Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
Yes you might be slightly more likely to catch Covid but you are very unlikely to be hospitalised anyway.
If you have not been double vaccinated then getting jabbed would protect you from Covid far more than just wearing a mask would and almost everyone has been offered both jabs now
I've been double vaxxed, and I wear a mask when in shops. Mainly not to protect myself, but to protect others just in case I have it without realising. The odds of anyone catching it off me are very low, but I don't particularly mind wearing a mask for half an hour, especially now the weather's a bit cooler.
New greener petrol will be introduced to service stations across Britain from today despite fears that hundreds of thousands of drivers still do not know whether their car can use it without being damaged.
More than 8,000 petrol stations will start selling E10 fuel, which is designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions from combustion engines, throughout September. The petrol is blended with 10 per cent bioethanol, which is made from materials such as grains, sugars and waste wood.
E5 petrol, which is sold throughout the UK at present, has 5 per cent bioethanol.
Turn up the boost your turbos, ethanol is 113 octane.
It does get past the oil control rings on the pistons and turn your engine oil into piss though.
Didn’t Ducati have problems with ethanol swelling up their tanks? Also not good for your fibreglass tank though I realise that’s pretty niche.
High ethanol levels will fuck up quite a few things on older engines (pre 2000) as its a potent solvent and hygroscopic. 5-10% will be fine on almost everything though.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
A typical selfish right-winger's response, fuelled by that rag the Daily Telepgraph.
It's not a personal choice if you are both infecting others (without knowing it) or becoming infected yourself which is perfectly possible double jabbed or not.
New greener petrol will be introduced to service stations across Britain from today despite fears that hundreds of thousands of drivers still do not know whether their car can use it without being damaged.
More than 8,000 petrol stations will start selling E10 fuel, which is designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions from combustion engines, throughout September. The petrol is blended with 10 per cent bioethanol, which is made from materials such as grains, sugars and waste wood.
E5 petrol, which is sold throughout the UK at present, has 5 per cent bioethanol.
I strongly suspect Boris Johnson's popularity rating will sink through the floor by next spring when covid has surged this winter and his northern fan club finally twig about what a prat the man is.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
Yes you might be slightly more likely to catch Covid but you are very unlikely to be hospitalised anyway.
If you have not been double vaccinated then getting jabbed would protect you from Covid far more than just wearing a mask would and almost everyone has been offered both jabs now
With respect HYUFD, the point of conforming to mask-wearing is to signal to other people that you are not threatening them with the virus.
NSW (and prob aus in general) definitely can’t eliminate it now, and I see NZ still having cases above consistently above 50 2 weeks after locking down with 1 case identified.
Has anywhere eliminated delta anywhere in world after an outbreak?
Nope. Purely for masochists. And completely pointless.
I wish we would approach the natural world from a holistic Gaia starting point. Straight lines, bird lists and other “square” ways of looking at our landscape, geology and nature sap the sheer joy out of the experience. Just pull up a picnic chair and sit there for an hour or two. Just absorb nature. You don’t need to *do* anything.
Ah, so you're the sort of person who 'enjoys' nature within a few hundred metres of a car park. I'm glad there're people like you, as it means the wilds are a little emptier.
I'm currently doing a multi-year running project. During these runs, I've seen things and discovered stuff about my local area that no amount of sitting about in a chair would have taught me. From Roman burial mounds to communal bread ovens; village lock-ups to secret WW2 airbases. I've got to know and appreciate this little corner of Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire so much more.
Besides, much of what we do in life is completely pointless. 99% of your posts on PB probably don't matter much (mine, as well). Yet we post.
Err… no. I didn’t say anything about *where* you place your picnic chair. Certainly nowhere near the gawkers at car parks. By definition, picnic chairs are portable. Legs, boat, bike, whatever. Take it out to an isolated skerry and ponder the grandeur of the Atlantic.
The whole human race is entirely pointless. Just snog a few pretty birds and have a laugh or two before you’re put six feet under.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone on a 'picnic chair' in the wilds, even when camping. They very much seem a back-of-the-car thing.
So you get your kicks from snogging a few pretty birds and having a laugh or two. Others may get their kicks from doing that and challenging themselves as well.
And I don't agree that the whole human race is entirely pointless - at least at anything other than geological timescales. We've created so much beauty that might be transitory, but is still beautiful. Music. Art. Literature. We've uncovered the building blocks of nature, and are striving to understand the universe.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
Yes you might be slightly more likely to catch Covid but you are very unlikely to be hospitalised anyway.
If you have not been double vaccinated then getting jabbed would protect you from Covid far more than just wearing a mask would and almost everyone has been offered both jabs now
I've been double vaxxed, and I wear a mask when in shops. Mainly not to protect myself, but to protect others just in case I have it without realising. The odds of anyone catching it off me are very low, but I don't particularly mind wearing a mask for half an hour, especially now the weather's a bit cooler.
What difference does it make if you spread COVID in Tescos or in a pub or a friend's house? This is what I don't understand about people still wearing masks (certainly the rubbish ones that offer the wearer no protection).
I strongly suspect Boris Johnson's popularity rating will sink through the floor by next spring when covid has surged this winter and his northern fan club finally twig about what a prat the man is.
I strongly suspect Boris Johnson's popularity rating will sink through the floor by next spring when covid has surged this winter and his northern fan club finally twig about what a prat the man is.
People have been saying that about Boris for years - the simple fact is that people like the guy and don't actually care about politics that much unless it directly impacts them.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
A typical selfish right-winger's response, fuelled by that rag the Daily Telepgraph.
It's not a personal choice if you are both infecting others (without knowing it) or becoming infected yourself which is perfectly possible double jabbed or not.
This stinks. And trouble is coming.
I'm a left winger. It is the vaccine that protects us now, not masks.
New greener petrol will be introduced to service stations across Britain from today despite fears that hundreds of thousands of drivers still do not know whether their car can use it without being damaged.
More than 8,000 petrol stations will start selling E10 fuel, which is designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions from combustion engines, throughout September. The petrol is blended with 10 per cent bioethanol, which is made from materials such as grains, sugars and waste wood.
E5 petrol, which is sold throughout the UK at present, has 5 per cent bioethanol.
Turn up the boost your turbos, ethanol is 113 octane.
It does get past the oil control rings on the pistons and turn your engine oil into piss though.
Didn’t Ducati have problems with ethanol swelling up their tanks? Also not good for your fibreglass tank though I realise that’s pretty niche.
High ethanol levels will fuck up quite a few things on older engines (pre 2000) as its a potent solvent and hygroscopic. 5-10% will be fine on almost everything though.
I had a Direct Injection 2.2 Vectra SRi that did 250,000 incredibly dull miles with only routine maintenance. Nothing went wrong except for fuel pumps. High ethanol content in unleaded ate the rubber diaphragms at a rate of every 25,000. I always kept a spare in the back. Driving home from Cardiff in safe mode at 10mph was embarrassing and dangerous. Older unleaded cars like Rover Minis don't cope well either.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
A typical selfish right-winger's response, fuelled by that rag the Daily Telepgraph.
It's not a personal choice if you are both infecting others (without knowing it) or becoming infected yourself which is perfectly possible double jabbed or not.
This stinks. And trouble is coming.
I'm a left winger. It is the vaccine that protects us now, not masks.
Except it isn't. We expected those double vaxxed to be immune. They aren't. We expected them to be incapable of infecting others. They can. If they were unlucky enough to catch it we did not expect them to be ill. But they are in sufficient numbers to stress our hospital system.
Vaccines are good. They massively reduce death. They reduce the risk of serious illness. But they are not going to stop Covid. Not on their own.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
A typical selfish right-winger's response, fuelled by that rag the Daily Telepgraph.
It's not a personal choice if you are both infecting others (without knowing it) or becoming infected yourself which is perfectly possible double jabbed or not.
This stinks. And trouble is coming.
I'm a left winger. It is the vaccine that protects us now, not masks.
What's good about protection? I believe your world picture, like mine, demands a virus which kills off between 98% of humanity, and all of it. Covid sucks, but it's the best we've got, so why spoil it?
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
Yes you might be slightly more likely to catch Covid but you are very unlikely to be hospitalised anyway.
If you have not been double vaccinated then getting jabbed would protect you from Covid far more than just wearing a mask would and almost everyone has been offered both jabs now
With respect HYUFD, the point of conforming to mask-wearing is to signal to other people that you are not threatening them with the virus.
With respect, its gesture bollocks and I won't take part in it anymore (unless I'm on someone's property and they tell, not ask, me to).
I've been double jabbed and that's it as far as I'm concerned. We need to get back on with our lives and wearing flimsy cloth masks post-vaccines is meaningless.
If you're concerned, go out and get a proper mask that actually works rather than replying upon strangers wearing cloth masks that don't.
Cloth masks made sense when there was a limitation on supply of proper masks, and when vaccines weren't available. That time has passed.
If (Spartan) this article in the Guardian accurately portrays the authorities' understanding of the effect that vaxports are likely to have on choices made by the presently unvaccinated, then their understanding of the reasons why 1 in 10 adults in Britain are unvaccinated, and consequently of how the unvaccinated will respond to vaxports, is a COMPLETE MESS.
I drove past a school yesterday which had big banners outside it saying "The good days are coming" and "We must care for each other", and lots of pictures of rainbows. A cynic would say that as sure as eggs are eggs, hate week is coming.
The whole planet is heading in this direction. I think we’re heading fast to three day weeks.
I personally work as few hours as I possibly can, typically about 30 hours a week, but sometimes fewer. I regard people who work more than 50 hours per week to be mentally retarded.
The habit of “presenteeism” is a tragedy. Folk hanging around doing fuck all. Twats. Either be productive or go home.
I think the opposite, a 3 day week poses other kinds of social problems. In the end, you must work constantly to make life meaningful; to distract yourself from contemplating the void of existence and the existential trauma it reveals. If you stop working, you quickly end up going mad.
The problem is work that people hate: work that creates deep moral conflict, work that has no meaning.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
A typical selfish right-winger's response, fuelled by that rag the Daily Telepgraph.
It's not a personal choice if you are both infecting others (without knowing it) or becoming infected yourself which is perfectly possible double jabbed or not.
This stinks. And trouble is coming.
I'm a left winger. It is the vaccine that protects us now, not masks.
Except it isn't. We expected those double vaxxed to be immune. They aren't. We expected them to be incapable of infecting others. They can. If they were unlucky enough to catch it we did not expect them to be ill. But they are in sufficient numbers to stress our hospital system.
Vaccines are good. They massively reduce death. They reduce the risk of serious illness. But they are not going to stop Covid. Not on their own.
Nothing is.
Learn to live with it, and if you're really concerned then wear an FFP3 mask. Those actually work, unlike third party cloth masks.
If (Spartan) this article in the Guardian accurately portrays the authorities' understanding of the effect that vaxports are likely to have on choices made by the presently unvaccinated, then their understanding of the reasons why 1 in 10 adults in Britain are unvaccinated, and consequently of how those in that demographic will respond to vaxports, is a COMPLETE MESS.
I drove past a school yesterday which had big banners outside it saying "The good days are coming" and "We must care for each other", and lots of pictures of rainbows. A cynic would say that as sure as eggs are eggs, hate week is coming.
It's overdue. It was supposed to be well established by 1984.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
A typical selfish right-winger's response, fuelled by that rag the Daily Telepgraph.
It's not a personal choice if you are both infecting others (without knowing it) or becoming infected yourself which is perfectly possible double jabbed or not.
This stinks. And trouble is coming.
I'm a left winger. It is the vaccine that protects us now, not masks.
What's good about protection? I believe your world picture, like mine, demands a virus which kills off between 98% of humanity, and all of it. Covid sucks, but it's the best we've got, so why spoil it?
So you want humanity to die but you want to live. You want others not to have homes, especially in beauty spots, but you have a home in a beauty spot.
I think @SandyRentool has had the right attitude all the way through COVID. Went to great lengths not to catch it before the vaccines and is now getting on with life.
Nope. Purely for masochists. And completely pointless.
I wish we would approach the natural world from a holistic Gaia starting point. Straight lines, bird lists and other “square” ways of looking at our landscape, geology and nature sap the sheer joy out of the experience. Just pull up a picnic chair and sit there for an hour or two. Just absorb nature. You don’t need to *do* anything.
Ah, so you're the sort of person who 'enjoys' nature within a few hundred metres of a car park. I'm glad there're people like you, as it means the wilds are a little emptier.
I'm currently doing a multi-year running project. During these runs, I've seen things and discovered stuff about my local area that no amount of sitting about in a chair would have taught me. From Roman burial mounds to communal bread ovens; village lock-ups to secret WW2 airbases. I've got to know and appreciate this little corner of Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire so much more.
Besides, much of what we do in life is completely pointless. 99% of your posts on PB probably don't matter much (mine, as well). Yet we post.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
A typical selfish right-winger's response, fuelled by that rag the Daily Telepgraph.
It's not a personal choice if you are both infecting others (without knowing it) or becoming infected yourself which is perfectly possible double jabbed or not.
This stinks. And trouble is coming.
I'm a left winger. It is the vaccine that protects us now, not masks.
Except it isn't. We expected those double vaxxed to be immune. They aren't. We expected them to be incapable of infecting others. They can. If they were unlucky enough to catch it we did not expect them to be ill. But they are in sufficient numbers to stress our hospital system.
Vaccines are good. They massively reduce death. They reduce the risk of serious illness. But they are not going to stop Covid. Not on their own.
What is going to stop covid is everyone being infected.
Vaccines allow that to happen with a 95% reduction in pain and risk.
For the fully vaccinated masks are more likely to be detrimental than beneficial.
Would you prefer to be infected when your vaccine is wearing off ?
I strongly suspect Boris Johnson's popularity rating will sink through the floor by next spring when covid has surged this winter and his northern fan club finally twig about what a prat the man is.
Other than rolling out the vaccines that Boris's government procured for her, and being marginally different on trivial details for the sake of it, what exactly has Sturgeon done to be excellent while Boris has been a prat?
New greener petrol will be introduced to service stations across Britain from today despite fears that hundreds of thousands of drivers still do not know whether their car can use it without being damaged.
More than 8,000 petrol stations will start selling E10 fuel, which is designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions from combustion engines, throughout September. The petrol is blended with 10 per cent bioethanol, which is made from materials such as grains, sugars and waste wood.
E5 petrol, which is sold throughout the UK at present, has 5 per cent bioethanol.
Turn up the boost your turbos, ethanol is 113 octane.
It does get past the oil control rings on the pistons and turn your engine oil into piss though.
Didn’t Ducati have problems with ethanol swelling up their tanks? Also not good for your fibreglass tank though I realise that’s pretty niche.
High ethanol levels will fuck up quite a few things on older engines (pre 2000) as its a potent solvent and hygroscopic. 5-10% will be fine on almost everything though.
I had a Direct Injection 2.2 Vectra SRi that did 250,000 incredibly dull miles with only routine maintenance. Nothing went wrong except for fuel pumps. High ethanol content in unleaded ate the rubber diaphragms at a rate of every 25,000. I always kept a spare in the back. Driving home from Cardiff in safe mode at 10mph was embarrassing and dangerous. Older unleaded cars like Rover Minis don't cope well either.
99 RON available at Esso and occasionally, for some bizarre reason, Tescos has no ethanol. I redid the fuel lines on both my 993s so they can tolerate E10 as finding non-ethanol fuel was hit and miss in parts of Spain. (In the halcyon days when I used them for continental touring.)
Greens may be here to stay, but there are caveats. Aeons ago CND were a major force, and the threat to humanity was nuclear weapons (especially western ones.)
The threat is exactly as great as or greater than it was in the 60's, but it is registering nowhere much on the talking head agenda. (NB IMHO we have never needed them more than right now)
Fashions change.
And green stuff may not survive actual contact with financial reality or the reality of China or no cheap flights to Venice.
While on the subject of unpopular opinions, the BBC etc are full of terrified liberal Afghans regretting western departure. I don't blame them. But their army and people faced a 1940 moment in August and ducked it. Why are the Taliban prepared to fight for their beliefs but liberals not?
Nowhere much on the talking head agenda?? I appreciate that I'm working in the field so I see more of this stuff, but my perception is that scarcely a day goes by before another talking head, commission, NGO or government study pops up talking about the threat of climate change. I was around the 60s and there was much less cross-party consensus on nukes - everyone thought it very dangerous but the centre-right perception was that the danger was all from Russia. Nowadays you have to be very kooky (hello Piers) to say climate change isn't a problem.
I fully accept your point, but I think a good deal of my point remains. Green popular opinion has not yet been tested against hard decisions. And despite the talk of progress in terms of the amount of CO2 being put out by the world remains as high as ever.
And fashions (on the left especially) change.
Yes and no. I agree that the world is slow to change - 'twas ever thus, and it does mean that if a major threat (say an asteroid approaching) emerges suddenly we are collectively crap at reacting quickly. But there's an awful lot going on in every developed country on the planet (even China) to turn the oil tanker, and the growth of emissions is decelerating. And I don't think it's liable to fashion, really - the weather will keep geting weirder as a constant reminder.
I agre that taking people head on by e.g. doubling petrol prices hasn't been tried yet - everyone is into gradualism, and I probably am too, but with a niggling feeling that it may not be enough. If I was young I'd be pretty seriously worried for myself - as it is, my concern is more for society generally, which feels less intense even for a lefty like me.
Nope. Purely for masochists. And completely pointless.
I wish we would approach the natural world from a holistic Gaia starting point. Straight lines, bird lists and other “square” ways of looking at our landscape, geology and nature sap the sheer joy out of the experience. Just pull up a picnic chair and sit there for an hour or two. Just absorb nature. You don’t need to *do* anything.
Ah, so you're the sort of person who 'enjoys' nature within a few hundred metres of a car park. I'm glad there're people like you, as it means the wilds are a little emptier.
I'm currently doing a multi-year running project. During these runs, I've seen things and discovered stuff about my local area that no amount of sitting about in a chair would have taught me. From Roman burial mounds to communal bread ovens; village lock-ups to secret WW2 airbases. I've got to know and appreciate this little corner of Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire so much more.
Besides, much of what we do in life is completely pointless. 99% of your posts on PB probably don't matter much (mine, as well). Yet we post.
Err… no. I didn’t say anything about *where* you place your picnic chair. Certainly nowhere near the gawkers at car parks. By definition, picnic chairs are portable. Legs, boat, bike, whatever. Take it out to an isolated skerry and ponder the grandeur of the Atlantic.
The whole human race is entirely pointless. Just snog a few pretty birds and have a laugh or two before you’re put six feet under.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone on a 'picnic chair' in the wilds, even when camping. They very much seem a back-of-the-car thing.
So you get your kicks from snogging a few pretty birds and having a laugh or two. Others may get their kicks from doing that and challenging themselves as well.
And I don't agree that the whole human race is entirely pointless - at least at anything other than geological timescales. We've created so much beauty that might be transitory, but is still beautiful. Music. Art. Literature. We've uncovered the building blocks of nature, and are striving to understand the universe.
Disagree. Art wise the Iliad is about as good as it gets, but there's only a thousand odd people alive at any one time who can really appreciate that fact, and anyway its take home message is: life is so short and so shit the best we can do is excel at killing each other with crude bronze implements, raping and enslaving and singing songs about it. All the contents of all the world's art galleries don't pay for the torture to death of one single human being, and there's more than that happening in real time, as I type. As for understanding the universe, a. we don't and b. I have a horse who understands how the bolt on his stable door works. So what?
OTOH climbing Beinndearg, or the Pic du Midi in the Pyrenees (the more W one, not Bigorre), or half a dozen other peaks, are among the most vivid and best memories of my life. You don't get that by sitting on a picnic chair.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
Yes you might be slightly more likely to catch Covid but you are very unlikely to be hospitalised anyway.
If you have not been double vaccinated then getting jabbed would protect you from Covid far more than just wearing a mask would and almost everyone has been offered both jabs now
With respect HYUFD, the point of conforming to mask-wearing is to signal to other people that you are not threatening them with the virus.
With respect, its gesture bollocks and I won't take part in it anymore (unless I'm on someone's property and they tell, not ask, me to).
I've been double jabbed and that's it as far as I'm concerned. We need to get back on with our lives and wearing flimsy cloth masks post-vaccines is meaningless.
If you're concerned, go out and get a proper mask that actually works rather than replying upon strangers wearing cloth masks that don't.
Cloth masks made sense when there was a limitation on supply of proper masks, and when vaccines weren't available. That time has passed.
There are plenty of people out there who would be scared by your blithe insouciance as you swagger maskless around Waitrose potentially shedding virus even though you've been double-vaxxed. Anti-social behaviour imho.
60,000 - predates Brexit/COVID - Road Haulage Association - but figure suspect 25,000 - missed HGV tests because of COVID 19,000 - EU Lorry drivers (from ONS population survey) Brexit/COVID
So "Brexit" accounts for 18% of the alleged 104,000 shortfall.....
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
A typical selfish right-winger's response, fuelled by that rag the Daily Telepgraph.
It's not a personal choice if you are both infecting others (without knowing it) or becoming infected yourself which is perfectly possible double jabbed or not.
This stinks. And trouble is coming.
I'm a left winger. It is the vaccine that protects us now, not masks.
What's good about protection? I believe your world picture, like mine, demands a virus which kills off between 98% of humanity, and all of it. Covid sucks, but it's the best we've got, so why spoil it?
So you want humanity to die but you want to live. You want others not to have homes, especially in beauty spots, but you have a home in a beauty spot.
I'm beginning to see a pattern developing . . .
No, Philip. I never stipulated I had to be in the 2%, did I? and if I'm at the 100% end of the spectrum, what becomes of me then? Think it through. Pattern recognition, like so many things you turn your hand to, is harder than it looks.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
Yes you might be slightly more likely to catch Covid but you are very unlikely to be hospitalised anyway.
If you have not been double vaccinated then getting jabbed would protect you from Covid far more than just wearing a mask would and almost everyone has been offered both jabs now
With respect HYUFD, the point of conforming to mask-wearing is to signal to other people that you are not threatening them with the virus.
With respect, its gesture bollocks and I won't take part in it anymore (unless I'm on someone's property and they tell, not ask, me to).
I've been double jabbed and that's it as far as I'm concerned. We need to get back on with our lives and wearing flimsy cloth masks post-vaccines is meaningless.
If you're concerned, go out and get a proper mask that actually works rather than replying upon strangers wearing cloth masks that don't.
Cloth masks made sense when there was a limitation on supply of proper masks, and when vaccines weren't available. That time has passed.
There are plenty of people out there who would be scared by your blithe insouciance as you swagger maskless around Waitrose potentially shedding virus even though you've been double-vaxxed. Anti-social behaviour imho.
I'm sorry but I have no intention to pander to irrational phobias. Are those people wearing FFP3 masks?
If not, and I never see them at Tesco's, then I couldn't give a fuck what they're irrationally afraid of. Get a proper mask and move on, FFP3 masks work and third-party cloth masks don't.
I strongly suspect Boris Johnson's popularity rating will sink through the floor by next spring when covid has surged this winter and his northern fan club finally twig about what a prat the man is.
What has she done differently from Johnson, perhaps lucky the death rate is lower per head but apart from the odd difference of a week or so here and there she has followed UK policy to the letter. Can you explain.
I strongly suspect Boris Johnson's popularity rating will sink through the floor by next spring when covid has surged this winter and his northern fan club finally twig about what a prat the man is.
What has she done differently from Johnson, perhaps lucky the death rate is lower per head but apart from the odd difference of a week or so here and there she has followed UK policy to the letter. Can you explain.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
Yes you might be slightly more likely to catch Covid but you are very unlikely to be hospitalised anyway.
If you have not been double vaccinated then getting jabbed would protect you from Covid far more than just wearing a mask would and almost everyone has been offered both jabs now
With respect HYUFD, the point of conforming to mask-wearing is to signal to other people that you are not threatening them with the virus.
With respect, its gesture bollocks and I won't take part in it anymore (unless I'm on someone's property and they tell, not ask, me to).
I've been double jabbed and that's it as far as I'm concerned. We need to get back on with our lives and wearing flimsy cloth masks post-vaccines is meaningless.
If you're concerned, go out and get a proper mask that actually works rather than replying upon strangers wearing cloth masks that don't.
Cloth masks made sense when there was a limitation on supply of proper masks, and when vaccines weren't available. That time has passed.
There are plenty of people out there who would be scared by your blithe insouciance as you swagger maskless around Waitrose potentially shedding virus even though you've been double-vaxxed. Anti-social behaviour imho.
I'm sorry but I have no intention to pander to irrational phobias. Are those people wearing FFP3 masks?
If not, and I never see them at Tesco's, then I couldn't give a fuck what they're irrationally afraid of. Get a proper mask and move on, FFP3 masks work and third-party cloth masks don't.
Philibet the Libertarian Tells Other People What To Do, Part 999874.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
Yes you might be slightly more likely to catch Covid but you are very unlikely to be hospitalised anyway.
If you have not been double vaccinated then getting jabbed would protect you from Covid far more than just wearing a mask would and almost everyone has been offered both jabs now
With respect HYUFD, the point of conforming to mask-wearing is to signal to other people that you are not threatening them with the virus.
With respect, its gesture bollocks and I won't take part in it anymore (unless I'm on someone's property and they tell, not ask, me to).
I've been double jabbed and that's it as far as I'm concerned. We need to get back on with our lives and wearing flimsy cloth masks post-vaccines is meaningless.
If you're concerned, go out and get a proper mask that actually works rather than replying upon strangers wearing cloth masks that don't.
Cloth masks made sense when there was a limitation on supply of proper masks, and when vaccines weren't available. That time has passed.
There are plenty of people out there who would be scared by your blithe insouciance as you swagger maskless around Waitrose potentially shedding virus even though you've been double-vaxxed. Anti-social behaviour imho.
I'm sorry but I have no intention to pander to irrational phobias. Are those people wearing FFP3 masks?
If not, and I never see them at Tesco's, then I couldn't give a fuck what they're irrationally afraid of. Get a proper mask and move on, FFP3 masks work and third-party cloth masks don't.
Philibet the Libertarian Tells Other People What To Do, Part 999874.
Nope. I'm saying other people can do whatever they please. Wear a cloth mask, don't wear any mask, wear an FFP3 mask, put a sock on their head and put pencils up their nose . . . whatever they choose its their choice.
If they're afraid post-vaccines then the sensible thing to do is to wear an FFP3 mask. Or stay at home. Or get over their irrational phobias.
60,000 - predates Brexit/COVID - Road Haulage Association - but figure suspect 25,000 - missed HGV tests because of COVID 19,000 - EU Lorry drivers (from ONS population survey) Brexit/COVID
So "Brexit" accounts for 18% of the alleged 104,000 shortfall.....
I strongly suspect Boris Johnson's popularity rating will sink through the floor by next spring when covid has surged this winter and his northern fan club finally twig about what a prat the man is.
What has she done differently from Johnson, perhaps lucky the death rate is lower per head but apart from the odd difference of a week or so here and there she has followed UK policy to the letter. Can you explain.
She is Scottish, he is English so obviously vastly superior
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
Yes you might be slightly more likely to catch Covid but you are very unlikely to be hospitalised anyway.
If you have not been double vaccinated then getting jabbed would protect you from Covid far more than just wearing a mask would and almost everyone has been offered both jabs now
With respect HYUFD, the point of conforming to mask-wearing is to signal to other people that you are not threatening them with the virus.
With respect, its gesture bollocks and I won't take part in it anymore (unless I'm on someone's property and they tell, not ask, me to).
I've been double jabbed and that's it as far as I'm concerned. We need to get back on with our lives and wearing flimsy cloth masks post-vaccines is meaningless.
If you're concerned, go out and get a proper mask that actually works rather than replying upon strangers wearing cloth masks that don't.
Cloth masks made sense when there was a limitation on supply of proper masks, and when vaccines weren't available. That time has passed.
There are plenty of people out there who would be scared by your blithe insouciance as you swagger maskless around Waitrose potentially shedding virus even though you've been double-vaxxed. Anti-social behaviour imho.
For the fully vaccinated coming into contact with a few viral strands is most likely to give their immune system a boost.
Nope. Purely for masochists. And completely pointless.
I wish we would approach the natural world from a holistic Gaia starting point. Straight lines, bird lists and other “square” ways of looking at our landscape, geology and nature sap the sheer joy out of the experience. Just pull up a picnic chair and sit there for an hour or two. Just absorb nature. You don’t need to *do* anything.
Ah, so you're the sort of person who 'enjoys' nature within a few hundred metres of a car park. I'm glad there're people like you, as it means the wilds are a little emptier.
I'm currently doing a multi-year running project. During these runs, I've seen things and discovered stuff about my local area that no amount of sitting about in a chair would have taught me. From Roman burial mounds to communal bread ovens; village lock-ups to secret WW2 airbases. I've got to know and appreciate this little corner of Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire so much more.
Besides, much of what we do in life is completely pointless. 99% of your posts on PB probably don't matter much (mine, as well). Yet we post.
Err… no. I didn’t say anything about *where* you place your picnic chair. Certainly nowhere near the gawkers at car parks. By definition, picnic chairs are portable. Legs, boat, bike, whatever. Take it out to an isolated skerry and ponder the grandeur of the Atlantic.
The whole human race is entirely pointless. Just snog a few pretty birds and have a laugh or two before you’re put six feet under.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone on a 'picnic chair' in the wilds, even when camping. They very much seem a back-of-the-car thing.
So you get your kicks from snogging a few pretty birds and having a laugh or two. Others may get their kicks from doing that and challenging themselves as well.
And I don't agree that the whole human race is entirely pointless - at least at anything other than geological timescales. We've created so much beauty that might be transitory, but is still beautiful. Music. Art. Literature. We've uncovered the building blocks of nature, and are striving to understand the universe.
Disagree. Art wise the Iliad is about as good as it gets, but there's only a thousand odd people alive at any one time who can really appreciate that fact, and anyway its take home message is: life is so short and so shit the best we can do is excel at killing each other with crude bronze implements, raping and enslaving and singing songs about it. All the contents of all the world's art galleries don't pay for the torture to death of one single human being, and there's more than that happening in real time, as I type. As for understanding the universe, a. we don't and b. I have a horse who understands how the bolt on his stable door works. So what?
OTOH climbing Beinndearg, or the Pic du Midi in the Pyrenees (the more W one, not Bigorre), or half a dozen other peaks, are among the most vivid and best memories of my life. You don't get that by sitting on a picnic chair.
D'Ossau? Have always thought that looked amazing but slightly tricky to climb. Probably beyond my capabilities now.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
Yes you might be slightly more likely to catch Covid but you are very unlikely to be hospitalised anyway.
If you have not been double vaccinated then getting jabbed would protect you from Covid far more than just wearing a mask would and almost everyone has been offered both jabs now
With respect HYUFD, the point of conforming to mask-wearing is to signal to other people that you are not threatening them with the virus.
With respect, its gesture bollocks and I won't take part in it anymore (unless I'm on someone's property and they tell, not ask, me to).
I've been double jabbed and that's it as far as I'm concerned. We need to get back on with our lives and wearing flimsy cloth masks post-vaccines is meaningless.
If you're concerned, go out and get a proper mask that actually works rather than replying upon strangers wearing cloth masks that don't.
Cloth masks made sense when there was a limitation on supply of proper masks, and when vaccines weren't available. That time has passed.
There are plenty of people out there who would be scared by your blithe insouciance as you swagger maskless around Waitrose potentially shedding virus even though you've been double-vaxxed. Anti-social behaviour imho.
I'm sorry but I have no intention to pander to irrational phobias. Are those people wearing FFP3 masks?
If not, and I never see them at Tesco's, then I couldn't give a fuck what they're irrationally afraid of. Get a proper mask and move on, FFP3 masks work and third-party cloth masks don't.
Philibet the Libertarian Tells Other People What To Do, Part 999874.
Nope. I'm saying other people can do whatever they please. Wear a cloth mask, don't wear any mask, wear an FFP3 mask, put a sock on their head and put pencils up their nose . . . whatever they choose its their choice.
If they're afraid post-vaccines then the sensible thing to do is to wear an FFP3 mask. Or stay at home. Or get over their irrational phobias.
My wife really doesn't want to get Covid because of health issues. I might suggest you broaden your little mind and try to understand why people's fear might not be 'irrational phobias'.
A month ago I said I'd continue wearing masks where I felt it was appropriate. In response, someone said: "just as long as you don't condemn those who decide differently." Well, I've tried not to. But now it appears fine to criticise people continuing to wear them.
Just to remind you: Covid hasn't gone away. For some people Covid is a real threat - and they're not all old. But in your mind that's just 'irrational phobias'.
(As an aside, I feel we'll all get Covid eventually. I see no harm - and a fair bit of good - in delaying getting it.)
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
Yes you might be slightly more likely to catch Covid but you are very unlikely to be hospitalised anyway.
If you have not been double vaccinated then getting jabbed would protect you from Covid far more than just wearing a mask would and almost everyone has been offered both jabs now
With respect HYUFD, the point of conforming to mask-wearing is to signal to other people that you are not threatening them with the virus.
With respect, its gesture bollocks and I won't take part in it anymore (unless I'm on someone's property and they tell, not ask, me to).
I've been double jabbed and that's it as far as I'm concerned. We need to get back on with our lives and wearing flimsy cloth masks post-vaccines is meaningless.
If you're concerned, go out and get a proper mask that actually works rather than replying upon strangers wearing cloth masks that don't.
Cloth masks made sense when there was a limitation on supply of proper masks, and when vaccines weren't available. That time has passed.
There are plenty of people out there who would be scared by your blithe insouciance as you swagger maskless around Waitrose potentially shedding virus even though you've been double-vaxxed. Anti-social behaviour imho.
Being double vaxxed is still likely to reduce the risk of your spreading the virus more than wearing a mask is.
If you have been double vaxxed and still want to wear a mask fine but it should be personal choice.
Greens may be here to stay, but there are caveats. Aeons ago CND were a major force, and the threat to humanity was nuclear weapons (especially western ones.)
The threat is exactly as great as or greater than it was in the 60's, but it is registering nowhere much on the talking head agenda. (NB IMHO we have never needed them more than right now)
Fashions change.
And green stuff may not survive actual contact with financial reality or the reality of China or no cheap flights to Venice.
While on the subject of unpopular opinions, the BBC etc are full of terrified liberal Afghans regretting western departure. I don't blame them. But their army and people faced a 1940 moment in August and ducked it. Why are the Taliban prepared to fight for their beliefs but liberals not?
Nowhere much on the talking head agenda?? I appreciate that I'm working in the field so I see more of this stuff, but my perception is that scarcely a day goes by before another talking head, commission, NGO or government study pops up talking about the threat of climate change. I was around the 60s and there was much less cross-party consensus on nukes - everyone thought it very dangerous but the centre-right perception was that the danger was all from Russia. Nowadays you have to be very kooky (hello Piers) to say climate change isn't a problem.
I fully accept your point, but I think a good deal of my point remains. Green popular opinion has not yet been tested against hard decisions. And despite the talk of progress in terms of the amount of CO2 being put out by the world remains as high as ever.
And fashions (on the left especially) change.
Disagree on the first point.
In the UK Green popular opinion has not been rested against hard decisions by people with votes which will involve them spending their own money - everything else has had strong measures taken.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
Yes you might be slightly more likely to catch Covid but you are very unlikely to be hospitalised anyway.
If you have not been double vaccinated then getting jabbed would protect you from Covid far more than just wearing a mask would and almost everyone has been offered both jabs now
With respect HYUFD, the point of conforming to mask-wearing is to signal to other people that you are not threatening them with the virus.
With respect, its gesture bollocks and I won't take part in it anymore (unless I'm on someone's property and they tell, not ask, me to).
I've been double jabbed and that's it as far as I'm concerned. We need to get back on with our lives and wearing flimsy cloth masks post-vaccines is meaningless.
If you're concerned, go out and get a proper mask that actually works rather than replying upon strangers wearing cloth masks that don't.
Cloth masks made sense when there was a limitation on supply of proper masks, and when vaccines weren't available. That time has passed.
There are plenty of people out there who would be scared by your blithe insouciance as you swagger maskless around Waitrose potentially shedding virus even though you've been double-vaxxed. Anti-social behaviour imho.
I'm sorry but I have no intention to pander to irrational phobias. Are those people wearing FFP3 masks?
If not, and I never see them at Tesco's, then I couldn't give a fuck what they're irrationally afraid of. Get a proper mask and move on, FFP3 masks work and third-party cloth masks don't.
Philibet the Libertarian Tells Other People What To Do, Part 999874.
Nope. I'm saying other people can do whatever they please. Wear a cloth mask, don't wear any mask, wear an FFP3 mask, put a sock on their head and put pencils up their nose . . . whatever they choose its their choice.
If they're afraid post-vaccines then the sensible thing to do is to wear an FFP3 mask. Or stay at home. Or get over their irrational phobias.
I had indoor contact with a family member who has tested positive. I've had covid and 2 jabs and feel fine but have taken a PCR test so I can isolate if I'm an asymptomatic carrier.
Econ 101, opium, Taliban. (Few mtngs I ever had in No10 were more Brass Eye than listening to Home Office plans for 'crackdowns' and 'marketing campaigns' + BJ's desire to embarrass his Cabinet over their own drug use)
I strongly suspect Boris Johnson's popularity rating will sink through the floor by next spring when covid has surged this winter and his northern fan club finally twig about what a prat the man is.
What has she done differently from Johnson, perhaps lucky the death rate is lower per head but apart from the odd difference of a week or so here and there she has followed UK policy to the letter. Can you explain.
Got her press conferences in first.
True and did not bumble and bluster through them either, but apart from that flim flam?
Nope. Purely for masochists. And completely pointless.
I wish we would approach the natural world from a holistic Gaia starting point. Straight lines, bird lists and other “square” ways of looking at our landscape, geology and nature sap the sheer joy out of the experience. Just pull up a picnic chair and sit there for an hour or two. Just absorb nature. You don’t need to *do* anything.
Ah, so you're the sort of person who 'enjoys' nature within a few hundred metres of a car park. I'm glad there're people like you, as it means the wilds are a little emptier.
I'm currently doing a multi-year running project. During these runs, I've seen things and discovered stuff about my local area that no amount of sitting about in a chair would have taught me. From Roman burial mounds to communal bread ovens; village lock-ups to secret WW2 airbases. I've got to know and appreciate this little corner of Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire so much more.
Besides, much of what we do in life is completely pointless. 99% of your posts on PB probably don't matter much (mine, as well). Yet we post.
Err… no. I didn’t say anything about *where* you place your picnic chair. Certainly nowhere near the gawkers at car parks. By definition, picnic chairs are portable. Legs, boat, bike, whatever. Take it out to an isolated skerry and ponder the grandeur of the Atlantic.
The whole human race is entirely pointless. Just snog a few pretty birds and have a laugh or two before you’re put six feet under.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone on a 'picnic chair' in the wilds, even when camping. They very much seem a back-of-the-car thing.
So you get your kicks from snogging a few pretty birds and having a laugh or two. Others may get their kicks from doing that and challenging themselves as well.
And I don't agree that the whole human race is entirely pointless - at least at anything other than geological timescales. We've created so much beauty that might be transitory, but is still beautiful. Music. Art. Literature. We've uncovered the building blocks of nature, and are striving to understand the universe.
Disagree. Art wise the Iliad is about as good as it gets, but there's only a thousand odd people alive at any one time who can really appreciate that fact, and anyway its take home message is: life is so short and so shit the best we can do is excel at killing each other with crude bronze implements, raping and enslaving and singing songs about it. All the contents of all the world's art galleries don't pay for the torture to death of one single human being, and there's more than that happening in real time, as I type. As for understanding the universe, a. we don't and b. I have a horse who understands how the bolt on his stable door works. So what?
OTOH climbing Beinndearg, or the Pic du Midi in the Pyrenees (the more W one, not Bigorre), or half a dozen other peaks, are among the most vivid and best memories of my life. You don't get that by sitting on a picnic chair.
D'Ossau? Have always thought that looked amazing but slightly tricky to climb. Probably beyond my capabilities now.
That's the one. I could only remember it's locally called Jean-Pierre, and I couldn't face the levels of faux and genuine misunderstanding on here if I reminisced about my ascent of Jean-Pierre (How was it for him? etc). It is *just* on the scramble side of scramble/climb - you can rope but you don't have to.
I strongly suspect Boris Johnson's popularity rating will sink through the floor by next spring when covid has surged this winter and his northern fan club finally twig about what a prat the man is.
What has she done differently from Johnson, perhaps lucky the death rate is lower per head but apart from the odd difference of a week or so here and there she has followed UK policy to the letter. Can you explain.
She is Scottish, he is English so obviously vastly superior
I concur that the future is looking bright for Green politics and parties, in stark contrast to species and habitat diversity, invasive species damage, climate change etc.
I can understand the impulse to be rude about all things Jock, but the success of the Green movement in Scotland deserves a little deeper analysis than the Veganism jibe. For a start, ask yourself (or, better yet, ask the Scottish Green Party) *why* they support independence?
Some suggestions: - ejecting nuclear weapons from our country is only possible with sovereignty - control of our waters (the largest and richest in the UK) would allow us to pursue greener marine policies - fairness and popular sovereignty: green politics (everywhere, not just in Scotland) is driven from the bottom up, and - crucially - by young people. Young Scots are very green, and also very pro-independence. It chimes with their core voters.
This all sounds great, but:
The policy of the green party on defence, as I read it, is that the government should do the minimum to provide adequate security, and nothing more.
The whole green party edifice is built on a profound misunderstanding of history.
Surely that’s the definition of defence? Are you confusing defence with offence?
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
Yes you might be slightly more likely to catch Covid but you are very unlikely to be hospitalised anyway.
If you have not been double vaccinated then getting jabbed would protect you from Covid far more than just wearing a mask would and almost everyone has been offered both jabs now
With respect HYUFD, the point of conforming to mask-wearing is to signal to other people that you are not threatening them with the virus.
With respect, its gesture bollocks and I won't take part in it anymore (unless I'm on someone's property and they tell, not ask, me to).
I've been double jabbed and that's it as far as I'm concerned. We need to get back on with our lives and wearing flimsy cloth masks post-vaccines is meaningless.
If you're concerned, go out and get a proper mask that actually works rather than replying upon strangers wearing cloth masks that don't.
Cloth masks made sense when there was a limitation on supply of proper masks, and when vaccines weren't available. That time has passed.
There are plenty of people out there who would be scared by your blithe insouciance as you swagger maskless around Waitrose potentially shedding virus even though you've been double-vaxxed. Anti-social behaviour imho.
I'm sorry but I have no intention to pander to irrational phobias. Are those people wearing FFP3 masks?
If not, and I never see them at Tesco's, then I couldn't give a fuck what they're irrationally afraid of. Get a proper mask and move on, FFP3 masks work and third-party cloth masks don't.
Philibet the Libertarian Tells Other People What To Do, Part 999874.
Nope. I'm saying other people can do whatever they please. Wear a cloth mask, don't wear any mask, wear an FFP3 mask, put a sock on their head and put pencils up their nose . . . whatever they choose its their choice.
If they're afraid post-vaccines then the sensible thing to do is to wear an FFP3 mask. Or stay at home. Or get over their irrational phobias.
My wife really doesn't want to get Covid because of health issues. I might suggest you broaden your little mind and try to understand why people's fear might not be 'irrational phobias'.
A month ago I said I'd continue wearing masks where I felt it was appropriate. In response, someone said: "just as long as you don't condemn those who decide differently." Well, I've tried not to. But now it appears fine to criticise people continuing to wear them.
Just to remind you: Covid hasn't gone away. For some people Covid is a real threat - and they're not all old. But in your mind that's just 'irrational phobias'.
(As an aside, I feel we'll all get Covid eventually. I see no harm - and a fair bit of good - in delaying getting it.)
BiB - whilst I'm not certain that @another_richard is right about this, I this it is possible that getting exposed to COVID not long after the second jab (though, obviously, long enough after for it to have taken effect) might be for the best.
Greens may be here to stay, but there are caveats. Aeons ago CND were a major force, and the threat to humanity was nuclear weapons (especially western ones.)
The threat is exactly as great as or greater than it was in the 60's, but it is registering nowhere much on the talking head agenda. (NB IMHO we have never needed them more than right now)
Fashions change.
And green stuff may not survive actual contact with financial reality or the reality of China or no cheap flights to Venice.
While on the subject of unpopular opinions, the BBC etc are full of terrified liberal Afghans regretting western departure. I don't blame them. But their army and people faced a 1940 moment in August and ducked it. Why are the Taliban prepared to fight for their beliefs but liberals not?
Nowhere much on the talking head agenda?? I appreciate that I'm working in the field so I see more of this stuff, but my perception is that scarcely a day goes by before another talking head, commission, NGO or government study pops up talking about the threat of climate change. I was around the 60s and there was much less cross-party consensus on nukes - everyone thought it very dangerous but the centre-right perception was that the danger was all from Russia. Nowadays you have to be very kooky (hello Piers) to say climate change isn't a problem.
I fully accept your point, but I think a good deal of my point remains. Green popular opinion has not yet been tested against hard decisions. And despite the talk of progress in terms of the amount of CO2 being put out by the world remains as high as ever.
And fashions (on the left especially) change.
Yes and no. I agree that the world is slow to change - 'twas ever thus, and it does mean that if a major threat (say an asteroid approaching) emerges suddenly we are collectively crap at reacting quickly. But there's an awful lot going on in every developed country on the planet (even China) to turn the oil tanker, and the growth of emissions is decelerating. And I don't think it's liable to fashion, really - the weather will keep geting weirder as a constant reminder.
I agree that taking people head on by e.g. doubling petrol prices hasn't been tried yet - everyone is into gradualism, and I probably am too, but with a niggling feeling that it may not be enough. If I was young I'd be pretty seriously worried for myself - as it is, my concern is more for society generally, which feels less intense even for a lefty like me.
Thanks. There are multiple issues: What should happen, what is actually feasible, predicting what will happen, how people will respond and vote, cognitive dissonance and some others. Distinguishing between issues is important.
At the moment people are just staggeringly bad at this. People I know worry about which bin the put a sheet of A4, while flying on holiday to Viet Nam. Young people I know look at me as if I am deranged because I haven't been on a flight since 1975 and never will, though they think they are green. After all these years the current moment continues to put new record high amounts of C02 into the air.
If the science is right then even at current levels, or well below them, we face catastrophe. No-one much is pointing out that, if correct, this is already unavoidably true. They still say "Our last chance" as they have for 30 years.
An awesome truth is that unless the science is wrong or a black swan solution is magically found we are already for it. But it is highly inconvenient to say so. So they aren't.
60,000 - predates Brexit/COVID - Road Haulage Association - but figure suspect 25,000 - missed HGV tests because of COVID 19,000 - EU Lorry drivers (from ONS population survey) Brexit/COVID
So "Brexit" accounts for 18% of the alleged 104,000 shortfall.....
That sounds about right, so your point is?..
I'd have thought it was some commentary would give the impression the shortage is entirely, or mostly, a result of Brexit, while if that is correct it is a significant factor not to be glossed over, but not the whole story. Like how one cannot imply that all Covid deaths could have been prevented by merely quoting the headline figure in a government attack, but could talk about the impact of government response in contributing to it.
Nope. Purely for masochists. And completely pointless.
I wish we would approach the natural world from a holistic Gaia starting point. Straight lines, bird lists and other “square” ways of looking at our landscape, geology and nature sap the sheer joy out of the experience. Just pull up a picnic chair and sit there for an hour or two. Just absorb nature. You don’t need to *do* anything.
Ah, so you're the sort of person who 'enjoys' nature within a few hundred metres of a car park. I'm glad there're people like you, as it means the wilds are a little emptier.
I'm currently doing a multi-year running project. During these runs, I've seen things and discovered stuff about my local area that no amount of sitting about in a chair would have taught me. From Roman burial mounds to communal bread ovens; village lock-ups to secret WW2 airbases. I've got to know and appreciate this little corner of Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire so much more.
Besides, much of what we do in life is completely pointless. 99% of your posts on PB probably don't matter much (mine, as well). Yet we post.
Err… no. I didn’t say anything about *where* you place your picnic chair. Certainly nowhere near the gawkers at car parks. By definition, picnic chairs are portable. Legs, boat, bike, whatever. Take it out to an isolated skerry and ponder the grandeur of the Atlantic.
The whole human race is entirely pointless. Just snog a few pretty birds and have a laugh or two before you’re put six feet under.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone on a 'picnic chair' in the wilds, even when camping. They very much seem a back-of-the-car thing.
So you get your kicks from snogging a few pretty birds and having a laugh or two. Others may get their kicks from doing that and challenging themselves as well.
And I don't agree that the whole human race is entirely pointless - at least at anything other than geological timescales. We've created so much beauty that might be transitory, but is still beautiful. Music. Art. Literature. We've uncovered the building blocks of nature, and are striving to understand the universe.
Disagree. Art wise the Iliad is about as good as it gets, but there's only a thousand odd people alive at any one time who can really appreciate that fact, and anyway its take home message is: life is so short and so shit the best we can do is excel at killing each other with crude bronze implements, raping and enslaving and singing songs about it. All the contents of all the world's art galleries don't pay for the torture to death of one single human being, and there's more than that happening in real time, as I type. As for understanding the universe, a. we don't and b. I have a horse who understands how the bolt on his stable door works. So what?
OTOH climbing Beinndearg, or the Pic du Midi in the Pyrenees (the more W one, not Bigorre), or half a dozen other peaks, are among the most vivid and best memories of my life. You don't get that by sitting on a picnic chair.
D'Ossau? Have always thought that looked amazing but slightly tricky to climb. Probably beyond my capabilities now.
That's the one. I could only remember it's locally called Jean-Pierre, and I couldn't face the levels of faux and genuine misunderstanding on here if I reminisced about my ascent of Jean-Pierre (How was it for him? etc). It is *just* on the scramble side of scramble/climb - you can rope but you don't have to.
Yep that was my limit. Never liked carrying ropes and kit. Only time I used them was to get to top of Pillar Rock in the Lakes.
I concur that the future is looking bright for Green politics and parties, in stark contrast to species and habitat diversity, invasive species damage, climate change etc.
I can understand the impulse to be rude about all things Jock, but the success of the Green movement in Scotland deserves a little deeper analysis than the Veganism jibe. For a start, ask yourself (or, better yet, ask the Scottish Green Party) *why* they support independence?
Some suggestions: - ejecting nuclear weapons from our country is only possible with sovereignty - control of our waters (the largest and richest in the UK) would allow us to pursue greener marine policies - fairness and popular sovereignty: green politics (everywhere, not just in Scotland) is driven from the bottom up, and - crucially - by young people. Young Scots are very green, and also very pro-independence. It chimes with their core voters.
This all sounds great, but:
The policy of the green party on defence, as I read it, is that the government should do the minimum to provide adequate security, and nothing more.
The whole green party edifice is built on a profound misunderstanding of history.
Surely that’s the definition of defence? Are you confusing defence with offence?
I don't see how, though having the ability to project some amount of power could be seen as being useful as a defence too. I'd have thought the issue is what do people think is the minimum to provide adequate security, as there's a lot of range as to what that could mean. So if you aim for a bare minimum it might well not be enough (some would argue that's already the case).
If they're afraid post-vaccines then the sensible thing to do is to wear an FFP3 mask. Or stay at home. Or get over their irrational phobias.
It's not like you're being asked to wear the branks.
If it assuages the fears of your fellow citizens at a time of national anxiety why wouldn't you? Unless it's just pure vice semaphoring and you feel the need to have conspicuous visual indication of a what icy rationalist you are.
Nope. Purely for masochists. And completely pointless.
I wish we would approach the natural world from a holistic Gaia starting point. Straight lines, bird lists and other “square” ways of looking at our landscape, geology and nature sap the sheer joy out of the experience. Just pull up a picnic chair and sit there for an hour or two. Just absorb nature. You don’t need to *do* anything.
Ah, so you're the sort of person who 'enjoys' nature within a few hundred metres of a car park. I'm glad there're people like you, as it means the wilds are a little emptier.
I'm currently doing a multi-year running project. During these runs, I've seen things and discovered stuff about my local area that no amount of sitting about in a chair would have taught me. From Roman burial mounds to communal bread ovens; village lock-ups to secret WW2 airbases. I've got to know and appreciate this little corner of Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire so much more.
Besides, much of what we do in life is completely pointless. 99% of your posts on PB probably don't matter much (mine, as well). Yet we post.
Err… no. I didn’t say anything about *where* you place your picnic chair. Certainly nowhere near the gawkers at car parks. By definition, picnic chairs are portable. Legs, boat, bike, whatever. Take it out to an isolated skerry and ponder the grandeur of the Atlantic.
The whole human race is entirely pointless. Just snog a few pretty birds and have a laugh or two before you’re put six feet under.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone on a 'picnic chair' in the wilds, even when camping. They very much seem a back-of-the-car thing.
So you get your kicks from snogging a few pretty birds and having a laugh or two. Others may get their kicks from doing that and challenging themselves as well.
And I don't agree that the whole human race is entirely pointless - at least at anything other than geological timescales. We've created so much beauty that might be transitory, but is still beautiful. Music. Art. Literature. We've uncovered the building blocks of nature, and are striving to understand the universe.
Disagree. Art wise the Iliad is about as good as it gets, but there's only a thousand odd people alive at any one time who can really appreciate that fact, and anyway its take home message is: life is so short and so shit the best we can do is excel at killing each other with crude bronze implements, raping and enslaving and singing songs about it. All the contents of all the world's art galleries don't pay for the torture to death of one single human being, and there's more than that happening in real time, as I type. As for understanding the universe, a. we don't and b. I have a horse who understands how the bolt on his stable door works. So what?
OTOH climbing Beinndearg, or the Pic du Midi in the Pyrenees (the more W one, not Bigorre), or half a dozen other peaks, are among the most vivid and best memories of my life. You don't get that by sitting on a picnic chair.
D'Ossau? Have always thought that looked amazing but slightly tricky to climb. Probably beyond my capabilities now.
That's the one. I could only remember it's locally called Jean-Pierre, and I couldn't face the levels of faux and genuine misunderstanding on here if I reminisced about my ascent of Jean-Pierre (How was it for him? etc). It is *just* on the scramble side of scramble/climb - you can rope but you don't have to.
Yep that was my limit. Never liked carrying ropes and kit. Only time I used them was to get to top of Pillar Rock in the Lakes.
Yup. Till you've carried one up a steep gradient you have no idea how heavy a useful length of rope is.
Not sure anyone can be judged on a snapshot like that though can they, not when these things come in waves and someone else will have the worst spot in a week or so.
We find that the introduction of vaccine passports will likely lower inclination to accept a COVID-19 vaccine once baseline vaccination intent has been adjusted for. Notably, this decrease is larger if passports were required for domestic use rather than for facilitating international travel. The impact of passports while controlling for baseline vaccination intent differentially impacts individuals by socio-demographic status.....
I strongly suspect Boris Johnson's popularity rating will sink through the floor by next spring when covid has surged this winter and his northern fan club finally twig about what a prat the man is.
Next PM (shortest from each party) Sunak Con 3/1 Starmer Lab 5/1 Farage 66/1 Carmichael LD 75/1
Next FM (shortest from each party) Robertson SNP 7/2 Sarwar SLab 12/1 Ross SCon 18/1 Rennie SLD 100/1
60,000 - predates Brexit/COVID - Road Haulage Association - but figure suspect 25,000 - missed HGV tests because of COVID 19,000 - EU Lorry drivers (from ONS population survey) Brexit/COVID
So "Brexit" accounts for 18% of the alleged 104,000 shortfall.....
What a good thing that there are 1m unemployed, 700,000 school leavers, an infinite supply of third world young men eager to live in this country, and 2 m people about to come off furlough, some into the jobs and retraining market, to perform these necessary and fairly well paid tasks.
BTW 'More or Less' is a good deed in a naught world. It's sad that the BBC news department doesn't employ just one of their researchers as a fact checker.
Not sure anyone can be judged on a snapshot like that though can they, not when these things come in waves and someone else will have the worst spot in a week or so.
Of course not - just pointing out the folly of claiming any one leader is "better" than another - none of us or them are out of the woods yet.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
Yes you might be slightly more likely to catch Covid but you are very unlikely to be hospitalised anyway.
If you have not been double vaccinated then getting jabbed would protect you from Covid far more than just wearing a mask would and almost everyone has been offered both jabs now
With respect HYUFD, the point of conforming to mask-wearing is to signal to other people that you are not threatening them with the virus.
With respect, its gesture bollocks and I won't take part in it anymore (unless I'm on someone's property and they tell, not ask, me to).
I've been double jabbed and that's it as far as I'm concerned. We need to get back on with our lives and wearing flimsy cloth masks post-vaccines is meaningless.
If you're concerned, go out and get a proper mask that actually works rather than replying upon strangers wearing cloth masks that don't.
Cloth masks made sense when there was a limitation on supply of proper masks, and when vaccines weren't available. That time has passed.
There are plenty of people out there who would be scared by your blithe insouciance as you swagger maskless around Waitrose potentially shedding virus even though you've been double-vaxxed. Anti-social behaviour imho.
I'm sorry but I have no intention to pander to irrational phobias. Are those people wearing FFP3 masks?
If not, and I never see them at Tesco's, then I couldn't give a fuck what they're irrationally afraid of. Get a proper mask and move on, FFP3 masks work and third-party cloth masks don't.
Philibet the Libertarian Tells Other People What To Do, Part 999874.
Nope. I'm saying other people can do whatever they please. Wear a cloth mask, don't wear any mask, wear an FFP3 mask, put a sock on their head and put pencils up their nose . . . whatever they choose its their choice.
If they're afraid post-vaccines then the sensible thing to do is to wear an FFP3 mask. Or stay at home. Or get over their irrational phobias.
My wife really doesn't want to get Covid because of health issues. I might suggest you broaden your little mind and try to understand why people's fear might not be 'irrational phobias'.
A month ago I said I'd continue wearing masks where I felt it was appropriate. In response, someone said: "just as long as you don't condemn those who decide differently." Well, I've tried not to. But now it appears fine to criticise people continuing to wear them.
Just to remind you: Covid hasn't gone away. For some people Covid is a real threat - and they're not all old. But in your mind that's just 'irrational phobias'.
(As an aside, I feel we'll all get Covid eventually. I see no harm - and a fair bit of good - in delaying getting it.)
BiB - whilst I'm not certain that @another_richard is right about this, I this it is possible that getting exposed to COVID not long after the second jab (though, obviously, long enough after for it to have taken effect) might be for the best.
That's possible, but these things are currently like gazing through mud - and much depends on the individual.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
Yes you might be slightly more likely to catch Covid but you are very unlikely to be hospitalised anyway.
If you have not been double vaccinated then getting jabbed would protect you from Covid far more than just wearing a mask would and almost everyone has been offered both jabs now
With respect HYUFD, the point of conforming to mask-wearing is to signal to other people that you are not threatening them with the virus.
With respect, its gesture bollocks and I won't take part in it anymore (unless I'm on someone's property and they tell, not ask, me to).
I've been double jabbed and that's it as far as I'm concerned. We need to get back on with our lives and wearing flimsy cloth masks post-vaccines is meaningless.
If you're concerned, go out and get a proper mask that actually works rather than replying upon strangers wearing cloth masks that don't.
Cloth masks made sense when there was a limitation on supply of proper masks, and when vaccines weren't available. That time has passed.
There are plenty of people out there who would be scared by your blithe insouciance as you swagger maskless around Waitrose potentially shedding virus even though you've been double-vaxxed. Anti-social behaviour imho.
I'm sorry but I have no intention to pander to irrational phobias. Are those people wearing FFP3 masks?
If not, and I never see them at Tesco's, then I couldn't give a fuck what they're irrationally afraid of. Get a proper mask and move on, FFP3 masks work and third-party cloth masks don't.
Philibet the Libertarian Tells Other People What To Do, Part 999874.
Nope. I'm saying other people can do whatever they please. Wear a cloth mask, don't wear any mask, wear an FFP3 mask, put a sock on their head and put pencils up their nose . . . whatever they choose its their choice.
If they're afraid post-vaccines then the sensible thing to do is to wear an FFP3 mask. Or stay at home. Or get over their irrational phobias.
I feel we'll all get Covid eventually. I see no harm - and a fair bit of good - in delaying getting it.
Agree - and as treatment will in all likelihood improve, the longer you can put it off, the better.
60,000 - predates Brexit/COVID - Road Haulage Association - but figure suspect 25,000 - missed HGV tests because of COVID 19,000 - EU Lorry drivers (from ONS population survey) Brexit/COVID
So "Brexit" accounts for 18% of the alleged 104,000 shortfall.....
That sounds about right, so your point is?..
I'd have thought it was some commentary would give the impression the shortage is entirely, or mostly, a result of Brexit, while if that is correct it is a significant factor not to be glossed over, but not the whole story. Like how one cannot imply that all Covid deaths could have been prevented by merely quoting the headline figure in a government attack, but could talk about the impact of government response in contributing to it.
My thoughts are that we have had a severe problem with staffing and the priorities of the workforce in Britain now and in the preceding years as well. Doing something like stopping the foreign drivers from working over here may not have caused it, but by God it doesn't help it, some might say it is making it worse.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
A typical selfish right-winger's response, fuelled by that rag the Daily Telepgraph.
It's not a personal choice if you are both infecting others (without knowing it) or becoming infected yourself which is perfectly possible double jabbed or not.
This stinks. And trouble is coming.
I'm a left winger. It is the vaccine that protects us now, not masks.
Except it isn't. We expected those double vaxxed to be immune. They aren't. We expected them to be incapable of infecting others. They can. If they were unlucky enough to catch it we did not expect them to be ill. But they are in sufficient numbers to stress our hospital system.
Vaccines are good. They massively reduce death. They reduce the risk of serious illness. But they are not going to stop Covid. Not on their own.
What is going to stop covid is everyone being infected.
Vaccines allow that to happen with a 95% reduction in pain and risk.
For the fully vaccinated masks are more likely to be detrimental than beneficial.
Would you prefer to be infected when your vaccine is wearing off ?
I would prefer not to be infected at all.
This is entirely possible as the prevalence of the virus will decrease over time. Procrastination also helps as there are likely to both be better vaccines and better therapies in time.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
A typical selfish right-winger's response, fuelled by that rag the Daily Telepgraph.
It's not a personal choice if you are both infecting others (without knowing it) or becoming infected yourself which is perfectly possible double jabbed or not.
This stinks. And trouble is coming.
I'm a left winger. It is the vaccine that protects us now, not masks.
Except it isn't. We expected those double vaxxed to be immune. They aren't. We expected them to be incapable of infecting others. They can. If they were unlucky enough to catch it we did not expect them to be ill. But they are in sufficient numbers to stress our hospital system.
Vaccines are good. They massively reduce death. They reduce the risk of serious illness. But they are not going to stop Covid. Not on their own.
What is going to stop covid is everyone being infected.
Vaccines allow that to happen with a 95% reduction in pain and risk.
For the fully vaccinated masks are more likely to be detrimental than beneficial.
Would you prefer to be infected when your vaccine is wearing off ?
I would prefer not to be infected at all.
This is entirely possible as the prevalence of the virus will decrease over time. Procrastination also helps as there are likely to both be better vaccines and better therapies in time.
Therapeutics have been he big scientific disappointment for me in this crisis. We've done brilliantly with vaccines; it seems to me (perhaps incorrectly) that treatments have lagged a lot. They've improved, but nowhere near what I'd hoped.
Incidentally, I wonder how the improved treatments that have been created would help with a bad flu season?
I strongly suspect Boris Johnson's popularity rating will sink through the floor by next spring when covid has surged this winter and his northern fan club finally twig about what a prat the man is.
Next PM (shortest from each party) Sunak Con 3/1 Starmer Lab 5/1 Farage 66/1 Carmichael LD 75/1
Next FM (shortest from each party) Robertson SNP 7/2 Sarwar SLab 12/1 Ross SCon 18/1 Rennie SLD 100/1
Carmichael 75-1. In which fantasy was that idea spawned? I'd have Liz Saville-Roberts (Plaid Cymru) as more likely.
New greener petrol will be introduced to service stations across Britain from today despite fears that hundreds of thousands of drivers still do not know whether their car can use it without being damaged.
More than 8,000 petrol stations will start selling E10 fuel, which is designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions from combustion engines, throughout September. The petrol is blended with 10 per cent bioethanol, which is made from materials such as grains, sugars and waste wood.
E5 petrol, which is sold throughout the UK at present, has 5 per cent bioethanol.
I filled up with E10 in France yesterday. So far, so good.
@IanB2 I'm cycling in France shortly, then returning and almost immediately going to Portugal again.
I think I know what I am doing but would appreciate checking with you.
I am going to be in the middle of nowhere so getting the Antigen test prior to return maybe a challenge. Did you find it easy? Can you just walk into any pharmacy? I probably wont see one until I cycle into St Malo just before my ferry.
Did you book a proper Day 2 test or go for one of the cheaper dubious ones. After all, all you need is the code for the Passenger Location Form.
Did France accept your NHS vaccine app (plus self notification, which seems trivial)?
A comment for every one else; the process is a shambles. You might remember from my previous trip to Portugal the booking of the return test had to be done before, then changed, which was fortunate as I couldn't do it without a return flight, now it seems we are back to before. Nobody checks you have taken the day 2 test; anyone could have done it for you. The paperwork is barely checked and then only by the courier (my passenger locator form was in a folder and not removed), the antigen certificate could have been anything with a few stamps on it. A survey of French pharmacies shows they have no idea what the UK technical requirements are (they are on the web site), but their certificates are all accepted.
I went on the Govt web site. The 4 cheapest Day 2 providers lie about their starting price and by a factor of 350%. The next has a rating of 1 out of 5. Don't expect a test from them or a result if you do get one, you are just getting the number you need for the Passenger Location Form. Five have been removed for not having any tests at all (just scams). Various who claim to be using certain tests or certain locations for tests haven't actually bought those tests or booked those locations (Which checked with the suppliers)
Antigen and PCR tests can vary in price for exactly the same thing from £20 to over £500!
Acceptance of the NHS app as being compatible with the EU certificate is completely up in the air (another wonderful benefit of Brexit). Some accept it, some don't, but some might (might is a fat lot of use at the terminal). The UK Govt is in negotiations with the EU. France seem to, Portugal might, but might is not good enough. That is going to cost us £100 for 2 Antigen tests (well actually for 2 certificates, the test is free if you do it yourself)
Bizarely you actually don't need any of these test. You need a number to put on your Passenger Locator form that nobody looks at and a piece of paper that anyone could produce and is only checked by the person at the boarding gate. he had no idea who the Doctor was who gave me my certificate in Portugal last time.
It is all a lot of bollocks, with a lot of people ripping people off from the out and out scammers to the high st chemists taking advantage of an opportunity.
And why have we made it so much more complex than the French and Portuguese.
I strongly suspect Boris Johnson's popularity rating will sink through the floor by next spring when covid has surged this winter and his northern fan club finally twig about what a prat the man is.
Next PM (shortest from each party) Sunak Con 3/1 Starmer Lab 5/1 Farage 66/1 Carmichael LD 75/1
Next FM (shortest from each party) Robertson SNP 7/2 Sarwar SLab 12/1 Ross SCon 18/1 Rennie SLD 100/1
Carmichael 75-1. In which fantasy was that idea spawned? I'd have Liz Saville-Roberts (Plaid Cymru) as more likely.
For some reason he’s shorter than his party leader Davey (100/1).
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
A typical selfish right-winger's response, fuelled by that rag the Daily Telepgraph.
It's not a personal choice if you are both infecting others (without knowing it) or becoming infected yourself which is perfectly possible double jabbed or not.
This stinks. And trouble is coming.
I'm a left winger. It is the vaccine that protects us now, not masks.
Except it isn't. We expected those double vaxxed to be immune. They aren't. We expected them to be incapable of infecting others. They can. If they were unlucky enough to catch it we did not expect them to be ill. But they are in sufficient numbers to stress our hospital system.
Vaccines are good. They massively reduce death. They reduce the risk of serious illness. But they are not going to stop Covid. Not on their own.
What is going to stop covid is everyone being infected.
Vaccines allow that to happen with a 95% reduction in pain and risk.
For the fully vaccinated masks are more likely to be detrimental than beneficial.
Would you prefer to be infected when your vaccine is wearing off ?
I would prefer not to be infected at all.
This is entirely possible as the prevalence of the virus will decrease over time. Procrastination also helps as there are likely to both be better vaccines and better therapies in time.
I think there are two options: i) get on with life ii) sit tight and let everyone else get it and wait for the storm to pass. I wouldn't criticise anyone for taking option ii), but wearing a mask in a supermarket doesn't alter the fact that you really are doing i).
I concur that the future is looking bright for Green politics and parties, in stark contrast to species and habitat diversity, invasive species damage, climate change etc.
I can understand the impulse to be rude about all things Jock, but the success of the Green movement in Scotland deserves a little deeper analysis than the Veganism jibe. For a start, ask yourself (or, better yet, ask the Scottish Green Party) *why* they support independence?
Some suggestions: - ejecting nuclear weapons from our country is only possible with sovereignty - control of our waters (the largest and richest in the UK) would allow us to pursue greener marine policies - fairness and popular sovereignty: green politics (everywhere, not just in Scotland) is driven from the bottom up, and - crucially - by young people. Young Scots are very green, and also very pro-independence. It chimes with their core voters.
I think there’s a tendency for onlookers to think of the list regional vote for Holyrood as a second vote and therefore taken less seriously by voters. As I pointed out out during the last Holyrood election I know plenty of folk who saw their list Green vote as their primary one with their constituency vote complimentary to that. I don’t think there are many young Scots looking at SLab or (lol) SCons and thinking ‘gosh, a vote for them will also be great for the planet’.
Of course the combination of a party committed to the environment & Indy and now in government has made some people’s heads explode and therefore incapable of objective analysis.
Those exploding heads are mostly bald, wrinkly, Tory and/or not on the Scottish electoral register. They’ve had their day. The kidz are in town.
I’m sure the wrinkly heads are ripe for a bounce back with exciting ideas such as sooking up the oil from the Cambo field then storing it for some indefinite period, or that not drilling Cambo would be a disaster for the environment. Am also looking forward to the torchlit parades to celebrate the opening of COP26.
Are you really opposed to developing Cambo?
I was at a dinner party on Monday and one of the guests was of that view. He thought as a G7 nation we should be showing a lead, that the quantity of oil already available should be sufficient to transition our economy from hydrocarbons to renewables and that we would lose all moral authority to express a view on these matters if we could not resist the temptation of another oil field. Basically he was arguing that the world couldn't really afford to burn the oil we already had and did not need more.
I was quite startled to be honest but it was thought provoking.
So he gets to feel good about moral leadership and others suffer due to fewer work opportunities? Right.
Greens may be here to stay, but there are caveats. Aeons ago CND were a major force, and the threat to humanity was nuclear weapons (especially western ones.)
The threat is exactly as great as or greater than it was in the 60's, but it is registering nowhere much on the talking head agenda. (NB IMHO we have never needed them more than right now)
Fashions change.
And green stuff may not survive actual contact with financial reality or the reality of China or no cheap flights to Venice.
While on the subject of unpopular opinions, the BBC etc are full of terrified liberal Afghans regretting western departure. I don't blame them. But their army and people faced a 1940 moment in August and ducked it. Why are the Taliban prepared to fight for their beliefs but liberals not?
Nowhere much on the talking head agenda?? I appreciate that I'm working in the field so I see more of this stuff, but my perception is that scarcely a day goes by before another talking head, commission, NGO or government study pops up talking about the threat of climate change. I was around the 60s and there was much less cross-party consensus on nukes - everyone thought it very dangerous but the centre-right perception was that the danger was all from Russia. Nowadays you have to be very kooky (hello Piers) to say climate change isn't a problem.
I fully accept your point, but I think a good deal of my point remains. Green popular opinion has not yet been tested against hard decisions. And despite the talk of progress in terms of the amount of CO2 being put out by the world remains as high as ever.
And fashions (on the left especially) change.
Yes and no. I agree that the world is slow to change - 'twas ever thus, and it does mean that if a major threat (say an asteroid approaching) emerges suddenly we are collectively crap at reacting quickly. But there's an awful lot going on in every developed country on the planet (even China) to turn the oil tanker, and the growth of emissions is decelerating. And I don't think it's liable to fashion, really - the weather will keep geting weirder as a constant reminder.
I agree that taking people head on by e.g. doubling petrol prices hasn't been tried yet - everyone is into gradualism, and I probably am too, but with a niggling feeling that it may not be enough. If I was young I'd be pretty seriously worried for myself - as it is, my concern is more for society generally, which feels less intense even for a lefty like me.
Thanks. There are multiple issues: What should happen, what is actually feasible, predicting what will happen, how people will respond and vote, cognitive dissonance and some others. Distinguishing between issues is important.
At the moment people are just staggeringly bad at this. People I know worry about which bin the put a sheet of A4, while flying on holiday to Viet Nam. Young people I know look at me as if I am deranged because I haven't been on a flight since 1975 and never will, though they think they are green. After all these years the current moment continues to put new record high amounts of C02 into the air.
If the science is right then even at current levels, or well below them, we face catastrophe. No-one much is pointing out that, if correct, this is already unavoidably true. They still say "Our last chance" as they have for 30 years.
An awesome truth is that unless the science is wrong or a black swan solution is magically found we are already for it. But it is highly inconvenient to say so. So they aren't.
Incidentally, we have tried double petrol prices.
The tax take on petrol is north of 75% of the price. So, in fact, we have quadrupled the price of petrol.
Nope. Purely for masochists. And completely pointless.
I wish we would approach the natural world from a holistic Gaia starting point. Straight lines, bird lists and other “square” ways of looking at our landscape, geology and nature sap the sheer joy out of the experience. Just pull up a picnic chair and sit there for an hour or two. Just absorb nature. You don’t need to *do* anything.
Ah, so you're the sort of person who 'enjoys' nature within a few hundred metres of a car park. I'm glad there're people like you, as it means the wilds are a little emptier.
I'm currently doing a multi-year running project. During these runs, I've seen things and discovered stuff about my local area that no amount of sitting about in a chair would have taught me. From Roman burial mounds to communal bread ovens; village lock-ups to secret WW2 airbases. I've got to know and appreciate this little corner of Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire so much more.
Besides, much of what we do in life is completely pointless. 99% of your posts on PB probably don't matter much (mine, as well). Yet we post.
Err… no. I didn’t say anything about *where* you place your picnic chair. Certainly nowhere near the gawkers at car parks. By definition, picnic chairs are portable. Legs, boat, bike, whatever. Take it out to an isolated skerry and ponder the grandeur of the Atlantic.
The whole human race is entirely pointless. Just snog a few pretty birds and have a laugh or two before you’re put six feet under.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone on a 'picnic chair' in the wilds, even when camping. They very much seem a back-of-the-car thing.
So you get your kicks from snogging a few pretty birds and having a laugh or two. Others may get their kicks from doing that and challenging themselves as well.
And I don't agree that the whole human race is entirely pointless - at least at anything other than geological timescales. We've created so much beauty that might be transitory, but is still beautiful. Music. Art. Literature. We've uncovered the building blocks of nature, and are striving to understand the universe.
One of the beauties of the human brain is that it can appreciate broad concepts and overlook insignificant details. Well, some human brains.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
A typical selfish right-winger's response, fuelled by that rag the Daily Telepgraph.
It's not a personal choice if you are both infecting others (without knowing it) or becoming infected yourself which is perfectly possible double jabbed or not.
This stinks. And trouble is coming.
I'm a left winger. It is the vaccine that protects us now, not masks.
Except it isn't. We expected those double vaxxed to be immune. They aren't. We expected them to be incapable of infecting others. They can. If they were unlucky enough to catch it we did not expect them to be ill. But they are in sufficient numbers to stress our hospital system.
Vaccines are good. They massively reduce death. They reduce the risk of serious illness. But they are not going to stop Covid. Not on their own.
What is going to stop covid is everyone being infected.
Vaccines allow that to happen with a 95% reduction in pain and risk.
For the fully vaccinated masks are more likely to be detrimental than beneficial.
Would you prefer to be infected when your vaccine is wearing off ?
I would prefer not to be infected at all.
This is entirely possible as the prevalence of the virus will decrease over time. Procrastination also helps as there are likely to both be better vaccines and better therapies in time.
Therapeutics have been he big scientific disappointment for me in this crisis. We've done brilliantly with vaccines; it seems to me (perhaps incorrectly) that treatments have lagged a lot. They've improved, but nowhere near what I'd hoped.
Incidentally, I wonder how the improved treatments that have been created would help with a bad flu season?
I think that the drug developed in Southampton which works on all respiratory viruses and variants is quite promising, but there are others.
It isn't just the therapeutics that matter too. Being admitted to a respiratory unit that is quiet is a very different experience to one which is full and being placed on an orthopedic ward manned by agency nurses and wet behind the ears F2 doctors. You don't want to catch it at peak NHS pressure, like this September is likely to be.
Not the same by any means, but it's great fun doing staightish lines between small peaks (as the big peaks attract more people) in the more remote parts of the highlands and islands. A particular favourite of mine is pottering around the small hills south of Loch Baghasdail on South Uist. No one there at all; you see more eagles than people, if you see people at all.
You can equally lose yourself pretty much anywhere, even in southern England, if you go off the better marked paths and don't start from an obvious car park.
It’s only being written about because the Guardian doesn’t like him
Terrible that a board member of a regulator should have “strong views”. Leave it to the professionals right?
Provided that he exercises his role appropriately I don’t care whether he thinks the moon is made of cheese
On the face of it you sound reasonable, however according to that write up they went through a proper process and by the criteria set for OfCom he was not recommended for the role (and being able to set aside political views seems a reasonable expectation), so apparently he was not felt to be able exercise the role appropriately, at the least as compared to other candidates.
I wouldn't call rerunning the process corruption exactly, but unless there was an actual problem with the previous process (and not returning the 'correct' person is not a problem) I don't see why it was necessary to rerun it, and if they are trying to lean on others to withdraw that would be inappropriate (and may justify the stronger critical language), regardless of whether his political views are not aligned to the Guardian and that's one reason they are upset.
It’s only being written about because the Guardian doesn’t like him
Terrible that a board member of a regulator should have “strong views”. Leave it to the professionals right?
Provided that he exercises his role appropriately I don’t care whether he thinks the moon is made of cheese
Surely nobody sane could think Dacre is appropriate for that job. It is impossible to know where to start. I would have the same view if someone with his background was suggested from the left. He is completely inappropriate for that role. There are many other roles he maybe appropriate for. It is such a bizarre suggestion.
His views on whether the moon is made of cheese are not the ones that matter.
I’m delighted OFCOM has endorsed my right to disbelieve the Duke & Duchess of Sussex’s incendiary claims to Oprah Winfrey, many of which have proven to be untrue. This is a resounding victory for free speech and a resounding defeat for Princess Pinocchios. Do I get my job back? https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1432995892353765377?s=20
It’s only being written about because the Guardian doesn’t like him
Terrible that a board member of a regulator should have “strong views”. Leave it to the professionals right?
Provided that he exercises his role appropriately I don’t care whether he thinks the moon is made of cheese
Surely nobody sane could think Dacre is appropriate for that job. It is impossible to know where to start. I would have the same view if someone with his background was suggested from the left. He is completely inappropriate for that role. There are many other roles he maybe appropriate for. It is such a bizarre suggestion.
His views on whether the moon is made of cheese are not the ones that matter.
There is no rich old right winger that Charles won't die on a cross to defend.
Nope. Purely for masochists. And completely pointless.
I wish we would approach the natural world from a holistic Gaia starting point. Straight lines, bird lists and other “square” ways of looking at our landscape, geology and nature sap the sheer joy out of the experience. Just pull up a picnic chair and sit there for an hour or two. Just absorb nature. You don’t need to *do* anything.
Ah, so you're the sort of person who 'enjoys' nature within a few hundred metres of a car park. I'm glad there're people like you, as it means the wilds are a little emptier.
I'm currently doing a multi-year running project. During these runs, I've seen things and discovered stuff about my local area that no amount of sitting about in a chair would have taught me. From Roman burial mounds to communal bread ovens; village lock-ups to secret WW2 airbases. I've got to know and appreciate this little corner of Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire so much more.
Besides, much of what we do in life is completely pointless. 99% of your posts on PB probably don't matter much (mine, as well). Yet we post.
Err… no. I didn’t say anything about *where* you place your picnic chair. Certainly nowhere near the gawkers at car parks. By definition, picnic chairs are portable. Legs, boat, bike, whatever. Take it out to an isolated skerry and ponder the grandeur of the Atlantic.
The whole human race is entirely pointless. Just snog a few pretty birds and have a laugh or two before you’re put six feet under.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone on a 'picnic chair' in the wilds, even when camping. They very much seem a back-of-the-car thing.
So you get your kicks from snogging a few pretty birds and having a laugh or two. Others may get their kicks from doing that and challenging themselves as well.
And I don't agree that the whole human race is entirely pointless - at least at anything other than geological timescales. We've created so much beauty that might be transitory, but is still beautiful. Music. Art. Literature. We've uncovered the building blocks of nature, and are striving to understand the universe.
One of the beauties of the human brain is that it can appreciate broad concepts and overlook insignificant details. Well, some human brains.
Sometimes you can appreciate broad concepts and revel in the beauty of details that some human brains would deem insignificant.
It’s only being written about because the Guardian doesn’t like him
Terrible that a board member of a regulator should have “strong views”. Leave it to the professionals right?
Provided that he exercises his role appropriately I don’t care whether he thinks the moon is made of cheese
On the face of it you sound reasonable, however according to that write up they went through a proper process and by the criteria set for OfCom he was not recommended for the role (and being able to set aside political views seems a reasonable expectation), so apparently he was not felt to be able exercise the role appropriately, at the least as compared to other candidates.
I wouldn't call rerunning the process corruption exactly, but unless there was an actual problem with the previous process (and not returning the 'correct' person is not a problem) I don't see why it was necessary to rerun it, and if they are trying to lean on others to withdraw that would be inappropriate (and may justify the stronger critical language), regardless of whether his political views are not aligned to the Guardian and that's one reason they are upset.
A much better post than mine (damn it).
I see Ed Vaizy was one of the two successful candidates and on the face of it he strikes me as an obvious choice and a Tory what is more.
One in three trees face extinction in wild, says new report
Experts say 17,500 tree species are at risk - twice the number of threatened mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles combined.
Some 142 species have already vanished from the wild, while 442 are on the very edge of extinction, with fewer than 50 individual trees remaining.
The biggest threats to trees globally are forest clearance for crops (impacting 29% of species), logging (27%), clearance for livestock grazing or farming (14%), clearance for development (13%) and fire (13%).
Over the past 300 years, global forest area has decreased by about 40% and 29 countries have lost more than 90% of their forest cover.
Not the same by any means, but it's great fun doing staightish lines between small peaks (as the big peaks attract more people) in the more remote parts of the highlands and islands. A particular favourite of mine is pottering around the small hills south of Loch Baghasdail on South Uist. No one there at all; you see more eagles than people, if you see people at all.
You can equally lose yourself pretty much anywhere, even in southern England, if you go off the better marked paths and don't start from an obvious car park.
I've never been in that airt - but did once get off the ferry and hike to the northeast to camp in some old shielings on the wild east coast before going NW and meeting the road and machair country again: we watched an otter in the sea. Not so many eagles in those days, though.
A gentler straight line method is to hike along an old Roman road just to enjoy the ambience and variety - one has to choose one's area though.
I’m delighted OFCOM has endorsed my right to disbelieve the Duke & Duchess of Sussex’s incendiary claims to Oprah Winfrey, many of which have proven to be untrue. This is a resounding victory for free speech and a resounding defeat for Princess Pinocchios. Do I get my job back? https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1432995892353765377?s=20
Excellent. Glad to see the regulator standing up for freedom of speech.
Maybe ITV might wish to reflect on their treatment of Mr Morgan, in light of this ruling.
I’m delighted OFCOM has endorsed my right to disbelieve the Duke & Duchess of Sussex’s incendiary claims to Oprah Winfrey, many of which have proven to be untrue. This is a resounding victory for free speech and a resounding defeat for Princess Pinocchios. Do I get my job back? https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1432995892353765377?s=20
Excellent. Glad to see the regulator standing up for freedom of speech.
Maybe ITV might wish to reflect on their treatment of Mr Morgan, in light of this ruling.
I am not really a fan of Morgan or his style when he was on GMB, but it was demonstrable that Meghan told some absolute massive whoppers during that interview.
It’s only being written about because the Guardian doesn’t like him
Terrible that a board member of a regulator should have “strong views”. Leave it to the professionals right?
Provided that he exercises his role appropriately I don’t care whether he thinks the moon is made of cheese
Surely nobody sane could think Dacre is appropriate for that job. It is impossible to know where to start. I would have the same view if someone with his background was suggested from the left. He is completely inappropriate for that role. There are many other roles he maybe appropriate for. It is such a bizarre suggestion.
His views on whether the moon is made of cheese are not the ones that matter.
There is no rich old right winger that Charles won't die on a cross to defend.
Name-dropping supremo Charles a PITA, but crucifixion is a little inhumane even for his sort.
Sainsbury's sitrep midday yesterday. For the first time, there are many (though still a minority, say 20 per cent of) customers not wearing masks. Some shelves are still bare.
It's utter madness at the moment not to be wearing a mask in a confined indoor space. I had a go at M&S staff two days ago. All the customers were in masks and none of the staff. My other local shop had to shut because, surprise surprise, the anti-mask staff got struck down by covid.
We only need to look at Israel to see this ain't yet over. Where's Johnson on this? Nowhere. So a month or two from now we will start playing catch up.
If you have been double vaccinated it should be personal choice if you want to wear a mask in shops.
Yes you might be slightly more likely to catch Covid but you are very unlikely to be hospitalised anyway.
If you have not been double vaccinated then getting jabbed would protect you from Covid far more than just wearing a mask would and almost everyone has been offered both jabs now
With respect HYUFD, the point of conforming to mask-wearing is to signal to other people that you are not threatening them with the virus.
With respect, its gesture bollocks and I won't take part in it anymore (unless I'm on someone's property and they tell, not ask, me to).
I've been double jabbed and that's it as far as I'm concerned. We need to get back on with our lives and wearing flimsy cloth masks post-vaccines is meaningless.
If you're concerned, go out and get a proper mask that actually works rather than replying upon strangers wearing cloth masks that don't.
Cloth masks made sense when there was a limitation on supply of proper masks, and when vaccines weren't available. That time has passed.
There are plenty of people out there who would be scared by your blithe insouciance as you swagger maskless around Waitrose potentially shedding virus even though you've been double-vaxxed. Anti-social behaviour imho.
I'm sorry but I have no intention to pander to irrational phobias. Are those people wearing FFP3 masks?
If not, and I never see them at Tesco's, then I couldn't give a fuck what they're irrationally afraid of. Get a proper mask and move on, FFP3 masks work and third-party cloth masks don't.
Philibet the Libertarian Tells Other People What To Do, Part 999874.
Nope. I'm saying other people can do whatever they please. Wear a cloth mask, don't wear any mask, wear an FFP3 mask, put a sock on their head and put pencils up their nose . . . whatever they choose its their choice.
If they're afraid post-vaccines then the sensible thing to do is to wear an FFP3 mask. Or stay at home. Or get over their irrational phobias.
My wife really doesn't want to get Covid because of health issues. I might suggest you broaden your little mind and try to understand why people's fear might not be 'irrational phobias'.
A month ago I said I'd continue wearing masks where I felt it was appropriate. In response, someone said: "just as long as you don't condemn those who decide differently." Well, I've tried not to. But now it appears fine to criticise people continuing to wear them.
Just to remind you: Covid hasn't gone away. For some people Covid is a real threat - and they're not all old. But in your mind that's just 'irrational phobias'.
(As an aside, I feel we'll all get Covid eventually. I see no harm - and a fair bit of good - in delaying getting it.)
I have no qualms with your or your wife or anyone else wearing a mask. What I have a qualm with is being told I must because others are "afraid" if I don't.
If you or your wife or anyone else is "afraid" of me not wearing a mask then yes that is an irrational phobia. Especially if the person in question is not wearing an FFP3 mask.
But empty supermarket shelves should not prompt a bout of ugly schadenfreude on the part of those (including myself) who never wanted to leave the EU in the first place. Low-paid workers are enjoying more workplace leverage than they have had for many years. We may not agree with the path taken to get here, and we might grumble about missing items on our weekly shop but our dysfunctional labour market – supporting a middle-class world of convenience and abundance – has depended for many years on a large reservoir of exploited labour. Now that it’s been choked off, I expect some workers are rejoicing.
I’m delighted OFCOM has endorsed my right to disbelieve the Duke & Duchess of Sussex’s incendiary claims to Oprah Winfrey, many of which have proven to be untrue. This is a resounding victory for free speech and a resounding defeat for Princess Pinocchios. Do I get my job back? https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1432995892353765377?s=20
Excellent. Glad to see the regulator standing up for freedom of speech.
Maybe ITV might wish to reflect on their treatment of Mr Morgan, in light of this ruling.
Hang on. Didn't he quit in a strop? Having lined up a coincidental lucrative move to GB News? Who unfortunately didn't value Piers quite as highly as he himself did.
Comments
It's not a personal choice if you are both infecting others (without knowing it) or becoming infected yourself which is perfectly possible double jabbed or not.
This stinks. And trouble is coming.
I strongly suspect Boris Johnson's popularity rating will sink through the floor by next spring when covid has surged this winter and his northern fan club finally twig about what a prat the man is.
Has anywhere eliminated delta anywhere in world after an outbreak?
https://twitter.com/ThatRyanChap/status/1432971363669708802?s=20
Impossible to eliminate Delta, NSW Premier says, as COVID cases up by 1116
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/impossible-to-eliminate-delta-premier-says-as-nsw-covid-cases-up-by-1116-20210901-p58nrr.html
So you get your kicks from snogging a few pretty birds and having a laugh or two. Others may get their kicks from doing that and challenging themselves as well.
And I don't agree that the whole human race is entirely pointless - at least at anything other than geological timescales. We've created so much beauty that might be transitory, but is still beautiful. Music. Art. Literature. We've uncovered the building blocks of nature, and are striving to understand the universe.
Looks like people are waking up to the crisis we face. Good.
Column, on a prime minister in search of a governing purpose and without the skills to sustain one. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/31/covid-uk-boris-johnson-prime-minister-legacy
Vaccines are good. They massively reduce death. They reduce the risk of serious illness. But they are not going to stop Covid. Not on their own.
I've been double jabbed and that's it as far as I'm concerned. We need to get back on with our lives and wearing flimsy cloth masks post-vaccines is meaningless.
If you're concerned, go out and get a proper mask that actually works rather than replying upon strangers wearing cloth masks that don't.
Cloth masks made sense when there was a limitation on supply of proper masks, and when vaccines weren't available. That time has passed.
I drove past a school yesterday which had big banners outside it saying "The good days are coming" and "We must care for each other", and lots of pictures of rainbows. A cynic would say that as sure as eggs are eggs, hate week is coming.
The problem is work that people hate: work that creates deep moral conflict, work that has no meaning.
Learn to live with it, and if you're really concerned then wear an FFP3 mask. Those actually work, unlike third party cloth masks.
You want others not to have homes, especially in beauty spots, but you have a home in a beauty spot.
I'm beginning to see a pattern developing . . .
Vaccines allow that to happen with a 95% reduction in pain and risk.
For the fully vaccinated masks are more likely to be detrimental than beneficial.
Would you prefer to be infected when your vaccine is wearing off ?
I agre that taking people head on by e.g. doubling petrol prices hasn't been tried yet - everyone is into gradualism, and I probably am too, but with a niggling feeling that it may not be enough. If I was young I'd be pretty seriously worried for myself - as it is, my concern is more for society generally, which feels less intense even for a lefty like me.
OTOH climbing Beinndearg, or the Pic du Midi in the Pyrenees (the more W one, not Bigorre), or half a dozen other peaks, are among the most vivid and best memories of my life. You don't get that by sitting on a picnic chair.
60,000 - predates Brexit/COVID - Road Haulage Association - but figure suspect
25,000 - missed HGV tests because of COVID
19,000 - EU Lorry drivers (from ONS population survey) Brexit/COVID
So "Brexit" accounts for 18% of the alleged 104,000 shortfall.....
If not, and I never see them at Tesco's, then I couldn't give a fuck what they're irrationally afraid of. Get a proper mask and move on, FFP3 masks work and third-party cloth masks don't.
'I'm thinking that this 100,000 trucker shortage is a bit hand-wavey.'
If they're afraid post-vaccines then the sensible thing to do is to wear an FFP3 mask. Or stay at home. Or get over their irrational phobias.
A month ago I said I'd continue wearing masks where I felt it was appropriate. In response, someone said: "just as long as you don't condemn those who decide differently." Well, I've tried not to. But now it appears fine to criticise people continuing to wear them.
Just to remind you: Covid hasn't gone away. For some people Covid is a real threat - and they're not all old. But in your mind that's just 'irrational phobias'.
(As an aside, I feel we'll all get Covid eventually. I see no harm - and a fair bit of good - in delaying getting it.)
If you have been double vaxxed and still want to wear a mask fine but it should be personal choice.
Philip is right on that
In the UK Green popular opinion has not been rested against hard decisions by people with votes which will involve them spending their own money - everything else has had strong measures taken.
https://news.stv.tv/west-central/glasgow-and-lanarkshire-worst-covid-hotspots-in-all-of-europe?top
Econ 101, opium, Taliban. (Few mtngs I ever had in No10 were more Brass Eye than listening to Home Office plans for 'crackdowns' and 'marketing campaigns' + BJ's desire to embarrass his Cabinet over their own drug use)
https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1432983931557658633?s=20
At the moment people are just staggeringly bad at this. People I know worry about which bin the put a sheet of A4, while flying on holiday to Viet Nam. Young people I know look at me as if I am deranged because I haven't been on a flight since 1975 and never will, though they think they are green. After all these years the current moment continues to put new record high amounts of C02 into the air.
If the science is right then even at current levels, or well below them, we face catastrophe. No-one much is pointing out that, if correct, this is already unavoidably true. They still say "Our last chance" as they have for 30 years.
An awesome truth is that unless the science is wrong or a black swan solution is magically found we are already for it. But it is highly inconvenient to say so. So they aren't.
If it assuages the fears of your fellow citizens at a time of national anxiety why wouldn't you? Unless it's just pure vice semaphoring and you feel the need to have conspicuous visual indication of a what icy rationalist you are.
We find that the introduction of vaccine passports will likely lower inclination to accept a COVID-19 vaccine once baseline vaccination intent has been adjusted for. Notably, this decrease is larger if passports were required for domestic use rather than for facilitating international travel. The impact of passports while controlling for baseline vaccination intent differentially impacts individuals by socio-demographic status.....
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.31.21258122v1.full.pdf
Appears to be at variance with France real world data where Macron's "vaccine passports" being credited for increase in uptake
Sunak Con 3/1
Starmer Lab 5/1
Farage 66/1
Carmichael LD 75/1
Next FM (shortest from each party)
Robertson SNP 7/2
Sarwar SLab 12/1
Ross SCon 18/1
Rennie SLD 100/1
BTW 'More or Less' is a good deed in a naught world. It's sad that the BBC news department doesn't employ just one of their researchers as a fact checker.
This is entirely possible as the prevalence of the virus will decrease over time. Procrastination also helps as there are likely to both be better vaccines and better therapies in time.
Incidentally, I wonder how the improved treatments that have been created would help with a bad flu season?
https://twitter.com/DarrenGBNews/status/1432985474684137472?s=20
In which fantasy was that idea spawned? I'd have Liz Saville-Roberts (Plaid Cymru) as more likely.
I think I know what I am doing but would appreciate checking with you.
I am going to be in the middle of nowhere so getting the Antigen test prior to return maybe a challenge. Did you find it easy? Can you just walk into any pharmacy? I probably wont see one until I cycle into St Malo just before my ferry.
Did you book a proper Day 2 test or go for one of the cheaper dubious ones. After all, all you need is the code for the Passenger Location Form.
Did France accept your NHS vaccine app (plus self notification, which seems trivial)?
A comment for every one else; the process is a shambles. You might remember from my previous trip to Portugal the booking of the return test had to be done before, then changed, which was fortunate as I couldn't do it without a return flight, now it seems we are back to before. Nobody checks you have taken the day 2 test; anyone could have done it for you. The paperwork is barely checked and then only by the courier (my passenger locator form was in a folder and not removed), the antigen certificate could have been anything with a few stamps on it. A survey of French pharmacies shows they have no idea what the UK technical requirements are (they are on the web site), but their certificates are all accepted.
I went on the Govt web site. The 4 cheapest Day 2 providers lie about their starting price and by a factor of 350%. The next has a rating of 1 out of 5. Don't expect a test from them or a result if you do get one, you are just getting the number you need for the Passenger Location Form. Five have been removed for not having any tests at all (just scams). Various who claim to be using certain tests or certain locations for tests haven't actually bought those tests or booked those locations (Which checked with the suppliers)
Antigen and PCR tests can vary in price for exactly the same thing from £20 to over £500!
Acceptance of the NHS app as being compatible with the EU certificate is completely up in the air (another wonderful benefit of Brexit). Some accept it, some don't, but some might (might is a fat lot of use at the terminal). The UK Govt is in negotiations with the EU. France seem to, Portugal might, but might is not good enough. That is going to cost us £100 for 2 Antigen tests (well actually for 2 certificates, the test is free if you do it yourself)
Bizarely you actually don't need any of these test. You need a number to put on your Passenger Locator form that nobody looks at and a piece of paper that anyone could produce and is only checked by the person at the boarding gate. he had no idea who the Doctor was who gave me my certificate in Portugal last time.
It is all a lot of bollocks, with a lot of people ripping people off from the out and out scammers to the high st chemists taking advantage of an opportunity.
And why have we made it so much more complex than the French and Portuguese.
Terrible that a board member of a regulator should have “strong views”. Leave it to the professionals right?
Provided that he exercises his role appropriately I don’t care whether he thinks the moon is made of cheese
The tax take on petrol is north of 75% of the price. So, in fact, we have quadrupled the price of petrol.
https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1432975556803502080
https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/news/synairgen-inhaled-treatment-hospitalisation/
It isn't just the therapeutics that matter too. Being admitted to a respiratory unit that is quiet is a very different experience to one which is full and being placed on an orthopedic ward manned by agency nurses and wet behind the ears F2 doctors. You don't want to catch it at peak NHS pressure, like this September is likely to be.
You can equally lose yourself pretty much anywhere, even in southern England, if you go off the better marked paths and don't start from an obvious car park.
I wouldn't call rerunning the process corruption exactly, but unless there was an actual problem with the previous process (and not returning the 'correct' person is not a problem) I don't see why it was necessary to rerun it, and if they are trying to lean on others to withdraw that would be inappropriate (and may justify the stronger critical language), regardless of whether his political views are not aligned to the Guardian and that's one reason they are upset.
His views on whether the moon is made of cheese are not the ones that matter.
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-58354662
I’m delighted OFCOM has endorsed my right to disbelieve the Duke & Duchess of Sussex’s incendiary claims to Oprah Winfrey, many of which have proven to be untrue. This is a resounding victory for free speech and a resounding defeat for Princess Pinocchios.
Do I get my job back?
https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1432995892353765377?s=20
https://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/large107702.html
https://twitter.com/zacritic/status/1432453732160184320?s=20
I see Ed Vaizy was one of the two successful candidates and on the face of it he strikes me as an obvious choice and a Tory what is more.
Experts say 17,500 tree species are at risk - twice the number of threatened mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles combined.
Some 142 species have already vanished from the wild, while 442 are on the very edge of extinction, with fewer than 50 individual trees remaining.
The biggest threats to trees globally are forest clearance for crops (impacting 29% of species), logging (27%), clearance for livestock grazing or farming (14%), clearance for development (13%) and fire (13%).
Over the past 300 years, global forest area has decreased by about 40% and 29 countries have lost more than 90% of their forest cover.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58394215.amp
A gentler straight line method is to hike along an old Roman road just to enjoy the ambience and variety - one has to choose one's area though.
Maybe ITV might wish to reflect on their treatment of Mr Morgan, in light of this ruling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hixon_rail_crash
Though, hopefully no one was hurt in that crash in Texas.
If you or your wife or anyone else is "afraid" of me not wearing a mask then yes that is an irrational phobia. Especially if the person in question is not wearing an FFP3 mask.
The Daily MailNew Statesman:But empty supermarket shelves should not prompt a bout of ugly schadenfreude on the part of those (including myself) who never wanted to leave the EU in the first place. Low-paid workers are enjoying more workplace leverage than they have had for many years. We may not agree with the path taken to get here, and we might grumble about missing items on our weekly shop but our dysfunctional labour market – supporting a middle-class world of convenience and abundance – has depended for many years on a large reservoir of exploited labour. Now that it’s been choked off, I expect some workers are rejoicing.
https://www.newstatesman.com/business/2021/08/why-remainers-shouldn-t-mock-brexiteers-over-lorry-driver-shortage
Having lined up a coincidental lucrative move to GB News?
Who unfortunately didn't value Piers quite as highly as he himself did.