Sledgehead

Just a test for upload chequerboard.bmp

Okay, you are right. All you have to do now is convince the entire umbrella movement they had no purpose. Good luck!

your view

That goes w/o saying. I was commenting on the image portrayed, hence my reference to marketing. For sure that guy is a model. All the "chefs" are probably tat-festooned sweat baths (from the hours they have to work). Not the kind of image such a coompany prolly wants.

Western democracy, some would argue, is all about keeping elites in control. Please, stick to the central tennet and stop nitpicking. All the HKers I ever met were scared stiff of China and never so much as breathed a word of how this or that was different from living in the UK (save pop density, which they actually seemed content with).

that's an unusual view. having trouble finding the poster who proposed it. link?

Just had a chuckle at this: BBC's Vic Derbyshire reads out a message from a Leicester resident that goes something like: "I work in the food industry in Leicester, and there are a very large amount of cases there .." Then I google "Leicester food manufacturers" and here's the "Our Products" page from the first one I hit on: Samworth Brothers I suggest their marketing dept tweek that image. Maybe just snap a pic of a kitchen ladle they have at home and update that. Or anything. Jeepers, I'd have thought a dead rat would be better under the circumstances! The again, I was always uneasy about the idea that in order to be Michelin starred, you had to all-but rub the dish on your cheffy posterior, and that pic is just a reflection of that crazy notion.

I take a different view. By any measure China locked down harder than we ever did. The consequence: the authorities are seen as competent. Now we find ourselves with Leicester - ie the reimposition of draconian controls. This, taken together with the undeniable failures of Western democracy to handle this common enemy, despite supposedly being an advanced society, has emboldened China and allowed them to end Western demoicracy in Hong Kong. This is how authoritarianism comes about, not by the people accepting some temporary suspensions of their enjoyment.

Look at that beech. Can you see the second wave?

You should be in the Cabinet. Transport minister Grant Schapps had failed to recognize this and even went on the Marr show w/o quizzing Cummings, instead saying he "understood" no such trip occured. Clearly, not a phorensic mind at work there. Or he was plain lying. Actually ....

I'm wondering whether you have thought through the consequences. I voted for Brexit; taking our own route, standing on our own: that's a bold move - some might say arrogant - that chimes with our reputation and history. daring-do and all that. It's why other countries listen to our music, watch our TV, support our footie clubs, and then wear our fashion, eat our food, drive our cars, visit our capital, start businesses here, and thus, hold sterling and invest in Treasuries. That supports sterling and makes us all relatively rich. But a circumstance exits that makes outsiders question whether our certainty is merely lack of insight, our heroics simply stupidity and our rhetoric just ********. That circumstance exits when our obstacles or adversaries are indifferent to all of those apparent merits. And this virus is certainly such an adversary. We can't scare it away by grandstanding speeches about fighting on beeches. All there is are the numbers, and we can spin those only so far. And so we sit in second place below the USA on death toll ... while the world wonders what the hell they ever admired about us. Why they listen to our music. Why they follow our footie clubs, watch our TV, and then wear our fashion, eat our food, drive our cars, start businesses here, support sterling, and keep we Brits in the lap of luxury. They saw the same thing during the Financial Crisis, but they had no way to measure themselves against us. They just thought it looked bad. Those thoughts are giving way to certainty. A certainty that we are an anachronism. That the future lies elsewhere. And that certainty will be complete if we have a bad second wave. And Cummings has made that so much more likely.

God, you must be exhausted. Forget lockdown. That's bonk-down! No wonder you haven't been following the news. Just to fill you in, despite the most severe restrictions on public movement for like, well, ever, 37K people have been killed here by a transmissible disease. So, as you assumed, mostly a lot of hot air.

Big fan of Cummings, but it is what it is: he's a back-room boy. He ponders, he weighs, he strategizes, he sloganizes. The problem he has is that he delivered Brexit almost single-handely, and that went to his head. Now he thinks he can bluff and extemporize like a political frontman, and that he is most definitely not. He's basically shown he is as flawed and vulnerable as the rest of us, and that has shaken everyones confidence in him. This interview was extremely poorly judged. So was the journey to Durham. Maybe therefore Brexit was. He's undermining every aspect of government with every move he now makes. He's the story and a pretty sorry one. Whether he goes or not is hardly the point.

But you are saying he would need to be admitted to hospital for simple oxygen therapy, despite the consequent PR disaster?

This is an utter PR disaster. Johnson knows it. Cummings knows it. Hancock knows it. Everyone knows it. Surely, you know it. If it meant avoiding this cluster f***, No.10 would buy a job-lot of these: Oxygen cylinder Maybe they already have a stock of these: Why not, after all? I simply don't buy this idea that he has to be admitted for simple oxygen therapy. CPAP apparatus is available retail for people who suffer from sleep apnea. Here's a face mask: Just inject oxygen into that. Get a discreet expert to help. If on the other hand he needed the full ICU package, that would be quite a different matter and would indeed require a trip to hospital.