malumbu

Paper in Nature, already discussed elsewhere on this site, gave good evidence that face coverings were good at preventing symptomatic individuals passing it on, ie coughing, sneezing, or prone to spitting when talking as we all do from time to time. Otherwise views as above. Good rational stuff.

Nyger/niger feeder in garden last June, they were spooked funnily enough when I put a second one up as it confused their routine. At that point there were too many for one feeder. They are also very wary and clear off into the tree when humans are near. The tits must be feeding fledglings at the moment as they are much braver on their feeder. I've got a pair and sure they will be back in numbers. Had to buy sackfuls of feed last year as going through it so quickly. Also put a tray under the feeder as they are very messy feeders.

I'm wondering who is doing Boris's hair. Seriously! The bloke on the morning BBC programme with a bouffant is seriously bouffanted now. And If it is Huw Edawards you are talking about I think he has discovered gel Just checked and the earlier chap is Charlie Stayt. But hell has he got good hair for a 58 year old.

I've worked in and around transport policy for a long time, and somewhere before that turned into an activist, not that the 18 year old me ever saw that happening when I passed my driving test. What we have been lacking is some hard interventions, serious nudges/changes to behaviour and joined up thinking across local and national government. Comparisons to smoking are always an interesting one. Evidence of the link to cancer was 60 years ago, we had years of public information campaigns, skull and cross bows on fag packets and slowly smoking came down. Then magic, banned and in 15 years far greater impact. We fluff around about air pollution and vulnerability of children. Yet it makes hardly a jot of difference to how many of us act. It is simple to turn your engine off when the car is stationary. It saves you money let alone cuts the pollution. But what do the masses do? So here is our opportunity. London is ahead of the curve in terms of cycling (ignoring some of the outer boroughs). But there simply isn't enough road space. And some of the cycle schemes have been counterproductive in increasing congestion, slowing down bus journeys and actually leading to a return to the car for some. so you have to make it more painful for the motorist. Not that they then seek an alternative routes, create more congestion hotspots etc. But they they say, is there alternative means of getting from A to B, if I need to. Dare I say it, even share a journey. We are on the verge of a revolution in connectivity. I hope that sooner or later many will choose not to own a vehicle of their own. But again counterproductive if the bus lanes are full of electric car club vehicles. And whilst doing all this there are essential vehicles on the road and for some where there is no alternative. My biggest bugbear is car utility (parked on the street and when used single occupant only) and how crap we are driving. Soft on the accelerator, soft on the brake, and anticipate. Once you have mastered that basic suddenly driving is a pleasure without putting your foot down. I seem to have caught you up at the lights without braking once. Of course when I see family in satellite/dormitory towns part of dual carriageway networks close to or in urban conurbations they think I am a crazy tree hugger.... And not to underestimate how affordable motoring changed the landscape in the 60s and 70s

Disappointed, thought this thread was about theft of Marijuana....

Sadly many of us will only remember the Luton Airport advert. Even more will have not heard of us. But thanks for putting me right, and pleased that Lorraine has stayed an up market name! I also hadn't realised that she was from Deptford and is therefore a local celeb. For those who want to know what I am talking about

You killjoy fleabag Wait a second, there is good name.... (actually three good names, Fleabag, Seabag and Killjoy) As a kid I always liked the name Lorraine. It was dreadfully exotic. I think that Lorraine Chase put pay to that. We also had friends Alexandra and Olivia. They weren't posh but the mum was trying to give that impression. They were the only ones I knew for years.

Dear Rupert I know one of the poor souls that is trying to work out how we try to get things moving, maintaining some sort of revenues for our public transport, stopping everyone getting into their cars with the result impact on carbon emissions, air quality and congestion, whilst building on the benefits we have seen from the increase of active transport. Behind every Grant Shapps or Sadiq Khan their is a hard working public spirited official looking at the options and trying to come to solutions. Its easy to snipe. What are your answers? Gauntlet laid down. If I do have a axe to grind it is cowardice since the 2000 fuel protest to take on motorists and the motoring lobby. Things may have changed due to the exceptional situation. Or perhaps you are one of rrrsss hammering down Brenchley Gardens at 60mph enjoying the lack of traffic, on your unnecessary journey without fear of speed enforcement. Yes, opposing that big brother nonsense that we shouldn't be allowed to drive when we want, where we want, how we want.... Hopefully we will be seeing some of the lessons of the ban on smoking and future generations will ask "did people really smoke in restaurants, did people really drive like twots?" The current and previous Mayors may have done a lot to criticise but have also done things to increase public transport and active travel. Ironically each have benefited from the legacy of the previous one.

I actually found it difficult to come up with the childrens' names, as the nice ones had already been grabbed. Many others reminded me/us of people we disliked at school or a TV character. Zebedee in particularly due to the springy thing in the Magic Roundabout. I can't help but smile when I hear this name now but to a later generation there is not the same influences, of course it is a biblical name and can be abbreviated to Zeb. Sorry Zebedees out there. Dylan was another one and going back to Porridge when Fletcher inquires of another prisoner (with long hair) why he is called Dylan. "After Bob Dylan, man". "I assumed it was the hippy rabbit in the Magic Roundabout". You wouldn't have a second thought now about this name. Back to baby names there were ones that I liked but we could imagine how they could sound when pronounced more in the vernacular. Lovely French names can sound particularly bad. Of course the trick is to have a less exotic middle name. It's a sort of how would they pronounce it in East Enders. My late father was a 'Guy' - he'd hated it as a kid "Guy Fawkes" and of course we hated it when at school people would mock for the same reason. Now it is such a cool name. A bit of a soft target for the poshest name "Sextus". Although that in not in SE22 and goes beyond posh. https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/baby_names/898106-zebedee

I'm still chuckling several hours later. In these days need a good laff. As you put this as a plural is PnB a team effort?

Looking at your early post PnB does Viz magazine still exist and if so does Sainsburys stock it? I have to rely in my vintage editions from the 1980s. Boozing and playing loud music is the sort of thing that you would find in the readers tips pages. Here's some more http://viz.co.uk/category/top-tips/

I made my own fireworks. Totally illegal but I was working in a match laboratory at the time. Long time ago and I did know what I was doing. But unless you have a license don't. And I am actually with many others that firework displays should be a rarity as it upsets your pets.

I found out something today that is amazing. The word gullible isn't in the dictionary.

This is a bit of fun, you can call your baby whatever you want, but... I've just come across 'Otterly', not sure if it was a local parent. What other new/strange/posh names are now trending? I said posh as a Google search came up with this name as number 20 in Mumsnet's top 20 poshest names in 2016 as reported in Marie Claire. Repeat this is a bit of fun. Although I hope Boris never trends.... https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/baby-names-here-are-the-20-poshest-12513

What's all this being told what to do on the bank holiday? All well and good to celebrate/commemorate VE day in our own way and collectively if we wish. I'm old enough to have close relatives on the home and battle front. We defeated fascism and Britain's role in this was massive. But worried that this could be hijacked by BJs soft nationalism and please don't link fighting Covid-19 with the second world war. As I've said before I believe that there should have better knowledge and awareness about WW2, but also how fascism played out in this country and how we came together to fight this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Mosley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Mail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_VIII I believe that it is patriotic not to always do as we are told (OK there are times when this has to be done including coronavirus). Right, rant over. Others?

I'll be out with my net later. Actually understand they are fickle but a few must still be feeding as feed still goes down.

Here's a vid of a shouty man. Hadn't realised it had become viral, spawned a single etc. Prefer our own Dulwich Raider Actually this is excellent - is this DR or someone associated with him/her? Love to know

Everytime I see this thread I get hungry as I think that we are getting a letter from pieminster. Must put my glasses on https://pieminister.co.uk/ They are taking orders on line and also with group delivery are donating profits to the NHS Covid-19 appeal https://pieminister.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Menu.jpg

80% was the figure put around a few weeks ago by politicians a few weeks ago, 4% hospitalization and 1% mortality. Times this by 60 million and you get some very high numbers. Even 10% of this as a result of no lockdown and other measures would be pretty frightening. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-51698000 There is lots of other links with the same numbers but not sure where the original data came from

Because without lockdown 80% of the population could get it, and that would be several hundred thousand dying. That includes 10s of 1000s without underlying health problems or of older age. Remember the pictures of Italy when they went into meltdown.

BFI want a warts and all record whether you are personally involved or not https://www.bfi.org.uk/archive-collections/archive-projects/britain-on-lockdown Here's my wonderful starter for ten https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1092805487768833 Thanks to the Robert Elms show

Yes do provide a witness statement. I saw an accident on Herne Hill Road where a van jumped the lights. I took names, photos, waited for the police and ambulance to arrive and gave evidence. Two others were there to help. Driver stopped; found out subsequently that cyclist was shaken but released from Kings. I unfortunately did not get his number or that of one of the other witnessed to ensure that she was in the loop. I didn't see any need to go on social media but if you were the cyclist involved, end of Jan junction with Red Post Hill, hope you are fine and got your bike sorted. Driver did the right thing by stopping and will get appropriate penalty.

Seebeen, you sound like my late father. "you may know what x + Y equals, but you have no common sense" Although I do take your point - my chemistry degree was based on pre-second world war text books. Thank God for the information revolution which means that undergraduates and researchers can access state of the art info. Hey, even when I was in the lab doing research you could get state of the art information, it just took weeks rather than seconds using libraries and their search facilities, reading scientific journals, communicating with other research groups and getting their information and papers in the post. Information technology has been around a long long time. Anyway I blame Brexit and soft nationalism for tosh like yours. Degrading experts and encouraging the masses not to further their education. I keenly await your response! Tut tut Blah Blah, as a chemist I would not be developing vaccines. I did try to make some novel organic compounds once but cellular or molecular biology was a bit beyond me, but did have an interest in microbiology during my career, funding some work producing monoclonal antibodies. Interesting stuff, and of course chemists can be part of the teams developing vaccines.

I stopped at Germany as this was pretty telling. My point was that some are pointing out that Sweden has an ideal strategy. It doesn't, but I expect that the behaviour of the public and other factors have kept numbers down. Articles in the media were pretty light.

Not arguing strongly against your point but seasonal influenza does claim the lives of many older and/or immunocompromised people each year Public Health England estimates that on average 17,000 people have died from the flu in England annually between 2014/15 and 2018/19. However, the yearly deaths vary widely from a high of 28,330 in 2014/15 to a low of 1,692 in 2018/19. Public Health England does not publish a mortality rate for the flu. I've been through the 'oh its just a cull, let it run its course', before understanding that this is something very different as you and others have clearly pointed out. I've also lost two close members of family to pneumonia so don't take this lightly. Nor am I trying to play God or the grim reaper. We of course don't have a mass vaccination programme against seasonal flu, nor have we needed a lock down in our life times.