Lockdown Magic-Masked Riders of the Apocalypse Approaching a Town Near YOU
This picture was posted by Howard Steen, a retired scientist, on Twitter in response to a sceptical tweet by Michael Levitt. The caption reads: “After 300 years of scientific Enlightenment, the U.K. embraces witchcraft, mythology and magic.” Levitt gave it the thumbs up.
More Nonsense on Masks
The Welsh Government’s advice on face coverings, which are due to become mandatory on public transport in Wales from July 27th, contains this gem in the section entitled “What is the science behind this advice?”
At the present time, the widespread use of masks by healthy people in the community is not supported by high quality scientific evidence. Social distancing and hygiene measures remain the most effective measures for reducing transmission of COVID-19.
A reader makes a good point about mandatory face coverings in shops, due to come into force in England tomorrow:
If I fill up my car with petrol and then go to pay in the kiosk (=shop?) without a mask, will they let me in?
Meanwhile, in North Korea anyone refusing to wear a face mask will have to do three months hard labour in one of the regime’s notorious prison camps. Squads of student enforcers are patrolling the streets of Pyongyang, bundling anyone not complying into the back of unmarked vans.
How long before Nic Sturge-un follows suit?
And if you think North Korea is bad, get a load of what’s happening in Florida: authorities in Broward County have passed a coronavirus emergency order which includes text suggesting all residents are mandated to wear face masks inside their own homes.
Finally, NHS workers with beards have been asked to shave them off because if they don’t their masks won’t work, according to the Nursing Times. Does this mean the Government will soon slap a ban on beards, with police empowered to issue on-the-spot fines? Won’t go down well in Hoxton.
Perhaps there is a silver lining to the idiotic mask diktat after all.
My Plans for a Covid Inquiry
In my Spectator column today, I point out that the public inquiry is already underway – dozens of them.
First out of the gate was the Sunday Times on 24 May, followed by the New Statesman and, last week, the Financial Times. In addition, there will be ‘inquiries’ by other newspapers and magazines, parliamentary select committees, television and radio programmes, think tanks and universities, scientific and medical journals.
Few will be able to resist blaming the UK’s higher-than-average death toll on the Government’s failure to lock down earlier. That’s been the verdict of those that have been published so far, and we know in advance that Sir Patrick Vallance and Neil Ferguson will confirm this when they’re asked to testify by Uncle Tom Cobley and all. They’ve said as much already. The only thing all these ‘non-partisan’ panels of experts will disagree about is exactly how many dead bodies can be chalked up to Boris Johnson’s “dither and delay”.
If you’re a lockdown sceptic, this is profoundly depressing. What’s the point of all these inquiries if they take it for granted from the outset that the lockdown was the right policy response? Not only will they fail to address the Government’s biggest mistake – which was imposing a lockdown in the first place – but if they all conclude that Boris’s failure to lock down even sooner caused tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, it will mean the next time a British government is faced with a viral outbreak it will lock down immediately.
Just like in March, all hospital patients still breathing will be turfed out of their beds to “protect the NHS”, billions will be spent on pop-up hospitals that are never used, schools will be closed unnecessarily for six months, the Chancellor will borrow hundreds of billions so the economy can be mothballed indefinitely, and Matt Hancock will spend billions on a track-and-trace system that is about as effective as two tin cans connected by a piece of string. All in a desperate effort to avoid being blamed for not acting quickly enough.
So what can be done about this? I conclude that I’ll have to convene a public inquiry of my own, which will mean pulling together a panel of genuinely independent-minded scientists.
I’m thinking of people like Dr John Lee, the ex-professor of pathology who’s written a series of sceptical pieces for this magazine; Carl Heneghan, the Oxford professor who runs the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine and helped to expose the shortcomings of Tamiflu; David Spiegelhalter, the Cambridge statistician who can analyse this year’s excess deaths and put them in context; Sunetra Gupta, the Oxford epidemiologist who believes we may have achieved herd immunity already; and Michael Levitt, the Nobel laureate who understood early on that the number of people infected with coronavirus in any given region was not growing exponentially. And I’ll ask Lord Sumption to chair it, of course.
I don’t suppose they will be any more sympathetic to Boris and his pals than the kangaroo courts being set up across the country. They just won’t take it for granted that indiscriminately locking down the entire population was the right thing to do. They will look closely at those countries that didn’t lock down, such as Sweden, South Korea and Belarus, as well as the seven US states that didn’t, and puzzle over the fact that they experienced fewer deaths per capita, on average, than those places that did. They will wonder, I imagine, why no country before this year ever tried to tackle a viral epidemic by imposing a full lockdown, save for Mexico in 2009, and why so many countries rushed headlong to adopt this draconian policy in spite of the WHO recommending against it last year.
Now all I need is a billionaire to fund it. And, of course, a change of identity so when I invite all these distinguished scientists to sit on my panel they won’t stick my name into Google and then run a mile.
Or is there another solution? Could I use this website and the following it has built up to launch an inquiry? I could ask some of its scientific readers and contributors to pull together panels and look into different aspects of the crisis – a more concise version of the chapter-headings on the right-hand side. They and their teams could then publish their findings at regular intervals and, after a year, produce their final summaries and verdicts which I would then compile into a book. It wouldn’t have any official standing or the imprimatur of a distinguished institution. But it would be right, which is the most important thing.
Email me here if you think this is a good idea and you’d like to contribute.
Lancet Paper Says Lockdowns Ineffective
A new paper in the Lancet entitled “A country level analysis measuring the impact of government actions, country preparedness and socioeconomic factors on COVID-19 mortality and related health outcomes” has some bad news for the Government: lockdowns have done nothing to reduce Covid mortality. In the “Findings” section, the authors state:
Government actions such as border closures, full lockdowns, and a high rate of Covid-19 testing were not associated with statistically significant reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality.
Worth reading in full.
A singer writes
I got a response from a professional singer to yesterday’s “Postcard From Nordrhein-Westfalen” by a musician based in Germany.
I was most interested in the postcard from Germany today. I too am a professional classical musician, a singer unfortunately. We have been well and truly silenced except for an elite few, while I know for a fact that good technique should be tested by singing onto a flame, which should not flicker. It is slightly safer than talking.
I am about to write to my re-opening health and leisure club, as they have just advised members that the toilets will not be available and members will have to traipse through the large guest lounge, where people eat, drink, work and socialise, to access the reception toilets. All this in the middle of a work-out or swim! I am just going to point out that swimmers peeing in the pool is not unheard of – why make it the easy option? How is that safe? I bet this is a general rule – my husband has to go to the dentist tomorrow, at enormous expense because of the deep-cleaning, resting the room etc., and he has also been warned that the toilet will be closed and to arrive with an empty bladder. More lunacy.
Kent County Council Misleads Public
A reader has been in touch to say he’s received a leaflet from Kent County Council warning him of “misleading information” that’s been disseminated in the Kent area (see above). If you look in the top right-hand corner of the document the Council has identified as “misleading” it says: “Were you aware that fewer people in London died in the past few weeks compared to the same period in 2019?”
In fact, that claim isn’t “misleading”; it’s true. As the Daily Mail reported on June 16th, London became the first region in England to report that deaths from all causes had fallen to below the five-year average – and below 2019 – and that’s now true of the whole of England and Wales. According to the ONS’s latest weekly report, the number of deaths registered in England and Wales in Week 28 was 6.1% below the five-year average.
As you can see from the graph below, this has been true of London since mid-May.
As is so often the case, a public authority that’s issued a pompous warning about Covid “misinformation” is itself guilty of misinformation.
Sign Petition To Stop Mandatory Face Masks in Schools
Lockdown Sceptics contributor Christine Brett and her colleagues at Them For Us have started a petition on Change.org asking Gavin Williamson to stop schools insisting that children wear face coverings when they return in September. Please sign it.
Lord Sumption Admits to Breaking Lockdown Rules
In conversation with legal affairs journalist Joshua Rosenburg for a Prospect seminar, Lord Sumption admitted to breaking lockdown rules.
The former top judge – who has been a vocal opponent of Number 10’s lockdown rules, previously describing them as the “greatest interference with personal liberty in our history” – is said to have fessed up to flouting some aspects of the “absurd” regulations during a Zoom-based webinar.
The online session, ‘Democracy and the Rule of Law in the Age of COVID-19’, was hosted by legal affairs journalist Joshua Rozenberg, who took to his own Twitter account to confirm Sumption’s rule-breaking revelation.
Lord Sumption was unapologetic in the course of the seminar. The Telegraph has some good quotes:
For a Government to say we are so stupid and untrustworthy we will take this decision-making out of your hands is not acceptable in a democratic society.
If you want a risk-free environment then you can lock yourself up. That’s a better alternative than the Government locking everyone up.
Round-Up
Here’s a round-up of all the stories I’ve noticed, or which have been been brought to my attention, in the last 24 hours:
- ‘Israel announces antibody that neutralizes coronavirus, even amongst infected‘ – Groundbreaking development from the Israel Institute for Biological Research
- ‘Face masks to become compulsory in takeaways as Government tightens law‘ – Won’t stop my kids wanting to go to KFC, unfortunately
- ‘Overweight tourists force slimmer numbers on Venice gondolas‘ – Not me and my family. Honest guv
- ‘The public’s willingness to just do as it’s told has been a depressing sight‘ – Good piece by Douglas Carswell in the Telegraph
- ‘Yelp says more than half of restaurants temporarily closed are now permanently shuttered‘ – It’s worse than even I imagined
- ‘Increase in childhood depression during the COVID-19 lockdown in the UK‘ – Preprint about the extent of childhood depression under lockdown
- ‘More cancer deaths in England predicted due to COVID-19-related healthcare delays‘ – New research published yesterday in the Lancet Oncology journal
- ‘Americans disillusioned with fellow citizens’ response to pandemic as denial mounts‘ – Encouraging evidence from Ipsos that the American public is beginning to smell a rat
- ‘Only 1 in 8 primary school pupils attended online lessons in lockdown‘ – As many as that?
- ‘How many Covid diagnoses are false positives?‘ – Good piece in the Spectator by Professor Carl Heneghan
Theme Tune Suggestions By Readers:
Two today: “I Drink Alone” by George Thorogood and the Destroyers and “Sea of Madness” by Iron Maiden.
Small Businesses That Have Re-Opened
A couple of months ago, Lockdown Sceptics launched a searchable directory of open businesses across the UK. The idea is to celebrate those retail and hospitality businesses that have re-opened, as well as help people find out what has opened in their area. But we need your help to build it, so we’ve created a form you can fill out to tell us about those businesses that have opened near you.
Now that non-essential shops have re-opened – or most of them, anyway – we’re now focusing on pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants, as well as other social venues. As of July 4th, many of them have re-opened too, but not all. Please visit the page and let us know about those brave folk who are doing their bit to get our country back on its feet – particularly if they’re not insisting on face masks! Don’t worry if your entries don’t show up immediately – we need to approve them once you’ve entered the data.
Note to the Good Folks Below the Line
I enjoy reading all your comments and I’m glad I’ve created a “safe space” for lockdown sceptics to share their frustrations and keep each other’s spirits up. But please don’t copy and paste whole articles from papers that are behind paywalls in the comments. I work for some of those papers and if they don’t charge for premium content they won’t survive.
We created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums, but they became a spam magnet so we’ve temporarily closed them. However, we can open them again if some readers volunteer to be moderators. If you’d like to do this, please email Ian Rons, the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster, here.
Gone Fishin ’
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation recently to pay for the upkeep of this site. If you feel like donating, however small the sum, please click here. I’m on holiday in Italy until Saturday, July 25th and won’t be doing my usual amount of work on the site until I return. If you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here.
Salem 2.0
I thought I’d give my readers something to chew on while I’m away: Salem 2.0: The Return of the Religious Police to the Public Square. This is a book about cancel culture that I’ve been working on for a while now, but which took a back seat during the coronavirus crisis. Hoping to get back to it as the crisis recedes – although that’s happening more slowly than any of us hoped. It’s a work in progress, so don’t expect too much.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Stagecoach fears many passengers may never return after lockdown | Business | The Times
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/drop-in-passengers-leaves-stagecoach-on-shaky-ground-8kr292x89
Cycle lanes up the M6 it is then.
Going down is not too bad. Going back up is the problem.
If I stop peddling in Preston, do you think I could freewheel to Watford?
I know someone who loves cycling do not let him see this or that will move in-front of HS2/3 or whatever it is called.
As long as journeys on public transport are made as unpleasant as possible with mandatory muzzles (particularly on trains with their non-stop muzzle announcement garbage), no – they won’t.
Home Bargains sees no value in worker bonus plan | Business | The Times
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/home-bargains-sees-no-value-in-worker-bonus-plan-fqmvlrxv3
Paywall!
Letters: Teachers are not the public-sector workers who most deserve a pay rise
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/07/22/lettersteachers-not-public-sector-workers-deserve-pay-rise/
Be *very* wary of succumbing to tactics that set one group of victims against another.
It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book (See : ‘Enforcement of mask wearing’)
Hah, spot the teacher!
Here’s another victim. It’s another letter from AH’s link above:
I rang my surgery last week to request an injection in my knee. I have severe arthritis and need a total knee replacement. Steroid injections and painkillers are part of the management plan to delay the operation as long as possible as I am “only” 56 years old.
I was told that I cannot have another steroid injection until a vaccine is available, as these injections suppress the immune system and put me at risk of contracting Covid.
If this is PHE’s advice it is very short-sighted and will cause immense pain and stress to all those like myself who are dependent on them to maintain a normal and active lifestyle.
So if the person in question was opposed to having the vaccine as soon as it becomes available, does that mean they wouldn’t be able to have another steroid/painkiller injection?
Sounds like it!
Spot the teacher spotter!
Wrong. A lot of us work hard to not reinforce the idea that people who oppose this government aren’t just stupid twats who make this sort of brainless remark.
Stick to the evidence and the argument – not the dickhead prejudices.
well… the teacher’s unions, at least in the US, are doing a lot to deserve our contempt. Not a prejudice against them as a class of people, but as an organization, they are doing a lot of harm. I say that as a parent.
Viral second wave fear will drive us into another lockdown https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/07/23/viral-second-wave-fear-will-drive-us-another-lockdown/ In a strange way, then, the “second wave” concept has become a comfort blanket; it’s a little more acceptable for the world to lock down and hide under the stairs if it can kid itself that it’s just for this one last time, to see the virus off. But such an attitude becomes infantile as soon as you accept that coronavirus may be endemic – we cannot, for three months every year, shut down the entire planet. But instead of looking us square in the eye, the Tories have chosen Big Brother’s panopticon; No 10’s new Joint Biosecurity Centre, which will drive “whack-a-mole” local lockdowns, is slickness posing as strategy – and, as it happens, reporting into track-and-trace app failure Dido Harding. When the public twigs that the infection is unlikely to be controlled in this way, the sheer panic could send us back into national lockdown. Three scenarios might help avoid the latter: a vaccine comes along; the Government gets its act together with a plan to protect the vulnerable; or we put in place safety valves against mass hysteria. ………… Imperial College’s research needs to be particularly… Read more »
Here’s the problem with the whole second wave narrative, as I see it. This may be stating the obvious and I’m sure it has been discussed before, but this idea began with Fergusons shameful model.
Re reading it again, it’s difficult to not see, that he based his modelling on the H1N1 pandemic of 1918. It’s there, referenced in the opening summary.
Various scientists predicted, based on coronavirus models, that this would become, or was endemic. They were completely ignored. Why?
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/mrc-gida/2020-03-16-COVID19-Report-9.pdf
The parallel often made with the 1918/19 pandemic is entirely inaccurate and irrelevant. It’s over 100 years ago – you might as well use Eyam and the plague as a model Even its alleged ‘second wave’ has been questioned as being an epidemic of another virus.
“Imperial College’s research needs to be particularly scrutinised,” Jeez! That must be the understatement of the decade 🙂 The only useful thing about ICL research is to help work out the most unlikely scenario and what *not* to do. What is interesting is how the epidemiological/virus science community has thrown up two groups. The first is the ‘Ferguson’ class of experts in hysterical and unbalanced exaggeration who like playing with useless computer models and seek suddenly rewarded attention like a child at Christmas. The other group is represented by real scientists like Professors Henaghan, Gupta and Ionnedes and Dr Wittkowski who speak in measured, rational tones about the actual evidence – as opposed to fantasies constructed from bits and bytes. The man from Mars descends and examines which group has been shown to be more accurate. There is no contest : the attention seekers, often with honorary O.B.N credits to their names, have an incredible record …. events have rarely proved them right as sound data has emerged. Their main skills have been in re-fabricating propaganda-driven rationales, like the ‘Second Wave’ theory and the elusive ‘R’ number, based on quantum-like entities such as ‘Covid’ ‘cases’. (Although, dead or alive, there… Read more »
If one didn’t know better, one could be forgiven for thinking that the media have more than a vested interest in keeping people unnecessarily scared, rather than reporting news and asking the right questions.
Good of you to remind us of how honest the media is. Thank you.
There is a day coming very soon when our elected elites issue yet another insane rule demanding we proles obey and a majority of us will finally just shrug our shoulders and say, “meh, just go away”. We’ll get on with our lives and they will have no way to make us obey. At which point the rest of the country will realise the emperor has no clothes. Of course, the media will freak out saying the peasants are revolting when actually we are finally regaining our composure.
Unfortunately, I very much doubt it. Too many people have been scared stupid.
That day should have been tomorrow if not earlier, but it won’t ever happen. Strolling round Morrisons today, the place was littered with around 50% of shoppers being mask wearers, who just couldn’t wait to jump the gun. If the corona-scam is ever to be gotten of our backs, it will be by the actions of a militant minority who will not be cowed. We remain, for the foreseeable future, in very deep trouble.
What we “should” do is just forget the whole thing and go back to normal. But if we HAVE TO adopt measures based on any kind of modelling then obviously we look back at who was right about Covid and who was wrong and listen to those who were right going forward.
Somehow I think they’re going to listen to broadly the same people!!!
The truth is ,at least for me, if it had not been for the media and the government I would never have known about the virus and would have carried on working and socialising exactly as before. And guess what…it would not have made a blind bit of difference. A bit like my two cats did!
It’s an excellent article. Just dipped into the ocmments. The recents ones are thoroughly depressing!
Maybe some of you would like to do a bit of redressing?
IC’s research needs to be buried in a deep abyss.
No Midsummer’s Night Dream this year. It has been CANCELLED. Postponed on account of incompetence and greed.
“Three scenarios might help avoid the latter: a vaccine comes along; the Government gets its act together with a plan to protect the vulnerable; or we put in place safety valves against mass hysteria.”
Scenario 4: We/you develop herd immunity and also work on beefing up our own innate immune systems via vit. D, zinc, quercitin, sunshine, plenty of exercise, healthy diet (no trans fats, fresh veg, organ meats [minerals], grass=fed meat, milk, eggs, and cheese [sources of vit. A]).
People with treatable cancers will die due to Government scaremongering, warns NHS nurse
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/23/people-treatable-cancers-will-die-due-government-scaremongering/
Excerpt from the above:
“We have PPE now, at the beginning there was a bit of a scramble for it but by mid-April I would say most Trusts had enough PPE to have continued to have least to run beyond the skeleton Covid system.
“I think there was a middle ground to be struck between keeping the hospitals safe and when it became apparent that we weren’t going to get this overwhelming first wave I think we should have started up services sooner and they still not being started,” she said.
She went on to criticise GPs who had been doing telephone and video consultations exclusively who she said were a “massive piece missing”.
Yeah. We know. We’ve been saying this for months, but the media have been too busy leading the weekly clapathon to notice or care. They’re a bit late to the truth…
Isn’t the key phrase in the Welsh mask advice “healthy people”? The point is masks is to help prevent *infected* people spreading the virus to others.
If you’re infected but asymptomatic, you’re healthy. In the same way that all those times in your life you were carrying around a ‘flu virus or a cold virus and didn’t even know it, you were healthy.
I have sneezed twice in 4 months.
Try snuff …
mummmm snuff, I gave that up ages ago
Useful on trains and planes. 🙂
Oh you must have had covid!
Lucky you.
I’ve had hay fever and couldn’t stop sneezing.
I’m not infected, so I don’t need to wear a mask.
How many times in your life might you have unknowingly been infected by a virus which you passed on by touching a doorhandle, which then spread to some old dear coming after you who it severely affected and ultimately killed? You never know, and we can’t live as a society in constant fear that at any interaction we ever have could kill someone eventually. People die all the time, I’m sure if we try hard enough we could all somehow be linked!
How many times throughout her life did said old dear do likewise?
The first certainty of life is ultimate death.
And with a prevalence of somewhere in the region of 1 in every 3000 (likely less, given false positives…) it therefore clearly makes no logical, economical, environmental or moral sense to enforce the masks on the healthy 2,999 in every 3,000. This is not a contestable conclusion, and yet, idiots think it’s those who don’t wish to needlessly suffocate themselves who are the selfish ones.
Stay under your bed. It’s safer there.
What if you have a divan?
There are magicians who have turned that into a stage act, it takes a saw…
Stay on top of it – but get a mosquito net!
Except they fail to do even that (the ‘face coverings’ in question neither protect the wearer nor any who said wearer comes into contact with), so the point becomes what exactly?
If masks work (which they don’t), then the Covoids can avoid getting infected by wearing one. After all, they like to tell us that masks work.
Ah, the old vaccine argument! They won’t accept that, sadly.
They are not “infected”.
You are talking about positive test results from asymptomatic people.
Those positive results are becoming so hard to find that it’s clear the only problem is the insistance on perpetuating pointless lockdown conditions.
Yes but ths point is, *nobody* is healthy any more, according to them.
You’re either a) dead of Covid b) noticeably ill and therefore dying of Covid or c) a potential, probable, harbourer of the deadly plague whilst showing no symptoms. If you’re alive, you’re a *risk*.
It’s batshit crazy. The funniest thing is when you go do something which actually WOULD be risky if you were in fact ill. Like giving blood. They are perfectly happy for me to go and give my two pints, two pints which will go into a little premature baby in my case – but I can only do so if I wear a mask. They want my blood – because it’s the ichor of the Gods. And yet, apparently I’m a biohazard. Surely if I’m a biohazard the LAST thing I should be doing is giving blood?
So tell me, am I healthy, or not?
You, like me are probably O- and never had cytomegalovirus?
Schrödinger’s blood donors?
The home-working revolution will derail the middle-class gravy train AND COMMENTS
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/22/home-working-revolution-will-derail-middle-class-gravy-train/
The article’s headline:
The home-working revolution will derail the middle-class gravy trainComplacent office workers don’t realise that their jobs can now be done by anyone, anywhere in the world
Here’s a recent comment. What do people think of the hypothesis?
Yes people are going to love getting up in the middle of the night in Australia to clock on in England….
The future holds the demise of the control structure. Your house will generate power, small scale hydroponics means it will feed you. You wont need so much money. You wont need to work such long hours. Big corps spread across the planet are also useless, small scale manufacturing will take over. This is what they are scared of. You wont need big government, banks and global corps. They are dinosaurs. This is why they are getting big on taking away your freedoms and trying to make you part of a grid. It wont stop it
Hmmm. Not sure about that scenario.
“Off the grid!”
This was the battle cry of the sixties and seventies (Whole Earth Catalogue).
Also the Survivalist movement. Maybe that is just in the USA.
It sure is a good start to have more land.
Here is a plan: California, Washington, and Oregon secede from the USA after 2020 election. British Columbia secedes from Canada and joins forces with them to form Cascadia. B.C. is notoriously underpopulated. Brits who want to get off the grid can emigrate to BC and mix it up up there with Left Coasties who want to get away from the former U.S. states and breathe free. Maybe they can start fishing, farming, and pot/hemp cooperatives. They can get some big greenhouses from Holland (as the Russians are doing).
The Californian government at present is into mandatory vaxxes, Those adversely affected won’t be doing much free breathing.
Have worked in the City since 1996, we abandoned our offices in the second week of March. Went back today for the first time – it is shocking the train companies must be bankrupt – less then 10 people in an intercity service. Some simple maths – most businesses I know are immediately saying 35% don’t need to be back of there other 65% it’s probably 2 days a week ish. So a working population of 500,000 is going to be maybe 60,000 if you really squint. That’s before any additional muzzle wearing madness. The lockdown killed my business but even going back at a very senior level into a corporate has never even contemplated being there five day’s a week. Pretty much everything closed apart from Pret and some Turkish. Only people in are receptionists/security and premises. The lloyds insurance trading floor still closed – I think that’S the only year in nearly 400 of there not being a physical market operating. Separately when challenged on not wearing a muzzle on the train and claiming medical expecting – I was presented with a brightly coloured lanyard and badge loudly proclaiming hidden disability – I can not imagine anything more… Read more »
Affirmative Bowen 77. Bye all!
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An update Five days out now Day 1 A trip to the newsagent Day 2 Waiting for kneel (he still hasn’t turned up, staring to get worried, will check the canal again) Day 3 The police are a mirage Day 4 A visit to the seaside Sundowners Yesterday evening we sat on the patio of the village rugby club. A group of refuseniks gather each evening to take in the sun. Mine is a pint of cider on ice. It’s BYO, as the club has still not reopened . Our group gets larger each day. We all take our litter home with us and leave it as pristine as we found it. In an act of defiance we drink from pint glasses that we bring with us (yes women too, it’d that kind of place) Sat next to me is my partner of 40 years (Jesus, I’ve started doing it, she’s not my bleeding partner, a partner is someone you play cards with, she’s my wife) Things been cooking round her for a long time. Neolithic axe heads, an iron age hill fort, roman remains and a Norman castle On the village square the union jack flies next to the… Read more »
Thank you for such a reflective post; all the best, and have one for me too!
The big countdown is on. Less than 24 hours till lift off.
This time tomorrow the mighty England, once ruler of the seven seas, the nation that invented the modern world, who’s art’s, music, science and literature dominates popular culture on nearly all parts of this blue marble will be subjugated, broken, torn apart and rotten.
And most of the English will be just fucking dandy with that.
The country that stood alone against the evil Bosch, who took Africa from the lions and made America have become cowards sitting back watching their country destroyed by outside forces.
With smart phones in hand and masks on their faces
they take their places
in the faceless society.
The mask of the beast on every street and in every home
the sun has set on the empire, it’s gone
With parliament disbanded now an empty building,
haunted and totally ruined
The good ship Albion has hit the rocks
Boudica’s children will wear masks in shops
will it ever stop? I hear some cry
but with a whimper she dies.
No longer the common man under common law
without the heart to fight for
liberty, at any cost
Englands Paradise lost.
Churchill quote (there’s always a Churchill quote), slightly adapted:
What he [Johnson] has done is to kindle a fire in British hearts, here and all over the world, which will glow long after all traces of the conflagration he has caused in England have been removed. He has lighted a fire which will burn with a steady and consuming flame until the last vestiges of Woke tyranny have been burnt out of Europe, and until the Old World — and the New — can join hands to rebuild the temples of man’s freedom and man’s honour, upon foundations which will not soon or easily be overthrown.
Good one
Thought you’d given up posting here?
It’s only lost if we don’t stop it, Biker. We must dissent and fight tooth and nail against this.
Spot on Biker but the process of destroying Old Albion has been a hundred years in the making , It is only obvious now due to how brazen the last arch traitors have become
( Blair , Brown , Cameron , May and Johnson ) .
The chaps i work with on site would rather talk about the return of the football and last nights game than talk about resisting our coming enslavement . It’s pathetic what the descendants of the anglo saxons have become.
I hope i am wrong but i don’t see any real hope for Albion.
I am very black pilled right now after an awful journey home from work in central London through the east end to Essex.
Dystopia doesn’t even begin to describe it .
I Need a drink…………………..
I’m in the USA.
I would be interested to read the story of your dreadful train trip.
I was driving Jane as i am an Electrician and i need to transport my tools to and from work every day and using the tube ( London underground / Metro )
is only a viable option for me if i am on a job longer than a week or more so i can leave the tools on the job.
Agenda 2030 is kicking into gear this week with lots of lane an road closures on the main routes out of London to the east thus compressing all the traffic.
Formerly quick routes in and out of London are being deliberately strangled to punish drivers and put small business’s out of London.
Couple that with all the cameras , speed limit warning signage and constant road changes / closures it makes driving really a traumatic experience.
All this while viewing the masked mind controlled slaves walking the streets and driving through some of my old east end neighbourhoods that now resemble the set from Escape from New York.
Just Horrible
What in the world is Agenda 2030?
UN Charter 2030 The planned destruction of the western world as we know it. It’s happening in the states to , I don’t know if you in a major US city , if you are surely you must have noticed all the masses of high density housing being crammed onto any available land near to any metro line station ? They are trying to force people out of the countryside into highly surveilled gulag tech cities.
Most western nations are signed up to this, see the work of Mark Windows at ” Windows on the World.net ” he lays this out clearly what we are up against and the corona hoax is just one facet of agenda 2030.
Also he now does a weekly show on an American radio station,
RBN Republic Broadcast Network.
https://windowsontheworld.net/live-shows/
Thanks for the link Two-Six . I am not very tech savvy so have difficulty
posting links.
Cheers
Maybe look up PNAC and Agenda 21 as well.
Families must choose one member to visit elderly relatives in care homes, Government says
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/22/families-must-choose-one-member-visit-elderly-relatives-care/
The government guidelines are very detailed and even include a get out that if the care home don’t think it is safe to allow a resident to see family they don’t have to allow visiting. I am hopeful it gives care homes some kind of permission to allow visiting but I am not hopeful of much contact with my dad and I don’t think this will change until the winter Covid deaths do not happen. So very sadly for Dad, me and many other separated families this long time scale will likely mean a resident will die as they come to the end of their life having endured a year of forced separation from family. I remain very sad and very angry.
Just go in anyway. They have no legal grounds to stop you
Quote Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 which says you can use such reasonable force as is necessary to protect family members
How do you know what’s going on in there unless you go in and check?
Yes. For a non-existent virus, this really is extremely cruel.
I don’t blame you. It is inhuman.
Why can’t the set aside an area for visiters, like in a prison.
One visit at a time. Then ventilate.
Or, set up little booths. Or something.
If they wanted to solve this problem they could.
These visits will prolong some lives and contribute to seniors’ quality of life. What is the point in being alive if you are stuck in solitary.
Will to live will dissipate.
Many seniors live just to get a glimpse of their grandchildren.
It is very, very cruel.
Where there is a will there is a way.
What has happened to that British Bulldog?
This seems to have been “disappeared” from the website. I saw it early this morning, but can’t find it now. Explains the low volume of comments.
I’ve just accessed it at 14.30. The comments are angry – and heartbreaking! Here’s part of one: Last week my wife and I visited her mother in her care home, the first time my wife had been able to meet with her widowed 86 year old mother in four months, the longest separation by far in her entire life. The arrangements were not ideal (over 4 hours travel for a 25 minute meeting) but were quite safe, socially distant and had a tremendously positive effect on both my wife and mother-in-law. We’re due to visit again on Fri 24 July but…..the new PHE guidance would prevent a similar meeting! The new PHE guidance seems to be a very misguided, knee-jerk reaction in response to PHE’s earlier failures. My mother-in-law is in a care home, not a prison, and shouldn’t be prevented from seeing her relatives and close friends by these bizarre new guidelines. Care homes themselves are quite capable of managing their own visiting arrangements without interference from PHE. But it appears that PHE is now allowed to effectively control the management of privately owned care homes funded by self-funding residents. This is totally unacceptable and has led to very capable care… Read more »
There at 10:14. But paywalled.
I hate this government with all my being.
And I. I never knew the real meaning of the word until now.
Face nappy might be useful ere. Who’s to say which family member is behind it?
Notice how flexible the advice is.
The advice recommends “limiting the numbers of visitors to a single constant visitor per resident, wherever possible”. ….
Relatives will be told to wear face coverings and follow advice on social distancing as much as possible
It will depend on how draconian the carehome gestapo want to make it. What are they going to do – stand watch and guard the door while someone’s visiting?
Answering my own question, here’s one of the comments to the above:
After allowing tens of thousands of airline passengers into the country since Feb with no checks, the Govt allowed PHE to put infected people into care homes with no checks.
They now have the audacity, now the damage has been done, to pretend we family members are a risk. I am speechless!
I visited my 92 year old mother last week. The care home took my temp and blood oxygen level, made me wear a bib and mask and sit outside 4 metres away from her, whilst insisting that a member of staff watch me all the time ( whilst listening to my muffled conversation) in case I dare embrace my mother.
To top it all. She had the virus 6 weeks ago, felt a bit unwell but was fine within a week.
The mother of a friend of mine is in a care home. Only one family member allowed to visit, masks required, and they did indeed stand guard during the visit to ensure no contact took place. The very antithesis of caring.
Here’s a corker of a reply!
We’ve had elderly genocide, now elder abuse through social isolation and affection deprivation
Cancer patient genocide through withdrawal of medical care
Learning disabled genocide though DNR
And mandatory child abuse through psychological torture (isolation, withdrawal of education, social distancing and muzzling)
Economic terrorism and controlled demolition of small and medium business.
Now Chris Witty admits lockdown wasn’t even needed because the virus was already declining.
Johnson and Hancock should be facing life imprisonment for these crimes against humanity.
All in the space of 5 months, phenominal.
Too late, my relative is dead.
That is terrible. Very sorry to read it.
Disgusting!
Liverpool Fans Celebrate
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=liverpool+fans&&view=detail&mid=9A24360873B6D448BF549A24360873B6D448BF54&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dliverpool%2Bfans%26FORM%3DHDRSC3
Excellent, delighted to see it. The hysterical lunatics will be absolutely pissing their pants that they weren’t just gathering and not wearing masks, they were doing that now criminal thing of singing, and talking loudly! How dare they have a good time and enjoy their teams success.
So disappointing to see all the political figures and club spokespeople coming out before the day telling them to celebrate at home and not gather – absolutely pathetic.
Yep. That fans gathered in numbers, despite their adored club and adored manager telling them to ‘stay at home’ speaks volumes. Deep down, an awful lot of people know it’s bollox.
Here’s to number 20.
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
6 or was it 9 (?) got arrested according to R2 news for “ignoring instructions to stay away and celebrate from home”:
so that’s another new law is it ?
Sadly, they did put a “dispersal zone” in place, so probably legit.
🙂 Not bitter, not at all.
I saw a great clip yesterday where someone doorstepped Everton names of the past – Peter Reid, Tony Cottee, etc., asking if they wanted to pass on congratulations to LFC. Cottee’s response was almost entirely bleeped out.
Disappointed to see some masks. But, hey, you can’t have everything.
I was too. Doubt there’d be many left by 3 in the morning though. 🙂
wish i was in liverpool – i would have joined them even though i don’t like football! 🙂
Now that’s setting an excellent example!
McDonald’s reopens 700 stores for dine in – see if your local restaurant is on the list – Mirror Online
https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/breaking-mcdonalds-reopens-700-stores-22395428
Well, according to the Telegraph, they’ll have to shut them tomorrow. So which story is true?
Why ?
I guess maybe that is good news, but not really for those who are serious about building up their own immune via healthy eating, lifestyle, etc.
So they caught it in hospital. Who knew? An exercise in creative accounting if ever there was one
Who’s clapping now?
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/hospital-coronavirus-infections-deaths-transmission-18642170?utm_source=linkCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar
I’m sorry, but two tin cans connected by a piece of string actually works, as opposed to this tracking system.
And no government will ever be able to say they can prove whether their T&T system works or not, because they are created to preserve the users’ privacy by not to creating a centralised record! Although they’ll be able to claim what they like, you will always be able to say ‘how can you possibly tell?’.
Germany’s Robert Koch Institute says they can’t at present, and ‘Switzerland has the same issue’.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/technology-53485569
I run my family’s small convenience store in the North West. We have no intention of enforcing this ridiculous Mandatory Muzzle Law when it drops tomorrow. I recently tweeted a picture of a poster that I’ve put at the entrance to our store, and the support for our policy has so far been excellent!
https://twitter.com/Scottty87/status/1285674463820906497?s=19
I encourage all small business owners to unite against this fascistic government and their liberty-sapping edicts, simply say NO to the forced muzzling of our valued customers!
I`d like to visit a sane shop. Where can we find you?
I would love to visit your shop!
I’d be there in a shot if I wasn’t in the South West 😪 well done for the sensible approach 👍
My local shop has the front page of the Daily Mirror pinned up. We won’t shop you.
Brilliant and well done you. I hope it earns you lots of well deserved additional business. Shame more businesses in the SE don’t take this approach.
I have a similar nearby store that I visit most days, can’t see them taking any notice.
My local shop has been completely laid back and sane throughout the last 4 months. I’m hoping they’ll be the same from tomorrow.
Unfortunately, though the shop is a veritable Aladdin’s cave (they sell everything from cauliflowers to electric fuses), they don’t sell much that I would buy, other than their bacon, eggs and an uninspiring non-organic wine selection.
Still, if they remain sane, I’ll do my best to support them, even if I have to live on bacon, eggs and Yellowtail Malbec for the next few months!
Three big cheers for you!I hope you make a mint!
It is time for a 21st Century Peasant Revolt.
Maybe a pitchfork would be a good symbol for this revolt. Like, pitch the masks, and the bastards, overboard!
Everyone kmows what a pitchfork means.
A fist holding a pitchfork. Running a mask through with its tines.
I think that would look quite lovely!
Draw it up, post it here and distribute it.
Scotty, that’s awesome.
Pity about the accompanying comments though!
Good for you!!
Well done and all the best for tomorrow!
http://laworfiction.com/2020/07/face-covering-for-6-to-12-months-from-24th-july/
Thank you all for the kind comments. We’re based in Liverpool, I do hope those further afield will all find sensible small businesses to support during this period of abject madness!
I received back the FOI request from the DHSC about the medical advice prior to the serious and imminent threat declaration being issued. My original FOI request was to the Government’s legal department and they said this would be too expensive to find so refused the request. Attached the reply from the DHSC and it is very interesting. The main bit of the reply is a link to this page on the gov.uk website: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/statement-from-the-four-uk-chief-medical-officers-on-novel-coronavirus Apaprently the information has been in the public domain since 30th January 2020 – I’ve searched the DHSC website a few times prior to submitting the request and could never find this webpage or announcement and it was not linked to on the serious and imminenet threat webpage either. There is nothing on it to suggest any major threat, just the comment: “the 4 UK Chief Medical Officers consider it prudent for our governments to escalate planning and preparation in case of a more widespread outbreak. For that reason, we are advising an increase of the UK risk level from low to moderate. This does not mean we think the risk to individuals in the UK has changed at this stage, but that government should… Read more »
Wayback machine or archive.org may just may help you see if tge page was there or if it changed.
Which part of the legislation is the Enabling Act, the bit that allows them to make it up as they go along ?
Everything is supposed to be under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 with the S.I.s supplementary to this. The first Coronavirus “Act”, which is now revoked, was on February 10th 2020 with the “serious and imminent threat declaration” which kicked the whole thing off after the Government received the “medical advice” I’ve listed above. here is the introductory text: The Health Protection (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020 (revoked)2020 No. 129 PUBLIC HEALTH, ENGLAND Made at 6.50 a.m. on 10th February 2020 Laid before Parliament at 2.30 p.m. on 10th February 2020 Coming into force in accordance with article 1(1) Article 1 (1): Citation, commencement and application 1.—(1) These Regulations may be cited as the Health Protection (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020 and come into force immediately after they are made. As it is a S.I. no Parliamentary oversight or debate required. I read last week that custom says that Parliament should get 2 weeks to review and discuss but this is not a legal requirement and is not written down anywhere it can be done away with without any consequences. This first “act” has now been revoked an all the others and following amendments starting about March 26th are the supplementary legislation. The… Read more »
Thank you, I understand that is why The US avoid the word ‘Quarantine’ as that would similarly involve hoops and Compensation.
Is it just a coincidence that the Govt. has passed even more powers to Local Authorities just as they go on their extended holidays or are they trying to shift the blame ?
And then in March
Status of COVID-19
As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious disease (HCID) in the UK.
The 4 nations public health HCID group made an interim recommendation in January 2020 to classify COVID-19 as an HCID. This was based on consideration of the UK HCID criteria about the virus and the disease with information available during the early stages of the outbreak. Now that more is known about COVID-19, the public health bodies in the UK have reviewed the most up to date information about COVID-19 against the UK HCID criteria. They have determined that several features have now changed; in particular, more information is available about mortality rates (low overall), and there is now greater clinical awareness and a specific and sensitive laboratory test, the availability of which continues to increase.
The Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) is also of the opinion that COVID-19 should no longer be classified as an HCID.
Then they instigated lockdown and now at the end of July mandatory masks.
I thought they downgraded Covid from HCID to avoid legal complications of that status.
“To say the least, it will be riveting to see what developments take place on an empire-collapsing and/or world government level as 2019 ends and 2020 continues heating up as the American Empire is shaken to its core by a gang of saboteurs and infiltrators with fascist tendencies resulting in a further disintegration of democracy and ultimate collapse of the US government if the hollowing out of our traditional institutions is allowed to continue.
And yet as world history shows, old orders must always give way to the new. But what species of ‘new’ will be implemented should be the choice of humanity, and not of those who are determined on the destruction of civilization!”
Originally posted October 12 2019
American institutions certainly seem to be under sustained attack over the past few month. I know it is always written off as being conspiratorial but it really looks like this is the dawn of the New World Order.
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/richieallen/episodes/2020-07-22T11_18_32-07_00
Simon Dolan interview from yesterday. Starts about ten minutes in. Good to hear.
Neil Oliver says, basically: Comedy is currently impotent.
We desperately need irreverence in comedy.
Depressingly true! Thank goodness for Andrew Lawrence.
21 MINUTES IN. LISTENING RIGHT NOW.
Good day yesterday on training course. Everyone a sceptic – delegates and staff – and a few people wanted a badge so pointed them towards e-bay and Two-Six. We even managed to convince a lecturer that the virus was nowhere near as dangerous as she taught and put her mind at rest on why we couldn’t be arsed with the social distancing and a she’s ex-military is going to look into the 77th as she says the British Army should not be at war with their own population. One guy was telling us the stories he had from his girlfriend who works in a care home (they only had 2 deaths “with” the virus then refused to take patients from hospitals) and how GPs would not come out and refused point blank to attend any patient, ambulances were refused by 999 and hospitals refused to take patients no matter what they had wrong with them so the staff had to treat them the best they could. General consensus is it’s all a scam, government policy was to deliberately kill off the old and sick, it’s gone, positive tests mean nothing, sanctimonious wanker mask wearers are going to get a hiding,… Read more »
I really get the feeling that if the bastards dropped all the stupid rules and masks things would instantly look way more normal across the board.
That’s the point!
The care home accounts keep getting sadder by the day
And these people have been paid a pittance to try and mitigate the effects on the vulnerable of deliberate government policy.
Great post. It gave me a vision of masks been a handy way to stop loose teeth from being lost during a scuffle.
Simon Dolan yesterday in the Allen Show radio interview suggested there is a silent majority of reasonable people seeing through the fearing and mandatory measures. I think Simon Dolan is correct. Talking to people we din’t know is a way to raise awareness of our majority.
Or they talk to us. Mablethorpe last weekend and it was busy. Donkeys on the beach, sun shining, positively normal. I said to a shop owner how busy it was and her reaction was..not after Friday. Folk will come to the beach but not into town. The Government & their experts sit in the London Bubble and haven’t a clue what happens in the rest of the country. We only have a four month season at best, probably finished now. The next day got talking to an elderly lady (was admiring her dog) and she told me that she thought the mask thingy that was happening at the weekend was “very silly” now. There are a lot of us out there
Yes, that’s our impression too – we keep talking to people as much as possible. OH and I have been pleasantly surprised by how many people seem to get that it’s a scam. These include even older people living on their own who only get MSM fear-porn day-in, day-out.
In our experience it’s middle-class people on furlough, well-heeled pensioners (some with a legitimate health reason at first but surely not now) and silly woke youngsters being dictated to by social media who are the most zealous to buy-in. Oh and jobsworth little Hitlers of course like Awkward Git’s petrol station sparkler!
By the way, if you’ve ordered a badge from 2-6 etc, while you’re waiting for it, you can tide yourself over with a free downloadable one from bus companies, TfL and Asthma UK plus many more.
This is a must-read from Dr. Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the U of Minnesota. Very high profile institute, and he is universally respected. Below is a link to his podcast from June 3 (transcript), a special podcast on mask wearing. Obviously he prepared this document carefully in advance because, as he acknowledges, there is a lot of peer and political pressure out there to “fit the intelligence to the policy” (my words).
He goes through the history of the mask wearing thing since ca. February. Comes down hard on MASKS4ALL as a misinformation campaign; on the New York Times for disseminating this wrong info; on the CDC for “documenting” their mandates with ropy evidence that does not show what they say it shows; etc.
And states clearly that cloth and surgical masks don’t protect anyone, neither source nor recipient.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/sites/default/files/public/downloads/special_episode_masks_6.2.20_0.pdf
Unfortunately, he has trimmed a bit since then, possibly because of a wrangle with the well-dodgy Masks4All crew:
Again, I want to make it very clear that I support the use of cloth face coverings by the general public. I wear one myself on the limited occasions I’m out in public. In areas where face coverings are mandated, I expect the public to follow the mandate and wear them.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/07/commentary-my-views-cloth-face-coverings-public-preventing-covid-19
I saw this and I think the relevant phrase here is “I expect the public to **follow the mandate** and wear them.” Obviously he has to be careful within the political context. But the logic is quite circular.
Earlier he stated that of course once the CDC issues their guideline, which he stated quite clearly was dodgy, local entities had little choice but to go along with it. He also stated clearly that scientists are coming under pressure, including peer pressure. Why should he be excluded from that? He is caught in the same trap. Now he is basically admitting that he also has to go along with the mandate to avoid trouible—maybe even losing his job.
He walks a fine line.I think the situ is obvious to all who actually follow his posts—he has to recant enough to stay in business. Just as he followed the posts of the CDC, etc. To me this constant posistion changing, when there has been no change in the scientific data and it remains clear, is just more evidence that the mask wearing is part of a political, not a medical, agenda.
Good work AG and allies.
Postcard from Aldeburgh
It was my wife’s birthday yesterday and we went for a day at the coast. Aldeburgh was pretty busy and the first thing we noticed was the massive queue for the fish & chip shop. Luckily we’d bought our own lunch.
There were a few mask wearers about but they were in the minority. Why would you were a mask outdoors on a sunny day?
I wanted some beer from the Adnams shop. I wandered in and was told they were full (only 4 people in there) and should wait outside. Almost thought “sod it” but I waited until some customers had left and then was allowed in. Was told to use the hand sanitiser. I got in trouble for picking up some beers and then changing my mind – had to put them on the floor by the till so they could presumably be quarantined.
Normally I love beer shopping but this didn’t feel enjoyable at all. If I’d had to wear a mask as well it would be unbearable. So I’m not visiting any more shops until all these stupid measures have been removed.
Oh and today I’m suffering a bit from sunburn!
Oh God no, I would’ve walked out.
Theme tune suggestion for tomorrow: Submission by the Sex Pistols
“I’m on a submarine mission with you baby, I can’t get enough of your watery love…”
From Toby’s summary
“Finally, NHS workers with beards have been asked to shave them off because if they don’t their masks won’t work, according to the Nursing Times. Does this mean the Government will soon slap a ban on beards, with police empowered to issue on-the-spot fines? Won’t go down well in Hoxton.”
Seriously – with the number of Sikh and Muslims employees within the NHS who have beards for religious or cultural reasons, this should be interesting. Are they going to make it compulsory? Will there be religious exemptions? Whole can of worms being opened here. Are they seriously going to ask a Sikh or a muslim with a 10inch beard to shave it off? Good luck with that one!!!
Agree. Wait till we get to mandatory vaccines.
Not me, they can take a hike off a tall building.
With no safety net.
Noticed a mask perched on top of one fulsome beard yesterday one of the sughts of 2020. Completely useless – I know clean shaven masks are useless to – this was an extra level.
Also there is a fine, fine thing I notice around town. Asian muslim establishments are not washed of brain. They are free with facial expression and use of oxygen clearly more important than observing silly little politicians diktats. Really something to admire. Perhaps it is illustrative of a divide already present. Its a cultural duversity that is most enjoyable.
just the usual “your rules dont apply to us… ” attitude that the authorities ignore because they dont want to be accused of racism
Perleeese!!
Whiny little Englander stuff isn’t what will counter the stamp of jackboots.
not at all.. there are many examples of people going their own way. I am happy that they are visibly treating these rules with disdain – as i am The main criticism is regarding how the authorities generally deal with differing cultures but if this means these breaches will be overlooked and it makes the rest of the population also ignore them then all the better
TROLL ALERT!
I think its fair to say these rules shouldn’t apply to any of us.
Speaking with three separate shops who I regard as friends the attitude is no dufferent to mine – its effing nuts to wear masks and lockup etc. Not an attitude of superiority. I’m impressed by the unassuming confidence to say bollocks to bad laws. I am sure there will be other muslims with all kinds of attitudes. It is noticable as I say how dispersed muslim businesses are acting as skeptics. I’m not talking a particular area – this is city wide. It’s truly good.
But they do want to be accused of discriminating against the disabled and inciting violence against them?
Yeh right I can see that happening, they’ll be given a special dispensation!
And if they have exemptions saying masks won’t work with beards then what’s the point of anyone else wearing them either?
i doubt they would ask those who have beards on religious/culturaal grounds to remove them – they’ll be exempt i suspect. it’ll probably be like sikhs don’t have to wear a helmet on a bike if have a turban on.
Doesn’t this beg the question, what have they been doing for the last century or so? If you’ve had an op or procedure done by a surgeon or consultant with a beard have they been negligent in their PPE all this time?
Who will be there to record these encounters and tweet them out?
I’ve already leafleted my local shops pointing out that they are under no obligation to enforce the nappy-law (it is the customer’s liability only); and that a customer does not have to give the shopkeeper any explanation, nor provide any evidence for ‘reasonable excuse’, not to wear a face mask (too, you can ‘self-certify’ – so no need to bother our busy doctors if you want to provide medical exemption).
More subversively, I’m considering stickering any Covid-Nazi shop-posters ‘refusing entry without a mask’ with a yellow star – I expect those of us who had family fighting in the 2nd World War will get the point. (You can get these at a stationary store; or make your own from sticky white labels, paint with yellow acrylic).
Add comment
Ok up to yellow star bit – I wouldn’t do that. Maybe instead a ‘Not all disabilities are visible’ sticker.
How about a Swastika
Well that may be in breach of Godwin’s Law?
From wikipedia:
Godwin’s law itself can be abused as a distraction, diversion or even as censorship, fallaciously miscasting an opponent’s argument as hyperbole when the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate.[10] Mike Godwin himself has also criticized the overapplication of Godwin’s law… “I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler to think a bit harder about the Holocaust.”
The yellow star (in this case not with a ‘J’ on it) is a reminder of the Holocaust, how the Nazi’s came to power, and how the German people allowed it – ““The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”― Edmund Burke.
This is what our families fought for – to keep the country free from the evils of a dictatorship.
I am thinking along the lines of a poster with a masked human and the words: “Face Of Fascism 2020”
Perhaps plaster all the mask-Nazi shops with those instead?
I still like the pitchfork idea . . .
My allusion to Godwin’s Law was a somewhat flippant comment! Clearly there are some situations in which the comparison is apt.
Everyone knows that the Nazis were bad, but not everyone realises that they rose largely out of the ashes of a destroyed economy. Which is where we are heading of course. My fear is that Nazi analogies may become far more apt than hey are now.
Perhaps a sticker with ‘Heil’ on it?
Or one with ‘V’ or ‘Victory’ on it? (too subtle, perhaps?)
‘V’ easily done and universally understood.
Hi, TJN:
It’s not about disabilities; it’s about civil liberties.
Many of our families fought against the Nazis so that our country could be free – it would be a betrayal of what they stood for to meekly accept these diktacts from shopkeepers and government.
Hi James,
Yes, I agree entirely with your reply. But it’s my feeling that Star of David analogies are something we should be careful of. What those people went through is beyond compare.
Yes, understand your sensitivities to this, TJN. It takes some thinking through, and I can see that if they don’t then people might misinterpret it, and Jewish people might see it as an insult to their sufferings to adopt this as a protest symbol too lightly.
Has anyone a better idea on how to make this Civil Liberties point without giving offence to those who have suffered?
Yes, I think you’ve captured my thoughts on this – I’m not Jewish but I wonder if some Jews might find the allusion distressing. I feel as if we have a winning hand here, on the muzzles business, and that the next step is to get more people on side, until we reach a critical mass of civil disobedience.
I can also understand why some shops might feel in a bit of a bind, not being able to keep everyone happy (e.g. lots of unmuzzled customers may irritate the muzzles), and therefore they feel the need to tread a fine line.
I should have said, well done for leafleting those shops.
Thanks, TJN. Leafleting the shops might have done the trick. Had a friendly word at both Sainsbury’s and the Co-op locally today about not wearing a mask – said I won’t be wearing a mask and gave no reason why – but both indicated they wouldn’t be bothering customers on this.
Had a similar thing at two independent shops near me this morning. Seemed surprised I even asked. Clearly they don’t give a toss.
Might be a major distraction requiring much too much explaination and a detour into the twilight zone.
I would come up with your own symbol.
Angry pitchfork still available!! People’s revolt against the PTB.
… although this is the way it started.
I suspect some people will just wonder if the shop owners are Jews and miss the point completely – or it could trigger another, unintended, problem.
I made an allusion to my MP that science shows (to the same level as face masks!) that people with big noses spread more droplets than small nose people. Therefore shouldn’t – for the common good – all big nose people be segregated to their own communes.
The only real way to get this reversed is to only shop where face masks are not enforced – and shop online otherwise. If it hits shops hard enough – it will have to be reversed.
LOL. Another excellent idea.
Not powerful enough. The star is a massive statement. It reminds us how brutal and violent totalitarianism is. Your suggestion is fine but it isn’t defiant. It doesn’t say beware: this is just the beginning. The discrimination will grow expansively.
Yes, but the problem isn’t the shops, or even the masks or lockdown. It’s a Parliament that has done sweet FA to prevent, question or even comment on this. I can’t goad my own MP into making any comments on muzzles, in favour or against. He has said and done nothing, just sat on a fence (a very comfortable one, as I understand it, down here in Devon).
Fundamentally, it’s Parliament and MPs who are the problem. The MSM are chaff. Shops are in the cross fire.
And without Parliament we have executive totalitarianism – prats like Hancock making up decrees on the hoof which we are all supposed to adhere to. If anyone needs marking up it’s our MPs.
I think we would have to wear the stars, not stick them on shops where they could be badly misinterpreted.
Heard on the radio that face masks are mandated to pick up a take away. Like that’s going to happen at the local kebab shop
Progress, the customers are now more deadly than the donner. As our host has pointed out you probably wake up next morning with most of the vague symptoms.
I’m surprised people are making face nappies out of t shirts when you can make two out of every old bra. (My husband is the model -not that either of us are wearing muzzles)
im sorry but he looks like a right tit
or left , cant really tell
It is the right!
Comment deleted!!!!!!!
Not it’s a right one!
Ha ha!
Seriously, that is the problem with the new “molded” brassieres.
What happened to the decent M&S cotton models?
Showing my age, I guess. When I lived in jolly old England . . .
Just shown Mr TT. He said he was just thinking this earlier, so we could have either a his and hers or indeed, a shared couple version (the youngsters might want to take note as they are no longer allowed to be in close proximity to each other!)
And perfect solution for Siamese twins . . .
You haven’t read the advice have you?. There is no need to cover your eyes
That’s next week
only if you are looking at the picture
i tried that but my tits are of generous proportions and the cup too large for my face! 🙂 i thought in a dire emergency i could take my bra off and shove it on my face – would get a few looks i imagine (but think i’m past caring what people think of me frankly!)
My son suggested we convert one of these:
https://www.pinkqueen.com/Womens-Minions-Printed-Top-Side-Tie-Bottom-Bikini-Set-Yellow-g76640?currency=GBP&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIlKD24tzj6gIVj7d3Ch2RbwmOEAQYASABEgIlcfD_BwE
Warning – it’s quite an eyeful.
love it – get one of those bras and stick on my snout – would be highly amusing! i think the trick is to wear something that kindof meets the requirements but is so blazenly anti or provocative just to wind people up! 🙂
Professor Carl Heneghan’s Spectator article linked in ‘Round-up’ is excellent, thanks. ‘Even in a purely hypothetical situation that the virus is not circulating, a test specificity of 99.9 per cent would be associated with an expected number of positive tests that is approximately equal to what we observed over the entire study period.’ (ONS)
Re masks, just watched this excellent unherd interview with Carl H and another Oxford scientist calmly presenting why there’s no evidence that masks outside a clinical setting are effective. But most notable is what they say about the inability to test this theory now – as the cases of Co Vid in population are so low, would have to test many, many thousands. So, Why are we still calling this a killer virus? As we all know, there’s no doubt now the crisis is of our own making and a lie. The Emperor has been naked for a while – and he’s still starkers. Just don’t understand why others cannot see it and most importantly, why MSM isn’t reporting it.
https://twitter.com/bristolbeing/status/1286181014772080642?s=12
excerpt from email from local council (on the mail list due to previous bins issue) From this Friday (24 July), you must follow the government’s guidelines and wear a face covering in shops, supermarkets, public transport and hospitals. Additionally, we are making it mandatory for everyone visiting Libraries to wear a face covering. This is for your safety and that of our staff. A face covering may protect others and helps to reduce the spread of coronavirus. Libraries are open but with reduced opening hours. Here’s a reminder of what you need to know when visiting: 😷 Wear a face covering 👐 Use the hand sanitiser unit at the entrance to each library ↔️ Follow the directional signage for social distancing 📚 Only return, browse & borrow books 🕑 Keep your visit to around 15 min, to ensure everyone has a chance to access the service ❌ The use of public computers, printing, photocopying and all Council First Point services will NOT be available Reminder – wear face masks in shops and supermarkets from FridayFrom Friday 24 July, it will be mandatory to wear a face covering when: in supermarkets and shops using public transport visiting a hospital Remember to wash or sanitise your hands when putting on,… Read more »
Ignore the effin’ lot.
I’ve already had a row with our library and won’t be using it ever again. Besides if you cannot browse what is the bloody point!
Keep your visit to around 15 min, to ensure everyone has a chance to access the service
Like people are going to be queuing up in droves!
I think people will just boycott their libraries as well and just buy books off Amazon.
If people are putting paper masks in their recycling bin, it means the entire lorry-load will have to go to landfill.
This is the sort of public service info that could usefully be broadcast!
The half wit is going to Scotland today. Lets hope he fecking stays there
Is it a ruse? Is he going to fly from Prestwick to a country with no extradition agreement with the UK?
Which one?