Scrutable

Martin Y wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 3:07 pm

TopBadger wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 2:09 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 1:51 pm Yep, mostly seems to be boomers ignoring the restrictions here too.

Oh well - them croaking early is one way to pass wealth down to the younger generation and free up housing stock - so it's not all bad.

That crossed my mind too. Since just about the only way anyone can get a house in this country is to inherit one, an epidemic which targets the elderly might flood the market with houses and solve the housing crisis in a year.

I've just been reading Piketty "Capital in the 21st Century". His basic conclusion appears to be that so far, the only things that have stopped the onward march of increasing wealth inequality (both capital and income wise) has been shocks such as the great depression and world wars. (Hence his favouring an internationally co-ordinated wealth tax as the answer.) But, Covid-19 could provide such a shock. He does point out that such shocks are blunt instruments with which to achieve the goal of wealth equalisation. His historical data doesn't go back as far as the Black Death, but I recall historians thinking that was key in freeing labour from restrictive contracts and enabling competition in the labour market. For those labourers who survived.

BOE dropping interest rates again to 0.1%. Surely that can't make any difference at this point?

Received an email from the bairn's school regarding the school closing tomorrow, so loads of notice.

Basic points are the school are going to post online various resources and activities to try and keep the kids' hand in in regards to English and Maths; all other aspects of the curriculum are to to be covered by watching Horrible Histories and Blue Planet(!).

In regards to "key workers", the school acknowledges that that is a thing but states they've yet to receive any guidance at all from the Government of who constitutes a key worker. So that's obviously going to work grand.

JQH wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 3:10 pm

Vertigowooyay wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 1:33 pm

JQH wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 1:04 pm AAAAAGH!

Encountered a post on FB claiming placing cut unions around the house will absorb viruses from the air and stop you caching the disease. Her mum did it during the Hong Kong flu epidemic you see so it obviously works.

Reported it as Fake News as there is no Wilfully Endangering Public Health option.

I’m going to wait for Len McCluskey to either confirm or deny.

D'oh! Onions not unions!

Shhh. Don’t ruin a wonderful, if accidental, mental image.

Little waster wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 3:47 pm Received an email from the bairn's school regarding the school closing tomorrow, so loads of notice.

Basic points are the school are going to post online various resources and activities to try and keep the kids' hand in in regards to English and Maths; all other aspects of the curriculum are to to be covered by watching Horrible Histories and Blue Planet(!).

In regards to "key workers", the school acknowledges that that is a thing but states they've yet to receive any guidance at all from the Government of who constitutes a key worker. So that's obviously going to work grand.

I was thinking about how everyone having to teach their kids at home for at least a term is going to massively exacerbate inequality. We are self isolating, no resources from school yet and miniocrity has been pestering for more learning time. She's keen, I'm willing and fairly informed and she has a primary school grandma to provide extra help. Lots of kids at her school aren't so fortunate.

Took the dog to the vets yesterday to have some teeth removed. Live in London with no car so had to get the bus. People were deliberately coming to sit with me so they could talk to the dog.

Even in this tremendously privileged, double university parentally educated, middle class house, Kid A (year 12, level 9 maths at gcse) has been in tears about having to teach herself a level maths. The school have been brilliant, esp for her year. She is probably catastrophising just a little bit (no idea where she gets it from) but it’s still not nice.
It’s going to be considerably less nice for those who don’t have our advantages.

Also today in people not getting it, we were due to see some old friends and their families at an outdoor amusement thing this weekend, the friends seem slightly surprised that we don’t want to go. And that’s before we get on to the parental chat where one parent is offering outdoor exercise meet ups. As long as everyone stays 2m apart. MrJ&J and I are feeling very “Is it me?” Perhaps we should take up shpalman’s offer of photos of the army moving bodies.

Vertigowooyay wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 4:04 pm

JQH wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 3:10 pm

Vertigowooyay wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 1:33 pmI’m going to wait for Len McCluskey to either confirm or deny.

D'oh! Onions not unions!

Shhh. Don’t ruin a wonderful, if accidental, mental image.

When I was learning French at school, it took me quite a long time to understand that a trait d'union (hyphen) was not one of those nasty organisations that my Tory-leaning Dad used to complain about. (This was in the 1970s, when a lot of people in the UK could name as many trade union leaders as cabinet ministers.)

sTeamTraen wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 4:55 pm

Vertigowooyay wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 4:04 pm

JQH wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 3:10 pmD'oh! Onions not unions!

Shhh. Don’t ruin a wonderful, if accidental, mental image.

When I was learning French at school, it took me quite a long time to understand that a trait d'union (hyphen) was not one of those nasty organisations that my Tory-leaning Dad used to complain about. (This was in the 1970s, when a lot of people in the UK could name as many trade union leaders as cabinet ministers.)

My grandfather was a birthing officer at Southampton docks during the dockers' strikes, and my mum grew up thinking they were terrible and passed that instinct onto me. I've since reappraised them and interestingly so has she, after a decade of Tory rule.

Bird on a Fire wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 5:00 pm

sTeamTraen wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 4:55 pm

Vertigowooyay wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 4:04 pmShhh. Don’t ruin a wonderful, if accidental, mental image.

When I was learning French at school, it took me quite a long time to understand that a trait d'union (hyphen) was not one of those nasty organisations that my Tory-leaning Dad used to complain about. (This was in the 1970s, when a lot of people in the UK could name as many trade union leaders as cabinet ministers.)

My grandfather was a birthing officer at Southampton docks during the dockers' strikes, and my mum grew up thinking they were terrible and passed that instinct onto me. I've since reappraised them and interestingly so has she, after a decade of Tory rule.

When my grandfather's house was being cleared, we were impressed to see that his father had been awarded an MBE for "services to the railways".
Less so, when we found it was for his work at Cardiff Docks during the 1926 General Strike.

Bird on a Fire wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 5:00 pm My grandfather was a birthing officer at Southampton docks during the dockers' strikes, and my mum grew up thinking they were terrible and passed that instinct onto me. I've since reappraised them and interestingly so has she, after a decade of Tory rule.

A bit like a midwife, but for dockers?

JellyandJackson wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 4:52 pm Even in this tremendously privileged, double university parentally educated, middle class house, Kid A (year 12, level 9 maths at gcse) has been in tears about having to teach herself a level maths. The school have been brilliant, esp for her year. She is probably catastrophising just a little bit (no idea where she gets it from) but it’s still not nice.
It’s going to be considerably less nice for those who don’t have our advantages.

Largely pointless anecdote:

I changed my mind about what to study at university drastically after my A levels (archaeology -> ecology), and ended up having to teach myself Biology A level in my gap year while working part time and volunteering to get practical experience. It was incredibly daunting and I wasn't convinced I would pull it off, as I hadn't been strong at sciences at school.

But, without working myself too ridiculously hard, I managed to just scrape an A. (And now I'm doing a PhD!)

My advice FWIW would be to focus on the exam part quite heavily, rather than the subject itself. On the exam board website you can (or could) download a point-by-point checklist of everything you need to be able to do, and official textbooks normally follow the same layout. So you can quickly go through and see which bits you're confident on, which bits need more work, and which things you've learned about don't actually appear on the exam, and which you therefore don't need to worry about.

You can also download past papers. Do all of them, and mark them yourself. This teaches you (a) how to find the right answer, but also (b) how to present it. Good exam technique is quite simple to learn, and is an easy way to secure a few more points. They also seem to more-or-less recycle a lot of the same kinds of questions every year, so learn how to do them and the familiarity is a boost in the exam. Extra past papers from previous iterations of the syllabus are normally quite similar, and a good source of practice questions.

Really it was practising past questions and then marking them myself that helped me to 'get into the groove' of solving the exam problems. She's clearly able at the subject (I had to google that Level 9 = A*, bl..dy newfangled grading), so the trick is to become more confident with the exam, and as is generally the case I found that subjecting myself to hundreds of them was the cure for nerves.

Nero wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 5:12 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 5:00 pm My grandfather was a birthing officer at Southampton docks during the dockers' strikes, and my mum grew up thinking they were terrible and passed that instinct onto me. I've since reappraised them and interestingly so has she, after a decade of Tory rule.

A bit like a midwife, but for dockers?

I'd like to blame autocorrect. I'm not on my phone, so muscle memory or something must have autocorrected it.

At least, I don't think babies were delivered by ship in those days. My mum told me they came on stalks.

TopBadger wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 2:09 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 1:51 pm Yep, mostly seems to be boomers ignoring the restrictions here too.

Oh well - them croaking early is one way to pass wealth down to the younger generation and free up housing stock - so it's not all bad.

As mentioned by an op-ed piece in the Telegraph, which I thought was "courageous" or possibly even "brave" in the Yes Minister meaning

I posted a note on a S Wales FB group about the latest edition of Ramblings, which features part of a new waymarked route. The first comment was along the lines of "what is the point of the government giving advice on the virus if people ignore it"

I asked what he meant, and the reply was "they're all close together, and being totally selfish and effectively saying "sod the NHS""

I pointed out that the recording and the photo was taken before the crisis, and asked if he thought they would cut out scenes of the Queen VIc from Eastenders.
He had the grace to remove his original comment.

OneOffDave wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 1:58 pm

Rich H wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 1:19 pm

jimbob wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 12:53 pm A colleague's girlfriend has all the symptoms - luckily they're both in their 20s.

But of course she's not been tested, so doesn't count towards the statistics.

Same for my daughter and her house mates. All four have got symptoms and have been told to stay put by 111. Of course they won't be counted.

Testing isn't the only way case data is gathered. For example we don't test everyone for flu but have really good surveillance methodology

see Weekly flu reports

That's fine for estimating the rate and the statistics. It's less good if one decides to emulate South Korea with its massive preemptive testing and quarantine regime, which seems to have actually contained their epidemic.

Little waster wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 3:47 pm Received an email from the bairn's school regarding the school closing tomorrow, so loads of notice.

I just got a similar text alert from our kids' school, which the youngest left almost 2 years ago and her brother 2 years before that.

Now does not seem the time to bother them about their contact list housekeeping.

Bird on a Fire wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 5:15 pm

JellyandJackson wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 4:52 pm Worrying about eldest child’s A level maths

Lots of helpful and encouraging stuff

Thank you BoaF. Really helpful.

Boomers I've spoken to are invoking what they see as the blitz spirit. If the bomb's got your name on it, there ain't much you can do about it.
I point out that they are also the bomb, as diplomatically as possible.

In other news, can someone explain to me why we are being advised not to visit places which aren't being advised to shut?

Should I go to the pub? Advice says "no".
Should the pub close? Advice says "no".
What's the thinking here?
Am I misunderstanding the advice?
No one is questioning Boris about this in press conferences, so I think I must be.

Boris Johnson simply isn't a clear speaker. He's never tried to be. He's all about jokes and pretend bumbling and hiding behind a bit of Latin.

And he doesn't like detail.

But opinion polls - meaningless though they probably are - seem to show strong approval for him and the govt. I've spoken to people who are pleased with his response. I don't know why my opinions are so disconnected from theirs.

badger wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 6:43 pm Boomers I've spoken to are invoking what they see as the blitz spirit. If the bomb's got your name on it, there ain't much you can do about it.
I point out that they are also the bomb, as diplomatically as possible.

In other news, can someone explain to me why we are being advised not to visit places which aren't being advised to shut?

Should I go to the pub? Advice says "no".
Should the pub close? Advice says "no".
What's the thinking here?
Am I misunderstanding the advice?
No one is questioning Boris about this in press conferences, so I think I must be.

Spoke to someone yesty who had taken their car for an M.O.T. and whilst they were waiting, headed out across a few fields
to a pub he knew in the area for a spot of lunch. When he got there, he was the only one there, had the whole place to himself.
Speculation: So I conclude that Yes, you can go to the pub; but only if there are not any/many other people there: one per table, no cribbage, no bar billiards.

Las Vegas:
Airport tower closes because of infection

The controller was found to have the virus Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement on Thursday. As of 9:08 a.m., airlines had canceled 463 flights to and from the airport, or more than 35%, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware.

Key worker policy almost but not quite settled

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... key-worker

So Wednesday was both parents, Thursday was one parent, actual key worker list hasn’t been finalised and only a “skeleton network” of schools to remain open (details TBC) so presumably rather than having say 10 kids in every primary school we’ll have 50 kids pooled into a fifth of primary schools (with teachers who don’t know them) surely defeating the whole point of the policy.

f.cking shower ...

lpm wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 8:03 pm Boris Johnson simply isn't a clear speaker. He's never tried to be. He's all about jokes and pretend bumbling and hiding behind a bit of Latin.

And he doesn't like detail.

But opinion polls - meaningless though they probably are - seem to show strong approval for him and the govt. I've spoken to people who are pleased with his response. I don't know why my opinions are so disconnected from theirs.

Because you make an effort to be rational, think clearly and critically, and don't assume that what politicians say is anywhere near the truth.

Critical thinking really ought to be part of the core curriculum.

There’s been a hell of a lot of intemperate, scattergun badmouthing of anything that anyone connected with government is doing in relation to the crisis, coming from the Remain/previously-sensible-centre-left on twitter and facebook - lots of it from people who really should know better than to slate the chief medical officer for not acting as dramatically as (insert other country) (ignoring the other countries that are also not doing the dramatic thing), and I guess that leads to a bit of a backlash that ‘people shouldn’t play politics with’ the current events.


Plus, you know, who else is anyone going to vote for right now?