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

xp

not passed that awful place since the opening night on the 4th, but have been watching the Savile Arms from a distance, that's a small more posher pub by the rectory and quite an historic pub that has remained unchanged since forever as seen in photos of it from the 19th century. No social distancing going on, but it's quite a small place - if there is dozen in there it's full capacity. That will be a Rona zone at some point.

wondering if masks are any good for mitigating hayfever? could be an unexpected benefit of wearing one out and about

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ec4MDbnWkAAeCDO?format=jpg&name=medium

absolutely sickmaking

Not much of a one for boycotts but Spoons are pretty easy to avoid

Second pint well named there.

Also on the economic thing - I think we're in a different position to the US (except maybe New York) but the absolute explosion of the virus in the States is making a lot of British people think twice about going out anywhere, even in parts of the country where it is reasonably safe. That's going to be a big drag on any recovery.

A proper line of attack from Labour could be that the government is dithering and delaying on public safety. Voters seem to hate dithering more than anything else and this particular linen has the virtue of being true.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/14/cultural-rescue-package-artists-institutions-covid-19?

This is on the package for the arts, and another one for the freelancers are fucked file.

the government seem hellbent on turning the uk's left-leaning arts professionals into shelf-stackers tbh

But also note how badly institutions are to be hit, as well as the overall hit from tourism xp

A proper line of attack from Labour could be that the government is dithering and delaying on public safety. Voters seem to hate dithering more than anything else and this particular linen has the virtue of being true.

Good to see the Anvilbot Chrome Extension in use!

Its a bit like how certain unis will be allowed to go to the wall. Play nice and be supported, but idk what the effects on the economy will be. It was all quite stagnant and precarious before covid xxp

a great way to keep costs down in theatre companies and orchestras would be to allow every current salaried employee to slip down the shitter and replace them with cheaper recent graduates

It's not just lol leftie luvvies even, a lot of theatres and performance spaces are heavily involved with amateur or semi-pro community groups that are going to get fucked by this

Like I know that's not what you're joking about bg but I've been quietly seething at this pretence that "the Arts" is some elitist irrelevance instead of the massive cross-class joy it really is for millions of people

Also lol anvil I didn't pick that up first go round

Letting ostensibly revenue-generating, economy-boosting, small-town-saving universities go under due to a temporary cash flow issue would be remarkable, even for this government. Given the profile of the universities likely to go under first, i'm not even sure it makes sense to see it as a culture-war attack on 'academia'. There's a real possibility that they don't think those students are going to be back for years and have decided that propping things up until then isn't going to work.

Yeah I think that's what I mean about theatres, it's not so much culture war as ignorant penny-pinching disdain

Jesus Christ:

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/revealed-uk-home-office-paid-80000-to-a-lobby-group-which-has-funded-conservative-mps/

The Henry Jackson Society (HJS), a London-based neoconservative pressure group, received £83,452.32 from the Home Office in four payments during 2015-17 to produce a report on UK connections to Islamist terrorism.

Ignore the trifling sums of money, getting the HJS to write security reports should be the real scandal.

Seems weird in a post-racist society like the UK

It's not just economy boosting, taking a university out of a medium-sized town or small city would have a massive impact and would kill some of them stone dead.

Like I know that's not what you're joking about bg but I've been quietly seething at this pretence that "the Arts" is some elitist irrelevance instead of the massive cross-class joy it really is for millions of people

no, you're absolutely right, the thought that life could trundle on as normal if live music or theatre or local radio or writing groups or art therapy or any one of hundreds of things that falls under the banner of 'the arts' went away and never came back is... insane

UPDATE: France has approved pay rises worth €8bn for health workers, with @EmmanuelMacron praising their role in fighting #coronavirus

The deal was signed with trade unions on Monday after weeks of negotiations, and will see wages rise by €183 a month on average

— Darren McCaffrey (@DarrenEuronews) July 14, 2020

wow!

meanwhile, in the uk, nhs staff are back to paying for their own parking

*clap clap clap*

new reasons keep piling up for potential recruits from overseas to look elsewhere for employment

400 staff are going at the NT.

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/07/the-governments-bailout-wont-save-the-arts

Very good, detailed look at the casualised staff that run the place and will now be 'restructured'

my own fault for probably tuning out a lot of covid new reports but this came as a bit of a shock to me

Hancock said the death rate of sales assistants and cashiers is 75% higher among men and 60% higher among women than in the general population. “As we restore shopping so we must keep our shopkeepers safe,” he said.

have the numbers for other jobs, outside of nhs/carers, which have continued during lockdown been reported somewhere? mechanics, plumbers, retail warehouse workers etc

Yes, security guards was another high risk occupation.

The other thing about Rachel Reeves is she's got a horrible voice, bring back Barry Gardiner!

― The Fields o' Fat Henry (Tom D.), Sunday, 12 July 2020 22:03 (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol @ yr enduring love for gardiner's sexxxy voice

lololol Cummings' "nudge unit" has said the government has no credibility left because of you-know-what and people won't listen to them on masks:
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/government-coronavirus-messaging-no-longer-effective-538820

Me sowing: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!!

Me reaping: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.

— The Golden Sir (@screaminbutcalm) March 12, 2019

are there really grown adults who fear that wearing a mask is an affront to their masculinity or are the media just fucking with me?

Fogs up yer specs.

oh i know that, luckily i'm not short-sighted enough that i can't just leave my glasses off when i'm wearing a mask

i get laziness, i get right wing brain worms, but the macho thing must be made-up for phone-in responses or something

I think the backlash is exclusively from ppl knee deep into the culture war who view masks as part of the idpol 5g Rothschild BLM conspiracy to take away blackface and are distraught at are Boris caving in to that; masculinity is somewhere in the mix there but not a straightforward justification.

This also makes me hope the amount of ppl thinking that is relatively small tho I think plenty of others will go along with it just because of laziness and "hey my mate said".

xposts

There are plenty of people who will just do the opposite of what they're told as a matter of principle. It's not even a macho thing it's more of a master-of-my-own-destiny thing.

I do wonder if bored journos looking to stir up a bit of drama contribute to the dumbassery

No doubt.

It's all bollocks really, the vast majority of people in this country don't want to either catch or spread the rona and just want it over with, they'll wear the masks. They would also, I suspect, quite like to be let into shops in the first place.

I'm sure Toby Young or Brendan O'Neill has done an opinion on it but how many people do these guys represent really?

https://www.itv.com/news/2020-07-15/positive-news-is-coming-on-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-writes-robert-peston

I think Bobby P might be overinflating the balloon a little here but I hope not.

Desmond Swayne is correct, and I won't be spending any money in any shop that has mandatory face masks. If the government think this is going to encourage people to shop they're wrong. It will have the opposite effect. pic.twitter.com/uTUs7IyIxa

— 🇬🇧 Centaur_UK 🇬🇧 (@Centaur_UK) July 14, 2020

Lol, I'm literally waiting for compulsory mask wearing to be in effect before I visit any shop that isn't absolutely necessary. That said I haven't missed any shops or really any aspect of the capitalist dream and maybe I should go live off grid in a yurt in the Andalusian countryside.

Swayne Flu.

https://i.ibb.co/c3FNdVf/Capture3.jpg

christ, is brendan o'neill launching his own range of beanies?

welp!

Apparently washing your glasses in soapy water before putting your mask on stops them fogging up

It's called breath control breath control breath control stylee!

Yeah I mean I haven't been in any kind of shop since the start of April but we have good delivery options here. The few weeks before that the whole process of shopping was physically anxiety inducing and I don't miss it as an experience at all.

The one thing I do miss is the ability or go to someone's house but there's no economic benefit to that so the government is quite happy to let the science to the talking.