Cheese in coffee/ mild meats (?) thread..

[Wilkolampshade]

Hi all,
Could some kind soul please link to the thread, it'll be from this time last year I guess, where someone posted about using cheese in coffee as a substitute for milk and I'm sure, also suggested we only buy 'mild meats' as others weren't essential?
I'm not making this up... am I?
I've tried to explain to family members but they've all been a bit

@TheVampiresWife I am sorry to report that the one you linked to was a TAAT. There were lots of illegal park bench use bunfights

Actually no, I’ve found the tricep dips post. P24-26 in that thread, around 9pm.

Also found this gem, which was batshit at the time:

“I cannot imagine any judge thinking eating a packet of crisps whilst exercising is reasonable“

The cheese in coffee post was on here I think:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3863275-Exercising-outdoors-more-than-once-a-day-is-not-illegal?pg=6&order=

Thread now deleted, which is why nobody can find it. Discussed on Reddit, which is how I tracked it down. Also included the screaming and shaking post, so bit of a shame it was deleted really! I guess we can’t put deleted threads in classics?

@Changechangychange

Actually no, I’ve found the tricep dips post. P24-26 in that thread, around 9pm.

Also found this gem, which was batshit at the time:

“I cannot imagine any judge thinking eating a packet of crisps whilst exercising is reasonable“

The cheese in coffee post was on here I think:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3863275-Exercising-outdoors-more-than-once-a-day-is-not-illegal?pg=6&order=

Thread now deleted, which is why nobody can find it. Discussed on Reddit, which is how I tracked it down. Also included the screaming and shaking post, so bit of a shame it was deleted really! I guess we can’t put deleted threads in classics?

@MNHQ please reinstate it and put it in classics! The coffee/cheese thing is the stuff of Mumsnet legend and should be kept for posterity for all time

@Changechangychange @psychomath totally agree to keeping these threads in full as they actually represent valuable historical records. We often wonder what people were thinking, what made them behave like that after wars and other trauma .. These threads provide real insight I think.
I think the experience of someone like me, in an area of high population density where the majority of people live squished together and have to use public transport to get to work, whilst there was a considerable degree of compliance initially, things very quickly became more commonsensical.

Also l, I have in the past flipped the Coronavirus topic and read some of the posts from the start of it all last year. Lots of them are genuinely upsetting, seeing how worried people were and how none of us knew what to expect. But oh my god, some of it is gloriously, terrifyingly bonkers. There's a few posters whose names pop up all the time like prophets of doom with made up rules and judgement. If you've got a bit of time to kill it's highly recommended!

I was on that thread and cheese in coffee was involved.

The problem is, a lot of the more batshit threads were deleted as they turned into proper bun fights.

I remember some of those threads and yes some comments were ridiculous but the preparations being made at the time by hospital management were unprecedented and genuinely worrying.
There was a deleted thread showing a photo of a recovery ward for post op patients, a huge area full of hospital beds and ventilators, presumably to accommodate the overflow of patients from ICU. It struck a chord as it was taken in hospital local to me. I remember debating with someone about the likelihood of us caring for multiple critically ill patients at once. I was sceptical that would happen but proved completely wrong in the months to come although in our case we expanded into 4 wards rather than theatre.
People were frightened, no doubt some loved exploiting that fear and loving the drama but there was also some foolish denial of reality. Calling people 'dementors', moaning about wearing 'muzzles' and boasting about how they had no intention of complying with advice was equally divisive.

@Juliettbravo oh I do agree, really, but I think the dementor threads were a reaction against some of the highly over-dramatised language and opinions (the park bench thread for example) at the time. A response to the fear?
The shouting about 'muzzles' and 'face nappies' from covid deniers was always bollocks.

There was a brilliant thread about how to get over a country style without touching it.

But one of the terrifying things in those old threads was the willingness nay eagerness of many to police their friends, families and communities.

@HelloMissus

But one of the terrifying things in those old threads was the willingness nay eagerness of many to police their friends, families and communities.

That hasn’t gone away, sadly.

I've just remembered another brilliant one - someone was pissed off because people were walking past her house and brushing past her hedge. She was convinced she would catch covid from her infected bush

I think it’s unfair to comment on how scared people were at the beginning of all this. We live rurally but in a tourist spot, so over the winter we can go days without seeing anyone. We still had farmers tie laminated posts to their gates asking us to really think if we needed to go through their land because their family member is asthmatic etc. I remember vividly feeling really panicky because DS, 3 at the time, wanted to open the gates on our walk and making him put hand gel on every time he did it.

People were scared, whether that’s because we were manipulated into feeling scared by the media/government or whether there was a genuine need to be afraid is by the by - the end result is the same.

@AlohaMolly

I think it’s unfair to comment on how scared people were at the beginning of all this. We live rurally but in a tourist spot, so over the winter we can go days without seeing anyone. We still had farmers tie laminated posts to their gates asking us to really think if we needed to go through their land because their family member is asthmatic etc. I remember vividly feeling really panicky because DS, 3 at the time, wanted to open the gates on our walk and making him put hand gel on every time he did it.

People were scared, whether that’s because we were manipulated into feeling scared by the media/government or whether there was a genuine need to be afraid is by the by - the end result is the same.

Oh absolutely. I was terrified myself (underlying health conditions). But some of the vitriol was ridiculous, as were the made up 'rules' and nitpicking. Putting an Easter egg in your trolley was tantamount to murder! And the posters who had seen their neighbours go out and not come home withing the mythical hour, or had seen them go out more than once, and should they report them? People were scared, but it definitely brought out the worst in some people.

@TheVampiresWife

I've just remembered another brilliant one - someone was pissed off because people were walking past her house and brushing past her hedge. She was convinced she would catch covid from her infected bush

😂😂😂

Yes the cheese in coffee was a real thing. I was being admitted to an antinatal ward at the time and I was laughing so much one of the midwives came and asked what I was reading and she laughed too.

And yes, people were scared. But I use to read some of it and wonder if people were trolling or genuinely needed to step back for their own mental health. Not making light of how much people struggled, but my god, some of it was so over the top.

If you went to the corner shop for a bar of chocolate you would be directly responsible for the death of ten people.

Do you need that can of Coke? Think about will it be worth it when you are begging for a ventilator.

Mind boggling. But just shows how much fear was injected into people.

In a "lucky" way, I had a severe issue in my pregnancy which had a good chance killing me during my section, which turned into hours of surgery. I knew that from 5 months and because of that, I couldn't be worried about covid at all when everyone else was losing their heads so it gave me a lot of perspective.

@HelloMissus

But one of the terrifying things in those old threads was the willingness nay eagerness of many to police their friends, families and communities.

That was what scared me. It's so easy to see how societies can turn into a 1984 type situation so quickly.

Do people still call each other dementors on here? I don't think I've heard it used in ages.

The term was originally coined here, and it's actually a great thread with some good discuasion. I'd forgotten how people seemed reluctant to believe any suggestion of positive news and were gleefully predicting millions of deaths, but otherwise what people are describing broadly fits how I remember MN being at the time. On the other hand some of the 'doomy' predictions, like still being in a mess at Christmas, obviously turned out to be correct. Really interesting!

I think dementor was a very apt description of some posters.

There was the doom and gloom and killing people when buying milk and the breathless ‘Are we going to get worse than Italy today’
and heaven help you when you mention waking the dogs. There might have been suggestions to get rid of all dogs right now and then.

@TheVampiresWife

I've just remembered another brilliant one - someone was pissed off because people were walking past her house and brushing past her hedge. She was convinced she would catch covid from her infected bush

Infected bush 🤢

There were so many posts along the lines of "...when you are begging for a ventilator."

It made my inner twat want to lick my shoes when in the door (I didn't).

@HelloMissus

But one of the terrifying things in those old threads was the willingness nay eagerness of many to police their friends, families and communities.

It’s still happening now though.

One of my neighbours keeps reporting another neighbour to the police for having visitors in her house, despite being told several times the visitors are carers providing end of life care to a terminally ill family member.

The neighbour keeps coming round to my house and threatening to report me to the police for going out too often - other than 6 weeks on furlough, I’ve been at work the whole way through and we have horses that need to be cared for twice a day.

It’s quite scary how eager some people are to report their friends, neighbours and families - and just how nosy!

One day, this will be over and restrictions will be lifted and we’ll all have to live alongside each other again and I wonder how these people will get on - I have certain friends (some now ex friends) I will never look at in the same light again.

@Heysiriyouknob

There were so many posts along the lines of "...when you are begging for a ventilator."

It made my inner twat want to lick my shoes when in the door (I didn't).

yes!

Along with the “if you can’t wear a mask, how will you cope with a ventilator?” bollocks

@psychomath

Do people still call each other dementors on here? I don't think I've heard it used in ages.

The term was originally coined here, and it's actually a great thread with some good discuasion. I'd forgotten how people seemed reluctant to believe any suggestion of positive news and were gleefully predicting millions of deaths, but otherwise what people are describing broadly fits how I remember MN being at the time. On the other hand some of the 'doomy' predictions, like still being in a mess at Christmas, obviously turned out to be correct. Really interesting!

The chat is still going and did originate from that point where you simply weren't allowed to care about anything other than sadly Covid deaths. Threads on just about any topic were very quickly jumped on and turned into Covid discussions, and just about any action was condemned as being MURDER. Even quite serious life worries were jumped on rather viciously and civilised discussion was quenched for 2-3 months. It's pleasing that the quality of discussion is gradually improving and diversity of normal-life chat resuming because for a while there was little space for moderate discussion and many people stopped trying to post normal stuff in the face of a purity spiral.

Has some of my optomism been misplaced? Yes. But life did temporarily get better in the summer, people were allowed to go on holiday and the gloomiest predictions haven't come to pass either. The concessions over Christmas were slight in the end with the difficult timing over the Kent variation, but there had been the political appetite for a bit more flexibility until the last moment. Worrying about it in the face of data in Nov/ Dec is different to the tone of April/ May when posters were confidently "cancelling" it without any rationale. Hope of holidays even in the UK for a few months later was regularly quashed.
Things are finally begining to ease now, and the vaccine is being quicker and more successful than anyone could have hoped a year ago. Even at New Year when they began to be released, I thought that I'd be well into the summer before receiving mine, and by that point I'll have had my second dose.
2nd wave became a joke when people were predicting it every fortnight from Easter/ Bank Holiday/ VE day/ Bournemouth Beach/ Queuing outside Primark/ Pubs opening. (A seasonal second wave in the autumn seemed far more likely.) Dark times always do produce dark/ satirical humour as a coping strategy, and those threads of meandering conversation where people could talk about whatever it was that needed and have some random laughs has been valuable to quite a lot of people muddling through tough times.

I'm still partial to a mid-run bag of crisps and coke on a bench at about mile 7. Great source of quick release starch and replacement salts.