Yesterday I sat in the park

Yesterday I sat on a bench in the park.  Apparently we're allowed to do this now. Although when I suggested on facebook that I was involved in such decadance a great number of people were widely concerned.

However, it seems that according to PoPo guidelines if we go out for a walk we are now allowed to sit on a bench.

Actually what happened is this ...I went over to Bromley to get the car serviced to retain my warranty.  I would have got it serviced in Croydon but all the Vauxhall dealers are shut.  However, W J King in Bromley - for it was they - were not shut.  It's a bit of a trek from Croydon to Bromley so they said they'd do it while I wait if I booked far enough ahead.  This I did.  Due to social distancing I couldn't wait in the showroom so I wandered the streets of Bromley for two and half hours and being slightly tired I sat in the park for half an hour.

I noticed quite a number of other older late middle aged to elderly people plonked on park benches.  Nobody moved us on.  The world didn't end.  And one has to ask is it really a great idea to keep people all locked up inside all the time and only allow them an hour of exercise a day if they dont have immune system issues?  The chance of any of us infecting each other is small.   Of course if everybody utilised the park at the same time that might mean there were more problems but actually the chances of picking up Covid-19 in the park are minimal so long as you don't touch the bench.

Eventually the garage rang and said there was an issue with the brakes and they'd take another hour and a half to fix it.  So in the end I wandered the streets for 4 hours and it would have been easier to simply walk home and back out... However, it's probably good that I went rather than be driving round with dodgy brakes.  Actually apart from operating with less staff the showroom didn't seem to have any problem at all in running the servicing side of the business.  I wound my windows down and made sure the car fan was switched off and they put the keys through a disinfectant machine and the risk of transmission was thus pretty near zero.

It made me wonder why so many other garages are almost completely closed but this one is open.  It doesn't seem to make any sense.  People still need to go to work so their cars still need to be serviced.  I took mine in because at the MOT they said there might be a brake problem.  I missed the cut off for the MOT amnesty.  But how many people are driving round with dodgy brakes?

What bothers me about the government furlough scheme is long term there's no incentive for many businesses to even try to keep working.  I get the feeling that some businesses are furloughing people en masse simply because they can ...rather than because they couldn't figure out a way to change their operations to accomodate customers.  A notable example is Primark who rather than launching a web portal is happy to sit it out with £0 sales at the government's expense.

Note this video keeps being taken down by YouTube for violating it's TOC - Google Dr Eriksson press conference and I'm sure you'll find it somewhere....

Lewis Schaffer - who has been postulating the theorm that nobody at all will die since the virus broke out - sent me this video ... and though I wouldn't agree with everything in it the explanation of how the human immune system is supposed to work and why it's not a good idea to have masks and gloves everywhere is very well explained here.  I'm not an anti-vaxxer but I would hesitate to take the flu vaccine because I don't think it's a good idea to not give your immune system a work out from time to time unless you have real immune system problems.  Covid-19 maybe.  But many vaccines have side effects.  Nobody needs it anymore fortunately but if we look at, for example, the Smallpox vaccine ... according to the WHO "1 and 2 people out of every 1 million people vaccinated may die as a result of life-threatening reactions to the [Smallpox] vaccine" ...vaccines aren't and have never been a magic bullet.  Of course 300,000 of every 1000000 smallpox infections ended in death.  But there's still a risk the vaccine could kill you...  If we look at the last smallpox outbreak in the UK in 1962 (see here)...

"Unfortunately smallpox vaccination does have unpleasant side-effects, ranging from transient fever and local discomfort to fatal encephalitis. In 1960 in England and Wales 408 699 persons received primary vaccination, 8 developed encephalitis and 3 died."

The idea that if a vaccine is found its going to be completely side effect free straight out of the box is unrealistic... Particularly since animal trials are being skipped.

There are a number of other problems with isolating everyone and dissenfecting everything ... for example that it lowers the immune response of healthy people which actually decreases the herd immunity effect.  Herd immunity is a controversial term these days but it is important to stress - and I do this using my B in GCSE biology - that it shouldn't really be an either/or matter of herd immunity or Quarantine but a mixture of the two.  For example ... despite 4 weeks of Quarantine we're still seeing an infection rate of 4000-5000 a day.  Why is this?

Well, if you quarantine an individual it would take up to 14 days for them to show any symptoms and at least 7 days for their immune system to defeat the virus (minimum).  That means that in 21 days they will be clear of infection.  However, if you quarantine a family of 4 and 1 is ill ... they can be infectious for about 14 days and leave virus residue in the house that exists for up to 3 days.  This means that if each infects the other it can take 14 + 14 + 14 + 14 = 56 days to say for sure that there is no remaining infection threat from within that dwelling.  This is why during plagues they used to seal up houses - because it's effective... No, I'm not talking about sealing people up to die but if you could separate the household of 4 you'd reduce the time you need to quarantine them for.  Sooner or later the government is going to have to look at new solutions that don't involve a vaccine.  Even if a vaccine is found ...Well, flu evolves every year.  Covid-19 could be with us for decades to come.

Level at 0.3 per cent

There are 1,310 confirmed cases in Croydon, out of a local population of 385,346

The figures seem to be sticking at 0.3 per cent for quite a while now...

I make films to appeal to the lowest common denominator. That's why I'm still in business...

Lockdown continues and I am becoming strangely obsessed with rubbish old films.  The other day I came across "Fire Down Below" which I remember from rainy afternoons in school holidays back in the 80s.

The plot is very simple Robert Michum and Jack Lemmon are two smugglers who potter around the Carribean fighting over Rita Hayworth.  Mitchum wins.  There I've saved you two hours.  My God this film is long ... or it seems like forever... Actually it's only 115 minutes but they draaaaaaaaaaaaaaag....

I went to Sainsburys and back and missed no plot at all and I'm sure this wasn't because I've seen it before... but a couple of things I didn't notice from before... Albert R. Broccoli future producer of the James Bond films cameos in it ...and indeed produced it.  And Bernard Lee later to be the first M has a role as  Doctor Sam Blake who offers to cut Robert Mitchum's legs off when he gets trapped under a girder which is about as exiting as it gets.

Spoiler:  In the end he escapes with both legs.

But the thing I really remember this film for is the locations which are beautiful and their vivid contrast with the grotty and claustrophic boat.  Also Edric Connor's unspoken disapprobation of the unfolding situation.

Made in 1957 the film was a financial failure that never quite broke even.  As a result the producers Irving Allen and Albert R. Broccoli who were then running a production company called Warrick Films reduced their production schedule to one film a year because in the words of Mr Allen "In five years costs have doubled and earnings have halved. When those two graphs meet you're out of business".

Allen and Broccoli eventually fell out over money and because Broccoli wanted to make the Bond films as his next project which Allen regarded as going too down market.  An odd point of view really since he once expoused the philosophy...

"If somebody sends me a literate script do you know what I do with it? I throw it in the waste paper basket, that's what I do with it. I make films to appeal to the lowest common denominator.  That's why I'm still in business while the other arty-farty boys are not. 

I just want to make pictures to make money. That is a rat race and you can't afford to be a rat in a rat race... 

If I'm not tough I'm going to have my brains eaten out. 

The art of surviving in this business is never to let on whether you've got fifty million bucks or fifty cents... 

I wouldn't see my own films. 

I've got more taste than that. 

Does Barbara Hutton buy her jewelry at Woolworths?"

Not the next Doctor....

Over a month and a half since the broadcast of "The Timeless Children" and one world pandemic later and I'm still quite impressed by the mental gymnastics being employed by some commentators who are still trying to reconcile Jo Martin's "Ruth" Doctor as a future (not past) incarnation of the Doctor.  Over on Screenrant (see here) there's a very long explanation of why Ruth isn't pre-Hartnell. 

Well, she clearly is.  On the left is a picture of fugitive Ruth's pursuer Gat (Ritu Arya) from the Fugative of the Judoon.

 And when we go into the Matrix in the "Timeless Children" and the purpose of "the Division" is explained to the Timeless Child who is going to become the Doctor it's being done so by the lady on the right who if she isn't also Ritu Arya had me fooled.  At least they look like the same person to me but she doesn't seem to be credited so is Ritu Arya playing this part and is it the same person?  Well, she seems to be wearing the same clothes...

But then again they haven't exactly felt overly bound by contiuity so far so...?

The Domestos President - Thickest ever?

Advising people to drink disinfectant seems a bit out there even for Donald Trump so I sought out the uncut footage to see what actually happened. 

Has the President really been decontextualized?  Is he really advising that bleach could be a cure?  Was he being sarcastic?

Well, gentle reader …I can’t find the uncut footage but there’s a reason for that which is not – I think – the fake news conspiring against the President.  No, it’s simpler than that … having watched many versions of this press conference here’s what I think happened…

Trump had a meeting with some doctors in which he proposed possible solutions and being in a room with the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES they just said “Yes, sir, we’ll look into that…”.  Then Trump brought the doctors to the news conference to help make him look clever.

However, Trump can never give up the limelight… so he stands at the podium and pontificates while the Doctors sit in their chairs to one side.  Trump has the same conversation he had with them in private but in public... and it looks really stupid.   Trump has made a career out of mocking experts ...his nemesis is a life and death situation where experts are needed more than ever ... and Trump can't stand it...

Donald Trump sees himself as an ideas man …so where there’s a problem he sees it as his job to come up with ideas and float solutions to the problem.  But, of course, there aren’t simple solutions to the Coronavirus pandemic …there are just lots of problems that the best virologists in the world are desperately trying to solve.   If only it really was as simple as drinking Domestos… but unfortunately killing a virus without killing the patient is the holy grail of virology that has eluded doctors and biomedical scientists since the dawn of time.  In one sense it's a really innocent thought ... if Domestos kills 99 per cent of all known germs why don't we just drink it?  But it's so innocent the last time I heard the question posed was when I was 11 and another child asked it in a biology lesson.  The answer is of course that drinking Domestos will indeed kill 99 per cent of all known germs but it has the result of solving all your other problems as well - permanently.

But instead of, as the Downing Street briefings do, dividing the platform time up between politicians and scientists Donald’s muddled it all together… with the result of him appearing to give clearly nonsensical and dangerous medical advice.  To be fair he does repeatedly add the disclaimer “I’m not a Doctor…” but this doesn’t help much.  Of course dividing the questions up isn’t a perfect solution either …the last Downing Street briefing I saw the politician was asked what he made of Trump’s remarks and he gave the question to the medical expert to answer – Sorry, that was also a political question…?

Anyway the reason I can’t find unedited footage of Trump’s press conference is this … these days his press conferences last up to 90 minutes.  Now to be fair to Trump he does try and answer questions in this time – it’s an often cited criticism of politicians that they evade questions … not Trump – the problem is that the answers make little or no sense.  He just waffles on and on filling dead air, enjoying the attention and saying nothing that makes much sense … Mr Mouth is working but Mr Brain has long since left the building.

Trump has always been eccentric – to put it politely – but perhaps there’s a deeper problem here that his advisors …if he ever listens to them… have given up on reigning him in …in the belief that he’ll probably be out anyway in November 2020.  There’s a feeling about the whole thing that for whatever reason …no one cares anymore.   

Only the other day he declared himself to have power over state Governors …only for them to ignore him because he doesn’t under the constitution.  Having downplayed the virus, then removed funding from the WHO after scapegoating them when they warned him of the dangers … Trump is now desperate to offer the electorate some hope.  Sunlight, UV, Domestos …these are all straws that a drowning man is grasping at…

…for at the moment the polls suggest he will lose in 2020.   

Why?