Exhibition cancellations (not much to do with that anymore!)

[Nearholmer]

The conundrum, though, is what to do if not shut the pubs at 2200?

 

A nice crowded, stuffy pub, or kitchen, or sitting-room, seems to be the ideal transmission-ground for this bug, so limiting mingling in any of those places becomes something of a necessity if we are to avoid a repeat of total/hard lock-down in order to prevent hospitals being swamped.
 

Maybe in city centres that have a lot of pubs close together, stagger the opening/closing times, provided that numbers in each are strictly controlled to prevent people migrating to later-closing places? Pre-booked entry tickets? Drinking in shifts (I mean time-slots, not Scottish night dresses)?

 

Also, in how many places is this a real problem? And, how long will it remain a real problem before people discover ‘locals’ or just get deterred by all the hassle? Or, a real, actual curfew gets enforced in such places, with everything shut and people banned from the streets at 1900, because it proves impossible to get the revellers concerned to do sensible stuff by any other means? Real curfews have been found necessary in some cities outside the UK.

 

[ Random observation: the UK incidence of Covid-19 in the week ending 24 September was c60 new cases per week per 100 000 population. It varies hugely from area to area, so that is taking the country as a whole. Not long ago, HMG was closing ‘travel corridors’ with countries that hit c20 new cases per week per 100 000 population. Right now, we ought to ban ourselves travelling to our own country. Put another way, we ought to be putting cordons sanitaire around the major conurbations ..... no movement in or out without permit. Which is what the Chinese now do at the slightest whiff of the bug.]
 

 

Edited September 28, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Pete the Elaner]

53 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

 

Of course as I suggested when this early closing was announced, it just means the people will shift their behaviour and all many people are now doing is continuing drinking on the streets or at home with the supermarkets are making a mint from late night alcohol sales (and probably snacks).

 

Some will, but how many?

I think we can all understand the thinking behind the 10pm curfew but will everyone just get drunk earlier or will it discourage some from going out at all?

Locking everywhere down completely is expensive & the taxpayer eventually ends up footing the bill, so this is a last resort.

 

I was in town one afternoon last week & the place was noticeably quiet. The car park I would usually use seems to have been shut since March & others around it are still less full than usual. The shopping centre itself was also a lot less busy than usual.

From what I have seen 1st hand, there are many who are trying to limit outside contact right now.

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Some will, but how many?

I think we can all understand the thinking behind the 10pm curfew but will everyone just get drunk earlier or will it discourage some from going out at all?

Locking everywhere down completely is expensive & the taxpayer eventually ends up footing the bill, so this is a last resort.

 

I was in town one afternoon last week & the place was noticeably quiet. The car park I would usually use seems to have been shut since March & others around it are still less full than usual. The shopping centre itself was also a lot less busy than usual.

From what I have seen 1st hand, there are many who are trying to limit outside contact right now.

 

I've looked through a few pub windows in the evening and decided to steer well clear, whatever hours they keep.

 

My own pub-going has been limited to lunch-times but mainly in a university town where cases are starting to spike, so that's off the agenda as well now, as are most shopping trips beyond the weekly grocery run. I don't think I'm alone, a neighbour who has to go in for work reckons the city centre got noticeably quieter as last week wore on.

 

There's been much discussion about students going home for Christmas. Good idea (if not sooner) but once there, they should stay. There's no point whatever being on campus when nearly all the study is being done on-line anyway,

 

The government needs to make a decision on that now, but they'll no doubt follow their usual MO and procrastinate long enough to enable all those who exploit being "confused" to claim to be so.... 

 

John

 

 

Edited September 28, 2020 by Dunsignalling

[woodenhead]

26 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Some will, but how many?

I think we can all understand the thinking behind the 10pm curfew but will everyone just get drunk earlier or will it discourage some from going out at all?

Locking everywhere down completely is expensive & the taxpayer eventually ends up footing the bill, so this is a last resort.

 

I was in town one afternoon last week & the place was noticeably quiet. The car park I would usually use seems to have been shut since March & others around it are still less full than usual. The shopping centre itself was also a lot less busy than usual.

From what I have seen 1st hand, there are many who are trying to limit outside contact right now.

That's just the issue, those of us who are going out less were already doing so, I didn't need a government mandated early closure to stay away from pubs, I only venture out to the shops and very rarely these days go into a coffee shop.

 

The people whose activities they were trying to curtail won't be bothered by a curfew, the only beneficiaries are the local boozers as less people may venture into the city centre.

 

My son is a bar manager, he's in this every day.

 

New statistics are showing that it it schools/colleges (and I guess universities) plus care homes where the infections are coming from - interesting they target the pubs, is that to deflect away and cover for their deficiencies in the two sectors the government should have complete control - education and care.

[Nearholmer]

The really fast-sharers of the bug seem to be 15-24yo, which is pretty much what you’d expect given the socialising-style of that age group.

 

Why target pubs for restriction while keeping schools open? Because we desperately need to keep the schools open for the educational and mental wellbeing of the kids, and their parents for that matter. And, because there is a far better possibility of controlling Covid precautionary behaviour in a school than there is in a pub.
 

It must be bl00dy hard on your son, between the devil of trying to manage safety in a bar, and the deep blue sea of what might happen if the bar has to shut for the duration, again.

 

Like others here, I’m exceedingly careful to minimise visits to shops and the like, and although I usually make a cafe a refuelling stop on my cycling outings, I make very certain it’s one that serves outdoors, and put a good twenty metres between me and anyone else while I eat/drink. But, with two children at school ........

 

 

 

 

Edited September 28, 2020 by Nearholmer

[RJS1977]

4 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

 

I was in town one afternoon last week & the place was noticeably quiet. The car park I would usually use seems to have been shut since March & others around it are still less full than usual. The shopping centre itself was also a lot less busy than usual.

From what I have seen 1st hand, there are many who are trying to limit outside contact right now.

 

Reading's still noticeably quiet (apart from The Hope Tap on a Friday evening!) and the station is virtually deserted.

 

I walked along the platform at Reading West just after 7pm a fortnight ago and was passed by a nine coach Hitachi on its way out of London (would have left London about 6:30pm) - with five passengers on board!

[ikcdab]

12 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

 

Reading's still noticeably quiet (apart from The Hope Tap on a Friday evening!) and the station is virtually deserted.

 

I walked along the platform at Reading West just after 7pm a fortnight ago and was passed by a nine coach Hitachi on its way out of London (would have left London about 6:30pm) - with five passengers on board!

I live right next to the line at Cogload junction. For 6 months now, virtually every train has been almost empty. Surely that cannot continue.

 

The latest restrictions are forecast to be in place for 6 months. So no-one is going to be organising exhibitions until they are certain of the future.  Given the lead times, I find it difficult to see many exhibitions happening in 2021. It's a great shame.

[PaulRhB]

I was chatting to a friend who’s a trader when I ordered some bits last week and asked him how it’s going as he has a large stand at many shows around the south. He agreed internet sales are good “but not like doing a show! But we must plod on” so that means he will be back once it’s safe to do so too. I knew his thoughts in the past were that a show is a good advert to show people what you stock but even with an existing good website and online presence he’s missing the fun and business from them, fortunately without it endangering the business.

 

[Nearholmer]

Pretty much exactly the same as I heard from a pal who is a trader/commissioner. His words were: “I don’t miss the getting up at five to drive miles to an event, but I do miss the income - on balance I’d rather get up at five in the morning!”.

 

Similarly, his business is ‘getting along OK’ on internet and other postal sales, but has lost the ‘icing on top’, and he misses the face-to-face interaction, as we all do.

[Pete the Elaner]

13 hours ago, ikcdab said:

 

The latest restrictions are forecast to be in place for 6 months. So no-one is going to be organising exhibitions until they are certain of the future.  Given the lead times, I find it difficult to see many exhibitions happening in 2021. It's a great shame.

 

That came from a PM comment warning that they MAY be in place for up to 6 months.

The truth is he has no idea how long the current measures will be required for & neither does anybody else.

The experts have been way off with their predictions so far, so why listen to them now?

 

I agree that we need some stability before any advance planning can be made, but we don't have that right now so we just have to take things a week at a time.

[PaulRhB]

2 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

That came from a PM comment warning that they MAY be in place for up to 6 months.

. . 

3 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

The experts have been way off with their predictions so far, so why listen to them now?

because 

4 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

The truth is he has no idea how long the current measures will be required for & neither does anybody else.

So it’s an educated guess but the best we have. 

[Dunsignalling]

34 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

That came from a PM comment warning that they MAY be in place for up to 6 months.

The truth is he has no idea how long the current measures will be required for & neither does anybody else.

The experts have been way off with their predictions so far, so why listen to them now?

 

I agree that we need some stability before any advance planning can be made, but we don't have that right now so we just have to take things a week at a time.

 

And the count-down to the first exhibitions won't realistically start until we do.

 

The only thing that can produce any sort of stability will be substantial progress of a vaccination programme. We can only hope that will get underway sooner rather than later.

 

John

[Nearholmer]

34 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

The experts have been way off with their predictions so far, so why listen to them now?

 

Have they? I suppose it depends which "experts" you mean.

 

If you read back over the report that led to the fairly sudden move to "lock down" in the Spring, it sets-out a scenario that is pretty much exactly what has happened: that unless cases were suppressed to near-zero, and a rock-solid test-trace-isolate model is put in place (the New Zealand model effectively), then resurgence of the virus will occur, leading to the repeat need to lock-down to get it back in the box. The report envisages a series of such "downs and ups" until a vaccine is rolled-out or we learn to live with the beast some other way.

 

My reading is not that epidemiologists have got it wrong  at all- their job is effectively a bunch of not hugely complicated maths using a load of variables, the quality of which improve as more experience of this particular bug builds-up. Their estimates of likely affects of actions have been pretty good.

 

In a sense, it would be dead-easy to stop the bug: put us all into "near imprisonment" lock-down. That is what the epidemiological sums will always show.

 

But, that would have such dire consequences in terms of other aspects of physical health, mental health, trashed educations, and mashed economy, that it clearly wouldn't be a good idea (we might yet get to it again as a desperate measure).

 

Where things have gone "wrong", if that is the right word, is in attempting to balance the twin evils of direct covid damage against indirect covid-precaution damage ........ maybe the lock-down was un-locked too enthusiastically in the North of England, when it might have been wiser to graduate the un-locking as cases fell region-by-region. That was a political decision though, and could only ever be so, so the "experts" in the fire there are expert politicians.

 

The other thing that has been got very wrong IMO is communication. There are many experts in communication and mass-influence in this world, many of them in the advertising industry, for instance, but the way HMG has communicated with the population, the quality of the propaganda messaging if you like, has been truly bl00dy useless - it hasn't caused enough people to do enough of the right things.

 

Muddled messages, mealy-mouthed and wafty attempts to influence, an over-reliance on that most mythical of beasts "common sense" etc etc. HMG wouldn't have influenced anyone to buy their brand of soap-powder using the approaches they've adopted. My conclusion is that they simply haven't involved(or listened hard to) real propaganda experts, and have relied instead on a load of  "nudge" candyfloss confected by trendy rightist academics. People don't need to be nudged during a crisis; they need and respond to much firmer communication.

[woodenhead]

17 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

In a sense, it would be dead-easy to stop the bug: put us all into "near imprisonment" lock-down. That is what the epidemiological sums will always show.

About three weeks in a strict lockdown with just supermarkets remaining open with distancing in place or everyone on click and collect would do it.

 

However, despite being an island we don't have control of our borders - the first thing lots of people did when the lockdown eased was fly abroad and it's been quite apparent from the news that there was little or no control on people entering the UK.  So any strict lockdown is defeated the moment it is lifted unless people simply stay in the country and we don't let people in (whether legally or by illegal means).

 

So sadly unlike our friends in New Zealand who have an ocean to keep the infected out, then we are doomed to this cycle repeated lockdowns until the rest of the world is clean too.

[PaulRhB]

Why not just use the time to build that show layout you always aspired to or little layout that will fit your house, flat or bedsit?

I’ve accepted that setting up bits of my large layout while possible get in the way for more than a day or two so I’m building a small branch on the same theme that can go up in the corner and not get in the way anywhere near as much. 
It has the added bonus of being suitable as a small portable layout I could take to a show. I raided the garage and bits boxes and so far the spend has been limited to 1 4x2 sheet of plywood, 6 peco points, 6 point motors, 6 station lamps and some glue! It’s amazing what we hoard!

All the scraps of polystyrene are piled up ready and I found the plaster too. 
Failing a new layout how about upgrading an existing one? Ring up the traders you usually look for at a show to get those bits and get on with something, it has the added advantage of assisting you not going out to get annoyed by the idiots. 
I’ve been out to eat twice in the last two weeks and seen people flout the guidance but quite easily managed to meet up and have a pleasant meal helping me relax and pay the staffs wages. 
It’s really not that difficult to deal with this for the majority although inconvenient it just means a bit more planning  

(oh and it’s easy to help those who are worst affected by shopping, taking stuff to the post or collecting for them, even with work some of us have a plan to shop for each other if someone gets the self isolate message if online shopping gets too busy again)

[Joseph_Pestell]

2 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

It’s really not that difficult to deal with this for the majority although inconvenient it just means a bit more planning  

 

 

Perhaps I am in a minority. But believe me, for some of us, the various problems caused by Covid make it very difficult indeed to continue with life. No amount of planning on my part can make up for the failings of HMRC, the Court Service, rapacious energy companies, etc.

[PaulRhB]

8 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Perhaps I am in a minority. But believe me, for some of us, the various problems caused by Covid make it very difficult indeed to continue with life. No amount of planning on my part can make up for the failings of HMRC, the Court Service, rapacious energy companies, etc.

I meant by occupying time and exhibitions lost in the sense of the forum. I mentioned helping out those more heavily affected in there too I wasn’t trying to cover every aspect of life. I’m watching for jobs for a mate who’s lost his so I’m well aware others are being hit hard and one reason I took the calculated risk and supported two pubs by eating out in a sensible way. 
This topic is wandering so far off that when you make comment relevant it’s lost in the wandering discussion of wider covid issues. 
 

I did try to set the context with my first paragraph so I think extracting the later one is a little out of context alone

“Why not just use the time to build that show layout you always aspired to or little layout that will fit your house, flat or bedsit?”

Edited September 29, 2020 by PaulRhB

[Nearholmer]

25 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

About three weeks in a strict lockdown with just supermarkets remaining open with distancing in place or everyone on click and collect would do it.

Standby for an extended schools half-term, with a ban on socialising and non-essential trips (I dread the prospect!).

 

I’m sure they’ll have to do it, but whether HMG will have the guts to ban non-essential foreign travel, I wonder. Now that we’ve seen the affects of the spring half-term foreign haunts, and the summer ones, it feels as if they ought.

 

Mind you, even countries desperate for tourist revenue would probably look at the British as a bunch of plague-bearers, so might ban visitors anyway.

 

 

Edited September 29, 2020 by Nearholmer

[woodenhead]

Even the PM cannot explain the rules, what chance does some 18-24 year old wanting to live a life have in understanding how they are expected to behave.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54342688

[fezza]

I've got to say I don't understand the current economics of rail operation. I recently had a HST from Nottingham to myself. Now while it is lovely to have your own personal express train, unless you are the Queen I can't see how it makes sense. 

 

As for Boris, he is becoming a liability rather than an asset to his party. As Thatcher found out, Tory backbenchers are fairly unsentimental about getting rid of leaders when they start costing votes. 

[woodenhead]

16 minutes ago, fezza said:

I've got to say I don't understand the current economics of rail operation. I recently had a HST from Nottingham to myself. Now while it is lovely to have your own personal express train, unless you are the Queen I can't see how it makes sense. 

 

As for Boris, he is becoming a liability rather than an asset to his party. As Thatcher found out, Tory backbenchers are fairly unsentimental about getting rid of leaders when they start costing votes. 

The economics of anything is out of the window at present but people still need to travel and commute so we do need trains to keep running hence nationalisation in all but name at the beginning of lockdown.

 

With regards Boris, he too is just a vehicle I think and at the moment he has a couple of flat tyres and his motor is out of tune.  I reckon they will see him out in the New Year, lets face it who is going to want to deal with a no deal Brexit in the next two months when they can take control in January and blame him for the fallout.

[TheQ]

23 minutes ago, fezza said:

I've got to say I don't understand the current economics of rail operation. I recently had a HST from Nottingham to myself. Now while it is lovely to have your own personal express train, unless you are the Queen I can't see how it makes sense. 

 

As for Boris, he is becoming a liability rather than an asset to his party. As Thatcher found out, Tory backbenchers are fairly unsentimental about getting rid of leaders when they start costing votes. 

I've flown in a Jumbo jet where the crew outnumbered the passengers, economics is a very strange thing..

[AY Mod]

Can we restrain ourselves from the party politics please?

[Dunsignalling]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Standby for an extended schools half-term, with a ban on socialising and non-essential trips (I dread the prospect!).

 

I’m sure they’ll have to do it, but whether HMG will have the guts to ban non-essential foreign travel, I wonder. Now that we’ve seen the affects of the spring half-term foreign haunts, and the summer ones, it feels as if they ought.

 

Mind you, even countries desperate for tourist revenue would probably look at the British as a bunch of plague-bearers, so might ban visitors anyway.

 

 

Shouldn't half-terms really be cancelled u.f.n to begin making up the time lost in lock-down?

 

I fear the beach bunnies are beyond redemption in this particular respect, and will persist in anything they won't actually get arrested for. To answer your question; no, HMG (irrespective of party) will never grow the cojones required to deal effectively with the continual reintroduction of the virus generated by international grockling.

 

Even when they do impose self isolation on returners, it is with days of notice, allowing loads of them to evade the precautions. WHY? If it's necessary, it's surely necessary immediately. 

 

The only ray of joy on the horizon is that, post-Brexit, and after the introduction of a vaccine, destination countries will no doubt insist on proof of having received it.

 

As it is, statistics suggest that among people with symptoms, only one in five self-quarantines. Perhaps the latest measures will improve that, but if not, 80% of the infected are still going to be potentially spreading the thing.

 

John

Edited September 29, 2020 by Dunsignalling

[Nearholmer]

2 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Shouldn't half-terms really be cancelled u.f.n to begin making up the time lost in lock-down?

Probably yes, for educational reasons, Although kids do genuinely need a break, especially primary age kids.

 

My expectation Of an extended half-term is based purely on the need to ‘fire-break’ the spread of the bug.