Is anyone else really struggling to imagine things returning to normal any time soon? I'm already resigned to the fact that the schools aren't going back until September, and it's pretty unlikely we'll be going on holiday this year. Small potatoes though - I read somewhere (it wasn't this thread, w...

I was never much of a fan of rich tea biscuits.

I got mine. Bizarrely, it looked like it came out of an inkjet printer. Ours wasn't cleanly guillotined around a couple of edges - as if they'd printed multiples on a bigger sheet and then chopped it down to A4. I guess the logistics of this kind of thing are pretty big when you need to hit the who...

It feels like they could have gone for it before the weekend and people would have still gone along with it, rather than had a lovely time and caused that peak to rise more - I guess we'll see the consequences of that in about a week. Anyway, I think I'm kind of getting used to this never leaving th...

I wonder if Tuesday is going to be the official lockdown quarantine day. Emails from both National Express and John Lewis have said their last full days of service will be on Monday which seems an odd day of the week to choose otherwise. At least announcing it for Tuesday allows a last office prep ...

Pete wrote: ↑

Sun 22 Mar, 2020 17.50

IKEA and Primark also closing.

IKEA closed on Friday. Which was a bit inconvenient because I needed a cheapy table and office chair for working from home, and Amazon and Argos both had 10-day+ lead times. (I ended up borrowing them from work instead.)

I suspect a few other shops may follow John Lewis in temporarily closing, especially any who were already having financial problems. Quite a few have already - Apple was an early one (though I wonder how much of that was due to their supply chain already being a bit low), as have Gap and Uniqlo, th...

I usually find that the non-news content on NHK World is good for a bit of gentle inconsequential factual telly, though the other night turned it on and they were visiting people in the area evacuated after Fukushima, so it's not infallible.

At least loo roll has an indefinite shelf life - it's not going to go to waste, and once someone's panic bought it once they're not going to do it again. Speaking of panic buying, the German word for it is 'Hamsterkauf'. Thanks to a wonderful mistranslation, a friend in Switzerland has had official ...

It is heartening to see things like WhatsApp groups springing up to help out vunerable neighbours, amongst the shitstorm of panic-buying.

I don't know where the line is between REMAIN INDOORS and carrying on regardless. I'm young (enough) and fit and will most likely be fine, but my parents don't exactly fit that description, and I'm worried about some of my best mates with underlying health conditions. It's notable that the media and...