love* in the time of plague (and by love* i mean brexit* and other dreary matters of uk politics)

Bloomsbury is very quiet still, 1 in 5 in masks, but the good coffee shops and Master Wei are open for take-away. Never had to queue more than five deep to go into a shop and everyone in Sainsbury’s etc is trying really hard to maintain social distance. I think the queuing and space invasion are both worse in Zone 2 residential areas.

I live right inside the zone1 rim and definitely heading in is preferable than heading out. don't go near the fn canal though jesus

My bit of Peckham is still pretty social distancey, I’d say over half the people I see on the street have masks on. Some stuff has slipped a bit (lads playing basketball etc) but mostly it still has the weird uncomfortable paranoid atmosphere of a few weeks ago.

In Glasgow and I can definitely see more people out and about and a lot more cars on the road. And we've been specifically advised to remain indoors!

weird uncomfortable paranoid atmosphere

To be honest I'm going to miss this when it's gone

Am dangerously accustomed to nice empty London now, yeah.

twitter's culture-war crybullying carousel are currently aiming their racism-calling ray at stewart lee, it is literally breathtaking to see how they do it. at this stage i almost think they believe their own formerly-disingenuous bullshit

Main person I saw tweeting about this is Ben Judah and I don't really feel like I'm more entitled than him to decide what is or isn't anti-semitism.

Name actually read as German, not Jewish to me (my own ethnocentrism at play there obv) but either way "hurhurhur weird name" is a bad look and significantly below Lee's level. 100% not something to get capt-save-a-stew about.

I hate joggers as much as the next person but you are not going to get coronavirus from joggers

https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them

Canal has mostly been OK when I am on it - but I only go early on weekdays. I tend towards the Granary Square--> Primrose Hill walk rather than any part of East London.

Approximately where are you, plax? Sadlers Wells/Finsbury?

I hate joggers as much as the next person but you are not going to get coronavirus from joggers

https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Sunday, 17 May 2020 17:53 (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This describes joggers moving past you quickly, not appearing behind you suddenly and breathing down your neck until you sidestep. This has happened to my multiple times and I see it happening quite frequently. Main reason never to go near canal where this happens under the bridges where it's tight and there's nowhere to go.

I agree Suzy, canal is always way nicer on the west part, but I live just by where it opens out east after angel (to answer your question!)

summary execution for all joggers and drivers imo

In Bow the Roman Road has looked nearly as populated as it was On pre-virus market days. About 1/10 masks. Queue for Poundland can have 10-15 people in it, even more so than Tesco. Went Shoreditch the other day to get some stuff. Didn’t venture out much but on brick lane the queue for the bagel shop went off the street and on to the Bethnal Green road. I know it’s densely populated around here but it does feel like people are treating it like it’s over

I've stopped walking by the local canal because it seems too close to people's homes (though that might feel different for others).

I chose to shop at a biggish Sainsbury's yesterday when all I was really after was bread, wine and The Guardian. I actually think Sainsbury's has been fairly decent - closing off aisles when they're being restocked etc - but it felt horrible. People were too close and ... we're not actually at a different point than a few weeks ago when we all thought we were going to die.

twitter's culture-war crybullying carousel are currently aiming their racism-calling ray

probably have soyface too the virtue signalling beta cucks

Sainsbury's by me has felt way too full all the way through this, reduced from the dawn of the dead numbers pre lockdown now just like a busy suburban supermarket.

probably have soyface too the virtue signalling beta cucks

― no (Left), Sunday, 17 May 2020 18:42 (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah i'm talking about the hard-right disingenuous crybullies, not actual victims here

This describes joggers moving past you quickly, not appearing behind you suddenly and breathing down your neck until you sidestep.

Well it draws a distinction between being in an enclosed room for tens of minutes and outdoor interactions lasting a few seconds.

you know, the ones who insisted until they believed it that jeremy corbyn is a racist

Still as Danielrf said, Lee should be better than that shitty aren't non-english-sounding-names-such-a-jolly-wheeze routine. Even if a load of hypocritical racists are first in line calling him a cunt.

I'm guessing he wouldn't have done this if he knew it was Jewish surname he was taking the piss out of.

There is nothing in Tudgenhat's wikipedia entry about him being Jewish, and nothing in his father's either, also if you read the entry the passage isn't actually mocking his name, not exactly anyway.

not read it tbh. I find his humour pieces in the Observer generally not very funny tbh and I say this as someone who has enjoyed his tv shows.

without reading the details i feel safe saying that nobody should be assumed incapable of dickitude, include Stewart Lee

the MoS hatchet job on Starmer has got to be the most inept right-wing attack job I've ever seen. Less donkey sanctuaries more donkey jackets next time eh lads! His approval ratings have probably just shot up 10 pts with rich nimby pensioners in the tory heartlands who don't want property developers ruining the view from their back garden.

And now, the political party broadcast the Labour Party should be doing.

Our letting agent asked us to make a video of the flat we are basically being forced out of. I wish them the very best of luck. pic.twitter.com/h3fcOw657w

— Sandy Batchelor (@sandybatchelor) May 17, 2020

Excellent work

I AM A FREE

I AM NOT MAN

A NUMBER

on his bedroom wall, very good work!

not all landlords, just about 99.9% are scum of the earth

I love this and so do you don't lie.

Perhaps if World War 2 happened today the questions would include:- pic.twitter.com/XeOOrJPnuX

— Lord Ashcroft (@LordAshcroft) May 17, 2020

But if World War 2 was only happening today what would've been shown instead of 'Allo 'Allo? A Troubles sitcom? Don't make me laugh!

Dad's Republican Army

Only Melts and Donkies

the adventures of Starmy the cheeky brylcreemed spiv

Bombed and abandoned buildings were a treasure trove for looters. After a raid on Dover, one man returned home to find his entire house stripped. Even the carpets and pipes had been taken by opportunistic thieves.

Others even looted while air raids were taking place. At the height of the air raid on Coventry in November 1940 two men were caught ransacking a wine seller's.

"I cannot think of conduct more detestable than that, during the most dreadful air raid which has ever taken place, you should be found looting," the judge told them as he jailed them for six and seven years respectively.

In Kensington, west London, a gardener was caught removing rings from four dead bodies in January 1941 while on one day in November 1940, 20 of the 56 cases at the Old Bailey were looters. Ten of these were auxiliary firemen.

There were also cases of murderers hiding their victims in damaged houses. When the bodies were discovered it was assumed they had been in the house when the bomb hit.

I think I've found the real Blitz Spirit here!

and there's some more over here! (sorry for vile racist content)

The migrants invading Britain off the Kent coast are not genuine refugees, they are economic migrants who have navigated through many safe countries to reach Britain for our welfare system. @pritipatel must not grant a single one asylum!

— Leave.EU (@LeaveEUOfficial) May 17, 2020

which of us is not hearing "Don't Panic" shouted in a Norn Irish accent right now?

some top quality content itt this morning lads

this point abt the UK being a magnet keeps coming up bc it has intuitive appeal & I think the reasons why asylum seekers/refugees often travel through a bunch of other countries but make the extra effort to get to the UK are interesting and there are a few different answers and the decisions are not always beyond question

refugees can get pretty animated on this point ofc bc lots of them naturally feel that there are wrong uns giving them a bad name who they want to differentiate themselves from, and I think it's patronising to put it down purely to internalised prejudice

Not that individuals aren't already held to often nonsensical standards of scrutiny, and ofc nearly all the underlying issues would require international coordination to address which hints at the pure xenophobia behind the brexiters concern on this point

also if you read the entry the passage isn't actually mocking his name, not exactly anyway.

I read it before commenting, like a good user of the world wide web, and I don't really see how it's not mocking his name. In a bemused rather than scornful manner, and obviously it's not the main focus of the article, but it's there.

Googling reveals Tugendhat is indeed a Jewish name, needn't mean the MP is Jewish. At any rate I suppose you could make the case that in Brexit Britain mocking ppl for having continental-sounding surnames isn't much better.

I like Stewart Lee an' all.

This is exceptionalist bullshit and myth-making though. At the height of the last decade's refugee crisis the UK was taking in fewer asylum seekers than Hungary. Even now Germany, France, Sweden and Italy have been taking in more, although Italy's location makes it something of a different case.

Throughout the late 20th and early 21st century the UK probably had a reputation for treating immigrants better than a lot of other European countries, I would imagine that's gone now but as diasporas grow and people move back and forth then a kind of aura builds up, whether that's true or not.

I'm not convinced that welfare really comes into it as a motivating factor especially given the condition of our welfare state compared with other European countries. On balance the notion that refugees and asylum seekers take up a disproportionate amount of the welfare bill is probably on the rise across Europe though.

Most of the people I've talked to in detention centres barely know welfare is a thing! The push-pull is much more between waiting for byzantine bureaucracy to become a legal citizen vs getting into yr mate's group of eight ppl w/ one deliveroo liscense and earning some money.

Everyone who makes it here wants to work. And great news folks apart from anything else we desperately need at least 50,000 more nurses and coppers total.

The differential, or perceived differential, in wages between destination and origin countries is probably more of a factor. Also language, the number of people you know in the country, etc.

my old scouser friend who lives in berlin says signing on das pancrack is much more easier and the german SS is much less punitive and more generous than the ugly and cruel UK benefits system. he said when you are on unemployment over there you get free electricity, but i don't know if he was taking the piss when he said that. I'm sure there are parts of Europe with much worse benefit systems than the UK, but not that many.

yeah the UK still seems to have a pretty good rep amongst a lot of people - the job market, education system, welfare, and the experience ppl have on the street & in society. hungary and italy obviously have geographical reasons for being many people's first ports of call, but afaik not many people stay in hungary, and although italy is fast catching up I think the UK still has more refugees per head (altho still a way down the league table ofc). the UK needs to sort out its system, close the detention centres, offer much more support to asylum seekers and refugees and ultimately take more people, but atm the left/liberals are mostly concerned with general moral argts and the discussion about the practicalities and the underlying structural factors is dominated by/ceded to the right

Friend of mine in detention told me about a mate of his who went to Germany first and quit because "it was too racist". Can't really believe Germany is more racist than the UK generally (it's not a contest, I know), but the UK does have a much larger BAME population so there's probably more of a support system.

yeah I don't know enough about what it's like in these other places but anecdotally sweden and germany seem to have the best rep and italy the worst. asylum seekers are concentrated v unevenly so they're not necessarily having to deal with a lot of mail readers I suppose

English language.

Let's face it, if the US was where Ireland is no-one would come to Britain.