Thursday 28th September 2023

[refitman]

Morning all.

[frog222]

Morning refit

Savage Behr on Sunak’s delivery – “Unctuous piety”

I enjoyed the comments too

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... l-election

[gilsey]

Good morning.

[gilsey]

[frog222]

Good morning.

Thanks @gilsey for the first LOL of the day .

Sister " It was fabulous.. they’ve just replayed it on 10am news"

" Oh yes, the Beeb turns a blind eye to some things, but this is Theatre!!"


Other news from Manchester --

" One of Greater Manchester's top doctors has told how patients with covid symptoms 'don't believe' they might be infected, as she warned the virus is 'still here and still wreaking havoc'. Dr Helen Wall, a GP and NHS Greater Manchester's clinical director of population health, says coronavirus cases in hospitals had been rising since the beginning of September.
....
One of the problems, Dr Wall said, is that many people now 'don't seem to believe their severe viral symptoms might be covid'. She added: "It's been really hard to convince people [that they have covid]. Maybe they don't want to admit it or don't think it's a thing anymore.
...
She said: "The viruses affect every cell in your body, so if you have headaches, fever, general aches and pains, coughs, chances are you have a virus, whether that's covid, flu or something else. Patients that I have seen have had the whole host of symptoms, but the headache seems quite prominent at the moment."

And while there may no longer be any covid restrictions in place, Dr Wall says there is still one crucial thing the public can do to help stop the spread of the virus. "

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... g-27798547

I give her a few marks for pointing out how C really DOES affect the whole body and many people are in denial and it's a good idea particularly for the vulnerable to get vaccinated .
BUT
After a quick check , LinkedIn, her twitter and other googled stuff, she doesn't seem to have either training or understanding on Public Health beyond the very routine stuff such as immunisation and breast screening.

Unless you believe infections are good for people (they aren't!) you clean up the air people breathe and children incarcerated in airless classrooms is one vital place to start .

It's not impossible to measure CO2 improve ventilation , get parents to make DIY corsi-rosenthal boxes to clean the air, build on experience in distance learning e t c

Also the language used is important, so a Public Health expert does not talk of 'restrictions' but 'mitigations' . And every chance they get they should remind of the extent of Long Covid .

Which also damages the sacred economy ...

[RogerOThornhill]

Laurence Fox does talk utter rubbish but this might be my favourite given how many Tory MPs the channel employs.

The United Kingdom is run by one political party, pretending to be two, by wearing different coloured rosettes, with the same freedom sapping policies and controlling agendas. That is why you are seeing every show on regime TV discussing this affair, and both sides of the uni party calling in unison for an end to the insurgent channel. The uni party need Izvestia to spout their narrative.

An utter fool.

[frog222]

Softy pampered woke teechers skiving again !

Covid: ‘Rapid spike’ forces partial closure of Rutland college
Published
22 hours ago

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lei ... e-66936189

[Sky'sGoneOut]

I'm struggling to comprehend what would inspire some shithead to steal out in the middle of a stormy night to cut down a tree that was beloved by many and doing no harm to anybody.

Fortunately it's a Sycamore which in my experience are practically impossible to kill.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

I've got nothing better to do tonight so...

[frog222]

I've got nothing better to do tonight so...

Excellent news !

[AnatolyKasparov]

I've got nothing better to do tonight so...

Well at least its a slightly more politically balanced panel than last week's.

[frog222]

ALSO remember that this went out AFTER the bbc had edited it, as Montague mentioned at the end .

[AnatolyKasparov]

Laurence Fox does talk utter rubbish but this might be my favourite given how many Tory MPs the channel employs.

The United Kingdom is run by one political party, pretending to be two, by wearing different coloured rosettes, with the same freedom sapping policies and controlling agendas. That is why you are seeing every show on regime TV discussing this affair, and both sides of the uni party calling in unison for an end to the insurgent channel. The uni party need Izvestia to spout their narrative.

An utter fool.

Well he does have his own right wing micro-party to promote - much the best thing about the Uxbrisge byelection result was his own pitiful showing.

[frog222]

Report from daughter teaching at uni in Alençon

” Lots of covid among teachers and students ”

” Moi je mets un masque à l’iut… ”

( Still very little masking ….. )
-------------------------------------------------------

They couldn't go on hiding ALL the bloody figures --



Gatwick is famous

[frog222]

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Question Time tonight came from Sale

For the Tories we had Mark Spencer (no I'd never heard of him either). Mark was sort of doing ok, no applause, a few grumbles from the audience, but his dignity remained more or less intact, until he tried to defend Suella Braverman and made himself look like a total fool. The question was about her claim that multiculturalism had failed, which Mark tried to answer by going on about how brilliant this country was, how we were one of the least racist countries in the world, how migrants loved to come here because it was such a great place to live, etc, etc. At which point it was put to him that if all of that were true what the hell was Braverman on about? She'd popped over the pond and painted the UK as a segregated, dysfunctional shithole. What she described and what he described were complete opposites. Mark had no answer to this and worse was to come. When it was put to him that Braverman had said immigration was too high yet the vast majority of immigrants were here perfectly legally on visas approved by her own department, he tried to obfuscate and burble his way out of it before finally having to admit it was true resulting in him joining the ever increasing list of Tory MPs to be laughed at by the QT audience.

For Labour we had Lisa Nandy. As usual Lisa was on fine form but what was most interesting was her insistence that Labour would build HS2 up to Manchester, would nationalise buses across the country, and would bring all rail franchises 'in house' (i.e nationalise them also), which is far more than we've heard from Starmer. I'd like to believe she wasn't shooting from the hip and was giving us a glimpse through Labour's fog of cowardice, but I fully expect she'll be slapped down for it. Either way she was most effective ripping apart Braverman's nonsense with quite obvious personal disgust for which she received a well deserved round of applause. She continues to be one of the few natural public speakers Labour possesses, she's clearly passionate about what she does, and whether you agree with her or not it was a big mistake for Starmer to demote her.

For the Tory media we had Tim Montgomerie. Tim likes to paint himself as a decent common sense Conservative but he doesn't half talk a load of shite. For example this evening his answer to knife crime was to have police on every bus searching teenagers for knives. Let's just think about that for a moment. Number of bus journeys across the UK per day? According to the bus industry we have approximately 32,000 buses in the UK, so times that by multiple journeys, let's just say 10 to keep things simple, so a conservative estimate of 320,000 bus journeys per day. As of September 2022 the UK has 142,145 police officers. So if Tim had his way the police would have scant resources to do anything else other than search buses. Which would bugger his other plan which was to massively expand stop and search powers. He also made a tit of himself repeating the claim that 700 million people could claim asylum in the UK, which to her credit Fiona Bruce called him up on. It tells you all you need to know about the Tory media luvvies that Tim is one of their best and brightest.

For the Lib Dems we had Wendy Chamberlain. During the discussion on knife crime the audience kept pointing out it wasn't just a law and order problem as the Tories were painting it and I kept shouting at the TV about Glasgow's successful public health approach in concert with a specialist police unit until Wendy brought it up allowing me to calm down, so my blood pressure thanks you Wendy.

For the 'Northern Powerhouse' we had Henri Murison. Henry seemed like a nice sensible chap with a decent head on his shoulders until he claimed Bradford (where he lives) was beautiful and marvellous. I watched a semi-naked man try to start a fight with a bus in Bradford. It would appear our experiences differ.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

In regard to Sycamore Gap.

To be honest I've heard a load of crap today about it representing Northumberland from a bunch of Geordie celebs. Maybe it did to them because it was an easy half hour drive from Newcastle but for those of us who actually come from Northumberland it was just a tree. 

Which isn't to say what's happened isn't a sad thing, but the outpouring of anger and grief has made me laugh when you consider the number of trees being felled every year in Northumberland to make way for grouse moors. 

A couple of years ago my brother and I drove to a place we loved as kids only to find it was gone, completely wiped off the map. A whole hillside forest chopped down and replaced by burnt heather and scrubland by Duncan Davidson of Persimmon homes fame, now one of the biggest landowners in Northumberland.

I don't recall any Geordie celebs or Instagram tourists pulling their hair out and rending their clothes about that. Just us bewildered and pissed off wondering what the fuck?

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Anyway people would have you believe the Socialist Republic of Romania was a joyless place and totally out of touch with Western culture in the Sixties...

[refitman]

Cheers for the QT report Sky.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

You're welcome.