Early Risers.

[45156]

Morning All

 

I was due a physio appointment this morning, but it was cancelled and I've just had a phone call from a physio to advise me just to continue as I am until this crisis ends - which is what I thought would happen.

 

Generic greetings are, as usual, on offer.

 

I'm off out the garden - as I'm on a roll, I'll use up some of the paint on the bench.

 

Regards to All

Stewart

 

 

[Shedman5]

Morning, dull and cloudy outside, cooked breakfast this morning before todays tasks are started. Not planning to do anything to physical today though.

 

I need to make another start on tree making as per Kevins of Little Muddle  fame method, ie sage brush, sea foam, scatter. I reckon it takes about 2-3 hours to complete the various stages to produce the final product. Given that I have 14 to do to complete the final section of scenery  I plan to work in batches so I can work on some whilst others are drying etc. At least it will give me something to do for a couple of hours each day.

 

I remember school milk ugh!

 

Enjoy the day and take care

 

 

[jamie92208]

Morning all it's sunny here so there is a possibility that the G word will be mentioned when morning orders are finally posted.  

 

I too remember the 1/3 pint bottles of milk drunk at morning break, the tastevof warm milk almost put me off for life.  At home it was always a race to get the bottles off the doorstep before the birds had taken their share, recognisable by a hole in the top made by a beak.  However we still drank it. People would probably have a fit about that these days.

 

A bit late but room naming.  We had two downstairs rooms. My father insisted on having one as his study, where he marked his puplis chemistry work each evening. He also had his 'snooze' in there. I think the piano was in there as well where I had to practice before he got home.  The back room thus became a combined dining and sitting room and of course had the fire in it.  It also, along with all the other rooms at the back of the house, had a view of 2 miles of the Settle and Carlisle line.  The kitchen was very small and in 3 parts. The larger part had a small bay window that had a small table in it. Breakfast was eaten in the kitchen at that table, one at a time. My mum up first, then me, followed by my brother then Dad. The kitchen had the best view of the railway.  Lunch was obviously at midday and was usually the main meal, and the evening meal was tea.  At 9pm, or earlier if my mum was losing at card games, we had supper which was a piece of cake and a warm drink.  

 

Anyway not sure what amusements or diversions, day 16 of quarantine will bring but I will try to make the most of it.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[AndrewC]

Moaning all. 

Happy Birthday Mike. 

 

The universe sucks. Feeling homicidal with co-workers, suppliers, and clients at the moment. <fairly normal I hear you say.>Yes, but now I'm seriously looking at ways of hiding bodies. Far too many to hide under the patio. Dammit. 

Still feeling really run down. Dunno if it is the sh*tty beer virus or just a spring cold anymore. Just told to stay home. Cough not improving but sinuses clear. Tired and achy. Will never know for sure as our useless excuse of a government is minimising testing in order to keep the actual numbers artificially low. With some causes of death being reported as pneumonia, we will also never know how many actually succumbed to the pandemic. 

 

No school meals or rancid milk for me. In those days if you lived within a reasonable walking distance you had to go home for lunch. It wasn't until high school at 16 that I ate in school. Then again I was taking a food prep module at the time so technically I was cooking my own cafeteria lunch.

 

Enjoy the day. I'm dreading mine. At least we have some really nice coffee from a roaster in Berlin. 

[petethemole]

Mornin' awl, a fine start after a frost.

Happy birthday to Mike.

 

Mrs mole has managed to book a flight home via LA, leaving Saturday and arriving LHR Sunday pm.  She then gets a coach back here to arrive late evening.  I suppose I'd better tidy up, as well as finishing the process of swapping rooms with Martyn. My (sort of) office/library/junk overflow room is larger than his bedroom, but also contains a lot of his stuff, so we're moving his bed etc in here and my PC, TV etc and shelves will fit in the smaller room.  It's a bit like Tetris, or those puzzles where you move a set of tiles around a square with only one empty space.

 

At some stage I will have to take some stuff to our lock-up store. I usually go by bus but will walk the mile or so as exercise and then go on to Sainsbury's, and hopefully pick up Railway Mag if the newsagent is open. I probably can't go today as I'm awaiting a delivery of A4 Jiffy Envelopes for my Ebay sales.

 

Stay safe,

Pete

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

It was frosty earlier but as ERs announced it was Tuesday at least I didn’t have to go and put the bin bag out...

It is sunny now and forecast to be cloudy and warmer later.

56 minutes ago, AndrewC said:

. At least we have some really nice coffee from a roaster in Berlin. 

Our coffee seems to come from Yorkshire and Italy. Aditi asked me if I could sort out the coffee machine last night. It had not worked properly “after she had cleaned it”. I did gently ask if perhaps there may be a connection between those events but she didn’t think so. Anyway soon sorted and I think it was just a coincidence. 
Tony

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Happy birthday Mike and many more of 'em. School milk, I remember at infants school we had a stove in the corner of the classroom for heating. During the winter months the milk was stacked alongside it to thaw out if it was frozen which it often was. One really cold morning the milk had turned to ice and had expanded and forced the foil tops off. It was still placed alongside the stove and as it thawed it didn't all go back into the bottles and made quite a mess. It was cleaned up but for months afterwards the smell of sour milk was all persuasive. 

Edited April 1, 2020 by PhilJ W

[Chris116]

I must have been lucky at school. The milk was normally cool and I liked it but a lot of my class mates hated it. School meals were dreadful so I refused to eat them much to the annoyance of the teachers. They said I would be hungry and not having any food during the day was bad for me! What they didn't know was that I used to swap my empty milk bottles for full ones from my class mates so at the end of morning break we all had empty bottles and I had drunk around two pints of milk. Guess what I had when I got home after school? A pint of milk, I lived on the stuff and ate very little even at home. I am now 65 and still drink at least two pints a day but now I also eat well which shows on my waist line! 

Edited April 1, 2020 by Chris116

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

Very late up this morning and only just got round to reading all the new posts. Not a lot planned for the day, mainly pottering about between the cellar, workshop and the garden. Hopefully I’ll get a lot of those little jobs that seem to get added to my to do list done. 

 

I also remember school milk in small bottles, like others milk and ink monitor was done by everyone in the class at some time or other so. Frozen milk placed next to or on top the classroom radiator and swapping empty bottles with those who didn’t like milk too. I didn’t mind school dinners, but I hated tapioca, sago, semolina and prunes, I still do!

 

Stay safe, enjoy the day, back later. 

[iL Dottore]

Apart from warm school milk (I recall the milk, but never as being warm), does anyone remember the orange juice that was also given out to pupils? I recall it as having a synthetic, metallic taste - which put me off orange juice for quite a while (now I quite enjoy it, especially if fresh-pressed at home or fresh pressed at a proper Italian Bar = "spremuta d'arancia" [or "di limone" or "di pompelmo"])

 

This got me thinking (hey, boys and girls don't try to do this at home: I'm a trained professional) about "skool dinners". So, if you will, come with me down memory lane. I shall recount some of mi skolastik kulinery expearinces as a skool boy in 60's England...

• Cod Balls/Fish Balls (5* [5 star]) - battered and deep fried balls of fish (cod?). The first time our "dinner ladies" (yes, dinner ladies, even though the skool called it lunch) didn't know how much to order so significantly over-ordered, much to the delight of the more culinarily enthusiastic - who went back for seconds (and thirds, and fourths). One hungry lad got up to six servings!
• Steamed Golden Syrup/Treacle Pudding (5*) - made in huge gastronorm pans, served with skoolboy kustard (presumably Bird's). Too rarely on our menu.
• Steamed Spotted Dick (5*) - also made in huge gastronorm pans. Also too rarely on our menu (perhaps because of the merriment invoked by the name?)
• Fish Fingers (3*) - decent enough, but not a patch on the ones my mother cooked for us (perhaps the difference between "no-name" catering brand and named shop-bought brand?)
• "Meat Pie" (3*) - enjoyable enough, but as it was usually minced mystery meat with a pastry topping (so not really a pie...) not a great favourite.
• Steak and Kidney Pudding (5*) - as individual puds, if memory serves, but rarer than Hen's Teeth. A whole skool term could go by with it appearing only once on the menu - if we were lucky
• "Stew" (1.5* - 3*) - Incredibly variable, much depending upon what went into it. I was not impressed with the lamb stew, but beef stew with dumplings was a firm favourite.
• Roast Pork/Beef/Lamb (1.5*) - the meat came ready cooked and sliced to be heated up - either in gravy (beef) or in the steam ovens - sometimes quite good, mostly just about edible
• Any vegetable, except peas and spinach (0.25*) When I was a skoolboy in 60s Britain "al dente" was an Italo-American gangster in a cheap comicbook. Vegetable were boiled until they surrendered and then boiled some more to make sure they were properly dead. Strangely enough, the peas weren't too bad and nor was the spinach
• Boiled Potatoes (0* if not -5*) totally inedible...
• Roast Potatoes (4*) - surprisingly very good (cooked in dripping perhaps) and more than counterbalanced the poor roast meat and watery cabbage (one young lad, not liking any sort of potato, made a small fortune by selling off his chips, mash and roasties. He couldn't shift the boiled spuds...)
• Mashed Potatoes (1* or 4*) - usually from a packet (like Cadbury's Smash) and made with water. If made from fresh with milk and butter, then usually quite nice. It did happen.
• Baked Beans (-1000*) - Boston Baked Beans (to give them their proper name) is a tricky dish to get right at the best of times , balancing - as you must - the beans, the smoked pork products, the seasonings, the tomatoes and the molasses. Industrial sized catering tins of " baked beans" are such in name only. And the source of my firmly held belief that baked beans are the vomit of the devil and have no place on an educated trencherman's plate...

Dishonorable Mentions:

• Chips: Greasy, lukewarm and soggy - say no more... (but some liked them)
• Salad: TOTALLY inedible: Limp lettuce, tasteless tomato slices, sad pieces of cucumber and all smothered in "salad cream". If particularly unlucky we also got an evil looking (and tasting) hard boiled egg amongst the foilage. Sadly, this was the de rigueur accompaniment to the otherwise blamess and enjoyable "veal, ham and egg pie" they served.
• Rice Pudding: Not particularly bad, but quite flavourless. No lemon zest, nutmeg, cinnamon, bay-leaf, bay-leaf, real vanilla or butter in those babies. Adored by many of my less discerning klassmates...

Then, boys and girls, in 1969 my family moved to Italy (to Bologna, no less - gastronomic heaven) and my taste buds never looked back...

 

Now off to prepare lunch

 

Stay Safe, Stay Healthy

 

iD

p.s. does anyone recall saveloys and pease pudding? A local butcher near where I lived had vats of hot saveloys and a marmite of hot pease pudding during the week. - 1/- got you a satisfying culinary experience (and, no, you didn't want to know what was in the bright red saveloy...)

Edited April 1, 2020 by iL Dottore
spelling!

[81C]

3 hours ago, bbishop said:

I'm working at LAS HQ until Sunday.  At least I won't have to wear a Tyvek suit. 

Bill

You could always see if Ann Summers has something to your taste Bill 

Morning All 

Murky again.

This morning I was woken up by a "Hurt Van" with the two's going nothing on the bloody road at 6am perhaps the poor buqqer in the back must have been in a bad way.

 Gossiping with one of the neighbours yesterday I was told Barry & Yvonne are moving, I wonder if Joe Maplin has found a place for them. 

 

Must get on SSS still to perform then lunch and would you believe more #*"%ing painting. stay safe .U.Rine-Taken

[Coombe Barton]

4 hours ago, chrisf said:

there seem to be more folk than I realised who had a rotten time at work in their final years and could not wait to escape.

I must count myself very fortunate that, despite being well over normal retirement age, I was asked to stay on for various reasons. I really like what I'm doing, have great colleagues and the whole lot is very supportive as I found out last year. I will retire at some time, it may be triggered by the current pandemic - who knows where we'll be when/if we come out of the other side. But they've written in stuff for me to do well into 2023.

 

I can sympathise with those wanting to escape, I've had one particular job like that. But on the whole I've been very fortunate.

[southern42]

' morning all from red dragon land.

Raining!

Happy birthday, Mike.

 

27 minutes ago, BSW01 said:

Good morning everyone 

 

snip

 

I also remember school milk in small bottles, like others milk and ink monitor was done by everyone in the class at some time or other so. Frozen milk placed next to or on top the classroom radiator and swapping empty bottles with those who didn’t like milk too. I didn’t mind school dinners, but I hated tapioca, sago, semolina and prunes, I still do!

 

Stay safe, enjoy the day, back later. 

 

I loved "school" milk and usually went for a second if there were any over, and was called upon to be monitor, with 41 in the class, about once every 8 weeks, I guess.  I loved school dinners, on the whole, and was always up for seconds but I, too, hated tapioca, sago, and semolina but loved the prunes and custard.  

 

On the menu: plus quite a few things on iD's list as well.

Dinner: sliced meat (lamb or beef, probably), lovely thin non-greasy sausages, ox liver, piece of pastry/suet pie, shepherds pie, stew...

Puddings: the 3 things I hate mentioned above, custard, pink custard, chocolate pudding with chocolate custard, prunes, cooked apple, square of jam pudding, rice pudding, jelly...

 

I don't think I had fish and chips for school dinner until I went to secondary school.

 

That is making me hungry and it is not lunchtime, yet.  Best go and catch up to distract the appetite!

 

Take care and keep safe.

_________

Best wishes

Polly

 

[PeterBB]

25 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

I must count myself very fortunate that, despite being well over normal retirement age, I was asked to stay on for various reasons. I really liked whatI did ... I can sympathise with those wanting to escape, I've had one particular job like that. But on the whole I've been very fortunate.

Apologies John - slightly modified couple of words on quoting - but I too have been that lucky with the one exception.

 

Can totally understand why this is not too often the case and have known a number of friends who have stayed in the job ' they pay me' so that they could support their families.

 

On the 'gill' the 1/3 pint - never had any problems and didn't drink tea until 16.  'Frog' spawn etc. horrible stuff.and couldn't eat it.  One day in nursery , last to 'finish' because I could not eat it before getting a stoke of luck because the observer left (in retrospect probably to go to the 'toilet') so quickly tipped the 'frog-spawn out through the gap in the damaged window and ran out ...

 

That has just triggered the memory of Great Ormond Street Hospital - walking to the end of the dusty wooden floor above ground level where there were bits of wood and wire - there was no wall and a drop down into the street.   In the street going back to the 'tube' someone playing one of those barrel organs ... other memories of people walking along war damaged streets singing with cap in hand.

 

Edited April 1, 2020 by PeterBB

[newbryford]

59 minutes ago, 81C said:

You could always see if Ann Summers has something to your taste Bill 

 

 

One of these?

 

 

 

[grandadbob]

A'noon all,

Bit late here today but I was up about 7.00am. A bit of frost first thing but sunshine and some blue sky now but clouding over and it was a bit fresh earlier.

The Boss is still feeling a bit rough but we actually went out for a short walk this morning. First time she's been out the house for over 2 weeks apart from a couple of brief visits to the garden. She was a bit wobbly by the time we got home but has now started doing some ironing!  I haven't been down to The Shed as I still think I need to keep an eye on her.

I wielded the Dysonmobile earlier (mainly to stop her doing it) and  have done a couple of other small domestic type jobs.

By some sort of miracle I managed to get a delivery slot  earlier from Sainsbury's for Saturday. I can only think that they have at long last recognised us as oldies. This means we can now order some fresh fruit and veg as we've run out of all except a few potatoes along with quite a few other items that are out of stock or running low.  Also ordered some veggie products for Steve as he's having trouble getting them.

His firm are now putting people on furlough but not him as he's Head of IT and considered essential to the running of the business(For now anyway) Abbie works for the same firm and has been furloughed but should be fine as at least she won't have to pay for a season ticket and also won't be spending money in pubs and clubs.

Nicki has just Facetimed as she has a day off today. Her work at the hospital is reducing as they aren't booking as many ops and appointments, only very urgent ones.

I had a slight mishap with my specs last night. I'd put them on the arm of my armchair but they slipped down and I sat on them. The retaining screw must have been a bit loose and the lens popped out. Cue panic stricken search for tiny screw. Miraculously I found it but it took me about 15 minutes to get the thing back in, dropping the screw at least 3 times in the process.

Anyway that's enough waffle for now as I've got to prepare lunch.

Have a good one and Happy Birthday Mike.

Bob.

Edited April 1, 2020 by grandadbob

[iL Dottore]

3 hours ago, AndrewC said:

... government is minimising testing in order to keep the actual numbers artificially low. With some causes of death being reported as pneumonia, we will also never know how many actually succumbed to the pandemic....

Which is, quite bluntly, just stoking people's fears. In Germany - where testing is very, very widespread - the mortality rate is very low (0.6% was the last figure I saw, IIRC), whereas in Italy and Spain the mortality rate is incredibly high because testing there is limited to those showing symptoms and who are ill enough to seek medical attention. I suspect that the number of people who actually are "infected" with COVID-19 could be in excess of 80% of the population, with only a small percentage of those having symptoms and a smaller percentage having serious/fatal symptoms.

 

It's basic math. if you have (for the sake of argument) a population of 1000 and a disease (lets call it the Blue Lurgi) gets into the population. If you test ALL 1000 people and you find that all 1000 test positive for the Blue Lurgi (for ease of calculation) of whom 125 have minor symptoms (turn pale blue) of which 60 progress to severe symptoms (turn dark blue) of which 6 die, then the mortality rate for the Blue Lurgi in this population is 6/1000 x 100 = 0.6%. If you only test the people showing symptoms (major and minor) then the mortality rate is 6/125 x 100 = 4.8% and if you only test those having severe symptoms then the mortality rate is 6/60 x 100 = 10%. And that's without getting in to the thorny subject of deciding the true cause of death. We know that the elderly, people with certain co-morbidities and the immunocomprised are particularly vulnerable, So the difficult question to answer would be: did John Smith die because the Coronavirus directly killed him, or did he die because the Coronavirus was a complicating comorbidity to his leukaemia which killed him...? Every country does it differently.

 

It's not to say that COVID-19 isn't a deeply scary disease (it is), but I would argue that minimising testing to minimise the numers of "infected" is not the way to go in order to reassure the general population.

 

iD

p.s. With the headlines screaming "NNN died today due to Coronavirus" and generally hitting the panic button in almost every article in the newspapers, I would really love to see how many died from the top 4 UK killers (dementia, heart disease, stroke and lung cancer, 2017 figures) during the same period - I think that the data would be eye-opening

[The Stationmaster]

5 hours ago, Barry O said:

White Rabbits!

And I made a wish.

 

Ey up!

 

School milk put me off milk for years. My grandma always had black tea..so I drank it like that. Now I drink "healthy" milk.

 

As we seem to be expecting a "warm" weekend I shall set aside my painting jobs till then.

 

Carpe Diem everyone!

Very positive thoughts to all who ail.

 

Kis this really your birthday Mike? If it is have a great day! If not hold the congratulations until the correct day.

 

Baz

Afternoon all,

 

And congrats to Baz who seems to be the observant one regarding things on Farcebook.  Like HM The Queen I have two birthdays.  One, my real birthday is - like HM's - the anniversary of the date on which I was born.  The other - unlike HM's - is not official but is on Farcebook to confound and confuse those seeking personal information and needs to be read in conjunction with my year of birth which is (or was) also on their and reflects what some suggest is my true age and happens, in numerical terms, to be in excess of the number of a well known RAF squadron which once flew black painted Hawker Hunters.   I thought today's date might act as clue

 

In other words the date on Farcebook is a spoof but many thanks for the birthday good wishes and, as Baz suggests, I shall save them up for a very early date next year.  Meanwhile back on earth the. bins have bin emptied, the handles etc subsequently suitably disinfected along with sundry gate furniture and the letterbox flap, incoming mail has been opened while wearing PPE, and the newspaper kindly bought by a neighbour is currently sitting in warm air (which will probably have no impact whatsoever).    

 

The diggers of cable trenches seem to be having an off day or maybe they're disrupting somebody else's peace and quiet.  i discovered  yesterday a spray painted blue mark outside the front gates which I presume indicates where they will insert some sort of loop in the cable which we can tap into if we accept their offer to be ripped-off for amazingly fast broadband.  Regrettably (fortunately?) the chap who painted the mark was none too bright as it was not only opposite to but extended onto the foundation of the middle gate pier (see earlier photo) - which is getting on for 12' thick partially reinforced concrete carrying a substantial brick pillar which has steel reinforcing inside the concrete core.  Thus even if we wanted their overpriced offer there is no way it could readily get into the property from there short of using explosives or a thermal lance to get it past the first hurdle.  If it ever got that far it would then come across the foundations of various walls around flower beds in numerous places or the foundations of the front path - which are also getting on for 9" deep in places.   But I presume that the dumbos planting the cable are only interested in some sort of contract requirement to make provision for a future connection and don't give a whatsit about where they put it.

 

Next step - lunch.  The others have had some sort of baked/melted camembert thingy, I shall be having my usual of mushrooms and bacon on toast.

 

Enjoy the rest of the day a one and all and stay safe..  

[45156]

Back again - just heard the glass and bottle recycling wagon, and now waiting for the grey bin men, as they often meet on this estate, which can have some unexpected results, as with the number of cars parked on the pavements, they quite often can't get past each other if they go round in opposite directions - which they often do.

 

Painting of the bench duly done, and now had a bath and recovering with a lie on the bed, and a catch up on here.

 

Flavio, saveloys are the food of the gods when properly served - ie slowly warmed in a pan of water, or if in a chip shop, kept in a dish under hot water - NOT microwaved or deep fried.  There used to be a pork butcher in Croydon and other South London suburbs called Kennedy's where they did the most superb sausages and saveloys - not mega high meat content, about 65% pork, but OMG they really tasted good - went under some years ago.

 

School milk - yeuk, it was dreadful stuff, almost always warm - one made me sick, and since then, I have hated milk - take my tea and coffee black, though I do like a little gold top on my cereal - oddly, Aldi do it, and it's very nice - 30747 has it in her coffee.  Otherwise we use semi skimmed, which to me tastes like water which has had a cow's udder pointed at it for a few seconds.

 

School dinners - well at primary and the first two years at secondary, I went home for dinner, we had breakfast dinner and tea.  When I went to the Academy, I had to have a school dinner, though, and it was all cooked offsite, and brought in a van, then warmed up - mainly pretty carp stuff too.  There was one dinner which I did like, and that was their Irish stew, which was really good - I suppose there was little that could be done to ruin it by reheating, and I would go back for seconds and thirds as for some reason not all that many people liked it.  Then when the dinners started to get to the intolerable stage, I started to take a packed lunch with me and ate it in an empty classroom set aside for the purpose.  It was also where the school's card school was located, and I did often participate therein while dining, either three card brag or shoot pontoon.  Then in my 5th and 6th years, they opened a new building with its own kitchen serving a choice of three mains and three puddings all cooked fresh on the premises - and on Friday it was chips - and boy they were good - always with fish (we weren't a Catholic school),  and two alternatives, often sausages.  To say that the takeup on the school dinners increased was an understatement, there was always a full house in the dinner room,

 

Anyhow that's enough for today, back tomorrow

Edited April 1, 2020 by 45156

[Gwiwer]

15 hours ago, roundhouse said:

Morning - Looks like you forgot to put your clocks forward

I had the foresight to set up the joke yesterday and copying the same post this morning

 

I sincerely hope we are all well. Or as well as circumstances allow.  Best wishes to those we know to be under the influence of the Dreaded Lurgy. 
 

Last but not least a Happy Facebook Birthday to Mike - an event he shares with SWMBO except hers is her real one.

Edited April 1, 2020 by Gwiwer

[Happy Hippo]

22 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Which is, quite bluntly, just stoking people's fears. In Germany - where testing is very, very widespread - the mortality rate is very low (0.6% was the last figure I saw, IIRC), whereas in Italy and Spain the mortality rate is incredibly high because testing there is limited to those showing symptoms and who are ill enough to seek medical attention. I suspect that the number of people who actually are "infected" with COVID-19 could be in excess of 80% of the population, with only a small percentage of those having symptoms and a smaller percentage having serious/fatal symptoms.

 

It's basic math. if you have (for the sake of argument) a population of 1000 and a disease (lets call it the Blue Lurgi) gets into the population. If you test ALL 1000 people and you find that all 1000 test positive for the Blue Lurgi (for ease of calculation) of whom 125 have minor symptoms (turn pale blue) of which 60 progress to severe symptoms (turn dark blue) of which 6 die, then the mortality rate for the Blue Lurgi in this population is 6/1000 x 100 = 0.6%. If you only test the people showing symptoms (major and minor) then the mortality rate is 6/125 x 100 = 4.8% and if you only test those having severe symptoms then the mortality rate is 6/60 x 100 = 10%. And that's without getting in to the thorny subject of deciding the true cause of death. We know that the elderly, people with certain co-morbidities and the immunocomprised are particularly vulnerable, So the difficult question to answer would be: did John Smith die because the Coronavirus directly killed him, or did he die because the Coronavirus was a complicating comorbidity to his leukaemia which killed him...? Every country does it differently.

 

It's not to say that COVID-19 isn't a deeply scary disease (it is), but I would argue that minimising testing to minimise the numers of "infected" is not the way to go in order to reassure the general population.

 

iD

p.s. With the headlines screaming "NNN died today due to Coronavirus" and generally hitting the panic button in almost every article in the newspapers, I would really love to see how many died from the top 4 UK killers (dementia, heart disease, stroke and lung cancer, 2017 figures) during the same period - I think that the data would be eye-opening

when one looks at the media, everything is talked about in percentages.

 

Now unless you know what the actual figure is then, the percentage quoted is useless.

 

I did go through a set of statistics and using published ONS figures came up with a figure, which was far less alarming that the headline implied.  Unfortunately, good news does not sell newspapers.

 

Now here is my take on the current situation.

 

Before my sister moved into the private sector she worked in a 22 ward hospital, of which only 4 wards were active.  The hospital was staffed so that there was enough spare capacity in the nursing staff to reopen two wards immediately should the need arise.

 

Now this was probably excessive, and the accountants decided that the site should be sold and redeveloped.  The staff were redeployed elsewhere, and were able to fill vacancies in other hospitals in the area which also had similar space capacities.  This cost cutting exercise  continued so that eventually all smaller hospitals with spare capacity were sold off and their staff either subsumed by larger hospitals or not replaced. Smaller specialist units were closed in favour of regional centres, whilst cottage hospitals and convalescent homes were closed and sold off.

 

There was no need for the spare capacity.

 

However, just as was happening in the military logistics field, the American 'just in time' system was applied to NHS logistics, which meant that a baseline was drawn up and stock was held to meet requirements.  

 

You can all see where this is going!

 

Yes folks, we've seen it every year when the NHS struggles to cope with the latest flu virus, and now we have a real medical crisis and the system has collapsed.  It can't cope.  They don't have any spare beds, they don't have the staff and they don't have  a decent buffer stock to resupply the hospitals, as the demand is outstripping the re order levels.

 

The NHS was set up as an organisation to get the sick and injured back into work, and was never envisaged as the organisation which we expect to deal with all our medical illnesses  in this day and age.  Medicine has advanced so much since the  inception of the NHS  that serious conditions are now able to be dealt with as minor operations in a day clinic, whilst the ability to delay or even save people with what were fatal injuries and illnesses is becoming more commonplace.

 

But this all comes at a cost, and equipment and complex drugs cost huge amounts of money.

 

We expect so much out of the NHS and demand it gets more money, but at the same time baulk at being made to pay more taxes.

 

To finish off, I'd like to go back to a hidden cost, which was the spare capacity that my sister and her fellow nurses enjoyed:  That of the extra nurses that were employed, and were capable of re-deployment at the time of a crisis.

 

Work study showed that they were not working at anywhere near maximum efficiency: They had spare time, so their work was analysed and then passed over to others and the posts were deleted. 

 

How many times have we seen pictures of medical staff run off their feet and near to exhaustion................

 

Well at least they are working at 100%  Let's wait until they drop before we worry too much, we can always get agency staff in or failing that military assistance.... (Yes that's me being facetious.)

 

Of course all this is not just affecting the medical staff, but you have those out on the ambulances, all the support staff, the list goes on.

 

I also imagine that the people who have to try and manage this disaster, pull it  back together, and make a shattered system partially function must be tearing what's left of their hair out by the roots.

 

Yet there are some in this country who are more concerned about whether they will get a refund for a cancelled model railway show ticket!

 

 

[tigerburnie]

Afternoon all, had a nice 8 mile cycle ride round the country lanes round our village, was overtaken by one other cyclist who kept well away from us and a landie also overtook us who passed a damn sight closer than 2 metres.

I loved school milk, didn't think much of the dinners and still love "frog spawn" to this day, my favourite milk pudding(I got extra helpings at school as no one else liked it).

Jobs, well I had rather a lot, all in engineering, primarily due to that nice Mrs Thatcher destroying our manufacturing base and I kept getting made redundant. It was after this time that I noticed a marked change in how industry was managed, the rise of the @rse licker and the back stabber took over. Most kept clear of me as I was both large and nasty looking, but also often came into work looking the worse for wear after a weekends game of rugby, announcing that I loved a fight seemed to steady up the bullies and they kept away from me for most of my life. I did get put on the employers federation blacklist a couple of times for my trade union activities, but that didn't stop me from earning a living nor a reputation for being very good at my job. One employer finally twigged and made me the manager, we were one of the most efficient and economic of the depots, the reason, I asked people to work rather than try to push people, I took my share of the dirty jobs, putting on my overalls and seemed to earn their trust and respect. It's not rocket science to get the best out of folk and try get all pulling together and actually enjoying their work, but it does seem that most employers prefer to behave like dictators.

[Chris116]

43 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

SNIP....... i discovered  yesterday a spray painted blue mark outside the front gates which I presume indicates where they will insert some sort of loop in the cable which we can tap into if we accept their offer to be ripped-off for amazingly fast broadband.  SNIP

About 40 years ago , one of the utilities that dig up pavements were replacing their pipes and outside each house used a spray can to show where the connection to the property left their main pipe. My parents had white painted gate posts, one of which had a large splash of the spray colour on it. My mother complained to the company (I can't remember if it was gas or water) and about three days later two men in a van arrived to repaint the gate posts, my mother having insisted that both were done so they matched. What she had not mentioned was that one post was very rotten and it fell over when they bumped into it while doing the painting. Cue company having to replace both posts as my mother said they had caused it to fall over! My father and I could not believe how she had done it but she was very pleased with herself!

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, tigerburnie said:

I asked people to work rather than try to push people, I took my share of the dirty jobs, putting on my overalls and seemed to earn their trust and respect. It's not rocket science to get the best out of folk and try get all pulling together and actually enjoying their work, but it does seem that most employers prefer to behave like dictators.

This is a little known technique which I have advocated and practiced for years.

 

It's called 'Management by Stealth'.

[J. S. Bach]

14 hours ago, AndyID said:

In the last 30 minutes we have experienced snow, sleet, hail, thunder/lightening and an earthquake!

What? No hurricane?