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My good news for the day.... out dog walking early yesterday morning and came upon a chap around my age, been sleeping on a bench in our local country park overnight, no shelter, freezing his tits off. So, not one for ever walking on by I stopped and got his story. Fallen on hard times over the past week, never been homeless (and I believe him), but just didn't know what to do, who to speak to, phone had died and of course nowhere to recharge. Long story short, after much phoning to the council (who really struggled with the concept of communications and engagement) and the Sally Army, we've finally sorted out accomodation for him tomorrow. In the mean time he's camping out glasto styley, got my one man tent, sleeping bag, blanket and plenty of food; a bad situation made a little better. A nice quiet spot as well, overlooking a lake, won t get bothered, especially in the current climate. Hopefully tomorrow will be the start of the rest of his life 😎

My mood in: April - I'm still happy now there's no Mordor, could feel more like the old days May - no Auditori this year as it's indoor, bummer but inevitable June - confirmation that we have lost almost all the US bands, damn, but we have some great European ones at least July - only three stages now? Damn, but was like that at Primavera Porto in the early days and still had a great time August - only one stage, with Deerhunter alternating with Shellac all day? Where do I sign up, sounds great, just give me music and let me the hell outdoors...

A glimmer of hope and positivity from the front line. The first recovered patient has left Mrs Lycra's unit.

Stockholm resident here, I can give a short summary of what we're doing/not doing as the 'odd one out' in Europe at the moment. Here's what the government have said; There's only actually been three legislative changes; ban on public events of 50 people or above (until recently this was 500 but was revised down), restaurants/bars must only provide table service and revise seating plans to ensure enough space between, entry ban on people from outside the EU entering Sweden. Aside from that everything else that has come from the government has been 'guidelines'. That advice includes things like; Everyone who can work from home should do. Avoid any unnecessary travel both within and outside of Sweden (this now includes any travel during Easter weekend, particularly to the ski resorts which would be otherwise packed out at this time of year). Stockholm residents, in particular, have been asked not to travel as we are the countries virus 'epicentre' at the moment and they want to slow the spread to other regions. Senior high schools, universities and colleges have been asked to close and look at distance learning instead, this has now happened Lower schools have been allowed to remain open but many (and nurseries too) have taken a unilateral decision to close anyway. Avoid group exercise events and do other activities again (i.e. running, cycling, kayaking alone or in pairs). So this will probably all seem pretty crazy, and potentially frightening, to you guys in the UK and other countries under lockdown or similar at the moment. To be honest being from the UK and being acutely aware of the situation there it's pretty frightening for me too, so I've spent the last few weeks reading up what I can about the Swedish government approach and trying to understand the rationale behind it. This is what I've been able to gather; Scientists are calling this shots, not politicians - Ultimately while the government makes the legislation, the Public Health Agency is basically running the show. State agencies, including the Public Health Agency, are not able to pass laws themselves, but they can give recommendations to the government. Some of the rules that have been brought in to deal with the virus outbreak, such as restrictions for restaurants and cafes and a ban on public events over 50 people, have come following consultation with the agency. It is written into the national constitution that Sweden's public agencies are independent of the government. There are two main goals of this: ensuring that decisions are made based on knowledge and expertise, and limiting corruption, because ministers cannot have influence in agency decision-making. Overruling government agencies or disregarding their advice is usually seen as politically risky, even though it's not specifically forbidden in most circumstances. Individual responsibility - this is something that has been mentioned repeatedly by the PM and, from my vantage point, unpins much of their strategy. Swedes have been asked to repay the governments lack of draconian legislation by mitigating the virus spread by their own sense of social responsibility. From speaking to Swedes this is effectively a social contract that exists between the people and the government here and helps explain why the government hasn't felt it necessary (yet!) to impose stringent rules on people's rights. Despite the above 50 people restriction only coming in last week most gigs/events with lower capacity had already been cancelled, people had already decided to 'play it safe'. Social distancing is already a way of life - speaking very broadly, at the best of times Swedes practice quite a bit of social distancing anyway. Many people in Stockholm live alone, very few families of multiple generations live under the same roof (as perhaps they do in Italy/Spain). This has probably helped limit the spread so far. The great outdoors in an even bigger way of life - There's a running joke in Sweden that the population basically go into hibernation during the winter months, only emerging from their apartments around April/May when the temperatures climb up into the double digits, it's largely true. There would be a big social impact of restricting people's ability to spend time outdoors, particularly at this time of year, and they're keen to avoid/minimise that also. In addition to the above there's the more 'cynical' reasons a) the economy is hit less b) the 2nd and 3rd waves of the pandemic might hurt less. These are pretty much the same reasons that the UK government was considering as I understand it. Even after learning all of the above I'm still really uncomfortable. Particularly when I look at the state of the UK and US today who both dragged their heels on the more extreme measures. Ultimately though we're in uncharted waters and it comparing Sweden to the US, or even the UK, is like comparing apples and oranges. We've also been advised that the next couple of weeks will be tough and that the ICUs in Stockholm are reaching capacity so, like most other countries, it's going to get worse before it gets better. The only question for me is how much more worse will it get going down this road. This really wasn't that short of a summary at all.

Update, confirmation after a bit of faffy about and a slight delay today, he will definitely be moving into his flat tomorrow, says he won't be able to sleep tonight, super excited!!; Mrs oneeye very emotional as well, got very smokey here in the oneeye household this afternoon. Magic 😎 PS we do know his name but thought best to use he / his / him to maintain anonymity and self dignity.

The acclaimed Italian novelist Francesca Melandri, who has been under lockdown in Rome for almost three weeks due to the Covid-19 outbreak, has written a letter to fellow Europeans “from your future”, laying out the range of emotions people are likely to go through over the coming weeks. I am writing to you from Italy, which means I am writing from your future. We are now where you will be in a few days. The epidemic’s charts show us all entwined in a parallel dance. We are but a few steps ahead of you in the path of time, just like Wuhan was a few weeks ahead of us. We watch you as you behave just as we did. You hold the same arguments we did until a short time ago, between those who still say “it’s only a flu, why all the fuss?” and those who have already understood. As we watch you from here, from your future, we know that many of you, as you were told to lock yourselves up into your homes, quoted Orwell, some even Hobbes. But soon you’ll be too busy for that. First of all, you’ll eat. Not just because it will be one of the few last things that you can still do. You’ll find dozens of social networking groups with tutorials on how to spend your free time in fruitful ways. You will join them all, then ignore them completely after a few days. You’ll pull apocalyptic literature out of your bookshelves, but will soon find you don’t really feel like reading any of it. You’ll eat again. You will not sleep well. You will ask yourselves what is happening to democracy. You’ll have an unstoppable online social life – on Messenger, WhatsApp, Skype, Zoom… You will miss your adult children like you never have before; the realisation that you have no idea when you will ever see them again will hit you like a punch in the chest. Old resentments and falling-outs will seem irrelevant. You will call people you had sworn never to talk to ever again, so as to ask them: “How are you doing?” Many women will be beaten in their homes. You will wonder what is happening to all those who can’t stay home because they don’t have one. You will feel vulnerable when going out shopping in the deserted streets, especially if you are a woman. You will ask yourselves if this is how societies collapse. Does it really happen so fast? You’ll block out these thoughts and when you get back home you’ll eat again. You will put on weight. You’ll look for online fitness training. You’ll laugh. You’ll laugh a lot. You’ll flaunt a gallows humour you never had before. Even people who’ve always taken everything dead seriously will contemplate the absurdity of life, of the universe and of it all. You will make appointments in the supermarket queues with your friends and lovers, so as to briefly see them in person, all the while abiding by the social distancing rules. You will count all the things you do not need. The true nature of the people around you will be revealed with total clarity. You will have confirmations and surprises. Literati who had been omnipresent in the news will disappear, their opinions suddenly irrelevant; some will take refuge in rationalisations which will be so totally lacking in empathy that people will stop listening to them. People whom you had overlooked, instead, will turn out to be reassuring, generous, reliable, pragmatic and clairvoyant. Those who invite you to see all this mess as an opportunity for planetary renewal will help you to put things in a larger perspective. You will also find them terribly annoying: nice, the planet is breathing better because of the halved CO2 emissions, but how will you pay your bills next month? You will not understand if witnessing the birth of a new world is more a grandiose or a miserable affair. You will play music from your windows and lawns. When you saw us singing opera from our balconies, you thought “ah, those Italians”. But we know you will sing uplifting songs to each other too. And when you blast I Will Survive from your windows, we’ll watch you and nod just like the people of Wuhan, who sung from their windows in February, nodded while watching us. Many of you will fall asleep vowing that the very first thing you’ll do as soon as lockdown is over is file for divorce. Many children will be conceived. Your children will be schooled online. They’ll be horrible nuisances; they’ll give you joy. Elderly people will disobey you like rowdy teenagers: you’ll have to fight with them in order to forbid them from going out, to get infected and die. You will try not to think about the lonely deaths inside the ICU. You’ll want to cover with rose petals all medical workers’ steps. You will be told that society is united in a communal effort, that you are all in the same boat. It will be true. This experience will change for good how you perceive yourself as an individual part of a larger whole. Class, however, will make all the difference. Being locked up in a house with a pretty garden or in an overcrowded housing project will not be the same. Nor is being able to keep on working from home or seeing your job disappear. That boat in which you’ll be sailing in order to defeat the epidemic will not look the same to everyone nor is it actually the same for everyone: it never was. At some point, you will realise it’s tough. You will be afraid. You will share your fear with your dear ones, or you will keep it to yourselves so as not to burden them with it too. You will eat again. We’re in Italy, and this is what we know about your future. But it’s just small-scale fortune-telling. We are very low-key seers. If we turn our gaze to the more distant future, the future which is unknown both to you and to us too, we can only tell you this: when all of this is over, the world won’t be the same.

I turn my back for 5 minutes and my dream thread happens. Sorry everyone, been avoiding all news and social media for a week to protect my peace. I'll have a proper read through soon. For now, let me leave you with some images of the work in progress on my Simpsons leg sleeve. Yes, I like the Simpsons. Hope everyone is well! Diddly.

Someone we know who was in an induced coma for 10 days with COVID-19 has just been discharged home to continue recovery. Good news 🙏🏻

The real forgotten victim in all of this is the person who did the detailed clashfinder for nothing...

Today my partner was up at 5:30 for yet another 12hr+ shift on a Covid-19 isolation unit. Proud of her yes but also very concerned as the frontline have still not received the recommended PPE and have to make do with surgical masks which are proven not to be effective at protecting from corona. And yesterday we learnt with sadness one of her hospital colleagues died of covid-19............... I'm telling you this not because I/we want your sympathy. I'm telling you because I want you to understand the dangers and potential sacrifices others are making in trying to save your loved ones.

Simply red. Holding back the years.

Nothing will beat this.

It pains me no end to say it but, in the highly unlikely event PKP20 does take place, I sadly won't be there. The money I spend on travel, accommodation, ticket and beer/food each year comes to a decent amount and I always source that from extra work I do each summer prior to the festival. That additional work isn't available now due to the current crisis so I can't justify the extra expense this time. A couple of friends who have been every time since 2007 have already said they've written this year off and won't be going. Aside from the financial aspect, there's a whole load of other reasons why I don't think it (or any other festival) will happen this summer: The virus is predicted to peak around May/June time in certain parts of Europe (mostly Western) so may well be on a downward trajectory by August. That doesn't mean though that Govts will suddenly sanction mass gatherings of thousands of people from all over the world in relatively small areas so festivals, along with sporting events and loads of other similar things, will have to wait a lot longer to get up and running again. Most predictions are that there will be a second wave of the virus so they will do whatever they can to minimise the impact of that = no large gatherings for at least the next year/18 months. As has already been seen, and will no doubt become more apparent in the next few weeks, bands are cancelling tours left, right and centre and without them there's no festivals. The US ones will be the first to go (some have cancelled already), closely followed by UK and the rest of the world. As much as PKP loves Belgian bands, they're not going to carry the festival in its current form on their own so a scaled down version of 10-20K local fans might be feasible (provided gatherings of that size are allowed by then which is highly unlikely). Most people haven't really felt the economic impact of this yet but it will hit huge parts of the population in the next few weeks/months. A large part of the PKP demographic are quite young (late teens to twenties) so don't have a massive disposable income anyway. This will mean many people won't be able to afford to attend a festival this summer as they will need to prioritise their money elsewhere. Sorry to be so pessimistic but I think we should be currently channelling all our energy towards making sure the 2021 summer festival season takes place...

This would go off in ways never before realised.

I play rugby at a fairly decent level, and have spent the last month or so in limbo as my team is top of the league, and we were 18 points clear at the point the season was suspended. Today the RFU released the news that promotion and relegation will happen and final positions in the table will be decided on a point averages system, so we have won the league. First time I've won the league as a senior player, and am in my 30s. Been promoted before but through play offs, and won cup competitions but they are one off games. Safe to say I'm delighted and can't wait to get our trophy - but when and how?

Oi Oi One track - 'Wake up and make love with me' (Chaz Jankels piano intro is dreamy)

not a rainbow but the final sunset of the winter, the sun sinking over the Isle of Bute and behind it the Mull of Kintyre. British Summer Time starts tonight!

It's like opening a bottle of fizzy drink that you have dropped, open it to quickly and you are fucked. Opening it and close it a few times you can get it open without it going everywhere.

E2AA3F42-EB66-490B-AA9B-FF8C9309D1E5.MP4

Sad news at the Nestle factory today when a member of staff was seriously injured when a pallet of chocolate fell more than 50 feet and crushed him underneath... He tried in vain to attract attention but every time he shouted "The milky bars are on me" everyone cheered

My Mallets prize has arrived ....

It’s a strange feeling. For instance I was devastated when glasto was cancelled but because it’s the same for all of us then there’s a sense of camaraderie that we are all in it together and not because can’t get to our festival because of a personal issue. That feeling applies to everything at the moment whether it’s holidays being cancelled, going to the supermarket, protecting our loved ones etc. Everyone is affected by this nightmare and sharing in it lessens the pain and sense of isolation. Coming on sites like this are a tremendous help. Keep safe and well

A new member of Glasto chat posting this made me smile today ....

Yeah, I think we should be very cautious about blaming any particular country at this point. Seems like when the realisation hit home in UK and US that they are well and truly fucked the blame quickly shifted to China. Nice distraction. Everyone is doing it....but it's one for the history books.

Yep, the annual flu vaccine is only a variation on the previous year's, yet it still takes about 6 months to ramp up production from when the most prevalent strains that year are identified and get it distributed. Even then, it's targeted to high risk groups and not the entire population of the planet. I'd expect, if and when a vaccine is available, that it will be phased delivery. Healthcare workers and high risk groups first, then onto the general population (with, unfortunately, those countries that can afford it at the front of the queue). One of the main difficulties is that a lot of the early vaccine candidates are DNA/RNA vaccines (using the bit of the genetic code that makes the spike...the plan being that our cells would make loads of the spike but not the rest of the virus and our bodies would then make antibodies to the spike...it's an elegant solution and these types of vaccines have been under intense development for lots of things). The problem is that there are currently none of this type of vaccine approved for human use (there's a horse one). So, not only do those developing the vaccine have to show that it works and that it is safe, but they also have to get a whole new type of vaccine approved....and with the entire world waiting on it! It may able be that a more traditional vaccine beats it to the clinic (there's more and more molecular information about this virus coming on stream all the time, so lots to work with). As for the drugs, there are some large scale screens of approved agents underway that might be promising, proper trials of those with anecdotal evidence to support them (like Chloroquine) may also provide options, but the SARS/MERS therapeutics that were in development all focussed on blocking the interaction with ACE2 (the receptor the virus uses to get into our cells). These were deemed safe in phase 1 trials way back when (where you only really look for toxicity, how well they work is not the main aim), so seeing how effective any of these might be also offers some hope.

Where can i get free tickets for this event?

All good in the Northamptonshire outback thanks. Took my camera on my daily Boris walk hoping to catch some wildlife - when I did the same walk a few days ago without my camera I saw Hares, Muntjac, Pheasants. Of course today - saw diddley squat!! Anyway here's a few pictures of the local countryside. I feel incredibly privileged to have the countryside on my doorstep at the moment.

Well Mrs Amos came home from work with a temperature and had to quarantine for 7 days , I have to quarantine for 14 days, I'm now at day 10 and things are getting desperate

What else can they do? Honestly, there's a bigger picture here, and maybe Ohjesus can say something given that he has connections. The summer festival circuit is a huge deal for a lot of bands, and for the music industry as a whole. If the entire summer just vanishes, along with the existing spring tours that have all been cancelled everywhere, then that rips an enormous amount of money out of the industry, and that hurts all levels. The longer this situation goes on, the more financially difficult it becomes for some bands, venues and festivals to continue. This is not far away from being a fight for survival, and I have to say that it's upsetting to see people on here not giving Primavera the benefit of the doubt.

I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, but that comes across as pretty lacking in empathy. A bit like asking someone what they expected when their terminally ill relative died. It might be predicable, but it's still 260 deaths in a day.

Well, my soft reserved hotel has DOUBLED in price now #smugface

IMO broadly, two ways this will go. Not an epidemiologist but have some working knowledge from the public health lectures I slept through during my medical degree. Adapted a bit from something I wrote elsewhere.. Some of it depends on how successful suppression is at bringing down the rate of transmission. This is not an easy thing to do and whilst we should absolutely do everything we can to flatten the curve, I'm not convinced how successful it'll be. It's a sobering thought but I think the most likely scenario is still herd immunity albeit - since policy changes two weeks ago - not by design. Italy locked down on March 9th. They have very strict restrictions - more so than us. This has reduced their day on day rise in cases from 25% day on day increase to 8% day on day increase. France's cases are still increasing 11-13% despite needing a piece of paper to show police where you're going. The % death rates increases day on day are decreasing too - but the absolute numbers have climbed so much they're still devastating numbers in Italy and Spain. Only this is still a problem. It's still significant exponential growth, albeit a less steep curve. The hospitals and ICUs still get overwhelmed eventually with an 8% rise. The reason why there's still a large rise day on day is partly because the virus lives pretty well on surfaces or fomites as they're termed in this context. Also quite a few people still do need to get out and go to work. So people still bring the virus back home to their families. What lockdown measures could the Italians be putting in that's even stricter than what they have currently? The Chinese model simply isn't an option in Europe. Currently the UK is on 14,000 cases. There is very likely considerably more than that who have been infected. But we will go with 14,000. Currently we are growing 20-25% cases per day. For the next three months, if we drop down to 15% day on day growth for a week, 8% day on day growth for a month then we grow at 4% day on day for the rest of that time? This would be a huge reduction in % increase and you'd think this would be a successful lockdown. 3 million detected cases based on current testing schedules after 3 months. 180k deaths on current case fatality rate - the actual fatality rate is nowhere near this much for Covid-19, but since we're only testing people in hospital the CFR will be higher. We will very likely be testing more by then so the CFR will decrease, but number of cases will increase with it. Halve this - consider likely older people might not get it so much if not leaving the house - and it's still a disaster. 2.5% growth over the following 3 months gets us to 27 million cases. By this point herd immunity very likely will have been reached by accident rather than design - indeed it likely will have been reached long before this due to the large numbers of undetected cases. This is also where the blood tests come in. It's very likely that from a few weeks time our number of cases will shoot up as it'll reveal people who've been asymptomatic carriers or who have been undiagnosed. How many? Who knows. But it also isn't the game changer that people say it is - absolutely it has uses eg HCWs, but antibodies take a few days to show up and so it won't necessarily do that much to stop asymptomatic transmission. It may be useful later on in this scenario to estimate when herd immunity is reached, though we still are unsure how long any immunity would last. Once this point is reached, normal life would essentially resume in the UK. There would still be the odd Covid-19 case, but it wouldn't spread as it'd keep running into people who'd already had it assuming immunity for at least some time. But the deaths and cost to the NHS would be huge. The second scenario is suppression is achieved. Over the next few months we flatten the curve and then mass testing allows us to identify asymptomatic carriers better. We can identify people who need to be isolated more easily. We bring down number of new cases per day to a few thousand/day, then a few hundred/day, then a few dozen a day which public health authorities can track/trace. Cases are disproportionately geared towards younger healthier people as older people have been staying in. After some time some bars/restaurants may be able to open again with caveats. But in this scenario there'd need to be still significant restrictions until a vaccine was found. A second surge is still a big threat in this scenario as some Asian countries are finding. Another option is whether antiviral medications can either act as prophylaxis or easy treatment, but IMO this is a longer shot than a vaccine. A vaccine will be found, but it'll take time. Likely large scale events like Glasto will be off the cards until this point and there would also be significant travel restrictions as new outbreaks could start from imported cases. Maybe travel to certain other countries where it had been stamped out would be allowed.

Wow! Not a response I expected!! On a thread which is meant to be supportive! ! Im sure the nurse in your street appreciated the flowers you were able to give her! Narcissistic is a strong word and furthermore I shouldnt have to justify my reasons for clapping on my own or alongside others! 💙

Had a look through the report, brevity is not one of my strong suits! So, to save you reading any further, the long and short of it is that it builds on the Imperial report, but essentially reaches the same conclusion and justifies the approach taken so far. Basically, what the report shows is that using non-pharmaceutical interventions alone, repeated, stringent measures need to be introduced over a prolonged period to keep ICU admissions below capacity and avoid the consequent spike in mortality associated with a healthcare system that cannot cope. They model out to the end of 2021 with reintroduction of various levels of restrictions and conclude that repeated, stringent control measures are required to keep fatalities down (glimmers of hope will be offered at the end of the next part, if you want to skip to that!). For anybody who is interested...with the caveat that I'm not an epidemiologist, nor a mathematician (though I work with both regularly): Like the Imperial model before it, this report examines the effect of different public health interventions on the transmission of the virus, what impact this will have on hospitalisations and what proportion of those will require ICU admission. By extension, this is then used to predict the amount of people who will become infected and the amount of people who may die. The main differences here compared to the Imperial report (the one that resulted in a change of strategy earlier in March) are that in this model, age stratification is introduced and additional public health measures are also modelled (such as school closures, but care for schoolchildren by grandparents). They also looked at nationwide implementation of measures versus local controls. The age stratification is an interesting addition, as in the Imperial model, the case fatality rate (CRF) was estimated at 1%, which was not unreasonable, but the analysis here is somewhat more nuanced (with CFRs ranging from 0% for the 0-9 age group, right up to 7.68% for the over 80s, though these are adjusted CFRs and I can't exactly figure out how they adjusted them!...they say they used hospitalisation/mortality rates from the Wuhan outbreak and adjusted using the Diamond Princess outbreak, but both are examples of spread among close contacts in confined spaces (lockdown in Wuhan was pretty severe), so I don't know how relevant a method for adjusting CRFs this is if community transmission is the principal way the virus is spreading (which is certainly the case here in Ireland)). The other key addition to the model is the inclusion of estimates of asymptomatic cases and pre-symptomatic (sub-clinical) cases, adjusted for how infectious they might be (and the numbers they use are close to those described in a paper that was published in Science a couple of weeks ago estimating how infections asymptomatic cases might be, so it seems reasonable). Key messages from the report are that individual measures (school shutdown, banning large gatherings, working from home, case isolation, shielding/cocooning high risk groups and so on) are ineffective on their own. Only in combination do they have the required impact on case numbers, ICU admission and ultimately on fatalities (and even in combination, "lockdown" at the current level is required to make them completely effective. They looked at different combinations of these, such as closing schools only, but even as little a 1 contact per week between schoolchildren and grandparents wold negate the impact of the measure. There are a few odd weightings in some of their conclusions (for example, under a lockdown scenario, symptomatic individuals are assumed to be 65% as infectious as they would be under a free for all, but almost all of that infectiousness is weighted by home contact, which remains at 100% no matter what intervention strategy they model...this assumes that everybody in a household will become infected if there is a symptomatic case in the house, but that is at odds with all available data (it's entirely possible to be in contact with somebody who is infectious and not catch the disease if you take the correct precautions)..but the key part of this is that it doesn't contribute massively to the R0 of the virus as numbers of contacts are reduced significantly and that lockdowns reduce it to below 1, which is the target for "flattening the curve". However, "lockdown" can't go on indefinitely, so they look at what happens when restrictions are relaxed and when they are reintroduced. They, like the imperial report before them, use ICU admissions as triggers for the implementation of more stringent public health measures. In this scenario, there's not a huge difference between triggering "lockdown" at 1000 bed occupancy Vs 2000, both stay close to ICU capacity, whereas higher triggers (5000 beds) will quickly overwhelm capacity. But the conclusion from this part of the modelling is peaks and troughs of 2 month lockdowns with about 1 month in between them till the next one (all the way out to December 2021). With a 1000 bed trigger, this predicts just over 5k admissions in the peak weak of each surge, with 1.4k fatalities. The final conclusion drawn is stated as "we estimated that a scenario in which more intense lockdown measures were implemented for shorter periods may be able to keep projected case numbers at a level that would not overwhelm the health system"... So, as per the Imperial report, pretty grim reading at first glance. But, some of the same glimmers of hope at that stage, still exist here. All of the models assume no pharmaceutical intervention and also do not model behavioural change. Both of which I really believe could have significant impact on how things play out. The CDC is currently revising its advice on mask wearing. Previous advice was that surgical masks were in short supply, offered little protection and should be left for frontline healthcare workers. I entirely agree that PPE for frontline healthcare staff is essential and the general public bulk buying any they can get their hands on is only going to make matters worse. However, the type of PPE under discussion here is different. A surgical mask (or any face covering) is used to protect the other person, not primarily the wearer (surgeons don't mainly wear them to stop themselves from picking up an infection from their patient, they wear them to protect you from picking up and infection from them when they open you up). The type of PPE required on the frontline to protect the wearer is different and not necessary for the general population when restrictions are lifted and we start to move about again. But in situations where people are in close contact (i.e. public transport), any kind of face covering reduces transmission rates and I'd like to see more discussion on this as part of an exit strategy. Hand hygiene too and individual protective measures are also not factored into the models (they measure populations not individuals, so we can all take personal responsibility to reduce our risk). As I pointed out last time wrt to the Imperial report, pharmaceutical intervention will shift the entire model substantially. APN01, an actual coronavirus therapeutic, has just entered Phase II trials having been deemed safe at Phase 1. It's based on the receptor the virus uses to get into our cells and we'll see how effective it is. More an more of this will happen, in addition to proper assessment of drugs that have demonstrated anecdotal success. I would be much more confident that treatment for at least some patients would be available in the short-term (with vaccination a longer term goal). And then there's the serology tests...these will give a much clear picture of how extensive infection rates are, what the actual asymptomatic case rate is and inform the models even more accurately (plus maybe allowing at least frontline staff to get back to work). The promise of tests within days has run into the problem of accuracy (often things look great in the lab, but not so great when you see how they perform in actual patients!), so we may have to wait a little bit on this, but it won't take for ever. They may even form part of aggressive testing and contact tracing between peaks that can also shift the model and spread the peaks. Anyway, a long post to basically say that the new model doesn't change things a whole lot!

Well, it's up and running and it works! Some are a lot easier than others to get working. So far NES, SNES and Amstrad games (my first computer!) are nice and straightforward . MAME arcades are a bit hit and miss as there are so many variants of the emulator version, so it's a bit potluck on whether I can get a download running. I've got some Amiga games working, but again it's a case of finding the right ROM type as it runs the Amiberry emulator, and it's not the most common ROM. N64 is the big problem at the moment. The Pi3 is only just capable of running it, but it needs som tweaking in the config files. Unfortunately I know the sum total of fuck all about linux, so not figured that out yet! But I've got enough to keep me happy, and hopefully the options for config and customising should give me lots to get my teeth into

The Rabbit Hole booked a “fantasy band” called Railing Stains up against the Stones so the whole crew could nip off as the Stains “wouldn’t show up” because they didn’t exist. Turns out there was actually a band called the Railing Stains (Brighton maybe?) and they ended up ringing Emily for their passes. Being out of passes, she said they could play the next year instead. Hence they were announced over a year ahead.

There was a light, but then it went out.

That reminds me of this one;

Your message is a fair one and I respect you think there is no chance. There are huge financial and operational consequences of rescheduling events. Le Mans, Venice Biennale, Art Basel, London Marathon, French Open Tennis, MIPIM, Cannes Film Festival, the Masters etc etc and a tonne of music festivals have all rescheduled to late Summer. Are none of the very impressive people managing these high profile events realists? Are all of them just happily throwing good money after bad?

Thought I'd post this; if you can be this happy in those conditions then you know we can get through whatever life throws our way; stay safe and stay positive pop pickers 😎xx PS just to confirm that is me 2016, and no I hadn't pissed myself 🤤

Anyway, thanks to Ohjesus and the others for the insider knowledge shared previously for the last weekend of August, at least I have a refundable hotel booking at a good price for that weekend . Still not sure what I think of this new development though...

Am i the only one finding this 'Clap our NHS' stuff quite patronising?!? Yes, they are bloody brilliant. They have always been brilliant and are even more so now. But......how about, instead of just standing in your garden and clapping, write to your MP's (especially if they are a tory) and ask why they dont have enough equipment or protective gear? Why did they insist on ideological austerity, which has left the NHS woefully underfunded in normal times, let alone these exceptional ones? What about letting our EU cousins & friends back into the NHS to work for us, like they were before? OH, it doesnt matter. All is solved. Because we can go out and clap to........the air. MAybe an NHS worker might hear, but most likely they will be in the middle of a 48 hour shift, as they are woefully understaffed. And, if anyone IS At home and will hear this, its only because it will wake them up after a 48 hour shift and they need some precious shuteye before doing another 48 hour shift without the protective equipment they need. Because they are fucking fantastic and put up with a mega shit ton of shit from the government because they want to help. But....yeah. Lets all clap out in our neighbourhood. Thinking you are doing something positive and releasing those good vibe endorphins but in the knowledge that you arnt doing anything that could, god forbid, upset the applecart and change things for the better !!! Absolutle mind blowing idiocy.

I think on a music festival message board it’s a legitimate question to ask. It doesn’t suggest the OP doesn’t give a shit about anything else. Of course there are much bigger things to be worried about, but that doesn’t mean you can’t also miss live music.