Fuck this fucking virus with a fucking farm implement.

1252628303135

Comments

  • mrsshrewmrsshrew Shipmate Posts: 9
    I know at this point that English primary school closures are pretty inevitable. And I totally support the unions in calling for them.

    But I just wish I could fast forward through to the certainty part of it all. The current dithering and faffing about is doing my head in.

    At least if I know I have to entertain the child at home for another two weeks I can start solving the problem of how to do it!
  • Yes indeed @mrsshrew (welcome aboard, by the way!).

    My own church's congregation includes 3 teachers, along with a number of young families with children at various schools. All of them - parents, children, and teachers - are certainly fed up with what you politely refer to as dithering and faffing about.

    As this is Hell, where Sweary Words are allowed, I would call it a complete shitshow, but that's what this *government* is so world-beatingly good at providing.
    :rage:

    I doubt if many schools of any description will be fully open next week.
  • How the F ...... can Any family even begin to plan one week ahead!

    It is all very well B d PJ blathering on like he is.
    But
    It is of no help to him, his government (such that it is), the economy (God Bless it), or Anything, if this government’s citizens do not know what is happening next.

    Please dear God, rid us of this jack ass.
  • One Grauniad columnist describes Williamson as one of the new breed of cabinet minister - too rubbish to fail.

    Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer is calling for an immediate national lockdown, as cases of infection soar.

    Will the Lord Protector listen, and, more importantly, act?
    :disappointed:
  • Our schools won't reopen 'til the 11th, and with distance learning until the 18th. That was announced before Christmas. There's an early recall of Parliament this week, and it's expected that that will be to announce, debate and approve further measures to control the new variant - which could include further delaying in-person teaching at schools and universities and extending the current Tier 4 restrictions due to end in a bit over a week. But, this is Scotland rather than England, and while things haven't been done perfectly (along with everyone else we probably eased back restrictions at the end of the summer too far and too fast) but at least there's usually been decent communication of what's happening with time to plan ahead a bit.
  • And Priti Patel had the gall to say the govt is ahead of the curve, in relation to covid.
  • Ah, but she lives in that alternative universe known as La-La-Land, where there are Sunlit Uplands, and Dancing Unicorns.
  • The5thMary wrote: »
    Meanwhile, that bastard Mitch McConnell has the fucking nerve to say that "giving Americans any more money will encourage them to stay home and seek government handouts"!

    Umm, yeah. That's the point. We (should) want Americans to stay home. There's a pandemic going on. In order to fight the pandemic, we need to stay home. That means that those of us who can stay home and work need to compensate (via taxes and government payments) those of us whose livelihoods rely on us going out where the people and the virus are.
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    A couple people on our church zoom today reminded our group that when the eviction moratorium ends, the streets will be filled with the newly evicted and homeless. Lord have mercy! :hushed:
  • kingsfoldkingsfold Shipmate
    edited January 3
    Our schools won't reopen 'til the 11th, and with distance learning until the 18th. That was announced before Christmas. There's an early recall of Parliament this week, and it's expected that that will be to announce, debate and approve further measures to control the new variant - which could include further delaying in-person teaching at schools and universities and extending the current Tier 4 restrictions due to end in a bit over a week. But, this is Scotland rather than England, and while things haven't been done perfectly (along with everyone else we probably eased back restrictions at the end of the summer too far and too fast) but at least there's usually been decent communication of what's happening with time to plan ahead a bit.

    And please God TPTB decide students should stay wherever they currently are as well. If children/young people who all live in the same geographical area going back to school present a risk of spreading coronavirus, how much more of a risk is it moving thousands of students around the country from areas of greater to lesser numbers (or indeed vice versa).... Though goodness only knows how you enforce it.
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    Lyda wrote: »
    A couple people on our church zoom today reminded our group that when the eviction moratorium ends, the streets will be filled with the newly evicted and homeless. Lord have mercy! :hushed:

    What? You mean they can't put their very generous $600 payment toward back rent? Maybe they should all set up camp in Moscow Mitch's front yard.
  • kingsfold wrote: »
    And please God TPTB decide students should stay wherever they currently are as well. If children/young people who all live in the same geographical area going back to school present a risk of spreading coronavirus, how much more of a risk is it moving thousands of students around the country from areas of greater to lesser numbers (or indeed vice versa).... Though goodness only knows how you enforce it.
    The bizarre thing was the number of students who moved to new towns at the end of the summer. I don't know about every university and course, but the School of Physics and Astronomy had decided before the summer to deliver all first semester material online. There was no reason for anyone to be in Glasgow, but the students were told to move into their hall rooms where they could share their various viruses around.
  • kingsfoldkingsfold Shipmate
    kingsfold wrote: »
    And please God TPTB decide students should stay wherever they currently are as well. If children/young people who all live in the same geographical area going back to school present a risk of spreading coronavirus, how much more of a risk is it moving thousands of students around the country from areas of greater to lesser numbers (or indeed vice versa).... Though goodness only knows how you enforce it.
    The bizarre thing was the number of students who moved to new towns at the end of the summer. I don't know about every university and course, but the School of Physics and Astronomy had decided before the summer to deliver all first semester material online. There was no reason for anyone to be in Glasgow, but the students were told to move into their hall rooms where they could share their various viruses around.

    Well, indeed. The flat above mine is rented to students, and at least one of the students (IIRC maths and/or physics) in that flat had all their course online from very early on (water came through my ceiling from the bathroom in the flat above, which necessitated distanced interaction & discussion thereof...). But presumably at some time over the late summer they'd signed a contract for rental for the year so they'd have to pay for it whatever... Not just a case of moving into halls, but private accommodation too.
  • The bizarre thing was the number of students who moved to new towns at the end of the summer. I don't know about every university and course, but the School of Physics and Astronomy had decided before the summer to deliver all first semester material online. There was no reason for anyone to be in Glasgow, but the students were told to move into their hall rooms where they could share their various viruses around.

    There will of course be some students who need the student accommodation, because they can't (for whatever reason) remain living with their parents. That has to be a small number, though.

    (The cynic in me says that the university can't afford the lost rent if the students remained at home.)
  • You're not the first to suggest that loss of rent for university accommodation featured in the decision.

    And, of course for a minority of students staying at home wouldn't be the best option - students need somewhere to study and not all family homes have the space and all the other factors that also impact online delivery of lessons for school age children, and also it's going to be a lot easier for universities to get computer needed for online learning to students who are in halls or other local accommodation. But, what's best for a few doesn't make forcing the majority to move into halls with hundreds of other young adults a good idea.

    I know the class I taught (the lectures are now finished and their working on an assessed project, this is at Masters level mixed final year undergraduate and postgrad) only a couple of students weren't in local accommodation - one student from Hong Kong was unable to travel, another from Belfast decided he wouldn't travel, by the time we were about half way through the course about half of them had returned home elsewhere in Scotland and I don't expect them to be back in Glasgow when they give their presentations early in Feb.
  • Yes, my son’s contract for his private uni house started in June and we had paid over 3 month’s rent before he moved in because he was at home due to covid.
    There are also other issues, for instance, at home he shares a bedroom with a 16 year old who is also learning online, as well as both his parents working online in the house all day. That makes for a very crowded, noisy house. He is on the autistic spectrum and was desperate to get back to his uni house where he has his own private room so he could study and work in peace (he has a part time job online too).
  • CathscatsCathscats Shipmate
    Indeed, and my son, who finished his term's work at home, is planning to get back to Uni before the new term starts as our Wi-Fi is not reliable enough for him to do his courses entirely online. Nothing is straightforward.
  • My son just got word that the university is "consolidating" dorm rooms, and he needs to choose between paying an extra 1K+ or else accept a new roommate. Which tells me that a substantial number of students have buggered off home and are not expecting to return for the new semester. Which suggests (ta da!) a big coronavirus outbreak, though their official numbers on the web don't admit it.

    And of course, the ideal thing to do is to shove everybody back into brand-new roommate situations, rather than leave them solo as chance and the virus have situated them.

    It has to be money.
  • LC--

    Wow. I know money is a major concern for colleges in normal times. Must be nightmarish now.

    But putting students in shared rooms during a pandemic??? Or forcing them to pay $1,000 extra to be safer??? Besides the "minor" matter of danger to the students, I think this might be a matter of schools cutting off their noses to spite their faces.

    Students are usually hurting for money, moreso now. So many/most won't be able to manage that extra cost, and may live off campus (probably in a virus-unsafe, crowded situation); go back home and learn virtually; simply drop out; or go back home and learn virtually from *another* college that has a better (or any) virtual program.

    Not a lawyer, but AFAICS:

    --Forcing students to live in very close quarters with a roommate during a pandemic might be fodder for lawsuits. Maybe a nice, big, class-action.

    --Students forced out of the dorms might seek refunds for room and board that's already been paid. If the school has a 2-term setup, it might already be too late to get them. If it's a 4-1-4 setup (fall term, January term (focused intensely on one or two subjects, or doing an internship), and spring term), there might be a chance. So, at the very least, schools are setting themselves up for a lot of paperwork and for unpleasant virtual/phone encounters with angry/desperate students, staff, gov't and private lenders, givers of scholarships and grants, lawyers, activists, and assorted gov't investigators.

    Even if schools can hold onto the money for this term, they may cause many students to drop out. No more money from them next term might just close the school.

    --If the forced-out students find a better situation at other schools, the *other* schools will be getting the money that the forcing-out schools would've gotten.

    LC, best wishes to your son and you for figuring this all out, and doing something that works for you.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited January 4
    I'd better backtrack for a moment. First, all on-campus students have been two-to-a-room since the beginning of school unless they paid extra for privacy, which is pretty standard at American universities, but which still is a sucky thing to do to anybody during a pandemic, but there you go. Since then, they have had a coronavirus outbreak like everybody else, and the extent of it is largely unknown, because of course they don't have easily available on-campus testing, because why should they? ::rolleyes::

    Nobody's been "forced out" by anybody (well, except by the virus). What's apparently happened is enough people have contracted it (and chosen to go home) that the dorms are emptying. And/or enough families have panicked that the dorms are emptying, leaving the university with quite a few students in newly-private rooms. And of course some paper-pusher saw that as a chance to scam raise money from the situation. By decreeing that those now in possession of an unshared room must either a) pay for it, as if they had chosen that option from the beginning, or b) move in with another student, elsewhere, and keep their current fee level.

    Which is sucky enough, as I can't imagine the university is losing THAT much money on extra electricity, heat, etc. It's not as if they'll be able to shut down entire dorm buildings. They won't, they're too small. And if even one person opts to stay where they are at the extra cost, AND happens to be at the end of the hall or whatever, that will lose them any putative zone savings. If I tell you the buildings are likely 80 years old, you can imagine just how little zoned heating plays into any calculations.

    I'm not concerned for LL, as he has already had COVID (acquired on campus, where else? despite their vaunted lack of on-campus transmission). He can go in with basically anybody, now, in safety. But it's a terrible thing to do to a dirt-poor churchwork student (which many are) who now has to choose between safety or money.

  • Wtf do they put grown adults in shared rooms ? Have they not heard of sex ?
  • I'd better backtrack for a moment. First, all on-campus students have been two-to-a-room since the beginning of school unless they paid extra for privacy, which is pretty standard at American universities,

    It's a bit of an aside, but I still don't understand why having a roommate is so popular in US universities. Yes, money, but the majority of Americans I've spoken to on the subject would choose the shared room that they had over a UK-style smaller-than-a-jail-cell cupboard containing a small bed, an even smaller desk, and about a square foot of carpet at the same price. I'd infinitely prefer the latter (but I don't take up much space, and don't like people. Being expected to share a bedroom with a stranger just strikes me as a horrific idea.)
  • Wtf do they put grown adults in shared rooms ? Have they not heard of sex ?

    It's a traditional Christian university. The students in question are most likely all unmarried (marriage would get them a ticket to the posher on-campus apartments, or to permission for off-campus living). And before you jump all over me, yes, American students EVERYWHERE, including traditional Christian universities, work out ways of signalling to roommates "don't come in right now."
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited January 4
    I'd better backtrack for a moment. First, all on-campus students have been two-to-a-room since the beginning of school unless they paid extra for privacy, which is pretty standard at American universities,

    It's a bit of an aside, but I still don't understand why having a roommate is so popular in US universities. Yes, money, but the majority of Americans I've spoken to on the subject would choose the shared room that they had over a UK-style smaller-than-a-jail-cell cupboard containing a small bed, an even smaller desk, and about a square foot of carpet at the same price. I'd infinitely prefer the latter (but I don't take up much space, and don't like people. Being expected to share a bedroom with a stranger just strikes me as a horrific idea.)

    Cultural difference, I suppose. I feel the same but more strongly about shared showers, etc. which are AFAIK a thing of the past, though they existed in my middle school gym class. FWIW, the norm at this place (university) pre-pandemic was THREE students in a room...

    There's also the fact that most universities have aging buildings not easily or cheaply adapted to smaller single rooms.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    edited January 4
    Wtf do they put grown adults in shared rooms ? Have they not heard of sex ?

    It's a traditional Christian university. The students in question are most likely all unmarried (marriage would get them a ticket to the posher on-campus apartments, or to permission for off-campus living). And before you jump all over me, yes, American students EVERYWHERE, including traditional Christian universities, work out ways of signalling to roommates "don't come in right now."

    So not worried about either masturbation or roommates shagging each other then.
  • Doublethink--

    Well, the first can be done in private, at night, whatever. The roommates would be same gender; and golly gee whiz, it's not like there'd be any non-celibate LGB students at a college/uni, is there? Especially a Christian one.
  • Wtf do they put grown adults in shared rooms ? Have they not heard of sex ?

    It's a traditional Christian university. The students in question are most likely all unmarried (marriage would get them a ticket to the posher on-campus apartments, or to permission for off-campus living). And before you jump all over me, yes, American students EVERYWHERE, including traditional Christian universities, work out ways of signalling to roommates "don't come in right now."

    So not worried about either masturbation or roommates shagging each other then.

    There's nothing in the Bible about masturbation, and even the LCMS recognizes that fact. It used to be up on their website. As for gay sex (rooms are same sex), everybody knows such things exist, nobody expects to legislate every possibility out of existence, and frankly, I think you're mixing us up with Liberty University or something. Nobody's doing fucking bedchecks. Sheesh.
  • And everybody knows if you put two gay people of mutually desired sex/gender in a room together with a bed, they MUST shag.
  • Is Liberty one of the ones with separate pink and blue sidewalks? (I.e., separating students by gender.) I think Prairie Bible Institute in Canada is said to have the same.
  • after further thought--

    You do realize that there still exists a middle ground between "Do whatever the hell you like, wherever the hell you like, regardless of basic mores you knew about long before you were ever admitted to a church-supported university--oh, and we'll alter the housing arrangements at vast expense to make it easier for you!" and "Keep those hands where I can see them at all times, never stand within six feet of a man/woman/sheep, and there's a videocam on your bed at night too, you little shits"?

    Seriously. This isn't outrageous. As far as I know there are no university disciplinary issues with a person who chooses to have sex outwith marriage, provided there's no other shit going on (such as rape, etc.) But why should the university, which is church sponsored, be expected to cater for it?
  • mousethief wrote: »
    And everybody knows if you put two gay people of mutually desired sex/gender in a room together with a bed, they MUST shag.

    Must one have a bed?
  • mousethief wrote: »
    And everybody knows if you put two gay people of mutually desired sex/gender in a room together with a bed, they MUST shag.

    Must one have a bed?

    Hey now, what they get up to and in what position or on what surface, I am not about to quibble.
  • I'm a little bemused that @Doublethink's response to the concept of shared rooms was "but how do they have sex?" I know students have a certain reputation, but I think even the most rampant of students spend a lot more time not having sex than they do having sex. And when I consider sharing a bedroom with a random stranger, access to nookie isn't in my top 5 concerns.
  • Ah, now I'm disillusioned!
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    I'm back - having discovered that the reason for the huge, slowly moving queue was that the cheese shop take your order, ignore it until you come to pick it up, try and find what the order was, then make it up out of the cheeses they have in the shop.

    Argh! The number of times I've had my brain twisted by mind-numbingly inefficient and pointless practices.

    One that always annoys the ever-living feck out of me is when people have a raffle. And sell tickets.

    They then proceed to tell you that it's a pound a strip. And you can only buy by the strip.

    They then proceed to the draw. And you then hear "Blue 151 to 155!"

    They're drawing by the strip as well.

    You rehearse in your head how you might explain that what they've just done is exactly the same as selling tickets for a pound each. But you know that that's (a) socially unacceptable and (b) almost certainly futile. So you explain it to your SO instead, who rolls their eyes as you realise this is the 457th raffle you've ranted about this after.



    I'm just glad to enter a Cheese Shop (1) that HAS cheese and (2) ISN'T "Licensed for Public Dancing" ... (let the reader understand) ...
  • I'm a little bemused that @Doublethink's response to the concept of shared rooms was "but how do they have sex?" I know students have a certain reputation, but I think even the most rampant of students spend a lot more time not having sex than they do having sex. And when I consider sharing a bedroom with a random stranger, access to nookie isn't in my top 5 concerns.

    Actually, what I was thinking was I wouldn’t want to sleep in a room with someone else for months on end because I wouldn’t want to end up overhearing them masturbating.

    I base that idea on having had to sleep in dormitories as an adolescent, and umpteen military memoires eg Spike Milligan’s.
  • I slept in a room for 4 years with other women and at no time heard them masturbating. I presume they had the sense and manners to do it when I was out. I know that at least one entertained her... gentlemen callers... in our room, and quite possibly on my bed, while I was away on the weekends. Which is just yuck. But I only heard of it after term was over. So I know it can be done.
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    I wouldn’t want to end up overhearing them masturbating.

    Didn't your father ever tell you it can be done silently?
  • AnselminaAnselmina Shipmate
    I wouldn’t want to end up overhearing them masturbating.

    Didn't your father ever tell you it can be done silently?

    Every day's a schoolday, apparently! :wink:
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    Every schoolday includes recess, more precisely.
  • I slept in a room for 4 years with other women and at no time heard them masturbating. I presume they had the sense and manners to do it when I was out. I know that at least one entertained her... gentlemen callers... in our room, and quite possibly on my bed, while I was away on the weekends. Which is just yuck. But I only heard of it after term was over. So I know it can be done.

    LOL ... One of my favorite former congregant couples met when they both worked in the camps installing The Alaska Pipeline -- he a machine operator, she in the office ...

    She was one of two -- TWO(2) -- women in a camp of a few hundred men ... *ahem* ...
    My friend was VERY p*ssed off when she learned that her roomie was using THEIR (her) room a couple nights a week *turning*tricks*, by which enterprise she was saving up enough tax*free $$$cash$$$ to retire early ...
  • SiegfriedSiegfried Shipmate Posts: 12
    Our wonderful Gov DeSantis got mad at a CNN reporter for asking him why the vaccine roll-out is going so poorly. He issues vague guidelines on who will get it. He's pitting hospital against hospital over vaccine shipments. He's bumping educators back down the list of recipients. But he's still insisting schools stay open and now that the university have the same number of in-person classes as they did pre-pandemic. Argh.
  • I slept in a room for 4 years with other women and at no time heard them masturbating. I presume they had the sense and manners to do it when I was out. I know that at least one entertained her... gentlemen callers... in our room, and quite possibly on my bed, while I was away on the weekends. Which is just yuck. But I only heard of it after term was over. So I know it can be done.

    LOL ... One of my favorite former congregant couples met when they both worked in the camps installing The Alaska Pipeline -- he a machine operator, she in the office ...

    She was one of two -- TWO(2) -- women in a camp of a few hundred men ... *ahem* ...
    My friend was VERY p*ssed off when she learned that her roomie was using THEIR (her) room a couple nights a week *turning*tricks*, by which enterprise she was saving up enough tax*free $$$cash$$$ to retire early ...

    Yeah, she definitely should have declared her earnings. Pretty certain tax evasion is a federal crime.
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    I slept in a room for 4 years with other women and at no time heard them masturbating. I presume they had the sense and manners to do it when I was out. I know that at least one entertained her... gentlemen callers... in our room, and quite possibly on my bed, while I was away on the weekends. Which is just yuck. But I only heard of it after term was over. So I know it can be done.

    LOL ... One of my favorite former congregant couples met when they both worked in the camps installing The Alaska Pipeline -- he a machine operator, she in the office ...

    She was one of two -- TWO(2) -- women in a camp of a few hundred men ... *ahem* ...
    My friend was VERY p*ssed off when she learned that her roomie was using THEIR (her) room a couple nights a week *turning*tricks*, by which enterprise she was saving up enough tax*free $$$cash$$$ to retire early ...

    Yeah, she definitely should have declared her earnings. Pretty certain tax evasion is a federal crime.

    I suppose she could have described her extra income as "tips" ... (*blush*) ...
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    edited January 5
    Anselmina wrote: »
    I wouldn’t want to end up overhearing them masturbating.

    Didn't your father ever tell you it can be done silently?

    Every day's a schoolday, apparently! :wink:

    Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean folk always do. If I recall Milligan’s autobiography correctly, his tent got so annoyed by one bloke they eventually bought him boxing gloves.

    I also recall the sort ridiculousness presented in Royal Navy School: https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/2138629/royal-navy-school-c4

    Most people don’t behave likely this, probably, but if you have random roommate - you don’t know what they’ll be like, especially if drunk.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    I had a roommate in college who picked up broken down guys in cowboy bars and brought them back to the dorm. More than once I woke up in the morning and found that there were two people in the other single bed.
  • Ruth wrote: »
    I had a roommate in college who picked up broken down guys in cowboy bars and brought them back to the dorm. More than once I woke up in the morning and found that there were two people in the other single bed.

    "any port in a storm" ... (or in a dorm)
    (SPECIALLY quoted for this Ship of Fools crew ...)
  • Meanwhile in Canada, numerous federal and provincial politicians piously instructed all of us to have a stay-at-home Christmas and were subsequently caught having flown internationally for Xmas holidays. Almost all of them Conservatives or provincial equivalents. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-politicians-pandemic-travel-1.5859785

    Then there's the federal Conservative leader who hates people, particularly brown people who make up to 70% of prison inmates. https://twitter.com/erinotoole/status/1346620895125778438?s=20

    So bad.
  • Ruth wrote: »
    I had a roommate in college who picked up broken down guys in cowboy bars and brought them back to the dorm. More than once I woke up in the morning and found that there were two people in the other single bed.

    Two, meh....
  • LOL.
Sign In or Register to comment.