Another lovely sunny morning; how soon before we get drought warnings,?Although I see that someone is advising us not to use mains water on our lawns.
14.7degC on my app!
I'm off this afternoon to do my bit in the u3a's Open Day; getting us going again and recruiting new members now it looks as though meetings will be possible.
What are we supposed to do, piss on them?
(Normally I would have water butts but due to building works they’ve had to be moved and are currently empty.)
Let the grass go brown. It revives with the first proper rain.
I would have thought that the reservoirs must be pretty full at present.
I’ve just had to reseed it. That isn’t going to work.
Yes, a freshly seeded lawn would require water, but an established one is fine in a drought.
Another lovely sunny morning; how soon before we get drought warnings,?Although I see that someone is advising us not to use mains water on our lawns.
14.7degC on my app!
I'm off this afternoon to do my bit in the u3a's Open Day; getting us going again and recruiting new members now it looks as though meetings will be possible.
What are we supposed to do, piss on them?
(Normally I would have water butts but due to building works they’ve had to be moved and are currently empty.)
Let the grass go brown. It revives with the first proper rain.
I would have thought that the reservoirs must be pretty full at present.
I’ve just had to reseed it. That isn’t going to work.
EG in pubs: bar service will be allowed and no social restrictions BUT track and trace will remain, no standing or seating by the bar, masks required when ordering at the bar and when moving around the pub.
Similar rules in restaurants, indoor places like cinemas etc.
Prudent sensible provisions.
That's not good enough, sitting at the bar and standing in the pub are part of being in a pub. Of all people I thought you'd realise it!
End all restrictions on June 21st. No half measures that the zero COVID c***s will turn into permanent "low cost" interventions like mask wearing. People are free to wear them but it should be a personal choice from June 21st onwards.
I’m on holiday this week and the mask-on, mask-off nonsense is driving me bonkers. I have lost six or seven masks in three days! I look forward to the day when the mask mandate ends, as I am simply too absent-minded to manage the bloody things. And they are really uncomfortable in warm weather.
I'm sick of having to plan evenings out and book everything in advance and get to the next place within 15 minutes of the booking time and all of that crap. There's no more spontaneity. We can't just decide to go to the pub or to a restaurant and stay for an indefinite period of time. Life is now made up of two hour blocks.
You have to book to go to the pub? Isn't happening up here. Pub not full, rock up. Pub full. Queue. More likely find pub not full.
The pubs that my wife and I like to go to are always packed and now only take bookings. The manager said that they'd need for social distancing to be canned to remove that restriction.
In Camden and primrose hill the pubs are all wide open and you can swing by, any time (outside peak hours - Friday evening etc). I hope the govt ditches all restrictions June 21st. Enuff
Spare a thought for those of us who still have another 2 months until will be fully vaxxed...sigh...
Aren’t you 40-50? And already single jabbed? Your risk is minimal already.
If you’re under 40 it’s tiny. Forgive me if I’ve got this wrong
I am low risk and had one jab (which was the Skynet one, so high protection from first jab), but still giving crowded indoor locations a swerve until had the 2nd one.
You know its 8 weeks between jabs now on the online booking, right?
If you had your 2nd jab a few weeks ago already, then it should be possible to book a 2nd jab for 8 weeks after your first. So it shouldn't be another 2 months to wait.
I've got my 2nd jab booked already for later this month, the 26th. 8 weeks to the day after the 1st, I booked it online.
Many of the large tech companies are seriously failing to understand why people object to this stuff. It’s a complete privacy nightmare, by design, with hardware you’ve paid for - and it’s a change in functionality that the customer didn’t ask for, and appears to be forced on them under pain of their expensive hardware becoming a brick.
If you have a BT router you provide a hot spot for other BT users. I find this very useful. Invariably in built up areas you are in range of a BT router so have free access in exchange for you offering the same. Is this the same sort of thing? It has been available for several years. I make a lot of use of it.
Mr. Cockney, I raised an eyebrow at the juxtaposition of BBC red button headlines last night.
"0 deaths" was followed by "Start of the third wave in Scotland".
Indeed.
The media have a lot to answer for. Sky News have spent the last couple of months breathlessly and endlessly trumpeting every scare mongering scientist they can drag in front of camera. Often it's the same people again and again and again which then appears on the website under 'BREAKING NEWS'.
And it's all very well for the Daily Mail to carry the Zero banner but they too have been up and down like a whore's drawers (Rowan Atkinson): one minute demonstrating for our freedom, the next telling us that cases are rising sharply. They even declared last week that deaths had risen by an alarming 16%. The raw data behind that was an increase from 6 deaths to 7 deaths. Stop for a moment and consider the utter absurdity of that.
There's only one statistic which matters: vaccinations. These brilliant vaccines work. We need to trust them and get everybody jabbed asap.
Then back to life, back to big Government butting out of our lives and putting the media back in their box.
Depending on which figures you look at, either two or four people who had been double jabbed have died from this new variant. That’s out of a very substantial number of cases.
Therefore either this new variant is not especially serious - evidence not supported by the figures from India - or vaccines are very highly effective against it - if not in spreading it, at least in reducing its severity.
In neither case should we be talking about delaying opening up.
Have we established the dead double jabbed cases where definitely two or more weeks beyond their second jab, which seems crucial to me.
Well, I haven’t personally.
There are cases of vaccine failure, even with double dose. It’s hardly surprising therefore if these people who have sadly died despite being double jabbed are another example of it. That’s one reason why to stop people getting ill we need to jab as many people as possible.
I agree. I doubt anyone is arguing that we shouldn't vaccinate as many people as possible. Well, except Lozza Fox. But the question is should we be locking down again because of the new variant while we do more vaccination and I think the government is right to not make a decision yet, but is clearly minded to not reintroduce further restrictions and indeed to stick to 21st deadline on new stuff.
Ultimately, unless there is a huge spike in hospitalisations I don’t see lockdown being extended.
Credit where credit is due, Johnson has not reacted by locking down too soon and too hard. Far from it. He’s always locked down too little, too late. Arguably, his worst mistake in the whole pandemic was not closing schools on December 1st and while I vehemently disagreed with that decision and it was clearly the wrong decision, it does show he doesn’t lock down for the sake of it.
Partly I think it’s because he knows lockdowns are unpopular, partly because he hates making decisions, but also because I think he genuinely is quite reluctant to impose draconian restrictions. With all his faults, one thing he has never been is authoritarian. He’s always been quite happy to let other people get on with their lives as long as whatever they do is legal.
He’s strongly committed to 21st June. The data doesn’t support locking down further. The death rate is down and hospitalisations are changing very little although the trend was marginally up last week. I cannot see why he would change his mind.
What is frustrating is that the media and those nutters on Indie Sage seem to think lockdowns are cost free. They certainly are not.
Another lovely sunny morning; how soon before we get drought warnings,?Although I see that someone is advising us not to use mains water on our lawns.
14.7degC on my app!
I'm off this afternoon to do my bit in the u3a's Open Day; getting us going again and recruiting new members now it looks as though meetings will be possible.
What are we supposed to do, piss on them?
(Normally I would have water butts but due to building works they’ve had to be moved and are currently empty.)
Let the grass go brown. It revives with the first proper rain.
I would have thought that the reservoirs must be pretty full at present.
A quick google trawl suggests you are right: close to full and, perhaps just as importantly, a bit above the normal levels for this time of year.
Another lovely sunny morning; how soon before we get drought warnings,?Although I see that someone is advising us not to use mains water on our lawns.
14.7degC on my app!
I'm off this afternoon to do my bit in the u3a's Open Day; getting us going again and recruiting new members now it looks as though meetings will be possible.
What are we supposed to do, piss on them?
(Normally I would have water butts but due to building works they’ve had to be moved and are currently empty.)
Let the grass go brown. It revives with the first proper rain.
I would have thought that the reservoirs must be pretty full at present.
I’ve just had to reseed it. That isn’t going to work.
Sounds dull if the 4th most important story from it was some bloke impersonated him and led a life of fast cars and loose women....where as of course Boris doesn't need the impersonator....
And the 5th was I am getting on the train a lot more to see the UK. As all politicians say.
How about his man of the people who gets pissed with George Clooney act?
Many of the large tech companies are seriously failing to understand why people object to this stuff. It’s a complete privacy nightmare, by design, with hardware you’ve paid for - and it’s a change in functionality that the customer didn’t ask for, and appears to be forced on them under pain of their expensive hardware becoming a brick.
If you have a BT router you provide a hot spot for other BT users. I find this very useful. Invariably in built up areas you are in range of a BT router so have free access in exchange for you offering the same. Is this the same sort of thing? It has been available for several years. I make a lot of use of it.
Can one 'use' someone else's router without the password? Or with one's own password?
EG in pubs: bar service will be allowed and no social restrictions BUT track and trace will remain, no standing or seating by the bar, masks required when ordering at the bar and when moving around the pub.
Similar rules in restaurants, indoor places like cinemas etc.
Prudent sensible provisions.
Is that what you're expecting, or wanting, or have seen somewhere?
Its not good enough. Seating at the bar is part of a pub. Masks are not.
Its time to get back to normal. If someone unvaccinated doesn't want to go to a pub operating like normal, they have a simple choice: don't go there!
I was at a pub in the Peak District at the weekend, the tables were well spread out and ordering by app. It all worked neatly, but the Test and Trace App was being ignored. I think no one is using if anymore.
I think ordering by app and table service will be the norm in pubs for while. It works and people like it.
Robert Dingwall has been nicknamed “Robert Dingbat” in government due to his rent-a-quote activity over the past year or so. Whitehall officials have been bemused that a part-time professor of sociology at Nottingham Trent University is presented in some sections of the media as a pandemic expert just because he sits on one government advisory group and loves talking to journalists.
Another lovely sunny morning; how soon before we get drought warnings,?Although I see that someone is advising us not to use mains water on our lawns.
14.7degC on my app!
I'm off this afternoon to do my bit in the u3a's Open Day; getting us going again and recruiting new members now it looks as though meetings will be possible.
What are we supposed to do, piss on them?
(Normally I would have water butts but due to building works they’ve had to be moved and are currently empty.)
Let the grass go brown. It revives with the first proper rain.
I would have thought that the reservoirs must be pretty full at present.
A quick google trawl suggests you are right: close to full and, perhaps just as importantly, a bit above the normal levels for this time of year.
If they weren’t full after the last five months, we really would be facing a massive crisis.
EG in pubs: bar service will be allowed and no social restrictions BUT track and trace will remain, no standing or seating by the bar, masks required when ordering at the bar and when moving around the pub.
Similar rules in restaurants, indoor places like cinemas etc.
Prudent sensible provisions.
Is that what you're expecting, or wanting, or have seen somewhere?
Its not good enough. Seating at the bar is part of a pub. Masks are not.
Its time to get back to normal. If someone unvaccinated doesn't want to go to a pub operating like normal, they have a simple choice: don't go there!
I was at a pub in the Peak District at the weekend, the tables were well spread out and ordering by app. It all worked neatly, but the Test and Trace App was being ignored. I think no one is using if anymore.
I think ordering by app and table service will be the norm in pubs for while. It works and people like it.
It might be the norm for some not very busy pubs with lots of space.
Come down South and I'll show you a proper boozer, which is so busy that you queue for 5 minutes to get a pint. If you're lucky....
Another lovely sunny morning; how soon before we get drought warnings,?Although I see that someone is advising us not to use mains water on our lawns.
14.7degC on my app!
I'm off this afternoon to do my bit in the u3a's Open Day; getting us going again and recruiting new members now it looks as though meetings will be possible.
What are we supposed to do, piss on them?
(Normally I would have water butts but due to building works they’ve had to be moved and are currently empty.)
Let the grass go brown. It revives with the first proper rain.
I would have thought that the reservoirs must be pretty full at present.
I’ve just had to reseed it. That isn’t going to work.
EG in pubs: bar service will be allowed and no social restrictions BUT track and trace will remain, no standing or seating by the bar, masks required when ordering at the bar and when moving around the pub.
Similar rules in restaurants, indoor places like cinemas etc.
Prudent sensible provisions.
That's not good enough, sitting at the bar and standing in the pub are part of being in a pub. Of all people I thought you'd realise it!
End all restrictions on June 21st. No half measures that the zero COVID c***s will turn into permanent "low cost" interventions like mask wearing. People are free to wear them but it should be a personal choice from June 21st onwards.
I’m on holiday this week and the mask-on, mask-off nonsense is driving me bonkers. I have lost six or seven masks in three days! I look forward to the day when the mask mandate ends, as I am simply too absent-minded to manage the bloody things. And they are really uncomfortable in warm weather.
I'm sick of having to plan evenings out and book everything in advance and get to the next place within 15 minutes of the booking time and all of that crap. There's no more spontaneity. We can't just decide to go to the pub or to a restaurant and stay for an indefinite period of time. Life is now made up of two hour blocks.
You have to book to go to the pub? Isn't happening up here. Pub not full, rock up. Pub full. Queue. More likely find pub not full.
The pubs that my wife and I like to go to are always packed and now only take bookings. The manager said that they'd need for social distancing to be canned to remove that restriction.
In Camden and primrose hill the pubs are all wide open and you can swing by, any time (outside peak hours - Friday evening etc). I hope the govt ditches all restrictions June 21st. Enuff
Spare a thought for those of us who still have another 2 months until will be fully vaxxed...sigh...
Aren’t you 40-50? And already single jabbed? Your risk is minimal already.
If you’re under 40 it’s tiny. Forgive me if I’ve got this wrong
I am low risk and had one jab (which was the Skynet one, so high protection from first jab), but still giving crowded indoor locations a swerve until had the 2nd one.
You know its 8 weeks between jabs now on the online booking, right?
If you had your 2nd jab a few weeks ago already, then it should be possible to book a 2nd jab for 8 weeks after your first. So it shouldn't be another 2 months to wait.
I've got my 2nd jab booked already for later this month, the 26th. 8 weeks to the day after the 1st, I booked it online.
And when you go online they are literally thousands of appointments available
Many of the large tech companies are seriously failing to understand why people object to this stuff. It’s a complete privacy nightmare, by design, with hardware you’ve paid for - and it’s a change in functionality that the customer didn’t ask for, and appears to be forced on them under pain of their expensive hardware becoming a brick.
If you have a BT router you provide a hot spot for other BT users. I find this very useful. Invariably in built up areas you are in range of a BT router so have free access in exchange for you offering the same. Is this the same sort of thing? It has been available for several years. I make a lot of use of it.
Can one 'use' someone else's router without the password? Or with one's own password?
You use your own password. It works fine. Now that 4G and 5G services are nearly everywhere it is less needed, but I found it quite useful a few years back.
EG in pubs: bar service will be allowed and no social restrictions BUT track and trace will remain, no standing or seating by the bar, masks required when ordering at the bar and when moving around the pub.
Similar rules in restaurants, indoor places like cinemas etc.
Prudent sensible provisions.
Is that what you're expecting, or wanting, or have seen somewhere?
Its not good enough. Seating at the bar is part of a pub. Masks are not.
Its time to get back to normal. If someone unvaccinated doesn't want to go to a pub operating like normal, they have a simple choice: don't go there!
I was at a pub in the Peak District at the weekend, the tables were well spread out and ordering by app. It all worked neatly, but the Test and Trace App was being ignored. I think no one is using if anymore.
I think ordering by app and table service will be the norm in pubs for while. It works and people like it.
It might be the norm for some not very busy pubs with lots of space.
Come down South and I'll show you a proper boozer, which is so busy that you queue for 5 minutes to get a pint. If you're lucky....
The talk at my book group yesterday was how local pubs are hiking up their prices to offset losses. One is charging £7 a pint.
On topic I was out in Edinburgh last night. It was pretty quiet. We had to log in at the pub but there was no question of booking or indeed a time limit. They had put plastic screens up between the tables but it wasn't much of a problem given the numbers there. Table service and a tab. We ended up with 4 from 4 different households. I think that was technically illegal but no one cared. By the time we left there was no one else in the pub. In fairness it was a nice night and those establishments with outdoor facilities were probably doing better.
Myself and a friend then went into a restaurant for a meal.. No logging in at all. Staff wearing masks but that was it. Again there were maybe 3 tables being used so it wasn't exactly cheek by jowl.
I think Nicola is being even more delusional than normal in these anxious decisions about whether areas are in zone 1 or 2. No one gives a damn and most have already moved on. Those who are concerned are just not coming out which must be killing many of these establishments.
EG in pubs: bar service will be allowed and no social restrictions BUT track and trace will remain, no standing or seating by the bar, masks required when ordering at the bar and when moving around the pub.
Similar rules in restaurants, indoor places like cinemas etc.
Prudent sensible provisions.
Is that what you're expecting, or wanting, or have seen somewhere?
Its not good enough. Seating at the bar is part of a pub. Masks are not.
Its time to get back to normal. If someone unvaccinated doesn't want to go to a pub operating like normal, they have a simple choice: don't go there!
I was at a pub in the Peak District at the weekend, the tables were well spread out and ordering by app. It all worked neatly, but the Test and Trace App was being ignored. I think no one is using if anymore.
I think ordering by app and table service will be the norm in pubs for while. It works and people like it.
It might be the norm for some not very busy pubs with lots of space.
Come down South and I'll show you a proper boozer, which is so busy that you queue for 5 minutes to get a pint. If you're lucky....
I can assure you that a pub in a popular walking spot in the High Peak was not short of customers on Sunday afternoon!
Even when all restrictions are removed, not everything will go back to how it was in the years BC. Some of the changes are for the good, some merely convenient, and some handy for the business.
Another lovely sunny morning; how soon before we get drought warnings,?Although I see that someone is advising us not to use mains water on our lawns.
14.7degC on my app!
I'm off this afternoon to do my bit in the u3a's Open Day; getting us going again and recruiting new members now it looks as though meetings will be possible.
What are we supposed to do, piss on them?
(Normally I would have water butts but due to building works they’ve had to be moved and are currently empty.)
Let the lawn go brown according to the RHS. Grass is, after all, pretty resilient. And I've got some photos somewhere of the local cricket club, where it's difficult to distinguish the square from the rest of the field, all are so brown.
I used to own videos of test matches in 1976, and the outfields were just brown, not a hint of green. Grass is tolerant and will recover very quickly from drought. Using an expensive resource ( drinking water) to keep grass green should be banned.
Many of the large tech companies are seriously failing to understand why people object to this stuff. It’s a complete privacy nightmare, by design, with hardware you’ve paid for - and it’s a change in functionality that the customer didn’t ask for, and appears to be forced on them under pain of their expensive hardware becoming a brick.
If you have a BT router you provide a hot spot for other BT users. I find this very useful. Invariably in built up areas you are in range of a BT router so have free access in exchange for you offering the same. Is this the same sort of thing? It has been available for several years. I make a lot of use of it.
Can one 'use' someone else's router without the password? Or with one's own password?
BT ones have a separate network enabled (it comes up on mine as BTWifi) which is semi-public, allowing anyone else who is on BT and has set up their router the same way to use it.
OT, but only slightly, has anyone in their 30s cancelled and rebooked an earlier 2nd jab? I'm keen but also wary of the cancel button coming before the rebooking options...
Just tried this. Couldn't get any earlier. So I now have a jab a couple of hours later than my original. Guess for 34 year olds its still 12 week gap...
Another lovely sunny morning; how soon before we get drought warnings,?Although I see that someone is advising us not to use mains water on our lawns.
14.7degC on my app!
I'm off this afternoon to do my bit in the u3a's Open Day; getting us going again and recruiting new members now it looks as though meetings will be possible.
What are we supposed to do, piss on them?
(Normally I would have water butts but due to building works they’ve had to be moved and are currently empty.)
Let the lawn go brown according to the RHS. Grass is, after all, pretty resilient. And I've got some photos somewhere of the local cricket club, where it's difficult to distinguish the square from the rest of the field, all are so brown.
I used to own videos of test matches in 1976, and the outfields were just brown, not a hint of green. Grass is tolerant and will recover very quickly from drought. Using an expensive resource ( drinking water) to keep grass green should be banned.
When was the last time people had insufficient drinking water in the Uk? If someone wants to pay for the water to keep their grass green, what business is it of yours?
EG in pubs: bar service will be allowed and no social restrictions BUT track and trace will remain, no standing or seating by the bar, masks required when ordering at the bar and when moving around the pub.
Similar rules in restaurants, indoor places like cinemas etc.
Prudent sensible provisions.
Is that what you're expecting, or wanting, or have seen somewhere?
Its not good enough. Seating at the bar is part of a pub. Masks are not.
Its time to get back to normal. If someone unvaccinated doesn't want to go to a pub operating like normal, they have a simple choice: don't go there!
I was at a pub in the Peak District at the weekend, the tables were well spread out and ordering by app. It all worked neatly, but the Test and Trace App was being ignored. I think no one is using if anymore.
I think ordering by app and table service will be the norm in pubs for while. It works and people like it.
It might be the norm for some not very busy pubs with lots of space.
Come down South and I'll show you a proper boozer, which is so busy that you queue for 5 minutes to get a pint. If you're lucky....
The talk at my book group yesterday was how local pubs are hiking up their prices to offset losses. One is charging £7 a pint.
The customers would be round with pitchforks if anyone charged round here! £3.60/£3.80 depending on what one is drinking. And I believe one can pay less in some places.
I love how The Guardian just couldn't bring itself to lead on the zero deaths news.
There are some bloody curmudgeonly people around.
Maybe they are actually clever enough to understand the bank holiday effect?
Nope
They (like you it seems) just can't bring themselves ever to acknowledge that Boris Johnson's Government have done something right.
It's like pulling teeth. You just can't, can you?
Of course there's a bank holiday effect but the fact remains that death rates are extremely low. And most new infections are in under 50's. Why? Because of the vaccines.
The simple truth is that this is the first time since March last year, the first time since the pandemic began in the UK, that zero covid deaths have been reported.
Oh, and we've had other weekends and bank hols in the last 15 months. Or perhaps you don't celebrate bank holidays under Boris?
EG in pubs: bar service will be allowed and no social restrictions BUT track and trace will remain, no standing or seating by the bar, masks required when ordering at the bar and when moving around the pub.
Similar rules in restaurants, indoor places like cinemas etc.
Prudent sensible provisions.
Is that what you're expecting, or wanting, or have seen somewhere?
Its not good enough. Seating at the bar is part of a pub. Masks are not.
Its time to get back to normal. If someone unvaccinated doesn't want to go to a pub operating like normal, they have a simple choice: don't go there!
I was at a pub in the Peak District at the weekend, the tables were well spread out and ordering by app. It all worked neatly, but the Test and Trace App was being ignored. I think no one is using if anymore.
I think ordering by app and table service will be the norm in pubs for while. It works and people like it.
It might be the norm for some not very busy pubs with lots of space.
Come down South and I'll show you a proper boozer, which is so busy that you queue for 5 minutes to get a pint. If you're lucky....
I can assure you that a pub in a popular walking spot in the High Peak was not short of customers on Sunday afternoon!
Even when all restrictions are removed, not everything will go back to how it was in the years BC. Some of the changes are for the good, some merely convenient, and some handy for the business.
But history suggests that more will return to normal than will change.
Ordering by app doesn't work very well in some spots with terrible signal. I don't use public wifi either so that wouldn't help.
My favourite pubs in Bloomsbury are stand up lean on the wall outside types - I can't wait to get back to the bar!
EG in pubs: bar service will be allowed and no social restrictions BUT track and trace will remain, no standing or seating by the bar, masks required when ordering at the bar and when moving around the pub.
Similar rules in restaurants, indoor places like cinemas etc.
Prudent sensible provisions.
Is that what you're expecting, or wanting, or have seen somewhere?
Its not good enough. Seating at the bar is part of a pub. Masks are not.
Its time to get back to normal. If someone unvaccinated doesn't want to go to a pub operating like normal, they have a simple choice: don't go there!
I was at a pub in the Peak District at the weekend, the tables were well spread out and ordering by app. It all worked neatly, but the Test and Trace App was being ignored. I think no one is using if anymore.
I think ordering by app and table service will be the norm in pubs for while. It works and people like it.
It might be the norm for some not very busy pubs with lots of space.
Come down South and I'll show you a proper boozer, which is so busy that you queue for 5 minutes to get a pint. If you're lucky....
The talk at my book group yesterday was how local pubs are hiking up their prices to offset losses. One is charging £7 a pint.
The customers would be round with pitchforks if anyone charged round here! £3.60/£3.80 depending on what one is drinking. And I believe one can pay less in some places.
Where's Ms Cyclefree when she's needed?
The costs of pub food do seem to have gone up, but not a big issue to me. The businesses need some money coming in.
Many of the large tech companies are seriously failing to understand why people object to this stuff. It’s a complete privacy nightmare, by design, with hardware you’ve paid for - and it’s a change in functionality that the customer didn’t ask for, and appears to be forced on them under pain of their expensive hardware becoming a brick.
If you have a BT router you provide a hot spot for other BT users. I find this very useful. Invariably in built up areas you are in range of a BT router so have free access in exchange for you offering the same. Is this the same sort of thing? It has been available for several years. I make a lot of use of it.
Can one 'use' someone else's router without the password? Or with one's own password?
Yes. No idea about the technology, but all automatic. I use PAYG (I know dinasaur), and turn my data off, but as I walk down the street stuff downloads onto my phone as I walk past houses with BT routers. In most High Sts I will almost certainly have free access without having to log on to a router with a password.
EG in pubs: bar service will be allowed and no social restrictions BUT track and trace will remain, no standing or seating by the bar, masks required when ordering at the bar and when moving around the pub.
Similar rules in restaurants, indoor places like cinemas etc.
Prudent sensible provisions.
Is that what you're expecting, or wanting, or have seen somewhere?
Its not good enough. Seating at the bar is part of a pub. Masks are not.
Its time to get back to normal. If someone unvaccinated doesn't want to go to a pub operating like normal, they have a simple choice: don't go there!
I was at a pub in the Peak District at the weekend, the tables were well spread out and ordering by app. It all worked neatly, but the Test and Trace App was being ignored. I think no one is using if anymore.
I think ordering by app and table service will be the norm in pubs for while. It works and people like it.
It might be the norm for some not very busy pubs with lots of space.
Come down South and I'll show you a proper boozer, which is so busy that you queue for 5 minutes to get a pint. If you're lucky....
The talk at my book group yesterday was how local pubs are hiking up their prices to offset losses. One is charging £7 a pint.
Yeah I paid £5.50 for a pint of 3.8% real ale in Guildford at the weekend. It was admittedly in very good condition. Pubs have clearly increased their prices. I'm happily paying them too, as I imagine are most people. Just relief at being out again.
I quite like table service by app, it works well sometimes - for example, a group of friends ordering different things and when you would normally have to send two people to the bar to carry the drinks - but there is no substitute for being able to stand at the bar and talk to random people.
Mr. Cockney, I raised an eyebrow at the juxtaposition of BBC red button headlines last night.
"0 deaths" was followed by "Start of the third wave in Scotland".
Indeed.
The media have a lot to answer for. Sky News have spent the last couple of months breathlessly and endlessly trumpeting every scare mongering scientist they can drag in front of camera. Often it's the same people again and again and again which then appears on the website under 'BREAKING NEWS'.
And it's all very well for the Daily Mail to carry the Zero banner but they too have been up and down like a whore's drawers (Rowan Atkinson): one minute demonstrating for our freedom, the next telling us that cases are rising sharply. They even declared last week that deaths had risen by an alarming 16%. The raw data behind that was an increase from 6 deaths to 7 deaths. Stop for a moment and consider the utter absurdity of that.
There's only one statistic which matters: vaccinations. These brilliant vaccines work. We need to trust them and get everybody jabbed asap.
Then back to life, back to big Government butting out of our lives and putting the media back in their box.
Depending on which figures you look at, either two or four people who had been double jabbed have died from this new variant. That’s out of a very substantial number of cases.
Therefore either this new variant is not especially serious - evidence not supported by the figures from India - or vaccines are very highly effective against it - if not in spreading it, at least in reducing its severity.
In neither case should we be talking about delaying opening up.
Have we established the dead double jabbed cases where definitely two or more weeks beyond their second jab, which seems crucial to me.
Well, I haven’t personally.
There are cases of vaccine failure, even with double dose. It’s hardly surprising therefore if these people who have sadly died despite being double jabbed are another example of it. That’s one reason why to stop people getting ill we need to jab as many people as possible.
I agree. I doubt anyone is arguing that we shouldn't vaccinate as many people as possible. Well, except Lozza Fox. But the question is should we be locking down again because of the new variant while we do more vaccination and I think the government is right to not make a decision yet, but is clearly minded to not reintroduce further restrictions and indeed to stick to 21st deadline on new stuff.
Ultimately, unless there is a huge spike in hospitalisations I don’t see lockdown being extended.
Credit where credit is due, Johnson has not reacted by locking down too soon and too hard. Far from it. He’s always locked down too little, too late. Arguably, his worst mistake in the whole pandemic was not closing schools on December 1st and while I vehemently disagreed with that decision and it was clearly the wrong decision, it does show he doesn’t lock down for the sake of it.
Partly I think it’s because he knows lockdowns are unpopular, partly because he hates making decisions, but also because I think he genuinely is quite reluctant to impose draconian restrictions. With all his faults, one thing he has never been is authoritarian. He’s always been quite happy to let other people get on with their lives as long as whatever they do is legal.
He’s strongly committed to 21st June. The data doesn’t support locking down further. The death rate is down and hospitalisations are changing very little although the trend was marginally up last week. I cannot see why he would change his mind.
What is frustrating is that the media and those nutters on Indie Sage seem to think lockdowns are cost free. They certainly are not.
Perhaps because to them personally they are Cost free. Usually well over 40, probably kids in their twenties so not at home. Able to work from home in a nice location.
Given that the Leader of the Conservative party has now 'come out' as a Roman Catholic, it won't be the Tories.
Has he? I thought the No.10 spokesman declined to comment.
He has married an RC, but that doesn't automatically make him one. The requirement for an RC marriage is that the children are brought up RC, but both spouses don't need to be RC.
Another lovely sunny morning; how soon before we get drought warnings,?Although I see that someone is advising us not to use mains water on our lawns.
14.7degC on my app!
I'm off this afternoon to do my bit in the u3a's Open Day; getting us going again and recruiting new members now it looks as though meetings will be possible.
What are we supposed to do, piss on them?
(Normally I would have water butts but due to building works they’ve had to be moved and are currently empty.)
Let the lawn go brown according to the RHS. Grass is, after all, pretty resilient. And I've got some photos somewhere of the local cricket club, where it's difficult to distinguish the square from the rest of the field, all are so brown.
I used to own videos of test matches in 1976, and the outfields were just brown, not a hint of green. Grass is tolerant and will recover very quickly from drought. Using an expensive resource ( drinking water) to keep grass green should be banned.
When was the last time people had insufficient drinking water in the Uk? If someone wants to pay for the water to keep their grass green, what business is it of yours?
Environmental concerns - treating water for drinking requires chemicals. We will also need more reservoirs as population rises, so more lost countryside. Lawns just don’t need watering (seeded areas excepted).
EG in pubs: bar service will be allowed and no social restrictions BUT track and trace will remain, no standing or seating by the bar, masks required when ordering at the bar and when moving around the pub.
Similar rules in restaurants, indoor places like cinemas etc.
Prudent sensible provisions.
Is that what you're expecting, or wanting, or have seen somewhere?
Its not good enough. Seating at the bar is part of a pub. Masks are not.
Its time to get back to normal. If someone unvaccinated doesn't want to go to a pub operating like normal, they have a simple choice: don't go there!
I was at a pub in the Peak District at the weekend, the tables were well spread out and ordering by app. It all worked neatly, but the Test and Trace App was being ignored. I think no one is using if anymore.
I think ordering by app and table service will be the norm in pubs for while. It works and people like it.
It might be the norm for some not very busy pubs with lots of space.
Come down South and I'll show you a proper boozer, which is so busy that you queue for 5 minutes to get a pint. If you're lucky....
The talk at my book group yesterday was how local pubs are hiking up their prices to offset losses. One is charging £7 a pint.
The customers would be round with pitchforks if anyone charged round here! £3.60/£3.80 depending on what one is drinking. And I believe one can pay less in some places.
Where's Ms Cyclefree when she's needed?
If working from home continues those prices may not last. The local pubs will fine they can target the ex commuters used to paying much higher prices, and having extra cash available through lower train fare costs.
EG in pubs: bar service will be allowed and no social restrictions BUT track and trace will remain, no standing or seating by the bar, masks required when ordering at the bar and when moving around the pub.
Similar rules in restaurants, indoor places like cinemas etc.
Prudent sensible provisions.
Is that what you're expecting, or wanting, or have seen somewhere?
Its not good enough. Seating at the bar is part of a pub. Masks are not.
Its time to get back to normal. If someone unvaccinated doesn't want to go to a pub operating like normal, they have a simple choice: don't go there!
I was at a pub in the Peak District at the weekend, the tables were well spread out and ordering by app. It all worked neatly, but the Test and Trace App was being ignored. I think no one is using if anymore.
I think ordering by app and table service will be the norm in pubs for while. It works and people like it.
It might be the norm for some not very busy pubs with lots of space.
Come down South and I'll show you a proper boozer, which is so busy that you queue for 5 minutes to get a pint. If you're lucky....
The talk at my book group yesterday was how local pubs are hiking up their prices to offset losses. One is charging £7 a pint.
The customers would be round with pitchforks if anyone charged round here! £3.60/£3.80 depending on what one is drinking. And I believe one can pay less in some places.
Where's Ms Cyclefree when she's needed?
I can easily pay over £5 a pint around here or £2 depending on the choice of pub..
Strangely I prefer the ambiance of the more expensive places.
Mr. Cockney, I raised an eyebrow at the juxtaposition of BBC red button headlines last night.
"0 deaths" was followed by "Start of the third wave in Scotland".
Indeed.
The media have a lot to answer for. Sky News have spent the last couple of months breathlessly and endlessly trumpeting every scare mongering scientist they can drag in front of camera. Often it's the same people again and again and again which then appears on the website under 'BREAKING NEWS'.
And it's all very well for the Daily Mail to carry the Zero banner but they too have been up and down like a whore's drawers (Rowan Atkinson): one minute demonstrating for our freedom, the next telling us that cases are rising sharply. They even declared last week that deaths had risen by an alarming 16%. The raw data behind that was an increase from 6 deaths to 7 deaths. Stop for a moment and consider the utter absurdity of that.
There's only one statistic which matters: vaccinations. These brilliant vaccines work. We need to trust them and get everybody jabbed asap.
Then back to life, back to big Government butting out of our lives and putting the media back in their box.
Depending on which figures you look at, either two or four people who had been double jabbed have died from this new variant. That’s out of a very substantial number of cases.
Therefore either this new variant is not especially serious - evidence not supported by the figures from India - or vaccines are very highly effective against it - if not in spreading it, at least in reducing its severity.
In neither case should we be talking about delaying opening up.
Have we established the dead double jabbed cases where definitely two or more weeks beyond their second jab, which seems crucial to me.
Well, I haven’t personally.
There are cases of vaccine failure, even with double dose. It’s hardly surprising therefore if these people who have sadly died despite being double jabbed are another example of it. That’s one reason why to stop people getting ill we need to jab as many people as possible.
I agree. I doubt anyone is arguing that we shouldn't vaccinate as many people as possible. Well, except Lozza Fox. But the question is should we be locking down again because of the new variant while we do more vaccination and I think the government is right to not make a decision yet, but is clearly minded to not reintroduce further restrictions and indeed to stick to 21st deadline on new stuff.
Ultimately, unless there is a huge spike in hospitalisations I don’t see lockdown being extended.
Credit where credit is due, Johnson has not reacted by locking down too soon and too hard. Far from it. He’s always locked down too little, too late. Arguably, his worst mistake in the whole pandemic was not closing schools on December 1st and while I vehemently disagreed with that decision and it was clearly the wrong decision, it does show he doesn’t lock down for the sake of it.
Arguably the worst was way back in spring 2020, allowing the Cheltenham festival to go ahead, the Liverpoool CL match, the Bath half etc.
We lost the battle very early on.
But it still would have crept in and spread. I no longer believe it would have been possible to do a New Zealand and hermetically seal our borders. And if the Kiwis and Aussies don't hurry up and get their populations vaccinated then I know where I'd rather be right now. A hermetically sealed country is no way to exist.
I like your 'credit where credit's due' line. We made mistakes early on, mostly rectified them and since then have steered a pretty good course through these troubled waters whilst pouring all of our effort into brilliant vaccine development and roll out. We were the first country in the world to administer the Pfizer jab, a moment of searing optimism that has continued.
I'm sorry for people who can't bring themselves to acknowledge this success. Genuinely sorry. They must be very miserable.
Mr. Cockney, I raised an eyebrow at the juxtaposition of BBC red button headlines last night.
"0 deaths" was followed by "Start of the third wave in Scotland".
Indeed.
The media have a lot to answer for. Sky News have spent the last couple of months breathlessly and endlessly trumpeting every scare mongering scientist they can drag in front of camera. Often it's the same people again and again and again which then appears on the website under 'BREAKING NEWS'.
And it's all very well for the Daily Mail to carry the Zero banner but they too have been up and down like a whore's drawers (Rowan Atkinson): one minute demonstrating for our freedom, the next telling us that cases are rising sharply. They even declared last week that deaths had risen by an alarming 16%. The raw data behind that was an increase from 6 deaths to 7 deaths. Stop for a moment and consider the utter absurdity of that.
There's only one statistic which matters: vaccinations. These brilliant vaccines work. We need to trust them and get everybody jabbed asap.
Then back to life, back to big Government butting out of our lives and putting the media back in their box.
Depending on which figures you look at, either two or four people who had been double jabbed have died from this new variant. That’s out of a very substantial number of cases.
Therefore either this new variant is not especially serious - evidence not supported by the figures from India - or vaccines are very highly effective against it - if not in spreading it, at least in reducing its severity.
In neither case should we be talking about delaying opening up.
Have we established the dead double jabbed cases where definitely two or more weeks beyond their second jab, which seems crucial to me.
Well, I haven’t personally.
There are cases of vaccine failure, even with double dose. It’s hardly surprising therefore if these people who have sadly died despite being double jabbed are another example of it. That’s one reason why to stop people getting ill we need to jab as many people as possible.
I agree. I doubt anyone is arguing that we shouldn't vaccinate as many people as possible. Well, except Lozza Fox. But the question is should we be locking down again because of the new variant while we do more vaccination and I think the government is right to not make a decision yet, but is clearly minded to not reintroduce further restrictions and indeed to stick to 21st deadline on new stuff.
Ultimately, unless there is a huge spike in hospitalisations I don’t see lockdown being extended.
Credit where credit is due, Johnson has not reacted by locking down too soon and too hard. Far from it. He’s always locked down too little, too late. Arguably, his worst mistake in the whole pandemic was not closing schools on December 1st and while I vehemently disagreed with that decision and it was clearly the wrong decision, it does show he doesn’t lock down for the sake of it.
Arguably the worst was way back in spring 2020, allowing the Cheltenham festival to go ahead, the Liverpoool CL match, the Bath half etc.
We lost the battle very early on.
But it still would have crept in and spread. I no longer believe it would have been possible to do a New Zealand and hermetically seal our borders. And if the Kiwis and Aussies don't hurry up and get their populations vaccinated then I know where I'd rather be right now. A hermetically sealed country is no way to exist.
I like your 'credit where credit's due' line. We made mistakes early on, mostly rectified them and since then have steered a pretty good course through these troubled waters whilst pouring all of our effort into brilliant vaccine development and roll out. We were the first country in the world to administer the Pfizer jab, a moment of searing optimism that has continued.
I'm sorry for people who can't bring themselves to acknowledge this success. Genuinely sorry. They must be very miserable.
I disagree. There is no compelling evidence those events led to major spikes. Keeping schools open using legal threats with a virus rampaging through them, however...
Given that the Leader of the Conservative party has now 'come out' as a Roman Catholic, it won't be the Tories.
Has he? I thought the No.10 spokesman declined to comment.
He has married an RC, but that doesn't automatically make him one. The requirement for an RC marriage is that the children are brought up RC, but both spouses don't need to be RC.
Only if there's special dispensation.
But the fact that he was baptised Catholic means he's a Catholic. Subsequent confirmation in the CofE is an irrelevance to them.
If Starmer's family didn't have a TV it would almost certainly have been through choice.
One thing I have learned from pb is the amount of people with a weird obsession about the social background of lefty politicians. I never knew this was a thing, but it clearly is.
On the bright side. Ancelotti and his dreary, crab-like football has gone. Ben Godfrey, who has the potential to be our captain and best defender since Kevin Ratcliffe, won’t be wasted in that buffoon Southgates rightbackathon this summer, and it’s my birthday and so far I have got a set of books I have been after for years, a good bottle of single malt and a nice piece of Churchill memorabilia. Nobody as yet has bought me even a small Greek island of yet so I am just leaving it out there.
Many of the large tech companies are seriously failing to understand why people object to this stuff. It’s a complete privacy nightmare, by design, with hardware you’ve paid for - and it’s a change in functionality that the customer didn’t ask for, and appears to be forced on them under pain of their expensive hardware becoming a brick.
If you have a BT router you provide a hot spot for other BT users. I find this very useful. Invariably in built up areas you are in range of a BT router so have free access in exchange for you offering the same. Is this the same sort of thing? It has been available for several years. I make a lot of use of it.
Can one 'use' someone else's router without the password? Or with one's own password?
Yes. No idea about the technology, but all automatic. I use PAYG (I know dinasaur), and turn my data off, but as I walk down the street stuff downloads onto my phone as I walk past houses with BT routers. In most High Sts I will almost certainly have free access without having to log on to a router with a password.
This isn’t people’s own home routers doing this, I’m sure? This is a completely separate BT network which relies on infrastructure that BT own or have rented. Lamp-posts, offices and old phone boxes etc. If you have a BT subscription then you get access to all of this, in addition to your home network. In fact, coverage would probably be near universal if they hadn’t got rid of so many phone boxes during the rise of mobile phones - huge mistake, they just didn’t realise quite how valuable they were compared to the costs of dealing with vandalism.
On the bright side. Ancelotti and his dreary, crab-like football has gone. Ben Godfrey, who has the potential to be our captain and best defender since Kevin Ratcliffe, won’t be wasted in that buffoon Southgates rightbackathon this summer, and it’s my birthday and so far I have got a set of books I have been after for years, a good bottle of single malt and a nice piece of Churchill memorabilia. Nobody as yet has bought me even a small Greek island of yet so I am just leaving it out there.
Mr. Cockney, I raised an eyebrow at the juxtaposition of BBC red button headlines last night.
"0 deaths" was followed by "Start of the third wave in Scotland".
Indeed.
The media have a lot to answer for. Sky News have spent the last couple of months breathlessly and endlessly trumpeting every scare mongering scientist they can drag in front of camera. Often it's the same people again and again and again which then appears on the website under 'BREAKING NEWS'.
And it's all very well for the Daily Mail to carry the Zero banner but they too have been up and down like a whore's drawers (Rowan Atkinson): one minute demonstrating for our freedom, the next telling us that cases are rising sharply. They even declared last week that deaths had risen by an alarming 16%. The raw data behind that was an increase from 6 deaths to 7 deaths. Stop for a moment and consider the utter absurdity of that.
There's only one statistic which matters: vaccinations. These brilliant vaccines work. We need to trust them and get everybody jabbed asap.
Then back to life, back to big Government butting out of our lives and putting the media back in their box.
Depending on which figures you look at, either two or four people who had been double jabbed have died from this new variant. That’s out of a very substantial number of cases.
Therefore either this new variant is not especially serious - evidence not supported by the figures from India - or vaccines are very highly effective against it - if not in spreading it, at least in reducing its severity.
In neither case should we be talking about delaying opening up.
Have we established the dead double jabbed cases where definitely two or more weeks beyond their second jab, which seems crucial to me.
Well, I haven’t personally.
There are cases of vaccine failure, even with double dose. It’s hardly surprising therefore if these people who have sadly died despite being double jabbed are another example of it. That’s one reason why to stop people getting ill we need to jab as many people as possible.
I agree. I doubt anyone is arguing that we shouldn't vaccinate as many people as possible. Well, except Lozza Fox. But the question is should we be locking down again because of the new variant while we do more vaccination and I think the government is right to not make a decision yet, but is clearly minded to not reintroduce further restrictions and indeed to stick to 21st deadline on new stuff.
Ultimately, unless there is a huge spike in hospitalisations I don’t see lockdown being extended.
Credit where credit is due, Johnson has not reacted by locking down too soon and too hard. Far from it. He’s always locked down too little, too late. Arguably, his worst mistake in the whole pandemic was not closing schools on December 1st and while I vehemently disagreed with that decision and it was clearly the wrong decision, it does show he doesn’t lock down for the sake of it.
Arguably the worst was way back in spring 2020, allowing the Cheltenham festival to go ahead, the Liverpoool CL match, the Bath half etc.
We lost the battle very early on.
But it still would have crept in and spread. I no longer believe it would have been possible to do a New Zealand and hermetically seal our borders. And if the Kiwis and Aussies don't hurry up and get their populations vaccinated then I know where I'd rather be right now. A hermetically sealed country is no way to exist.
I like your 'credit where credit's due' line. We made mistakes early on, mostly rectified them and since then have steered a pretty good course through these troubled waters whilst pouring all of our effort into brilliant vaccine development and roll out. We were the first country in the world to administer the Pfizer jab, a moment of searing optimism that has continued.
I'm sorry for people who can't bring themselves to acknowledge this success. Genuinely sorry. They must be very miserable.
Discussed repeatedly, but more people travelled on the tube every day, in more cramped conditions, with far worse ventilation, than all that weeks big sporting events combined. And then commuted back to thousands of different towns and villages.
If Starmer's family didn't have a TV it would almost certainly have been through choice.
One thing I have learned from pb is the amount of people with a weird obsession about the social background of lefty politicians. I never knew this was a thing, but it clearly is.
I was just commenting on the claim that Starmer says he didn't have a TV until his late teens. Now, I haven't seen the show, but I'm guessing that he was using this to demonstrate his working class credentials. So I think it's fair for these claims to be scrutinized.
On the bright side. Ancelotti and his dreary, crab-like football has gone. Ben Godfrey, who has the potential to be our captain and best defender since Kevin Ratcliffe, won’t be wasted in that buffoon Southgates rightbackathon this summer, and it’s my birthday and so far I have got a set of books I have been after for years, a good bottle of single malt and a nice piece of Churchill memorabilia. Nobody as yet has bought me even a small Greek island of yet so I am just leaving it out there.
You need some pals like George Cluny like that man of the people Keith.
If Starmer's family didn't have a TV it would almost certainly have been through choice.
One thing I have learned from pb is the amount of people with a weird obsession about the social background of lefty politicians. I never knew this was a thing, but it clearly is.
I was just commenting on the claim that Starmer says he didn't have a TV until his late teens. Now, I haven't seen the show, but I'm guessing that he was using this to demonstrate his working class credentials. So I think it's fair for these claims to be scrutinized.
I look forward to your similar level scrutiny of the PM!
Many of the large tech companies are seriously failing to understand why people object to this stuff. It’s a complete privacy nightmare, by design, with hardware you’ve paid for - and it’s a change in functionality that the customer didn’t ask for, and appears to be forced on them under pain of their expensive hardware becoming a brick.
If you have a BT router you provide a hot spot for other BT users. I find this very useful. Invariably in built up areas you are in range of a BT router so have free access in exchange for you offering the same. Is this the same sort of thing? It has been available for several years. I make a lot of use of it.
Can one 'use' someone else's router without the password? Or with one's own password?
Yes. No idea about the technology, but all automatic. I use PAYG (I know dinasaur), and turn my data off, but as I walk down the street stuff downloads onto my phone as I walk past houses with BT routers. In most High Sts I will almost certainly have free access without having to log on to a router with a password.
This isn’t people’s own home routers doing this, I’m sure? This is a completely separate BT network which relies on infrastructure that BT own or have rented. Lamp-posts, offices and old phone boxes etc. If you have a BT subscription then you get access to all of this, in addition to your home network. In fact, coverage would probably be near universal if they hadn’t got rid of so many phone boxes during the rise of mobile phones - huge mistake, they just didn’t realise quite how valuable they were compared to the costs of dealing with vandalism.
If Starmer's family didn't have a TV it would almost certainly have been through choice.
One thing I have learned from pb is the amount of people with a weird obsession about the social background of lefty politicians. I never knew this was a thing, but it clearly is.
I was just commenting on the claim that Starmer says he didn't have a TV until his late teens. Now, I haven't seen the show, but I'm guessing that he was using this to demonstrate his working class credentials. So I think it's fair for these claims to be scrutinized.
I look forward to your similar level scrutiny of the PM!
When Boris goes on Piers Morgan's life stories, I will!
Another lovely sunny morning; how soon before we get drought warnings,?Although I see that someone is advising us not to use mains water on our lawns.
14.7degC on my app!
I'm off this afternoon to do my bit in the u3a's Open Day; getting us going again and recruiting new members now it looks as though meetings will be possible.
What are we supposed to do, piss on them?
(Normally I would have water butts but due to building works they’ve had to be moved and are currently empty.)
Let the lawn go brown according to the RHS. Grass is, after all, pretty resilient. And I've got some photos somewhere of the local cricket club, where it's difficult to distinguish the square from the rest of the field, all are so brown.
I used to own videos of test matches in 1976, and the outfields were just brown, not a hint of green. Grass is tolerant and will recover very quickly from drought. Using an expensive resource ( drinking water) to keep grass green should be banned.
When was the last time people had insufficient drinking water in the Uk? If someone wants to pay for the water to keep their grass green, what business is it of yours?
On topic I was out in Edinburgh last night. It was pretty quiet. We had to log in at the pub but there was no question of booking or indeed a time limit. They had put plastic screens up between the tables but it wasn't much of a problem given the numbers there. Table service and a tab. We ended up with 4 from 4 different households. I think that was technically illegal but no one cared. By the time we left there was no one else in the pub. In fairness it was a nice night and those establishments with outdoor facilities were probably doing better.
Myself and a friend then went into a restaurant for a meal.. No logging in at all. Staff wearing masks but that was it. Again there were maybe 3 tables being used so it wasn't exactly cheek by jowl.
I think Nicola is being even more delusional than normal in these anxious decisions about whether areas are in zone 1 or 2. No one gives a damn and most have already moved on. Those who are concerned are just not coming out which must be killing many of these establishments.
If Starmer's family didn't have a TV it would almost certainly have been through choice.
One thing I have learned from pb is the amount of people with a weird obsession about the social background of lefty politicians. I never knew this was a thing, but it clearly is.
I was just commenting on the claim that Starmer says he didn't have a TV until his late teens. Now, I haven't seen the show, but I'm guessing that he was using this to demonstrate his working class credentials. So I think it's fair for these claims to be scrutinized.
Not working class. By the late Seventies not having a TV meant either religious reasons, or parents who thought it a distraction from more intellectual pursuits. That the Starmers only got one when his mum was doing Open University suggests the latter.
There was no TV (or Internet obviously) when I was in halls at university. The extra few hours per day really helped with studies, though we did knock off down the pub by 2100 most nights.
The irony, of course, is that television is quite a working class medium. Harold Wilson famously got the BBC to move an episode of Steptoe and Son on election day as he feared it would suppress turnout of Labour voters:
Bell is a refreshing change from the endless Pagel/Gupta show we have had across the media the last week.
I've noticed R4 seems to be getting more balanced contributors in recent days - a great improvement on the publicity seeking doom mongers....
It's the perennial media problem.
The media aren't in the business of providing information; they're in the business of grabbing our attention.
Drama, certainty, outrage, fear, anger, baddies, conspiracies... that grabs attention, so it takes the focus. And we reward them for it. What are the ones we most talk about? The ones where someone is interviewed with a balanced and undramatic viewpoint, accepting uncertainty, and telling us to wait and see but it's looking okay for now?
Or the ones that grab an extreme, profess total certainty, go dramatic, and stoke up fear or outrage?
We reward the media for doing that, so the media continually gravitate to the dramatic, unusual, and extreme.
If Starmer's family didn't have a TV it would almost certainly have been through choice.
One thing I have learned from pb is the amount of people with a weird obsession about the social background of lefty politicians. I never knew this was a thing, but it clearly is.
The obsession these days is how much people, especially from the left, can credibly accentuate that they came from a poor working class family and dragged themselves up by their bootstrap a la Four Yorkshireman. I hear it used all the time , often on Desert Island Discs
If Starmer's family didn't have a TV it would almost certainly have been through choice.
One thing I have learned from pb is the amount of people with a weird obsession about the social background of lefty politicians. I never knew this was a thing, but it clearly is.
I was just commenting on the claim that Starmer says he didn't have a TV until his late teens. Now, I haven't seen the show, but I'm guessing that he was using this to demonstrate his working class credentials. So I think it's fair for these claims to be scrutinized.
Not working class. By the late Seventies not having a TV meant either religious reasons, or parents who thought it a distraction from more intellectual pursuits. That the Starmers only got one when his mum was doing Open University suggests the latter.
There was no TV (or Internet obviously) when I was in halls at university. The extra few hours per day really helped with studies, though we did knock off down the pub by 2100 most nights.
I suppose the equivalent for me was not having Sky Sports (it's what I asked for Christmas every year, and never got it!). To be fair, it probably helped with my studies.
Another lovely sunny morning; how soon before we get drought warnings,?Although I see that someone is advising us not to use mains water on our lawns.
14.7degC on my app!
I'm off this afternoon to do my bit in the u3a's Open Day; getting us going again and recruiting new members now it looks as though meetings will be possible.
What are we supposed to do, piss on them?
(Normally I would have water butts but due to building works they’ve had to be moved and are currently empty.)
My allotment society has stopped us using on site water to water our plots. They have supplied us with (tiny) water butts with which to collect rainwater. How much rainwater they expect us to collect from a shed roof in summer has not been vouchsafed to us.
Many of the large tech companies are seriously failing to understand why people object to this stuff. It’s a complete privacy nightmare, by design, with hardware you’ve paid for - and it’s a change in functionality that the customer didn’t ask for, and appears to be forced on them under pain of their expensive hardware becoming a brick.
If you have a BT router you provide a hot spot for other BT users. I find this very useful. Invariably in built up areas you are in range of a BT router so have free access in exchange for you offering the same. Is this the same sort of thing? It has been available for several years. I make a lot of use of it.
Can one 'use' someone else's router without the password? Or with one's own password?
Yes. No idea about the technology, but all automatic. I use PAYG (I know dinasaur), and turn my data off, but as I walk down the street stuff downloads onto my phone as I walk past houses with BT routers. In most High Sts I will almost certainly have free access without having to log on to a router with a password.
This isn’t people’s own home routers doing this, I’m sure? This is a completely separate BT network which relies on infrastructure that BT own or have rented. Lamp-posts, offices and old phone boxes etc. If you have a BT subscription then you get access to all of this, in addition to your home network. In fact, coverage would probably be near universal if they hadn’t got rid of so many phone boxes during the rise of mobile phones - huge mistake, they just didn’t realise quite how valuable they were compared to the costs of dealing with vandalism.
Nope it is your router. It is made quite clear this is the case and is obvious when you use it. I can see my own router doing it for instance.
Another lovely sunny morning; how soon before we get drought warnings,?Although I see that someone is advising us not to use mains water on our lawns.
14.7degC on my app!
I'm off this afternoon to do my bit in the u3a's Open Day; getting us going again and recruiting new members now it looks as though meetings will be possible.
What are we supposed to do, piss on them?
(Normally I would have water butts but due to building works they’ve had to be moved and are currently empty.)
My allotment society has stopped us using on site water to water our plots. They have supplied us with (tiny) water butts with which to collect rainwater. How much rainwater they expect us to collect from a shed roof in summer has not been vouchsafed to us.
So, just to be clear:
You will now have to pour mains water over your shed roofs to fill your water butts?
UK is helping to fund clinical trials for a new version of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine which is tailored to target the South African variant of coronavirus (aka β), with a view to buying millions of doses. Story @theipaper
Another lovely sunny morning; how soon before we get drought warnings,?Although I see that someone is advising us not to use mains water on our lawns.
14.7degC on my app!
I'm off this afternoon to do my bit in the u3a's Open Day; getting us going again and recruiting new members now it looks as though meetings will be possible.
What are we supposed to do, piss on them?
(Normally I would have water butts but due to building works they’ve had to be moved and are currently empty.)
Let the lawn go brown according to the RHS. Grass is, after all, pretty resilient. And I've got some photos somewhere of the local cricket club, where it's difficult to distinguish the square from the rest of the field, all are so brown.
I used to own videos of test matches in 1976, and the outfields were just brown, not a hint of green. Grass is tolerant and will recover very quickly from drought. Using an expensive resource ( drinking water) to keep grass green should be banned.
When was the last time people had insufficient drinking water in the Uk? If someone wants to pay for the water to keep their grass green, what business is it of yours?
Many of the large tech companies are seriously failing to understand why people object to this stuff. It’s a complete privacy nightmare, by design, with hardware you’ve paid for - and it’s a change in functionality that the customer didn’t ask for, and appears to be forced on them under pain of their expensive hardware becoming a brick.
If you have a BT router you provide a hot spot for other BT users. I find this very useful. Invariably in built up areas you are in range of a BT router so have free access in exchange for you offering the same. Is this the same sort of thing? It has been available for several years. I make a lot of use of it.
Can one 'use' someone else's router without the password? Or with one's own password?
Yes. No idea about the technology, but all automatic. I use PAYG (I know dinasaur), and turn my data off, but as I walk down the street stuff downloads onto my phone as I walk past houses with BT routers. In most High Sts I will almost certainly have free access without having to log on to a router with a password.
This isn’t people’s own home routers doing this, I’m sure? This is a completely separate BT network which relies on infrastructure that BT own or have rented. Lamp-posts, offices and old phone boxes etc. If you have a BT subscription then you get access to all of this, in addition to your home network. In fact, coverage would probably be near universal if they hadn’t got rid of so many phone boxes during the rise of mobile phones - huge mistake, they just didn’t realise quite how valuable they were compared to the costs of dealing with vandalism.
It runs off part of the bandwidth of domestic routers, as well. IF you have a BT router you can see the extra public access channel on the list of available WiFi connections
Many of the large tech companies are seriously failing to understand why people object to this stuff. It’s a complete privacy nightmare, by design, with hardware you’ve paid for - and it’s a change in functionality that the customer didn’t ask for, and appears to be forced on them under pain of their expensive hardware becoming a brick.
If you have a BT router you provide a hot spot for other BT users. I find this very useful. Invariably in built up areas you are in range of a BT router so have free access in exchange for you offering the same. Is this the same sort of thing? It has been available for several years. I make a lot of use of it.
Can one 'use' someone else's router without the password? Or with one's own password?
Yes. No idea about the technology, but all automatic. I use PAYG (I know dinasaur), and turn my data off, but as I walk down the street stuff downloads onto my phone as I walk past houses with BT routers. In most High Sts I will almost certainly have free access without having to log on to a router with a password.
This isn’t people’s own home routers doing this, I’m sure? This is a completely separate BT network which relies on infrastructure that BT own or have rented. Lamp-posts, offices and old phone boxes etc. If you have a BT subscription then you get access to all of this, in addition to your home network. In fact, coverage would probably be near universal if they hadn’t got rid of so many phone boxes during the rise of mobile phones - huge mistake, they just didn’t realise quite how valuable they were compared to the costs of dealing with vandalism.
EG in pubs: bar service will be allowed and no social restrictions BUT track and trace will remain, no standing or seating by the bar, masks required when ordering at the bar and when moving around the pub.
Similar rules in restaurants, indoor places like cinemas etc.
Prudent sensible provisions.
Is that what you're expecting, or wanting, or have seen somewhere?
Its not good enough. Seating at the bar is part of a pub. Masks are not.
Its time to get back to normal. If someone unvaccinated doesn't want to go to a pub operating like normal, they have a simple choice: don't go there!
I was at a pub in the Peak District at the weekend, the tables were well spread out and ordering by app. It all worked neatly, but the Test and Trace App was being ignored. I think no one is using if anymore.
I think ordering by app and table service will be the norm in pubs for while. It works and people like it.
I hate it. Utterly antisocial. For me, the disruption to pubs is one of the most unpleasant aspects of the entire thing.
That kind of shit has been a on-going problem. BT had a thing for setting your router to provide public Wifi by default... not sure they aren't still doing that. Any customers of BT here?
On topic I was out in Edinburgh last night. It was pretty quiet. We had to log in at the pub but there was no question of booking or indeed a time limit. They had put plastic screens up between the tables but it wasn't much of a problem given the numbers there. Table service and a tab. We ended up with 4 from 4 different households. I think that was technically illegal but no one cared. By the time we left there was no one else in the pub. In fairness it was a nice night and those establishments with outdoor facilities were probably doing better.
Myself and a friend then went into a restaurant for a meal.. No logging in at all. Staff wearing masks but that was it. Again there were maybe 3 tables being used so it wasn't exactly cheek by jowl.
I think Nicola is being even more delusional than normal in these anxious decisions about whether areas are in zone 1 or 2. No one gives a damn and most have already moved on. Those who are concerned are just not coming out which must be killing many of these establishments.
Remarkable that she didn't learn the lesson of the festive period when various parties were demanding that Nicola should let the bars and restaurants of Edinburgh let rip.
Mr. Cockney, I raised an eyebrow at the juxtaposition of BBC red button headlines last night.
"0 deaths" was followed by "Start of the third wave in Scotland".
Indeed.
The media have a lot to answer for. Sky News have spent the last couple of months breathlessly and endlessly trumpeting every scare mongering scientist they can drag in front of camera. Often it's the same people again and again and again which then appears on the website under 'BREAKING NEWS'.
And it's all very well for the Daily Mail to carry the Zero banner but they too have been up and down like a whore's drawers (Rowan Atkinson): one minute demonstrating for our freedom, the next telling us that cases are rising sharply. They even declared last week that deaths had risen by an alarming 16%. The raw data behind that was an increase from 6 deaths to 7 deaths. Stop for a moment and consider the utter absurdity of that.
There's only one statistic which matters: vaccinations. These brilliant vaccines work. We need to trust them and get everybody jabbed asap.
Then back to life, back to big Government butting out of our lives and putting the media back in their box.
Depending on which figures you look at, either two or four people who had been double jabbed have died from this new variant. That’s out of a very substantial number of cases.
Therefore either this new variant is not especially serious - evidence not supported by the figures from India - or vaccines are very highly effective against it - if not in spreading it, at least in reducing its severity.
In neither case should we be talking about delaying opening up.
Have we established the dead double jabbed cases where definitely two or more weeks beyond their second jab, which seems crucial to me.
Well, I haven’t personally.
There are cases of vaccine failure, even with double dose. It’s hardly surprising therefore if these people who have sadly died despite being double jabbed are another example of it. That’s one reason why to stop people getting ill we need to jab as many people as possible.
I agree. I doubt anyone is arguing that we shouldn't vaccinate as many people as possible. Well, except Lozza Fox. But the question is should we be locking down again because of the new variant while we do more vaccination and I think the government is right to not make a decision yet, but is clearly minded to not reintroduce further restrictions and indeed to stick to 21st deadline on new stuff.
Ultimately, unless there is a huge spike in hospitalisations I don’t see lockdown being extended.
Credit where credit is due, Johnson has not reacted by locking down too soon and too hard. Far from it. He’s always locked down too little, too late. Arguably, his worst mistake in the whole pandemic was not closing schools on December 1st and while I vehemently disagreed with that decision and it was clearly the wrong decision, it does show he doesn’t lock down for the sake of it.
Arguably the worst was way back in spring 2020, allowing the Cheltenham festival to go ahead, the Liverpoool CL match, the Bath half etc.
We lost the battle very early on.
But it still would have crept in and spread. I no longer believe it would have been possible to do a New Zealand and hermetically seal our borders. And if the Kiwis and Aussies don't hurry up and get their populations vaccinated then I know where I'd rather be right now. A hermetically sealed country is no way to exist.
I like your 'credit where credit's due' line. We made mistakes early on, mostly rectified them and since then have steered a pretty good course through these troubled waters whilst pouring all of our effort into brilliant vaccine development and roll out. We were the first country in the world to administer the Pfizer jab, a moment of searing optimism that has continued.
I'm sorry for people who can't bring themselves to acknowledge this success. Genuinely sorry. They must be very miserable.
Discussed repeatedly, but more people travelled on the tube every day, in more cramped conditions, with far worse ventilation, than all that weeks big sporting events combined. And then commuted back to thousands of different towns and villages.
I think there's a difference between Cheltenham and the Liverpool game.
The spectators at Cheltenham wouldn't have stayed in their homes if it had been cancelled but would have been doing alternative things - with a fair few thousand travelling on the tube every day.
Whereas for the Liverpool game that likely brought it an extra dollop of covid from Madrid.
Robert Dingwall has been nicknamed “Robert Dingbat” in government due to his rent-a-quote activity over the past year or so. Whitehall officials have been bemused that a part-time professor of sociology at Nottingham Trent University is presented in some sections of the media as a pandemic expert just because he sits on one government advisory group and loves talking to journalists.
He is an expert on sociology of risk with decades of research experience. Seems an ideal person to inject some balance into the discussion to me.
If he is the same one I just looked at on Twitter then he has the ring of stars flag and describes himself as a rejoiner. I would think he is no friend of whatever our present PM says.
I believe the big problem Starmer / Labour will have is come any GE, we know the Tories have a fairly sophisticated system of targetting adverts (all sorts of claims of what they put out about Jezza in ree wall seats)...they will be bombarding Leave-istan with all the clips of Starmer trying to stop Brexit.
They don't need to make a big song and dance about it as part of the main campaign, but they will aggressively target all those who voted for get brexit done, with a message of this is the man who did everything to try to stop that.
Yeah. There is a good clip of him saying that it’s an important point of principle that Labour will be backing Remain in the 2nd referendum they are calling for. That’s what’s turned off millions of ex Labour voters, and I don’t think they’ll be tempted back by Labour activists tweeting that Sir Keir cried well on PiersMorgans show
Does an archive of such adverts exist?
I recall a monitoring project, but not whether these were preserved.
EG in pubs: bar service will be allowed and no social restrictions BUT track and trace will remain, no standing or seating by the bar, masks required when ordering at the bar and when moving around the pub.
Similar rules in restaurants, indoor places like cinemas etc.
Prudent sensible provisions.
Is that what you're expecting, or wanting, or have seen somewhere?
Its not good enough. Seating at the bar is part of a pub. Masks are not.
Its time to get back to normal. If someone unvaccinated doesn't want to go to a pub operating like normal, they have a simple choice: don't go there!
I was at a pub in the Peak District at the weekend, the tables were well spread out and ordering by app. It all worked neatly, but the Test and Trace App was being ignored. I think no one is using if anymore.
I think ordering by app and table service will be the norm in pubs for while. It works and people like it.
It might be the norm for some not very busy pubs with lots of space.
Come down South and I'll show you a proper boozer, which is so busy that you queue for 5 minutes to get a pint. If you're lucky....
The talk at my book group yesterday was how local pubs are hiking up their prices to offset losses. One is charging £7 a pint.
Bloody hell! Where is that? If they did that near me there would be a pitchfork wielding mob. My local was charging £5:20 for two pints of bitter last week.
If Starmer's family didn't have a TV it would almost certainly have been through choice.
One thing I have learned from pb is the amount of people with a weird obsession about the social background of lefty politicians. I never knew this was a thing, but it clearly is.
I was just commenting on the claim that Starmer says he didn't have a TV until his late teens. Now, I haven't seen the show, but I'm guessing that he was using this to demonstrate his working class credentials. So I think it's fair for these claims to be scrutinized.
Maybe see the show then. The TV thing was nothing to do with his w/c credentials. It was about his father - a rather cold, distant figure who wouldn't allow a TV in the house on principle. Eventually they got one, on which Keir was given special dispensation to watch MotD.
There seems to be an inverse correlation on here between people who watched the Starmer interview and willingness to comment on it.
If Starmer's family didn't have a TV it would almost certainly have been through choice.
One thing I have learned from pb is the amount of people with a weird obsession about the social background of lefty politicians. I never knew this was a thing, but it clearly is.
The obsession these days is how much people, especially from the left, can credibly accentuate that they came from a poor working class family and dragged themselves up by their bootstrap a la Four Yorkshireman. I hear it used all the time , often on Desert Island Discs
You have a radio? Luuuuuuuuuuuuuxuuuuuuuury. When I was a lad....
That kind of shit has been a on-going problem. BT had a thing for setting your router to provide public Wifi by default... not sure they aren't still doing that. Any customers of BT here?
I am a BT customer and my router is password protected but equally my wifi networks indicate a BTWi-Fi network requesting a sign in no doubt with that persons own password
If Starmer's family didn't have a TV it would almost certainly have been through choice.
One thing I have learned from pb is the amount of people with a weird obsession about the social background of lefty politicians. I never knew this was a thing, but it clearly is.
The obsession these days is how much people, especially from the left, can credibly accentuate that they came from a poor working class family and dragged themselves up by their bootstrap a la Four Yorkshireman. I hear it used all the time , often on Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs. Luxury. We didn’t have the desert island. Or the discs.
from BBC:- The two donations were made to the Conservatives over the last four years.
One was for a sum of £10,000 made in November 2019 by a company called Stridewell Estates. Government records indicate that the firm had been dissolved three years previously.
Business Insider reported that a spokesman for the company had previously suggested it could be a mistake.
The second donation was made in June 2017 by a company called Unionist Buildings Limited which had apparently been dissolved in January of that year. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57325474
EG in pubs: bar service will be allowed and no social restrictions BUT track and trace will remain, no standing or seating by the bar, masks required when ordering at the bar and when moving around the pub.
Similar rules in restaurants, indoor places like cinemas etc.
Prudent sensible provisions.
Is that what you're expecting, or wanting, or have seen somewhere?
Its not good enough. Seating at the bar is part of a pub. Masks are not.
Its time to get back to normal. If someone unvaccinated doesn't want to go to a pub operating like normal, they have a simple choice: don't go there!
I was at a pub in the Peak District at the weekend, the tables were well spread out and ordering by app. It all worked neatly, but the Test and Trace App was being ignored. I think no one is using if anymore.
I think ordering by app and table service will be the norm in pubs for while. It works and people like it.
It might be the norm for some not very busy pubs with lots of space.
Come down South and I'll show you a proper boozer, which is so busy that you queue for 5 minutes to get a pint. If you're lucky....
The talk at my book group yesterday was how local pubs are hiking up their prices to offset losses. One is charging £7 a pint.
Bloody hell! Where is that? If they did that near me there would be a pitchfork wielding mob. My local was charging £5:20 for two pints of bitter last week.
Probably depends what pint you're ordering too.
A pint of bitter is never going to cost the same as a pint of Peroni and if it does something has gone very wrong.
from BBC:- The two donations were made to the Conservatives over the last four years.
One was for a sum of £10,000 made in November 2019 by a company called Stridewell Estates. Government records indicate that the firm had been dissolved three years previously.
Business Insider reported that a spokesman for the company had previously suggested it could be a mistake.
The second donation was made in June 2017 by a company called Unionist Buildings Limited which had apparently been dissolved in January of that year. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57325474
And the party has said both donations were correctly recorded
O/T - I’ve been increasingly going back to the (empty) office to work. It is noticeable how much more comfortable it is sitting in a proper office chair, at a proper desk with well positioned screens etc...
I wonder if one under the radar story of the lockdown might be the number of workplace claims for back complaints etc there might be in coming years? It’s certainly something that my (public sector) employer really doesn’t seem to have addressed aggressively (beyond, at the start, allowing people to “claim” an office chair, through personal pickup, and “given people the option” of continuing to work in the office if necessary).
Starmer is clearly decent, warm, human being who got where he is through his own efforts overcoming serious problems along the way.
Doomed as a politician then....
Well let’s hope not and he done pretty well so far. Party leader and a serious contender for no10 is more than pretty much everyone else achieves in politics.
You obviously missed the recent polling showing his ratings as bad as any Labour leader (at a comparable time, I believe worse than Jezza) and Labour being 10% back.
And those local elections...Labour didn't even manage to win control of the London Assembly....Remainistan left leaning London...
Saying Labour didn't win control of the London Assembly is like saying the Tories didn't win a majority of votes at the last General Election
Labour's performance in London was very poor. The few places it went well, a couple of uni towns and where there was a big personal mandidate e.g. Burnham.
Remind me, who's the Tory Mayor of London then?
Up against the useless Shaun Bailey, he went backward. And we were talking about the LA.
from BBC:- The two donations were made to the Conservatives over the last four years.
One was for a sum of £10,000 made in November 2019 by a company called Stridewell Estates. Government records indicate that the firm had been dissolved three years previously.
Business Insider reported that a spokesman for the company had previously suggested it could be a mistake.
The second donation was made in June 2017 by a company called Unionist Buildings Limited which had apparently been dissolved in January of that year. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57325474
And the party has said both donations were correctly recorded
One imagines that is how they were found, and that some enterprising journalist was doing the incompetent Labour Party's job for it, and checking through the list of "correctly recorded" donations to the Conservative Party.
Mr. Alex, I work from home. My chair is pretty old. It's tatty (I have to use a cushion). But the back is immensely comfortable and I'm very reluctant to change it. Chairs are not something to be underestimated.
EG in pubs: bar service will be allowed and no social restrictions BUT track and trace will remain, no standing or seating by the bar, masks required when ordering at the bar and when moving around the pub.
Similar rules in restaurants, indoor places like cinemas etc.
Prudent sensible provisions.
That's not good enough, sitting at the bar and standing in the pub are part of being in a pub. Of all people I thought you'd realise it!
End all restrictions on June 21st. No half measures that the zero COVID c***s will turn into permanent "low cost" interventions like mask wearing. People are free to wear them but it should be a personal choice from June 21st onwards.
I’m on holiday this week and the mask-on, mask-off nonsense is driving me bonkers. I have lost six or seven masks in three days! I look forward to the day when the mask mandate ends, as I am simply too absent-minded to manage the bloody things. And they are really uncomfortable in warm weather.
I'm sick of having to plan evenings out and book everything in advance and get to the next place within 15 minutes of the booking time and all of that crap. There's no more spontaneity. We can't just decide to go to the pub or to a restaurant and stay for an indefinite period of time. Life is now made up of two hour blocks.
You have to book to go to the pub? Isn't happening up here. Pub not full, rock up. Pub full. Queue. More likely find pub not full.
The pubs that my wife and I like to go to are always packed and now only take bookings. The manager said that they'd need for social distancing to be canned to remove that restriction.
On BH monday my favourite eat-out pub was pretty much full - one outdoor table only left, which was a huge round picnic table so ended up sharing it with a couple who turned out to live round the corner from where I grew up.
They even had a whippet-terrier doglet that sat under the table and kept itself to itself. Far better than the other hound that was wandering around vaguely in search of sausages; turns out the cause was that the silly owners fed it scraps at the table. Dolts.
If Starmer's family didn't have a TV it would almost certainly have been through choice.
One thing I have learned from pb is the amount of people with a weird obsession about the social background of lefty politicians. I never knew this was a thing, but it clearly is.
The obsession these days is how much people, especially from the left, can credibly accentuate that they came from a poor working class family and dragged themselves up by their bootstrap a la Four Yorkshireman. I hear it used all the time , often on Desert Island Discs
It isn't just Labour politicians. Michael Howard was very pleased with himself for a distinguished legal career via Llanelli Grammar School. Surely success through adversity is to be celebrated. Perhaps more so than the story of a phonecall from Buckingham Palace to the Conservative Party on the day of David Cameron's post graduation interview? An ultimately successful interview.
The Starmer analysis over the last twelve hours on PB has been nothing short of internet trolling. Hang him out to dry for being a LOTO who makes little attempt to oppose by all means, but the acidic personal attacks with little or no foundation, undermine the argument over his ineffectiveness as LOTO. He needs to shape up or ship out.
Attacks on Johnson and Corbyn are also often personal, but tend to ne based on lifetimes of bad behaviour in the public eye, which is wholly different.
from BBC:- The two donations were made to the Conservatives over the last four years.
One was for a sum of £10,000 made in November 2019 by a company called Stridewell Estates. Government records indicate that the firm had been dissolved three years previously.
Business Insider reported that a spokesman for the company had previously suggested it could be a mistake.
The second donation was made in June 2017 by a company called Unionist Buildings Limited which had apparently been dissolved in January of that year. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57325474
And the party has said both donations were correctly recorded
Well clearly they couldn't have been can they? I'm guessing admin cockup rather than anything else, but how can they have been properly recorded if the companies had been dissolved prior to the donation. I assume some sort of mis-recording.
For the first time I agree with Michael O'Leary wanting to lift restrictions on most travel. Because as he's arguing the vaccines are working and its time to get back to normal.
My only criterion was that we should get back to normal domestically before travel, it would be madness to have restrictions domestically but not abroad.
Lets go back to normal now. The vulnerable are vaccinated. This is over. Get on with it now, whatever it is that you want to do.
Plus now we've pissed away most of our time advantage of getting vaccinated early. The EU now is as vaccinated as we were when we should have opened up. So no reason to delay there either.
O/T - I’ve been increasingly going back to the (empty) office to work. It is noticeable how much more comfortable it is sitting in a proper office chair, at a proper desk with well positioned screens etc...
I wonder if one under the radar story of the lockdown might be the number of workplace claims for back complaints etc there might be in coming years? It’s certainly something that my (public sector) employer really doesn’t seem to have addressed aggressively (beyond, at the start, allowing people to “claim” an office chair, through personal pickup, and “given people the option” of continuing to work in the office if necessary).
Injuries while WFH, tax treatment of electricity and devices used for WFH.
Not to mention dismissals for smoking or drinking while WFH. All good fun.
That kind of shit has been a on-going problem. BT had a thing for setting your router to provide public Wifi by default... not sure they aren't still doing that. Any customers of BT here?
I am a BT customer and my router is password protected but equally my wifi networks indicate a BTWi-Fi network requesting a sign in no doubt with that persons own password
Yup - when I last encountered this, the router was creating a separate network to your private network, for the BT public WifI.
The shitty thing about this was how they "forget" to mention this - to the point that the majority of people who are providing free wifi have no idea. And in areas where bandwidth isn't exactly great to start with....
I took screenshots of a legal argument made by Allison Bailey, which beautifully explains the difference between sex & gender. I didn't know that under the Gender Recognition Act 2004 only those men with a Gender Recognition Certificate can declare himself lawfully to be a woman.
Comments
If you had your 2nd jab a few weeks ago already, then it should be possible to book a 2nd jab for 8 weeks after your first. So it shouldn't be another 2 months to wait.
I've got my 2nd jab booked already for later this month, the 26th. 8 weeks to the day after the 1st, I booked it online.
I am not completely convinced that he has Labour's best interests at heart.
Credit where credit is due, Johnson has not reacted by locking down too soon and too hard. Far from it. He’s always locked down too little, too late. Arguably, his worst mistake in the whole pandemic was not closing schools on December 1st and while I vehemently disagreed with that decision and it was clearly the wrong decision, it does show he doesn’t lock down for the sake of it.
Partly I think it’s because he knows lockdowns are unpopular, partly because he hates making decisions, but also because I think he genuinely is quite reluctant to impose draconian restrictions. With all his faults, one thing he has never been is authoritarian. He’s always been quite happy to let other people get on with their lives as long as whatever they do is legal.
He’s strongly committed to 21st June. The data doesn’t support locking down further. The death rate is down and hospitalisations are changing very little although the trend was marginally up last week. I cannot see why he would change his mind.
What is frustrating is that the media and those nutters on Indie Sage seem to think lockdowns are cost free. They certainly are not.
I think ordering by app and table service will be the norm in pubs for while. It works and people like it.
Come down South and I'll show you a proper boozer, which is so busy that you queue for 5 minutes to get a pint. If you're lucky....
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-57307181 interested to know what her political legacy will be...? I reckon 50/50 she gets a peerage, not sure who she will sit with though.
Myself and a friend then went into a restaurant for a meal.. No logging in at all. Staff wearing masks but that was it. Again there were maybe 3 tables being used so it wasn't exactly cheek by jowl.
I think Nicola is being even more delusional than normal in these anxious decisions about whether areas are in zone 1 or 2. No one gives a damn and most have already moved on. Those who are concerned are just not coming out which must be killing many of these establishments.
Even when all restrictions are removed, not everything will go back to how it was in the years BC. Some of the changes are for the good, some merely convenient, and some handy for the business.
And I believe one can pay less in some places.
Where's Ms Cyclefree when she's needed?
They (like you it seems) just can't bring themselves ever to acknowledge that Boris Johnson's Government have done something right.
It's like pulling teeth. You just can't, can you?
Of course there's a bank holiday effect but the fact remains that death rates are extremely low. And most new infections are in under 50's. Why? Because of the vaccines.
The simple truth is that this is the first time since March last year, the first time since the pandemic began in the UK, that zero covid deaths have been reported.
Oh, and we've had other weekends and bank hols in the last 15 months. Or perhaps you don't celebrate bank holidays under Boris?
Ordering by app doesn't work very well in some spots with terrible signal. I don't use public wifi either so that wouldn't help.
My favourite pubs in Bloomsbury are stand up lean on the wall outside types - I can't wait to get back to the bar!
I quite like table service by app, it works well sometimes - for example, a group of friends ordering different things and when you would normally have to send two people to the bar to carry the drinks - but there is no substitute for being able to stand at the bar and talk to random people.
He has married an RC, but that doesn't automatically make him one. The requirement for an RC marriage is that the children are brought up RC, but both spouses don't need to be RC.
Strangely I prefer the ambiance of the more expensive places.
We lost the battle very early on.
But it still would have crept in and spread. I no longer believe it would have been possible to do a New Zealand and hermetically seal our borders. And if the Kiwis and Aussies don't hurry up and get their populations vaccinated then I know where I'd rather be right now. A hermetically sealed country is no way to exist.
I like your 'credit where credit's due' line. We made mistakes early on, mostly rectified them and since then have steered a pretty good course through these troubled waters whilst pouring all of our effort into brilliant vaccine development and roll out. We were the first country in the world to administer the Pfizer jab, a moment of searing optimism that has continued.
I'm sorry for people who can't bring themselves to acknowledge this success. Genuinely sorry. They must be very miserable.
But the fact that he was baptised Catholic means he's a Catholic. Subsequent confirmation in the CofE is an irrelevance to them.
(In their eyes)
We open up the rest of the country, but tell Indie Sage and all journalists we’re still locked down.
Then they can stay inside and witter pointlessly about how necessary it is, and the rest of us can get on with our lives.
More cake-ism I suppose.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/veda-krishnamurthy-i-was-completely-destroyed-all-of-us-were-broken-to-pieces-1264797
That’s a harrowing story however you look at it. Almost an entire family affected, two died.
So the fact that it hasn’t gone scything through the population here suggests that the vaccines are doing their job.
A financial scandal so incompetent and corrupt, that it would have even felled Teflon Johnson, had he overseen it.
There was no TV (or Internet obviously) when I was in halls at university. The extra few hours per day really helped with studies, though we did knock off down the pub by 2100 most nights.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3025393/How-Steptoe-Son-nearly-cost-Labour-1964-election-BBC-changed-schedule-polling-day-Harold-Wilson-secretly-lobbied-Director-General-case-working-class-voters-stayed-home-watch-it.html
That was when Keir Starmer was two...
The media aren't in the business of providing information; they're in the business of grabbing our attention.
Drama, certainty, outrage, fear, anger, baddies, conspiracies... that grabs attention, so it takes the focus.
And we reward them for it. What are the ones we most talk about? The ones where someone is interviewed with a balanced and undramatic viewpoint, accepting uncertainty, and telling us to wait and see but it's looking okay for now?
Or the ones that grab an extreme, profess total certainty, go dramatic, and stoke up fear or outrage?
We reward the media for doing that, so the media continually gravitate to the dramatic, unusual, and extreme.
You will now have to pour mains water over your shed roofs to fill your water butts?
https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1399988303961673734?s=20
I thank you...
The spectators at Cheltenham wouldn't have stayed in their homes if it had been cancelled but would have been doing alternative things - with a fair few thousand travelling on the tube every day.
Whereas for the Liverpool game that likely brought it an extra dollop of covid from Madrid.
Labour demands 'urgent investigation' into the Conservatives after Boris Johnson's party declares donations from companies that don't exist
https://www.businessinsider.com/urgent-investigation-demanded-into-tory-donations-from-ghost-firms-2021-6
I recall a monitoring project, but not whether these were preserved.
There seems to be an inverse correlation on here between people who watched the Starmer interview and willingness to comment on it.
The two donations were made to the Conservatives over the last four years.
One was for a sum of £10,000 made in November 2019 by a company called Stridewell Estates. Government records indicate that the firm had been dissolved three years previously.
Business Insider reported that a spokesman for the company had previously suggested it could be a mistake.
The second donation was made in June 2017 by a company called Unionist Buildings Limited which had apparently been dissolved in January of that year.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57325474
A pint of bitter is never going to cost the same as a pint of Peroni and if it does something has gone very wrong.
I wonder if one under the radar story of the lockdown might be the number of workplace claims for back complaints etc there might be in coming years? It’s certainly something that my (public sector) employer really doesn’t seem to have addressed aggressively (beyond, at the start, allowing people to “claim” an office chair, through personal pickup, and “given people the option” of continuing to work in the office if necessary).
Presumably a working Tory peer with some interesting experience in youth work etc.
They even had a whippet-terrier doglet that sat under the table and kept itself to itself. Far better than the other hound that was wandering around vaguely in search of sausages; turns out the cause was that the silly owners fed it scraps at the table. Dolts.
The Starmer analysis over the last twelve hours on PB has been nothing short of internet trolling. Hang him out to dry for being a LOTO who makes little attempt to oppose by all means, but the acidic personal attacks with little or no foundation, undermine the argument over his ineffectiveness as LOTO. He needs to shape up or ship out.
Attacks on Johnson and Corbyn are also often personal, but tend to ne based on lifetimes of bad behaviour in the public eye, which is wholly different.
My only criterion was that we should get back to normal domestically before travel, it would be madness to have restrictions domestically but not abroad.
Lets go back to normal now. The vulnerable are vaccinated. This is over. Get on with it now, whatever it is that you want to do.
Plus now we've pissed away most of our time advantage of getting vaccinated early. The EU now is as vaccinated as we were when we should have opened up. So no reason to delay there either.
Not to mention dismissals for smoking or drinking while WFH. All good fun.
The shitty thing about this was how they "forget" to mention this - to the point that the majority of people who are providing free wifi have no idea. And in areas where bandwidth isn't exactly great to start with....