Tiers Of A Clown

[Bytheloch]

Thread #3456

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

DH usually has his camera off if at all possible wax. Just as well since his desk is in our bedroom and I'm inclined to forget he might be in a meeting. He is frequently on mute for similar reasons. Sworn to silence during DD2's tutorials is a challenge.

Oh organised fun @WaxOnFeckOff, my favourite 🤢

Not one thing has been said about Christmas celebrations in my work.

I’m public sector and there’s very little organised for Christmas where I work. There was an attempt to organise something like Zoom quiz or similar but very little appetite. Most people I know just want to get to the break and lie in a darkened room for a bit.

On a related note, I’m hoping there’s no late change in Christmas bubble arrangements. It’s the only thing getting many people I know through.

The holistic drugs approach is a convenient hook, it doesn't explain why the drugs numbers have gotten so terrible under the SNP's tenure in power since they've never had those powers.

You may believe what you want about the root cause fix but it isn't an adequate explanation for this change @Liverpool9 you're simply buying wholesale wha the SNP is selling. How holistic will their approach be with 20 percent less money?

It's by no means clear Portugal's drug success isn't partly down to changing their data collection either - we don't know enough about it to say and it's all a bit reminiscent of 'we can deal with covid like Jacinda'

Government is a bit harder than that.

Sorry for the intemperateness.

We've been offered to be sent an actual bottle of wine for Christmas. I don't want to drink it on a call with my colleagues though...

I agree with you @anon444877.
It was suggested that one reason for high drug deaths in Scotland was attributed to the way SG collect data, this is apparently far superior than many countries in Europe. (However, these have been found to make negligible difference, see independent investigative journalist co-op, The Ferret).
So what’s so robust about collection of data from Portugal?

I also thought the SNP government cut funding for drug support and services 5 years ago.

I'm totally lacking Christmas spirit. It's the lack of Santa visit, no panto, no nights out, I'm still not sure what's happening on Christmas Day.

Shop bought birthday cakes, how many days do they last? I'm trying to figure the logistics of buying a cake then it being quarantined for three days.

Most of the Christmas cakes being sold are good til at least Christmas Day!

My dd is lovingly using my best hairbrush to brush the cat. The cat is enjoying it - well that's made today slightly better!

I know the Christmas cakes last but they're usually laced with alcohol. Do the sponge birthday cakes last 4 days realistically by the time I take into account the weekend?

Brushing the cat with your brush

@Bikingbear I’d say the cake will last fine. I have some experience as my ungrateful children always want bought cake 😃

My ds works in law enforcement and her time is primarily taken up by drug users and mental health. I’m worried that Scotland will become a nation of drug users. Yes alcohol is legal but look how well we handle that.
I don’t work in any of legal, law enforcement or social work sectors. I would agree that gang culture in Glasgow appears to have been tackled well (lots of funding and resources) but would question the way violent crime has been recorded. I thought many laws were softly being decriminalised, where sentencing has been reduced or even gotten rid of. Surely this skews comparing years? I remember reading years ago how Sweden’s jails were empty and it was held up as a great success but dig past the headline and many crimes no longer carried penalties (so they were still being committed but it wasn’t recorded).

Is the cat’s hair the same colour as yours @anon444877?

You really don't need to quarantine cake, @Bikingbear. Or anything else. If you or the recipient is really worried, just wash your hands after taking it out of the box.

Lacking in Christmas spirit here too, I'm not a fan of the whole season, it's overblown and hyped up and all people can seem to talk about from about September on. And it's SO DARK at this time of year - gone 8am and still pitch dark. Hate it. Roll on 1st Jan, new year, increasing light.

I'd agree, no need to quarantine cake. Open box, put in bin, wash hands. The contents will have been in there more than long enough and won't have been bare hand handled anyway.

The risk of transmission from a box in real world conditions is very very tiny

I used to love Christmas when there were drinks and parties and the annual midnight mass, carols, possibly a trip to listen to Christmas classical music, a Christmas lie in. None of which are feasible this year.

Post dc it's over excited kids wetting the bed, not sleeping and asking 500 questions about Santa Claus and behaving increasingly out of control until I feel mostly relief it's over when the big day arrives.

A bit like Andy Murray when he won Wimbledon

Oooh proper proper grinch mood today, time for more coffee!

@WouldBeGood the cat doesn't have the same colour hair, I've had my doubts about the suspicious looking short fur in the brush before!

I can tell you that where I am there is a drug problem and has been for as long as I have been here (about 12 years). I know because I can see the needles on the pavement on the way to school and last year we were so lucky to come across 2 users doing each other (twice, but different users I believe).
Now the situation has improved because I have managed to convince the people in charge (i.e. a councillor) that a little alcove in a brick wall along a canal path needed bricked up as that's where people where congregating (away from too many prying eyes and offering shelter).
Clearly the problem hasn't been solved, but the people just moved elsewhere (that's a win for me and my school route, but it took some doing).
From what I hear there are several hotspots, all well known to the council, where drug users go and congregate. The council goes around in a patrol car to disperse them more or less on a daily basis, but clearly no sooner do they go away than the users recommence their activities.

We're in a small town in a very rural area and the drugs issue has become far more visible within the last 10 years. During 'proper' lockdown on our daily walk there were certain areas were the stench of weed was like a miasma and a few occasions when we came across groups of mid-teens sitting behind dry stone walls passing joints round. Depressing, especially as weed appears to be sucha a gateway drug.

Our small town has a high street where approx 60% of the shops are empty, (this was pre covid - will probably be worse now) and the rest are the usual mix of charity shops, sandwich shops, hairdressers/barbers and nail bars (DH jokes we must have the ugliest citizen's in the country - it's what keeps all the hairdressers and beauticians employed!) but it's obviously people trying to future proof themselves - no point setting up a shop that sells 'stuff' because people will just buy on the internet, but to date they can't send their barnet off to Amazon for a cut and blow dry.

The place looking so run down gives a feeling that the whole town and its residents are also 'run down', and I guess that becomes almost a self fulfilling prophecy. There have been local attempts to re-generate the place, but the odd pop up shop selling highly coloured cupcakes only seems to magnify the problem.

It's nursery who want to quarantine the cake. I wouldn't have thought it mattered either but their rules I'm not going to argue.

@Bikingbear

It's nursery who want to quarantine the cake. I wouldn't have thought it mattered either but their rules I'm not going to argue.

Utter lunacy on their part. But something shop bought will be fine - nothing from a nice bakery where it's fresh, but a boxed m&s or supermarket cake

The supermarket birthday cakes my dc insist on usually last several weeks biking

@anon444877 I’m glad I’m not alone with the dc and bought cakes 😃

And liking the multi coloured hair in brush.. !

I totally agree with the "holistic" approach to drugs, and that education and aspiration, aiming to reduce poverty is so important. Living in a town like reprehensibleme describes is hardly encouraging that, and neither is going to a school with so many years of underfunding it is literally falling apart, with subjects, especially at higher level cut to the bone, and with exam algorithms set up to disadvantage students from historically poorer performing schools . (I get very annoyed by shitty educational provision in many communities, regardless of all the guff about attainment gaps and so on).

It's all very well wanting to decriminalised users (which surely you can do in effect by not specifically resourcing Police Scotland to deal with it) but (from my point of view, with no background in anything health, social or legal, so basically worthless ) its just as effective to engage with users, and potential users much earlier on so they don't need to get to that point. I saw an article on the news about the mobile drug consumption room/ van last night, and, yes, technically that is not allowed under UK law. But it hasn't been closed down, and in any case, it sounded like its real benefit had been the engagement and listening to its "customers", supporting them with stuff going on in their lives and so on. Obviously, the drug taking part is only "safer" while they are actually there anyway, so doesn't sound like a long term solution. And all the rest isn't "drugs" as such anyway, so perfectly legal, and likely beneficial. So I suppose what I'm trying to say is that there isn't really any excuse for not bringing in the progressive PHS - endorsed strategies, just because one aspect of them can't be done because of reserved legislation.

Zoom Christmas parties are one reason I'm very, very glad I'm self employed. In fact, works Christmas parties full stop, but turned up to 11 this year...

I can't comment on the wisdom of cake quarantine. They never last long enough here to test out the shelf life to the max. But I agree, the boxed ones do seem to have unnaturally long dates if they aren't opened, so you should be fine.

We got a "furminator" for our cat, and I keep threatening to use it on DSs tangled lockdown locks which he now refuses to get cut (past his shoulders now, and growing out as well as down). So I suppose that's kind of the reverse...