Guilt Free Railing 13

[WouldBeGood]

Unlucky for some.. maybe lucky for us?

www.mygov.scot/home-fire-safety

Fire alarm info

I think the following charts are quite interesting in terms of the coercion strategy to get more young people vaccinated. All age groups eventually plateau, and we seem to be at that level across the board now. Sturgeon seems to be banking on vaccine passports causing a big rise in people getting vaccinated as seen in e.g. France, but is failing to realise that there was a lot more vaccine scepticism there as a baseline and so further to climb. We don't have the same kinds of gains to be made as the UK traditionally has low levels of vaccine hesitancy, and indeed the uptake chart shows a small bump after the announcement but a steady decline since. I really think we've maxed out the number of people willing to be vaccinated even with these coercive techniques, and there aren't that many more gains to be made (although those levels look pretty good to me...).

Talking about the app issues this morning, DH was saying he isn't going to bother because they'll quietly drop it in a couple of months anyway, twisting the figures to make some kind of excuse about job being done. We know that it will have negligible effect on infection rates, and it looks doubtful it will even work for their stated aim of coercing people into vaccination who haven't already had it (I still can't believe they are actually saying that out loud), so I hope it will be quietly dropped when it becomes clear it does more harm than good.

Thanks for the fire alarm stuff ssd. I keep promising DH I'll look into it, but it gets pushed to the bottom of my pile. I still think it's a bit prescriptive. We have two linked smoke alarms... One upstairs landing (plus CO alarm by the boiler), one downstairs hallway, and they are fucking loud. Not sure why we have to have one in the living room too, potentially about 50cm away from the one in the downstairs hallway. And we'd made an informed decision not to get a sensor in the kitchen (lots of smoky wok stuff going on, yeah) but now we have to regardless. I understand in HMOs or tenanted properties where landlords may try to get away with the minimum possible. But surely in privately owned houses we are able to decide how we use the space and what we want? Not saying we want the right to die in our bed in a fire, but that our arrangements are sufficient to stop that happening!

Am still grumpy about the passports too. It was inevitable that there'd be a cockup. And it's going to be individual people/ businesses that suffer... Not the SG who will point to the continuing declining numbers to say "yay, such a good idea, well done us" when that's been happening for a good fortnight at least. They could make us stand on one leg each morning and sing Flower o Scotland on the grounds that it will stop the spread of the virus, and it would be proven a resounding success (either numbers would decline, or they'd increase, but it would have been even worse without our measures... just look at what's happening down south... Or, no, don't look there, it's not comparable at all).

Those graphs tell us everything really youcannot! I think that little bump was the "undecided" youngsters (there may be another small bump now it's in place, though anyone changing their mind now won't be able to get a passport for another 8-10 weeks). It made absolutely no difference to the older under 40s, who already had a pretty high take up, and I assume even more so in the hesitant over 40s, who overall have even higher take up. What an illiberal, disproportionate waste of time and money (esp if the tech is faulty... presumably the scanning tech is faulty too, so no one will be able to check the codes anyway!) , that's more likely to lead to distrust in the vaccines rather than anything else.

Mind you, I've just tried to download a pdf of my certificate just so I've got something, and that's not working this morning either. So even the fallback option doesn't seem to work reliably. Maybe I need to request a coffee stained paper copy as a backup to the backup.

Scotland: at the cutting edge of technology..!

I’d like to think they’ll quietly lose these soon but I’m now thinking it’s the pathway to digital ID cards. There seems no scientific nor medical benefit to them.

I’m going to London next weekend so hoping for a more chilled time!

The ones for kitchen are heat rather than smoke so shouldn't be affected by wok.

But it still doesn't make sense to swap wired in alarms for battery ones and I'm finding it almost impossible to get radio ones which can also be wired in. And sod pulling the house apart to get to the cables to wire in a heat sensor and an extra smoke detector.

I’m just ignoring all the smoke alarm stuff.

I have perfectly adequate alarms.

*obviously, I am now going to burn to death, probably whilst riddled with Covid, in my attempts to ignore everything the SG says

I think my alarms are already interlinked. We got the house re-wired 3 years ago and new smoke alarms then.

Shouldi they probably are already linked. Ours are 10 years old and linked
Press the button on one and see if the other goes off.

I've not got the new fire alarms. I can think of many better ways to spend £200 - unfortunately all of it and more will be eaten up by our increased energy bills.

This is more of a UK wide grump. I understand why they're only giving our teens one vaccine, but the net result unless things change is that foreign travel is costly and bureaucratic for families. Fine for us, we have one DD and can afford it fingers crossed he's not positive for Tenerife but not so much for others. Also I have US relatives and as it stands DS couldn't visit ( I think). I guess it's a bit of a moot point for us as he will get his second once he's 16, but then too much time will have elapsed to make that acceptable possibly.

Meanwhile SG squandering time and effort on the tiny proportion of the adult population who haven't had the vaccine.

Sorry we have a DS, not sure why I put DD, and before anyone asks, he definitely self identifies as male, or possibly an amoeba.

I think the completely overboard number of smoke alarms now required assumes all Scots live in a castle
Don't know about anyone else but I have no problem hearing my 2 upstairs and 2 downstairs alarms from anywhere in my 3 bed house (and from the garden)

We have two alarms and no issues hearing them anywhere. They are 10 years old so due replacement replacing like for like will be circa £40-50.
Radio ones will be £50-60 each, and we need 4 - absolutely bonkers.

The ones for kitchen are heat rather than smoke so shouldn't be affected by wok.
Yeah, fair point but I don't want one [stamps foot] The idea of more cables and stuff, requiring more plastering and decorating that will take years to get done, plus the expense is annoying. Or alternatively wastefully getting rid of our perfectly functional current alarms to replace them with radio ones or something, which seems an alarm manufacturers dream... The one place I've been thinking we need something is our utility room, with a somewhat old and fuzzy tumble drier, but I'm not bunging anything in there under the new system. Unless we can persuade someone that that's the place I spend most of my time, which isn't actually far wrong...

rookie (and your gender fluid child ) yes... It does sound a pain. I've just given up assuming we'll be going abroad as a family any time soon (though DH is off to Germany in a fortnight, so he may come back all enthusiastic I suppose). Are 16 yo getting 2 doses now then? I thought it was one dose only for under 18s? Shows how much attention I've been paying...

You might be right about the one dose for the under 18s @ResilienceWanker , that makes it worse.

I want to rail about the fact that it's my NWD but my projects gone Pete Tong which means I need to dial into calls later and can't risk having wine when I catch up with friends at lunch .

Well that sucks rookie - I've unexpectedly finally reached a temporary lull, it's been full pelt but I can't get too sloshed as I've got a birthday party for dd2 to get through/last minute organise for tomorrow.

I'm guessing crawling there hungover won't look so good in the birthday photos.

We had all our smoke alarms done but there are requirements about carbon monoxide that I didn't know about that I've had to organise someone else to do, bloody annoying.

The vaccine passport shenanigans is a joke but it also makes me chuckle spending weeks insisting that "its the right thing to do" for it all not to work! 😂

It's making them look pretty stupid and there will be some poor IT people getting shouted at but I think for me its a massive karma sign!

We are coming to the end of our holiday ☹️ the only stressful part was doing the lateral flows for fit to fly certwhich is annoyingly going as a requirement on Monday! UK PLF is a bit clunky but fine so don't be put off by it! Being on holiday had been amazing huge detox for the soul and head. I highly recommend getting away and not being put off there are cheaper test companies now available for Scotland too!

@WouldBeGood

Scotland: at the cutting edge of technology..!

I’d like to think they’ll quietly lose these soon but I’m now thinking it’s the pathway to digital ID cards. There seems no scientific nor medical benefit to them.

I’m going to London next weekend so hoping for a more chilled time!

Been in London for two weeks for work. It really is different. Respectful to others. Never ever asked to check in or wear a mask. Life really is going on there. Train up and down, suggested in announcement you wear mask back in Scotland, but other than that- a blissful mask-free journey there and back, in the majority in carriage. Enjoy your trip, enjoy life being treated like a grown up again.

@ResilienceWanker that's exactly my point is pushing people to get rid of perfectly good alarms that are wired in to go to battery operated systems, as nobody wants the hassle of running cables over the house.

re the alarms, I made the argument on another thread I think that at the moment, the fire brigade will come and fit basic alarms for people. Very useful for elderly, infirm, those on low incomes, many of which will be in their own private homes rather than rented accomodation. The Fire Brigade will not be able to come and fit to these new requirements for free so that leaves people unable to organise or pay for this new stuff at risk of outdated/non working alarms when a free one would be perfectly adequate and certainly better than nothing.

I don't know, not that long ago I know someone who got free fire brigade alarms. They said they'd be back with the new ones when they get them, so they must have been expecting to get them in.

But I hear what you are saying, it's an additional cost to them too. It is certainly more important that all houses have working alarms than for their to be an OTT system.
Give it time and sooner or later the Fire Brigade will turn up at a house where the wired system was ripped out, battery alarms put in and the batteries have failed.
You can see it coming.

You can @Lockdownbear. I think they have their place and and I think rented accommodation should be held up to a decent standard of safety. But I don't see why people with systems deemed perfectly suitable by the Fire Brigade themselves should have to put in an enhanced system if they don't want to.

I'll just be leaving it until I am selling up. I'm happy that what we have is sufficient.

My only worry is insurance.

remember this is only in Scotland and it's very unlikely to be stated in the T&Cs that you need this particular set up with smoke alarms. I'd just check what it says in your policy and also what they specifically ask about when you are renewing.

This is very true.