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  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,345
    edited April 2020

    Have you tried a boot in safe mode? Which OS?
    Yep. Still won't boot.

    Never come across anything quite like this, which is why I'm bewildered.

    Edit - Windows 10.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,217
    Stocky said:

    Let`s not be rude to each other - Chris is usually a great poster.
    Well I posted the %s for age of covid deaths, and he insinuated that meant I thought old people should be left to die! That’s pretty rude, as well as inaccurate.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    The government is doing its best to polish a turd but the current figures are pretty dreadful. Testing is still woefully inadequate and so positive test numbers tell us little. Deaths in hospital from Covid-19 are poor and expected to get worse, and the government has no real handle on deaths from Covid-19 outside hospital. The government refuses to acknowledge even that the figures are poor.

    Most depressingly, there’s not a single opposition politician pointing any of this out. The Labour Party are far more concerned with internecine score-settling.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 30,052
    ydoethur said:

    OK fellers, if there is anyone who can help I'd be grateful.

    I've got a lenovo desktop computer, about three years old (2017) which isn't top of the range but has always worked perfectly well. Today, instead of starting up, it sits there with its LED on, and its fan spinning, and nothing getting through to either monitor.

    It's not the cables, it's not the monitors, it's not anything I've plugged in and I haven't done any software updates recently (Microsoft may of course have attempted one without asking me, which is not unusual for them). So I think it might be a hardware problem, which would be bloody annoying as it would be a nightmare to get it fixed right now.

    However, I wondered if anyone had come across something similar and might know of a fix?

    If worst comes to worst, I can manage without it, but it makes life more difficult.

    There was something about a dodgy Windows 10 patch recently but then there always is. To rule out Windows, you could try booting off a flash drive or dvd, assuming you have either lying about with a bootable OS on, which I doubt.

    Does it POST (power on self test) when you power it on? In other words, do you see any output (from the bios) before it gets to Windows?

    From what you say, I'd be inclined to suspect RAM and if you know what you are doing you could try removing all bar one DIMM (assuming you have more than one to start with). I'm assuming you've not got a secondary graphics card.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,345
    edited April 2020

    There was something about a dodgy Windows 10 patch recently but then there always is. To rule out Windows, you could try booting off a flash drive or dvd, assuming you have either lying about with a bootable OS on, which I doubt.

    Does it POST (power on self test) when you power it on? In other words, do you see any output (from the bios) before it gets to Windows?

    From what you say, I'd be inclined to suspect RAM and if you know what you are doing you could try removing all bar one DIMM (assuming you have more than one to start with). I'm assuming you've not got a secondary graphics card.
    HAven't got a flash drive and even the DVD drive won't open.

    What the hell is a DIMM? (Which probably suggests I don't know what I'm doing anyway.)

    No, I haven't got a secondary graphics card. Never needed it.

    Nothing gets through to the monitors at all. The fan works, and the LED on light, but nothing else.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,906
    dodrade said:

    It did rather sound as if he was preparing the ground for a U-Turn.
    One can't help wondering about possible comebacks in the future over all that advice for the public not to wear masks, even if they were misled with good intentions.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 54,086
    malcolmg said:

    thanks, so I need to look at ONS plus Scottish data
    Plus NI, I think.

    ONS is talking to the devolved administrations about providing a uniform UK dataset.

    This will require deep diving the record gathering process to ensure that the datasets are really equal. There is, I understand, a great deal of mutual respect and cooperation between them, but this process will probably take time.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,026

    Usually Wednesday - may be affected by the bank holiday weekend. Check ONS.
    Thanks
  • The_ApocalypseThe_Apocalypse Posts: 7,830

    The combination of polling suggests that despite a nice new shiny guy at the top, Labour's brand is still buggered.
    I don’t think during a pandemic, the public’s main priority is having a review as to what they think of the Labour Party.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    ydoethur said:

    A desktop, Malcolm, not a laptop!

    The drive is engaging at start up, but doesn't seem to be kicking on.

    I was rather afraid it was an HDD problem.
    Does it beep when you try to start it? If so, count the beeps. Then do some googling.
  • OllyTOllyT Posts: 5,034
    kinabalu said:

    I've got the leaked report. Planning to read it shortly.
    Who actually wrote it? Is it just the last throw of the dice by Formby, Milne and co before they get the boot?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,345

    Does it beep when you try to start it? If so, count the beeps. Then do some googling.
    No. But again, not conclusive as it never does.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,281
    Well there's a surprise....

    President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia offered his bleakest comments yet on his country’s handling of the pandemic, warning officials on Monday that the number of severely ill patients was rising and that medical workers faced shortages of protective equipment.

    “We have a lot of problems, and we don’t have much to brag about, nor reason to, and we certainly can’t relax,” Mr. Putin told senior officials in a televised videoconference that he conducted from his residence outside Moscow. “We are not past the peak of the epidemic, not even in Moscow.”

    Russia’s total number of confirmed cases reached 18,328, double the level of five days earlier, with roughly two-thirds of them in Moscow. The number of deaths stood at 148 nationwide.


    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/world/coronavirus-news.html
  • I do not know the detail but is a civil war about to break out in the labour party just at the time a sensible labour party is needed
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 59,243
    Stocky said:

    I`ve being going in big against Trump/Republicans for a while. Topped up yet again today.

    At current odds I prefer laying Trump for Next President at 1.99 (1.97 this morning) rather than laying Republicans to win GE at 1.95. My reasoning is that I still hold a hunch that Trump may not run.
    I agree re Trump. There is a small (but meaningful) chance he will not be the nominee.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 34,278

    New Statesman guy actually asking worthy questions.

    What did he ask?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 54,086
    ydoethur said:

    HAven't got a flash drive and even the DVD drive won't open.

    What the hell is a DIMM? (Which probably suggests I don't know what I'm doing anyway.)

    No, I haven't got a secondary graphics card. Never needed it.

    Nothing gets through to the monitors at all. The fan works, and the LED on light, but nothing else.
    DIMM in this context means RAM memory - which in ia desktop is one or more slot in cards.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIMM
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 79,204
    edited April 2020

    In this spectacularly complacent press conference. Even business Insider has no interest in the enormous impact the government's measures will have on.....er.....business.

    Andy_JS said:

    I think Boris Johnson will start taking charge again in a couple of weeks' time, and he's likely to take the economy into account a lot more than is presently the case.
    There's no chance of the economy making any sort of proper return till the health crisis is under far more control than at present.

    It was prioritising keeping international flights going as normal for as long as possible that is the main reason for us getting into the mess we're currently in.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,345

    I do not know the detail but is a civil war about to break out in the labour party just at the time a sensible labour party is needed

    No Big_G. There's nothing civil about this one.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,026

    Plus NI, I think.

    ONS is talking to the devolved administrations about providing a uniform UK dataset.

    This will require deep diving the record gathering process to ensure that the datasets are really equal. There is, I understand, a great deal of mutual respect and cooperation between them, but this process will probably take time.
    Cheers
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818

    The government is doing its best to polish a turd but the current figures are pretty dreadful. Testing is still woefully inadequate and so positive test numbers tell us little. Deaths in hospital from Covid-19 are poor and expected to get worse, and the government has no real handle on deaths from Covid-19 outside hospital. The government refuses to acknowledge even that the figures are poor.

    Most depressingly, there’s not a single opposition politician pointing any of this out. The Labour Party are far more concerned with internecine score-settling.

    YOU are talking about numbers that are totally unreliable. Deaths from or with Coronavirus for example, are reportedly being lumped in together.

    New infections and hospital admissions and rate of increase in spare capacity are more important, surely.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 62,453
    Mr. NorthWales, too much to hope for a split, with the loonies running off to form the People's Front of Islington or the True Acolytes of Jezziah?
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,180

    92 carer homes where an outbreak has happened.

    I trust people are aware that in Italy, France, Belgium, Spain and I suspect others there have been serious outbreaks and deaths in care homes. It is of course tragic and sad but I'm pretty sure most countries have treated their elderly in much the same way - no doubt with errors - but not I think with malice. Remember it is the nature of the beast we are dealing with that the elderly and infirm are those most at risk.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818

    YOU are talking about numbers that are totally unreliable. Deaths from or with Coronavirus for example, are reportedly being lumped in together.

    New infections and hospital admissions and rate of increase in spare capacity are more important, surely.
    But you are correct about testing.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,906
    Pulpstar said:

    There's no chance of the economy making any sort of proper return till the health crisis is under far more control than at present.
    I don't think you appreciate the depths of these people's concern for their bank balances.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 30,052
    ydoethur said:

    HAven't got a flash drive and even the DVD drive won't open.

    What the hell is a DIMM? (Which probably suggests I don't know what I'm doing anyway.)

    No, I haven't got a secondary graphics card. Never needed it.

    Nothing gets through to the monitors at all. The fan works, and the LED on light, but nothing else.
    A dimm is a memory (RAM) stick. You probably have two or four of them. My suspicion is that one of them has failed.

    Get on Youtube and look for the channel of a chap called Carey Holzman. He is a rather long-winded American IT guy who posts videos on the theme, customer X has sent this dead PC and here is an hour or two of troubleshooting and fixing. Watch a couple and work out if you can do what he suggests or if you need to call in the professionals. I expect there are self-employed IT techs in your part of Wales, or if this is a second system you could wait till lockdown ends.

    https://www.youtube.com/user/CareyHolzman

    Holzman is slow and clear, unlike many of the youtube pc builders who assume a lot of prior experience.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340

    YOU are talking about numbers that are totally unreliable. Deaths from or with Coronavirus for example, are reportedly being lumped in together.

    New infections and hospital admissions and rate of increase in spare capacity are more important, surely.
    No. The most important detail is total mortality at present.

    The from/with debate is utterly sterile. Causation is often complex. It’s clear that Covid-19 can be highly harmful to health. Examining what exactly killed many people is as futile as working out who exactly was the killer on the Orient Express.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,906
    felix said:

    I trust people are aware that in Italy, France, Belgium, Spain and I suspect others there have been serious outbreaks and deaths in care homes. It is of course tragic and sad but I'm pretty sure most countries have treated their elderly in much the same way - no doubt with errors - but not I think with malice. Remember it is the nature of the beast we are dealing with that the elderly and infirm are those most at risk.
    Indeed. But our government was unique - among the ones not run by complete loonies - in the delusion that it would be possible to let the virus run through about two thirds of the population while "cocooning" the vulnerable.

    One might have expected even politicians as dim as Johnson and Hancock to question how that would be done for care homes.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,180
    isam said:

    I wonder if it will bear any resemblance to this. From a mate who lives in Spain


    That has already been called out as fake news - it appeared on Facebook earlier today and caused a lot of angst and a fair bit of amusement.
  • Mr. NorthWales, too much to hope for a split, with the loonies running off to form the People's Front of Islington or the True Acolytes of Jezziah?

    I thought events seemed to be going smoothly for Starmer and I have been impressed with him so far

    Maybe that comment is enough to fire up the Corbynites to upset the apple cart because Starmer must be a tory if a tory is complimenting him
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    You can tell from this press conference that the doctors are firmly in control of policy.

    So imagine the worst hit the economy could take from this, your absolute worst nightmare, and assume its going to be worse than that.

    For two million job losses read four million, in other words.

    Oh, it's going to be a grade A catastrophe, through a combination of public fear, changing habits, ongoing social distancing measures and a long and grinding lockdown.

    Once discretionary retail gets up and running, a lot of customers won't come back because they'll move online or only go out to buy clothes, in particular, if they're essential and not the sort of basics they can pick up whilst at the supermarket. The shops will also, presumably, be made to put staff on the doors to arrange orderly queues or shoo customers away once they're full (which, for smaller units, may mean only having two people in there at any one time.)

    Services like hairdressers will also come back, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were made to trade by appointment only and half the chairs were left empty to at least keep the customers 2m apart from each other. The staff will probably be told to wear masks.

    God alone knows when the leisure and hospitality industries will be allowed to resume trading. Worst case scenario is that nobody gets to reopen until we have herd immunity or a vaccine, because social distancing, and the whole lot goes to the wall. That'll cause a depression on its own.

    Fact is, I don't think it'll get quite that far because the imperative to avert mass unemployment and socio-economic collapse will eventually force the Government to let the virus out of jail. In fact, I've suspected for some time that this is what the Nightingale hospitals are primarily for - not so much dealing with the immediate crisis but warehousing the victims of the second wave. But I certainly wouldn't want to be employed by (or recently laid off from) a business like a cafe or a gym right now.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    Pulpstar said:

    There's no chance of the economy making any sort of proper return till the health crisis is under far more control than at present.

    It was prioritising keeping international flights going as normal for as long as possible that is the main reason for us getting into the mess we're currently in.
    If that is the case then the economic tsunami that will follow will kill far more than Coronavirus ever could.

    The complacency in that press conference and on here is breathtaking. Some people think Britain somehow has a divine right to be a first rank economy, whatever we do to the people who power that economy.

    Nothing could be further from the truth.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 54,086
    ydoethur said:

    No Big_G. There's nothing civil about this one.
    There is rarely anything civil in any civil war.

    Scott Hancock and Lewis Armistead excepted of course....
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,345
    THank you all for your answers. I will have a look at this Holzmann guy and see whether any of his videos can help.

    If not, I'll have to try and find someone who's still able to fix things.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,180

    Don’t get either Neil’s or Hodges’ responses. The reports of what is in the report do not suggest a culture that will be productive to Labour actually winning a general election.
    Did you miss the bit about "in a national crisis"?
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,026

    A dimm is a memory (RAM) stick. You probably have two or four of them. My suspicion is that one of them has failed.

    Get on Youtube and look for the channel of a chap called Carey Holzman. He is a rather long-winded American IT guy who posts videos on the theme, customer X has sent this dead PC and here is an hour or two of troubleshooting and fixing. Watch a couple and work out if you can do what he suggests or if you need to call in the professionals. I expect there are self-employed IT techs in your part of Wales, or if this is a second system you could wait till lockdown ends.

    https://www.youtube.com/user/CareyHolzman

    Holzman is slow and clear, unlike many of the youtube pc builders who assume a lot of prior experience.
    @ydoethur Looks like you will need to order a new system. Check ebay and the like to see if you can get same model. My wife dropped her laptop last week and burst the screen, I got her a cracking Lenovo T450 laptop for £200, delivered in a day.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 30,052
    OT re lifting lockdown.

    If Boris is making a list based on anecdata, I've recently heard mumblings around the need for dentists, chiropodists, children's clothes (the buggers keep growing even if you don't feed them) and opticians.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 54,086
    malcolmg said:

    @ydoethur Looks like you will need to order a new system. Check ebay and the like to see if you can get same model. My wife dropped her laptop last week and burst the screen, I got her a cracking Lenovo T450 laptop for £200, delivered in a day.
    I have long used https://www.novatech.co.uk

    Depends what you really need - are you just using it for email and browsing?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 34,278
    edited April 2020
    If 50 million pints are about to go to waste, can't they give them to people or supermarkets instead of just throwing them away?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52199185
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,906

    Oh, it's going to be a grade A catastrophe, through a combination of public fear, changing habits, ongoing social distancing measures and a long and grinding lockdown.

    Once discretionary retail gets up and running, a lot of customers won't come back because they'll move online or only go out to buy clothes, in particular, if they're essential and not the sort of basics they can pick up whilst at the supermarket. The shops will also, presumably, be made to put staff on the doors to arrange orderly queues or shoo customers away once they're full (which, for smaller units, may mean only having two people in there at any one time.)

    Services like hairdressers will also come back, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were made to trade by appointment only and half the chairs were left empty to at least keep the customers 2m apart from each other. The staff will probably be told to wear masks.

    God alone knows when the leisure and hospitality industries will be allowed to resume trading. Worst case scenario is that nobody gets to reopen until we have herd immunity or a vaccine, because social distancing, and the whole lot goes to the wall. That'll cause a depression on its own.

    Fact is, I don't think it'll get quite that far because the imperative to avert mass unemployment and socio-economic collapse will eventually force the Government to let the virus out of jail. In fact, I've suspected for some time that this is what the Nightingale hospitals are primarily for - not so much dealing with the immediate crisis but warehousing the victims of the second wave. But I certainly wouldn't want to be employed by (or recently laid off from) a business like a cafe or a gym right now.
    Businesses do fail, often through no fault of their own, when circumstances change. Normally the Right is quite resistant to the state bailing them out. Strangely, some sections of the Right now think not only that businesses should be bailed out, but that hundreds of thousands of lives should be sacrificed to do it. It seems an odd philosophy for conservatives to espouse.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Pagan2 said:

    Part of the reason for my reluctance for that is that my company states it has the ability to check your phone for company data when you leave. HR is not thumbing through my personal phone thanks. I suspect a lot of firms have that sort of clause
    And what happens if you “lose” your phone before quitting?
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    Chris said:

    I don't think you appreciate the depths of these people's concern for their bank balances.
    I'm not so sure that the desperation to get the economy motoring again as soon as possible is so much to do with a concern for people's bank balances, as it is for the people who don't have bank balances.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818

    No. The most important detail is total mortality at present.

    The from/with debate is utterly sterile. Causation is often complex. It’s clear that Covid-19 can be highly harmful to health. Examining what exactly killed many people is as futile as working out who exactly was the killer on the Orient Express.
    You seem to have undermined your own argument with that response.

    IF its a complex matter then why do we trust the data?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 34,278
    Ridiculous:

    "Dozens of environmental activists have been referred to the Home Office’s anti-terrorism programme.

    Public bodies such as councils, schools and universities have a duty to make referrals to the Prevent programme when they consider a person to be at risk of radicalisation.

    At least 45 activists were referred to Prevent over environmental extremism between April 2016 and March last year, a freedom of information request from The Times shows." (£)

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/45-climate-activists-treated-as-terrorists-nxg9kns76
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 22,100
    Are we sure that ydoethur’s computer hasn’t tried to make a pun? DIMM
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,672
    edited April 2020

    The government is doing its best to polish a turd but the current figures are pretty dreadful. Testing is still woefully inadequate and so positive test numbers tell us little. Deaths in hospital from Covid-19 are poor and expected to get worse, and the government has no real handle on deaths from Covid-19 outside hospital. The government refuses to acknowledge even that the figures are poor.

    Most depressingly, there’s not a single opposition politician pointing any of this out. The Labour Party are far more concerned with internecine score-settling.

    No, it's a question of what's reported as news in most of the media: the press still think that an internal Labour argument is more interesting than Labour's views on COVID, and it's been like that for weeks. From two minutes' googling:

    https://labour.org.uk/press/labour-demands-national-testing-strategy-jonathan-ashworth-responds-to-government-press-conference/

    https://talkradio.co.uk/news/jonathan-ashworth-were-still-not-testing-enough-20032633136

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2020/mar/18/where-is-the-testing-rosena-allin-khan-questions-pm-on-delayed-covid-19-response-video

    https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-lack-of-protection-for-nhs-staff-an-abomination-says-labour-mp-on-frontline-11967422

    I see this stuff routinely because I get the press releases. Very little gets published in widely-read media.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,026
    Andy_JS said:

    If 50 million pints are about to go to waste, can't they give them to people or supermarkets instead of just throwing them away?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52199185

    that would be criminal
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,376
    Mr Chris,

    The reasons for not wearing nuisance masks are many. The reasons for wearing are they keep your nose cleaner,and instead of coughing on someone you smear your gob over yourself when you take the mask off and deposit it on handrails.

    Oh, and you get a false feeling of confidence,

    Damn that nasty science.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340

    You seem to have undermined your own argument with that response.

    IF its a complex matter then why do we trust the data?
    We don’t. At least, not blindly. It tells us something (quite a lot, actually), however, and we should pay attention to that. We shouldn’t just junk it because it has problems. We make the best of what we have.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,207
    Andy_JS said:

    If 50 million pints are about to go to waste, can't they give them to people or supermarkets instead of just throwing them away?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52199185

    I am willing to do my bit to avoid waste :smiley:
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,026
    Charles said:

    And what happens if you “lose” your phone before quitting?
    Mine pays for phone and all calls , they can check who I am phoning any time, I am happy to have no cost option and ability to make free personal calls internet access etc.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 30,052
    Chris said:

    Businesses do fail, often through no fault of their own, when circumstances change. Normally the Right is quite resistant to the state bailing them out. Strangely, some sections of the Right now think not only that businesses should be bailed out, but that hundreds of thousands of lives should be sacrificed to do it. It seems an odd philosophy for conservatives to espouse.
    Odd that Conservatives want state bailouts? This is Theresa May vs George Osborne redux. May understood the grassroots of the party running small businesses, the ones facing ruin. Osborne represents both the trustafarians and the financiers, who are not directly impacted and might even profit.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    Chris said:

    Businesses do fail, often through no fault of their own, when circumstances change. Normally the Right is quite resistant to the state bailing them out. Strangely, some sections of the Right now think not only that businesses should be bailed out, but that hundreds of thousands of lives should be sacrificed to do it. It seems an odd philosophy for conservatives to espouse.
    This has moved beyond a silly left-right dispute. If the Treasury runs out of money to prop up all the unemployed before this is all over (because the markets won't lend to it anymore, and it can't print its way out of trouble without ruining everybody through hyperinflation) then we have mass starvation and societal collapse.

    It always comes back to a balance: if the number of lives destroyed by the measures taken to combat coronavirus exceeds those destroyed by the virus itself, then at least some of the measures to suppress the virus must be removed. A hypothetical Labour administration would be faced with exactly the same horrible choices as the current one.
  • The_ApocalypseThe_Apocalypse Posts: 7,830
    felix said:

    Did you miss the bit about "in a national crisis"?
    No, but they can’t exactly ignore the report. If anything not responding to it and letting dissent grow will limit the capacity for the opposition to be an effective one during this period of national crisis. If people think Labour are in a civil war now, it’d be worse if the leadership said and did nothing. At least now the leadership can focus its attention to how best to hold the government to account during this pandemic.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 60,336
    malcolmg said:

    Am I missing something Rob, ONS appear to be England and Wales only
    Isn't there a Scottish equivalent that are collating the same information?
  • ukpaulukpaul Posts: 649
    edited April 2020
    Chris said:

    Businesses do fail, often through no fault of their own, when circumstances change. Normally the Right is quite resistant to the state bailing them out. Strangely, some sections of the Right now think not only that businesses should be bailed out, but that hundreds of thousands of lives should be sacrificed to do it. It seems an odd philosophy for conservatives to espouse.
    It's a matter of changing mindset from 'I have to keep what I have' to 'what can I do now to benefit from the situation?' If most people in your line of work are running around going 'I'm doomed' then maybe you are better spending your time working out how you can get ahead of them. In my own field, there are going to be real difficulties about losing custom from East Asia. The answer is not 'how do I get that back?' it's 'what can I do instead and how can I get there first?'
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 54,086
    malcolmg said:

    that would be criminal
    There was a perfect jobsworth in Oxford, when I was growing up....

    The local Sainbury's allowed the local enviro-activist types to take just expired food from pallets stacked at the back of the store. Left them in a separate stack etc.

    The jobsworth in question claimed this was selling out of date food. He got the store closed, full inventory etc, while all the fresh produce spoiled. Which he was proud of.

    The store reopened with a chain link fence around the area at the back where the out of date food was stored.

    One week later, a neat staircase of forklift pallets, inside and outside the fence was noticed.

    Fuckwit tried again - strangely, this time we was told to Foxtrot Oscar by his bosses.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Andy_JS said:

    If 50 million pints are about to go to waste, can't they give them to people or supermarkets instead of just throwing them away?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52199185

    They are in kegs currently, you'd need a bottling operation to distribute, and a seriously inefficient one at that as you'd have to be swapping kegs constantly.

    Also, due to the wonders of capitalism everything is optimised towards cost and as a result we don't have spare capacity for doing things like that, thus huge quantaties of milk being flushed away despite the shelves being short of milk as milk previously destined for industrial use can't be rerouted to domestic use as there is no spare bottling capacity.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 60,336
    Jonathan said:

    Are we sure that ydoethur’s computer hasn’t tried to make a pun? DIMM

    I wouldn't put it POST him.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 54,086
    RobD said:

    Isn't there a Scottish equivalent that are collating the same information?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Records_of_Scotland
  • ukpaulukpaul Posts: 649

    OT re lifting lockdown.

    If Boris is making a list based on anecdata, I've recently heard mumblings around the need for dentists, chiropodists, children's clothes (the buggers keep growing even if you don't feed them) and opticians.

    If it can be done safely(one in, one out, different chairs etc.), barbers/hairdressers. I've bought some hair clippers but am wary of having a go, as it might be a complete disaster.
  • DensparkDenspark Posts: 68
    RobD said:

    Isn't there a Scottish equivalent that are collating the same information?
    national records of scotland.
    https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,906
    CD13 said:

    Mr Chris,

    The reasons for not wearing nuisance masks are many. The reasons for wearing are they keep your nose cleaner,and instead of coughing on someone you smear your gob over yourself when you take the mask off and deposit it on handrails.

    Oh, and you get a false feeling of confidence,

    Damn that nasty science.

    Does anyone really believe we were told not to wear masks because the science showed that wearing masks was dangerous - rather than because masks were in short supply?
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 4,953

    Oh, it's going to be a grade A catastrophe, through a combination of public fear, changing habits, ongoing social distancing measures and a long and grinding lockdown.

    Once discretionary retail gets up and running, a lot of customers won't come back because they'll move online or only go out to buy clothes, in particular, if they're essential and not the sort of basics they can pick up whilst at the supermarket. The shops will also, presumably, be made to put staff on the doors to arrange orderly queues or shoo customers away once they're full (which, for smaller units, may mean only having two people in there at any one time.)

    Services like hairdressers will also come back, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were made to trade by appointment only and half the chairs were left empty to at least keep the customers 2m apart from each other. The staff will probably be told to wear masks.

    God alone knows when the leisure and hospitality industries will be allowed to resume trading. Worst case scenario is that nobody gets to reopen until we have herd immunity or a vaccine, because social distancing, and the whole lot goes to the wall. That'll cause a depression on its own.

    Fact is, I don't think it'll get quite that far because the imperative to avert mass unemployment and socio-economic collapse will eventually force the Government to let the virus out of jail. In fact, I've suspected for some time that this is what the Nightingale hospitals are primarily for - not so much dealing with the immediate crisis but warehousing the victims of the second wave. But I certainly wouldn't want to be employed by (or recently laid off from) a business like a cafe or a gym right now.
    Yeah, this is some great depression level stuff. I have access to some limited economic data through my job and it's hard to see how this doesn't result in a near fatal blow to the high street. There won't be any reason to leave our homes soon - there won't be anywhere left open to go.

    The tax base is clearly going to take a kicking, it's not a question of us all paying more tax, it's going to be a fact that there simply aren't enough people left working to pay enough tax to keep public services going. Austerity will seem mild compared to the cuts that will need to be made.

    The alternative is we print a load of funny money. Which I think is where we are headed.
  • SirNorfolkPassmoreSirNorfolkPassmore Posts: 7,286
    edited April 2020
    Andy_JS said:

    If 50 million pints are about to go to waste, can't they give them to people or supermarkets instead of just throwing them away?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52199185

    Lots of practical and legal issues there.

    Most pubs aren't licensed for off-sales (which includes freebies). In Scotland, you've got minimum alcohol price issues, and in the rest of the UK tax/duty implications.

    It also seems irresponsible and probably illegal to encourage crowds of people to queue for your "free" beer collection from a business that is meant to be closed.

    On distributing via supermarkets, they are either undercutting their own drinks offering or buying in stock where they've got all the liability if someone gets ill from off beer or unhygienic packaging, and no proper system for verifying if it's okay or proper comeback from the supplier. So they wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.

    Plus the pub loses any chance of getting money back from the brewer - they'll struggle anyway but won't get a penny if they can't produce the unused beer barrels.
  • The_ApocalypseThe_Apocalypse Posts: 7,830
    kyf_100 said:

    Yeah, this is some great depression level stuff. I have access to some limited economic data through my job and it's hard to see how this doesn't result in a near fatal blow to the high street. There won't be any reason to leave our homes soon - there won't be anywhere left open to go.

    The tax base is clearly going to take a kicking, it's not a question of us all paying more tax, it's going to be a fact that there simply aren't enough people left working to pay enough tax to keep public services going. Austerity will seem mild compared to the cuts that will need to be made.

    The alternative is we print a load of funny money. Which I think is where we are headed.
    Yes, I don’t see Boris making more cuts. They will print money to avoid economic disaster.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    ukpaul said:

    If it can be done safely(one in, one out, different chairs etc.), barbers/hairdressers. I've bought some hair clippers but am wary of having a go, as it might be a complete disaster.
    Fast forward six months and everyone's either going to look like an internment camp detainee or cousin It.
  • I'm not sure that a Vat of Popcorn exists big enough to keep me happy during the final battle of good vs evil. What a time to join the Labour Party!
  • The_ApocalypseThe_Apocalypse Posts: 7,830
    Yes some of them are still moaning about Starmer’s and Rayner’s response. What do they expect, everyone who they don’t like to be expelled immediately? That’s not realistic. Plus the claims in the report surely have to be verified as well given the seriousness of the claims.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,413

    Yes, I don’t see Boris making more cuts. They will print money to avoid economic disaster.
    Indeed. The future is really going to pay for this one.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 30,052

    Fast forward six months and everyone's either going to look like an internment camp detainee or cousin It.
    I've been watching a lot of 1970s box sets. People were much hairier then, although the greatest difference is in car doors, which were a lot thinner and not as well fitting.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    I've read a bit that the thing many business are fearing the most is not an extended lockdown but a reopen followed by a second Lockdown a few months later.

    Lots of costs to start back up again followed by another cessation of income would be killer.
  • I'm not sure that a Vat of Popcorn exists big enough to keep me happy during the final battle of good vs evil. What a time to join the Labour Party!

    If you do not mind me asking how do you see this concluding ?
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    Fast forward six months and everyone's either going to look like an internment camp detainee or cousin It.
    My wife is cutting my hair over a period of days. Started with a shave round the back and sides and now slowly zeroing in on correct hair length up top and fringe.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,651

    I'm not sure that a Vat of Popcorn exists big enough to keep me happy during the final battle of good vs evil. What a time to join the Labour Party!

    Bloody entryist!
  • Bring back Sir Richard Burgon....this is his chance to resurrect his high-flying career.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 33,243
    Chris said:

    Businesses do fail, often through no fault of their own, when circumstances change. Normally the Right is quite resistant to the state bailing them out. Strangely, some sections of the Right now think not only that businesses should be bailed out, but that hundreds of thousands of lives should be sacrificed to do it. It seems an odd philosophy for conservatives to espouse.
    Again I think it is wrong to characterise this as 'the Right'. It is oddballs and contrarians on all sides who seem to think this is overblown and we need to get back to 'normal'.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,906
    ukpaul said:

    It's a matter of changing mindset from 'I have to keep what I have' to 'what can I do now to benefit from the situation?' If most people in your line of work are running around going 'I'm doomed' then maybe you are better spending your time working out how you can get ahead of them. In my own field, there are going to be real difficulties about losing custom from East Asia. The answer is not 'how do I get that back?' it's 'what can I do instead and how can I get there first?'
    Sorry, but despite the histrionic language used by some, the costs of the lockdown are going to be measured primarily in terms of wealth, not lives. And the prophets of economic doom hardly seem to have placed the lives of the poor high on their agenda previously.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    Yes, I don’t see Boris making more cuts. They will print money to avoid economic disaster.
    No, one thing they won't do is print a l'outrance. That gets you nowhere: your currency goes down the toilet and you can't afford the imports that you need. For a country that buys in half its food that's a complete non-starter.

    My best guess is that they'll relax the lockdown as far as they can without overtopping the capacity of the Nightingales (e.g. by letting most working age people go to the shops and re-opening the schools, whilst telling the shielded people and the over-70s to stay home indefinitely,) coupled with steep tax rises.
  • Burgon was of course until recently the Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and Shadow Lord Chancellor
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,906

    Again I think it is wrong to characterise this as 'the Right'. It is oddballs and contrarians on all sides who seem to think this is overblown and we need to get back to 'normal'.
    I did say "some sections of the Right", and it does seem that way to me - Trump (earlier), Bolsonaro (still) and so on.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 30,052
    kle4 said:

    Indeed. The future is really going to pay for this one.
    Or we will discover the debt and deficit hawks have been talking nonsense for the past decade and a half. Our current situation is unprecedented (I think) in that it is not a normal market failure of supply or demand that can be fixed by government stepping in. This is where we have "voluntarily" shut down large sections of the economy. Maybe when lockdown ends, it will return to normal. Maybe it won't. Who knows? The Treasury must be prepared to act but it is hard to know in advance what will be needed and where.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 18,298
    kle4 said:

    Indeed. The future is really going to pay for this one.
    True. But look at it this way.
    There is no way that the harm of dealing with this virus will remotely compare with World War 2.
    A dozen years after 1945, Supermac was able to accurately say that Britons had never had it so good.
    In the short and medium term, life is going to be noticeably rubbish. We get that.
    But in the longer term, it's another blip.
  • If you do not mind me asking how do you see this concluding ?
    With a Labour MP issuing a legal suit against the Labour Party for its Crime of not issuing the report which it's a massive illegal breech of Data Protection. The Real Enemy of the loons has always been the Labour Party. And in signing a letter demanding that the Labour Party illegally publish a report which the leader/deputy/moderates know nothing about which would thus sink the Labour Party for libel / data protection they have finally gone over the top in their war against themselves.

    It would be quicker and simpler for Starmer to expel the MPs who signed this death warrant demand. As the Tories already have a whopping majority it makes no difference to the parliamentary maths. Expel them all now and be done with it.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 7,007

    The government is doing its best to polish a turd but the current figures are pretty dreadful. Testing is still woefully inadequate and so positive test numbers tell us little. Deaths in hospital from Covid-19 are poor and expected to get worse, and the government has no real handle on deaths from Covid-19 outside hospital. The government refuses to acknowledge even that the figures are poor.

    Most depressingly, there’s not a single opposition politician pointing any of this out. The Labour Party are far more concerned with internecine score-settling.

    So you want more testing so that the stattos on here can rework their models ?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,873
    Alistair said:

    I've read a bit that the thing many business are fearing the most is not an extended lockdown but a reopen followed by a second Lockdown a few months later.

    Lots of costs to start back up again followed by another cessation of income would be killer.

    Except once they reopen they will be getting income again, lockdown should be focused on the peak then get businesses back open again and expand testing further
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 54,449

    With a Labour MP issuing a legal suit against the Labour Party for its Crime of not issuing the report which it's a massive illegal breech of Data Protection. The Real Enemy of the loons has always been the Labour Party. And in signing a letter demanding that the Labour Party illegally publish a report which the leader/deputy/moderates know nothing about which would thus sink the Labour Party for libel / data protection they have finally gone over the top in their war against themselves.

    It would be quicker and simpler for Starmer to expel the MPs who signed this death warrant demand. As the Tories already have a whopping majority it makes no difference to the parliamentary maths. Expel them all now and be done with it.
    Getting rid of the troublesome Europhile headbangers did Boris no harm....
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 79,204
    CD13 said:

    Mr Chris,

    The reasons for not wearing nuisance masks are many. The reasons for wearing are they keep your nose cleaner,and instead of coughing on someone you smear your gob over yourself when you take the mask off and deposit it on handrails.

    Oh, and you get a false feeling of confidence,

    Damn that nasty science.

    Didn't give me any feeling of false confidence, well aware my eyes were still exposed at the supermarket. & I took it off at home after washing my hands. Did it decrease my risk of catching Covid-19 ? Slightly.

    One thing about masks, well the FFP2 respirator I had on, on a hot day they do require some getting used to if you're wearing outside (Say waiting to get into the shops)
  • With a Labour MP issuing a legal suit against the Labour Party for its Crime of not issuing the report which it's a massive illegal breech of Data Protection. The Real Enemy of the loons has always been the Labour Party. And in signing a letter demanding that the Labour Party illegally publish a report which the leader/deputy/moderates know nothing about which would thus sink the Labour Party for libel / data protection they have finally gone over the top in their war against themselves.

    It would be quicker and simpler for Starmer to expel the MPs who signed this death warrant demand. As the Tories already have a whopping majority it makes no difference to the parliamentary maths. Expel them all now and be done with it.
    Thank you for answering my query.

    It does look as if Starmer needs to stand strong or face a nightmare of a problem

    I hope he wins through for your sake but also the country
  • With a Labour MP issuing a legal suit against the Labour Party for its Crime of not issuing the report which it's a massive illegal breech of Data Protection. The Real Enemy of the loons has always been the Labour Party. And in signing a letter demanding that the Labour Party illegally publish a report which the leader/deputy/moderates know nothing about which would thus sink the Labour Party for libel / data protection they have finally gone over the top in their war against themselves.

    It would be quicker and simpler for Starmer to expel the MPs who signed this death warrant demand. As the Tories already have a whopping majority it makes no difference to the parliamentary maths. Expel them all now and be done with it.
    Appealing - begone Burgon, McDonnell and most pleasingly Lavery....
  • MattWMattW Posts: 26,523
    rcs1000 said:

    That is an absolutely horrendous percentage positive, suggesting quite significant undercounting of true new cases. Italy only had one day, IIRC, above 40%.
    The ratio seems to me to tell us very little - it could just be that due to the numbers of tests they are better targeted to the Rona-positive population.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,873
    Chris said:

    Indeed. But our government was unique - among the ones not run by complete loonies - in the delusion that it would be possible to let the virus run through about two thirds of the population while "cocooning" the vulnerable.

    One might have expected even politicians as dim as Johnson and Hancock to question how that would be done for care homes.
    Interesting to see you are now describing the Social Democratic government of Sweden as 'complete loonies'!
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 54,449

    Fast forward six months and everyone's either going to look like an internment camp detainee or cousin It.
    Pity the poor crumbliy blokes, coming out blinking into the sunlight, sporting that most horrific look: bald on top, mullet at the back....
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,672
    edited April 2020

    This has moved beyond a silly left-right dispute. If the Treasury runs out of money to prop up all the unemployed before this is all over (because the markets won't lend to it anymore, and it can't print its way out of trouble without ruining everybody through hyperinflation) then we have mass starvation and societal collapse.

    It always comes back to a balance: if the number of lives destroyed by the measures taken to combat coronavirus exceeds those destroyed by the virus itself, then at least some of the measures to suppress the virus must be removed. A hypothetical Labour administration would be faced with exactly the same horrible choices as the current one.
    The Treasury is a VERY long way from the markets being unwilling to lend, with the interest rate currently close to 0. The trickier decision is how far to push interest rates up without accelerating bankruptcies - it's classic stagflation territory. I'd expect new "recovery bonds" to be issued at gradually higher interest rates until the market price is established.

    Some production and services will simply be rolled over as used to happen after prolonged strike action or other disruption - if there's a shortage of new cars that people can afford, more new cars will be made to catch up; if a will needs to be prrocessed and the solicitor was unavailable, it will be processed later with no effect except mild inconvenience. Others will simply not happen - train journeys not taken, hairdressers not visited. Assessment of which businesses will manage best involves looking at which are in the "you can catch up" category.
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,376
    Mr Chris,

    "Does anyone really believe we were told not to wear masks because the science showed that wearing masks was dangerous - rather than because masks were in short supply?"

    I do. I suggest you send away for the many reports complied by the Health and Safety Laboratory in Buxton on that very issue. They were spun off from the HSE but many of the research reports continued to be commissioned by HSE Specialist Inspectors.

    I'm sure you are fully cognisant of how you need tuition in how to use FFP2 and FFP3 masks properly

    At least, the simple dust masks aren't expensive and do keep rocks out your nasal passages. You can wear them if you like. But it's not a conspiracy to hide anything.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 65,416

    Burgon was of course until recently the Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and Shadow Lord Chancellor
    If I was being mischievous, then it reads like a list of MPs who Starmer should remove the Whip from.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,345
    Andy_JS said:

    If 50 million pints are about to go to waste, can't they give them to people or supermarkets instead of just throwing them away?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52199185

    My understanding like the flour shortage. It is because they are produced for industry, they are in very large formats, which is no good for home use e.g. nobody at home can use 25kg bags of flour before it goes off.
This discussion has been closed.