Last evening, I caught a lady reporter on the BBC ‘reporting’ that the government is to start paying the self employed who can’t work ‘safely’. She then qualified this statement by adding that this related to small self employed. Come on BBC, we need some of that clarity you’re always banging on about on this, right? Wot’s the government definition of small? Wot’s the cut-off height for financial support? five feet tall? Five and a half feet? All under six feet tall?
And then there was this stunning revelation from the Daily Tubby-graph, "Age is one of the biggest risk factors for general health and wellbeing, with the chance of dying rising substantially as people grow older." Who knew eh? Can’t show anymore as it’s behind a paywall and there’s always the chance it was a tad tongue-in-cheek if taken in context with the whole article. One can only hope. As the song the other night made clear, ‘Always remember the longer you live, the sooner you’ll bloody well die.’
In other news, we went shopping yesterday. This entailed shuffling along a zigzag queue for forty minutes to do twenty minutes shopping. Now the store was doing its best to conform with that unsocial distancing thingy but, sadly, it fell a tad flat.
Let me explain. Let’s call the queue shuffling north for fifty yards, taking a one hundred and eighty degree turn and shuffling south for fifty yards. Repeat this up and down meander several times as you snake slowly towards the store entrance. Now all the legs of the queue were professionally marked off with lines every two meters and everyone I saw seemed to be sticking to the markings.
Sadly, as we shuffled north and the south bound leg shuffled south, the folk in the two legs obviously had to pass-by each other and were no more than a half meter apart at any time and after completing the first northerly leg and turning south we were next to new queue joiners doing their first northerly leg. Plot lost.
Giving that no never mind, once in the store everyone seemed quite happy to socially reintegrate anyway so wot the hay.
Quote; Robert A. Heinlein.
“Do this. Don't do that. Stay back in line. Where's tax receipt? Fill out form. Let's see license. Submit six copies. Exit only. No left turn. No right turn. Queue up and pay fine. Take back and get stamped. Drop dead— but first get permit.”
9 comments:
You just described our local Tesco Mac. I avoid going there until I'm eating 4 week old mouldy bread and wiping my arse on an expired tortilla. Not because of the virus, but because of those bloody queues. B&M are worse.
And those masks they keep on about - ever wonder how they are made?
https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/fppjya/if_you_ever_asked_yourself_where_those_come_from/
Ripper,
Not far from me there's a butchers, a bakers, and - the candlestick maker folded some time ago - just your regular shops. Now? One by one. Stand 2 mt from the counter. Shout your order. When told, approach counter, place money on counter and step back. Assistant steps forward at his side, collects money then places change and produce on counter, steps back so you can step forward and collect said change and goods. Seems everything is totally over the top right now. And this at the time their easing the lock-down?
Yup, B&M round here has ridiculous queues.
Ripper,
So your saying you don't fancy wearing one of they masks? Anyway, masks? Doing a job and creating heavy dust - have at one. Breathing? If I had something I'd want the germs out and away, anywhere, not trapped in a mask for me to take back on board on the next 'in' breath...
Well mac, our place started back up last week, but there's only a few of us in, just to run a couple of the robots. I'm still off but I asked a mate to give me a call and tell me what's changed. You get issued with 2 masks per shift and must wear them at all times. Now, I'm a welder as you know, and I wear an air-fed visor which works from a battery operated air/filter pack worn on a belt. The filters in those last about 4 hours, until they are full of rust coloured dust and I've taken to blowing mine out with compressed air. The fan in the air pack has about as much power as an asthmatic mouse. Sometimes I've been falling asleep in the middle of a weld, and that's because my visor has become saturated with my own CO2. I think about 10% CO2 will kill, so before I go back I'm getting one of those pulse meters with O2 level readings that go on your finger.
Now these surgical masks are just as bad, if not worse than the visor. I can take it off when I'm welding, but then I'm not going to get the chance to breathe properly. Even surgical staff are told they can only wear a mask for so long without a break. I have no choice it seems, I either wear the mask or I don't work there any more. Am going to keep a close eye on the pulse meter and if it goes too low then I'm outta there.
I know you know the blogger Mac, and you will know he's a retired microbiologist. If you haven't already seen it, here is what he says about masks:
https://underdogsbiteupwards.wordpress.com/2020/05/10/the-mask/
Also, rather than listening to the same old garbage pulled out of the arse of a discredited "professor" from ICL. have a listen to a proper doctor, a PhD Molecular Geneticist, no less.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knqCWSmPSSA
Ripper,
This mask business; for me, breathing beats spreading germs and anyway, if you're sick - or think you may be sick - you're supposed to self isolate anyway, right? You do right, monitor stuff yourself and stay safe my friend.
Yes, I read that Blog and that video is very interesting. However, the powers that be won't allow any such views to reach the main media outlets. Only doom and gloom and do as you're told is acceptable.
Mac,
Perfectly correct about the masks, but what bothers me more is the whole self isolation/lockdown garbage. I'm no expert, but I do know that this isn't how handling a virus works. The lockdown/masks etc. are actually weakening the immune system. For your body to fight off a virus you have to first get the virus. I don't think it harsh or unreasonable to quarantine those at risk from other conditions, while the rest of the population develops immunity, but the minute we all step outside it will just spread again. I don't care about me, I'm fairly healthy and can handle it, but more pensioners and those already with other life threatening conditions will die. Besides, I suspect I already had it in December, when a pretty bad chest infection laid me off work for a week. I always get a dose of flu just as they dish out the flu jabs at work, which I always refuse, and just carry on without problem, but this time it was a lot worse than usual.
Well, I had the email this morning from the UK CEO, informing me that 10 factories have begun production (started Monday) but only with a few staff, and that when the rest of us go back, production levels will only be half what they were. Therefore drastic measures have to be implemented. On Monday 500 agency workers were laid off, and there will be 950 staff redundancies. HR will issue letters to staff informing them that their job is 'at risk', or in other words, gone.
I know how this selection process works, I've been there before. God help you if, during your entire 1 or 2 year employment history there, you ever so much as farted in public. But if you've been there for 20 years or so, and you like having time off and producing shit, then you get a free pass.
Ripper,
I agree with all you say. If this thing had just been treated as bad flue and the MSM hadn't gone into hyper drive, as probably instructed by those up there, it'd be drawing to a close by now. Sad loss of life, but regular flue kills many thousand every year does it not? New flue, many more deaths. Such is life and death.
As for your job, I guess many boards will have been reviewing their staffing levels and trying to figure out wot those two guys at the back two desks actually do... That aside, may I wish you all good fortune regarding your employment Ripper. My best wishes to you.
Ripper,
The last paragraph of my last comment - on re-reading - doesn't sound very cleaver but I'm sure you understand wot I was trying to type. Basically, that there have been huge numbers of folk doing stuff that bosses have now found are surplus to requirements in the 'brave new world' that's just round the corner.
Wot's the old phrase? Stop the world I want to get off. We can amend that now: The world has stopped. It's time to get.
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