ADs don't want your freedom, ADs don't want to play around

[BogRollBOGOF]

🎵 Every day I hear a different story
People sayin' that you’re no good for me
Saw your lover with another
And she’s making a fool of you, oh

🎵 If you love me baby, you'd deny it
But you laugh and tell me I should try it
Tell me I’m a baby, and I don't understand

Go Wham!

Johnson's Gig Report

Well first off, it was so good to see live music again. I got quite overwhelmed. The show was great and the artists clearly so happy to be out and performing. The venue staff seemed (largely) thrilled to be back too.

It was a bit of a kick-bollocks-scramble getting in. The queues were ludicrous and the checking of vaccine status/tests took ages. At one point I think it became clear that they weren't going to get everyone in on time so it all magically sped up.

I did get both my vaccine status and negative test report checked though.

Once inside though it felt more like a normal gig. (Albeit a seated one.) I wasn't paying close attention and I couldn't see much once the lights went down but I would say about a third of the audience took their masks off and kept them off.

(A 'stunt pint' is useful for this, it turns out, to be held close to mouth in the event of patrolling mask-police.)

There wasn't much singing along but then it wasn't that kind of gig really. Lots of slow, beautiful songs about loss. A few people were doing it and no one stopped them.

The whole thing about being let out one row at a time totally didn't happen. After the encore everyone just got up and jostled for the exits like in a normal gig.

I want to do it again now! I've got tickets for Blondie later in the year and I'm really, really hoping I get to go.

Glad you had a good time.

The Kaiser Chiefs just make me despair for youngsters today. Total conformity and lack of rebellion, identikit youth.

My 80s bands were all either fuck covid or fuck lockdown.

I find the schools thread weird. How can do many kids still be testing positive? Covid is generally a once only illness so all these kids should have developed immunity. I know our state system is really bad in a lot of areas, so is it still kids faking positive tests to get time off? My daughters school has zero cases, pre covid, I think November 2019, there was a week when a mystery flu illness led to some classes having 75% of students off but it was all over in less than a fortnight and kids were back at school in 2 to 3 days. The maths on the school thread doesn’t add up.

I don't get it with the school threads either. I mean, we know that maths can sometimes be a highly imaginative, even fantastical, subject Over There but I do wonder about it.

Maybe some of the kidz are getting creative with the blackcurrant juice again?

The school threads are mostly anecdotes/ anecdata, aren't they? (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

There's probably still schools that had very few outbreaks earlier and now do have outbreaks. I suspect that the high levels of immunity (ONS said about 3/4 of 15- 24 year olds have antibodies IIRC) are not evenly distributed so there'll be some schools with nearly 100% immunity and others with close to 0%. It'll be mostly those in previously unaffected schools posting on the schools threads I suspect as people aren't as likely to go on those and post, "All ok in my school," (although some do).

I suspect a lot of posts on some threads are anecdreamers/ fantasists

In our tourism area cases were high July August, now they're coming down. They're still sending kids home LFT not enough so four year olds have now had two PCR tests just to get back into school. They've had nasty cough lurgy

DS2 is probably causing consternation... he's hokey cokeying in and out of school with constipation that's causing horrid stomach cramps. Fortunately not a high suspect for a good tonsil swab.
Just for the variety, DS1 has already failed his 100% attendence over his labyrynthitis with dizziness and nausea. I suspect that his resilience is being dented by DS2 being off!

As for letting it rip, I'm hoping that prunes, fruit juice and pro-biotic yoghurts rip through DS2's digestive system

It's all pissing me off more than it reasonably should because of things like having to pre-book a swim and the high chance of an ill-timed cramp before school getting phoned part-way through the day, and just continued disruption to basic life routines.

@BogRollBOGOF

DS2 is probably causing consternation... he's hokey cokeying in and out of school with constipation that's causing horrid stomach cramps. Fortunately not a high suspect for a good tonsil swab. Just for the variety, DS1 has already failed his 100% attendence over his labyrynthitis with dizziness and nausea. I suspect that his resilience is being dented by DS2 being off!

As for letting it rip, I'm hoping that prunes, fruit juice and pro-biotic yoghurts rip through DS2's digestive system

It's all pissing me off more than it reasonably should because of things like having to pre-book a swim and the high chance of an ill-timed cramp before school getting phoned part-way through the day, and just continued disruption to basic life routines.

Along with whatever else you are giving him, adding golden linseeds to his cereal or to any other food helps everything become more slippy, so when it does move it moves more easily.

I love this thread and all of you. Just saying 😊

Forget Covid... when DS2 finally lets rip, he'll be taking out at least 3 counties

Just heard that the UK still has one of the highest case rate. Does anyone know if other countries are also encouraging / paying for asymptomatic tests like we are?

The posters and billboards in my area telling you that you can still catch and transmit covid even if you are vaccinated (which I know is true)so you should get tested, even if you have no symptoms really piss me off. So too does one of my local Matalans which is split on two levels but you can only enter and exit via the ground floor even though the shopping centre it is in is on the first floor. All the ridiculous shutting of entrances and exits were pure theatre in my opinion and don't make me feel safe in terms of what happens in an emergency.

There's a massive tesco near me that still has one of its entrances shut. It gives me the rage everytime I check and see its still shut. Apart from anything else it just funnels everyone into the same place so not even remotely useful in any case 🙄

Am sure they're probably keeping it shut because it saves on security re shoplifting if there are fewer ways to get out!

I won’t be getting tested unless I have proper symptoms, not the everything that some people think you should test for.
I’m fed of having to book every single thing! Which explains why we haven’t been anywhere !
I want to go swimming but I just want to go not book for 11.30 am a week on Tuesday!
And anyway I think it’s no longer a pandemic and is now endemic and here to stay just like flu/colds etc.
So I have given up.

OH got a message today some friends have tested so he wanted to get some LFT he hasn't seen them for two weeks so I said no worries. He doesn't feel ill either. Blow me he went and bought some tests actually opened the package. I again asked WHY??

He really needs to give his head a wobble 🙄

I've only been tested twice (on admission to hospital to give birth, and before visiting my gran in a care home). I've not had symptoms and I'm not testing myself to see if I've got a disease I've got no symptoms of.

Makes sense. Also, everyone needs to remember that other viruses exist. Not everything is covid. And schools have always been hotbeds of germs. My DC have drum roll colds! Normal bog standard colds they caught at school and from each other. So they are home from school resting and drinking water. To each school's credit though, none have asked us to test. Think they're just glad we aren't sending snotty children in!

It's not the most terrifying pandemic when it takes a test to rule out if it's a cold or worse, you don't even know you've got it. I'm just hoping that our fragile near-normality prevails in the coming months. At least the balance of cases being towards younger people is unlikely to put much additional pressure on the fragments of the NHS.

Cases in my area have now peaked and are about 25% down on last week despite being week 3 of term.

Just back from the pub with friends. It was lovely so non dementor. I felt like the pub wanted me there.

If proof were needed that other illnesses still exist (and total anecdata but oh well...) I'm a nursery teacher and one day this week I had 3 children in from my whole class. And the illness that meant most of the class were away? Good old hand, foot and mouth. Not a trace of covid anywhere but plenty of all the old bugs we fight every year.

My children's school currently has 2 children off with covid. One in reception, one in year 2. That's all the details we know because the school emailed that. School have said there is nothing we need to do as children are no longer required to isolate. All they have asked is if your child has symptoms to stay away from school and have a PCR test. This is completely reasonable to me and avoids the drama of repeated isolation which caused so much worry and trauma to me and my family, let alone anyone else!!

The threat of class isolations having gone makes life much easier!

I think DS2 is probably on his worst attendance ever just from his stagnant bowels. He got a 100% award last year! DS1 missed out by one afternoon, 2 weeks from the end of the year when he went dizzy.

Our area has been above average for a while, but that's not really been apparent through school, but then it's not such disruptive news now as it would have been last term anyway.

I've had a lot more normal conversations with staff already this year than in the total of last year and it's good to feel more connected with the place where the DCs spend 30+ hours per week at long last.

Popped into M&S at lunchtime. They had a choir singing for Macmillan. 30+ closely packed people singing their hearts out. It was brilliant.

Oh Taswama choirs are so wonderful to hear! One of the most depressing things I found about Christmas last year was no Salvation Army choirs in the streets etc. My cousin over in Ireland is having her daughters' first Holy Communion today, it's my middle ones birthday party and there are just so many lovely signs of normality returning. Your poor DS BogRollBOGOF I hope his stomach gets better soon, middle one used to suffer terribly with constipation. So much so that as well as being prescribed laxatives on a repeat prescription I was given enema kits to do at home! Bless her it was odd hearing my 3/4 year old ask for her special bum medicine but it did help lots.

DD back playing clarinet in school orchestra and local band. So, so happy!