UK Politics

Thursday 2-May Councils, Mayors, PCCs are really important.

Tell and help your family, friends, colleagues to Vote. Don't forget voter ID. VOTE!

Job one is hold your nose and "Get The Tory Out" #GTTO

Tactical Voting FTW! https://stopthetories.vote/

Don't vote for the Red Tory unless they really are the most likely to beat the Blue Tory.

And if you've always voted Tory, just don't vote. It's easy!

#Cocktail - Loudspeaker (aka Announcer, Winchell)

25ml Gin, 25ml Cognac, 20ml Cointreau, 20ml Lemon

Sidecar family, innit.

Why cancel the old contract and turn off features before the new contract is active and when I'm still paying? And doing that to a 15 year customer?

Luckily I can still use my Dorna MotoGP sub and cast it to a Chromecast on the TV. So I won't miss the races.

Then I get an email of my predicted bill in 14days time. Same old contract but with the price rise. Then another email saying thank you for changing your contract but which is missing TNT-SP as an addon.

Try the Help line messaging system. Explain it all again. He confirms I'm right. Says he'll escalate it and send me an email confirmation which should arrive in 5 hours. Still waiting.

Sheer incompetence, mismatch between website, accounts, delivery and helpline.

Jerez MotoGP weekend.

Virgin Media got to really piss me off. My old contract had TNT Sports included. On 17 April I took up their offer of a renewal with TNT Sp as an add-on. Received the confirmation of order and "pre-contract" on same day. Expected delivery 24-Apr.

Yesterday TNT Sports 2 worked. Today it's cut off and they want me to subscribe for extra money. Phone the help line, he can see my order and contract including TNT-Sp. promises to get it turned back on in 48-72 hours.

Seems like everyone I know has some small or large health problem.

This keeps going though my head.
Walking Wounded - Everything But The Girl

Out amongst the walking wounded, every face on every bus
Is you and me and him and her and nothing can replace the us I knew
Nothing can replace the us I knew

Out amongst the walking wounded, every face on every train
Is you and me and him and her, some days I think I could go insane
Some days I think I could go insane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBQmlWVamFM

Gaza : Can you see what it is yet?

https://twitter.com/CraigMurrayOrg/status/1783749582532251948

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/04/worse-than-you-can-imagine/

Huge & important thread on the effect of Long Covid on children in the UK.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1783789111582638210.html

#Cocktail - Bristol (French) Pearl: 40ml Tanquaray, 10ml Psychopomp Bristol Absinthe, 20ml Lime juice, 10ml dbl Syrup, 6 mint leaves, muddle, shake, dbl strain, mint sprig

Craft Bristol Psychopomp Absinthe is good but it doesn't have as much aniseed-pastis flavour as say Absente 55

#Cocktail - Prosperity

50ml Scotch, 20ml Cointreau, 20ml Lemon, Angostura, lemon twist

It's a Sidecar, innit.

Big thread on Deaths in 5-9 year olds. in England. Note: We never did vax 0-5 and we stopped the vax for 5-11 when we'd only got to 11% takeup. Then we stopped testing and reporting tests.

So why do you think death rates of 5-9 are so much higher now than 2019?

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1783446223438913543.html

Jan 23.
https://mastodon.social/@jbond/109738496853567957

- 5-11 11%
- 12-15 47%
- 16-17 63%
- 18-24 70%
- 25-29 67%
- 30-34 69%
- 35-39 71%

Probably still the same

UK Covid Stats day.

I'm sure I remember some official UK Gov / UKHSA report that had % takeup of first & second Covid jab by age cohort? And probably by sex, region, ethnicity cohorts as well. But I can't find it again even digging back into the archives.

Anyone got a pointer? Especially interested in % who got/never got their first jab, for age ranges under 40.

I think that as of mid 2023, England < 12 was about 9%, 89% never getting any jab.

I've been waiting for this. Some fine Cool Bap, Jazzy HipHop from Summers Sons & C.Tappin

It's all grainy monochrome, up in your head, walking round Peckham.

https://summerssons2.bandcamp.com/album/still-nothing-still

https://www.discogs.com/release/30345662-Summers-Sons-Still-Nothing-Still

Track 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzmdoW_Dk4Q

ONS release Long Covid Report

> 2 million people living in private households in England and Scotland were experiencing self-reported long COVID [most of whom, longer than 2 years]

> Long COVID symptoms adversely affected the day-to-day activities of 1.5 million people (74.7% of those with self-reported long COVID).

> 381,000 (19.2%) reported that their ability to undertake their day-to-day activities had been “limited a lot”.

https://twitter.com/ONS/status/1783418864954417185

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/selfreportedcoronaviruscovid19infectionsandassociatedsymptomsenglandandscotland/november2023tomarch2024

Now published.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/findingsfromthewintercoronaviruscovid19infectionstudyselfreportedcovid19infectionsandassociatedsymptoms

Text: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/selfreportedcoronaviruscovid19infectionsandassociatedsymptomsenglandandscotland/november2023tomarch2024

data: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/datasets/selfreportedcoronaviruscovid19infectionsandassociatedsymptomsenglandandscotland

There's a lot to digest here.

Keep an eye out for this publication being released today.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/findingsfromthewintercoronaviruscovid19infectionstudyselfreportedcovid19infectionsandassociatedsymptoms

Also this thread
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1783021861942513752.html

The UK Covid Propaganda Machine seems to be trying really hard to bury "Long Covid" ahead of today's ONS report.

Like this.
https://theguardian.com/education/2024/apr/24/pupils-in-england-facing-worst-exam-results-in-decades-after-covid-closures-says-study

Nothing to do with repeated infections, endless pupil sickness, endless teacher sickness, endless parent sickness. Extra large classes with supply teachers. And so on.

BBC 10pm News on pupil mental health/absences
"Any problem any schoolchild has today is the result of the brief lockdowns 3-4 years ago".

Long thread here.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1783012714761072821.html

2-May-24 Mayor, Council, PCC Elections

One week to go. VOTE!

Get the Vote Out. Remember your Voter ID.

Get The Tory Out #GTTO

Tactical Voting FTW! https://stopthetories.vote

@drinkstodon There's a big family of 50:20:20, Spirit:Citrus:Grenadine + Modifier that it ought to have a name. And more than just "Non-Traditional Sour". Anyone?

Ring the changes. Spirits, half and half (eg Cognac +Gin), Lime/Lemon/Orange/Grapefruit, Angostura/Orange/Peychauds. Citrus twist, mint, even an olive! The Grenadine always overpowers the other tastes so they're all pretty much the same. So sub the Grenadine for Cassis or some other sweetly fruity syrup thing from Monin or Briottet.

#Cocktail - Occidental

50ml Cognac, 20ml Lime, 20ml Grenadine, 2 big Mint leaves, shake, double strain, mint sprig garnish, twisted.

Finally got a good crop of mint growing in the garden. And this morning 6 plugs of Indian Mint arrived in the post.

@drinkstodon

Why do UK politicians have to cosplay being construction workers in hardhat and Hiviz? Don't they know that HiViz makes you invisible?

Why do they make major policy announcements from the classroom of a primary school?

Hiviz & primary schools are the new "kissing babies".

Still at least it's not Thatcher cosplay in a tank.

Not now, H5N1 transmission via mosquitoes.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18279078/

Lazyweb: Any MS windows gurus out there?

Android phone attached and set to USB file transfer.
SD-Card in phone set to external storage

I want to create a shortcut in windows to phone/sdcard/music that I can drop into sendto so I can highlight a bunch of files and copy them over with a couple of clicks. Or click on the shortcut on the desktop to open an explorer window in that directory.

It looks like it almost works but then fails next time I connect. Is there some magic I'm missing?

2-May-24 UK Mayor, Council, PCC Elections

Get The Tory Out #GTTO Get the Vote Out #GTVO

https://stopthetories.vote/ Tactical Voting FTW!

Mute Early. Mute Often.

https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2024/apr/22/muting-people-social-media

Just like the current one, the next pandemic will be airborne.

Unfortunately it's proven difficult to get the seals and deer to wear N95 masks and keep the HEPA filters running.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/22/health/birdflu-marine-mammals.html

What are these weird tally marks on my arm? I don't remember making them.

Deadline for a Gov Voter ID is 5pm 24-April

https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-photo-id-voter-authority-certificate

Seen in "Last Week In Collapse". Which was a doozy.

https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1c9ftje/last_week_in_collapse_april_1420_2024/

One of those threads. The UK is in mid-collapse.

https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1c4iemm/weekly_observations_what_signs_of_collapse_do_you/kznub9p/

> The corrupt UK government is being stripped and sold for parts, according to this bleak weekly observation from somewhere in northern Britain. Traffic violations mount, bureaucracy has ground to a halt, the water infrastructure has gone to shit, higher education has gotten hollowed out and profit-seeking, rents are expensive, and the NHS is moving towards the chopping block. Some might say they’ve already Collapsed.

UK Mayor, Council, PCC elections 2-May-24

Get The Vote Out. Get The Tory Out. VOTE!

There's a few more days to post your Postal Vote. You can always hand deliver to your local Election Office or any polling station on polling day.

#GTTO Tactical Voting FTW!

Excellent thread on Long Covid from slides by the Yale School of Public Health

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1782209777780592877.html

#Cocktail - Golden Glove

50ml Jamaican Gold rum (Appleton's Kingston), 20ml Cointreau, 20ml Lemon, Lemon twist, crushed ice, Rocks glass.

You may want to cut the lemon to 15ml or add some (2.5 or 5ml) double syrup as it's quite tart.

@drinkstodon

And then it turns out it's a problem of information on the TV schedule, and WSB Race 2 is on Quest.

Proper cold in Assen. Somebody should do the track day thing of wearing a fleece hoody over their leathers.

When Dorna (now Liberty) manages and promotes both WSB and MotoGP, why do I have to buy a separate subscription for both?

Old enough to remember when I could remember things.

We'll never forget these times, will we.

This all stems from trying to show multiple motorcycle races live on a Sunday though 1 1/2 channels, Eurosport 2 and Quest HD.
- WSB Assen
- BSB Navarra
- WEC World Endurance Le Mans 24

I'm sure there'll be one weekend when there's MotoGP as well.

They've got TNT 1-2-3-4, Eurosport 1-2, Quest to play with as live recordable channels. But still they put WSB on Discovery+.

#WSB motorcycles. They've started putting some WSB sessions and races on Discovery+ The Discovery+ channel is not available on Virgin Media. I already pay extra for TNT sports to watch MotoGP. TNT, Eurosport and Discovery+ are all part of the same family.

So:-
- Dorna and WSB are shooting themselves in the foot by partnering with a TV provider that requires 2 subscriptions to watch.
- Discovery+ should partner with VM when they already partner with TNT+Eurosport

#Cocktail - Beadleston

60ml Scotch, 30ml Dry Vermouth, Dash (or 2 or 3) Angostura, cherry

#Cocktail - Mill Lane

50ml Light Rum, 20ml Lime, 20ml Grenadine, dash Peychaud's, dash Absinthe

@drinkstodon

This thread keeps getting longer.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1578292619288846336

Ten [ahem!] things twitter folks know about Covid that people on the streets don't

Stay Angry. Get The Tory Out. Get out and Vote!

2-May-24 : Council, Mayor & PCC elections.

#GTTO Tactical Voting FTW!

Next Pandemic likely to be airborne, scientists warn.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/20/next-pandemic-likely-to-be-caused-by-flu-virus-scientists-warn

#CleanAirNow . Yes we #CAN !

#Cocktail - Adam (aka Canadian)

50ml Jamaican Gold Rum (Appletons, Kingston), 20ml Lemon, 20ml Grenadine, Shake, Lemon Twist

@drinkstodon

A fav artist name. Right up there with "Unknown Mobile"

ʕ•͡ᴥ•ʔ

Pronounced "Pea Doh Bare"

https://www.discogs.com/artist/4233336-%CA%95%E1%B4%A5%CA%94

The label (Omena) and tracks are pretty good. In a mid-Teenies, post-dubstep, kind of way.

I'm sorry, it's just, it's been so long since I've seen a news article saying things are generally okay and I don't need to be outraged about anything. I've sort of forgotten what it feels like.

Well, don't worry: it hasn't happened yet. It is still possible that the unpredictable combination of politics and market forces will contrive to bring about a grim meat hook future that is dismal beyond our ability to comprehend.

There is no need to re-learn what it is like to feel happy.

Just yet.

Sorry, but this is just a lot of hand waving and magic spells isn't it? As an economist, if you want economics to be taken seriously aren't you supposed to be in the model business rather than the magic business?

[from the 2012 archive]