sime42

Wrt to your comments about PM10 spikes when you ashed out the stove. I've been seeing special purpose ash vacuum cleaners around for a while now, but just dismissed them as another gimmick. I'm now wondering if they are actually worth while, if they stop the finer particles being blown out into the room. (Presumably they've special fine filters). I normally just use the trusty Henry hoover to clear up any loose ash and other debris around the wood burner. I use HEPA filters in it, (purely by chance as that was all I could get last time I bought them), and having just looked it up they should block PM2.5 stuff and even smaller. So we should be ok. Any thoughts on this?

Wanted: UK bison rangers, no previous experience expected | Wildlife | The Guardian WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM Project using large beasts to help restore woodland offers unprecedented job opportunity Nice idea as well, to use wild animals to do habitat restoration.

The old 'uns are also much favoured by the Tractor Pulling boys as well, especially the Fords/Fordsons. They obviously like the very strong, over engineered gearboxes and back ends. Any time I've ever seen tractor pulling over half of them are always Majors.

Lots of proactive raking up won't go amiss either!

Anything and everything by Jeff Jepson. He's got three books, ( or maybe four now). They're all quite small and very readable, but packed full of good basic information. Well written and nice informative little line drawn illustrations. There's one on general tree climbing, one on tree felling and one on knots. Also, The Art and Science of Practical Rigging Workbook. Not sure of the author of this one.

............. By the chain end!

Yeah, I enjoyed that too, a good analogy indeed.

How to Vaccinate the World - Larry Brilliant - BBC Sounds WWW.BBC.CO.UK Tim Harford reports on the global race to vaccinate the world against Covid-19.

This is worth listening too. It's an interview with one of the guys responsible for the eradication of Smallpox. He is an epidemiolist, so is actually an expert in my book, hence I tend to trust what he days. The last 5 mins is so is pretty sobering. He basically says that vaccination alone is not the way out of this mess, it has to be done in conjunction with all the transmission limitation measures. He reckons those countries that think they can tough if out and follow the flawed Herd Immunity strategy will have a particularly tough few time of it this year.

Fixed mindset. Akin to Dogma.

We've covered this in another discussion. The suspicion is that the Nightingale Hospitals were just another monumental government fckup. They were probably well intentioned, albeit a kneejerk reaction, but no thought was given to how they would be staffed. Especially when a lot of NHS staff are off sick, with Covid, or self-isolating. No doubt some chums of Boris or one of his world beating team also profited hugely from their construction. Much like other elements of our pandemic response strategy. (Track and Trace, PPE procurement, testing etc)

Covid-19 is spread by human contact. To limit the infection rate we have to limit human contact. We have to limit the infection rate to prevent our healthcare system being overwhelmed, (we are already seeing this unfortunately, with the knock-on tragic consequences even for non-covid patients). Strict Lockdown seems to be the only effective way to minimise human contact. The first Lockdown worked extremely well, not even you can deny that surely. The transmission rate plummeted whilst it was in place and just after it. Subsequent lockdowns and Tier systems have not worked adequately simply because of a lack of adherence by a certain minority of Individuals. This has allowed the virus spread to rage completely out of control again. IMO, but without going into details, our splendid government is as much to blame for these failings as the anti-lockdown, anti-mask wearing fraternity. Lockdown is obviously not the long-term solution, it is merely a holding strategy until such time as sufficient vaccination of the population has been achieved. So called Herd Immunity acquired by protecting the Vulnerable whilst allowing everyone else to carry on life as normal with no restrictions could work in theory. However I do not believe that in practice it is possible without massive collateral damage. The number of vulnerable people is simply too large, and their lives are too interconnected with the rest of society. (Even if we don't include the numerous people whose vulnerability is due to lifestyle choices. I agree with the sentiment that they should not expect any preferential treatment). Look at what's happening right now with hospital admissions; and that's with semi-effectual restrictions in place. Imagine how much worse this would be without any restrictions in place.

""I don’t give a flying **************** in reality about you or mr cropper and what you think,"" Your now numerous responses and references to this would suggest otherwise ................

Sorry, I'm not being quite fair there. I should add that my second question is addressed not just to yourself, but also to anyone else in your select club of Anti-Lockdowners.

Given your statement; "" I’m no Doctor or expert"", How can you state with such utter conviction that; ""this rollercoaster of lockdowns is helping no one in any way shape or form.""? Since you're not a doctor or an expert, how do you suggest that we tackle the current crisis happening in this country if we don't use another strict national Lockdown? (The is obviously based on the assumption that you've actually seen maybe a very small mention somewhere on your favoured non MSM news sources of what's really happening in our hospitals.)

I didn't say anything about throwing insults around.

Indeed. Always seems to be the same few individuals doesn't it?

Yeah damn these unreliable MSM sources, you can't trust a word they say. Or those stupid scientists. Or those conniving consultants, doctors and nurses for that matter. Or ambulance staff. It's all just a massive exaggeration. Global pandemic?! What global pandemic; it's just a bit of flu here and there like any other year. We can all go about our lives just as we please, like normal. Oh, hang on. Have I been brainwashed somewhere along the line? [emoji50][emoji849]

Really????!!

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.