woodenhead

It's interesting that just as you see the source of your problem that solutions appear as if out of nowhere - the universe always has your back and presents solutions. It seems that one of the issues I was facing actually had a ready made solution written into the code a couple of years ago by ME but marked out due to firewall restrictions that no longer apply. So turn off one command and replace it with the other and hey presto Woodenhead is a happy man, makes the remaining 4 web pages a doddle to update.

I think I have found the source of my anger and it wasn't Covid, it was work related. I've been doing some system migration work over the past week and it was going swimmingly well until Thursday, then I hit some difficulties owing to very old code and it sparked off an imposter syndrome episode that I don't know what I am doing. So my deep rooted imposter syndrome issues surfaced as frustration at the current mess we're in. Now I have figured out where it is coming from I can do something about it, in fact, I am doing something about it, first web page rebuild nearly complete.

Father Ted Crilly, Craggy Island Bank, Craggy Island Parochial House.

My son was messaging me last night after work (pub management), furlough will mean a precarious living from November despite there being 5 of them sharing a flat for a not substantial rent. I thought I was angry and dismayed at recent events, he was livid, he said they've put all sorts of things in place to be able to open - I remember he's had to turf people out when they refused to follow rules and he knows his pub is 'covid secure' but the messaging just want's to blame his sector. He's angry because of the mess being made, he doesn't believe he will ever afford to buy, worries about his future savings and life in general. At least he's been able to make the break from home, my other child is stuck with us on 16 hours per week and no obvious signs of being able to get away. If the young believe they have no future then why on earth will they respect requests from people so remote from their lives, so much so that the Government has had to impose and then increase sanctions on people who mix - whilst potentially allowing rich businessmen to cream money in non existent schemes related to eat out to help out through weak processes. People already believed the future was bleak, but destroyed hospitality, holiday and retail sectors will create unemployment on such a scale we may never escape a minimum wage benefits Britain. Don't forget Christmas is just around the corner and we have another present to come on 31st December which may compound our problems unless there is a Christmas miracle. I really am down about all this aren't I

You're not about to launch any Consett Hoppers are you?

There's likely to be one on Mars one day but no-one will go as it lacks atmosphere.

The current measures in Scotland has seen the closure of pubs and hospitality across the Scottish Central belt along with a ludicrous only drinking outside policy elsewhere which means there is a hotel by Loch Lomond that can serve you a meal and a soft drink inside but if you want an alcoholic drink you have to go outside. Something like this is expected in the North of England from next week, so my son may again be out of work, hopefully furloughed but who can say at the moment. The longer these establishments stay closed the more chance they will not re-open, coming back to exhibitions, the longer exhibition spaces are denied the greater the chance the businesses that run them will collapse. Leisure centres don't yet know if they will be included in any future lockdown but as they are only 1% source of infections they shouldn't be, but as they were the last to reopen again who knows what might happen next week. The immense damage to the fabric of society, the economy and relations will last for years, they may announce a vaccine, it may be 50% or less effective and they may announce the battle over, but the impact of the war will last a decade or more.

@Dunsignalling I won't say I am not scared of Covid, I am, I don't want it and I won't wish it on anyone else but I am starting to think that the approach being taken is imbalanced and not sustainable. Never thought I'd be using Richard Madeley as a reference, but it does seem rather like WW1 trench warfare. There needs to be a consistent approach to protecting the vulnerable that is sustainable, the people most at risk are the people most likely to follow guidelines, at the moment it seems to be going the wrong way trying to influence the masses via curtailing freedoms and fines - it will only end up in a massive kickback when people can take no more. Even the Government's own MPs can recognise there is a real issue with diktats coming from cabinet, posted in the media rather than scrutinised by Parliament. The media itself is constrained because the press conferences the government is hosting are not press conferences they are PR events that do not allow scrutiny by the press, just a single question which the speakers can choose not to answer without fear of being challenged. Now we have a US style press person to host these events, recent experience in the US show this is not a good omen for open government. In this thread we've talked about cancellations, such cancellations are not stretching into 2021, no individuals will have the confidence for a long time to plan an event. I noted last night the government gave some good news about some holiday destinations, great, summer is over and would you want to risk booking anything at the moment when things can change again overnight.

They expect everyone to change, but do so in ways that actually drives people in the opposite direction and for 99% of people it not an illness that will kill them - that's the awful truth. Most people will therefore believe, especially under 40, that they have nothing to worry about and it's not their generation that is being impacted. Perhaps the answer is, and HMG are now talking about this, is helping people in the actual vulnerable groups to be safer. I'm over 50, I have in laws to keep safe, my own father died last November Covid would have really spoilt his quality of life as he only ever ate out. I am in that more vulnerable group and I know to keep away from people, it not the best thing in life but it has worked for me so far, though having a wife working in schools and an adult child working in the supermarket/commuting on a tram means I know I am not completely safe. I have a mother in law, shielding since March, only seen her young grandchildren once since then, she's not seen my offspring once. She is awaiting now a serious operation for an illness unrelated to Covid - she's at risk not having the operation but it may yet get cancelled when in the next two weeks the hospitals switch back to being Covid battlegrounds and all the other things like cancer and other serious illnesses that kill as many or more than Covid get ignored. And yes I am angry, angry that an illness that kills a small number of people is affecting the whole world in such draconian ways, that it is setting up a new normal where no-one will feel safe, that our lives will be monitored ever more, our travel rights curtailed and unemployment will soon be rife because the economy is in tatters and our children will be paying the cost through lost education and taxes when they are earning to pay for all the bailouts. The elderly and vulnerable will have even less support going forwards as the care sector will face even more cuts in the future as councils and central government are forced to make more savings to help pay off the debts that extremely rich around the work will reap benefit from. Deep breath time and back to work.. But they are and encouraging things like snitching on your neighbour, that's out of a 1984 novel or worse from the GDR.

If I could see care home in patient infections and education facilities on that list I would agree with you, but their very omission makes me very suspicious. Just because it isn't in the news nor is in in the diagram doesn't mean it isnt happening. But it would destroy the messaging if it was disclosed because they want to tell us it's all our fault.

But had they stayed at home university students would have mingled less and in usual social bubble rather than the uncontrollable urges that come from being a student away on campus. Schools is a difficult one I agree, I don't believe long term closure is in anyone's interest but the Government were making all sorts of noises and promises in the summer and the reality was actually they could do very little other than open the schools almost like they were before lockdown. My wife sees it, she is looked at strangely by both pupils and staff because she has to wear PPE. But whilst at first she wasn't too happy being in scrubs and PPE, having seen the mixing and inability to distance she is quite glad of it when facing teenagers. She's happy being back in the schools, it's where she enjoys her job the most, but she is glad of the protection.

Frightened us to go out, then bribed us to go out, now blame us for going out. Students didn't have to go back to university but they did, could this be because the universities and local landlords needed the cash they bring. Schools could have found a way to spend less time in classrooms but they all went back - is that because it cost money. The public cannot win, I don't think we see the whole picture. PS. I don't go to pubs and I've only eaten out twice since March.

It's a big gap to be an unknown.

Which is in my mind, I wonder how many of those infected at Newcastle University are actually really ill from it? Maybe if we did apply a degree of separation and if us older people kept distance then maybe the infections v hospitalisations ratios may be broken favourably.

Thanks for the responses, I can see that schools cannot close, nor hospitals nor care homes but what I don't like is the messaging - that the rising infection rates are because people are not following the rule of 6 (which as most MPs will concur was a figure plucked out of nowhere) and because people won't distance in pubs. To me it demonising an element of the public when they are not the only group where the contamination can come from, they represent about a third of the most infectious groups. A grown up conversation from the Government is what we need, honest assessments and the truth. Talking about a circuit breaker during the holidays by closing the pubs - is a good idea, but lets be honest, they want to do it in the holidays because then they don't have to shut the schools they will already be shut and it will contain things.

Well this is worrying and a sign that some information isn't being readily shared. Further lockdowns coming, this isn't new but the image below was shared in this article. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-54464470 People being told in 'Covid secure' workplaces places to turn off contact tracing. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54465356 What is in the missing 42% of the All Ages? - I would guess Schools (working or being educated), Care Homes as a patient and Hospitals as a patient. Interesting even at the Goverment's new Tier 3, schools will remain open and here we have teachers being told to ignore instructions to self isolate and actively turn off their contract trace app. My wife is working in schools at present, she is the only one there in PPE as she is NHS, the schools are showing no apparent social distancing so will be a hotbed of transmission. It's like HMG is pointing all the blame at people who socialise, demonising them almost to avoid the real truth - Schools, Hospitals and Care Homes are where the real risk is but they cannot or won't do anything about it. I know of a hospital where a patient was transferred and they did not pass on their Covid positive result during transfer, 16 other people infected as a result.

Last train from Whitby was diesel hauled to Gromont by the Green 25, came off to be replaced by 825. Whilst they were coupling up 825, Repton appeared, I presume from Pickering as it departed back towards the shed at the same time as 825 got under way.

Took down something that isn't factual - which is different from someone's expression of an opinion. Trump is an easy target to take down, he wilfully constructs his own truths, but does that mean Facebook removes all harmful and hatred ridden content or just appeases people by doing very public stuff with Trump whilst allowing other content to remain unchallenged. Of course it is a very fine line between protecting people and outright censorship, how the tech companies deal with sites within China's firewall shows they will censor their content when instructed to do so, is that because only money matters.

Tech taking out Tech is becoming the new weapon of choice. The spat between Apple / Google and Epic about fees for using the Apple Store for in app purchases has highlighted the tensions between the various companies who have to work together when perhaps they would much rather do it alone and reap all the profits. Apple simply turn off the tap and say sue me. Apple can also react to illegal activities when it wants to - like when it banned the Tumblr App - it resulted in Tumblr cleaning up their act, but eventually Yahoo sold the service as the incident had hemorrhaged the userbase of the product. Apple sells itself heavily on protecting personal data, but is that really the case or is it protecting it's interest in that data and drawing people in and away from Google which has it's own interest in personal data and everything we do. Facebook on the other hand seems slow to react to activities that some would argue are extremist, it also owns Instagram which too has seen problems. I don't think Facebook's lack of speed to act is because of fundamental freedom of speech though, it has a massive database and I am sure it profits nicely from hate speech as much as trains and other less extreme interests.

But it's great for railways and modelling groups. Apart from some local area postcode interest groups and Skeptical Mama (atheism) , the only groups I am in are railway or history related. I'm not sure why I even have friends on Facebook as I've unfollowed most to avoid the tosh people share or the 'look at me' attitudes held. It also helps not to actively follow groups, just be a member, then you dip in and out when it takes your fancy and not when Facebook decides it wants to show you something. My echo chamber I am glad to say is trains, and apart from wishing I had better skills when it comes to modelling, I don't think it is harming me.

To see if they are more or less lethal than Covid.

Sounds rather similar to a past layout of my own - except I allowed the ACE (or a portion of it!!) to also arrive.

I think as the trains have been delivered then they won't see off branchlines - the issue for BR was having to fund replacements for first generation units which is where cheap bus like trains came in. The 153 wasn't designed as such, it was originally the 155 and they were used between Cardiff and Manchester and were meant as an alternative to the 156 but weren't quite as good. BR saw them as a opportunity to replace the bubble cars and so they saw new life as a 153. I wonder what would have happened to them had they not been suitable for conversion?

But oh-no, the resale value of your coaches now they have no steps!! Says the man who cut all the brakes off his Hornby exLSWR coaches so they would actually roll freely on a flat straight surface. It's interesting that some features on stock can be removed and you never actually notice it, this like my brakes above is an example. Maybe we ask for too much detail (I know it's a wormcan)

I don't think there is left or right extremism - there is just a circle - at the top there is tolerance and humility and at the polar opposite there is hate and selfishness. People will stray from the top of the circle believing in either left wing or right wing politics but by the time they reach the bottom they are now extremist and hate everything that isn't them. Russia is a very interesting example of this, it's leadership suggests a left wing communist politic but it's behaviour towards people who are different and the lifestyles of the rulers hint at very right wing tendencies.