Tiers Of A Clown

[Bytheloch]

Thread #3456

Released from our dirty T4, but still bamboozled. Let’s keep each other sane on here...

biking to clarify, it wasn’t Kate that sent me a selfie at the theatre

Just reading that we might be getting £100 vouchers to spend at the real life shops, similar to the NIreland scheme. Queen Nic may be giving us a bribe some money to help the high street recover from being forced to closed by Queen Nic under Scottish tier mindboggleism rules. We are so lucky to have our own magic money tree shedding its leaves for Scotland’s Covid recovery in the lead up to a crucial election.

@Bytheloch the potential £100 voucher can only be described as a vote giver, it makes no sense otherwise.

There is a huge pent up demand and people will rush back to the shops en masse as soon as they can do without mask, social distancing or being called a granny killer when they go.

The actual concern is will the independent smaller shops still be in business at this mythical point in the future. Any money would be better spent making sure independent shops, restaurants and hotels get adequate furlough money to keep them solvent and for shops particularly online training on how best to modify their business model into a temporary online one.

Bytheloch there was me thinking you had friends in high places 😆

Surely people see right through the £100 voucher but really what's the point when so many shops will be already out the game.

What's the difference between a £100 voucher that's going to need designing, printing and a bunch of other admin costs and just go to the nearest Bank of Scotland and get a bunch of shiny red notes - no admin costs and they are already designed and printed.

There's a Nike outlet in that little retail park in Bishopbriggs too, which is always worth a look. The car park is usually quite busy though and will be 'murder' at the moment, as DM would say.

where does it say about the £100?

I don't even know how I'd spend it as I've done all my xmas shopping. Unless it can be spent on groceries.

Nicola the daft cow has left it a bit bloody late.

It won't make me vote for her.

The £100 voucher would be after Christmas to give the shops a boost in the post Christmas period.
They really are throwing money around and not sending it to the right places.

Any money would be better spent making sure independent shops, restaurants and hotels get adequate furlough money to keep them solvent and for shops particularly online training on how best to modify their business model into a temporary online one.

Absolutely this. Particularly the training (and funding) support for conversion to an online retailer.

@Iwillneverbesatisfied it’s reported across the Scottish news today, think it was brought up yesterday as a question during FM’s showbiz time.

No pleasing you lot is there.

You want Jesus, and if you got him, you’d only go and crucify him.

To be fair, we didn’t say we wanted Jesus the shopping vouchers in the first place.

But if you’re offering us Jesus, we’re good thanks, we have our own saviour right now, plus the disciples are running Finance, Education etc. We’d have fish, loaves and wine too- but our restaurants can’t serve alcohol so it’s Irn Bru all the way (have you tried it?).

@EnPoinsettia

No pleasing you lot is there.

You want Jesus, and if you got him, you’d only go and crucify him.

Ah well nobody would say no to a shiny red note but that shiny note would be better spent supporting business who do need to close, but closing shops in the first place is madness.
How can a SD card shop, with masks and screens be put in the same category as a hairdresser with just a couple of masks?

Encouraging spending for spending sake is fuelling consumerism and encouraging folk to buy stuff they don't need. Bad for people who'd be better paying of the credit card bill, bad for the planet which is drowning in stuff. Oh yet after Christmas after Brexit when stuff will be in short supply too.

Ha well that's cheered me up for a Saturday morning, is Nicola beatified then? I didn't realise the SNP really were part of the trinity.

It might explain some of the worship they get!

Intriguing isn’t it. This is a disease that’s been shown to impact most on high density areas particularly those with poverty.
NS answer is let’s make everyone poorer and trap them in...... A wee day up the hills in relative quietness-banned, a wee trip into the Glasgow shops in the evening cause they are quiet-banned. I find it so frustrating that I’m not allowed to do my own risk assessment but have to stick in my dirty suburb.

The SNP model has never been one which seeks to educate and empower though, has it? Why explain risks and give people the information to make decisions when you could simply make everything illegal

Yip people should be able to assess for themselves but then some people are hopeless at risk assessing or understanding bubbles.

The ILs seemed to think it was less risky for households to visit at different times. Might be slightly less risky for the visitors but no different risk to the host.

I'll happily take a £100 voucher but they're still not getting my vote.
I've had 3 parcels delayed now so I'm not risking online again, will be going to the shops this week to finish Christmas shopping.

Gutted we don't have cinemas open, I really want to go see wonder woman.

@Bytheloch

Any money would be better spent making sure independent shops, restaurants and hotels get adequate furlough money to keep them solvent and for shops particularly online training on how best to modify their business model into a temporary online one.

Absolutely this. Particularly the training (and funding) support for conversion to an online retailer.

Totally. If the £100 is to benefit shops, rather than a "free" (obviously not free) gift to families, it's a crazy idea. Why would it benefit the struggling High Street gift shop, or independent bookshop in preference to Next or Sports Direct? OK, some people may choose to spend it on "non essential" locally bought items. But the vast majority of people would use it to buy stuff they would have bought anyway, from retailers they know, which are cheap/ good value. So the money will go to Tesco, or Mike Ashley or Primark, rather than small businesses who need it. Retailers just need to be allowed to open and sell things to people who want to buy them, and potential purchasers want the freedom to be able to buy what they want, where and when they want it, and for it to be a marginally pleasant experience. FFS, just work on that, Scottish Government, hey?

I had a bit of a cry at the pantomime thing last night. I can't see us being allowed to do that well into next year. I doubt the Festivals will go ahead in anything like normal circumstances in the summer

No one expects the government to be Jesus. But we would quite like a government that at least pretends to care about the health and wellbeing of its people in more than one very narrow way. And at least Jesus served wine at his meals and was allowed to meet his friends, family and lepers inside. (Also, not entirely sure you have grasped the significance of the crucifixion, resurrection and subsequent salvation of humanity in Christian belief there... So comparison of NS to the Messiah is a little tasteless, maybe )

Sermon on the mount and the feeding of the 5000 would have been dispersed by the police as an illegal gathering. Even the nativity would have been off... ("you've travelled from the East following a star have you... was that from outside this level 3 council area, sir?")

Actually thinking about it, the main thing that will stimulate the economy is getting people vaccinated asap.

I believe one of the barriers to vaccination numbers is that NHS staff - quite rightly- don't want to put in the long hours needed to get this process going in any meaningful capacity - again this is garnered from what my DM read in The Torygraph so do tell me if that's wrong.

So the £100 pp and the £500 given to the NHS staff (although for those on lower tax band there's probably still a good rationale for one off payment) could have been used for overtime or train up volunteers to administer the vaccine.

@NotAnActualSheep

Sermon on the mount and the feeding of the 5000 would have been dispersed by the police as an illegal gathering. Even the nativity would have been off... ("you've travelled from the East following a star have you... was that from outside this level 3 council area, sir?")

@rookiemere

Actually thinking about it, the main thing that will stimulate the economy is getting people vaccinated asap.

I believe one of the barriers to vaccination numbers is that NHS staff - quite rightly- don't want to put in the long hours needed to get this process going in any meaningful capacity - again this is garnered from what my DM read in The Torygraph so do tell me if that's wrong.

So the £100 pp and the £500 given to the NHS staff (although for those on lower tax band there's probably still a good rationale for one off payment) could have been used for overtime or train up volunteers to administer the vaccine.

Getting people recruited/trained and ready to deliver the vaccine rapidly once it was available should have been a well planned priority. There should have been a veritable army of arm stabbers ready to roll

Are you minding that a few weeks ago we didn’t know when the vaccine would be ready to administer? Last week they weren’t even sure that they could safely get the vaccine to Shetland due to the 14hour ferry journey etc.

There are mass vaccination plans in place, it’ll just take a while to rile out. Which is fair enough cause there’s no mass amounts of vaccine to give! Shetland got enough for 400 shots. So that’s 200 people. There’s 22k people here - now do you understand why there’s no max vaccination?

It’s nothing to do with NHS staff not being willing to work overtime!

If they stop the bloody masks I’m primed to save the retail economy single handedly.

I can say that the vaccine is being given out to NHS staff so it has started 😊