Early Risers.

[Tony_S]

11 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Most of the increase is amongst teenagers

Locally I am not surprised. Not because teenagers are being careless but they are going to school. Having well over 1000 people in the school is probably the greatest concentration of people in the locality. We don’t have too much else, there isn’t even a sizeable supermarket in the immediate area. Neighbours children have told me how as much as can be has been done at school restricting movement of classes and setting up one way systems but classes keep getting sent home due to someone getting a positive test. Some year groups have been sent home due to teachers being ill. 

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

The evidence is contradictory

Absolutely. 
 

Furthermore one can, allegedly, prove anything with statistics. 
 

The Isle of Sheppey, and specifically the eastern half thereof, has statistically one of the higher rates of infection in the UK (and has had the highest on some days) which generates a case rate above 1000/100000 and is the only place in the country to top the thousand. 
 

In that area, geographically seeming large on a map compared with other nearby areas which produce their own statistics, there is just one quite modest town. Leysdown-on-Sea is home to barely 1300 souls. Nearby Warden adds a couple of hundred more. Isolated farms and the remote hamlet of Harty add a few tens more.  HM prison establishments probably double the total and are said to be responsible for over half the total infections. 
 

Today the total is just 89 cases. Yet because of the small population it shows as an astronomical rate on the “per 100k” scale. 

For this the entire county of Kent has been placed into Tier 3. They may have a case to suggest they have been hard done by when compared with some Tier 2 areas. 
 

Who was it said “There are lies, damned lies and statistics”?  

 

[iL Dottore]

4 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

...Can't fix stupid

It’s one of Nature’s immutable laws “when you make something idiot proof, the Universe goes and builds a better idiot”

4 hours ago, TheQ said:

....Several bits of choc block...

But was the chocolate edible? Inquiring minds want to know!

 

Thank the gods the week is over - it’s been really intense, so much so that tonight’s dinner (roast chicken with a sage & onion stuffing, fondant potatoes and hispi cabbage, steamed ginger pudding & custard) has been postponed until tomorrow and I just had a grilled ham ‘n’ cheese and an amber beer.

As part of tomorrow’s KP I’ll be baking a traditional English Boiled Fruit Cake - an almost foolproof recipe (as I write my trusty minions are setting up the bear traps around my Alpine Redoubt ). Mrs iD will be off doing dog trainer stuff on Sunday, so Sunday’s dinner will be lamb shanks, potatoes Boulangère and a ginger carrot purée: nice, warming and filling for her.

 

As much as I am aware of the drawbacks of ready-to-eat meals, days like today would benefit from either a RTE meal OR a decent takeaway (takeaway around here is limited to pizza, nuggets, fries, burgers and that’s about it - and they aren’t that good either). Right now I could murder a traditional British “Cantonese” takeaway (as about authentically Chinese as I am): especially a lower-end-of-the-market sweet and sour prawn. You know, the ones where each prawn ball is 60%+ batter, the sauce contains pineapple and green peppers and is bright orange. Inauthentic as hell, not at all good for you and sooo bad, it’s good...

 

And on that culinary note, Bon Soir...

 

iD

Edited December 4, 2020 by iL Dottore
Spelling

[Barry O]

Watching a bit of rugby..perhaps @grandadbob can tell me where Northampton Saints got their  hideous rugby shirts from?

 

@iL Dottore..yes..we had a Chinese meal in a street market in Hong Kong.. Still waiting for the rice but the chicken with lemon sauce was not quite as good as the ones we van get from the Wan Loi  near us

 

Baz

Edited December 4, 2020 by Barry O

[Happy Hippo]

14 hours ago, chrisf said:

A little over three years ago a new road was named after him.  I think he would have smiled then too.

 

 

I suspect Douglas Bader would have smiled when Birmingham City Council called one of their roads Bader Walk in his honour!

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

For this the entire county of Kent has been placed into Tier 3.

I have said before and it is worth saying again it is not just the number of cases that determines tiers it is how well the local NHS facilities are coping and their available capacity. I suspect the next generation of tier levels will be more locally focussed. The original control orders in places like Leicester were specific to electoral wards and even there people sometimes found that their local shop was in a different zone. 

[Tony_S]

16 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

make no observations on the Tier system in Britain. Other than inferences I see here that it exists I don't know anything about it

This is not totally serious but I saw on Facebook

Tier 1 , Beer

Tier 2 , Beer with chips

Tier 3 , No Beer

 

[simontaylor484]

My youngest junior school is down to 3 classes next week due to classes having to self isolate. The Nursery dept is shut due to no staff.

 

I have read media reports that hospitals are still quieter than this time last year

As others have said with statistics you can make them.say what you want.

 

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Just checked my Euro lottery tickets and I've won! Not the £175 million though, I only got two numbers for which I get the grand sum of £2:60. Tea is brewing so I'll be back later.

[Coombe Barton]

... and a stash of tennis balls ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2020/12/04/sounds-of-the-season-6/

[Andrew P]

40 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Just checked my Euro lottery tickets and I've won! Not the £175 million though, I only got two numbers for which I get the grand sum of £2:60. Tea is brewing so I'll be back later.

I got the same last Friday, But I didn't shout about it in case I started getting begging letters.

[Barry O]

Goodnight all!

Baz

[Erichill16]

Evening All

MY team took a pasting this evening so I’ll quickly move on.

Mr Bear, can John Lewis and partner gift vouchers be used as Waitrose and partners as I’m sure you could find something appropriate there.

Like Flávio, I like non authentic sweet and sour, but in my case chicken. I’ve not been able to indulge for the last couple of years due to my gluten intolerance. My local takeaways solution is not to incorporate soy sauce in my meal but I’m afraid that doesn’t give me much confidence in their ability, as even I, the worst cook in the world know that GF soy sauce is available. Anyway I had fish and chips for tea and despite it taking nearly an hour from leaving the house to arriving home  I enjoyed them. (Sydney also enjoyed the sausage I got for him)

Simon, glad the scan went ok and I too lost my driving license for a number of years but got it back last year. It’s such a shock and ball ache when suddenly the license is gone.

Baz, good luck with you encounter with the laser.

think that’s about it, so goodnight,

Robert

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[AndyB]

23 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

I got the same last Friday, But I didn't shout about it in case I started getting begging letters.

Price of stamps these days you'd have to win the lottery to send one! 

[AndyB]

25 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

I got the same last Friday, But I didn't shout about it in case I started getting begging letters.

Price of stamps these days you'd have to win the lottery to send one! 

[Erichill16]

28 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

I got the same last Friday, But I didn't shout about it in case I started getting begging letters.

From Rishi Sunak?

[PhilJ W]

Opened my front door and found two feet of snow outside.

Hat, coat on and gone. 

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[BokStein]

6 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Opened my front door and found two feet of snow outside.

Hat, coat on and gone. 

 

Three minutes silence, please, in memory of the dearly departed, much loved, Groan Button!

Edited December 4, 2020 by BokStein

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

I wasn’t expecting to be as quiet at the Trafford Centre as it was this morning. The roads were very busy, as were the car parks, I only went in 4 shops, (I generally only go in 1), 1 of which was the post office and I had to queue up in there, what a surprise! However, the rest were relatively quiet and I was able to get the items Sheila wanted, Christmas stocking fillers. I dropped Sheila at the surgery just before 10 o’clock, despite the extra visits, I was still able to get home before 11 o’clock, result! I think I was just as surprised as Sheila was!

 

The afternoon was spent reading the latest copy of MERG magazine which dropped on the doormat the other day. An article caught my attention, so I tried to log on to the old laptop to check a circuit diagram with the simulator program that I have on there. But it wouldn’t let me on, repeatedly saying I was putting in the wrong password! Now I know my memory can be a bit off sometimes, but the password was definitely right. After several failed attempts, I gave up and packed the f*****g thing away, grrrrr. 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[The Stationmaster]

3 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

I suspect Douglas Bader would have smiled when Birmingham City Council called one of their roads Bader Walk in his honour!

From what I know of one of Bader's habits in his later post war years he'd have been more likely to fly a light aircraft along it at roof top height (oh and the aircraft would be inverted.  He was known in this part of the world in the 1960s for occasionally engaging in low level aerobatics in a borrowed light aircraft at an airfield only a few minutes flying time from the one where he crashed.

[laurenceb]

Night awl

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all