Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Tue 02 Jun 2020, 23:30
I am so glad MM to hear all that good news from you. Yes overhere it all starts slowly again as you mentioned in Corona mode. This afternoon we received for the first time people in the garden. It was the ex-daughter-in-law and friend. If all works out well they can start again from 8 june, but as you they have no booking yet for the month of June. But nevertheless they have all accomodation prepared for the start with all requirements as asked by the law. Tables on 1.5 meter and all that. Toilet outside the rooms and a lot more... I hope for you and for them that you nevertheless will have at least some guests in June...
Kind regards from Paul.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Tue 23 Jun 2020, 19:10
Still with the thread in the head about feelings of national identity, I was today wondering, as in that all that stereotyping of nationals...Dirk will know about the "Belgenmoppen" (Belgians about Dutchmen) and also about the "Nederlandermoppen" (Dutchmen about Belgians) https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nederlandermop Dirk don't you know an equivalent site in English to explain it to our English language's guests? In the same wiki they say (but what is wiki?...) they say... Germans about "Ost Friesen" (and that I can confirm as I heard tens of them in my German time) English about Irish Swiss about Austrians Spanish about Portuguese Croats about Slovenes Serbs about Albanese Danes about Swedes English about Scots and Welsh, especially about the frugal aspect (the same of the Belgians about the Dutchmen)
But is there in all that stereotyping not some modest form of truth ? Take now the European aid package to combat the economical consequences of the Covid 19 pandemic in the South... Who are the frugal four that not want to spend the money?
Yes you guess it ...The Netherlands, the Swedes, the Austrians and the Danes...perhaps is my comparison a bit caduc (caducous?), while I don't know too much about the Swedish, Austrian and Danish stereotypes...
But another example: The US citizens, especially some of the Republican side, in their reaction to the Covid pandemic...?
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Fri 26 Jun 2020, 18:03
In my opinion give the politics too much in to the "anti" parties in the population, perhaps for fear of these right and left wing "voters". But in my humble opinion will that be contraproductive, as the mass, in the middle of the extremist right and left side, will also at the end not be pleased by all this turmoil, bringing their lives also in danger. I hope that this will not work in favour of a right wing party for "Right and Order"?
In Belgium has the government, now in the latest decisions, instead of an obligation to wear a mouth mask inside the stores, has only given a recommendation to wear it. And that in clear contradiction with what the virologues say, who fear for a second wave. Again in my opinion some politicians fearing some voters.
My question: How is it in Britain?
Green George Censura
Posts : 805 Join date : 2018-10-19 Location : Kingdom of Mercia
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Fri 26 Jun 2020, 18:36
In some quarters, there is speculation that BoZo is happy to see this, as he will then be able to wash his hands of the blame when infection rates spike "people didn't follow the advice". The fact that the advice is contadictory and confusing only fosters this belief.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Fri 26 Jun 2020, 19:15
In some quarters, there is speculation that BoZo is happy to see this, as he will then be able to wash his hands of the blame when infection rates spike "people didn't follow the advice". The fact that the advice is contadictory and confusing only fosters this belief.
Posts : 805 Join date : 2018-10-19 Location : Kingdom of Mercia
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Fri 26 Jun 2020, 21:52
I'd like to revisit "our" Belgian holiday town one day - Blankenberge - where we used to stay for a few days "beach holiday" before going to Mons (or should I call it Bergen in deference to you, Paul?)
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Fri 26 Jun 2020, 22:32
Green George wrote:
I'd like to revisit "our" Belgian holiday town one day - Blankenberge - where we used to stay for a few days "beach holiday" before going to Mons (or should I call it Bergen in deference to you, Paul?)
No Gil, Mons is good. I hate these changing names in Belgium along the motorway: Aken, Aix-la-Chapelle till it at the end appears the real name: Aachen...but to be honest the French "do" it too... And I like more Ostend, where I lived a time...much more standing ...
Kind regards from your friend Paul.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Thu 16 Jul 2020, 12:53
Today in the Belgian news, one of our virologists is seriously threatened the federal police found out on the web.
Virologist Marc Van Ranst receives police protection. The police had concrete information about some tangible plans from the extreme right-wing corner.
He said that he goes on in his normal way as before.
Paul.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Tue 25 Aug 2020, 09:46
It is the same I suppose in every country, including the UK, but in Belgium it ends always with a Flemish-Francophone community row...sigh...sadly...
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Fri 28 Aug 2020, 08:42
As long as its not Land of Hope and Glory, carry on singing.
nordmann Nobiles Barbariæ
Posts : 7223 Join date : 2011-12-25
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Fri 28 Aug 2020, 08:55
A suggested solution to the current "let's get angry about inconsequential crap so we don't even look at the real issues about which we should be actually bloody livid" media bru-ha-ha was made on a radio call-in programme the other day (either LBC or Talk-Radio - these all blur together once the verbiage becomes audible).
The woman who rang in to the show saw absolutely no problem, she said, with the singing of "Rule Britannia" at the Last Night of the Proms, to which the show's "shock-jock" compere whooped in faux-patriotic approval.
He should have waited a second. "Just drop the L", she continued.
Meles meles Censura
Posts : 5081 Join date : 2011-12-30 Location : Pyrénées-Orientales, France
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Fri 28 Aug 2020, 13:20
Keep Calm and Sing ... well yes, as I've now got little else to do. It's only the end of August so normally still peak holiday season and with the schools only starting to go back next week (in France la rentrée is staggered and the date varies by departement). Yet having just waved goodbye to three couples this morning I now have absolutely no bookings at all for the next eight days, and then very few in September. Some more bookings will probably come, although likely just for a night or two and booked at the last minute, but even so it's looking like this Summer's season (which alrerady started very late) is now effectively over . And now on top of that, Météo France has has just posted an orange alert for violent thunderstorms and torrential rain tonight, so that's the end of the good weather too, at least for the next few days. Although some rain would be most welcome in the garden and might well encourage the wild mushrooms in the woods too, so there is at least that positive side.
But on a more historical note, I see that the covid lockdown has prompted the reopening of some of Florence's old 'wine windows' (buchettes del vino), remotely serving wine - as they did during 17th century outbreaks of plague - but now also providing cocktails, coffee and gelato.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Wed 07 Oct 2020, 12:00
About Covid19 we have an interesting dicussion on a French forum about the dilemme, in my eyes not confined to France alone but to the whole world. Namely about the question: Does the government has to let prevail the right of it's citizens on life above the well being of the economy, understood the economic well being of it's citizens? First of all is it in my opinion a false question, while there will always space for compromise and equilibrium.
I have rather positive experiences with google translator especially with French to English and of course for MM and LiR the French texts will not be a problem.
Starting (as an aside ) from 4 october about that question I answered together with "Darwin" on a message from a fan, as I understood it well, of the (prevalence? (lucky that I checked, as I see now that it means something others than in the French "prévalance") "priority"? of the economy above the life of the citizens. http://geopolitique.passion-histoire.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1254&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=290
Translation by google:
"Yes Darwin we discussed this dilemma 8 days ago with someone from my inner circle, who is in the searching of cancers... We have actually two paths: the ones you mentioned; And he agreed that by leaving the entertainment sectors open to save the economy of this sector and in addition to less restrictions on contact between people, we risk a more serious pandemic, affecting vulnerable people (like me, old and with a donor kidney and immunosuppressive drugs. So "a case of risk" (spelling?) I gave the example of Sweden, where we had not taken the restrictions as elsewhere in Europe and by the contamination of caregivers in nursing homes we had an explosion of cases there. And many elderly deaths. But in the meantime they have revised this policy. And yes this cancer specialist answered me, it's a bit the Darwinian way and at the end of time we arrive at and auto-immunization as in the Middle-Ages...or after the colonization by Europeans in the americas...
But dear Darwin, you have given me one more point: You wrote: "The "accounting" problem (besides the obvious moral dilemma) is that this would generate an additional cost in care, and would permantly clog all hospitals, thus affectin the entire population and its access to care. It would not only be the deaths of the virus deaths, it will be necessary to pass on the degradatin of the health, even the death of those, who will not have access of care quickly enough. We then go to the end of the "Darwinian" logic, we let everything run and we see who remains standing after."
And yes, for some as in America (the same health insurance system as in Switzerland) we may let people die at home or in the street without care...so not a bottleneck in the hospitals..."
Paul.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Fri 09 Oct 2020, 19:13
Thinking again about what I said on the French forum, I regret now that I have not said that when the pandemic in a certain country has reached an amount of cases where even the nursing personal is affected and the people that keep the "real"! economy (not the leisure and entertainment sector) running, society can come to a complete collapse. In the meantime the discussion has become that tense (and among tenors of the site (moderators)) that I don't want to interfere anymore.
Paul.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Sun 18 Oct 2020, 10:56
I was considering to put these questions first on the "civilisation and community forum" and then on the "political ideology" one, but now seeing in the following articles that the questioning and the answers are that complex, the "problem" is perhaps best put overhere as it after all is about the Covid 19 virus.
My first question.
Is it due to the Eastern mentality and the culture of for instance a Japan and of the same plus a nearly dictatorial system in China that there are that less cases overthere than in Europe and in the US? And I found this article relevant for the question. It is from "Die Deutsche Welle" (a German cultural world forum) that LiR and I commented already overhere on the board.
What are the honourable members of this board thinking about all these "opinions"?
Paul.
nordmann Nobiles Barbariæ
Posts : 7223 Join date : 2011-12-25
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Sun 18 Oct 2020, 12:11
Distribution of misinformation aids those engaged in disinformation.
Your first question is based on an article published back in June which, even then, contained some false assumptions, false references, and certainly false prognosis - as evidenced by what has transpired in the four months since then. Eastern Asian countries were, as the article stated, at that time considerably more successful at containing the communal spread of the virus. In those countries for which reliable statistics existed this could be attributed to three obvious vector-impediments - testing at point of entry for everyone arriving in the country, strict regulations regarding isolation and quarantine, and strict adherence to pneumonic inhibitors and fomite spread (face masks, social distancing, hand & general hygiene). There was no great mystery to this - even when countries' ability to compile statistics might not have been as good as some neighbours, one could rely on their general statements of infection levels because they too followed the regime described above.
Now, with a lot of these countries having relaxed these regimes, those in the northern hemisphere in particular are showing an acceleration of imported infections, a higher degree of communal spread, and the requirement to return to the strict regimes of earlier this year. Because they are mostly doing this before the R0 for coronavirus exceeds 1 in their population, this is being done with less deleterious effect on their economies than currently prevails in Europe or the Americas. However the article's focus on possible mutational, genetic or cultural reasons for their relative success was, and remains, quite misleading. And its final claim that no proven link exists between obesity and virus related fatality is simply wrong (and was back in June too).
Your second "question" which presupposes a difference between eastern and western Europe is also based on no particular evidence of any value in clinical analysis. If one discounts those countries such as Russia, Belarus, Moldavia, etc which are not so much yielding poor statistics as blatantly false statistics (and have been from the outset), then others - such as Poland, Hungary, Slovakia etc - are now showing R0 rates of communal spread very close to more western countries which, with varying degrees of success, had struggled to haul this rate down to below 1 earlier in the year (some, like the UK, never did). For these countries there is no reason to describe what is happening at the moment as a "second wave" (a dubious term clinically), but instead it is certainly an emphatic increase in vector transmission in terms of suddenness and potential scope such as was experienced in earlier identified epicentres like Italy and New York at the start of the spread outside Asia. Unlike Italy and New York however they have had at least 7 months to prepare for this intensification of communal transmission, and those who are also within the EU have at least secured resources and financing to help them cope. If these measures can be made to work, and this is a big "if", then hopefully they will continue to see morbidity and fatality rates lower than more western countries in Europe, but only relatively as these rates - even when curtailed - would have been rightly regarded as terrifying and alarming had they occurred in any other context.
Again, it doesn't help that you refer us to an article from May 2020 to support your question. Whatever the journalist may have thought back then, time - and the virus - have both moved on.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Sun 18 Oct 2020, 13:15
nordmann thank you as ever for your critical approach and of course you are right to expose these articles of the general press.
But it is that what the average citizen captures from for instance The Guardian, which seems to be considered in Britain by the general public as a reliable source? But yes, we discussed already that you even the BBC can't trust anymore because of bad "journalistic".
That said, I am grateful for your critic on both me and the general press and it can perhaps lead to a reading of our general 20 viewers public, which can perhaps lead to a further divulgation of your take of the problem...a divulgation that can explode perhaps as the Covid 19 to their wider circle, and that wider circle on its turn...
As ever I have learned a lot from you and I thank you for that.
Kind regards, Paul.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Sun 18 Oct 2020, 13:34
Addendum.
nordmann, although I had it in mind, I forgot to add my conversation recently with one of my inner circle, being specialist in cancer research. He was in Sweden for as I reckon it in three periods for some three years at university.
I asked him why, although they had a more overt approach as in "cafés" (pubs) and on street gatherings ( a bit as in the Netherlands), they had not that high Covid 19 cases as in Belgium now. He said that he had seen in the time and even now (still visiting Sweden and linked to that university) a much more disciplined attitude of the rules than in the, known as, unrully Belgium, where there is a mentality of: rules are there to be escaped... I know it is just "one" opinion and we need reliable scientific statistics...
Kind regards, Paul.
nordmann Nobiles Barbariæ
Posts : 7223 Join date : 2011-12-25
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Sun 18 Oct 2020, 14:26
As newspapers go, the Guardian is left-leaning but generally scores high on impartiality when reporting news. When publishing opinion articles however its political bias is more to the fore, and while not uniform in that respect will therefore often allow publication of articles where the journalist has - to put it charitably - over-interpreted data to suit a certain world view. Had I read the Guardian article at the time of publishing I would have had one or two criticisms based on what I also then knew from studying more or less the same data that he had also claimed to have based his piece upon. Several months later I can see all the flaws, and I'm sure the journalist who wrote it can see them too. So while it was never an attempt at disinformation, you referring to it in October 2020 seems to me to be very close to an attempt at spreading misinformation. Which none of us needs right now.
Sweden is somewhere I commented on here many months ago, and even then I had to correct a misinterpretation current at the time, especially in the UK where even now it persists, that the country was aiming for "herd immunity". It was doing nothing of the kind. The health authorities had - like every other responsible country - looked at the data then available which, for them, included one of the greatest ICU bed per capita ratios in the developed world. But it was a miscalculation, and proven to be so very quickly. What had been omitted from their calculations, which were heavily weighted towards keeping the economy moving, was that access to ICU, while impressive in Sweden, had a negligible role to play in limiting transmission vectors, which proved to be the one (and so far only) key measure available to anyone if one wishes to avoid total economic collapse eventually. "Buying time" is all well and good, but in Sweden's case time was bought to no real purpose, and at a terrible price initially for the most vulnerable people in the community who they were meant to be protecting.
It is true that Swedes generally behave more socially obediently than people might in other cultures so your friend is correct in that observation, and this initially helped disguise the flaws in the strategy adopted by the authorities, especially in helping keep very high R0 factors quite localised as people voluntarily restricted their own mobility. But this too came with a time limit, and now Sweden is facing the same options with pretty much the same statistical justifications as do most of their neighbours.
In Scandinavia generally, as winter approaches, most people are aware of what was done right and wrong when reacting to the initial outbreak. Governments here are also quite up front about the bits they miscalculated or got wrong first time round, so we are still probably all obedient enough to conform to whatever restrictions are now going to be implemented. I can contrast this with Ireland where they have also had pretty responsible government up to now, but where the authorities now are facing extra challenges with a sizeable portion of the population who are naturally resisting extra limitations which may not be immediately obvious as to their efficacy just at the moment. However earlier experience this year suggests this can hopefully be resolved with better public information relaying as things unfold.
Within the UK the Scottish and Welsh are closest to the Irish experience in this regard. England however, which is most at the mercy of a mendacious and corrupt administration at the top level, is practically at the point of open revolt as far as I can see when it comes to obeying any restriction imposed from now on. As in the USA, a sizeable portion of the population has gone way beyond simply seeing these rules as something to be circumvented, but instead to be questioned, opposed, ignored and openly flouted. This reflects a minority attitude in other developed countries such as France and Germany, though given the extreme probability that the government in the UK simply cannot ever get it "right" I can see no way back now so that scientific sense can prevail in England, or at least translate into a successful social strategy.
I hope I'm wrong. The deaths per capita statistics however still do not lie.
Vizzer Censura
Posts : 1816 Join date : 2012-05-12
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Sun 18 Oct 2020, 16:02
Good points there nordmann regarding Sweden and Scandinavia generally. Also to add that's there's a theory that those countries already had a culture of 'social-distancing' even before the onset of the pandemic. Only the other day the BBC interviewed a British woman married to a Swede and living in Gothenburg for the past 30 years, who commented that there was little interaction (let alone banter) among people, say, waiting at a bus stop in the city even in pre-Covid-19 times. The Finns even have a joke about this which goes:
Finnish Ministry of Health spokesperson - "The 2 metre social distancing regulation is to be relaxed." Finnish public - "Great! We can now go back to 4 metres."
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Sun 18 Oct 2020, 17:07
Thanks again for your interesting and to the point comments nordmann. I learned from it. and I promise to be even more critical and investigating (and looking to the "latest" evolution comments). As perhaps in history and in science it is only the latest research that counts and that critics honestly (or scientifically?) all the previous research. I recall from my German intensive contact time the expression: "laut der neuesten Stand der Technik, der Wissenschaft" (according to the newest status of the technics, science?)...
Kind regards, Paul.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Wed 21 Oct 2020, 16:37
Just an innocent question as seen from Belgium...
How work the new regulations of the Irish Republic about the lockdown in Ireland at the Northern Ireland border?
As Northern Ireland has also strengthened the rules, will it then be only the same difficulties as for instance between todays Belgian and French regulations?
Paul.
nordmann Nobiles Barbariæ
Posts : 7223 Join date : 2011-12-25
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Thu 22 Oct 2020, 12:42
The Republic of Ireland has also brought in stricter controls at the same time as the north did. In general both north and south have managed pretty well to coordinate easing and tightening of regulations, though a few weeks ago a disparity arose between some border counties where the infection rate was rising faster than elsewhere and measures were brought in quicker on the south's side than the north. But this has been addressed now.
LadyinRetirement Censura
Posts : 3305 Join date : 2013-09-16 Location : North-West Midlands, England
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Thu 22 Oct 2020, 13:02
I went to the nearest shopping centre to where I live a couple of days ago and noticed that a charity shop for a local hospice is closing down. Then yesterday I received a letter saying the hospice charity has suffered financially during the quarantine. It's very sad because they do good work. A friend of mine was in there at the end and was very well treated.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Thu 22 Oct 2020, 19:55
nordmann wrote:
The Republic of Ireland has also brought in stricter controls at the same time as the north did. In general both north and south have managed pretty well to coordinate easing and tightening of regulations, though a few weeks ago a disparity arose between some border counties where the infection rate was rising faster than elsewhere and measures were brought in quicker on the south's side than the north. But this has been addressed now.
nordmann, thank you for the inside information. And of course it is a good thing that they do the same at each side of the border. We too have had not that much difficulties at the border of the three regions Flanders, Brussels, Wallonia as we had from the beginning a more coordinated organisation on federal Belgian level, although some responsabilities are regional as education(schools) and health care (also hospitals), you can guess in Covid time...although in my opinion we had never serious problems with that on federal Belgian level...
In that densely habitated Belgium with an urban population of 98% it are more the rapid interconnections within that urban area, which are responsible (in my opinion) for the quick propagation of the virus...
Kind regards, Paul.
Last edited by PaulRyckier on Wed 11 Nov 2020, 11:22; edited 1 time in total
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Sun 25 Oct 2020, 17:31
Tagging on
Having spent 8 weeks redeployed back to Intensive Care during the first wave I'm flabbergasted how ignorant sections of the general public are (and that's putting it politely).
The common theme from some is that Covid is like flu. It really isn't. They will quote a figure that is based on a 12 month period and compare but refuse to acknowledge that in many case we beat those figures not in a year or 6 months but in a few weeks. In my original period of work we had "flu seasons)" and were used to it. We may have got a couple. We never saw what we did in March/April.
Ever.
I personally think that the UK acted 2 weeks too late. Thank god, however they did act when they did as I suspect we avoided a catastrophe. We avoided a Italian like complete breakdown by the skin of our teeth - and we had advanced warning.
Even more concerning is the anti vaccination mindset that seems to be emerging. So its a double whammy. You can't get herd immunity without a vaccination programme. So if the same people do as they say there is a fair chance that any potential for the fable herd immunity will be missed. The same problem has reared its head in regards to measles (due to a certain individual).
I was watching an interesting seminar about social media and historical comparison by a well known respected historian . He argued that digital social media was probably the second biggest social media revolution.
The first was the advent of the printing press. When this occurred it was far more easy for a person to "get a message" to the people than ever before. Now like the internet its a double edged sword. You can access knowledge far more easily than before, but you also can have fruitcakes publishing completely inaccurate, dangerous ,inflammatory information which certain sections will gobble up and state as gospel. Today we have conspiracy theory about vaccinations,governments etc. In the past we had witch trials and Witchfinder Generals!
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Wed 11 Nov 2020, 11:16
VF thank you for your thoughts about Covid 19. It is indeed appalling how ignorant some people are and many times pushed by stupid irresponsable media or by a self amplifying effect in internet communities.
VF, perhaps we can start a new thread about what you wrote about the internet?
VF wrote:
The first was the advent of the printing press. When this occurred it was far more easy for a person to "get a message" to the people than ever before. Now like the internet its a double edged sword. You can access knowledge far more easily than before, but you also can have fruitcakes publishing completely inaccurate, dangerous ,inflammatory information which certain sections will gobble up and state as gospel. Today we have conspiracy theory about vaccinations,governments etc. In the past we had witch trials and Witchfinder Generals!
And BTW about Covid 19 in Belgium. As one of the worst affected areas in the world, thanks among others to the irresponsability of the inhabitants, we seem to have learned now our lesson. To avoid a third wave now indeed the correct measurements...even an austere 11 November ceremony at Ypres: https://www.facebook.com/pg/lastpostieper/posts/ https://www.facebook.com/lastpostieper/videos/2876769722536185/ "Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo reads the exhortation and lays a wreath for the Fallen on behalf of all the people who are not able to do so today."
Kind regards, Paul.
Temperance Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Posts : 6895 Join date : 2011-12-30 Location : UK
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Tue 08 Dec 2020, 15:29
Dominic Cummings, the former chief advisor to the UK government, has ended up as a joke in a Christmas cracker. How very appropriate. Here is the Guardian's list of the best worst cracker jokes this Yuletide.
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Tue 08 Dec 2020, 16:49
Glad to see you back Temp. The board is immediately more "vivid"... With "vivid" I mean the French "animé" or the Dutch "levendig"... That's always the difficulty in foreign languages, that one has not the same feeling as a "native", if one is not a longtime embedded in the language as spoken currently among for instance the English population (can I say "locals" Temp, in this context? )
Kind regards, Paul.
Triceratops Censura
Posts : 4377 Join date : 2012-01-05
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Tue 08 Dec 2020, 17:16
The second patient to be vaccinated was a bod from Warwickshire named........William Shakespeare.
Was he patient 2B or not 2B?
THETWO GENTLEMEN OF CORONA
THE TAMING OF THE FLU
CORONIOLONUS
THE MERCHANT OF VIRUS
Last edited by Triceratops on Tue 08 Dec 2020, 17:26; edited 5 times in total
Triceratops Censura
Posts : 4377 Join date : 2012-01-05
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Tue 08 Dec 2020, 17:18
"Is this a dagger I see before me ??"
"No, it's a needle"
Temperance Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Posts : 6895 Join date : 2011-12-30 Location : UK
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Tue 08 Dec 2020, 18:26
Beatrice: I am stuffed cousin; I cannot smell.
Much Ado About Nothing Act III iv
Could this be a revival of The Shakespeare (Covid) Challenge?! We could have a Brexit one, too - er, perhaps not.
Temperance Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Posts : 6895 Join date : 2011-12-30 Location : UK
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Tue 08 Dec 2020, 18:33
Don't know what happened with my post above: it has sort of got lost in the background - at least it has on my computer. How disconcerting. I'll try again. Here is what I typed:
Beatrice: I am stuffed, cousin; I cannot smell.
Much Ado About Nothing Act III sc iv
Could this be the revival of the much-missed Shakespeare Challenge thread? We could have emphasis on Covid Shakespeare and Brexit Shakespeare. Er - perhaps not.
Triceratops Censura
Posts : 4377 Join date : 2012-01-05
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Fri 11 Dec 2020, 15:41
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Fri 11 Dec 2020, 20:00
Trike, I wanted to start again a message on Temp's thread, about the meeting of Ursula and Boris this week and sought for cartoons, but only found a to the point one (in my opinion) and it is already from September...
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Tue 15 Dec 2020, 16:51
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Tue 15 Dec 2020, 20:23
Trike, and of course it has to be those bloody Germans from the Norddeutscher Rundfunk, who has to laugh with Bojo. I find that the guy can only do his best. After all, that people behind him aren't nice people either. He only can! try as a good politician to realize their many times irrealistic wishes...
And now those Teutonen (Teutons) try to belittle him. Because they not succeeded there in Fourty? Here in Belgium we can talk about it. We had them two times over the floor only with an interval of 22 years. And they were not nice to us I can tell you. They would better let it to the British "tabloids"...
Season's greetings from Paul.
Triceratops Censura
Posts : 4377 Join date : 2012-01-05
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Wed 16 Dec 2020, 08:50
Trike, I had to have added an behind my utterings, to avoid a misconception of the seriousness of the situation. And of course still in my take I find that one, as you said, has to look to the whole group, and! Johnson and! his gang of criminals.
But serious now, I think that there in the EU are as well nationalist right wing groups, which are for the moment governing in some countries, and are as bad as the Johnson group, perhaps even worser. I will not name examples of nationalistic countries, which only adhere to the EU because they are a netto receiver of the European money (the manna of the collective European taxpayer)?
Kind regards, Paul.
Triceratops Censura
Posts : 4377 Join date : 2012-01-05
Subject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing Sun 20 Dec 2020, 09:13
Home 
?
. And now on top of that, Météo France has has just posted an orange alert for violent thunderstorms and torrential rain tonight, so that's the end of the good weather too, at least for the next few days. Although some rain would be most welcome in the garden and might well encourage the wild mushrooms in the woods too, so there is at least that positive side.
