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

It's about persuading reluctant shoppers to get back out spending money

Gotta reluctantly go to Aldi shortly on account of I need to eat

they don't have no cultural problems with face masks in Japan where even if you haven't got one on outside you'll get some stares. They are almost double our population and their urban zones are among the most densely populated in the world, they have half our death toll. The UK government can't highlight successful health policies from other countries in their messaging because it just highlights how shit and useless they have been.

shit, 982 deaths in Japan. Is it really that low or am I misreading data here?

yeas that is the UK c-19 death toll 45.79 times worse than Japan's!

(The people who talk about how much they like the office is a thing, but I assume that's younger people who have just started working...I find that one weird but I'm old)

Well I think with the younger crowd the issue is partly one of the space they can afford, but as you say people like the chat, and the socialising for a drink after work (as told to me once when we talked about it, whereas I was for very much only ever going for a face to face meeting when necessary, and from experience you seldom need it with the video tools we have).

I think you could get rid of the big office but also have a social now and then. Obv I'm happy never setting my foot into an office again but I know people want contact.

as you say people like the chat

Just clock in clock out for me thx

It depends entirely on who you work with obviously but sitting at your kitchen table for months on end is dull and it must be a million times worse if you have three other housemates competing for space and bandwidth.

If you're working in a city centre there's also the way the working there makes you feel plugged into that city and what you can do there after work. I miss weekday evening socialising more than proper weekends - not with work people per se, just the ability to wander out of the office and meet a friend who lives on the opposite side of town.

Yeah the issue is one of space, that's as much to do with how fucked rental property is (I wonder if offices become more obsolete that space could be freed up to be converted to spaces people could live in). Like if we had the space would wfh be easier for the people struggling? I'd like to think so.

And if more ppl were living closer to the centre they could also log off and meet ppl after too (that's been the case for me in the last few years).

Anyway the commuting in and out of London is such a fucked up thing and that's where I'm coming from. Might be different in other cities.

convert the offices into flats but leave some office stuff in them, problem smashed

I've always wanted to have a lounge with a suspended ceiling with office style lighting, aircon and a fax machine next to the toilet!

It's not even a problem of rental property per se, houses are designed to have three or four people living in them, they're not designed to have that many people working in them all the time. Not to mention there are parents looking after kids etc. I don't get the sense there's any great clamour to getting back to the office right now, but when it's safe to commute again people are going to go back.

Kinda hoping the small portion of people wfh increases. The office cost saving is huge and hopefully the capitalists will not miss this trick.

Anyway the commuting in and out of London is such a fucked up thing and that's where I'm coming from. Might be different in other cities.

I guess you could argue that shops make contact tracing impossible and offices and pubs don't but, again, it's not actually looking to stop anyone from getting it, just making it slightly easier to find them if they do.

― Scampo di tutti i Scampi (ShariVari), Wednesday, July 15, 2020 12:06 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

get your contact tracing agency access to credit card payment systems and GPS records and bob's your uncle. of course people will consider that a greater infringement on their rights than being ordered not to leave the house, you could probably turn that into one of those clown memes

Yeah, for a lot of people the benefits of being able to socialise where they live immediately after work are equal to the appeal of the Z1 mix MDC describes. School events, neighbourhood stuff, parent pal socialising, these all become much more accessible if you're not commuting an hour away every day. It's a reconfiguring of our assumptions about socialising as well as about working

I think ideal for me personally is a mix of a small percentage of time in a shared location, the rest from home.

Keep the show defund the host

@LondonEconomic
4m
Unknown
The Andrew Neil Show has been cut, as the BBC announces more than 500 job cuts.

It's amusing when you hear tories and Labour melts pretending to have heartfelt concerns about mental health/domestic abuse issues relating to homeworking when you know they have landlord friends and taken many sizable donations from Big property concerns who are shitting it over lost rent income

The government response to Gove being papped coming out of a Pret without a mask is to announce that you don't need to wear a mask if buying takeaway food.

Same but weirdly I miss it as well, I used to use the train journey to sort of get over anything I was angry about/start fights on ilx/listen to that album I’d been looking forward to all day.
― scampos mentis (gyac), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Sure I get that, my "calmly posting" was posted was on a train from Leeds I think :-) And I've read a ton on the commute in the past but idk, we'll (to borrow from stet) reconfigure. I've actually got round to doing a ton of stuff during lockdown (including reading through my pile of books).

No fucking way re the Pret thing

The Conservative Party fast-response leaves its Labour equivalent in the dust again!

Isn't Pret also a sit in eatery like Greggs?

Lol we are all going to etc.

Away in a Pret a Manger, no bib for a pleb

if the price we must pay for deplatforming brillo pad is tens of thousands dead, is it still too high

getting sick of having to think of a breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week

Sounds like Johnson admitted at PMQs that he hasn't read the second spike report yet.

Pret is not good, change my mind.

Xp
Murk him, Roy Cropper!

No melt will ever come up with a zing as perfect as the Roy Cropper one

Truth zing!

if Boris calls him Roy Cropper in a PMQ exchange that will be the final fatal blow to his chances of ever being PM

it would end up being the clip that got replayed 18 times throughout the news cycle as well.

Keep the show defund the host

@LondonEconomic
4m
Unknown
The Andrew Neil Show has been cut, as the BBC announces more than 500 job cuts.

― nashwan, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 bookmarkflaglink

pic.twitter.com/cQnvx9z2r8

— Cameron (@TheStirlingWolf) July 15, 2020

seen off

i still bet those two kids reluctantly voted Tory

Nah, Laura K outed them as Labour activists and put their addresses on Twitter.

I’m gonna need a decoder ring to keep track of what I’m supposed to do

do all our partners have to write for the Mail now, is that it?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chris-grayling-intelligence-committee-julian-lewis-boris-johnson-a9621131.html

I suppose this makes it that little bit less likely that we're all gonna die, so small victories.

And this is how it's done.

EXCLUSIVE: Julian Lewis has had the Conservative whip removed.

— Emilio Casalicchio (@e_casalicchio) July 15, 2020

Yeah, they're not fucking about. I mean it's in the service of god knows what corruption and dark money but they do not fuck about.

That's fucking mad.

He owes them nothing now and he has access to the Russia report they've been sitting on for months. Presumably they knew he was planning to go ahead and release it anyway.

Well yeah..

I’m told Intelligence & Security Committee, after humiliating Boris Johnson & his choice for chairman Chris Grayling by electing Julian Lewis instead, will meet again tomorrow & is expected to agree to publish long-suppressed report on Russian meddling in UK politics next week.

— Jon Craig (@joncraig) July 15, 2020

Can't help wondering why BoDom didn't choose a less risible stooge than Grayling

because that wouldn't have been as funny