Mike Jordan

Guess what? I just went down to our local Sainsburys for milk (still plenty in stock and being replenished) slightly jokingly asked lady if there were any baked beans. She replied none and said look at the shelf there – which was almost empty – except for a few tins of Spam.

I picked one up to drool over it and noticed that the opener was missing, so asked the (young) lady where the opener was and got reply “What?”

So had to explain to her how to open a tin of Spam.

Just had to buy one for memories sake (and as standby supper) and noticed sell-by date was 2024. So no hurry to scoff it all at once!!

 

Nick Ware

I think we need to be a bit careful of humour and jokes concerning Covid-19, because inevitably there will be some amongst us who are going to find it anything but funny.

However, because I know some of you have concerns about junk email and scams, etc., I feel duty bound to pass on this alert from my daughter Ellie, who is working with Critical Care Covid-19 patients. She says: “…Just a heads up, if you get an email from the Department of Health saying not to eat tinned pork because it contains Covid-19, ignore it. It’s spam…”

Saturday 14^th and Sunday 15^th  March was the last relatively normal weekend.  No hand sanitizers, Paracetamol or toilet roll on the supermarket shelves, and no league football, but pubs, clubs and restaurants were still open. By the next weekend (21^st March) everything was closed, including churches and schools (except for food shops and few others): everyone was told to stay at home and practice social distancing.

 

Programme Problems

Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway on Saturday 21^st March 2020 – from Studio TC1 at the Television Centre [see: Oh! the irony]– had no audience…

… with a smaller than usual crew…

but there were a couple of  things to see…

 

Roger Bunce

Day Three, and the Government have announced which people are to count as ‘Key Workers’ i.e. people who need to go to work because they do useful stuff, as opposed to people who might as well stay at home, because they don’t do anything very useful. Now, I’m not normally a rabid revolutionary but – if some people are more ‘Key’ than others, shouldn’t wage scales reflect this? Shouldn’t we pay more to the people we actually need, and less to the pompous bureaucrats who sit in big offices with grandiose job titles, doing not very much – who are perfectly capable of staying at home and doing not very much.

 

Bernie Newnham

I think public service broadcasters were on the list.

 

Paul Thackray

Already tens of thousands of workers who are freelance now have no work . Shortage of work, not people, is the big issue,

 

Dave Mundy

Our new neighbours, who moved in during December, and who we haven’t actually spoken to and have only caught fleeting glances of, have tonight, put a post card through the letterbox asking if we need any shopping doing etc., there’s hope for the world yet!

 

David Beer

We are socially isolating by camping in our motorhome in Borrowdale. Fantastic weather  hardly any people and we have our own plentiful supply of wine and toilet rolls!

 

Dave Mundy

Looks lovely, Dave. Down here in Surrey it has been dark grey and drizzling! I went to four supermarkets (not so super at the moment!) and there was no fresh meat, frozen meat, bread, eggs, pizzas etc. but Morrisons did have my favourite red.

Unfortunately, all the bottles are faulty, in that they have holes in them, and they don’t last very long at all! ..hic …

 

Albert Barber

Uses for all those toilet rolls:

 

Neil Dormand

“The Italian Job” remake:

 

Philip Tyler

I have some very dear friends who live in Italy, here is part of their latest message to me.

“… Hi Philip
Here in our house, the silence is total, it seems incredible.
Many people still don’t understand the danger. They walk the streets, fill the subways. Yesterday’s death toll is now over 600. The hospitals in Lombardy are collapsing. Bergamo is the city with a very high number of deaths. The two of us are continuing to work using all the protective devices. Next week I’ll use an approved gas mask, …

The last factories left open, they’ll close them too. Even the food factories are in total crisis. The government will probably pass the rule to close food supermarkets in the next few hours. Everything will stop here for a long time. It’s changed the lives of all of us. The big problem for us is not work but staying alive….”

 

Roger Bunce

Day 4

So, Boris is going to shut bars and clubs. But aren’t there certain other institutions which should be closed?

Not that I’m normally a rabid revolutionary – but what about the financial markets?

You may think the bulk-buyers of loo rolls and antiseptic wipes are panic-stricken idiots – and you’d be right. But their panics are insignificant compared to the mega-panics of those Hooray Henrys in red braces. Panic Buying may strip supermarket shelves, but Panic Selling can strip pension funds, life savings, jobs and do serious damage to the economy. It’s not as if we NEED these people. They’re not exactly ‘Key Workers’. They’re just gamblers with other people’s money. The principle of shutting the markets temporarily, in the event of a catastrophic slide, is well established. Why not shut them for the duration? Some chinless wonders may find themselves unemployed for a bit, but at least it would stop them losing other people’s savings, or betting against the pound (personally I’d have them shot for treason – but we’re not allowed to do that anymore!)

Consider the medieval peasant, grazing his flocks on the Romney Marshes (other coastal lowlands or polders may be considered). He has his drainage dykes and his sluices. He knows to open the sluice as the tide goes out, so that the land can drain, and to close the sluice as the tide comes in, to prevent salt-water flooding the meadows. Like a valve – allowing only a one-way flow. The principle has worked for millennia. Why not apply it to the markets. Keep them open when the tide is running in our favour, slam them shut when the tide turns against us, and keep them shut until it turns again.

 

Barry Bonner

I wouldn’t have like being a Romney Marsh medieval peasant because from the middle of the 16th. century the health of the Marsh population suffered from malaria, then known as ague or marsh fever, which caused high mortality rates until the 1730s! If you visit Winchelsea you’ll see their graves in the churchyard.

 

Roger Bunce

I recall the good Doctor Syn, the pious and most reverend Vicar of Dymchurch-Under-The-Wall, once getting a fit of the shakes. He told everyone it was a result of the Marsh Ague (and nothing to do with the fact that he had just seen a voodoo priest, the same man he had marooned on a desolate reef, years before, when he was terrorising the Seven Seas as the notorious pirate Captain Clegg, apparently now returned from the dead, with a company of His Majesty’s Revenue Men). At least the good Doctor Syn now has a engine named after him on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway.

 

Alec Bray

      “…They’re just gamblers with other people’s money…”

It’s absolutely awful! How can anyone sane think it is a way to do business?

When I was in IT, we designed and manufactured a high-speed Ethernet Bridge – which connected two known Local Area Networks. Our competitor was Cisco – who built routers -which  connected to any known Network.  Cisco won – we all use routers now.

However, at the time, LIFFE – the London International Financial Futures Exchange – decided that they would buy out High Speed Ethernet Bridge to connect outlying offices to the central exchange – over 100 of them.  As we had had a recent scare over components, there was no time to acceptance test the bridges at our UK offices before delivery (they had had a functional test and a soak test (no, not in water, but an extended up-time test) at the manufactory at Chatsworth, Los Angeles. So, it was agreed that we would ship directly to LIFFE, and I (as Quality Manager) and a volunteer (Graham, I think it was) would do an acceptance test on each bridge before it was installed.

On the Saturday of the installation, we were busy doing this, and then a guy came along and absolutely ranted at us – never had anything like it – about us holding up the installation, blah, blah.  It was all totally unnecessary.  My volunteer was all set to walk out immediately and stuff them (he had never been sworn at like that). My volunteer was a nice guy, and I managed to talk him round, and we finished the job, everything installed according to plan.  Around 16:00 ish the ranter came back to us – and actually apologised, as he had not realised earlier what we were doing.  But it was no excuse for his behaviour earlier in the day.

Anyway, as part of all this (was it on a pre-visit?) , we were shown the trading room floor .  It was pandemonium.  The bidders were shouting at full pitch, scribbling notes on bits of paper which they flung onto the floor. Other people had to scurry around, picking up these bits of paper and formalising the deals. Why, we asked, why?  There must be a better way …

The High Speed Bridges were used to connect the offices to the trading room floor, and it was made very clear to us that the offices could make a bid and the bid was valid as long as it “was on the breath..” So, seconds then.  So the bridges and network had to be responsive enough to mimic the bids on the floor.

Ever since that day I have been in despair about the way the financial  system works.  It is so stupid!

 

Roger Bunce

These days, I’m told, many trading decisions are made by computers. Whereas a Shouty Man throwing pieces of paper can make a trade in seconds, a computer can do so in nano-seconds. If the market starts to fall, the first person to sell makes the most money, the second is already making less. This means that you need to be as physically close to the trading floor (or wherever it is that the news first comes in) as possible, since even the length of the fibre-optic cable connecting your computer becomes critical. If it’s a few metres longer than someone else’s, you could be trading a nano-second too late (no I haven’t checked the maths). So, those traders who say, “If you go for Brexit, I’ll move to Frankfurt” (or wherever), won’t do so. All the best pitches are already taken in Frankfurt. They’d find themselves further out, on longer cables.

Can’t decide if this is a good thing or bad. If all those Bankers, who are constantly threatening to move overseas, had done so before the last banking collapse, they’d have wrecked someone else’s economy, and not ours!

 

Pat Heigham

I’ve filmed in both the London and New York Stock Exchanges, and without doubt, the London Futures market was appalling! A veritable bear-pit. And the shouty guys seemed to have no manners – all in their different coloured jackets, like jockeys in their silks, trying to get to the post first!

[Ed: someone mentioned jerks …]

 

Nick Ware

The only jerk is the one who doesn’t take [the restrictions on travel and social distancing] seriously. Here’s a perspective on the subject that you might not have considered:

My wife was diagnosed with Sarcoidosis… just over three and a half years ago, and has been on fairly nasty immune-suppressant drugs for all of that time. Initially, it was mis-diagnosed as Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis (formerly known as Wegener’s Disease, now “GPA”), which would by now have been fatal. Fortunately that diagnosis proved to be wrong, but can you imagine how we felt at the time? She’s 57, (20 years younger than me), and her resistance to infection is currently near non-existent. For that reason I have no desire to bring home any virus or germs that I don’t have to, and I gladly follow any sensible advice and precautions.

…

My daughter works in the High Dependency Unit at Queen Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, and is part of the Critical Care team treating, at yesterday’s count, five positive-diagnosed Covid-19 patients, all of whom are unlikely to survive. Fortunately for her she’s 27 and physically fit, but nevertheless she knows she will inevitably get Covid-19 herself. She says she is – to use her own choice of word – scared. Her advice to us leaves nothing in doubt about the seriousness of it all.

If not for our own sakes, we should think of others around us who might be at risk. There’s a lot of fake news, trolling, and pig-ignorance in the media. The trick is to be guided by those who actually know!

 

Alan Taylor

My wife also works in the critical care ward of the local hospital. They are just starting to get Covid19 cases.

One thing she recently drew to the attention of the infectious disease control team was that although they wear gloves, masks, visors and plastic aprons, their normal uniforms are still exposed and at the end of the shift, the staff go home in those uniforms and wash them at home, which means there is a potential for spreading the disease into the community.

She was asked what the team was supposed to do about it and she proposed that all staff in that ward should be issued with hospital scrubs, as used in operating theatres, which are then washed in the hospital.  Her suggestion was not adopted.

 

Mike Giles

On the uniform issue, we have never understood why medical staff are allowed to wear hospital clothing to and from work, so it seems particularly relevant now.

And on self-isolation, I think the better term really is social distancing…

The thing I don’t understand about loo rolls is that as the need for them cannot actually have increased, Where is everybody putting them once the loft is full? I once knew a guy who ran a smallish business, but he bought his company’s full year’s stock of Andrex (other brands are available) in one fell swoop every autumn and stored them in his loft, so that for the winter he had added insulation. I don’t think he ever managed to quantify the fuel saving, but he did get a good deal on the bog-rolls.

 

Jeremy Vine

Channel 5 Thursday 26 March 2020

Virtual guests…

 

BBC Breakfast – Social Distancing

Friday 27^th March 2020

 

David Newbitt

[Social distancing]  Lifted from Facebook, where it is captioned “…Even the … seagulls get it”.

 

Alec Bray

More 4 included the stay at home message as part of it’s regular corner channel ident:

The programme, by the way is “Non Uccidere” (“Thou shalt not kill”), an Italian police drama (Italian with sub-titles). It is not really a police procedural.

 

Gary Critcher

…in these times, I’m surprised no-one has mentioned the “Survivors” series.

It really took my imagination when it was produced (1975-1977), I can still remember vividly the opening title sequence with someone getting off a plane then collapsing on the floor and a vile of liquid spills out of his bag and breaks and let’s loose a deadly virus….

         

 

Alan Taylor

For anybody interested In seeing the series again, “Survivors” is available on YouTube.

 

Dave Plowman

I remember it well. One of the very first UK dramas shot on location in video, rather than film?

The totally empty streets – easy to find today – brought it back to mind.

 

John Nottage

Yes, Survivors was shot using the a 2-camera unit out of Kendal Ave – LPU I think. I worked on loads of them, mostly on a remote hill farm in South Wales, or was it Shropshire? It was a long time ago. Ian Leiper and Vic Godrich were regular supervisors. John Cox was a regular too.

I’ve just looked on IMBD:

Survivors

Three series from 1975 to 1977 it says. It also gives the filming locations: Callow Hill, Monmouthshire – that was it! I also seem to remember doing one of the last episodes in Scotland.

Now I’ve dug out my old diaries for those years: I’ve found one I did with Brian Strugnell as SS. I wish now I’d kept better diaries. Most of my entries are just places and times, no useful information like who I was working with, often not even the programme name! Useless!

 

David Brunt

The final episode of the series was based in Scotland, around the Lochay power station and Stirling reservoir.  OB 17-22 May 1977.

 

Roger Bunce

Wasn’t there an episode where the heroes encountered a community who had self-isolated? As a result they had no immunity, so when the met the heroes, they all died. Possibly not an episode you’d want to watch at present!

 

Bernie Newnham

Can’t remember that one. I would have thought that they’d need to self isolate for a good few generations to lose immunity. I’ve just been watching Aerial America on the Smithsonian Channel.  This one was about Hawaii, where the natives all died after Captain Cook visited.

 

Roger Bunce

But, if I’m remembering correctly, the main characters in ”Survivors” had all had the disease and survived. They. therefore, had gained immunity. The self-isolating community had never been exposed to it and, therefore, had no immunity.

I can’t believe ALL the Hawaiians died. There are still plenty of them around. Unlike the Tasmanians who, despite attempts to nurse them through it, became entirely extinct during a flu epidemic. The story of the Tasmanian aboriginals is said to have been one of the inspirations behind a well-known H. G. Wells story, set near [Woking].

 

Graeme Wall

The other community to be wiped out by European diseases were the Caribs.

 

Peter Combes

Was there not an Arthur C. Clarke story in which a creature on another planet was fatally infected by debris left behind by Earth spacemen?

 

Keith Wicks

Yes, Minister.  How to deal with a crisis…

         

 

Pat Heigham

Perfect! What prescience!

 

Tony Grant

And further advice if you want to retain your (in)sanity:

Heard a Dr. on TV saying in this time of Coronavirus, staying at home we should focus on inner peace. To achieve this we should always finish things we start and we all could use more calm in our

I looked through my house to find things I’d started and hadn’t finished, so I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of Chardonnay, a bodle of Baileys, a butle of wum, tha mainder of Valiumun srciptuns, an a box a chocletz. Yu haf no idr how  fablus I feel rite now. Sned this to all who need inner peas. An telum u luvum. And two hash yer wands, stafe day avrybooby…

————–

 

David Denness

A significant number of self-employed TV technicians including cameramen/women, sound engineers, technicians and even on screen presenters are not included in this {self employed assistant support] package from the chancellor [26^th \March 2020].

These are people [that] the BBC and others have insisted on .. opening limited companies to make paying them simpler for freelance work they are hired to undertake. This is so they don’t have to pay holiday or pension contributions and avoid National Insurance payments.

This means each individual then takes director fees or dividends from their company which rules them out of the help the chancellor has unveiled.  So these people have been forced by BBC and others to do this meaning they will get no support at these difficult times.

I am now retired so this does not directly affect me but many of my colleagues who are still in the business are extremely angry.

 

Tony Scott

This issue is being chased up by BECTU.

[Ed: obviously at time of publication there is much more to say on all these issues …]