RandoEFC

Jesus wept.

Reported 120k off the wage bill, good.

We had 230 new cases on the island yesterday, almost double the previous record and taking us to 1,350 active cases. The population is 90,000. Scale our case rate up to what that would translate to in the UK, it would be about 160,000 cases in one day and 900,000 active cases. What's even more hilarious is that I know of loads of people who definitely have it and can't get tested so goodness knows what the true number of cases is.. Thankfully we only have a handful of people in the one hospital we have but we'll find out in the next week or two whether the vaccine wall holds as most of those positive tests have come in the last 7-10 days. It's running wild over here, the contact tracing team are so overwhelmed that in many cases they're telling people who test positive to tell their own close contacts to look out for symptoms and get a pack of 7 lateral flow tests to carry out home testing. There is no longer a requirement for close contacts to isolate, instead they can home test for those 7 days. The border controls have been completely scrapped, anyone who has had both jabs can return without any test or isolation. There is no guidance on mask wearing or ventilation and a small number of people are taking it upon themselves to wear them but we're starting to see businesses close down because all of their staff have Covid. Probably about 2-3% of the population currently have it. A wave like this probably would have killed hundreds of people pre-vaccine, and it won't this time, which is obviously great, but I still have questions about how wise it is to let a virus that causes serious illness and long term complications for some to tear through the population unchecked, and also having mass isolation going on. We have the same problem as the UK where people think the vaccine is some sort of off switch for the pandemic, in fact I think it's even worse over here. Our government have been very careful throughout but they seem to look at what England are doing now and use it as an excuse to be lazy and not bother retaining any sense of caution or mitigation. People keep denying the herd immunity thing. The fact is, if the vaccine doesn't stop you getting infected then the only way this ends is by letting everyone catch it with the defence of the vaccine on their side. It has a lot of risks but the reinfection rate is low and it seems to be the case that having had Covid is the only way to truly prevent getting it in future. I don't know if the approach of some countries of trying to come out of lockdowns with a high vaccination rate AND a low case rate is a viable approach or whether it just prolongs the inevitable and they end up having a last big wave as well, but time will tell.

I haven't watched the interview and I'm not going to because I can see the bullet points filtering through on Twitter. I don't know what he wants. He's basically publicly admitting that everything bad people ever said about him is true. And for what? He's probably amongst the top few most infamous people in the country. Does he think he's damaging Johnson? Nobody cares what he has to say. They basically already know and either don't care or just stick their head in the sand because of their blind loyalty to "Boris"/Brexit/the Tories for reasons that I simply can't understand. People don't care about Johnson's carelessness and lying because they knew about it when they voted for him. What cuts through is the "one rule for them" stuff like Barnard Castle, the exams postcode lottery and the stupid pilot scheme thing at the weekend. If anything Cummings helps Johnson's cause because nobody likes him. I despise Johnson and his cabinet and even I find Cummings possibly even more distasteful because he's a charmless, shameless weasel who has always had a massive chip on his shoulder and a very obvious complex about being the smartest person in the room.

Double jabbed . We're on record breaking case numbers over here like the UK. I was worried that I would catch and have to rearrange my second dose but I've made it just about. My brother got his second dose a few days ago though and tested positive for the virus yesterday.

Bit random but just seen this. Well played @nudge, getting recognised in the UK media .

I've had it real bad this year to be honest yeah.

Awful scenes and over 100 dead now out there sending all my love to the countries and individuals affected.

I think this is the first explicit 'attack' by one of the England players on Johnson/Patel. In the culture war that the current crop of Tories have stoked over the past few years, this England side are potentially the biggest problem for them yet. You saw the roots of it with Marcus Rashford last year. I don't know if it's social media or something else but the tabloids can no longer cut these lads down to size. In Sterling, Rashford, Mings et al you have a genuine crop of influential role models from working class backgrounds with a massive platform to speak independently. I think Tyrone Mings is well within his rights here. I just wonder how far this will go in the fallout from the tournament but Johnson and Patel both made comments at the start of the tournament refusing to condemn the fans booing the taking of the knee and now they're being called out for it. Could be difficult for them in the coming weeks if the dressing room has harboured a real anger about those comments. Some Tory MP had a WhatsApp message leaked last night sort of chuckling at Rashford and how he should have perfected his game instead of playing politics. She has since apologised but it goes to show just how frightened some of them are of this England side. The mask slipped and underneath was a bit of relief that someone like Rashford could become an even bigger hero and wield even more power in the public space than he did when he repeatedly forced the government's hand on free school meals during the pandemic. I'll be watching with interest. We'll certainly be hearing a lot over the next few weeks about how footballers should stay out of politics if we see many more comments like this, but I think these lads are genuinely passionate about seeing positive change in the country and I don't think even the cult of Boris Johnson is stronger than the affection the country feels towards Southgate and this squad at the moment.

Still not very nice and still cowardly. I don't want to get too snowflakey about it, stuff like that gets shouted from the terraces all of the time and to an extent, it comes with the territory, but at the same time, if you went into anyone else's workplace and shouted that at them, even if you were a paying customer, you'd get removed by security. If you did it on the street, you'd risk getting your head kicked in by the person you're shouting at and you'd arguably deserve it for being a rude dickhead. It's not a matter of not being allowed to say it, it's a matter of being a little bitch and hiding from the consequences behind your keyboard. That in itself is worthy of criticism in my opinion because it just goes to show what sad, spineless little boys they are to spend their time abusing footballers on social media, racial or not.

Well they weren't explicitly racist. They could be racially motivated. That isn't really the issue though, the scale of keyboard warriors hiding behind anonymous accounts and abusing players is a problem whether or not they're explicitly racist. Trolls and worthless little people the lot of them. The only real difference with the ones who put the N word and monkey emojis is that they're either braindead enough not to realise they'll get reported for it and have no defence, or just don't care because of the real life repercussions.

My biggest concern now is the lack of acknowledgement that, even if the vaccines squash hospitalisations and deaths, which they do seem to barring the emergence of a new variant, that it still isn't as simple as flicking a switch. Covid-19 is still a complicated problem, and complicated problems require complicated solutions. The vaccines can form the nucleus of that but the rest of the UK's approach just seems to be hold tight and hope for the best. Valid concerns have been raised about pupils missing from school (they've scrapped the automatic mass isolation from the bubble system but that is going to increase infections and there's currently no sign of them offering vaccines to under 18s as far as I'm aware). Then you've got the potential for mass isolation and possibly illness if infections do spike to 50k+ a day which is going to impact heavily on employers, and there's always that risk of mutation as much as nobody wants to be a doom-monger. It's the schools that are a real concern for me. There's only a couple more weeks until the summer holidays so we should see infections dip in that age group for six weeks. Hopefully by then they'll have come up with some sort of solution but I don't see what they can really do beside offering them the vaccine. The myth that was flying around early on that kids don't spread is looking pretty silly now. I don't know if it's the mutations or just flawed science and logic from the start.

Hamilton 96 Verstappen 95 Leclerc 91 Norris 90 Gasly 90 Russell 90 Sainz 89 Alonso 88 Bottas 88 Ricciardo 87 Vettel 87 Perez 86 Ocon 84 Raikkonen 84 Stroll 83 Giovinazzi 82 Schumacher 77 Tsunoda 76 Latifi 74 Mazepin 59 Some hard to square with this season compared to their historical performance but mine is definitely better overall.

Why is everyone going on about Federer's "last Wimbledon"? Has there been serious rumour or talk of him retiring? He's still the 6th seed and made the quarter finals pretty easily. Today was one performance where he looked way past it but it's not like he's been playing consistently like that and there's no hope of him playing well again.

Certainly wouldn't be the end of the world if he left and if he's going to get sold might as well be to Real Madrid who will pay a lot for him. While I think he gets a lot of unfair stick, he did have a pretty poor season, definitely his worst for the club. He's got some of the traits of a top class player and he's a match winner. He hasn't put it all together yet or even really got close but there's been signs that he could. Bottom line is I'm surprised if this is true though. I wouldn't have thought Ancelotti rated him that highly if he's going off his form in the time he was Everton manager, and it's also not exactly as if Ancelotti got the best out of him either. So I don't think this will happen.

I think it's both. People went mad for Coco Gauff as well when she got a few wins as a teenager. Obviously it's still a big story when someone in their late 20s hits the second week when they're ranked in the 300s but usually in that scenario it's a bit of a fluke and everyone accepts it's a bit of a one off. When you do it at 18 or 16 things reach fever pitch because people think it means you'll be a future champion, and especially when it's a local talent people get excited over watching them come back as a contender for another 10-15 years. At least it does in the UK. Between Serena, Venus, Agassi and Sampras it probably isn't quite as much of a novelty in the US .

She has excelled anyway. It's just I teach 18 year olds and people forget how young they still are. More power to both of them for what they've achieved to date. At the same time, look no further than Naomi Osaka to see how it all affects people differently. The situation today could easily have overwhelmed Emma Raducanu when you account for the fact that she's spent the weekend being billed as Britain's last hope at Wimbledon this year.

Okay.... what's your point?

Poor girl, not even out of school. She's still been mightily impressive. It's a shame if she ends up not being able to give a full account of herself but whatever happens now she will learn a huge amount from this match. The pair of them are fairly similar in style. Pretty normal on the women's tour to see players stick to the back of the court and exchange reasonably long rallies until someone is forced into a mistake. Tomljanovic is just a bit better at it and got a bit more stamina unsurprisingly. Raducanu just needs to add a few different elements to her game. She's now retired, a real shame. Hope she's not feeling too rough.

Raducanu done well so far. She's got really good natural technique and a good build for tennis. Hopefully she isn't ravaged by injuries like Laura Robson was which left her finished in her early 20s. If she stays fit, she should be around for quite a while. You never know though with the way that the majority of female players fluctuate heavily throughout their careers. It took Jo Konta until well into her career to break into the top 50 then she ended up in the top 5.

Looking at the numbers, the July 19 date is viable if the tone is correct. It isn't though. Javid the new Health minister is out there suggesting we treat Covid like influenza from now on. Two other ministers have said on the morning rounds the last couple of days that they won't be wearing masks beyond 19 July. Johnson gives lip service to it but Whitty and Vallance are striking a very different tone to him in this press conference. Whenever they lift all restrictions, there's going to be some risk, they've obviously decided that this is the point at which the risk level is acceptable. It's still a gamble though. And while I think it's less of a gamble than some of the particularly stupid ones they've taken in the past, it's still a gamble, and with the track record this lot have, you just worry that the case numbers are going to go through the roof, the UK will host the birth of the latest Covid supervariant and another step back is coming a few months down the line. Hopefully not, but it seems a bit dumb not to keep stuff like mandatory face coverings on public transport for a bit longer just for the sake of being able to say "all restrictions lifted".

I've been following this very unpleasant by-election with some interest. It's been absolutely toxic, that horrid George Galloway strutting around with Laurence Fox and Steve Bannon while claiming to be the real party of the working class, claiming to have Batley and Spen's best interests at heart whilst running on a platform of "vote for me if you want to give Starmer a kicking" so obviously pursuing a national agenda, and stoking up anti-trans feeling in parts of the Muslim community, leading to the Labour candidate Kim Leadbeater, who I believe is a lesbian, being abused on the streets over LGBT+ "propaganda" being delivered in schools, and Labour activists getting attacked and egged on the streets. He's rounded it off by going full Trump and claiming he'll challenge the result of this by-election in the courts. Absolutely horrible man. Somehow, Galloway pulled in 20%+ of the vote, most of which will have come from the 'left-wing', so it really is a great result for Kim Leadbeater and Labour to still get over the line. The Conservative candidate was pretty much invisible throughout the campaign, their approach seemed to be to let Galloway do their dirty work and it nearly came off. Maybe it would have if not for the Hancock affair, and it almost certainly would have if Labour didn't field such a strong and local candidate. A lot will be said by different Labour factions about what the victory and the narrow winning margin means for Starmer's leadership, but it ultimately has to go down as a pretty good success in the face of the Tory march in the North and Galloway's interference. By no means is he out of the woods in terms of getting Labour anywhere near where they should be again but you have to look to find a springboard when you get the opportunity. People will rightly point out that Labour deliberately decided to largely keep Starmer away from front line campaigning unlike Hartlepool, and by all accounts it was Labour's ground game and Leadbeater herself who turned the tide in the last few days, but overall, a win is a win and he has to be happy. What's important after the campaigning on this occasion though, rather than the party politics and Galloway being a cunt, is that the candidate who was decent, showed great dignity in the midst of a toxic campaign and a genuine passion for serving her local area managed to win.

Shame as Murray was looking good for the first set and a half. He might still pull this out but Otte is on top and not giving him much opportunity to hurt him.

Yep, really predatory stuff from the media. I hope she's able to sue them for harassment.

While it's somewhat refreshing to see one of this lot leave the cabinet after doing something wrong, it still sits uncomfortably that it's essentially his private life that's brought him down, not the poor decisions throughout the pandemic or the dodgy procurement deals or even that his lover's brother has received large NHS contracts since he started his affair with her. I actually don't mind Sajid Javid who is the new health secretary. He resigned as Chancellor shortly after the election on some sort of principle which is more than can be said for a lot of the government. Also interested to see what impact this has on polling and the perception of Johnson who is a well known love rat himself. I imagine we won't see much impact but at some point there will be a straw that breaks the camel's back.