Saturday 30th January 2021 Worcester or ... Lincoln or ... Wakefield or .... Preston .... completely wiped out. In ten months. Haywards Heath ...... just since Christmas. Five missed COBRA meetings ... Shaking hands with everyone ... Cheltenham Races ... PPE ... Testing ... a protective ring around care homes (not) ... send the virus... Continue Reading →
Week 3: At pace.
Saturday 23rd January 2021 Photo courtesy of The Guardian We've heard a lot about "at pace" over the last ten months. I'm old enough to remember when PPE was being sourced "at pace"; when PPE was being rolled out "at pace"; when testing was being ramped up "at pace"; when laptops were being distributed to... Continue Reading →
Week 2: Demonised.
Saturday 16th January 2021 I should have guessed. Just as we were reassured on a Sunday morning primary schools were perfectly safe to open yet by Monday evening they'd become "vectors of transmission" necessitating their closure, so having welcomed this latest lockdown's absence of Downing Street's damaging "avoid public transport” messaging in last week's round... Continue Reading →
Week 1: Alas.
Saturday 9th January 2021 There's nothing like a pandemic taking a serious turn for the worse (numbers infected, numbers in hospital, numbers dying all rising exponentially); the alert level rising to highest status five (“a material risk of healthcare services being overwhelmed”); and a new full-on, stay-at-home, Union-flag-in the-background, occasional-fist-thumping-the-table, grim-faced Prime Ministerial lockdown announcement... Continue Reading →
Could buses have replaced the 1938 stock?
Sunday 3rd January 2021 Today marks the end of a train era on the Isle of Wight as the Island Line's infamous former Underground stock dating from 1938 is finally retired after 82 years front line service. They're by far the oldest trains running on the national network. Like a lot of people I enjoy... Continue Reading →