RogerBW's Blog

Masks at last 29 July 2020

People have finally started wearing masks in the shops round here.

Apparently the law has more effect than relying on people's common sense. Who would have guessed? (People living in Newquay. Or Bournemouth. Or Southend.) I don't suppose it'll last, but it made a pleasant change: everyone in both Lidl and Morrison's was wearing a mask.

Except for the staff, who didn't bother. (To be fair, one of Morrison's staff was masked, but looking quite furtive.)

Morrison's actually had a choice of green vegetables, which is more than Lidl has managed for a while. Not much loose, though, nor any bags for it.

Most of the masks I saw appeared to be the standard disposable paper medical sort, so apparently there's now a supply of these available. (I trust the right firm, run by relatives of people in government, got the contract.) Presumably people who would voluntarily wear masks and might have washable ones… weren't shopping in those shops in the first place.

It does seem to me that a large part of this government's electoral campaign partook of the memeplex "those so-called experts are wrong, and your selfish impulses are the most important thing". So I can't help feeling a certain schadenfreude that their strongest supporters are the people most likely not to obey them on the rare occasions they actually give good advice.


  1. Posted by RogerBW at 10:34am on 29 July 2020

    Turns out masks are explicitly not required for shop staff. (Though it took a fair bit of digging to find a formal confirmation of that.) Well, that makes a nonsense of the whole thing…

  2. Posted by John Dallman at 10:50am on 29 July 2020

    I continue to be amazed at the way all modern politicians fail to realize how their methods can backfire on them. Maybe that's what distinguishes the actually skilled ones?

  3. Posted by Owen Smith at 08:47pm on 29 July 2020

    I'm one of the people avoiding going into shops now masks are required. I've tried and I just can't wear one, I'm coughing like crazy in under half an hour. I suppose I could rush in, buy one thing, pay. rush out and recover, repeat. But it's such a performance.

    Work don't want us back in the office until 4 Jan. Anyone returning before then has to wear a face mask all the time, which I can't do. This is like one long unending mightmare.

  4. Posted by John P at 09:45pm on 29 July 2020

    Three quotes spring to mind:

    Sir Ernest Benn: "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies."

    Groucho Marx: "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member." That's how I feel about politicians. I don't really want politicians who want to be politicians. But then again, it's such a c*** job and people complain whatever they do, so maybe they are the only people we could get.

    Joseph de Maistre: "Every nation gets the government it deserves." Note the use of "deserves" rather than "wants" or "needs".

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1