UK Lockdown

[tavyred]

What a typically ignorant and arrogant presumption! Still, about par for the course where you are concerned.

Were the current shower to WILLINGLY do something/anything worthy of praise I would acknowledge, if not applaud, it. Mind you, I could be in for a bit of a wait.

Spare me the faux indignation please.
You’ll give the current government (maybe you already have?) a decent chuck up for the UK’s new testing capacity then?

 

[arthur]

You’ll give the current government (maybe you already have?) a decent chuck up for the UK’s new testing capacity then?

Is that the world beating one?

 

[Grecian2K]

Spare me the faux indignation please.

Why?
You taught me well, grasshopper.

 

[tavyred]

Is that the world beating one?

If we’re talking just testing then yes.

 

[tavyred]

Why?
You taught me well, grasshopper.

So no acknowledgement of the improvements in testing capacity?
It can be a grudging acceptance that in this regard the Government have performed above par if you like.
Go on give it go.

 

[RedPaul]

I am pleased to hear that SAGE advice for Christmas includes:

Treat family homes like a restaurant and wear a mask when you enter.
Have drinks outside by a fire pit instead of watching TV indoors.
Take your own plates and put them in the dishwasher yourself.
Socially distance while playing charades.
Have two Christmas tables so you can socially distance.
Wash your hands before wrapping presents
Sing Christmas carols at a social distance, facing the same way.

It is difficult to know where to start.

I know Chief Scientist salaries are decent but do they really think that the great unwashed have fire pits and space for "two christmas tables". Charades and carols?

I now understand the whole concept of the 'xmas bubble'. Load up the X5 with presents, booze, kids and the dog. Blast down the M4 or up the M40 to Little Witterington. On arrival, throw Jacques the key and let him load everything into your usual barracks in the North wing whilst you have a restorative sherry in the drawing room and the kids raid the larder and wait for the other side of the family to make their way down from Harrogate.

3 days of bonhomie, mustn't grumble. life could be worse, country walks, turkey, beef, duck, goose, Old Ma's pudding, stilton, port, log fires and Timmy on the piano. Then reload the X5 and crawl back to Fulham.

Meanwhile in the real world...

 

[Rosencrantz]

I am pleased to hear that SAGE advice for Christmas includes:

Treat family homes like a restaurant and wear a mask when you enter.
Have drinks outside by a fire pit instead of watching TV indoors.
Take your own plates and put them in the dishwasher yourself.
Socially distance while playing charades.
Have two Christmas tables so you can socially distance.
Wash your hands before wrapping presents
Sing Christmas carols at a social distance, facing the same way.

It is difficult to know where to start.

I know Chief Scientist salaries are decent but do they really think that the great unwashed have fire pits and space for "two christmas tables". Charades and carols?

I now understand the whole concept of the 'xmas bubble'. Load up the X5 with presents, booze, kids and the dog. Blast down the M4 or up the M40 to Little Witterington. On arrival, throw Jacques the key and let him load everything into your usual barracks in the North wing whilst you have a restorative sherry in the drawing room and the kids raid the larder and wait for the other side of the family to make their way down from Harrogate.

3 days of bonhomie, mustn't grumble. life could be worse, country walks, turkey, beef, duck, goose, Old Ma's pudding, stilton, port, log fires and Timmy on the piano. Then reload the X5 and crawl back to Fulham.

Meanwhile in the real world...

As long as the servants are fully hazmetted up it will be fine

 

[Grecian2K]

So no acknowledgement of the improvements in testing capacity?
It can be a grudging acceptance that in this regard the Government have performed above par if you like.
Go on give it go.

No.
Even after BILLIONS of our money being spaffed out to chums and cronies, some recent reasons below
1. COVID-19: More than 1,300 people given positive coronavirus result in error by NHS Test and Trace due to chemicals issue | UK News | Sky News
2. False-positive COVID-19 results: hidden problems and costs - The Lancet Respiratory Medicine
3. Coronavirus latest: Worrying evidence COVID test results given to WRONG people | UK | News | Express.co.uk

On a more personal level, after being made redundant from a charity due to the effects of Covid my partner (29 years experience in the front line of the care sector) has recently been fortunate enough to secure another job in the same field.
However, before she could start it was a requirement to supply a clear covid test.
After nearly an hour on the phone to a totally inept testing call centre (trying to convince them that, while she was displaying no symptoms she required a test in order to be able to actually attend to her clients) they grudgingly agreed to send one "by express courier".
The "express courier" was Amazon. The test kit took two days to arrive. The package was just dumped outside the front door.
Test was taken...a week later still no result.
A call to chase it up just resulted in the curt reply "It must have got lost", followed by the same arguments as given above to try and get a replacement sent.
Replace did (eventually arrive) and has been sent off. Five days later STILL NO RESULTS!
Fortunately her new employers have been remarkably forebearing, but even their patience must become sorely tried.

(Also, before you try to claim this must be an isolated incident, my eldest daughter is a senior OT Manager in Cambridgeshire. Her job obviously also requires regular testing but she, too, has had to go down the (privatised) "NHS" Test System and encountered the same sort of stubborn, form-filling bureaucratic nightmare...despite the fact the she actually WORKS for the NHS.

So, as I said, SORRY BUT NO.

You might like to stay in your smug little utopian Tory dreamland but, out in the real world, the shambles of a system is still repeatedly being exposed as the highly expensive sham that it is.

 

[Alistair20000]

I am pleased to hear that SAGE advice for Christmas includes:

Treat family homes like a restaurant and wear a mask when you enter.
Have drinks outside by a fire pit instead of watching TV indoors.
Take your own plates and put them in the dishwasher yourself.
Socially distance while playing charades.
Have two Christmas tables so you can socially distance.
Wash your hands before wrapping presents
Sing Christmas carols at a social distance, facing the same way.

It is difficult to know where to start.

I know Chief Scientist salaries are decent but do they really think that the great unwashed have fire pits and space for "two christmas tables". Charades and carols?

I now understand the whole concept of the 'xmas bubble'. Load up the X5 with presents, booze, kids and the dog. Blast down the M4 or up the M40 to Little Witterington. On arrival, throw Jacques the key and let him load everything into your usual barracks in the North wing whilst you have a restorative sherry in the drawing room and the kids raid the larder and wait for the other side of the family to make their way down from Harrogate.

3 days of bonhomie, mustn't grumble. life could be worse, country walks, turkey, beef, duck, goose, Old Ma's pudding, stilton, port, log fires and Timmy on the piano. Then reload the X5 and crawl back to Fulham.

Meanwhile in the real world...

You missed out the bit about the huge dangers of playing Monopoly or other board games RP.

 

[Hants_red]

You missed out the bit about the huge dangers of playing Monopoly or other board games RP.

Quite right families that shouldn't play Monopoly, the horrendous argument it generates are just not good for family relationships.