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

our local newsagent is selling masks - might pick up a couple before they become (inevitably) mandated. beat the rush

They are widely available. Last week I bought a pack of 10 for £10 in a local chemist. I thought that was a bit expensive and this turned out to be true. I'd forgotten to mention my purchase to my wife and she independently bought a pack from some other shop for £7.50. At the post office they were selling them individually for £1 each. Standing in the queue I watched as the clerk pulled a mask out from a multi-pack with his bare hands (not that wearing gloves would have been any better since he's constantly handling cash and letters/parcels) and handed it over to the customer. Admittedly, he only touched the strings part of it.

setting aside how well or badly difft govts handled it, there was a genuine conundrum here: clear early announcement of the value of masks everywhere leading to a run on purchase of masks by those with superior resources leading to a shortfall (given inadequacy of reserves at that time) for those that needed them most, most quickly

one of the pleasing things abt the homerton mutual aid whatsapp was the announcment in early weeks of switchover by local textiles artists to the manufacture of masks (for free, with their new-found free time) and asking and discussion of where they were then best sent

Apparently the Czechs getting everyone to use masks (plus earlier lockdown etc.) has been one of the pillars of their successful covid response.

Elsewhere be interesting to see where this goes. There clearly aren't enough migrants to exploit this year

There are some great opportunities to pick fruit in Kent and the government's website is now live.https://t.co/Cq2pVYJICC

— Tom Tugendhat (@TomTugendhat) May 20, 2020

A good thread on how isolation has been out of the conversation, as a thing.

A thread on "track and trace" and how the government are still cutting corners in ways that will cost many lives: Amid arguments about what date the UK's contact tracing will begin, and chatter from the government about its new app, the main story has been missed: 1/

— Crystal moth (@Prolapsarian) May 21, 2020

i don't know what the practical necessities of fruit and veg picking genuinely entail but just from what's been talked about on the news this week the terms and conditions are a fucking affront to a civilized world

I went to university with a guy who had incredibly romantic notions about what fruit picking in Kent was like and literally quit university to do it. He was disabused of those notions pretty quickly and was the only British-born worker there, and absolutely the only person who didn't have to be. He quite and ended up in a poultry processing factory chucking dead, plucked and gutted chickens onto a conveyor belt and from I heard that was a step up.

There are horror stories about what happens to affluent British backpackers when they are required to pick fruit in Australia and the collision of the British workforce with what happens here is going to be pretty nasty. There are gonna be a lot of people who were very anti-immigration being forced into doing jobs that previously only immigrants would have done and they're going to realise quite how shit those jobs are.

There's also a gigantic workforce of 18 year olds who had planned on going to university or at the very least would have been working in pubs, cafes or hospitality that otherwise wouldn't exist. It's going to be like the shittest gap year ever.

and this is while the gov is *trying* to put a positive spin on it. i think we know what happens when nobody's looking

my anecdotal observations from occasional shopping forays into hackney = some ppl are wearing them (maybe a third? a quarter?)

on the the whole older ppl (inc me) and more often black or poc ppl than white.

Constantly bemused by reports from other areas of London that bear absolutely no resemblance to my experience. Maybe where I live is just idiot central? I would say that Asian people are far more likely to be wearing face masks. On the other hand, middle aged Afro-Caribbean women, they just don't give a fuck!

I picked raspberries, tomatoes, stick beans during the summer holidays when I was at school/uni. it's hard work and the pay is shit. picking beans paid a bit better for some reason, it was done by weight but so were raspberries, whereas tomatoes was just an hourly rate, but I expect this depends on the farm.

Nice little disclaimer at the bottom of that Pick for Britain site: "Pick for Britain and AHDB have no responsibility and/or liability whatsoever for any third party’s obligations under the Modern Slavery Act 2015."

the worst farming job I did I think was planting potatoes, fuck that killed my back and I only did it for a few days

But of course:

1. No criminal investigation into Arcuri-Johnson relationship - but interesting findings in the official report nonetheless ....

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) May 21, 2020

Nice little disclaimer at the bottom of that Pick for Britain site

when i saw this Tweeted last night i thought it was some kind of joke that i wasn't quite parsing

So bizarre that there are actually people out there who think Laura K is biased against the government.

i saw that and had to doublecheck he wasn't taking the piss and now i want some people to die

in my Parisian neighborhood, largely African and South Asian, most people are wearing masks. That was true even during the lockdown, when I didn't know where they were getting them! Now they're readily available in pharmacies and, from what I've read, many stores sell them as you enter if you're not already equipped. (I'm still just reporting from what I see outside, as I haven't left yet since the lockdown began.)

I'm probably repeating myself but back in the early 90's there was a minimum wage for agricultural workers of £3.83 ph with some bennies but not much to write home about! It might sound shit but before the '98 minimum wage act there were employers still paying rates like £2.70 -3.20 ph for some absolute shit jobs like packing fucking Trill or cleaning card clothing machinery with oily rags.

Newspaper circulation predictably down:

Newspaper print circulations in April vs in March
Daily Mail: 944,981 (1.13m)
Express: 234,373 (289,393)
Mirror: 363,082 (442,610)
Star: 219,275 (276,453)
i paper: 134,553 (215,640)
Guardian: 106,003 (129,961)
FT: 88,756 (146,373)

(Telegraph, Sun, Times, too scared to publish.)

— Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) May 21, 2020

Slightly surprised that they’re not much lower.

14 million daily twitter users in the UK

hm that's monthly i think actually

battle for labour continues apace https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52742562

At this stage online figures are probably a better guide to a newspaper's influence and readership but the online ad market is in freefall and won't replace more lucrative print ads in any case. I wouldn't be surprised to see at least one paper fold.

The drop in the FT circulation is absolutely gigantic but that's probably down to commuter numbers and they have a subscription model that broadly works.

How has the Guardian only lost 23k? Whoever it is who is still buying the physical paper must be very attached to it.

do those circulation numbers take into account papers supplied free on UK flights? think british airways may have stopped doing the FT actually

Yep, they got the huff about a story related to their financial performance and stopped iirc.

It must be the kakuro and quick crossword in the G2 they are addicted to rather than top notch journalism

i forget where exactly you live tom but i think social practice mask-wise in my area may be somewhat skewed being so close to a large london hospital

Near the Swimmer, mark!

... not the nice houses though >:(

I just went into to town to post some of my wife's family photos and a family tree document to my brother-in-law, mainly just to get him to stop fucking pestering me about it, and pretty much nobody was wearing a mask. I took one with me but figured I'd see what other people were doing so I didn't end up wearing it. there weren't a whole lot of people in town though

The Times, stop giving politicians children column space challenge pic.twitter.com/XRgyas470K

— 'Client Journalism' Expert (@PopulismExpert) May 21, 2020

I'll pick the crops as long as rich brats like Euan Blair and Flora Gill are liquidated and used as fertiliser.

I took one with me but figured I'd see what other people were doing so I didn't end up wearing it.

I'd take a look at what people are doing in countries that don't have a raging, out-of-control pandemic sweeping through them! HK, Taiwan etc. Then do that, which is what I've been doing. Even if only 10% of Brits are like "Boris said we can do what we want now" that's still a lot of people!

Roche antibody test deal confirmed by the government.

there is a fucking ice cream van that is torturing me, it plays an industrially loud Popeye theme song and goes by the trading name of Mr Popeye. Do you likes a bit of the spinach with your rona infected mr whippy gloop? AAAHuuUUH GUhGuhGuhGuh!

xxp I'm probably a bit complacent because nobody has it where I live, and I don't care if I get it, but I don't want to infect other people so I should probably care a bit more

heard an ice cream van last night for the first time in forever, tbh if i'd got cash in the house i'd've gone for one, probly not a Whippy tho

guardian have upped their puzzle game in the saturday edition during lockdown. that said, it's half the thickness it used to be but still the same price (to the point where i'd be better off with the radiotimes probably)

"Gloves certainly seem to be a bad idea, at least for shopping"

put them on before you go inside the shop/supermarket, chuck them into the nearest bin when you leave, as long as you aren't touching your face with them I think they are good imo

The demand for puzzles must be through the roof right now tbf.

and as if by magic here's the ice cream van

Saw an ice-cream van the other day and all I could think of was that League of Gentleman episode where his nose starts bleeding all over the Mr Whippy.

In Scotland the ice cream van is often a front for drug deliveries

it's the same in lots of places but frankly as long as they've got ice cream idgaf

https://www.addtoevent.co.uk/sites/default/files/styles/one_third/public/user/374299/supplier/images/d7a0c911-acce-4c20-9312-2b6aae7603c4.jpeg

Francis Rossi from yer Quo is related to this bunch, dodgy fuckers I believe

The PM has asked the Home Office and the Department for Health and Social Care to remove NHS and care workers from the NHS surcharge as soon as possible.

it's the same in lots of places but frankly as long as they've got heroin idgaf

profiles in courage xp

encouraging this mass fetishisation of an institution they are hellbent on privatising and destroying, as a distraction ploy from their own monumental incompetence is going to cause embarrassing u-turns. Until everyone get's bored with clapping.