ADs take the National Express when their lives' in a mess, it will make them smile

[BogRollBOGOF]

🎤On the National Express
There’s a jolly hostess
Giving porridge free
She’ll provide you with shots
amaretto or what
You like to seeeeee...

Going out was in style
Now we’re stuck in this aisle
Dream of being free
And it’s hard to get by
When your arse is the size
Of the furlough feeeeeee🎤

Bah ba ba la
Bah ba ba la

Tomorrow belongs to meee...

Welcome to the 17:38 to freedom, stopping at virtual hugs, critical discourse, and random tangents along the way. ETA unknown...

I feel I'm tipping into "covid is a hoax" territory and I'm normally quite rational! So many businesses are going to collapse if we don't open up again.

All the dementors keep saying "it's just ONE Christmas". Did Saint Boris get that memo? It's how he keeps gaslighting the public into accepting more restrictions, by telling us "it's only until xyz", and then just as that date draws near "pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease be patient, my scientitists say their made up numbers are still too high because you haven't behaved, I need to squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze the brakes".

Is the government trying to cull the population by suicide? Right now, I would believe anything.

Let's start writing to our MPs reminding them that we need to see relaxation of restrictions on 2nd December, as promised, and not merely being replaced with even more restrictions. Remind them that many small businesses are going to file for bankruptcy if they are robbed of their December trade. Remind them that the suicide levels in January will be monumentally high if lockdown continues. Remind them that people are becoming unfit (too unfit to resist the virus, Boris said) because their gyms and sport have been SNATCHED AWAY from them.

@wanderings

All the dementors keep saying "it's just ONE Christmas". Did Saint Boris get that memo? It's how he keeps gaslighting the public into accepting more restrictions, by telling us "it's only until xyz", and then just as that date draws near "pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease be patient, my scientitists say their made up numbers are still too high because you haven't behaved, I need to squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze the brakes".

Is the government trying to cull the population by suicide? Right now, I would believe anything.

Let's start writing to our MPs reminding them that we need to see relaxation of restrictions on 2nd December, as promised, and not merely being replaced with even more restrictions. Remind them that many small businesses are going to file for bankruptcy if they are robbed of their December trade. Remind them that the suicide levels in January will be monumentally high if lockdown continues. Remind them that people are becoming unfit (too unfit to resist the virus, Boris said) because their gyms and sport have been SNATCHED AWAY from them.

Yes!!!! I just feel so flat and completely without hope. I feel like I'm being made to sacrifice DS and all the hopes and dreams I had for him over and over again and I'm just being told to be glad it isn't the war.

Maybe I should start a christmassy theme and tell DS that Christmas is canceled this year but be glad it's not the first Christmas because, as a baby boy, Herod would be after him.

Sorry and that was yes to writing to MPs! They need to know. Even Manchester uni is taking note now although interesting it was racism rather than imprisoning students that did it in the end.

@LivinLaVidaLoki

On a lighter note.....

I've a visit to do today, just over an hour away. To cheer things up a bit, on the journey, do I listen to....

A Motown
B Christmas music

Christmas Motown!

I would vote Christmas music too. Fairytale of new York and sing the swear bits at the top of your lungs.

And always, at the back of all this is the fact that lockdowns don't work. Even the WHO has said that lockdowns should only be used as a last resort. If lockdowns/various restrictions actually worked, we wouldn't see cases rising as we do. Variations on a theme of lockdown have been in force Europe wide for months, yet cases still continue to rise.
It is only on mumsnet that I see such keeness for lockdowns - any commenting I see elsewhere, such as on news stories, is generally very angry and anti government. I think a pp was right in saying that some people actually like lockdowns as a change from their hectic lives, but I think this must apply to a small minority. For many working people they are just watching their lives go down the pan.
I agree that there should be mass protests. I think if it starts it will be the lid taken off Europe wide. It has been simmering for a longtime.
I shall write to my MP (yet again), and hope the backbenchers put a stop to this madness.

5 days of restrictions being lifted for us would look like a couple of days of getting ready for Christmas Day and not seeing anyone because we're too busy getting ready for Christmas Day.
Seeing my parents Christmas Day and possibly boxing Day.
That's it. Won't it be similar for most people? For some people out will mean being able to travel to relatives or have them stay.
I don't think I'm going to have the time or energy to squeeze in seeing every friend and family member in 5 days with a big event in the middle of it anyway.

@starfish88

I would vote Christmas music too. Fairytale of new York and sing the swear bits at the top of your lungs.

I posted an altered version earlier in the thread ....

My 3 children are coming home for Christmas - come hell or high water! The eldest comes back from deployment on 22nd December and will head straight home. Middle child (only recently employed after finishing uni last year) lives in London but hasn't been home since the first lockdown so will walk home if necessary. His flat mates (student doctors) are also going home. Youngest is technically at uni but doing a work experience year before starting year 3 but also playing elite sport so would normally stay away until the last Sunday before Christmas to do that! I will happily forgo the 'pleasure' of seeing my siblings and their offspring in order to spend a few days with my children

Going to repost my Fairytale of New York again

If anyone wants to finish it...?

It got ignored so I appreciate you might hate it 😂

I’m calling it Fairytale of Old London and Old New York

🎤 It was Christmas Eve babe
Drunk at mum’s home
The old girl said to me
This isn’t Christmas time

And then she sang a song
“Why hasn’t Hancock gone?”

I turned my face away
And dreamed about life

Before the lockdown
Life was a beauty hun
I’ve got a feeling
This year’s for Matt and Boz

So happy Christmas
I love you, ADs

I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true

We’ll have cocktails in bars
Like the days of the old
And we’ll go to the West End
All the stars
Back on show

Nutcracker again on a cold Christmas Eve
And once again, Broadway spills over with glee🎤

I've just been reading a piece where SAGE are admitting in a documentary this evening that they used Wikipedia data to model this crisis and had no coronavirus expert in their ranks. The mind boggles.

Poisonous comment to me on the Australia thread.

Fight fire with fire but try not to get banned, eh?

@NeedWineNow

I've just been reading a piece where SAGE are admitting in a documentary this evening that they used Wikipedia data to model this crisis and had no coronavirus expert in their ranks. The mind boggles.

Most of us would be sacked for that!

Speaking of which, must get to work. Lots to do today.

Tends to be a bit feast or famine at the mo.

@AcornAutumn

Going to repost my Fairytale of New York again

If anyone wants to finish it...?

It got ignored so I appreciate you might hate it 😂

I’m calling it Fairytale of Old London and Old New York

🎤 It was Christmas Eve babe
Drunk at mum’s home
The old girl said to me
This isn’t Christmas time

And then she sang a song
“Why hasn’t Hancock gone?”

I turned my face away
And dreamed about life

Before the lockdown
Life was a beauty hun
I’ve got a feeling
This year’s for Matt and Boz

So happy Christmas
I love you, ADs

I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true

We’ll have cocktails in bars
Like the days of the old
And we’ll go to the West End
All the stars
Back on show

Nutcracker again on a cold Christmas Eve
And once again, Broadway spills over with glee🎤

I liked it but have zero talent so I couldn't possibly finish it

*@AcornAutumn * its brilliant!! But like TrustTheGeneGenie I have no talent and will hope that someone with a talent/skill can finish it

I love the alternate version of fairytale of new York. I must have missed it the first time you posted, I have a bad habit of reading my phone when DS wakes up at 1:30am and then for getting what I read! Maybe it's time to do an AD choir. If they can take rainbows and turn them into a virtue signal we can take all the lockdown activities and turn them into satire. Of course I couldn't hold a tune in a bucket but maybe that adds to the fun.

I do agree with @Reedwarbler that mass protests would spread quickly. Think how quickly attitudes changed from 'it's just flu to lockdown forever', I don't think it would take much to change back and once one voice shouts others will join just as lockdown spread once Italy did. Ive got friends and family writing to thir MP too. I don't want us to be overlooked as the silent majority.

"I've just been reading a piece where SAGE are admitting in a documentary this evening that they used Wikipedia data to model this crisis and had no coronavirus expert in their ranks. The mind boggles."
If they'd had an episode of The Thick of It with this in it I'd be laughing my head off. In real life, I am seriously unimpressed.

I was expecting tighter restrictions in January, TBH. I don't want them, but I couldn't understand how they would "allow" us to mix indoors with others when we've been told for months it's dangerous. I knew they'd have some kind of trade-off. I hope this doesn't come across as smug & horrible, it isn't my intention. I certainly don't want to be locked down in January.

I have a touch of The Eeyores at the moment.
Still, could be worse, could be in South Australia. Sorry @bluetongue. It sounds awful. I keep forgetting it's summer down there too.

I love the alternative version of Fairytale! I'm ok on music, but not so much on lyrics so will leave them to someone more talented!

We've just had the news that my father-in-law, who is not very old, but is in a nursing home with advanced Parkinson's, has tested positive for covid.

My DD's (aged 11) reaction was interesting: she just assumed that he will now die, despite us being pretty sanguine about everything covid-related in general at home. I explained that it's not a death sentence, and she immediately said that it's the media's fault, as they give the impression anyone old or ill will just die of it. Just goes to show what she has picked up from the bits she sees and hears.

🎤I was young, slightly pretty
Queen of New York City
Although I missed home, I was hungry for more

The bars were all swinging
All my friends they were singing
They shipped over Marmite cos it wasn’t sold

The English filled the city and New Yorkers welcomed us
And the Empire State lit up for the queen’s day🎤

(the Jubilee, even non royalty fans missed home that day)!

If anyone knows me here, I’ve totally outed myself. I find I’m so nostalgic for my New York days. The guy from REM said he got approached more about this song than any other he’d written, with people stopping him in the street to say how much they felt it.

@BeanMachine

I love the alternative version of Fairytale! I'm ok on music, but not so much on lyrics so will leave them to someone more talented!

We've just had the news that my father-in-law, who is not very old, but is in a nursing home with advanced Parkinson's, has tested positive for covid.

My DD's (aged 11) reaction was interesting: she just assumed that he will now die, despite us being pretty sanguine about everything covid-related in general at home. I explained that it's not a death sentence, and she immediately said that it's the media's fault, as they give the impression anyone old or ill will just die of it. Just goes to show what she has picked up from the bits she sees and hears.

I hope he’s okay.

Poor child. Dreadful that she should assume that because of all the fear mongering.

I love your alternative lyrics Acorn.
I love REM too. I was gutted when Michael Stipe said they were splitting up. Underrated group.

I have to pick my moods to listen to a whole album though. I remember a soggy Sunday drawing into an early night one night when I was in halls and a bit down in the dumps for no obvious reason. Decided to wallow and put REM on, and the tears got flowing. Until 2020, that was pretty rare for me.

Delurking, again, to agree fervently. My DP doesn't qualify for furlough ( apparently ) as he was supposed to start a new job as lockdown began. If lockdown continues we will have no income over December, and we have 4 DC...the mood is bleak in our house atm, not helped by the fact that our 4 year old is self isolating and climbing the walls...I dont know how much more of this we can take thankyou though for your voices of sanity really do make such a difference

I have had a hollow laugh to myself this morning.
For nearly 30 years I have kept a christmas book, with lists of presents given and cards sent. I also write memos to myself for the following christmas - well, you forget things over the year, don't you? Things like 'don't cook the turkey for so long', 'don't buy so much chocolate' and so on.
Last year's memo reads, 'Don't invite anyone for Christmas! Have it on our own or go abroad. This year was a disaster'. I had forgotten I wrote this. I won't say what happened because I will sound unkind, but we will most certainly be on our own as my fil with alzheimers is now in a home, and our other guest is now too frightened to leave his flat and hasn't even been outdoors since March (has mobility issues).
Who says christmas wishes don't come true?

@FeelsLikeGroundhogDay
Sorry to hear of your predicament.

@Reedwarbler some Christmases are just a "disaster", it's a fact, & you're not unkind to say so.

@AcornAutumn
I was lucky enough to have a trip to New York once, it was awesome. I also love REM & had a nostalgic listen a few months ago, then a cathartic cry to Everybody Hurts.