nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Child Item

Off Topic Thread 5.0

[Deleted User]

Thread continued from here https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057835955&page=250

The usual rules apply. Non-rugby talk here. Consider this a social place, but like a pub, things like religion and politics can be divisive, so don't say things here you wouldn't say to someone's face in the pub. Sober

Find more posts tagged with

Quick Links

Comments

sydthebeat

The Pope is a great auld fella altogether!

Panda Killa

sydthebeat wrote: »

The Pope is a great auld fella altogether!

He's no Augustin Pichot..

Bazzo

Think of your average Brit, currently in lockdown with their family, waiting to get back to work, doesn't pay much attention to the news, doesn't know anybody who died of Covid. They'll be back working soon, maintaining their social distancing, wearing a mask, etc., and in a few months to a year, the vaccine or herd immunity will bring everything back to normal.

How are they going to learn of the reality of their weak government? What specific experiences will awaken this person to Boris et al's failure and incompetence in the early stages of the pandemic?

At least Trump made it easy by telling people to drink bleach, and rage-quitting the briefings.

The thing is, everybody in England knows people who work for the NHS, and often at least one is a close relative. The NHS is the 5th largest employer on the planet, it's huge. So they will have heard stories about how badly the country has been affected, but there's a total cognitive dissonance. Despite how closely linked the entire population is with the NHS, and despite the fact that the Tories have spent the last ten years totally trashing the NHS, they'll still happily go out and vote for them in their droves.

[Deleted User]

In the midst of a massive tragedy and hurtling towards being one of the true failures of governance of this pandemic, and this is the top of the Dailymail.

[Deleted User]

sydthebeat wrote: »

The Pope is a great auld fella altogether!

Is there anything to said for another crusade

prawnsambo

Anybody else finding boards incredibly slow at the moment? Click a link and wait, and wait, and wait...

Bazzo

prawnsambo wrote: »

Anybody else finding boards incredibly slow at the moment? Click a link and wait, and wait, and wait...

It's basically unusable on mobile but fine on my laptop.

prawnsambo

Bazzo wrote: »

It's basically unusable on mobile but fine on my laptop.

I'm accessing it on a PC and it's mad slow.

Edit: Taking 15 seconds to load a page. Also inline editing doesn't work; sends you to the advanced edit page and the editor mode switch doesn't seem to work either. Rubber bands seem to be at full stretch.

Squidgy Black

prawnsambo wrote: »

Anybody else finding boards incredibly slow at the moment? Click a link and wait, and wait, and wait...

Yep it's been like that on the touch site for me for the last few days.

swiwi_

My cousin passed today aged only 55 (heart attack). After a couple of hard years he had found happiness learning Maori. His brothers in Brisbane and Brazil and quite possibly his sister in Queenstown can’t make the funeral because of the current situation. I hate that kind of shît but I suppose that’s life. He was a walking encyclopaedia, in particular he lived in London a while and knew a whole array of arcane but fascinating historical details about the city. He also came visited us in Ireland (Cork from memory). May he RIP.

Yeah_Right

swiwi_ wrote: »

My cousin passed today aged only 55 (heart attack). After a couple of hard years he had found happiness learning Maori. His brothers in Brisbane and Brazil and quite possibly his sister in Queenstown can’t make the funeral because of the current situation. I hate that kind of shît but I suppose that’s life. He was a walking encyclopaedia, in particular he lived in London a while and knew a whole array of arcane but fascinating historical details about the city. He also came visited us in Ireland (Cork from memory). May he RIP.

Kia kaha mate.

Clegg

Very sorry for your loss, Swiwi.

sydthebeat

sorry to hear that swiwi.... while theres no good time, this is a bitch of a time to lose anyone

Panda Killa

Sorry to hear that swiwi... horrible times for all of the family

dregin

swiwi_ wrote: »

My cousin passed today aged only 55 (heart attack). After a couple of hard years he had found happiness learning Maori. His brothers in Brisbane and Brazil and quite possibly his sister in Queenstown can’t make the funeral because of the current situation. I hate that kind of shît but I suppose that’s life. He was a walking encyclopaedia, in particular he lived in London a while and knew a whole array of arcane but fascinating historical details about the city. He also came visited us in Ireland (Cork from memory). May he RIP.

Sorry to hear that mate.

Bazzo

swiwi_ wrote: »

My cousin passed today aged only 55 (heart attack). After a couple of hard years he had found happiness learning Maori. His brothers in Brisbane and Brazil and quite possibly his sister in Queenstown can’t make the funeral because of the current situation. I hate that kind of shît but I suppose that’s life. He was a walking encyclopaedia, in particular he lived in London a while and knew a whole array of arcane but fascinating historical details about the city. He also came visited us in Ireland (Cork from memory). May he RIP.

Terrible news swiwi, RIP.

swiwi_

Thanks to everyone for the well-wishes and have a good weekend.

[Deleted User]

Sorry to hear your news Swiwi, very tough to deal with grief when the world is upturned.

irishbucsfan

Condolences and best wishes Swiwi

Dave_The_Sheep

Sorry to hear that Swiwi. Dealing with a loss in current times must be particularly tough.

stephen_n

Deleted User wrote: »

In the midst of a massive tragedy and hurtling towards being one of the true failures of governance of this pandemic, and this is the top of the Dailymail.

Same Daily Mail that was attacking NHS workers last week.

Bazzo

The UK government is a ****ing joke. Rather than simply saying "We set ourselves an ambitious goal for testing, unfortunately we didn't quite meet it" the Tories decided to make a ridiculous changes to the criteria for counting tests at the very last minute and then congratulate themselves on exceeding the target.

I find it very worrying that so many people are apparently unconcerned by the ease with which their government is willing to tell them barefaced lies.

[Deleted User]

Bazzo wrote: »

The UK government is a ****ing joke. Rather than simply saying "We set ourselves an ambitious goal for testing, unfortunately we didn't quite meet it" the Tories decided to make a ridiculous changes to the criteria for counting tests at the very last minute and then congratulate themselves on exceeding the target.

I find it very worrying that so many people are apparently unconcerned by the ease with which their government is willing to tell them barefaced lies.

It's disheartening but Brexit was a big red flag that England had lost the run of itself so them so eagerly swallowing obvious BS is nothing new.

I don't think Scotland and Northern Ireland are drinking the koolaid however. I don't want to drift into banned topics but recent Scottish polling paints an extremely bleak picture for the Union.

Dave_The_Sheep

Bazzo wrote: »

The UK government is a ****ing joke. Rather than simply saying "We set ourselves an ambitious goal for testing, unfortunately we didn't quite meet it" the Tories decided to make a ridiculous changes to the criteria for counting tests at the very last minute and then congratulate themselves on exceeding the target.

And the press just reported it as fact without pointing out the obvious flaws. BBC's headline: "Coronavirus: Target reached as UK tests pass 100,000 a day".

In the article: "The figure includes 40,000 tests sent out, including directly to people's homes, which may not yet have been taken."

Any competent non-Tory ball-licking organisation wouldn't have led with that headline and should have pointed out the obvious bull**** going on.

Bazzo

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

And the press just reported it as fact without pointing out the obvious flaws. BBC's headline: "Coronavirus: Target reached as UK tests pass 100,000 a day".

In the article: "The figure includes 40,000 tests sent out, including directly to people's homes, which may not yet have been taken."

Any competent non-Tory ball-licking organisation wouldn't have led with that headline and should have pointed out the obvious bull**** going on.

It'd be like the girlfriend asking me if I'd emptied the dishwasher and me saying "Yes, also I've changed where we keep all the plates & cutlery"

Buer

So, we're now seeing a lot of countries lifting their restrictions significantly and, whilst social distancing and caution is still to be taken as a matter of course, there's a sense of normality returning to some places. Switzerland was one of the worst hit nations not too long ago with an even higher rate of infection per head of population than Italy at one point. They're reopening schools next week and have already allowed retail outlets reopen.

This appears to be mirrored in multiple nations across Europe. Portugal, another nation hit hard and which went into significant lockdown, reopened multiple elements of their economy yesterday. Denmark, Germany and even Spain are easing at a quicker rate than ourselves.

Long story short, I don't see us implementing the timeframes that were set out in the phased plan on Friday. The pressure from the public is going to be immense when all other nations are reopening and people will be up in arms. Jacinda Ardern already referenced the pace of Ireland's reopening in an interview over the weekend which was done to highlight how quickly NZ is reopening but definitely gave our plan a negative slant.

I think the government are going to be presented with two options/situations:

- They broadly stick to the guidelines and we see a significant number of people ignoring the instructions and guidelines with widespread movement and interaction of people including people travelling to other areas of the country
- They condense their schedule to something which aligns more closely with people's tolerance levels

I've already been told by several people that they're simply not going to wait until late July to see their families who live more than 20km from them as well as extended family who have partners who live more than 20km away.

Podge_irl

It will be difficult for Ireland to stick to the plan if everything goes well in the other countries. It is not exactly beyond the bounds of possibility that things go to **** elsewhere and it looks more prudent.

Some retail outlets are open in Switzerland (DIY/garden stores, hairdressers etc) but all shops are reopening on Monday. Border restrictions will also lessen, though will be far from normal still. We've never been as locked down as Ireland is currently though and our numbers still came down. The ban on gatherings of more than 5 is planned to go on June 8th (it will be 100 then I think) - but already this is being pushed with the good weather.

prawnsambo

Buer wrote: »

So, we're now seeing a lot of countries lifting their restrictions significantly and, whilst social distancing and caution is still to be taken as a matter of course, there's a sense of normality returning to some places. Switzerland was one of the worst hit nations not too long ago with an even higher rate of infection per head of population than Italy at one point. They're reopening schools next week and have already allowed retail outlets reopen.

This appears to be mirrored in multiple nations across Europe. Portugal, another nation hit hard and which went into significant lockdown, reopened multiple elements of their economy yesterday. Denmark, Germany and even Spain are easing at a quicker rate than ourselves.

Long story short, I don't see us implementing the timeframes that were set out in the phased plan on Friday. The pressure from the public is going to be immense when all other nations are reopening and people will be up in arms. Jacinda Ardern already referenced the pace of Ireland's reopening in an interview over the weekend which was done to highlight how quickly NZ is reopening but definitely gave our plan a negative slant.

I think the government are going to be presented with two options/situations:

- They broadly stick to the guidelines and we see a significant number of people ignoring the instructions and guidelines with widespread movement and interaction of people including people travelling to other areas of the country
- They condense their schedule to something which aligns more closely with people's tolerance levels

I've already been told by several people that they're simply not going to wait until late July to see their families who live more than 20km from them as well as extended family who have partners who live more than 20km away.

I actually think our phased plan is a good idea. Initially, each phase is expected to last three weeks, but it has built in flexibility where a phase can be extended or contracted as conditions allow. I know they're not saying that with regard to possible contracting of phases, but it's clearly an option. The most important part of the plan is phase 1. If that goes well, there's always the possibility of shortening the next phase or adding two phases together.

[Deleted User]

Buer wrote: »

So, we're now seeing a lot of countries lifting their restrictions significantly and, whilst social distancing and caution is still to be taken as a matter of course, there's a sense of normality returning to some places. Switzerland was one of the worst hit nations not too long ago with an even higher rate of infection per head of population than Italy at one point. They're reopening schools next week and have already allowed retail outlets reopen.

This appears to be mirrored in multiple nations across Europe. Portugal, another nation hit hard and which went into significant lockdown, reopened multiple elements of their economy yesterday. Denmark, Germany and even Spain are easing at a quicker rate than ourselves.

Long story short, I don't see us implementing the timeframes that were set out in the phased plan on Friday. The pressure from the public is going to be immense when all other nations are reopening and people will be up in arms. Jacinda Ardern already referenced the pace of Ireland's reopening in an interview over the weekend which was done to highlight how quickly NZ is reopening but definitely gave our plan a negative slant.

I think the government are going to be presented with two options/situations:

- They broadly stick to the guidelines and we see a significant number of people ignoring the instructions and guidelines with widespread movement and interaction of people including people travelling to other areas of the country
- They condense their schedule to something which aligns more closely with people's tolerance levels

I've already been told by several people that they're simply not going to wait until late July to see their families who live more than 20km from them as well as extended family who have partners who live more than 20km away.

I think the Government will stick rigidly to the markers they are aiming for. This isn't guesswork, they've good data now and will have based the relaxation phases on likely trends.

They've already said if we fall behind that we'll stay in a phase longer. I do suspect however that if our case numbers fall faster than anticipated that we might accelerate to a small degree also.

I don't see the Government making changes outside of this - sure people are starting to relax a little bit but I suspect with an end in sight enough will keep the head down to keep the virus numbers trending downwards.

I also would question if there would be liability issues should the government ignore the best advice of it's medical advisory team. If other countries are able to emerge faster from lockdown without consequence then there is no reason why we can't pivot more in the future, for now I'm happy the Government are being relatively cautious - regardless of what Ardern has said.

troyzer

Deleted User wrote: »

I think the Government will stick rigidly to the markers they are aiming for. This isn't guesswork, they've good data now and will have based the relaxation phases on likely trends.

They've already said if we fall behind that we'll stay in a phase longer. I do suspect however that if our case numbers fall faster than anticipated that we might accelerate to a small degree also.

I don't see the Government making changes outside of this - sure people are starting to relax a little bit but I suspect with an end in sight enough will keep the head down to keep the virus numbers trending downwards.

I also would question if there would be liability issues should the government ignore the best advice of it's medical advisory team. If other countries are able to emerge faster from lockdown without consequence then there is no reason why we can't pivot more in the future, for now I'm happy the Government are being relatively cautious - regardless of what Ardern has said.

They already have ignored advice. The CMO was dead against letting over 70s out before August at the very least.

But there's a reason why we don't have technocrats running the country. You need to have political accountability.