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

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The strategy of leaking stuff as a trial balloon, officially denying it, and then u-turning on that is also making everything worse, as a lot of people have access to multiple contradictory statements, and are muddling through (and muddling through on the side of "doing what I want to do").

On of the journos attempted to get the PM to call his father immoral.

This is regarding the "I'm going to go to the pub no matter what" from Stanley Johnson? The tragedy of Boris is that he'd be far more comfortable in his father's position. Well, the tragedy other than the fact that he's not hanging from a lamppost, but it's early days.

Andrew Farrell, Friday, 20 March 2020 10:38 (four years ago) link

We'll know we're fucked when there's a glowing Polly Toynbee article proclaiming a bright new political consensus.

Matt DC, Friday, 20 March 2020 10:39 (four years ago) link

I'm sorry, this performative despair isn't helping either. Every crisis is, in some sense, an opportunity to effect change for the better, at least in theory.

I can't pay no doctor bill, but Whitey's on the McAloon (Noodle Vague), Friday, 20 March 2020 10:39 (four years ago) link

My landlord, Golden Equity Properties, is sending eviction notices out in the middle of a pandemic. Today, they shut our water off without notice again, the third time since #COVID19 crisis started. pic.twitter.com/WUWOGo7ApK

— Emina Gamulin (@EminaKosjenka) March 19, 2020

At least now lovers of Mao's deadly but effective approach to land reform wont be so against the grain! Ready to pour one out for the first millionaire landlord/property company scum that get's strung up on a DIY gallows.

calzino, Friday, 20 March 2020 10:39 (four years ago) link

(I meant *my* despair, to be clear)

I can't pay no doctor bill, but Whitey's on the McAloon (Noodle Vague), Friday, 20 March 2020 10:40 (four years ago) link

lol alltime top 10 dn there

calzino, Friday, 20 March 2020 10:45 (four years ago) link

Who exactly do Golden Equity Properties think is going to be contemplating moving or viewing houses right now? The only people looking will be other people made homeless because they can't pay their rent.

Matt DC, Friday, 20 March 2020 10:45 (four years ago) link

probably cut their losses and sell them off to some dodgy billionaire using them as the oligarch equivalent of shoe-boxes full of money under the floorboards.

calzino, Friday, 20 March 2020 10:48 (four years ago) link

AF going full xyzzzzz is it? We do love to see it.

some of you are enjoying this (gyac), Friday, 20 March 2020 10:55 (four years ago) link

Golden Equity Properties setting up all the conditions for a rent strike.

xyzzzz__, Friday, 20 March 2020 11:05 (four years ago) link

That sucks, but it's in Canada

Colonel Poo, Friday, 20 March 2020 11:07 (four years ago) link

My landlord or rather letting agent has sent me an urgent questionnaire I have to fill in, tbf it's mostly about whether I'm in a vulnerable group rather than outright saying are you planning to pay rent next month. I guess this means I have to tell them my wife died, although I dunno if that would actually change my tenancy at all

Colonel Poo, Friday, 20 March 2020 11:10 (four years ago) link

I don't think my mum is going to survive this, she's a recentish breast cancer survivor in her late 70's. Her partner is a cantankerous old Ukippy type fuck who still goes to the library every day to read all the newspapers, then the pubs, then the "funhouse". She's not self-isolating and when her I told it's quite likely going to be as deadly here as in Italy, she was quite dismissive + said "you can only do your best, no point worrying".

calzino, Friday, 20 March 2020 11:11 (four years ago) link

I was thinking yesterday in the absence of bog roll we may see a resurgence for UK newspapers

I can't pay no doctor bill, but Whitey's on the McAloon (Noodle Vague), Friday, 20 March 2020 11:13 (four years ago) link

Make a killing, start buying shares in Izal.

God gave toilets rolls to you, gave toilet rolls to you (Tom D.), Friday, 20 March 2020 11:22 (four years ago) link

using newspaper as bog roll is more like 70's nostalgia, which is good honest nostalgia imo - unlike all that propaganda hangover ww2 shite!

calzino, Friday, 20 March 2020 11:23 (four years ago) link

Colonel I'm so sorry.

Matt DC, Friday, 20 March 2020 11:31 (four years ago) link

provided they are in joint possession of one (1) human soul they will respond by leaving you the fuck alone for six months or so

strangely hookworm but they manage ream shoegaze poetry (imago), Friday, 20 March 2020 11:33 (four years ago) link

This was my commute to work in London this morning @BorisJohnson. This is what you get on London underground when you reduce the service but people still have to go to work. There was a lot of coughing too.

How do we stay safe in this environment?#CoronaVirusUpdate pic.twitter.com/wT345MEjND

— David Riley (@DRileyamusing) March 20, 2020

Number None, Friday, 20 March 2020 12:35 (four years ago) link

Incredible.

Le Bateau Ivre, Friday, 20 March 2020 12:50 (four years ago) link

CP feel free to forward that questionnaire to your MP and ask them straight out what they’re going to do about it

some of you are enjoying this (gyac), Friday, 20 March 2020 12:58 (four years ago) link

hastings mp = the tory who succeeded (hence is even worse than) amber rudd

mark s, Friday, 20 March 2020 13:00 (four years ago) link

which is not to say don't bombard em with this stuff, love and solidarity CP and everyone else

mark s, Friday, 20 March 2020 13:02 (four years ago) link

Pubs, restaurants, gyms, leisure centres and cinemas across London will be told to close in a massive ramping up of measures to slow the coronavirus surge.

Boris Johnson chaired an emergency meeting this morning to decide what will be the most drastic action yet to try to shield the capital’s NHS from being overwhelmed by Covid-19 patients.

Shops are not expected to be in the first wave of closure, but it is understood that non-essential stores could be included if they fail to stop customers handling items that could then pass on the virus.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/coronavirus-clampdown-london-cinemas-pubs-shut-a4392981.html

I don't really understand the way of communication here. If this is the decision, why not make it known yourself immediately? Or is the Standard just guessing here?

Le Bateau Ivre, Friday, 20 March 2020 13:03 (four years ago) link

All the best to you CP

Le Bateau Ivre, Friday, 20 March 2020 13:04 (four years ago) link

it is understood that non-essential stores could be included if they fail to stop customers handling items that could then pass on the virus

you what?

Number None, Friday, 20 March 2020 13:04 (four years ago) link

Routers, radios, tv's spread the virus across the seven seas!

Le Bateau Ivre, Friday, 20 March 2020 13:06 (four years ago) link

Best wishes to you Colonel. I'm very sorry to hear that.

Alain the Botton (jed_), Friday, 20 March 2020 13:11 (four years ago) link

Tellys and freezers spread diseases

I can't pay no doctor bill, but Whitey's on the McAloon (Noodle Vague), Friday, 20 March 2020 13:12 (four years ago) link

So sorry, CP

the salacious inaudible (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Friday, 20 March 2020 13:13 (four years ago) link

Best wishes CP.

xyzzzz__, Friday, 20 March 2020 13:56 (four years ago) link

Been thinking of you CP, sorry you have to deal with this shit on top of everything else

ymo sumac (NickB), Friday, 20 March 2020 14:15 (four years ago) link

Letting agents are scum

Our housing manager is about to retire so the Housing Association our building was a part of (which is very small and would I’m sure have done right by us) is being taken on by a much bigger HA. They have a lot more money but I have no idea what they’re like to deal with and I’ve had no communication from them about Coronavirus, though I did get something through my door confirming that my standing order had been set up

This article doesn’t inspire much confidence in the larger ones

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/17/housing-associations-under-pressure-to-offer-covid-19-rent-holidays

felt jute gyte delete later (wins), Friday, 20 March 2020 14:19 (four years ago) link

This is a report on Germany's response (not looked at yet):

I asked this question on here the other day and got a bunch of conspiracy theories and over-complicated answers in my mentions. Basic answers: massive testing (up to 160,000 per week) catching cases early, demography (young ppl) and high hospital capacity. https://t.co/zTPiIunMs0

— Ben Gook (@bengook) March 20, 2020

xyzzzz__, Friday, 20 March 2020 14:29 (four years ago) link

I was thinking yesterday in the absence of bog roll we may see a resurgence for UK newspapers

I stopped doing the free-if-you-spend-£10 newspaper offer from Waitrose, because I never get round to reading them and they're just clutter/a waste of paper - but on the way home from failing to buy some loo rolls there it occurred to me that I should've taken my free inky alternative instead.

When they evicted us from the office to work from home I did nick one pack from a small pile of sealed double-packs of cheap nasty loo roll from work, and felt guilty all the way down the stairs until I saw there was a giant pallet of loo roll and cleaning products beneath the stairs, for a mostly-empty building. (There are still a few people left working there so hopefully they won't go entirely to waste and people will help themselves or redistribute them to other buildings.)

Sorry Col. Poo, good luck wins.

UK govt response really disappointing/worrying - hard to know how much due to incompetence and how much because they really don't care (or worse), but it's really not looking good for the future. ugh - good luck everyone.

a passing spacecadet, Friday, 20 March 2020 15:05 (four years ago) link

just thinking about great stockpilers from political history. When Yagoda's Kremlin apartment was raided by his own NKVD agents during the great terror they found 3904 pornographic photographs, 11 pornographic movies, 399 "foreign music records", 37 pairs of imported gloves, 101 imported children's games, 1229 bottles of wine (some vintages dating back to 1897), 11075 cigarettes + 8 boxes of tobacco and 165 pipes (including some made out of elephant tusks). this lad was ready to self-isolate, although toilet rolls are not mentioned.

calzino, Friday, 20 March 2020 15:17 (four years ago) link

101 imported children's games

this is a lot of children's game!

mark s, Friday, 20 March 2020 15:26 (four years ago) link

unless they were all themed versions of monopoly

mark s, Friday, 20 March 2020 15:27 (four years ago) link

tim farron self-isolation update: still alive, if you can call this living

When in self-isolation it's important to exercise, get fresh air and stay positive! pic.twitter.com/08pvat0HNA

— Tim Farron (@timfarron) March 19, 2020

uncle-knower is coming for you (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 20 March 2020 15:28 (four years ago) link

I like to stay positive by imagining Tories dying

I can't pay no doctor bill, but Whitey's on the McAloon (Noodle Vague), Friday, 20 March 2020 15:29 (four years ago) link

g1 group are and always have been a bunch of cunts, so mass phone-sackings vmic

uncle-knower is coming for you (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 20 March 2020 15:41 (four years ago) link

(Daily Record making sure they print the most enormous pictures of pretty sacked worker possible, of course)

God gave toilets rolls to you, gave toilet rolls to you (Tom D.), Friday, 20 March 2020 15:41 (four years ago) link

well, yeah

uncle-knower is coming for you (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 20 March 2020 15:44 (four years ago) link

'The big idea of the 1990s that “the economy” will serve as a regulating superego of our politics is a busted flush. ... we should now never tire of asking: which economic constraints are real and which imagined?' @adam_tooze on top form https://t.co/xS5iceaZzq

— David Edgerton (@DEHEdgerton) March 20, 2020

Tooze says C-19 will be a paradigm shift.

calzino, Friday, 20 March 2020 16:21 (four years ago) link

the big essay i've been working on -- abt a very specific shift in music and technology from the late 1950s to the early 1970s -- has become weirdly disorientating over the last week, when i've basically just been trying to tidy up the editor's final queries

on one hand, it is soothing to be thinking about something that the horrible present doesn't really touch

one the other hand, this isn't really true! every time i take a step back to reorientate my context for a sense of how history flowed through this time, and towards what, i get this really intense sensation of "literally none of yr mid-level value judgments apply any more dude"

mark s, Friday, 20 March 2020 16:31 (four years ago) link

things shifting so rapidly at my work; it's a bit disorienting. glad I'm not at the coalface having to factor in all of the re-planning, implementing BCP, working up revised financials etc. I'm in a privileged position and see quite a lot of data for senior people in the business. some of the internal MI is

gday curd nerds (||||||||), Friday, 20 March 2020 16:38 (four years ago) link

insert the emoji for 'my mouth is opening and closing and opening and no sound is coming out' there

gday curd nerds (||||||||), Friday, 20 March 2020 16:38 (four years ago) link

which economic constraints are real and which imagined?

This is the heart of it really isn't it?

Matt DC, Friday, 20 March 2020 16:49 (four years ago) link


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