Tiers Of A Clown

[Bytheloch]

Thread #3456

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

Perhaps the designer had consumed some mushrooms?

Also there's not much room for those in my house. Boom boom

Surprised they think they'll get £28 for them, got to wonder what the buyer was thinking.

See when I'm in charge, it'll be nothing but democracy and a level playing field. hurrah

They had to reduce the price of the toadstools

@StatisticallyChallenged

In an effort to cheer myself up and distract from not being allowed to go shopping, earlier I was perusing John Lewis. And came across this delight.

Was the designer suffering from lockdown mania? Have you ever thought "I know just what my xmas decor needs, a trio of phallic mushrooms"

Whipround to send them to Sturgeon, Swinney and Leitch??

Wouldn’t it just be so 2020 if you ended up with a fine for breaking a ‘cross-council into another tier, pretendy travel ban’, in order to click and collect this monstrosity at your nearest Waitrose?

Nobody would click and collect that awful thing

If they did they would deserve a bonus.

Thinking 200 quid for services to crapness

Interesting take

Interesting. The festive shopping crowds can't be helping the spread either.

The Christmas shopping crowds definitely won't help. But it really doesn't help closing the shops and effectively condensing the Christmas shopping period.

I purchased 2 Jaffa cake tubes. I think you'd need 3 to get to 2m. Although DH reckoned that if you add a bit of arm length you'd be at the 2m. He thinks I'm mad.
I found on trusty Amazon disposable festive face masks. Which I was considering stuffing in it.
I also found reusable Santa ones that I thought would be quite funny but they were quite expensive, especially if you get carried away and want matching hats

I don’t think there’s any evidence of spread in shops. You’d be struggling to get enough sustained contact close enough to transmit it.

Oh, well done, @Bikingbear. The Oreo tunes I saw were longer, so I’m going to go for them, though I worry about their integrity for pulling

Ones, not tunes 🙄

@Jodri

*@Perihelion* culling is always a last resort of disease management with farm animals though....biosecurity, quarantine, individually tailored herd health plans reviewed frequently, vaccination, movement controls, management techniques eg. ventilations and stocking density, hygiene measures and movement records. Farm animal health is moving massively away from the fire brigade method (always a place for emergency health intervention though) and moving towards prevention and better herd/flock/ group management.

Sounds pretty appropriate to have a vet on board then!! I didn't know all that. Though what with movement control and controls on stocking density they may already be most of the way there...

I think "someone" (journalist??) at the beginning of all this was suggesting that the briefings were taken over by some cross party grouping, with independent experts advising, alongside NS, ministers and the various gov appointments. NS dismissed the idea, saying "the public" wanted her to be visible as running the shop as it was ultimately she who had the power . So that's a relief... . At least the BBC have now taken to getting their own pet scientists on to interpret the policy being made up handed down to us from The Podium but again it seems to be largely from a public health background (with the occasional vaccine expert) and, in the nicest possible way, public health scientists do all seem to have a relatively narrow way of looking at things. Which is fair enough, because, from a public health perspective, there are certain things proven to be less risky than other things. Doesn't mean they're always the right things to do in a particular circumstance, though, and it would be good to have more variety.

@StatisticallyChallenged

In an effort to cheer myself up and distract from not being allowed to go shopping, earlier I was perusing John Lewis. And came across this delight.

Was the designer suffering from lockdown mania? Have you ever thought "I know just what my xmas decor needs, a trio of phallic mushrooms"

Whipround to send them to Sturgeon, Swinney and Leitch??

Aaaaargh! JL does seem to have a bit of a mushroom thing going on this year. They sent me an email suggesting I might like to buy some very tasteful illuminated wicker mushrooms... Ummmm, no thanks. Maybe it's a subtle marketing nudge... think 2020, think hallucinogenic substances. (though there was another thread about a girl's top that had, apparently 3 sequinned ballet shoes on, that looked for all the world like 3 sparkly Willie's, so maybe all the designers have had enough and are having a competition to see what they can get the public to buy before the end of the year...)

Though my neighbours were texting me last night to berate us for having a non-sparkly house and we're threatening to come round to pimp us up. Maybe I should stick some of those in the window to make a point.

Interesting points on the shops. I agree I don't think there is much likelihood of being a close contact in a shop, but I would feel uneasy about battling with crowds in the street or on public transport at the moment. I'd be worried about being in closer proximity for a shorter period of time rather than 15min at 1.5m or whatever. Its more getting elbowed in the chest for the last pannetone in valvonna and corolla than standing in an orderly queue...

The mushroom s are popular for "fairy gardens" I think JL might have gotten a bit overexcited. I passed a tatt shop yesterday and they had mushroom ornaments

Latest poll out showing a slight drop in support for independence and the SNP.

@WaxOnFeckOff

Latest poll out showing a slight drop in support for independence and the SNP.

Thank you for this little gift @WaxOnFeckOff v.kind of you. Now what to get you in return? I don’t think we can stretch to your Christmas Day drink, ain’t nothing changing with tiers today by the look of it🤷‍♀️

Biking I just made myself a newspaper fairy wand for my alter ego who is a giant pink fairy (like a giant Sunday school palm tree). DD3 very impressed that it expands to way over 2m. I see a great recycling opportunity for your crackers.

On that note it has been so wet round our way that the fairies in the garden have got plenty of real toadstools. We have no need for JL. We have got our tree up but it is not at the window so definitely at risk of complaints from the neighbours. I have almost a week with DD3 at home before Christmas and all DD2's art supplies. So there is hope even if she did go minimalist on the tree decorations.

It was Prof Ferguson who suggested culling all the cattle in 2001. Turns out he was wrong then for the same reasons he may well be misguided now. Very chilling article because of its echoes with the current situation and our apparent inability to learn to talk to disease specialists and virologists rather than mathematicians and behavioural science modellers.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13299666

Aaaaargh! JL does seem to have a bit of a mushroom thing going on this year.

That thing when you take a second to wonder why Jason Leitch has a keen interest in mushrooms🤔

Let’s start that rumour though, it’s better than JL as John Lewis

For anyone interested in data the ONS have just released latest weekly death data for E&W. It is continuing to track Scotland, which reports 6 days ahead. For the latest week excess deaths are down on the previous week (1,600) against a backdrop of increasing Covid deaths (2,800). Deaths at home (mostly non-Covid) still over 800 above average.

Other interesting facet in the context of current hysteria. London deaths have been over 100 above average for the last 2 weeks. This period has them lower in absolute and relative terms at 33 above average.

Average deaths tend to go up by more than 10% per week for the next 2/3 months in Scotland. Will be interesting to see how this plays out in the data. If I were Govt seeking to rescue a "crisis" I would roll out the vaccine in the period of highest average deaths for the year for maximum upside with minimal down side. All decisions are political.

Thanks @bytheloch at this point I'd settle for losing the constant nausea. Fever and elbow improving but cure feels worse than the illness. My body not tolerating the antibiotics well, not allergic, just got every side affect going :(

Just till Saturday to go so I'll stop moaning.

Loving the sounds of cracker preparations.

Now have visions of Jason Leitch sitting on his toadstool in his referee outfit complete with bobbly hat and scarf and sparkly whistle. Fishing in the garden pond with his 2m ladle while emitting putrid puffs of doom and gloom.

And right on cue BBC starting to fret about Covid in wild mink. No-one tell it about the monkeys pinching samples from the labs in India in the summer.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55309269

Once we finally realise this is becoming endemic in most wildlife and pets we may have to stop futile attempts to control the human population.

It's not just me who wondered wtf was with the Christmas mushroom theme.

Predictions for today's tierathon?

@Bytheloch

Aaaaargh! JL does seem to have a bit of a mushroom thing going on this year.

That thing when you take a second to wonder why Jason Leitch has a keen interest in mushrooms🤔

Let’s start that rumour though, it’s better than JL as John Lewis

Ha!! Yes, sorry... When Acronym Worlds Collide. (I still get confused between VPN and VPL and call the computer thing a Visible Panty Network in my head).

dinnafash Thanks for that ONS stuff. Does that mean there are fewer excess deaths than usual, even though covid deaths are increasing? (My caffeine levels need topping up I think). So people are dying of Covid when they would "normally" be dying of other stuff at this time of year, like flu/ pneumonia, general winter viruses... and of the people dying of other stuff more people are doing it at home than in hospital? If so, that sounds pretty bad... that people that could be better treated in hospital, possibly to prevent them dying, but they aren't going into hospital, even though the covid plus non-covid hospital burden isn't much worse than any other year? I may have totally misinterpreted that, though...

waxon oh no... Sorry to hear you're struggling with the antibiotics. What a nightmare. Hope you're able to take it a bit easy.