ADs drinking al fresco at The Sleeping Swans

[BogRollBOGOF]

ADs, grab your thermals, long johns and winter woolies, we're finally off to drown our sorrows at the Sleeping Swan!

@ISaySteadyOn

FIL unthinkingly tried the Primark shaming last time until I pointed out that children grow and people might be desperate for clothes and shoes for them. Then, because he is actually a nice man, he acknowledged I was right and stopped.

I can't understand why anyone would do this.

Call me cynical but I've been wondering if the current coverage and subsequent pushback against vaccine passports is more about softening people up for the possibility of masks, social distancing (lordy how I hate that phrase) and maybe a bit of T&T sticking around for longer.

It's a classic 'frighten people with the big thing that won't happen, then they're more likely to accept the smaller things that probably will' strategy.

@BIoodyStupidJohnson

Call me cynical but I've been wondering if the current coverage and subsequent pushback against vaccine passports is more about softening people up for the possibility of masks, social distancing (lordy how I hate that phrase) and maybe a bit of T&T sticking around for longer.

It's a classic 'frighten people with the big thing that won't happen, then they're more likely to accept the smaller things that probably will' strategy.

I'm sorry, I'm such a broken record

But I still think the Coronavirus Act is in place till March 2022 and just thought that was the earliest any real change might be seen.

Me and my lanyard are going to the shop at lunchtime

I haven't tried this in a shop before 9pm, it's going to be weird. I guess less weird than the Tube, hopefully...

I've celebrated the Great Gradual Opening-Up today... by avoiding non-essential retail entirely, and flocking to the mechanic to have the oil changed in my car.

She's a small independent local business and I think lucky to have survived the last year.

I hate the primark shaming. I’ve actually bought some really good quality items from there, and there is never a John Lewis shaming is there?

It’s the usual ‘let’s point and laugh at the poor people’

I predict Primark will go the same way Aldi and Lidl did, everyone pretends they don’t go there, then word starts creeping out about what is good, and before you know it the middle classes descend.

Primark is really excellent for children's clothes that you only need to last for the amount of time that it fits them. And quite a few actually have enough wear in them to hand down to DD when she's big enough! I'm as middle class as they come... really don't get the shaming at all. That said, I'm not up for queuing at any shop and feel true rage when I have to line up outside the supermarket!

I am thinking about popping into Lush next week - hoping I can pick up a couple of things without being accosted by the staff (possibly the only benefit of social distancing)

Well I've done my bit for my local shops and shelled out on new school shoes this morning - thankfully only one of the dds had grown! Then onto town for birthday presents and charity shop buys. The charity shops were getting overwhelmed by donations already.

I’m off out for lunch tomorrow regardless of the weather. The pub is providing blankets and hot water bottles, dd and I were discussing what to wear, I may wear leggings under my trousers and several sweaters, dd will be rocking fingerless gloves. DH will be unsuitably dressed as per usual in his skanky fleece and his trainee muggers beanie. I may buy a bottle of fizz to celebrate eating off plates I’m not going to wash.🎉🎉🎉

I choose to buy ds trousers in primark because they actually fit him, he's short and slim and trousers don't fit him. Their hoodie are really good too ,have lasted longer than next ones. Dd wore hers for two years and it has now gone on to ds and still going.

There’s an interesting thing in the Times today which basically says that lockdown was a massive turn off for women and the reason for the fall in births is that women aren’t up for sex.

[[The great Covid sex drought — and why it happened

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/809ebf06-9926-11eb-844f-28fd7a30ed88?shareToken=ebba87e8d8768d53a06b885e4bf8bf7d]]

Oh bugger, sorry it didn’t work.

Also, lockdown has caused a massive spike in severe depression which may also kill libido. Plus the school closures and the removal of all support and social interaction for new mothers and experienced mothers. But it's at least in part because wider society and even feminism as it is now doesn't give a fuck about mothers unless we can be blamed for something somehow.
So I don't blame any woman for not wanting to be a mother right now.

Wow, isn’t that from the school of the bleedin obvious?

“Women who are working full time from home, and home schooling, and worrying about navigating shops and food shortages, and keeping on top of housework because entire family are at home making a constant mess, and dealing with inter sibling rows caused by enforced proximity” don’t feel like having sex.

Does the article offer any solutions to this problem?

Some of the outdoor eating arrangements on my local high road are an accident waiting to happen. I can't believe anyone wants to eat there. The next step will be that no traffic is allowed through the High Street. I hope they exempt buses but they might just say tough shit, use the Tube.

Quick unscientific poll. Of those who have had the vaccine, how many of you self reported any side effects using the yellow card system? I know lots of people who have reported side effects but not so many seem to know about the yellow card system.

@ISaySteadyOn

Does the article offer any solutions to this problem?

No, not really - it’s more a “hey, who’d have thought it?!?”

It did say that this is more likely to happen if the sex isn’t very good.

@Worldgonecrazy

Quick unscientific poll. Of those who have had the vaccine, how many of you self reported any side effects using the yellow card system? I know lots of people who have reported side effects but not so many seem to know about the yellow card system.

I didn't. The side effects are pretty common and I wasn't sure if it needed the details of my vaccine card that I dropped before leaving the vaccine centre

I reported. My side effects were quite severe - I had nausea and vomiting for a couple of days followed by about 10 days of appetite loss and fatigue

@Worldgonecrazy, can you tell me a bit about the yellow card system and how it works?

@Worldgonecrazy I reported mine via yellow card. I did dither about it a bit but the dizziness was so bad at one point about two days after my first vaccine that I fell over! And the headaches were pretty rotten as well.

But in the plus side, I didn’t go into anaphylactic shock this time. Me and the GP were a bit underwhelmed to be honest. They were hoping for a real life resuscitation I think.

@Worldgonecrazy

Quick unscientific poll. Of those who have had the vaccine, how many of you self reported any side effects using the yellow card system? I know lots of people who have reported side effects but not so many seem to know about the yellow card system.

I know about it but couldn't be arsed.

Tbh the alarming side effects were quite embarrassing given I'd allowed myself to be part of a mass experiment so I just quietly decided not to have it again.

@AcornAutumn not only no, but that was in response to @rosettesforjill who said she wasn’t wholly against but that they are kind of useless given they shouldn’t be introduced until everyone has been called up.. by which point the rates are so minuscule if doesn’t matter .. and negating the need for passports. I’d like to think this also would be the case but there seems to be this building narrative that passports are a good idea and very, very necessary.

I saw Edwina Currie on TV this morning saying she doesn’t want to be in a train carriage with someone who isn’t vaccinate or sit near an unvaccinated person in the theatre. I am totally confused by this.. because I can go to the gym now and go to an outside restaurant now and I’ve been allowed on a train the whole time. I am, as a result of being in my thirties, unvaccinated. So is she saying she won’t make use of her new freedoms until everyone is offered a vaccine (in case she ends up near someone like me?) and they can semi - legitimately bring in passports or is she wanting them now and wanting to make the young, who have sacrificed so much for the old already, second class citizens?

Although of course bringing them in after every single adult has been offered their two jabs is problematic in itself not least because that takes us to late summer .. past the date we were promised that “all restrictions” end and to a point where presumably cases and deaths are extremely, extremely low.. which then makes setting a level at the point they remove vaccine passports just impossible too. And then my brain explodes.

zig I see. I guess all politicians will be on board with this.

Random question, looks like you can't register a death in person now? That must be horrendous for a lot of people.