Wooo. Reading Berkshire Tier three. That means its about 8 miles from my house. I hope the virus can read the county signs.
I wonder if Didcot will get crowds from Reading heading this way for their late shopping on Saturday? I’d better get down the butchers tomorrow.

Tier 3 – retail stays open. You just can’t get pissed in Weatherspoons even if it is curry club. The great unwashed will still be doing their x-mas shopping in Reading.

Celery is poisonous to cats for instance

I’m just wondering in what strange universe would a cat every try to eat a piece of celery

Don’t know if we could have had them when in the EU, but the British Port Authority chap was also quiet enthusiastic about Freeports. These aren’t just for storage but also allow for manufacturing/processing at some physical distance from the port itself.

Apparently there are more applicants for Freeport status than the number likely to be approved, some somebody in the industry must think they’re a good idea.

Of course, the cynics would say this just allows the tory grandees to set up low wage factories in the UK.

A possible Brexit plus, according to the guy from the British Ports Association I was listening to the other day.

As a result of leaving the single market the BPA anticipate a decrease in RoRo traffic through the major pinch points (Dover, Harwich/Felixstowe and (Tyne?))and an increase in short sea container crossings making use of smaller ports, particularly along the east coast.

Coastal areas in the UK are some of it most deprived areas, and those around the older smaller ports even more so. Spreading the load will help regenerate coastal areas. I think the figure they used were £1 generated by the port = £7 generated in the local economy.

Obviously a long term thing that’s the product of short term pain, but they were certainly seeing this as an opportunity.

I’m surprised we still have any armed patrol boats.

Thought it was all high-tec aircraft carriers and destroyers nowadays.

I thought that deal or no deal we were out of the single market and the customs union? The deal may give us more favourable trading terms but that isn’t the same as being in the single market. Goods coming from or going to the continent are still going to be treated as imports and exports with all the additional documentation

What I don’t understand is how are governments going to recuperate the lost revenue of VED if it’s currently based on emissions.

VED is a comparatively minor revenue stream. I think the loss of hydrocarbon oil duty and VAT on the petrol/diesel would be a much bigger worry.

Just clicked on that link. Are they some sort of weird S&M equipment?

Have to confess I have one…..

I had one until it rained. I realised there is a fundamental flaw with wearing a straw hat in the British climate.

Cords however – lovely and warm in my unheated home/office.

Sounds like my “half a mile from a carpark” rule.

Whenever I’m out for a walk or an off road ride, I always know when I’m near a car park because I start meeting people. Get half a mile away and the countryside is empty.

Nope, this is a good hundred years before fiberglass.

I think Josh Vegas is pointing out that the canoe in the video is made out of fiberglass with a paper core?

The tactic of labelling everyone who doesn’t agree with them an idiot is also not especially effective 🤣🤣🤣

Linked to that is the assumption that there is only one set of facts that will lead to one version of the truth.

Yeah but.. a space force!!!

Can we have an Arnold Rimmer style salute?

We have a whole host of non-racist language available to us.

And it such a shame some people can’t discuss it without coming across as aggressive and arrogant.

What is the inherent difference between saying “coloured footballer” and “footballer of colour”?

The correct term in the context of his speech should have been “black footballer”, according to the guy on Radio 4 this morning. (the one that said he used to be called “Chalky” by his coach).

Did all those accusing others of being ignorant know that?

So this vaccine is going to require two carefully spaced doses and take about a month to become effective. It will probably be time limited and require regular booster doses.

It needs to be rolled out to 10s of millions across three countries who can’t agree on a common plan by a government that has a less than stellar track record in controlling the pandemic.

Its recipients are a population where a significant proportion are fed up with/don’t follow/ don’t understand the rules and where most just want to return to pre-Covid normal.

What could possibly go wrong?

Nor is the influenza vaccine but we’ve learned to live with that.

But as every repeats ad nauseam – Covid isn’t influenza

The Pfizer vaccine result confirms that if you have antibodies against the virus, then there is protection from infection

I haven’t been paying much attention, but haven’t there been studies to suggest that antibodies in people who have had the virus don’t hang around very long – about three months?

So this new vaccine will only provide temporary protection?

A (normal looking) man paying (40p less!) for his parking with coins told me that by paying with my phone I was allowing the world government to track me. And that their control of me would only increase after vaccination for Covid because the vaccine has a nano tracking gel in it which means they will know my every thought and deed. …. If that’s sanity then I feel better off mad,

He was doing the sensible thing (paying 40p less) for non-sensible reasons. Were you doing the non-sensible thing (paying 40p more) for sensible reasons?

I think that tells me something very profound, but I can’t work out what.

I find this forum is generally quite good at poking holes in rubbish arguments.

It certainly is and that is largely because it is people who do ask the right questions

I fear that somewhere on a forum called something like RightWingBigotTrackworld someone will be saying exactly the same things.

I’ve still got a lightweight outer. Depends on how you feel the cold but for me it was strictly summer only inside a small double skin tent. Even then it could get a bit chilly. Not used it for years (since I could afford a decent down bag). It is really small and light though.

BIL had the full four season outer+inner – It was warm, massive and really heavy.

I’ll often write “ont he” rather than my intended “on the” but I’ll go back and correct it.

I often write “acunts” instead of “accounts”. That one really does need correcting!

Its not Terry Pratchett

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/12/bbc-the-watch-shares-no-dna-with-terry-pratchett-work-daughter-rhianna

“The Watch shares no DNA with my father’s Watch. This is neither criticism nor support. It is what it is”

Back in the 1880s rural reformers used a phrase “three acres and a cow” – this is what they reckoned a family needed to subsist.

You aren’t going to be self sufficient by growing stuff in your back garden.

Best way to survive the breakdown of western society is to cook and eat your neighbours before they cook and eat you.

If you do kill the wasps, leave the nest. They wont come back to an abandoned one (according to our wasp man).

I think if this had happened in the 1980s it would have spread more slowly, a lot more people would have died* but we wouldn’t really have noticed it as much.

At its worst there might have been a sober suited man from the ministry giving the official news report on evening telly – like that guy during the Falklands war.

*Or would they? Covid hits the elderly worst, but the population in the 1980s wasn’t as top heavy as it is now.

That happens to me all the time.

I always associate it with dementia as my mum used to be able to see all sorts of things that weren’t there.

(Either that or she really could see ghosts)

One of those Lansky kits to get a proper edge.

Leather and metal polish strop to keen them shaving sharp.

Dead Cat Monday

And if you don’t encounter these people in real life,

You probably do. I find most people are a bit more “diplomatic” in real life.

390 clergy members and other church leaders were convicted of abuse between the 1940s and 2018.

I wonder what the figures would be if you looked at any similar sized organization over the same length of time?

Cubot Quest here

Rugged(ish), waterproof and with a screen big enough to use OS maps on.

Our lab system runs an SQL which dumps a load of data into Excel. I “clean” the data, convert to CSV then upload to the PHE portal.

I hope you use control totals and sanity check the exported data. Excel can have a mind of its own, even with .csv

I like it when the normally soft and cuddly STW sticks the knife into a group of people they really hate.

Its quite life affirming to realise everybody really is full of prejudice, despite how much they might protest otherwise.

Makes me feel a lot more cheerful about my own character flaws.

Why do men of a certain age wear cammo shorts? Is it to hide from predators?

Not sure about the hatred for ties and cravats*. They keep your neck warm in winter better than those bulky scarfs which seem to have become a fashion accessory amongst the younger, bearded gentlemanry.

I hate rules.

Unfortunately, many of the “just wear what you like” posts on STW seem to be by the t-shirt, shorts and sandals/flip-flops brigade. It kind of an unwritten rule . . .

I’ve never had one, but will do this year.

I’m eligible for a freebie but probably at the back of the queue, so I’ll pay for one from Boots.

Is there an optimum time to get it done? Or just any time from now on?

It only becomes a gender issue if it’s expected the woman is the one who will focus on family life at the expense of a career.

Don’t know if you meant it this way, but to me this sounds like an assumption that a career is somehow more “worthy” than running and home and bringing up a family.

To me this is part of the issue – we are conditioned to believe the the high flying career person has somehow won in life, while the person who runs a home and watches their kids group up has accepted second place.

I’m a bit disappointed that it’s a film. It would have been an amazing series.

I think someone did try a series? It wasn’t very good either.