LOL! Gonna have to look now... any chance to make Ox's life hell is always fun

Well in his defense, Ox did give me one of the most inspiring quotes I've seen in my life. I can't even remember my signature before it. Not sure if it was the exact wording but it conveys the idea.

Oh god, I'm not even going to look at that thread. I'm already cringing when I think of it. Does sounds like something I'd make a poll about though.

Glad I inspired you Peltz! J may not be surprised to hear that I half stole it from a Belgian comic book strip called 'Urbanus', even if it is a real old-fashioned expression in Flanders.



Re: covid, things are going tits up here in France. Several departments have been declared red (emergency) zones - thankfully not mine yet - and the daily infection rate is higher than during the worst days of the initial wave. So it's gonna get worse before it gets better. I actually went out for a drink on a terrace and dinner at a restaurant for the first time in 6 months two days ago. Felt a bit surreal and uncomfortable. Let's hope I didn't catch anything!

(Young) people here are really not giving much of a fuck and going on with their lives. All the bars are full, even the interiors, and people are congregating in groups everywhere. It's not hard to imagine why the infection is resurgent.

Btw, looks like those damn Swedes might actually have been right: they didn't lockdown and had a lot of deaths (relatively speaking) but over the past week they didn't have a single fatality. And it's not like they haven't been partying, they are all off in the summer since winter is long, cold and dark. So who knows, maybe it'll burn out once you reach a certain level of infections in the population? One that is much lower than the 70% first proposed. Who knows.

Well, if that's the case, the US should be completely recovered by December! I wouldn't bet on it though.

I'm curious to see how things will evolve here, when schools re-open fully on the first of september. There are rules for >12 year olds, sure, but i expect numbers to go up again.

Crosspost to "I hate my job"-topic: I'll have to wear a mask whole day while teaching, that will be super annoying and i bet i'll have a soar throat within a week. We'll see how that works out.

So Estonia stands at 31 per 100k. So yeah, they're closing down stuff.

We're getting an update tomorrow in the UK. We had something today saying the infections or hospitalisations or whatever are doubling every 7 days so we'll be at 50,000 a day by 13th Oct at this rate. So we're probably getting more lockdowns soon. I'm in a small circle of 'safety' at the moment, with Birmingham in lockdown on one side since a few weeks ago and Wolverhampton in lockdown starting tomorrow.

Edit: well our update so far is pubs/restaurants etc to close at 10pm and be table service only and it's finally mandatory for shop staff to wear masks as well as the customers. I think there are further updates coming but they're being incredibly rubbish at telling us when. They've also said these measures will probably now stay in place for at least 6 months unless something drastically changes either way.

Politicians here are losing it as well: basically rules are getting less strict, while numbers are gettting up pretty fast. Yeah that makes sense. Especially the way that it's communicated raises a lot of eyebrows. I know several people think that since this week's press conference, we have an "everything goes" policy, while clearly it's not at all the moment to start acting like that.

Even in our school we have contradicting rules: for lab work, there's s whole set of rules that's very strict. But for regular classes, it's not that strict at all. So technically, the safety rules i apply depend on what i want to do with a class that week. Makes no sense at all. Ah well, trying to make the best out of it, and trying to use common sense.

Hope everyone else is fine.

Steady infected growth.

Yep bloody stupid. "Oh random person who will enter the shop and only have contact with maybe 10 other people while in there, you must wear a mask. Shop worker, who will have contact with all 100 people who go in that day, you shall wear nothing and all shall be fine!" Errrr no, not convinced.

Our update was as pointless as all the rest. Didn't tell us anything new, just be home by 10 and it might last 6 months. They should've kept the first lockdown going longer but now people are just getting fed up with these ineffective measures. I mean you guys know I'm for staying safe but all the recent bullshit won't help anyone. Don't close things by 10. Let them open longer! But put a restriction on people all day. 100 people over 12 hours is more distanced than 100 people over 8 hours. Stop serving/limit alcohol in public places. Even with the best of intentions if you get tipsy you're more likely to forget social distancing or think you're doing it when you're not. Let those who want to get drunk do it at home. Eating out isn't going to drastically up infections (though I'm still avoiding that).

I get that we need to keep the economy going somewhat but it also seems like they're being very "one rule for one, one rule for another" with it. In other words if it benefits them, they're all for saving it, otherwise you can go hang. Plus the bailouts are weird. I'm not certain on the wording as it was ambiguous so we need to see what Niall can get as he's self employed. The BBC article I read made it sound awful though. Basically first 3 months you could claim up to 80%, like those on furlough, up to a cap of £2500 per month or £7500 for 3 months. The second 3 months you could claim up to 70% up to a cap of about £2150 a month or £6500 for 3 months. Then the way this was worded the next 3 months only 20% are up to a cap of £1800 for the 3 months. Now this is a huge drop and I get they can't continue bailing people out at the other ranges for ages. But when they're saying people who are working can work 33% of their hours and be paid, then be paid up to 33% of their hours by the government AND be paid a further 33% by their company when they're not working... that aint right. If those others can get 66% of their pay from the company still, yet you're also going to give them 33%, at the very least give the self employed 33% too. As I say, that could just be a badly worded article but we'll know when Niall applies for it again at the end of October or whenever he can. He's already annoyed coz it's based on your last 3 years tax returns and his one from 3 years ago had been a bad year so it's dragged down what he can claim anyway.

I'm seriously waiting for us to get locked down. I had an ultrasound appointment come through the other day for the local hospital, then everything scribbled out and moved to another hospital. Apparently the staff at our local one had a big outbreak amongst themselves. Fun times.

Shiny and I are still fine. It's good to know you guys are still ok. We're about to go on vacation... we're going camping. We need to get away, and it'll be nice not to have to work for awhile. I'm now being forced to go into the office 3 days a week. Shiny's still at one day a week required, though she sometimes has to go in more often, but it's been that way since the lockdowns started.

Anyway, stay safe everyone.

We might get lockdown. Watching local news today and it was saying the infection rates in West Midlands are still rising, but not as fast. Oh, other than in Walsall and another place, where they're going up higher and they think Walsall will get its own restrictions next week. I'm surprised it's taken this long. Fun times! So I'm still just hiding away mostly.

Get lots of nice holiday pics for us Satis, after reading your other post you definitely need a break. Maybe you go with your plants and never return. You could set up a nice little smallholding somewhere and survive off the grid I'm sure