Big J

No, but I suspect it was easier to get away with in earlier times.

That's one way of looking at it, I suppose. Regardless of the personal circumstances, his position is untenable. He may have been able to justify his actions to himself, but it's contrary to the deeply restrictive guidelines that he was (we can presume) an architect of. As I said earlier, do as I say, not as I do just doesn't cut it in modern politics.

I liked one I saw on Facebook earlier: " if you have to drive 260 miles to find someone who is prepared to help you in an emergency, you need to consider the possibility that you're a bit of a c*nt"

Interestingly, antibody testing suggests only 7.3% of people in Stockholm have had Covid 19. How is it London has seen a 17% infection rate with full lockdown whereas Stockholm has had less than half of that with minimal restrictions? https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/21/health/sweden-herd-immunity-coronavirus-intl/index.html

Yeah, that bloody Brexiteer! I bet the EU tricked him into driving up to Durham, those fiends! ?

A democracy has real issues when those in charge start to say "Do as I say, not as I do" Cummings needs to go.

I feel the same ?

Or indeed in most of the other European countries. ?

Absolute merchant bankers. Well done for keeping your cool. I must admit the more time I spend driving around the West Country, the angrier and more impatient I become. I went to pick up some beams at a sawmill today for a friend and despite it being in a small town, there is no route into it without doing single track roads. So inevitably ended up reversing my trailer to let a lorry past, squeezing through gaps not wide enough and generally enjoying myself as much as having invasive surgery without anaesthetic. At least I didn't meet any horses ?

In the news this evening that preliminary antibody tests suggest that 5% of the population outside of London have had covid 19 and 17% of Londoners have had it. So that's 1.53m Londoners and 2.95m of the rest of us. So 4.5m infected with lets say an upper end estimate of 50k deaths (many of which could reasonably be said were patients that died with coronavirus rather than because of it). So that's a 1.1% death rate, which fits with the previous data. On that basis, I don't think it's severity warrants the level of lockdown we've experienced. The vast majority of those that have died have been either very elderly or with comorbities. We should shield them and the rest of us should get on with life as normal, with reasonable efforts made to limit direct social contact. Sitting in the nurses waiting room the other day, two of the people in there were so overweight and infirm, I was surprised they were still alive. Only in their sixties, I'd say, each of them 3 times their ideal bodyweight and struggling to walk. The best thing anyone can do in the interim period before a vaccine is developed is to try to improve their own health. I know not everyone can do that, but those at higher risk can really improve their own chances of not falling seriously ill by doing all the usual things to get healthier. Why anyone is still smoking these days is honestly beyond me. One of the simplest and easiest things to do to improve your health, especially given the nature of covid 19 attacking the lungs.

Delivered in, yes. That's £10/HF. When I was harvesting elm, I had over a dozen logs which exceeded £35/HF at roadside. Assuming the base is OK, £10/HF is low end delivered in. Seriously. You might be able to get it for less than that, and that's fine, but given that the kiln dried value of decent, wide, patch burr oak is £50/CF and up, £10/HF makes sense financially.

Speak to Patrick Baxter at The Wood Place (formerly Lanarkshire Hardwood) or failing that, Ian Brown at AJ Scotts. That's an easy job as the ground is so hard. Hire a HIAB for a day, drive it to the log. Cut to required lengths, lift and deliver to customer. Assuming the butt end is OK (and tidied up), you've got an absolute minimum of £10/hf (£270/t) in it and at a guess, there is £2.5k in it.

Not actually heard of him Apart from a few niche parts of the market, Scottish oak is generally of poor quality. It's characterful, and in a few places it'll grow with quality and character, but most of it is just riddled with tension, brown rot and poor form. In service, it's pretty (if you can get it to behave), but it's so much less attractive than elm that I just never warmed to it.

Oak is generally 26-28 hoppus foot per tonne. £2.50/hf is low. £125/t is also low, but demand might be different in Scotland to here. In Southern England, the glut of ash on the market means a lot of oak that would ordinarily be cut hasn't been cut, and there is a shortage. £200/t or £7-8/hf is more typical down here at present.

That is true. The UK is just about the fattest and unhealthiest country in Europe. I'll get slated (as I have before) for saying it, but take a flight back from Scandinavia and you can pick out almost every Brit just by looking at them. As they say, prevention is the best cure and given that obesity has been classifed as a serious risk factor by many nations, in terms of likelihood of severe complications from Covid-19, being thinner and healthier is a no brainer.

Wales is renowned for rain! ? Just my experience with poplar. We used it a lot as a cheap and cheerful timber, but it's troublesome. It makes marvellous firewood, and that's what I'd recommend using it for

Keep in mind that the shrinkage in drying is huge. I did a mezzanine at my old sawmill in green poplar. 30cm wide floor boards, fitted butted right up to each other. By the time it dried (which was only a few weeks), I had 2cm gaps between all the boards. Personally, I wouldn't use poplar in this capacity. It's just too unstable, and with it's hygroscopic tendencies, it'll swell and contract a lot depending on RH. On the flipside, this is great for indoor air quality, but it's a pain to work with.

I did hear Sweden as a whole, but I may well be mistaken.

Sweden reckons it'll be most of the way to herd immunity by the end of the month. It'll be interesting to see.

Interest is paid by the government for 12 months. Beyond that, it's 2.5% above base rate, which is effectively zero. So the money is free for the first year, and then basically at inflation thereafter.

Have a case of Corona, by which I mean beer ?

I'm not complaining, quite the contrary. I'm not sure that is necessarily sensible to give out unchecked loans, but again, I'm not complaining.

I don't know, and I think I'm beyond caring. However bad we have it here with Boris et al, I'm eternally grateful not to be in the US with almost half of the population thinking that Trump is (literally) God's gift.

Feels like this needs to be posted, in light of Trump turning on his own experts:

Ours came through yesterday. Easiest finance application I've ever done. I do reckon an awful lot of businesses won't be in a position to pay it back, and the government is going to be hit with picking up the bill on all those defaults. Suddenly, the furlough scheme won't seem so expensive!