Florentine_Pogen

AFAIK, BoJo has never taken responsibility for anything in his puff and that includes his squadron of b*****ds. The template for Tory PM's 'Walking Away' was perfectly encapsulated by 'Call Me Dave' Cameron when, in a massive bout of hubris, he was f*cked from arsehole to breakfast by his own party and then lobbed a grenade into the room as he ran out the door. Johnson will end up doing something similarly spectacular and destructive to the country. It's only a matter of time.

Serie A latest......... https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/mar/16/italy-considers-splitting-2019-20-serie-a-campaign-over-two-seasons

Guaranteed to get banged senseless by a couple of pensionable-age Spanish lotharios then..........

The Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the major NGOs helping refugees worldwide, has warned that the coronavirus will decimate refugee communities if countries do not act now, Jon Henley reports. Jan Egeland, the organisation’s secretary general, said: "As world leaders brace for the worst within their borders, they must not abandon those living outside them. We must turbocharge our humanity and stand in international solidarity with refugees and displaced people during this time of widespread uncertainty." Egeland,a former senior United Nations official for humanitarian affairs, said millions of conflict-affected people were living in cramped refugee and displacement sites with desperately poor hygiene and sanitation facilities. "When the virus hits overcrowded settlements in places like Iran, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Greece, the consequences will be devastating. We must act now. There will also be carnage when the virus reaches parts of Syria, Yemen and Venezuela where hospitals have been demolished and health systems have collapsed." He called for national contingency planning to include vulnerable communities inside countries’ borders and more flexibility from donors so that humanitarian organisations could scale up water, sanitation and hygiene facilities “and take other necessary actions to help avoid a catastrophe”. Coronavirus “doesn’t discriminate or play politics”, Egeland said. "Neither should the world when it comes to supporting those most at risk of contracting the illness."

All the best JTS. Pretty sure that once your gaffers realise that you've got the virus AND your team are going down, they'll take pity and keep you on.

Have just got through all of the posts since last night so fair enough. There's a fair amount of false information doing the rounds as usual so seeing it shared as 'true or not' is what bothered me. The only public health info I'm currently taking seriously is from the good Doctor Leitch. Fair comment. Campbell, however, appears to be quite authoritative and I don't think he's being called out on his info. TBH, he's giving a better public service than some of the 'politicians'.

C'mon auld yin, at least spell it correctly.

Behavioural scientist discusses govt. COVID strategy................. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/16/social-distancing-coronavirus-stay-home-government

He demands satisfaction, sirrah !!!!!!!

Go back a couple of pages and look at today's YouTube from Dr. John Campbell. He explains all.

Of course, as soon as this COVID-19 crisis passes, the first thing that BoJo will say is that all the money promised during election and budget for infrastructure and 'levelling up' projects has been used to bolster NHS and 'economy' (i.e. Johnson's City pals). Plus ca change..............

Aye it f*ckin' does.

From Grauniad....... Mass gatherings in Scotland could be postponed until the summer due to the coronavirus outbreak, as the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, defended the country’s response to the pandemic. As of today, the Scottish government is issuing advice that mass events should not take place to reduce the impact of the outbreak on frontline services. Sturgeon confirmed at a press briefing on Monday morning that this advice could be in place for several months and she can’t rule out it remaining even longer. The first minister said “significant steps” have been taken to slow the spread of the coronavirus and reduce its impact, amidst growing criticism of the UK response to the outbreak. Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said 700 additional ICU ventilators have been commissioned. In Scotland, authorities will continue to test key workers, including critical frontline NHS staff, to ensure the people who are so essential to managing the disease but also keeping a critical infrastructure going are not self-isolating unnecessarily. Scotland is taking the same approach to the rest of the UK in considering asking elderly people to reduce social contact amid the coronavirus outbreak, the first minister said. Sturgeon would not comment in detail about the stringent approach other countries have taken, but said: “I’m not privy to the advice and decision making in those countries. My responsibility is to follow the scientific advice we’ve been given, to interrogate and scrutinise that advice and to apply judgement to it.” The first minister said that Scotland has already taken “quite significant steps” to tackle the outbreak and possibly prevent a second severe spike. “Asking everyone who has a fever or a cough to stay in their house for seven days is a significant step and behaviour change that we’re asking people to apply.” She added: “That advice of course is about how we slow the spread and reduce the impact, but we do that in a way that perhaps avoids a later perhaps just as severe spike later on.” The Scottish government’s ban on mass gathering does not currently apply to schools, travel, shopping and work. Dr Catherine Calderwood, Scotland’s chief medical officer, described blanket school closures that lasted a few weeks as ineffective. [You need] a minimum of three months in order to really suppress the spread of the virus in these type of institutions. The thought that children won’t mix together for three months is impossible. We therefore risk having children congregate to other areas together, the virus is spread amongst them, so you actually have measures put in which are ineffective in keeping virus from those groups of children. To compare talking about closing the schools for two weeks, it’s very very clear from the science that is not a scientific way to either prevent the spread of the virus nor indeed to protect vulnerable people. Updated at 12.46pm GMT

Latest from John Campbell.....

Oh, absolutely Gaz......in these dark times when we're being led to The Big Burny Fire by Joris Bonson and his ClownCabinet, a little bit of plagiarism never hurt..........Spirit of The Blitz n'that, eh ?

Hmmm.......I think Jean Paul Sartre might have beaten you to that when he wrote "L'enfer, c'est les autres" in his book 'Huis clos, suivi de Les mouches' in 1946.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/15/america-public-health-system-coronavirus-trump

"Hell no, dawg !......"

Don't tell them, Pike.......

Over-70s asked to 'stay at home' should get more family contact, not less, says Scottish health chief Echoing a point made by Grant Shapps in his Today interview this morning (see 9.20am), Prof Jason Leitch, the Scottish government’s national clinical director, told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland today that the government advice to the over-70s, which is due soon, would not include telling them to cut off all contact with others. They should have more family contact, not less, he said. And, even though this has been characterised as people being asked to stay at home, he said that people would not have to stay at home all the time: He explained: We will almost certainly, as a four-country UK, we will move to a position in the next few weeks where we will ask those groups [the over-70s and those with pre-existing conditions] to not stay at home in the social isolation way that we are telling the symptomatic to do so, but to reduce their social contact. It might be mosques, it might be churches, it might be bingo ... and pubs [that people have to avoid]. What we are not suggesting, unlike those with symptoms, is that those people would cut off family contact and not be able to receive visitors. In fact, quite the opposite, we expect family contact to increase in that group so that those people will be looked after. The last thing that we want is four months of loneliness. They are not going to be asked to stay at home, they are going to be asked to reduce social contact and to be careful and to use common sense. There has been a lot of confusion about the ‘stay at home’ advice because in interviews about the proposal yesterday, Matt Hancock, the health secretary, and people interviewing him referred to staying at home as self-isolating. Some people use the phrase in this way, but the term has also been used to apply to a much stricter, no-contact regime meant to be followed by people with coronavirus.

Jason Leitch on Off The Ball. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/scotland/51892264

Actually, it's 'crispy hoisin bat'.........(copyright Throbber)

Kelso races cancelled. Country to follow next week ? https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2020/mar/16/talking-horses-kelso-leads-racings-move-behind-closed-doors?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

He’s turned into a bit of a YouTube star. Was even on Fox News in the US on Saturday. More power to his elbow.