OK, Shall I start the rant?

COVID. Boris... you are not going to beat the variants. We can't stop the world every time something you don't understand appears on our shores. NO proof of any danger yet, 2 people in the UK infected and KNEE JERK..... Here we go again.

Stick your masks, stick your booster jabs, stick your passports (which are clearly coming) and stick your lockdown. I am done with this submissive crap.

If you are going to die of Covid, you are going to die of Covid. Deal with it. The whole point of the double vaccine was to move forward. No more jabs for me.

Kier Starmer.... wants to ban private healthcare? You F*%king halfwit. The NHS wasn't fit for purpose before Covid.
I gave up on the NHS when they took over a year to even make an appointment to check my husband for Cancer (thankfully all OK). Went private and will never look back.

Our local NHS doctors surgery just got put in special measures because they are so appalling.

Private Doctors are not going to suddenly go, 'Oh, guess I will go back to the NHS then' if he banned private health care (which would never get through a vote anyway).
They will just retire to their posh houses.

Climate change? Yes, it's clearly an issue. But now it's a corporate bandwagon what every company uses to sell their product. If one more person stands on the TV and says' I do blah for climate change', I will stab them with a frozen meat free steak.

TV adverts.... can we please have one where the family are not 9 different colours, with a lesbian grandmother, a one legged vicar, a gay male couple carol singing and someone murdering a perfectly good song by trying to sing it cappella, soft and all poignant.

On that train of thought... when did UK TV become as bad as the USA for adverts.
I can sit now with my dinner and finish the entire thing before I actually see any TV content.
And if I see f*&king Harry Potter, Star Trek, Hunger games or The Day after tomorrow (which appears to be coming true), I'll vomit.

All electric by 2030 eh Boris? It takes a week to get a sparky to call out to fix your boiler. Good luck installing 25+ million home charging points.
2029 is going to be an epic diesel car sales year. Lets face it.... that date is just a line in sand.

High streets? DEAD. THEY ARE NOT COMING BACK. Deal with it.

Hang on, I'll don my mask, pay £2.50 to park, pay £3.20 for a coffee I can make at home for pennies, pay £2.50 for a muffin I can buy 4 of for a £1 in Tesco, and then pay 3 times the Amazon price for the item I wanted.
No thanks... online shopping is here to stay and Covid has embedded that.

Bah.......

I watched this yesterday on TV and I TOTALLY agree. I am not an activist, I am not anti-vaccine or anti-climate change.
But, what the hell has happened to the world.

https://www.gbnews.uk/gb-views/neil-oliver-fear-has-blinded-people-to-the-reality-of-manipulation/166257

Tara xx

Agree on Covid. We can't keep hiding under the table at every new twist. At some point - and why haven't we reached it already? - we simply have to learn to live with it, just as we do with other infectious diseases. My concern has always been that we'll eventually tot the numbers and see that more lives were lost due to the anti-Covid measures preventing people getting cancer, heart disease, or potential stroke diagnoses in time, than to Covid itself. And if that does prove to be the case, then what on earth did all the lockdowns actually achieve? I feel the reaction to Covid, when compared to how we dealt with serious flu outbreaks in the 1950s and 60s, reflects a society that has lost the capacity to properly assess risk. After all, life does have a 100% failure rate.

Also agree on the NHS against private healthcare. A free-at-the-point-of-use health service is a wonderful idea, don't get me wrong, but the reality of it isn't so great. I often think that the NHS worship (the "correct" opinion that all "right-thinking people" have) is actually unhelpful as an institution that is seen by so many as immune to criticism will never have any incentive to improve. The hysterical, and rather silly, comparison made whenever private care is mentioned - "So you want the American system, do you?!!!" - isn't helpful either. Calm down, and look across Europe. Various countries mix public and private healthcare in ways that obviously work for them, so why can't we learn from that? And I'm afraid that the NHS, despite it being an almost religious mantra in some quarters, isn't "the envy of world" at all. The principle behind it may be, but not the reality. I mean, my GP surgery still isn't seeing patients in person, which is infuriating.

I can relate to your husband, and am glad he had an all-clear. I had a recent health scare, which needed checking out, and went private through work. In fact, even my GP, on a phone consultation, advised me to do so if I could! The whole thing was sorted out, from my initial call to the insurers, via two appointments and then to the doctor phoning to say he was happy there was nothing wrong, in just two weeks. If that had been through the NHS then I'd probably have had to wait a few months to be seen, getting more anxious all the time. Again, I do not dispute for a second that the NHS is a wonderful idea in theory. But the choice between the ideological purity of "Thank you NHS!!", and getting any health concerns I have dealt with quickly and efficiently, is an absolute no-brainer.

HELL YEAH !!!! Tara for PM !!

I laughed when you said "I'm sick of all this submissive crap"

Because being submissive to your government somehow doesnt quite hit the same lol.


I am so sick of everything being so political. I am so tired of seeing a dumb cat video and having someone in the comments being like. "Ha that's Joe Biden!" just stfu! Lol.

Lol America is right there woth you, it feels like the whole system is just fucked. But we're not QUITE on the UK's level of fucked up just yet lol.

Atleast when it comes to getting messy there is little to no politics involved haha... except maybe the price of things. It's pretty refreshing to come here and everyone's actually not talking about politivs for a change. I definitely understand your sentiment of just being tired and frustrated with everything.

My view:

Initially BJ didn't react fast enough, now he has as we don't know yet how bad omicron is, INITIAL reports say it's mild but we have to wait for more data. Waiting until AFTER it's dangerous is far worse as was proved in 2020.

You might be ok with dying, but others are not. Please get jabbed, wear masks and social distance for them. Have a little empathy.

Banning private healthcare won't happen as it's a private business. FYI, lots of staff that work in private also work in the NHS, they flip between the 2 quite legally.

Climate change: needs to be talked about, the top 100 worst companies create 75% of the damage. I could go on but keeping it in the news keeps it fresh.

TV adverts: Yeah, lets go back to only non-inclusive white hetero monogamous folks on TV, that'll show 'em...and lets not teach about it in schools either...or the bad parts of history...in fact lets change history and make it illegal to be gay. Sorted. /sarcasm.

And on TV, you can stop watching..?

urgh, tired and have work to do...ermmmmm high streets are dying, online will win and things will change, BJ lied about electric, yep seems about right. Not watching an opinion piece though. get enough of those from right-wing numpties who suckle at the teat of Alex Jones.

TLDR:
Please wear masks and get jabbed for the sake of others.

I won't deliberately endanger others. Yes people are dying, but Flu apparently hasn't killed anyone in the last 2 years if you believe the crap.

No, I won't wear a mask, but then I won't be going anywhere anyway.
No I won't have any more jabs. Had my first 2 because they said that would be enough.

Can't go on holiday without a jab? Fine, not had a holiday for 11 years anyway.
Can't go in a shop? Fine, with online shopping and home food delivery, who needs to mingle with the masses.

Sorry... NHS is beyond salvage.

If people want to be sheep.... fine, their lookout. Personally, I have a brain and can think for myself.

I am starting to teach myself Russian, ready for when Putin decides to take over (seeing as we couldn't defend against wet newspaper these days). Can't stop people crossing the channel, let alone an invasion.

Whatever

No, I don't believe flu hasn't killed anyone, not that it makes a difference as this is a different disease that kills people. And you are endangering people by not wearing a mask and getting jabbed.

Diseases change, that is why we need boosters. IF you don't want to leave the house, then fine, but when you do (and you will) you will need protection and we will need it from people like you.

NHS is not beyond help, just needs the Torys to stop screwing it over for profit.

Oh no, I have been called a "sheep", how can I compete with such a lethal intellect? And me with only my 2 degrees (microbiology #Relevant and psychology) to fall back on instead of all your youtube research.

Oh, and those people are LEGALLY ALLOWED to seek asylum by crossing the channel. We signed that in 1951 (google it, I'm not doing your research). And ANYONE who says otherwise is basically xenophobic.

At this point it's not about peer reviewed articles, or Dr whoever, or right wing media, your own personal brand of pseudo science or your opinion. Now it comes down it the right of the individual to decide what chemicals they want in their own bodies. No government has the right to inject its citizens against their will. Period.

I'm not homophobic, racist or against immigrants. Just tired of having it forced down our throats and the whole 'look at me I'm different' thing that has emerged lately.

No, neither me or Steve have ever had the Flu jab. Don't want it thanks (and yes... both had bad flu before) . Get asked every year and we politely decline. It's our choice, as is having the vaccine.

Immigrants? Totally welcome, but we fucked about with Brexit to control our borders (amongst other things) and it's worse than ever.
Controlled immigration. Not spending our tax money fishing them out the channel.

I knew this would stir it up, but what the hell

Off topic and all that

If you stay at home and don't interact with anyone then I think it's fair to say no-one cares how many times you've been vaxxed. But then under those circumstances you've got no basis for complaint about vaccine passports either.

I'm gonna preface this by saying i hate needles. i absolutely deplore detest and abhore needles.

That said where are you getting this narrative i keep hearing? no one is injecting people against their will. if you choose to get a vaccine or not it's still your choice. on the other hand if the government or stores in the middle of a health crisis say if you want to use services like stores, transportation or restaurants you need a mask or a jab. in some cases both, but in most cases one or the other. if you choose not to wear a mask or if you choose not to get a vaccine, i assure you Her majesty's guard or the local constable won't take you to the tower of london strap you to the rack and extract a confession of treason against the crown before injecting you with the vaccine.


on the other hand they (government, transportation whether private or government run, as well as restaurants, schools and stores have the right to set rules. if you don't want to follow them you can always make other arrangements. you can have your say but you can't always have your way.

theres a lot to address but I'll say this much i'd rather everyone just got along. that said first off you quote a news source that's far from unbiased, and true many news channels are biased leaning one way or another but these folks aren't even trying. they're an op-ed style station filled with many former tabloid employees who as is already known are not reliable sources for journalistic honesty. the other point is when you're stacked all one way or all another way, that's not objective journalism thats just partisan echo chambers. you won't hear facts 9/10. too many folks only listen to what they agree with on whatever side of the political coin they happen to live on, and are so far to the edge of their parties wing that the middle seems either radical right or radical left.

get a little uncomfortable, start listening to moderate sources from both sides

On covid, No vaccine is 100% effective but it's been proven in study after study that people who are vaccinated against covid are much less likely to get it, and if they do get it their symptoms are more likely milder by far than without it, in addition to the risk of hospitalization that is also reduced. Thats not a supposition it's the facts.

if you don't want anymore vaccines or boosters fine. if you don't like masks fine. But those things do help. Honestly i'm at a loss, so many people keep complaining but what should folks do drop mask requirements all over the world and destroy any vaccines we have and ride the bomb letting whoever dies die?


we wouldn't have a need for a lock down if people had just taken a brief time to wear a mask and distance themselves even before the vaccine came out. so many countries around the world like taiwan, korea, new zealand, and australia took serious approaches and saved many lives.

people didn't want to wear masks and started spreading crackpot conspiracy theories that masks were plots to suffocate people, and "no ones going to tell me how far to stand".

Well infections rose so did hospitalizations and deaths then things had to shut down businesses and stores and schools switching to a distance model. well folks complained about distance schooling and work.

Ok countries tried to reopen schools with physical distancing limited sizes and masks then the "let out kids breath fresh air" crowd complained. Then a vaccine came out that while isn't 100% has helped save peoples lives, then enter the people with antisemitic nonsense who think it turns you into a alien, or is meant to track you while not realizing with their "big brains" the devices they use can be tracked anyway.


if there's a reasonable alternative, thats not let whoever dies, dies i'm all ears.
but so far none of the people who cry out against any precautions have any answers

Honestly if folks don't want the shot, or fall into a category who are immunocompromised and cant, then wear a mask and distance as much as possible. if people had done masking and distancing much sooner the pandemic would have ended already or have been under control by now at the least even before the vaccine.

it's like restaurants that have no shoes no shirt no service rules. they can make the rules since they provide a service you aren't forced to use their service but if you don't want to follow the rules they aren't beholden to offer you their services.

OK. I knew this would start an argument. Anything regarding personal choice and opinion always does.

I'll shut up now. I poked the fire in anger and the flames have roared.

I do believe my time here is done

Tara xx

I hope you mean just in this thread.

By the looks of that thread, don't think I will be missed

Tara xx

Italy and Austria to name 2. Others will follow.

Hi Tara

Just letting you know I would miss you if you were to leave and be very sad occasion if you left.

Dj

Well, I guess we found GB News one remaining viewer.

This was really disappointing to read after loving your pics and vids here in the past. The "knee jerk" against the omicron variant is an international endeavour, and it's worth noting that if Johnson had jerked his knee a little faster first time around it would have saved a lot of lives. I hope this strain is indeed less dangerous, but as others have said it's better to be safe than sorry.

It's also worth noting that so far the only impact the new measures will have on your life is having to wear a bit of cloth on your face in shops and public transport (something many have been doing anyway), and ideally get yourself a free booster shot which takes twenty minutes of your time. It's hardly submitting to tyranny.

The NHS is an incredible institution that's being gradually ripped apart by endless Tory governments. You may be privileged with the option to go private, but many people can't afford this and rely on socialised healthcare. You really, really don't want a system like the US where people refuse to call the ambulance they need because of the enormous bill they'd have to pay for that alone.

Starmer is a useless waste of space, but I don't think think he's said anything about banning private healthcare. I did a Google search and found a very alarmist headline from the Daily Mail (of course) to that effect, but the text of the article quoted nothing of the sort. Starmer was asked if he wanted to, to which he replied that you couldn't do that. Instead he wanted to make the NHS so good that you wouldn't want to go private, or something like that. It's worth reading and watching less horrendous sources of news, but I'll admit there's not much on offer there. At least read beyond the clickbait headlines though!

Climate change is more than just "an issue", it's the biggest issue facing the planet. Sure, business are going to be keen to highlight their efforts for some good publicity, but as long as they're actually doing something to reduce their emissions that's fine by me.

Speaking of which, the target for electric cars is not for everyone to go electric by 2030, just to stop the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2020. All existing ones aren't going to magically disappear at this point, but the hope is that they will fade away as people buy electric cars. Not every home needs its own charger either, but they should hopefully be served by roadside charge points or even chargers at work. Nobody ever worried about not having their own petrol pump at home, and charging speeds are getting faster and faster.

TV adverts! We live in a multicultural society, and businesses are always going to want to appeal to as much of that society as they can. Frankly though I can only see it as a good thing that representation is so much better than it used to be. Nothing's being "forced down your throat", you're just seeing people on TV who never used to enjoy the representation that straight, white able bodied people enjoyed for decades before now.

I've gone on long enough, so I'll finish by addressing the sheep thing. I can only assume that when you go to your private doctors, you accept what they tell you as the informed opinion of experts, rather than decide to just "think for yourself" instead. Other medical professionals are telling you to wear a mask and get a Covid booster. What makes you listen to one but not the other?

I don't know about Italy, but Austria have announced mandatory vaccination from February, mainly because they have a very low take-up rate and seemingly large parts of their population believing conspiracy bollocks. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59343650 However it seems very unlikely the UK will ever go the mandatory vaccination route, that would fly in the face of almost every UK tradition and the current government's libertarian streak. Plus our medical establishment are of the view that making it compulsory would be counter-productive and actually reduce overall take-up as people would rebel against it.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of Tara's comments or the responses to them, what this does illustrate is that getting any kind of compliance with additional restrictions is getting harder over time as more people get fed up with the current level of state interference in their lives. It's going to be a long winter.

Closer to home, the emergence of the Necronomicron variant has had some impact, we'd a gorgeous new friend from the capital invited to the Hall and planning to sample the dungeon in January, spoke to her over the weekend and we've postponed to later in the spring, just in case there is another post-Christmas lockdown. Though Honeysuckle and Maude still hope to play with the new gunge tank, rules and weather permitting.

I can't believe the one person I'm being asked to listen to at the end of that is the deranged twat in the cravat on GB "News" (quote marks not because I believe their news is spurious, but because they're literally not a news channel. It's talk radio with pictures, and deeply unpleasant hosts and guests). Having heard some of his bloviating, unsubstantiated self-righteous bollocks before, I'll pass, thanks.

Tell me more about how vaccine passports, immigration policies, or diversity in television infringe on your personal choices.

On the body not in the body I agree with you

At the end of the day it's free choice. I have my opinions, and you have yours , and that is the way it should be.

Some people question things that other people think little of (whether they should or not).

Personally, I just see a once great country slowly decaying in many ways.

Hopefully they will fix the NHS, but I can't see how. No change of government (they are all as bad as each other) will ever have the funds to recover from this within my lifetime.

Covid 19 won't be the last. Mother nature (or was it the Chinese? ) has had a good attempt at culling our existence, and it will happen again in some other form.

Life goes on...

x

If I understand you, then, insofar as you're talking about personal choice, you're only talking about the choice to believe whatever you want. Right? But that's obvious. Nobody can take that away if they tried.

I used to be in favor of mask mandates and vaccine mandates. Now I just laugh as people complain in the States about businesses forcing people to get vaccinated or be fired. The hypocrisy in everything is some funny shit. Businesses make deals with States to enact at will laws. Protecting the business and not the employee. Now that businesses are using those laws the same political group that fought for those laws are mad that they are using them. When businesses did not want to provide birth control under their medical insurance people said that it was their right. Now the same people are saying businesses do not have the right to dictate health choices.

Yeah I am vaxxed, but I don't do the mask and I am not in favor of vaccine or mask mandates. Because I am vaxxed. Yes I may get COVID and I accept that risk. But I have a better chance of fighting it because I am vaxxed. I have my groceries delivered, have done for about the last 6 years. Are my shoppers vaxxed, no clue. I get delivery from food places, are the delivery people and the food prep people vaxxed, no clue. People have had a chance to get vaccinated. They choose not to. So because of their choices, I look forward to the consequences.

However, I draw the line at hospital beds. If you have a hospital bed because of a situation you could have prevented and didn't, you lose your bed to the people who are coming in with things they either could not prevent, or did everything in their power to prevent. You want to take horse dewormer, go for it. You want to take Hydroxy Chloriquine, go for it. But don't go to the hospital and dictate your care to the doctor.

Don't like the policies the company you work for puts in place, find another job. Don't like the politics of the people in charge, drive some people to a polling location and help vote out the people where applicable. Don't like being kicked out of a hospital bed because your ass made choices, make better choices. But please, can we all agree to stop posting the "don't be like me" posts? Don't post the videos trying to be a cautionary tale to make people choose differently. So you made some bad choices, sort yourself out.

Going off on a lunatic right wing rant slagging off the NHS and having no basic grasp of why your local health service is not working after a decade of the very politicians who have made it that way and to top it off posting a link to GB News lol cretin.

As a relatively young person losing the NHS is one of my greatest fears in life, along with the threat of homelessness as a result of ever increasing private rental costs.

I want to bash my head against a wall when I hear people, particularly those older than me, bemoaning the NHS and calling for it's privatisation after enjoying its fruits for their whole life up until this point. They talk about it as if the prospect of having to pay out thousands of pounds for insurance and treatment is preferable.

And nail-on-the-head regarding people missing the point about why it is struggling at the moment, decades of deliberate underfunding by parties ideological opposed to the idea of nationally owned public services.

Don't get me started on the anti-vax, anti-mask brigade. Earlier this year I had to console a friend who lost her uncle to Covid. He had been convinced by his anti-vax, conspiracy-touting adult offspring that it was all a hoax and had talked him out of getting vaccinated. Even now his kids don't believe Covid killed him, they believe the hospital did him in to inflate death statistics.

How do you reason with people like that?

You can't. They're brainwashed. It would take months to solve years and years of propaganda. Most people learn the hard way.