NJS

Missed this as I'd been to Sofia and the only way we could get an affordable flight was to go on the Thursday morning of the game and return on Sunday morning. Couple of lads were trying to rush for a flight up from Heathrow but it was far too thin a margin so we didn't bother. Bit of a pisser as it turned out but the Sofia trip was fucking brilliant.

I've seen some fractious background action on teams where people are at home with partners.

Aye, mentioning productivity, its not exactly going to go down when people don't have their kids there.

It's a mixture. Everywhere I've worked in the city have had provision for home working but I always got the impression it was to encourage out of hours work more than anything else. I've always used it when the trains have been completely screwed or when I've had deliveries or dentists appointments. When we moved two years ago due to running out of space they decided to introduce activity based working which meant laptops instead of pcs so you could move around depending what you were doing. Pretty much a waste of time for someone like me who doesn't have many meetings. Anyway they deliberately made the building capacity 80% of staff numbers on the premise of more home working. Of course some bosses were more flexible than others and it wasn't appropriate for client facing roles. In the run up to the lockdown we were told to take our laptops home every night in preparation and as it happens I was in the middle of a weeks leave when they made the call. They had to ramp up the bandwidth but since then its been fine. In our head cheese updates we've been told that loads of banks were caught completely cold with no provision and have had to ramp up from scratch losing business because of it. There seems to be a desire for us to return eventually but I noticed in the last update the COO did mention "months" for the first time - I think reality has struck. As I've mentioned before there was a hint that even when we get back there's an appetite for a lot more home working as the cost savings are obscene and they've realised there isn't a huge difference in productivity if any. I think there'll be a huge realignment which will see only client facing roles and businesses being 100% office based. Fuck knows what that means for property development.

I went to the co-op for my twice weekly shop this morning - bloke in front in the queue said to the assistant "at least we'll be back to normal soon". I just shook my head.

The "problem" with the lockdown is that it's reduced the exposure which is of course its purpose. I always thought it was wishful thinking that millions were exposed to it in February /March. I suppose that's why the people who do have it are those who didn't lockdown plus the care homes.

I was just thinking from a UAE/Saudi antipathy pov rather than anything related to football.

If it's man City objecting, their last two owners should have failed any fit and proper test on moral grounds.

They're trying to twist the evidence now to say he didn't lie. Get ready for round two, cunts.

I still wouldn't book anything - even in the uk- might be back in full lockdown by then.

I accept that London being the business centre and diverse, densely populated place it is is some differentiator but even allowing for that I still think it's shocking. I see Shapps whinging about full public transport after people are told to return to work - I'm not sure if they're genuinely ignorant of the world, willfully stupid or deliberately murderous. Probably a combination of all three.

Isn't that skewed by a large proportion of the positive tests being the people admitted to hospital? I think they don't care about testing "healthy" people who self-isolate.

This shit about parents is hilarious - meet your Mam (no hugging obviously) for a chat then she goes back to the car allowing your Dad to come for a chat - might as well stick to zoom.

I'd say he made some sense but there are caveats: Volume and availability of testing and doubts about the app and the track/trace programme. Guidelines for employers on safety - enforcement? Public transport. Lack of clarity on shops reopening now and others like Weatherspoons who'll probably jump the gun. The morons who've pushed their luck up till now will see this as a licence to go a lot further.

I've said where I stand on getting the train into London but I think it'll be "interesting" to see what their plans are for it - especially given they came out with this 90% reduction on Friday.

But you have to walk or bike to get there.

At least the vaccine trial will have fertile ground to be tested in.

You could put the elderly into safe communal environments - let's call them "care homes".

At least they're being honest now about herd immunity being the plan all along.

Just did a search - the one I read about by a company called Curative is less unpleasant but recommends a healthcare person is present. Also found somewhere you can get a PCR test for £149 and the Abbot antibody test for £99.

Read a few things which suggest that's why home tests are unreliable. I also read they turned down an American test with a mouth saliva swab which is almost 100% accurate.

I think Mason's got a point - they were weak going in to it so even if sensible people were already doing it, that Friday night let all the morons show how stupid they are. Now everyone knows the cunt's going to relax it a bit on Sunday /Monday so they'll go absolutely mental on Friday.

"Citizen of nowhere".

They reckon they're going to cut the furlough subsidy to 60% in June to "ease" people back to work - in other words force people to go back whether it's safe or not. So much for tories getting less cuntish (not that I ever believed that).