Covid-19 - The silver lining (Positives!)

[Gilbert]

8 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

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Or, dress as our forebears did, which seems to have involved wearing as much indoors as we would nowadays wear outdoors.

We have an older property as well...we just sew ourselves into our underwear for the winter...I do find exhibitions a bit sweaty though...

[Gilbert]

Another product of the quieter railway...wrong line running again..

422V 1000 Wentloog (Freightliners) to Felixstowe North F.L.T. 8 April 2020.

[The Johnster]

10 hours ago, Gilbert said:

We have an older property as well...we just sew ourselves into our underwear for the winter...I do find exhibitions a bit sweaty though...

You don’t have to be sewn into underwear for that!

[The Johnster]

21 hours ago, jcm@gwr said:

 

I think we'd all be surprised if it was anything other than a baby panda!

Maybe one of them has something on his conscience?

[Nearholmer]

Her conscience, surely.

[Gilbert]

19 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

You don’t have to be sewn into underwear for that!

Personal taste?

 

[jcm@gwr]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Her conscience, surely.

 

That all depends on what you've heard!

[Nearholmer]

I’ve heard that if two pandas mate, it is impossible for the infidelities of the male to affect the form of offspring that the female bares.

 

 

 

Edited April 8, 2020 by Nearholmer

[The Johnster]

I’m afraid I was commenting on the zoo staff and their possible activities with the pregnant Panda.  

[LBRJ]

I notice there seems to be a bit of craze for pavement hop-scotch ( idea of the TV?) and that many children appear to be actually playing outside (distances permitting of course  )

Indeed, despite being ostensibly less social, people are being more social....

 

Its getting  like back in the day when a walk to the shops involved a chat with Miss Periwinkle over her garden gate and then passing the time of day with old Mr Cornflower doing a bit in his front garden.

[big jim]

My youngest went out with his chalks yesterday and made a mario kart  track around the block with start line, (Drawn on) jumps, bonus boxes, direction arrows, finish line etc.

 

bit of a weird one this week as it’s 1/2 term but it certainly doesn’t feel like it apart from the eldest has no on line schoolwork to do 

[Nearholmer]

8 hours ago, The Johnster said:

I’m afraid I was commenting on the zoo staff and

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(there’s nothing good to be said about your imagination)

[eastglosmog]

I suppose it can be counted as a positive that there were only two vehicles on the bridge in Tuscany that collapsed yesterday and no deaths, unlike what would have been the case normally without the Covid-19 lockdown.

[Oldddudders]

I think it was Delius who wrote music On Hearing The First Cuckoo In Spring. I first heard it on Monday and every day since. 

[Nearholmer]

10 hours ago, big jim said:

bit of a weird one this week as it’s 1/2 term but it certainly doesn’t feel like it

Agree. Certainly the strangest school Easter holiday I have ever experienced.

 

I’ve really not succeeded (= failed miserably) to get our two constructively engaged with school work, or indeed much else ....... they are hacked-off about ‘lockdown’ and have sort-of gone on strike in protest, so one might ask an holiday from what?’.

 

Anyway, if the weather holds, we’re going camping for the weekend, in the garden, which is positive, because it avoids a long, tedious drive and queueing for the showers.

 

Here’s a quote from a Mum about home-schooling, from a report on the BBC website. She is speaking pure truth.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 9, 2020 by Nearholmer

[The Johnster]

6 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(there’s nothing good to be said about your imagination)

It's vivid.  That's good, isn't it?

 

No, you're right, it's all bad...

[Sidecar Racer]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Agree. Certainly the strangest school Easter holiday I have ever experienced.

 

I’ve really not succeeded (= failed miserably) to get our two constructively engaged with school work, or indeed much else ....... they are hacked-off about ‘lockdown’ and have sort-of gone on strike in protest, so one might ask an holiday from what?’.

 

Anyway, if the weather holds, we’re going camping for the weekend, in the garden, which is positive, because it avoids a long, tedious drive and queueing for the showers.

 

Here’s a quote from a Mum about home-schooling, from a report on the BBC website. She is speaking pure truth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's one from Facebook , US based but very similar .

 

 

 

 

[cactustrain]

Sign the petition to close live animal markets in China.

[Oldddudders]

1 hour ago, cactustrain said:

Sign the petition to close live animal markets in China.

Why?

[The Johnster]

Because these live 'wet' animal markets, common throughout SE Asia and not just China, have proved to be the source of several serious new infections that have emerged in recent years; SARS, MERS, Bird Flu, and now Covid-19. These have all transferred to humans from animals sold live in such markets, for food or traditional medicine.  Pangolins, which are endangered in the wild and have apparently acquired CV-19 from food contaminated by bat droppings (bats are also sold in these markets) are sold as food and because their scales are alleged to have magical healing properties.  The markets are also found in Taiwan, the Koreas, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and among Chinese ethnic communities in Indonesia and the Phiippines.  

 

They are clearly highly dangerous and involved in illegal animal trafficking, and would be better done away with, but I suspect actually enforcing a ban on them in societies where they are a very well entrenched and accepted tradition will be very difficult; the most likely outcome being that they are driven to being an illegal underground activity.  Not sure at all that a petition organised by a US organisation will go down well in the Far East; after all, why should they listen to us in the West, but may have some chance of some success if a grassroots campaign by people living in those countries gains any traction in the wake of what can only be described as yet another, and the worst with a million dead worldwide already, in a series of disastrous pandemics known to be rooted in the wet markets.

[Ozexpatriate]

I did read an article somewhere, (now forgotten) that the Chinese government was going to do something to restrict live exotic animal trafficking for food. (Even if they do, this will drive the trade underground but it might reduce.)

 

Much like the trade in things like rhinoceros horn (powdered it is used for "traditional" medicines) and tiger bones, the Chinese have tried to suppress this but it continues - like the market for elephant ivory. This market is a big part of the "supply chain" for African poaching.

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Ozexpatriate

[great central]

Grassroots campaign might be more likely to succeed if the 'grass roots' in, dare I say it, more enlightened countries refused to buy goods manufactured in such places?

I haven't liked buying Chinese made goods for many years largely because of their apparent 'ethics and traditions' now I'll do my very best to avoid them altogether. I know it won't be easy but it'll make me feel I may be doing something positive.

That will mean no new toy trains but seeing as I've got enough projects for at least two more lifetimes, so long as I get past this 'little problem' as a key worker, it's not going to affect me that much.

If this post is deemed unnecessarily provocative can the mods please remove?

[jjb1970]

One of the more unpleasant aspects of this whole mess is how it has emboldened many to drop a facade and be more open about their feelings about China and Chinese people. There is much to criticise about China, but people in the rest of the world might want to reflect on their own histories and present customs before feeling superior or villifying the Chinese.

[jcm@gwr]

10 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

One of the more unpleasant aspects of this whole mess is how it has emboldened many to drop a facade and be more open about their feelings about China and Chinese people. There is much to criticise about China, but people in the rest of the world might want to reflect on their own histories and present customs before feeling superior or villifying the Chinese.

 

Partly agree, but we have (mostly) admitted our mistakes and tried to learn from them,

something the Chinese seem incapable of doing

[jjb1970]

If China wasn't capable of learning from mistakes I don't think they would have gone from being in effect a third world country to being a global powerhouse in 20 years. They are also now very busy cleaning up the environmental mess they accepted as a price of that growth and their new middle and professional classes are far removed from typical stereotypes.