will.
I reflect northern working class opinion.
North London handwringers should take note.
By North London hand wringers, presumably you mean "people who live in north London (like Anabobazina) who have a different worldview to me?"
He does. And it includes me too. In spades it does. But Sandy is a Red Wall voice and we don't have that many.
I'm a Red Wall voice by birth and upbringing, but for the last 20 years have lived in the Epicentre of Right-On Wokeness.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
In which case you believe it ok to risk other peoples' children then.
We all make our own decisions.
I wouldn't speed by a school, and I don't speed if its raining, but if I deem conditions are right I could do 80 to 90 on the motorway.
Everyone in the third lane does over 80 on a motorway. It's the ambient speed - custom and practice. Same goes with visiting grandparents as far as I'm concerned!
For those cars whose speedo in the third lane reads 80, they are probably doing about 72.
I go by the sat nav. In both my cars going along at 82/83 means 80 assuming sat nav is more correct than the speedo.
Yes, I found the same in both my previous Golf and current Corolla. At 80 I find that Google Maps says 75. Clearly there is a good margin for error in calibrating the speedo!
It’s illegal (MoT failure) for the speedo to read under the true speed, so the manufacturers allow a fair bit of margin of error. Modern digital displays are considerably more accurate than old analogue devices, as are GPS devices on phones - given a straight road and good signal. Police cars have calibrated speedos, that have to be tested periodically.
You may remember the Evul Lawyer who specialised in getting people off for speeding offences?
He was so disruptive that the police tried investigating *him*
His Evul Trick was to ask in court - "According to the manufacturer, your speed measuring device needs calibrating every x months. When was it last calibrated?"
The police hadn't bothered, for the most part, to re-calibrate since purchase....
My solicitor has got me off 3 out 6 speeding offences since we moved to the UK in 2016 including one that looked like certain jail. She has challenged calibration, training, record keeping, adherence to process, the medical fitness of the cops involved, the weather, etc.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
it is almost impossible not to go up to 35mph on an empty Spaniard's Road, in Hampstead. Every Londoner with a car has done this
The hardest limit is 20mph. Practically impossible to stick to.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
Plenty of 30s are dual carriageways. Everyone speeds on those.
Dual carriageways are not residential roads either.
Residential roads with no barriers between pedestrians and cars, with children walking potentially by themselves? Only an idiot speeds on those roads.
A dual carriageway with no pedestrians? That's a different matter.
I know plenty of residential dual carriageways.
If its residential (pedestrians walking on the path, without a barrier) then it being a dual carriageway doesn't make it any safer to speed. The danger in residential areas is that a pedestrian steps off the road more than an oncoming hitting you.
If its a dual carriageway without a footpath, then I wouldn't class it as residential. It might be urban, but not residential.
Wales is a bit odd, it has had proportionately way more doses but it hasn't slowed down their first dose rollout. I expect first doses for England to be between 30 and 50k; second doses 250k perhaps
After yesterday's car crash I'd be happy with anything north of 200k. Over 300k would be excellent as it promises to improve through the week
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
it is almost impossible not to go up to 35mph on an empty Spaniard's Road, in Hampstead. Every Londoner with a car has done this
It is such exceptions that prove the rule. Try doing 35mph on Flask Walk.
Whilst it's potentially inconvienient news this is a bit hyperbolic, we've 1st dosed ~ 60% of all adults and the virus is in abeyance.
It's not a disaster but it is very bad news
I cannot believe the MHRA is considering this. We've had 7 fatalities from 18m doses. WTAFFFFF
Suspending its use for under 40s might be a good compromise. Another avenue is cutting for females in G12 & 11 - the clots are overwhemingly in women.
My guess is that, or something similar, is what they will do.
The decision is about balancing risk. If there is a vaccine effect, the risk is significantly greater for women under the age of 50 - and the risk from Covid, of course, is lower in women, and falls rapidly for younger age groups.
Conversely, I (male and over 50) am not in the least worried about getting a second shot of AZN, and there is almost no reason for me to be so.
I still don't understand why men weren't prioritized for vaccinations. Obviously age is a much bigger factor and women live longer so the stagger might not have been all that pronounced, but even so I'd have thought it would have made sense to do it (perhaps not for care homes, hospitals etc.).
Ha ha ha
Really?
In a world where prostate cancer screening is "unthinkable"?
Ha ha ha
Unthinkable ? Knees up to chest and relax I think !
Every time the idea of mass screening comes up - via PSA blood tests, for example - it gets shot down.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
it is almost impossible not to go up to 35mph on an empty Spaniard's Road, in Hampstead. Every Londoner with a car has done this
The hardest limit is 20mph. Practically impossible to stick to.
Yes, and Spaniard's Road is 20mph for most of its length. If it is empty then you literally can't do 20mph because you will get a car behind you, hooting, so you speed up
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
It is a terrible example. Speeding on the school run, past kids who are walking to school - do you seriously do that?
It isn't even possible to speed on the school run typically, since the roads are so congested with traffic at that time. But its bloody stupid to do so.
85 on the motorway I said I'm comfortable doing. But on residential roads with children walking, on the school run like you said? No, absolutely not.
We need a hero. We're holding out for a hero 'til the morning light. He's gotta be sure and it's gotta be soon. And he's gotta be driving alright ... driving alright.
What are you smoking?
Not speeding on residential roads or near schools doesn't make you a hero, it makes you sane.
If you choose to speed next to a school then you're not a normal driver, you're a cunt.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
In which case you believe it ok to risk other peoples' children then.
We all make our own decisions.
I wouldn't speed by a school, and I don't speed if its raining, but if I deem conditions are right I could do 80 to 90 on the motorway.
Everyone in the third lane does over 80 on a motorway. It's the ambient speed - custom and practice. Same goes with visiting grandparents as far as I'm concerned!
For those cars whose speedo in the third lane reads 80, they are probably doing about 72.
I go by the sat nav. In both my cars going along at 82/83 means 80 assuming sat nav is more correct than the speedo.
Yes, I found the same in both my previous Golf and current Corolla. At 80 I find that Google Maps says 75. Clearly there is a good margin for error in calibrating the speedo!
It’s illegal (MoT failure) for the speedo to read under the true speed, so the manufacturers allow a fair bit of margin of error. Modern digital displays are considerably more accurate than old analogue devices, as are GPS devices on phones - given a straight road and good signal. Police cars have calibrated speedos, that have to be tested periodically.
You may remember the Evul Lawyer who specialised in getting people off for speeding offences?
He was so disruptive that the police tried investigating *him*
His Evul Trick was to ask in court - "According to the manufacturer, your speed measuring device needs calibrating every x months. When was it last calibrated?"
The police hadn't bothered, for the most part, to re-calibrate since purchase....
My solicitor has got me off 3 out 6 speeding offences since we moved to the UK in 2016 including one that looked like certain jail. She has challenged calibration, training, record keeping, adherence to process, the medical fitness of the cops involved, the weather, etc.
Yes, bit like the story of Spartans - everyone, after a while, learnt....
What was ridiculous was that that guy made a fortune over a period of years.
You'd have thought after the first three case, the police would have started calibrating.... but no....
Sharing a sense of despair and powerlessness this morning with Maffew, Leon, alex, Mortimer, Black Rock and others (you know who you are) ... "we few, we happy few, we band of brothers" ... maybe, just maybe a small resistance movement is beginning to stir. My sense of despair comes from a frustration that the government knows something I don't.
As a rule of thumb, never believe what a politician says, watch what they do. Despite the overwhelming evidence in the public domain that COVID is now a miniscule risk, they are constantly moving the goalposts - why is that? What sane person would want this nightmare to continue a moment longer than absolutely necessary?
There are 3 possibilities:
1. The vaccine is not nearly as effective as we are led to believe. The plummeting infections, hospitalizations and death rates are actually a result of the lockdown. Therefore, different ongoing restrictions need to be dreamt up for the foreseeable ... 2. The vaccine is extremely effective but the government has terrified the population to such an extent that zero-covid is the de-facto end state. Therefore, different ongoing restrictions need to be dreamt up for the foreseeable ... 3. The vaccine is extremely effective and the government sees it as a means to introduce an ID card by the back door (to control movement, behaviour, access to services, etc). Therefore, different ongoing restrictions need to be dreamt up for the foreseeable ...
It it's #1, we're screwed. If it's #3, we're screwed (if you enjoy freedom and the British way of life).
I'm clinging to the hope that it's #2 because in that case there is a chance, however slim, that our tiny minority of resistance fighters will grow to the point the government will get the message that enough is enough - we've beaten this thing down to the level of seasonal flu; let's live with it. Change the messaging. Get back to normal (not "more normal" or "something approaching normal" ... just "normal").
My view is we should lift all restrictions now - immediately. I very reluctantly accept that we will have to wait until June 21st for that (but my Tory vote is lost forever - these people are not conservatives). I fear that after June 21st there will still be restrictions in place.
Covid is not, yet, a minuscule risk. Absolutely not. Smaller, shrinking, but not minuscule.
Sorry but it is, deaths are below average now. We have negative excess deaths.
There is no excuse not to be at Stage 3 already, July 2020 restrictions. The vulnerable have been vaccinated, deaths are below average, R has collapsed and we are past the point of share of people vaccinated that Israel was at when they lifted restrictions.
I'm as frustrated as anyone, but the logic that right now, with current restrictions, we have negative excess deaths means that we can get rid of all restrictions right now doesn't hold up. Last August, we had negative excess deaths. The unlocking we did was cautious and limited and still saw an increase. Should we drop all restrictions right now, we won't be at negative excess deaths for long.
Those in Phase 2 of vaccination are at between 1%-2% chance of hospitalisation when sick. There are about 20 million of them yet uninfected and unvaccinated. That's 200,000-400,000 hospitalisations waiting for us; we can't sustain them all in a short period of time. Should we overwhelm the NHS, the death rate becomes significant, even in these.
We have fully vaccinated about 8% of the country, of whom about half have full protection. We've given a single dose to far more, but that doesn't have the full effect (it does more than enough to be very much worth giving it). We've got 300,000-600,000 hospitalisations waiting for us in the 1-dose-vaccinated if we let it rip now.
So, overall, 500,000-1,000,000 hospitalisations if we let it rip fully right now.
Asset to the site.
So are all the eloquent paeans to liberty but they are much easier to do and we are knee deep.
Agree re: Andy. Big fan. Interesting that we are knee-deep - wasn't the case until recently.
Very true. Outbreak of overt liberty coveting!
For me it was there before - just covert though - scared to post - not now though. I see this as a positive thing overall.
Yes, I think it is. It's a debate and it would be sick if there weren't one.
Plus, pressure on the government to open up sooner is ballast against the pressures in the opposite direction.
As I said your mail last night was powerful and typical of many on here - well done for coming out and saying it.
And all I can say is that I really do think we are coming to the end of this. Any post-June 21st restrictions will be self-implemented (eg. Nick Palmer need not go to the no vaxport pub and choose one where the landlord has decided to use them: eg none). Same with masks and social distancing.
With the bulk of at risk groups vaccinated we can begin to resume normality. And if the PM decides otherwise because caution then he will have an almighty fight on his hands with his own party and, god help us I hope, with the opposition.
Thanks, I appreciate your kind words.
Rationally I know you're probably right. I've got two parallel thought processes going on in my head - the rational one where I can look at the numbers and come to the same conclusions as you and the irrational one where I feel utterly powerless and threatened by every media pronouncement or model. I pride myself on being able to think rationally and logically (it's pretty important for my job), but this irrational worrying is another symptom of lockdown.
The worrying has proved time and time again to not be irrational.
I'd say this statement is flat out wrong. It's a rewrite of history unless you and I have been living through different pandemics. Again and again during this whole wretched episode the virus has been underestimated and that worry is the one which has consistently been proved right. The worry about the government imposing lockdowns too early or without justification has tended to be proved wrong. And the current outbreak of worry about the roadmap being reneged on, or vaccine passports coming in, or long term compulsory masks and distancing etc, all of that remains at this point just that - people worrying. I don't criticize people for this (unless they succumb to silly conspiracy theory type stuff about the Surveillance State, and even then only gently, since it can be healthy to worry about such things), but as of now the evidence is not imo there to justify it.
If the government were genuinely worried about a mutant strain of the virus impervious to existing vaccines, it would have taken effective action to limit who can enter the country and imposed strict and effective quarantine arrangements on those few let in.
It has done neither of these things and continues not to. Instead all of its efforts are focused on controlling what vaccinated people can do here. It is nonsense on stilts.
So either the government consists of utter morons. Or it has another agenda.
Or both.
Madcap conspirary theories abounded a year ago and I didn't believe a word they said. Now less sure because so far the hypothesis fits the observations ...
75-80 years on from unspeakable medical experiments and why are we vaccinating children with a product whose safety testing only ends in 2023 or -24? Healthy children don't die of this virus any more often than they die from lightning strikes.
Children are being submitted for experiments by parents who themselves are not well informed enough to know that the products are unlicensed. They have *emergency use authorisation* ... which they wouldn't have got without corruption at WHO and CDC level. See Dr Pierre Kory's testimony. One only has to look to find medics. speaking out and suggesting that some of their colleagues would do so but fear for their jobs.
The risks of hospitalisation and long covid especially are far far higher than of a lightning strike.
I can't easily find accurate numbers to completely answer this, but I think actually they are probably of a similar order of magnitude. Deaths in 5-10 year olds who have tested positive for Covid inside 28 days run at about 3 per million over the last year, google suggests lighting strikes run at about 2 per million PA, so it seems that Rural Voters claim "Healthy children don't die of this virus any more often than they die from lightning strikes." isn't actually that far off.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
it is almost impossible not to go up to 35mph on an empty Spaniard's Road, in Hampstead. Every Londoner with a car has done this
Any sensible Londoner would leave the car at home, and walk to the Spaniards Inn, instead. Ideally remaining there until closing time.
I'm no fan of this government (a gross understatement), but I don't share the doom and gloom of so many on here.
The government set out a roadmap with which most broadly agreed, in the context of a horrendous death and illness toll in January/February. It's now April. Yes, it was a cautious roadmap - understandable given the history of the virus and some uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccines. That uncertainty has diminished massively, but not completely. As far as I can tell, the government is sticking to the roadmap and restrictions will be eased next week, and more significantly on May 17th and then in June. If the government backtracks on the roadmap without good reason I'll join the complainants, but there's no sign of that yet.
Meanwhile, while the restrictions are a complete pain, they are increasingly less arduous, especially as people interpret them more sensibly. We've started having visitors to the house, because we know infections locally are now very low. The police have not knocked on our door, nor will they. I leave the house several times a day. Next Monday, my daughter has booked a table at a beachfront bar from 2pm - 8pm; we shall visit in shifts of six.
I just wonder if a bit of patience would be wise. We should man the barricades if/when it is clear that conspiracies about extending lockdown and enforcing ID cards are imminent, but not while they are still theoretical risks that I don't actually think will happen.
Yes, I'm broadly with you. I think the problem for me is that I don't trust the government, particularly given its predilection for following lumpen opinion over science and principle. Johnson want to be liked, and I don't think that's doing us any favours. If the road map is adhered to (inc international travel 17 May (in conjunction with traffic light system) ) then I'll heave a huge sigh of relief.
My view is almost the same but slightly nuanced re: Boris. I think Boris is a metro liberal at heart and his instincts are towards liberty. The same cannot be said, sadly, for many others in his party –the Patels and the rump Red Wallers, who love a bit of authoritarian lock'em and flog'em. The Tory version of the Sandy Rentool Tendency if you will.
I reflect northern working class opinion.
North London handwringers should take note.
By North London hand wringers, presumably you mean "people who live in north London (like Anabobazina) who have a different worldview to me?"
He does. And it includes me too. In spades it does. But Sandy is a Red Wall voice and we don't have that many.
The digital ID card consultation has ended. It's going ahead unless there are riots in Tunbridge Wells ... a metaphor for what it took to stop the poll tax.
How long did that consultation period last? An afternoon?
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
it is almost impossible not to go up to 35mph on an empty Spaniard's Road, in Hampstead. Every Londoner with a car has done this
Any sensible Londoner would leave the car at home, and walk to the Spaniards Inn, instead. Ideally remaining there until closing time.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
In which case you believe it ok to risk other peoples' children then.
We all make our own decisions.
I wouldn't speed by a school, and I don't speed if its raining, but if I deem conditions are right I could do 80 to 90 on the motorway.
Everyone in the third lane does over 80 on a motorway. It's the ambient speed - custom and practice. Same goes with visiting grandparents as far as I'm concerned!
For those cars whose speedo in the third lane reads 80, they are probably doing about 72.
I go by the sat nav. In both my cars going along at 82/83 means 80 assuming sat nav is more correct than the speedo.
Yes, I found the same in both my previous Golf and current Corolla. At 80 I find that Google Maps says 75. Clearly there is a good margin for error in calibrating the speedo!
It’s illegal (MoT failure) for the speedo to read under the true speed, so the manufacturers allow a fair bit of margin of error. Modern digital displays are considerably more accurate than old analogue devices, as are GPS devices on phones - given a straight road and good signal. Police cars have calibrated speedos, that have to be tested periodically.
You may remember the Evul Lawyer who specialised in getting people off for speeding offences?
He was so disruptive that the police tried investigating *him*
His Evul Trick was to ask in court - "According to the manufacturer, your speed measuring device needs calibrating every x months. When was it last calibrated?"
The police hadn't bothered, for the most part, to re-calibrate since purchase....
My solicitor has got me off 3 out 6 speeding offences since we moved to the UK in 2016 including one that looked like certain jail. She has challenged calibration, training, record keeping, adherence to process, the medical fitness of the cops involved, the weather, etc.
I need to fess up.
I collected a brand new car on 1 March this year in Leicester. A few days later I had a speeding notification in the post - 36 in a 30. Bloody lockdown - nothing on the roads. I didn't see a speed camera.
Anyway, the camera that nicked me is on the very road that the garage is on. I reckon I did less than half a mile in my new car before getting done for speeding.
I'm no fan of this government (a gross understatement), but I don't share the doom and gloom of so many on here.
The government set out a roadmap with which most broadly agreed, in the context of a horrendous death and illness toll in January/February. It's now April. Yes, it was a cautious roadmap - understandable given the history of the virus and some uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccines. That uncertainty has diminished massively, but not completely. As far as I can tell, the government is sticking to the roadmap and restrictions will be eased next week, and more significantly on May 17th and then in June. If the government backtracks on the roadmap without good reason I'll join the complainants, but there's no sign of that yet.
Meanwhile, while the restrictions are a complete pain, they are increasingly less arduous, especially as people interpret them more sensibly. We've started having visitors to the house, because we know infections locally are now very low. The police have not knocked on our door, nor will they. I leave the house several times a day. Next Monday, my daughter has booked a table at a beachfront bar from 2pm - 8pm; we shall visit in shifts of six.
I just wonder if a bit of patience would be wise. We should man the barricades if/when it is clear that conspiracies about extending lockdown and enforcing ID cards are imminent, but not while they are still theoretical risks that I don't actually think will happen.
Yes, I'm broadly with you. I think the problem for me is that I don't trust the government, particularly given its predilection for following lumpen opinion over science and principle. Johnson want to be liked, and I don't think that's doing us any favours. If the road map is adhered to (inc international travel 17 May (in conjunction with traffic light system) ) then I'll heave a huge sigh of relief.
My view is almost the same but slightly nuanced re: Boris. I think Boris is a metro liberal at heart and his instincts are towards liberty. The same cannot be said, sadly, for many others in his party –the Patels and the rump Red Wallers, who love a bit of authoritarian lock'em and flog'em. The Tory version of the Sandy Rentool Tendency if you will.
I reflect northern working class opinion.
North London handwringers should take note.
By North London hand wringers, presumably you mean "people who live in north London (like Anabobazina) who have a different worldview to me?"
He does. And it includes me too. In spades it does. But Sandy is a Red Wall voice and we don't have that many.
Sure, I'm not calling for him to leave! I just find his lock'em and flog'em mentality abhorrent. It's not that rare: authoritarianism of one shade or another is the dominant credo on PB.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
it is almost impossible not to go up to 35mph on an empty Spaniard's Road, in Hampstead. Every Londoner with a car has done this
Any sensible Londoner would leave the car at home, and walk to the Spaniards Inn, instead. Ideally remaining there until closing time.
If only it were open.....
Which it will be soon. They have a lovely garden, one of the best pub gardens in the UK
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Oh no - you were a voice of calm - now you've caught this morning's grumpy bug too.
I'm not grumpy! Just a routine tumble with the indefatigable Philip Thompson construct. Blows the cobwebs away.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
In which case you believe it ok to risk other peoples' children then.
We all make our own decisions.
I wouldn't speed by a school, and I don't speed if its raining, but if I deem conditions are right I could do 80 to 90 on the motorway.
Everyone in the third lane does over 80 on a motorway. It's the ambient speed - custom and practice. Same goes with visiting grandparents as far as I'm concerned!
For those cars whose speedo in the third lane reads 80, they are probably doing about 72.
I go by the sat nav. In both my cars going along at 82/83 means 80 assuming sat nav is more correct than the speedo.
Yes, I found the same in both my previous Golf and current Corolla. At 80 I find that Google Maps says 75. Clearly there is a good margin for error in calibrating the speedo!
It’s illegal (MoT failure) for the speedo to read under the true speed, so the manufacturers allow a fair bit of margin of error. Modern digital displays are considerably more accurate than old analogue devices, as are GPS devices on phones - given a straight road and good signal. Police cars have calibrated speedos, that have to be tested periodically.
You may remember the Evul Lawyer who specialised in getting people off for speeding offences?
He was so disruptive that the police tried investigating *him*
His Evul Trick was to ask in court - "According to the manufacturer, your speed measuring device needs calibrating every x months. When was it last calibrated?"
The police hadn't bothered, for the most part, to re-calibrate since purchase....
My solicitor has got me off 3 out 6 speeding offences since we moved to the UK in 2016 including one that looked like certain jail. She has challenged calibration, training, record keeping, adherence to process, the medical fitness of the cops involved, the weather, etc.
I need to fess up.
I collected a brand new car on 1 March this year in Leicester. A few days later I had a speeding notification in the post - 36 in a 30. Bloody lockdown - nothing on the roads. I didn't see a speed camera.
Anyway, the camera that nicked me is on the very road that the garage is on. I reckon I did less than half a mile in my new car before getting done for speeding.
Is this a record?
Very sadly many years ago a friend of a friend went to buy a Cerbera and crashed it into a tree killing himself on the way back from the dealers.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
In which case you believe it ok to risk other peoples' children then.
We all make our own decisions.
I wouldn't speed by a school, and I don't speed if its raining, but if I deem conditions are right I could do 80 to 90 on the motorway.
Everyone in the third lane does over 80 on a motorway. It's the ambient speed - custom and practice. Same goes with visiting grandparents as far as I'm concerned!
For those cars whose speedo in the third lane reads 80, they are probably doing about 72.
I go by the sat nav. In both my cars going along at 82/83 means 80 assuming sat nav is more correct than the speedo.
Yes, I found the same in both my previous Golf and current Corolla. At 80 I find that Google Maps says 75. Clearly there is a good margin for error in calibrating the speedo!
It’s illegal (MoT failure) for the speedo to read under the true speed, so the manufacturers allow a fair bit of margin of error. Modern digital displays are considerably more accurate than old analogue devices, as are GPS devices on phones - given a straight road and good signal. Police cars have calibrated speedos, that have to be tested periodically.
You may remember the Evul Lawyer who specialised in getting people off for speeding offences?
He was so disruptive that the police tried investigating *him*
His Evul Trick was to ask in court - "According to the manufacturer, your speed measuring device needs calibrating every x months. When was it last calibrated?"
The police hadn't bothered, for the most part, to re-calibrate since purchase....
My solicitor has got me off 3 out 6 speeding offences since we moved to the UK in 2016 including one that looked like certain jail. She has challenged calibration, training, record keeping, adherence to process, the medical fitness of the cops involved, the weather, etc.
I need to fess up.
I collected a brand new car on 1 March this year in Leicester. A few days later I had a speeding notification in the post - 36 in a 30. Bloody lockdown - nothing on the roads. I didn't see a speed camera.
Anyway, the camera that nicked me is on the very road that the garage is on. I reckon I did less than half a mile in my new car before getting done for speeding.
Is this a record?
Very sadly many years ago a friend of a friend went to buy a Cerbera and crashed it into a tree killing himself on the way back from the dealers.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
it is almost impossible not to go up to 35mph on an empty Spaniard's Road, in Hampstead. Every Londoner with a car has done this
Any sensible Londoner would leave the car at home, and walk to the Spaniards Inn, instead. Ideally remaining there until closing time.
If only it were open.....
Which it will be soon. They have a lovely garden, one of the best pub gardens in the UK
Two others being those at the Phene and the Windsor Castle.
I'm no fan of this government (a gross understatement), but I don't share the doom and gloom of so many on here.
The government set out a roadmap with which most broadly agreed, in the context of a horrendous death and illness toll in January/February. It's now April. Yes, it was a cautious roadmap - understandable given the history of the virus and some uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccines. That uncertainty has diminished massively, but not completely. As far as I can tell, the government is sticking to the roadmap and restrictions will be eased next week, and more significantly on May 17th and then in June. If the government backtracks on the roadmap without good reason I'll join the complainants, but there's no sign of that yet.
Meanwhile, while the restrictions are a complete pain, they are increasingly less arduous, especially as people interpret them more sensibly. We've started having visitors to the house, because we know infections locally are now very low. The police have not knocked on our door, nor will they. I leave the house several times a day. Next Monday, my daughter has booked a table at a beachfront bar from 2pm - 8pm; we shall visit in shifts of six.
I just wonder if a bit of patience would be wise. We should man the barricades if/when it is clear that conspiracies about extending lockdown and enforcing ID cards are imminent, but not while they are still theoretical risks that I don't actually think will happen.
Yes, I'm broadly with you. I think the problem for me is that I don't trust the government, particularly given its predilection for following lumpen opinion over science and principle. Johnson want to be liked, and I don't think that's doing us any favours. If the road map is adhered to (inc international travel 17 May (in conjunction with traffic light system) ) then I'll heave a huge sigh of relief.
My view is almost the same but slightly nuanced re: Boris. I think Boris is a metro liberal at heart and his instincts are towards liberty. The same cannot be said, sadly, for many others in his party –the Patels and the rump Red Wallers, who love a bit of authoritarian lock'em and flog'em. The Tory version of the Sandy Rentool Tendency if you will.
I reflect northern working class opinion.
North London handwringers should take note.
By North London hand wringers, presumably you mean "people who live in north London (like Anabobazina) who have a different worldview to me?"
He does. And it includes me too. In spades it does. But Sandy is a Red Wall voice and we don't have that many.
Sure, I'm not calling for him to leave! I just find his lock'em and flog'em mentality abhorrent. It's not that rare: authoritarianism of one shade or another is the dominant credo on PB.
There are fewer authoritarians on PB than in the UK population and significantly more libertarians on here than in the UK population overall
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Oh no - you were a voice of calm - now you've caught this morning's grumpy bug too.
I'm not grumpy! Just a routine tumble with the indefatigable Philip Thompson construct. Blows the cobwebs away.
By saying I'm lying about not speeding with my kids in the car on the school run?
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
it is almost impossible not to go up to 35mph on an empty Spaniard's Road, in Hampstead. Every Londoner with a car has done this
Any sensible Londoner would leave the car at home, and walk to the Spaniards Inn, instead. Ideally remaining there until closing time.
If only it were open.....
Which it will be soon. They have a lovely garden, one of the best pub gardens in the UK
Absolutely, and it's huuuuge. See also The Edinboro' Castle in Camden Town and – for a country walk - The Owl in Epping Forest. The Owl is only doing walk-ins so those Saturday strolls are looking up... No faffing around with booking when you don't know when and where you'll be.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
In which case you believe it ok to risk other peoples' children then.
We all make our own decisions.
I wouldn't speed by a school, and I don't speed if its raining, but if I deem conditions are right I could do 80 to 90 on the motorway.
Everyone in the third lane does over 80 on a motorway. It's the ambient speed - custom and practice. Same goes with visiting grandparents as far as I'm concerned!
For those cars whose speedo in the third lane reads 80, they are probably doing about 72.
I go by the sat nav. In both my cars going along at 82/83 means 80 assuming sat nav is more correct than the speedo.
Yes, I found the same in both my previous Golf and current Corolla. At 80 I find that Google Maps says 75. Clearly there is a good margin for error in calibrating the speedo!
It’s illegal (MoT failure) for the speedo to read under the true speed, so the manufacturers allow a fair bit of margin of error. Modern digital displays are considerably more accurate than old analogue devices, as are GPS devices on phones - given a straight road and good signal. Police cars have calibrated speedos, that have to be tested periodically.
You may remember the Evul Lawyer who specialised in getting people off for speeding offences?
He was so disruptive that the police tried investigating *him*
His Evul Trick was to ask in court - "According to the manufacturer, your speed measuring device needs calibrating every x months. When was it last calibrated?"
The police hadn't bothered, for the most part, to re-calibrate since purchase....
My solicitor has got me off 3 out 6 speeding offences since we moved to the UK in 2016 including one that looked like certain jail. She has challenged calibration, training, record keeping, adherence to process, the medical fitness of the cops involved, the weather, etc.
I need to fess up.
I collected a brand new car on 1 March this year in Leicester. A few days later I had a speeding notification in the post - 36 in a 30. Bloody lockdown - nothing on the roads. I didn't see a speed camera.
Anyway, the camera that nicked me is on the very road that the garage is on. I reckon I did less than half a mile in my new car before getting done for speeding.
Is this a record?
Very sadly many years ago a friend of a friend went to buy a Cerbera and crashed it into a tree killing himself on the way back from the dealers.
Oh jeez that's terrible. Sorry.
I didn't know him but yes it was very sad. There is now a foundation in his name that makes charitable contributions to childrens' charities here and abroad.
I'm no fan of this government (a gross understatement), but I don't share the doom and gloom of so many on here.
The government set out a roadmap with which most broadly agreed, in the context of a horrendous death and illness toll in January/February. It's now April. Yes, it was a cautious roadmap - understandable given the history of the virus and some uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccines. That uncertainty has diminished massively, but not completely. As far as I can tell, the government is sticking to the roadmap and restrictions will be eased next week, and more significantly on May 17th and then in June. If the government backtracks on the roadmap without good reason I'll join the complainants, but there's no sign of that yet.
Meanwhile, while the restrictions are a complete pain, they are increasingly less arduous, especially as people interpret them more sensibly. We've started having visitors to the house, because we know infections locally are now very low. The police have not knocked on our door, nor will they. I leave the house several times a day. Next Monday, my daughter has booked a table at a beachfront bar from 2pm - 8pm; we shall visit in shifts of six.
I just wonder if a bit of patience would be wise. We should man the barricades if/when it is clear that conspiracies about extending lockdown and enforcing ID cards are imminent, but not while they are still theoretical risks that I don't actually think will happen.
Yes, I'm broadly with you. I think the problem for me is that I don't trust the government, particularly given its predilection for following lumpen opinion over science and principle. Johnson want to be liked, and I don't think that's doing us any favours. If the road map is adhered to (inc international travel 17 May (in conjunction with traffic light system) ) then I'll heave a huge sigh of relief.
My view is almost the same but slightly nuanced re: Boris. I think Boris is a metro liberal at heart and his instincts are towards liberty. The same cannot be said, sadly, for many others in his party –the Patels and the rump Red Wallers, who love a bit of authoritarian lock'em and flog'em. The Tory version of the Sandy Rentool Tendency if you will.
I reflect northern working class opinion.
North London handwringers should take note.
By North London hand wringers, presumably you mean "people who live in north London (like Anabobazina) who have a different worldview to me?"
He does. And it includes me too. In spades it does. But Sandy is a Red Wall voice and we don't have that many.
Sure, I'm not calling for him to leave! I just find his lock'em and flog'em mentality abhorrent. It's not that rare: authoritarianism of one shade or another is the dominant credo on PB.
There are fewer authoritarians on PB than in the UK population and significantly more libertarians on here than in the UK population overall
Well more libertarians than admit to it when asked polling questions, perhaps.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
it is almost impossible not to go up to 35mph on an empty Spaniard's Road, in Hampstead. Every Londoner with a car has done this
Any sensible Londoner would leave the car at home, and walk to the Spaniards Inn, instead. Ideally remaining there until closing time.
If only it were open.....
Which it will be soon. They have a lovely garden, one of the best pub gardens in the UK
Two others being those at the Phene and the Windsor Castle.
I am praying for decent weather. A few sessions in a sunny beer garden will do wonders for my mood. The tinkle of chinking wine glasses. Someone carrying a tray of pints to his friends. A dog snapping at a butterfly. Sunlight lancing through the barbecue smoke...
Right now in London it is 6C with a "real feel" of 2C. It is early January. It is not al fresco boozing weather
As I said your mail last night was powerful and typical of many on here - well done for coming out and saying it.
And all I can say is that I really do think we are coming to the end of this. Any post-June 21st restrictions will be self-implemented (eg. Nick Palmer need not go to the no vaxport pub and choose one where the landlord has decided to use them: eg none). Same with masks and social distancing.
With the bulk of at risk groups vaccinated we can begin to resume normality. And if the PM decides otherwise because caution then he will have an almighty fight on his hands with his own party and, god help us I hope, with the opposition.
Thanks, I appreciate your kind words.
Rationally I know you're probably right. I've got two parallel thought processes going on in my head - the rational one where I can look at the numbers and come to the same conclusions as you and the irrational one where I feel utterly powerless and threatened by every media pronouncement or model. I pride myself on being able to think rationally and logically (it's pretty important for my job), but this irrational worrying is another symptom of lockdown.
The worrying has proved time and time again to not be irrational.
I'd say this statement is flat out wrong. It's a rewrite of history unless you and I have been living through different pandemics. Again and again during this whole wretched episode the virus has been underestimated and that worry is the one which has consistently been proved right. The worry about the government imposing lockdowns too early or without justification has tended to be proved wrong. And the current outbreak of worry about the roadmap being reneged on, or vaccine passports coming in, or long term compulsory masks and distancing etc, all of that remains at this point just that - people worrying. I don't criticize people for this (unless they succumb to silly conspiracy theory type stuff about the Surveillance State, and even then only gently, since it can be healthy to worry about such things), but as of now the evidence is not imo there to justify it.
If the government were genuinely worried about a mutant strain of the virus impervious to existing vaccines, it would have taken effective action to limit who can enter the country and imposed strict and effective quarantine arrangements on those few let in.
It has done neither of these things and continues not to. Instead all of its efforts are focused on controlling what vaccinated people can do here. It is nonsense on stilts.
So either the government consists of utter morons. Or it has another agenda.
Or both.
Madcap conspirary theories abounded a year ago and I didn't believe a word they said. Now less sure because so far the hypothesis fits the observations ...
75-80 years on from unspeakable medical experiments and why are we vaccinating children with a product whose safety testing only ends in 2023 or -24? Healthy children don't die of this virus any more often than they die from lightning strikes.
Children are being submitted for experiments by parents who themselves are not well informed enough to know that the products are unlicensed. They have *emergency use authorisation* ... which they wouldn't have got without corruption at WHO and CDC level. See Dr Pierre Kory's testimony. One only has to look to find medics. speaking out and suggesting that some of their colleagues would do so but fear for their jobs.
The risks of hospitalisation and long covid especially are far far higher than of a lightning strike.
I can't easily find accurate numbers to completely answer this, but I think actually they are probably of a similar order of magnitude. Deaths in 5-10 year olds who have tested positive for Covid inside 28 days run at about 3 per million over the last year, google suggests lighting strikes run at about 2 per million PA, so it seems that Rural Voters claim "Healthy children don't die of this virus any more often than they die from lightning strikes." isn't actually that far off.
Where on earth did you get a figure of 2 per million per year?
I'm no fan of this government (a gross understatement), but I don't share the doom and gloom of so many on here.
The government set out a roadmap with which most broadly agreed, in the context of a horrendous death and illness toll in January/February. It's now April. Yes, it was a cautious roadmap - understandable given the history of the virus and some uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccines. That uncertainty has diminished massively, but not completely. As far as I can tell, the government is sticking to the roadmap and restrictions will be eased next week, and more significantly on May 17th and then in June. If the government backtracks on the roadmap without good reason I'll join the complainants, but there's no sign of that yet.
Meanwhile, while the restrictions are a complete pain, they are increasingly less arduous, especially as people interpret them more sensibly. We've started having visitors to the house, because we know infections locally are now very low. The police have not knocked on our door, nor will they. I leave the house several times a day. Next Monday, my daughter has booked a table at a beachfront bar from 2pm - 8pm; we shall visit in shifts of six.
I just wonder if a bit of patience would be wise. We should man the barricades if/when it is clear that conspiracies about extending lockdown and enforcing ID cards are imminent, but not while they are still theoretical risks that I don't actually think will happen.
Yes, I'm broadly with you. I think the problem for me is that I don't trust the government, particularly given its predilection for following lumpen opinion over science and principle. Johnson want to be liked, and I don't think that's doing us any favours. If the road map is adhered to (inc international travel 17 May (in conjunction with traffic light system) ) then I'll heave a huge sigh of relief.
My view is almost the same but slightly nuanced re: Boris. I think Boris is a metro liberal at heart and his instincts are towards liberty. The same cannot be said, sadly, for many others in his party –the Patels and the rump Red Wallers, who love a bit of authoritarian lock'em and flog'em. The Tory version of the Sandy Rentool Tendency if you will.
I reflect northern working class opinion.
North London handwringers should take note.
By North London hand wringers, presumably you mean "people who live in north London (like Anabobazina) who have a different worldview to me?"
He does. And it includes me too. In spades it does. But Sandy is a Red Wall voice and we don't have that many.
Sure, I'm not calling for him to leave! I just find his lock'em and flog'em mentality abhorrent. It's not that rare: authoritarianism of one shade or another is the dominant credo on PB.
There are fewer authoritarians on PB than in the UK population and significantly more libertarians on here than in the UK population overall
Well more libertarians than admit to it when asked polling questions, perhaps.
Libertarians tend to be significantly richer than average so have less need of public services but a greater aversion to paying more tax, have an active sex life and are more likely to take drugs than the general population.
We certainly have 1 or 2 examples of that category here
As I said your mail last night was powerful and typical of many on here - well done for coming out and saying it.
And all I can say is that I really do think we are coming to the end of this. Any post-June 21st restrictions will be self-implemented (eg. Nick Palmer need not go to the no vaxport pub and choose one where the landlord has decided to use them: eg none). Same with masks and social distancing.
With the bulk of at risk groups vaccinated we can begin to resume normality. And if the PM decides otherwise because caution then he will have an almighty fight on his hands with his own party and, god help us I hope, with the opposition.
Thanks, I appreciate your kind words.
Rationally I know you're probably right. I've got two parallel thought processes going on in my head - the rational one where I can look at the numbers and come to the same conclusions as you and the irrational one where I feel utterly powerless and threatened by every media pronouncement or model. I pride myself on being able to think rationally and logically (it's pretty important for my job), but this irrational worrying is another symptom of lockdown.
The worrying has proved time and time again to not be irrational.
I'd say this statement is flat out wrong. It's a rewrite of history unless you and I have been living through different pandemics. Again and again during this whole wretched episode the virus has been underestimated and that worry is the one which has consistently been proved right. The worry about the government imposing lockdowns too early or without justification has tended to be proved wrong. And the current outbreak of worry about the roadmap being reneged on, or vaccine passports coming in, or long term compulsory masks and distancing etc, all of that remains at this point just that - people worrying. I don't criticize people for this (unless they succumb to silly conspiracy theory type stuff about the Surveillance State, and even then only gently, since it can be healthy to worry about such things), but as of now the evidence is not imo there to justify it.
If the government were genuinely worried about a mutant strain of the virus impervious to existing vaccines, it would have taken effective action to limit who can enter the country and imposed strict and effective quarantine arrangements on those few let in.
It has done neither of these things and continues not to. Instead all of its efforts are focused on controlling what vaccinated people can do here. It is nonsense on stilts.
So either the government consists of utter morons. Or it has another agenda.
Or both.
Madcap conspirary theories abounded a year ago and I didn't believe a word they said. Now less sure because so far the hypothesis fits the observations ...
75-80 years on from unspeakable medical experiments and why are we vaccinating children with a product whose safety testing only ends in 2023 or -24? Healthy children don't die of this virus any more often than they die from lightning strikes.
Children are being submitted for experiments by parents who themselves are not well informed enough to know that the products are unlicensed. They have *emergency use authorisation* ... which they wouldn't have got without corruption at WHO and CDC level. See Dr Pierre Kory's testimony. One only has to look to find medics. speaking out and suggesting that some of their colleagues would do so but fear for their jobs.
The risks of hospitalisation and long covid especially are far far higher than of a lightning strike.
I can't easily find accurate numbers to completely answer this, but I think actually they are probably of a similar order of magnitude. Deaths in 5-10 year olds who have tested positive for Covid inside 28 days run at about 3 per million over the last year, google suggests lighting strikes run at about 2 per million PA, so it seems that Rural Voters claim "Healthy children don't die of this virus any more often than they die from lightning strikes." isn't actually that far off.
Where on earth did you get a figure of 2 per million per year?
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
it is almost impossible not to go up to 35mph on an empty Spaniard's Road, in Hampstead. Every Londoner with a car has done this
Any sensible Londoner would leave the car at home, and walk to the Spaniards Inn, instead. Ideally remaining there until closing time.
If only it were open.....
Which it will be soon. They have a lovely garden, one of the best pub gardens in the UK
Absolutely, and it's huuuuge. See also The Edinboro' Castle in Camden Town and – for a country walk - The Owl in Epping Forest. The Owl is only doing walk-ins so those Saturday strolls are looking up... No faffing around with booking when you don't know when and where you'll be.
The Edinboro is literally my local. Great boozer if it's sunny
Some pubs are doing walk-ins?! Fantastic. I presumed it would all be wanky booking systems, I hate them. It ruins the point of a pub, which is the spontaneity. Thanks for the info!
NHS England recording 42 deaths today. Which is up on last Wednesday's 31, but given that we've just caught up on a four day weekend, not up as much as I thought. We were talking, this time last week, about today being the last day of three-figure deaths. From this start I don't think it'll get near that.
I'm no fan of this government (a gross understatement), but I don't share the doom and gloom of so many on here.
The government set out a roadmap with which most broadly agreed, in the context of a horrendous death and illness toll in January/February. It's now April. Yes, it was a cautious roadmap - understandable given the history of the virus and some uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccines. That uncertainty has diminished massively, but not completely. As far as I can tell, the government is sticking to the roadmap and restrictions will be eased next week, and more significantly on May 17th and then in June. If the government backtracks on the roadmap without good reason I'll join the complainants, but there's no sign of that yet.
Meanwhile, while the restrictions are a complete pain, they are increasingly less arduous, especially as people interpret them more sensibly. We've started having visitors to the house, because we know infections locally are now very low. The police have not knocked on our door, nor will they. I leave the house several times a day. Next Monday, my daughter has booked a table at a beachfront bar from 2pm - 8pm; we shall visit in shifts of six.
I just wonder if a bit of patience would be wise. We should man the barricades if/when it is clear that conspiracies about extending lockdown and enforcing ID cards are imminent, but not while they are still theoretical risks that I don't actually think will happen.
Yes, I'm broadly with you. I think the problem for me is that I don't trust the government, particularly given its predilection for following lumpen opinion over science and principle. Johnson want to be liked, and I don't think that's doing us any favours. If the road map is adhered to (inc international travel 17 May (in conjunction with traffic light system) ) then I'll heave a huge sigh of relief.
My view is almost the same but slightly nuanced re: Boris. I think Boris is a metro liberal at heart and his instincts are towards liberty. The same cannot be said, sadly, for many others in his party –the Patels and the rump Red Wallers, who love a bit of authoritarian lock'em and flog'em. The Tory version of the Sandy Rentool Tendency if you will.
I reflect northern working class opinion.
North London handwringers should take note.
By North London hand wringers, presumably you mean "people who live in north London (like Anabobazina) who have a different worldview to me?"
He does. And it includes me too. In spades it does. But Sandy is a Red Wall voice and we don't have that many.
Sure, I'm not calling for him to leave! I just find his lock'em and flog'em mentality abhorrent. It's not that rare: authoritarianism of one shade or another is the dominant credo on PB.
There are fewer authoritarians on PB than in the UK population and significantly more libertarians on here than in the UK population overall
Well more libertarians than admit to it when asked polling questions, perhaps.
Libertarians tend to be significantly richer than average so have less need of public services but a greater aversion to paying more tax, have an active sex life and are more likely to take drugs than the general population.
We certainly have 1 or 2 examples of that category here
I'm no fan of this government (a gross understatement), but I don't share the doom and gloom of so many on here.
The government set out a roadmap with which most broadly agreed, in the context of a horrendous death and illness toll in January/February. It's now April. Yes, it was a cautious roadmap - understandable given the history of the virus and some uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccines. That uncertainty has diminished massively, but not completely. As far as I can tell, the government is sticking to the roadmap and restrictions will be eased next week, and more significantly on May 17th and then in June. If the government backtracks on the roadmap without good reason I'll join the complainants, but there's no sign of that yet.
Meanwhile, while the restrictions are a complete pain, they are increasingly less arduous, especially as people interpret them more sensibly. We've started having visitors to the house, because we know infections locally are now very low. The police have not knocked on our door, nor will they. I leave the house several times a day. Next Monday, my daughter has booked a table at a beachfront bar from 2pm - 8pm; we shall visit in shifts of six.
I just wonder if a bit of patience would be wise. We should man the barricades if/when it is clear that conspiracies about extending lockdown and enforcing ID cards are imminent, but not while they are still theoretical risks that I don't actually think will happen.
Yes, I'm broadly with you. I think the problem for me is that I don't trust the government, particularly given its predilection for following lumpen opinion over science and principle. Johnson want to be liked, and I don't think that's doing us any favours. If the road map is adhered to (inc international travel 17 May (in conjunction with traffic light system) ) then I'll heave a huge sigh of relief.
My view is almost the same but slightly nuanced re: Boris. I think Boris is a metro liberal at heart and his instincts are towards liberty. The same cannot be said, sadly, for many others in his party –the Patels and the rump Red Wallers, who love a bit of authoritarian lock'em and flog'em. The Tory version of the Sandy Rentool Tendency if you will.
I reflect northern working class opinion.
North London handwringers should take note.
By North London hand wringers, presumably you mean "people who live in north London (like Anabobazina) who have a different worldview to me?"
He does. And it includes me too. In spades it does. But Sandy is a Red Wall voice and we don't have that many.
Sure, I'm not calling for him to leave! I just find his lock'em and flog'em mentality abhorrent. It's not that rare: authoritarianism of one shade or another is the dominant credo on PB.
There are fewer authoritarians on PB than in the UK population and significantly more libertarians on here than in the UK population overall
Well more libertarians than admit to it when asked polling questions, perhaps.
Libertarians tend to be significantly richer than average so have less need of public services but a greater aversion to paying more tax, have an active sex life and are more likely to take drugs than the general population.
We certainly have 1 or 2 examples of that category here
Shit. Is that right? I want to be a libertarian.
I tried to be one, but the libertarians wouldn’t let me.
I'm no fan of this government (a gross understatement), but I don't share the doom and gloom of so many on here.
The government set out a roadmap with which most broadly agreed, in the context of a horrendous death and illness toll in January/February. It's now April. Yes, it was a cautious roadmap - understandable given the history of the virus and some uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccines. That uncertainty has diminished massively, but not completely. As far as I can tell, the government is sticking to the roadmap and restrictions will be eased next week, and more significantly on May 17th and then in June. If the government backtracks on the roadmap without good reason I'll join the complainants, but there's no sign of that yet.
Meanwhile, while the restrictions are a complete pain, they are increasingly less arduous, especially as people interpret them more sensibly. We've started having visitors to the house, because we know infections locally are now very low. The police have not knocked on our door, nor will they. I leave the house several times a day. Next Monday, my daughter has booked a table at a beachfront bar from 2pm - 8pm; we shall visit in shifts of six.
I just wonder if a bit of patience would be wise. We should man the barricades if/when it is clear that conspiracies about extending lockdown and enforcing ID cards are imminent, but not while they are still theoretical risks that I don't actually think will happen.
Yes, I'm broadly with you. I think the problem for me is that I don't trust the government, particularly given its predilection for following lumpen opinion over science and principle. Johnson want to be liked, and I don't think that's doing us any favours. If the road map is adhered to (inc international travel 17 May (in conjunction with traffic light system) ) then I'll heave a huge sigh of relief.
My view is almost the same but slightly nuanced re: Boris. I think Boris is a metro liberal at heart and his instincts are towards liberty. The same cannot be said, sadly, for many others in his party –the Patels and the rump Red Wallers, who love a bit of authoritarian lock'em and flog'em. The Tory version of the Sandy Rentool Tendency if you will.
I reflect northern working class opinion.
North London handwringers should take note.
By North London hand wringers, presumably you mean "people who live in north London (like Anabobazina) who have a different worldview to me?"
He does. And it includes me too. In spades it does. But Sandy is a Red Wall voice and we don't have that many.
Sure, I'm not calling for him to leave! I just find his lock'em and flog'em mentality abhorrent. It's not that rare: authoritarianism of one shade or another is the dominant credo on PB.
There are fewer authoritarians on PB than in the UK population and significantly more libertarians on here than in the UK population overall
Well more libertarians than admit to it when asked polling questions, perhaps.
Libertarians tend to be significantly richer than average so have less need of public services but a greater aversion to paying more tax, have an active sex life and are more likely to take drugs than the general population.
We certainly have 1 or 2 examples of that category here
Shit. Is that right? I want to be a libertarian.
I tried to be one, but the libertarians wouldn’t let me.
I'm no fan of this government (a gross understatement), but I don't share the doom and gloom of so many on here.
The government set out a roadmap with which most broadly agreed, in the context of a horrendous death and illness toll in January/February. It's now April. Yes, it was a cautious roadmap - understandable given the history of the virus and some uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccines. That uncertainty has diminished massively, but not completely. As far as I can tell, the government is sticking to the roadmap and restrictions will be eased next week, and more significantly on May 17th and then in June. If the government backtracks on the roadmap without good reason I'll join the complainants, but there's no sign of that yet.
Meanwhile, while the restrictions are a complete pain, they are increasingly less arduous, especially as people interpret them more sensibly. We've started having visitors to the house, because we know infections locally are now very low. The police have not knocked on our door, nor will they. I leave the house several times a day. Next Monday, my daughter has booked a table at a beachfront bar from 2pm - 8pm; we shall visit in shifts of six.
I just wonder if a bit of patience would be wise. We should man the barricades if/when it is clear that conspiracies about extending lockdown and enforcing ID cards are imminent, but not while they are still theoretical risks that I don't actually think will happen.
Yes, I'm broadly with you. I think the problem for me is that I don't trust the government, particularly given its predilection for following lumpen opinion over science and principle. Johnson want to be liked, and I don't think that's doing us any favours. If the road map is adhered to (inc international travel 17 May (in conjunction with traffic light system) ) then I'll heave a huge sigh of relief.
My view is almost the same but slightly nuanced re: Boris. I think Boris is a metro liberal at heart and his instincts are towards liberty. The same cannot be said, sadly, for many others in his party –the Patels and the rump Red Wallers, who love a bit of authoritarian lock'em and flog'em. The Tory version of the Sandy Rentool Tendency if you will.
I reflect northern working class opinion.
North London handwringers should take note.
By North London hand wringers, presumably you mean "people who live in north London (like Anabobazina) who have a different worldview to me?"
He does. And it includes me too. In spades it does. But Sandy is a Red Wall voice and we don't have that many.
Sure, I'm not calling for him to leave! I just find his lock'em and flog'em mentality abhorrent. It's not that rare: authoritarianism of one shade or another is the dominant credo on PB.
But the Libertines are in the box seat right now.
Me, I'm triangulated. Can be painful but I think it's the right place to be on this atm.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
In which case you believe it ok to risk other peoples' children then.
We all make our own decisions.
I wouldn't speed by a school, and I don't speed if its raining, but if I deem conditions are right I could do 80 to 90 on the motorway.
Everyone in the third lane does over 80 on a motorway. It's the ambient speed - custom and practice. Same goes with visiting grandparents as far as I'm concerned!
For those cars whose speedo in the third lane reads 80, they are probably doing about 72.
I go by the sat nav. In both my cars going along at 82/83 means 80 assuming sat nav is more correct than the speedo.
Yes, I found the same in both my previous Golf and current Corolla. At 80 I find that Google Maps says 75. Clearly there is a good margin for error in calibrating the speedo!
It’s illegal (MoT failure) for the speedo to read under the true speed, so the manufacturers allow a fair bit of margin of error. Modern digital displays are considerably more accurate than old analogue devices, as are GPS devices on phones - given a straight road and good signal. Police cars have calibrated speedos, that have to be tested periodically.
You may remember the Evul Lawyer who specialised in getting people off for speeding offences?
He was so disruptive that the police tried investigating *him*
His Evul Trick was to ask in court - "According to the manufacturer, your speed measuring device needs calibrating every x months. When was it last calibrated?"
The police hadn't bothered, for the most part, to re-calibrate since purchase....
My solicitor has got me off 3 out 6 speeding offences since we moved to the UK in 2016 including one that looked like certain jail. She has challenged calibration, training, record keeping, adherence to process, the medical fitness of the cops involved, the weather, etc.
I need to fess up.
I collected a brand new car on 1 March this year in Leicester. A few days later I had a speeding notification in the post - 36 in a 30. Bloody lockdown - nothing on the roads. I didn't see a speed camera.
Anyway, the camera that nicked me is on the very road that the garage is on. I reckon I did less than half a mile in my new car before getting done for speeding.
Is this a record?
Very sadly many years ago a friend of a friend went to buy a Cerbera and crashed it into a tree killing himself on the way back from the dealers.
I'm no fan of this government (a gross understatement), but I don't share the doom and gloom of so many on here.
The government set out a roadmap with which most broadly agreed, in the context of a horrendous death and illness toll in January/February. It's now April. Yes, it was a cautious roadmap - understandable given the history of the virus and some uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccines. That uncertainty has diminished massively, but not completely. As far as I can tell, the government is sticking to the roadmap and restrictions will be eased next week, and more significantly on May 17th and then in June. If the government backtracks on the roadmap without good reason I'll join the complainants, but there's no sign of that yet.
Meanwhile, while the restrictions are a complete pain, they are increasingly less arduous, especially as people interpret them more sensibly. We've started having visitors to the house, because we know infections locally are now very low. The police have not knocked on our door, nor will they. I leave the house several times a day. Next Monday, my daughter has booked a table at a beachfront bar from 2pm - 8pm; we shall visit in shifts of six.
I just wonder if a bit of patience would be wise. We should man the barricades if/when it is clear that conspiracies about extending lockdown and enforcing ID cards are imminent, but not while they are still theoretical risks that I don't actually think will happen.
Yes, I'm broadly with you. I think the problem for me is that I don't trust the government, particularly given its predilection for following lumpen opinion over science and principle. Johnson want to be liked, and I don't think that's doing us any favours. If the road map is adhered to (inc international travel 17 May (in conjunction with traffic light system) ) then I'll heave a huge sigh of relief.
My view is almost the same but slightly nuanced re: Boris. I think Boris is a metro liberal at heart and his instincts are towards liberty. The same cannot be said, sadly, for many others in his party –the Patels and the rump Red Wallers, who love a bit of authoritarian lock'em and flog'em. The Tory version of the Sandy Rentool Tendency if you will.
I reflect northern working class opinion.
North London handwringers should take note.
By North London hand wringers, presumably you mean "people who live in north London (like Anabobazina) who have a different worldview to me?"
He does. And it includes me too. In spades it does. But Sandy is a Red Wall voice and we don't have that many.
Sure, I'm not calling for him to leave! I just find his lock'em and flog'em mentality abhorrent. It's not that rare: authoritarianism of one shade or another is the dominant credo on PB.
But the Libertines are in the box seat right now.
Me, I'm triangulated. Can be painful but I think it's the right place to be on this atm.
I think you are more on the liberty side than you care to admit: care homes, travel, rule infractions, I.D. cards and the like.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
In which case you believe it ok to risk other peoples' children then.
We all make our own decisions.
I wouldn't speed by a school, and I don't speed if its raining, but if I deem conditions are right I could do 80 to 90 on the motorway.
Everyone in the third lane does over 80 on a motorway. It's the ambient speed - custom and practice. Same goes with visiting grandparents as far as I'm concerned!
For those cars whose speedo in the third lane reads 80, they are probably doing about 72.
I go by the sat nav. In both my cars going along at 82/83 means 80 assuming sat nav is more correct than the speedo.
Yes, I found the same in both my previous Golf and current Corolla. At 80 I find that Google Maps says 75. Clearly there is a good margin for error in calibrating the speedo!
It’s illegal (MoT failure) for the speedo to read under the true speed, so the manufacturers allow a fair bit of margin of error. Modern digital displays are considerably more accurate than old analogue devices, as are GPS devices on phones - given a straight road and good signal. Police cars have calibrated speedos, that have to be tested periodically.
You may remember the Evul Lawyer who specialised in getting people off for speeding offences?
He was so disruptive that the police tried investigating *him*
His Evul Trick was to ask in court - "According to the manufacturer, your speed measuring device needs calibrating every x months. When was it last calibrated?"
The police hadn't bothered, for the most part, to re-calibrate since purchase....
My solicitor has got me off 3 out 6 speeding offences since we moved to the UK in 2016 including one that looked like certain jail. She has challenged calibration, training, record keeping, adherence to process, the medical fitness of the cops involved, the weather, etc.
I need to fess up.
I collected a brand new car on 1 March this year in Leicester. A few days later I had a speeding notification in the post - 36 in a 30. Bloody lockdown - nothing on the roads. I didn't see a speed camera.
Anyway, the camera that nicked me is on the very road that the garage is on. I reckon I did less than half a mile in my new car before getting done for speeding.
Is this a record?
Very sadly many years ago a friend of a friend went to buy a Cerbera and crashed it into a tree killing himself on the way back from the dealers.
At least he never got to see it rust.
I had a Chimaera. Actually not as unreliable as people said. I flogged it well before any problems manifested.
Edit: and weren't they all fibreglass or do other bits rust?
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
it is almost impossible not to go up to 35mph on an empty Spaniard's Road, in Hampstead. Every Londoner with a car has done this
The hardest limit is 20mph. Practically impossible to stick to.
In California they have an urban 25mph limit, which is much more sensible.
As I said your mail last night was powerful and typical of many on here - well done for coming out and saying it.
And all I can say is that I really do think we are coming to the end of this. Any post-June 21st restrictions will be self-implemented (eg. Nick Palmer need not go to the no vaxport pub and choose one where the landlord has decided to use them: eg none). Same with masks and social distancing.
With the bulk of at risk groups vaccinated we can begin to resume normality. And if the PM decides otherwise because caution then he will have an almighty fight on his hands with his own party and, god help us I hope, with the opposition.
Thanks, I appreciate your kind words.
Rationally I know you're probably right. I've got two parallel thought processes going on in my head - the rational one where I can look at the numbers and come to the same conclusions as you and the irrational one where I feel utterly powerless and threatened by every media pronouncement or model. I pride myself on being able to think rationally and logically (it's pretty important for my job), but this irrational worrying is another symptom of lockdown.
The worrying has proved time and time again to not be irrational.
I'd say this statement is flat out wrong. It's a rewrite of history unless you and I have been living through different pandemics. Again and again during this whole wretched episode the virus has been underestimated and that worry is the one which has consistently been proved right. The worry about the government imposing lockdowns too early or without justification has tended to be proved wrong. And the current outbreak of worry about the roadmap being reneged on, or vaccine passports coming in, or long term compulsory masks and distancing etc, all of that remains at this point just that - people worrying. I don't criticize people for this (unless they succumb to silly conspiracy theory type stuff about the Surveillance State, and even then only gently, since it can be healthy to worry about such things), but as of now the evidence is not imo there to justify it.
If the government were genuinely worried about a mutant strain of the virus impervious to existing vaccines, it would have taken effective action to limit who can enter the country and imposed strict and effective quarantine arrangements on those few let in.
It has done neither of these things and continues not to. Instead all of its efforts are focused on controlling what vaccinated people can do here. It is nonsense on stilts.
So either the government consists of utter morons. Or it has another agenda.
Or both.
Madcap conspirary theories abounded a year ago and I didn't believe a word they said. Now less sure because so far the hypothesis fits the observations ...
75-80 years on from unspeakable medical experiments and why are we vaccinating children with a product whose safety testing only ends in 2023 or -24? Healthy children don't die of this virus any more often than they die from lightning strikes.
Children are being submitted for experiments by parents who themselves are not well informed enough to know that the products are unlicensed. They have *emergency use authorisation* ... which they wouldn't have got without corruption at WHO and CDC level. See Dr Pierre Kory's testimony. One only has to look to find medics. speaking out and suggesting that some of their colleagues would do so but fear for their jobs.
The risks of hospitalisation and long covid especially are far far higher than of a lightning strike.
I can't easily find accurate numbers to completely answer this, but I think actually they are probably of a similar order of magnitude. Deaths in 5-10 year olds who have tested positive for Covid inside 28 days run at about 3 per million over the last year, google suggests lighting strikes run at about 2 per million PA, so it seems that Rural Voters claim "Healthy children don't die of this virus any more often than they die from lightning strikes." isn't actually that far off.
Where on earth did you get a figure of 2 per million per year?
58 people died in the UK by lightning strikes in the 30 years 1987-2016.
rural_voter was, as always, full of it.
--AS
World-wide figure? Even then, seems high!
The risk in the attached paper was 1 per 71 million per year over the last decade in the UK. Compare with the quoted 3 per million would be 213 per 71 million, so out by a factor of over 200. (Assuming that 3 per million is accurate - and surely ages 12-17 would be better to compare with as those are the first list of potential under-18 vaccinees? Those run at 30 per million, I believe, so over 2000 per 71 million and more than three orders of magnitude out)
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
it is almost impossible not to go up to 35mph on an empty Spaniard's Road, in Hampstead. Every Londoner with a car has done this
Any sensible Londoner would leave the car at home, and walk to the Spaniards Inn, instead. Ideally remaining there until closing time.
If only it were open.....
Which it will be soon. They have a lovely garden, one of the best pub gardens in the UK
Two others being those at the Phene and the Windsor Castle.
I am praying for decent weather. A few sessions in a sunny beer garden will do wonders for my mood. The tinkle of chinking wine glasses. Someone carrying a tray of pints to his friends. A dog snapping at a butterfly. Sunlight lancing through the barbecue smoke...
Right now in London it is 6C with a "real feel" of 2C. It is early January. It is not al fresco boozing weather
It does look like it will warm up a notch in time for reopening next week. Not warm, but will feel pleasant in the sunshine in in sheltered gardens.
NHS England recording 42 deaths today. Which is up on last Wednesday's 31, but given that we've just caught up on a four day weekend, not up as much as I thought. We were talking, this time last week, about today being the last day of three-figure deaths. From this start I don't think it'll get near that.
It will be interesting to see how this fills in....
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
In which case you believe it ok to risk other peoples' children then.
We all make our own decisions.
I wouldn't speed by a school, and I don't speed if its raining, but if I deem conditions are right I could do 80 to 90 on the motorway.
Everyone in the third lane does over 80 on a motorway. It's the ambient speed - custom and practice. Same goes with visiting grandparents as far as I'm concerned!
For those cars whose speedo in the third lane reads 80, they are probably doing about 72.
I go by the sat nav. In both my cars going along at 82/83 means 80 assuming sat nav is more correct than the speedo.
Yes, I found the same in both my previous Golf and current Corolla. At 80 I find that Google Maps says 75. Clearly there is a good margin for error in calibrating the speedo!
It’s illegal (MoT failure) for the speedo to read under the true speed, so the manufacturers allow a fair bit of margin of error. Modern digital displays are considerably more accurate than old analogue devices, as are GPS devices on phones - given a straight road and good signal. Police cars have calibrated speedos, that have to be tested periodically.
You may remember the Evul Lawyer who specialised in getting people off for speeding offences?
He was so disruptive that the police tried investigating *him*
His Evul Trick was to ask in court - "According to the manufacturer, your speed measuring device needs calibrating every x months. When was it last calibrated?"
The police hadn't bothered, for the most part, to re-calibrate since purchase....
My solicitor has got me off 3 out 6 speeding offences since we moved to the UK in 2016 including one that looked like certain jail. She has challenged calibration, training, record keeping, adherence to process, the medical fitness of the cops involved, the weather, etc.
I need to fess up.
I collected a brand new car on 1 March this year in Leicester. A few days later I had a speeding notification in the post - 36 in a 30. Bloody lockdown - nothing on the roads. I didn't see a speed camera.
Anyway, the camera that nicked me is on the very road that the garage is on. I reckon I did less than half a mile in my new car before getting done for speeding.
Is this a record?
Very sadly many years ago a friend of a friend went to buy a Cerbera and crashed it into a tree killing himself on the way back from the dealers.
At least he never got to see it rust.
I had a Chimaera. Actually not as unreliable as people said. I flogged it well before any problems manifested.
Edit: and weren't they all fibreglass or do other bits rust?
The chassis is badly powdercoated steel which you can watch rust in real time. Is the Chimaera the one where you have to take a front wheel off to get at the battery?
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Bad example. Do you drive? I would think nothing of driving at 80-90 and higher on the motorway. I would definitely not speed in an urban area, by a school or not. There's a big difference.
It was a good example. Yours is too. 85 on a motorway. We almost all do that sometimes. We almost all do 35 in a 30 sometimes too. How do I know this? Because I do and so does everybody I know. It's how it is. Hardly anybody religiously complies with all laws all of the time, but from this it does not follow that all such laws should be scrapped. This is the point I seek to make. Have in fact now made.
Everybody you know speeds in urban environments? Is this some of that @ydoethur every teacher is planning on leaving the profession in the next two years PB hyperbole?
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
Plenty of 30s are dual carriageways. Everyone speeds on those.
Not in Nottingham, unless you know where the average speed cameras aren't.
As I said your mail last night was powerful and typical of many on here - well done for coming out and saying it.
And all I can say is that I really do think we are coming to the end of this. Any post-June 21st restrictions will be self-implemented (eg. Nick Palmer need not go to the no vaxport pub and choose one where the landlord has decided to use them: eg none). Same with masks and social distancing.
With the bulk of at risk groups vaccinated we can begin to resume normality. And if the PM decides otherwise because caution then he will have an almighty fight on his hands with his own party and, god help us I hope, with the opposition.
Thanks, I appreciate your kind words.
Rationally I know you're probably right. I've got two parallel thought processes going on in my head - the rational one where I can look at the numbers and come to the same conclusions as you and the irrational one where I feel utterly powerless and threatened by every media pronouncement or model. I pride myself on being able to think rationally and logically (it's pretty important for my job), but this irrational worrying is another symptom of lockdown.
The worrying has proved time and time again to not be irrational.
I'd say this statement is flat out wrong. It's a rewrite of history unless you and I have been living through different pandemics. Again and again during this whole wretched episode the virus has been underestimated and that worry is the one which has consistently been proved right. The worry about the government imposing lockdowns too early or without justification has tended to be proved wrong. And the current outbreak of worry about the roadmap being reneged on, or vaccine passports coming in, or long term compulsory masks and distancing etc, all of that remains at this point just that - people worrying. I don't criticize people for this (unless they succumb to silly conspiracy theory type stuff about the Surveillance State, and even then only gently, since it can be healthy to worry about such things), but as of now the evidence is not imo there to justify it.
If the government were genuinely worried about a mutant strain of the virus impervious to existing vaccines, it would have taken effective action to limit who can enter the country and imposed strict and effective quarantine arrangements on those few let in.
It has done neither of these things and continues not to. Instead all of its efforts are focused on controlling what vaccinated people can do here. It is nonsense on stilts.
So either the government consists of utter morons. Or it has another agenda.
Or both.
Madcap conspirary theories abounded a year ago and I didn't believe a word they said. Now less sure because so far the hypothesis fits the observations ...
75-80 years on from unspeakable medical experiments and why are we vaccinating children with a product whose safety testing only ends in 2023 or -24? Healthy children don't die of this virus any more often than they die from lightning strikes.
Children are being submitted for experiments by parents who themselves are not well informed enough to know that the products are unlicensed. They have *emergency use authorisation* ... which they wouldn't have got without corruption at WHO and CDC level. See Dr Pierre Kory's testimony. One only has to look to find medics. speaking out and suggesting that some of their colleagues would do so but fear for their jobs.
The risks of hospitalisation and long covid especially are far far higher than of a lightning strike.
I can't easily find accurate numbers to completely answer this, but I think actually they are probably of a similar order of magnitude. Deaths in 5-10 year olds who have tested positive for Covid inside 28 days run at about 3 per million over the last year, google suggests lighting strikes run at about 2 per million PA, so it seems that Rural Voters claim "Healthy children don't die of this virus any more often than they die from lightning strikes." isn't actually that far off.
There was a lightning strike death in one of the US vaccine clinical trials.
NHS England recording 42 deaths today. Which is up on last Wednesday's 31, but given that we've just caught up on a four day weekend, not up as much as I thought. We were talking, this time last week, about today being the last day of three-figure deaths. From this start I don't think it'll get near that.
It will be interesting to see how this fills in....
Looks like we're starting to approach died "with covid" rather than "from covid".
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Oh no - you were a voice of calm - now you've caught this morning's grumpy bug too.
I'm not grumpy! Just a routine tumble with the indefatigable Philip Thompson construct. Blows the cobwebs away.
By saying I'm lying about not speeding with my kids in the car on the school run?
You think that's routine? You're rather sick.
I commute by bicycle in London and have a pretty good idea of how fast people are going, not least because my life depends on it, and speeding is *very* common on residential roads. I agree it's sick and certainly stick to the speed limit when I'm driving, but it's not at all unusual.
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Oh no - you were a voice of calm - now you've caught this morning's grumpy bug too.
I'm not grumpy! Just a routine tumble with the indefatigable Philip Thompson construct. Blows the cobwebs away.
By saying I'm lying about not speeding with my kids in the car on the school run?
You think that's routine? You're rather sick.
I commute by bicycle in London and have a pretty good idea of how fast people are going, not least because my life depends on it, and speeding is *very* common on residential roads. I agree it's sick and certainly stick to the speed limit when I'm driving, but it's not at all unusual.
It may be common in London, I don't know about there, but the idea that everyone everywhere in the country speeds in residential roads by schools? The idea that anyone who says they don't must be lying?
If you take that, plus bend a few (unpoliced) rules on meeting and mixing, are you not getting close to normality?
No.
I don't want to go to an outdoor pub. I want to visit my grandparents and they aren't healthy enough to be spending time outdoors in the cold. They've had both vaccines but it will still be illegal to visit them in their living room before 17 May. 😠
I did say "bend a few (unpoliced) rules".
Visiting others indoors isn't "bending the rules" it is "breaking the law".
If the only solution is to break the law, then the law is an ass.
You wouldn't break the speed limits to avoid being late for something important?
On my own? Yes.
With my wife and children in the car? No.
Having set off a bit late you wouldn't drive 35 in a 30 so as to drop your kids to school on time?
Utter sanctimonious bullshit.
Others might but I hardly believe a word you write about your private life. It's all transparent virtue-signalling.
Sorry, Philip, but that's my take. You carry on though. It's all part of PB's rich mosaic.
Oh no - you were a voice of calm - now you've caught this morning's grumpy bug too.
I'm not grumpy! Just a routine tumble with the indefatigable Philip Thompson construct. Blows the cobwebs away.
By saying I'm lying about not speeding with my kids in the car on the school run?
You think that's routine? You're rather sick.
Philip, settle down.
This started with me asking if you'd speed (anywhere) to avoid being late for something important. And you said you would but not if your family was in the car. Rewind and close. That was all I needed for the point I was making.
As for your using (imo dubious and virtue-signalling) stuff from your private life, that's an acquired taste and I haven't acquired it.
I find it a bit "pass the sick bucket". For example, when at the same time as accusing me of being an antisemite you said you could never be that because your "friend growing up" had a grandmother in Auschwitz.
I just did not like that as an argument technique, true or not.
To illustrate, when the topic is anti black racism, I never choose to mention that one of MY friends growing up was not only black but his great great grandfather was the actual Kunta Kinte.
Reason I don't bring that into the debate? It just feels wrong to do so.
But no biggie. We all write what we want on here and we're all different. That's its charm.
Since other people have been sharing what is worrying them, I hope people don't mind if I do the same.
I haven't seen my grandparents in a year and I'm absolutely terrified that I might not ever see them again. I'm lucky enough to still have all my grandparents, my wife has lost all of hers, so I know full well that old people don't live forever. They've been vaccinated but its still illegal to see them until May - there's no guarantee they'll make it until May, I don't want to say it but something could happen at any time and it scares me. I haven't seen any of them since last February and in last couple of decades since returning to live in the UK I'd never gone more than a few weeks without visitng them.
But we won't go to visit them until its legal, my wife won't let me for the same reason that she wouldn't have any drinks at all while pregnant - not expecting anything to go wrong if being sensible, but couldn't live with ourselves if something did and we'd broken the rules/guidance even if it was coincidental. But still . . . its heartbreaking to not know them and to not know if we ever will again, and to lose valuable time of my kids getting to know their great grandparents while they're still with us.
Banning families by law from meeting up indoors while there's no excess deaths is absolutely inhumane and its making me quite emotional sorry. I can't support this, its wrong, wrong, wrong.
But I don't know what to do, this is never something we should have ever had to face.
Necessary visits to people in need has always been allowed AFAIK. And who cares if it isn't. I'd go and I think your wife is wrong.
Philip, the whole bloody country was breaking the law this weekend, me included. No need to be a martyr.
Not up to him, if his wife isn't comfortable breaking the rules.
It’s a sign of how warped our society has become in just one year that you can say this.
The decision rests with Philip and his grandparents, no one else.
It’s a rare man who will ignore his wife’s heartfelt objections!
@Philip_Thompson, can you not arrange to procure a couple of testing kits? Use one on yourself before going (and go straight there without even a stop for petrol etc.) and use one after leaving before seeing your wife again. You haven't entirely eliminated the risk, but if you and your grandparents (and hopefully your other half) all think you've minimised it to a very small degree, a degree whereby taking in their post or their shopping presents a much greater risk to them than taking in you, then go for it.
Comments
That's why, by the way.
I'm assuming the same behaviour is at play as when people claim to support higher taxes i.e. for everyone richer than me.
At least I hope that's what's going on otherwise I despair for my fellow countrymen (and women).
It would be a disaster for Nattery, which is why Sturgeon refuses to do it. Salmond, being an older man in a hurry, might try and force her into it, but he needs lots of MSPs to do that, and initial polls are unpromising for him
IMO, it's an absolutely brilliant technology far more suited to infection control than is laboratory PCR.
And in real world use PCR is not only much slower and more expensive, but also less accurate, since very, very few of the approx 30% who are infected but asymptomatic just won't get tested at all.
Really?
In a world where prostate cancer screening is "unthinkable"?
Ha ha ha
Something a bit weird going on.
He was so disruptive that the police tried investigating *him*
His Evul Trick was to ask in court - "According to the manufacturer, your speed measuring device needs calibrating every x months. When was it last calibrated?"
The police hadn't bothered, for the most part, to re-calibrate since purchase....
???
Busted again, aren't you? Wriggling around on a petard of your own construction. Again.
The MHRA is going to hold a briefing at 3pm, it has been confirmed. It will be a joint affair with the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. We’re expecting that they will provide an update on guidance for the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the light of concerns about its possible link to a form of extremely rare blood clot in the brain.
16k in Wales? Suggests about 350,000 for the UK. Much better
It isn't even possible to speed on the school run typically, since the roads are so congested with traffic at that time. But its bloody stupid to do so.
85 on the motorway I said I'm comfortable doing. But on residential roads with children walking, on the school run like you said? No, absolutely not.
Khan losing is highly unlikely, but not as unlikely as Trump clinging on or Rose winning the mayoralty.
Aside from the fact that you must have some scintillating dinner parties to discuss speeding in built-up zones, I really don't think that too many people do speed in such places. Dual carriageways, motorways, country roads all yes. In town in 30mph zones? Nuh-huh.
If I was driving across country to an important meeting then I might speed on the motorway to get there. Speeding on the motorway saves time, if its safe to do so. Speeding on residential roads does not.
How many other people have woken up to the "Supermajority" concept (either for or against) and have changed their voting intention accordingly? D'hondt isn't the most intuitive of systems - people probably thought they could vote for the party of their choice and it matter. On the list that isn't the case...
Residential roads with no barriers between pedestrians and cars, with children walking potentially by themselves? Only an idiot speeds on those roads.
A dual carriageway with no pedestrians? That's a different matter.
I expect first doses for England to be between 30 and 50k; second doses 250k perhaps
He's gotta be sure and it's gotta be soon. And he's gotta be driving alright ... driving alright.
As a result, I have several identity crises.
If its a dual carriageway without a footpath, then I wouldn't class it as residential. It might be urban, but not residential.
Not speeding on residential roads or near schools doesn't make you a hero, it makes you sane.
If you choose to speed next to a school then you're not a normal driver, you're a cunt.
What was ridiculous was that that guy made a fortune over a period of years.
You'd have thought after the first three case, the police would have started calibrating.... but no....
Alex Salmond
British Alba@BritishAlba
https://twitter.com/BritishAlba/status/1379755211565195265?s=20
Mind you, I can foresee a few Yoons jumping on the 'not even a supermajority' bus as other straws float away.
Plus, pressure on the government to open up sooner is ballast against the pressures in the opposite direction.
Deaths in 5-10 year olds who have tested positive for Covid inside 28 days run at about 3 per million over the last year, google suggests lighting strikes run at about 2 per million PA, so it seems that Rural Voters claim "Healthy children don't die of this virus any more often than they die from lightning strikes." isn't actually that far off.
I collected a brand new car on 1 March this year in Leicester. A few days later I had a speeding notification in the post - 36 in a 30. Bloody lockdown - nothing on the roads. I didn't see a speed camera.
Anyway, the camera that nicked me is on the very road that the garage is on. I reckon I did less than half a mile in my new car before getting done for speeding.
Is this a record?
Which it will be soon. They have a lovely garden, one of the best pub gardens in the UK
https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1379770283335286786?s=19
You think that's routine? You're rather sick.
Welcome back, Alistair.
I await his proposal to use the rouble as Scotland currency
Right now in London it is 6C with a "real feel" of 2C. It is early January. It is not al fresco boozing weather
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/220157056.pdf
58 people died in the UK by lightning strikes in the 30 years 1987-2016.
rural_voter was, as always, full of it.
--AS
We certainly have 1 or 2 examples of that category here
Some pubs are doing walk-ins?! Fantastic. I presumed it would all be wanky booking systems, I hate them. It ruins the point of a pub, which is the spontaneity. Thanks for the info!
We were talking, this time last week, about today being the last day of three-figure deaths. From this start I don't think it'll get near that.
The main driver of the rollout, stronger English first doses than I was expecting.
Me, I'm triangulated. Can be painful but I think it's the right place to be on this atm.
Edit: and weren't they all fibreglass or do other bits rust?
Compare with the quoted 3 per million would be 213 per 71 million, so out by a factor of over 200.
(Assuming that 3 per million is accurate - and surely ages 12-17 would be better to compare with as those are the first list of potential under-18 vaccinees? Those run at 30 per million, I believe, so over 2000 per 71 million and more than three orders of magnitude out)
Yes, somewhat better than yesterday's utter shitshow.
But still nowhere near good enough!
Its preposterous.
This started with me asking if you'd speed (anywhere) to avoid being late for something important. And you said you would but not if your family was in the car. Rewind and close. That was all I needed for the point I was making.
As for your using (imo dubious and virtue-signalling) stuff from your private life, that's an acquired taste and I haven't acquired it.
I find it a bit "pass the sick bucket". For example, when at the same time as accusing me of being an antisemite you said you could never be that because your "friend growing up" had a grandmother in Auschwitz.
I just did not like that as an argument technique, true or not.
To illustrate, when the topic is anti black racism, I never choose to mention that one of MY friends growing up was not only black but his great great grandfather was the actual Kunta Kinte.
Reason I don't bring that into the debate? It just feels wrong to do so.
But no biggie. We all write what we want on here and we're all different. That's its charm.