Lockdown diary: day ten

Very impressed with Matt Hancock today at the press conference: he was never going to please some of the fraternity of British journalists, but I thought he gave honest answers about an issue on which we need to up our game, e.g. testing. 

At least it is clear that the issue is being taken seriously.

I was very struck by how many people took part in the "clap for the carers" event at 8pm. I went to my front door at 8pm and it seemed that the residents of just about every home in Foxhouses Road which was in view from my own home had come to their doors to applaud NHS workers, teachers, and the other people who are looking after us at this difficult time.

My wife, who works for the NHS, came to join me at the front door having been in the garden at the stroke of 8pm and it was as if everyone in Whitehaven was clapping, making the sort of noise you usually only get when Haven are playing at home (you can hear the cheers from the Rugby ground from our part of the town.) She said that as an NHS employee it really made her feel much more appreciated and reinforced the idea that "We're all in this together."

Comments

Anonymous said…
Testing is being taken seriously, it's not 1st of April.
8:30 am
Chris Whiteside said…
Yes it is.

Indeed it isn't the first of April and anyway, there was no proper April Fool's day this year.
8:46 am
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

Image
I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more