ADs shelter in The Sleeping Swans and have a group hug

[BogRollBOGOF]

Another installment in the saga.

Maybe following up with an Indian, Korma please, but protect the naans...

Thanks she did, she was so impressed with herself, it was both brilliant and sad at the same time. But her smiling face was so worth it.

That's bittersweet to hear. I am so glad for her but sad she felt so worried for so long.

Has 'let it rip' become some kind of trigger phrase, do we think? It seems like such a loaded expression and it's being used all the bloody time. I'm all for saliency in messaging but it's a bit transparent nonetheless.

Also I really don't think, after almost a year and a half of both NPIs and medical advancements, that anything is truly 'ripping' unopposed anywhere.

Anyone else wondering what happened to epsilon, zeta, eta and theta? How come we are at lambda already?

Oooh I know this, I was asking my mate this yesterday. Apparently epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, iota and kappa all exist in various parts of the world. Most of them seem to have been around since the tail end of last year. They seem a bit bothered by epsilon in the US but the others are reasonably contained, or are at least similar enough to better-known variants that they don't pose an especially knotty puzzle as far as treatment or prevention is concerned.

I don't know why suddenly lambda is newsworthy here, but I suspect political leverage is at least partially a factor.

More broadly, what this shows I don't know, except that I reckon they'll run out of Greek letters by the August bank holiday and have to come up with some other naming strategy.

Perhaps characters from 70s sitcoms? Variant Margo, Variant Basil, Variant Hot Lips, Variant Blakey and so on.

I shall panic if we get to Omega. It’s one of my favourite apocalyptic novels

That's nice about your mum MrsE although I get what you mean about mixed feelings. (My mother is similarly anxious about a few things.) Still, it sounds like good progress for her, and hopefully she'll feel better about going out again now.

What is actually going on in the mainstream media today? 4 headlines in a row on my app all expressing horror at opening up on 19th July, with this scientist saying we’ll all die if we ditch masks and that scientists saying there’ll be 100,000 cases by the end of summer if we ditch social distancing!!
It’s really worrying me because I feel i’ve become somewhat of an expert on spotting the headlines designed to prime the general public for what they should all accept as the next step and these kinds of headlines show that the mainstream media has not been told to properly sell the idea that freedom is good to the masses so I wonder what they are instead priming everyone for? My skepticism makes me worried that we are all being primed for another lockdown after they’ve released off for a bit and can scare the crap out of everyone with hyperbole stories about new variants and record cases! This would put a lid on the argument that we should be living with covid like other viruses and plays right into the hands of the permanently terrified.

@Lostinacloud I also believe there will be a further lockdown over the winter, or at least some type of restriction to show the government are doing something. Won’t make a hot if difference, viruses will still virus, the NHS will still be at the constant point of collapse and the media will continue to behave irresponsibly.

Stock up on loo roll now

@Worldgonecrazy you can see it too!

Governments everywhere are letting it rip via sports. We have footie, tennis, horses, Olympics, we'll all know in a couple of months if this leads to nightingale morgues or if we've knocked it back with vaccines

@Lostinacloud

What is actually going on in the mainstream media today? 4 headlines in a row on my app all expressing horror at opening up on 19th July, with this scientist saying we’ll all die if we ditch masks and that scientists saying there’ll be 100,000 cases by the end of summer if we ditch social distancing!! It’s really worrying me because I feel i’ve become somewhat of an expert on spotting the headlines designed to prime the general public for what they should all accept as the next step and these kinds of headlines show that the mainstream media has not been told to properly sell the idea that freedom is good to the masses so I wonder what they are instead priming everyone for? My skepticism makes me worried that we are all being primed for another lockdown after they’ve released off for a bit and can scare the crap out of everyone with hyperbole stories about new variants and record cases! This would put a lid on the argument that we should be living with covid like other viruses and plays right into the hands of the permanently terrified.

Probably just horrified journalists facing the prospect of having to make the effort to get out into the world and make new stories rather than the lower effort world of Zoom and naval gazing editorial about banana bread and the anxiety about what to wear to the pub again

I'm trying to view certain areas of the media/ social media as that frantic mode that dying bluebottles go into before giving up

End of many of the formal restrictions however the being the more cynical Bogroll that has developed in the past year, I suspect that there will be plenty of guidence to complicate life and give more dementory organisations reason to impose plenty of red tape in the name of "safety". I think actual legal restrictions as we have had are largely done, but through insurance/ professional bodies/ collaboration with more risk adverse organisations, there's plenty of scope for disruption down the line.

I think the mainstream opinion of people cracking on in the real world is "enough", and that's pretty powerful.

I reckon the collective media horror about the 19th is about softening us up for a minor reversal; maybe they'll change their minds on one or two things at the eleventh hour (masks on public transport and maybe something on shielding, if I wanted to put money on it) while pressing on with the main event.

There also seems to be an uptick in manipulative and misleading doom-ploppy shite Over There again.

You’re right, it has gone mental over there again. Who are these people that want to live like this? And quite frankly why don’t they all just move to Singapore or China and enjoy their state controlled lives without the rest of us having to put our lives on hold anymore to protect the permanently terrified.

I have no idea who these people are. Have had to hide a 'people with lanyards are all faking mask exemption' thread.

I was struggling with my nerve by extra time

The crowd noise had me on the verge of goosebumps.

I'm the most indifferent, fairest if fair-weather football fans, but that was bloody good

I am just happy to hear people cheering and laughing and, most importantly for me singing together.

Everything about all this has been so wrong but what hit me very hard was the ban on singing together. That's a bad sign. No good has ever come of banning song. So to hear it last night (don't care if half of it was drunken song) gave me hope.

The amount of release I've had when I've had chance to sing is amazing. Around this time last year after months of constantly having DH and the DCs around, I just wanted to bloody well sing. And most of the time I couldn't because of DH's work calls, DS1's sensory sensibilities and things like not really being able to put the radio on gently because of DH's workcalls, screeching youtubers on the TV and our dogged but futile attempts to impose some home school.
I found in hour 2 of Sounds of the 80s in my earphones I was ready to release and SING (very badly while running), and goodness it felt good!
(Granny hit count: 14)

I did make attempts to use my earphones in the house, but the sods just KNOW and gravitate towards me to talk. Sigh.

I have a playlist that I play when cooking supper sometimes. Luckily, all of them have at least one song on it that they like. DD1 and DS like the Neverending Story song and DD2 likes Just A Girl and Take on Me.

So sometimes, in the kitchen, there is both singing and dancing

@ISaySteadyOn you heathens

I'm keen on a bit of singing along to A-Ha too. Although I haven't got the range, and when Harket gets to the high bits I just sound like a squeaky toy that's become enmeshed in a gearbox...

There's a Morten Harket solo song from more recently called Scared Of Heights which is really fantastic, by the way. If a bit poignant.

In a really awful mood today. My 5 year old had a temperature so as 2 years in their school already I booked her a covid test. No issues getting one and walk in centre down the road but this is her 4th test since September and feel a bit like I am abusing her! All 3 girls off of school and hopefully negative test results. The school emailed today, no parents attending sports day as they don't want to have bubbles mixing and masks still expected after 19th July. It's only another 5 days for us until term ends so hardly a big deal but telling us about how teachers have worked so hard being amongst lots of children whilst avoiding their own families and not being prioritised for vaccinations. That felt overly political to me and then with the adding of something along the lines of 'as I know a lot of you were key workers to. Thank you'. Maybe being oversensitive but it made me feel like there was a distinction between who was important and who wasn't. Me and my kids aren't, obviously!!

I can remember singing Take On Me way, at mile 8 on a HM. Loudly and badly, with added air keyboard
Take That's Never Forget is a good arm waver.

I freequently gasp along to Running up that Hill.

Good day here. DH WFH as a one off so I could do my fitness class. While it gets irritating long term, it's a nice change of dynamic here and nicer for DS2 who's not used to being solo without DS1. Normality resumes tomorrow!

@smallandimperfectlyformed

So sorry for your daughter. I keep wondering when this madness will end.

I used to merely dislike the unions for their cowardly stance on women’s rights, now I just fucking hate all of them.

Thank you Worldgonecrazy I think your username has never been more appropriate!! I don't like the NEU now because I really don't believe that they have had children's best interests at heart and I have always been pro union. I think she has a cold but I am just always so worried we could pass it onto someone vulnerable...I never used to be this nervous and ironically she is the one of mine most prone to infections (she had e.coli at 2/3 which I think scarred me tbh!) so it's more likely I would need to keep others away from her