Lighthouse

A true gentleman racer and the best driver never to be World Champion. RIP Sterling.

Sorry to hear that Duck. Sadly I think a lot of that advice will fall on deaf ears. There're already plenty of people ignoring the social distancing and lock down rules and if people aren't put off smoking and obesity by things like heart disease and lung cancer, I doubt this will chance the minds of many.

Today marks 36 days since our home defeat to Newcastle, meaning we’re now on our longest unbeaten home run of the season. The previous record was 35 days in between defeats by Everton and West Ham. Well done to Ralph and the boys for turning it around.

Won’t happen, even if people aren’t getting infected. There will come a point when we have to start lifting measures or the world’s economy will just collapse, vaccine or no vaccine.

Dalglish tests positive but shows no symptoms. Will be interesting to see how that develops, whether he’s just in the very early stages or simply fought off the disease without illness.

Raiders of the Lost Arc is on.

Well we’ve ended up with a worldwide lockdown thanks to a disease with a 1% fatality rate been bred in one of these places. It’s no coincidence that these things crop up in abused, unhygienic, urban livestock in some of the most densely populated conurbations on the planet. These things never seem to originate from vegan restaurants in Copenhagen. What if another strain of SARS mutates, with a 20% fatality rate, that mutates so that even survivors can catch it again after three months? Four months ago, what we’ve got now was unthinkable, like something out of a dystopian zombie movie.

TBH I’m not suggesting anything. Organised religion is here to stay and I’m willing to accept that. What I don’t really agree with is when something unpleasant happens and the moderates claim innocence and deny any responsibility or involvement. There is a collective responsibility; if you attend a Christian church for example, you might well do it with the best of intentions but assuming you make regular donations, might be helping finance boarding schools where young boys are sexually abused. At the very least you’re spreading a culture, a belief amongst the herd that your given religion is absolute. Others being brought up into that culture will never know another way and will never challenge their beliefs, that’s how fanaticism and indoctrination is bred. In short, I think it’s wrong but I tolerate it. The difference being there is no scripture instructing pianist to abuse there children. No commonly held belief that, ‘if a child shalt play an A flat instead of a G, he shall surely be stoned until dead.’ That’s simply an example of an individual committing child abuse, which could equally be applied to homework, playing the bassoon, ballet or anything else. If you had used those American teen beauty pageants as an example, I’d have been more inclined to agree with you. There you have a commonly agreed ideal of skinny is beautiful and an institutional culture of weight loss. That then leads into extremism and problems with unhealthy self image etc.

The problem is you don't have the loons without a solid base of moderates. I see it as kind of a pyramid, with the wide base on casual believers at the bottom. The further you go up, the fewer people there are but the stronger their beliefs become. As an example, you don't get ISIS without a solid base of countries imposing strict Islamic law. Likewise in America, you wouldn't have the KKK without the bible belt Southern states. The extremists don't just pop up out of nowhere, you need that strong population of 'moderates' supporting it.

Absolutely this; livestock does not belong in built up areas. There have been charities campaigning for years to stop this sort of trade. Tiny cages stacked on top of each other of various animals, p*ssing and sh*tting onto the one below, then selling them for human consumption. If the Chinese don't put a stop to it, one day they're going to breed something properly, properly nasty that'll wipe out half the planet before we can develop a cure.

I completely agree with live and let live, on the assumption that it is reciprocated. As a straight, white male, living in the UK I’m lucky enough that this is the case (aside from the 1/100,000 chance or whatever of being stabbed/blown up by some fanatical nutcase). Other people perhaps aren’t so lucky, like the Pakistan girl who was shot by the Taliban for wanting a basic education.

Largely agree except the last sentence is where it all comes a bit loose. So many out there aren't letting live when it comes to other people's beliefs and choices conflicting with their own religious beliefs. Organised religion to me is like a company sending big, burly men round to people's houses and telling them they need to pay the oxygen tax. Sure, you need oxygen to live but they've just proclaimed themselves the provider without any actual evidence backing that up.

The bank holidays thing is just convenience as much as anything else. Ties in nicely with kids holidays and having nice regular 6 week terms or whatever, so there’s no need to change it. Same with church weddings really, it’s all just tradition for the sake of tradition. Try telling most brides they can’t wear white because they’ve sh*gged half the village cricket team.

Ooh goodie, I love when someone bumps this thread. Turks! Where are ya buddy!?

Boris out of ICU.

Still got mine from the 2010 World Cup

I’ve been dethatching my lawn with a rake but I do pop in and out for a cuppa and to say hi to you lot.

Surely Pellè has the hottest missus in football.

Surely, logically if you have more mass then you need more oxygen to support normal metabolic and organ function. Obviously your lungs don’t grow as you put on weight, so each alveoli has to work that little bit harder. It will be genuinely interesting to see what happens in Wuhan, now that they’re - to a certain extent - open for business again. Obviously there will be more cases and deaths, which Beijing will want to keep hush but will it be at a low and sustainable level, or will they end up with a secondary spike and lock down.

Plus the fact that whilst we may not have a vaccine, we may discover drugs and treatments which do alleviate some of the symptoms and can reduce your chances of becoming seriously ill. After all, we don’t have a vaccine for HIV but I’d rather catch it now than in 1985.

I’m a newt, we can’t transmit the virus. Live on someone’s hands or on handles maybe. On a hot, dry road road in places like Dubai and Spain, I’d have though we’re talking minutes, maybe an hour or two, rather than days. I’m no medical expert so if they think it helps, fair enough. Just seems like a lot of effort and resource for a very low risk of transmission. You’d need someone with the disease to cough, not covering their mouth, whilst jaywalking, then someone else would have to cross in exactly the same place, put their foot exactly on the spot some aerosols landed, then go home and touch the soles of their shoes and touch their face/eat without washing their hands. It could happen but Occam’s razor and all that. I think more could be achieved by having mandatory checkpoints on pavements where you have to disinfect your hands to proceed, as an example. I think Tim is probably right, some governments just want to appear proactive.

I've seen a lot of foreign countries spraying their roads with disinfectant, can anyone explain that one to me? Doesn't seem like the kind of place you'd transfer the virus to or touch to pick up the virus from. Even if you did touch the exact same spot with your hand that someone had sneezed on, for some unknown reason, would the virus not have denatured after a few minutes on hot black tarmac in the sunshine?

Does he have any known medical issues? Is he a smoker.

How about most time leading a game, without winning it? Watford away last year.

You would have to wonder what their population make of it all. Gorbachev basically said that Chernobyl and the regime’s response to it was the biggest catalyst in bringing down the Soviet Union and that was largely isolated to parts of Ukraine and Belarus. I know the media is very strictly controlled there but they must know that 3,300 deaths is a laughable figure. I wonder how they will respond when they eventually get back to normal.