sime42

Covid-19, along with Climate Change is the biggest challenge facing the world at this present time. (From the perspective of the UK Brexit is the third of the top three issues. Sadly though, that is now out of our hands). Given the importance of the issue it's not really a surprise that Covid-19 is featured so heavily in "MSN" news coverage. A global pandemic is by it's very nature a negative thing, so it also comes as no surprise that the overall feeling is negative. We can't shy away from bad news and pretend that everything is rosy. I do agree to an extent; there is a bit too much time devoted to the virus. I think that some of that quota should be taken away and deployed to coverage of Climate Change issues. That is ultimately going to dwarf everything else in terms of scale and importance, for the whole world. Regards Neil Ferguson, I don't know what your particular issue is with him, it seems to be some kind of love/hate fetish. Personally I'd always trust a scientist over a politician. Unfortunately though it is the politicians that have the power to dictate all our destinies. Currently they're not leading us down a favourable path on any one of the three top priority issues, as far as I can see.

Wrt your last statement Openspaceman. I hadn't heard that before. What was the motivation behind that decision to not prepare for a pandemic?

15 Ambulances queueing at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital - the reality of the crisis in Birmingham - Birmingham Live WWW.BIRMINGHAMMAIL.CO.UK A doctor's photo shows 15 ambulances queueing at the doors of A&E at the city's biggest hospital - a sure sign of the terrible pressure they are under This doesn't look like any other year to me. Is this just hyperbole again? Does the Birmingham Mail count as Main Stream Media as well, i.e. not to be trusted?

UK is caught in the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic and NHS is 'on the brink of collapse,' say doctors INEWS.CO.UK Trusts in London and the South East are considering the option of setting up tents outside hospitals to triage patients due to staffing problems

Yeah, I've seen that before. Not good at all.

It's a tragedy. You cite just a couple of fckups; the list is long and damning. Frustratingly it gets longer by the day. I've just heard that it's been announced that school pupils will be expected to Covid-19 test themselves. I mean, come on! Instead of just postponing by a couple of weeks or staggering their return to school. If the consequences weren't so tragic, then a lot of these harebrained schemes pretending to be an effective pandemic response would be laughable.

I can't believe it's taken you so long;- this troupe of clowns has been spouting nonsense from the start I reckon, as long as I've been paying attention to them at least, (since the unfortunate start to this year). Completely and utterly incompetent is what they are. With plenty of corruption and backhanders in the mix as well. There's plenty of other ways to say this but it would all amount to the same thing. They have completely failed us as a country and a people. Regarding the Nightingale Hospitals. It will not surprise me at all when it comes out that some chums of Boris or one of his Merry Men made vast amounts of money from their construction. As I understand it they're not being used because there are not enough skilled staff to run them. Surely the government must have been aware of the figures of staff required and staff available when they decided to build the hospitals. Yet another shocker.

Got one from here in the end, very good price. Trend AIR/PRO Airshield Pro Powered Respirator AIRPRO WWW.FFX.CO.UK Tools, power tools, hand tools, electrical, plumbing supplies, ffx tools, FFX, Trend TREAIRPRO Air/Pro Airshield Pro Powered Respirator

[emoji23]

I like the idea of a non air fed, for the much lower price and simplicity but as a "beardy" it would never be completely effective. I really can't be bothered to go back to shaving. I'm currently favouring a Trend airshield pro. I know they have a tendency to slip forward when you're bending over, (I've used my father's a few times and it is annoying), but I can't really justify the outlay on a 3M versaflo for only occasion use. It certainly seems a much better idea to have most of the weight on your belt rather than the helmet.

What I had in mind was the self contained jobs like some guys have mentioned, as made by Trend or 3M etc. So there won't be any need for a separate compressor.

Thanks Duncan..This is good info that I would probably never have known otherwise.

Always good to get another perspective, that's why I posted on here. Thanks. I thought I wanted air fed but now I'm not so sure! More thought obviously required. I assumed that air fed helmets incorporated filtration systems. Or do you mean between you and the compressor? The 3M 6000 half face mask is certainly an awful lot cheaper.

That looks good. Thanks. And it's sold by Screwfix, ideal! Seems like a direct competitor to the Trend helmets.

So I'm looking for recommendations please people. For decent but reasonably priced air fed helmets and / or places to buy them. I know they're not at all cheap so not expecting a steal, but at the same time I don't want to have to pay a fortune. I was in the loft yesterday replacing rubbish old glass fibre insulation with new. Even with a FFP3 mask I could still feel it getting into my lungs. I could also use it for the occasional wood turning that I do. Thanks in advance.

I saw this earlier as well, and wished I hadn't. I was initially quite concerned but then realised I should take it with a pinch of salt. I'm not sure of the motivation but I don't really buy it. Humans have been living with and in wood smoke forever! It's very strange that it's only just now been highlighted as high risk.

Easy tiger! You've jumped forward several steps all by yourself there. I didn't say state food control, or anything like it. I merely suggested some regulation to try to address some of the major problems that we're all facing right now. As you've probably realised by now I am not at all a fan of our State, and especially not our current government. That said I would not even begin to equate them with Russia or North Korea. What a strange idea.

We need to be careful here; it's looking like we are actually in agreement on this particular subject! How the hell did that happen? My aspirations are to buy local when I can. Living as I do though in a big landlocked city this is not easy to achieve. I've not properly explored the possibility of online shopping in answer to this, I will endeavour to. I still think the change required to improve this situation has to be driven by a top down approach, as well as bottom up, consumer lead.

Mate, you love it don't you?! Believe it or not I didn't actually notice the price of the fish. I wasn't buying based on price. I chose it for being frozen. (But I suppose that convenience is almost as bad as low price when it comes to food consumption and production). I really think that in this country and the rest of the "developed world" food is essentially too cheap..This is behind a whole host of problems;- environmental damage, obesity, poor animal welfare to name but a few obvious ones. I accept that this is in part down to us as consumers, but I think supermarkets and the food industry in general have a bigger responsibility. They are after all profit driven. The cheaper they can sell and produce food the bigger their profits. Here again regulation at a state or government level could be used to help address this issue. I could swear that last night there was more in one of your posts. Something about buying fresh fish online and driving 30 minutes to your "local" fishmonger. How very odd. Did I imagine that or did you sneakily delete a part of or a post again? [emoji12] I was going to ask you for the details of the online fishmongers. I was also going to chastise you for driving 30 minutes, (each way?), just to buy some fish. That doesn't seem very responsible at all. Though obviously not as bad getting fish from China!

Semantics maybe. Or I didn't convey my thoughts clearly enough. So it's a success for the market;, it's only doing what's it's supposed to, very well, creating wealth. But it's a failure for us and the planet.

Fair point. I have thought subsequently that it was also a failure on my part, I wouldn't go as far as to say massive though. I genuinely didn't think for one minute that it would be anything other than British caught fish. Naive I guess. If I had a local fishmonger I would be in there every week, believe me. Sadly we don't have one though.

So I bought some frozen white fish the other day from a supermarket. On reading the description it turns out that it's Alaskan Pollock packed in China. So it's traveled from Alaska to China to the UK. The food miles involved in that make me shudder. Surely that's a massive failure of the market, or the capitalist system. The sooner we stop doing stuff like that the better. It's crazy. That must need some kind of regulation. If Brexit fixes problems like that then great, there is a silver lining to the cloud. I doubt it though. I heard today that we only produce 50% of our own food, the other 50% is imported. So if we reduce trade with our neighbours in Europe then we'll be forced to import more food from further around the globe. Hence more food miles. Not good.

This is interesting, not heard of this idea before. How do you fix the carbon in green waste? And how do you stop it from composting itself?

Well called, guilty as charged. [emoji30] Kind of shot myself in the foot again. But ....... In my defence, I think the time for diplomacy has sadly passed, it just doesn't seem to cut it any longer. You have to shout to be heard these days.

Lots do I'm sure. The problem is they don't have the loudness of voice that the naive arrogant Island Monkeys have. It's weird; the Pro Brexit point of view would have been an anachronism even 100 years ago. Now it's just deluded craziness. I'm sure Putin is rubbing his hands with glee right now, thinking about the divide and conquer strategy..