BS: Clapping for the NHS

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: DMcG
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 05:30 AM

As do we all, I imagine.

But when the Express, for example, tries to introduce "Clap For Boris", I object to a take-over like that. Have a Clap for Boris on Tuesdays, if you like.

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 05:27 AM

We wish Johnson all the best for full recovery.

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: Murpholly
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 04:27 AM

Friends across the road complained we had not joined in last week and so last night my hubby went one better and went outside with his squeeze box which when opened up fully makes a lot of noise. He played two or three tunes and we are not sure if folk were clapping in time or giving him some applause. It did bring a few more out in support though and gave us the chance to shout a few best wishes to neighbours we have not seen for a couple of weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 04:14 AM

We were also clapping for the NHS care of Johnson of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 04:12 AM

The theme to Doctor Finlay's Casebook (March from Trevor Duncan's Little Suite?) is quite a simple tune to play.

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 03:58 AM

In our road more people are joining in each week. I added the awful clamour of the Washboard of Mass Destruction last night which may have lowered the tone too much. If there hasn't been a petition to stop me I may continue next week.
RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 03:27 AM

We had been there from the start but totally forgot last night :-( Mea Culpa. I shall make twice as much noise next week.

Can anyone suggest a suitable tune to play with a medical theme?

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 11:52 PM

Working safely from home managing young teachers at schools,
has not been provided as an option
for older more vulnerable senior teachers in my wife's local academy group..

So yes, i'm fully aware and supportive of..

"If this does anything to help the people risking death for us"...

Now mates, please stop nagging...

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 11:15 PM

..and less of the antagonistic controlling exhortations please mates...

I'll do what i can to show unity in my own quiet way,
rather than being bullied into making a loud show in public..
That'll just make folks like me even more obstinate and resistant...

It's bad enough my wife and my lives are being put at risk
by her compulsory essential worker status,
with no provided PPE...

She's nearly 60, a dangerous age for key workers and their spouses,
to be exposed to such expendable cannon fodder risks...

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 11:04 PM

Nothing better than genuine solidarity and unity..

.. and we'd hope that's at the core of this 8 o clock Thursday handclap..

But it is already being hijacked by tories as a populist ritual for their own propaganda purposes..
Sucking out the true meaningful intentions of that first social network viral flashmob clapping celebration..

let's not kid ourselves about that..

We've already got local tories in my town jumping on the bandwagon, trying to hijack it it into
a get well soon prayer handclap for boris.. ferfacksake...!!!

They're now trying to shame us neighbours for not joining in
their arselicking handclapping of their glorious leader back into good health......


The joys of living in a perpetually old tory dominated constituency...

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 09:46 PM

So what you're embarrassed - some things are more important than that. If this does anything to help the people risking death for us, we should be glad to put up with a little embarrassment.

Solidarity matters.

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 09:37 PM

"I'd rather they got real pay, decent working conditions,
and the permanently raised level of respect they truly deserve,
than any vacuous short-term soon forgotten populist gestures"

Vacuous my big arse. And why the choice? Why not thank them loudly every bloody Thursday with our bin lids bashed with wooden spoons AND give them real pay and decent working conditions? You're a luvly feller, pfr, but I'm sort of resenting having my heartfelt support for our frontline public service workers called vacuous and populist...

Steve (long-time denizen, usually at six in the morning in the freezing cold, on picket lines in support of firemen, school cleaners and hospital workers...)

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 07:42 PM

.. besides which..

I was at the back of the house wiping my arse at 8 o clock,
while the wife was downstairs at the front clapping and whooping like a demented seal...

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 07:31 PM

I'd rather they got real pay, decent working conditions,
and the permanently raised level of respect they truly deserve,
than any vacuous short-term soon forgotten populist gestures...

pfr - son of a retired overworked, underpaid, undervalued, old folk's home care-worker..

husband of an infant school teacher, now treated as an expendable babysitter of essential worker's kids..

uncle of a front line in the f@cking trenches junior hospital doctor..
he's more in need of PPE than 5 mins hand clapping and pan & pot banging,
I'd humbly suggest...

btw.. I've never been one for being preached at...

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 07:04 PM

My 91-year-old mum is in a home six miles from me. We haven't been allowed to visit her for over four weeks. I used to go at least four times a week. The home's manager and deputy, Emma and Debbie, are totally lovely people. I've built a beautiful relationship with them over the last eighteen months that my mum's been there. Debbie has been setting up a FaceTime for me and my mum, but she can't do that now as phones aren't currently allowed in and out of the residents' rooms. My mum does have a phone, but her profound deafness prevents us from having conversations. I rang the home this afternoon, something I do about twice a week. Debbie told me that my mum is fine, though they've decided to test her and four other residents who all have long-term chesty issues (my mum has COPD from seventy years' smoking). There was a case of Coronavirus in the home, but the old lady in question has completely recovered and is now back there. Debbie sounded absolutely exhausted when I spoke to her this afternoon, and they are all feeling the burden of anxiety about their own and the residents' health, always on tenterhooks. They are suffering from a higher than usual rate of staff absence, and most of the staff (I know nearly all of them) are young mothers with children at home from school, unlike the rest of us, who, at most, queue obediently outside supermarkets once or twice a week, thinking that every step we take exposes us to a terrible plague so bad that the trolley handle must be studiously disinfected and that even the plastic bag that our spuds come in must be carrying that plague. Those care workers are mostly on the minimum bloody wage and they are working exhausting shifts, more often than not way beyond what they signed up to. And that's just care homes. Then we have doctors, nurses, the paramedics and all the hospital support staff who are also working long hours often in conditions that are a mortal threat to their health. And the teachers and the supermarket staff...

So you may well be my mate on this forum. But if you knew about the 8pm applause tonight but decided not to turn out, well sod you. You are so wrong. And maybe you can make the reasonable excuse that you voted Tory and are thereby far too ashamed to come out and bang your dustbin lid like me and Mrs Steve did. All I can say to that is that I'll let you off this time as long as you promise never to vote Tory again. But next Thursday, drop all your self-conscious crap, get out there and cheer like buggery the real heroes of this country. You might even have, somewhere, a decent dustbin lid to bang, as indeed do I.

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 05:46 PM

I can see upwards of 30 houses from ours, but none are in earshot, so there seems no point for us to do anything.

It does mean that we don't annoy anyone playing concertinas!

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 04:57 PM

Love this idea!

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: fat B****rd
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 04:29 PM

Been and clapped along with the lovely people upstairs ;-)
Got my NHS Rainbow sign in the front window (pretty pointless round the back!)and another I printed myself thanking the police, fire service, power workers and everybody who keeps things going for the rest of us.
A big shout out for Mr. Ali our newsagent who makes a point of delivering about 150 papers as all his paperpersons are off school and locked down.
Stay safe everybody whether you clapped or not.
Best from Charlie in Dunfermline.
Eliza x

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: JHW
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 04:05 PM

I don't mind being seen as silly (again) 14 houses in view from my door. Four nearest clapped last week, fireworks in next street maybe, train hooted a mile away. This week, 9th April, three more households.
Its a tiny something else to look forward to in these hard times.
Freinds in Scarborough are in old folks bungalows and flats, not many clapped but they could hear others beyond their railway, thats a mile or more so they were loud. The point is it CAN be heard.

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 04:05 PM

We were watching the latest episode of Belgravia, and I heard what sounded like water dripping which got louder with the sound of somebody banging a saucepan - then we realised what was happening and stood outside our front door to join in!

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 03:52 PM

Oh goodness Bonzo, I do hope your wife is okay! Funnily enough my sister was most reluctant to 'give in' and go into hospital, but she got to a point where she knew she would probably die alone in her house without oxygen and a ventilator.
Please don't misunderstand me. If our neighbours and half the village want to do this, who's to stop them? It's just I'd feel an absolute wally, and can't see the point.

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 03:34 PM

We did and nearly everyone else at our end of the street did as well! My wife who has a medical training video full of medical conditions is showing mild coronavirus symptoms. She spoke to a young doctor at our surgery yesterday who was frankly useless, so today she had a telephone consultation with a private London GP, a friend of some 30 years, and was given extremely helpful information, not least of which was to keep away from any hospital unless absolutely necessary.

I have been counting the number of times I wash my hands with Tea Tree soap, and today has just topped 35!!

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: DMcG
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 03:30 PM

I know what you mean, Sen. Encouragement and appreciation is one thing, but, like the fine words in the proverb, it butters no parsnips.

A journalist referenced the clapping tonight when Raab was questioned at 5pm tonight and asked would the government commit to something more tangible. Raab waffles a little and then said there would definitely be a point when this is considered. Then asked if there was a follow up question.   The journalist said something like, yes, there will obviously be a point it is considered. Will they get anything from that act of considering it?

Raab still tried to sound positive without making any such commitment.

Subject: RE: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 03:28 PM

No.. in a crisis, a false sense of national unity needs to be created
in order to manage the minds of peer pressure controlled conformists...

Subject: BS: Clapping for the NHS
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 03:18 PM

For those not in UK, there's a new practice now of standing one ones doorstep every Thursday at 8pm either applauding or banging a saucepan, in order to applaud NHS workers.
Our neighbours have just done their weekly clap, but we didn't participate.
I would just feel so silly doing any such thing. Of course I admire all NHS workers (they've just saved my sister's life up in Scotland) but this virtue-signalling, especially in an isolated village in Norfolk, strikes me as completely daft.
Am I a miserable old misanthropist, or does anyone else feel the same?