deegee

Happy days for Leitch, Linda Bauld and co. They are getting their moment again the limelight and more opportunities to basically talk on behalf of the Scottish government. These de facto spokespersons get another bite of the juicy COVID cherry and I’ve noticed how quick they have all been to shove their faces ain’t front of the media and open their gubs. I thought I’d seen and heard the last of that condescending twat Leitch but sadly not. He’ll be hoping for a call to be on Strictly Come Dancing or I’m a Celebrity, or at the very least a trip to Buckingham Palace for an OBE in January.

It’s strange however that there are still a few restaurants that still want to “track & trace”. I was taken aback a fortnight ago when we were in The Hollybank in Stirling and the waiter wanted details and asked me to mask up to walk literally 10 steps (in an otherwise empty restaurant) to a table. Similarly we were in the Lochend Garden Centre at Muirhead last weekend for a coffee and it was like last winter; demanding names, numbers, hand sanitiser etc. I thought we had ditched all that and I’ll not be going back to these places in a hurry but maybe they actually are following the rules whereas 95% of other places don’t seem to bother?

This has been their tactic since near enough day one of this shit show. It is a damned disgrace as you say and leaves folk scared and it’s a continual sense of “doom and gloom” when all the evidence shows a hugely successful vaccine, an economy in recovery and folk returning to work as well as reconnecting with friends and family. I honestly can’t get my head around this bed wetting in the past fortnight especially. It’s so depressing yet also predictable to see that freaky goon Drakeford as well as Sturgeon feel the need to have to go further, just to be damned different.

I’ve never yet shown any form of vaccine passport in my 1/2 dozen or so matches at Celtic Park, since it was introduced. I just ignore the stewards and walk on. Only once did a girl ask me and I just showed her my (switched off) phone and carried on past. It was noticeable yesterday that even the COVID stewards specifically employed to check passports seem to thankfully have more or less given up. They were just standing looking bore and on their phones or chatting, and I noticed some fans were actually thrusting their phones in the stewards’ faces, showing their vaccine app whilst other fans were just walking on past them. Does anyone know how enforced the passport thing is at nightclubs and other stadiums; Ibrox, Tynecastle, Pittodrie etc?

Seems to be the easy and convenient “catch all” way of deflection and denial these days. Hancock on tv the other morning spend 15 minutes saying he didn’t know anything, in relation to Downing Street parties and we’ve had Sturgeon, Leith & co up here using that tactic to enforce more restrictions (or threat of). My exact sentiments echo virginton above; before opening your mouth and confirming that you are all useless gibbering fools, either say nothing or come back once there is some thought-out strategy and medical/ scientific or economics based evidence.

Why on earth are they (Scotrail) cancelling Santa Express trips when regular services will be busy and running normally? Where the eff is the logic in this? Of course there is no logic; it’s just sheer nonsense and pandering to the vague messages about cancelling parties. Leitch was on the radio today saying folk should still go to concerts though and have meals out. It is the killing fields of Christmas Parties that has the Scottish Government losing their minds. Utter postering nonsense and a total overreach by Sturgeon who is always compelled to open her gub at any opportunity to highlight how caring she is, and we will all be duly grateful as long as you are one of her “fan boys”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59424269 As quick as that, there’s South Africa and a handful other countries bumped on to the “Red List”. As you say, it’s been a while since “VaRiaNtS” were spoken about. Does this hellish merry-go-round ever end?

Isn’t it strange how places vary?…I was at the McDonalds at Newbridge Roundabout this afternoon, waiting to pick up my daughter from the airport. I walked in, no mask as were a few others and no issue at all. Place was packed and it looked weird with some folk masked standing or seating a few centimetres from others. No sense at all to the rules.

I popped into the local (popular) bar/ restaurant a couple minutes walk from my house tonight, for a pint before dinner. It staggered me to see hand wash on every table and most of the folk arriving were obsessively rubbing their hands in gel the second they entered the premises. Instructions on hand washing everywhere in the toilets and staff taking to each other with masks on..it was nothing more than a pantomime of fear but it worries me how terrified folk actually are! It frankly boils down to and doesn’t help that Nicola’s cult followers will obsessively follow her lead (and I include my other half in this).

I think in fairness masks are still required in English airports but I really don’t know if that’s enforced by law. I was in Heathrow last month and I didn’t wear a mask after security. There was probably 20- 25% non wearers but bear in mind the number of international travellers. A fortnight ago in Birmingham airport, I would say there was more likely 50-50 compliance, which went to about 25% once folk hit shops and restaurants area. When I was in Birmingham three weeks ago, I took the train in the evening to Leicester (to visit daughter who is at college there) and masks were basically 5% worn. In Leicester, we went for a meal and game of bowling. I went for a beer before heading back to Brum and I’d say there was virtually zero masks anywhere I was from 5pm until getting back to Brum at 11ish. Compare this to Stirling today and it was 95% masked up scared folk. I have ditched the mask now for a few weeks but that’s my personal choice.

I’m down till Thursday afternoon and have meetings in Essex as well as most probably visiting new customer sites to the west of London. No chance I’d do that for 3 days on the Tube tbh. Plus as a perk of being on AVIS loyalty scheme, the keys are literally waiting for me at their kiosk at the car park directly next to T5. I’d be in the car and on the road within minutes compared to getting a train.

Going even by the last few pages on this thread, which has been a generally interesting read this past 20 months, it’s clear folk are getting to the end of their tether, there’s lots of bickering with little actual benefit to the thread content and it’s probably a good thing we’re losing our heads over graphs and masks, rather than huge numbers of deaths. If we could take a step back, we’d realise surely this has become a political shit- show and hobby horse across many many nations since Spring 21, due mainly to the vaccines being a fantastic success but frankly politicians of all colours have seized their moment and want to keep up their opportunity to impose punitive controls. Surely if figures stay as they are and if winter seasonal flus overtake COVID as being a pest for the population, then we can hope the NHS gets back to normal and folk can get back to absolute normal; not some masked- up or passport- regulated normal. Surely that’s all what everyone wants?

Fair enough question mate. I just don’t ever get the Tube from the airport tbh and always get a car at T5 from Avis. From what I hear, there’s a similar clash to Scotland where the mayor, Sadiq Khan will do the opposite to the Tory Government which leads in turn to folk being polarised on things like mask wearing on the tube. The times in the past few months I’ve been in London, I genuinely drop the mask as I leave the terminal and won’t have it on till I’m heading home. Last time I on the Docklands Light Railway or on the Tube, it was very mixed compliance with masks. As I said previously, I’m told masks are basically patched come the evening passengers.

Won’t be on the Tube. I’ve a hire car and staying in Chiswick. From what I’m told by colleagues in London, mask wearing is patchy on the tube too, depending naturally on time of day etc. Folk can wear masks from now till the end of time, for all I care. It’s just the fact that a piece of usually ill- fitted, non medical grade manky cloth rag seriously impacts on folks’ perception of risk and safety. Out of interest, why do you think I’d be on the Piccadilly Line anyway and what were you expecting me to answer?

If folk think there are only fine marginal differences between Scotland and England, in relation to current attitudes, then I disagree. I travel between the nations and Ireland with work and there is rarely a mask and definitely folk acting less fearful in England. You get certain independent run shops (in smaller market towns or posh parts of London) who have virtue- signalling signs about keeping safe, wear masks etc but tbh in most places folk seem to have gone back to getting on with life. I stopped at Carlisle last week on way home for a few cases of cheap beer at ASDA just off the M6 and there were probably 60-40 wearing masks but anywhere further south, you’ll struggle to see one. I’m in London next week and won’t expect to wear one the minute I leave Heathrow. Talking to a few Irish folk last week, they say they are suffering, like Scotland with a political “game” where the parties are trying to “care more” with punitive and economically crippling rules. In Stirling today, there’s folk acting weird if you stand a metre from them, some youngish guy was obsessively washing his hands with the hand gel at the till in the Fat Face shop like his life depended on it. In Marks & Sparks there were folk literally jumping out my way as I walked through the store; it’s bizarre and as I said months ago, there’s far more long term risk to some folks’ mental health with this climate of absolute fear and terror about a virus which is well under control.

What grinds my gears is the (mainly) general acceptance of these bizarre tweaks to restrictions. Totally based on zero medical or scientific evidence as far as I can make out, yet elected politicians, who you would think have some degree of intelligence if not self- awareness, instruct with a straight face that stuff like “vertical drinking” and the Dutch now exempting “sex workers” from wearing masks. In Ireland they’ve put a restriction on “crowd surfing in nightclubs”. You have the Spanish in summer enforcing masks on beaches unless swimming.....it’s all a pantomime of lunatics. We may as well have not bothered with the rush to create vaccines and simply closed down the world until a flu- like virus disappeared. At least sex workers in Amsterdam and politicians in Kelvingrove, Glasgow appear to be safe and immune so I’m sure it’s not all bad news.

It’s the good old “Theatre of Masks”. In this current scene on stage, her role is no greater than being the regional head councillor and she’s dancing to the main tune playing on stage; that of major world leaders giving not one crusty shite about masks or social distance (since presumably they are immune to a virus due to status?). Give her a fortnight when the stage clears are she’ll reclaim her position in front of an adoring lapdog audience and meek journalists; we’ll be back up to our necks in gloomy predictions for winter and how she’ll make no apologies for keeping us safe etc.

Do you think so mate? The levels of mask compliance is still very high from what I see (even if I have basically ditched wearing mine). Even more so, a load of folk still act terrified if you walk within 2metres of them in the shops. Hard rules like restrictions on folks meeting as well as travel restrictions haven’t a hope in being implemented but I think the bigger challenge is unpicking folks’ fears and the absurd compliance to bonkers’ rules.

I haven’t been in the North since my and the other half had a staycation on the North Coast in August. There wasn’t supposed to be standing at the bar from memory. In the South, they’ve been all over the place with rules. “Wet bars” were closed a lot longer than in Scotland, however hotels could serve alcohol to residents far earlier in the year but not to locals. This lead to many workmen simply booking hotels whenever/ wherever they were working, which in turn lead to more cases of the virus been exported throughout the country! I was just reading here today that kids need to prebook tickets for nightclubs, have to wear masks and stand 1metre apart in queue at the bar etc. Basically, as was said last night by the bar manager where I was, it’s all political and not a shred of medical- based rules.

The 56-year-old revealed earlier that she was part of a brand new project titled Christmas in the Caribbean, a festive romantic comedy, and filming is set to begin very soon. The brunette bombshell shared a screenshot of an article from Variety announcing the exciting new project on her Instagram Stories on Saturday, which states that principal photography for the movie "will commence this week in the islands of St Kitts and Nevis."

I’m in Ireland with work this week and at my usual spot (Trim, Co. Meath). Lovely little town and 40 mins max from my main customer in Dublin. I popped out for a Guinness and they are still track & tracing at the bar, need vaccine passport and no standing at the bar. They’ve got the plastic shields up at bar which at least allows them to stick 2-3 tables and chairs, to get a few more folk in the place. I’m quite surprised as I thought they had moved forward from their more severe and crippling (to business) lockdown measures.

“The businessman from Glasgow says his "blood boiled" after he and his wife witnessed three players and one member of Hibs staff failing to follow the rules on mask wearing” what a weirdo! And to then feel the need to call the Daily Record to let them know his blood was boiling at a few (presumably young and healthy) sportsmen who were in a squad, together, weren’t wearing a mask.

I see the politicians and advisors have been poppied- up these past few days. Also as expected everyone connected to Rangers had poppies on this week, noticeable when players, management and directors were out laying wreaths to Walter Smith. It seems the “poppy of choice” this year is the enamel “half & half” with Rangers crest (and presumably are available for most English clubs too) and Sturgeon seemed to have a Scottish crest on her enamel poppy.

I too am fascinated by WW2 and have been to Arnhem, Bastogne and hope to visit Normandy soon. What I found on a visit to Krakow was how sectarian many parts of the Nazi armies were, due to large divisions of recruited East Europeans. At the Jewish Museum, most references of atrocities seemed to have been carried out by Ukrainian, Hungarian and Yugoslav Nazi armies. Much like the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, you don’t need to scratch too deep to open up racial and ethnic tensions. Back to the Germans, I found Berlin fascinating but like all of Europe, the wars, revolutions, invasions etc stretch back far before 1939 and WW2 was probably the ultimate conclusion of many divisions in one sense, although the years that followed set the tone for the next 45 years of the Cold War. There is a stark crossover; an embedded USAAF unexplored bomb next to church that had sat at the Berlin Wall and literally between Russian and Allied Sectors in the Cold War. https://apnews.com/article/a99971608b74ab109320434f7871138a The Soviets blew up the church as a gesture and for no other reason to show the Allies that could and would, using security measures as an excuse for 1980s destruction.. It is rebuilt now and is at the only remaining part of the Berlin Wall and illustrates the last century perfectly. I suspect the Germans will be more comfortable reflecting and discussing WW2 and the Nazis more now as there are several generations and 75+ years lapsed, therefore shoulder less the burden of guilt. Much like in our own little local “Troubles”, communities in Northern Ireland and especially the young folk look back on the 1970s and following 30 years as another time and many of the key people are now dead or on their last legs on all sides.

Maybe with a slice of marzi-panzer cake too?