The stuck indoors Thread 21 March 2020

So many people want to avoid the Biased BBC . So I thought it might be an idea for users of this site to suggest ‘ good ‘ programmes from other providers as an alternative .

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170 Responses to The stuck indoors Thread 21 March 2020

  1. StewGreen says:

    BBC continues to be loose with language

    this morning “Italy has recorded its highest ever daily death count”
    this afternoon “Spain has recorded its highest ever daily death count”

    doh .. that makes it look like it’s a surprise.
    In the rising phase of the disease deaths grow every day.

       9 likes

  2. BRISSLES says:

    There is one silver lining…… just read that Richard (he who walks out of supermarkets with a trolley load of wine which he ‘forgot’ to pay for), and Judy (she who shakes on air, but that’s due to the menopause, and not a tincture or 6), are stuck in America due to travel restrictions !

    Oh, if only we could read about the Beckhams and Lineker having similar problems.

       14 likes

  3. Emmanuel Goldstein says:

    Many of us on here are getting on a bit.
    We lived through the Hong Kong flu in the ‘60’s which resulted in over 30,000 deaths here.
    We lived through the Asian flu in the ‘50’s which resulted in over 33,000 deaths here.
    We’ve lived through the ‘normal’ flu which averages 17,000 deaths here each year. (Over the last 5 years. I don’t know the figures for before that)

    How does this new flu family virus compare.

    In China they have had 3,200 (+/- some) deaths from a population of over 1.4 billion.
    20 times our population.
    Japan and China are reopening businesses now.

    My (completely an opinion only and with no scientific basis, only formed by looking at how things are happening) take on this is that I’d be surprised if we had over 10,000 deaths, 3 times the number in China.
    I would guess between 3-4,000.
    Add that to maybe 17,000 seasonal flu deaths for this year (although I think the figure for this year is lower)

    A earlier comment on here said a doctor thought most of these people who have died would have died within weeks anyway.
    Maybe apocryphal, maybe true, probably somewhere between.

    Back in the 50’s and 60’s I didn’t even know about the Asian and Hong Kong flu’s. Maybe I heard something on the radio but not the hysteria of today.
    No panic shopping.
    Nothing.

    We didn’t have the internet and all the social media, just the tv, radio and papers who didn’t sensationalise the two flu outbreaks so the panic and shutdowns never came up as any measures to combat the diseases.
    Maybe we were not so easily panicked in those days.
    I just remember nothing much happening.

    I don’t know how serious this is but I don’t think it will be as bad as the Asian and Hong Kong outbreaks.
    There again, what do I know.

       25 likes

    • Up2snuff says:

      Emmanuel, don’t recall either of those events although the titles ‘ring bells’ deep in the memory. Was very small child for the first, the Asian ‘flu’. I do remember hearing news of Munich air disaster, Fangio’s race wins & Jack Brabham’s ‘arrival’, Peter Collins death, etc. on BBC Home Service – funny how some things stick in the memory.

      Another event that provides perspective to Covid-19 is the Great Smog of London in 1952 which was said to have killed up to 12,000 in the capital alone. There were later smogs but at present I cannot get the Interwebby to, pardon the expression, cough up any details of those later in the 1950s. I do remember the 1962 smog and walking to school during it. Think mother wrapped a scarf around my face and remember spitting wool fibres for a minute or two after taking it off.

         13 likes

      • cromwell says:

        The school would have been shut today.Those days your mother wrapped you up well and sent you on your way.

           5 likes

        • Up2snuff says:

          Yes, that’s right, cromwell. For some peculiar reason I can remember the colour of the scarf – orange – and you have helped me remember the name Vestey. (See post further down)

          Probably because Mum made me wear one of those as well!

             2 likes

    • Pat..original says:

      @Emmanuel Goldstein – I had Hong Kong flu in 1969. I was in my twenties. My father was terminally ill in hospital and I think I may have picked it up in there during a visit. I had a raging temperature for two weeks and could not eat anything. No one in my family contacted it and no one at work. I was the only one I knew who had it. As you say no internet or social media then.

         7 likes

  4. Up2snuff says:

    The World This Weekend (TWiT BBC R4 1pm) presented by Jonny Dymond (who was a little more fluent for a change) had him doing a limited CO2 burn (unlike Mark Mardell who travels further) to Queens Hospital in London.

    Three principal interviewees, all Doctors, two men, one woman. All sounded at the top of their game, totally professional and in control. For sure, they shared concerns, said it could be bad, knew the risks but they were proper professionals and were thoughtfully and carefully getting on with their jobs.

    How refreshing and encouraging it was to hear that on BBC R4.

       11 likes

  5. Halifax says:

    Just watching BBC news for 15 minutes not one male presenter. Just give up your agenda BBC and concentrate on informing with those best placed to give advice and comment.
    A disgrace ……

       17 likes

  6. Halifax says:

    Boris grow some you sound like Sergeant Wilson…..would you mind awfully…..tell the idiots in this country to isolate …by law !

       11 likes

  7. Sluff says:

    Back from Coronavirus onto our normal topic- the BBC.
    Celebrity Mastermind. At 1845 a ‘celebrity’ called Louise Pentland laughed her way through 2 minutes of general knowledge questions on the basis that she could not possibly know the answers to any of them, nor in some cases even understand the question. This, I remind you, was Mastermind.

    Her wikipedia – yes, she has one- entry begins as follows
    ‘Louise Alexandra Pentland (born 28 April 1985) is an English motherhood, beauty and lifestyle vlogger, blogger, YouTube personality and author. She is known by her online pseudonym SprinkleofGlitter or “Sprinkle of Chatter”.’

    And this dear readers, is where the BBC has arrived on its ‘inclusivity’ agenda. Thick as pigshit is now an asset to be valued.
    Magnus Magnusson must be spinning in his grave.

       23 likes

  8. Guest Who says:

    No matter what goes down, trust Rog to help.

       3 likes

    • Beltane says:

      Coupled with what Parris contributes all too frequently to the Spectator – to equally frequent criticism – I rather suspect he is in the early stages of senile dementia. He may even be aware of the fact.

         6 likes

      • Sluff says:

        Unfortunately he does have a point.
        The mortality statistics show minimal risk for those under 60, increasing to very high risk for those over 80.
        We are indeed spending hundreds of billions which somehow will have to repaid mainly by younger people- one might call it ‘austerity’ – in order to keep economically unproductive elderly going.for a few more years.
        That’s what we are doing.
        The desireability, ethics and morality of this or any alternative courses of action I leave to others. But let’s call a spade a spade.

           4 likes

        • Beltane says:

          Quite right Sluff, the point is there to be made, it’s just that only Parris is nasty enough to make it public.

             5 likes

        • Up2snuff says:

          Thing is that was not the case, Sluff, with the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the cult like group that helped spread Covid-19 in South Korea. They were populated with mostly young people but many died.

          I’m guessing that a highly mutating virus might mutate to the point where it attacks the young specifically and may possibly have done so, especially within the cramped confines of that church premises. Don’t know about the fatality rates but there it went from a 61 year old, thought to be patient zero, to the youngsters.

             4 likes

        • Banania says:

          The Diamond Princess showed very low risks for all ages, and not very different for different ages, except that older and younger were a bit safer than those in between. The extremely young were the safest. Do read the article; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5NQdmHzBTY

             1 likes

      • cromwell says:

        Parris has to to be the most vile of all of the MSM and quest speakers on the BBC . When he speaks he just spouts hate about anything he disagrees with. A truly horrible individual . He must have gone to the same journalist school as the other hate preacher Polly Toynbee.

           8 likes

      • Fedup2 says:

        He is 70 . I avoid him . He used to do ‘what the papers say ‘ and was quite sharp and entertaining . Then he became the acid creature he is now . He’d get on well with our pet – cut and paste (0300 ) troll …

           5 likes

  9. StewGreen says:

    Strangely the metroliberal #Countryfile is sounding xenophobic now
    ‘Johnny foreigner, don’t trust them
    they don’t have as high farm welfare standards as British
    .. so we shouldn’t be accepting that foreign food
    chlorinated chicken dirty dirty
    .. we are British we are #1’

    … are we in farm standards ?

    ‘Oh that foreign muck is bad for climate change !’

       9 likes

    • StewGreen says:

      Loads of people are tweeting about the anti-Brexit bias today

         9 likes

      • Up2snuff says:

        Stew, is there not a tariff on that Argentinian beef? I seem to recall there was and someone from the British family – name might come to me, got it: Vestey – previously importing Argentinian beef said on the BBC “You could have had that far cheaper from Argentina through us if we hadn’t joined the EEC.”

           4 likes

        • Beltane says:

          The Vestey family fortune, second only to the Royals by 1920, was made during WW1 from second-rate corned beef at very favourable prices, but it was good enough for the rankers.
          Many combined it with another staple, plum and apple jam, to make it edible.

             4 likes

          • Up2snuff says:

            Beltane, that’s right. That and butchering through Dewhursts. Funny that right now, corned beef will currently be in great demand. One of the two brothers bought a title from Lloyd George with their loot. £20,000 was a lot of money in the 1920s.

               5 likes

            • Banania says:

              And they built Castle Drogo in Devon, a very interesting Lutyens house.

                 3 likes

              • Charlie Farley says:

                Oh the upstanding Vestey”s…..one of my family ended up in prison as the ” fall guy ” for some of the underhand dealings in meat on their behalf !

                   3 likes

        • StewGreen says:

          @Up2snuff . yes it’s a NEW deal, reducing certain tariffs on certain beef.

             2 likes

    • StewGreen says:

         6 likes

  10. Nibor says:

    I’m trying a bit of sociology here .

    One ; corner shops , local stores are being depleted less because a lot of the customers are turning up on foot , not in a car and the shops don’t have trolleys ,
    meaning a lot of the regular customers haven’t got the carrying capacity to load up and go with the entire stock .

    Two ; local stores have local people who would be comdemnatory about greed .

    Three ; the panic buying starts in the least cohesive parts of the country – the multicultural areas .
    Why hold back buying up everything for your ” community ” when it means another community will panic buy it for theirs ?

    Four ; the bigger the store , the more impersonal it is , the more likely shoppers would feel less constrained by social niceties and the rat pack their desire to pillage anything going .

       6 likes

    • Fedup2 says:

      Nibor – I think you are onto something there – I’m a great one for handbaskets as opposed to trolleys . Perhaps trolleys need to be removed or rationed …. less of a tendency to fill them up because one can ….. I worry about the first reported hijacking of a supermarket lorry …… if supplies continue to be absorbed by the greedy / panicked….

         5 likes

      • Up2snuff says:

        I agree with Fed and Nibor, although I suspect that a lot of the panic bought stuff was then re-sold in local corner shops. Snuffy needs to be bribed to do a big shop. Discount vouchers, etc.., wonder which supermarket that might be? 😉

        Prefer a cycle trip and only what can be fitted in a 20 or 25 litre backpack.

        Trouble is that some things cannot be found in some stores: Iceland have some great products, especially frozen, at great prices but you can pay much more for not as good at any supermarket within ten miles. Lidl does a nice line in pickled herring in a white sauce (+dill, cucumber, apple options) but you cannot get it anywhere else.

           3 likes