Guilt Free Railing 16

[WouldBeGood]

The festive special!

As always, all railing welcome, along with good things or humorous asides. No resilience wankery. This is the safe place to let out anything that’s doing your head in.

since we've had a tv tangent (agree Heriot special was great but no setter or wedding so not the best), can we have a st Andrews hotels/b&b tangent?

At the risk of putting the kiss of death on hotel stays, anyone stayed anywhere nice & kid friendly in St Andrews? Overseas plans have inevitably fallen through.

@RunningInTheWind

My plumber went AWOL on the 23rd and I’ve reached my ceiling of personal residual filth - aids social distancing I suppose.

So I’m going to fling myself into the sea today and scrub myself down with a handful of sand.

I’m not boostered. Any statisticians care to weigh up the odds of a) dying of personal hygiene vs. B) floating away to Norway vs. C) covid?

Well, given that the Loony Dook is cancelled ‘because variant’ I wish you well as you swim sans booster in the Covid-filled waters and breathe in the fresh air. I would advise you test before, during and after your swim, just to be on the safe side.

Anyone else finding it ironic that SG was looking at Irelands restrictions for a model.......which is now reporting 1 in 2 PCR tests come back with covid......hmmmmm maybe they will start realising that you can't control a bloody virus so bolster health and treatments (with the later having come onnleaps and bounds in less then 2 years which is unheard of in the medical world so quickly!)

I don't support restricting unvaccinated either. But it is a lot easier, phobia aside, to get a vaccine put in your arm than it is to stop a drug, alcohol or over-eating addiction.
@RunningInTheWind are you really desperate for somewhere to wash? Don't know where you are, but I'm sure one of us has a bathroom you could use!

I agree @frasersmummy, it’s really pretty depressing having nothing to look forward to.

I think the would be much better if it concentrated on vaccinating the vulnerable throughout the world rather than focusing on the “selfish unvaccinated”, and boostering healthy youngsters.

It’s true that I’d probably be keener as a young person to get jagged in England, with the prospect of getting out than up here, with nothing to do! Hadn’t thought of it like that til this thread. Unintended effects of SG policy, I’d have real respect for her if she acknowledged she might have been over cautious.

The forcing of people into private homes etc is surely going to ensure the spreading of the virus very effectively!

They can cancel the monetised charging version of the Loony Dook, but the can't stop people going in the sea. In a way it's perhaps not a bad thing, I'm fed up with every event being turned into a profit generating corporation run jamboree.

We've spent the last two years trying to suppress case numbers across all cohorts and all we've conclusively learned is that the nhs is in terrible shape.

It doesn't seem to be about the vulnerable anymore it seems to be about nhs strain.

I wonder if we'll see the tories take a different strategy now.

DH used to work on mental health, it was certainly easier to medicate patients, often against their will, rather than deal with the issue or provide appropriate care. Does that make it the right thing to do?

Anyway, my point was that a lot of the people shouting for others to get vaccinated (often because of their own anxieties, fed into by scaremongering and misinformation) are also a drain on the NHS and as likely to cause a crisis but have done nothing to attempt to change the situation.

Who is actually the bigger risk here?

And putting all that aside, why are we all shouting and blaming each other when the biggest issue is mismanagement and underfunding of the NHS, particularly diverting funds given specifically for the NHS who knows where?

The tories have invested more per head on the NHS in England and Wales than has been spent in Scotland. Scotgov were given the increased funds to spend on the NHS and didn't use it for the NHS, I'm unsure why this is the Tories fault?

In what sense do you think the tory will change strategy?

SNP just seem to throw money in the wrong places, extra MWs vs Baby Boxes, extra nurses vs free buses.

I also only got the booster so I can have my holiday later in year.

At this time I really don’t want to feel forced into having any more.

Well I think they will need to be different tack on vaccination going forward.
The idea of vaccinating everyone was (in my understanding) to stop virus circulating as much and therefore reduce variants. And that spectacularly hasn't worked!

So we're back to the primary goal of the vaccine being to prevent hospitalisation and death in at risk groups, which it is doing very very well.

So we look at a 6 month booster for everyone over 40 or CV and let everyone else choose if they want it.

There is little incentive for youngsters to keep having a jag every few months when they are low risk.
My 18 yr old (and her uni flatmates) are not sure about having the booster. Their parents and grandparents are now fully protected, they still have to isolate as a whole household if one catches covid, the nightclubs, sporting events and concerts they got their vaccine pass in order to go to are now closed, their education is still disrupted this year with a lot of lectures online, they can't travel.
You can kind of see their point, they see friends getting a wee bit ill with covid, which was exactly the same a year ago for this group.
To them, there is really no great difference to vaccinated v unvaccinated ( which was point I was making last night, not that I wanted restrictions for unvaccinated people!) And the only way Gov can tackle this is to spread fear amongst the population and create panic as has been happening over last few weeks🤷🏼‍♀️

Is our dear leader giving an update today?

I'm glad that Boris decided not to impose restrictions on crowds and hospitality etc for New Year - it will make people hate NS even more

One more day of incarceration, then FRREEDOM! I'm going to walk around our shitty little town for ages - just because I can

@heelforheelandtoefortoe it's tomorrow. Public holiday today.

No the snp are on the hook for nhs failings here, devolution was hardly recent.

Change strategy - I mean deviate from shutting more things down and adding more restrictions.

How long before some entrepreneurs starts running buses to the Carlisle, Liverpool, Newcastle nightclubs?

I’m just lying here musing on a trip to England

@Lockdownbear

How long before some entrepreneurs starts running buses to the Carlisle, Liverpool, Newcastle nightclubs?

Some people are already planning this apparently Clubs in the North of England are standing ready to welcome Scots who can't have their parties nearer to home.

I’ve probably said this elsewhere but again re this being an SNP failure and not at the door of Westminster; 10,000 Scottish students had the results in their exams to meet requirements to study Medicine at Scottish Unis. There are only 2,000 places. Why not increase the number of places? Same for nursing places (which the SNP cut under NS)? Because of the “free” Uni places for Scots while charging others, which has actually widened the attainment gap. We could be improving the future of our SNHS now but we are not.

Catsolitude - I wrote a ranting email to my then MSP Liz Smith (Tory) about this because between shite state schools not offering robust sciences and maths - and a stroll past Dundee med school library - I basically said that medicine (and its ilk) had closed its doors to state school applicants. She was in full agreement.

Back from my dook. Bliss. If someone earlier was referring to the Lubnaig crew - I’m happy to PM you the names of those who DGAF and would be happy to swim. Or head over to kinghorn for paradise.

I feel clean huzzah.

@RunningInTheWind I could not agree more. My DN and DN go to one of the lower quarter rated Scottish secondary schools. They have mandarin lessons. While I applaud and encourage the aim to broaden the horizons I can’t help but feel we should be trying to better prep our children for Uni/ vocational training/ jobs.

That's shocking that the loony dook has been taken over by Underbelly. From what I've read that's a company who have done very little good for Edinburgh.

@ElephantOfRisk

The tories have invested more per head on the NHS in England and Wales than has been spent in Scotland. Scotgov were given the increased funds to spend on the NHS and didn't use it for the NHS, I'm unsure why this is the Tories fault?

That's not true @ElephantOfRisk ( below from the UK Gov).

For 2020/21, public spending per person in the UK as a whole was £13,414. In England, it was £13,166 (2% below the UK average). This compares with:

Scotland: £14,842 (11% above the UK average)
Wales: £14,222 (6% above the UK average)
Northern Ireland £15,357 (14% above the UK average).