Haha I was never able to get past the first sentence of any of the diatribes posted by oracle so, even had he known the answer, I wouldn’t have got anywhere near to reading it in one of his 10,000 word posts
Haha I was never able to get past the first sentence of any of the diatribes posted by oracle so, even had he known the answer, I wouldn’t have got anywhere near to reading it in one of his 10,000 word posts
Just an observation. About a quarter of a mile from my house a footpath goes over the M4. During the first lockdown, in the time it took me to cross the bridge I might have seen 2 or 3 vehicles pass. This afternoon when I crossed, although the volume of traffic was considerably lower that it would normally be, there was still a steady stream of cars, vans and lorries travelling in both directions - significantly more vehicles than in April. Perhaps this will reduce in the coming days, but if I worked in a hospital I wouldn't be planning for any lazy weekends in front of the TV any time soon.
Originally Posted by noel
Seems to be a similar story with schools. Apparently some are still at 50-75% capacity, despite being"closed".
Think schools are open to children of key workers, and families in Social Services/Care/Vulnerability situations... i went for my morning run past a school round here, and there were a fair amount of kids enjoying "playtime" on the school playground...
Yes they are open to children of key workers, as they were in Lockdown I. There are reports, however, that during that lockdown attendance was around 5%. It now seems to be around 50-60%. I can't see that many people have suddenly become nurses.... 🙄
My wife’s brother in law is a traffic officer and he’s a key worker. Weirdly though his wife, my wife’s sister, is working from home but they’re happy to let their 7 year old daughter go to school - the brother in law is seriously overweight, has health issues and has a sitting on your arse all day job so if their daughter picks covid up they could have a tough time of it.
Also one of my work colleagues, doing the same job as me (financial adviser) has somehow managed to wangle that under the definition of key worker and her two children go to school too. That said she’s a single mum and had covid herself in November.
Schools are definitely busier. Partly due to a change in classification of ‘vulnerable’ to include students without internet/laptop access at home.
My wife and I are vets. Both small animal; so although doing only urgent/emergency work, we are not involved in food production so hardly class ourselves essential. But we do have to remain open and provide a service or we have to face the wrath of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. We are a now a vet down as either of us has to home school the kids. I don’t really mind as I feel lucky one of us can work and sorting out dogs and cats isntt really essential in terms of covid, but I do get a little peed off by how some are stretching this critical worker thing. And then I wonder if we are all critical workers really in society. If you can work you should be working to at least pay taxes towards recovery from this mess. Over half my daughter’s class are in school. I know one child who’s mother is a teacher, but her father was moaning the other day that he is still furloughed. Why can’t he be teaching his kids at home if he’s not working anyway? May as well just have all the kids in at school if that’s how it’s going to be.
There are concerns some schools in lockdown could be inundated with pupils without laptops after a change to the vulnerable pupil list.
[...]
National Association of Head Teachers general secretary Paul Whiteman said demand for key worker and vulnerable places in schools had risen substantially since the last school shutdown.
[...]
"We have concern that the government has not supplied enough laptops for all the children without them and so has made lack of internet access a vulnerable criteria - only adding to numbers still in school.
[...]
She [Jane Girt, head teacher of Carlton Bolling College in Bradford] told BBC News that having so many pupils in school would "defeat the object" of closing amid the England-wide lockdown.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55565537
So, perhaps not exactly cause for optimism then.
(As an aside, and assuming he was quoted correctly, I think it would have been nice to have seen the General Secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers demonstrate that he knew 'criteria' was the plural form of 'criterion'. Given all that's going on in the world just now this is a very minor point, I know, but standards are standards, don't you know.)
Everyone - I closed the last CV thread as it had got out of hand - and yes I was one of the main contributors.
I think we should avoid going down that route again, so perhaps we can keep any CV discussion to it's impact on our access to the countryside?
Richard Taylor
"William Tell could take an apple off your head. Taylor could take out a processed pea."
Sid Waddell
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