Coronavirus

[A Red]

7 hours ago, Karl_b said:

There's absolutely no way I will ever work full-time in an office again. This is going to be  bit of a brain-dump but quite apart from this whole scenario, the last 12 months have been difficult for me mentally and physically and it's made me really start thinking about what I want from the second half of my life. 

 

It feels like society is on a precipice - Covid, UBI, technology, health, poverty, equality, BLM and so many other complex areas of humanity feel either broken or about to break. I think about it and it overwhelms me, so I need a way to cope!

 

I just mentioned it in response to Neko's off-grid Canadian dream but I have a 10 year plan that I want to enact but the Covid situation may have brought it forward. I want to work less and spend more time in my garden growing crops and raising chickens, this has proven I can afford to. I want to spend more time at home with the wife and dog, in a combination of work and not. I may even want children! I can see a good short term scenario where I drop to a 4 day week and work 2 days from home. The flexibility and extra time that would give me would make such a huge difference to my wellbeing that it alone may be enough.

 

But then the 10 year plan takes it further. I want to use my skills and contacts as an architect to build a small, zero carbon co-op living development for us, our elderly parents, siblings + families and maybe 2/3 others. It's utopian, it might happen, I may already have the land lined up.

 

I genuinely feel like writing a 'manifesto'. Not for others but myself. Not eloquent or intended to stoke revolution but something to guide my life by. Ultimately it comes down to:

 

- Work less

- See family more

- Get a second dog

- Garden, grow food, enjoy the produce

- Don't buy shit I don't need

- Live a zero carbon life

The architect we are using on a project at the moment is pretty much doing what you want to do. He left the shite of the south east to move down to cornwall and has got a place with a bit of land, rents part of his place out via airbnb and grows stuff and has chickens etc. He's self employed and works from home and doesnt need an office, why would he? When he has something to show us he brings it round either as a drawing or on his laptop.

 

I think the key to doing what you want without other people making life decisions for you is to work for yourself from home.

[Rick Sanchez C-137]

1 minute ago, A Red said:

I think the key to doing what you want without other people making life decisions for you is to work for yourself from home.

 

I think Im going to try and compromise on the "work for yourself" bit as there is, potentially, a whole lot of risk in being self employed. But working from home, no office, no commute? Yea, I'd like me some of that.

[A Red]

1 minute ago, Aw Geez said:

 

I think Im going to try and compromise on the "work for yourself" bit as there is, potentially, a whole lot of risk in being self employed. But working from home, no office, no commute? Yea, I'd like me some of that.

The thing with giving up the safety net of paid employment and going self employed is that its a big gamble and depends on your circumstances. If you have, for example, a young family or a big mortgage you might not have the resources to be able to go a year or so with little or no income. It can still be a longer term goal.

 

I think by doing what karl is doing, starting to plan ahead and think about it now, will mean he will probably make it work in one way or another.

[Mendoza]

Live in a hut

Write a manifesto

 

[Spy Bee]

Deaths down 25% from the same time last week. Infections up 10% although down approximately 100 on the rolling 7 days average.

 

It seems that the the infections and death rates are no longer tracking and that deaths are becoming a smaller percentage of infections. That's just by view, no hard evidence to back that up.

[Bjornebye]

 

 

 

 

 

[Barrington Womble]

Oliver dowden today. The fucking sports minister. And I think no scientists. The utter contempt oozes from these cunts at every turn. 

[Bjornebye]

1 minute ago, The Gaul said:

Oliver dowden today. The fucking sports minister. And I think no scientists. The utter contempt oozes from these cunts at every turn. 

Prattling on about the football returning not where we stand pandemic wise 

[Barrington Womble]

Just now, Bjornebye said:

Prattling on about the football returning not where we stand pandemic wise 

Sorry stig. I've got it wrong. Who cares about the student nurses who've been fired to save money or there's still more than a 1000 new infections and 184 deaths.  Match of the day on the BBC has its 1st ever live game and extended highlights. How silly of me to think they're supposed to be dealing with the coronavirus crisis. There's more motd. Fuck the nurses and clap for Gary linekar. 

[Bjornebye]

3 minutes ago, The Gaul said:

Sorry stig. I've got it wrong. Who cares about the student nurses who've been fired to save money or there's still more than a 1000 new infections and 184 deaths.  Match of the day on the BBC has its 1st ever live game and extended highlights. How silly of me to think they're supposed to be dealing with the coronavirus crisis. There's more motd. Fuck the nurses and clap for Gary linekar. 

Its truly fucking mental. 

[Barrington Womble]

He's still going on about extended highlights! 

[Jairzinho]

Bread and circuses, and we're out of bread.

[3 Stacks]

6 hours ago, Spy Bee said:

And this is fucking outrageous from the government:

 

 

Sickening. 

[Bjornebye]

2 minutes ago, The Gaul said:

He's still going on about extended highlights! 

Cant wait for one of the journos to ask how he is getting on with Coronation Street 

[Barrington Womble]

32 minutes ago, Bjornebye said:

Cant wait for one of the journos to ask how he is getting on with Coronation Street 

I was fucking made up when they ran out of EastEnders last night. I can't put into words how much I hate that show! 

[Bjornebye]

Just now, The Gaul said:

I was fucking made up when they ran out of EastEnders last night. I can't put into words how much I hare that show! 

Stop rabbiting on 

[Bruce Spanner]

Dowden looks like he was fingered by a girl on his first sexual experience and just assumes that’s how it’s done still.

[Bobby Hundreds]

What Rashford has done has been superb genuinely brilliant and deserves the plaudits but Matt Hancock pissed me off.

 

"The way that he’s campaigned with such passion, in a really civilised, persuasive, powerful way using his own personal experience…this is the sort of way that political debate should take place in my view"

 

You could not count the amount of people who have campaigned over the years on so many different issues with just as much passion using their own personal experience and just be ignored. A PR exercise the government is using as a win. Rashford achieved this in spite of the government, he cast a light on them and now the fuckers are bathing in it.

[Section_31]

Tell you what covid has done to this country as well, it's shown how precarious our economy is.

 

Firstly, it's exposed the fat fucking lie that being an 'entrepreneur' or small business owner is a workable source of employment for most people. "Oooh who wants to work for the man, follow your dreams!" Yeah look out the window, three months in and most of them are broke and suicidal.

 

Aye, it's unprecedented times and all that jazz, but hardly anyone has/had any savings at all, or safety net, just living hand to mouth and bashing out a desperate laugh everytime someone said "oooh I bet it's great working for yourself!"

 

A lot of people ended up working for themselves because there's no jobs or the jobs are brutal or shit. This was the Tory dream, wean you off the public sector job nipple, go forth and start the next facebook! When in actual fact they were making Cadburys wispa hampers and selling them on Facebook for slightly less than minimum wage.

 

Imagine saying to someone 20 years ago who worked for the council and were pulling in 30k a year, getting a pension and early darts on Friday that one day people would aspire to sit in their fucking shed all day making blag Yankee candles.

 

Number two is how reliant we are on retail. The shops close and the economy is fucked, race is on to get shops open and headlines encourage us to "shop for britain". Where once the furnace of industry consisted of factories, science and shipbuilding, now it boils down to how many people pile into Topshop, with most of the profits being siphoned off to some Monaco bank account while the staff pull in just enough money to spend on even more shite in the shop next door.

 

The termites of neoliberalism didn't even do us the common courtesy of leaving the floorboards.

[johnsusername]

13 hours ago, Mudface said:

I'd agree with that if it was a ten minute stroll or bike ride as a commute. Spending an hour or more in traffic jams or rammed into shit trains like cattle before you even start work and then facing the same after you've 'finished' is no good for anyone. Especially when you're paying through the nose for it because- London aside- public transport is so fucked in this country. 

Same here. Fuck commuting at the same time as the rest of the country it's a fucking con. I'm getting as much work done if not more, working at home. I don't have to make boring fucking small talk in the kitchen, or spend half my day waiting for the lift. 

 

Used to be as soon as I woke up it was like I was on a timer - all trying to beat traffic to school, beat traffic to work, get a parking space, leg it into work, and do it all again at the end of the day in reverse. 

 

I really hope the country sees what a waste of time commuting and working in an office is. Now, if you want and like working in an office fine, knock yourself out. And obviously not everyone works in am office so it doesn't really include them. But I'm hoping I'll be able to work from home a couple of days a week from now on.

 

I'm sure a few companies must be looking at their office rent and car parking space costs and thinking 'hang on we can save a packet here'. 

[Colonel Bumcunt]

1 hour ago, Section_31 said:

Tell you what covid has done to this country as well, it's shown how precarious our economy is.

 

Firstly, it's exposed the fat fucking lie that being an 'entrepreneur' or small business owner is a workable source of employment for most people. "Oooh who wants to work for the man, follow your dreams!" Yeah look out the window, three months in and most of them are broke and suicidal.

 

Aye, it's unprecedented times and all that jazz, but hardly anyone has/had any savings at all, or safety net, just living hand to mouth and bashing out a desperate laugh everytime someone said "oooh I bet it's great working for yourself!"

 

A lot of people ended up working for themselves because there's no jobs or the jobs are brutal or shit. This was the Tory dream, wean you off the public sector job nipple, go forth and start the next facebook! When in actual fact they were making Cadburys wispa hampers and selling them on Facebook for slightly less than minimum wage.

 

Imagine saying to someone 20 years ago who worked for the council and were pulling in 30k a year, getting a pension and early darts on Friday that one day people would aspire to sit in their fucking shed all day making blag Yankee candles.

 

Number two is how reliant we are on retail. The shops close and the economy is fucked, race is on to get shops open and headlines encourage us to "shop for britain". Where once the furnace of industry consisted of factories, science and shipbuilding, now it boils down to how many people pile into Topshop, with most of the profits being siphoned off to some Monaco bank account while the staff pull in just enough money to spend on even more shite in the shop next door.

 

The termites of neoliberalism didn't even do us the common courtesy of leaving the floorboards.

I know a lifelong Tory donor, he owns his own resort in Britain and just before the virus hit he had decided to start his own helicopter service to his resort, ploughed loads into it.

Virus hits before he even takes his first passenger. 

Now, faced with a massive debt, he goes cap in hand to the government asking for money to save his business, on the grounds that it's 'public transport', and due to his Tory donor status, is likely to succeed. 

 

That, is how this works.  He's not a scrounger or 'on benefits', no, he's an entrepreneur and so his handouts aren't really handouts, it's just money owed to him for his inconvenience of not being able to make money. 

 

That's the thing with Conservatism, it's bollocks.  It's not a political ideology, it's just a fucking laugh for rich people.  Anyone who is not a millionaire who votes for it is a fucking idiot.  Luckily, after years of decimating the education system, there's millions of fucking idiots out there.  Millions of people attending state school where they aren't even allowed to teach you about politics and economics, because they have to teach art, and geography, and French.  Which is why you won't catch rich people sending their kids to state school.  And the circle continues. 

 

And any university that tries to teach people about this con-trick is then labelled as a lefty institution, trouble-makers, radicals, communists. 

 

Feel free to show this to your kids, it'll explain most of what they see around them.

 

[Karl_b]

Woah, let's not denigrate the teaching of art, even if I agree with the sentiment! 

 

I'd say it's less about subjects and more bout skills - I agree about teaching basic economics and life skills but we also need to throw in there critical and creative thinking. Art, music, langiages and other creative subjects are found to have a huge positive impact on education and children's development. I'd argue that we may be focusing too much on particulars of very specific grammar, prosaic mathematics and science at the expense of those other skills. We haven't changed our education priorities since the Industrial Revolution, it's about time we did so.

[suzy]

I mostly like working from home. I don’t really miss my colleagues because the two I like I’m in contact with regularly anyway and the other one really annoys me! Plus I’ve only been at this job since October so it’s not like my friends I used to work with.

What I miss, oddly, is the half hour walk each way as I’m starting to feel unfit! Won’t miss the walk this morning though as it’s raining!

If it’s going to last a while  I’m going to have to rearrange where I have my desk though.

[Anubis]

Still, money in the bank for their mates. Who cares if it’s for delivering a pile of shit.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/17/nhs-covid-19-contact-tracing-app-no-longer-a-priority-says-minister

 

[Barrington Womble]

1 hour ago, Anubis said:

Still, money in the bank for their mates. Who cares if it’s for delivering a pile of shit.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/17/nhs-covid-19-contact-tracing-app-no-longer-a-priority-says-minister

 

What complete nonsense. People prefer to be contacted by phone rather than text? What next, dispatch people to every house to do it in person? People prefer not to be locked down, but we do it for the greater good. Manual track and trace is not scalable if we get a 2nd wave like the 1st. From every single account you read about it, it's not working now.